New Divisions

Chapter Two: Halflings

The Sword-Guard was warm, her body relaxed as she was half propped up and draped over Erimael's knees. Her greying hair, braided back harshly from her lined, narrow face, was gleaming softly. Pink on the cheeks; fullness in the wide mouth. Even a smile.

She had heat, she yielded, and she was dead. A death Unseen.

There was no space in the crypts waiting for the Sword-Guard. Nothing prepared. There were of the careful plans; no sign in her bearing of a new weight and gently grieving solemnity. No apprentice from the Rangers into whom she would pour all of her ancient responsibility. She had left the Clayr with one half of a whole. Half-protected, half right and half alive; Erimael with her.

Slowly, eyes open and clear, Erimael bent her head and kissed her fallen sentry—something she had never dared do in life.

And then, of course, she stood, and took the sword from the body. It was heavy and awkward; a drag on her left side, but there was nothing else she could do.

The Axe-Guard could not leave her post. It was forbidden.

Decades of seeing every possible mix of the fantastical, improbable and the downright unlikely had given the fifty-second Abhorsen a clear idea of what was actually impossible, and what she had just witnessed was very much that.

It was a truism in the grossest sense to say that Sabriel knew death. That she knew, most intimately, those who had entered into it. There was a small white rabbit; whole platoons at the Wall. Her father—always Abhorsen to her, never Terciel—and a Magestrix; faces behind the names on Wyverley's obelisk. Death as a process, as an end, was both normal and inevitable. Sabriel knew that, over time, she would see those she loved cross into the First Precinct and beyond; she would deal with the pain of it in her own way, forcing herself to turn away from the darker instincts of a Necromancer: she was too responsible now to do to humans what she had done as a child to Jacinthe's Bunny. What she had just been forced back into Life by, however, had disturbed her to her core.

Only Abhorsen's were allowed to linger at the border, not unlike how only authorized personnel could traverse the Ancelstierre Wall. There was no sign, nothing that read:

PERIMETER COMMAND

THE CHARTER

Unauthorised egress from the Border Zone

Is strictly forbidden.

Anyone attempting to cross the Border

Zone will be bound/slain/Walked without warning.

Authorized travellers must have the Bells/SwordBloodline

On arrival.

REMEMBER—NO WARNING WILL BE MADE

But still, it was a known thing. To see—somehow, despite everything—Sanar, ankle deep in the Precinct, her face full of the clean blankness of the Dead and yet somehow unmoving, anchored by an invisible tie to the 'perimeter', was a strange and terrifying thing.

Finally catching her breath, the woman sat still, knees drown up to her chest and arms wrapped around her knees, and thought. It took a long time before she could stifle the panicked urge to simply draw Mosrael and wake the Waker.

But I mustn't, she thought. I could…but I mustn't.

Most twins were two souls born once. Sanar and Ryelle…they were one soul born twice. They were one. To separate them would kill them.

"Both of them!" Sabriel muttered to the empty air. "But…if Ryelle isn't with Sanar…?"

It was nonsensical. The Abhorsen could intuitively grasp that it was probably the still-living Ryelle that was keeping the other Clayr where she was, but it was still almost an abomination, and an incomprehensible one at that.

Sighing, Sabriel, the fifty-third Abhorsen of the Old Kingdom, slipped quietly back into Death, drawing mahogany-handled Dyrium before her hand filmed over with ice.

Torn. Ripped. Deformed. Maimed. Violated.

Deformed.

Separated.

The Clayr Ryelle came to her senses slowly and painfully, and then wished that she could lose them again. She had fallen across her sister, both bodies were stained with rusting smears of blood and sweat—one's warm, the other's clammy and cold against her skin. Except, now that body was not her sister. It was just a lumpen thing, pale with staring eyes; empty and alien.

Ryelle, for the first time in her life, was alone and— raggedly at first, but soon with more power—she screamed.

Kirrith heard the screaming. It was faint, sealed off in a part of her mind she felt she no longer had access to. Why was she on the floor? Why…why was there blood in her mouth and—trembling, the older woman reached up to her face with disbelieving fingers—was that blood gluing her eyes shut? The pain she felt trying to sit up shocked her, so Kirrith decided not to try it again. This was…a dream. Connected to the horrible fragments that cut her mind when…when what? Kirrith couldn't remember.

"Is…anybody there?" she whispered, tongue a thick stranger in her mouth. "…Hello?"

Dyrium's sweet and pretty voice echoed off the waters, the gleeful, laughing notes entwining themselves around the greying, slight body standing in their path. Sabriel watched as her lips parted, hesitant and yet compelled.

Sabriel's own mouth formed the expected demand. "Speak."

"Yes."

The Abhorsen couldn't help it. She flinched as she heard Sanar speak in the heavy, leaden tones of the Dead. Moderate and nothing else but level; free of inflection. Still, she wouldn't run again.

"You are Sanar?"

"Yes."

"You are… tied to life?"

"I am Between. It frightens me. I am alone."

"Alone?"

"Alone. Until you Choose."

The words of prophecy always had capital letters. "Choose what, Sanar?"

"I cannot See. I cannot tell."

"Will you stay here?"

"Not for long. Ryelle will not be able to bear it. I know this, even though can no longer…I am frightened, Abhorsen."

All this, in the dread lifeless monotone. "Why are you here? You can tell me?"

"Sacrifice."

By the time the screaming had worn away to a hiss, Kirrith had managed to struggle into a sitting position. Her head was ringing, and her eyes still refused to open, but she was up. "Is anybody there?"

She could here movement from where she knew the lower ranks of the Clayr had been. Slow, agonized movement.

"Kir-rith?"

"Who's…who's that?"

"Ann…it's Annisele. I…it's all dark."

Little Annisele. "Are you hurt, ch—"

"I don't know what's going on." The young Clayr's voice was growing stronger, sounding more like the pretty little thing who had left the Halls of the Youth almost five years before. "I think Imshi's dead."

"She is."

Kirrith started, gasping as her body complained. "Vancelle?"

"Yes. I managed to get my eyes open. I can see you, Kirrith."

A choked sob. "You're…sure?"

"I'm sure. Imshi, and Ness."

"Kirrith! Kirrith!" Annisele, out of all of them, had managed to stagger to her feet, eyes still shut tight. "I can stand."

"Sit down, child." Kirrith flinched as she heard the Chief Librarian's ragged shout. "We all just need to…stay here until we've all come back to ourselves. Understand?"

"Yes, Vancelle."

"Good girl. Kirrith?"

"Vancelle?"

"I can see Ryelle. I think Sanar…I think she's dead. Do you remember anything of what happened? You were at the centre."

"I…I just…" tears slowly began to leak through the woman's eyelids. "I just don't know."

Vancelle, though no one could see it, managed a shrug. "Not to worry, I suppose. Nothing we can do about it for the moment." Fists clenched, she raised her voice, trying to pitch it so that it would echo around the desolate cavern."

"Is there anybody else alive in here?"

Sabriel stared; face almost as blank as Sanar's. "Sacrifice?"

"No one remembers the sacrifice. Before, it was the Eighth. Now, it is Four. But this is greater than before, and thus repercussions will also be greater."

"I don't understand." Dyrium twitched in Sabriel's hand, trying to sound.

"You must look back, unless you want to end this and Walk me where Ryelle must follow. Ends, at least, are definite. Otherwise, just look back. I can give nothing more. Go now. Cousin."

Heart heavy with foreboding, Sabriel did as she was bid, leaving Sanar alone in the river.