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‘I will tell you in a moment, and Belatiel, for you will both be part of it.’
He slowed as they reached a small guard chamber beside the outer door, where Gullaine was waiting, another key in the massive, bronze-bound lock, but not yet turned, and the two bars above and below still in place. ‘We will pause here a moment. Gather round.
‘When we go out, the Islet lies to our left, some three hundred and fifty paces away, the last hundred across a causeway that will be a little awash, the tide being on the ebb but not yet low. The path is marked by large stones; stay within them. Now, I am going to draw the spell of unseeing off Clariel and Belatiel, for it is you two who will go to Marral’s hut, looking for bright fish –’
‘Bel is to accompany me?’ asked Clariel. ‘But Roban is my guard.’
‘We will need Roban to help if the creature does come forth in its full strength,’ said Kargrin. ‘If it does, you and Bel should withdraw and observe. If we are overcome, you must retreat, back to the main South Gate, not this postern. The guards there are with us, and will protect you. Get under the aqueduct, for this will also lessen the creature’s power.’
‘You mean we just back off and leave you, Roban and Gullaine to fight it?’ asked Bel. ‘I didn’t come along to flee at the first –’
‘Belatiel, you promised to follow orders,’ said Gullaine, in a voice that brooked no opposition.
Bel opened his mouth, and raised one hand falteringly, then lowered that hand and shut his mouth.
‘Good,’ said Kargrin. ‘Now. As I have said, Clariel and Bel will go first, and will be seen. There will be people about on the Islet. Ask them where Marral’s hut is, though so you know, it is the furthest hovel on the northern side, set somewhat apart. It has a kind of curtain made of shark teeth in its doorway. We will follow, unseen. When you get to Marral’s hut, do not go in. Ask him to come out. If, as I suspect, the creature is within Marral, it will reveal something of itself to Clariel.’
He paused and bent his head to look directly at Clariel, speaking with measured force.
‘You may feel it in your mind, Clariel, or see something that wasn’t there beforehand. As soon as you do, call out and back away. We will either bind it quickly, or if not, you will soon see the way matters go. If they go ill, as I have said, run for the South Gate. Run as fast as you can, and do not look back. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Clariel and Bel together.
‘Gullaine, Roban, you know the spells we discussed?’ asked Kargrin. Both nodded. ‘All of us should also ready arrow wards and spells to deal with mortal enemies. Such a creature as we seek can easily dominate folk who do not have the Charter mark. Also, given Kilp’s possible involvement, there is much that can simply be bought with gold from the inhabitants of the Islet. There are known murderers and others of such ilk there.’
‘I can’t remember the marks for an arrow ward,’ said Clariel. ‘But I can duck.’
‘I can cover us both,’ said Bel. ‘I’ve been practising.’
‘I trust it won’t be necessary,’ said Kargrin. ‘Stand together, you two.’
Clariel and Bel stood close. Kargrin reached across, above their heads, and with the same two fingers he’d used before, began to draw in the almost invisible threads of the concealment spell. Watching him, Clariel saw the lines of tiny marks being drawn in as a fisherman might haul on his ropes. The threads of the net broke into many scattered marks as they left Clariel and Bel, only to reform as they joined the other marks that still hung suspended over the other three.
When the last of the marks left, Clariel felt a sudden dizziness. She blinked, and her hand went to the falchion at her side, for she saw three strangers suddenly appear, strangers that she found it hard to look at, her eyes sliding off them …
‘You’ll find it easier to look away,’ said Kargrin’s familiar voice, though Clariel couldn’t tell where it came from. ‘Go out the door. We will be close behind. Don’t stop suddenly!’
‘Yes,’ said Clariel. She looked directly at the door, and found it was easier. ‘You ready, Bel?’
‘Yes,’ said Bel, for once not embellishing his answer.
Clariel lifted the bars, first the bottom and then the top, and turned the key in the lock, the mechanism clicking three times, the sound to her unpleasantly like some portent of doom.
It’s only a hunt, Clariel thought. I’ve hunted dangerous animals scores of times. It’s only a hunt …
But then she had never before been called upon to be the bait.
The postern gate opened out into a ditch, which had once been much deeper and clean-cut, but lacking repair had fallen in on itself to a great degree. Clariel clambered over some fallen stones and found a broken series of steps on the opposite side. Climbing up into the open air, she felt her moment of doubt fade. The sky above was much brighter, and just being able to see its great expanse, unhampered by walls and buildings, lifted her heart.
