Goldenhand (20 page)

“Good,” said Vancelle. “And good-bye, for now.”

She bowed, turned on her heel, and left.

“Finally!” exclaimed Imshi. She bounded down the table and took Lirael by the hand. “You have to see your presents, Lirael!”

“Presents!” exclaimed Nick, swinging himself up and then off the table. He seemed very much recovered, though Lirael noticed he did not use his right hand. “Um, I missed what they're for . . . is it your birthday?”

“No,” said Lirael.

“They're welcome-home gifts,” burbled Imshi. “Gifts from the librarians and from the Great Library of the Clayr. For a librarian who has become one of the great, a hero of the Kingdom and beyond!”

“Not
very
far beyond,” said Lirael, embarrassed by Imshi's exuberance, but determined she would not show it in front of Nick. She felt a strong urge to dip her head and hide behind her hair, but she fought it off.

“A joke!” said Imshi, laughing. “I've hardly ever heard you make a joke.”

“I was very shy growing up,” said Lirael to Nick, though she did not directly look at him. She hoped he would understand that she was still very shy. “Now, which box do I open first?”

“This one,” said Imshi, patting the larger box and visibly restraining her enthusiasm in a vain attempt to appear more dignified. “This one is from all the librarians together, something we had made.”

Lirael turned the key in the golden lockplate and lifted the lid. First she saw several layers of very fine, very thin pale yellow paper, which she lifted up and put aside. Underneath there was a librarian's waistcoat. A unique waistcoat. Lirael stared at it for several seconds before she picked it up, as always noting the surprising heaviness. The waistcoats were only covered in silk; they were stiff canvas
underneath, to provide better protection.

This waistcoat was blue like a Deputy Librarian's, but the deeper shade of the Abhorsens' surcoats, and it was embroidered with hundreds of tiny silver keys and golden stars. As Lirael held it up, she noticed there was quite a wide variation in the quality of the sewing.

“We all did a star or a key,” said Imshi proudly. She pointed at a star near the front pocket,
not
one of the expertly embroidered examples. “There's mine.”

The waistcoat had a new clockwork emergency mouse in the pocket, and a bright new silver whistle already looped in place near the collar. Lirael had a distinct feeling of déjà vu as she touched it, remembering when Imshi had told her the whistle was positioned up there so a librarian could always blow it, even if someone or something was holding her arms.

“It's beautiful,” she said, unbuttoning the front of the waistcoat and slipping it on over her dress.

“There's more,” said Imshi, reaching into the box herself in excitement, to take out a librarian's dagger and a bracelet. The dagger had the usual silver-washed steel imbued with Charter marks, but the hilt was of finer work than Lirael's old one. The bracelet was of beaten silver three fingers wide, and it was set with seven emeralds. The stones held spells to open doors in the Library, and as Lirael slipped it on, all seven began to glow, indicating they were active. This was a far cry from the single key spell she had started with as a Third Assistant Librarian, though she had surreptitiously activated several more. But with this bracelet, Lirael could open any door, hatch, grill, and lock within the whole Library, a level of access only comparable with the Librarian herself.

“Thank you,” said Lirael. She hugged Imshi, who enthusiastically hugged her back, and then Imshi turned away and hugged Nick as well.

“Hold on!” laughed Nick. He didn't put his arms around Imshi,
Lirael was pleased to note. “Why are you hugging me? I'm not the returning hero.”

“I just get carried away,” said Imshi. She jumped back from him and flung her hands in the air. “This is so exciting! Oh! The other box has the official present! Open it!”

The second box was long and narrow, so Lirael already suspected it held a sword, and she was not surprised to find one inside. But she was shocked to see one so similar to her lost Nehima. The hilt had a sapphire set in the pommel rather than an emerald, but the silvered blade was the same length and width, and Charter marks flowed like oil on water with a rainbow effect, rippling around the inscription etched into the blade.

“Raminah,” Lirael quietly read aloud the single word. As she spoke, both Charter marks and the ordinary letters shimmered and changed, a new inscription appearing, surrounded by different marks.

“‘Wallmakers made me to wield with Wisdom, and to wield well.'”

“Some tongue twister,” muttered Nick, and he almost laughed, but gulped it down when he saw Lirael was very serious, her focus entirely on the sword. She took it up and held it high. Charter marks flowed down the silver blade, over the sapphire pommel, and joined those moving on her golden hand, and Nick saw something of what it might be like to face Lirael as an enemy, and quail before her.

“I wonder how many sister-swords of Nehima are still in this world,” said Lirael quietly. “For Raminah must be one, like Binder, the Librarian's blade.”

“There's a scabbard too, in the box,” said Imshi. She had grown serious again. “Deputy Wenross found the sword a week after Forwin Mill, while cataloging one of the Sorting Rooms that hasn't been touched in centuries. It was tagged as ‘Wisdom,' which perhaps is its use-name. A few days later, you were Seen holding it, here in
the Glacier. Even if we didn't See you arriving, we knew you would come for it.”

