Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (31 page)

But the fury would not rise. Clariel bit her lip again, but even the blood in her mouth would not kindle the fire within. She had damped it down too far, and the spark was cold.

Across the cavern, stones rumbled. The helmeted head and sword-wielding arm of a sending thrust out through a hole, to be met by a savage, leaping kick from Aziminil that sent her spiked foot right through the neck of the magical being. Sparks and Charter marks exploded in all directions, the sending crumbling into its component parts. But there were many more behind it, pulling at the edges of the hole, dragging rocks aside, making the way broader, no matter how many times Aziminil hopped and jumped and struck with her savage, sharp feet. There were too many sendings, scores and scores of sendings, more than Clariel had ever imagined could be within the House.

She took off her left gauntlet, fumbling with the knots that tied it to her robe, too conscious of how swiftly the sendings were breaking through. Her hand free, she took up her knife and sliced it across her palm, along the line of the barely healed wound from the Islet.

Pain blossomed, terrible pain that ran from her hand to her arm to the center of her head. Clariel embraced it, drank it in, fed it to the rage.

But still it was not enough, not until she lifted her hand to her bronze-masked face, opened the lid over the mouth-hole and pressed her palm there, blood spilling through upon her tongue.

Then the rage came, so swiftly that Clariel barely managed to do as the book told her, to retreat her conscious mind to an island within. There she used the last of her calm self to slip the gauntlet back on and to force her attention not at the sendings who she ached to fight, but at the bottle in front of her.

Once again, stopper, gold wire, and the sealing spells were no match for a berserk. Clariel felt the bone-snapping and the heart-stopping spells as a mere itch and a pang no worse than indigestion. Flinging the stopper to the ground, she held the bottle upside down and roared, “Come out! Come out, whatever you are!”

But the creature inside was already out, out in the instant Clariel broke the seal. It did not come out fighting, like Aziminil. It just stood there, a few paces from the shouting berserk, as still as if it had been carved from the rock of the cavern.

It was tall, nine feet or more. Its body was manlike, but thin as a spindle, with arms and legs jointed too many times, white bone protruding in lumps through flesh as blue as best azure ink. Its neck was no wider than Clariel’s wrist, its head more akin to a wolf than anything else. A wolf’s head stretched long and the mouth cut at the corners to fit in more teeth. Its eyes were like Aziminil’s face, dark voids of nothing, empty and drear.

Clariel lunged forward and gripped it by those impossibly thin wrists, to twist and bend it to the floor. Sparks and Charter marks flew in profusion, but the creature did not give way. It held fast as Clariel tried to twist its wrists, and she felt its cold thoughts invade her mind, exerting a terrible pressure that seemed to enter through the holes in her mask, as if unseen thumbs were pressing upon her eyes, rough fingers attacking her mouth.

“I am Baazalanan,” said a voice that filled the cavern and echoed deep inside Clariel’s head, making her cheekbones ache to the very marrow. “Bow down before your master!”

Clariel felt her knees begin to bend, her fingers begin to uncurl where they gripped those impossibly thin, impossibly strong wrists. Her hands were hot, almost burning, and there were fewer Charter marks falling from the gauntlets, the sparks subsiding, as if the protective cloth was already wearing thin.

“Bow down,” said Baazalanan. Its voice was soft and slippery, but strong, like a crawling snake that was winding through Clariel’s head, flexing and looping, readying itself to crush her and strangle her will. There was nothing she could do, even with the fury stretching every muscle and sinew, concentrating every thought. She could not move the creature, could not free its grip on her mind.

In her berserk state she could not believe this was happening. It was not possible for an enemy to resist her power. But in the small part of her mind that remained separate, she knew it was so, that she had gambled and lost. Mogget and Aziminil had led her on, and her own foolishness had put her feet willingly upon this path.

“I will not give up,” she whispered. Letting go of the creature, she stepped back and shouted, “Aziminil! To me!”

As she shouted, she surrendered the small conscious part of her mind to the fury, to become truly berserk. Frothing at the mouth, she smashed her bronze-armored forehead into Baazalanan’s middle, and once again grabbed and twisted its wrists. She felt Aziminil close behind her, and drew upon her power, as much as she could through the barrier of her protective garments.

