V1- ripped from official ebook - kud 
Prologue 
It was little more than three miles 
from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that 
was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen on 
the other side of the Wall in Ancelstierre, and not 
a cloud in sight. Here, there was a clouded sunset, 
and a steady rain had just begun to fall, coming 
faster than the tents could be raised. 
The midwife shrugged her cloak higher up 
against her neck and bent over the woman again, 
raindrops spilling from her nose onto the 
upturned face below. The midwife’s breath blew 
out in a cloud of white, but there was no answering 
billow of air from her patient. 
The midwife sighed and slowly straightened 
up, that single movement telling the watchers 
2
everything they needed to know. The woman 
who had staggered into their forest camp was 
dead, only holding on to life long enough to pass 
it on to the baby at her side. But even as the midwife 
picked up the pathetically small form beside 
the dead woman, it shuddered within its wrappings, 
and was still. 
“The child, too?” asked one of the watchers, a 
man who wore the mark of the Charter freshdrawn 
in wood ash upon his brow. “Then there 
shall be no need for baptism.” 
His hand went up to brush the mark from his 
forehead, then suddenly stopped, as a pale white 
hand gripped his and forced it down in a single, 
swift motion. 
“Peace!” said a calm voice. “I wish you no 
harm.” 
The white hand released its grip and the 
speaker stepped into the ring of firelight. The 
others watched him without welcome, and 
the hands that had half sketched Charter marks, 
or gone to bowstrings and hilts, did not relax. 
The man strode towards the bodies and looked 
upon them. Then he turned to face the watchers, 

pushing his hood back to reveal the face of someone 
who had taken paths far from sunlight, for 
3
his skin was a deathly white. 
“I am called Abhorsen,” he said, and his words 
sent ripples through the people about him, as if 
he had cast a large and weighty stone into a pool 
of stagnant water. “And there will be a baptism 
tonight.” 
The Charter Mage looked down on the bundle 
in the midwife’s hands, and said: “The child is 
dead, Abhorsen. We are travelers, our life lived 
under the sky, and it is often harsh. We know 
death, lord.” 
“Not as I do,” replied Abhorsen, smiling so his 
paper-white face crinkled at the corners and 
drew back from his equally white teeth. “And I 
say the child is not yet dead.” 
The man tried to meet Abhorsen’s gaze, but faltered 
and looked away at his fellows. None 
moved, or made any sign, till a woman said, “So. 
It is easily done. Sign the child, Arrenil. We will 
make a new camp at Leovi’s Ford. Join us when 
you are finished here.” 
The Charter Mage inclined his head in assent, 
and the others drifted away to pack up their halfmade 
camp, slow with the reluctance of having 
to move, but filled with a greater reluctance to 
remain near Abhorsen, for his name was one of 
4
secrets, and unspoken fears. 
When the midwife went to lay the child down 
and leave, Abhorsen spoke: “Wait. You will be 
needed.” 
The midwife looked down on the baby, and 
saw that it was a girl child and, save for its stillness, 
could be merely sleeping. She had heard of 
Abhorsen, and if the girl could live . . . warily she 
picked up the child again and held her out to the 
Charter Mage. 
“If the Charter does not—” began the man, 
but Abhorsen held up a pallid hand and interrupted. 
“Let us see what the Charter wills.” 
The man looked at the child again and sighed. 

Then he took a small bottle from his pouch and 
held it aloft, crying out a chant that was the 
beginning of a Charter; one that listed all things 
that lived or grew, or once lived, or would live 
again, and the bonds that held them all together. 
As he spoke, a light came to the bottle, pulsing 
with the rhythm of the chant. Then the chanter 
was silent. He touched the bottle to the earth, 
then to the sign of wood ash on his forehead, and 
then upended it over the child. 
A great flash lit the surrounding woods as the 
5
glowing liquid splashed over the child’s head, 
and the priest cried: “By the Charter that binds 
all things, we name thee—” 
Normally, the parents of the child would then 
speak the name. Here, only Abhorsen spoke, and 
he said: 
“Sabriel.” 
As he uttered the word, the wood ash disappeared 
from the priest’s forehead, and slowly 
formed on the child’s. The Charter had accepted 
the baptism. 
“But . . . but she is dead!” exclaimed the 
Charter Mage, gingerly touching his forehead to 
make sure the ash was truly gone. 
He got no answer, for the midwife was staring 
across the fire at Abhorsen, and Abhorsen was 
staring at—nothing. His eyes reflected the dancing 
flames, but did not see them. 
Slowly, a chill mist began to rise from his body, 
spreading towards the man and midwife, who 
scuttled to the other side of the fire—wanting to 
get away, but now too afraid to run. 
He could hear the child crying, which was good. 
If she had gone beyond the first gateway he 
could not bring her back without more stringent 
6
preparations, and a subsequent dilution of her 
spirit. 
The current was strong, but he knew this 
branch of the river and waded past pools and 
eddies that hoped to drag him under. Already, he 
could feel the waters leaching his spirit, but his 

will was strong, so they took only the color, not the 
substance. 
He paused to listen, and hearing the crying 
diminish, hastened forward. Perhaps she was 
already at the gateway, and about to pass. 
The First Gate was a veil of mist, with a single 
dark opening, where the river poured into the 
silence beyond. Abhorsen hurried towards it, and 
then stopped. The baby had not yet passed 
through, but only because something had caught 
her and picked her up. Standing there, looming 
up out of the black waters, was a shadow darker 
than the gate. 
It was several feet higher than Abhorsen, and 
there were pale marsh-lights burning where you 
would expect to see eyes, and the fetid stench of 
carrion rolled off it—a warm stench that relieved 
the chill of the river. 
Abhorsen advanced on the thing slowly,watching 
the child it held loosely in the crook of a 
7
shadowed arm. The baby was asleep, but restless, 
and it squirmed towards the creature, seeking a 
mother’s breast, but it only held her away from 
itself, as if the child were hot, or caustic. 
Slowly, Abhorsen drew a small, silver handbell 
from the bandolier of bells across his chest, and 
cocked his wrist to ring it. But the shadow-thing 
held the baby up and spoke in a dry, slithery 
voice, like a snake on gravel. 
“Spirit of your spirit, Abhorsen. You can’t spell 
me while I hold her. And perhaps I shall take her 
beyond the gate, as her mother has already 
gone.” 
Abhorsen frowned, in recognition, and replaced 
the bell. “You have a new shape, Kerrigor. And 
you are now this side of the First Gate. Who was 
foolish enough to assist you so far?” 
Kerrigor smiled widely, and Abhorsen caught a 
glimpse of fires burning deep inside his mouth. 
“One of the usual calling,” he croaked. “But 
unskilled. He didn’t realize it would be in the 
nature of an exchange. Alas, his life was not sufficient 
for me to pass the last portal. But now, 

you have come to help me.” 
“I, who chained you beyond the Seventh 
Gate?” 
8
“Yes,” whispered Kerrigor. “The irony does 
not, I think, escape you. But if you want the 
child . . .” 
He made as if to throw the baby into the 
stream and, with that jerk, woke her. Immediately, 
she began to cry and her little fists reached 
out to gather up the shadow-stuff of Kerrigor 
like the folds of a robe. He cried out, tried to 
detach her, but the tiny hands held tightly and he 
was forced to overuse his strength, and threw 
her from him. She landed, squalling, and was 
instantly caught up in the flow of the river, but 
Abhorsen lunged forward, snatching her from 
both the river and Kerrigor’s grasping hands. 
Stepping back, he drew the silver bell onehanded, 
and swung it so it sounded twice. The 
sound was curiously muffled, but true, and the 
clear chime hung in the air, fresh and cutting, 
alive. Kerrigor flinched at the sound, and fell 
backwards to the darkness that was the gate. 
“Some fool will soon bring me back, and 
then . . .” he cried out, as the river took him 
under. The waters swirled and gurgled and then 
resumed their steady flow. 
Abhorsen stared at the gate for a time, then 
sighed and, placing the bell back in his belt, 
9
looked at the baby held in his arm. She stared 
back at him, dark eyes matching his own. 
Already, the color had been drained from her 
skin. Nervously, Abhorsen laid a hand across 
the brand on her forehead and felt the glow of 
her spirit within. The Charter mark had kept 
her life contained when the river should have 
drained it. It was her life-spirit that had so 
burned Kerrigor. 
She smiled up at him and gurgled a little, and 
Abhorsen felt a smile tilting the corner of his 
own mouth. Still smiling, he turned, and began 
the long wade back up the river, to the gate that 

would return them both to their living flesh. 
The baby wailed a scant second before Abhorsen 
opened his eyes, so that the midwife was already 
halfway around the dying fire, ready to pick her 
up. Frost crackled on the ground and icicles hung 
from Abhorsen’s nose. He wiped them off with a 
sleeve and leaned over the child, much as any 
anxious father does after a birth. 
“How is the babe?” he asked, and the midwife 
stared at him wonderingly, for the dead child was 
now loudly alive and as deathly white as he. 
“As you hear, lord,” she answered. “She is very 
10 
well. It is perhaps a little cold for her—” 
He gestured at the fire and spoke a word, and 
it roared into life, the frost melting at once, the 
raindrops sizzling into steam. 
“That will do till morning,” said Abhorsen. 
“Then I shall take her to my house. I shall have 
need of a nurse.Will you come?” 
The midwife hesitated, and looked to the 
Charter Mage, who still lingered on the far side 
of the fire. He refused to meet her glance and she 
looked down once more at the little girl bawling 
in her arms. 
“You are . . . you are . . .” whispered the midwife. 
“A necromancer?” said Abhorsen. “Only of a 
sort. I loved the woman who lies here. She 
would have lived if she had loved another, but 
she did not. Sabriel is our child. Can you not see 
the kinship?” 
The midwife looked at him as he leant forward 
and took Sabriel from her, rocking her on his 
chest. The baby quietened and, in a few seconds, 
was asleep. 
“Yes,” said the midwife. “I shall come with 
you, and look after Sabriel. But you must find a 
wet-nurse . . .” 
11 
“And I daresay much else besides,” mused 
Abhorsen. “But my house is not a place for—” 
The Charter Mage cleared his throat, and 
moved around the fire. 
“If you seek a man who knows a little of the 

Charter,” he said hesitantly, “I should wish to 
serve, for I have seen its work in you, lord, though 
I am loath to leave my fellow wanderers.” 
“Perhaps you will not have to,” replied 
Abhorsen, smiling at a sudden thought. “I wonder 
if your leader will object to two new members 
joining her band. For my work means I 
must travel, and there is no part of the Kingdom 
that has not felt the imprint of my feet.” 
“Your work?” asked the man, shivering a little, 
though it was no longer cold. 
“Yes,” said Abhorsen. “I am a necromancer, 
but not of the common kind. Where others of the 
art raise the dead, I lay them back to rest. And 
those that will not rest, I bind—or try to. I am 
Abhorsen . . .” 
He looked at the baby again, and added, 
almost with a note of surprise, “Father of 
Sabriel.” 
chapter 1 
The rabbit had been run over 
minutes before. Its pink eyes were glazed and 
blood stained its clean white fur. Unnaturally 
clean fur, for it had just escaped from a bath. It 
still smelt faintly of lavender water. 
A tall, curiously pale young woman stood 
over the rabbit. Her night-black hair, fashionably 
bobbed, was hanging slightly over her face. 
She wore no makeup or jewelry, save for an 
enamelled school badge pinned to her regulation 
navy blazer. That, coupled with her long 
skirt, stockings and sensible shoes, identified her 
as a schoolgirl. A nameplate under the badge 
read “Sabriel” and the Roman “VI” and gilt 
crown proclaimed her to be both a member of 
the Sixth Form and a prefect. 
13 
The rabbit was, unquestionably, dead. Sabriel 
looked up from it and back along the bricked 
drive that left the road and curved up to an 
imposing pair of wrought-iron gates. A sign 
above the gate, in gilt letters of mock Gothic, 

announced that they were the gates to Wyverley 
College. Smaller letters added that the school 
was “Established in 1652 for Young Ladies of 
Quality.” 
A small figure was busy climbing over the 
gate, nimbly avoiding the spikes that were supposed 
to stop such activities. She dropped the 
last few feet and started running, her pigtails flying, 
shoes clacking on the bricks. Her head was 
down to gain momentum, but as cruising speed 
was established, she looked up, saw Sabriel and 
the dead rabbit, and screamed. 
“Bunny!” 
Sabriel flinched as the girl screamed, hesitated 
for a moment, then bent down by the rabbit’s 
side and reached out with one pale hand to 
touch it between its long ears. Her eyes closed 
and her face set as if she had suddenly turned to 
stone. A faint whistling sound came from her 
slightly parted lips, like the wind heard from far 
away. Frost formed on her fingertips and rimed 
the asphalt beneath her feet and knees. 
The other girl, running, saw her suddenly tip 
forward over the rabbit, and topple towards 
the road, but at the last minute her hand came 
out and she caught herself. A second later, she 
had regained her balance and was using both 
hands to restrain the rabbit—a rabbit now 
inexplicably lively again, its eyes bright and 
shiny, as eager to be off as when it escaped from 
its bath. 
“Bunny!” shrieked the younger girl again, as 
Sabriel stood up, holding the rabbit by the scruff 
of its neck. “Oh, thank you, Sabriel! When I 
heard the car skidding I thought . . .” 
She faltered as Sabriel handed the rabbit over 
and blood stained her expectant hands. 
“He’ll be fine, Jacinth,” Sabriel replied wearily. 
“A scratch. It’s already closed up.” 
Jacinth examined Bunny carefully, then looked 
up at Sabriel, the beginnings of a wriggling fear 
showing at the back of her eyes. 
“There isn’t anything under the blood,” stammered 
Jacinth. “What did you . . .” 

“I didn’t,” snapped Sabriel. “But perhaps you 
can tell me what you are doing out of bounds?” 
“Chasing Bunny,” replied Jacinth, her eyes 
14 
clearing as life reverted to a more normal situation. 
“You see . . .” 
“No excuses,” recited Sabriel. “Remember 
what Mrs. Umbrade said at Assembly on 
Monday.” 
“It’s not an excuse,” insisted Jacinth. “It’s a 
reason.” 
“You can explain it to Mrs. Umbrade then.” 
“Oh, Sabriel! You wouldn’t! You know I was 
only chasing Bunny. I’d never have come out—” 
Sabriel held up her hands in mock defeat, and 
gestured back to the gates. 
“If you’re back inside within three minutes, I 
won’t have seen you. And open the gate this 
time. They won’t be locked till I go back inside.” 
Jacinth smiled, her whole face beaming, 
whirled around and sped back up the drive, 
Bunny clutched against her neck. Sabriel 
watched till she had gone through the gate, then 
let the tremors take her till she was bent over, 
shaking with cold. A moment of weakness and 
she had broken the promise she had made both 
to herself and her father. It was only a rabbit and 
Jacinth did love it so much—but what would 
that lead to? It was no great step from bringing 
back a rabbit to bringing back a person. 
15 
16 
Worse, it had been so easy. She had caught the 
spirit right at the wellspring of the river, and had 
returned it with barely a gesture of power, patching 
the body with simple Charter symbols as 
they stepped from death to life. She hadn’t even 
needed bells, or the other apparatus of a necromancer. 
Only a whistle and her will. 
Death and what came after death was no great 
mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was. 
It was Sabriel’s last term at Wyverley—the last 
three weeks, in fact. She had graduated already, 
coming first in English, equal first in Music, 

third in Mathematics, seventh in Science, second 
in Fighting Arts and fourth in Etiquette. She had 
also been a runaway first in Magic, but that 
wasn’t printed on the certificate. Magic only 
worked in those regions of Ancelstierre close 
to the Wall which marked the border with the 
Old Kingdom. Farther away, it was considered 
to be quite beyond the pale, if it existed at 
all, and persons of repute did not mention it. 
Wyverley College was only forty miles from 
the Wall, had a good all-round reputation, and 
taught Magic to those students who could obtain 
special permission from their parents. 
Sabriel’s father had chosen it for that reason 
when he had emerged from the Old Kingdom 
with a five-year-old girl in tow to seek a boarding 
school. He had paid in advance for that first 
year, in Old Kingdom silver deniers that stood 
up to surreptitious touches with cold iron. 
Thereafter, he had come to visit his daughter 
twice a year, at Midsummer and Midwinter, 
staying for several days on each occasion and 
always bringing more silver. 
Understandably, the Headmistress was very 
fond of Sabriel. Particularly since she never 
seemed troubled by her father’s rare visitations, 
as most other girls would be. Once Mrs. 
Umbrade had asked Sabriel if she minded, and 
had been troubled by the answer that Sabriel 
saw her father far more often than when he was 
actually there. Mrs. Umbrade didn’t teach 
Magic, and didn’t want to know any more about 
it other than the pleasant fact that some parents 
would pay considerable sums to have their 
daughters schooled in the basics of sorcery and 
enchantment. 
Mrs. Umbrade certainly didn’t want to know 
how Sabriel saw her father. Sabriel, on the other 
17 
hand, always looked forward to his unofficial 
visits and watched the moon, tracing its movements 
from the leather-bound almanac which 
listed the phases of the moon in both Kingdoms 
and gave valuable insights into the seasons, tides 

and other ephemerae that were never the same 
at any one time on both sides of the Wall. 
Abhorsen’s sending of himself always appeared 
at the dark of the moon. 
On these nights, Sabriel would lock herself 
into her study (a privilege of the Sixth Form— 
previously she’d had to sneak into the library), 
put the kettle on the fire, drink tea and read a 
book until the characteristic wind rose up, extinguished 
the fire, put out the electric light and rattled 
the shutters—all necessary preparations, it 
seemed, for her father’s phosphorescent sending 
to appear in the spare armchair. 
Sabriel was particularly looking forward to her 
father’s visit that November. It would be his last, 
because college was about to end and she wanted 
to discuss her future. Mrs. Umbrade wanted her 
to go to university, but that meant moving further 
away from the Old Kingdom. Her magic would 
wane and parental visitations would be limited 
to actual physical appearances, and those might 
18 
well become even less frequent. On the other 
hand, going to university would mean staying 
with some of the friends she’d had virtually all 
her life, girls she’d started school with at the 
age of five. There would also be a much greater 
world of social interaction, particularly with 
young men, of which commodity there was a distinct 
shortage around Wyverley College. 
And the disadvantage of losing her magic 
could possibly be offset by a lessening of her 
affinity for death and the dead . . . 
Sabriel was thinking of this as she waited, book 
in hand, half-drunk cup of tea balanced precariously 
on the arm of her chair. It was almost 
midnight and Abhorsen hadn’t appeared. Sabriel 
had checked the almanac twice and had even 
opened the shutters to peer out through the glass 
at the sky. It was definitely the dark of the moon, 
but there was no sign of him. It was the first time 
in her life that he hadn’t appeared and she felt 
suddenly uneasy. 
Sabriel rarely thought about what life was 

really like in the Old Kingdom, but now old 
stories came to mind and dim memories of when 
she’d lived there with the Travelers. Abhorsen 
was a powerful sorcerer, but even then . . . 
19 
“Sabriel! Sabriel!” 
A high-pitched voice interrupted her thought, 
quickly followed by a hasty knock and a rattle of 
the doorknob. Sabriel sighed, pushed herself out 
of her chair, caught the teacup and unlocked the 
door. 
A young girl stood on the other side, twisting 
her nightcap from side to side in trembling 
hands, her face white with fear. 
“Olwyn!” exclaimed Sabriel. “What is it? Is 
Sussen sick again?” 
“No,” sobbed the girl. “I heard noises behind 
the tower door, and I thought it was Rebece and 
Ila having a midnight feast without me, so I 
looked . . .” 
“What!” exclaimed Sabriel, alarmed. No one 
opened outside doors in the middle of the night, 
not this close to the Old Kingdom. 
“I’m sorry,” cried Olwyn. “I didn’t mean to. I 
don’t know why I did. It wasn’t Rebece and Ila— 
it was a black shape and it tried to get in. I 
slammed the door . . .” 
Sabriel threw the teacup aside and pushed 
past Olwyn. She was already halfway down the 
corridor before she heard the porcelain smash 
behind her, and Olwyn’s horrified gasp at such 
20 
cavalier treatment of good china. She ignored 
it and broke into a run, slapping on the light 
switches as she ran towards the open door of 
the west dormitory. As she reached it, screams 
broke out inside, rapidly crescendoing to an 
hysterical chorus. There were forty girls in the 
dormitory—most of the First Form, all under 
the age of eleven. Sabriel took a deep breath, 
and stepped into the doorway, fingers crooked 
in a spell-casting stance. Even before she looked, 
she felt the presence of death. 
The dormitory was very long, and narrow, 

with a low roof and small windows. Beds and 
dressers lined each side. At the far end, a door 
led to the West Tower steps. It was supposed to 
be locked inside and out, but locks rarely prevailed 
against the powers of the Old Kingdom. 
The door was open. An intensely dark shape 
stood there, as if someone had cut a man-shaped 
figure out of the night, carefully choosing a piece 
devoid of stars. It had no features at all, but the 
head quested from side to side, as if whatever 
senses it did possess worked in a narrow range. 
Curiously, it carried an absolutely mundane sack 
in one four-fingered hand, the rough-woven 
cloth in stark contrast to its own surreal flesh. 
21 
Sabriel’s hands moved in a complicated gesture, 
drawing the symbols of the Charter that intimated 
sleep, quiet and rest. With a flourish, she 
indicated both sides of the dormitory and drew 
one of the master symbols, drawing all together. 
Instantly, every girl in the room stopped screaming 
and slowly subsided back onto her bed. 
The creature’s head stopped moving and 
Sabriel knew its attention was now centered on 
her. Slowly it moved, lifting one clumsy leg and 
swinging it forward, resting for a moment, then 
swinging the other a little past the first. A lumbering, 
rolling motion, that made an eerie, shuffling 
noise on the thin carpet. As it passed each 
bed, the electric lights above them flared once 
and went out. 
Sabriel let her hands fall to her side and 
focused her eyes on the center of the creature’s 
torso, feeling the stuff of which it was made. She 
had come without any of her instruments or 
tools, but that led to only a moment’s hesitation 
before she let herself slip over the border into 
Death, her eyes still on the intruder. 
The river flowed around her legs, cold as 
always. The light, grey and without warmth, 
still stretched to an entirely flat horizon. In the 
22 
distance, she could hear the roar of the First 
Gate. She could see the creature’s true shape 

clearly now, not wrapped in the aura of death 
which it carried to the living world. It was an 
Old Kingdom denizen, vaguely humanoid, but 
more like an ape than a man and obviously 
only semi-intelligent. But there was more to 
it than that, and Sabriel felt the clutch of fear 
as she saw the black thread that came from 
the creature’s back and ran into the river. 
Somewhere, beyond the First Gate, or even further, 
that umbilical rested in the hands of an 
Adept. As long as the thread existed the creature 
would be totally under the control of its 
master, who could use its senses and spirit as 
it saw fit. 
Something tugged at Sabriel’s physical body, 
and she reluctantly twitched her senses back to 
the living world, a slight feeling of nausea rising 
in her as a wave of warmth rushed over her 
death-chilled body. 
“What is it?” said a calm voice, close to 
Sabriel’s ear. An old voice, tinged with the power 
of Charter Magic—Miss Greenwood, the 
Magistrix of the school. 
“It’s a Dead servant—a spirit form,” replied 
23 
Sabriel, her attention back on the creature. It was 
halfway down the dorm, still single-mindedly 
rolling one leg after the other. “Without free will. 
Something sent it back to the living world. It’s 
controlled from beyond the First Gate.” 
“Why is it here?” asked the Magistrix. Her 
voice sounded calm, but Sabriel felt the Charter 
symbols gathering in her voice, forming on 
her tongue—symbols that would unleash lightning 
and flame, the destructive powers of the 
earth. 
“It’s not obviously malign, nor has it attempted 
any actual harm . . .” replied Sabriel slowly, her 
mind working over the possibilities. She was used 
to explaining purely necromantic aspects of 
magic to Miss Greenwood. The Magistrix had 
taught her Charter Magic, but necromancy was 
definitely not on the syllabus. Sabriel had learned 
more than she wanted to know about necromancy 

from her father . . . and the Dead themselves. 
“Don’t do anything for a moment. I will 
attempt to speak with it.” 
The cold washed over her again, biting into her, 
as the river gushed around her legs, eager to pull 
24 
her over and carry her away. Sabriel exerted her 
will, and the cold became simply a sensation, 
without danger, the current merely a pleasing 
vibration about the feet. 
The creature was close now, as it was in the 
living world. Sabriel held out both her hands, 
and clapped, the sharp sound echoing for longer 
than it would anywhere else. Before the echo 
died, Sabriel whistled several notes, and they 
echoed too, sweet sounds within the harshness 
of the handclap. 
The thing flinched at the sound and stepped 
back, putting both hands to its ears. As it did so, 
it dropped the sack. Sabriel started in surprise. 
She hadn’t noticed the sack before, possibly 
because she hadn’t expected it to be there. Very 
few inanimate things existed in both realms, the 
living and the dead. 
She was even more surprised as the creature suddenly 
bent forward and plunged into the water, 
hands searching for the sack. It found it almost at 
once, but not without losing its footing. As the 
sack surfaced, the current forced the creature 
under. Sabriel breathed a sigh of relief as she saw 
it slide away, then gasped as its head broke the 
surface and it cried out: “Sabriel! My messenger! 
25 
Take the sack!” The voice was Abhorsen’s. 
Sabriel ran forward and an arm pushed out 
towards her, the neck of the sack clutched in its 
fingers. She reached out, missed, then tried 
again. The sack was secure in her grasp, as the 
current took the creature completely under. 
Sabriel looked after it, hearing the roar of the 
First Gate suddenly increase as it always did 
when someone passed its falls. She turned and 
started to slog back against the current to a point 
where she could easily return to life. The sack in 

her hand was heavy and there was a leaden feeling 
in her stomach. If the messenger was truly 
Abhorsen’s, then he himself was unable to return 
to the realm of the living. 
And that meant he was either dead, or trapped 
by something that should have passed beyond 
the final gate. 
Once again, a wave of nausea overcame her and 
Sabriel fell to her knees, shaking. She could feel 
the Magistrix’s hand on her shoulder, but her 
attention was fastened on the sack she held in 
her hand. She didn’t need to look to know that 
the creature was gone. Its manifestation into the 
26 
living world had ceased as its spirit had gone 
past the First Gate. Only a pile of grave mold 
would remain, to be swept aside in the morning. 
“What did you do?” asked the Magistrix, as 
Sabriel brushed her hands through her hair, ice 
crystals falling from her hands onto the sack that 
lay in front of her knees. 
“It had a message for me,” replied Sabriel. “So 
I took it.” 
She opened the sack, and reached inside. A 
sword hilt met her grasp, so she drew it out, still 
scabbarded, and put it to one side. She didn’t 
need to draw it to see the Charter symbols 
etched along its blade—the dull emerald in the 
pommel and the worn bronze-plated crossguard 
were as familiar to her as the school’s 
uninspired cutlery. It was Abhorsen’s sword. 
The leather bandolier she drew out next was 
an old brown belt, a hand’s-breadth wide, which 
always smelled faintly of beeswax. Seven tubular 
leather pouches hung from it, starting with one 
the size of a small pill bottle; growing larger, till 
the seventh was almost the size of a jar. The bandolier 
was designed to be worn across the chest, 
with the pouches hanging down. Sabriel opened 
the smallest and pulled out a tiny silver bell, with 
27 
28 
a dark, deeply polished mahogany handle. She 
held it gently, but the clapper still swung slightly, 

and the bell made a high, sweet note that somehow 
lingered in the mind, even after the sound 
was gone. 
“Father’s instruments,” whispered Sabriel. 
“The tools of a necromancer.” 
“But there are Charter marks engraved on the 
bell . . . and the handle!” interjected the 
Magistrix, who was looking down with fascination. 
“Necromancy is Free Magic, not governed 
by the Charter . . .” 
“Father’s was different,” replied Sabriel distantly, 
still staring at the bell she held in her 
hand, thinking of her father’s brown, lined hands 
holding the bells. “Binding, not raising. He was 
a faithful servant of the Charter.” 
“You’re going to be leaving us, aren’t you?” 
the Magistrix said suddenly, as Sabriel replaced 
the bell and stood up, sword in one hand, bandolier 
in the other. “I just saw it, in the reflection 
of the bell. You were crossing the Wall . . .” 
“Yes. Into the Old Kingdom,” said Sabriel, 
with sudden realization. “Something has happened 
to Father . . . but I’ll find him . . . so I 
swear by the Charter I bear.” 
She touched the Charter mark on her forehead, 
which glowed briefly, and then faded so that it 
might never have been. The Magistrix nodded 
and touched a hand to her own forehead, where 
a glowing mark suddenly obscured all the patterns 
of time. As it faded, rustling noises and 
faint whimpers began to sound along both sides 
of the dormitory. 
“I’ll shut the door and explain to the girls,” the 
Magistrix said firmly. “You’d better go and . . . 
prepare for tomorrow.” 
Sabriel nodded and left, trying to fix her mind 
on the practicalities of the journey, rather than 
on what could have happened to her father. 
She would take a cab as early as possible into 
Bain, the nearest town, and then a bus to the 
Ancelstierre perimeter that faced the Wall. With 
luck, she would be there by early afternoon . . . 
Behind these plans, her thoughts kept jumping 
back to Abhorsen. What could have happened 

to trap him in Death? And what could she really 
hope to do about it, even if she did get to the Old 
Kingdom? 
29 
chapter ii 
The Perimeter in Ancelstierre 
ran from coast to coast, parallel to the Wall and 
perhaps half a mile from it. Concertina wire lay 
like worms impaled on rusting steel pickets; forward 
defenses for an interlocking network of 
trenches and concrete pillboxes. Many of these 
strong points were designed to control the 
ground behind them as well as in front, and 
almost as much barbed wire stretched behind 
the trenches, guarding the rear. 
In fact, the Perimeter was much more successful 
at keeping people from Ancelstierre out of the 
Old Kingdom, than it was at preventing things 
from the Old Kingdom going the other way. 
Anything powerful enough to cross the Wall usually 
retained enough magic to assume the shape 
of a soldier; or to become invisible and simply go 
where it willed, regardless of barbed wire, bullets, 
hand grenades and mortar bombs—which 
often didn’t work at all, particularly when the 
wind was blowing from the North, out of the 
Old Kingdom. 
Due to the unreliability of technology, the 
Ancelstierran soldiers of the Perimeter garrison 
wore mail over their khaki battledress, had nasal 
and neck bars on their helmets and carried 
extremely old-fashioned sword-bayonets in wellworn 
scabbards. Shields, or more correctly, 
“bucklers, small, Perimeter garrison only,” were 
carried on their backs, the factory khaki long 
since submerged under brightly painted regimental 
or personal signs. Camouflage was not 
considered an issue at this particular posting. 
Sabriel watched a platoon of young soldiers 
march past the bus, while she waited for the 
tourists ahead of her to stampede out the front 
door, and wondered what they thought of their 

strange duties. Most would have to be conscripts 
from far to the south, where no magic crept over 
the Wall and widened the cracks in what they 
thought of as reality. Here, she could feel magic 
potential brewing, lurking in the atmosphere like 
31 
charged air before a thunderstorm. 
The Wall itself looked normal enough, past the 
wasteland of wire and trenches. Just like any 
other medieval remnant. It was stone and old, 
about forty feet high and crenellated. Nothing 
remarkable, until the realization set in that it was 
in a perfect state of preservation. And for those 
with the sight, the very stones crawled with 
Charter marks—marks in constant motion, 
twisting and turning, sliding and rearranging 
themselves under a skin of stone. 
The final confirmation of strangeness lay 
beyond the Wall. It was clear and cool on the 
Ancelstierre side, and the sun was shining—but 
Sabriel could see snow falling steadily behind the 
Wall, and snow-heavy clouds clustered right up 
to the Wall, where they suddenly stopped, as if 
some mighty weather-knife had simply sheared 
through the sky. 
Sabriel watched the snow fall, and gave thanks 
for her Almanac. Printed by letterpress, the type 
had left ridges in the thick, linen-rich paper, 
making the many handwritten annotations 
waver precariously between the lines. One spidery 
remark, written in a hand she knew wasn’t 
her father’s, gave the weather to be expected 
32 
under the respective calendars for each country. 
Ancelstierre had “Autumn. Likely to be cool.” 
The Old Kingdom had “Winter. Bound to be 
snowing. Skis or snowshoes.” 
The last tourist left, eager to reach the observation 
platform. Although the Army and the 
Government discouraged tourists, and there was 
no accommodation for them within twenty 
miles of the Wall, one busload a day was allowed 
to come and view the Wall from a tower 
located well behind the lines of the Perimeter. 

Even this concession was often cancelled, for 
when the wind blew from the north, the bus 
would inexplicably break down a few miles 
short of the tower, and the tourists would have 
to help push it back towards Bain—only to see it 
start again just as mysteriously as it stopped. 
The authorities also made some slight 
allowance for the few people authorized to 
travel from Ancelstierre to the Old Kingdom, 
as Sabriel saw after she had successfully negotiated 
the bus’s steps with her backpack, crosscountry 
skis, stocks and sword, all threatening 
to go in different directions. A large sign next 
to the bus stop proclaimed: 
33 
PERIMETER COMMAND 
NORTHERN ARMY GROUP 
Unauthorized egress from the Perimeter 
Zone is strictly forbidden. 
Anyone attempting to cross the Perimeter 
Zone will be shot without warning. 
Authorized travelers must report to the 
Perimeter Command H.Q. 
REMEMBER— 
NO WARNING WILL BE MADE 
Sabriel read the note with interest, and felt a 
quickening sense of excitement start within her. 
Her memories of the Old Kingdom were dim, 
from the perspective of a child, but she felt a 
sense of mystery and wonder kindle with the 
force of the Charter Magic she felt around her— 
a sense of something so much more alive than 
the bitumened parade ground, and the scarlet 
warning sign. And much more freedom than 
Wyverley College. 
But that feeling of wonder and excitement 
34 
came laced with a dread that she couldn’t shake, 
a dread made up of fear for what might be happening 
to her father . . . what might have already 
happened . . . 
The arrow on the sign indicating where 
authorized travelers should go seemed to point 
in the direction of a bitumen parade ground, 

lined with white-painted rocks, and a number 
of unprepossessing wooden buildings. Other 
than that, there were simply the beginnings of 
the communication trenches that sank into the 
ground and then zigzagged their way to the 
double line of trenches, blockhouses and fortifications 
that confronted the Wall. 
Sabriel studied them for a while, and saw the 
flash of color as several soldiers hopped out of 
one trench and went forward to the wire. They 
seemed to be carrying spears rather than rifles 
and she wondered why the Perimeter was built 
for modern war, but manned by people expecting 
something rather more medieval. Then she 
remembered a conversation with her father and 
his comment that the Perimeter had been 
designed far away in the South, where they 
refused to admit that this perimeter was different 
from any other contested border. Up until a 
35 
century or so ago, there had also been a wall on 
the Ancelstierre side. A lowish wall, made of 
rammed earth and peat, but a successful one. 
Recalling that conversation, her eyes made out 
a low rise of scarred earth in the middle of the 
desolation of wire, and she realized that was 
where the southern wall had been. Peering at it, 
she also realized that what she had taken to be 
loose pickets between lines of concertina wire 
were something different—tall constructs more 
like the trunks of small trees stripped of every 
branch. They seemed familiar to her, but she 
couldn’t place what they were. 
Sabriel was still staring at them, thinking, 
when a loud and not very pleasant voice erupted 
a little way behind her right ear. 
“What do you think you’re doing, Miss? You 
can’t loiter about here. On the bus, or up to the 
Tower!” 
Sabriel winced and turned as quickly as she 
could, skis sliding one way and stocks the other, 
framing her head in a St. Andrew’s Cross. The 
voice belonged to a large but fairly young soldier, 
whose bristling mustaches were more evidence 

of martial ambition than proof of them. He had 
two gilded bands on his sleeve, but didn’t wear 
36 
the mail hauberk and helmet Sabriel had seen on 
the other soldiers. He smelled of shaving cream 
and talc, and was so clean, polished and full of 
himself that Sabriel immediately catalogued him 
as some sort of natural bureaucrat currently disguised 
as a soldier. 
“I am a citizen of the Old Kingdom,” she 
replied quietly, staring back into his red flushed 
face and piggy eyes in the manner which Miss 
Prionte had taught her girls to instruct lesser 
domestic servants in Etiquette IV. “I am returning 
there.” 
“Papers!” demanded the soldier, after a moment’s 
hesitation at the words “Old Kingdom.” 
Sabriel gave a frosty smile (also part of Miss 
Prionte’s curriculum) and made a ritual movement 
with the tips of her fingers—the symbol 
of disclosing, of things hidden becoming seen, 
of unfolding. As her fingers sketched, she 
formed the symbol in her mind, linking it with 
the papers she carried in the inner pocket of 
her leather tunic. Finger-sketched and minddrawn 
symbol merged, and the papers were 
in her hand. An Ancelstierre passport, as well 
as the much rarer document the Ancelstierre 
Perimeter Command issued to people who had 
37 
traffic in both countries: a hand-bound document 
printed by letterpress on handmade paper, 
with an artist’s sketch instead of a photograph 
and prints from thumbs and toes in a purple 
ink. 
The soldier blinked, but said nothing. Perhaps, 
thought Sabriel, as he took the proffered documents, 
the man thought it was a parlor trick. Or 
perhaps he just didn’t notice. Maybe Charter 
Magic was common here, so close to the Wall. 
The man looked through her documents carefully, 
but without real interest. Sabriel now felt 
certain that he was no one important from the 
way he pawed through her special passport. He’d 

obviously never seen one before. Mischievously, 
she started to weave the Charter mark for a 
snatch, or catch, to flick the papers out of his 
hands and back into her pocket before his piggy 
eyes worked out what was going on. 
But, in the first second of motion, she felt 
the flare of other Charter Magic to either side 
and behind her—and heard the clattering of 
hobnails on the bitumen. Her head snapped 
back from the papers, and she felt her hair 
whisk across her forehead as she looked from 
side to side. Soldiers were pouring out of the 
38 
huts and out of the trenches, sword-bayonets 
in their hands and rifles at the shoulder. 
Several of them wore badges that she realized 
marked them as Charter Mages. Their fingers 
were weaving warding symbols, and barriers 
that would lock Sabriel into her footsteps, tie 
her to her shadow. Crude magic, but strongly 
cast. 
Instinctively, Sabriel’s mind and hands 
flashed into the sequence of symbols that 
would wipe clean these bonds, but her skis 
shifted and fell into the crook of her elbow, 
and she winced at the blow. 
At the same time, a soldier ran ahead of the 
others, sunlight glinting on the silver stars on 
his helmet. 
“Stop!” he shouted. “Corporal, step back 
from her!” 
The corporal, deaf to the hum of Charter 
Magic, blind to the flare of half-wrought 
signs, looked up from her papers and gaped 
for a second, fear erasing his features. He 
dropped the passports, and stumbled back. 
In his face, Sabriel suddenly realized what it 
meant to use magic on the Perimeter, and she 
held herself absolutely still, blanking out the 
39 
partly made signs in her mind. Her skis 
slipped further down her arm, the bindings 
catching for a moment before tearing loose 
and clattering onto the ground. Soldiers 

rushed forward and, in seconds, formed a ring 
around her, swords angled towards her throat. 
She saw streaks of silver, plated onto the 
blades, and crudely written Charter symbols, 
and understood. These weapons were made to 
kill things that were already dead—inferior 
versions of the sword she wore at her own 
side. 
The man who’d shouted—an officer, Sabriel 
realized—bent down and picked up her passports. 
He studied them for a moment, then 
looked up at Sabriel. His eyes were pale blue and 
held a mixture of harshness and compassion that 
Sabriel found familiar, though she couldn’t place 
it—till she remembered her father’s eyes. 
Abhorsen’s eyes were so dark brown they 
seemed black, but they held a similar feeling. 
The officer closed the passport, tucked it in his 
belt and tilted his helmet back with two fingers, 
revealing a Charter mark still glowing with some 
residual charm of warding. Cautiously, Sabriel 
lifted her hand, and then, as he didn’t dissuade 
40 
her, reached out with two fingers to touch the 
mark. As she did so, he reached forward and 
touched her own—Sabriel felt the familiar swirl 
of energy, and the feeling of falling into some 
endless galaxy of stars. But the stars here were 
Charter symbols, linked in some great dance 
that had no beginning or end, but contained and 
described the world in its movement. Sabriel 
knew only a small fraction of the symbols, but 
she knew what they danced, and she felt the 
purity of the Charter wash over her. 
“An unsullied Charter mark,” the officer pronounced 
loudly, as their fingers fell back to their 
sides. “She is no creature or sending.” 
The soldiers fell back, sheathing swords and 
clicking on safety catches. Only the red-faced 
corporal didn’t move, his eyes still staring at 
Sabriel, as if he was unsure what he was looking 
at. 
“Show’s over, Corporal,” said the officer, his 
voice and eyes now harsh. “Get back to the pay 

office. You’ll see stranger happenings than this 
in your time here—stay clear of them and you 
might stay alive! 
“So,” he said, taking the documents from his 
belt and handing them back to Sabriel. “You are 
41 
the daughter of Abhorsen. I am Colonel Horyse, 
the commander of a small part of the garrison 
here—a unit the Army likes to call the Northern 
Perimeter Reconaissance Unit and everyone else 
calls the Crossing Point Scouts—a somewhat 
motley collection of Ancelstierrans who’ve managed 
to gain a Charter mark and some small 
knowledge of magic.” 
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” popped out of 
Sabriel’s school-trained mouth, before she could 
stifle it. A schoolgirl’s answer, she knew, and felt 
a blush rise in her pale cheeks. 
“Likewise,” said the Colonel, bending down. 
“May I take your skis?” 
“If you would be so kind,” said Sabriel, falling 
back on formality. 
The Colonel picked them up with ease, carefully 
retied the stocks to the skis, refastened the 
bindings that had come undone and tucked the 
lot under one muscular arm. 
“I take it you intend to cross into the Old 
Kingdom?” asked Horyse, as he found the balancing 
point of his load and pointed at the scarlet 
sign on the far side of the parade ground. “We’ll 
have to check in with Perimeter HQ—there are 
a few formalities, but it shouldn’t take long. 
42 
Is someone . . . Abhorsen, coming to meet 
you?” 
His voice faltered a little as he mentioned 
Abhorsen, a strange stutter in so confident a 
man. Sabriel glanced at him and saw that his 
eyes flickered from the sword at her waist to the 
bell-bandolier she wore across her chest. 
Obviously he recognized Abhorsen’s sword and 
also the significance of the bells. Very few people 
ever met a necromancer, but anyone who did 
remembered the bells. 

