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Sam scowled and picked up the earthenware jug of spiced wine that had been mulled and placed near the fire to keep hot. Then he followed, pressing his hand up against the rear of the inglenook, Charter marks flaring as the guard-spell let him push open the secret door. Beyond that, he could already hear his father and sister clattering down the one hundred fifty-six steps that led to the reservoir, the Great Charter Stones, and Sabriel.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cold Water, Old Stone
The reservoir was a vast hall of silence, cold stone, and even colder water. The Great Stones stood in the darkness at its center, invisible from the landing where the Palace stairs met the water. Around the rim of the reservoir, shafts of sunlight came down from the grilled openings high above, casting cross-hatched ripples of light across the mirror-smooth surface of the water. Tall columns of white marble rose up like mute sentinels between the patches of light, supporting the ceiling sixty feet above.
The water was, as always, extremely clear. Sam dipped his hand in it as he helped his father untie the barge that was moored at the end of the Palace steps. As the water trickled between his fingers, he saw Charter marks sparkle briefly. All the water in the reservoir absorbed magic from the Great Charter Stones. Closer to the center, the water was almost more magic than anything else, and was no longer cold—or even wet.
The barge was not much more than a raft with gilded knobs on each corner. There were two of them in the reservoir, but Sabriel had obviously taken the other one. She would be on it, out there in the center, where no sunlight fell. The Great Stones glowed with all the millions of Charter marks that moved in and on them, but most of the time it was only a faint luminescence, no rival even to the filtered sunlight. They wouldn’t see the glow until they were close, away from the light-dappled rim, past the third line of columns.
Touchstone undid the rope on his side, then placed his hand upon the planking and whispered a single word. Ripples moved across the still water as he spoke, and the barge began to edge away from the landing. There was no current in the reservoir, but the barge moved as if there were, or as if unseen hands pushed it through the water. Touchstone, Sam, and Ellimere stood close together in the middle, occasionally shifting balance as the barge swayed and rocked.
This was how Sam’s long-dead aunts and his grandmother had traveled to their deaths, he thought. Standing on a barge—maybe even this same one, he thought, dredged up, repaired and re-gilded—all unsuspecting, till they were ambushed by Kerrigor. He had cut their throats, catching their blood in his golden cup. Royal blood. Blood for the breaking of the Great Charter Stones.
Blood for the breaking, blood for the making. The Stones had been broken by royal blood, and re-made with royal blood—his father’s blood. Sam looked at Touchstone and wondered how he had done it. The weeks of laboring here alone, each morning taking a silver, Charter-spelled knife and deliberately re-opening the cuts in his palms from the day before. Cuts that had left white lines of scar tissue from his little finger to the ball of the thumb. Cutting his hands, and casting spells that he had not been sure of, spells that were terribly dangerous to the caster, even without the added risk and burden of the broken Stones.
But even more, Sam wondered about the use of blood, the same blood that ran in his veins. It felt strange to him that his pounding heart was in its way akin to the Great Stones ahead. How ignorant he was, particularly of the Charter’s greater secrets. Why was royal, Abhorsen, and Clayr blood different from normal people’s—even that of other Charter Mages, whose blood was sufficient to mend or mar only the lesser Stones? The three bloodlines were known as Great Charters, like the Great Stones ahead, and the Wall. But why? Why did their blood contain Charter Magic, magic that could not be duplicated by marks drawn from the generally accessible Charter?
Sam had always been fascinated by Charter Magic, particularly making things with it, but the more he used it, the more he realized how little he knew. So much knowledge had been lost in the two hundred years of the Interregnum. Touchstone had passed on as much as he knew to his son, but his own specialty was in battle magic, not in making, or any deeper mysteries. He had been a Royal Guard, a bastard Prince, not a mage, at the time of the Queen’s death. After that, he had been imprisoned in the shape of a ship’s figurehead for two hundred years, while the Kingdom sank slowly into disorder.
Touchstone had been able to mend the Great Stones, he had said, because the broken Stones wanted to be re-made. He had made many mistakes at first, and only survived by grace of the Stones’ support and strength, nothing else. Even so, it had taken many months, and as many years off his life. There had been no silver in Touchstone’s hair before the mending.
The barge passed between two columns, and Sam’s eyes slowly adjusted to the strange twilight. He could see the six Great Stones ahead now, tall monoliths of dark grey, their irregular shapes quite different from the smooth masonry of the columns and only a third of their height. And there was the other barge, floating in the center of the ring of Stones. But where was Sabriel?
