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CHARTERSTONE
Chapter Six
A Conspiracy of Sendings
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Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?
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Eimeth dreamed that she swam through an icy-cold lake, gripping her sword and bells with blue-tinged fingers. They slowed her down, but still she forced her tired limbs through the cold currents.
"Mother," said Tallie, splashing ahead of her. "Mother, help me!" Her cry echoed and shattered, dancing around the darkness like a thousand tiny voices weeping.
She let go of the bells and the sword and turned to catch her daughter's hand, but the girl's fingers slipped right through her own like smoke. Eimeth screamed and kicked herself forward, reaching for Tallie, but her legs would not move fast enough. They dragged her down, pulling her under the water as quickly as an iron anchor. As the water closed in about her face she met Tallie's eyes for a single instant.
"Goodbye, Mother," said the girl, grinning wickedly, and then the waves took them away, sinking, sinking! Eimeth screamed...
...and sat up in her own bed, hand on her sword and ears ringing. Morning light crept through the curtains, illuminating the familiar room around her. She pinched the bridge of her nose and slid out of bed, gritting her teeth at the touch of the cold floor on her bare feet. The sendings clustered around her; for once she let them do their work without any protest. Listlessly she allowed herself to be guided into a hot bath and then dried and dressed in the traditional midnight-blue surcoat over light chain mail.
The ancient retainer Piper bowed and presented her with a folded note- another messagehawk. "From Adiel?" she murmured, but the sending shook its head and pointed at the note with a stiff finger.
"To the Abhorsen Eimeth," she read, carefully decrypting Piper's crabbed handwriting, "greetings from Queen Hedalia, ruler of the Old Kingdom, Bearer of the Blood, upholder of the Charter... Really, Piper, if she goes through all her titles you don't have to write them down," Eimeth said to the sending. It gazed at her with Charter-marked eyes, flickering like candle flame in darkness, and shrugged silently. "Titles... Ah, here we are... Grave problems have been occurring here of late, Abhorsen. The Dead flock to the city and will not be driven away. The ancient protections do not stop them, or even give them a moment's pause. No longer do the people of Belisaere feel free to venture outside their houses at night, even in the most well-lighted of streets. Prince Rogir has been keeping up the defenses, but recently he was called away on a matter of diplomatic urgency in Ancelstierre. Our Charter Mages felt certain they could keep the defenses strong while he was away, but they have begun to falter."
Eimeth sighed and read the rest in silence--merely more of the same, it was, just an impassioned plea for assistance. And all the more shameful that the Queen had ignored the threats for this long, if Eimeth judged correctly from the descriptions in the letter. Coincidence that she planned to travel to Belisaere to talk to the Prince today; perhaps he had finally convinced his mother--but no, he was in Ancelstierre. Far to the South.
And she wondered, suddenly, about her absent apprentice. Calibe was very close to the Wall, and Adiel was very close to Rogir. Did they know something she did not? She bit her bottom lip, crumpling the message in her hands, remembering again Mirel's words of murder and blood, and felt darkness clutch at her heart.
No--she must not think such things. Mirel was only a child, after all, and the mirror must be difficult to interpret. More likely that the girl had made a mistake. She would need Adiel's help in Belisaere; she could not afford to alienate him with suspicion and false assumptions. With that thought she went to her desk and scribbled out a message to the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, telling him that she was setting out for the capital and he was to join her there at once. Piper, bowing, took the message to the aviary, and Eimeth went to wake her niece.
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Mogget followed her outside to the Paperwing shed, cat-eyes bright in the morning shadows. Eimeth saw him but did not acknowledge his presence as she loaded her supplies back into the painted craft.
"I will tell you this, Abhorsen," he said softly as she buckled her knapsack firmly into place. "I do not think you should trust your apprentice to stand by your side in Belisaere."
"Why not? Adiel has given me no cause to doubt him," said Eimeth, carefully controlling the tone of her voice. Mogget cocked an ear at her, not fooled in the least.
"Because, Abhorsen, it strikes me as very suspicious that both he and Prince Rogir should be in Ancelstierre at the same time exactly," replied the little cat. "And especially suspicious that Prince Rogir, who is not trained in necromancy, should be the one to keep the Dead down around Belisaere."
