Half an hour later, as they kept stumbling on and the valley began to narrow and the ground to rise, Lirael was prepared to settle for anywhere they could simply fall down, with or without running water to help defend against the Dead. The trees were also thinning out, giving way to low shrubs and weedy grass as they climbed. Another field that was returning to the wild, and totally indefensible.
Just when Lirael and Sam could hardly take another step, they found the perfect place. The soft gurgle of a waterfall announced it, and there was a shepherd’s hut, built on stilts across the swift water at the foot of a long but not very high waterfall. The hut was both shelter and bridge, so solidly built of ironwood that it showed little sign of decay, save for some of the shingles missing from the roof.
The Dog sniffed around outside the river hut, pronounced it dirty but habitable, and got in the way as Lirael and Sam tried to climb the steps and enter.
It was filthy inside, having at some time been subject to a flood that had deposited a great deal of dirt on the floor. But Lirael and Sam were past caring about that. Whether they slept on dirt outdoors or in, it was all one.
“Dog, can you take the first watch?” asked Lirael, as she gratefully shrugged off her pack and settled it in one corner.
“I can watch,” protested Sam, belying his words with a mighty yawn.
“I will watch,” said the Disreputable Dog. “Though there may be rabbits...”
“Don’t chase them out of sight,” warned Lirael. She drew Nehima and laid the sword across her pack, ready for quick use, then did the same with the bell-bandoleer. She kept her boots on, choosing not to speculate on the state of her feet after two days’ hard travelling.
“Wake us in four hours, please,” Lirael added as she slumped down and leant back against the wall. “We have to call the rain clouds down.”
“Yes, Mistress,” replied the Dog. She had not come in but sat near the rushing water, her ears pricked to catch some distant sound. Rabbits, perhaps. “Do you want me to bring you a boiled egg and toast as well?”
There was no answer. When the Dog looked in a moment later, both Lirael and Sam were sound asleep, slumped against their packs. The Dog let out a long sigh and slumped down herself, but her ears stayed upright and her eyes were keen, gazing out long after the summer twilight faded into the night.
Near midnight, the Dog shook herself and woke Lirael with a lick on her face and Sam with a paw pressed heavily on his chest. Each woke with a start and both reached for their swords before their eyes adjusted to the dim light from the glow of the Charter marks in the Dog’s collar.
Cold water from the stream woke them a little more, followed by necessary ablutions slightly further afield. When they came back, a quick meal of dried meat, compressed dry biscuits and dried fruit was eaten heartily by all three, though the Dog regretted the absence of rabbit or even a nice bit of lizard.
They couldn’t see the rain clouds in the night, even with a star-filled sky and the moon beginning its rise. But they knew the clouds were there, far to the north.
“We will have to go as soon as the spell is done,” warned the Dog, as Lirael and Sam stood under the stars quietly discussing how they would call the clouds and rain. “Such Charter Magic will call anything Dead within miles, or any Free Magic creatures.”
“We should press on anyway,” said Lirael. The sleep had revived her to some degree, but she still wished for the comfort of the sleeping chair in her little room in the Great Library of the Clayr. “Are you ready, Sam?”
Sam stopped humming and said, “Yes. Um, I was wondering whether you might consider a slight variation on the usual spell? I think that we will need a stronger casting to bring the clouds so far.”
“Sure,” said Lirael. “What do you want to do?”
Sam explained quickly, then went through it again slowly as Lirael made certain she knew what he planned to do. Usually both of them would whistle the same marks at the same time. What Sam wanted to do was whistle different but complementary marks, in effect weaving together two different weather-working spells. They would end and activate the spell by speaking two master marks at the same time, when one was normally all that would be used.
“Will this work?” asked Lirael anxiously. She had no experience of working with another Charter Mage on such a complex spell.
“It will be much stronger,” said Sam confidently.
Lirael looked at the Dog for confirmation, but the hound wasn’t paying attention. She was staring back towards the south, intent on something Lirael and Sam couldn’t see or sense.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” replied the Dog, turning her head to the side, her pricked ears quivering as she listened to the night. “I think something is following us, but it is still distant...”
She looked back at Lirael and Sam.
“Do your weather magic and let us be gone!”
A league or more downstream of the shepherd’s hut, a very short man – almost a dwarf – was paddling in the shallows. His skin was as white as bone, and the hair on his head and beard was whiter still, so white it shone in the darkness, even under the shadow of the trees where they overhung the water.
“I’ll show her,” muttered the albino, though no one was there to hear his angry speech. “Two thousand years of servitude already, and then to—”
He stopped mid word and swooped into the stream, one knobby-fingered hand plunging into the water. It emerged a moment later holding a struggling fish, which he immediately bit behind its eyes, severing the spinal cord. His teeth, bright in the starlight, were sharper by far than any human’s.
The dwarf tore at the fish again, blood dribbling down his beard. In a few minutes he’d eaten the whole thing, spitting out the bones with curses and grumbling between bites over the fact that he’d wanted a trout and had got a redjack.
When he finished, he carefully cleaned his face and beard and dried his feet, though he left the bloodstains on the simple robe he wore. But as he walked along the bank of the stream, the stains faded and the cloth was once again clean and white and new.
The robe was fastened around the little man’s waist with a red leather belt, and where the buckle should have been there was a tiny bell. All this time the albino had held it, using only one hand to catch the fish and clean himself. But his caution failed when he stumbled on a slippery patch of grass. The bell sang out as he fell to one knee, a bright sound that paradoxically made the man yawn. For a moment it seemed he might lie down there and then, but with an obvious effort he shook his head and stood up.
“No, no, sister,” he muttered, clutching the bell even more fiercely. “I have work to do, you see. I cannot sleep, not now. There are miles to go, and I must make the most of two legs and two hands while I still have them.”
A night bird called nearby and the man’s head flashed around, instantly spotting it. Still holding the bell, he licked his lips and, taking one slow step after the other, began to stalk it. But the bird was wary, and before the albino could pounce it flew away, calling plaintively into the night.
“I never get dessert,” complained the man. He turned back to the stream and began to follow it westwards once again, still holding the bell and muttering complaints.
chapter six
the silver hemispheres
One hundred and twenty miles to the northwest of Abhorsen’s House, the eastern shores of the Red Lake lay in darkness, even though a new day had dawned. For it was not the dark of night but of storm, the sky heavy with black clouds that stretched for several leagues in all directions. The darkness had already lasted for more than a week. What little sunlight came through the cloud was weak and pale, and the days were lit by a strange twilight that did no favour to any living thing. Only at the epicentre of this immovable cluster of storm clouds was there any other light, and that was sudden, harsh and white from the constant assault of lightning.