Lirael stood near the edge of the glacier and looked up. It was going to be her last glimpse of sunlight, she told herself. She didn't concern herself with the information that it would be her last glimpse of life too.
But through the glare of the sun, she saw a small black speck that was growing closer to the glacier. Frowning, she thought it was a bird, only to have her expression change to panic as she saw it was a Paperwing getting closer. A red and gold Paperwing. The colors of the Royal House. Which meant that the older Clayr would be there soon to greet them. In a place that Lirael wasn't supposed to be.
Lirael looked down again and made up her mind in a split decision. In one fluid motion at exactly the right angle that would guarantee her death in the icy glacier below, Lirael closed her eyes and leapt.
There were stars in her vision when she opened her eyes. And water. Sluggishly flowing, warm water. Lirael sat up. She looked around and saw the tell- tale gray and shadowy figures that were rising up all around her. She was in Death and somehow that thought didn't scare her. But a splash close to her did. With a cry, she leapt up and stared at a dog?
Lirael stared.
The dog stared back.
Lirael blinked.
The dog stepped closer.
Lirael's mouth opened and closed.
The dog spoke, "Hello. I'm the Disreputable Dog. Or Disreputable Bitch if you want to get more technical. We weren't supposed to meet for a few more months."
"What?"
"The pain you have felt amongst your family was great; none can blame you for wanting to end it. But you should not have taken that jump. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. Not here, not in this timeline."
"What?"
The Dog just looked at her with sad, soulful eyes, "I'm so, so sorry." And Lirael believed her.
She licked Lirael's forehead and Lirael felt herself rise up and was at peace at last.
Mogget woke up sharply, his green eyes piercing the vast emptiness of the room. For once, Ranna didn't call him, which made the hair on his neck stand up slightly. He wandered out into one of the hallways of the Abhorsen House and saw no Sendings there. The house was stiff and lifeless. The magic seemed to disappear out of the House. Something was wrong.
He trotted down steps and went through a myriad of doors and stairwells, through back entrances and hidden rooms until he entered the chamber were Kerrigor slept. There were much easier ways to get there, but something in him wanted to not find out, to live in ignorance. The sight of the dormant cat scared him.
Shaking off something that he would never admit, Mogget looked to the side of the room and saw a small, non-descript door off to the side. Almost no one knew it was there, as they never got past looking at Kerrigor. The door was open. Waiting for him.
Mogget paused at the entrance. His ears rose as they caught the slightest sound coming from the door. The door was mourning.
Mogget entered the room and just blinked. Oh yes, something was very wrong indeed.
Kirrith knew something was wrong the moment she left the Awakening. Lirael hadn't shown up, and Kirrith could hardly blame her, but Lirael had always obeyed her before. She was so much more quiet and reserved than her mother.
As Kirrith searched for her only niece, something told her that she would not find her.
Another day passed before Kirrith brought forth her worries to the oldest Clayr. When it was discovered that they have not Seen Lirael, ever, they too began to get restless. It was bad enough that they couldn't find a Clayr within their own walls, but to not even See her was something all on its own.
They called on the power of the Nine Day Watch and tried to See, but Saw nothing. Sanar and Ryelle, the joint voice of the watch, had simply staggered back at what they saw. A world in which everything was burnt and broken. There was no hope here. Nothing. The Charter had ended. The Nine Day Watch simply cried.
*5 years later*
Prince Sameth all but tore off the bell bandolier on his chest and used all the self control he had to not throw it somewhere.
Upon his desk, the Book of the Dead sat mocking him. How he loathed both items. It wasn't that he wasn't an exceptional Charter Mage, quite the contrary, he was a spectacular one, but he hated the tools of the Abhorsen. They just felt… wrong. He wasn't meant to wear or use them. He knew it. And he felt that others were beginning to see the same ways.
The bells just wouldn't work for him. It was as if they were made for someone else…
Sabriel sat in the private library in the palace and stared at the fire. With her brow set in deep thought her thoughts were on Sam and his apparent inability to wield the bells.
She didn't know what to do. She wouldn't live forever, Charter forbid, but it seemed that the bells just weren't for him. Ellimere, though proficient in the Charter, was clearly not meant to be the Abhorsen; she was a politician through and through. That only left Sam, as there were no other heirs produced by the Abhorsen or the Royal family. Or was there?