“Did . . . do you know my father?” she asked. 
“He used to visit me, twice a year. I guess he 
would have come through here.” 
“Yes, I saw him then,” replied Horyse, as they 
started walking around the edge of the parade 
ground. “But I first met him more than twenty 
years ago, when I was posted here as a subaltern. 
It was a strange time—a very bad time, for me 
and everyone on the Perimeter.” 
He paused in mid-stride, boots crashing, and his 
eyes once again looked at the bells, and the whiteness 
of Sabriel’s skin, stark against the black of 
her hair, black as the bitumen under the feet. 
“You’re a necromancer,” he said bluntly. “So 
you’ll probably understand. This crossing point 
43 
has seen too many battles, too many dead. 
Before those idiots down South took things 
under central command, the crossing point was 
moved every ten years, up to the next gate on 
the Wall. But forty years ago some . . . bureaucrat 
. . . decreed that there would be no movement. 
It was a waste of public money. This was, 
and is to be, the only crossing point. Never mind 
the fact that, over time, there would be such a 
concentration of death, mixed with Free Magic 
leaking over the Wall, that everything would . . .” 
“Not stay dead,” interrupted Sabriel quietly. 
“Yes. When I arrived, the trouble was just 
beginning. Corpses wouldn’t stay buried—our 
people or Old Kingdom creatures. Soldiers killed 
the day before would turn up on parade. 
Creatures prevented from crossing would rise up 
and do more damage than they did when they 
were alive.” 
“What did you do?” asked Sabriel. She knew a 
great deal about binding and enforcing true death, 
but not on such a scale. There were no Dead creatures 
nearby now, for she always instinctively felt 
the interface between life and death around her, 
and it was no different here than it had been forty 
miles away at Wyverley College. 
44 
“Our Charter Mages tried to deal with the 

problem, but there were no specific Charter 
symbols to . . . make them dead . . . only to 
destroy their physical shape. Sometimes that 
was enough and sometimes it wasn’t. We had 
to rotate troops back to Bain or even further 
just for them to recover from what HQ liked to 
think of as bouts of mass hysteria or madness. 
“I wasn’t a Charter Mage then, but I was going 
with patrols into the Old Kingdom, beginning to 
learn. On one patrol, we met a man sitting by a 
Charter Stone, on top of a hill that overlooked 
both the Wall and the Perimeter. 
“As he was obviously interested in the Perimeter, 
the officer in charge of the patrol thought 
we should question him and kill him if he turned 
out to bear a corrupted Charter, or was some Free 
Magic thing in the shape of a man. But we didn’t, 
of course. It was Abhorsen, and he was coming to 
us, because he’d heard about the Dead. 
“We escorted him in and he met with the 
General commanding the garrison. I don’t know 
what they agreed, but I imagine it was for 
Abhorsen to bind the Dead and, in return, he was 
to be granted citizenship of Ancelstierre and freedom 
to cross the Wall. He certainly had the two 
45 
passports after that. In any case, he spent the next 
few months carving the wind flutes you can see 
among the wire . . .” 
“Ah!” exclaimed Sabriel. “I wondered what 
they were. Wind flutes. That explains a lot.” 
“I’m glad you understand,” said the 
Colonel. “I still don’t. For one thing, they 
make no sound no matter how hard the wind 
blows through them. They have Charter symbols 
on them I had never seen before he carved 
them, and have never seen again anywhere 
else. But when he started placing them . . . one 
a night . . . the Dead just gradually disappeared, 
and no new ones rose.” 
They reached the far end of the parade 
ground, where another scarlet sign stood 
next to a communication trench, proclaiming: 
“Perimeter Garrison HQ. Call and Wait for 

Sentry.” 
A telephone handset and a bell-chain proclaimed 
the usual dichotomy of the Perimeter. 
Colonel Horyse picked up the handset, wound 
the handle, listened for a moment, then 
replaced it. Frowning, he pulled the bell-chain 
three times in quick succession. 
“Anyway,” he continued, as they waited for 
46 
the sentry. “Whatever it was, it worked. So we 
are deeply indebted to Abhorsen, and that 
makes his daughter an honored guest.” 
“I may be less honored and more reviled as a 
messenger of ill omen,” said Sabriel quietly. She 
hesitated, for it was hard to talk about Abhorsen 
without tears coming to her eyes, then continued 
quickly, to get it over and done with. “The reason 
I am going into the Old Kingdom is to . . . 
to look for my father. Something has happened 
to him.” 
“I had hoped there was another reason for you 
to carry his sword,” said Horyse. He moved the 
skis into the crook of his left arm, freeing his 
right, to return the salute of the two sentries who 
were running at the double up the communication 
trench, hobnails clacking on the wooden 
slats. 
“There is worse, I think,” added Sabriel, taking 
a deep breath to stop her voice from breaking 
into sobs. “He is trapped in Death . . . or . . . or 
he may even be dead. And his bindings will be 
broken.” 
“The wind flutes?” asked Horyse, grounding 
the end of the skis, his salute dying out halfway 
to his head. “All the Dead here?” 
47 
48 
“The flutes play a song only heard in Death,” 
replied Sabriel, “continuing a binding laid down 
by Abhorsen. But the bound are tied to him, and 
the flutes will have no power if . . . they will have 
no power if Abhorsen is now among the Dead. 
They will bind no more.” 
chapter III 

“I am not one to blame a messenger 
for her tidings,” said Horyse, as he handed 
a cup of tea over to Sabriel, who was sitting on 
what looked like the only comfortable chair in 
the dugout which was the Colonel’s headquarters, 
“but you bring the worst news I have heard 
for many years.” 
“At least I am a living messenger . . . and a 
friendly one,” Sabriel said quietly. She hadn’t 
really thought beyond her own concern for her 
father. Now, she was beginning to expand her 
knowledge of him, to understand that he was 
more than just her father, that he was many different 
things to different people. Her simple 
image of him—relaxing in the armchair of her 
study at Wyverley College, chatting about her 
schoolwork, Ancelstierre technology, Charter 
Magic and necromancy—was a limited view, like 
a painting that only captured one dimension of 
the man. 
“How long do we have until Abhorsen’s bindings 
are broken?” asked Horyse, breaking into 
Sabriel’s remembrance of her father. The image 
she had of her father reaching for a teacup in her 
study disappeared, banished by real tea slopping 
over in her enamel mug and burning her fingers. 
“Oh! Excuse me. I wasn’t thinking . . . how 
long till what?” 
“The binding of the dead,” the Colonel reiterated, 
patiently. “How long till the bindings fail, 
and the dead are free?” 
Sabriel thought back to her father’s lessons, 
and the ancient grimoire she’d spent every holiday 
slowly memorizing. The Book of the Dead it 
was called and parts of it still made her shudder. 
It looked innocuous enough, bound in green 
leather, with tarnished silver clasps. But if you 
looked closely, both leather and silver were 
etched with Charter marks. Marks of binding 
and blinding, closing and imprisonment. Only a 
trained necromancer could open that book . . . 
and only an uncorrupted Charter Mage could 
50 

close it. Her father had brought it with him on 
his visits, and always took it away again at the 
end. 
“It depends,” she said slowly, forcing herself to 
consider the question objectively, without letting 
emotion interfere. She tried to recall the pages 
that showed the carving of the wind flutes, the 
chapters on music and the nature of sound in the 
binding of the dead. “If Father . . . if Abhorsen 
is . . . truly dead, the wind flutes will simply fall 
apart under the light of the next full moon. If he 
is trapped before the Ninth Gate, the binding will 
continue until the full moon after he passes 
beyond, or a particularly strong spirit breaks the 
weakened bonds.” 
“So the moon will tell, in time,” said Horyse. 
“We have fourteen days till it is full.” 
“It is possible I could bind the dead anew,” 
Sabriel said cautiously. “I mean, I haven’t done 
it on this sort of scale. But I know how. The 
only thing is, if Father isn’t . . . isn’t beyond the 
Ninth Gate, then I need to help him as soon as 
I can. And before I can do that, I must get to his 
house and gather a few things . . . check some 
references.” 
“How far is this house beyond the Wall?” asked 
51 
Horyse, a calculating look on his face. 
“I don’t know,” replied Sabriel. 
“What?” 
“I don’t know. I haven’t been there since I was 
about four. I think it’s supposed to be a secret. 
Father had many enemies, not just among the 
dead. Petty necromancers, Free Magic sorcerers, 
witches—” 
“You don’t seem disturbed by your lack of 
directions,” interrupted the Colonel dryly. For the 
first time, a hint of doubt, even fatherly condescension, 
had crept into his voice, as if Sabriel’s 
youth undermined the respect due to her as both 
a Charter Mage and necromancer. 
“Father taught me to how to call a guide who 
will give me directions,” replied Sabriel coolly. 
“And I know it’s less than four days’ travel 

away.” 
That silenced Horyse, at least for the moment. 
He nodded and, standing cautiously, so his head 
didn’t hit the exposed beams of the dugout, he 
walked over to a steel filing cabinet that was 
rusting from the dark brown mud that oozed 
between the pale planks of the revetment. 
Opening the cabinet with a practiced heave of 
considerable force, he found a mimeographed 
52 
map and rolled it out on the table. 
“We’ve never been able to get our hands on a 
genuine Old Kingdom map. Your father had 
one, but he was the only person who could see 
anything on it—it just looked like a square of 
calfskin to me. A small magic, he said, but since 
he couldn’t teach it, perhaps not so small . . . 
Anyway, this map is a copy of the latest version 
of our patrol map, so it only goes out about ten 
miles from the crossing point. The garrison 
standing orders strictly forbid us to go further. 
Patrols tend not to come back beyond that distance. 
Maybe they desert, or maybe . . .” 
His tone of voice suggested that even nastier 
things happened to the patrols, but Sabriel 
didn’t question him. A small portion of the Old 
Kingdom lay spread out on the table and, once 
again, excitement stirred up within her. 
“We generally go out along the Old North 
Road,” said Horyse, tracing it with one hand, 
the sword calluses on his fingers rasping across 
the map, like the soft sandpapering of a master 
craftsman. “Then the patrols sweep back, either 
south-east or south-west, till they hit the Wall. 
Then they follow that back to the gate.” 
“What does this symbol mean?” asked Sabriel, 
53 
54 
pointing to a blacked-in square atop one of the 
farther hills. 
“That’s a Charter Stone,” replied the Colonel. 
“Or part of one now. It was riven in two, as if 
struck by lightning, a month or so ago. The 
patrols have started to call it Cloven Crest, and 

they avoid it if possible. Its true name is 
Barhedrin Hill and the stone once carried the 
Charter for a village of the same name. Before 
my time, anyway. If the village still exists it must 
be further north, beyond the reach of our 
patrols. We’ve never had any reports of inhabitants 
from it coming south to Cloven Crest. The 
fact is, we have few reports of people, fullstop. 
The Garrison Log used to show considerable 
interaction with Old Kingdom people—farmers, 
merchants, travelers and so on—but encounters 
have become rarer over the last hundred years, 
and very rare in the last twenty. The patrols 
would be lucky to see even two or three people 
a year now. Real people that is, not creatures or 
Free Magic constructs, or the Dead. We see far 
too many of those.” 
“I don’t understand,” muttered Sabriel. “Father 
often used to talk of villages and towns . . . even 
cities, in the Old Kingdom. I remember some of 
them from my childhood . . . well, I sort of remember 
. . . I think.” 
“Further into the Old Kingdom, certainly,” 
replied the Colonel. “The records mention quite 
a few names of towns and cities. We know that 
the people up there call the area around the Wall 
‘the Borderlands.’ And they don’t say it with any 
fondness.” 
Sabriel didn’t answer, bending her head 
lower over the map, thinking about the journey 
that lay ahead of her. Cloven Crest might 
be a good waypoint. It was no more than eight 
miles away, so she should be able to ski there 
before nightfall if she left fairly soon, and if it 
wasn’t snowing too hard across the Wall. A 
broken Charter Stone did not bode well, but 
there would be some magic there and the path 
into Death would be easier to tread. Charter 
Stones were often erected where Free Magic 
flowed and crossroads of the Free Magic currents 
were often natural doorways into the 
realm of death. Sabriel felt a shiver inch up 
her spine at the thought of what might use 
such a doorway and the tremor passed through 

to her fingers on the map. 
She looked up suddenly, and saw Colonel 
55 
Horyse looking at her long, pale hands, the 
heavy paper of the map still shuddering at her 
touch. With an effort of will, she stilled the 
movement. 
“I have a daughter almost your age,” he said 
quietly. “Back in Corvere, with my wife. I would 
not let her cross into the Old Kingdom.” 
Sabriel met his gaze, and her eyes were not the 
uncertain, flickering beacons of adolescence. 
“I am only eighteen years old on the outside,” 
she said, touching her palm against her breast 
with an almost wistful motion. “But I first walked 
in Death when I was twelve. I encountered a Fifth 
Gate Rester when I was fourteen, and banished it 
beyond the Ninth Gate. When I was sixteen I 
stalked and banished a Mordicant that came near 
the school. A weakened Mordicant, but still . . . A 
year ago, I turned the final page of The Book of 
the Dead. I don’t feel young anymore.” 
“I am sorry for that,” said the Colonel, then, 
almost as if he had surprised himself, he added, 
“Ah, I mean that I wish you some of the foolish 
joys my daughter has—some of the lightness, the 
lack of responsibility that goes with youth. But I 
don’t wish it if it will weaken you in the times 
ahead. You have chosen a difficult path.” 
56 
“‘Does the walker choose the path, or the path 
the walker?’” Sabriel quoted, the words, redolent 
with echoes of Charter Magic, twining around 
her tongue like some lingering spice. Those words 
were the dedication in the front of her almanac. 
They were also the very last words, all alone on 
the last page, of The Book of the Dead. 
“I’ve heard that before,” remarked Horyse. 
“What does it mean?” 
“I don’t know,” said Sabriel. 
“It holds power when you say it,” added the 
Colonel slowly. He swallowed, open-mouthed, 
as if the taste of the Charter marks was still in 
the air. “If I spoke those words, that’s all they 

would be. Just words.” 
“I can’t explain it.” Sabriel shrugged, and attempted 
a smile. “But I do know other sayings 
that are more to the point at the moment, like: 
‘Traveler, embrace the morning light, but do not 
take the hand of night.’ I must be on my way.” 
Horyse smiled at the old rhyme, so beloved of 
grandmothers and nannies, but it was an empty 
smile. His eyes slid a little away from Sabriel’s 
and she knew that he was thinking about refusing 
to let her cross the Wall. Then he sighed, the 
short, huffy sigh of a man who is forced into a 
57 
course of action through lack of alternatives. 
“Your papers are in order,” he said, meeting 
her gaze once again. “And you are the daughter 
of Abhorsen. I cannot do other than let you pass. 
But I can’t help feeling that I am thrusting you 
out to meet some terrible danger. I can’t even 
send a patrol out with you, since we have five 
full patrols already out there.” 
“I expected to go alone,” replied Sabriel. She 
had expected that, but felt a tinge of regret. A 
protective group of soldiers would be quite a 
comfort. The fear of being alone in a strange and 
dangerous land, even if it was her homeland, 
was only just below the level of her excitement. 
It wouldn’t take much for the fear to rise over it. 
And always, there was the picture of her father 
in her mind. Her father in trouble, trapped and 
alone in the chill waters of Death . . . 
“Very well,” said Horyse. “Sergeant!” 
A helmeted head appeared suddenly around 
the doorway, and Sabriel realized two soldiers 
must have been standing on guard outside the 
dugout, on the steps up into the communication 
trench. She wondered if they’d heard. 
“Prepare a crossing party,” snapped Horyse. 
“A single person to cross. Miss Abhorsen, here. 
58 
And Sergeant, if you or Private Rahise so much 
as talk in your sleep about what you may have 
heard here, then you’ll be on gravedigging 
fatigues for the rest of your lives!” 

“Yes, sir!” came the sharp reply, echoed by the 
unfortunate Private Rahise, who, Sabriel noted, 
did seem half-asleep. 
“After you, please,” continued Horyse, gesturing 
towards the door. “May I carry your skis 
again?” 
The Army took no chances when it came to 
crossing the Wall. Sabriel stood alone under the 
great arch of the gate that pierced the Wall, but 
archers stood or knelt in a reverse arrowhead 
formation around the gate, and a dozen swordsmen 
had gone ahead with Colonel Horyse. A 
hundred yards behind her, past a zigzagged lane 
of barbed wire, two Lewyn machine-gunners 
watched from a forward emplacement—though 
Sabriel noted they had drawn their swordbayonets 
and thrust them, ready for use, in the 
sandbags, showing little faith in their air-cooled 
45-rounds-per-minute tools of destruction. 
There was no actual gate in the archway, 
though rusting hinges swung like mechanical 
hands on either side and sharp shards of oak 
59 
thrust out of the ground, like teeth in a broken 
jaw, testimony to some explosion of modern 
chemistry or magical force. 
It was snowing lightly on the Old Kingdom 
side, and the wind channeled occasional snowflakes 
through the gate into Ancelstierre, where 
they melted on the warmer ground of the south. 
One caught in Sabriel’s hair. She brushed at it 
lightly, till it slid down her face and was captured 
by her tongue. 
The cold water was refreshing and, though it 
tasted no different from any other melted snow 
she’d drunk, it marked her first taste of the Old 
Kingdom in thirteen years. Dimly, she remembered 
it had been snowing then. Her father had 
carried her through, when he first brought her 
south into Ancelstierre. 
A whistle alerted her, and she saw a figure 
appear out of the snow, flanked by twelve others, 
who drew up in two lines leading out from 
the gate. They faced outwards, their swords 

shining, blades reflecting the light that was itself 
reflected from the snow. Only Horyse looked 
inwards, waiting for her. 
With her skis over her shoulder, Sabriel picked 
her way among the broken timbers of the gate. 
60 
Going through the arch, from mud into snow, 
from bright sun into the pallid luminescence of a 
snowfall, from her past into her future. 
The stones of the Wall on either side, and 
above her head, seemed to call a welcome home, 
and rivulets of Charter marks ran through the 
stones like rain through dust. 
“The Old Kingdom welcomes you,” said 
Horyse, but he was watching the Charter marks 
run on the stones, not looking at Sabriel. 
Sabriel stepped out of the shadow of the gate 
and pulled her cap down, so the peak shielded 
her face against the snow. 
“I wish your mission every success, Sabriel,” 
continued Horyse, looking back at her. “I 
hope . . . hope I see both you and your father before 
too long.” 
He saluted, turned smartly to his left, and was 
gone, wheeling around her and marching back 
through the gate. His men peeled off from the 
line and followed. Sabriel bent down as they 
marched past, slid her skis back and forth in 
the snow, then slipped her boots into the bindings. 
The snow was falling steadily, but it was 
only a light fall and the cover was patchy. She 
could still easily make out the Old North Road. 
61 
62 
Fortunately, the snow had banked up in the gutters 
to either side of the road, and she could 
make good time if she kept to these narrow 
snow-ways. Even though it seemed to be several 
hours later in the Old Kingdom than it was in 
Ancelstierre, she expected to reach Cloven Crest 
before dusk. 
Taking up her poles, Sabriel checked that her 
father’s sword was easy in its scabbard, and the 
bells hung properly from their baldric. She considered 

a quick Charter-spell for warmth, but 
decided against it. The road had a slight uphill 
gradient, so the skiing would be quite hard 
work. In her handknitted, greasy wool shirt, 
leather jerkin and thick, double padded skiing 
knickerbockers, she would probably be too 
warm once she got going. 
With a practiced motion, she pushed one ski 
ahead, the opposite arm reaching forward with 
her pole, and slid forward, just as the last 
swordsman passed her on his way back through 
the gate. He grinned as he passed by, but she 
didn’t notice, concentrating on building up the 
rhythm of her skis and poles. Within minutes, 
she was practically flying up the road, a slim, 
dark figure against the white of the ground. 
chapter iv 
Sabriel found the first dead 
Ancelstierran soldier about six miles from the 
Wall, in the last, fading hours of the afternoon. 
The hill she thought was Cloven Crest was a 
mile or two to the north. She’d stopped to look 
at its dark bulk, rising rocky and treeless from 
the snow-covered ground, its peak temporarily 
hidden in one of the light, puffy clouds that 
occasionally let forth a shower of snow or sleet. 
If she hadn’t stopped, she would probably 
have missed the frosted-white hand that peeked 
out of a drift on the other side of the road. But 
as soon as she saw that, her attention focused 
and Sabriel felt the familiar pang of death. 
Crossing over, her skis clacking on bare stone 
in the middle of the road, she bent down and 
gently brushed the snow away. 
The hand belonged to a young man, who wore 
a standard-issue coat of mail over an Ancelstierran 
uniform of khaki serge. He was blond 
and grey-eyed, and Sabriel thought he had been 
surprised, for there was no fear in his frozen 
expression. She touched his forehead with one 
finger, closed his sightless eyes, and laid two 
fingers against his open mouth. He had been 

dead twelve days, she felt. There were no obvious 
signs as to what had killed him. To learn more 
than that, she would have to follow the young 
man into Death. Even after twelve days, it was 
unlikely he had gone further than the Fourth 
Gate. Even so, Sabriel had a strong disinclination 
to enter the realm of the dead until she absolutely 
had to. Whatever had trapped—or killed—her 
father could easily be waiting to ambush her 
there. This dead soldier could even be a lure. 
Quashing her natural curiosity to find out 
exactly what had happened, Sabriel folded the 
man’s arms across his chest, after first unclenching 
the grip that his right hand still had on his 
sword hilt—perhaps he had not been taken 
totally unawares after all. Then she stood and 
drew the Charter marks of fire, cleansing, peace 
64 
and sleep in the air above the corpse, while 
whispering the sounds of those same marks. It 
was a litany that every Charter Mage knew, and 
it had the usual effect. A glowing ember sparked 
up between the man’s folded arms, multiplied 
into many stabbing, darting flames, then fire 
whooshed the full length of the body. Seconds 
later it was out and only ash remained, ash 
staining a corselet of blackened mail. 
Sabriel took the soldier’s sword from the pile 
of ashes and thrust it through the melted snow, 
into the dark earth beneath. It stuck fast, 
upright, the hilt casting a shadow like a cross 
upon the ashes. Something glinted in the shadow 
and, belatedly, Sabriel remembered that the soldier 
would have worn an identity disc or tag. 
Shifting her skis again to rebalance she bent 
down and hooked the chain of the identity disc 
on one finger, pulling it up to read the name of 
the man who had met his end here, alone in the 
snow. But both the chain and disc were machinemade 
in Ancelstierre and so unable to withstand 
the Charter Magic fire. The disc crumbled into 
ash as Sabriel raised it to eye level and the chain 
fell into its component links, pouring between 
Sabriel’s fingers like small steel coins. 

65 
“Perhaps they’ll know you from your sword,” 
said Sabriel. Her voice sounded strange in the 
quiet of the snowy wilderness and, behind each 
word, her breath rolled out like a small, wet fog. 
“Travel without regret,” she added. “Do not 
look back.” 
Sabriel took her own advice as she skied away. 
There was an anxiety in her now that had been 
mostly academic before and every sense was 
alert, watchful. She had always been told that 
the Old Kingdom was dangerous, and the 
Borderlands near the Wall particularly so. But 
that intellectual knowledge was tempered by her 
vague childhood memories of happiness, of 
being with her father and the band of Travelers. 
Now, the reality of the danger was slowly coming 
home . . . 
Half a mile on she slowed and stopped to look 
up at Cloven Crest again, neck cricked back to 
watch where the sun struck between the clouds, 
lighting up the yellow-red granite of the bluffs. 
She was in cloud shadow herself, so the hill 
looked like an attractive destination. As she 
looked, it started to snow again, and two 
snowflakes fell upon her forehead, melting into 
her eyes. She blinked and the melted snow 
66 
traced tear trails down her cheeks. Through 
misted eyes, she saw a bird of prey—a hawk or 
kite—launch itself from the bluffs and hover, its 
concentration totally centered upon some small 
mouse or vole creeping across the snow. 
The kite dropped like a cast stone, and a few 
seconds later, Sabriel felt some small life snuffed 
out. At the same time, she also felt the tug of 
human death. Somewhere ahead, near where the 
kite dined, more people lay dead. 
Sabriel shivered, and looked at the hill again. 
According to Horyse’s map, the path to Cloven 
Crest lay in a narrow gully between two bluffs. 
She could see quite clearly where it must be, but 
the dead lay in that direction. Whatever had 
killed them might also still be there. 

There was sunlight on the bluffs, but the wind 
was driving snow clouds across the sun and 
Sabriel guessed it was only an hour or so till 
dusk. She’d lost time freeing the soldier’s spirit, 
and now had no choice but to hurry on if she 
wished to reach Cloven Crest before nightfall. 
She thought about what lay ahead for a 
moment, then chose a compromise between 
speed and caution. Stabbing her poles into the 
snow, she released her bindings, stepped out of 
67 
her skis and then quickly fastened skis and poles 
together to be strapped diagonally across her 
backpack. She tied them on carefully, remembering 
how they’d fallen and broken her Charterspell 
on the parade ground—only that morning, 
but it seemed like weeks ago and a world away. 
That done, she started to pick her way down 
the center of the road, keeping away from the 
gutter drifts. She’d have to leave the road fairly 
soon, but it looked like there was little snow on 
the steep, rocky slopes of Cloven Crest. 
As a final precaution, she drew Abhorsen’s 
sword, then resheathed it, so an inch of blade 
was free of the scabbard. It would draw fast and 
easily when she needed it. 
Sabriel expected to find the bodies on the road, 
or near it, but they lay further on. There were 
many footprints, and churned-up snow, leading 
from the road towards the path to Cloven Crest. 
That path ran between the bluffs, following a 
route gouged out by a stream falling from some 
deep spring higher up the hill. The path crossed 
the stream several times, with stepping-stones or 
tree trunks across the water to save walkers from 
wet feet. Halfway up, where the bluffs almost 
ground together, the stream had dug itself a short 
68 
gorge, about twelve feet wide, thirty feet long 
and deep. Here, the pathmakers had been forced 
to build a bridge along the stream, rather than 
across it. 
Sabriel found the rest of the Ancelstierran 
patrol here, tumbled on the dark olive-black 

wood of the bridge, with the water murmuring 
beneath and the red stone arching overhead. 
There were seven of them along the bridge’s 
length. Unlike the first soldier, it was quite clear 
what had killed them. They had been hacked 
apart and, as Sabriel edged closer, she realized 
they had been beheaded. Worse than that, whoever 
. . . whatever . . . had killed them had taken 
their heads away—almost a guarantee that their 
spirits would return. 
Her sword did draw easily. Gingerly, her right 
hand almost glued to the sword hilt, Sabriel 
stepped around the first of the splayed-out bodies 
and onto the bridge. The water beneath was 
partly iced over, shallow and sluggish, but it was 
clear the soldiers had sought refuge over it. 
Running water was a good protection from dead 
creatures or things of Free Magic, but this torpid 
stream would not have dismayed even one of the 
Lesser Dead. In Spring, fed with melted snow, 
69 
the stream would burst between the bluffs, and 
the bridge would be knee-deep in clear, swift 
water. The soldiers would probably have survived 
at that time of year. 
Sabriel sighed quietly, thinking of how easily 
seven people could be alive in one instant, and 
then, despite everything they could do, despite 
their last hope, they could be dead in just another. 
Once again, she felt the temptation of the 
necromancer, to take the cards nature had dealt, 
to reshuffle them and deal again. She had the 
power to make these men live again, laugh again, 
love again . . . 
But without their heads she could only bring 
them back as “Hands,” a derogatory term that 
Free Magic necromancers used for their lackluster 
revenants, who retained little of their original 
intelligence and none of their initiative. They 
made useful servants, though, either as reanimated 
corpses or the more difficult Shadow 
Hands, where only the spirit was brought back. 
Sabriel grimaced as she thought of Shadow 
Hands. A skilled necromancer could easily raise 

Shadow Hands from the heads of the newly 
dead. Similarly, without the heads, she couldn’t 
give them the final rites and free their spirits. 
70 
All she could do was treat the bodies with some 
respect and, in the process, clear the bridge. 
It was near to dusk, and dark already in the 
shadow of the gorge, but she ignored the little 
voice inside her that was urging her to leave the 
bodies and run for the open space of the hilltop. 
By the time she finished dragging the bodies 
back down the path a way, laying them out with 
their swords plunged in the earth next to their 
headless bodies, it was dark outside the gorge 
too. So dark, she had to risk a faint, Charterconjured 
light, that hung like a pale star above 
her head, showing the path before dying out. 
A slight magic, but one with unexpected 
consequences, for, as she left the bodies behind, 
an answering light burned into brilliance on 
the upper post of the bridge. It faded into red 
embers almost immediately, but left three glowing 
Charter marks. One was strange to Sabriel, 
but, from the other two, she guessed its meaning. 
Together, they held a message. 
Three of the dead soldiers had the feel of 
Charter Magic about them, and Sabriel guessed 
that they were Charter Mages. They would have 
had the Charter mark on their foreheads. The 
very last body on the bridge had been one of 
71 
these men and Sabriel remembered that he had 
been the only one not holding a weapon—his 
hands had been clasped around the bridge post. 
These marks would certainly hold his message. 
Sabriel touched her own forehead Charter 
mark and then the bridge post. The marks flared 
again, then went dark. A voice came from 
nowhere, close to Sabriel’s ear. A man’s voice, 
husky with fear, backed by the sound of clashing 
weapons, screaming and total panic. 
“One of the Greater Dead! It came behind us, 
almost from the Wall. We couldn’t turn back. It 
has servants, Hands, a Mordicant! This is 

Sergeant Gerren. Tell Colonel . . .” 
Whatever he wanted to tell Colonel Horyse 
was lost in the moment of his own death. Sabriel 
stood still, listening, as if there might be more. 
She felt ill, nauseous, and took several deep 
breaths. She had forgotten that for all her familiarity 
with death and the dead, she had never 
seen or heard anyone actually die. The aftermath 
she had learnt to deal with . . . but not the event. 
She touched the bridge post again, just with 
one finger, and felt the Charter marks twisting 
through the grain of the wood. Sergeant Gerren’s 
message would be there forever for any Charter 
72 
73 
Mage to hear, till time did its work, and bridge 
post and bridge rotted or were swept away by 
flood. 
Sabriel took a few more breaths, stilled her 
stomach, and forced herself to listen once more. 
One of the Greater Dead was back in Life, and 
that was something her father was sworn to 
stop. It was almost certain that this emergence 
and Abhorsen’s disappearance were connected. 
Once again, the message came, and Sabriel listened. 
Then, brushing back her starting tears, 
she walked on, up the path, away from the 
bridge and the dead, up towards Cloven Crest 
and the broken Charter Stone. 
The bluffs parted and, in the sky above, stars 
started to twinkle, as the wind grew braver and 
swept the snow clouds before it into the west. 
The new moon unveiled itself and swelled in 
brightness, till it cast shadows on the snowflecked 
ground. 
chapter v 
It was no more than a halfhour’s 
steady climb to the flat top of Cloven 
Crest, though the path grew steeper and more 
difficult. The wind was strong now and had 
cleared the sky, the moonlight giving form to the 
landscape. But without the clouds, it had grown 

much colder. 
Sabriel considered a Charter-spell for warmth, 
but she was tired, and the effort of the spell 
might cost more than the gain in warmth. She 
stopped instead and shrugged on a fleece-lined 
oilskin that had been handed down from her 
father. It was a bit worn and too large, needing 
severe buckling-in with her sword-belt and the 
baldric that held the bells, but it was certainly 
windproof. 
Feeling relatively warmer, Sabriel resumed 
climbing up the last, winding portion of the 
path, where the incline was so steep the pathmakers 
had resorted to cutting steps out of the 
granite—steps now worn and crumbling, prone 
to sliding away underfoot. 
So prone to sliding, that Sabriel reached the 
top without realizing it, head down, her eyes 
searching in the moonlight for the solid part of 
the next step. Her foot was actually halfway up 
in the air before she realized that there wasn’t a 
next step. 
Cloven Crest lay before her. A narrow ridge 
where several slopes of the hill met to form a 
miniature plateau, with a slight depression in the 
middle. Snow lay in this depression, a fat, cigarshaped 
drift, bright in the moonlight, stark 
white against the red granite. There were no 
trees, no vegetation at all, but in the very center 
of the drift, a dark grey stone cast a long moonshadow. 
It was twice Sabriel’s girth and three 
times her height, and looked whole till she 
walked closer and saw the zigzag crack that cut 
it down the middle. 
Sabriel had never seen a true Charter Stone 
before, but she knew they were supposed to be 
75 
like the Wall, with Charter marks running like 
quicksilver through the stone, forming and 
dissolving, only to re-form again, in a neverending 
story that told of the making of the 
world. 
There were Charter marks on this stone, 
but they were still, as frozen as the snow. Dead 

marks, nothing more than meaningless inscriptions, 
carved into a sculptured stone. 
It wasn’t what Sabriel had expected, though 
she now realized that she hadn’t thought 
about it properly. She’d thought of lightning 
or suchlike as the splitter of the stone, but forgotten 
lessons remembered too late told her 
that wasn’t so. Only some terrible power of 
Free Magic could split a Charter Stone. 
She walked closer to the stone, fear rising in 
her like a toothache in its first growth, signaling 
worse to come. The wind was stronger and 
colder, too, out on the ridge, and the oilskin 
seemed less comforting, as its memories of her 
father brought back remembrance of certain 
pages of The Book of the Dead and tales of 
horror told by little girls in the darkness of 
their dormitory, far from the Old Kingdom. 
Fears came with these memories, till Sabriel 
76 
wrestled them to the back of her mind, and 
forced herself closer to the stone. 
Dark patches of . . . something . . . obscured 
some of the marks, but it wasn’t until Sabriel 
pushed her face almost to the stone that she 
could make out what they were, so dull and 
black in the moonlight. 
When she did see, her head snapped up, and 
she stumbled backwards, almost overbalancing 
into the snow. The patches were dried 
blood, and when she saw them, Sabriel knew 
how the stone had been broken, and why the 
blood hadn’t been cleaned away by rain or 
snow . . . why the stone never would be clean. 
A Charter Mage had been sacrificed on the 
stone. Sacrificed by a necromancer to gain 
access to Death, or to help a Dead spirit break 
through into Life. 
Sabriel bit her lower lip till it hurt and her 
hands, almost unconsciously, fidgeted, halfdrawing 
Charter marks in nervousness and fear. 
The spell for that sort of sacrifice was in the last 
chapter of The Book of the Dead. She remembered 
it now, in sickening detail. It was one of 

the many things she seemed to have forgotten 
from that green-bound book—or had been made 
77 
to forget. Only a very powerful necromancer 
could use that spell. Only a totally evil one 
would want to. And evil breeds evil, evil taints 
places and makes them attractive to further acts 
of . . . 
“Stop it!” whispered Sabriel aloud, to still her 
mind of its imaginings. It was dark, windy and 
getting colder by the minute. She had to make a 
decision: to camp and call her guide, or to move 
on immediately in some random direction in the 
hope that she would be able to summon her 
guide from somewhere else. 
The worst part of it all was that her guide was 
dead. Sabriel had to enter Death, albeit briefly, to 
call and converse with the guide. It would be 
easy to do so here, for the sacrifice had created a 
semi-permanent entry, as if a door had been 
wedged ajar. But who knew what might be lurking, 
watching, in the cold river beyond. 
Sabriel stood for a minute, shivering, listening, 
every sense concentrated, like some small animal 
that knows a predator hunts nearby. Her mind 
ran through the pages of The Book of the Dead, 
and through the many hours she had spent learning 
Charter Magic from Magistrix Greenwood 
in the sunny North Tower of Wyverley College. 
78 
At the end of the minute, she knew that camping 
was out of the question. She was simply too 
frightened to sleep anywhere near the ruined 
Charter Stone. But it would be quicker to call 
her guide here—and the quicker she got to her 
father’s house, the sooner she could do something 
to help him, so a compromise was called 
for. She would protect herself with Charter 
Magic as best she could, enter Death with all 
precaution, summon her guide, get directions 
and get out as quickly as possible. Quicker, even. 
With decision came action. Sabriel dropped 
her skis and pack, stuffed some dried fruit and 
homemade toffee in her mouth for quick energy, 

and adopted the meditative pose that made 
Charter Magic easier. 
After bit of trouble with the toffee and her 
teeth, she began. Symbols formed in her mind— 
the four cardinal Charter marks that were the 
poles of a diamond that would protect her from 
both physical harm and Free Magic. Sabriel held 
them in her mind, fixed them in time, and pulled 
them out of the flow of the never-ending Charter. 
Then, drawing her sword, she traced rough outlines 
in the snow around her, one mark at each 
cardinal point of the compass. As she finished 
79 
each mark, she let the one in her mind run from 
her head to her hand, down the sword and into 
the snow. There, they ran like lines of golden fire 
and the marks became alive, burning on the 
ground. 
The last mark was the North mark, the one 
closest to the destroyed stone, and it almost 
failed. Sabriel had to close her eyes and use all 
her will to force it to leave the sword. Even then, 
it was only a pallid imitation of the other three, 
burning so weakly it hardly melted the snow. 
Sabriel ignored it, quelling the nausea that had 
brought bile to the back of her mouth, her body 
reacting to the struggle with the Charter mark. 
She knew the North mark was weak, but golden 
lines had run between all four points and the diamond 
was complete, if shaky. In any case, it was 
the best she could do. She sheathed her sword, 
took off her gloves, and fumbled with her bellbandolier, 
cold fingers counting the bells. 
“Ranna,” she said aloud, touching the first, 
the smallest bell. Ranna the sleepbringer, the 
sweet, low sound that brought silence in its 
wake. 
“Mosrael.” The second bell, a harsh, rowdy 
bell. Mosrael was the waker, the bell Sabriel 
80 
should never use, the bell whose sound was a 
seesaw, throwing the ringer further into Death, 
as it brought the listener into Life. 
“Kibeth.” Kibeth, the walker. A bell of several 

sounds, a difficult and contrary bell. It could 
give freedom of movement to one of the Dead, 
or walk them through the next gate. Many a 
necromancer had stumbled with Kibeth and 
walked where they would not. 
“Dyrim.” A musical bell, of clear and pretty 
tone. Dyrim was the voice that the Dead so often 
lost. But Dyrim could also still a tongue that 
moved too freely. 
“Belgaer.” Another tricksome bell, that sought 
to ring of its own accord. Belgaer was the thinking 
bell, the bell most necromancers scorned to 
use. It could restore independent thought, memory 
and all the patterns of a living person. Or, 
slipping in a careless hand, erase them. 
“Saraneth.” The deepest, lowest bell. The 
sound of strength. Saraneth was the binder, the 
bell that shackled the Dead to the wielder’s will. 
And last, the largest bell, the one Sabriel’s cold 
fingers found colder still, even in the leather case 
that kept it silent. 
“Astarael, the Sorrowful,” whispered Sabriel. 
81 
Astarael was the banisher, the final bell. Properly 
rung, it cast everyone who heard it far into 
Death. Everyone, including the ringer. 
Sabriel’s hand hovered, touched on Ranna, 
and then settled on Saraneth. Carefully, she 
undid the strap and withdrew the bell. Its clapper, 
freed of the mask, rang slightly, like the 
growl of a waking bear. 
Sabriel stilled it, holding the clapper with her 
palm inside the bell, ignoring the handle. With 
her right hand, she drew her sword and raised it 
to the guard position. Charter marks along the 
blade caught the moonlight and flickered into 
life. Sabriel watched them for a moment, as portents 
could sometimes be seen in such things. 
Strange marks raced across the blade, before 
transmuting into the more usual inscription, one 
that Sabriel knew well. She bowed her head, and 
prepared to enter into Death. 
Unseen by Sabriel, the inscription began again, 
but parts of it were not the same. “I was made 

for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead,” was 
what it usually said. Now it continued, “The 
Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King 
quenched me, Abhorsen wields me.” 
Sabriel, eyes closed now, felt the boundary 
82 
between Life and Death appear. On her back, 
she felt the wind, now curiously warm, and the 
moonlight, bright and hot like sunshine. On her 
face, she felt the ultimate cold and, opening her 
eyes, saw the grey light of Death. 
With an effort of will, her spirit stepped 
through, sword and bell prepared. Inside the 
diamond her body stiffened, and fog blew up in 
eddies around her feet, twining up her legs. Frost 
rimed her face and hands and the Charter marks 
flared at each apex of the diamond. Three steadied 
again, but the North mark blazed brighter 
still—and went out. 
The river ran swiftly, but Sabriel set her feet 
against the current and ignored both it and the 
cold, concentrating on looking around, alert for 
a trap or ambush. It was quiet at this particular 
entry point to Death. She could hear the water 
tumbling through the Second Gate, but nothing 
else. No splashing, or gurgling, or strange mewlings. 
No dark, formless shapes or grim silhouettes, 
shadowy in this grey light. 
Carefully holding her position, Sabriel looked 
all around her again, before sheathing her sword 
and reaching into one of the thigh pockets in 
her woollen knickerbockers. The bell, Saraneth, 
83 
84 
stayed ready in her left hand. With her right, she 
drew out a paper boat and, still one-handed, 
opened it out to its proper shape. Beautifully 
white, almost luminous in this light, it had one 
small, perfectly round stain at its bow, where 
Sabriel had carefully blotted a drop of blood 
from her finger. 
Sabriel laid it flat on her hand, lifted it to her 
lips, and blew on it as if she were launching a 
feather. Like a glider, it flew from her hand into 

the river. Sabriel held that launching breath as 
the boat was almost swamped, only to breathe in 
with relief as it breasted a ripple, righted itself 
and surged away with the current. In a few seconds 
it was out of sight, heading for the Second 
Gate. 
It was the second time in her life that Sabriel 
had launched just such a paper boat. Her father 
had shown her how to make them, but had 
impressed on her to use them sparingly. No more 
than thrice every seven years, he had said, or a 
price would have to be paid, a price much 
greater than a drop of blood. 
As events should follow as they had the first 
time, Sabriel knew what to expect. Still, when 
the noise of the Second Gate stilled for a moment 
some ten or twenty, or forty, minutes later—time 
being slippery in Death—she drew her sword 
and Saraneth hung down in her hand, its clapper 
free, waiting to be heard. The Gate had stilled 
because someone . . . something . . . was coming 
back from the deeper realms of Death. 
Sabriel hoped it was the one she had invited 
with the paper boat. 
85 
chapter vi 
Charter Magic on Cloven Crest. 
It was like a scent on the wind to the thing that 
lurked in the caves below the hill, some mile or 
more to the west of the broken Charter Stone. 
It had been human once, or human-like at 
least, in the years it had lived under the sun. 
That humanity had been lost in the centuries the 
thing spent in the chill waters of Death, ferociously 
holding its own against the current, 
demonstrating an incredible will to live again. A 
will it didn’t know it possessed before a badly 
cast hunting spear bounced from a rock and 
clipped its throat, just enough for a last few minutes 
of frantic life. 
By sheer effort of will, it had held itself on the 
life side of the Fourth Gate for three hundred 

years, growing in power, learning the ways of 
Death. It preyed on lesser spirits, and served or 
avoided greater ones. Always, the thing held on 
to life. Its chance finally came when a mighty 
spirit erupted from beyond the Seventh Gate, 
smashing through each of the Upper Gates in 
turn, till it went ravening into Life. Hundreds of 
the Dead had followed, and this particular spirit 
had joined the throng. There had been terrible 
confusion and a mighty enemy at the very border 
between Life and Death, but, in the melee, it 
had managed to sneak around the edges and 
squirm triumphantly into Life. 
There were plenty of recently vacated bodies 
where it emerged, so the thing occupied one, animated 
it and ran away. Soon after, it found the 
caves it now inhabited. It even decided to give 
itself a name. Thralk. A simple name, not too 
difficult for a partially decomposed mouth to 
voice. A male name. Thralk could not remember 
what its original sex had been, those centuries 
before, but its new body was male. 
It was a name to instill fear in the few small 
settlements that still existed in this area of The 
Borderlands, settlements Thralk preyed upon, 
capturing and consuming the human life he 
87 
needed to keep himself on the living side of 
Death. 
Charter Magic flared on Cloven Crest again, 
and Thralk sensed that it was strong and pure— 
but weakly cast. The strength of the magic scared 
him, but the lack of skill behind it was reassuring 
and strong magic meant a strong life. Thralk 
needed that life, needed it to shore up the body he 
used, needed it to replenish the leakage of his 
spirit back into Death. Greed won over fear. The 
Dead thing left the mouth of the cave and started 
climbing the hill, his lidless, rotting eyes fixed on 
the distant crest. 
Sabriel saw her guide, first as a tall, pale light 
drifting over the swirling water towards her, 
and then, as it stopped several yards away, as a 
blurred, glowing, human shape, its arms outstretched 

in welcome. 
“Sabriel.” 
The words were fuzzy and seemed to come 
from much farther away than where the shining 
figure stood, but Sabriel smiled as she felt the 
warmth in the greeting. Abhorsen had never 
explained who or what this luminous person 
88 
was, but Sabriel thought she knew. She’d summoned 
this advisor only once before—when 
she’d first menstruated. 
There was minimal sex education at Wyverley 
College—none at all till you were fifteen. The 
older girls’ stories about menstruation were 
many, varied and often meant to scare. None 
of Sabriel’s friends had reached puberty before 
her, so in fear and desperation she had entered 
Death. Her father had told her that the one the 
paper boat summoned would answer any question 
and would protect her—and so it had. The 
glowing spirit answered all her questions and 
many more besides, till Sabriel was forced to 
return to Life. 
“Hello, Mother,” said Sabriel, sheathing her 
sword and carefully muffling Saraneth with her 
fingers inside the bell. 
The shining shape didn’t answer, but that 
wasn’t unexpected. Apart from her one-word 
greeting, she could only answer questions. 
Sabriel wasn’t really sure if the manifestation 
was the very unusual dead spirit of her mother, 
which was unlikely, or some residual protective 
magic left by her. 
“I don’t have much time,” Sabriel continued. 
89 
“I’d love to ask about . . . oh, everything, I 
guess . . . but at the moment, I need to know how 
to get to Father’s house from Cloven Crest . . . I 
mean Barhedrin Ridge.” 
The sending nodded, and spoke. As Sabriel 
listened, she also saw pictures in her head of 
what the woman was describing; vivid images, 
like memories of a journey she’d taken herself. 
“Go to the northern side of the ridge. Follow 

the spur that begins there down till it reaches the 
valley floor. Look at the sky . . . there won’t be 
any cloud. Look to the bright red star, Uallus, 
near the horizon, three fingers east of north. 
Follow that star till you come to a road that runs 
from south-west to north-east. Take that road for 
a mile to the north-east, till you reach a mile 
marker and the Charter Stone behind it. A path 
behind the stone leads to the Long Cliffs immediately 
north. Take the path. It ends in a door in the 
Cliffs. The door will answer to Mosrael. Beyond 
the door is a tunnel, sloping sharply upwards. 
Beyond the tunnel lies Abhorsen’s Bridge. The 
house is over the bridge. Go with love—and do 
not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.” 
“Thank you,” Sabriel began, carefully filing the 
words away with the accompanying thoughts. 
90 
“Could you also . . .” 
She stopped as the mother-sending in front of 
her suddenly raised both arms as if shocked, and 
shouted, “Go!” 
At the same time, Sabriel felt the diamond of 
protection around her physical body twinge in 
warning and she became aware that the North 
mark had failed. Instantly, she turned on her left 
heel and began racing back to the border with 
Life, drawing her sword. The current almost 
seemed to strengthen against her, twining around 
her legs, but then fell away before her urgency. 
Sabriel reached the border and, with a furious 
thrust of will, her spirit emerged back into Life. 
For a second, she was disoriented, suddenly 
freezing again and thick-witted. A grinning, 
corpse-like creature was just stepping through 
the failed North mark, its arms reaching to 
embrace her, carrion-breath misting out of a 
mouth unnaturally wide. 
Thralk had been pleased to find the Charter 
Mage’s spirit wandering and a broken diamond 
of protection. The sword had worried 
him a little, but it was frosted over and his 
91 
shriveled eyes couldn’t see the Charter marks 

that danced beneath the rime. Similarly, the 
bell in Sabriel’s left hand looked like a lump of 
ice or snow, as if she’d caught a snowball. All 
in all, Thralk felt very fortunate, particularly 
as the life that blazed within this still victim 
was particularly young and strong. Thralk 
sidled closer still and his double-jointed arms 
reached to embrace Sabriel’s neck. 
Just as his slimy, corrupted fingers stretched 
forward, Sabriel opened her eyes and executed 
the stop-thrust that had earned her second 
place in Fighting Arts and, later, lost her the 
First. Her arm and sword straightened like one 
limb to their full extent and the sword-point 
ripped through Thralk’s neck, and into eight 
inches of air beyond. 
Thralk screamed, his reaching fingers gripping 
the sword to push himself free—only to 
scream again as Charter marks flared on the 
blade. White-hot sparks plumed between his 
knuckles and Thralk suddenly knew what he’d 
encountered. 
“Abhorsen!” he croaked, falling backwards as 
Sabriel twisted the blade free with one explosive 
jerk. 
92 
Already, the sword was affecting the dead flesh 
Thralk inhabited, Charter Magic burning 
through reanimated nerves, freezing those alltoofluid 
joints. Fire rose in Thralk’s throat, but 
he spoke, to distract this terrible opponent while 
his spirit tried to shuck the body, like a snake its 
skin, and retreat into the night. 
“Abhorsen! I will serve you, praise you, be 
your Hand . . . I know things, alive and dead . . . 
I will help lure others to you . . .” 
The clear, deep sound of Saraneth cut 
through the whining, broken voice like a foghorn 
booming above the shriek of seagulls. 
The chime vibrated on and on, echoing into 
the night, and Thralk felt it bind him even as 
his spirit leaked out of the body and made 
for flight. The bell bound him to paralyzed 
flesh, bound him to the will of the bell-ringer. 