Eimeth licked her lips, suddenly uneasy. "I thought of that," she admitted. "And I do not know what I am walking into, my friend." She tugged her surcoat into place and checked the straps on the bells. "But it is my duty," she told the cat. "As an Abhorsen it is my duty to come to the aid and lay the Dead to rest when they would linger and harm the living."
Mogget did not answer in words, but his gaze left Eimeth chilled and shaken. "Abhorsen," called Mirel from outside the shed, "are you ready?"
"I am," Eimeth shouted back. "I will be out in a moment, dear."
"Does the walker choose the path?" said Mogget softly.
"Or does the path choose the walker?" Eimeth whispered, as the cat slunk away, vanishing completely into the darkness of the shed as only cats can do. She grasped the Paperwing's nose and hauled it out into the sunny launch. Mirel, dressed in a rather baggy gray cloak and overcoat, nodded to her and clambered into the second seat. Eimeth nodded to the sendings and hopped in herself, whistling up the windmarks that would lift the Paperwing into the air.
The wind blew from the north today, as yesterday, and the Paperwing struggled to travel against it. Eimeth felt a flicker of wrongness on the wind, like the icy tang of the water of the First Gate. Exactly as her mind formed the thought, Mirel shuddered. The Abhorsen looked over her shoulder at the girl, finding to her surprise that her niece's cheeks were flushed red with embarrassment, as if Eimeth had overheard something she should not.
"Do you feel that?" asked Mirel.
"The smell of the Dead upon the wind," murmured Eimeth. "Yes, I do feel that. Something very rotten lurks in the north."
"It's coming from both directions," said Mirel. "A sort of coldness to the south, and a sort of moldy feeling from the north."
Eimeth cast about with an Abhorsen's special sensibilities and found that the girl was right. She shouldn't be, though; only the Abhorsen--or a trained necromancer--should be able to feel such a thing.
But she did not have time to think about it, for at that moment the wind picked up, battering at the sides of the fragile Paperwing. Eimeth tasted Free Magic in the tang of the wind and swore loudly before casting into the Charter for the whistled wind-marks.
Wind-magic, however, was not among her specialties, and while she knew enough to steady the Paperwing in most weather, this was beyond her. Keeping up a barrage against the howling wind, Eimeth began to descend. She felt the malice in the scream of the currents as they slipped below its reach, heading into a thick copse of trees.
The wind got one last blow in, though; summoning all its rage, it flew at the Paperwing, completely throwing off the landing angle and tossing both riders out into the branches of a tall oak. Eimeth tumbled through the branches, cracking them beneath her as she fell, barely able to grasp at the limbs in hopes of slowing her fall. A hefty thump took the breath out of her when she landed; a sharp crack in her left forearm sent a lancing pain up through her shoulder, and for a long moment she simply lay on the hard ground, choking and shivering. Her bandolier pressed into her chest, the hard edges of the bells biting into her sore ribs.
The sound of bells--not her own--brought her back to herself. Still coughing, she looked up with bleary eyes to see Mirel firmly ringing Kibeth and Saraneth together in a complicated pattern. Before her the shape of a Mordicant writhed in agony on the ground. Mirel, the Charter mark on her forehead blazing, lifted her chin proudly as the Mordicant shriveled and vanished; Eimeth felt it pass into death and float quickly away, carried by the strong current of the First Precinct.
"Aunt," said the girl, her tone sharp and concerned. She rushed over to the fallen Abhorsen and lifted her from the ground into a sitting position, careful not to jostle the swelling arm. Eimeth, biting her lip against the pain, could not help but cry out as Mirel touched it gingerly, trying to see where the damage was.
"Where did you get the bells?" said Eimeth as soon as she could speak. Mirel looked up at her, tenderly pulling a silver and blue sleeve away from the Abhorsen's injured arm.
"I should find our packs," was all Mirel said. "I made the sendings pack medical supplies." Eimeth cradled the broken arm in her lap as the girl rushed off into the woods, looking for the wreckage of the Paperwing. With her good arm she pulled out her sword, fearful that where one Mordicant stalked another did as well.
