Garth Nix - Abhorsen 2 - Lirael

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Lirael
Lirael
Daughter of the Clayr
Garth Nix
2001
ISBN 0-06-000544-0
Ginee Seo, my editor at HarperCollins, is owed many thanks for her editorial advice, particularly
for encouraging me to go back and tell more of Lirael’s story.
To Anna, my family and friends, and to the memory of Bytenix (1986–1999), the original
Disreputable Dog
Contents
Prologue 1
Part One 9
1. An Ill-Favored Birthday 11
2. A Future Lost 22
3. Paperwings 32
4. A Glint in the Snow 41
5. An Unexpected Opportunity 49
6. Third Assistant Librarian 57
7. Beyond the Doors of Sun and Moon 67
8. Down the Fifth Back Stair 77
9. Creatures by Nagy 85
10. Dog Day 95
11. Search for a Suitable Sword
12. Into the Lair of the Chief Librarian
13. Of Stilken and Strange Magic
Part Two
14. Prince Sameth Hits a Six
15. The Dead Are Many
16. Into Death
17. Nicholas and the Necromancer
18. A Father’s Healing Hand
19. Ellimere’s Thoughts on the Education of Princes
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20. A Door of Three Signs
21. Beyond the Doors of Wood and Stone
22. Power of Three
23. A Troublesome Season
24. Cold Water, Old Stone
25. A Family Conference
26. A Letter from Nicholas
27. Sam Makes Up His Mind
28. Sam the Traveler
29. The Observatory of the Clayr
30. Nicholas and the Pit
31. A Voice in the Trees
32. “When the Dead Do Walk, Seek
Water’s Run”
33. Flight to the River
Part Three
34. Finder
35. Remembrancer
36. A Denizen of Death
37. A Bath in the River
38. The Book of the Dead
39. High Bridge
40. Under the Bridge
41. Free Magic and the Flesh of Swine
42. Southerlings and a Necromancer
43. Farewell to Finder
44. Abhorsen’s House
Epilogue
Appendix: A Special Work in Progress:
Preview of the third book in Garth
Nix’s The Old Kingdom Trilogy, Abhorsen.
About the Author
Credits
About the Publisher
Prologue
It was a hot, steamy summer, and the mosquitoes swarmed everywhere, from their breeding
grounds in the rotten, reedy shores of the Red Lake up to the foothills of Mount Abed. Small,
bright-eyed birds swooped among the clouds of insects, eating their fill. Above them, birds of
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prey circled, to devour the smaller birds in turn.
But there was one place near the Red Lake where no mosquito or bird flew, and no grass or living
thing would grow. A
low hill, little more than two miles from the eastern shore. A mound of close-packed dirt and
stones, stark and strange amidst the wild grassland that surrounded it, and the green forest that
climbed the nearby hills.
The mound had no name. If one had ever appeared on a map of the Old Kingdom, the map was
long lost. There had once been farms nearby, but never closer than a league. Even when people
had lived there, they would neither look at the strange hill nor speak of it. The nearest town now
was Edge, a precarious settlement that had never seen better days but had not yet given up hope
of them. The townsfolk of Edge knew it was wise to avoid the eastern shore of the Red Lake.
Even the animals of the forest and the meadow shunned the area around 1 the mound, as they
instinctively stayed away from anyone who seemed to be going there.
Such as the man who stood on the fringe of the forest, where the hills melted into the lakeshore
plain. A thin, balding man who wore a suit of leather armor that covered him from ankle to wrist,
reinforced with plates of red-enameled metal at his neck and every joint. He carried a naked
sword in his left hand, the blade balanced across his shoulder. His right hand rested against a
leather bandolier worn diagonally across his chest. Seven pouches hung from the bandolier, the
smallest no larger than a pillbox, the largest as big as his clenched fist. Wooden handles hung
downwards out of the pouches. Black ebony handles, which his fingers crawled across like a
spider along a wall.
Anyone who had been there to see would have known that the ebony handles belonged to bells,
and that in turn would identify the man by kind, if not by name. A necromancer, he carried the
seven bells of his dark art.
The man looked down at the mound for some time, noting that he was not the first to come there
that day. At least two people stood on the bare hill, and there was a shimmer of heat in the air that
suggested that other, less visible beings stood there, too.
The man considered waiting till dusk, but he knew he didn’t have that choice. This was not his
first visit to the mound. Power lay far beneath it, imprisoned deep within the earth. It had called
him across the Kingdom, summoning him to its presence on this Midsummer’s Day. It called him
now, and he could not deny it.
Still, he retained enough pride and will to resist running the last half mile to the mound. It took all
his strength, but when his boots touched the bare earth at the lip of the hill, it was 2 with
deliberation and no sign of haste.
One of the people there he knew, and expected. The old man, the last of the line that had served
the thing that lay under the mound, acting as a channel for the power that kept it hidden from the
gaze of the witches who saw everything in their cave of ice. The fact that the old man was the
last, without some sniveling apprentice at his side, was reassuring. The time was coming when it
need no longer hide beneath the earth.
The other person was unknown. A woman, or something that had once been a woman. She wore
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a mask of dull bronze, and the heavy furs of the Northern barbarians. Unnecessary, and
uncomfortable, in this weather . . . unless her skin felt something other than the sun. She wore
several rings of bone upon her silk-gloved fingers.
“You are Hedge,” the stranger declared.
The man was surprised by the crackle of power in her speech. She was a Free Magic sorcerer, as
he’d suspected, but a more powerful one than he could have guessed. She knew his name, or one
of them—the least of his names, the one he had used most often in recent times. He, too, was a
Free Magic sorcerer, as all necromancers had to be.
“A Servant of Kerrigor,” continued the woman. “I see his brand upon your forehead, though your
disguise is not without some skill.”
