A/N: Oh. My. God. 201 reviews? 6313 hits? 40 chapters? I am absolutely overwhelmed. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter- your reviews were awesome, every one of them.
For all of you readers who have been missing the Clayr, this chapter is for you.
The Great Library
It was a long way down to the bottom of the Rift – but Sitri was not afraid. The two lower sides of the chasm were dotted with natural caves and ledges, and one of these contained the body of her grandmother Tirelle – but this did not perturb her. She was a Daughter of the Clayr, and she would See when her time had truly come. Certainly a Princess wasn't fated to perish by falling off the edge of the Rift!
The girl dangled her feet, watching the water thunder along the very bottom of the gorge, before turning away with an impatient sigh. She picked up the book lying beside her only to throw it back down again. Princess Sitri was feeling restless and nothing could distract her.
Ever since the attack in Holehallow, her families in the Palace and the Glacier had been determined to keep her cooped up in the home of the Clayr. Usually the vast dwelling in the ice was enough for Sitri, but not having the option to even leave if she wanted to made living there extremely irksome. Even the books she carried around in the pockets of her black waistcoat held no more charms for her. She had brought a great many books from Belisaere, but she knew them all by heart now. The young Seer longed to return to the Palace and invade her family's private library for some fresh reading material.
Sitri drew Binder and examined the glittering blade. Her aunt Gressa wielded Nehima now, and so she was the bearer of the beautiful weapon – but even the spelled sword could not distract her for long. She peered at the shining metal, determined to See something in the reflection, but nothing appeared. It seemed that the fates had conspired to bore her to death that day.
"There you are."
The girl glanced up to see her aunt Neryl. The woman smiled, crinkling the corners of her eyes, and sat down gingerly beside her. "The Ratterlin," said Neryl, peering over the edge of the Rift. "The source of that river is in this very Glacier, you know. An old spring in the heart of the mountain, bubbling away in the dark. Have you heard the poem?"
Sitri shook her head, attempting to look interested. She usually liked poetry, but it held no charms for her today.
Neryl closed her eyes and recited:
"Swift river born in the deepest night,
Rushing forth to catch the light.
Deep ice and dark its swaddling cloth,
The Kingdom's foes will feel its wroth.
It surges south through wood and plain,
Eats the earth and drinks the rain,
Till mighty Ratterlin spends its strength,
In the Delta at full length."
"That's lovely," said Sitri, and winced at how unconvincing she sounded.
"You don't want to be here."
The statement caught Sitri by surprise, and she was on the point of denying it before she realized how useless that would be. Neryl was the Voice of the Clayr, after all. The Princess gave a reluctant nod, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her waistcoat.
"I'm sure you understand that the Kingdom is in a precarious position right now," said Neryl. "Your father and the Chief Minister are at odds about many things, and the violence is escalating. The King does not need the additional worry of the safety of his youngest daughter. And the Glacier is a safe place, away from the politics and the people."
Sitri nodded, but did not reply. In truth she just wanted to be left alone in the dark to sulk. She was nineteen and knew that she was acting like a child, but she couldn't help it.
Her aunt Neryl glanced about as if searching for a new topic of conversation, and her eyes fell on the book that Sitri had so callously thrown aside. "Penemue told me that you were always fond of reading," she remarked, taking up the volume. "She said that even as a little girl, you always had your nose buried in one of these books." She examined the embossed leather cover, turning it over in her wrinkled hands. When she spoke again, it was with an air of deliberate casualness that caught Sitri's attention at once: "Have you been having any new visions of late?"
The Princess bit her lip. She had, actually. For the past month she had been plagued by brief images of fire, but had neglected to tell the rest of the Clayr. She admitted as much to her aunt, who was still scrutinizing her book. "Why did you not tell us?" asked the Voice of the Clayr.
Sitri shrugged. "I thought one of you would have Seen it, too. I mean, you all have the power of Mosrael, and the only Charter in my blood is through my father's line. Your Sight is stronger than mine."
"Perhaps," murmured Neryl. "But none of us Saw what you have Seen. It is because of your blood, Sitri, that you are attuned to different things than the rest of the Clayr. Belisaere, for example."
"Belisaere!" The Princess felt a surge of panic. Had the palace burned? Were her parents and sister safe? "What happened?"
The Voice of the Clayr regarded her for a moment, before returning the book. "Come to the Library."
