They completely missed the corridor that Tori had turned down, but the entrance to the lower tunnel was so obvious that the mistake didn't matter.
The door was decorated with small stripes of a repeating motif, scenes from a parade of some sort. Five segments, each with a different monster: a cat-like animal called a Tri-Geda, Lirael recalled; a Hrule, like the one Nick had chased across the Wall and she had returned to the earth; a Parnishak, which looked eerily similar to the Greater Dead creature she and Sabriel had banished together last autumn; the dog-shaped creature that had ambushed Nick and Tori, called the Fierene; and lastly, the shape of the Voineley. Lirael shivered at the sight of it, and quickly studied another panel.
Each part of the parade was colored differently – a blue winter, green spring, yellow summer and an orange-red autumn; the colors were faded but some sort of Charter spell maintained the impression of them.
Lirael passed over those marks quickly, though, and focused instead on the marks that created a border around the repeated seasonal scene. Marks for danger, dangerous caution, and more that even she, the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, didn't recognize.
Something told her Sabriel might not be able to identify them either, which was both oddly comforting and chilling.
There were no instructions on how to open the door, and Lirael wasted several minutes throwing what felt like every Charter mark, every spell she knew against it.
"It's the seasons," Nick said, as if he'd just noticed. "Didn't the bestiary say that the Wraed-something changed with the seasons?"
"Yes." Lirael backed up from the wall and stared at it. She hadn't noticed before, but a series of marks lay in a line above the door.
Charter marks symbolized the actions they performed, or the items they were affixed to, but they were rarely used to convey more than basic ideas. Lirael had encountered the use of Charter marks as a language only twice: once in The Book of the Dead, and once in The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting.
Lirael sounded out the mark names: "Redan – hered – nehlu – henek – anet – canol – berow – raleheren."
"Wraedheren lies here and it cannot be released," Nick guessed. "Caveat emptor – buyer beware," he added, which made no sense to Lirael.
"It's the first spell of a binding."
Nick drew his sword. "Shall we do this?"
Lirael looked back at the Rangers, who stood to attention at her glance. "Stay outside the door. If we need you…" Lirael withdrew a clockwork mouse that she'd picked up in the wreckage of the Library and showed it to the guards. "We'll let you know."
The marks above the door also provided, in a roundabout way, the instructions on how to open it. This was the real use of the marks as a language, to convey instructions that only those smart enough to decipher their hidden meaning.
Lirael cast the spell, a series of marks that instilled confidence and calm on the recipient, and the door opened.
The first door inside the tunnel was decorated with four Charter marks, the ones that signified the seasons; probably another warning about the Wraedheren. Lirael began to throw Charter marks at it, as before, but the door didn't budge.
"Hold on," said Nick. "You said there were three more doors?"
"Yes…"
Nick stepped forward and cast a single Charter mark, that of spring. It blazed especially bright, like all of Nick's marks did, and faded into the door.
Nothing happened.
Lirael shook her head and stepped forward, but Nick held out his arm and asked, "What did you say the order of the Wraed's shapes was?"
"Tri-Geda, Hrule, Parnishak, Fierene and Voineley. The first four correspond to the seasons – apparently if it's out in the world then it changes shapes on the seasons."
"And the Voinlee?"
"Voineley. It takes the shape during the solstices."
For some reason, Nick appeared vaguely gruntled, as if she'd confirmed a theory of his. "Give me one more try."
He cast the Charter mark for winter, and a moment later the door groaned open. Nick stepped aside and Lirael stepped through the threshold first.
"See, it's the Wraed's cycle, in reverse," he explained. "You have to prove that you know its different shapes before you can encounter it."
The next door had only three marks carved into it, missing the mark for winter. Nick cast the mark for Autumn, and they continued. The next two doors followed the same system.
The hallway was just as Lirael saw in the Dark Mirror. Large hewn stones on the floor fit together so tightly she could barely feel their edges, and the atmosphere of the tunnel was, as she'd suspected, filled with magic, a strange mix of both the Free and Charter varieties that swirled around Nick and her as if sensing the different magic they held in their bodies.
Lirael looked at the walls around them and noted that they were made of a different stone, smaller and more textured. It looked like the stone that lay the foundations of the Abhorsen's House but darker; she hadn't noticed it in Death because the vision, even only less than two days old, had begun to blur.
