walksindeath | In the reservoir

In the reservoir

The faint light from the Charter Stones seems to turn everything to muted grey and gold from behind Sabriel's half-closed eyes. It is warm here in the centre of the reservoir, slowly melting away the chill from crossing the water earlier. She lies still in the bottom of the boat so as not to jar her leg; it still hurts, but by now in a healthier, sorer way as the spells drain away the inflammation and infection, bolstered by the strength of the Charter stones above.

The stones are always comforting, although sometimes if she thinks too deeply, she wonders if the darker traces on the rock under the flow of charter marks are Touchstone's blood, from the many months he had spent mending them. And then she remembers coming down here the first time, into the horror of black water broken stones and oncoming Dead.

Maudlin thoughts, and probably feverish.

She closes her eyes all the way, and wills the Charter to heal her faster. There's so little time for anything, these days.

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No one seemed to know what to say and the silence was making Sam nervous so he quietly asked,

"How badly were you hurt?"

"Badly," Sabriel says honestly. She shifts without thinking, and winces. Charter Marks flicker from under the edge of her cloak. She pauses, and then adds quietly, "If I hadn't met your father on the way back, I might not have made it here."

Their expressions make her wince again.

"But I did make it and I am going to be absolutely fine," he continues, firm. "So there is no need for anyone to fuss."

"Meaning me, I suppose." He gives a sigh and shifts his robe and swords. The reservoir is cold and the swords are a placed awkwardly for the moment. Maybe he should have changed before hand.

No. The matter at hand was too important. "The reason I am fussing, " he said, "Is that I am concerned that all this winter someone, or something, has been deliberately and cleverly arranging situations to put you most at risk. Look at the places you've been called to, and how there are always more Dead than there reported and more dangerous creatures - "

"Touchstone," Sabriel says softly, and reaches for her husband's hand, trying to take it without stretching her injured leg.

"Calm down. I agree. You know I agree."

He grumbles under his breath, but doesn't continue. "It's true," she says, this time directing it at Sam and Ellie. "There is a clear pattern, and not just in the Dead that have been raised solely to ambush me. I think that the increasing number of Free Magic elementals is also connected, as is the trouble that your father has been having with the Southerling refugees."

"It almost certainly is," he said with a sigh. "General Tindall believes that Corolini and his Our Country Party are being funded with Old Kingdom gold, though he cannot definitely prove it. Since Corolini and his party now hold the balance of power in the Ancelstierre Moot they've been able to get the Southerlings moved farther and farther north. They have also made it clear that their ulitmate aim is to get all the Southerling refugees moved across the Wall, into our Kingdom."

Sometimes the Ancelstierre politics made no sense to Touchstone. And the fact that Old Kingdom gold was funding their politics riled him greatly.

Sam has tried to understand politics but this just reminds him that he doesn't really. Kait would probably understand this and have some clever solution,

"Why? I mean what for? Its not as if northern-Ancelstierre is over-populated."

"I'm not sure," Touchstone reluctantly replied. "The reasons they make public in Ancelstierre are populist rubbish, pandering to the fears of the countryfolk. But there has to be a reason why someone here is supplying them with gold 0 enough gold to buy the twelve seats they've picked up in the Moot. I fear that reason may have something to do with the fact that we have not been able to find more than a score of the thousand people who were sent across a month ago, and none of that score alive. The rest have simply vanished - "

"How could that many people disappear? Surely they would leave some trace," interrupted Ellie, "Perhaps I should go-"

"No." It amused Touchstone that his daughter thought that she could do better than himself at it. A good thing in a future ruler, that confidence. But his tone and expression sobered as he continued. "This is not as simple as it appears, Ellimere. Sorcery is involved. Your mother thinks that we will find them when we least want to, and that they will not be living when we do."

"This is the heart of the matter," Sabriel says gravely, glancing up at her husband.

"Before we discuss it further, I think we should take further precautions against being overheard. Touchstone?"

She would have done it herself, if she could right now.

He stood up and drew one of swords out. Holding it out he searched out to the Charter, letting the Marks flick out into the cold air like liquid fire.

The Marks glittered and jumped from stone to stone, until the roared into a crown of sparkling fire, weaving into a protective crown.

Looking over the side of the barge, Sam saw that the fire had even spread under water that created a net of marks on the floor.

The magical barrier completely enclosed them and it relied on the power of the Great Stones, he wanted to ask his father how it was done, but there wasn't time.

"We can talk now without fear of being overheard, by natural ears or other means," Sabriel says, and reaches for their hands, taking Sameth's in one, and Ellimere's in the other and holding them tight. Her fingers are warm from the strength of the Charter down here.

"Your father and I are certain that the Southerlings were brought across the Wall to be killed - slain by a necromancer who has used the bodies to house Dead spirits who owe him allegiance. Only Free Magic sourcery can explain how the bodies and all other traces have diappeared, unseen by our patrols or the Clayr's Sight."