“Sooner or later,” said Lirael. She took out the scabbard, which was lacquered black leather with silvered steel reinforcements, and sheathed the blade.

Near Yellowsands, Old Kingdom

T
he Dead were slow and clumsy at first, the spirits within unused to inhabiting bodies again, and they also had to make damaged and broken limbs work by sheer force of Free Magic. But soon they became faster as they relished having physical form and began to stretch and change the bodies to suit their needs. Joints moved through many more degrees than normal, muscles re-stitched themselves in curious ways, toes and fingers grew longer, bones protruded and spread to armor the remnants of flesh beneath, nails and teeth lengthened and became sharper and tougher. . . .

Ferin and Young Laska were going downhill as fast as they could safely manage along the descending ridgeline. Whatever the necromancer was now doing, he had not tried to call back the clouds, which continued to disperse as the wind reversed back to its previous nor'easter. Soon the whole crescent moon hung in the sky amid a swath of stars, so there was plenty of light for experienced night travelers like an Athask clanswoman and a former Borderer.

“They're getting faster,” said Young Laska.

“Yes,” said Ferin. She could hear the crunch of shale and the clicking of dry joints getting louder and closer. “At least the light is better. I think we have to do what Swinther told us we must not do.”

“What?”

“Run,” said Ferin. “Better to fall than to be caught by those things, I think.”

She immediately put her words into action, lengthening her
stride, focusing all her attention on getting her feet on the path. The flat top of the ridge was fairly wide at this point, without too much small, loose shale on top. Even so, in the first ten steps Ferin almost slipped, a slip that would have taken her over the side of the ridge. She recovered without a word, and kept up the pace. Young Laska was close behind, holding her bow horizontally across her chest like a balancing pole.

The Dead Hands behind them also sped up their pace, the leading one—being a little smarter than the others—going down on all fours to scurry like an ape. As this idea percolated through the slow minds of the other three, they followed suit, but the rearmost one somehow managed to put its hands down off the path. Long fingers slid on shale, hands flipped backward, the wrists completely mobile, and the Dead Hand did a somersault over the edge.

Ferin heard the crash and tumble of shale, and smiled a grim smile. One less Dead Hand meant a slightly greater chance of survival. She was fairly sure now they had interpreted Swinther's final words correctly; the ridge they were on was descending quickly on a diagonal course toward the valley. If they could keep ahead of the Dead, and there were no wood-weirds on the flat, there was a chance they could make it to the tower on the estuary—

Just as she thought this, her wounded ankle gave way. Ferin toppled forward, only a desperate twist keeping her on the path. She slid on loose shale for a moment, taking skin off her hands, but did not go over. A moment later she felt a glancing blow as Young Laska, unable to stop, jumped over her. There was a sudden rattle of shale, but not with an accompanying scream or the greater roar of an avalanche.

“You hurt?”

“No, no,” gasped Ferin, getting up as quickly as she could with the weight of her pack and her weakened ankle. She hopped for a moment, testing it. The pain was intense, but her ankle would take her weight.

“Go on!” she exclaimed. The Dead Hands were closer still, a glance over her shoulder showed them clear in the moonlight, dark shapes against the grey shale. “Go on!”

Now with Young Laska leading, they ran on, a little slower but still too fast for any kind of safety. Both of them slipped every dozen steps or so, but managed to catch themselves before falling. Each time, Ferin's ankle sent a jolt of pain through her, and she feared that if it kept happening, she would be blasted unconscious and fall.

And still the Dead Hands closed the gap.

Ferin made a momentous decision. She had been told she must tell her message only to the Clayr, and most particularly to the one called Lirael. No one else.

But that was foolish, she thought. The elders had been too mistrustful of others; they did not know there were true people like Karrilke and Swinther and Young Laska, people who could be trusted as much as any of the Athask. Ferin knew she would fall soon, or be taken by the Dead, but there was a chance the Borderer ahead would get away. She wasn't wounded, and could certainly run much faster once they got off the hill of shale.

Young Laska could take the message. The Athask people would be saved by another, but what did that matter? The message was far more important than the messenger.

“Young Laska!” gasped Ferin, not slowing her pace. “I need to tell you my message for the Clayr. It is for one of them called Lirael. Lirael! Now listen!”

She spoke the message as she had memorized it, line by line, words spilling out between the sharp cracking of shale, the terrible sound of stone slipping under feet, the racking gasps of her breath, and always the sound of the Dead Hands getting closer and closer, the repulsive ratchet of bone on bone, the wet plop of pieces of rotten flesh falling, jarred loose by the creatures' passage.