"But my family–"
"Is perfectly safe. Nothing has happened to them, I assure you. But I want you to come with me to see the Great Library."
Sitri had seen the Library many times before, and had read all of the books there too. There weren't that many, after all. Sitri had always supposed that future generations would be the ones to fill the shelves and rooms, and right now the Library was quite a boring place. Stifling a sigh, the young Princess got up and followed her aunt.
Once they reached the doors to the Main Reading Room, Sitri was surprised at the amount of noise coming from within. Neryl smiled at her and opened the doors wide, and the Princess gasped. Aunts and cousins were bustling to and fro within the large domed room, navigating their way through boxes and boxes of books, scrolls, tablets, tomes, and curious objects. It was absolute chaos. Aunt Saranim was chasing a large frilled lizard that had escaped from its cage. Her cousins Isodell, Maidi, and Lareth were jumping up and down on the desks, trying to seize an ethereal dress that was floating away. Aunt Gressa opened a book and received a faceful of dark purple smoke.
Without thinking, Sitri cast a powerful Charter spell and instantly everything froze. The lizard paused on the verge of escaping through a doorway, and the dress drifted down into the waiting arms of the three girls, docile once more. "Thanks, Sitri," coughed Gressa, snapping the book shut and waving her hands to disperse the purple smoke. "Thank goodness you're such a talented Charter Mage."
"What's going on in here?" Sitri asked the room at large.
Neryl's gesture took in the hundreds and hundreds of boxes stacked on the floors, desks, shelves, and sorting tables. "The Royal Library of Belisaere was recently burned, and this is what was salvaged. Many priceless volumes and artefacts were lost, but your parents decided to send those that survived to us for safekeeping."
Sitri had fond memories of the Royal Library. It was – or rather, had been – the largest library in the Kingdom, with many sections open to the public, and many more that were not. Madame Ophwin had been the Chief Librarian before retiring to a post as the palace Archivist. The old woman would often take her to the Royal Library, to the restricted rooms behind locked doors, and show her all sorts of rare books and fascinating objects. And now those very things were within this room, waiting to be rediscovered.
"Just look at this mess," said Saranim, stuffing the frilled lizard back into its cage. She planted her hands on her hips, and exchanged a glance with Neryl. They both gave mysterious smiles.
"What?" asked Sitri, putting down the telescope she had been examining.
The Voice of the Clayr drummed her fingers on the top of a desk. "Well," she said slowly, "there are so many books and items, and none of them are organized. We'll need somebody to sort them all out, to shelve and catalogue all the books, and perhaps make a few sendings to help them. You know – like a librarian."
The youngest Princess felt suddenly warm. "You mean me?" she gasped.
Gressa laughed. "Well, you're the obvious choice. You love books, you read absolutely anything and everything, and you're good at magic. A lot of these items are dangerous. Put that down, Isodell."
The Ranger's daughter sheepishly returned an ornate dagger to its wooden stand, and Maidi and Lareth snickered.
"Of course, you'll need a title," said Saranim, holding Sitri by the shoulders and peering into her face. "How about… Chief Librarian?" Sitri flushed with pride and happiness, shoving her hands deep into her waistcoat pockets and scuffing her toes.
"We had better get to work on this," Neryl was saying. "The Royal Library was full of all sorts of junk." The Clayr returned to sorting through the mountains of boxes.
For the next few hours, Sitri unearthed storybooks donated to the Great Library by citizens of the Kingdom, which had the original owners' names handwritten inside the covers. She sorted antique earthenware that had been dug up throughout history. She discovered preserved specimens of plants and animals in labelled jars and cases. And against a wall and separate from the Royal Library collections, she found wooden crates of objects made by the Wallmakers, which had been sent to the Clayr after being Seen.
"Ah yes, those," said Neryl, coming over to her. "We haven't opened them. The contents of those crates are to be used by future generations. Your grandmother Tirelle gave instructions that nobody was to open them other than the Chief Librarian. I suppose that's you now."
"Gressa, Neryl," said Saranim, shepherding Isodell, Maidi, and Lareth to the door. "We're due at the Watch."
The Voice of the Clayr nodded. "I'll leave you to get started, then," she said to Sitri. At the doorway she turned. "By the way, I suggest that you start with that crate over there." With a wink, the older woman swept out of the room.
