Sabriel tried to take Mogget's advice by attacking the problem of the broken Stone intelligently instead of straightforwardly. But by the time she resumed her work, her mind was not as clear as it had been out on the docks surrounded by water. Each little task had drained her – clearing the town of the few Dead that had wandered back inside, resetting her traps and her Diamond, approaching the now-hated Stone with its poisonous aura – until she felt almost as bad as she had when she had stumbled away from the town at Mogget's insistence days ago.

She tried, but in the end it was all she could do to throw herself at it, willing it back into place. Her magic was strong, but not as strong as the damage that had been done there. After a few days of work, she was forced to retreat to the river again so she could regain her strength.

The pattern repeated itself again and again. Sabriel cycled between working on the Stone and recuperating by the river for nearly a month. While the lack of progress was unspeakably frustrating, that month proved fruitful in other ways. At night when she rested, and during their travels between the Stone and the river, Mogget told Sabriel the history of her people.

He told her of men and women who had been great mages, or great swordfighters, or great necromancers, or great diplomats, or great teachers. Sabriel had always thought of her ancestors as homogenous, as if her father were the template for all Abhorsens. After all, for most of her life she had thought that he was the only one there had ever been. But by listening to Mogget's stories, she soon found that there were many ways to be Abhorsen.

"Petriel was an archer," he said, continuing his long story as they walked back toward the Stone from the river, "She was never any good at swordmanship. She often said that she wished there were a more reliable way to identify herself as Abhorsen, because she hated having to drag that sword around with her."

"I didn't know that there were Abhorsens who didn't use the sword," said Sabriel thoughtfully, "It always seemed like such an important part of what we are."

Mogget stared at her as he walked. "The sword has never belonged to anyone but an Abhorsen since it was made. That's why it has become a badge of sorts," he said, "But that's idiotic. Just because something always has been doesn't mean it always will be. There was an Abhorsen before the sword was made, and there will be one after the sword has been destroyed, or stolen, or put away in some cellar and forgotten."

Sabriel nodded. "The sword isn't what makes me Abhorsen," she summed up. Then, after a few moments of silence, she said, "But then what does?"

Mogget climbed her leg and leaped into her pack in the blink of an eye, disappearing with a quiet, "That's the question, isn't it?"

Mogget slept for the rest of the short journey, and Sabriel soon found herself back at work. While she tried to convince herself that she was making progress, she had to admit that the Stone remained largely as she had found it. What few minor repairs she had made paled in comparison to the massive damage that had been wrought. She went to bed with a heavy heart whose weight was beginning to become familiar.

It didn't cheer her up when, as dusk settled, she began to hear the shuffling and grunting of the Dead circling the town. Even now they were wary of her; they remembered her initial onslaught and the trap she had set for them on the first night. But their numbers were still formidable. Too formidable to risk a battle. Even after her rests by the river, Sabriel was never at full strength these days, and she didn't dare face the army of Dead alone. And as long as they were content to circle her and snarl, she didn't have to.

With some effort, she blocked out their noise and went to sleep.

In the morning, she put off work to eat breakfast and listen to more of Mogget's stories. "Where was I?" he mumbled between bites of fish, "Right. Petriel. She trained her cousin's son. It took her forever to figure out that he was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. She expected it to be one of her brother's children, but sometimes the lineage skips around a bit. At certain points in history, when the Abhorsen's family was large, there were many candidates for the job."

"How did they know which was the true Abhorsen-in-Waiting?" Sabriel asked, "Why didn't Petriel just train one of her nieces or nephews?"

"She tried," said Mogget, "But if a person isn't meant for the job, it becomes clear fairly fast. Not that plenty of Abhorsens haven't trained the wrong person by mistake. Denial can be powerful."

Sabriel mulled it over for a while, then said, "I suppose I won't have that problem. I'm the last, so my successor will have to be one of my children. I hope I can stay alive long enough to train them. I mean, when am I going to have time to get pregnant? And now…" She didn't bring it up because she thought Mogget would make fun of her, but she now wondered who the father or her children might be, if not Touchstone. Would she ever meet another man who she could love as much as him? Did such a man exist? For a moment, their prior quarrels seemed so small beside her loneliness.

Despite her silence, Mogget seemed to be reading her mind. "It wouldn't be that difficult," he said, "Plenty of Abhorsens have done their job while pregnant. As for conceiving, well, that's easy, isn't it? There are plenty of willing men, and it's not as if you don't know how it's done."

"Don't be crude," Sabriel huffed as she stood and turned away from Mogget. She had always thought of having children as something she might do one day, far in the future. She didn't want to think about doing it right now, and she found that she didn't want to think about bearing anyone's children but Touchstone's.

But that was no longer an option, was it?

