A Secret Meeting
It was not that Samael disliked people; she simply loathed dealing with them.
She despised them, them with their empty smiles and helpless coddling, resorting always to bury problems that were not their own in insincere kindness; them and their perfect self-assurance and self-importance, neatly packing all things into their petty, self-satisfied perspectives. Most of all, Samael hated their inability to regard her as anything beyond a disadvantaged foster child, to be soothed and put to bed at any sign of a temper.
Time and again she wondered what her life would be if she had been left to be raised alone by the Sendings of the Abhorsen's House.
Sometimes, she wonders what would have passed if she were truly a Princess of the Blood, and not just the neglected, fatherless child of one of the Queen's many cousins.
Would she be so inconsequential then, she wonders?
Some time before midnight, under the cover of darkness, Charter and stone, four met in a little-used study that used to belong to Crown Prince Cyrial. Mostly it was used to closet the young man whenever he was in need of a good grounding. Currently, it was being used to store his old furniture.
"Amirelle," The King's stern voice came through the thick wooden door. "What is it that you are not telling us." He spoke a statement, rather than a question. It hung in the air for a long time.
"Ruhiel walked the river," The child's silver whisper came at last. "But she did not return. Her bells are lost, and the dead shall again, walk."
"So she is not dead?"
"No Abhorsen can truly be dead, your majesty. Even as they pass through the Ninth Precinct, a shadow remains. That is their last sacrifice." The quiet, sombre speaker was a Librarian from the Great Library, one of the Clayr's elite.
"You speak in riddles, cousin."
"We only speak of what we know." The Librarian replied a touch tersely.
"What about the girl?" Sayren interjected kindly. "Is she really…?"
"Yes." Rameth backed down. "I apologise, Clayr's Daughter. It is Azazel and not the Abhorsen we are discussing, after all."
"There is nothing we can say about the exile. That name is a dead name. Her existence is one that is hidden from us. The Clayr is blind to her, fate and will."
Rameth sighed heavily. "What about Leliel? Will she…"
"I have never believed that Li'l holds a single wicked thought against you, my love." The Queen, again.
"And yet…"
"We have Seen nothing, Rameth," Amirelle whispered. If the Voice of the Nine Day Watch was disapproving of either the King or the Queen, she made no sign of it. "Nothing: neither to redeem nor condemn the Scholar and her ward."
The words she used were impressive for such a young child, but she was Amirelle of the Clayr, gifted and advanced beyond her years, and currently, the highest representative of the Clayr. There were those who would claim that she lived the life of Aramille the White, dead a hundred years, in her dreams.
"If that is all you have Seen, then why are you here, and not a lesser Clayr?"
"Because this is all we See, Rameth my brother. The Abhorsen has not passed on without the fore-sight of the Clayr for over three hundred years. We See things stirring, something enticing the dead towards Life and an assortment of scattered visions we have yet to identify, but nothing more, and we… I, am afraid."
"Five hundred years ago, a similar blindness fell over the Red Lake and Lirael Goldenhand, whose lot it was to stand against its terror." The Librarian started to explain.
"Are you suggesting that Azazel or Leliel…"
"No." The falter in her voice made the words harsher and more ominous than she had intended. "This is much greater than a silly woman and the consequences of her sentimentality. We speak of a massed effort against the Clayr's Sight. Next to this, your cousin and the exile's return are nothing more than domestic trivialities."
"We fear the worst, brother." Amirelle finished, barely audible. "There may be a great power abound, one greater than any has seen for five hundred years."
The guttering candles in their regularly-spaced alcoves along the corridor threw deep shadows across the empty walls. A blue-robed piece peeled away from the door and crept away, its mind wrapped in turmoil over three unspoken words: The Bright Shiners.
Who else… what else, could command such power?
Every child has heard the Ballad of Lirael Goldenhand and how the Sightless Clayr daughter came to acquire her legendary name. It was performed every winter at the end of the Mid-winter Festival, narrated by the Bird of Dawning. Little girls would fight each other tooth-and-nail to play Lirael. Samael has always preferred Queen Sabriel, the Abhorsen.
Seven stood against the Last for the Seven who broke him in the Beginning:
Remembrancer, the Goldenhand, for Astarael Death-Bringer; Sabriel for Saraneth, the Abhorsen's bell; Prince Sameth, Wallmaker's Heir, for Belgaer whose tone beckons Thought; Princess Ellimere for Dyrim of the Voice; The Dog for Kibeth, walking before Lirael from the first; the Clayr for wakeful Mosrael; and King Torrigan, called Touchstone the First, for Ranna the Sleeper.
There are no gods in the Old Kingdom, and if there were, they were not it.
They are the Great Ones, Free Magic Spirits from the Beginning, remembered in the bells of Necromancers and Abhorsens alike; in the Charter, the bloodlines and the land itself – but they were not gods.
She knew the stories well, and more. They were more than a festive tradition to her. They were her heritage, the legacy given her by right of blood and Charter. These tales, and the right to one day put on the Abhorsen's sword, and stand tall between her people and Come What May.
"If it truly were so dire a power that the kingdom faces, then the talents of the Abhorsen will no doubt be essential." Samael whispered softly to herself. Suddenly, she was terribly frightened.
Among the Abhorsen Emeritus' many failings was her oversight in the training of her apprentice. Indeed, at times it seemed that she did not even realise she had one. Samael was practically self-taught; and now a panic rose amidst the deep recesses of her consciousness: What if I'm not good enough?
"No, Samael, you have to be. And if you are not, you will be. Just like Sabriel, like Lirael. There is no-one else, Sam." Not even her.
Her. Sasparilla L'Coste. Azazel, the not-born child of Aeriphrel who is sister to the Abhorsen Ruhiel and the Sorceress Leliel. A miscarried wish for whom the Sorceress tampered Death and Charter to deliver. Azazel the Blasphemer, Azazel the Exile.
How can one such as she possibly conceive to be the next Abhorsen?
The more Samael thought of it, the more curious she became… until finally, she found herself standing in the dark, before a door bolted and barred from the outside.