They came across the hole in the ceiling soon after the last door; it wasn't as large as Lirael had remembered, just a jagged circular gap with splintered wood scattered underneath. She made a note, exhausted as she was, to remember that Sam would need to rebuild the ceiling, and probably also move the whole records room to be safe.
They reached the door at end of the hallway not five minutes. As it had been when Tori was first there, it was completely unguarded, not even some warning spells so that the normal person would turn back.
"You take the right," Lirael told Nick. "There should be three more doors on your way, and the last one opens up onto the room that held the Wraedheren bound."
"Then, you'll take the left way? But if the Wraed's to the right –"
"I don't know if it's still there. Just – please do it, all right?"
"Okay, okay," muttered Nick, and set out to the right. Lirael drew her sword and headed in the opposite direction.
There had been something written in the bestiary, something about the "different parts" of the Wraedheren and how it multiplied. The last person who had bound the Wraedheren – well, actually only one of the two people who had done it, but she'd mentioned her partner only when necessary – had written as a note that she'd had to "split them up" in order to bind the creature.
She also claimed that the bestiary that she had consulted in order to bind the Wraedheren had written about the splitting process, but that the author's experience in binding the creature had differed from the process described in her bestiary.
None of it made Lirael feel more confident in her decisions, thus far and in the future, but for what felt like the twentieth time today, she pushed her doubts to the back of her mind and pressed on.
The doors, all three of them, were open. As Lirael approached the third door she extinguished her handheld Charter-marked light, and saw that some kind of warm yellow light was coming from inside the chamber.
She carefully stepped forward into the doorway, laying her feet down slowly to mute her footsteps.
The chamber was organized in the same way as its counterpart on the right side of the hallway: a shelf filled with books lined the walls high up, and a pentagon lay in the center, the corners created by stones and connected to each other by glowing, magical lines. The stones each had a single Charter mark carved into them on both sides, Lirael noted, and the lines connecting them glittered with marks.
Inside this pentagon, like the other one, floated a blob.
The Wraedheren, still in its winter Fierene form, stood in front of the pentagon; Tori, unconscious, lay next to it. Lirael could see blood smeared across her face and in her hair, still in a braid, but no other injuries.
Lirael reached into her pocket, withdrew the clockwork mouse and lay it on the ground facing the doorway.
"I must say, I did not expect one of Astarael's get," Lirael heard a voice say. She looked towards the pentagon, and the Wraedheren turned around.
It was human.
Well, its body appeared human – the proportions of the head and limbs were accurate, no poorly-created skins like the Greater Dead were fond of making; the skin and hair were the tones of a Clayr; and the face was that of an older Clayr, one past her childbearing years but not yet elderly. It was no Clayr that Lirael recognized.
The woman – no, the creature – leered and lifted its hands, which were covered in blood. Tori's blood, Lirael realized.
"The girl does not have much magic in her veins. Too little, I thought, so I sought out other humans. But theirs was not right, I discovered."
"Where –" Lirael cleared her throat. "Where are their bodies?"
The creature shrugged, a disturbingly human-like motion. "In the records room above us. I cannot open the doors on this level from the outside, for they require the Charter. I despise the Charter," it hissed, and approached Lirael.
The Abhorsen-in-Waiting raised her sword in warning, and the creature stopped.
"Why wasn't their blood useful?" she asked. Keep it talking, keep it talking.
" 'As one of the blood releases a Wraedheren, the same blood must release its mate'," the Wraedheren replied, as if quoting a book.
"That blob is your mate?" Lirael shifted to her left.
The creature shifted to its left to compensate. "It is not a blob, it is simply bound by your horrible Charter."
"That's why you didn't chase after To– after the girl when she first released you," Lirael realized. "If it's your mate, you'd want to release it first."
"I've read about the Wraedheren," she continued. "You have many shapes, but I didn't know that you could take the human form."
The creature titled its head, another disconcerting action. "Clearly you did not read enough. This is my Voineley."
Lirael was surprised, but it also made some sort of sense. She pushed the information aside for the moment, though, and shifted more towards her left. Keep it talking. "I read enough to know that you cannot release your mate, only the person who released you can do that."
"Only the same blood," it corrected her. "There are ways around the restriction. I have used them before."
"What would you do, drain the girl of her blood and toss it at one of the stones?"
"With the blood I create the shape of a –" the creature caught itself. "But I will not tell you how it is done, for that is your intention to know."