They had come out near the corner of the wall, and the sea was close, the crash of the waves loud in Clariel’s ears and the scent of salt and weed strong on the breeze. She glanced eastwards to the bridge over the ditch that led into the South Gate, but there was no one watching, and no one was on the road. It was probably still an hour until the gate opened.
Climbing over the lip of the ditch, she saw the sea and the causeway to the Islet. The rocky island was smaller than she had expected. It looked to be not much more than three hundred paces across, in all directions, and though it rose out of the water to twice her height, it was much lower than she’d imagined it to be. In a storm, surely the dozen or so shanties and huts that clustered on it would be swept away?
‘Keep going,’ whispered Bel. ‘They’re right behind me.’
Clariel started forward, not realising that she had completely stopped. The ground fell away quite rapidly towards the narrow beach that led to the causeway, and up ahead there was a well-trodden path that joined up with the road behind them. She strode over to it, and started down.
Despite the hour, there were already a few beachcombers following the tideline, looking for flotsam. The closest was a woman, bent and old, clad in a raw woollen dress hitched up very high on her bare thighs and tied around her waist with a fraying rope. She had a sack in her hand and was wriggling her feet in the sand. A moment later she lifted one foot with a long worm caught in the grip of her toes, expertly transferring it to her sack without needing to use her hands.
As Clariel and Bel trod closer across the sand, the old woman turned towards them, and bowed her head.
‘We’re looking for Old Marral,’ said Clariel. ‘Can you direct us to his … his hut?’
‘Take you there for a two squid,’ said the old woman. ‘What do you want with Marral?’
‘Business,’ said Clariel. She reached into the small change pocket inside her tunic and drew out one of the large copper coins that in Estwael were called simply rounds, and in Belisaere were called squids, apparently because some long ago issue had featured something supposed to represent magic streamers and had been misinterpreted as a squid’s tentacles. ‘One squid.’
The old woman’s mouth quirked, but she shrugged and took the offered money.
‘Follow me,’ she said, swinging the sack to her back. ‘Stay inside the rock markers, or the sea’ll take you.’
They followed the old woman along the beach to a point where a broad black rock emerged from the sand, the visible part of some greater mass below. It was like a great stone doormat marking the entrance to the causeway. The old woman stepped onto its worn surface and went straight out into the wash of the sea. Clariel and Bel followed, both letting out a slight gasp as the cool water splashed around their legs, the wavelets coming around the Islet sometimes washing up as high as their thighs.
Looking down through the swirling water Clariel saw that they were standing on a kind of bridge of stone that was at least a foot higher than the surrounding sand. At the lowest tide, it would be completely dry,
but judging from the tidemarks on the beach and the green stain on the city wall some hundred paces away, at the flood the Islet would be cut off by deep water. It would certainly be well over Clariel’s head, and the tidewash would be powerful.
As both Kargrin and the old woman had said, there were stones marking the sides of the causeway, which was about twenty paces wide. Roughly pyramidal, the markers were obviously man-made, but had been worn long in the sea. They were covered in green weed and the purple-grey shells of lippets, shellfish that could be eaten or used as bait for fish, though neither humans nor fish were particularly fond of the strong-tasting bivalve.
‘Good defence against the Dead,’ said Bel quietly to Clariel when they were about halfway across. A bigger wavelet had just swept past them, drenching them up to their waists. ‘Sea currents and waves are as effective as a strong river flow.’
‘But the sea doesn’t stop whatever this Free Magic thing is,’ said Clariel, keeping her voice low, so the old woman ahead couldn’t hear them.
Bel shrugged. ‘Maybe it crosses when the causeway is dry.’
‘The aqueducts don’t dry up,’ said Clariel. ‘And apparently it passes under them as well.’
‘Yes, there is that,’ replied Bel. ‘Look, I’m not going to run if we do find this creature. No matter what.’
‘Then you’re an idiot,’ said Clariel.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Bel. ‘I’m an Abhorsen, this is what we do –’
Clariel stopped, and turned to face the young man, both of them briefly rising up on tiptoe as another wavelet washed past them.
‘I don’t care if you get yourself killed. But don’t mess things up. My parents keep going on about opportunities for me in Belisaere. This represents an opportunity for me to get out of Belisaere and it might be my only one, so don’t spoil it!’