The thought was absurd, neither Ellimere nor Sam would do such a thing. They were closely watched at school and at home and could not even be able to attempt anything of the sort anyway. Even if Touchstone had, had an affair, past or present, it wouldn't matter along the Abhorsen line. She certainly never had an affair. The only candidate that she knew of was her father. If her father had taken another woman and had left her with child before his death, then that would mean their heir to the bells was not Sam but a sibling Sabriel never knew she had. After all, she had been away at school most of her young life, so he could have done anything while she was beyond the Wall.
But the whole notion of her father having another family, whether he had known it or not, was simply absurd. Impossible. Wasn't it?
Sabriel landed the Paperwing on the landing pad at the Abhorsen House. As she stretched her muscles, the door opened and Mogget appeared walking down the path to her and settled near the landing pad. Without a word he made a jerking motion of his head and took off running towards that house, not even waiting for her to catch up.
When Sabriel entered the house, Mogget sat in the middle of the entrance hall and started her down. With a sigh, he started speaking, "I suppose by now you've realize that that stupid boy of yours cannot wield the bells."
It was not a question. Sabriel responded slowly, "Yes, how did you-?"
"Follow me," was the curt reply. Did Mogget seem grave?
Sabriel followed him and realized that she was walking towards that chamber where Kerrigor slept. Upon the entrance to the chamber Mogget stopped and looked at Sabriel, his green eyes grim, "What I'm about to show you is something that no Abhorsen has seen before. By all accounts, it's against the rules, written in the time before the Abhorsen, before this House was even built. But things have changed in five years, more than they have changed in the millenniums since the Beginning of the Charter." He entered the chamber.
Sabriel followed him past Kerriogor's sleeping form and to a door that she had never noticed before. Inside, she gasped.
It was like an ever growing tree had donned the walls, constantly shifting. Names adorned the branches, names that glowed and shimmered with the Charter. Yet, there was the faintest whiff of metal: Free Magic that had intertwined itself with the Charter.
Sabriel looked closer to the brightest names and saw her own and her family, her father's, grandfather's, but not Touchstones. No she saw the names of the Abhorsen line.
"This room shows the names of Abhorsens past and present, your ancestors and bloodline. It shows who was and is meant to be the Abhorsen. It is kept a secret because of the whole finding your own path thing, but now you need to see. Look at your father's name and see the secret he beheld."
Sabriel looked and saw Terciel, her father, and her mother's name. But on the other side was another name. A woman's name. Under her name was another. Lirael.
But the name was not glowing like Sabriel's. Then everything hit her like a ton of bricks, Lirael was dead. The Abhorsen-in-Waiting was supposed to be her half- sister. Not her children.
"So it's true," she breathed, "My father had another daughter, but she is dead."
Mogget nodded, "Yes, nearly 20years ago, a Clayr came here following a vision she had. She was to conceive a child with your father to help us combat an evil that still has yet to come, but…. Without her, I'm not sure how it's going to work out."
"What-" She turned to Mogget, "What do you mean?"
For once, there was no clever remark or wiseass attitude, "I don't know." He sat beside her, "But I do know that evil is coming and you need to be ready. A dark evil is coming, a presence I have not felt since the Beginning. You are going to need all the help you can get and more."
"I'll go to the Clayr's Glacier, maybe they can help us."
Mogget nodded gravely and stared at the wall, where Lirael's name should have been glowing.
Sabriel stepped out of the Paperwing on the Clayr's landing bay on the Glacier. Greeting her were Sanar and Ryelle, looking immaculate in their white, golden star dusted robes. Upon their heads were gleaming circlets of moonstones.
They greeted each other and Sanar said, "We saw you coming earlier than you did."
Sabriel smiled grimly, "The winds were tricky coming here." The smile dropped, "I'm afraid our pleasant conversation has to end. I have something of great importance to discuss with you immediately."
Sanar and Ryelle exchanged glances. "Come," they said and Sabriel followed the twins inside to the Clayr's domain.
After a few minutes of walking they came to a large study. "Tea?" One of them asked. Sabriel shook her head and said, "I'm sorry, but I need to discuss business with you." She took a breath, "I need to know about a girl named Lirael."
Sanar and Ryelle exchanged pained glances as they remembered the girl they had failed. Ryelle told her, "We are sorry Sabriel, but Lirael is dead."
Sabriel nodded, "I know. But if it is alright, I would like to know how she died."
The twins exchanged glances and Sanar asked in a confused voice, "Why are you asking about Lirael?"
Sabriel looked pointedly at the door and asked, "Is this room safe." At their nod she continued, "I recently discovered that before he died, my father laid with another woman. I believe her name was Arielle. From that one night, Arielle fell pregnant with Lirael, her daughter and my half- sister. She was the true Abhorsen- in- waiting, and apparently the one who would help save the world. But now…" Sabriel trailed off and focused on the Charter marks that flowed lazily in the walls.