Fury seethed in him, anger and fear fueling 
his struggle, but the sound was everywhere, all 
around him, all through him. He would never 
be free of it. 
Sabriel watched the misshapen shadow 
writhing, half out of the corpse, half in it, the 
body bleeding a pool of darkness. It was still 
trying to use the corpse’s mouth, but without 
93 
success. She considered going with it into Death, 
where it would have a shape and she could make 
it answer with Dyrim. But the broken Charter 
Stone loomed nearby and she felt it as an everpresent 
fear, like a cold jewel upon her breast. 
In her mind, she heard her mother-sending’s 
words, “Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter 
what happens.” 
Sabriel thrust her sword point-first into the 
snow, put Saraneth away and drew Kibeth from 
the bandolier, using both hands. Thralk sensed it 
and his fury gave way to pure, unadulterated 
fear. After all the centuries of struggle, he knew 
true death had come for him at last. 
Sabriel took up a careful stance, with the bell 
held in a curious two-handed grip. Kibeth 
seemed almost to twitch in her hands, but she 
controlled it, swinging it backwards, forwards, 
and then in a sort of odd figure eight. The 
sounds, all from the one bell, were very different 
to each other, but they made a little marching 
tune, a dancing song, a parade. 
Thralk heard them and felt forces grip him. 
Strange, inexorable powers that made him find 
the border, made him return to Death. Vainly, 
almost pathetically, he struggled against them, 
94 
knowing he couldn’t break free. He knew that 
he would walk through every Gate, to fall at last 
through the Ninth. He gave up the struggle and 
used the last of his strength to form a semblance 
of a mouth in the middle of his shadow-stuff, a 
mouth with a writhing tongue of darkness. 
“Curse you!” he gurgled. “I will tell the 
Servants of Kerrigor! I will be revenged . . .” 

His grotesque, gulping voice was chopped off 
in mid-sentence, as Thralk lost free will. 
Saraneth had bound him, but Kibeth gripped 
him and Kibeth walked him, walked him so 
Thralk would be no more. The twisting shadow 
simply disappeared and there was only snow 
under a long-dead corpse. 
Even though the revenant was gone, his last 
words troubled Sabriel. The name Kerrigor, 
while not exactly familiar, touched some basic 
fear in her, some memory. Perhaps Abhorsen had 
spoken this name, which undoubtedly belonged 
to one of the Greater Dead. The name scared her 
in the same way the broken stone did, as if they 
were tangible symbols of a world gone wrong, a 
world where her father was lost, where she herself 
was terribly threatened. 
Sabriel coughed, feeling the cold in her lungs, 
95 
and very carefully replaced Kibeth in the bandolier. 
Her sword seemed to have burned itself 
clean, but she ran a cloth over the blade before 
returning it to the scabbard. She felt very tired 
as she swung her pack back on, but there was 
no doubt in her mind that she must move on 
immediately. Her mother-spirit’s words kept 
echoing in her mind, and her own senses told 
her something was happening in Death, something 
powerful was moving towards Life, moving 
towards emergence at the broken stone. 
There had been too much death and too much 
Charter Magic on this hill, and the night was yet 
to reach its blackest. The wind was swinging 
around, the clouds regaining their superiority 
over sky. Soon, the stars would disappear and 
the young moon would be wrapped in white. 
Quickly, Sabriel scanned the heavens, looking 
for the three bright stars that marked the Buckle 
of the North Giant’s Belt. She found them, but 
then had to check the star map in her almanac, a 
handmade match stinking as it cast a yellow 
flicker on the pages, for she didn’t dare use any 
more Charter Magic till she was away from the 
broken stone. The almanac showed that she had 

remembered correctly: the Buckle was due north 
96 
in the Old Kingdom; its other name was 
Mariner’s Cheat. In Ancelstierre, the Buckle was 
easily ten degrees west of north. 
North located, Sabriel started to make her way 
to that side of the crest, looking for the spur that 
slanted down to the valley lost in darkness 
below. The clouds were thickening and she 
wanted to reach level ground before the moonlight 
disappeared. At least the spur, when found, 
looked like easier going than the broken steps to 
the south, though its gentle slope proclaimed a 
long descent to the valley. 
In fact, it took several hours before Sabriel 
reached the valley floor, stumbling and shivering, 
a very pale Charter flame dancing a little 
ways in front of her. Too insubstantial to really 
ease her path, it had helped her avoid major disaster, 
and she hoped it was pallid enough to be 
taken for marsh-gas or chance reflection. In any 
case, it had proved essential when clouds closed 
the last remaining gap in the sky. 
So much for no cloud, Sabriel thought, as she 
looked towards what she guessed was still north, 
searching for the red star, Uallus. Her teeth were 
chattering and would not be stilled, and a shiver 
that had started with her ice-cold feet was 
97 
repeating itself through every limb. If she didn’t 
keep moving, she’d simply freeze where she 
stood—particularly as the wind was rising once 
more . . . 
Sabriel laughed quietly, almost hysterically, 
and turned her face to feel the breeze. It was an 
easterly, gaining strength with the minute. 
Colder, yes, but it also cleared the cloud, sweeping 
it to the west—and there, in the first cleared 
broom-stroke of the wind, was Uallus gleaming 
red. Sabriel smiled, stared at it, took stock of the 
little she could see around her, and started off 
again, following the star, a whispering voice constant 
in the back of her mind. 
Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what 

happens. 
The smile lasted as Sabriel found the road and, 
with a good cover of snow in each gutter, she 
skied, making good time. 
By the time Sabriel found the mile marker and 
the Charter Stone behind it, no trace of the smile 
could be seen on her pale face. It was snowing 
again, snowing sideways as the wind grew more 
frenzied, taking the snowflakes and whipping 
them into her eyes, now the only exposed portion 
of her entire body. Her boots were soaked 
98 
too, despite the mutton fat she’d rubbed into 
them. Her feet, face and hands were freezing, 
and she was exhausted. She’d dutifully eaten a 
little every hour, but now, simply couldn’t open 
her frozen jaws. 
For a short time, at the intact Charter Stone 
that rose proudly behind the smaller milemarker, 
Sabriel had made herself warm, invoking 
a Charter-spell for heat. But she’d grown too 
tired to maintain it without the assistance of the 
stone, and the spell dissipated almost as soon as 
she walked on. Only the mother-spirit’s warning 
kept her going. That, and the sensation that she 
was being followed. 
It was only a feeling, and in her tired, chilled 
state, Sabriel wondered if it was just imagination. 
But she wasn’t in any state to face up to 
anything that might not be imagined, so she 
forced herself to go on. 
Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what 
happens. 
The path from the Charter Stone was better 
made than the one that climbed Cloven Crest, 
but steeper. The pathmakers here had to cut 
through a dense, greyish rock, which did not 
erode like granite, and they had built hundreds 
99 
of wide, low steps, carved with intricate patterns. 
Whether these meant something, Sabriel 
didn’t know. They weren’t Charter marks, or 
symbols of any language that she knew, and she 
was too tired to speculate. She concentrated on 

one step at a time, using her hands to push down 
on her aching thighs, coughing and gasping, 
head down to avoid the flying snow. 
The path grew steeper still and Sabriel could 
see the cliff-face ahead, a huge, black, vertical 
mass, a much darker backdrop to the swirling 
snow than the clouded sky, palely backlit by the 
moon. But she didn’t seem to get any closer as 
the path switchbacked to and fro, rising further 
and further up from the valley below. 
Then, suddenly, Sabriel was there. The path 
turned again and her little will-o’-the-wisp light 
reflected back from a wall, a wall that stretched 
for miles to either side, and for hundreds of 
yards upwards. Clearly, these were the Long 
Cliffs, and the path had ended. 
Almost sobbing with relief, Sabriel pushed 
herself forward to the very base of the cliff, and 
the little light rose above her head to disclose 
grey, lichen-veined rock. But even with that 
light, there was no sign of a door—nothing but 
100 
jagged, impervious rock, going up and out of 
her tiny circle of illumination. There was no 
path and nowhere else to go. 
Wearily, Sabriel knelt in a patch of snow and 
rubbed her hands together vigorously, trying to 
restore circulation, before drawing Mosrael 
from the bandolier. Mosrael, the Waker. Sabriel 
stilled it carefully and concentrated her senses, 
feeling for anything Dead that might be near 
and should not be woken. There was nothing 
close, but once again Sabriel felt something 
behind her, something following her, far down 
on the path. Something Dead, something reeking 
of power. She tried to judge how distant the 
thing was, before forcing it from her thoughts. 
Whatever it might be, it was too far away to 
hear even Mosrael’s raucous voice. Sabriel 
stood up, and rang the bell. 
It made a sound like tens of parrots screeching, 
a noise that burst into the air and wove itself 
into the wind, echoing from the cliffs, multiplying 
into the scream of a thousand birds. 

Sabriel stilled the bell at once and put it away, 
but the echoes raced across the valley, and she 
knew the thing behind her had heard. She felt it 
fix its attention on where she was and she felt 
101 
it quicken its pace, like watching the muscles on 
a racehorse going from the walk to a gallop. It 
was coming up the steps at least four or five at a 
time. She felt the rush of it in her head and the 
fear rising in her at equal pace, but she still went 
to the path and looked down, drawing her 
sword as she did so. 
There, between gusts of snow, she saw a figure 
leaping from step to step; impossible leaps, that 
ate up the distance between them with horrible 
appetite. It was manlike, more than man-high, 
and flames ran like burning oil on water where it 
trod. Sabriel cried out as she saw it, and felt the 
Dead spirit within. The Book of the Dead 
opened to fearful pages in her memory, and 
descriptions of evil poured into her head. It was 
a Mordicant that hunted her—a thing that could 
pass at will through Life and Death, its body of 
bog-clay and human blood molded and infused 
with Free Magic by a necromancer, and a Dead 
spirit placed inside as its guiding force. 
Sabriel had banished a Mordicant once, but 
that had been forty miles from the Wall, in 
Ancelstierre, and it had been weak, already fading. 
This one was strong, fiery, new-born. It 
would kill her, she suddenly knew, and subjugate 
102 
103 
her spirit. All her plans and dreams, her hopes 
and courage, fell out of her to be replaced by 
pure, unthinking panic. She turned to one side, 
then the other, like a rabbit running from a dog, 
but the only way down was the path and the 
Mordicant was only a hundred yards below, 
closing with every blink, with every falling 
snowflake. Flames were spewing from its 
mouth, and it thrust its pointed head back and 
howled as it ran, a howl like the last shout of 
someone falling to their death, underlaid with 

the squeal of fingernails on glass. 
Sabriel, a scream somehow stuck and choking 
in her throat, turned to the cliff, hammering on 
it with the pommel of her sword. 
“Open! Open!” she screamed, as Charter 
marks raced through her brain—but not the 
right ones for forcing a door, a spell she’d 
learned in the Second Form. She knew it like she 
knew her times tables, but the Charter marks 
just wouldn’t come, and why was twelve times 
twelve sticking in her head when she wanted 
Charter marks . . . 
The echoes from Mosrael faded, and in that 
silence, the pommel struck on something that 
thudded hollowly, rather than throwing sparks 
and jarring her hand. Something wooden, something 
that hadn’t been there before. A door, tall 
and strangely narrow, its dark oak lined with silver 
Charter marks dancing through the grain. An 
iron ring, exactly at hand height, touched 
Sabriel’s hip. 
Sabriel dropped her sword with a gasp, 
grabbed the ring, and pulled. Nothing happened. 
Sabriel tugged again, half-turning to look over 
her shoulder, almost cringing at what she would 
see. 
The Mordicant turned the last corner and its 
eyes met hers. Sabriel shut them, unable to bear 
the hatred and bloodlust glowing in its gaze like 
a poker left too long in the forge. It howled again 
and almost flowed up the remaining steps, 
flames dripping from its mouth, claws and feet. 
Sabriel, eyes still closed, pushed on the ring. 
The door flew open and she fell in, crashing to 
the ground in a flurry of snow, eyes snapping 
open. Desperately, she twisted herself around on 
the ground, ignoring the pain in her knees and 
hands. Reaching back outside, she snagged the 
hilt of her sword and snatched it in. 
As the blade cleared the doorway, the 
Mordicant reached it, and twisting itself side- 
104 
ways to pass the narrow portal, thrust an arm 
inside. Flames boiled from its grey-green flesh, 

like beads of sweat, and small plumes of black 
smoke spiraled from the flames, bringing with 
them a stench like burning hair. 
Sabriel, sprawled defenseless on the floor, could 
only stare in terror as the thing’s four-taloned 
hand slowly opened and reached out for her. 
105 
chapter vii 
But the hand didn’t close; the 
talons failed to rend defenseless flesh. 
Instead, Sabriel felt a sudden surge of Charter 
Magic and Charter marks flared around the door, 
blazing so brightly that they left red after-images 
at the back of her eyes, black dots dancing across 
her vision. 
Blinking, she saw a man step out from the 
stones of the wall, a tall and obviously strong 
man, with a longsword the twin of Sabriel’s own. 
This sword came whistling down on the 
Mordicant’s arm, biting out a chunk of burning 
marsh-rotten flesh. Rebounding, the sword 
flicked back again, and hewed another slice, like 
an axeman sending chips flying from a tree. 
The Mordicant howled, more in anger than in 
pain—but it withdrew the arm and the stranger 
threw himself against the door, slamming it shut 
with the full weight of his mail-clad body. 
Curiously for mail, it made no sound, no jangling 
from the flow of hundreds of steel links. A strange 
body under it too, Sabriel saw, as the black dots 
and the red wash faded, revealing that her rescuer 
wasn’t human at all. He had seemed solid enough, 
but every square inch of him was defined by tiny, 
constantly moving Charter marks, and Sabriel 
could see nothing between them but empty air. 
He . . . it was a Charter-ghost, a sending. 
Outside, the Mordicant howled again, like a 
steam train venting pressure, then the whole corridor 
shook and hinges screeched in protest as the 
thing threw itself against the door. Wood splintered 
and clouds of thick grey dust fell from the 
ceiling, mocking the falling snow outside. 

The sending turned to face Sabriel and offered 
its hand to help her up. Sabriel took it, looking up 
at it as her tired, frozen legs struggled to make a 
tenth-round comeback. Close to, the illusion of 
flesh was imperfect, fluid and unsettling. Its face 
wouldn’t stay fixed, migrating between scores of 
possibilities. Some were women, some were 
men—but all bore tough, competent visages. Its 
107 
body and clothing changed slightly, too, with 
every face, but two details always remained the 
same; a black surcoat with the blazon of a silver 
key, and a longsword redolent with Charter 
Magic. 
“Thank you,” Sabriel said nervously, flinching 
as the Mordicant pounded the door again. 
“Can . . . do you think that . . . will it get 
through?” 
The sending nodded grimly, and let go her hand 
to point up the long corridor, but it did not speak. 
Sabriel turned her head to follow its pointing 
hand and saw a dark passage that rose up into 
darkness. Charter marks illuminated where they 
stood, but faded only a little way on. Despite this, 
the darkness seemed friendly, and she could 
almost taste the Charter-spells that rode on the 
corridor’s dusty air. 
“I must go on?” asked Sabriel, as it pointed 
again, more urgently. The sending nodded, and 
flapped its hand backwards and forwards, indicating 
haste. Behind him, another crashing blow 
caused another great billow of dust, and the door 
sounded as if it was weakening. Once again, the 
vile, burnt smell of the Mordicant wafted through 
the air. 
108 
The doorkeeper wrinkled its nose and gave 
Sabriel a bit of a push in the right direction, like 
a parent urging a reluctant child to press on. But 
Sabriel needed no urging. Her fear was still 
burning in her. Momentarily extinguished by 
the rescue, the smell of the Mordicant was all it 
needed to blaze again. She set her face upwards 
and started to walk quickly, into the passage. 

She looked back after a few yards, to see the 
doorkeeper waiting near the door, its sword at the 
guard position. Beyond it, the door was bulging 
in, iron-bound planks bursting, breaking around 
a hole as big as a dinner plate. 
The Mordicant reached in and broke off more 
planks, as easily as it might snap toothpicks. It 
was obviously furious that its prey was getting 
away, for it burned all over now. Yellow-red 
flames vomited from its mouth in a vile torrent, 
and black smoke rose like a second shadow 
around it, eddying in crazy circles as it howled. 
Sabriel looked away, setting off at a fast walk, 
but the walk grew faster and faster, became a jog 
and then a run. Her feet pounded on the stone, 
but it wasn’t until she was almost sprinting, that 
she realized why she could—her pack and skis 
were still back at the lower door. For a moment, 
109 
she was struck with a nervous inclination to go 
back, but it passed before it even became conscious 
thought. Even so, her hands checked scabbard 
and bandolier, and gained reassurance from 
the cool metal of sword hilt and the handsmoothed 
wood of the bell handles. 
It was light too, she realized as she ran. Charter 
marks ran in the stone, keeping pace with her. 
Charter marks for light and for fleetness, and for 
many other things she didn’t know. Strange marks 
and many of them—so many that Sabriel wondered 
how she could have ever thought that a 
First in magic from an Ancelstierran school would 
make her a great mage in the Old Kingdom. Fear 
and realization of ignorance were strong medicines 
against stupid pride. 
Another howl came racing up the passage 
and echoed onwards, accompanied by many 
crashes, and thuds or clangs of steel striking 
supernatural flesh, or ricocheting off stone. 
Sabriel didn’t need to look back to know the 
Mordicant had broken through the door and 
was now fighting the doorkeeper—or pushing 
past him. Sabriel knew little of such sendings, 
but a common failing with the sentinel variety 

was an inability to leave their post. Once the 
110 
creature got a few feet past the doorkeeper, the 
sending would be useless—and one great charge 
would soon get the Mordicant past. 
That thought gave her another burst of speed, 
but Sabriel knew that it was the last. Her body, 
pushed by fear and weakened by cold and exertion, 
was on the edge of failure. Her legs felt stiff, 
muscles ready to cramp, and her lungs seemed to 
bubble with fluid rather than air. 
Ahead, the corridor seemed to go on and on, 
sloping ever upwards. But the light only shone 
where Sabriel ran, so perhaps the exit might not 
be too far ahead, perhaps just past the next little 
patch of darkness . . . 
Even as this thought passed through her mind, 
Sabriel saw a glow that sharpened into the bright 
tracing of a doorway. She half gasped, half cried 
out, both slight human noises drowned out by the 
unholy, inhuman screech of the Mordicant. It was 
past the doorkeeper. 
At the same time, Sabriel became aware of a 
new sound ahead, a sound she had initially 
thought was the throb of blood in her ears, the 
pounding of a racing heart. But it was outside, 
beyond the upper door. A deep, roaring noise, so 
low it was almost a vibration, a shudder that she 
111 
felt through the floor, rather than heard. 
Heavy trucks passing on a road above, Sabriel 
thought, before remembering where she was. In 
that same instant, she recognized the sound. 
Somewhere ahead, out of these encircling cliffs, a 
great waterfall was crashing down. And a waterfall 
that made so great a sound must be fed by an 
equally great river. 
Running water! The prospect of it fueled Sabriel 
with sudden hope, and with that hope came the 
strength she thought beyond her. In a wild spurt 
of speed, she almost hit the door, hands slapping 
against the wood, slowing for the instant she 
needed to find the handle or ring. 
But another hand was already on the ring when 

she touched it, though none had been there a second 
before. Again, Charter marks defined this 
hand, and Sabriel could see the grain of the wood 
and the blueing of the steel through the palm of 
another sending. 
This one was smaller, of indeterminate sex, for 
it was wearing a habit like a monk’s, with the 
hood drawn across its head. The habit was black 
and bore the emblem of the silver key front and 
back. 
It bowed, and turned the ring. The door swung 
112 
open, to reveal bright starlight shining down 
between clouds fleeing the newly risen wind. The 
noise of the waterfall roared through the open 
doorway, accompanied by flecks of flying spray. 
Without thinking, Sabriel stepped out. 
The cowled doorkeeper came with her and shut 
the door behind it, before dragging a delicate, 
silver portcullis down across the door and locking 
it with an iron padlock. Both defenses 
apparently came out of thin air. Sabriel looked 
at them and felt power in them, for both were 
also Charter sendings. But door, portcullis and 
lock would only slow the Mordicant, not stop 
it. The only possible escape lay across the 
swiftest of running water, or the untimely glare 
of a noonday sun. 
The first lay at her feet and the second was still 
many hours away. Sabriel stood on a narrow 
ledge that projected out from the bank of a river 
at least four hundred yards wide. A little to her 
right, a scant few paces away, this mighty river 
hurled itself over the cliff, to make a truly glorious 
waterfall. Sabriel leaned forward a little, to look 
at the waters crashing below, creating huge white 
wings of spray that could easily swallow her 
entire school, new wing and all, like a rubber 
113 
duck swamped in an unruly bath. 
It was a very long fall, and the height, coupled 
with the sheer power of the water, made 
her quickly look back to the river. Straight 
ahead, halfway across, Sabriel could just make 

out an island, an island perched on the very lip 
of the waterfall, dividing the river into two 
streams. It wasn’t a very big island, about the 
size of a football field, but it rose like a ship of 
jagged rock from the turbulent waters. 
Encircling the island were limestone-white walls 
the height of six men. Behind those walls was a 
house. It was too dark to see clearly, but there was 
a tower, a thrusting, pencil silhouette, with red 
tiles that were just beginning to catch the dawning 
sun. Below the tower, a dark bulk hinted at the 
existence of a hall, a kitchen, bedrooms, armory, 
buttery and cellar. The study, Sabriel suddenly 
remembered, occupied the second to top floor of 
the tower. The top floor was an observatory, both 
of stars and the surrounding territory. 
It was Abhorsen’s House. Home, although 
Sabriel had only visited it twice, or maybe three 
times, all when she was too young to remember 
much. That period of her life was hazy, and 
mostly filled with recollections of the Travelers, 
114 
the interiors of their wagons, and many different 
campsites that all blurred together. She didn’t 
even remember the waterfall, though the sound 
of it did stir some recognition—something had 
lodged in the mind of a four-year-old girl. 
Unfortunately, she didn’t remember how to get 
to the house. Only the words her mother-sending 
had given her—Abhorsen’s Bridge. 
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken these words 
aloud, till the little gate warden tugged at her 
sleeve and pointed down. Sabriel looked and 
saw steps carved into the bank, steps leading 
right down to the river. 
This time, Sabriel didn’t hesitate. She nodded to 
the Charter sending and whispered, “Thank 
you,” before taking the steps. The Mordicant’s 
presence was pressing at her again, like a 
stranger’s rank breath behind her ear. She knew it 
had reached the upper gate, though the sound of 
its battering and destruction was drowned in the 
greater roar of the waters. 
The steps led to the river, but did not end 

there. Though invisible from the ledge, there 
were stepping-stones leading out to the island. 
Sabriel eyed them nervously, and looked at the 
water. It was clearly very deep and rushing past 
115 
116 
at an alarming speed. The stepping-stones were 
barely above its boisterous wavelets and, even 
though they were wide and cross-hatched for 
grip, they were also wet with spray and the 
slushy remnants of snow and ice. 
Sabriel watched a small piece of ice from upstream 
hurtle by, and pictured its slingshot ride 
over the falls, to be smashed apart so far below. 
She imagined herself in its place, and then 
thought of the Mordicant behind her, of the 
Dead spirit that was at its heart, of the death it 
would bring, and the imprisonment she would 
suffer beyond death. 
She jumped. Her boots skidded a little and her 
arms flailed for balance, but she ended up steady, 
bent over in a half-crouch. Hardly waiting to rebalance, 
she jumped to the next stone and then 
the one after that, and again, in a mad leapfrog 
through the spray and thunder of the river. 
When she was halfway out, with a hundred 
yards of pure, ferocious water behind her, she 
stopped and looked back. 
The Mordicant was on the ledge, the silvery 
portcullis broken and mangled in its grip. There 
was no sign of the gate warden, but that was not 
surprising. Defeated, it would merely fade until 
the Charter-spell renewed itself—hours, days or 
even years later. 
The Dead thing was curiously still, but it was 
clearly watching Sabriel. Even so powerful a creature 
couldn’t cross this river and it made no 
attempt to do so. In fact, the longer Sabriel stared 
at it, the more it seemed to her that the Mordicant 
was content to wait. It was a sentry, guarding 
what might be the only exit from the island. Or 
perhaps it was waiting for something to happen, 
or for someone to arrive . . . 
Sabriel suppressed a shudder and jumped on. 

There was more light now, heralding the advent 
of the sun, and she could see a sort of wooden 
landing stage leading up to a gate in the white 
wall. Treetops were also visible behind the walls, 
winter trees, their branches bare of green raiment. 
Birds flew between trees and tower, little birds 
launching themselves for their morning forage. It 
was a vision of normalcy, of a haven. But Sabriel 
could not forget the tall, flame-etched silhouette 
of the Mordicant, brooding on the ledge. 
Wearily, she made the jump to the last stone and 
collapsed on the steps of the landing stage. Even 
her eyelids could barely move, and her field of 
vision had narrowed to a little slit directly to her 
117 
front. The grain of the planks of the landing stage 
loomed close, as she crawled up to the gate and 
halfheartedly fell against it. 
The gate swung open, pitching her onto a paved 
courtyard, the beginning of a red-brick path, the 
bricks ancient, their redness the color of dusty 
apples. The path wound up to the front door of 
the house, a cheerful sky-blue door, bright against 
whitewashed stone. A bronze doorknocker in the 
shape of a lion’s head holding a ring in its mouth 
gleamed in counterpoint to the white cat that lay 
coiled on the rush mat before the door. 
Sabriel lay on the bricks and smiled up at the 
cat, blinking back tears. The cat twitched and 
turned its head ever so slightly to look at her, 
revealing bright, green eyes. 
“Hello, puss,” croaked Sabriel, coughing as she 
staggered once more to her feet and walked forward, 
groaning and creaking with every step. She 
reached down to pat the cat, and froze—for, as 
the cat thrust its head up, she saw the collar 
around its neck and the tiny bell that hung there. 
The collar was only red leather, but the Charterspell 
on it was the strongest, most enduring, binding 
that Sabriel had ever seen or felt—and the bell 
was a miniature Saraneth. The cat was no cat, but 
118 
a Free Magic creature of ancient power. 
“Abhorsen,” mewed the cat, its little pink 

tongue darting. “About time you got here.” 
Sabriel stared at it for a moment, gave a little 
sort of moan and fell forward in a faint of 
exhaustion and dismay. 
119 
chapter viii 
Sabriel awoke to soft candlelight, 
the warmth of a feather bed, and silken sheets, 
delightfully smooth under heavy blankets. A fire 
burned briskly in a red-brick fireplace and 
wood-paneled walls gleamed with the dark mystery 
of well-polished mahogany. A blue-papered 
ceiling with silver stars dusted across it, faced her 
newly opened eyes. Two windows confronted 
each other across the room, but they were shuttered, 
so Sabriel had no idea what time it was, no 
more than she had any remembrance of how 
she’d got there. It was definitely Abhorsen’s 
House, but her last memory was of fainting on 
the doorstep. 
Gingerly—for even her neck ached from her 
day and night of travel, fear and flight—Sabriel 
lifted her head to look around and once again 
met the green eyes of the cat that wasn’t a cat. 
The creature was lying near her feet, at the end 
of the bed. 
“Who . . . what are you?” Sabriel asked nervously, 
suddenly all too aware that she was 
naked under the soft sheets. A sensuous delight, 
but a defenseless one. Her eyes flickered to her 
sword-belt and bell-bandolier, carefully draped 
on a clothes-horse near the door. 
“I have a variety of names,” replied the cat. It 
had a strange voice, half-mew, half-purr, with 
hissing on the vowels. “You may call me 
Mogget. As to what I am, I was once many 
things, but now I am only several. Primarily, I 
am a servant of Abhorsen. Unless you would be 
kind enough to remove my collar?” 
Sabriel gave an uneasy smile, and shook her 
head firmly. Whatever Mogget was, that collar 
was the only thing that kept it as a servant of 

Abhorsen . . . or anybody else. The Charter 
marks on the collar were quite explicit about 
that. As far as Sabriel could tell, the binding spell 
was over a thousand years old. It was quite possible 
that Mogget was some Free Magic spirit as 
old as the Wall, or even older. She wondered 
121 
why her father hadn’t mentioned it, and with a 
pang, wished that she had awoken to find her 
father here, in his house, both their troubles over. 
“I thought not,” said Mogget, combining a 
careless shrug with a limbering stretch. It . . . or 
he, for Sabriel felt the cat was definitely masculine, 
jumped to the parquet floor and sauntered 
over to the fire. Sabriel watched, her trained eye 
noting that Mogget’s shadow was not always 
that of a cat. 
A knock at the door interrupted her study of 
the cat, the sharp sound making Sabriel jump 
nervously, the hair on the back of her neck 
frizzing to attention. 
“It’s only one of the servants,” Mogget said, in 
a patronizing tone. “Charter sendings, and pretty 
low-grade ones at that. They always burn the 
milk.” 
Sabriel ignored him, and said, “Come in.” Her 
voice shook, and she realized that shaky nerves 
and weakness would be with her for a while. 
The door swung open silently and a short, 
robed figure drifted in. It was similar to the 
upper gatewarden, being cowled and so without 
a visible face, but this one’s habit was of light 
cream rather than black. It had a simple cotton 
122 
underdress draped over one arm, a thick towel 
over the other and its Charter-woven hands held 
a long woollen surcoat and a pair of slippers. 
Without a word, it went to the end of the bed 
and put the garments on Sabriel’s feet. Then it 
crossed to a porcelain basin that sat in a silver 
filigree stand, above a tiled area of the floor to 
the left of the fire. There, it twisted a bronze 
wheel, and steaming hot water splashed and gurgled 
from a pipe in the wall, bringing with it the 

stench of something sulphurous and unpleasant. 
Sabriel wrinkled her nose. 
“Hot springs,” commented Mogget. “You 
won’t smell it after a while. Your father always 
said that having permanent hot water was 
worth bearing the smell. Or was it your grandfather 
who said that? Or great-great-aunt? Ah, 
memory . . .” 
The servant stood immobile while the basin 
filled, then twisted the wheel to cut the flow as 
water slopped over the rim to the floor, close to 
Mogget—who leapt to his feet and padded 
away, keeping a cautious distance from the 
Charter sending. Just like a real cat, Sabriel 
thought. Perhaps the imposed shape impressed 
behavior too, over the years—or centuries. She 
123 
liked cats. The school had a cat, a plump marmalade 
feline, who went by the name of Biscuits. 
Sabriel thought about the way it slept on the 
windowsill of the Prefect’s Room, and then found 
herself thinking about the school in general, and 
what her friends would be doing. Her eyelids 
drooped as she imagined an Etiquette class, and 
the Mistress droning on about silver salvers . . . 
A sharp clang woke her with yet another start, 
sending further stabs of pain through tired muscles. 
The Charter sending had tapped the bronze 
wheel with the poker from the fireplace. It was 
obviously impatient for Sabriel to have her wash. 
“Water’s getting cold,” explained Mogget, 
leaping up to the bed again. “And they’ll be serving 
dinner in half an hour.” 
“They?” asked Sabriel, sitting up and reaching 
forward to grab slippers and towel, preparatory 
to sidling out of bed and into them. 
“Them,” said Mogget, butting his head in the 
direction of the sending, who had stepped back 
from the basin and was now holding out a bar of 
soap. 
Sabriel shuffled over to the basin, the towel 
wrapped firmly around her, and gingerly 
touched the water. It was delightfully hot, but 
124 

before she could do anything with it, the sending 
stepped forward, whisked the towel off her and 
upended the whole basin over her head. 
Sabriel shrieked, but, again before she could 
do anything else, the sending had put back the 
basin, turned the wheel for more hot water and 
was soaping her down, paying particular attention 
to her head, as if it wanted to get soap in 
Sabriel’s eyes, or suspected an infestation of nits. 
“What are you doing!” Sabriel protested, as 
the strangely cool hands of the sending scrubbed 
at her back and then, quite without interest, at 
her breasts and stomach. “Stop it! I’m quite old 
enough to wash myself, thank you!” 
But Miss Prionte’s techniques for dealing with 
domestic servants didn’t seem to work on domestic 
sendings. It kept scrubbing, occasionally 
tipping hot water over Sabriel. 
“How do I stop it?” she spluttered to Mogget, 
as still more water cascaded over her head and 
the sending started to scrub lower regions. 
“You can’t,” replied Mogget, who seemed 
quite amused by the spectacle. “This one’s particularly 
recalcitrant.” 
“What do you . . . ow! . . . stop that! What do 
you mean, this one?” 
125 
“There’s lots about the place,” said Mogget. 
“Every Abhorsen seems to have made their own. 
Probably because they get like this one after a 
few hundred years. Privileged family retainers, 
who always think they know best. Practically 
human, in the worst possible way.” 
The sending paused in its scrubbing just long 
enough to flick some water at Mogget, who 
jumped the wrong way and yowled as it hit him. 
Just before another great basin-load of water hit 
Sabriel, she saw the cat shoot under the bed, his 
tail dividing the bedspread. 
“That’s enough, thank you!” she pronounced, 
as the last drench of water drained out through 
a grille in the tiled area. The sending had probably 
finished anyway, thought Sabriel, as it 
stopped washing and started to towel her dry. 

She snatched the towel back from it and tried to 
finish the job herself, but the sending counterattacked 
by combing her hair, causing another 
minor tussle. Eventually, between the two of 
them, Sabriel shrugged on the underdress and 
surcoat, and submitted to a manicure and vigorous 
hair-brushing. 
She was admiring the tiny, repeated silver key 
motif on the black surcoat in the mirror that 
126 
backed one of the window-shutters, when a 
gong sounded somewhere else in the house and 
the servant-sending opened the door. A split 
second later, Mogget raced through, with a cry 
that Sabriel thought was “Dinner!” She followed, 
rather more sedately, the sending closing 
the door behind her. 
Dinner was in the main hall of the house. A 
long, stately room that took up half the ground 
floor, it was dominated by the floor to ceiling 
stained-glass window at the western end. The 
window showed a scene from the building of the 
Wall and, like many other things around the 
house, was heavily laden with Charter Magic. 
Perhaps there was no real glass in it at all, 
Sabriel mused, as she watched the light of the 
evening sun play in and around the toiling figures 
that were building the Wall. As with the 
sendings, if you looked closely enough you could 
see tiny Charter marks making up the patterns. 
It was hard to see through the window, but judging 
from the sun, it was almost dusk. Sabriel 
realized she must have slept for a full day, or 
possibly even two. 
A table nearly as long as the hall stretched 
away from her—a brightly polished table of 
127 
some light and lustrous timber, heavily laden 
with silver salt cellars, candelabra and rather 
fantastic-looking decanters and covered dishes. 
But only two places were fully set, with a plethora 
of knives, forks, spoons and other instruments, 
which Sabriel only recognized from 
obscure drawings in her Etiquette textbook. 

