AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once again, Lirael was struck by the silence in the vast chamber of flowers. Apart from the soft rustle of her passage through the daisies, there was no sound at all.
Slowly, circling every few steps to make sure nothing was creeping up on her, Lirael crossed the cavern, right up to the door with the crescent moon. It was still partly open, but she didn’t venture inside, thinking that the Stilken might be able to lock her in somehow, if it was still hiding out in the field.
The tree was the most likely spot for the creature to be, Lirael thought, imagining it twined around a branch like a snake. Hidden by the thick green leaves, its silver eyes following her every movement . . .
In the strange light, the oak was only a blot of shadow. The Stilken could even be behind the trunk, slowly circling to keep the tree between it and Lirael. Lirael kept her eyes on the tree, opening them as wide as she could, as if they might capture extra light. Still nothing stirred, so she started to walk towards the tree, her steps getting shorter and shorter and her stomach tighter, twisting with dread.
She was so intent on the tree that her feet splashed into the edge of the pool before she realized it was there. Bright ripples, reflecting in the ersatz moonlight, spread for an instant, then once again the water was still and dark.
Lirael stepped back, shook her feet, and began to skirt around the pool. She could see some definition in the oak now, see separate clumps of leaves and individual branches. But there were also clots of shadow that could be anything. Every time her eyes shifted, she thought she saw movement in the darkness.
It was time for a light, she decided, even if that meant giving her own position away. She reached into the Charter, and the requisite marks began to swim into her mind—and were lost, as the Stilken erupted out of the pool beside her and attacked with its ferocious hooks.
Somehow, Binder met them in a spray of white sparks and steam, and a shock that nearly dislocated Lirael’s shoulder. She stumbled back, screaming with sudden battle rage as much as panic, instinctively dropping into the guard position. Sparks flew again and water hissed as the Stilken attacked again, its hooks barely parried in time by Lirael and Binder.
Without conscious thought, Lirael gave ground, backing towards the oak. All her knowledge of the binding-spells had left her head, as had her sense of the Charter. Survival was all that mattered now, getting her sword in place to block the murderous assault of the monster.
It swung again, low, towards her legs. Lirael parried, and surprised herself as her incompletely trained muscles took over. She riposted directly at the thing’s torso. Binder’s point hit and skittered across its gut, sending up a blaze of sparks that peppered Lirael’s waistcoat with tiny holes.
But the Stilken didn’t seem hurt, only annoyed. It attacked again, every sweep of its hooks forcing Lirael back several paces. Desperately, she swung Binder, feeling the shock of every parry through to her bones. The weight of the sword was already wearing her out. She had never been much of a swordswoman and had never regretted it—till now.
She stepped back again, and her foot met slight resistance and then went back a lot more than it should have, into an unexpected hole. Lirael lost her balance, tumbling over backwards as a sharp hook sliced the air in front of her throat.
Time seemed frozen as she fell. She saw her parry going wide as her arms windmilled in her attempt to regain her balance. She saw the hooks of the Stilken scything forward, towards her, almost certain to meet around her waist.
Lirael hit the ground hard, but she didn’t notice the pain. She was already rolling aside, dimly registering that it was a hollow between two roots that had tripped her, and tree roots were pummeling her body as she rolled over them.
Earth—flowers—the distant ceiling and its Charter lights like far-off stars—earth—flowers—the artificial sky—with every roll, Lirael expected to see the Stilken’s silver gaze and feel the searing pain of its hooks. But she didn’t see it, and no death blow came. On the sixth roll, she stopped and threw herself forward, stomach muscles stabbing in agony as she flipped back onto her feet.
Binder was still in her hand, and the Stilken was trying to extricate its left hook from where it was stuck, deep in one of the great taproots of the oak. Instantly, Lirael realized it must have missed her as she fell—and struck the root instead.
The Stilken looked at her, silver eyes blazing, and made an awful gobbling noise, deep in its throat. Its body started to shift, weight moving from the trapped left arm to the right side of its body. It grew squatter, and muscles moved under the seemingly human skin like slugs under a leaf, gathering in the caught arm. Before the process was finished, it heaved, straining to free itself and come after Lirael.
This was her chance, Lirael knew—these scant few seconds. Charter marks flared on Binder’s blade as she reached out to them, joining them to others drawn out of the Charter. Four master marks she needed, but to use them she had first to protect herself with lesser marks.
Binder helped her, and the marks slowly formed a chain in her mind, all too slowly, as the Stilken gobbled and strained, pulling its hook out inch by inch. The oak itself seemed to be trying to keep the creature trapped, Lirael realized, with that small part of her mind not totally focused on the Charter-spell. She could hear the tree rustling and creaking, as if it fought to keep the cut in its taproot closed, the hook with it.
The last mark came, flowing into Lirael with easy grace. She let the spell go, feeling its power rush through her blood and every bone, fortifying her against the four master marks she needed to call.
