DISCLAIMER: "Abhorsen", all names, places, and related indicia are the sole property of Garth Nix, whose work I hold in great admiration. However, I wouldn't mind owning the Disreputable Dog--she's a real hoot!
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CHAPTER ONE: A DISTRESSING SUMMONS
"By Right of Blood," a young woman spoke. She was standing ankle-deep in the hastening black water of the river of Death. "By Right of Heritage, by Right of the Charter, and by Right of the Seven who wove it, I would see through the veil of time, to Forwin Mill of Ancelstierre. I would witness the Seventh Binding and Breaking of Orannis the Destroyer to learn of the sacrifice and that which was achieved. So let it be!"
Kagael shivered violently as suns and moons flew past her right eye. After two seconds that felt like two eternities, the rapid motion in the Dark Mirror slowed until finally a single sun could be seen, glaring soberly down upon a scene of carnage.
And there was her mother. Lirael. She still had both her hands, and she was wielding a giant, silvery-red sword. Witch-fire was like hellish gold garlands all along the leering hilt and shining blade as the Abhorsen sliced the hemispheres of the Destroyer in two. The fire consumed her hand.
Lirael screamed. "DOG!"
Kagael swallowed, feeling her mother's past pain like it was her own. Tears trickled steadily from the eye watching the battle.
Inside the mirror, the Dog leapt, large and black, outlined in silver flames.
Kagael let out a throat-wrenching shriek as her mother's right wrist was torn from her arm.
Now the Dog lay on the bloody grass, neck and muzzle streaked white. Her wise, old amber eyes glazed over. Kagael sobbed helplessly as Lirael bent over the Dog, wailing.
"No...it was supposed to be me...Don't leave me, Dog...I love you..."
Kagael blinked rapidly to clear her clouded cobalt eyes. She saw now a green dog statuette laying in the blood-soaked grass. Lirael was sprawled unconscious beside it. Her mother's face, young then, was tear-streaked and terribly tired. Kagael winced. The severed stump of Lirael's arm was curved around the soapstone figurine.
Kagael prepared to end the vision, and even as she did, she heard a voice.
"I love you, too, Mistress," the voice intoned. "Farewell."
Kagael shut her eyes tight, breathing hard. Grateful that her task was done, she shut the Dark Mirror with a click.
"You'll never make a Remembrancer if you're so weak." Kagael's brother Daniel watched her with a bemused expression as she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her surcoat. Daniel was two years younger than Kagael's fifteen. He was not quite as tall as her yet, but his lankiness promised that he would one day be much taller.
Kagael sniffed with finality. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Danny," she told him. "You never have to witness the horrors I see. Gazing into the Dark Mirror isn't exactly my idea of entertainment. It takes considerable strength just to watch the whole darn thing!"
Daniel grinned. "Oh lighten up, Kagy. So what was it this time? Oh, right. You had to watch Mum lose her dog."
Kagael glared. "Whatever you want to talk about, let's get out of Death first."
Daniel shrugged. "All right then. After you, sister."
Kagael looked at him suspiciously.
He heaved a sigh. "I am your protector, she-who-is-sadly-lacking-of-necromantic-potential. Mother always insists that I watch your back when she can't come with you to do so."
"Right, right," Kagael muttered, stepping over the boundary. Instantly, the cracking of ice all over her body and the bright rays of sun greeted her senses. She brushed the flakes of ice and frost from her body, bent to wipe her sword on the sun-warmed grass, and returned the Charter-spelled blade to its sheath. Kagael heaved an enormous sigh as she tucked the silver case that was the Dark Mirror into its pouch.
Daniel joined her at her side. "Come on," he said, "let's hurry back, cut across the north lawn, and get something to eat and drink; you look worse than the old gardener sendings."
"Oh, I do try," Kagael muttered moodily, then heaved another sigh. "I mean, thanks for being considerate, Danny."
They headed north and west back towards the stepping stones that led to the House. They left the tall waterfall behind, though the thundering sound of the crashing cascade still filled the backdrop. Sunlight on the broad river made it sparkle quite madly, making Kagael shield her eyes and look away.
"Race you 'cross the stones!" Daniel called jovially.
"That's dangerous!" Kagael yelled back.
"Chicken!" Daniel goaded, taking off.
"Come back here, you haphazard…immature…child!" In spite of her nagging conscience, Kagael ran after her kid brother.
A chase across the stepping stones was quite forbidden to the children of Lirael Goldenhand. The River Ratterlin was swift and especially perilous this close to the rapids. The danger of it all and the knowing that she was breaking a rule made Kagael feel ridiculously childish and rather happy. She took bounding leaps from stone to stone, sometimes wobbling precariously and falling behind, other times bounding ahead of her brother. Spray from the rushing water dampened her face and clothes.
The siblings arrived at the riverbank, through the river mist, panting happily. Daniel teased Kagael about how far behind he'd left her as he pushed open the gate to the eastern courtyard.
"What's going on...?" The two of them looked on in bafflement as a squadron of sendings hurried past them, their Charter-knit robes whisking in their haste. The sendings were carrying a bandolier of bells, a long, Charter-spelled sword, and a sack of provisions towards the paperwing platform.
Kagael and Daniel headed after them. They soon saw their mother on the platform beside the paperwing, standing with her back to them. Lirael reached out her golden Charter hand and accepted her bells while a sending busily buckled on her sword.
"Mother," Kagael called, approaching her. "Where are you going?"