Nick, where are you? "You said your Voineley is the human shape. Who was the woman you're portraying?" Lirael moved a little more to the left; to the right of the creature, Tori stirred quietly.
The Wraedheren sneered. "This is the form of the last human I killed. She had released me and my mate, and she was the first meal we consumed unbound."
"The only meal, it sounds like. Estellere and her companion must have bound you not long after that."
It sneered. "I can take any form, this is simply the one I desired. But not anymore." It closed its eyes, and its skin rippled. Lirael started forward, but recoiled not a moment later, when the creature finished its transformation.
It had jet-black hair and pale skin, and looked like Sabriel, if she were younger and had a longer face and larger eyes, hair cut longer and two moles on her neck, a scar from Dead creature in Aunden above her right eyebrow –
Lirael realized that she was looking at herself.
"The bestiary said you were a tricky creature, but this is…impressive," she said, more bravely than she felt.
"How do you think we've survived all these years?" the creature boasted. "Humans are almost always too stupid to check their Charter marks, if they have them. After I kill you, I'll –"
"Lirael?" Nick asked from the doorway, and looked between the two human shapes. "What – Lirael?"
"Nick, it's me," Lirael said.
"No, Nick, that's the monster," the Wraedheren said.
Nick appeared to make up his mind, and he held his sword up towards the creature. "How are you taking her shape?"
The creature scoffed, and changed back into the Clayr it had killed so long ago. Nick moved to stand next to Lirael.
"How did you know?" she asked him.
"Well, for one, you have Sam's sword," he replied. "And you never call Free Magic creatures 'monsters'."
To the creature's right and Lirael's left, in front of the pentagon, Tori sat up.
"Do you remember the spells?" asked Lirael.
Nick: "Uhh…"
"Nick!"
"Yes, right. Yes, I do. I'm fairly certain I do."
"Keep it occupied."
"Okay."
Nick didn't move.
"Nick, go!"
"Okay!"
Nick charged towards the Wraedheren, and Lirael rushed towards Tori. She picked the girl up quickly and said, "Other side of the room!" Together they moved back behind Nick, who was keeping the creature occupied much more effectively than Lirael had expected. Then again, she remembered, he'd taken to hanging around the Royal Guard in Belisaere in the past few months.
She set Tori down next to her and quickly cast a diamond of protection around them. The thought suddenly struck her – actually, she was surprised that she hadn't thought of it before, nor had anybody else suggested it – that it would have been a very wise idea to have asked for Sabriel to come up and take charge of the bounding of the Wraedheren.
Too late for that, though, and everything else.
"We're going into Death now," Lirael told the girl. "Do as I say. Nick," she called out. "We're going now!"
" 'Kay," he yelled back.
It took Tori a little while to relax enough to enter Death, what with the glowing diamond that surrounded her and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, said Abhorsen-in-Waiting suddenly sprouting frost and icicles everywhere, and Nick Sayre battling the monster that could look like anybody in front of them.
But she doubled down on her concentration after a minute, and felt herself slip away, but not move, but she was moving – it was an odd sensation, and not one she could say she liked.
Then, as if she'd closed her eyes and reopened them – though she knew she hadn't – the world around her shifted, and she was standing on the shallow end of a river.
She looked around and saw Lirael standing a few yards away, facing the other direction. "Lirael!" she shouted, and ran to her. The water seemed to pull her in but she stayed, more or less, heading in a straight line.
"Good, you're here," said Lirael. "We need to find the Wraedheren's spirit and bind it. I'll walk you through the binding spell, but you'll have to cast it yourself."
"All right." Tori looked around. "Where is it?"
Lirael pointed into the mist in front of them. "The author of the bestiary said she'd found it in the Fourth Precinct. There are nine all together. She tried to bring it back here, but was forced to bind it then and there. So we'll do that. Take hold of my arm and don't let go."
Tori nodded and clutched Lirael's arm. They strode forward into the water and quickly came upon a thick mist, and what Tori assumed was a waterfall beyond. "The First Gate," Lirael shouted over the roar of the water. She then yelled a spell – no, not a spell, though it sounded like it – no, it was Free Magic, and it felt unbearable to hear.
But the mist parted in front of them, and the waters they revealed as well, with the movement of Lirael's sword and more words. They walked through it and the gap in the water closed behind them.
Lirael stopped as they cleared the First Gate. "The Second Precinct," she told Tori. "Stand behind me and hold onto my waist. The path is tricky and narrow."