She’d never seen a real golden straw for sucking 
the innards out of a pomegranate before, for 
example. 
One place was before a high-backed chair at 
the head of the table and the other was to the 
left of this, in front of a cushioned stool. Sabriel 
wondered which was hers, till Mogget jumped 
up on the stool and said, “Come on! They won’t 
serve till you’re seated.” 
“They” were more sendings. Half a dozen in 
all, including the cream-dressed tyrant of the 
bedroom. They were all basically the same; 
human in shape, but cowled or veiled. Only their 
hands were visible, and these were almost transparent, 
as if Charter marks had been lightly 
etched on prosthetic hands carved from moonstone. 
The sendings stood grouped around a 
door—the kitchen door, for Sabriel saw fires 
beyond them, and smelled the tang of cooking— 
128 
and stared at her. It was rather unnerving, not to 
meet any eyes. 
“Yes, that’s her,” Mogget said caustically. 
“Your new mistress. Now let’s have dinner.” 
None of the sendings moved, till Sabriel 
stepped forward. They stepped forward, too, and 
all dropped to one knee, or whatever supported 
them beneath the floor-length robes. Each held 
out their pale right hand, Charter marks running 
bright trails around their palms and fingers. 
Sabriel stared for a moment, but it was clear 
they offered their services, or loyalty, and expected 
her to do something in return. She 
walked to them and gently pressed each upthrust 
hand in turn, feeling the Charter-spells 
that made them whole. Mogget had spoken 
truly, for some of the spells were old, far older 
than Sabriel could guess. 
“I thank you,” she said slowly. “On behalf of 
my father, and for the kindness you have shown 
me.” 
This seemed to be appropriate, or enough to 
be going on with. The sendings stood, bowed 
and went about their business. The one in the 

cream habit pulled out Sabriel’s chair and placed 
her napkin as she sat. It was of crisp black linen, 
129 
dusted with tiny silver keys, a miracle of needlework. 
Mogget, Sabriel noticed, had a plain white 
napkin, with evidence of old stains. 
“I’ve had to eat in the kitchen for the last two 
weeks,” Mogget said sourly, as two sendings 
approached from the kitchen, bearing plates that 
signaled their arrival with a tantalizing odor of 
spices and hot food. 
“I expect it was good for you,” Sabriel replied 
brightly, taking a mouthful of wine. It was a 
fruity, dry white wine, though Sabriel hadn’t 
developed a palate to know whether it was good 
or merely indifferent. It was certainly drinkable. 
Her first major experiments with alcohol lay several 
years behind her, enshrined in memory as significant 
occasions shared with two of her closest 
friends. None of the three could ever drink brandy 
again, but Sabriel had started to enjoy wine with 
her meals. 
“Anyway, how did you know I was coming?” 
Sabriel asked. “I didn’t know myself, till . . . till 
Father sent his message.” 
The cat didn’t answer at once, his attention 
focused on the plate of fish the sending had just 
put down—small, almost circular fish, with the 
bright eyes and shiny scales of the freshly caught. 
130 
Sabriel had them too, but hers were grilled, with 
a tomato, garlic and basil sauce. 
“I have served ten times as many of your forebears 
as you have years,” Mogget replied at last. 
“And though my powers wane with the ebb of 
time, I always know when one Abhorsen falls and 
another takes their place.” 
Sabriel swallowed her last mouthful, all taste 
gone, and put down her fork. She took a mouthful 
of wine to clear her throat, but it seemed to 
have become vinegar, making her cough. 
“What do you mean by ‘fall’? What do you 
know? What has happened to Father?” 
Mogget looked up at Sabriel, eyes half-lidded, 

meeting her gaze steadily, as no normal cat could. 
“He is dead, Sabriel. Even if he hasn’t passed 
the Final Gate, he will walk in life no more. That 
is—” 
“No,” interrupted Sabriel. “He can’t be! He 
cannot be. He is a necromancer . . . he can’t be 
dead . . .” 
“That is why he sent the sword and bells to 
you, as his aunt sent them to him, in her time,” 
Mogget continued, ignoring Sabriel’s outburst. 
“And he was not a necromancer, he was 
Abhorsen.” 
131 
132 
“I don’t understand,” Sabriel whispered. She 
couldn’t face Mogget’s eyes anymore. “I don’t 
know . . . I don’t know enough. About anything. 
The Old Kingdom, Charter Magic, even my own 
father. Why do you say his name as if it were a 
title?” 
“It is. He was the Abhorsen. Now you are.” 
Sabriel digested this in silence, staring at the 
swirls of fish and sauce on her plate, silver scales 
and red tomato blurring into a pattern of swords 
and fire. The table blurred too, and the room 
beyond, and she felt herself reaching for the border 
with Death. But try as she might, she couldn’t 
cross it. She sensed it, but there was no way to 
cross, in either direction—Abhorsen’s House was 
too well protected. But she did feel something at 
the border. Inimical things lurked there, waiting 
for her to cross, but there was also the faintest 
thread of something familiar, like the scent of a 
woman’s perfume after she has left the room, or 
the waft of a particular pipe tobacco around a 
corner. Sabriel focused on it and threw herself 
once more at the barrier that separated her from 
Death. 
Only to ricochet back to Life, as sharp claws 
pricked her arm. Her eyes snapped open, blinking 
off flakes of frost, to see Mogget, fur bristling, one 
paw ready to strike again. 
“Fool!” he hissed. “You are the only one who 
can break the wards of this House and they wait 

for you to do so!” 
Sabriel stared at the angry cat, unseeing, biting 
back a sharp and proud retort as she realized the 
truth in Mogget’s words. There were Dead spirits 
waiting, and probably the Mordicant would cross 
as well—and she would have faced them alone 
and weaponless. 
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, bowing her head 
into two frosted hands. She hadn’t felt this 
stupidly awful since she’d burned one of the 
Headmistress’s rose bushes with an uncontrolled 
Charter-spell, narrowly missing the school’s 
ancient and much-loved gardener. She had cried 
then, but she was older now, and could keep the 
tears at bay. 
“Father is not yet truly dead,” she said, after a 
moment. “I felt his presence, though he is trapped 
beyond many gates. I could bring him back.” 
“You must not,” said Mogget firmly, and his 
voice now seemed to carry all the weight of centuries. 
“You are Abhorsen, and must put the 
Dead to rest. Your path is chosen.” 
133 
“I can walk a different path,” Sabriel replied 
firmly, raising her head. 
Mogget seemed about to protest again, then he 
laughed—a sardonic laugh—and jumped back to 
his stool. 
“Do as you will,” he said. “Why should I gainsay 
you? I am but a slave, bound to service. Why 
would I weep if Abhorsen falls to evil? It is your 
father who would curse you, and your mother 
too—and the Dead who will be merry.” 
“I don’t think he’s dead,” Sabriel said, bright 
blushes of withheld emotion in her pallid cheeks, 
frost melting, trickling down around her face. 
“His spirit felt alive. He is trapped in Death, I 
think, but his body lives. Would I still be reviled if 
I brought him back then?” 
“No,” said Mogget, calm again. “But he has 
sent the sword and bells. You are only wishing 
that he lives.” 
“I feel it,” Sabriel said simply. “And I must find 
out if my feeling is true.” 

“Perhaps it is so—though strange.” Mogget 
seemed to be musing to himself, his voice a soft 
half-purr. “I have grown dull. This collar strangles 
me, chokes my wits . . .” 
“Help me, Mogget,” Sabriel suddenly pleaded, 
134 
reaching over to touch her hand to the cat’s head, 
scratching under the collar. “I need to know—I 
need to know so much!” 
Mogget purred under the scratching, but as 
Sabriel leaned close, she could hear the faint peal 
of the tiny Saraneth bell cut through the purr, and 
she was reminded that Mogget was no cat, but a 
Free Magic creature. For a moment, Sabriel wondered 
what Mogget’s true shape was, and his true 
nature. 
“I am the servant of Abhorsen,” Mogget said 
at last. “And you are Abhorsen, so I must help 
you. But you must promise me that you will not 
raise your father, if his body is dead. Truly, he 
would not wish it.” 
“I cannot promise. But I will not act without 
much thought. And I will listen to you, if you are 
by me.” 
“I guessed as much,” Mogget said, twisting his 
head away from Sabriel’s hand. “It is true that 
you are sadly ignorant, or you would promise 
with a will. Your father should never have sent 
you beyond the Wall.” 
“Why did he?” asked Sabriel, her heart suddenly 
leaping with the question that had been 
with her all her school days, a question Abhorsen 
135 
had always smiled away with the one word, 
“Necessity.” 
“He was afraid,” replied Mogget, turning his 
attention back to the fish. “You were safer in 
Ancelstierre.” 
“What was he afraid of?” 
“Eat your fish,” replied Mogget, as two sendings 
appeared from the kitchen, bearing what was 
obviously the next course. “We’ll talk later. In the 
study.” 
136 

chapter ix 
Lanterns lit the study, old brass 
lanterns that burned with Charter Magic in 
place of oil. Smokeless, silent and eternal, they 
provided as good a light as the electric bulbs of 
Ancelstierre. 
Books lined the walls, following the curves of 
the tower around, save for where the stair rose 
from below, and the ladder climbed to the observatory 
above. 
A redwood table sat in the middle of the room, 
its legs scaled and beady-eyed, ornamental 
flames licking from the mouths of the dragonheads 
that gripped each corner of the tabletop. 
An inkwell, pens, papers and a pair of bronze 
map dividers lay upon the table. Chairs of the 
same red wood surrounded it, their upholstery 
black with a variation on the silver key motif. 
The table was one of the few things Sabriel 
remembered from her childhood visits. “Dragon 
desk” her father had called it, and she’d wrapped 
herself around one of those dragon legs, her head 
not even reaching the underside of the table. 
Sabriel ran her hand over the smooth, cool 
wood, feeling both her memory of it and the current 
sensation, then she sighed, pulled up a chair 
and put down the three books she’d tucked 
under her arm. Two, she put together close to 
her, the other she pushed to the center of the 
table. This third book came from the single 
glassed-in cabinet among the bookshelves and 
now lay like some quiescent predator, possibly 
asleep, possibly waiting to spring. Its binding 
was of pale green leather and Charter marks 
burned in the silver clasps that held it closed. The 
Book of the Dead. 
The other two books were normal enough by 
comparison. Both were Charter Magic spell 
books, listing mark after mark, and how they 
could be used. Sabriel didn’t even recognize most 
of the marks after chapter four in the first book. 
There were twenty chapters in each volume. 

Doubtless there were many other books that 
138 
would be useful, Sabriel thought, but she still 
felt too tired and shaky to get more down. She 
planned to talk to Mogget, then study for an 
hour or two, before going back to bed. Even four 
or five waking hours seemed too much after her 
ordeal, and the loss of consciousness involved 
in sleep suddenly seemed very appealing. 
Mogget, as if he had heard Sabriel thinking 
of him, appeared at the top of the steps and 
sauntered over to sprawl on a well-upholstered 
footstand. 
“I see you have found that book,” he said, tail 
flicking backwards and forwards as he spoke. 
“Take care you do not read too much.” 
“I’ve already read it all, anyway,” replied 
Sabriel, shortly. 
“Perhaps,” remarked the cat. “But it isn’t 
always the same book. Like me, it is several 
things, not one.” 
Sabriel shrugged, as if to show that she knew 
all about the book. But that was just bravado— 
the inner Sabriel was afraid of The Book of the 
Dead. She had worked her way through every 
chapter, under her father’s direction, but her 
normally excellent memory held only selected 
pages of this tome. If it changed its contents as 
139 
well—she suppressed a shiver, and told herself 
that she knew all that was necessary. 
“My first step must be to find my father’s 
body,” she said. “Which is where I need your 
help, Mogget.” 
“I have no knowledge of where he met his 
end,” Mogget stated, with finality. He yawned, 
and started licking his paws. 
Sabriel frowned, and found herself pulling in 
her lips, a characteristic she had deplored in the 
unpopular history teacher at school, who often 
went “thin-lipped” in anger or exasperation. 
“Just tell me when you last saw him, and what 
his plans were.” 
“Why don’t you read his diary,” suggested 

Mogget, in a momentary break from cleaning 
himself. 
“Where is it?” asked Sabriel, excited. A diary 
would be tremendously helpful. 
“He probably took it with him,” replied 
Mogget. “I haven’t seen it.” 
“I thought you had to help me!” Sabriel said, 
another frown wrinkling across her forehead, 
reinforcing the thin lips. “Please answer my 
question.” 
“Three weeks ago,” Mogget mumbled, mouth 
140 
half muffled in the fur of his stomach, pink 
tongue alternating between words and cleansing. 
“A messenger came from Belisaere, begging 
for his help. Something Dead, something that 
could pass the wards, was preying on them. 
Abhorsen—I mean the previous Abhorsen, 
ma’am—suspected that there was more to it 
than that, Belisaere being Belisaere. But he went.” 
“Belisaere. The name’s familiar—it’s a town?” 
“A city. The capital. At least it was, when there 
was still a kingdom.” 
“Was?” 
Mogget stopped washing, and looked across, 
eyes narrowing to frowning slits. “What did 
they teach you in that school? There hasn’t been 
a King or Queen for two hundred years, and not 
even a Regent for twenty. That’s why the 
Kingdom sinks day by day, into a darkness from 
which no one will rise . . .” 
“The Charter—” Sabriel began, but Mogget 
interrupted with a yowl of derision. 
“The Charter crumbles too,” he mewed. 
“Without a ruler, Charter Stones broken one 
by one with blood, one of the Great Charters 
twi . . . twis . . . twisted—” 
“What do you mean, one of the Great 
141 
Charters?” Sabriel interrupted in turn. She had 
never heard of such a thing. Not for the first 
time, she also wondered what she’d been taught 
in school, and why her father had kept so quiet 
about the state of the Old Kingdom. 

But Mogget was silent, as if the things he’d 
already said had stopped his mouth. For a 
moment, he seemed to be trying to form words, 
but nothing came from his small red mouth. 
Finally, he gave up. “I cannot tell you. It’s part of 
my binding, curse it! Suffice to say that the 
whole world slides into evil, and many are helping 
the slide.” 
“And others resist it,” said Sabriel. “Like my 
father. Like me.” 
“It depends what you do,” Mogget said, as if 
he doubted that someone as patently useless as 
Sabriel would make much difference. “Not that 
I care—” 
The sound of the trapdoor opening above 
their heads stopped the cat in mid-speech. 
Sabriel tensed, looking up to see what was coming 
down the ladder, then started breathing 
again as she realized that it was only another 
Charter sending, its black habit flopping over 
the rungs of the ladder as it came down. This 
142 
one, like the guards on the cliff corridor—but 
unlike the other House servants—had the silver 
key emblazoned on its chest and back. It bowed 
to Sabriel, and pointed up. 
With a feeling of foreboding, Sabriel knew that 
it wanted her to look at something from the 
observatory. Reluctantly, she pushed her chair 
back and went over to the ladder. A cold draft 
was blowing in through the open trapdoor, carrying 
with it the chill of ice from further up the 
river. Sabriel shivered, as her hands touched the 
cold metal rungs. 
Emerging into the observatory, the chill 
passed, for the room was still lit by the last, red 
light of the setting sun, giving an illusion of 
warmth and making Sabriel squint. She had 
no memory of this room, so it was with delight 
that she saw that it was totally walled in glass, 
or something like it. The bare beams of the redtiled 
roof rested on transparent walls, so cleverly 
morticed together that the roof was like a work 
of art, complete with the slight draft that 

reduced its perfection to a more human level. 
A large telescope of gleaming glass and bronze 
dominated the observatory, standing triumphant 
on a tripod of dark wood and darker iron. A tall 
143 
observer’s stool stood next to it, and a lectern, 
a star chart still spilled across it. A thick, toe 
wriggle-inviting carpet lay under all, a carpet that 
was also a map of the heavens, showing many 
different, colorful constellations and whirling 
planets, woven in thick, richly dyed wool. 
The sending, who had followed Sabriel, went 
to the south wall and pointed out towards the 
southern riverbank, its pallid, Charter-drawn 
hand indicating the very spot where Sabriel had 
emerged after her underground flight from the 
Mordicant. 
Sabriel looked there, shielding her right eye 
from the west-falling sun. Her gaze crossed the 
white tops of the river and was drawn to the 
ledge, despite an inner quailing about what she 
would see. 
As she feared, the Mordicant was still there. 
But with what she had come to think of as her 
Death sight, Sabriel sensed it was quiescent, temporarily 
just an unpleasant statue, a foreground 
to other, more active shapes that bustled about in 
some activity behind. 
Sabriel stared a little longer, then went to the 
telescope, narrowly avoiding Mogget, who had 
somehow appeared underfoot. Sabriel wondered 
144 
how he had got up the ladder, then dismissed the 
thought as she concentrated on what was happening 
outside. 
Unaided, she hadn’t been certain what the 
shapes around the Mordicant were, but they 
sprang sharply at her through the telescope, 
drawn so close she felt she could somehow lean 
forward and snatch them away. 
They were men and women—living, breathing 
people. Each was shackled to a partner’s leg by 
an iron chain and they shuffled about in these 
pairs under the dominating presence of the 

Mordicant. There were scores of them, coming 
out of the corridor, carrying heavily laden 
leather buckets or lengths of timber, taking them 
across the ledge and down the steps to the river. 
Then they filed back again, buckets empty, timber 
left behind. 
Sabriel depressed the telescope a little, and 
almost growled in exasperation and anger as she 
saw the scene by the river. More living slaves 
were hammering long boxes together from the 
timber, and these boxes were being filled with 
earth from the buckets. As each box was filled, 
it was pushed out to bridge the gap from shore 
to stepping-stone and locked in place by slaves 
145 
146 
hammering iron spikes into the stone. 
This particular part of the operation was being 
directed by something that lurked well back 
from the river, halfway up the steps. A manshaped 
blot of blackest night, a moving silhouette. 
A necromancer’s Shadow Hand, or some 
free-willed Dead spirit that scorned the use of a 
body. 
As Sabriel watched, the last of four boxes was 
thrust out to the first stepping-stone, spiked in 
place, and then chained to its three adjacent 
fellows. One slave, fastening the chain, overbalanced 
and went headfirst into the water, his 
shackle-mate following a second later. Their 
screams, if any, were drowned by the roar of the 
waterfall as its waters took their bodies. A few 
seconds later, Sabriel felt their lives snuffed out. 
The other slaves at the river’s edge stopped 
working for a moment, either shocked at the 
sudden loss, or momentarily made more afraid 
of the river than their masters. But the Shadow 
Hand on the steps moved towards them, its legs 
like treacle, pouring down the slope, lapping 
over each step in turn. It gestured for some of the 
nearer slaves to walk across the earth-filled 
boxes to the stepping-stone. They did so, to 
cluster unhappily amid the spray. 
The Shadow Hand hesitated then, but the 

Mordicant on the ledge above seemed to stir and 
rock forward a little, so the shadowy abomination 
gingerly trod on the boxes—and walked 
across to the stepping-stone, taking no scathe 
from the running water. 
“Grave dirt,” commented Mogget, who obviously 
didn’t need the telescope. “Carted up by 
the villagers from Qyrre and Roble’s Town. I 
wonder if they’ve got enough to cross all the 
stones.” 
“Grave dirt,” commented Sabriel bleakly, 
watching a fresh round of slaves arriving with 
buckets and more timber. “I had forgotten it 
could negate the running water. I thought . . . I 
thought I would be safe here, for a time.” 
“Well, you are,” said Mogget. “It’ll take at least 
until tomorrow evening before their bridge is 
complete, particularly allowing for a couple of 
hours off around noon, when the Dead will have 
to hide if it isn’t overcast. But this shows planning, 
and that means a leader. Still, every Abhorsen has 
enemies. It may just be a petty necromancer with 
a better brain for strategy than most.” 
“I slew a Dead thing at Cloven Crest,” Sabriel 
147 
said slowly, thinking aloud. “It said it would have 
its revenge and spoke of telling the servants of 
Kerrigor. Do you know that name?” 
“I know it,” spat Mogget, tail quivering straight 
out behind him. “But I cannot speak of it, except 
to say it is one of the Greater Dead, and your 
father’s most terrible enemy. Do not say it lives 
again!” 
“I don’t know,” replied Sabriel, looking down 
at the cat, whose body seemed twisted, as if in 
turmoil between command and resistance. 
“Why can’t you tell me more? The binding?” 
“A . . . a perversion of . . . the g . . . g . . . yes,” 
Mogget croaked out with effort. Though his 
green eyes seemed to grow luminous and fiery 
with anger at his own feeble explanation, he 
could say no more. 
“Coils within coils,” remarked Sabriel 
thoughtfully. There seemed little doubt that 

some evil power was working against her, from 
the moment she’d crossed the Wall—or even 
before that, if her father’s disappearance was 
anything to go by. 
She looked back through the telescope again 
and took some heart in the slowing of the work 
as the last light faded, though at the same time 
148 
she felt a pang of sympathy for the poor people 
the Dead had enslaved. Many would probably 
freeze to death, or die of exhaustion, only to be 
brought back as dull-witted Hands. Only those 
who went over the waterfall would escape that 
fate. Truly, the Old Kingdom was a terrible 
place, when even death did not mean an end to 
slavery and despair. 
“Is there another way out?” she asked, swivelling 
the telescope around 180 degrees to look at 
the northern bank. There were stepping-stones 
going there, too, and another door high on the 
riverbank, but there were also dark shapes clustered 
on the ledge by the door. Four or five 
Shadow Hands, too many for Sabriel to fight 
through alone. 
“It seems not,” she answered herself grimly. 
“What of defenses, then? Can the sendings 
fight?” 
“The sendings don’t need to fight,” replied 
Mogget. “For there is another defense, though 
it is a rather constrictive one. And there is one 
other way out, though you probably won’t like 
it.” 
The sending next to her nodded and pantomimed 
something with its arm that looked like 
149 
a snake wiggling through grass. 
“What’s that?” asked Sabriel, fighting back a 
sudden urge to break into hysterical laughter. 
“The defense or the way out?” 
“The defense,” replied Mogget. “The river 
itself. It can be invoked to rise almost to the 
height of the island walls—four times your 
height above the stepping-stones. Nothing can 
pass such a flood, in or out, till it subsides, in a 

matter of weeks.” 
“So how would I get out?” asked Sabriel. “I 
can’t wait weeks!” 
“One of your ancestors built a flying device. A 
Paperwing, she called it. You can use that, 
launched out over the waterfall.” 
“Oh,” said Sabriel, in a little voice. 
“If you do wish to raise the river,” Mogget 
continued, as if he hadn’t noticed Sabriel’s sudden 
silence, “then we must begin the ritual 
immediately. The flood comes from meltwater 
and the mountains are many leagues upstream. If 
we call the waters now, the flood will be on us by 
dusk tomorrow.” 
150 
chapter x 
The arrival of the floodwaters 
was heralded by great chunks of ice that came 
battering against the wooden bridge of grave 
dirt boxes like storm-borne icebergs ramming 
anchored ships. Ice shattered, wood splintered; 
a regular drumming that beat out a warning, 
announcing the great wave that followed the 
outriding ice. 
Dead Hands and living slaves scurried back 
along the coffin bridge, the Dead’s shadowy 
bodies losing shape as they ran, so they became 
like long, thick worms of black crepe, squirming 
and sliding over rocks and boxes, throwing 
human slaves aside without mercy, desperate to 
escape the destruction that came roaring down 
the river. 
Sabriel, watching from the tower, felt the people 
die, convulsively swallowing as she sensed 
their last breaths gurgling, sucking water instead 
of air. Some of them, at least two pairs, had 
deliberately thrown themselves into the river, 
choosing a final death, rather than risk eternal 
bondage. Most had been knocked, pushed or 
simply scared aside by the Dead. 
The wavefront of the flood came swiftly after 
the ice, shouting as it came, a higher, fiercer roar 

than the deep bellow of the waterfall. Sabriel 
heard it for several seconds before it rounded the 
last bend of the river, then suddenly, it was 
almost upon her. A huge, vertical wall of water, 
with chunks of ice on its crest like marble battlements 
and all the debris of four hundred miles 
swilling about in its muddy body. It looked enormous, 
far taller than the island’s walls, taller 
even than the tower where Sabriel stared, 
shocked at the power she had unleashed, a 
power she had hardly dreamed possible when 
she’d summoned it the night before. 
It had been a simple enough summoning. 
Mogget had taken her to the cellar and then 
down a winding, narrow stair, that grew colder 
and colder as they descended. Finally, they 
152 
reached a strange grotto, where icicles hung and 
Sabriel’s breath blew clouds of white, but it was 
no longer cold, or perhaps so cold she no longer 
felt it. A block of pure, blue-white ice stood 
upon a stone pedestal, both limned with 
Charter marks, marks strange and beautiful. 
Then, following Mogget’s instruction, she’d 
simply placed her hand on the ice, and said, 
“Abhorsen pays her respects to the Clayr, and 
requests the gift of water.” That was all. They’d 
gone back up the stairs, a sending locked the 
cellar door behind them, and another brought 
Sabriel a nightshirt and a cup of hot chocolate. 
But that simple ceremony had summoned 
something that seemed totally out of control. 
Sabriel watched the wave racing towards them, 
trying to calm herself, but her breath raced in 
and out as quickly as her stomach flipped over. 
Just as the wave hit, she screamed and ducked 
under the telescope. 
The whole tower shook, stones screeching as 
they moved, and for a moment, even the sound 
of the waterfall was lost in a crack that sounded 
as if the island had been leveled by the first 
shock of the wave. 
But, after a few seconds, the floor stopped 
153 

shaking, and the crash of the flood subsided to 
a controlled roar, like a shouting drunk made 
aware of company. Sabriel hauled herself up 
the tripod and opened her eyes. 
The walls had held, and though now the 
wave was past, the river still raged a mere 
handspan below the island’s defenses and was 
almost up to the tunnel doors on either bank. 
There was no sign of the stepping-stones, the 
coffin bridge, the Dead, or any people—just a 
wide, brown rushing torrent, carrying debris 
of all descriptions. Trees, bushes, parts of 
buildings, livestock, chunks of ice—the flood 
had claimed its tribute from every riverbank 
for hundreds of miles. 
Sabriel looked at this evidence of destruction 
and inwardly counted the number of villagers 
who had died on the grave boxes. Who knew 
how many other lives had been lost, or livelihoods 
threatened, upstream? Part of her tried to 
rationalize her use of the flood, telling her that 
she had to do it in order to fight on against the 
Dead. Another part said she had simply summoned 
the flood to save herself. 
Mogget had no time for such introspection, 
mourning or pangs of responsibility. He left 
154 
her watching, blank-eyed, for no more than a 
minute, before padding forward and delicately 
inserting his claws in Sabriel’s slippered foot. 
“Ow! What did you—” 
“There’s no time to waste sightseeing,” 
Mogget said. “The sendings are readying the 
Paperwing on the Eastern wall. And your clothing 
and gear have been ready for at least half an 
hour.” 
“I’ve got all . . .” Sabriel began, then she 
remembered that her pack and skis lay at the 
bottom end of the entrance tunnel, probably as 
a pile of Mordicant-burned ash. 
“The sendings have got everything you’ll 
need, and a few things you won’t, knowing them. 
You can get dressed, pack up, and head off for 
Belisaere. I take it you intend to go to Belisaere?” 

“Yes,” replied Sabriel shortly. She could detect 
a tone of smugness in Mogget’s voice. 
“Do you know how to get there?” 
Sabriel was silent. Mogget already knew the 
answer was “no.” Hence the smugness. 
“Do you have a . . . er . . . map?” 
Sabriel shook her head, clenching her fists as 
she did so, resisting the urge to lean forward 
and spank Mogget, or perhaps give his tail a 
155 
judicious tug. She had searched the study and 
asked several of the sendings, but the only map 
in the house seemed to be the starmap in the 
tower. The map Colonel Horyse had told her 
about must still be with Abhorsen. With Father, 
Sabriel thought, suddenly confused about their 
identities. If she was now Abhorsen, who was 
her father? Had he too once had a name that was 
lost in the responsibility of being Abhorsen? 
Everything that had seemed so certain and solid 
in her life a few days ago was crumbling. She 
didn’t even know who she was really, and trouble 
seemed to beset her from all sides—even a 
supposed servant of Abhorsen like Mogget 
seemed to provide more trouble than service. 
“Do you have anything positive to say—anything 
that might actually help?” she snapped. 
Mogget yawned, showing a pink tongue that 
seemed to contain the very essence of scorn. 
“Well, yes. Of course. I know the way, so I’d 
better come with you.” 
“Come with me?” Sabriel asked, genuinely 
surprised. She unclenched her fists, bent down, 
and scratched between the cat’s ears, till he 
ducked away. 
“Someone has to look after you,” Mogget 
156 
added. “At least till you’ve grown into a real 
Abhorsen.” 
“Thank you,” said Sabriel. “I think. But I 
would still like a map. Since you know the country 
so well, would it be possible for you to—I 
don’t know—describe it, so I can make a sketch 
map or something?” 

Mogget coughed, as if a hairball had suddenly 
lodged in his throat, and thrust his head back a 
little. “You! Draw a sketch map? If you must 
have one, I think it would be better if I undertook 
the cartography myself. Come down to the 
study and put out an inkwell and paper.” 
“As long as I get a useable map I don’t care 
who draws it,” Sabriel remarked, as she went 
backwards down the ladder. She tilted her head 
to watch how Mogget came down, but there was 
only the open trapdoor. A sarcastic meow under 
her feet announced that Mogget had once again 
managed to get between rooms without visible 
means of support. 
“Ink and paper,” the cat reminded her, jumping 
up onto the dragon desk. “The thick paper. 
Smooth side up. Don’t bother with a quill.” 
Sabriel followed Mogget’s instructions, then 
watched with a resigned condescension that 
157 
rapidly changed to surprise as the cat crouched 
by the square of paper, his strange shadow falling 
on it like a dark cloak thrown across sand, pink 
tongue out in concentration. Mogget seemed to 
think for a moment, then one bright ivory claw 
shot out from a white pad—he delicately inked 
the claw in the inkwell, and began to draw. First, 
a rough outline, in swift, bold strokes; the penning 
in of the major geographical features; then 
the delicate process of adding important sites, 
each named in fine, spidery writing. Last of all, 
Mogget marked Abhorsen’s House with a small 
illustration, before leaning back to admire his 
handiwork, and lick the ink from his paw. Sabriel 
waited a few seconds to be sure he was done, 
then cast drying sand over the paper, her eyes trying 
to absorb every detail, intent on learning the 
physical face of the Old Kingdom. 
“You can look at it later,” Mogget said after 
a few minutes, when his paw was clean, but 
Sabriel was still bent over the table, nose inches 
from the map. “We’re still in a hurry. You’d better 
go and get dressed, for a start. Do try to be 
quick.” 

“I will.” Sabriel smiled, still looking at the 
map. “Thank you, Mogget.” 
158 
159 
The sendings had laid out a great pile of 
clothes and equipment in Sabriel’s room, and 
four of them were in attendance to help her 
get everything on and organized. She had hardly 
stepped inside before they’d stripped her indoor 
dress and slippers off, and she’d only just managed 
to remove her own underclothes before 
ghostly Charter-traced hands tickled her sides. 
A few seconds later, she was suffering them anyway, 
as they pulled a thin, cotton-like undergarment 
over her head, and a pair of baggy 
drawers up her legs. Next came a linen shirt, 
then a tunic of doeskin and breeches of supple 
leather, reinforced with some sort of hard, segmented 
plates at thighs, knees and shins, not to 
mention a heavily padded bottom, no doubt 
designed for riding. 
A brief respite followed, lulling Sabriel into 
thinking that might be it, but the sendings had 
merely been arranging the next layer for immediate 
fitting. Two of them pushed her arms into 
a long, armored coat that buckled up at the 
sides, while the other two unlaced a pair of hobnailed 
boots and waited. 
The coat wasn’t like anything Sabriel had 
ever worn before, including the mail hauberk 
she’d worn in Fighting Arts lessons at school. It 
was as long as an hauberk, with split skirts 
coming down to her knees and sleeves swallowtailed 
at her wrists, but it seemed to be entirely 
made of tiny overlapping plates, much like 
a fish’s scales. They weren’t metal, either, but 
some sort of ceramic, or even stone. Much 
lighter than steel, but clearly very strong, as 
one sending demonstrated, by cutting down it 
with a dagger, striking sparks without leaving a 
scratch. 
Sabriel thought the boots completed the 
ensemble, but as the laces were done up by one 
pair of sendings, the other pair were back in 

action. One raised what appeared to be a blue 
and silver striped turban, but Sabriel, pulling it 
down to just above her eyebrows, found it to be 
a cloth-wrapped helmet, made from the same 
material as the armor. 
The other sending waved out a gleaming, deep 
blue surcoat, dusted with embroidered silver keys 
that reflected the light in all directions. It waved 
the coat to and fro for a moment, then whipped 
it over Sabriel’s head and adjusted the drape 
with a practiced motion. Sabriel ran her hand 
over its silken expanse and discreetly tried to rip 
160 
it in one corner, but, for all its apparent fragility, 
it wouldn’t tear. 
Last of all came sword-belt and bell-bandolier. 
The sendings brought them to her, but made no 
attempt to put them on. Sabriel adjusted them 
herself, carefully arranging bells and scabbard, 
feeling the familiar weight—bells across her 
breast and sword balanced on her hip. She 
turned to the mirror and looked at her reflection, 
both pleased and troubled by what she saw. She 
looked competent, professional, a traveler who 
could look after herself. At the same time, she 
looked less like someone called Sabriel, and 
more like the Abhorsen, capital letter and all. 
She would have looked longer, but the sendings 
tugged at her sleeves and directed her attention 
to the bed. A leather backpack lay open on 
it and, as Sabriel watched, the sendings packed it 
with her remaining old clothes, including her 
father’s oilskin, spare undergarments, tunic and 
trousers, dried beef and biscuits, a water bottle, 
and several small leather pouches full of useful 
things, each of which were painstakingly opened 
and shown to her: telescope, sulphur matches, 
clockwork firestarter, medicinal herbs, fishing 
hooks and line, a sewing kit and a host of other 
161 
small essentials. The three books from the 
library and the map went into oilskin pouches, 
and then into an outside pocket. 
Backpack on, Sabriel tried a few basic exercises, 

and was relieved to find that the armor 
didn’t restrict her too much—hardly at all in 
fact, though the pack was not something she’d 
like to have on in a fight. She could even touch 
her toes, so she did, several times, before straightening 
up to thank the sendings. 
They were gone. Instead, there was Mogget, 
stalking mysteriously towards her from the middle 
of the room. 
“Well, I’m ready,” Sabriel said. 
Mogget didn’t answer, but sat at her feet, and 
made a movement that looked very much like he 
was going to be sick. Sabriel recoiled, disgusted, 
then halted, as a small metallic object fell from 
Mogget’s mouth and bounced on the floor. 
“Almost forgot,” said Mogget. “You’ll need 
this if I’m to come with you.” 
“What is it?” asked Sabriel, bending down to 
pick up a ring; a small silver ring, with a ruby 
gripped between two silver claws that grew out 
of the band. 
“Old,” replied Mogget, enigmatically. “You’ll 
162 
know if you need to use it. Put it on.” 
Sabriel looked at it closely, holding it between 
two fingers as she slanted it towards the light. It 
felt, and looked, quite ordinary. There were no 
Charter marks on the stone or band; it seemed to 
have no emanations or aura. She put it on. 
It felt cold as it slipped down her finger, then 
hot, and suddenly she was falling, falling into 
infinity, into a void that had no end and no 
beginning. Everything was gone, all light, all 
substance. Then Charter marks suddenly 
exploded all around her and she felt gripped by 
them, halting her headlong fall into nothing, 
accelerating her back up, back into her body, 
back to the world of life and death. 
“Free Magic,” Sabriel said, looking down at 
the ring gleaming on her finger. “Free Magic, 
connected to the Charter. I don’t understand.” 
“You’ll know if you need to use it,” Mogget 
repeated, almost as if it were some lesson to be 
learned by rote. Then, in his normal voice: 

“Don’t worry about it till then. Come—the 
Paperwing is ready.” 
163 
chapter xi 
The Paperwing sat on a juryrigged 
platform of freshly sawn pine planks, teetering 
out over the eastern wall. Six sendings 
clustered around the craft, readying it for flight. 
Sabriel looked up at it as she climbed the stairs, 
an unpleasant feeling rising with her. She had 
been expecting something similar to the aircraft 
that had begun to be common in Ancelstierre, 
like the biplane that had performed aerobatics 
at the last Wyverley College Open Day. 
Something with two wings, rigging and a propeller— 
though she had assumed a magical 
engine rather than a mechanical one. 
But the Paperwing didn’t look anything like an 
Ancelstierran airplane. It most closely resembled 
a canoe with hawk-wings and a tail. On closer 
inspection, Sabriel saw that the central fuselage 
was probably based on a canoe. It was tapered at 
each end and had a central hole for a cockpit. 
Wings sprouted on each side of this canoe 
shape—long, swept-back wings that looked very 
flimsy. The wedge-shaped tail didn’t look much 
better. 
Sabriel climbed the last few steps with sinking 
expectations. The construction material was 
now clear and so was the craft’s name—the 
whole thing was made up from many sheets of 
paper, bonded together with some sort of laminate. 
Painted powder-blue, with silver bands 
around the fuselage and silver stripes along the 
wings and tail, it looked pretty, decorative and 
not at all airworthy. 
Only the yellow falcon eyes painted on its 
pointed prow hinted at its capacity for flight. 
Sabriel looked at the Paperwing again, and 
then out at the waterfall beyond. Now, fed by 
floodwaters, it looked even more frightening 
than usual. Spray exploded for tens of yards 

above its lip—a roaring mist the Paperwing 
would have to fly through before it reached the 
open sky beyond. Sabriel didn’t even know if it 
was waterproof. 
165 
“How often has this . . . thing . . . flown 
before?” she asked, nervously. Intellectually, she 
accepted that she would soon be sitting in this 
craft, to be launched out towards the crashing 
waters—but her subconscious, and her stomach, 
seemed very keen to stay firmly on the ground. 
“Many times,” replied Mogget, easily jumping 
from the platform to the cockpit. His voice echoed 
there for a moment, till he climbed back up, furry 
cat-face propped on the rim. “The Abhorsen who 
made it once flew it to the sea and back, in a single 
afternoon. But she was a great weather-witch 
and could work the winds. I don’t suppose—” 
“No,” said Sabriel, made aware of another gap 
in her education. She knew that wind-magic was 
largely whistled Charter marks, but that was all. 
“No. I can’t.” 
“Well,” continued Mogget, after a thoughtful 
pause, “the Paperwing does have some elementary 
charms to ride the wind. You’ll have to whistle 
them, though. You can whistle, I trust?” 
Sabriel ignored him. All necromancers had to be 
musical, had to be able to whistle, to hum, to sing. 
If they were caught in Death without bells, or 
other magical instruments, their vocal skills were 
a weapon of last recourse. 
166 
A sending came and took her pack, helping her 
to wrestle it off, then stowing it at the rear of the 
cockpit. Another took Sabriel’s arm and directed 
her to what appeared to be a leather halfhammock 
strung across the cockpit—obviously 
the pilot’s seat. It didn’t look terribly safe either, 
but Sabriel forced herself to climb in, after giving 
her scabbarded sword into the hands of yet 
another sending. 
Surprisingly, her feet didn’t go through the 
paper-laminated floor. The material even felt reassuringly 
solid and, after a minute of squirming, 

swaying and adjustment, the hammock-seat was 
very comfortable. Sword and scabbard were slid 
into a receptacle at her side and Mogget took up 
a position on top of the straps holding down her 
pack, just behind her shoulders, for the seat made 
her recline so far she was almost lying down. 
From her new eye level, Sabriel saw a small, 
oval mirror of silvered glass, fixed just below 
the cockpit rim. It glittered in the late afternoon 
sun, and she felt it resonate with Charter Magic. 
Something about it prompted her to breathe 
upon it, her hot breath clouding the glass. It 
stayed misted for a moment, then a Charter 
mark slowly appeared, as if a ghostly finger was 
167 
drawn across the clouded mirror. 
Sabriel studied it carefully, absorbing its purpose 
and effect. It told her of the marks that 
would follow; marks to raise the lifting winds, 
marks for descending in haste, marks to call the 
wind from every corner of the compass rose. 
There were other marks for the Paperwing and, as 
Sabriel absorbed them, she saw that the whole 
craft was lined with Charter Magic, infused with 
spells. The Abhorsen who made it had labored 
long, and with love, to create something that was 
more like a magical bird than an aircraft. 
Time passed, and the last mark faded. The mirror 
cleared to be only a plate of silver glass shining 
in the sun. Sabriel sat, silent, fixing the Charter 
marks in her memory, marveling at the power and 
the skill that had made the Paperwing and had 
thought of this method of instruction. Perhaps 
one day, she too would have the mastery to create 
such a thing. 
“The Abhorsen who made this,” Sabriel asked. 
“Who was she? I mean, in relation to me?” 
“A cousin,” purred Mogget, close to her ear. 
“Your great-great-great-great-grandmother’s cousin. 
The last of that line. She had no children.” 
Maybe the Paperwing was her child, Sabriel 
168 
thought, running her hand along the sleek surface 
of the fuselage, feeling the Charter marks quiescent 

in the fabric. She felt a lot better about their 
forthcoming flight. 
“We’d best hurry,” Mogget continued. “It will 
be dark all too soon. Do you have the marks 
remembered?” 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel firmly. She turned to the 
sendings, who were now lined up behind the 
wings, anchoring the Paperwing till it was time 
for it to be unleashed upon the sky. Sabriel wondered 
how many times they’d performed this task, 
and for how many Abhorsens. 
“Thank you,” she said to them. “For all your 
care and kindness. Goodbye.” 
With that last word, she settled back in the 
hammock-seat, gripped the rim of the cockpit 
with both hands, and whistled the notes of the 
lifting wind, visualizing the requisite string of 
Charter marks in her mind, letting them drip 
down into her throat and lips, and out into the air. 
Her whistle sounded clear and true, and a wind 
rose behind to match it, growing stronger as 
Sabriel exhaled. Then, with a new breath, she 
changed to a merry, joyous trill. Like a bird revelling 
in flight, the Charter marks flowing from 
169 
pursed lips out into the Paperwing itself. With this 
whistling, the blue and silver paint seemed to 
come alive, dancing down the fuselage, sweeping 
across the wings, a gleaming, lustrous plumage. 
The whole craft shook and shivered, suddenly 
flexible and eager to begin. 
The joyous trill ended with one single long, clear 
note, and a Charter mark that shone like the sun. 
It danced to the Paperwing’s prow and sank into 
the laminate. A second later, the yellow eyes 
blinked, grew fierce and proud, looking up to the 
sky ahead. 
The sendings were struggling now, barely able 
to hold the Paperwing back. The lifting wind grew 
stronger still, plucking at the silver-blue plumage, 
thrusting it forward. Sabriel felt the Paperwing’s 
tension, the contained power in its wings, the 
exhilaration of that last moment when freedom is 
assured. 

“Let go!” she cried, and the sendings complied, 
the Paperwing leaping up into the arms of the 
wind, out and upward, splashing through the 
spray of the waterfall as if it were no more than a 
spring shower, flying out into the sky and the 
broad valley beyond. 
It was quiet, and cold, a thousand feet or more 
170 
above the valley. The Paperwing soared easily, the 
wind firm behind it, the sky clear above, save for 
the faintest wisps of cloud. Sabriel reclined in her 
hammock-seat, relaxing, running the Charter 
marks she’d leaned over and over in her mind, 
making sure she had them properly pigeonholed. 
She felt free, and somehow clean, as if the dangers 
of the last few days were dirt, washed away by the 
following wind. 
“Turn more to the north,” Mogget’s voice suddenly 
said behind her, disturbing her carefree 
mood. “Do you recall the map?” 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “Shall we follow the 
river? The Ratterlin, it’s called, isn’t it? It runs nornoreast 
most of the time.” 
Mogget didn’t reply at once, though Sabriel 
heard his purring breath close by. He seemed to 
be thinking. Finally, he said, “Why not? We may 
as well follow it to the sea. It branches into a delta 
there, so we can find an island to camp on 
tonight.” 
“Why not just fly on?” asked Sabriel cheerily. 
“We could be in Belisaere by tomorrow night, if I 
summon the strongest winds.” 
“The Paperwing doesn’t like to fly at night,” 
Mogget said, shortly. “Not to mention that you 
171 
would almost certainly lose control of the 
stronger winds—it is much more difficult than it 
seems at first. And the Paperwing is much too 
conspicuous, anyway. Have you no common 
sense, Abhorsen?” 
“Call me Sabriel,” Sabriel replied, equally 
shortly. “My father is Abhorsen.” 
“As you wish, mistress,” said Mogget. The 
“mistress” sounded extremely sarcastic. 