Ferin finished the message just as they reached the bottom of the hill, their feet suddenly pounding on dirt, not shale. Young Laska fell back a step and took Ferin's arm, hustling her forward, taking some weight from her bad ankle.

“Do you . . . have the message in mind?” gasped Ferin.

“I do,” said Young Laska, pulling harder on Ferin's arm as the young mountain woman started to slow. “But better two deliver such a message than one.”

“I . . . I only slow you down.”

“Save your breath,” said Young Laska. “Run!”

Behind them, the Dead Hands also left the hill, the three forming a line abreast, already breaking into a loping stride that was as fast or perhaps a little faster than their quarry.

Two or three hundred paces later, Young Laska and Ferin reached the road. But they could hear the Dead Hands so close behind now Ferin pushed Young Laska away, slowed to a stop, and turned to make a final, and doubtless very short, last stand.

“Athask!” roared Ferin, holding her knife high, the blade bright. “Athask!”

Young Laska stopped too, and reached deep into the Charter. She had the strength for only one spell, she knew, but it was a trusted one, drilled into all the Borderers. They learned to cast it even when wounded, or utterly exhausted, or both. A spell of last resort.

She found the marks almost instantly, gathered them into hand and mouth, the use-names of the marks that would make them active rising up in her mind like fish to a lure.

The closest Dead Hand sprang at Ferin as Young Laska unleashed her spell.

“Anet! Calew! Ferhan!”

Silver blades flew from the Borderer's outstretched fingers, striking the Hand at neck, groin, and knees. Golden fire exploded
around the gaping wounds they caused, but still the Dead Hand came on, clawed hands reaching for Ferin, who dodged aside, hacking with her knife. The Hand continued past her, staggering away, the spirit within unable to control the body but unable to leave it either, until the Charter-spelled blades dissipated and the golden flames died.

The other two Dead Hands stepped out onto the road, cautious now, both moving toward Ferin, one from the left, one from the right.

“Run!” croaked Ferin. “Deliver my message!”

Young Laska did not run. She reached for the Charter again. She had never been able to cast the spell of the silver blades twice, but she had never needed to so badly. Yet even if she could manage it, there were two Dead Hands . . .

The creatures crept forward warily, suspicious of the magic that had ended their companion. Red fires grew brighter in their eyes as they felt the life they would soon devour. Their newly curved and lengthy toenails made horrible screeching sounds upon the stones of the road and their bony jaws hung low in their almost fleshless skulls, showing teeth that had grown long and serrated.

One had a tongue, a kind of whip of leathery flesh, that lolled and flicked as far as the holes in its skull where once were ears. Both Dead Hands hungered for the life they were about to consume; if they were able to, they would have drooled.

Young Laska tried for the third mark of her spell, but it was too much. She fainted, the first two Charter marks falling from her mouth to dissipate upon the wind.

Ferin snarled and ran at the closest Dead Hand, her knife raised for slashing. But her ankle gave way and she rolled under it, trying to hack upward from where she lay, knowing it would be as much use as stabbing dirt.

The Dead Hand, not expecting her sudden fall, leapt over her. It
turned to come back and rend her apart, taloned hands raised—and then suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light and Ferin caught the gone-in-an-instant sight of a golden rope of Charter marks looping over the Hand's head to jerk it sharply away from her. The rope tightened and pulled the Hand's head completely off its neck. The rest of the creature whirled off into the darkness, arms flailing, as the Dead spirit within frantically tried to find some other flesh it could anchor itself in to remain in Life. But it could not, and with a despairing, silent scream it returned to Death.

There was another explosion of golden fire off to Ferin's right. She shut her eyes against the terrible brightness. When she opened them again, Astilaran the healer was looking down at her and offering his hand, and Megril the constable was bending over Young Laska and peeling back her eyelids.

“How many Dead?” asked Astilaran urgently as Ferin wriggled out of her pack and hauled herself up with his help. She did not even try to pick up her bow or arrow case.

“Three followed close,” said Ferin. “But the necromancer is somewhere behind . . . you came back for us?”

“No,” said Astilaran. He was looking behind Ferin, his eyes narrowed. “We came to scout in general. Just as well we did. A necromancer, you say?”

“Yes,” said Ferin.

“Swinther?”

Ferin pointed to a figure limned in golden fire, capering and bounding in circles some distance away. Young Laska's first spell was still burning away, tormenting the Dead spirit inside. The leaping corpse did not look at all human.

“He fell,” she said, her voice somber and regretful.

“His body was used by the necromancer?”

“What was left of it,” whispered Ferin. She hopped forward, testing her ankle again.

“And you have overdone it and broken my healing spell, just as I said. Lean on me. Megril!”

“Aye?”

“A necromancer, close behind, probably more Dead. We must hurry!”

“Oh, aye!” called Megril. She deftly stripped the pack from Young Laska and threw it aside, then bent and hoisted the Borderer onto her shoulders. “Quick as I can!”