Tori did as she was told, and they began to walk.
"What was the Library like when you were there?" asked Tori; she supposed that Death was a different realm, a clean slate where she could ask what she wanted without being reprimanded by her mother, by Kirrith, by Vancelle and all the of the Librarians –
"It was basically the same," the Abhorsen-in-Waiting replied. "It was only last year that I left. We brought people books when they requested them and returned them when they were done with them." She stopped abruptly, turned to the side and resumed walking.
"Did people notice you?"
Lirael hesitated. "I didn't want to be noticed," she said slowly. "I worked very hard at becoming invisible and left on my own."
They turned again. "So you never messed up like I did?"
"No. Hold on," she said. "We're coming up to the Second Gate."
She counted her steps under hear breath, and Tori looked out into the Second Precinct; she could barely see her arm's length in front of her, but she could still make out shapes rising from the water. Hands, reaching for her, trying to pull her down, into the cold, deep, surrounding water and –
The sound of Free Magic brought her back, like the bad-smelling rags they used to wake people who'd fainted. "Tori," Lirael said, "We're at the Second Gate. Hold onto my waist but watch your footing."
"Right."
Lirael stepped onto the Fourth Gate, Tori behind her, and they began to walk in a wide circle around a hole.
"Don't look down," Lirael suggested, but it was too late.
Nick counted his lucky stars that he'd let Sam drag him down to the yard in the palace where the Royal Guards trained. They'd given him a hard time at first, and some had thrown up when they caught a whiff of the Free Magic he seemed to carry around like a bad cologne; but they'd quickly warmed up to him, and insisted he join in their drills. Thus was the story of how Nick could handle a sword.
He swung at the Wraed-whatever, that's arms had elongated and grown nasty-sharp claws, and pushed it back toward the wall. He was still aching from the fall earlier, and the creature's ambush, but Lirael's spells had restored enough of his strength to keep him going.
The beginning Charter marks she'd had him memorize flashed before his eyes, and he glanced back at the girls. Still covered in frost and ice, he saw; probably still searching for the Wraed's spirit in Death.
Nick turned back to the Clayr-shaped creature – for the record, its garments looked nothing like the white flowing robes of the Clayr – and blocked a swing of its clawed arms. Back to business.
As they reached the bottom of the Second Gate – whirlpool, Tor figured out – Lirael said, "We're going to have to run in a moment, very quickly. Hold on to my clothes with one hand."
She sheathed her sword and they stepped out into the Third Precinct at a run. "Come on!" she shouted.
Tori was not an athletic person, but she was glad to let it be known that she was the fastest short-distance runner in her year gathering, and apparently that ability carried over into Death as well. She stayed level with Lirael as they ran, clutching a loose bit of surcoat, and only looked back once to discover what they were running from: a giant wave, apparently.
Lirael shouted out the Free Magic words to get them through the Third Gate, and the just barely made it through before the wave crashed into the gate, carrying shadowy shapes and more-defined monsters alike into the Fourth Precinct.
Lirael and Tori paused after the Gate to catch their breath, something Tori didn't know one could lose in Death.
"Plenty of Librarians have 'messed up', Tori," said Lirael in between heaves. "Believe me, I spent five years in the Great Library. We've all made mistakes. But part of growing up is learning from those mistakes."
Not the "your mistakes make you a better person" crap again, Tori thought; but not even the otherworldliness of Death would let her say that aloud.
Tori noticed a yellowish, slightly-glowing hand in the water behind Lirael. She decided that pointing it out would be an acceptable response. "Is that what we're looking for?" she asked.
Lirael turned and followed her arm. "Yes," she said. "Good eyes. We're going to chase it."
The hand, attached to some kind of fleshy-looking blob, put up a chase, but it was too slow to last very long against the human spirits. They cornered it and Lirael held her sword out with one hand, the tip just touching the surface of the hand, while she unclasped a bell on her bandolier and swung it once, strongly.
The bell rang clearly over the whole of the Precinct, a merry tune that made Tori vaguely want to dance, but its sound somehow concentrated on the golden thing in front of them. The hand and blob froze, and Lirael put away her bell and sheathed her sword.
"Careful now," Lirael said. "You'll have to pull the whole thing out of the water and hold it while you cast the binding spells." She placed her arms above Tori's and said, "On three, we gab and pull."