The next hour passed in belligerent silence, 
but Sabriel, for her part, soon lost her anger in 
the novelty of flight. She loved the scale of it 
all, to see the tiny patchworked fields and 
forests below, the dark strip of the river, the 
occasional tiny building. Everything was so 
small and seemed so perfect, seen from afar. 
Then the sun began to sink, and though the 
red wash of its fading light made the aerial 
perspective even prettier, Sabriel felt the 
Paperwing’s desire to descend, felt the yellow 
eyes focusing on green earth, rather than blue 
sky. As the shadows lengthened, Sabriel felt 
that same desire and began to look as well. 
The river was already breaking up into 
the myriad streams and rivulets that would 
form the swampy Ratterlin delta, and far off, 
172 
Sabriel could see the dark bulk of the sea. There 
were many islands in the delta, some as large as 
football fields covered with trees and shrubs, 
others no bigger than two armspans of mud. 
Sabriel picked out one of the medium-sized 
ones, a flattish diamond with low, yellow grass, 
a few leagues ahead, and whistled down the 
wind. 
It faded gradually with her whistle and the 
Paperwing began to descend, occasionally 
nudged this way or that by Sabriel’s control of 
the wind, or its own tilt of a wing. Its yellow 
eyes, and Sabriel’s deep-brown eyes, were 
fixed on the ground below. Only Mogget, 
being Mogget, looked behind them and above. 
Even so, he didn’t see their pursuers until 
they came wheeling out of the sun, so his 
yowling cry gave only a few seconds’ warning, 
just long enough for Sabriel to turn and see 
the hundreds of fast-moving shapes diving 
down upon them. Instinctively, she conjured 
Charter marks in her mind, mouth pursed, 
whistling the wind back up, turning them to 
the north. 
“Gore crows!” hissed Mogget, as the flapping 
shapes checked their dive and wheeled to pursue 

173 
their suddenly enlivened prey. 
“Yes,” shouted Sabriel, though she wasn’t sure 
why she answered. Her attention was all on the 
gore crows, trying to gauge whether they’d intercept 
or not. She could already feel the wind testing 
the edges of her control, as Mogget had 
prophesied, and to whip it up further might have 
unpleasant results. But she could also feel the 
presence of the gore crows, feel the admixture of 
Death and Free Magic that gave life to their rotten, 
skeletal forms. 
Gore crows didn’t last very long in sun and 
wind—these must have been made the previous 
night. A necromancer had trapped quite ordinary 
crows, killing them with ritual and ceremony, 
before infusing the bodies with the 
broken, fragmented spirit of a single dead man 
or woman. Now they were truly carrion birds, 
birds guided by a single, if stupid, intelligence. 
They flew by force of Free Magic, and killed 
by force of numbers. 
Despite her quickness in calling the wind, the 
flock was still closing rapidly. They’d dived from 
high above and kept their speed, the wind stripping 
feathers and putrid flesh from their spellwoven 
bones. 
174 
For a moment, Sabriel considered turning the 
Paperwing back into the very center of this great 
murder of crows, like an avenging angel, armed 
with sword and bells. But there were simply too 
many gore crows to fight, particularly from an 
aircraft speeding along several hundred feet above 
the ground. One overeager sword thrust would 
mean a fatal fall—if the gore crows didn’t kill her 
on the way down. 
“I’ll have to summon a greater wind!” she 
yelled at Mogget, who was now sitting right up 
on her pack, fur bristling, yowling challenges at 
the crows. They were very close now, flying in an 
eerily exact formation—two long lines, like arms 
outstretched to snatch the fleeing Paperwing 
from the sky. Very little of their once-black 

plumage had survived their rushing dive, white 
bone shining through in the last light of the sun. 
But their beaks were still glossily black and 
gleaming sharp, and Sabriel could now see the 
red glints of the fragmented Dead spirit in the 
empty sockets of their eyes. 
Mogget didn’t reply. Possibly, he hadn’t even 
heard her above his yowling, and the gore crows’ 
cawing as they closed the last few yards to attack, 
a strange, hollow sound, as dead as their flesh. 
175 
For a second of panic, Sabriel felt her dry lips 
unable to purse, then she wet them and the whistle 
came, slow and erratic. The Charter marks 
felt clumsy and difficult in her head, as if she 
were trying to push a heavy weight on badly 
made rollers—then, with a last effort, they came 
easily, flowing into her whistled notes. 
Unlike her earlier, gradual summonings, this 
wind came with the speed of a slamming door, 
howling up behind them with frightening violence, 
picking up the Paperwing and shunting 
it forward like a giant wave lifting up a slender 
boat. Suddenly, they were going so fast 
that Sabriel could barely make out the ground 
below, and the individual islands of the delta 
merged into one continuous blur of motion. 
Eyes closed to protective slits, she craned her 
head around, the wind striking her face like a 
vicious slap. The pursuing gore crows were all 
over the sky now, formation lost, like small 
black stains against the red and purple sunset. 
They were flapping uselessly, trying to come 
back together, but the Paperwing was already 
a league or more away. There was no chance 
they could catch up. 
Sabriel let out a sigh of relief, but it was a sigh 
176 
177 
tempered with new anxieties. The wind was 
carrying them at a fearful pace, and it was starting 
to veer northwards, which it wasn’t supposed 
to do. Sabriel could see the first stars twinkling 
now, and they were definitely turning towards 

the Buckle. 
It was an effort to call up the Charter marks 
again, and whistle the spell to ease the wind, and 
turn it back to the east, but Sabriel managed to 
cast it. But the spell failed to work—the wind 
grew stronger, and shifted more, till they were 
careening straight towards the Buckle, directly 
north. 
Sabriel, hunkered down in the cockpit, eyes 
and nose streaming and face frozen, tried again, 
using all her willpower to force the Charter 
marks into the wind. Even to her, her whistle 
sounded feeble, and the Charter marks once 
again vanished into what had now become a 
gale. Sabriel realized she had totally lost control. 
In fact, it was almost as if the spell had the 
opposite effect, for the wind grew wilder, snatching 
the Paperwing up in a great spiral, like a ball 
thrown between a ring of giants, each one taller 
than the last. Sabriel grew dizzy, and even colder, 
and her breath came fast and shallow, trying to 
salvage enough air to keep her alive. She tried to 
calm the winds again, but couldn’t gain the 
breath to whistle, and the Charter marks slipped 
from her mind, till all she could do was desperately 
hang on to the straps in the hammock-seat 
as the Paperwing tried its best to ride the storm. 
Then, without warning, the wind ceased its 
upward dance. It just dropped, and with it went 
the Paperwing. Sabriel fell upwards, straps suddenly 
tight, and Mogget almost clawed through 
the pack in his efforts to stay connected with the 
aircraft. Jolted by this new development, Sabriel 
felt her exhaustion burn away. She tried to whistle 
the lifting wind, but it too was beyond her 
power. The Paperwing seemed unable to halt its 
headlong descent. It fell, nose tilting further and 
further forward till they were diving almost vertically, 
like a hammer rushing to the anvil of the 
ground below. 
It was a long way down. Sabriel screamed 
once, then tried to put some of her fear-found 
strength into the Paperwing. But the marks 
flowed into her whistle without effect, save for a 

golden sparkle that briefly illuminated her white, 
wind-frozen face. The sun had completely set, 
and the dark mass of the ground below looked 
178 
all too much like the grey river of Death—the 
river their spirits would cross into in a few short 
minutes, never to return to the warm light of 
Life. 
“Loose my collar,” mewed a voice at Sabriel’s 
ear, followed by the curious sensation of Mogget 
digging his claws into her armor as he clambered 
into her lap. “Loose my collar!” 
Sabriel looked at him, at the ground, at the 
collar. She felt stupid, starved of oxygen, unable 
to decide. The collar was part of an ancient 
binding, a terrible guardian of tremendous 
power. It would only be used to contain an inexpressible 
evil, or uncontrollable force. 
“Trust me!” howled Mogget. “Loose my collar, 
and remember the ring!” 
Sabriel swallowed, closed her eyes, fumbled 
with the collar and prayed that she was doing 
the right thing. “Father, forgive me,” she 
thought, but it was not just to her father that she 
spoke, but to all the Abhorsens who had come 
before her—especially the one who had made 
the collar so long ago. 
Surprisingly for such an ancient spell, she felt 
little more than pins and needles as the collar 
came free. Then it was open, and suddenly 
179 
heavy, like a lead rope, or a ball and chain. 
Sabriel almost dropped it, but it became light 
again, then insubstantial. When Sabriel opened 
her eyes, the collar had simply ceased to exist. 
Mogget sat still, on her lap, and seemed 
unchanged—then he seemed to glow with an 
internal light and expand, till he became frayed 
at the edges, and the light grew and grew. Within 
a few seconds, there was no cat-shape left, just a 
shining blur too bright to look at. It seemed to 
hesitate for a moment and Sabriel felt its attention 
flicker between aggression towards her and 
some inner struggle. It almost formed back into 

the cat-shape again, then suddenly split into four 
shafts of brilliant white. One shot forward, one 
aft, and two seemed to slide into the wings. 
Then the whole Paperwing shone with fierce 
white brilliance, and it abruptly stopped its 
headlong dive and leveled out. Sabriel was flung 
violently forward, body checked by straps, but 
her nose almost hit the silver mirror, neck muscles 
cording out with an impossible effort to 
keep her head still. 
Despite this sudden improvement, they were 
still falling. Sabriel, hands now clasped behind 
her savagely aching neck, saw the ground rushing 
180 
up to fill the horizon. Treetops suddenly appeared 
below, the Paperwing imbued with the 
strange light, just clipping through the upper 
branches with a sound like hail on a tin roof. 
Then, they dropped again, skimming scant yards 
above what looked like a cleared field, but still 
too fast to land without total destruction. 
Mogget, or whatever Mogget had become, 
braked the Paperwing again, in a series of shuddering 
halts that added bruises on top of bruises. 
For the first time, Sabriel felt the incredible relief 
of knowing that they would survive. One more 
braking effort and the Paperwing would 
be safely down, to skid a little in the long, soft 
grass of the field. 
Mogget braked, and Sabriel cheered as the 
Paperwing gently lay its belly on the grass and 
slid to what should have been a perfect landing. 
But the cheer suddenly became a shriek of alarm, 
as the grass parted to reveal the lip of an enormous 
dark hole directly in their path. 
Too low to rise, and now too slow to glide over 
a hole at least fifty yards across, the Paperwing 
reached the edge, flipped over and spiraled 
towards the bottom of the hole, hundreds of 
feet below. 
181 
chapter xii 
Sabriel regained consciousness 

slowly, her brain fumbling for connections to 
her senses. Hearing came first, but that only 
caught her own labored breathing, and the 
creak of her armored coat as she struggled to sit 
up. For the moment, sight eluded her, and she 
was panicked, afraid of blindness, till memory 
came. It was night, and she was at the bottom of 
a sinkhole—a great, circular shaft bored into the 
ground, by either nature or artifice. From her 
brief glimpse of it as they’d fallen, she guessed it 
was easily fifty yards in diameter and a hundred 
deep. Daylight would probably illuminate its 
murky depths, but starlight was insufficient. 
Pain came next, hard on the heels of memory. A 
thousand aches and bruises, but no serious injury. 
Sabriel wiggled her toes and fingers, flexed muscles 
in arms, back and legs. They all hurt, but 
everything seemed to work. 
She vaguely recalled the last few seconds 
before impact—Mogget, or the white force, 
slowing them just before they hit—but the actual 
instant of the crash might never have been, for 
she couldn’t remember it. Shock, she thought to 
herself, in an abstract way, almost like she was 
diagnosing someone else. 
Her next thought came some time later, and 
with it the realization that she must have passed 
out again. With this awakening, she felt a little 
sharper, her mind catching some slight breeze to 
carry her out of the mental doldrums. Working by 
touch, she unstrapped herself and felt behind her 
for the pack. In her current state, even a simple 
Charter-spell for light was out of the question, but 
there were candles there, and matches, or the 
clockwork igniter. 
As the match flared, Sabriel’s heart sank. In 
the small, flickering globe of yellow light, she 
saw that only the central cockpit portion of the 
Paperwing survived—the sad blue and silver 
corpse of a once marvelous creation. Its wings 
lay torn and crumpled underneath it, and the 
183 
entire nose section lay some yards away, shorn 
off completely. One eye stared up at the circular 

patch of sky above, but it was no longer fierce 
and alive. Just yellow paint and laminated paper. 
Sabriel stared at the wreckage, regret and sorrow 
coursing like influenza in her bones, till the 
match burnt her fingers. She lit another, and then 
a candle, expanding both her light and field of 
vision. 
More small pieces of the Paperwing were strewn 
over a large, open, flat area. Groaning with the 
effort of motivating bruised muscles, Sabriel levered 
herself out of the cockpit to have a closer 
look at the ground. 
This revealed the flat area to be man-made; flagstones, 
carefully laid. Grass had long grown 
between the stones, and lichen upon them, so it 
was clearly not recent work. Sabriel sat on the 
cool stones and wondered why anyone would do 
such work at the bottom of a sinkhole. 
Thinking about that seemed to kickstart her 
befuddled wits and she started to wonder about a 
few other things. Where, for instance, was the 
force that had once been Mogget? And what was 
it? That reminded her to fetch her sword and 
check the bells. 
184 
Her turbanned helmet had rotated around on 
her head and was almost back-to-front. Slowly, 
she slid it around, feeling every slight movement 
all the way down her now very stiff neck. 
Balancing her first candle on the paving in a 
pool of cooling wax, she dragged her pack and 
weapons out of the wreckage and lit another two 
candles. She put one down near the first and took 
the other to light her way, walking around the 
destroyed Paperwing, searching for any sign of 
Mogget. At the dismembered prow of the craft, 
she gently touched the eyes, wishing she could 
close them. 
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “Perhaps I will be 
able to make a new Paperwing one day. There 
should be another, to carry on your name.” 
“Sentiment, Abhorsen?” said a voice somewhere 
behind her, a voice that managed to sound 
like Mogget and not at all like him at the same 

time. It was louder, harsher, less human, and 
every word seemed to crackle, like the electric 
generators she’d used in Wyverley College 
Science classes. 
“Where are you?” asked Sabriel, swiftly turning. 
The voice had sounded close, but there was 
nothing visible within the sphere of candlelight. 
185 
She held her own candle higher, and transferred 
it to her left hand. 
“Here,” snickered the voice, and Sabriel saw 
lines of white fire run out from under the ruined 
fuselage, lines that lit the paper laminate as they 
ran, so that, within a second, the Paperwing was 
burning fiercely, yellow-red flames dancing 
under thick white smoke, totally obscuring 
whatever had emerged from under the stricken 
craft. 
No Death sense twitched, but Sabriel could 
almost smell the Free Magic; tangy, unnatural, 
nerve-jangling, tainting the thick odor of natural 
smoke. Then she saw the white fire-lines again, 
streaming out, converging, roiling, coming 
together—and a blazing, blue-white creature 
stepped out from the funeral pyre of the 
Paperwing. 
Sabriel couldn’t look at it directly, but from the 
corners of her arm-shielded eyes, she saw something 
human in shape, taller than her, and thin, 
almost starved. It had no legs, the torso and head 
balanced upon a column of twisting, whirling 
force. 
“Free, save for the blood price,” it said, 
advancing. All trace of Mogget’s voice was lost 
186 
now, submerged in zapping, crackling menace. 
Sabriel had no doubt about the meaning of a 
blood price and who would pay it. Summoning 
all her remaining energies, she called three 
Charter marks to the forefront of her mind, and 
hurled them towards the thing, shouting their 
names. 
“Anet! Calew! Ferhan!” 
The marks became silver blades as they left her 

hand, mind and voice, flashing through the air 
swifter than any thrown dagger—and went 
straight through the shining figure, apparently 
without effect. 
It laughed, a series of rises and falls like a dog 
screaming in pain, and lazily slid forward. Its 
languid motion seemed to declare it would have 
no more trouble disposing of Sabriel than it had 
in burning the Paperwing. 
Sabriel drew her sword and backed away, 
determined not to panic as she had done when 
faced by the Mordicant. Her head flicked backwards 
and forwards, neck pain forgotten, checking 
the ground behind her and marking her 
opponent. Her mind raced, considering options. 
Perhaps one of the bells—but that would mean 
dropping her candle. Could she count on the 
187 
creature’s blazing presence to light her way? 
Almost as if it could read her mind, the creature 
suddenly started to lose its brilliance, sucking 
darkness into its swirling body like a sponge 
soaking up ink. Within a few seconds, Sabriel 
could barely make it out—a fearful silhouette, 
back-lit by the orange glow of the burning 
Paperwing. 
Desperately, Sabriel tried to remember what 
she knew of Free Magic elementals and constructs. 
Her father had rarely mentioned them, 
and Magistrix Greenwood had only lightly 
delved into the subject. Sabriel knew the binding 
spells for two of the lesser kindred of Free Magic 
beings, but the creature before her was neither 
Margrue nor Stilken. 
“Keep thinking, Abhorsen,” laughed the creature, 
advancing again. “Such a pity your head 
doesn’t work too well.” 
“You saved it from not working forever,” 
Sabriel replied warily. It had braked the 
Paperwing, after all, so perhaps there was some 
good in it somewhere, some remnant of Mogget, 
if only it could be brought out. 
“Sentiment,” the thing replied, still silently 
sliding forward. It laughed again and a dark, 

188 
tendril-like arm suddenly unleashed itself, snapping 
across the intervening space to strike 
Sabriel across the face. 
“A memory, now purged,” it added, as Sabriel 
staggered back from a second attack, sword 
flashing across to parry. Unlike the silver spell 
darts, the Charter-etched blade did connect with 
the unnatural flesh of the creature, but had no 
effect apart from jarring Sabriel’s arm. 
Her nose was bleeding too, a warm and salty 
flow, stinging her wind-chafed lips. She tried to 
ignore it, tried to use the pain of what was probably 
a broken nose to get her mind back to full 
operational speed. 
“Memories, yes, many memories,” continued 
the creature. It was circling around her now, 
pushing her back the way they’d come, back 
towards the fading fire of the Paperwing. That 
would burn out soon, and then there would only 
be darkness, for Sabriel’s candle was now a lump 
of blown-out wax, falling forgotten from her 
hand. 
“Millenia of servitude, Abhorsen. Chained by 
trickery, treachery . . . captive in a repulsive, fixedflesh 
shape . . . but there will be payment, slow 
payment—not quick, not quick at all!” 
189 
A tendril lashed out, low this time, trying to 
trip her. Sabriel leapt over it, blade extended, 
lunging for the creature’s chest. But it shimmied 
aside, extruding extra arms as she tried to jump 
back, catching her in mid-leap, drawing her 
close. 
Sword-arm pinioned at her side, it tightened its 
grip, till she was close against its chest, her face 
a finger-width from its boiling, constantly moving 
flesh, as if a billion tiny insects buzzed behind 
a membrane of utter darkness. 
Another arm gripped the back of her helmet, 
forcing her to look up, till she saw its head, 
directly above her. A thing of most basic anatomy, 
its eyes were like the sinkhole, deep pits 
without apparent bottom. It had no nose, but a 

mouth that split the horrid face in two, a mouth 
slightly parted to reveal the burning blue-white 
glare that it had first used as flesh. 
All Charter Magic had fled from Sabriel’s 
mind. Her sword was trapped, the bells likewise, 
and even if they weren’t, she didn’t know 
how to use them properly against things not 
Dead. She ran over them mentally anyway, in 
a frantic, lightning inventory of anything that 
might help. 
190 
191 
It was then her tired, concussed mind remembered 
the ring. It was on her left hand, her free 
hand, cool silver on the index finger. 
But she didn’t know what to do with it—and 
the creature’s head was bowing down towards 
her own, its neck stretching impossibly long, till 
it was like a snake’s head rearing above her, the 
mouth opening wider, growing brighter, fizzing 
with white-hot sparks that fell upon her helmet 
and face, burning cloth and skin, leaving tiny, 
tattoo-like scars. The ring felt loose on her finger. 
Sabriel instinctively curled her hand, and the 
ring felt looser still, slipping down her finger, 
expanding, growing, till without looking, Sabriel 
knew she held a silver hoop as wide or wider 
than the creature’s slender head. And she suddenly 
knew what to do. 
“First, the plucking of an eye,” said the thing, 
breath as hot as the falling sparks, scorching her 
face with instant sunburn. It tilted its head sideways 
and opened its mouth still wider, lower jaw 
dislocating out. 
Sabriel took one last, careful look, screwed her 
eyes tight against the terrible glare, and flipped 
the silver hoop up, and she hoped, over the 
thing’s neck. 
For a second, as the heat increased and she felt 
a terrible burning pain against her eye, Sabriel 
thought she’d missed. Then the hoop was 
wrenched from her hand and she was thrown 
away, hurled out like an angry fisherman’s 
rejected minnow. 

On the cool flagstones again, she opened her 
eyes, the left one blurry, sore and swimming with 
tears—but still there and still working. 
She had put the silver hoop over the thing’s 
head, and it was slowly sliding down that long, 
sinuous neck. The ring was shrinking again as it 
slid, impervious to the creature’s desperate 
attempts to get it off. It had six or seven hands 
now, formed directly from its shoulders, all 
squirming about, trying to force fingers under the 
ring. But the metal seemed inimical to the creature’s 
substance, like a hot pan to human fingers, 
for the fingers flinched and danced around it, but 
could not take hold for longer than a second. 
The darkness that stained it was ebbing too, 
draining down through its thrashing, twisting 
support, leaving glowing whiteness behind. Still 
the creature fought with the ring, blazing hands 
forming and re-forming, body twisting and turning, 
even bucking, as if it could throw the ring 
192 
like a rider from a horse. 
Finally, it gave up and turned towards Sabriel, 
screaming and crackling. Two long arms sprang 
out from it, reaching towards Sabriel’s sprawling 
body, talons growing from the hands, raking the 
stone with deep gouges as they scrabbled 
towards her, like spiders scuttling to their prey— 
only to fall short by a yard or more. 
“No!” howled the thing, and its whole twisting, 
coiling body lurched forward, killing arms 
outstretched. Again, the talons fell short, as 
Sabriel crawled, rolled and pushed herself away. 
Then the silver ring contracted once more, and 
a terrible shout of anguish, rage and despair 
came from the very center of the white-flaming 
thing. Its arms suddenly shrank back to its torso; 
the head fell into the shoulders, and the whole 
body sank into an amorphous blob of shimmering 
white, with a single, still-large silver band 
around the middle, the ruby glittering like a 
drop of blood. 
Sabriel stared at it, unable to look aside, or do 
anything else, even quell the flow from her bleeding 

nose, which now covered half her face and 
chin, her mouth glued shut with dried and clotting 
blood. It seemed to her that something was 
193 
left undone, something that she had to provide. 
Nervously crawling closer, she saw that there 
were now marks on the ring, Charter marks that 
told her what she must do. Wearily, she got 
up on her knees and fumbled with the bellbandolier. 
Saraneth was heavy, almost beyond 
her strength, but she managed to draw it out, 
and the deep, compelling voice rang through the 
sinkhole, seeming to pierce the glowing, silverbound 
mass. 
The ring hummed in answer to the bell and 
exuded a pear-shaped drop of its own metal, 
which cooled to become a miniature Saraneth. 
At the same time, the ring changed color and 
consistency. The ruby’s color seemed to run, 
and a red wash spread through the silver. It was 
now dull and ordinary, no longer a silver band, 
but a red leather collar, with a miniature silver 
bell. 
With this change, the white mass quivered, 
and shone bright again, till Sabriel had to shield 
her eyes once more. When the shadows grew 
together again, she looked back, and there was 
Mogget, collared in red leather, sitting up and 
looking like he was about to throw up a hairball. 
It wasn’t a hairball, but a silver ring, the ruby 
194 
reflecting Mogget’s internal light. It rolled to 
Sabriel, tinkling across the stone. She picked it 
up and slid it back on her finger. 
Mogget’s glow faded, and the burning Paperwing 
was now only faint embers, sad memories 
and ash. Darkness returned, cloaking Sabriel, 
wrapping her up with all her hurts and fears. She 
sat, silent, not even thinking. 
A little later, she felt a soft cat nose against 
her folded hands, and a candle, damp from 
Mogget’s mouth. 
“Your nose is still bleeding,” said a familiar, 
didactic voice. “Light the candle, pinch your 

nose, and get some blankets out for us to sleep. 
It’s getting cold.” 
“Welcome back, Mogget,” whispered Sabriel. 
195 
chapter xiii 
Neither Sabriel nor Mogget 
mentioned the happenings of the previous night 
when they awoke. Sabriel, bathing her seriously 
swollen nose in an inch of water from her canteen, 
found that she didn’t particularly want to 
remember a waking nightmare, and Mogget 
was quiet, in an apologetic way. Despite what 
happened later, freeing Mogget’s alter ego, or 
whatever it was, had saved them from certain 
destruction by the wind. 
As she’d expected, dawn had brought some 
light to the sinkhole, and as the day progressed, 
this had grown to a level approximating twilight. 
Sabriel could read and see things close by 
quite clearly, but they merged into indistinct 
gloom twenty or thirty yards away. 
Not that the sinkhole was much larger than 
that—perhaps a hundred yards in diameter, not 
the fifty she’d guessed at when she was coming 
down. The entire floor of it was paved, with a 
circular drain in the middle, and there were 
several tunnel entrances into the sheer rock 
walls—tunnels which Sabriel knew she would 
eventually have to take, as there was no water 
in the sinkhole. There seemed little chance of 
rain, either. It was cool, but nowhere near as 
cold as the plateau near Abhorsen’s House. 
The climate was mitigated by proximity to the 
ocean, and an altitude that could easily be sealevel 
or below, for in daylight Sabriel could see 
that the sinkhole was at least a hundred yards 
deep. 
Still, with a half-full canteen of water gurgling 
by her side, Sabriel was quite content to slouch 
upon her slightly scorched pack and apply herbal 
creams to her bruises, and a poultice of evilsmelling 
tanmaril leaves to her strange sunburn. 

Her nose was a different matter when it came 
to treatment. It wasn’t broken—merely hideous, 
swollen and encrusted with dried blood, which 
hurt too much to clean off completely. 
Mogget, after an hour or so of sheepish silence, 
197 
sauntered off to explore, refusing Sabriel’s offer 
of hard cakes and dried meat for breakfast. She 
expected he’d find a rat, or something equally 
appetizing, instead. In a way, she was quite 
pleased he was gone. The memory of the Free 
Magic beast that lay within the little white cat 
was still disturbing. 
Even so, when the sun had risen to become a 
little disc surrounded by the greater circumference 
of the sinkhole’s rim, she started to wonder 
why he hadn’t come back. Levering herself 
up, she limped over to the tunnel he’d chosen, 
using her sword as a walking stick and complaining 
quietly as every bruise reminded her of 
its location. 
Of course, just as she was lighting a candle at 
the tunnel entrance Mogget reappeared behind 
her. 
“Looking for me?” he mewed, innocently. 
“Who else?” replied Sabriel. “Have you found 
anything? Anything useful, I mean. Water, for 
instance.” 
“Useful?” mused Mogget, rubbing his chin 
back along his two outstretched front legs. 
“Perhaps. Interesting, certainly. Water? Yes.” 
“How far away?” asked Sabriel, all too aware 
198 
of her bruise-limited mobility. “And what does 
interesting mean? Dangerous?” 
“Not far, by this tunnel,” replied Mogget. 
“There is a little danger getting there—a trap 
and a few other oddments, but nothing that will 
harm you. As to the interesting part, you will 
have to see for yourself, Abhorsen.” 
“Sabriel,” said Sabriel automatically, as she 
tried to think ahead. She needed at least two 
days’ rest, but no more than that. Every day lost 
before she found her father’s corporeal body 

might mean disaster. She simply had to find him 
soon. 
A Mordicant, Shadow Hands, gore crows—it 
was now all too clear that some terrible enemy 
was arrayed against both father and daughter. 
That enemy had already trapped her father, so it 
had to be a very powerful necromancer, or some 
Greater Dead creature. Perhaps this Kerrigor . . . 
“I’ll get my pack,” she decided, trudging back, 
Mogget slipping backwards and forwards across 
her path like a kitten, almost tripping her, but 
always just getting out of the way. Sabriel put 
this down to inexplicable catness, and didn’t 
comment. 
As Mogget had promised, the tunnel wasn’t 
199 
long, and its well-made steps and cross-hatched 
floor made passage easy, save for the part where 
Sabriel had to follow the little cat exactly across 
the stones, to avoid a cleverly concealed pit. 
Without Mogget’s guidance, Sabriel knew she 
would have fallen in. 
There were magical wardings too. Old, inimical 
spells lay like moths in the corners of the 
tunnel, waiting to fly up at her, to surround and 
choke her with power—but something checked 
their first reaction and they settled again. A few 
times, Sabriel experienced a ghostly touch, like 
a hand reaching out to brush the Charter mark 
on her forehead, and almost at the end of the 
tunnel, she saw two guard sendings melting 
into the rock, the tips of their halberds glinting 
in her candlelight before they, too, merged into 
stone. 
“Where are we going?” she whispered, nervously, 
as the door in front of them slowly 
creaked open—without visible means of propulsion. 
“Another sinkhole,” Mogget said, matter-offactly. 
“It is where the First Blood . . . ach . . .” 
He choked, hissed, and then rephrased his sentence 
rather drably, with “It is interesting.” 
200 
“What do you mean—” Sabriel began, but she 
fell silent as they passed the doorway, magical 

force suddenly tugging at her hair, her hands, her 
surcoat, the hilt of her sword. Mogget’s fur 
stood on end, and his collar rotated halfway 
around of its own accord, till the Charter marks 
of binding were uppermost and clearly readable, 
bright against the leather. 
Then they were out, standing at the bottom of 
another sinkhole, in a premature twilight, for 
the sun was already slipping over the circumscribed 
horizon of the sinkhole rim. 
This sinkhole was much wider than the first— 
perhaps a mile across, and deeper, say six or 
seven hundred feet. Despite its size, the entire 
vast pit was sealed off from the upper air by a 
gleaming, web-thin net, which seemed to merge 
into the rim wall about a quarter of the way 
down from the surface. Sunlight had given it 
away, but even so, Sabriel had to use her telescope 
to see the delicate diamond-pattern weave 
clearly. It looked flimsy, but the presence of several 
dessicated bird-corpses indicated considerable 
strength. Sabriel guessed the unfortunate 
birds had dived into the net, eyes greedily intent 
on food below. 
201 
In the sinkhole itself, there was considerable, if 
uninspiring vegetation—mostly stunted trees 
and malformed bushes. But Sabriel had little 
attention to spare for the trees, for in between 
each of these straggling patches of greenery, 
there were paved areas—and on each of these 
paved areas rested a ship. 
Fourteen open-decked, single-masted longboats, 
their black sails set to catch a nonexistent 
wind, oars out to battle an imaginary tide. They 
flew many flags and standards, all limp against 
mast and rigging, but Sabriel didn’t need to see 
them unfurled to know what strange cargo these 
ships might bear. She’d heard of this place, as had 
every child in the Northern parts of Ancelstierre, 
close to the Old Kingdom. Hundreds of tales 
of treasure, adventure and romance were woven 
around this strange harbor. 
“Funerary ships,” said Sabriel. “Royal ships.” 

She had further confirmation that this was so, 
for there were binding spells woven into the very 
dirt her feet scuffed at the tunnel entrance, spells 
of final death that could only have been laid by an 
Abhorsen. No necromancer would ever raise any 
of the ancient rulers of the Old Kingdom. 
“The famous burial ground of the First . . . 
202 
ckkk . . . the Kings and Queens of the Old 
Kingdom,” pronounced Mogget, after some difficulty. 
He danced around Sabriel’s feet, then 
stood on his hind legs and made expansive gestures, 
like a circus impresario in white fur. 
Finally, he shot off into the trees. 
“Come on—there’s a spring, spring, spring!” he 
caroled, as he leaped up and down in time with 
his words. 
Sabriel followed at a slower pace, shaking her 
head and wondering what had happened to make 
Mogget so cheerful. She felt bruised, tired and 
depressed, shaken by the Free Magic monster, and 
sad about the Paperwing. 
They passed close by two of the ships on their 
way to the spring. Mogget led her a merry dance 
around both of them, in a mad circumnavigation 
of twists, leaps and bounds, but the sides were too 
high to look in and she didn’t feel like shinning up 
an oar. She did pause to look at the figureheads— 
imposing men, one in his forties, the other somewhat 
older. Both were bearded, had the same 
imperious eyes, and wore armor similar to 
Sabriel’s, heavily festooned with medallions, 
chains and other decorations. Each held a sword 
in his right hand, and an unfurling scroll that 
203 
turned back on itself in their left—the heraldic 
representation of the Charter. 
The third ship was different. It seemed shorter 
and less ornate, with a bare mast devoid of black 
sails. No oars sprang from its sides, and as Sabriel 
reached the spring that lay under its stern, she saw 
uncaulked seams between the planking, and realized 
that it was incomplete. 
Curious, she dropped her pack by the little pool 

of bubbling water and walked around to the bow. 
This was different too, for the figurehead was a 
young man—a naked young man, carved in perfect 
detail. 
Sabriel blushed a little, for it was an exact likeness, 
as if a young man had been transformed 
from flesh to wood, and her only prior experience 
of naked men was in clinical cross-sections from 
biology textbooks. His muscles were lean and 
well-formed, his hair short and tightly curled 
against his head. His hands, well-shaped and elegant, 
were partly raised, as if to ward off some 
evil. 
The detail even extended to a circumcised 
penis, which Sabriel glanced at in an embarrassed 
way, before looking back at his face. He 
was not exactly handsome, but not displeasing. 
204 
It was a responsible visage, with the shocked 
expression of someone who has been betrayed 
and only just realized it. There was fear there, 
too, and something like hatred. He looked more 
than a little mad. His expression troubled her, 
for it seemed too human to be the result of a 
woodcarver’s skill, no matter how talented. 
“Too life-like,” Sabriel muttered, stepping back 
from the figurehead, hand falling to the hilt of her 
sword, her magical senses reaching out, seeking 
some trap or deception. 
There was no trap, but Sabriel did feel something 
in or around the figurehead. A feeling similar 
to that of a Dead revenant, but not the same— 
a niggling sensation that she couldn’t place. 
Sabriel tried to identify it, while she looked over 
the figurehead again, carefully examining him 
from every angle. The man’s body was an intellectual 
problem now, so she looked without 
embarrassment, studying his fingers, fingernails 
and skin, noting how perfectly they were carved, 
right down to the tiny scars on his hands, the 
product of sword and dagger practice. There was 
also the faint sign of a baptismal Charter mark on 
his forehead, and the pale trace of veins on his 
eyelids. 

205 
That inspection led her to certainty about what 
she’d detected, but she hesitated about the action 
that should be taken, and went in search of 
Mogget. Not that she put a lot of faith in advice 
or answers from that quarter, given his present 
propensity towards behaving as a fairly silly 
cat—though perhaps this was a reaction to his 
brief experience of being a Free Magic beast 
again, something that might not have happened 
for a millennium. The cat form was probably a 
welcome relief. 
In fact, no advice at all could be had from 
Mogget. Sabriel found him asleep in a field of 
flowers near the spring, his tail and paddy-paws 
twitching to a dream of dancing mice. Sabriel 
looked at the straw-yellow flowers, sniffed one, 
scratched Mogget behind the ears, then went 
back to the figurehead. The flowers were catbalm, 
explaining both Mogget’s previous mood 
and his current somnolence. She would have to 
make up her own mind. 
“So,” she said, addressing the figurehead like a 
lawyer before a court. “You are the victim of 
some Free Magic spell and necromantic trickery. 
Your spirit lies neither in Life nor Death, but 
somewhere in between. I could cross into Death, 
206 
and find you near the border, I’m sure—but I 
could find a lot of trouble as well. Trouble I can’t 
deal with in my current pathetic state. So what 
can I do? What would Father—Abhorsen . . . or 
any Abhorsen—do in my place?” 
She thought about it for a while, pacing backwards 
and forwards, bruises temporarily forgotten. 
That last question seemed to make her 
duty clear. Sabriel felt sure her father would 
free the man. That’s what he did, that was what 
he lived for. The duty of an Abhorsen was to 
remedy unnatural necromancy and Free Magic 
sorcery. 
She didn’t think further than that, perhaps due 
to the injudicious sniffing of the catbalm. She 
didn’t even consider that her father would probably 

have waited until he was fitter—perhaps till 
the next day. After all, this young man must 
have been incarcerated for many years, his physical 
body transformed into wood, and his spirit 
somehow trapped in Death. A few days would 
make no difference to him. An Abhorsen didn’t 
have to immediately take on any duty that presented 
itself . . . 
But for the first time since she’d crossed the 
207 
Wall, Sabriel felt there was a clear-cut problem 
for her to solve. An injustice to be righted and 
one that should involve little more than a few 
minutes on the very border of Death. 
Some slight sense of caution remained with 
her, so she went and picked up Mogget, placing 
the dozing cat near the feet of the figurehead. 
Hopefully, he would wake up if any physical 
danger threatened—not that this was likely, 
given the wards and guards on the sinkhole. 
There were even barriers that would make it difficult 
to cross into Death, and more than difficult 
for something Dead to follow her back. All in 
all, it seemed like the perfect place to undertake 
a minor rescue. 
Once more, she checked the bells, running her 
hands over the smooth wood of the handles, feeling 
their voices within, eagerly awaiting release. 
This time, it was Ranna she freed from its leather 
case. It was the least noticeable of the bells, its 
very nature lulling listeners, beguiling them to 
sleep or inattention. 
Second thoughts brushed at her like doubting 
fingers, but she ignored them. She felt confident, 
ready for what would only be a minor stroll in 
Death, amply safeguarded by the protections of 
208 
this royal necropolis. Sword in one hand, bell in 
the other, she crossed into Death. 
Cold hit her, and the relentless current, but she 
stood where she was, still feeling the warmth of 
Life on her back. This was the very interface 
between the two realms, where she would normally 
plunge ahead. This time, she planted her 

feet against the current, and used her continuing 
slight contact with Life as an anchor to hold her 
own against the waters of Death. 
Everything seemed quiet, save for the constant 
gurgling of the water about her feet, and the faroff 
crash of the First Gate. Nothing stirred, no 
shapes loomed up in the grey light. Cautiously, 
Sabriel used her sense of the Dead to feel out 
anything that might be lurking, to feel the slight 
spark of the trapped, but living, spirit of the 
young man. Back in Life, she was physically close 
to him, so she should be near his spirit here. 
There was something, but it seemed further 
into Death than Sabriel expected. She tried to see 
it, squinting into the curious greyness that made 
distance impossible to judge, but nothing was 
visible. Whatever was there lurked beneath the 
surface of the water. 
209 
Sabriel hesitated, then walked towards it, carefully 
feeling her way, making sure of every footfall, 
guarding against the gripping current. There 
was definitely something odd out there. She 
could feel it quite strongly—it had to be the 
trapped spirit. She ignored the little voice at the 
back of her mind that suggested it was a fiercely 
devious Dead creature, strong enough to hold its 
own against the race of the river . . . 
Nevertheless, when she was a few paces back 
from whatever it was, Sabriel let Ranna sound— 
a muffled, sleepy peal that carried the sensation 
of a yawn, a sigh, a head falling forward, eyes 
heavy—a call to sleep. 
If there was a Dead thing there, Sabriel reasoned, 
it would now be quiescent. She put her 
sword and bell away, edged forward to a good 
position, and reached down into the water. 
Her hands touched something as cold and 
hard as ice, something totally unidentifiable. 
She flinched back, then reached down again, till 
her hands found something that was clearly a 
shoulder. She followed this up to a head, and 
traced the features. Sometimes a spirit bore little 
relation to the physical body, and sometimes 

living spirits became warped if they spent too 
210 
long in Death, but this one was clearly the 
counterpart of the figurehead. It lived too, 
somehow encased and protected from Death, 
as the living body was preserved in wood. 
Sabriel gripped the spirit-form under the arms 
and pulled. It rose up out of the water like a 
killer whale, pallid white and rigid as a statue. 
Sabriel staggered backwards, and the river, evereager, 
wrapped her legs with tricksome eddies— 
but she steadied herself before it could drag her 
down. 
Changing her hold a little, Sabriel began to 
drag the spirit-form back towards Life. It was 
hard going, much harder than she’d expected. 
The current seemed far too strong for this side of 
the First Gate, and the crystallized spirit—or 
whatever it was—was much, much heavier than 
any spirit should be. 
With nearly all her concentration bent on staying 
upright and heading in the right direction, 
Sabriel almost didn’t notice the sudden cessation 
of noise that marked the passage of something 
through the First Gate. But she’d learned to be 
wary over the last few days, and her conscious 
fears had become enshrined in subconscious 
caution. 
211 
She heard, and listening carefully, caught the 
soft slosh-slosh of something half-wading, halfcreeping, 
moving as quietly as it could against 
the current. Moving towards her. Something 
Dead was hoping to catch her unawares. 
Obviously, some alarm or summons had gone 
out beyond the First Gate, and whatever was 
stalking towards her had come in answer to it. 
Inwardly cursing herself for stupidity, Sabriel 
looked down at her spirit burden. Sure enough, 
she could just make out a very thin black line, 
fine as cotton thread, running from his arm into 
the water—and thence to the deeper, darker 
regions of Death. Not a controlling thread, but 
one that would let some distant Adept know the 

spirit had been moved. Fortunately, sounding 
Ranna would have slowed the message, but was 
she close enough to Life . . . 
She increased her speed a little, but not too 
much, pretending she hadn’t noticed the hunter. 
Whatever it was, it seemed quite reluctant to 
close in on her. 
Sabriel quickened her pace a little more, adrenaline 
and suspense feeding her strength. If it 
rushed her, she would have to drop the spirit— 
and he would be carried away, lost forever. 
212 
213 
Whatever magic had preserved his living spirit 
here on the boundary couldn’t possibly prevail if 
he went past the First Gate. If that happened, 
Sabriel thought, she would have precipitated a 
murder rather than a rescue. 
Four steps to Life—then three. The thing was 
closing now—Sabriel could see it, low in the 
water, still creeping, but faster now. It was obviously 
a denizen of the Third, or even some later 
Gate, for she couldn’t identify what it once had 
been. Now it looked like a cross between a hog 
and a segmented worm, and it moved in a series 
of scuttles and sinuous wriggles. 
Two steps. Sabriel shifted her grip again, 
wrapping her left arm completely around the 
spirit’s chest and balancing the weight on her 
hip, freeing her right arm, but she still couldn’t 
draw her sword, or clear the bells. 
The hog-thing began to grunt and hiss, breaking 
into a diving, rushing gallop, its long, yellowcrusted 
tusks surfing through the water, its long 
body undulating along behind. 
Sabriel stepped back, turned, and threw herself 
and her precious cargo headfirst into Life, using 
all her will to force them through the wards on 
the sinkhole. For an instant, it seemed that they 
would be repulsed, then, like a pin pushing 
through a rubber band, they were through. 
Shrill squealing followed her, but nothing else. 
Sabriel found herself facedown on the ground, 
hands empty, ice crystals crunching as they fell 

from her frosted body. Turning her head, she met 
the gaze of Mogget. He stared at her, then closed 
his eyes and went back to sleep. 
Sabriel rolled over, and got to her feet, very, 
very slowly. She felt all her pains come back and 
wondered why she’d been so hasty to perform 
deeds of derring-do and rescue. Still, she had 
managed it. The man’s spirit was back where it 
belonged, back in Life. 
Or so she thought, till she saw the figurehead. 
It hadn’t changed at all to outward sight, though 
Sabriel could now feel the living spirit in it. 
Puzzled, she touched his immobile face, fingers 
tracing the grain of the wood. 
“A kiss,” said Mogget sleepily. “Actually, just 
a breath would do. But you have to start kissing 
someone sometime, I suppose.” 
Sabriel looked at the cat, wondering if this was 
the latest symptom of catbalm-induced lunacy. 
But he seemed sober enough, and serious. 
“A breath?” she asked. She didn’t want to kiss 
214 
just any wooden man. He looked nice enough, 
but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed 
very forward. He might remember it, and make 
assumptions. 
“Like this?” She took a deep breath, leaned 
forward, exhaled a few inches from his nose and 
mouth, then stepped back to see what would 
happen—if anything. 
Nothing did. 
“Catbalm!” exclaimed Sabriel, looking at 
Mogget. “You shouldn’t—” 
A small sound interrupted her. A small, wheezing 
sound, that didn’t come from her or Mogget. 
The figurehead was breathing, air whistling 
between carved wooden lips like the issue from 
an aged, underworked bellows. 
The breathing grew stronger, and with it, color 
began to flow through the carving, dull wood 
giving way to the luster of flesh. He coughed, 
and the carven chest became flexible, suddenly 
rising and falling as he began to pant like a 
recovering sprinter. 