The first of these master marks blossomed in her mind as the Stilken finally pulled its hook free, with a great groan from the oak and a spray of white-green sap. Even with the protective spell upon her, Lirael didn’t let the master mark linger in her mind. She cast it forth, sending it down Binder’s blade, where it spread like shining oil, till it suddenly burst into fire, surrounding the blade with golden flames.
The Stilken, already leaping to attack, tried to twist away. But it was too late. Lirael stepped forward, and Binder leapt out in a perfect stop thrust, straight through the Stilken’s neck. Golden fire raged, white sparks plumed up like a skyrocket’s trail, and the creature froze a mere two paces from Lirael, its hooks almost touching her on either side.
Lirael called forth the second master mark, and it, too, ran down the blade. But when it reached the Stilken’s neck, it disappeared. A moment later, the creature’s skin began to crack and shrivel, blazing white light shining through when the shriveled skin sloughed off onto the ground. Within a minute, the Stilken had lost its semi-human appearance. Now it was just a featureless column of fierce white light, transfixed by a sword.
The third master mark left Binder and went into the column. Instantly, what was left of the Stilken began to shrink, dwindling away until it was a blob of light an inch in diameter, with Binder now resting point first upon it.
Lirael took the metal bottle out of her waistcoat pocket, put it on the ground, and used the sword to roll the shining remnant of the Stilken inside. Only then did she withdraw the blade, drop it, and thrust in the cork. A moment later, she sealed it with the fourth master mark, which wrapped itself around both cork and bottle in a flash of light.
For a moment the bottle jumped and wriggled in her hand, then it was still. Lirael put it back in her pocket, and sat down next to Binder, gasping. It was really over. She had bound the Stilken. All by herself.
She leaned back, wincing at the aches and pains that sprang up along her back and arms. A brief flash of light caught her eye, from somewhere over near the tree. Instantly, she was back on the alert again, her hand going to Binder, all her pains forgotten. Picking up the sword, she went to investigate. Surely there couldn’t be another Stilken? Or could it have got out at the last instant? She checked the bottle, which was definitely sealed. Might there have been the briefest instant when she blinked, just as the fourth mark came?
The light flashed again, soft and go
lden as Lirael approached, and she sighed with relief. That had to be Charter Magic, so she was safe after all. The glow came from the hole she had tripped over.
Warily, Lirael poked at the hole with Binder, clearing the soil away. She saw that the glow came from a book, bound in what looked like fur or some sort of hairy hide. Using the sword as a lever, she flipped the book out. She’d seen the tree trying to hang on to the Stilken—she didn’t want it getting a grip on her.
Once it was clear of the roots, she picked the book up. The Charter marks on its cover were familiar ones, a spell to keep the book clean and free of silverfish and moths. Lirael tucked the thick volume under her arm, suddenly conscious that she was drenched in sweat, caked in dirt and flower petals, and completely exhausted, not to mention bruised. But only her waistcoat had suffered permanent damage, drilled through by sparks in a hundred places, as if it had been attacked by incendiary moths.
The Dog rose up out of the flowers to meet her as she headed back to the exit. She had Binder’s scabbard in her mouth and didn’t let it go as Lirael slid the sword home.
“I did it,” said Lirael. “I bound the Stilken.”
“Mmmpph, mmpph, mmph,” said the Dog, prancing on her back feet. Then she carefully laid the sword down and said, “Yes, Mistress. I knew you would. Reasonably certainly.”
“Did you?” Lirael looked at her hands, which were starting to shake. Then her whole body was shaking, and she had to sit down till it stopped. She hardly noticed the Dog’s warm bulk against her back, or the encouraging licks against her ear.
“I’ll take the sword back,” offered the Dog, when Lirael finally stopped shaking. “You rest here till I return. I won’t be long. You will be safe.”
Lirael nodded, unable to speak. She patted the Dog on the head and lay back on the flowers, letting their scent waft over her, the petals soft against her cheek. Her breathing slowed and became more regular, her eyes blinked slowly once, twice—and then they closed.
The Dog waited until she was sure Lirael was asleep. Then she let out a single short bark. A Charter mark came with it, expelled out of the Dog’s mouth to hover in the air over the sleeping girl. The Dog cocked her head and looked at it with an experienced eye. Satisfied, she picked up the sword in her powerful jaws and trotted off, out into the main spiral.
When Lirael awoke, it was morning, or at least the light was bright again in the cavern. For a second she had the impression that there was a Charter mark above her head, but clearly that was only a dream, for there was nothing there when she came fully awake and sat up.
She felt very stiff and sore, but no worse than she usually did after one of the annual sword-and-bow exams. The waistcoat was beyond repair, but she had spares, and there didn’t seem to be any other physical signs of her combat with the Stilken. Nothing that would require a trip to the Infirmary. The Infirmary . . . Filris. For a moment Lirael was sad she couldn’t tell her great-great-grandmother that she had defeated the Stilken after all.
