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In fact, apart from her collar of Charter marks and the fact that she could talk, the Disreputable Dog really did seem to be just a rather large dog of uncertain parentage and curious origin.
But of course she wasn’t. Lirael sneaked back to her study one evening after dinner, to find the Dog reading on the floor. The Dog was turning the pages of a large grey book that Lirael didn’t recognize, with one paw—a paw that had grown longer and separated out into three extremely flexible fingers.
The Dog looked up from the book as her supposed mistress froze in the doorway. All Lirael could think of were the words in Nagy’s book, about the Stilken’s form being fluid—and the way the hook-handed creature had stretched and thinned to get through the gate guarded by the crescent moon.
“You are a Free Magic thing,” she blurted out, reaching into her waistcoat pocket for the clockwork mouse, as her lips felt for the whistle on her lapel. This time she wouldn’t make a mistake. She’d call for help right away.
“No, I’m not,” protested the Dog, her ears stiffening in outrage as her paw shrank back to its normal proportions. “I’m definitely not a thing! I’m as much a part of the Charter as you are, albeit with special properties. Look at my collar! And I am definitely not a Stilken or any other of the several hundred variations thereof.”
“What do you know about Stilken?” asked Lirael. She still didn’t enter the study, and the clockwork mouse was ready in her hand. “Why did you mention them in particular?”
“I read a lot,” replied the Dog, yawning. Then she sniffed, and her eyes lit up with expectation. “Is that a ham bone you have there?”
Lirael didn’t answer but moved the paper-wrapped object in her left hand behind her back. “How did you know I was thinking about a Stilken just then? And I still don’t know you aren’t one yourself, or something even worse.”
“Feel my collar!” protested the Dog as she edged forward, licking her chops. Clearly the current conversation wasn’t as interesting as the prospect of food.
“How did you know I was thinking about a Stilken?” repeated Lirael, giving each word a slow and considered emphasis. She held the ham bone over her head as she spoke, watching the Dog’s head tilt back to follow the movement. Surely a Free Magic creature wouldn’t be this interested in a ham bone.
“I guessed, because you seem to be thinking about Stilken quite a lot,” replied the Dog, gesturing with a paw at the books on the desk. “You are studying everything required to bind a Stilken. Besides, you also wrote ‘Stilken’ fourteen times yesterday on that paper you burnt. I read it backwards on the blotter. And I’ve smelled your spell on the door down below, and the Stilken that waits beyond it.”
“You’ve been out by yourself!” exclaimed Lirael. Forgetting that she had been afraid of whatever the Dog might be, she stormed in, slamming the door behind her. In the process, she dropped the clockwork mouse, but not the ham bone.
The mouse bounced twice and landed at the Dog’s feet. Lirael held her breath, all too aware that the door was now shut at her back, which would greatly delay the mouse if she needed help. But the Dog didn’t seem dangerous, and she was so much easier to talk to than people were . . . except for Filris, who was gone.
The Disreputable Dog sniffed at the mouse eagerly for an instant, then pushed it aside with her nose and transferred her attention back to the ham bone.
Lirael sighed, picked up the mouse, and put it back in her pocket. She unwrapped the bone and gave it to the Dog, who immediately snatched it up and deposited it in a far corner under the desk.
“That’s your dinner,” said Lirael, wrinkling her nose. “You’d better eat it before it starts to smell.”
“I’ll take it out and bury it later, in the ice,” replied the Dog. She hesitated and hung her head a little before adding, “Besides, I don’t actually need to eat. I just like to.”
“What!” exclaimed Lirael, cross again. “You mean I’ve been stealing food for nothing! If I were caught I’d—”
“Not for nothing!” interrupted the Dog, sidling over to butt her head against Lirael’s hip and look up at her with wide, beseeching eyes. “For me. And much appreciated, too. Now, you really should feel my collar. It will show you that I am not a Stilken, Margrue, or Hish. You can scratch my neck at the same time.”
Lirael hesitated, but the Dog felt so like the friendly dogs she scratched when they visited the Refectory that her hand almost automatically went to the Dog’s back. She felt warm dog skin and the silky, short hair, and she began to scratch along the Dog’s spine, up towards the neck. The Dog shivered and muttered, “Up a bit. Across to the left. No, back. Aahhh!”
Then Lirael touched the collar, just with two fingers—and was momentarily thrown out of the world altogether. All she could see, hear, and feel were Charter marks, all around, as if she had somehow fallen into the Charter. There was no leather collar under her hand, no Dog, no study. Nothing but the Charter.
Then she was suddenly back in herself again, swaying and dizzy. Both her hands were scratching the Dog under the chin, without her knowing how they had got there.
“Your collar,” Lirael said, when she got her balance back. “Your collar is like a Charter Stone—a way into the Charter. Yet I saw Free Magic in your making. It has to be there somewhere . . . doesn’t it?”
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She fell silent, but the Dog didn’t answer, till Lirael stopped scratching. Then she turned her head and jumped up, licking Lirael across her open mouth.
“You needed a friend,” said the Dog, as Lirael spluttered and wiped her mouth with both sleeves, one after the other. “I came. Isn’t that enough to be going on with? You know my collar is of the Charter, and whatever else I may be, it would constrain my actions, even if I did mean you any harm. And we do have a Stilken to deal with, do we not?”
“Yes,” said Lirael. On an impulse, she bent down and hugged the Dog around the neck, feeling both warm dog and the soft buzz of the Charter marks in the Dog’s collar through the thin material of her shirt.
The Disreputable Dog bore this patiently for a minute, then made a sort of wheezing sound and shuffled her paws. Lirael understood this from her time with the visiting dogs, and let go.
“Now,” pronounced the Dog. “The Stilken must be dealt with as soon as possible, before it gets free and finds even worse things to release, or let in from outside. I presume you have obtained the necessary items to bind it?”
“No,” said Lirael. “Not if you mean the stuff Nagy mentions: a rowan wand or a sword, infused with the Charter marks—”
“Yes, yes,” said the Dog hastily, before Lirael could recite the whole list. “I know. Why haven’t you got one?”
“They don’t just lie around,” replied Lirael defensively. “I thought I could get an ordinary sword and put the—”
“Take too long. Months!” interrupted the Dog, who had started pacing to and fro in a serious manner. “That Stilken will be through your door spell in a few days, I would think.”
