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Clariel slowly extended her hand and set her palm against the timber. Sparks flashed as she did so, and Charter marks thronged from the wood and moved up her arm. She gasped, but there was no real pain, just a strange sensation, as if something was moving over her skin.
The door did not move.
‘Lean your forehead against it!’ urged Mogget, who was now dancing around Clariel’s feet. ‘Tell it to open, in your grandfather’s name!’
Clariel did so, pressing the Charter mark on her forehead against one of the iron bolts that reinforced the door. Again, she felt the weird, crawly sensation, this time extending all over her face.
‘Open in the name of Tyriel, my mother’s father! Open!’ she said, her voice not as steady as she wished.
There was a resonant click inside the door, and it moved under Clariel’s hand and head. She put her other hand against it, and pushed. It moved slowly, like a person who has reluctantly agreed to something but wishes they had done otherwise.
As the door opened, Clariel was assaulted by an incredibly loud noise, so loud it felt almost like a physical blow. The sound of the great waterfall. Kept from the house by magic up above, it was even louder here than it had been going across the bridge in the river. The reason was clear, for a broad cavern in the cliff face lay beyond the door and the far end of it was a gaping hole, with a wall of white water plummeting down outside. Spray was blowing in, making rainbows as it passed across the Charter marks for light that shone in the ceiling and walls of the cavern.
The rough-hewn chamber was apparently empty, save for a massive table in the very centre, itself carved out of the rock. One end of this hulking piece of furniture was crowded with several dozen green glass bottles, of differing shapes and sizes, and next to these bottles was a pyramid made of an equivalent number of silver stoppers, a coil of thick gold wire on a decaying wooden drum, a rusted pair of pliers and several other lumps of rust that had once been tools.
At the other end of the table, standing alone, there was the familiar silver bottle wreathed in gold wire that held Aziminil.
Clariel walked towards the table, the door shutting behind her. She reached out for the silver bottle, almost in a trance, but stopped short of it as a cloud of spray hit her in the face. She blinked, and stepped back. Mogget sneezed and stayed behind her heels in an effort to avoid any drop of moisture.
Beyond the table, she saw a jagged, narrow peninsula of stone that thrust out into the waterfall. Barely three paces wide, it was at least twenty paces long, the far end invisible under the onrush of water from above. From a few paces out and then as far as she could see into the waterfall, this strange promontory was wrapped in dozens and dozens of tarnished silver chains, big chains with links the thickness of Clariel’s finger, chains that were doubled over this stone outcrop and then stretched down into the maelstrom below.
‘What are the chains for?’ bellowed Clariel. She had to bend down to hear Mogget’s repeated answer, the noise of the waterfall drowning the cat’s first reply.
‘Prisoners,’ shouted Mogget. ‘Free Magic creatures suspended in the waterfall, in bottles of green glass.’
‘Why green glass?’ shouted Clariel.
‘Can’t question them through silver. They can be heard through glass; silver is only for transport. But there’s no time for questions now! Hurry up! There’s the bottle! You can do it!’
‘Not so fast!’ Clariel shouted back. ‘Where are the garments to protect me from Free Magic?’
‘I don’t know,’ spat Mogget. ‘You don’t need them. Hurry!’
Clariel ignored him, and quickly walked around the table, taking stock. The whole cavern had an air of decay and disuse. There was moss growing up almost to the tabletop, and there were more faded or dead Charter marks in the ceiling above than live ones. There was a chest under the table, with a pile of silver chains next to it, and a long stick with a hook on the end, like a fisherman’s gaff.
Not without some trepidation, Clariel opened the chest. Judging from the tarnish on the chains, the moss everywhere and the general feel of the place, she expected whatever had been in the chest was probably a disgusting pile of mould.
But it wasn’t. A spell broke as Clariel lifted the lid, Charter marks spilling out everywhere to fade as the complex web of the spell fell apart, leaving the scent of roses. Once again, she didn’t recognise any of the individual marks, but it had to be some kind of preservative or protective spell, because the inside of the chest looked fresh, clean and, most importantly, dry.