Lirael turned. She was a beautiful woman of thirty-five years. She wore her long black hair loose, hanging down to her waist and her face was long and pale. Lirael looked terribly worried as she faced her children. "I received a summons by messagehawk from Belisaere. It's dreadfully urgent."
"You're going to the capital?" Daniel asked, confused.
"I only wish," Lirael sighed. "I am to fly to Navis, right away. Queen Ellimere says that the outpost has been burned to the ground. Lady Sabriel has already gone ahead. Apparently, whoever did it was a powerful entity...of Free Magic."
Kagael grimaced. "Burned to the ground! Were there survivors?"
Lirael adjusted her bandolier. "Here, Kagy, read the letter for yourself." Handing a thin scroll of parchment to her daughter, she boarded the paperwing. "Take good care of yourselves!" Lirael said, "I'll try to be back within a week!"
"A week!" Kagael shrieked, even as the hatch slid shut.
She and her brother backed away from the platform as Lirael whistled a series of high notes. The wings jerked to life and the craft was airborne.
"Come home safe, Mother!" Kagael shouted as her brother yelled, "Take care, Mum!"
Lirael waved at her children through the window with her good hand, then the paperwing turned and headed north.
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Kagael sat at her mother's writing desk, irritably flipping through a book on the making of Charter Skins. The book belonged to her mother and, according to Lirael, had been of great use to her during her years as Abhorsen-in-waiting. Kagael found the book terribly boring and the spells described were all tremendously time-consuming. Personally, Kagael preferred learning marks and combinations that had immediate and gratifying effects. Battle magic held a particular fascination for her, as well as spells for healing. Kagael did not seem to have the patience or the memory to learn long chains of Charter marks.
With a sigh, she shut the book and returned it to the small drawer in the desk.
Lirael's desk was of smooth, dark cherry wood. Kagael had never been particularly interested by its contents, but she remembered that when she was five, a soapstone statuette not unlike the one in her vision used to sit on the wooden surface. Lirael often took it in her hand and stroked it as she worked or read.
Then one day, the figurine was lost. Her mother went into a frenzy of searching, but could not seem to find it. After about a month, Lirael gave up. Kagael remembered how upset she'd been for her mother, even though she did not understand. Now she thought perhaps she comprehended what the statuette had meant to her mother.
"Are you going to read that letter anytime soon?" inquired something small and white from the doorway to Lirael's study.
Kagael looked up to see a cat with lantern green eyes cocking his head at her questioningly. "Master Yrael," she said, grinning. "Now what would you be doing hanging around here?"
"Who? I'm the Mogget, you know," the small white cat mewed innocently.
Smiling and shaking her head, Kagael pulled out the thin scroll and laid it on the desk. Looking at the letter, she felt a little...anger. What in the world could have happened that needed her mother away so suddenly? It was not as though the Destroyer was rampaging through cities. Quickly and deliberately, Kagael undid the ribbon and flattened out the scroll.
Dearest Aunt Lirael, It read, like a casual greeting from a niece. But almost instantly the letter changed.
The town of Navis has been razed.
We received the news roughly four days after the said event. A company of Travelers had seen the smoke and gone to see what the matter was. They had a mage among them who quickly identified the damage to be caused by massive amounts of Charter fire backed with Free Magic, such as only a powerful sorcerer could summon up.
The Travelers found roughly fifteen townspeople in the surrounding wilds. None could give an accurate account of what had happened. Only one person said she'd seen the destructive force, and described it as a demon of black and crimson as tall as the watchtower wielding a sword of spiritual flame. This description cannot be trusted as the witness was an elderly woman of est. 76 years running a high fever.
The mage ventured into the city and found who was apparently the Guardsman-Sergeant of the outpost. The man was suffering from severe burns and died shortly after uttering the words, 'Ulseil', 'messagehawks to Belisaere', and the name of our northern neighbor 'Orkaire".
Please leave for Navis with all haste. Mother has left already, and Father has gone to Orkaire to see their Emperor.
My deepest apologies for such short notice; I sent for you as soon as I found out.
With Love,
Ellimere.
Kagael read the letter again, scarcely believing it. "Can you believe it!" she cried, "Orkaire launched an attack on one of our towns for no apparent reason!"
"That's jumping to conclusions, Kagael," Mogget said lazily. "Orkairen's are short-sighted and grasping, but not quite outrageously stupid enough to attempt such a feat."
He was probably right, Kagael thought, folding the letter and putting it into her mother's drawer. Something occurred to her. "Mogget, what's 'Ulseil'?"
The cat ignored her, busily licking clean his claws.
"It's a sort of demon, isn't it?"
Yet again, silence.
Kagael looked at the cat and shook her head. "You don't know, do you? I thought you were smarter than that."
"Ulseil is a surname," the Mogget said blandly. He got to his paws and began slinking out of the room. "Quite an old, rare one. Like Abhorsen."
And Kagael was left staring at the twitching end of his white tail as he disappeared down the hall.
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Author's Note: What's next? I promise I won't have any more dreadfully boring chapters like this one! You'll get to see a little more of our fiery Gwidhe! Kagael's going to do a liddle bit of research on the surname 'Ulseil', and then the adventure kicks off for real!
Oh yes, and one more thing. A friend of mine read the prologue and commented (through thick yawns) "That Gwee character is pretty interesting."
"Gwee?" I repeated stupidly, then, "Oh! No, no, no! That's not the way you pronounce it!"
"Then how do you say it?" my kind reader asked. "I dunno," I replied, "just not Gwee."
Heh. Don't forget to review, please!