Fear suddenly gripped hard at his chest. He couldn’t see his mother, and all he could think of was how the Dead Kerrigor had taken on his former human shape and lured Sam’s grandmother the Queen down to a dark and bloody death. Maybe Touchstone wasn’t really Touchstone, but something else that had assumed his form. . . .
Something moved on the barge ahead. Sam, who had unconsciously held his breath, gasped and choked, thinking that all his fears were realized. Whatever it was had no human shape, rising only as high as his waist, without arms or head or discernible form. A lump of writhing darkness, where his mother should be—
Then Touchstone slapped him on the back. He took a sudden breath, and the thing on the barge cast a small Charter light that sparkled in the air above like a tiny star—revealing that it was Sabriel after all. She had been lying down, wrapped in her dark blue cloak, and had just sat up. The light shone on her face now, and her familiar smile met them. But it was not the full, uncaring smile of complete happiness, and she looked more tired and worn than Sam had ever seen her. Always pale, her skin looked almost translucent in the Charter light, and it was sheened with the sweat of pain and suffering. For the first time, Sam saw white streaks in her hair, and he was struck with the realization that she was not ageless but would one day grow old. She was not wearing her bells, but the bandolier lay beside her, the mahogany handles in easy reach, as did her sword and pack.
Sam’s barge drifted between two of the Stones and into the ring. All three passengers started as it crossed, feeling a sudden surge of energy and power from the Great Stones. Some weariness was stripped away from them, though not all. In Sam’s case, the fear and guilt that he had carried all winter were lessened. He felt more confident, more like his old self. It was a feeling he hadn’t had since he’d walked out onto the pitch for that final cricket match in the Schoolboys’ Shield.
The two barges met. Sabriel didn’t get up, but she held out her arms. A second later, she was hugging Ellimere and Sam, the barges rocking dangerously from their sudden rush and enthusiastic greetings.
“Ellimere! Sameth! I am so glad to see you, and so sorry I have been too long away,” said Sabriel, after the initial very tight hug had given way to a looser one.
“That’s all right, Mother,” replied Ellimere, who sounded more as if she were the mother and Sabriel her daughter. “It’s you we’re worried about. Let’s have a look at your leg.”
She started to lift the cloak, but Sabriel stopped her just as Sam caught the faint, horrible smell of decaying flesh.
“It’s still not pleasant,” Sabriel said quickly. “A wound from the Dead rots quickly, I’m afraid. But I have cast healing-spells upon it, with the aid of the Great Stones, and fixed a poultice of feliac there too. All will soon be well.”
“This time,” said Touchstone
. He was standing outside the close group of Sabriel, Ellimere, and Sam, looking down at his wife.
“Your father is angry with me because he thinks I almost got myself killed,” said Sabriel, with a slight grin. “I don’t understand it myself, since I think he should be glad that I didn’t.”
Silence greeted this remark, till Sam hesitantly asked, “How badly were you hurt?”
“Badly,” replied Sabriel, wincing as she moved her leg. Charter marks flared under the cloak, briefly visible even through the tightly woven wool. She hesitated, then quietly added, “If I hadn’t met your father on the way back, I might not have made it here.”
Sam and Ellimere exchanged horrified glances. All their lives they had heard stories of Sabriel’s battles and hard-won victories. She had been wounded before, but they had never heard her admit that she might have been killed, and had never really considered the possibility themselves. She was the Abhorsen, who entered Death only of her own accord!
“But I did make it, and I am going to be absolutely fine,” Sabriel said firmly. “So there is no need for anyone to fuss.”
“Meaning me, I suppose,” said Touchstone. He sat down with a sigh, then stood up irritably to re-arrange his swords and bathrobe before sitting again.
“The reason I am fussing,” he said, “is that I am concerned that all this winter someone, or something, has been deliberately and cleverly arranging situations to put you most at risk. Look at the places you’ve been called to, and how there are always more Dead than were reported, and more dangerous creatures—”
“Touchstone,” interrupted Sabriel, reaching out to take his hand. “Calm down. I agree. You know I agree.”
“Mmph,” grumbled Touchstone, but he did not say any more.
“It’s true,” replied Sabriel, looking squarely at Sam and Ellimere. “There is a clear pattern, and not just in the Dead that have been raised solely to ambush me. I think that the increasing number of Free Magic elementals is also connected, as is the trouble that your father has been having with the Southerling refugees.”