There were numerous articles of clothing inside, in different sizes. All were made of some kind of woven stone, or stonelike material, that was light as linen but enormously strong, and there were thousands and thousands of Charter marks swirling within the fabric. Clariel sorted through the clothes quickly, holding them up against her body. She chose a long hooded robe, gauntlets that came almost to her elbows, and curious tall overshoes that puzzled her for a few seconds till she realised they were footwear.
Underneath the clothes, there was a line of bronze masks. Full face masks, which would fit under the chin and extend back to the ears, with narrow slits for the eyes covered in some clear crystal, and a hinged flap over the larger mouth hole. The masks had leather straps with bronze buckles.
‘Hurry!’ hissed Mogget. ‘If I thought you’d be this slow I never would have bothered!’
Clariel continued to ignore him. She slipped on the robe, which wrapped around her almost twice and had several ties to make it fast. The overshoes were next, tying off just under her knees, the robe flowing over them down to her ankles. Then the gauntlets, which were also tied to the robe, a difficult operation.
She reached for the mask she thought would fit her best. It was heavier than she had expected, the bronze a finger-width thick. Like the clothes, it too was heavily laden with Charter marks. Clariel slipped it on, grimacing as the cold metal touched her face. She drew the straps tight, then pulled the hood up and fastened it to the sides and throat of the mask using the strings provided for that purpose.
The mask felt even heavier on her face, heavy and repressive. But then Charter Magic tingled, the baptismal mark on her forehead burned for a moment, and for a brief instant Clariel felt herself dip into a great swathe of the Charter, as if a storm composed of millions of marks had swept over her, there and gone in a second. The mask felt lighter and warmer thereafter. She hoped it meant that the protective magic was working, for she knew no way to wake it if it required some spell.
‘Hurry!’
Mogget was yowling now, his voice made more distant by hood and mask, even harder to distinguish above the roar of the waterfall.
Clariel bent over the silver bottle and directed her thoughts to the spark that lurked deep inside her, the ember of the rage that she must blow into fire and feed till it became the fury, making her strong enough not only to survive the Charter Magic that kept the bottle sealed, but also to overpower the creature within.
Aziminil.
‘Hurry up!’
The words sounded distant, from some other place of no account. Clariel once again ignored Mogget, her mind bent inwards. She had found the place where the rage dwelt, and now she fed it, supplying it with memories.
The terrible night when her parents died; Aronzo smiling his self-satisfied smile; the feel of the knife in her hand when she tried to stab him and Roban had parried it away …
Then she bit her lip, right through, the taste of her own blood hot and salty, and she wanted to spill more blood, not her own, the rage rising and rising, spreading through every muscle, every vein …
Clariel roared and grabbed the bottle, gauntleted hands gripping the stopper, ripping it off in one swift movement, gold wires and all, Charter Magic spells to chill her bones and stop her heart broken in that instant, marks spinning off uselessly into the air.
With the stopper gone, Aziminil was suddenly there on the table, taloned hands reaching for her rescuer, a spiked foot stabbin
g out. But Clariel batted the hands away, gripped the spiked foot, lifted the creature above her head, and threw her to the ground almost to the lip of the waterfall.
Aziminil tried to get up but Clariel was upon her, her gauntlets smashing down upon the creature’s bony shoulders, the strength of Clariel’s hands and the strength of her mind forcing the thing to kneel. Charter marks blazed bright as stars in her gauntlets and white sparks fountained from the creature, the stench of hot metal a sharp reek that filled the cavern.
Aziminil struggled to rise, but could do nothing against the force of Clariel.
‘Obey me!’ bellowed the young woman, her voice near as loud as the waterfall itself, infused with all her berserk fury. She felt triumphant, for she could sense Aziminil’s mind already bending beneath her will, giving in, surrendering to her as was her right.
‘Swear you will serve me! Serve me forever!’
chapter twenty-eight
binding the free
‘Swear to serve me forever, or be destroyed!’