Sitri looked after her aunt in confusion, then looked around the Main Reading Room. It would take months to sort all of this out. And here she sat, all alone in the middle of this spectacular mess. The new Chief Librarian crouched by the crate that her aunt Neryl had indicated. After the briefest hesitation, she whispered a spell of opening and lifted the lid.
Inside she found a book, a set of panpipes, and a mirror.
Sitri's vision suddenly blurred. She Saw a dark-haired girl her own age standing in a dim chamber, reaching for those objects. She caught a flicker of a strange, musical-sounding name, and knew it to be the girl's. Then it was gone, and Sitri was back in the Main Reading Room, kneeling over the crate. She wondered who the other girl was. She certainly had not looked like one of the Clayr.
The Princess peeked into the box again, and noticed a folded piece of paper, which she took up with trembling hands. It was a note. She skimmed it and sat back on the floor, leaning against the leg of a desk for support. The note had been written by her grandmother Tirelle many years ago, with directions to a hidden chamber, and instructions to place the objects in the crate inside that chamber. Tirelle had Seen that the objects would be needed in the future. According to the note, the very survival of the world depended upon them being found in the hidden chamber by a certain girl. Sitri glanced at the note again, detecting the Charter marks of secrecy and silence that would prevent the reader from divulging its contents to anyone.
She took a shuddering breath, and hugged her knees to her chest. According to the directions the chamber was at the bottom of the Rift, and getting to the room would involve passing over the river by way of a narrow bridge. Sitri scrunched her eyes shut. How could her grandmother do something like this to her? She was only nineteen! What if she were to slip on the bridge, and drop the book, mirror, and panpipes into the Ratterlin? Was she to bear the weight of the world's ensured existence on her shoulders?
Finally, Sitri opened her eyes. She did not have the right to complain. What about that dark-haired girl she had Seen, whose name she had heard? The burdens she would bear were nothing to Sitri's. The Princess hesitated for a moment, reflecting wryly that being the Chief Librarian was going to be harder than she had thought. She took a final glance at the note, before making her decision. The young woman tucked book, pipes, and mirror into a rucksack and slung it over her shoulder. She got to her feet and checked Binder in its sheath, before heading out of the Library holding the directions.
The path she took was complicated and winding, but sank lower and lower into the depths of the Glacier, following paths that nobody had tread since the Wallmakers had built them. Sitri muttered a spell, and a small ball of shivering light floated above her head, lighting her way along the dark and abandoned halls. Down she walked, down, down, down until she shivered with cold and stumbled on the rough-hewn floor of the stone passageway. "Charter, I must be at the centre of the world," she muttered, thrusting her left hand into her silken waistcoat pocket to keep warm.
The stone door blended into the wall so well that she nearly missed it. Upon examination of the Charter marks flowing over the surface, the Princess deduced that the door could only be opened once, and if closed would melt into the wall and cease to exist for ever. Reminding herself not to shut the door behind her, Sitri muttered the requisite Charter marks of opening. The door creaked an inch ajar, and Sitri gave it an impatient push and stepped forward – only to have her foot meet empty air. She screamed and windmilled her arms frantically, just managing to catch the sides of the doorway. Heart hammering in her throat, she stumbled back into the safety of the corridor, clutching the cold stone floor with trembling hands.
"I must be crazy," she muttered, pulse racing. She held up the note, deciphering Tirelle's spidery hand. There – the instructions said that she had to make a bridge herself down to a ledge in the Rift. She'd missed that part.
Taking a deep breath, Sitri pushed herself to her feet and walked to the doorway, stopping just shy of the edge and propping the door open with a chunk of ice. Heights did not scare her, although nearly falling to her death did. She scratched at the side of her nose, wondering how she was going to make a bridge. If only one of the Wallmakers were here! Cassiel Abhorsen had once shown her a shielding spell that could be fashioned into a bridge, but it was very taxing on the caster, and Sitri did not want to risk having her strength fail her when she was only halfway across. The bridge would need to be solid enough to bear her weight. Perhaps she could build one out of raw materials… The young woman looked around, before realizing how foolish that idea was. The only stuff she could see was stone and ice. Wait a minute…
Sitri grinned, and set about weaving a Charter spell. Shards of ice gathered before her, glimmering like a thousand crystals suspended in the air. They melded together, solidifying into a frozen bridge that arced gracefully to the stone ledge below. The Princess regarded her handiwork with deep satisfaction before setting off. Halfway across she slipped and just managed to regain her balance, letting out a stream of curses that she had once heard Captain Javen use and that her father would tan her hide for.