Ellie curls her hand around her mother's, taking some comfort from the familiar strength.

"But I thought the Clayr could See everything," she says, distinctly off-balance and hating every moment of it. "I mean, they often get the time wrong, but they still See."

"Don't they?"

"Over the past four or five years the Clayr have become aware that their Sight is clouded, and possibly has always been clouded, in the region around the eastern shores of the Red Lake and Mount Abed," Touchstone said grimly. It bothered him that they couldn't See there. Even if it wasn't where the king's influence held.

"A large area, which not coincidentally is also where our royal writ does not hold true. There is some power there that opposes both the Clayr and our Authority, blocking their Sight and breaking the Charter Stones I have set there."

His palms twitched as he said that. The need for going back there when this was all done would be strong and he would have to make it a high priority.

"Well, shouldn't we call out the Trained Bands and take them and the Guard and go down there and sort it out once and for all?" protests Ellimere, former Captain of the Wyverly College hockey team.

Sabriel spares Ellimere an affectionately amused glance.

"We don't know where - or what - it is," she says, expression sobering once more. "Every time we undertake to search the area for the source of the trouble, something happens somewhere else. We did think we might have found the root of it five years ago, at the battle of Roble's Town--"

"The necromancer woman,"

Sam interrupted, he remembered the story since he'd been thinking a lot about necromancers lately,

"The one with the bronze mask."

"Yes. Chlorr of the Mask," Sabriel replies, eyes distant. It's a name she does not like to recollect.

"She was very old and powerful, so I had presumed she was the architect of our difficulties there. But now I am not so sure. It is clear someone else is still working to befuddle the Clayr and incite trouble across the kingdom. There is also someone behind Corolini in Ancelstierre and perhaps even the Southerling wars as well."

She pauses and glances over at her son.

"One possibility is the man you encountered in Death, Sam."

"The..the necromancer?"

His voice squeaks and he knows everyone must be able to hear the fear in his voice as he rubs at his wrists as his sleeves ride up, showing his burned skin.

"He must have great power to raise so many Dead hands on the other side of the Wall."

"And with that power, I should have heard of him, but I have not. How has he kept himself hidden all these years? How did Chlorr hide when we scoured the Kingdom after Kerrigor's fall, and why did she reveal herself to attack Roble's Town? Now I am wondering if perhaps I underestimated Chlorr. She may even have evaded me at the last. I made her walk beyond the Sixth Gate, but I was sorely tired and I did not follow her all the way to the Ninth. I should have. There was something strange about her, something more than the usual taint of Free Magic or necromancy..."

She pauses, remembering. Strange and... familiar.

"Chlorr was old, old enough for other Abhorsens to have encountered her in the past, and I suspect that this other necromancer is also ancient. But I have found no record of either at the House. Too much knowledge was destroyed when the palace burnt, and more has been lost besides, simply by the march of time. And the Clayr, while they keep everything in that Great Library of theirs, rarely find anything useful in it. Their minds are too much bent upon the future. I should like to look there myself, but that is a task that would take months, if not years. I think Chlorr and this other necromancer were in league, and may be still, if Chlorr has survived. But who leads and who follows is unclear. I also fear we will find that they are not alone. But whoever or whatever moves against us, we must make sure their plans come to naught."

"What plans?" asks Ellimere, "What are they...it...whatever...going to do?"

Sabriel glances at Touchstone, almost in hesitation.

But they agreed, and no matter that these are their children - they should know.

"We think that they plan to bring all two hundred thousand Southerling refugees into the Old Kingdom - and kill them," she says, and her voice comes out very quiet. "Two hundred thousand deaths in a single poisoned minute, to make an avenue out of Death for every spirit that has lingered there from the First Precinct to the very precipice of the Ninth Gate. The summon a host of the Dead greater than any that has ever walked in life. A host that we could not possibly defeat, even if all the Abhorsens who have ever lived were somehow to stand against them."

There's a long silence after she finishes speaking and Sam found his imagination filling with a host of the Dead.

It was too easy to imagine Life-starved corpses stretching from horizon to horizon and towards him.

He wouldn't show just how frightened he was, he couldn't so he just gripped his mother's hand tightly.

Speaking into the silence, breaking it, Touchstone said, "That will not happen, of course." He said it firm as if there was no other option. No other possibility. "We will make sure that it doesn't, that the refugees never even cross the Wall. However, we can't stop the on our side. The Wall is too long, with too many broken gates and too many old Crossing Points on the other side. So we must ensure that the Ancelstierrans don't send them across in the first place. Consequently your mother and I have decided to go to Ancelstierre ourselves - secretly, so not to arouse alarm or suspicion. We will go to Covere and negotiate with their government, which will undoubtedly take several months. That mans we will be relying on you two to look after the Kingdom."

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