"Ignore me if you want," said Mogget, "But you'd better start thinking about it. You need an apprentice, and the longer you wait to make one the younger they'll be when you die."

That was a chilling thought, and though Sabriel tried to tune Mogget out, his words were still ringing in her ears when she laid her hands on the Stone. It seemed sluggish today, less responsive. Was it because she was distracted? Or had she reached the end of her ability to repair it?

She stepped back, took a deep breath, and refocused. Nothing changed. She wasn't imagining it then; her impossible task really was becoming even more difficult. It was as if the Stone needed something more, something that she wasn't giving it.

After a long morning of trying to work out what it was she was missing, she stepped back with a sigh. Even after releasing her focus on the Stone, it took her a moment to realize that she and Mogget were not alone.

A revenant stood to her right. It was so close that if she and it both reached out their hands, they might barely touch.

Sabriel flinched and drew her sword with an undignified yelp before she realized that the revenant was still outside her Diamond. It just stood there, studying her. Daring her to do something about its presence. It was so close to the edge of her Diamond that she imagined it must have crept up slowly, gaining confidence with every step. Now its toes nearly touched the glowing line.

She whirled on Mogget. "You might have warned me that I had an audience," she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking after her shock.

Mogget shrugged, a gesture that looked strange on a cat. "He's not bothering you."

Sabriel could tell that Mogget would be no help. She was almost certain that he wanted the Dead to attack. It would put her in a life-or-death situation, and she might be tempted to loose his collar. She had started to see Mogget as a friend over the last several weeks, listening to his stories, but she had to remind herself of what he was.

With a motion so fast that the revenant had no time to jump back, Sabriel leaped, slashed, and separated its head from its neck. Only the blade of her sword passed over the line of her Diamond, leaving the glowing border intact. "You're right," she told Mogget, "He's not."

Her voice was still, but fear was rising beneath the surface. Even with her trips to the river, she was slowly weakening. And now the Dead were becoming bold. How long would it take before they realized that, in her condition, she was no match for their combined strength?

She was tired, an impossible task lay before her, Touchstone was beyond her reach, her only ally hoped for her death, and now her enemies drew in for the kill.

But even with the weight of all her worries on her, what else could she do but step back up to the hated Stone. The work was harder than ever, as if the Stone were actually fighting her. All her frustration and fear boiled into rage against it. Didn't it want to be repaired? What was she doing wrong?

Instead of backing off and taking a different strategy like she had always done, she impulsively pushed back against the Stone's resistance. It had tormented her for weeks. Now she would fix it even if it killed her. She poured all her strength into it, all her desperation, and all her longing to leave this place and go… where? Home? Where was that? Abhorsen's House was the natural answer, but it seemed unbearably lonely without…

Touchstone.

At the moment that she thought of him and remembered the rift that lay between them, the Stone seemed to sense her despair. The Charter pulsed angrily under her hand so strongly that it was almost as if the Stone were moving.

"Look out!" Mogget hissed, and suddenly Sabriel realized that the Stone really was moving. She leaped back just in time to see the two halves of it slide against each other like the two blades of a pair of scissors until the once-small gap between them grew wide. Wider and wider it grew, until the halves came to rest at right angles to each other, a letter V standing out of the earth.

There was no hope of bringing the pieces back together. Sabriel's heart sank even lower than she thought possible as it came to her that the Stone was truly irreparable now. She had broken it for good. And with it, she had broken her promise to the village of High Rock.

She didn't even have time to worry about breaking the news to them before she heard the Dead stir. They could sense that the Stone, which Sabriel had been slowly repairing, was even more broken than it had been before. They came for her. So fast, and more of them than she had expected, they came in a howling mob. And even if she had had the strength to resist them, she no longer had the will. She had failed in her task, she had failed at love, and she had failed as an Abhorsen. In that moment, she welcomed death.

"Take off my collar," Mogget suggested as the Dead approached.

Sabriel's hands didn't move from their sides. She didn't reach for Mogget's collar or even for her sword.

Wordlessly, she waited for the end.

"Forward! Forward! We've got the drop on them!"

At first Sabriel thought she had imagined the voice. Then she looked up to see a flash of swords as a squadron of men and women in the colors of Belisaere descended on the Dead. The mob of revenants was taken so completely by surprise that they never even reached Sabriel's Diamond. After a short, fierce battle, the few Dead who survived ran howling back to the woods.

As a few of the soldiers whooped and gave chase, and as the rest of them celebrated their victory with cheers and laughter, Sabriel stood stunned. The turn of events had been so sudden and so unexpected that her mind was still adjusting to being alive.

"Looks like we arrived just in the nick of time," boomed the voice that had first given the call to arms. And as the soldiers parted to make a path for the giant who now approached the center of the square, Sabriel belatedly recognized it.

The one who had saved her was Karstel.