"She jumped off the Glacier," Ryelle said suddenly. "She was Sightless at fourteen. No one really knew what to do with a Sightless Clayr. We should have been able to help her, for we know the pain of being surrounded by something that we could not have. But that very same thing kept us in its grip, not giving us the time to see her pain until it was too late."
Sanar continued, "We are at fault. All of us who live in the Glacier. One of our own needed us and we all but turned our backs on her."
They fell silent, the shame still present even after so many years.
"You said she threw herself from the Glacier?" At their nods, Sabriel continued, "Have you been able to retrieve the body?"
Again, they nodded.
Sabriel asked, almost timidly, "May I see her?"
The crypt reminded Sabriel of one aspect of the Charter in that it never seemed to begin or end in any one place. The pathway that had appeared would only last until Sabriel took her last step off it upon leaving. She went to a small alcove in the mountain and opened the lid on the casket. Five years of decay wafted up to her nose, somehow much more pertinent than it usually was to a woman who dealt with Death and the Dead nearly every day.
A decaying corpse was the sight she was greeted with, but only for a few moments. Lirael's casket glowed slightly and Charter Magic from the power of the Glacier suddenly appeared, shrouding Lirael's body in a blinding light. Sabriel shielded her eyes and looked away until the light faded and she looked again at the body. There was no longer a decaying corpse laying there but rather the body of a fourteen year old girl with black hair, pale skin, and sharp facial features.
Sabriel could not help but stare. Lirael looked so much like her, how had no one seen the similarities?
She gently reached out and touched Lirael's face, feeling soft skin were peeling flesh should be. Sabriel spoke quietly, "My sister, Lirael. I am sorry I was never able to know you." She leaned over and gently kissed Lirael's forehead, her body still wrapped up in illusion.
Sabriel blinked back her tears and replaced the lid on her coffin, walking away from the sister she had never known.
When she stepped off the path, it did indeed vanish. Sabriel looked at the twins and said, "The Charter showed me what Lirael looked like. How had no one seen the similarities?"
Sanar and Ryelle spoke in union, "She had not been Seen when she was alive, nor is she now Seen while dead." Ryelle continued, "We were never able to See her. We believe that the Charter had a great purpose to hide her from not only us but from the world."
Sanar spoke, "The day we realized she went missing, the Nine Day Watch had a vision, a terrible vision of a burnt and broken world. It has taken us years to discover that this world was only being stopped by Lirael doing something in the future that would prevent it."
Ryelle continued, "We also discovered that we almost ignored her because the Charter saw fit to do so, to let her fall into the background for her protection. Unfortunately, magic does not have a sentient heart and could not see what it was doing to her. The very thing that was meant to help her and give her comfort lead to her death."
Mogget held the pale boy in his arms as he ran away from the Hemispheres. Jumping over the dead bodies of Southerners, the King's fallen army, the foolish boys who worked at the wall, and the once beautiful Clayr, he tried to spot the Abhorsen and remaining Clayr. Finding them, he shouted at them, "If we can get him out of here, the fragment of the Hemispheres will not be able to escape!"
In that instant, Mogget decided that humans move way too slow. The fragment began to move inside and out the young man's body. He shouted again, "Hurry before-"
Another voice cut through the air and what Mogget was about to say, "FREE!"
"Too late." In his arms, Nicholas Sayre screamed and died, taking all hope with him.
Orannis surveyed the land with his eyes. Everywhere, the Dead lingered, reanimated or waiting to be so. Hedge and Chlorr were taking care of that task.
It had been a bold, yet futile attempt. The King had sent his armies, but Hedge's Dead had taken care of them. The Abhorsen, Royal Family, Clayr, and Crossing Point Scouts had tried a last ditch effort to bind him, but they had failed and were almost all dead.
Soon, he would make one of them bring back the Abhorsen and make her help them as an enslaved Necromancer. The King and his daughter had been killed by his hand was well as the stupid blond haired boy who had been the host of the fragment. Mogget had fled when he realized that there was no hope for them, but The Destroyer would find him. The only one left from that group was the Prince, but even he was not truly alive.
His Wallmaker heritage would prove useful, so using Belgaer, Hedge splintered his mind and hade him use his powers to help serve Orannis. The Prince was trapped in his own mind and would never think for himself again.
The storm clouds from the lightning farm had all but dissipated and the sun was trying to shine. Orannis smiled when it finally did: the sun shown blood red.