Crossing Over
PERIMETER COMMAND
NOTHERN ARMY GROUP
Unauthorized egress from the Peri-
meter Zone is forbidden.
Anyone attempting to cross the
Perimeter Zone will be shot without
warning.
Authorized travellers must report to
the Perimeter Command H.Q.
REMEMBER –
NO WARNING WILL BE MADE
The Perimeter ran from coast to coast, parallel to the Wall and perhaps half a mile from it. A tall mesh wire fence fortified it on the Ancelstierre side, decorated with large red signs that declared its military designation and smaller yellow triangles that warned of the fence's ability to deliver lethal electrical shocks, at no responsibility to the military – which, as far as Sassy could tell, meant in very low and dodging tones that it will most certainly fail when you need it the most and it will not be the Ancelstierre Central Command's fault when it does.
She followed a badly printed arrow on one of the crimson signs to a shabby little guard house nestled snugly in a bracket of electric fencing. It sported a grimy brass knocker next to a common electrical doorbell and a sad little sign that said simply,
"CROSSING POINT"
She knocked, not even bothering to try the buzzer, and waited.
The Northern border of Ancelstierre, as defined by the Wall, has not been moved in a little over twenty-five hundred years. In fact, Ancelstierran chronology is based upon its establishment, marking this location an important and frequently ignored historical tourist site. It is marked with apologetic nervousness on the maps and omitted everywhere else whenever possible.
The North was where realities rip through the veils of perception and run you to the ground, tearing you mindlessly from screaming limb to limb; where the lights are afraid to come on in the middle of the night when things go bump, and what is unseen is best left undisturbed.
Technology had the tendency to fail out here, especially when the winds come blowing from across the Wall, carrying magic on its harsh breath. It was as if the existence of one principal corroded the other, although one could just as easily blame erratic power lines. Ancelstierre found no cause to acknowledge the sour, metallic tang of the air in her own Northern reaches, nor its many Evils and Horrors. It was the Age of Enlightenment, and such things have no place in the Modern, Educated mind.
The closest civilization was the village of Bain, which used to be a town until people started moving away after the disastrous business with the Southerlings that the government refused to acknowledge or talk about, back in the 1920s. The wide stretches of wild hills and woodlands between Bain and the Perimeter garrison hid away a number of abandoned farmsteads, empty refugee camps and overrun trailer parks, full of the rustic calm and serenity of the morning-after. Occasionally people find the urge to go hiking or camping in the region, but seldom overnight on account of the chill and Perimeter patrols.
The service between Bain and the Perimeter ran twice a day and rarely found reason to complete its journey to the garrison bus-stop, often not leaving Bain at all.
Presently, a bored young man came to the door and waved her through with barely a grunt. He had dead eyes and shuffled lifelessly across the tiny cubicle like a mindless undead Hand, pointing her to an equally squalid-looking concrete bunker in a distance. Sassy scowled and pulled her shades over her eyes. Someone was going to get some talking to; then again, that was the army's business and none of her own. The border belonged to Ancelstierre, which after today will become nothing more than peasant gossip and politics.
It was a friendly place for barbed wire and strong points, an intensive interlocking network of trenches and concrete pillboxes wreathed by writhing coils of concertina wire and rusty steel pickets in a design that has not been changed for the last eight hundred and fifty years.
A crude rise of piled rocks packed down with dirt and more concertina confronted the Wall directly at a man's height. There were no obvious breaks along its length, and large white-painted rocks placed at regular intervals make for scout posts where a soldier may pull himself up on to look over the Ancelstierran wall. Mounted on stakes and elevated over the earth every two stones were silent wind flutes the size of small trees, imbued with the faint golden glow of the Charter.
These flutes played a song heard only in Death, continuing the spells of binding laid down on ground by the various Abhorsens that have been and gone. Crafting these flutes was one of the last things an Abhorsen-in-Waiting is set to do, and casting the bindings they will sing for, the first duty of a newly appointed Abhorsen.
She strode through the Perimeter unchallenged, which annoyed her further, until she was stopped, and that just ruined it all.
"Isn't the security here horrifying? UnMarked civilians running loose? Oh that certainly won't do."
"Yes, m'Lady Samael," Sassy replied coolly. "And what are you doing about it?"
The lofty porcelain figure bristled briefly. "Well!" She gathered her cape proudly, speaking pointedly to her companion. "I think I shall go to the General at once, if you'll excuse me, and have this little problem dealt with."
"She's most beautiful when she snarls, isn't she."
"Now, on top of everything else..." The young man, though as tall and pale as Lady Samael, could only be described as unfortunately gangly in the absence of a frail feminine grace. He frowned, obviously perturbed by Sassy's presence as she knew he would.
"On top of everything else, I'm here. I'm sorry. You could let me pass and pretend this never happened, like I was going to."
"Azazel, cousin." He allowed her a dry, humourless smile and threw his arm across her shoulders, leading her to the Office like a roped horse.
Author's Notes:
The Ancelstierran wall is a dirt wall built parallel to the actual Wall for the soldiers to observe the sinister bugger, not to be confused with the actual Wall.
And some name pronunciations:
Samael pronounced as Sa-May-o, like that creature from Hellboy the movie.
Azazel pronounced as A-z-assel, "assel" as in "tassle"