His eyes opened and met Sabriel’s. Fine grey 
eyes, but muzzy and unfocused. He didn’t seem 
to see her. His fingers clenched and unclenched, 
and his feet shuffled, as if he were running in 
215 
place. Finally, his back peeled away from the 
ship’s hull. He took one step forward, and fell 
into Sabriel’s arms. 
She lowered him hastily to the ground, all too 
aware that she was embracing a naked young 
man—in circumstances considerably different 
than the various scenarios she’d imagined with 
her friends at school, or heard about from the 
earthier and more privileged day-girls. 
“Thank you,” he said, almost drunkenly, the 
words terribly slurred. He seemed to focus on 
her—or her surcoat—for the first time, and 
added, “Abhorsen.” 
Then he went to sleep, mouth curling up at 
the corners, frown dissolving. He looked 
younger than he did as a fixed-expression figurehead. 
Sabriel looked down at him, trying to ignore 
curiously fond feelings that had appeared from 
somewhere. Feelings similar to those that had 
made her bring back Jacinth’s rabbit. 
“I suppose I’d better get him a blanket,” she 
said reluctantly, as she wondered what on earth 
had possessed her to add this complication 
to her already confusing and difficult circumstances. 
She supposed she would have to get him 
216 
to safety and civilization, at the very least—if 
there was any to be found. 
“I can get a blanket if you want to keep staring 
at him,” Mogget said slyly, twining himself 
around her ankles in a sensuous pavane. 
Sabriel realized she really was staring, and 
looked away. 
“No. I’ll get it. And my spare shirt, I suppose. 
The breeches might fit him with a bit of work, I 
guess—we’d be much the same height. Keep 
watch, Mogget. I’ll be back in a minute.” 
Mogget watched her hobble off, then turned 
back to the sleeping man. Silently, the cat 

padded over and touched his pink tongue to the 
Charter mark on the man’s forehead. The mark 
flared, but Mogget didn’t flinch, till it grew dull 
again. 
“So,” muttered Mogget, tasting his own 
tongue by curling it back on itself. He seemed 
somewhat surprised, and more than a little 
angry. He tasted the mark again, and then shook 
his head in distaste, the miniature Saraneth on 
his collar ringing a little peal that was not of 
celebration. 
217 
chapter xiv 
Grey mist coiling upwards, 
twining around him like a clinging vine, gripping 
arms and legs, immobilizing, strangling, 
merciless. So firmly grown about his body there 
was no possibility of escape, so tight his muscles 
couldn’t even flex under skin, his eyelids 
couldn’t blink. And nothing to see but patches 
of darker grey, crisscrossing his vision like windblown 
scum upon a fetid pool. 
Then, suddenly, fierce red light, pain exploding 
everywhere, rocketing from toes to brain and 
back again. The grey mist clearing, mobility 
returning. No more grey patches, but blurry colors, 
slowly twisting into focus. A woman, looking 
down at him, a young woman, armed and 
armored, her face . . . battered. No, not a 
woman. The Abhorsen, for she wore the blazon 
and the bells. But she was too young, not the 
Abhorsen he knew, or any of the family . . . 
“Thank you,” he said, the words coming out 
like a mouse creeping from a dusty larder. 
“Abhorsen.” 
Then he fainted, his body rushing gladly to 
welcome real sleep, true unconsciousness and 
sanity-restoring rest. 
He awoke under a blanket, and felt a 
moment’s panic when the thick grey wool 
pressed upon his mouth and eyes. He struggled 
with it, threw it back with a gasp, and relaxed as 

he felt fresh air on his face and dim sunlight filtering 
down from above. He looked up and saw 
from the reddish hue that it must be soon after 
dawn. The sinkhole puzzled him for a few seconds— 
disoriented, he felt dizzy and stupid, till 
he looked at the tall masts all around, the black 
sails, and the unfinished ship nearby. 
“Holehallow,” he muttered to himself, frowning. 
He remembered it now. But what was he 
doing here? Completely naked under a rough 
camping blanket? 
He sat up, and shook his head. It was sore and 
his temples were throbbing, seemingly from the 
219 
battering-ram effect of a severe hangover. But he 
felt certain he hadn’t been drinking. The last 
thing he remembered was going down the steps. 
Rogir had asked him . . . no . . . the last thing 
was the fleeting image of a pale, concerned face, 
bloodied and bruised, black hair hanging out in 
a fringe under her helmet. A deep blue surcoat, 
with the blazon of silver keys. The Abhorsen. 
“She’s washing at the spring,” said a soft voice, 
interrupting his faltering recollection. “She got 
up before the sun. Cleanliness is a wonderful 
thing.” 
The voice did not seem to belong to anything 
visible, till the man looked up at the nearby ship. 
There was a large, irregular hole in the bow, 
where the figurehead should have been and a 
white cat was curled up in the hole, watching 
him with an unnaturally sharp, green-eyed gaze. 
“What are you?” said the man, his eyes cautiously 
flickering from side to side, looking for 
a weapon. A pile of clothes was the only thing 
nearby, containing a shirt, trousers and some 
underwear, but it was weighted down with a largish 
rock. His hand sidled out towards the rock. 
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the cat. “I’m but 
a faithful retainer of the Abhorsen. Name of 
220 
Mogget. For the moment.” 
The man’s hand closed on the rock, but he 
didn’t lift it. Memories were slowly sidling back 

to his benumbed mind, drawn like grains of iron 
to a magnet. There were memories of various 
Abhorsens among them—memories that gave 
him an inkling of what this cat-creature was. 
“You were bigger when we last met,” he hazarded, 
testing his guess. 
“Have we met?” replied Mogget, yawning. 
“Dear me. I can’t recall it. What was the name?” 
A good question, thought the man. He 
couldn’t remember. He knew who he was, in 
general terms, but his name eluded him. Other 
names came easily though, and some flashes of 
memory concerning what he thought of as his 
immediate past. He growled, and grimaced as 
they came to him, and clenched his fists in pain 
and anger. 
“Unusual name,” commented Mogget. “More 
of a bear’s name, that growl. Do you mind if I 
call you Touchstone?” 
“What!” the man exclaimed, affronted. “That’s 
a fool’s name! How dare—” 
“Is it unfitting?” interrupted Mogget, coolly. 
“You do remember what you’ve done?” 
221 
The man was silent then, for he suddenly did 
remember, though he didn’t know why he’d 
done it, or what the consequences had been. He 
also remembered that since this was the case, 
there was no point trying to remember his name. 
He was no longer fit to bear it. 
“Yes, I remember,” he whispered. “You may 
call me Touchstone. But I shall call you—” 
He choked, looked surprised, then tried again. 
“You can’t say it,” Mogget said. “A spell tied 
to the corruption of—but I can’t say it, nor tell 
anyone the nature of it, or how to fix it. You 
won’t be able to talk about it either and there may 
be other effects. Certainly, it has affected me.” 
“I see,” replied Touchstone, somberly. He 
didn’t try the name again. “Tell me, who rules 
the Kingdom?” 
“No one,” said Mogget. 
“A regency, then. That is perhaps—” 
“No. No regency. No one reigns. No one rules. 

There was a regency at first, but it declined . . . 
with help.” 
“What do you mean, ‘at first’?” asked 
Touchstone. “What exactly has happened? 
Where have I been?” 
“The regency lasted for one hundred and 
222 
eighty years,” Mogget announced callously. 
“Anarchy has held sway for the last twenty, 
tempered by what a few remaining loyalists 
could do. And you, my boy, have been adorning 
the front of this ship as a lump of wood for the 
last two hundred years.” 
“The family?” 
“All dead and past the Final Gate, save one, 
who should be. You know who I mean.” 
For a moment, this news seemed to return 
Touchstone to his wooden state. He sat frozen, 
only the slight movement of his chest showing 
continued life. Then tears started in his eyes, and 
his head slowly fell to meet his upturned hands. 
Mogget watched without sympathy, till the 
young man’s back ceased its heaving and the 
harsh in-drawn gasps between sobs became 
calmer. 
“There’s no point crying over it,” the cat said 
harshly. “Plenty of people have died trying to put 
the matter to rights. Four Abhorsens have fallen 
in this century alone, trying to deal with the 
Dead, the broken stones and the—the original 
problem. My current Abhorsen certainly isn’t 
lying around crying her eyes out. Make yourself 
useful and help her.” 
223 
“Can I?” asked Touchstone bleakly, wiping his 
face with the blanket. 
“Why not?” snorted Mogget. “Get dressed, 
for a start. There are some things aboard here for 
you as well. Swords and suchlike.” 
“But I’m not fit to wield royal—” 
“Just do as you’re told,” Mogget said firmly. 
“Think of yourself as Abhorsen’s sworn swordhand, 
if it makes you feel better, though in this 
present era, you’ll find common sense is more 

important than honor.” 
“Very well,” Touchstone muttered, humbly. 
He stood up and put on the underclothes and 
shirt, but couldn’t get the trousers past his heavily 
muscled thighs. 
“There’s a kilt and leggings in one of the 
chests back here,” Mogget said, after watching 
Touchstone hopping around on one leg, the 
other trapped in too-tight leather. 
Touchstone nodded, divested himself of the 
trousers, and clambered up through the hole, 
taking care to keep as far away from Mogget as 
possible. Halfway up, he paused, arms braced on 
either side of the gap. 
“You won’t tell her?” he asked. 
“Tell who? Tell what?” 
224 
“Abhorsen. Please, I’ll do all I can to help. But 
it wasn’t intentional. My part, I mean. Please, 
don’t tell her—” 
“Spare me the pleadings,” said Mogget, in a 
disgusted tone. “I can’t tell her. You can’t tell her. 
The corruption is wide and the spell rather indiscriminatory. 
Hurry up—she’ll be back soon. I’ll 
tell you the rest of our current saga while you 
dress.” 
Sabriel returned from the spring feeling healthier, 
cleaner and happier. She’d slept well and the 
morning’s ablutions had cleared off the blood. 
The bruises, swellings and sunburn had all 
responded well to her herbal treatments. All in 
all, she felt about eighty percent normal, rather 
than ten percent functional, and she was looking 
forward to having some company at breakfast 
other than the sardonic Mogget. Not that he 
didn’t have his uses, such as guarding unconscious 
or sleeping humans. He’d also assured 
her that he had tested the Charter mark on the 
figurehead-man, finding him to be unsullied by 
Free Magic, or necromancy. 
She’d expected the man to still be asleep, so 
she felt a faint frisson of surprise and suspense 
when she saw a figure standing by the ship’s bow, 
225 

facing the other way. For a second, her hand 
twitched to her sword, then she saw Mogget 
nearby, precariously draped on the ship’s rail. 
She approached nervously, her curiosity tempered 
by the need to be wary of strangers. He 
looked different dressed. Older and somewhat 
intimidating, particularly since he seemed to 
have scorned her plain clothing for a kilt of 
gold-striped red, with matching leggings of redstriped 
gold, disappearing into turned-down 
thigh boots of russet doeskin. He was wearing 
her shirt, though, and preparing to put on a red 
leather jerkin. It had detachable, lace-up sleeves, 
which seemed to be giving him some problems. 
Two swords lay in three-quarter scabbards near 
his feet, stabbing points shining four inches out 
of the leather. A wide belt with the appropriate 
hooks already encircled his waist. 
“Curse these laces,” he said, when she was 
about ten paces away. A nice voice, quite deep, 
but currently frustrated and peaking with temper. 
“Good morning,” said Sabriel. 
He whirled around, dropping the sleeves, 
almost ducking to his swords, before recovering 
to transform the motion into a bow, culminating 
in a descent to one knee. 
226 
“Good morning, milady,” he said huskily, 
head bowed, carefully not meeting her gaze. She 
saw that he’d found some earrings, large gold 
hoops clumsily pushed through pierced lobes, 
for they were bloodied. Apart from them, all she 
could see was the top of his curly-haired head. 
“I’m not ‘milady,’” said Sabriel, wondering 
which of Miss Prionte’s etiquette principles 
applied to this situation. “My name is Sabriel.” 
“Sabriel? But you are the Abhorsen,” the man 
said slowly. He didn’t sound overly bright, 
Sabriel thought, with sinking expectations. 
Perhaps there would be very little conversation 
at breakfast after all. 
“No, my father is the Abhorsen,” she said, 
with a stern look at Mogget, warning him not 
to interfere. “I’m a sort of stand-in. It’s a bit 

complicated, so I’ll explain later. What’s your 
name?” 
He hesitated, then mumbled, “I can’t remember, 
milady. Please, call me . . . call me 
Touchstone.” 
“Touchstone?” asked Sabriel. That sounded 
familiar, but she couldn’t place it for a moment. 
“Touchstone? But that’s a jester’s name, a fool’s 
name. Why call you that?” 
227 
“That’s what I am,” he said dully, without 
inflection. 
“Well, I have to call you something,” Sabriel 
continued. “Touchstone. You know, there is the 
tradition of a wise fool, so perhaps it’s not so 
bad. I guess you think you’re a fool because 
you’ve been imprisoned as a figurehead—and in 
Death, of course.” 
“In Death!” exclaimed Touchstone. He looked 
up and his grey eyes met Sabriel’s. Surprisingly, 
he had a clear, intelligent gaze. Perhaps there is 
some hope for him after all, she thought, as she 
explained: “Your spirit was somehow preserved 
just beyond the border of Death, and your body 
preserved as the wooden figurehead. Both necromantic 
and Free Magic would have been 
involved. Very powerful magic, on both counts. 
I am curious as to why it was used on you.” 
Touchstone looked away again, and Sabriel 
sensed a certain shiftiness, or embarrassment. 
She guessed that the forthcoming explanation 
would be a half-truth, at best. 
“I don’t remember very well,” he said, slowly. 
“Though things are coming back. I am . . . I 
was . . . a guardsman. The Royal Guard. There 
was some sort of attack upon the Queen . . . 
228 
an ambush in the—at the bottom of the stairs. 
I remember fighting, with blade and Charter 
Magic—we were all Charter Mages, all the 
guard. I thought we were safe, but there was 
treachery . . . then . . . I was here. I don’t know 
how.” 
Sabriel listened carefully, wondering how 

much of what he said was true. It was likely 
that his memory was impaired, but he possibly 
was a royal guard. Perhaps he had cast a diamond 
of protection . . . that could have been 
why his enemies could only imprison him, 
rather than kill. But, surely they could have 
waited till it failed. Why the bizarre method of 
imprisonment? And, most importantly, how 
did the figurehead manage to get placed in this 
most protected of places? 
She filed all these questions for later investigation, 
for another thought had struck her. If he 
really was a royal guard, the Queen he had 
guarded must have been dead and gone for at 
least two hundred years and, with her, everyone 
and everything he knew. 
“You have been a prisoner for a long time,” she 
said gently, uncertain about how to break the 
news. “Have you . . . I mean did you . . . well, 
229 
what I mean is it’s been a very long time—” 
“Two hundred years,” whispered Touchstone. 
“Your minion told me.” 
“Your family . . .” 
“I have none,” he said. His expression was set, 
as immobile as the carved wood of the previous 
day. Carefully, he reached over and drew one of 
his swords, offering it to Sabriel hilt-first. 
“I would serve you, milady, to fight against the 
enemies of the Kingdom.” 
Sabriel didn’t take the sword, though his plea 
made her reflexively reach out. But a moment’s 
thought closed her open palm, and her arm fell 
back to her side. She looked at Mogget, who 
was watching the proceedings with unabashed 
interest. 
“What have you told him, Mogget?” she asked, 
suspicion wreathing her words. 
“The state of the Kingdom, generally speaking,” 
replied the cat. “Recent events. Our descent 
here, more or less. Your duty as Abhorsen to remedy 
the situation.” 
“The Mordicant? Shadow Hands? Gore crows? 
The Dead Adept, whoever it may be?” 

“Not specifically,” said Mogget, cheerfully. “I 
thought he could presume as much.” 
230 
231 
“As you see,” Sabriel said, rather angrily, “my 
‘minion’ has not been totally honest with you. I 
was raised across the Wall, in Ancelstierre, so 
I have very little idea about what is going on. I 
have huge gaps in my knowledge of the Old 
Kingdom, including everything from geography 
to history to Charter Magic. I face some dire enemies, 
probably under the overall direction of one 
of the Greater Dead, a necromantic adept. And 
I’m not out to save the Kingdom, just to find my 
father, the real Abhorsen. So I don’t want to take 
your oath or service or anything like that, particularly 
as we’ve only just met. I am happy for you 
to accompany us to the nearest approximation of 
civilization, but I have no idea what I will be 
doing after that. And, please remember that my 
name is Sabriel. Not milady. Not Abhorsen. Now, 
I think it’s time for breakfast.” 
With that, she stalked over to her pack, and 
started getting out some oatmeal and a small 
cooking pot. 
Touchstone stared after her for a moment, then 
picked himself up, attached his swords, put on the 
sleeveless jerkin, tied the sleeves to his belt and 
wandered off to the nearest clump of trees. 
Mogget followed him there, and watched him 
pick up dead branches and sticks for a fire. 
“She really did grow up in Ancelstierre,” said 
the cat. “She doesn’t realize refusing your oath is 
an insult. And it’s true enough about her ignorance. 
That’s one of the reasons she needs your 
help.” 
“I can’t remember much,” said Touchstone, 
snapping a branch in half with considerable ferocity. 
“Except my most recent past. Everything else 
is like a dream. I’m not sure if it’s real or not, 
learned or imagined. And I wasn’t insulted. My 
oath isn’t worth much.” 
“But you’ll help her,” said Mogget. It wasn’t a 
question. 

“No,” said Touchstone. “Help is for equals. I’ll 
serve her. That’s all I’m good for.” 
As Sabriel feared, there was little conversation 
over breakfast. Mogget went off in search of his 
own, and Sabriel and Touchstone were hindered 
by the sole cooking pot and single spoon, so they 
took it in turns to eat half the porridge. Even 
allowing for this difficulty, Touchstone was 
uncommunicative. Sabriel started asking a lot of 
questions, but as his standard response was, “I’m 
sorry, I can’t remember,” she soon gave up. 
“I don’t suppose you can remember how to get 
232 
out of this sinkhole, either,” she asked in exasperation, 
after a particularly long stretch of silence. 
Even to her, this sounded like a prefect addressing 
a miscreant twelve-year-old. 
“No, I’m sorry . . .” Touchstone began automatically, 
then he paused, and the corner of his 
mouth quirked up with a momentary spasm of 
pleasure. “Wait! Yes—I do remember! There’s 
a hidden stair, to the north of King Janeurl’s 
ship . . . oh, I can’t remember which one that 
is . . .” 
“There’s only four ships near the northern rim,” 
Sabriel mused. “It won’t be too hard to find. 
How’s your memory for other geography? The 
Kingdom, for instance?” 
“I’m not sure,” replied Touchstone, guardedly, 
bowing his head again. Sabriel looked at him 
and took a deep breath to calm the eel-like writhings 
of anger that were slowly getting bigger and 
bigger inside her. She could excuse his faulty 
memory—after all, that was due to magical incarceration. 
But the servile manner that went 
with it seemed to be an affectation. He was like 
a bad actor playing the butler—or rather, a nonactor 
trying to impersonate a butler as best he 
could. But why? 
233 
“Mogget drew me a map,” she said, talking 
as much to calm herself as for any real communication. 
“But, as he apparently has only left 
Abhorsen’s House for a few weekends over the 

last thousand years, even two-hundred-year-old 
memories . . .” 
Sabriel paused, and bit her lip, suddenly aware 
that her annoyance with him had made her spiteful. 
He looked up as she stopped speaking, but no 
reaction showed on his face. He might as well still 
be carved from wood. 
“What I mean is,” Sabriel continued carefully, 
“it would be very helpful if you could advise me 
on the best route to Belisaere, and the important 
landmarks and locations on the way.” 
She got the map out of the special pocket in 
the pack and removed the protective oilskin. 
Touchstone took one end as she unrolled it, and 
weighted his two corners with stones, while 
Sabriel secured hers with the telescope case. 
“I think we’re about here,” she said, tracing her 
finger from Abhorsen’s House, following the 
Paperwing’s flight from there to a point a little 
north of the Ratterlin river delta. 
“No,” said Touchstone, sounding decisive 
for the first time, his finger stabbing the map an 
234 
inch to the north of Sabriel’s own. “This is 
Holehallow, here. It’s only ten leagues from the 
coast and at the same latitude as Mount 
Anarson.” 
“Good!” exclaimed Sabriel, smiling, her anger 
slipping from her. “You do remember. Now, 
what’s the best route to Belisaere, and how long 
will it take?” 
“I don’t know the current conditions, mi . . . 
Sabriel,” Touchstone replied. His voice grew 
softer, more subdued. “From what Mogget 
says, the Kingdom is in a state of anarchy. Towns 
and villages may no longer exist. There will be 
bandits, the Dead, Free Magic unbound, fell 
creatures . . .” 
“Ignoring all that,” Sabriel asked, “which way 
did you normally go?” 
“From Nestowe, the fishing village here,” 
Touchstone said, pointing at the coast to the 
east of Holehallow. “We’d ride north along the 
Shoreway, changing horses at post houses. Four 

days to Callibe, a rest day there. Then the interior 
road up through Oncet Pass, six days 
all told to Aunden. A rest day in Aunden, then 
four days to Orchyre. From there, it would be 
a day’s ferry passage, or two days’ riding, to the 
235 
Westgate of Belisaere.” 
“Even without the rest days, that’d be eighteen 
days’ riding, at least six weeks’ walking. That’s 
too long. Is there any other way?” 
“A ship, or boat, from Nestowe,” interrupted 
Mogget, stalking up behind Sabriel, to place his 
paw firmly on the map. “If we can find one and if 
either of you can sail it.” 
236 
chapter xv 
The stair was to the north of the 
middle ship of the four. Concealed by both 
magic and artifice, it seemed to be little more 
than a particularly wet patch of the damp limestone 
that formed the sinkhole wall, but you 
could walk right through it, for it was really an 
open door with steps winding up behind. 
They decided to take these steps the next 
morning, after another day of rest. Sabriel was 
eager to move on, for she felt that her father’s 
peril could only be increasing, but she was realistic 
enough to assess her own need for recovery 
time. Touchstone, too, probably needed a rest, 
she thought. She’d tried to coax more information 
out of him while they’d searched for the 
steps, but he was clearly reluctant to even open 
his mouth, and when he did, Sabriel found his 
humble apologies ever more irritating. After the 
door was found she gave up altogether, and sat 
in the grass near the spring, reading her father’s 
books on Charter Magic. The Book of the Dead 
stayed wrapped in oilskin. Even then, she felt its 
presence, brooding in her pack . . . 
Touchstone stayed at the opposite end of 
the ship, near the bow, performing a series of 
fencing exercises with his twin swords, and 

some stretches and minor acrobatics. Mogget 
watched him from the undergrowth, green eyes 
glittering, as if intent on a mouse. 
Lunch was a culinary and conversational failure. 
Dried beef strips, garnished with watercress 
from the fringes of the spring, and monosyllabic 
responses from Touchstone. He even went back 
to “milady,” despite Sabriel’s repeated requests 
to use her name. Mogget didn’t help by calling 
her Abhorsen. After lunch, everyone went back 
to their respective activities. Sabriel to her book, 
Touchstone to his exercises and Mogget to his 
watching. 
Dinner was not something anyone had looked 
forward to. Sabriel tried talking to Mogget, 
but he seemed to be infected with Touchstone’s 
238 
reticence, though not with his servility. As soon 
as they’d eaten, everyone left the raked-together 
coals of the campfire—Touchstone to the west, 
Mogget north and Sabriel east—and went to 
sleep on as comfortable a stretch of ground as 
could be discovered. 
Sabriel woke once in the night. Without getting 
up, she saw that the fire had been rekindled 
and Touchstone sat beside it, staring into the 
flames, his eyes reflecting the capering, gold-red 
light. His face looked drawn, almost ill. 
“Are you all right?” Sabriel asked quietly, 
propping herself up on one elbow. 
Touchstone started, rocked back on his heels, 
and almost fell over. For once, he didn’t sound 
like a sulky servant. 
“Not really. I remember what I would not, and 
forget what I should not. Forgive me.” 
Sabriel didn’t answer. He had spoken the last 
two words to the fire, not to her. 
“Please, go back to sleep, milady,” Touchstone 
continued, slipping back to his servile role. “I 
will wake you in the morning.” 
Sabriel opened her mouth to say something 
scathing about the arrogance of pretended 
humility, then shut it, and subsided back under 
239 

her blanket. Just concentrate on rescuing Father, 
she told herself. That is the one important thing. 
Rescue Abhorsen. Don’t worry about Touchstone’s 
problems, or Mogget’s curious nature. 
Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue 
Abhors . . . rescue . . . 
“Wake up!” Mogget said, right in her ear. She 
rolled over, ignoring him, but he leapt across her 
head and repeated it in her other ear. “Wake 
up!” 
“I’m awake,” grumbled Sabriel. She sat up 
with the blanket wrapped around her, feeling the 
pre-dawn chill on her face and hands. It was still 
extremely dark, save for the uneven light of the 
fire and the faintest brushings of dawn light 
above the sinkhole. Touchstone was already 
making the porridge. He’d also washed, and 
shaved—using a dagger from the look of the 
nicks and cuts on his chin and neck. 
“Good morning,” he said. “This will be ready 
in five minutes, milady.” 
Sabriel groaned at that word again. Feeling 
like a shambling, blanket-shrouded excuse for a 
human being, she picked up her shirt and 
trousers and staggered off to find a suitable bush 
en route to the spring. 
240 
The icy water of the spring completed the 
waking up process without kindness, Sabriel 
exposing herself to it and the marginally warmer 
air for no more than the ten seconds it took to 
shed undershirt, wash and get dressed again. 
Clean, awake and clothed, she returned to the 
campfire and ate her share of the porridge. Then 
Touchstone ate, while Sabriel buckled on armor, 
sword and bells. Mogget lay near the fire, warming 
his white-furred belly. Not for the first time, 
Sabriel wondered if he needed to eat at all. He 
obviously liked food, but he seemed to eat for 
amusement, rather than sustenance. 
Touchstone continued being a servant after 
breakfast, cleaning pot and spoon, quenching 
the fire and putting everything away. But when 
he was about to swing the pack on his back, 

Sabriel stopped him. 
“No, Touchstone. It’s my pack. I’ll carry it, 
thank you.” 
He hesitated, then passed it to her and would 
have helped her put it on, but she had her arms 
through the straps and the pack swung on before 
he could take the weight. 
Half an hour later, perhaps a third of the 
way up the narrow, stone-carved stair, Sabriel 
241 
regretted her decision to take the pack. She still 
wasn’t totally recovered from the Paperwing 
crash and the stair was very steep, and so narrow 
that she had difficulty negotiating the spiraling 
turns. The pack always seemed to jam 
against the outside or inside wall, no matter 
which way she turned. 
“Perhaps we should take it in turns to carry 
the pack,” she said reluctantly, when they 
stopped at a sort of alcove to catch their breath. 
Touchstone, who had been leading, nodded and 
came back down a few steps to take the pack. 
“I’ll lead, then,” Sabriel added, flexing her back 
and shoulders, shuddering slightly at the packinduced 
layer of sweat on her back, greasy under 
armor, tunic, shirt and undershirt. She picked up 
her candle from the bench and stepped up. 
“No,” said Touchstone, stepping in her way. 
“There are guards—and guardians—on this 
stair. I know the words and signs to pass them. 
You are the Abhorsen, so they might let you 
past, but I am not sure.” 
“Your memory must be coming back,” Sabriel 
commented, slightly peeved at being thwarted. 
“Tell me, is this stair the one you mentioned 
when you said the Queen was ambushed?” 
242 
“No,” Touchstone replied flatly. He hesitated, 
then added, “That stair was in Belisaere.” 
With that, he turned, and continued up the 
stairs. Sabriel followed, Mogget at her heels. Now 
that she wasn’t lumbered by her pack, she felt 
more alert. Watching Touchstone, she saw him 
pause occasionally and mutter some words under 

his breath. Each time, there was the faint, featherlight 
touch of Charter Magic. Subtle magic, much 
cleverer than in the tunnel below. Harder to detect 
and probably much more deadly, Sabriel thought. 
Now she knew it was there, she also picked up the 
faint sensation of Death. This stair had seen 
killings, a long, long, time ago. 
Finally, they came to a large chamber, with a 
set of double doors to one side. Light leaked 
in from a large number of small, circular holes 
in the roof, or as Sabriel soon saw, through an 
overgrown lattice that had once been open to 
air and sky. 
“That’s the outside door,” Touchstone said, 
unnecessarily. He snuffed out his candle, took 
Sabriel’s, now little more than a stub of wax, and 
put both in a pocket stitched to the front of his 
kilt. Sabriel thought of joking about the hot wax 
and the potential for damage, but thought better 
243 
of it. Touchstone was not the lighthearted type. 
“How does it open?” asked Sabriel, indicating 
the door. She couldn’t see any handle, lock or 
key. Or any hinges, for that matter. 
Touchstone was silent, eyes unfocused and 
staring, then he laughed, a bitter little chuckle. 
“I don’t remember! All the way up the stair, all 
the words and signals . . . and now useless! 
Useless!” 
“At least you got us up the steps,” Sabriel 
pointed out, alarmed by the violence of his selfloathing. 
“I’d still be sitting by the spring, watching 
it bubble, if you hadn’t come along.” 
“You would have found the way out,” 
Touchstone muttered. “Or Mogget would. 
Wood! Yes, that’s what I deserve to be—” 
“Touchstone,” Mogget interrupted, hissing. 
“Shut up. You’re to be useful, remember?” 
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, visibly calming his 
breathing, composing his face. “I’m sorry, 
Mogget. Milady.” 
“Please, please, just Sabriel,” she said tiredly. 
“I’ve only just left school—I’m only eighteen! 
Calling me milady seems ridiculous.” 

“Sabriel,” Touchstone said tentatively. “I will 
try to remember. ‘Milady’ is a habit . . . it 
244 
245 
reminds me of my place in the world. It’s easier 
for me—” 
“I don’t care what’s easier for you!” Sabriel 
snapped. “Don’t call me milady and stop acting 
like a halfwit! Just be yourself. Behave normally. I 
don’t need a valet, I need a useful . . . friend!” 
“Very well, Sabriel,” Touchstone said, with 
careful emphasis. He was angry now, but at least 
that was an improvement over servile, Sabriel 
thought. 
“Now,” she said to the smirking Mogget. 
“Have you got any ideas about this door?” 
“Just one,” replied Mogget, sliding between 
her legs and over to the thin line that marked the 
division between the two leaves of the door. 
“Push. One on each side.” 
“Push?” 
“Why not?” said Touchstone, shrugging. He 
took up a position, braced against the left side of 
the door, palms flat on the metal-studded wood. 
Sabriel hesitated, then did the same against the 
right. 
“One, two, three, push!” announced Mogget. 
Sabriel pushed on “three” and Touchstone on 
“push,” so their combined effort took several 
seconds to synchronize. Then the doors creaked 
slowly open, sunshine spilling through in a 
bright bar, climbing from floor to ceiling, dust 
motes dancing in its progress. 
“It feels strange,” said Touchstone, the wood 
humming beneath his hands like plucked lute 
strings. 
“I can hear voices,” exclaimed Sabriel at the 
same time, her ears full of half-caught words, 
laughter, distant singing. 
“I can see time,” whispered Mogget, so softly 
that his words were lost. 
Then the doors were open. They walked 
through, shielding their eyes against the sun, 
feeling the cool breeze sharp on their skin, the 

fresh scent of pine trees clearing their nostrils of 
underground dust. Mogget sneezed quickly three 
times, and ran about in a tight circle. The doors 
slid shut behind them, as silently and inexplicably 
as they’d opened. 
They stood in a small clearing in the middle of 
a pine forest, or plantation, for the trees were 
regularly spaced. The doors behind them stood 
in the side of a low hillock of turf and stunted 
bushes. Pine needles lay thick on the ground, 
pinecones peeking through every few paces, like 
skulls ploughed up on some ancient battleground. 
246 
“The Watchwood,” said Touchstone. He took 
several deep breaths, looked at the sky, and 
sighed. “It is Winter, I think—or early Spring?” 
“Winter,” replied Sabriel. “It was snowing 
quite heavily, back near the Wall. It seems much 
milder here.” 
“Most of the Wall, the Long Cliffs, and 
Abhorsen’s House, are on, or part of, the 
Southern Plateau,” Mogget explained. “The 
plateau is between one and two thousand feet 
above the coastal plain. In fact, the area around 
Nestowe, where we are headed, is mostly below 
sea level and has been reclaimed.” 
“Yes,” said Touchstone. “I remember. Long 
Dyke, the raised canals, the wind pumps to raise 
the water—” 
“You’re both very informative for a change,” 
remarked Sabriel. “Would one of you care to tell 
me something I really want to know, like what 
are the Great Charters?” 
“I can’t,” Mogget and Touchstone said together. 
Then Touchstone continued, haltingly, 
“There is a spell . . . a binding on us. But someone 
who is not a Charter Mage, or otherwise 
closely bound to the Charter, might be able to 
speak. A child, perhaps, baptized with the 
247 
Charter mark, but not grown into power.” 
“You’re cleverer than I thought,” commented 
Mogget. “Not that that’s saying much.” 
“A child,” said Sabriel. “Why would a child 

know?” 
“If you’d had a proper education, you’d know 
too,” said Mogget. “A waste of good silver, that 
school of yours.” 
“Perhaps,” agreed Sabriel. “But now that I 
know more of the Old Kingdom, I suspect being 
at school in Ancelstierre saved my life. But 
enough of that. Which way do we go now?” 
Touchstone looked at the sky, blue above the 
clearing, dark where the pines circled. The sun 
was just visible above the trees, perhaps an hour 
short of its noon-time zenith. Touchstone 
looked from it to the shadows of the trees, then 
pointed: “East. There should be a series of 
Charter Stones, leading from here to the eastern 
edge of the Watchwood. This place is heavily 
warded with magic. There are . . . there were, 
many stones.” 
The stones were still there, and after the first, 
some sort of animal track that meandered from 
one stone to the next. It was cool under the pines, 
but pleasant, the constant presence of the Charter 
248 
Stones a reassuring sensation to Sabriel and 
Touchstone, who could sense them like lighthouses 
in a sea of trees. 
There were seven stones in all, and none of 
them broken, though Sabriel felt a stab of nervous 
tension every time they left the ambience of one 
and moved to another, a stark picture always 
flashing into her head—the bloodstained, riven 
stone of Cloven Crest. 
The last stone stood on the very edge of the pine 
forest, atop a granite bluff thirty or forty yards 
high, marking the forest’s eastern edge and the 
end of high ground. 
They stood next to the stone and looked out, 
out towards the huge expanse of blue-grey sea, 
white-crested, restless, always rolling in to shore. 
Below them were the flat, sunken fields of 
Nestowe, maintained by a network of raised 
canals, pumps and dykes. The village itself lay 
three-quarters of a mile away, high on another 
granite bluff, the harbor out of sight on the other 

side. 
“The fields are flooded,” said Touchstone, in a 
puzzled tone, as if he couldn’t believe what he was 
seeing. 
Sabriel followed his gaze, and saw that what 
249 
she had taken for some crop was actually silt 
and water, sitting tepidly where food once grew. 
Windmills, power for the pumps, stood silent, 
trefoil-shaped vanes still atop scaffolding towers, 
even though a salt-laden breeze blew in 
from the sea. 
“But the pumps were Charter-spelled,” 
Touchstone exclaimed. “To follow the wind, to 
work without care . . .” 
“There are no people in the fields—no one on 
this side of the village,” Mogget added, his eyes 
keener than the telescope in Sabriel’s pack. 
“Nestowe’s Charter Stone must be broken,” 
Sabriel said, mouth tight, words cold. “And I can 
smell a certain stench on the breeze. There are 
Dead in the village.” 
“A boat would be the quickest way to 
Belisaere, and I am reasonably confident of my 
sailing,” Touchstone remarked. “But if the Dead 
are there, shouldn’t we . . .” 
“We’ll go down and get a boat,” Sabriel 
announced firmly. “While the sun is high.” 
250 
chapter xvi 
There was a built-up path through 
the flooded fields, but it was submerged to 
ankle-depth, with occasional thigh-high slippages. 
Only the raised canal drains stood well 
above the brackish water, and they all ran 
towards the east, not towards the village, so 
Sabriel and Touchstone were forced to wade 
along the path. Mogget, of course, rode, his 
lean form draped around Sabriel’s neck like a 
white fox fur. 
Water and mud, coupled with an uncertain 
path, made it slow going. It took an hour to 

cover less than a mile, so it was later in the 
afternoon than Sabriel would have wished 
when they finally climbed out of the water, 
up onto the beginnings of the village’s rocky 
mount. At least the sky is clear, Sabriel 
thought, glancing up. The winter sun wasn’t 
particularly hot and couldn’t be described as 
glaring, but it would certainly deter most kindred 
of the Lesser Dead from venturing out. 
Nevertheless, they walked carefully up to the 
village, swords loose, Sabriel with a hand to her 
bells. The path wound up in a series of steps 
carved from the rock, reinforced here and there 
with bricks and mortar. The village proper nestled 
on top of the bluff—about thirty cozy brick 
cottages, with wood-tile roofs, some painted 
bright colors, some dull, and some simply grey 
and weatherbeaten. 
It was completely silent, save for the odd 
gust of wind, or the mournful cry of a gull, 
slipping down through the air above. Sabriel 
and Touchstone drew closer together, walking 
almost shoulder-to-shoulder up what passed 
for a main street, swords out now, eyes flickering 
across closed doors and shuttered windows. 
Both felt uneasy, nervous—a nasty, tingling, 
creeping sensation climbing up from spine, 
to nape of neck, to forehead Charter mark. 
Sabriel also felt the presence of Dead things. 
Lesser Dead, hiding from sunlight, lurking 
252 
somewhere nearby, in house or cellar. 
At the end of the main street, on the highest 
point of the bluff, a Charter Stone stood on a 
patch of carefully tended lawn. Half of the stone 
had been sheared away, pieces broken and tumbled, 
dark stone on green turf. A body lay in 
front of the stone, hands and feet bound, the 
gaping cut across the throat a clear sign of where 
the blood had come from—the blood for the sacrifice 
that broke the stone. 
Sabriel knelt by the corpse, eyes averted from 
the broken stone. It was only recently ruined, 
she felt, but already the door to Death was 

creaking open. She could almost feel the cold of 
the currents beyond, leaking out around the 
stone, sucking warmth and life from the air. 
Things lurked there too, she knew, just beyond 
the border. She sensed their hunger for life, their 
impatience for night to fall. 
As she expected, the corpse was of a Charter 
Mage, dead but three or four days. But she hadn’t 
expected to find the dead person was a woman. 
Wide shoulders and a muscular build had deceived 
her for a moment, but there was a middleaged 
woman before her, eyes shut, throat cut, 
short brown hair caked with sea salt and blood. 
253 
“The village healer,” said Mogget, indicating 
a bracelet on her wrist with his nose. Sabriel 
pushed the rope bindings aside for a better 
look. The bracelet was bronze with inlaid 
Charter marks of greenstone. Dead marks 
now, for blood dried upon the bronze, and no 
pulse beat in the skin under the metal. 
“She was killed three or four days ago,” 
Sabriel announced. “The stone was broken at 
the same time.” 
Touchstone looked back at her and nodded 
grimly, then resumed watching the houses 
opposite. His swords hung loosely in his 
hands, but Sabriel noticed that his entire body 
was tense, like a compressed jack-in-the-box, 
ready to spring. 
“Whoever . . . whatever . . . killed her and 
broke the stone, didn’t enslave her spirit,” 
Sabriel added quietly, as if thinking to herself. 
“I wonder why?” 
Neither Mogget nor Touchstone answered. 
For a moment, Sabriel considered asking the 
woman herself, but her impetuous desire for 
journeys into Death had been soundly dampened 
by recent experience. Instead, she cut the 
woman’s bonds, and arranged her as best she 
254 
could, ending up with a sort of curled-up sleeping 
position. 
“I don’t know your name, Healer,” Sabriel 

whispered. “But I hope you go quickly beyond 
the Final Gate. Farewell.” 
She stood back and drew the Charter marks 
for the funeral pyre above the corpse, whispering 
the names of the marks as she did so—but 
her fingers fumbled and words went awry. The 
baleful influence of the broken stone pressed 
against her, like a wrestler gripping her wrists, 
clamping her jaw. Sweat beaded on her forehead, 
and pain shot through her limbs, her 
hands shaking with effort, tongue clumsy, seeming 
swollen in her suddenly dry mouth. 
Then she felt assistance come, strength flowing 
through her, reinforcing the marks, steadying her 
hands, clearing her voice. She completed the 
litany, and a spark exploded above the woman, 
became a twisting flame, then grew to a fierce, 
white-hot blaze that spread the length of the 
woman’s body, totally consuming it, to leave 
only ash, light cargo for the sea winds. 
The extra strength came through Touchstone’s 
hand, his open palm lightly resting on her shoulder. 
As she straightened up, the touch was lost. 
255 
When Sabriel turned around, Touchstone was 
just drawing his right-hand sword, eyes fixed on 
the houses—as if he’d had nothing to do with 
helping her. 
“Thank you,” said Sabriel. Touchstone was a 
strong Charter Mage, perhaps as strong as she 
was. This surprised her, though she couldn’t 
think why. He’d made no secret of being a 
Charter Mage—she’d just assumed he would 
only know a few of the more fighting-related 
marks and spells. Petty magics. 
“We should move on,” said Mogget, prowling 
backwards and forwards in agitation, carefully 
avoiding the fragments from the broken stone. 
“Find a boat, and put to sea before nightfall.” 
“The harbor is that way,” Touchstone added 
quickly, pointing with his sword. Both he and 
the cat seemed very keen to leave the area 
around the broken stone, thought Sabriel. But 
then, so was she. Even in bright daylight, it 

seemed to dull the color around it. The lawn was 
already more yellow than green, and even the 
shadows looked thicker and more abundant 
than they should. She shivered, remembering 
Cloven Crest and the thing called Thralk. 
The harbor lay on the northern side of the 
256 
bluff, reached by another series of steps in the 
rocky hill, or in the case of cargo, via one of 
the shear-legged hoists that lined the edge of the 
bluff. Long wooden jetties thrust out into 
the clear blue-green water, sheltered under the 
lee of a rocky island, a smaller sibling of the village 
bluff. A long breakwater of huge boulders 
joined island and shore, completing the harbor’s 
protection from wind and wave. 
There were no boats moored in the harbor, 
tied up to the jetties, or at the harbor wall. Not 
even a dinghy, hauled up for repair. Sabriel stood 
on the steps, looking down, mind temporarily 
devoid of further plans. She just watched the 
swirl of the sea around the barnacled piles of the 
jetties; the moving shadows in the blue, marking 
small fish schooling about their business. 
Mogget sat near her feet, sniffing the air, silent. 
Touchstone stood higher, behind her, guarding 
the rear. 
“What now?” asked Sabriel, generally indicating 
the empty harbor below, her arm moving 
with the same rhythm as the swell, in its perpetual 
tilt against wood and stone. 
“There are people on the island,” Mogget 
said, eyes slitted against the wind. “And boats 
257 
tied up between the two outcrops of rock on the 
southwest.” 
Sabriel looked, but saw nothing, till she extracted 
the telescope from the pack on 
Touchstone’s back. He stood completely still 
while she ferreted around, silent as the empty 
village. Playing wooden again, Sabriel thought, 
but she didn’t really mind. He was being helpful, 
without metaphorically tugging his forelock 
every few minutes. 

