Random Disclaimer: I've run out of clever sayings. Um. If I owned these characters, I wouldn't be getting braces on Tuesday. Or maybe I would. –blink- Anyone have a copy of Garth Nix's schedule...?
Author's Note: All I can say, Clayr Child, is 'Rather a lot.' Fortunately with this chapter they'll have less time to have awkward silences in... yay?
The blast of a horn woke Lirael and Nick the next morning. They had chosen a spot as far away from the broken Charter Stone as possible while remaining on the grass. Yrael was already awake, smiling smugly to himself.
"W-what was that?" asked Nick, sitting up cautiously. "Or who?"
Lirael blinked wearily. "Well, it—"
Hoofbeats resounded in the air, and the horn blared again, a merry pattern. "It sounds like someone's coming," Lirael ended lamely. By the time the small party of horsemen got there, Nick and Lirael had packed up and were standing waiting for them. Neither of them, however, expected who the leader of the group would be.
"Sam!" Lirael ran forward. The cavalry dismounted as one and clustered around their Prince. One carefully stepped foward and, sword at the ready, held two fingers out to test Lirael's Charter Mark. Once he was satisfied, the guard slid his sword back into his scabbard.
"True," he proclaimed. A general sigh of relief ran through the watchers, and Sameth brushed past the guards to give Lirael a hug. He looked behind her and stared. "Nick?"
"He came to visit the Clayr's Glacier," Lirael explained, stepping back so Nick could come forward and greet his friend. "I decided to come back with him, to see you again. You've grown, Sam, haven't you," she added.
Sam glanced over from talking to Nick and laughed. "My old aunt," he said lightly. Lirael smiled.
"But how did you know we were here?" Nick asked Sam.
Sameth ran a hand through his hair. "Mother's out in the west again, taking care of a group of Shadow Hands. When we got a message from the Clayr, Ellimere decided I should go, with a few dozen of her hand-picked warriors." He waved at the ten or so guards. They laughed good-naturedly, gathering around their mounts to picket them. "They must've gotten their whens wrong again," he added, gazing out around the town.
Lirael nodded sadly. A small white shape trotted past Lirael's feet and sat primly, staring up at Sam with wide green eyes. "I trust you've brought sardines, Prince Sameth?" Yrael mewed.
"Where'd you find Mog--Yrael?" Sam asked Lirael, taken aback by the cat's sudden appearance.
"Fishing in the Ratterlin. He wants sardines," she added. "I don't know what you were thinking when you gave him the first ones, Sam."
"Neither do I," Sam said with a rueful smile. He looked down at the cat. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to call you, now."
"Yrael will do," the small cat said, licking his paw. He glanced up. "Sardines?"
"By the Charter, can you think of nothing else?" Sameth asked, annoyed.
"Very little," Yrael informed him tartly, and began to wash.
They left him sitting there, a spot of white against the burned walls of the town and the half-burned grass. Sam walked through the streets of the village, Nick and Lirael trailing behind. He brushed the edges of doorways, frowned at fallen roofs, and poked cautiously through piles of rubble. Finally he sighed. "If only—"Sam said softly.
"If only," Lirael agreed. "If only Nick and I had left a day before we did. If only the Clayr had gotten their whens right. If only someone had been here, if only we knew who did it..." She trailed off. There were too many 'if only's to speak of.
Sam nodded slowly. "If only."
The three returned to the village green. The guards were spread out around the town, investigating—much the same as Sam had done. Yrael was still sitting in the midst of it all, regarding the scene narrowly and with a touch of humor to his posture.
"Yrael." Sam came closer, narrowing his own eyes. "Who did this." The cat did not respond. "Who did this?" he asked, louder.
With a final lick, Yrael looked up at Sam. "A better question would be, who could not do this," he said. He left them with that, going who knew where—to carry on his own investigations, presumably.
"Who could not do this..." Sam echoed. "Not Hedge, and not—not Orannis."
"Chlorr," said Lirael softly. Sam's mind flew back to the memory of the golden mask, smoke billowing out of it as the Greater Dead behind the mask prepared for the killing stroke. From the look on Lirael's face, hers went back there too.
"Chlorr?" Nick asked. "Who—who's that?" He faltered at the expressions on Sam's and Lirael's faces.
Lirael sighed, a small sound, and turned to face him. "A necromancer, or she used to be. Now—she's one of the Greater Dead. Sam and I... saw her. Last year." When the Disreputable Dog was still alive. When she didn't know she was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. When she still had a hope of gaining the Sight. "We—I—got Hedge, but Chlorr wasn't there. She's still out there, somewhere." Lirael waved at the mountains towering above them, the glacier, the river, the gently rolling hills. The thought scared her, a little. She reminded herself that if Chlorr was there, she was Sabriel's problem, not hers. Definitely not the job of an Abhorsen-in-Waiting who's known about her position for less than a year. No, Lirael told herself, not for me. Someone else's problem.
"Somewhere," Sam said bleakly. Reflexively he rubbed the scars on his wrists, reminded of necromancers in general, and Hedge in particular. "Hedge—he is dead, right?"
"Yes," Lirael said. "Very definitely." Both of them took confidence from the words.
Nick looked from one to the other. "I-I don't understand," he said, haltingly.
Sam sighed. "We can ride double, and at a faster pace, today." With a small smile at Lirael and Nick, he added, "I'd like to be back in Belisaere as soon as possible."
They nodded agreement.