“Bow down,” said Baazalanan, but both its audible voice and the mental one in Clariel’s head quavered, and there was finally a tremor in its wrists. Clariel laughed, a laugh that was twin to her mother’s in Kilp’s house, the laugh of someone who has totally surrendered to their rage.

The pressure in Clariel’s head began to ebb away, the sinuous grip of the Free Magic creature began to loosen. The narrow wrists were no longer as hard to move as stone, but shifted under her grasp. Clariel twisted harder and Baazalanan screamed, the scream further strengthening Clariel’s rage. She dragged the wrists down and the tall stick of a creature followed, its legs bending thrice, each joint making a noise like a snapped green branch as it folded.

“I submit,” squealed Baazalanan as it fell down, but Clariel did not answer. Instead she shifted her hands to grip one arm alone, and tried to tear it from its socket. She was lost now, lost in fury, and all talk of submission, of her plan to escape, all of it was gone. She would rend the creature limb from limb, and throw its torn carcass into the waterfall to be destroyed forever.

“Clariel! Stop!”

Something was calling her name, something annoying. Clariel dropped Baazalanan’s arm and whirled around. A white shape rose up on its rear legs ahead of her. She roared and charged at it, hands grasping, but it jumped aside and shot under the table. Clariel sprang after it, and almost grabbed a tail, but it was too quick. It ran to its left, and Clariel sped around the table to her right, but when she got to the other side there was no sign of the impudent creature.

Then it called again.

“Clariel, Clariel! Stop! Think!”

She whirled around. Where was it? She couldn’t see the pesky thing, and her original enemy was getting up. The tall creature. How dare it get up! She stalked back toward it, on tiptoe, body arched to spring, hands shaking, the froth dribbling down the chin of her bronze mask.

Baazalanan sank back down and bowed its wolf-head, mouth shut to hide its teeth. It laid its long arms out in front, taloned fingers flat on the stone.

“Clariel! Take its submission! That’s what you want!” called Mogget.

Clariel stood over the kneeling creature and raised her fist, ready to bring it down on the back of the creature’s head, just where it met that spindle of a neck. But as she did so, she felt some of her power ebb. Turning, she saw Aziminil back away, bowing as she did so.

“Mistress, you wished to bind this one, not kill. Make it serve you and we shall all turn against your
true
enemies.”

True enemies. Bind to serve
. . .

The thoughts penetrated Clariel’s enraged mind. The lessening of power from Aziminil took the edge off her rage. She faltered, suddenly unsure of what she was doing. The rage faded a little further, and some rationality returned.

Clariel turned back to the kneeling Baazalanan and laid just one finger on its head. This time, it was her turn to find a way into its strange, cool mind, to extend a mental grip upon its thoughts.

“Swear to serve me forever, or be destroyed.”

“I will serve, Mistress,” said the creature.

Clariel lifted her finger, and stepped back, her mind withdrawing from the creature as she took the step. She took another, and swayed, and then fell to her knees. Aziminil and Baazalanan did not move, and she still could not see Mogget.

But she could hear the tumble of stones being pushed aside, and looking across, she saw a multitude of sendings gathered beyond the destroyed doorway, the half dozen at the front straining against one enormous boulder that still blocked their way.

“Take me gently through the waterfall and safely to the western shore of the Ratterlin,” she ordered. “Do not touch my skin. Be quick!”

The two Free Magic creatures bowed. Sparks of white light began to form upon their strange bodies, small flames flickered from bloodred and inky-blue flesh and then larger flames till with a whoosh both entities were columns of white fire, bright as the sun but completely without heat. The columns moved toward Clariel and began to change again, shaping themselves into two halves of a globe. Clariel staggered to her feet as they began to close around her and looked across to where she had left her sword on the floor. It was too late to fetch it now.

Too late to change her mind.

A white cat erupted out of the open chest that had held the robes and zoomed toward her, jumping at the last second through the gap between the closing hemispheres and into her arms. Clariel caught him by reflex, too weary even to be very much surprised.

“You’re coming then?”