Hedge shrugged, and touched what appeared to be a Charter mark on his forehead. It cracked in
two and fell off like a broken scab, revealing an ugly scar that crawled and wriggled on his skin.
“I carry the brand of Kerrigor,” he replied evenly. “But Kerrigor is gone, bound by the Abhorsen
and imprisoned these last fourteen years.”
“You will serve me now,” said the woman, in tones that brooked no argument. “Tell me how I
may commune with the power that lies under this mound. It, too, will bend itself to my will.”
Hedge bowed, hiding his grin. Was this not reminiscent of how he had come to the mound
himself, in the days after Kerrigor’s fall?
“There is a stone on the western side,” he said, pointing with his sword. “Swing it aside, and you
will see a narrow tunnel, striking sharply down. Follow the tunnel till the way is blocked by a
slab of stone. At the foot of the stone, you will see water seeping through. Taste of the water, and
you will perceive the power of which you speak.”
He did not mention that the tunnel was his, the product of five years’ toil, nor that the seeping
water was the first visible sign of a struggle for freedom that had gone on for more than two
thousand years.
The woman nodded, the thin line of pallid skin around the mask giving no hint of expression, as
if the face behind it were as frozen as the metal. Then she turned aside and spoke a spell, white
smoke gushing from the mouthpiece of the mask with every word. When she finished, two
creatures rose up from where they’d lain at her feet, nearly invisible against the earth. Two
impossibly thin, vaguely human things, with flesh of swiftly moving mist and bones of blue-
white fire. Free Magic elementals, of the kind that humans called Hish.
Hedge watched them carefully and licked his lips. He could deal with one, but two might force
him to reveal strengths best left veiled for the moment. The old man would be no help. Even now
he just sat there, mumbling, a living conduit for some part of the power under the hill.
“If I do not return by nightfall,” the woman said, “my servants will rend you asunder, flesh and
spirit too, should you seek refuge in Death.”
“I will wait here,” Hedge replied, settling himself down on the raw earth. Now that he knew the
Hish’s instructions, they represented no threat. He laid down his sword and turned one ear to the
mound, pressing it against the soil. He could hear the constant whisper of the power below,
through all the layers of earth and stone, though his own thoughts and words could not penetrate
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the prison. Later, if it was necessary, he would go into the tunnel, drink of the water, and lay his
mind open, sending his thoughts back along the finger-wide trickle that had broken through all
seven thrice-spelled wards. Through silver, gold, and lead; rowan, ash, and oak; and the seventh
ward of bone.
Hedge didn’t bother to watch the woman go, or stir when he heard the sound of the great stone
being rolled away, even though it was a feat beyond the strength of any normal man, or any
number of normal men.
When the woman returned, Hedge was standing at the very center of the mound, looking south.
The Hish stood near him, but made no move as their mistress climbed back up. The old man sat
where he always had, still gibbering, though whether he spoke spells or nonsense, Hedge couldn’t
say. It was no magic he knew, though he felt the power of the hill in the old man’s voice.
“I will serve,” the woman said.
The arrogance, though not the power, was gone from her voice. Hedge saw the muscles in her
neck spasm as she spoke the words. He smiled and raised his hand. “There are Charter Stones
that have been raised too close to the hill. You will destroy them.”
“I will,” agreed the woman, lowering her head.
“You were a necromancer,” continued Hedge. In years past, Kerrigor had drawn all the
necromancers of the Kingdom to him, to serve as petty underlords. Most had perished, either in
Kerrigor’s fall or, in the years after, at the hands of the Abhorsen. Some survived still, but this
woman had never been a Servant of Kerrigor.
“Long ago,” said the woman.
Hedge felt the faint flicker of Life inside her, buried deep under the spell-coated furs and the
bronze mask. She was old, this sorcerer, very, very old—not an advantage for a necromancer who
must walk in Death. That cold river had a particular taste for those who had evaded its clutches
beyond their given span of years.
“You will take up the bells again, for you will need many Dead for the work that lies ahead.”
Hedge unbuckled his own bandolier and handed it over cautiously, careful not to jar the bells into
sound. For himself he had another set of the seven, taken from a lesser necromancer in the chaos
following Kerrigor’s defeat. There would be some risk retrieving them, for they lay in that main
part of the Kingdom long since reclaimed by the King and his Abhorsen Queen. But he had no
need of the bells for his immediate plans, and could not take them where he intended to go.
The woman took the bells but did not put on the bandolier. Instead, she stretched out her right
hand, palm upwards. A tiny spark glinted there, a splinter of metal that shone with its own bright,
white fire. Hedge held out his own hand, and the splinter leapt across, burying itself just under
the skin, without drawing blood. Hedge held it up to his face, feeling the power in the metal.
Then he slowly closed his fingers, and smiled. It was not for him, this sliver of arcane metal. It
was a seed, a seed that could be planted in many soils. Hedge had a 6 particular purpose for it, a
most fertile bed where it could grow to its full fruit. But it would likely be many years before he
could plant it where it would do most harm.
“And you?” asked the woman. “What do you do?”
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摘要：

LiraelLiraelDaughteroftheClayrGarthNix2001ISBN0-06-000544-0GineeSeo,myeditoratHarperCollins,isowedmanythanksforheredito ialadvice,particularlyforencouragingmetogobackandtellmoreofLirael’sstory.ToAnna,myfamilyandfriends,andtothememoryofBytenix(1986–1999),theoriginalDisreputableDogContentsPrologue1P...

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