Once she reached the ledge Sitri brightened her Charter light, turned to the right, and headed along the path. It took her even lower into the earth as the Rift narrowed. Jagged stone walls closed in on either side, and still the path descended, leading her to cooler and damper realms. A rumbling sound came to her ears and the ground vibrated under her feet, and even before she came upon it Sitri knew that she was coming to the Ratterlin. Only this time, she was at the bottom of the Rift.
She paused, feeling the cool spray on her face, her ears full of the terrible roar of the river. Her path lay over a bridge which was frightening in its narrowness. There were no handrails to be seen, and the surface was slippery and treacherous. "Well," Sitri muttered to herself, unable to hear her own voice over the sound of the rushing water, "I've come this far. And I haven't Seen myself perish by falling off a bridge." Somewhat heartened by these thoughts, she threw off her boots, tied the rucksack to her belt, and knotted her skirts above the knee. Sitri, Daughter of the Clayr, Chief Librarian, and Princess of the Kingdom, gritted her teeth and set out over the bridge on all fours, hands finding purchase on the crosshatched stone. She was aware of how ridiculous she must look, but she had never been one for appearances anyway, much to Farelle's dismay. When she finally reached the other end and stood, her hands and knees were red and chafed.
Sitri unknotted her skirts, wiping her hands dry on them in the process, and reached out for the door. It opened at her touch. Her Charter light glided through before her and brightened, and she found herself standing in a large octagonal room. It was carpeted in blue, and the ceiling was painted to resemble the night sky with dark clouds swirling around seven bright stars. Sitri smiled, recognizing the seven stars as the representation of the seven original daughters of the Clayr. The walls, however, claimed most of her attention. They were covered in beautifully-worked tiles bearing golden stars, golden towers, and silver keys– the symbols of the Clayr, the Royal family, and the Abhorsen.
In the middle of the room stood a redwood table, and Sitri advanced towards it, toes sinking into the carpet. She carefully placed the book, panpipes, and mirror on the polished surface, shivering as she remembered her vision. The Princess wondered who the dark-haired girl was, and when she would enter this chamber. Probably not in Sitri's time. Perhaps not for centuries.
She took out Tirelle's letter to see what needed to be done next. According to the note, the protective spells in the chamber, and in the hidden passageways that led to it, would activate once she closed the door. Sitri could feel the spells prickling her senses. They hung around her like shadows, just waiting to be released. She shuddered when she realized that both Charter and Free Magic were at work in the room.
She slipped back out and closed the door. As soon as it was shut, she started at the magic that she felt sweeping through the room, and was relieved that there was a door between them. After making the treacherous return journey across the narrow bridge, Sitri retrieved her boots and followed the path down the Rift.
Upon reaching her ice bridge, Sitri looked at where the ledge carried on, and was rather tempted to follow it to see where it would lead. But she knew that the path was not for her. The protective spells had been awakened, and they would not let her pass. Instead, she walked up her bridge to the stone door in the wall of the Rift. To her intense relief the door had remained ajar, and she stepped through before melting away the bridge with a quick spell. Once closed, the Charter marks on the door melted away and dissipated into thin air. Sitri ran her hands over the cool stone; nobody would be able to detect that there had ever been a door there. And thanks to the spells of secrecy on the note, she could not speak of it.
The Princess read through the note again, satisfied that she had completed all of the tasks – all except one. She placed the note upon the ground and called up marks for fire. The thin piece of parchment burst into flame, curling up into ash and obliterating Tirelle's instructions forever. Sitri scattered the ashes with her foot, letting them mingle with the dust and grime. She paused, feeling suddenly weary, and leaned her forehead against the wall. "Good luck, Lirael," she whispered, "whoever you are."
A/N: Many thanks to Ashandarei for asking about the Remembrancer's tools. I implied that the Wallmakers were making a bunch of stuff Seen by the Clayr, but I should have been clearer. Hence Sitri's little mission!
Sitri did not follow the path that Lirael did, because I don't think she would have been let by (it is 'Lirael's Path'). Instead, she took a sort of "short cut" to the ledge before the narrow bridge, a short cut which doesn't exist anymore. And the poem that Neryl recites to Sitri is the one that Kibeth tells Lirael. Kibeth thinks that she might have missed a line, and so the fifth and sixth lines of the poem are mine.