“I believe I am,” said Mogget. He sounded surprised himself. “Don’t touch my collar!”

“Why not?”

“It will break the globe, we will be left here.”

Clariel nodded. She barely had the strength to do that, and certainly couldn’t keep talking. There was no fury left in her, and her legs felt like they might buckle at any moment. She shut her eyes as the white globe closed around her, and held Mogget close. He surprised her again by beginning to purr, though he stopped almost immediately, perhaps because he’d noticed he was purring.

She could sense the surface thoughts at least of Aziminil and Baazalanan. They were servile, wanting to obey her every command, intent on carrying her safely through the waterfall.

Her servants had done as she bid, and would continue to do so.

The globe rolled to the edge of the cavern, though inside Clariel felt no motion. On the edge it stopped for a second, then rolled again, entering the cascade with a great boom and an explosion of sparks that lit up the whole waterfall and the lowlands beneath for several leagues, as if a small sun had fallen with the river.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

ONCE WERE DRAGONS

A
league downstream from the waterfall the globe of white fire rolled ashore and split in half. Clariel staggered shakily out onto a beach of many tiny pebbles that offered uncertain footing, so she had to stoop and put one hand down to regain her balance. Mogget jumped out of her arms and sniffed the air. Whatever he smelled seemed to satisfy him, for he wandered over to the shallows and stared into the water, one paw raised.

Nearby, the fiery hemispheres dulled and shifted, Aziminil and Baazalanan resuming their more familiar shapes. As Clariel stood up, they bowed their heads, the picture of model servants.

Clariel looked at them, up at the moon high above, then back toward the waterfall, a streak of white against the darkness of the Long Cliffs. It was hard to believe she had escaped, that she had two Free Magic servants, not to mention the dubious assistance of Mogget. The way was now clear to go back to Belisaere and do what must be done, and then finally be released to start her proper life in the Forest.

Insects buzzed around her head, midges of some kind, reminding Clariel that her face was bloodied, and her hand. She walked back down to the water’s edge, knelt there, took off her gauntlets, and undid the hood of her robe and the straps of her mask. But when she tried to take the mask off, it was stuck fast and wouldn’t move. Clariel shrugged and splashed water over it and through the mouth hole, thinking it must be dried blood that held it to her skin. But even then it still wouldn’t move, and she began to grow afraid. She plunged her head into the river, into the fast-running water. Holding her breath she worked at the mask, till at last it came free with a sickening pang in her forehead.

Trembling, Clariel touched her fingers to her baptismal Charter mark. It glowed softly as she touched it, but the light that reflected on the river was wrong, not the warm golden glow she was used to. This was whiter, brighter, though still tinged with gold.

Clariel hesitated, then tried to reach for the Charter, to conjure a simple light. It was the first spell she’d learned, something she knew well, and she could nearly always make it work. But the Charter wasn’t there, or she could no longer feel its presence. Yet she knew it was everywhere, the Charter made up all things, it described the world and everything in it . . .

Except Free Magic. That was outside the Charter.

“But I wore the robe, the mask . . .” whispered Clariel. She touched her forehead Charter mark again, and once more reached for the Charter. This time, she felt it, but far away. No great drift of marks fell upon her; they stayed as distant as the stars above, and just as out of reach. But even that far-off, momentary glimpse relieved Clariel. She had never really valued the Charter, neither understood it nor wanted to know more, but she felt its absence keenly.

It felt wrong, unnatural.

“Mogget!” she called.

The cat came back from the edge of the river, his paws and face wet and a look of satisfaction on his face.

“Mogget,” said Clariel. “My Charter mark . . . something’s happened to it, and I can’t . . . I can’t reach the Charter. You told me the robes would protect me from the Free Magic.”

“The Charter and Free Magic are antithetical,” said Mogget. “When you use one, you cannot use the other. Binding Free Magic creatures, drawing on their power . . . it weakens the Charter within you.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” said Clariel.

“I thought you knew,” said Mogget. He examined his left paw, and licked off a tiny shred of fish. “Common knowledge among real Abhorsens.”

“What will happen to me?” asked Clariel, touching her forehead again.