A trap, her mind said, as her befuddled brain tried to make sense of what had just happened. A trap to make you fall, and hurt yourself, where some Dead thing could get you while you were defenseless.
She had no doubt this was the same necromancer who had sent the Gore Crow days earlier, or the one who kept Belisaere besieged. She had no doubt of this; what did cause her wonder, though, was Mirel. Where had the girl gotten those bells? How did she know how to use them? It was no easy thing to be able to banish a Mordicant, no easy thing at all. Eimeth, mind fogged with pain, could not make any sense of the facts, and so they simply swirled randomly around her mind until Mirel returned, both Eimeth's and her own packs slung over her shoulder.
"I suppose you are wondering about a few things, Abhorsen," said the girl calmly, laying out bandages and straight sticks for a splint.
Eimeth met her eyes, finding no shame in them, only confidence and, curiously enough, a sense of relief. "You could say that," she said, gritting her teeth as Mirel bound the splint tightly around her swollen arm.
"Years and years ago the sendings of your House presented me with a book. A curious, old, deadly book." Mirel paused and looked at the shadows of the woods and the clouds overhead. "It told me of Mordicants and Shadow Hands and Gore Crows, all sorts of Dead things, and what to do in between. I read it, cover to cover, and the day I left the sendings took it away again. I must have been, oh, eleven or twelve. I only visited your house two times after that, never when you were there, but every time the sendings gave me the Book of the Dead to read. Every time I read it front to back and every time the Book was different." Finding a spare shirt in one of the packs, Mirel ripped it apart and tied the pieces into a sling.
"This morning the sendings presented me with bells and the surcoat of the Abhorsen," the girl continued. She pulled the gray cloak off, revealing the blue silk and silver keys below. Across her chest a bandolier of bells lay; it was not the light, tan leather of Eimeth's or the rich brown of Adiel's. Instead, Mirel's bandolier was deep, dark black, sewn with silver threads, the bell cases buckled with shining silver buttons. Eimeth knew it as well as she knew her own: it was her grandfather's bandolier, set aside these many years. She had been saving it for her own daughter and could not bear giving it to Adiel, crafting instead a brand-new bandolier and set of bells for his use.
To see it now, across the shoulders of her niece who so resembled Tallie--it was more than Eimeth could bear. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Mirel's own eyes widened. "I am sorry," she said. "I expected that you would name me Abhorsen-in-Waiting because Grandmother always said the sendings knew the next Abhorsen. She--I don't think she knew--I don't think anyone knew--that they had been giving me the Book to read."
"And I expected it to be Tallie," said Eimeth numbly, voice thick with grief. "Talis always said they Saw Tallie as the Abhorsen-in-Waiting... And then she died and the Clayrs Saw Adiel..."
Mirel shook her head. "I know. But you have said it yourself," she whispered. "The resemblance between us is uncanny. Could it not be that the Clayr Saw me?"
Eimeth closed her eyes and leaned back against the rough tree-bark, sighing for a long moment before opening them again. "Why would they then See Adiel?"
"Because the necromancer--this Kerrigor--wanted him in place as Abhorsen," said Mirel. She clasped Eimeth's good hand in her own, gently pulling her aunt to her feet. "Because if he can stop the visions of the Clayr he might be able to control them as well. The sendings know. They always know. Did they present Adiel with bells and a surcoat?"
Eimeth remembered back to his assignation of Abhorsen-in-Waiting and said, "No. I did that, in the Royal Palace, when he was appointed."
Mirel's voice was bitter. "The sendings always know--but the Abhorsen herself does not." She looked up at the sky and then down at the map. "We have a good two days' journey to Belisaere. Are you up to it?"
"I am sorry, Mirel," whispered Eimeth. "I did not know."
The girl's face only hardened, but she sighed and took out the glass shard of the Mirror of Dyrim. "I know. I think this plan has been in place for much longer than we believed. You cannot blame yourself, when so many things called you away from home and family." Shouldering both packs, the glass shard clutched in her hand, she set off northwards without another word.
Stunned at this similarity of opinion between Mirel and Eimeth's own mother, the Abhorsen did not respond. She followed the girl, trying to ignore the dull, throbbing ache of her arm, as they trekked out of the forests and northwards towards Belisaere, towards Kerrigor and Death.
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