Through the telescope, she saw that Mogget 
was right. There were several boats partly hidden 
between two spurs of rock, and some slight 
signs of habitation: a glimpse of a washing line, 
blown around the corner of a tall rock; the 
momentary sight of movement between two of 
the six or seven ramshackle wooden buildings 
that nestled on the island’s south-western side. 
Shifting her gaze to the breakwater, Sabriel followed 
its length. As she’d half expected, there was 
a gap in the very middle of it, where the sea 
rushed through with considerable force. A pile of 
timber on the island side of the breakwater indicated 
that there had once been a bridge there, now 
removed. 
“It looks like the villagers fled to the island,” 
258 
she said, shutting the telescope down. “There’s a 
gap in the breakwater, to keep running water 
between the island and shore. An ideal defense 
against the Dead. I don’t think even a Mordicant 
would risk crossing deep tidal water—” 
“Let’s go then,” muttered Touchstone. He 
sounded nervous again, jumpy. Sabriel looked at 
him, then above his head, and saw why he was 
nervous. Clouds were rolling in from the southeast, 
behind the village—dark clouds, laden with 
rain. The air was calm, but now she saw the 
clouds, Sabriel recognized it was the calm before 
heavy rain. The sun would not be guarding them 
for very much longer and night would be an early 
guest. 
Without further urging, she set off down the 
steps, down to the harborside, then along to the 
breakwater. Touchstone followed more slowly, 
turning every few steps to watch the rear. Mogget 
did likewise, his small cat-face continually looking 
back, peering up at the houses. 
Behind them, shutters inched open and fleshless 
eyes watched from the safety of shadows, 
watched the trio marching out to the breakwater, 
still washed in harsh sunlight, flanked by swiftmoving 
waves of terrible water. Rotten, corroded 
259 

teeth ground and gnashed in skeletal mouths. 
Farther back from the windows, shadows darker 
than ones ever cast by light whirled in frustration, 
anger—and fear. They all knew who had passed. 
One such shadow, selected by lot and compelled 
by its peers, gave up its existence in Life 
with a silent scream, vanishing into Death. Their 
master was many, many leagues away, and the 
quickest way to reach him lay in Death. Of 
course, message delivered, the messenger would 
fall through the Gates to a final demise. But the 
master didn’t care about that. 
The gap in the breakwater proved to be at least 
fifteen feet wide, and the water was twice Sabriel’s 
height, the sea surging through with a rough 
aggression. It was also covered by archers from 
the island, as they discovered when an arrow 
struck the stones in front of them and skittered off 
into the sea. 
Instantly, Touchstone rushed in front of Sabriel, 
and she felt the flow of Charter Magic from him, 
his swords sketching a great circle in the air in 
front of them both. Glowing lines followed the 
swords’ path, till a shining circle hung in the air. 
Four arrows curved through the air from the 
island. One, striking the circle, simply vanished. 
260 
261 
The other three missed completely, striking stones 
or sea. 
“Arrow ward,” gasped Touchstone. “Effective, 
but hard to keep going. Do we retreat?” 
“Not yet,” replied Sabriel. She could feel the 
Dead stirring in the village behind them and she 
could also see the archers now. There were four 
of them, two pairs, each behind one of the large, 
upthrust stones that marked where the breakwater 
joined the island. They looked young, nervous 
and were already proven to be of little 
threat. 
“Hold!” shouted Sabriel. “We are friends!” 
There was no reply, but the archers didn’t loose 
their nocked arrows. 
“What’s the village leader’s title—usually, I 

mean? What are they called?” Sabriel whispered 
hurriedly to Touchstone, once again wishing 
she knew more about the Old Kingdom and its 
customs. 
“In my day . . .” Touchstone replied slowly, 
his swords retracing the arrow ward, attention 
mostly on that, “in my day—Elder—for this size 
of village.” 
“We wish to speak with your Elder!” shouted 
Sabriel. She pointed at the cloud-front advancing 
behind her, and added, “Before darkness falls!” 
“Wait!” came the answer, and one of the 
archers scampered back from the rocks, up 
towards the buildings. Closer to, Sabriel realized 
they were probably boathouses or something 
like that. 
The archer returned in a few minutes, an older 
man hobbling over the rocks behind him. The 
other three archers, seeing him, lowered their 
bows and returned shafts to quivers. Touchstone, 
seeing this, ceased to maintain the arrow ward. It 
hung in the air for a moment, then dissipated, 
leaving a momentary rainbow. 
The Elder was named in fact, as well as title, they 
saw, as he limped along the breakwater. Long 
white hair blew like fragile cobwebs around his 
thin, wrinkled face, and he moved with the deliberate 
intention of the very old. He seemed 
unafraid, perhaps possessed of the disinterested 
courage of one already close to death. 
“Who are you?” he asked, when he reached 
the gap, standing above the swirling waters like 
some prophet of legend, his deep orange cloak 
flapping around him from the rising breeze. 
“What do you want?” 
Sabriel opened her mouth to answer, but 
262 
Touchstone had already started to speak. Loudly. 
“I am Touchstone, sworn swordsman for the 
Abhorsen, who stands before you. Are arrows 
your welcome for such folk as we?” 
The old man was silent for a moment, his 
deep-set eyes focused on Sabriel, as if he could 
strip away any falsity or illusion by sight alone. 

Sabriel met his gaze, but out of the corner of her 
mouth she whispered to Touchstone. 
“What makes you think you can speak for me? 
Wouldn’t a friendly approach be better? And 
since when are you my sworn—” 
She stopped, as the old man cleared his throat 
to speak and spat into the water. For a moment, 
she thought that this was his response, but as 
neither the archers nor Touchstone reacted, it 
was obviously of no account. 
“These are bad times,” the Elder said. “We 
have been forced to leave our firesides for the 
smoking sheds, warmth and comfort for seawinds 
and the stench of fish. Many of the people 
of Nestowe are dead—or worse. Strangers 
and travelers are rare in such times, and not 
always what they seem.” 
“I am the Abhorsen,” Sabriel said, reluctantly. 
“Enemy of the Dead.” 
263 
“I remember,” replied the old man, slowly. 
“Abhorsen came here when I was a young 
man. He came to put down the haunts that the 
spice merchant brought, Charter curse him. 
Abhorsen. I remember that coat you’re wearing, 
blue as a ten-fathom sea, with the silver 
keys. There was a sword, also . . .” 
He paused, expectantly. Sabriel stood, silently, 
waiting for him to go on. 
“He wants to see the sword,” Touchstone said, 
voice flat, after the silence stretched too far. 
“Oh,” replied Sabriel, flushing. 
It was quite obvious. Carefully, so as not to 
alarm the archers, she drew her sword, holding 
it up to the sun, so the Charter marks could 
clearly be seen, silver dancers on the blade. 
“Yes,” sighed the Elder, old shoulders sagging 
with relief. “That is the sword. Charter-spelled. 
She is the Abhorsen.” 
He turned and tottered back towards the 
archers, worn voice increasing to the ghost of 
a fisherman’s cross-water hail. “Come on, you 
four. Quick with the bridge. We have visitors! 
Help at last!” 

Sabriel glanced at Touchstone, raising her 
eyebrows at the implication of the old man’s 
264 
last three words. Surprisingly, Touchstone met 
her gaze, and held it. 
“It is traditional for someone of high rank, 
such as yourself, to be announced by their sworn 
swordsman,” he said quietly. “And the only 
acceptable way for me to travel with you is as 
your sworn swordsman. Otherwise, people will 
assume that we are, at best, illicit lovers. Having 
your name coupled to mine in such a guise 
would lower you in most eyes. You see?” 
“Ah,” replied Sabriel, gulping, feeling the flush 
of embarrassment come back and spread from 
her cheeks to her neck. It felt a lot like being on 
the receiving end of one of Miss Prionte’s severest 
social put-downs. She hadn’t even thought 
about how it would look, the two of them traveling 
together. Certainly, in Ancelstierre, it 
would be considered shameful, but this was the 
Old Kingdom, where things were different. But 
only some things, it seemed. 
“Lesson two hundred and seven,” muttered 
Mogget from somewhere near her feet. “Three 
out of ten. I wonder if they’ve got any freshcaught 
whiting? I’d like a small one, still flopping—” 
“Be quiet!” Sabriel interrupted. “You’d better 
265 
pretend to be a normal cat for a while.” 
“Very well, milady. Abhorsen,” Mogget 
replied, stalking away to sit on the other side of 
Touchstone. 
Sabriel was about to reply scathingly when 
she saw the faintest curve at the corner of 
Touchstone’s mouth. Touchstone? Grinning? Surprised, 
she misplaced the retort on her tongue, 
then forgot it altogether, as the four archers 
heaved a plank across the gap, the end smacking 
down onto stone with a startling bang. 
“Please cross quickly,” the Elder said, as the 
men steadied the plank. “There are many fell 
creatures in the village now, and I fear the day is 
almost done.” 

True to his words, cloud-shadow fell across 
them as he spoke, and the fresh scent of closing 
rain mingled with the wet and salty smell of the 
sea. Without further urging, Sabriel ran quickly 
across the plank, Mogget behind her, Touchstone 
bringing up the rear. 
266 
chapter xvii 
All the survivors of Nestowe 
were gathered in the largest of the fish-smoking 
sheds, save for the current shift of archers 
who watched the breakwater. There had been 
one hundred and twenty-six villagers the week 
before—now there were thirty-one. 
“There were thirty-two until this morning,” 
the Elder said to Sabriel, as he passed her a cup 
of passable wine and a piece of dried fish atop a 
piece of very hard, very stale bread. “We 
thought we were safe when we got to the island, 
but Monjer Stowart’s boy was found just after 
dawn today, sucked dry like a husk. When we 
touched him, it was like . . . burnt paper, that 
still holds its shape . . . we touched him, and he 
crumbled into flakes of . . . something like ash.” 
Sabriel looked around as the old man spoke, 
noting the many lanterns, candles and rush 
tapers that added both to the light and the 
smoky, fishy atmosphere of the shed. The survivors 
were a very mixed group—men, women 
and children, from very young to the Elder 
himself. Their only common characteristic 
was the fear pinching their faces, the fear 
showing in their nervous, staccato movement. 
“We think one of them’s here,” said a woman, 
her voice long gone beyond fear to fatalism. She 
stood alone, accompanied by the clear space of 
tragedy. Sabriel guessed she had lost her family. 
Husband, children—perhaps parents and siblings, 
too, for she wasn’t over forty. 
“It’ll take us, one by one,” the woman continued, 
matter-of-fact, her voice filling the 
shed with dire certainty. Around her, people 

shuffled, twitchily, not looking at her, as if to 
meet her gaze would be to accept her words. 
Most looked at Sabriel and she saw hope in 
their eyes. Not blind faith, or complete confidence, 
but a gambler’s hope that a new horse 
might change a run of losses. 
“The Abhorsen who came when I was young,” 
the Elder continued—and Sabriel saw that at his 
268 
age, this would be his memory alone, of all the 
villagers—“this Abhorsen told me that it was his 
purpose to slay the Dead. He saved us from the 
haunts that came in the merchant’s caravan. Is it 
still the same, lady? Will Abhorsen save us from 
the Dead?” 
Sabriel thought for a moment, her mind 
mentally flicking through the pages of The 
Book of the Dead, feeling it stir in the backpack 
that sat by her feet. Her thoughts strayed 
to her father; the forthcoming journey to 
Belisaere; the way in which Dead enemies 
seemed to be arrayed against her by some controlling 
mind. 
“I will ensure this island is free of the Dead,” 
she said at last, speaking clearly so all could 
hear her. “But I cannot free the mainland village. 
There is a greater evil at work in the 
Kingdom—that same evil that has broken your 
Charter Stone—and I must find and defeat it as 
soon as I can. When that is done, I will return— 
I hope with other help—and both village and 
Charter Stone will be restored.” 
“We understand,” replied the Elder. He 
seemed saddened, but philosophic. He continued, 
speaking more to his people than to 
269 
Sabriel. “We can survive here. There is the 
spring, and the fish. We have boats. If Callibe 
has not fallen to the Dead, we can trade, for 
vegetables and other stuffs.” 
“You will have to keep watching the breakwater,” 
Touchstone said. He stood behind 
Sabriel’s chair, the very image of a stern bodyguard. 
“The Dead—or their living slaves— 

may try to fill it in with stones, or push across 
a bridge. They can cross running water by 
building bridges of boxed grave dirt.” 
“So, we are besieged,” said a man to the front 
of the mass of villagers. “But what of this Dead 
thing already here on the island, already preying 
upon us? How will you find it?” 
Silence fell as the questioner spoke, for this was 
the one answer everyone wanted to hear. Rain 
sounded loud on the roof in the absence of human 
speech, steady rain, as had been falling since late 
afternoon. The Dead disliked the rain, Sabriel 
thought inconsequentially, as she considered this 
question. Rain didn’t destroy, but it hurt and irritated 
the Dead. Wherever the Dead thing was on 
the island, it would be out of the rain. 
She stood up with that thought. Thirty-one 
pairs of eyes watched her, hardly blinking, despite 
270 
the cloying smoke from too many lanterns, candles 
and tapers. Touchstone watched the villagers; 
Mogget watched a piece of fish; Sabriel 
closed her eyes, questing outward with other 
senses, trying to feel the presence of the Dead. 
It was there—a faint, concealed emanation, 
like an untraceable whiff of something rotten. 
Sabriel concentrated on it, followed it, and 
found it, right there in the shed. The Dead was 
somehow hiding among the villagers. 
She opened her eyes slowly, looking straight at 
the point where her senses told her the Dead 
creature lurked. She saw a fisherman, middleaged, 
his salt-etched face red under sun-bleached 
hair. He seemed no different than the others 
around him, listening intently for her reply, but 
there was definitely something Dead in him, or 
very close by. He was wearing a boat cloak, 
which seemed odd, since the smoking shed was 
hot from massed humanity and the many lights. 
“Tell me,” Sabriel said. “Did anyone bring 
a large box with them out to the island? 
Something, say, an arm-span square a side, or 
larger? It would be heavy—with grave dirt.” 
Murmurs and enquiries met this question, 

neighbors turning to each other, with little 
271 
flowerings of fear and suspicion. As they 
talked, Sabriel walked out through them, surreptitiously 
loosening her sword, signaling 
Touchstone to stay close by her. He followed 
her, eyes flickering across the little groups of 
villagers. Mogget, glancing up from his fish, 
stretched and lazily stalked behind Touchstone’s 
heels, after a warning glare at the two 
cats who were eyeing the half-consumed head 
and tail of his fishy repast. 
Careful not to alarm her quarry, Sabriel took a 
zigzag path through the shed, listening to the villagers 
with studied attention, though the blond 
fisherman never left the corner of her eye. He 
was deep in discussion with another man, who 
seemed to be growing more suspicious by the 
second. 
Closer now, Sabriel was sure that the fisherman 
was a vassal of the Dead. Technically, he was still 
alive, but a Dead spirit had suppressed his will, 
riding on his flesh like some shadowy stringpuller, 
using his body as a puppet. Something 
highly unpleasant would be half-submerged in his 
back, under the boat cloak. Mordaut, they were 
called, Sabriel remembered. A whole page was 
devoted to these parasitical spirits in The Book of 
272 
the Dead. They liked to keep a primary host 
alive, slipping off at night to sate their hunger 
from other living prey—like children. 
“I’m sure I saw you with a box like that, 
Patar,” the suspicious fisherman was saying. “Jall 
Stowart helped you get it ashore. Hey, Jall!” 
He shouted that last, turning to look at someone 
else across the room. In that instant, the 
Dead-ridden Patar exploded into action, clubbing 
his questioner with both forearms, knocking 
him aside, running to the door with the silent 
ferocity of a battering ram. 
But Sabriel had expected that. She stood 
before him, sword at the ready, her left hand 
drawing Ranna, the sweet sleeper, from the bandolier. 

She still hoped to save the man, by quelling 
the Mordaut. 
Patar slid to a halt and half-turned, but 
Touchstone was there behind him, twin swords 
glowing eerily with shifting Charter marks and 
silver flames. Sabriel eyed the blades in surprise, 
she hadn’t known they were spelled. Past time 
she asked, she realized. 
Then Ranna was free in her hand—but the 
Mordaut didn’t wait for the unavoidable lullaby. 
Patar suddenly screamed, and stood rigid, the 
273 
redness draining from his face, to be replaced 
by grey. Then his flesh crumpled and fell apart, 
even his bones flaking away to soggy ash as the 
Mordaut sucked all the life out of him in one 
voracious instant. Newly fed and strengthened, 
the Dead slid out from the falling cloak, a pool of 
squelching darkness. It took shape as it moved, 
becoming a large, disgustingly elongated sort of 
rat. Quicker than any natural rat, it scuttled 
towards a hole in the wall and escape! 
Sabriel lunged, her blade striking chips from the 
floor planks, missing the shadowy form by a scant 
instant. 
Touchstone didn’t miss. His right-hand sword 
sheared through the creature just behind the head, 
the left-wielded blade impaling its sinuous midsection. 
Pinned to the floor, the creature writhed 
and arched, its shadow-stuff working away from 
the blades. It was remaking its body, escaping the 
trap. 
Quickly, Sabriel stood over it, Ranna sounding 
in her hand, sweet, lazy tone echoing out into the 
shed. 
Before the echoes died, the Mordaut ceased 
to writhe. Form half-lost by its shifting from 
the swords, it lay like a lump of charred liver, 
274 
quivering on the floor, still impaled. 
Sabriel replaced Ranna, and drew the eager 
Saraneth. Its forceful voice snapped out, sound 
weaving a net of domination over the foul 
creature. The Mordaut made no effort to 

resist, even to make a mouth to whine its 
cause. Sabriel felt it succumb to her will, via the 
medium of Saraneth. 
She put the bell back, but hesitated as her hand 
fell on Kibeth. Sleeper and Master had spoken 
well, but Walker sometimes had its own ideas, 
and it was stirring suspiciously under her hand. 
Best to wait a moment, to calm herself, Sabriel 
thought, taking her hand away from the bandolier. 
She sheathed her sword, and looked 
around the shed. To her surprise, everyone 
except Touchstone and Mogget was asleep. They 
had only caught the echoes of Ranna, which 
shouldn’t have been enough. Of course, Ranna 
could be tricksome too, but its trickery was far 
less troublesome. 
“This is a Mordaut,” she said to Touchstone, 
who was stifling a half-born yawn. “A weak 
spirit, catalogued as one of the Lesser Dead. They 
like to ride with the Living—cohabiting the body 
to some extent, directing it, and slowly sipping 
275 
the spirit away. It makes them hard to find.” 
“What do we do with it now?” asked 
Touchstone, eyeing the quivering lump of 
shadow with distaste. It clearly couldn’t be cut 
up, consumed by fire, or anything else he could 
think of. 
“I will banish it, send it back to die a true 
death,” replied Sabriel. Slowly, she drew Kibeth, 
using both hands. She still felt uneasy, for the bell 
was twisting in her grasp, trying to sound of its 
own accord, a sound that would make her walk 
in Death. 
She gripped it harder and rang the orthodox 
backwards, forwards and figure eight her father 
had taught her. Kibeth’s voice rang out, singing a 
merry tune, a capering jig that almost had 
Sabriel’s feet jumping too, till she forced herself 
to be absolutely still. 
The Mordaut had no such free will. For a 
moment, Touchstone thought it was getting 
away, the shadow form suddenly leaping 
upwards, unreal flesh slipping up his blades 

almost to the cross-hilts. Then, it slid back down 
again—and vanished. Back into Death, to bob 
and spin in the current, howling and screaming 
with whatever voice it had there, all the way 
276 
through to the Final Gate. 
“Thanks,” Sabriel said to Touchstone. She 
looked down at his two swords, still deeply 
embedded in the wooden floor. They were no 
longer burning with silver flames, but she could 
see the Charter marks moving on the blades. 
“I didn’t realize your swords were ensorcelled,” 
she continued. “Though I’m glad they are.” 
Surprise crossed Touchstone’s face, and confusion. 
“I thought you knew,” he said. “I took them 
from the Queen’s ship. They were a Royal 
Champion’s swords. I didn’t want to take them, 
but Mogget said you—” 
He stopped in mid-sentence, as Sabriel let out a 
heartfelt sigh. 
“Well, anyway,” he continued. “Legend has 
it that the Wallmaker made them, at the same 
time he—or she, I suppose—made your sword.” 
“Mine?” asked Sabriel, her hand lightly touching 
the worn bronze of the guard. She’d never 
thought about who’d made the sword—it just 
was. “I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those 
already Dead,” the inscription said, when it said 
anything lucid at all. So it probably was forged 
long ago, back in the distant past when the Wall 
277 
was made. Mogget would know, she thought. 
Mogget probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell 
her—but he would know. 
“I suppose we’d better wake everybody up,” 
she said, dismissing speculation about swords 
for the immediate present. 
“Are there more Dead?” asked Touchstone, 
grunting as he pulled his swords free of the floor. 
“I don’t think so,” replied Sabriel. “That 
Mordaut was very clever, for it had hardly 
sapped the spirit of poor . . . Patar . . . so its 
presence was masked by his life. It would have 
come to the island in that box of grave dirt, having 

impressed the poor man with instructions 
before they left the mainland. I doubt whether 
any others would have done the same. I can’t 
sense any here, at least. I guess I should check 
the other buildings, and walk around the island, 
just to be sure.” 
“Now?” asked Touchstone. 
“Now,” confirmed Sabriel. “But let’s wake 
everyone up first, and organize some people to 
carry lights for us. We’d also better talk to the 
Elder about a boat for the morning.” 
“And a good supply of fish,” added Mogget, 
who’d slunk back to the half-eaten whiting, his 
278 
voice sharp above the heavy drone of snoring 
fisher-folk. 
There were no Dead on the island, though the 
archers reported seeing strange lights moving in 
the village, during brief lulls in the rain. They’d 
heard movement on the breakwater too, and 
shot fire arrows onto the stones, but saw nothing 
before the crude, oily rag–wrapped shafts 
guttered out. 
Sabriel advanced out on the breakwater, and 
stood near the sea gap, her oilskin coat loosely 
draped over her shoulders, shedding rain to the 
ground and down her neck. She couldn’t see 
anything through the rain and dark, but she 
could feel the Dead. There were more than she 
had sensed earlier, or they had grown much 
stronger. Then, with a sickening feeling, she realized 
that this strength belonged to a single creature, 
only now emerging from Death, using the 
broken stone as a portal. An instant later, she 
recognized its particular presence. 
The Mordicant had found her. 
“Touchstone,” she asked, fighting to keep the 
shivers from her voice. “Can you sail a boat by 
night?” 
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, his voice impersonal 
279 
again, face dark in the rainy night, the 
lantern-light from the villagers behind him lighting 
only his back and feet. He hesitated, as if he 

shouldn’t be offering an opinion, then added, 
“But it would be much more dangerous. I don’t 
know this coast, and the night is very dark.” 
“Mogget can see in the dark,” Sabriel said 
quietly, moving closer to Touchstone so the villagers 
couldn’t hear her. 
“We have to leave immediately,” she whispered, 
while pretending to adjust her oilskin. “A 
Mordicant has come. The same one that pursued 
me before.” 
“What about the people here?” asked Touchstone, 
so softly the sound of the rain almost 
washed his words away—but there was the 
faint sound of reproof under his business-like 
tone. 
“The Mordicant is after me,” muttered 
Sabriel. She could sense it moving away from the 
stone, questing about, using its otherwordly 
senses to find her. “It can feel my presence, as I 
feel it. When I go, it will follow.” 
“If we stay till morning,” Touchstone whispered 
back, “won’t we be safe? You said even a 
Mordicant couldn’t cross this gap.” 
280 
281 
“I said, ‘I think,’” faltered Sabriel. “It has 
grown stronger. I can’t be sure—” 
“That thing back in the shed, the Mordaut, it 
wasn’t very difficult to destroy,” Touchstone 
whispered, the confidence of ignorance in his 
voice. “Is this Mordicant much worse?” 
“Much,” replied Sabriel shortly. 
The Mordicant had stopped moving. The rain 
seemed to be dampening both its senses and its 
desire to find her and slay. Sabriel stared vainly 
out into the darkness, trying to peer past the 
sheets of rain, to gain the evidence provided by 
sight, as well as her necromantic senses. 
“Riemer,” she said, loudly now, calling to 
the villager who was in charge of their lanternholders. 
He came forward quickly, gingery hair 
plastered flat on his rounded head, rainwater 
dripping down from a high forehead to catapult 
itself off the end of his pudgy nose. 

“Riemer, have the archers keep very careful 
watch. Tell them to shoot anything that comes 
onto the breakwater—there is nothing living out 
there now. Only the Dead. We need to go back 
and talk to your Elder.” 
They walked back in silence, save for the 
sloshing of boots in puddles and the steady 
finger-applause of the rain. At least half of 
Sabriel’s attention stayed with the Mordicant; a 
malign, stomachache-inducing presence across 
the dark water. She wondered why it was waiting. 
Waiting for the rain to stop, or perhaps 
for the now-banished Mordaut to attack from 
within. Whatever its reasons, it gave them a little 
time to get to a boat, and lead it away. And 
perhaps, there was always the chance that it 
couldn’t cross the breakwater gap. 
“What time is low tide?” she asked Riemer, as 
a new thought struck. 
“Ah, just about an hour before dawn,” replied 
the fisherman. “About six hours, if I’m any 
judge.” 
The Elder awoke crankily from his second 
sleep. He was loath for them to go in the night, 
though Sabriel felt that at least half of his reluctance 
was due to their need for a boat. The villagers 
only had five left. The others had been 
sunk in the harbor, drowned and broken by the 
stones hurled down by the Dead, eager to stop 
the escape of their living prey. 
“I’m sorry,” Sabriel said again. “But we must 
have a boat and we need it now. There is a terrible 
Dead creature in the village—it tracks like a 
282 
hunting dog, and the trail it follows is mine. If I 
stay, it will try and come here—and, at the ebb, 
it may be able to cross the gap in the breakwater. 
If I go, it will follow.” 
“Very well,” the Elder agreed, mulishly. “You 
have cleansed this island for us; a boat is a little 
thing. Riemer will prepare it with food and 
water. Riemer! The Abhorsen will have 
Landalin’s boat—make sure it is stocked and 
seaworthy. Take sails from Jaled, if Landalin’s is 

short or rotten.” 
“Thank you,” said Sabriel. Tiredness weighed 
down on her, tiredness and the weight of awareness. 
Awareness of her enemies, like a darkness 
always clouding the edge of her vision. “We will 
go now. My good wishes stay with you, and my 
hopes for your safety.” 
“May the Charter preserve us all,” added 
Touchstone, bowing to the old man. The Elder 
bowed back, a bent, solemn figure, so much 
smaller than his shadow, looming tall on the 
wall behind. 
Sabriel turned to go, but a long line of villagers 
was forming on the way to the door. All of them 
wanted to bow or curtsey before her, to mutter 
shy thank-yous and farewells. Sabriel accepted 
283 
them with embarrassment and guilt, remembering 
Patar. True, she had banished the dead, but 
another life had been lost in the doing. Her 
father would not have been so clumsy . . . 
The second-to-last person in the line was a little 
girl, her black hair tied in two plaits, one on 
either side of her head. Seeing her made Sabriel 
remember something Touchstone had said. She 
stopped, and took the girl’s hands in her own. 
“What is your name, little one?” she asked, 
smiling. A feeling of déjà vu swept over her as 
the small fingers met hers—the memory of a 
frightened first-grader hesitantly reaching out to 
the older pupil who would be her guide for the 
first day at Wyverley College. Sabriel had experienced 
both sides, in her time. 
“Aline,” said the girl, smiling back. Her eyes 
were bright and lively, too young to be dimmed by 
the frightened despair that clouded the adults’ 
gaze. A good choice, Sabriel thought. 
“Now, tell me what you have learned in your 
lessons about the Great Charter,” Sabriel said, 
adopting the familiar, motherly and generally 
irrelevant questioning tone of the School 
Inspector who’d descended on every class in 
Wyverley twice a year. 
284 

“I know the rhyme . . .” replied Aline, a little 
doubtfully, her small forehead crinkling. “Shall 
I sing it, like we do in class?” 
Sabriel nodded. 
“We dance around the stone, too,” Aline 
added, confidingly. She stood up straighter, put 
one foot forward, and took her hands away to 
clasp them behind her back. 
Five Great Charters knit the land 
together linked, hand in hand 
One in the people who wear the crown 
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down 
Three and Five became stone and mortar 
Four sees all in frozen water. 
“Thank you, Aline,” Sabriel said. “That was 
very nice.” 
She ruffled the child’s hair and hastened 
through the final farewells, suddenly keen to get 
out of the smoke and the fish-smell, out into the 
clean, rainy air where she could think. 
“So now you know,” whispered Mogget, 
jumping up into her arms to escape the puddles. 
“I still can’t tell you, but you know one’s 
in your blood.” 
285 
“Two,” replied Sabriel distantly. “‘Two in the 
folk who keep the Dead down.’ So what is 
the . . . ah . . . I can’t talk about it either!” 
But she thought about the questions she’d like 
to ask, as Touchstone helped her aboard the 
small fishing vessel that lay just off the tiny, 
shell-laden beach that served the island as a 
harbor. 
One of the Great Charters lay in the royal 
blood. The second lay in Abhorsen’s. What were 
three and five, and four that saw all in frozen 
water? She felt certain that many answers could 
be found in Belisaere. Her father could probably 
answer more, for many things that were bound 
in Life were unraveled in Death. And there was 
her mother-sending, for that third and final questioning 
in this seven years. 
Touchstone pushed off, clambered aboard 
and took the oars. Mogget leapt out of Sabriel’s 

arms, and assumed a figurehead position near 
the prow, serving as a night-sighted lookout, 
while mocking Touchstone at the same time. 
Back on shore, the Mordicant suddenly 
howled, a long, piercing cry that echoed far 
across the water, chilling hearts on both boat 
and island. 
286 
“Bear a bit more to starboard,” said Mogget, 
in the silence after the howl faded. “We need 
more sea-room.” 
Touchstone was quick to comply. 
287 
chapter xviii 
By the morning of the sixth day 
out of Nestowe, Sabriel was heartily tired of 
nautical life. They’d sailed virtually non-stop all 
that time, only putting into shore at noon for 
fresh water, and only then when it was sunny. 
Nights were spent under sail, or, when exhaustion 
claimed Touchstone, hove-to with a sea 
anchor, the unsleeping Mogget standing watch. 
Fortunately, the weather had been kind. 
It had been a relatively uneventful five days. 
Two days from Nestowe to Beardy Point, an 
unprepossessing peninsula whose only interesting 
features were a sandy-bottomed beach and a 
clear stream. Devoid of life, it was also devoid of 
the Dead. Here, for the first time, Sabriel could 
no longer sense the pursuing Mordicant. A good, 
strong, south-easterly had propelled them, 
reaching northwards, at too fast a pace for it to 
follow. 
Three days from Beardy Point to the island of 
Ilgard, its rocky cliffs climbing sheer from the 
sea, a grey and pockmarked tenement, home to 
tens of thousands of seabirds. They passed it late 
in the afternoon, their single sail stretched to 
bursting, clinker-built hull heeling well over, 
bow slicing up a column of spray that salted 
mouths, eyes and bodies. 
It was half a day from Ilgard to the Belis 

Mouth, that narrow strait that led to the Sea of 
Saere. But that was tricky sailing, so they spent 
the night hove-to just out of sight of Ilgard, to 
wait for the light of day. 
“There is a boom-chain across the Belis 
Mouth,” Touchstone explained, as he raised 
the sail and Sabriel hauled the sea anchor in 
over the bow. The sun was rising behind him, 
but had not yet pulled itself out of the sea, so 
he was no more than a dim shadow in the 
stern. “It was built to keep pirates and suchlike 
out of the Sea of Saere. You won’t believe the 
size of it—I can’t imagine how it was forged, or 
strung across.” 
289 
“Will it still be there?” Sabriel asked, cautiously, 
not wanting to prevent Touchstone’s 
strangely talkative mood. 
“I’m sure of it,” replied Touchstone. “We’ll see 
the towers on the opposite shores first. Winding 
Post, to the south, and Boom Hook to the north.” 
“Not very imaginative names,” commented 
Sabriel, unable to help herself from interrupting. 
It was just such a pleasure to talk! Touchstone 
had lapsed back into non-communication for 
most of the voyage, though he did have a good 
excuse—handling the fishing boat for eighteen 
hours a day, even in good weather, didn’t leave 
much energy for conversation. 
“They’re named after their purpose,” replied 
Touchstone. “Which makes sense.” 
“Who decides whether to let vessels past the 
chain?” asked Sabriel. Already, she was thinking 
ahead, wondering about Belisaere. Could it be 
like Nestowe—the city abandoned, riddled with 
the Dead? 
“Ah,” said Touchstone. “I hadn’t thought 
about that. In my time, there was a Royal Boom 
Master, with a force of guards and a squadron of 
small, picket ships. If, as Mogget says, the city 
has fallen into anarchy . . .” 
290 
“There may also be people working for, or in 
alliance with, the Dead,” Sabriel added thoughtfully. 

“So even if we cross the boom in daylight, 
there could be trouble. I think I’d better reverse 
my surcoat and hide my helmet wrapping.” 
“What about the bells?” asked Touchstone. 
He leaned past her, to draw the main sheet 
tighter, right hand slightly nudging the tiller to 
take advantage of a shift in the wind. “They’re 
fairly obvious, to say the least.” 
“I’ll just look like a necromancer,” Sabriel 
replied. “A salty, unwashed necromancer.” 
“I don’t know,” said Touchstone, who couldn’t 
see that Sabriel was joking. “No necromancer 
would be let into the city, or would stay alive, 
in—” 
“In your day,” interrupted Mogget, from his 
favorite post on the bow. “But this is now, and I 
am sure that necromancers and worse are not 
uncommon sights in Belisaere.” 
“I’ll wear a cloak—” Sabriel started to say. 
“If you say so,” Touchstone said, at the same 
time. Clearly, he didn’t believe the cat. Belisaere 
was the royal capital, a huge city, home to at 
least fifty thousand people. Touchstone couldn’t 
imagine it fallen, decayed and in the hands of the 
291 
Dead. Despite his own inner fears and secret 
knowledge, he couldn’t help but be confident 
that the Belisaere they were sailing towards 
would be little different from the two-hundredyearold 
images locked in his memory. 
That confidence took a blow as the Belis 
Mouth towers became visible above the blue line 
of the horizon, on opposite shores of the strait. 
At first, the towers were no more than dark 
smudges, that grew taller as wind and wave carried 
the boat towards them. Through her telescope, 
Sabriel saw that they were made from a 
beautiful, rosy-pink stone that once must have 
been magnificent. Now they were largely blackened 
by fire; their majesty vanished. Winding 
Post had lost the top three storys, from seven; 
Boom Hook stood as tall as ever, but sunlight 
shone through gaping holes, showing the interior 
to be a gutted ruin. There was no sign of any garrison, 

toll collector, windlass mules, or anything 
alive. 
The great boom-chain still stretched across the 
strait. Huge iron links, each as wide and long 
as the fishing boat, rose green and barnaclebefouled 
out of the water and up into each of 
the towers. Glimpses of it could be seen in the 
292 
middle of the Mouth, when the swell dipped, 
and a length of chain shone slick and green in 
the wave trough, like some lurking monster of 
the deep. 
“We’ll have to go in close to the Winding Post 
tower, unstep the mast and row under the chain 
where it rises,” Touchstone declared, after 
studying the chain for several minutes through 
the telescope, trying to gauge whether it had 
sunk enough to allow them passage. But even 
with their relatively shallow-draft boat, it 
would be too risky, and they daren’t wait for 
high tide, late in the afternoon. At some time in 
the past, perhaps when the towers were abandoned, 
the chain had been winched up to its 
maximum tension. The engineers who’d made it 
would have been pleased, for there seemed to be 
no noticeable slippage. 
“Mogget, go to the bow and keep a lookout 
for anything in the water. Sabriel, could you 
please watch the shore and the tower, to guard 
against attack.” 
Sabriel nodded, pleased that Touchstone’s stint 
as captain of their small vessel had done a lot to 
remove the servant nonsense out of him and 
make him more like a normal person. Mogget, 
293 
for his part, jumped up to the bow without 
protest, despite the spray that occasionally burst 
over his head as they cut diagonally across the 
swell—towards the small triangle of opportunity 
between shore, sea and chain. 
They came in as close as they dared before 
unstepping the mast. The swell had diminished, 
for the Belis Mouth was well-sheltered by the 
two arms of land, but the tide had turned, and a 

tidal race was beginning to run from the ocean 
to the Saere Sea. So, even without mast and sail, 
they were borne rapidly towards the chain; 
Touchstone rowing with all his strength just to 
keep steerage way. After a moment, this clearly 
became impossible, so Sabriel took one of the 
oars, and they rowed together, with Mogget 
yowling directions. 
Every few seconds, at the end of a full stroke, 
her back nearly level with the thwarts, Sabriel 
snatched a glimpse over her shoulder. They were 
headed for the narrow passage, between the high 
but crumbling seawall of Winding Post, and the 
enormous chain rising out of the swift-flowing 
sea in a swath of white froth. She could hear the 
melancholy groaning of the links, like a chorus 
of pained walruses. Even that gargantuan chain 
294 
moved at the sea’s whim. 
“Port a little,” yowled Mogget. Touchstone 
backed his oar for a moment, then the cat 
jumped down, yelling, “Ship oars and duck!” 
The oars came rattling, splashing in, both 
Sabriel and Touchstone simply lying down on 
their backs, with Mogget somewhere between 
them. The boat rocked and plunged, and the 
groan of the chain sounded close and terrible. 
Sabriel, one moment looking up at the clear, blue 
sky, in the next saw nothing but green, weedstrewn 
iron above her. When the swell lifted the 
boat up, she could have reached out and touched 
the great boom-chain of Belis Mouth. 
Then they were past, and Touchstone was 
already pushing out his oar, Mogget moving to 
the bow. Sabriel wanted to lie there, just looking 
up at the sky, but the collapsed seawall of 
Winding Post was no more than an oar-length 
away. She sat up and resumed her duty as a 
rower. 
The water changed color in the Sea of Saere. 
Sabriel trailed her hand in it, marveling at its 
clear turquoise sheen. For all its color, it was 
incredibly transparent. The water was very deep, 
but she could see down the first three or four 

295 
fathoms, watching small fish dance under the 
bubbles of their boat’s wake. 
She felt relaxed, momentarily carefree, all the 
troubles that lay ahead and behind her temporarily 
lost in single-minded contemplation of 
the clear blue-green water. There was no Dead 
presence here, no constant awareness of the 
many doors to Death. Even Charter Magic was 
dissipated at sea. For a few minutes, she forgot 
about Touchstone and Mogget. Even her father 
faded from her mind. There was only the sea’s 
color, and its coolness on her hand. 
“We’ll be able to see the city soon,” Touchstone 
said, interrupting her mental holiday. “If 
the towers are still standing.” 
Sabriel nodded thoughtfully, and slowly took 
her hand from the sea, as if she were parting 
from a dear friend. 
“It must be difficult for you,” she said, almost 
to herself, not really expecting him to answer. 
“Two hundred years gone, the Kingdom slowly 
falling into ruin while you slept.” 
“I didn’t really believe it, till I saw Nestowe, 
and then the Belis Mouth towers,” replied 
Touchstone. “Now I am afraid—even for a great 
city that I never believed could really change.” 
296 
“No imagination,” said Mogget, sternly. “No 
thinking ahead. A flaw in your character. A fatal 
flaw.” 
“Mogget,” Sabriel said indignantly, angry at 
the cat for crushing yet another possible conversation. 
“Why are you so rude to Touchstone?” 
Mogget hissed and the fur bristled on his back. 
“I am accurate, not rude,” he snapped, turning 
his back to them with studied scorn. “And he 
deserves it.” 
“I’m sick of this!” announced Sabriel. “Touchstone, 
what does Mogget know that I don’t?” 
Touchstone was silent, knuckles white on the 
tiller, eyes focused on the distant horizon, as if he 
could already see the towers of Belisaere. 
“You’ll have to tell me eventually,” said 

Sabriel, a touch of the prefect entering her voice. 
“It can’t be that bad, surely?” 
Touchstone wet his lips, hesitated, then spoke. 
“It was stupidity on my part, not evil, milady. 
Two hundred years ago, when the last Queen 
reigned . . . I think . . . I know that I am partly 
responsible for the failing of the Kingdom, the 
end of the royal line.” 
“What!” exclaimed Sabriel. “How could you 
be?” 
297 
“I am,” continued Touchstone miserably, his 
hands shaking so much the tiller moved, giving 
the boat a crazy zigzag wake. “There was a . . . 
that is . . .” 
He paused, took a deep breath, sat up a little 
straighter, and continued, as if reporting to a 
senior officer. 
“I don’t know how much I can tell you, 
because it involves the Great Charters. Where 
do I start? With the Queen, I guess. She had 
four children. Her oldest son, Rogir, was a 
childhood playmate of mine. He was always the 
leader, in all our games. He had the ideas—we 
followed them. Later, when we were growing 
up, his ideas became stranger, less nice. We 
grew apart. I went into the Guard; he pursued 
his own interests. Now I know that those interests 
must have included Free Magic and necromancy— 
I never suspected it then. I should 
have, I know, but he was secretive, and often 
away. 
“Towards the end . . . I mean a few months 
before it happened . . . well, Rogir had been 
away for several years. He came back, just 
before the Midwinter Festival. I was glad to see 
him, for he seemed to be more like he was as a 
298 
child. He’d lost interest in the bizarrities that 
had attracted him. We spent more time together 
again; hawking, riding, drinking, dancing. 
“Then, late one afternoon—one cold, crisp 
afternoon, near sunset—I was on duty, guarding 
the Queen and her ladies. They were playing 