“The Clayr may see your future. I cannot make predictions.”

“Mogget! Answer me properly, or I’ll . . . leave you behind.”

“I really don’t know,” yawned Mogget.

“I can still feel the Charter, though it is distant,” said Clariel. “Does that mean I might be able to . . . to find it again?”

Mogget didn’t answer, but continued to lick his paws.

“Mogget! Please! I am an Abhorsen, even if I’m not
the
Abhorsen. Surely that counts for something.”

Mogget stopped licking his paws. The Charter marks on his collar grew brighter, and there was the faintest sound of some distant, disturbing bell. The cat squirmed and blinked his green eyes twice.

“Free Magic and the Charter will struggle inside your body,” he said slowly and reluctantly. “One or the other will win out. The more you draw the creatures’ power within you, the stronger the Free Magic will be. There are healing spells, marks to cleanse the flesh of the Free Magic taint. Touching a Charter Stone would help, one of the Great Charter Stones most of all, of course.”

“The Great Charter Stones?” asked Clariel. “Kargrin spoke of them, beneath the Palace. So if I went there, I would be cleansed of this . . . this taint?”

Mogget looked away, his head lunging up as if he was snapping at a tasty moth. He spoke urgently, clearly compelled to speak. The marks on his collar shone brighter still, and once again the faint echo of a bell came to Clariel’s ears, making her shiver, and not with cold.

“It is . . . would be . . . very dangerous. You must . . . you must seek the help of a Charter Mage, a magister of the first rank.”

Clariel felt a wave of relief pass through her. If there was a means to regain her connection to the Charter then using Free Magic was an acceptable risk. Kargrin—or the surprising Mistress Ader, who had been an Abhorsen—they would know what to do, they would help her.

It would all be worth it, when Kilp and Aronzo were dead, and Aunt Lemmin free, and the path to the Great Forest made clear at last.

“How may we serve you, Mistress?” whispered Baazalanan. It had crept closer to her, Aziminil at its heels. They must have heard everything. “Shall we carry you to Belisaere?”

Clariel let her hand fall from her forehead. She hesitated for a moment, then put the bronze mask back on and buckled the strap, before lifting the hood and making it fast. Her gauntlets went on next. She noted that the Charter marks in the strange, stony fabric were neither as bright nor as numerous as before. Touching the creatures had taken its toll. But she needed whatever remaining protection the garments offered.

“How will you carry me?” she asked. Thinking quickly, she added, “In a globe of white fire again? Remember that you must not touch my skin, nor convey me in such a way that I might accidentally touch you.”

“We shall make a chair for you, Mistress,” said Baazalanan in its soft but penetrating voice, which sounded neither male nor female. It was simply otherworldly and strange. Clariel knew from her mental contact that Baazalanan was the more powerful of the two, something she saw confirmed when Aziminil took up a subservient position a step behind the taller Free Magic creature. “We will summon metal from the ground. Then we shall join to make a flying mount and set the chair upon it.”

“A flying mount?” asked Clariel.

“I think they intend something you might call a dragon,” said Mogget thoughtfully. “At least a creature that inspired some of the tales of dragons.”

He was lying on his stomach in the grass, watching the two Free Magic creatures. They turned their heads toward the cat and though they did not speak, Clariel sensed some silent communication before they turned back together to look at Clariel. If “look” is what Aziminil did, with her strange oval void in place of a face.

“I do not know what name you would use,” whispered Baazalanan. “It is the shape favored by some of our kindred, long ago. Winged Perazinik, Jagdezkal, Tazkehanar . . .”

“Lost long ago, when the Seven made the Charter,” added Aziminil. “But we remember.”

“As do I,” said Mogget. He grimaced and turned his head, licking at his collar.

“A dragon,” said Clariel. She smiled under her mask. When she had been six years old her mother had made her a little golden dragon with ruby chips for eyes. Jaciel had taken it back a year later, and melted it down as a punishment for some infringement Clariel could no longer remember. “Can it be a golden dragon?”

“Whatever you wish, Mistress,” said Baazalanan in its strange, soft voice.

But Mogget said, “It would be better grey, unless you wish for everyone to know we’re coming, Clariel. Grey hides well against any sky.”