Tori nodded, and Lirael moved down her arms so they touched Tori's; the girl felt a sudden, cold sensation, and noticed for the first time that one of Lirael's hands was made of gold.
"Three," Lirael said, breaking Tori's thoughts, and together they grabbed the hand and pulled.
The hand reacted immediately, pulling them strongly towards the water. Tori sank to her knees and Lirael followed, and together, slowly, they pulled the blob out.
In Life, Nick watched the Wraedheren falter, stumble and retreat back into the wall. "Had enough yet?" he taunted.
The creature growled and charged.
In Death, Tori clutched the wriggling mass in her hands and listened intently to Lirael. "The first marks are simple," she said. "I'll draw the first spell, and you cast it on the spirit. Then the second, the third, and so on. Understand?"
Tori simply nodded.
"Okay." Lirael cast the first marks into the air, and Tori repeated them easily, her mind automatically recognizing the shorthand versions that she'd made of the marks.
They finished the first spell quickly, and watched as the blob writhed painfully.
"Now the second spell," said the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. "This one's a bit more complicated, so watch closely."
Nick saw the creature falter again, and figured it was time to start.
"Anet, calew, ferhan!" Nick shouted, reciting the three basic marks from memory, and the creature was thrown backwards. Nick raised his sword and began to cast the rest of the first spell to hold the Wraed steady.
The blob flickered, as if it was disappearing from Death for snippets of time, and twisted in Tori's hands.
"Hold it tight," said Lirael, Remembrancer. "Here's the next spell."
Nick cast spell after spell onto the creature, and watched it flicker and morph, gradually losing its shape. He recited the last of the first part of marks and held his sword steady.
The Wraedtheren's body solidified for a second, before finally collapsing completely into blobs of goo.
The blob froze in Tori's hands, and she stopped the spell that she was casting.
"Keep going," Lirael said. "The next mark is –"
The spirit turned to liquid and, as if a bubble, burst and cascaded into the water below. Before Tori or Lirael could react, though, the drops of gold rose again and formed five medium-sized orbs that floated at waist-level.
They stared at the orbs for a long moment, until Tori asked, "Are there any more spells?"
Lirael cleared her throat and said, "Yes, one more, but the orbs must change color first."
"So…we have to wait for Nick Sayre?"
"Yes, we wait for Nick."
Nick broke the goo into five equal parts using his specially-ensorcelled sword, casting the next series of marks on it as he went. Each gob of goo, instead of reconnecting with the other parts, began to float around his sword.
Slowly, Nick walked out of the chamber and down the hallway. He passed through all four doorways before coming to the other chamber.
The thought suddenly occurred to Nick that, less than a year ago, he would not have foreseen himself casting Charter spells over Free Magic creatures in the depths of a magical Glacier far in the North of the Old Kingdom. He would have imagined himself attending Sunbere, walking through the halls as if he owned the place, chasing girls and drinking far too much alcohol with his friends…
Less than a year ago, Nick hadn't believed in magic, Free and Charter, but less than a year ago the Destroyer had chosen him as an unwilling host for his rebirth, and he had to live with the consequences of that.
The balls of goo still floating around his sword started vibrating, shaking faster and faster, as if they were protesting what he was going to do with them.
"Bloody correct you won't like it," he muttered, and brought his sword to rest in the middle of the broken pentagon.
Nick bent down and lifted the fallen stone with one hand; the moment it became upright, the balls of goo fell away from his sword and rolled towards the stones, one per goo ball.
The orbs slowly changed color, from glowing gold to a dark, bloody red. "Now, the final spell," Lirael said, and drew it out in the air.
The stones seemed to absorb the goo, Nick observed, and the lines of Charter marks reconnected, like they did in the other chamber.
Nick spoke the final spell, and the lines between the pentagons tensed, and faded from bright to dull.
Nick sagged back and almost sat down, but he wasn't done. Not yet.
Exhausted though they were, Lirael and Tori took the Third Gate at a run, passed through the Third and Second Precincts and back through the First Gate, returning to the calm First Precinct in a matter of minutes.
"What now?" Tori asked.
"Now, we step out of the river and return to life," replied the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.
Nick returned to the other chamber just as Lirael and Tori returned from Death. Tori shook off her icicles and cast a small warming spell while Lirael ended the diamond of protection.
Tori dropped to the floor, a wound in her belly, frozen shut but the frost from Death, open and bleeding again.