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She should be in her blue and silver tabard, with the bells of the Abhorsen across her chest, her sword at her side. Not in a silver dress with a hussar’s pelisse worn on one shoulder, and a strange little pillbox hat pinned to her deep-black hair. And the small automatic pistol in her silver mesh purse was no substitute for a sword.
“They will ignore the weather,” said Sabriel. “We will all stand around, drinking green absinthe and eating carrots cut into elegant shapes, and pretend we’re having a marvelous time.”
“If she is there, which is very unlikely, you musn’t speak to her,” said the Dog. “You must not listen to her or touch her in any way.”
Astarael?
“It wouldn’t help,” said Mogget. “If she speaks, you will hear her through your very bones. If she sings . . . We had best hope she will not sing.”
Astarael?
“It’s rosemary,” said the Dog shortly. “And there is amaranth, too, though you probably cannot smell it.” “Fidelity in love,” said a small voice from Sam’s backpack. “With the flower that never fades. And you still say she is not there?”
“The Clayr Saw a sword and so I was. Remember the Wallmakers. Remember Me.”
“It was her coming,” said the Dog. “It is her fate, that her knowing self will be forever outside what she chose to make, the Charter that her unknowing self is part of.
“Time and Death sleep side by side,” said the Dog. “Both are in Astarael’s domain. She has helped us, in her own way.”
Sam looked up, surprised. He had a sewing kit in his hand and was about to open it.
More representation of men sewing!
Sam selected a large needle and bit off a length of black thread from a bobbin. He frowned as he threaded the needle, then spoke off to the setting sun, not directly to Lirael.
How is he sewing with black thread in this light level?
So I’ll do that, and I’ll do my best, and if my best isn’t good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don’t have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.”
“There should be no Ferenk here,” said the Dog. “They are elemental creatures, spirits of stone and mud. They became nothing more than stone and mud when the Charter was made. A few would have been missed, but not here . . . not in a place so traveled. . . .”
Each hemisphere was struck eight times in a row, but the ninth bolt would invariably miss, often striking one of the workers.
There had been plenty of trouble in Corvere since the rise of Corolini and his Our Country thugs, and the ordinary citizens had learned when to retreat quickly from the streets.
It had taken Sam two hours to do all twenty, and he was a little weary. He was unaware that it would have taken most Charter Mages the better part of a day. Working magic on inanimate objects had always come easily to Sam.
“Hedge will rescue me, you know,” he said. “He’s a very resourceful chap, and he’s just as keen to stay on schedule as I am. So whatever mad belief has seized you, you should give it up and go home. In fact, I’m sure there would be some sort of reward if you returned me.”
“The specific gravity of orbilite suspended in quicksilver is . . . I don’t know what it is. . . . The snow in Korrovia is confined to the southern Alps, and the major passes are Kriskadt, Jorstschi, and Korbuk. . . . The average blue-tailed plover lays twenty-six eggs in the course of its fifty-four-year lifespan. . . .
“In any case, the Destroyer is a source of Free Magic in Itself,” said the Dog, her brow wrinkled in thought. “Should It become whole and free, It could range wherever It wills, though I do not know how It would manifest Itself beyond the Kingdom. The Wall alone could not stop It, for the stones carry the power of only two of the Seven, and it took all of them to bind the Destroyer in the long ago.”
Her surcoat looked as if it would be permanently stained until she had the time and energy to do some laundry magic.
Evans was thinking about what to do. He’d never heard of Old Kingdom creatures taking the shape of an Ancelstierran officer or an Army dog. Practically invisible shadows, yes. Ordinary-looking Old Kingdom folk, yes. Flying horrors, yes. But there was always a first time—
“Friendly forces! Don’t shoot!” shouted Sameth as the Charter light slowly faded above him. “Lieutenant Stone and Sergeant Clare coming in. With a sniffer dog!”
Lmao Stone and Clare
Of course, if she were slain in Death, her body would die in Life as well.
When you die in Death you die in real life
Drubas and Sonnir heard the bell, the scream, and the voice, and knew that this was no foolish necromancer—it was the Abhorsen. A new one, for they knew the old and would have run from her. The sword was different, too, but they would remember it in future.
“It’s always better to be doing,” said Sam, quoting the Disreputable Dog. As he said it, he realized that he actually believed it now. He was still scared, still felt the knot of apprehension in his guts. But he knew it wouldn’t stop him from doing what had to be done.
But as he fought the Dead, he fought his own fears, pushing them away into the same distant corner of his mind that so badly wanted to draw air into his lungs. They would stay there, and he was determined to fight well beyond his last breath.
“I lied,” said the Dog cheerily. “That’s one of the reasons I’m the Disreputable Dog. Besides, I’m only what’s left of Kibeth, in a roundabout, hand-me-down sort of way. Not quite the same. But I’ll stand against the Destroyer. Against Orannis, as one of your Seven.”
Above them, a huge cloud of dust, ash, steam, and destruction rose, climbing thousands of feet till it spread out like a toadstool top, to cover all in shadow.
Mushroom cloud
The inscription on the blade seemed the same. Or was it? She couldn’t recall exactly. Now it simply said, “Remember Nehima.”
Together, the bells and Dog sang a song that was more than sound and power. It was the song of the earth, the moon, the stars, the sea, and the sky, of Life and Death and all that was and would be. It was the song of the Charter, the song that had bound Orannis in the long ago, the song that sought to bind the Destroyer once again.
“I am Yrael,” it said, casting a hand out to throw a line of silver fire into the breaking spell-ring, its voice crackling with force. “I also stand against you.”
“Life,” said Yrael, who was more Mogget than it ever knew. “Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon. All the—”
“There’ll be other dogs, and friends, and loves,” whispered the Dog. “You have found your family, your heritage; and you have earned a high place in the world. I love you, too, but my time with you has passed. Goodbye, Lirael.” Then she was gone, and Lirael was left bowed over a small soapstone statue of a dog.