“Grey, then. Also I will need a sword,” said Clariel, suddenly remembering the one she had left behind. The Free Magic creatures had spoken of drawing metal from the ground and Aziminil had made a fine goblet for Aronzo. “Can you make me a sword?”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Aziminil. “But not quickly. It will take some little time.”

“Better yet, I know of a sword that would serve you well,” whispered Baazalanan. “And other weapons. A cache from long ago . . . it lies toward Belisaere, and we could break our journey there. Even for such as we, it is not possible to retain the dragon-shape without rest.”

“A hidden sword and a dragon?” asked Clariel. She smiled again, thinking of her eight-year-old self and the stories she used to love, told by her aunt Lemmin, for her mother had told no stories. But the smile faded, for that younger Clariel would not have been able to imagine her present companions, nor would she like them. The eight-year-old would not understand the necessity of using such creatures. “Let us find it then. Make me a chair, and become your dragon. I will rest upon the bank. Keep watch while you work. Wake me as soon as you are ready, but remember you must not touch me.”

The two creatures nodded and bent down, their hands plunging deep through the pebbly beach into the earth, already summoning metal from the depths below. Clariel walked up the grassy bank beyond the beach of stones, and laid herself down. Mogget watched her for a moment, then padded back to the creatures. Both stopped their digging and bent their heads down toward the little cat.

If Clariel had been watching she might have wondered whether they were bowing down to offer homage, or simply to hear him better. He whispered something to them, unheard by Clariel, and they answered as quietly. Then Mogget went back to his fishing in the shallows and the creatures began to summon iron from far beneath their unnatural feet.

Clariel lay on her back on the grass and looked up. Her last conscious thought before sleep fell on her like a starving bear was that the moon looked bigger than she thought it should, and that this was important for a reason she couldn’t quite recall . . .

The moon was beginning to descend when Clariel awoke, but its light was still clear and bright. It was roughly the third hour of the morning, she thought, still well before the dawn. She lay there, not moving, just staring at the moon for a while, before she remembered the importance of the current phase of the moon. It
would
be full tonight, and if Mogget had told her the truth, her protective garments would completely fail. She had to get to Belisaere and do what was needed before the next moonrise, which would be shortly before midnight.

Groaning a little, she levered herself up on one elbow and saw the dragon. Its head did look like the corners of the Abhorsen’s table, but its body didn’t resemble any picture Clariel had ever seen in a book of children’s tales. It was not sinuous and reptilian, but more like an enormous bat. It was covered in light grey bristly hair rather than scales; its taloned forelimbs were part of its membranous wings, its hindquarters were muscular and rather feline. It didn’t have a tail as such, but a stumpy stern like the docked tails of the Olmond hunting dogs. Its head was hairless, more skull than flesh, a thing of bony ridges and deep-set eyes. Eyes that were larger versions of Baazalanan’s. Pools of utter darkness, reflecting no moonlight.

It was also smaller than Clariel had expected, only some twenty paces from head to its stunted rear, and its outstretched, leathery wings were only half as long again. The chair the creatures had made was already set on its back, directly behind its head, the legs seemingly fused into the bone beneath. Though they’d called it a chair, it looked more like a throne to Clariel. Made of raw, black iron, its back was high and adorned at the top with flanges and spikes, the armrests were flat plates of the metal, and there was a curving footrest that extended out over the dragon’s head like a half helmet. It did not look comfortable at all, but it was imposing.

“We are ready,” rasped the dragon, its breath carrying the hot metallic reek of Free Magic, white sparks falling from its long and dextrous tongue. It extended its neck and laid its head on the ground, so Clariel could step over onto the curving footrest without touching its body.

The chair was cold and uncomfortable, and did not feel anywhere near as secure as being in a paperwing. Clariel gripped the arms and wedged herself into the seat as best as she could. A moment later, Mogget landed in her lap and began to tread around in a circle, claws extended.

“Don’t tear my robe!” said Clariel sharply. She put her hands around Mogget’s middle to put him at her feet, but he immediately retracted his claws and sat down, looking up at her with an innocent expression.