Disclaimer: The Abhorsen series (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen) belongs to Garth Nix
Short, sorry. Shall probably have other short companion fics, assuming there is proper inspiration: a planned story for the Clayr, and one that may or may not get planned for the Royalty.
Title
He was, very nearly, the Old Kingdom itself.
The Free Magic of the land's creation flowed as lifeblood in the veins of Yrael, the Eighth Bright Shiner. The Wallmaker relict knew, with detached certainty, every detail of the Charter woven from these threads. And as the servant of Abhorsen, he had traversed nearly every step of the country, had seen hundreds of thousands of its faces.
The people in the royal city, those who lived in small villages or nowhere at all; the fishers of river and sea, the merchants, the farmers, the craftsmen, the mages, the warriors, the scholars, the thieves, the necromancers, and so many more—all had been known by him at one time.
All citizens of the Old Kingdom were related by a similar look to their eyes, their faces, their movements. All were haunted, hunted, cautious and wary in the way of small animals. All who lived were prey for the Dead.
Yrael had seen many other things in common. Wilderness, villages, cities; in all of them, he had seen old men and women, frail of body and spirit, with babies, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.
But he had never known an old Abhorsen, for all his millennia.
Abhorsen died young. Their life was grueling, too strenuous for one man or woman alone. He was lucky if he saw his grandchild, yet even then, he did not celebrate and coo over the child on his knee as the villagers did. Instead, he was simply grateful that he had not failed: the Bloodline would continue.
The Abhorsen lived for the Bloodline, to preserve the Charter and the ordinary people under his protection. It was not his choice, it was his duty.
Mogget wondered, sometimes, at the cruelty of his siblings' love. They had done it out of necessity. But for the good of many, a few must be sacrificed to suffer. In their own way, the Seven were as ruthless as Orannis.
Yet they, at least, mourned the fate of those who had inherited their legacy.
For generations, he served the Abhorsen. But Abhorsen was not a person—it was a title, nothing more, nothing less. And it swallowed those once-people alive.
They did not keep their names. Instead, each gained the title, the impersonal shroud of responsibility. After all, a given name was far too intimate. And the Abhorsen learned never to love too dearly, for all things must be sacrificed in an instant for necessities greater than themselves, greater than love.
They could not live for themselves. They lived for the Old Kingdom, lived to put the Dead down.
Abhorsen died for this, too.
If they loved, it was detached, never intimate; the greatest love of all is to sacrifice one's life for another.
Yrael had seen many, many things in all his years. He had seen many men and women forsaken for the sake of others. He had seen a fateful title passed through generations. He had seen nearly everything there was to see in the Old Kingdom.
But he would never see an old Abhorsen.
…
End
…
-Windswift