Cranaque. Rogir came to her, and asked her to 
come with him down to the place where the 
Great Stones are . . . hey, I can say it!” 
“Yes,” interrupted Mogget. He looked tired, 
like an alley cat that has suffered one kick too 
many. “The sea washes all things clear, for a time. 
We can speak of the Great Charters, at least for a 
little while. I had forgotten it was so.” 
“Go on,” said Sabriel, excitedly. “Let’s take 
advantage of it while we can. The Great Stones 
would be the stones and mortar of the rhyme— 
the Third and Fifth Great Charter?” 
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, remotely, as if 
reciting a lesson, “with the Wall. The people, or 
whatever they were who made the Great 
Charters, put three in bloodlines and two in 
physical constructions: the Wall and the Great 
Stones. All the lesser stones draw their power 
from one or the other. 
“The Great Stones . . . Rogir came and said 
299 
there was something amiss there, something the 
Queen must look into. He was her son, but she 
did not take great account of his wisdom, or 
believe him when he spoke of trouble with the 
Stones. She was a Charter Mage and felt nothing 
wrong. Besides, she was winning at Cranaque, so 
she told him to wait till morning. Rogir turned 
to me, asked me to intercede, and, Charter help 
me, I did. I believed Rogir. I trusted him and my 
belief convinced the Queen. Finally, she agreed. 
By that time, the sun had set. With Rogir, myself, 
three guards and two ladies-in-waiting, we went 
down, down into the reservoir where the Great 
Stones are.” 
Touchstone’s voice faded to a whisper as he 
continued, and grew hoarse. 
“There was terrible wrong down there, but it 
was Rogir’s doing, not his discovery. There are 
six Great Stones and two were just being broken, 
broken with the blood of his own sisters, 
sacrificed by his Free Magic minions as we 
approached. I saw their last seconds, the faint 
hope in their clouding eyes, as the Queen’s barge 

came floating across the water. I felt the shock 
of the Stones breaking and I remember Rogir, 
stepping up behind the Queen, a saw-edged 
300 
301 
dagger striking so swiftly across her throat. He 
had a cup, a golden cup, one of the Queen’s 
own, to catch the blood, but I was too slow, too 
slow . . .” 
“So the story you told me at Holehallow wasn’t 
true,” Sabriel whispered, as Touchstone’s voice 
cracked and faded, and the tears rolled down his 
face. “The Queen didn’t survive . . .” 
“No,” mumbled Touchstone. “But I didn’t 
mean to lie. It was all jumbled up in my head.” 
“What did happen?” 
“The other two guards were Rogir’s men,” 
Touchstone continued, his voice wet with tears, 
muffled with sorrow. “They attacked me, but 
Vlare—one of the ladies-in-waiting—threw 
herself across them. I went mad, battle-mad, 
berserk. I killed both guards. Rogir had jumped 
from the barge and was wading to the Stones, 
holding the cup. His four sorcerers were waiting, 
dark-cowled, around the third stone, the 
next to be broken. I couldn’t reach him in time, 
I knew. I threw my sword. It flew straight 
and true, taking him just above the heart. He 
screamed, the echo going on and on and he 
turned back towards me! Transfixed by my 
sword, but still walking, holding that vile cup 
of blood up, as if offering me a drink. 
“‘You may tear this body,’ he said, as he 
walked. ‘Rip it, like some poor-made costume. 
But I cannot die.’ 
“He came within an arm’s length of me, and I 
could only look into his face, look at the evil that 
lay so close behind those familiar features . . . 
then there was blinding white light, the sound of 
bells—bells like yours, Sabriel—and voices, 
harsh voices . . . Rogir flinching back, the cup 
dropped, blood floating on the water like oil. I 
turned, saw guardsmen on the stairs; a burning, 
twisting column of white fire; a man with sword 

and bells . . . then I fainted, or was knocked 
unconscious. When I came to, I was in 
Holehallow, seeing your face. I don’t know how 
I got there, who put me there . . . I still only 
remember in shreds and patches.” 
“You should have told me,” Sabriel said, 
trying to put as much compassion in her voice 
as she could. “But perhaps it had to wait for 
the sea’s freeing of that binding spell. Tell me, 
the man with the sword and bells, was it the 
Abhorsen?” 
“I don’t know,” replied Touchstone. “Probably.” 
“Almost definitely, I would say,” added Sabriel. 
302 
She looked at Mogget, thinking of that column 
of twisting fire. “You were there too, weren’t 
you, Mogget? Unbound, in your other form.” 
“Yes, I was there,” said the cat. “With the 
Abhorsen of that time. A very powerful Charter 
Mage, and a master of the bells, but a little too 
good-hearted to deal with treachery. I had terrible 
trouble getting him to Belisaere, and in the 
end, we were not timely enough to save the 
Queen or her daughters.” 
“What happened?” whispered Touchstone. 
“What happened?” 
“Rogir was already one of the Dead when he 
came back to Belisaere,” Mogget said wearily, as 
if he were telling a cynical yarn to a crew of 
hard-bitten cronies. “But only an Abhorsen 
would have known it, and he wasn’t there. 
Rogir’s real body was hidden somewhere . . . is 
hidden somewhere . . . and he wore a Free Magic 
construct for his physical form. 
“Somewhere along the path of his studies, 
he’d swapped real Life for power and, like all 
the Dead, he needed to take life all the time to 
stay out of Death. But the Charter made it very 
difficult for him to do that anywhere in the 
Kingdom. So he decided to break the Charter. 
303 
He could have confined himself to breaking a 
few of the lesser stones, somewhere far away, but 
that would only give him a tiny area to prey on, 

and the Abhorsen would soon hunt him down. 
So he decided to break the Great Stones, and for 
that he needed royal blood—his own family’s 
blood. Or Abhorsen’s, or the Clayr’s, of course, 
but that would be much harder to get. 
“Because he was the Queen’s son, clever, and 
very powerful, he almost achieved his aims. Two 
of the six Great Stones were broken. The Queen 
and her daughters were killed. Abhorsen intervened 
a little too late. True, he did manage to 
drive him deep into Death—but since his true 
body has never been found, Rogir has continued 
to exist. Even from Death, he has overseen 
the dissolution of the Kingdom—a kingdom 
without a royal family, with one of the Great 
Charters crippled, corrupting and weakening 
all the others. He wasn’t really beaten that 
night, in the reservoir. Just delayed, and for two 
hundred years he’s been trying to come back, 
trying to re-enter Life—” 
“He’s succeeded, hasn’t he?” interrupted 
Sabriel. “He’s the thing called Kerrigor, the one 
Abhorsens have been fighting for generations, 
304 
trying to keep in Death. He is the one who 
came back, the Greater Dead who murdered 
the patrol near Cloven Crest, the master of the 
Mordicant.” 
“I do not know,” replied Mogget. “Your father 
thought so.” 
“It is him,” Touchstone said, distantly. 
“Kerrigor was Rogir’s childhood nickname. I 
made it up, on the day we had the mud fight. 
His full ceremonial name was Rogirek.” 
“He—or his servants—must have lured my 
father to Belisaere just before he emerged from 
Death,” Sabriel thought aloud. “I wonder why 
he came out into Life so near the Wall?” 
“His body must be near the Wall. He would 
need to be close to it,” Mogget said. “You 
should know that. To renew the master spell that 
prevents him from ever passing beyond the Final 
Gate.” 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel, remembering the passages 

from The Book of the Dead. She shivered, 
but suppressed it, before it became a racking 
sob. Inside, she felt like screaming, crying. She 
wanted to flee back to Ancelstierre, cross the 
Wall, leave the Dead and magic behind, go as far 
south as possible. But she quelled these feelings, 
305 
and said, “An Abhorsen defeated him once. I can 
do so again. But first, we must find my father’s 
body.” 
There was silence for a moment, save for the 
wind in the canvas and the quiet hum of the rigging. 
Touchstone wiped his hand across his eyes 
and looked at Mogget. 
“There is one thing I would like to ask. Who 
put my spirit in Death, and made my body the 
figurehead?” 
“I never knew what happened to you,” replied 
Mogget. His green eyes met Touchstone’s gaze, 
and it wasn’t the cat who blinked. “But it must 
have been Abhorsen. You were insane when we 
got you out of the reservoir. Driven mad, probably 
by the breaking of the Great Stones. No 
memory, nothing. It seems two hundred years 
is not too long for a rest cure. He must have seen 
something in you—or the Clayr saw something 
in the ice . . . ah, that was hard to say. We must 
be nearing the city, and the sea’s influence 
lessens. The binding resumes . . .” 
“No, Mogget!” exclaimed Sabriel. “I want to 
know, I need to know, who you are. What’s 
your connection with the Great . . .” 
Her voice locked up in her throat and a star- 
306 
tled gargle was the only thing that came out. 
“Too late,” said Mogget. He started cleaning 
his fur, pink tongue darting out, bright color 
against white fur. 
Sabriel sighed, and looked out at the turquoise 
sea, then up at the sun, yellow disc on a field of 
white-streaked blue. A light breeze filled the sail 
above her, ruffling her hair in passing. Gulls rode 
it on ahead, to join a squawking mass of their 
brethren, feeding from a school of fish, sharp silver 

bursting near the surface. 
Everything was alive, colorful, full of the 
joy of living. Even the salt tang on her skin, 
the stink of fish and her own unwashed body, 
was somehow rich and lively. Far, far removed 
from Touchstone’s grim past, the threat of 
Rogir/Kerrigor and the chilling greyness of 
Death. 
“We shall have to be very careful,” Sabriel said 
at last, “and hope that . . . what was it you said 
to the Elder of Nestowe, Touchstone?” 
He knew immediately what she meant. 
“Hope that the Charter preserves us all.” 
307 
chapter xix 
Sabriel had expected Belisaere to be 
a ruined city, devoid of life, but it was not so. By 
the time they saw its towers, and the truly 
impressive walls that ringed the peninsula on 
which the city stood, they also saw fishing 
boats, of a size with their own. People were fishing 
from them—normal, friendly people, who 
waved and shouted as they passed. Only their 
greeting was telling of how things might be in 
Belisaere. “Good sun and swift water” was not 
the typical greeting in Touchstone’s time. 
The city’s main harbor was reached from the 
west. A wide, buoyed channel ran between two 
hulking defensive outworks, leading into a vast 
pool, easily as big as twenty or thirty playing 
fields. Wharves lined three sides of the pool, but 
most were deserted. To the north and south, 
warehouses rotted behind the empty wharves, 
broken walls and holed roofs testimony to long 
abandonment. 
Only the eastern dock looked lively. There 
were none of the big trading vessels of bygone 
days, but many small coastal craft, loading and 
unloading. Derricks swung in and out; longshoremen 
humped packages along gangplanks; 
small children dived and swam in between 
the boats. No warehouses stood behind these 

wharves—instead, there were hundreds of 
open-topped booths, little more than brightly 
decorated frameworks delineating a patch of 
space, with tables for the wares, and stools 
for the vendors and favored customers. There 
seemed to be no shortage of customers in general, 
Sabriel noted, as Touchstone steered for 
a vacant berth. People were swarming everywhere, 
hurrying about as if their time was sadly 
limited. 
Touchstone let the mainsheet go slack, and 
brought the boat into the wind just in time for 
them to lose way and glide at an oblique angle 
into the fenders that lined the wharf. Sabriel 
threw up a line, but before she could leap ashore 
309 
and secure it to a bollard, a street urchin did it 
for her. 
“Penny for the knot,” he cried, shrill voice 
piercing through the hubbub from the crowd. 
“Penny for the knot, lady?” 
Sabriel smiled, with effort, and flicked a silver 
penny at the boy. He caught it, grinned and disappeared 
into the stream of people moving along 
the dock. Sabriel’s smile faded. She could feel 
many, many Dead here . . . or not precisely here, 
but further up in the city. Belisaere was built 
upon four low hills, surrounding a central valley, 
which lay open to the sea at this harbor. As far 
as Sabriel’s senses could tell, only the valley was 
free of the Dead—why, she didn’t know. The 
hills, which made up at least two-thirds of the 
city’s area, were infested with them. 
This part of the city, on the other hand, could 
truly be said to be infested with life. Sabriel 
had forgotten how noisy a city could be. Even in 
Ancelstierre, she had rarely visited anything 
larger than Bain, a town of no more than ten 
thousand people. Of course, Belisaere wasn’t a 
big city by Ancelstierran standards, and it didn’t 
have the noisy omnibuses and private cars that 
had been significantly adding to Ancelstierran 
310 
noise for the last ten years, but Belisaere made 

up for it with the people. People hurrying, 
arguing, shouting, selling, buying, singing . . . 
“Was it like this before?” she shouted at 
Touchstone, as they climbed up onto the wharf, 
making sure they had all their possessions with 
them. 
“Not really,” answered Touchstone. “The 
Pool was normally full, with bigger ships—and 
there were warehouses here, not a market. It was 
quieter, too, and people were in less of a rush.” 
They stood on the edge of the dock, watching 
the stream of humanity and goods, hearing the 
tumult, and smelling all the new odors of the 
city replacing the freshness of the sea breeze. 
Cooking food, wood smoke, incense, oil, the 
occasional disgusting whiff of what could 
only be sewage . . . 
“It was also a lot cleaner,” added Touchstone. 
“Look, I think we’d best find an inn or 
hostelry. Somewhere to stay for the night.” 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. She was reluctant 
to enter the human tide. There were no Dead 
among them, as far as she could sense, but 
they must have some kind of accommodation 
or agreement with the Dead and that stank to 
311 
her far more than sewage. 
Touchstone snagged a passing boy by the 
shoulder as Sabriel continued to eye the 
crowd, nose wrinkling. They spoke together 
for a moment, a silver penny changed hands, 
then the boy slid into the rush, Touchstone 
following. He looked back, saw Sabriel staring 
absently, and grabbed her by the hand, dragging 
both her and the lazy, fox-fur-positioned 
Mogget after him. 
It was the first time Sabriel had touched him 
since he’d been revived and she was surprised by 
the shock it gave her. Certainly, her mind had 
been wandering, and it was a sudden grab . . . 
his hand felt larger than it should, and interestingly 
calloused and textured. Quickly, she 
slipped her hand out of his, and concentrated on 
following both him and the boy, weaving across 

the main direction of the crowd. 
They went through the middle of the opentopped 
market, along one street of little 
booths—obviously the street of fish and fowl. 
The harbor end was alive with boxes and boxes 
of fresh-caught fish, clear-eyed and wriggling. 
Vendors yelled their prices, or their best buy, 
and buyers shouted offers or amazement at the 
312 
price. Baskets, bags and boxes changed hands, 
empty ones to be filled with fish or lobster, 
squid or shellfish. Coins went from palm to 
palm, or, occasionally, whole purses disgorged 
their shining contents into the belt-pouches of 
the stallholders. 
Towards the other end it grew a little quieter. 
The stalls here had cages upon cages of chickens, 
but their trade was slower, and many of the 
chickens looked old and stunted. Sabriel, seeing 
an expert knife-man beheading row after row of 
chickens and dropping them to flop headless in 
a box, concentrated on shutting out their bewildered 
featherbrained experience of death. 
Beyond the market there was a wide swath 
of empty ground. It had obviously been intentionally 
cleared, first with fire, then with mattock, 
shovel and bar. Sabriel wondered why, 
till she saw the aqueduct that ran beyond and 
parallel to this strip of wasteland. The city folk 
who lived in the valley didn’t have an agreement 
with the Dead—their part of the city was 
bounded by aqueducts, and the Dead could no 
more walk under running water than over it. 
The cleared ground was a precaution, allowing 
the aqueducts to be guarded—and sure 
313 
enough, Sabriel saw a patrol of archers marching 
atop it, their regularly moving shapes silhouetted, 
shadow puppets against the sky. The 
boy was leading them to a central arch, which 
rose up through two of the aqueduct’s four 
tiers, and there were more archers there. 
Smaller arches continued on each side, supporting 
the aqueduct’s main channel, but these 

were heavily overgrown with thornbushes, to 
prevent unauthorized entry by the living, 
while the swift water overhead held back the 
Dead. 
Sabriel drew her boat cloak tight as they 
passed under the arch, but the guards paid 
them no more attention than was required to 
extort a silver penny from Touchstone. They 
seemed very third-rate—even fourth-rate— 
soldiers, who were probably more constables 
and watchkeepers than anything else. None 
bore the Charter mark, or had any trace of 
Free Magic. 
Beyond the aqueduct, streets wound chaotically 
from an unevenly paved square, complete 
with an eccentrically spouting fountain—the 
water jetted from the ears of a statue, a statue of 
an impressively crowned man. 
314 
“King Anstyr the Third,” said Touchstone, 
pointing at the fountain. “He had a strange 
sense of humor, by all accounts. I’m glad it’s still 
there.” 
“Where are we going?” asked Sabriel. She 
felt better now that she knew the citizenry 
weren’t in league with the Dead. 
“This boy says he knows a good inn,” replied 
Touchstone, indicating the ragged urchin who 
was grinning just out of reach of the alwaysexpected 
blow. 
“Sign of Three Lemons,” said the boy. “Best in 
the city, lord, lady.” 
He had just turned back from them to go on, 
when a loud, badly cast bell sounded from somewhere 
towards the harbor. It rang three times, 
the sound sending pigeons racketing into flight 
from the square. 
“What’s that?” asked Sabriel. The boy looked 
at her, open-mouthed. “The bell.” 
“Sunfall,” replied the boy, once he knew what 
she was asking. He said it as if stating the blindingly 
obvious. “Early, I reckon. Must be cloud 
coming, or somefing.” 
“Everyone comes in when the sunfall bell 

sounds?” asked Sabriel. 
315 
316 
“Course!” snorted the boy. “Otherwise the 
haunts or the ghlims get you.” 
“I see,” replied Sabriel. “Lead on.” 
Surprisingly, the Sign of Three Lemons was 
quite a pleasant inn. A whitewashed building 
of four storys, it fronted onto a smaller square 
some two hundred yards from King Anstyr’s 
Fountain Square. There were three enormous 
lemon trees in the middle of the square, somehow 
thick with pleasant-smelling leaves and copious 
amounts of fruit, despite the season. Charter 
Magic, thought Sabriel, and sure enough, there 
was a Charter Stone hidden amongst the trees, 
and a number of ancient spells of fertility, 
warmth and bountitude. Sabriel sniffed the 
lemon-scented air gratefully, thankful that her 
room had a window fronting the square. 
Behind her, a maid was filling a tin bath with 
hot water. Several large buckets had already 
gone in—this would be the last. Sabriel closed 
the window and came over to look at the stillsteaming 
water in anticipation. 
“Will that be all, miss?” asked the maid, halfcurtseying. 
“Yes, thank you,” replied Sabriel. The maid 
edged out the door, and Sabriel slid the bar 
across, before divesting herself of her cloak, and 
then the stinking, sweat- and salt-encrusted 
armor and garments that had virtually stuck 
to her after almost a week at sea. Naked, she 
rested her sword against the bath’s rim—in 
easy reach—then sank gratefully into the water, 
taking up the lump of lemon-scented soap to 
begin removing the caked grime and sweat. 
Through the wall, she could hear a man’s— 
Touchstone’s—voice. Then water gurgling, that 
maid giggling. Sabriel stopped soaping and concentrated 
on the sound. It was hard to hear, but 
there was more giggling, a deep, indistinct male 
voice, then a loud splash. Like two bodies in a 
bath rather than one. 
There was silence for a while, then more 

splashing, gasps, giggles—was that Touchstone 
laughing? Then a series of short, sharp, moans. 
Womanly ones. Sabriel flushed and gritted 
her teeth at the same time, then quickly lowered 
her head into the water so she couldn’t hear, 
leaving only her nose and mouth exposed. Underwater, 
all was silent, save for the dull booming 
of her heart, echoing in her flooded ears. 
What did it matter? She didn’t think of Touchstone 
in that way. Sex was the last thing 
317 
on her mind. Just another complication— 
contraception—messiness—emotions. There were 
enough problems. Concentrate on planning. 
Think ahead. It was just because Touchstone 
was the first young man she’d met out of school, 
that was all. It was none of her business. She 
didn’t even know his real name . . . 
A dull tapping noise on the side of the bath 
made her raise her head out of the water, just in 
time to hear a very self-satisfied, masculine and 
drawn-out moan from the other side of the wall. 
She was about to stick her head back under, 
when Mogget’s pink nose appeared on the rim. 
So she sat up, water cascading down her face, 
hiding the tears she told herself weren’t there. 
Angrily, she crossed her arms across her breasts 
and said, “What do you want?” 
“I just thought that you might like to know 
that Touchstone’s room is that way,” said 
Mogget, indicating the silent room opposite the 
one with the noisy couple. “It hasn’t got a bathtub, 
so he’d like to know if he can use yours 
when you’re finished. He’s waiting downstairs in 
the meantime, getting the local news.” 
“Oh,” replied Sabriel. She looked across at the 
far, silent wall, then back to the close wall, where 
318 
the human noises were now largely lost in the 
groaning of bedsprings. “Well, tell him I won’t 
be long.” 
Twenty minutes later, a clean Sabriel, garbed 
in a borrowed dress made incongruous by her 
sword-belt (the bell-bandolier lay under her bed, 

with Mogget asleep on top of it), crept on slippered 
feet through the largely empty common 
room and tapped the salty, begrimed Touchstone 
on the back, making him spill his beer. 
“Your turn for the bath,” Sabriel said cheerily, 
“my evil-smelling swordsman. I’ve just had it 
refilled. Mogget’s in the room, by the way. I 
hope you don’t mind.” 
“Why would I mind?” asked Touchstone, as 
much puzzled by her manner as the question. “I 
just want to get clean, that’s all.” 
“Good,” replied Sabriel, obscurely. “I’ll organize 
for dinner to be served in your room, so we 
can plan as we eat.” 
In the event, the planning didn’t take long, nor 
was it slow in dampening what was otherwise a 
relatively festive occasion. They were safe for the 
moment, clean, well-fed—and able to forget past 
troubles and future fears for a little while. 
But, as soon as the last dish—a squid stew, 
319 
with garlic, barley, yellow squash and tarragon 
vinegar—was cleared, the present reasserted 
itself, complete with cares and woe. 
“I think the most likely place to find my 
father’s body will be at . . . that place, where the 
Queen was slain,” Sabriel said slowly. “The 
reservoir. Where is it, by the way?” 
“Under the Palace Hill,” replied Touchstone. 
“There are several different ways to enter. All lie 
beyond this aqueduct-guarded valley.” 
“You are probably right about your father,” 
Mogget commented from his nest of blankets 
in the middle of Touchstone’s bed. “But that 
is also the most dangerous place for us to go. 
Charter Magic will be greatly warped, including 
various bindings—and there is a chance 
that our enemy . . .” 
“Kerrigor,” interrupted Sabriel. “But he may 
not be there. Even if he is, we may be able to 
sneak in—” 
“We might be able to sneak around the edges,” 
said Touchstone. “The reservoir is enormous, 
and there are hundreds of columns. But wading 

is noisy, and the water is very still—sound carries. 
And the six . . . you know . . . they are in the 
very center.” 
320 
“If I can find my father and bring his spirit 
back to his body,” Sabriel said stubbornly, “then 
we can deal with whatever confronts us. That is 
the first thing. My father. Everything else is just 
a complication that’s followed on.” 
“Or preceded it,” said Mogget. “So, I take it 
your master plan is to sneak in, as far as we can, 
find your father’s body, which will hopefully be 
tucked away in some safe corner, and then see 
what happens?” 
“We’ll go in the middle of a clear, sunny 
day . . .” Sabriel began. 
“It’s underground,” interrupted Mogget. 
“So we have sunlight to retreat to,” Sabriel 
continued in a quelling tone. 
“And there are light shafts,” added Touchstone. 
“At noon, it’s a sort of dim twilight down 
there, with patches of faint sun on the water.” 
“So, we’ll find Father’s body, bring it back to 
safety here,” said Sabriel, “and . . . and take 
things from there.” 
“It sounds like a terribly brilliant plan to me,” 
muttered Mogget. “The genius of simplicity . . .” 
‘‘Can you think of anything else?” snapped 
Sabriel. “I’ve tried, and I can’t. I wish I could go 
home to Ancelstierre and forget the whole 
321 
thing—but then I’d never see Father again, and 
the Dead would just eat up everything living in 
this whole rotten Kingdom. Maybe it won’t 
work, but at least I’ll be trying something, like 
the Abhorsen I’m supposed to be and you’re 
always telling me I’m not!” 
Silence greeted this sally. Touchstone looked 
away, embarrassed. Mogget looked at her, 
yawned and shrugged. 
“As it happens, I can’t think of anything else. 
I’ve grown stupid over the millennia—even stupider 
than the Abhorsens I serve.” 
“I think it’s as good a plan as any,” Touchstone 

said, unexpectedly. He hesitated, then added, 
“Though I am afraid.” 
“So am I,” whispered Sabriel. “But if it’s a 
sunny day tomorrow, we will go there.” 
“Yes,” said Touchstone. “Before we grow too 
afraid.” 
322 
chapter xx 
Leaving the safe, aqueductbounded 
quarter of Belisaere proved to be a 
more difficult business than entering it, particularly 
through the northern archway, which 
led out to a long-abandoned street of derelict 
houses, winding their way up towards the 
northern hills of the city. 
There were six guards at the archway, and 
they looked considerably more alert and efficient 
than the ones who guarded the passage 
from the docks. There was also a group of 
other people ahead of Sabriel and Touchstone 
waiting to be let through. Nine men, all with 
the marks of violence written in their expressions, 
in the way they spoke and moved. Every 
one was armed, with weapons ranging from 
daggers to a broad-bladed axe. Most of them 
also carried bows—short, deeply curved bows, 
slung on their backs. 
“Who are these people?” Sabriel asked 
Touchstone. “Why are they going out into the 
Dead part of the city?” 
“Scavengers,” replied Touchstone. “Some of 
the people I spoke to last night mentioned them. 
Parts of the city were abandoned to the Dead 
very quickly, so there is still plenty of loot to be 
found. A risky business, I think . . .” 
Sabriel nodded thoughtfully and looked back at 
the men, most of whom were sitting or squatting 
by the aqueduct wall. Some of them looked back 
at her, rather suspiciously. For a moment, she 
thought they’d seen the bells under her cloak and 
recognized her as a necromancer, then she realized 
that she and Touchstone probably looked like 

rival scavengers. After all, who else would want to 
leave the protection of swift water? She felt a bit 
like a hard-bitten scavenger. Even freshly cleaned 
and scrubbed, her clothes and armor were not 
the sweetest items of wear. They were also still 
slightly damp, and the boat cloak that covered her 
up was on the borderline between damp and wet, 
because it hadn’t been hung up properly after 
324 
washing. On the positive side, everything had the 
scent of lemon, for the Sign of Three Lemons 
washerfolk used lemon-scented soap. 
Sabriel thought the scavengers had been waiting 
for the guards, but clearly they had been 
waiting for something else, which they’d suddenly 
sighted behind her. The sitting or squatting 
men picked themselves up, grumbling and cursing, 
and shuffled together into something resembling 
a line. 
Sabriel looked over her shoulder to see what 
they saw—and froze. For coming towards the 
arch were two men, and about twenty children; 
children of all ages between six and sixteen. The 
men had the same look as the other scavengers, 
and carried long, four-tongued whips. The children 
were manacled at the ankles, the manacles 
fastened to a long central chain. One man held 
the chain, leading the children down the middle 
of the road. The other followed behind, plying 
the air above the small bodies idly with his whip, 
the four tongues occasionally licking against an 
ear or the top of a small head. 
“I heard of this too,” muttered Touchstone, 
moving up closer to Sabriel, his hands falling on 
his sword hilts. “But I thought it was a beer 
325 
story. The scavengers use children—slaves—as 
decoys, or bait, for the Dead. They leave them in 
one area, to draw the Dead away from where 
they intend to search.” 
“This is . . . disgusting!” raged Sabriel. 
“Immoral! They’re slavers, not scavengers! We 
have to stop it!” 
She started forward, mind already forming a 

Charter-spell to blind and confuse the scavengers, 
but a sharp pain in her neck halted her. 
Mogget, riding on her shoulders, had dug his 
claws in just under her chin. Blood trickled down 
in hairline traces, as he hissed close to her ear. 
“Wait! There are nine scavengers and six 
guards, with more close by. What will it profit 
these children, and all the others who may come, 
if you are slain? It is the Dead who are at the 
root of this evil, and Abhorsen’s business is with 
the Dead!” 
Sabriel stood still, shuddering, tears of rage and 
anger welling up in the corners of her eyes. But she 
didn’t attack. Just stood, watching the children. 
They seemed resigned to their fate, silent, without 
hope. They didn’t even fidget in their chains, 
standing still, heads bowed, till the scavengers 
whipped them up again and they broke into a 
326 
dispirited shuffle towards the archway. 
Soon, they were beyond the arch, heading up 
the ruined street, the scavenging team walking 
slowly behind them. The sun shone bright on the 
cobbled street and reflected from armor and 
weapons—and, briefly, from a little boy’s blond 
head. Then they were gone, turning right, taking 
the way towards Coiner’s Hill. 
Sabriel, Touchstone and Mogget followed after 
ten minutes spent negotiating with the guards. At 
first, the leader, a large man in a gravy-stained 
leather cuirass, wanted to see an “official scavenger’s 
license,” but this was soon translated as a 
request for bribes. Then it was merely a matter of 
bargaining, down to the final price of three silver 
pennies each for Sabriel and Touchstone, and one 
for the cat. Strange accounting, Sabriel thought, 
but she was glad Mogget stayed silent, not voicing 
the opinion that he was being undervalued. 
Past the aqueduct, and the soothing barrier of 
running water, Sabriel felt the immediate presence 
of the Dead. They were all around, in the ruined 
houses, in cellars and drains, lurking anywhere 
the light didn’t reach. Dormant. Waiting for the 
night, while the sun shone. 

In many ways, the Dead of Belisaere were direct 
327 
counterparts of the scavengers. Hiding by day, 
they took what they could by night. There were 
many, many Dead in Belisaere, but they were 
weak, cowardly and jealous. Their combined 
appetite was enormous, but the supply of victims 
sadly limited. Every morning saw scores of them 
lose their hold on Life, to fall back into Death. 
But more always came . . . 
“There are thousands of Dead here,” Sabriel 
said, eyes darting from side to side. “They’re 
weak, for the most part—but so many!” 
“Do we go straight on to the reservoir?” 
Touchstone asked. There was an unspoken question 
there, Sabriel knew. Should they—could 
they—save the children first? 
She looked at the sky, and the sun, before 
answering. They had about four hours of 
strong sunlight, if no clouds intervened. Little 
enough time, anyway. Assuming that they 
could defeat the scavengers, could they leave 
finding her father till tomorrow? Every day 
made it less likely his spirit and body could be 
brought back together. Without him, they 
couldn’t defeat Kerrigor—and Kerrigor had to 
be defeated for them to have any hope of 
repairing the stones of the Great Charter— 
328 
banishing the Dead across the Kingdom . . . 
“We’ll go straight to the reservoir,” Sabriel 
said, heavily, trying to blank out a sudden fragment 
of visual memory; sunlight on that little 
boy’s head, the trudging feet . . . 
“Perhaps we . . . perhaps we will be able to 
rescue the children on the way back.” 
Touchstone led the way with confidence, keeping 
to the middle of the streets, where the sun 
was bright. For almost an hour, they strode up 
empty, deserted streets, the only sound the clacking 
of their boot-nails on the cobbles. There 
were no birds, or animals. Not even insects. Just 
ruin and decay. 
Finally, they reached an iron-fenced park that 

ran around the base of Palace Hill. Atop the hill, 
blackened, burnt-out shells of tumbled stone 
and timber were all that remained of the Royal 
Palace. 
“The last Regent burned it,” said Mogget, as 
all three stopped to look up. “About twenty 
years ago. It was becoming infested with the 
Dead, despite all the guards and wards that various 
visiting Abhorsens put up. They say the 
Regent went mad and tried to burn them out.” 
“What happened to him?” asked Sabriel. 
329 
“Her, actually,” replied Mogget. “She died in 
the fire—or the Dead took her. And that marked 
the end of any attempt at governing the 
Kingdom.” 
“It was a beautiful building,” Touchstone 
reminisced. “You could see out over the Saere. It 
had high ceilings, and a clever system of vents 
and shafts to catch the light and the sea breeze. 
There was always music and dancing somewhere 
in the Palace, and Midsummer dinner on the 
garden roof, with a thousand scented candles 
burning . . .” 
He sighed, and pointed at a hole in the park 
fence. 
“We might as well go through here. There’s an 
entrance to the reservoir in one of the ornamental 
caves in the park. Only fifty steps down to the 
water, rather than the hundred and fifty from the 
Palace proper.” 
“One hundred and fifty-six,” said Mogget. “As 
I recall.” 
Touchstone shrugged, and climbed through the 
hole, onto the springy turf of the park. There was 
no one—and no thing—in sight, but he drew his 
swords anyway. There were large trees nearby, 
and accordingly, shadows. 
330 
Sabriel followed, Mogget jumping down from 
her shoulders to saunter forward and sniff the air. 
Sabriel drew her sword too, but left the bells. 
There were Dead about, but none close. The park 
was too open in daylight. 

The ornamental caves were only five minutes’ 
walk away, past a fetid pond that had once 
boasted seven water-spouting statues of bearded 
tritons. Now their mouths were clogged with 
rotten leaves, and the pond was almost solid 
with yellow-green slime. 
There were three cave entrances, side by side. 
Touchstone led them to the largest, central 
entrance. Marble steps led down the first three or 
four feet, and marble pillars supported the 
entrance ceiling. 
“It only goes back about forty paces into the 
hill,” Touchstone explained, as they lit their candles 
by the entrance, sulphur matches adding 
their own noisome stench to the dank air of the 
cave. “They were built for picnics in high summer. 
There is a door at the back of this one. It 
may be locked, but should yield to a Charterspell. 
The steps are directly behind, and pretty 
straight, but there are no light shafts. And it’s 
narrow.” 
331 
332 
“I’ll go first then,” said Sabriel, with a firmness 
that belied the weakness in her legs and the fluttering 
in her stomach. “I can’t sense any Dead, 
but they could be there . . .” 
“Very well,” said Touchstone, after a moment’s 
hesitation. 
“You don’t have to come, you know,” Sabriel 
suddenly burst out, as they stood in front of the 
cave, candles flickering foolishly in the sunshine. 
She suddenly felt awfully responsible for him. He 
looked scared, much whiter than he should, 
almost as pale as a Death-leeched necromancer. 
He’d seen terrible things in the reservoir, things 
that had once driven him mad, and despite his 
self-accusation, Sabriel didn’t believe it was his 
fault. It wasn’t his father down there. He wasn’t 
an Abhorsen. 
“I do have to,” Touchstone replied. He bit his 
lower lip nervously. “I have to. I’ll never be free 
of my memories, otherwise. I have to do something, 
make new memories, better ones. I need 

to . . . seek redemption. Besides, I am still a 
member of the Royal Guard. It is my duty.” 
“So be it,” said Sabriel. “Anyway, I’m glad 
you’re here.” 
“I am too—in a strange sort of way,” said 
Touchstone, and he almost, but not quite, 
smiled. 
“I’m not,” interrupted Mogget, decidedly. 
“Let’s get on with it. We’re wasting sunlight.” 
The door was locked, but opened easily to 
Sabriel’s spell, the simple Charter symbols of 
unlocking and opening flowing from her mind 
through to her index finger, which lay against 
the keyhole. But though the spell was successful, 
it had been difficult to cast. Even up here, the 
broken stones of the Great Charter exerted an 
influence that disrupted Charter Magic. 
The faint candlelight showed damp, crumbly 
steps, leading straight down. No curves or turns, 
just a straight stair leading into darkness. 
Sabriel trod gingerly, feeling the soft stone 
crumble under her heavy boots, so she had to 
keep her heels well back on each step. This made 
for slow progress, with Touchstone close behind 
her, the light from his candle casting Sabriel’s 
shadow down the steps in front, so she saw herself 
elongated and distorted, sliding into the 
dark beyond the light. 
She smelled the reservoir before she saw it, 
somewhere around the thirty-ninth step. A chill, 
damp smell that cut into her nose and lungs, and 
333 
filled her with the impression of a cold expanse. 
Then the steps ended in a doorway on the 
edge of a vast, rectangular hall—a giant chamber 
where stone columns rose up like a forest to 
support a roof sixty feet above her head, and 
the floor before her wasn’t stone, but water as 
cold and still as stone. Around the walls, pallid 
shafts of sunlight thrust down in counterpoint 
to the supporting columns, leaving discs of light 
on the water. These made the rim of the reservoir 
a complex study of light and shade, but the 
center remained unknown, cloaked in heavy 

darkness. 
Sabriel felt Touchstone touch her shoulder, 
then she heard his whisper. 
“It’s about waist-deep. Try and slip in as quietly 
as possible. Here—I’ll take your candle.” 
Sabriel nodded, passed the candle back, 
sheathed her sword, and sat down on the last 
step, before slowly easing herself into the 
water. 
It was cold, but not unbearable. Despite 
Sabriel’s care, ripples spread out from her, silver 
on the dark water, and there had been the tiniest 
splash. Her feet touched the bottom, and she 
only half stifled a gasp. Not from the cold, but 
334 
from the sudden awareness of the two broken 
stones of the Great Charter. It hit her like the 
savage onset of gastric flu, bringing stomach 
cramps, sudden sweat and dizziness. Bent over, 
she clutched at the step, till the first pains subsided 
to a dull ache. It was much worse than 
the lesser stones, broken at Cloven Crest and 
Nestowe. 
“What is it?” whispered Touchstone. 
“Ah . . . the broken stones,” Sabriel muttered. 
She took a deep breath, willing the pain and discomfort 
away. “I can stand it. Be careful when 
you get in.” 
She drew her sword, and took her candle back 
from Touchstone, who prepared to enter the 
water. Even forewarned, she saw him flinch as 
his feet touched the bottom, and sweat broke 
out in lines on his forehead, mirroring the ripples 
that spread from his entry. 
Sabriel expected Mogget to jump up on 
her shoulder, given his apparent dislike for 
Touchstone, but he surprised her, leaping to the 
man. Touchstone was clearly startled too, but 
recovered well. Mogget draped himself around 
the back of Touchstone’s neck, and mewed 
softly. 
335 
“Keep to the edges, if you can. The corruption— 
the break—will have even more unpleasant 

effects near the center.” 
Sabriel raised her sword in assent and led off, 
following the left wall, trying to break the surface 
tension of the water as little as possible. But 
the quiet slosh-slosh of their wading seemed very 
loud, echoing and spreading up and out through 
the cistern, adding to the only other noise—the 
regular dripping of water, plopping loudly from 
the roof, or more sedately sliding down the 
columns. 
She couldn’t sense any Dead, but she wasn’t 
sure how much that was due to the broken 
stones. They made her head hurt, like a constant, 
too-loud noise; her stomach cramped; her mouth 
was full of the acrid taste of bile. 
They had just reached the north-western corner, 
directly under one of the light shafts, when 
the light suddenly dimmed, and the reservoir 
grew dark in an instant, save for the tiny, soft 
glow of the candles. 
“A cloud,” whispered Touchstone. “It will 
pass.” 
They held their breath, looking up, up to the 
tiny outline of light above, and were rewarded 
336 
when sunlight came pouring back down. 
Relieved, they began to wade again, following 
the long west-east wall. But it was short-lived 
relief. Another cloud crossed the sun, somewhere 
in that fresh air so high above them, and 
darkness returned. More clouds followed, till 
there were only brief moments of light interspersed 
by long stretches of total dark. 
The reservoir seemed colder without the sun, 
even a sun diluted by passage down long shafts 
through the earth. Sabriel felt the cold now, 
accompanied by the sudden, irrational fear that 
they had stayed too long, and would emerge 
to a night full of waiting, life-hungry Dead. 
Touchstone felt the chill too, made more bitter 
by his memories of two hundred years past, 
when he’d waded in this same water, and seen 
the Queen and her two daughters sacrificed and 
the Great Stones broken. There had been blood 

on the water then, and he still saw it—a single 
frozen moment of time that would not get out of 
his head. 
Despite these fears, it was the darkness that 
helped them. Sabriel saw a glow, a faint luminescence 
off to her right, somewhere towards 
the center. Shielding her eyes from the candle’s 
337 
glare, she pointed it out to Touchstone. 
“There’s something there,” he agreed, his voice 
so low Sabriel barely heard it. “But it’s at least 
forty paces towards the center.” 
Sabriel didn’t answer. She’d felt something 
from that faint light, something like the slight 
sensation across the back of her neck that came 
when her father’s sending visited her at school. 
Leaving the wall, she pushed out through the 
water, a V-line of ripples behind her. Touchstone 
looked again, then followed, fighting the nausea 
that rose in him, coming in waves like repeated 
doses of an emetic. He was dizzy too, and could 
no longer properly feel his feet. 
They went about thirty paces out, the pain and 
the nausea growing steadily worse. Then Sabriel 
suddenly stopped, Touchstone lifting his sword 
and candle, eyes searching for an attack. But 
there was no enemy present. The luminous light 
came from a diamond of protection, the four 
cardinal marks glowing under the water, lines of 
force sparkling between them. 
In the middle of the diamond, a man-shaped 
figure stood, empty hands outstretched, as if he 
had once held weapons. Frost rimed his clothes 
and face, obscuring his features, and ice girdled 
338 
the water around his middle. But Sabriel had no 
doubt about who it was. 
“Father,” she whispered, the whisper echoing 
across the dark water, to join the faint sounds of 
the ever-present dripping. 
339 
chapter xxi 
“The diamond is complete,” said 

Touchstone. “We won’t be able to move him.” 
“Yes. I know,” replied Sabriel. The relief 
that had soared inside her at the sight of her 
father was ebbing, giving way to the sickness 
caused by the broken stones. “I think . . . I 
think I’ll have to go into Death from here, and 
fetch his spirit back.” 
“What!” exclaimed Touchstone. Then, quieter, 
as the echoes rang, “Here?” 
“If we cast our own diamond of protection . . .” 
Sabriel continued, thinking aloud. “A large one, 
around both of us and Father’s diamond—that 
will keep most danger at bay.” 
“Most danger,” Touchstone said grimly, 
looking around, trying to peer past the tight 
confines of their candle’s little globe of light. 
“It will also trap us here—even if we can cast 
it, so close to the broken stones. I know that I 
couldn’t do it alone, at this point.” 
“We should be able to combine our strengths. 
Then, if you and Mogget keep watch while I 
am in Death, we should manage.” 
“What do you think, Mogget?” asked Touchstone, 
turning his head, so his cheek brushed 
against the little animal on his shoulder. 
“I have my own troubles,” grumbled Mogget. 
“And I think this is probably a trap. But since 
we’re here, and the—Abhorsen Emeritus, shall 
we say, does seem to be alive, I suppose there’s 
nothing else to be done.” 
“I don’t like it,” whispered Touchstone. 
Just standing this close to the broken stones 
took most of his strength. For Sabriel to enter 
Death seemed madness, tempting fate. Who 
knew what might be lurking in Death, close 
by the easy portal made by the broken stones? 
For that matter, who knew what was lurking 
in or around the reservoir? 
Sabriel didn’t answer. She moved closer to her 
father’s diamond of protection, studying the 
cardinal marks under the water. Touchstone 
341 
followed reluctantly, forcing his legs to move in 
short steps, minimizing the splash and ripple of 

his wake. 
Sabriel snuffed out her candle, thrust it 
through her belt, then held out her open palm. 
“Put your sword away and give me your 
hand,” she said, in a tone that did not invite 
conversation or argument. Touchstone hesitated— 
his left hand held only a candle, and he 
didn’t want both his swords scabbarded—then 
he complied. Her hand was cold, colder than the 
water. Instinctively, he gripped a little tighter, to 
give her some of his warmth. 
“Mogget—keep watch,” Sabriel instructed. 
She closed her eyes, and began to visualize the 
East mark, the first of the four cardinal wards. 
Touchstone took a quick look around, then 
closed his eyes too, drawn in by the force of 
Sabriel’s conjuration. 
Pain shot through his hand and arm, as he 
added his will to Sabriel’s. The mark seemed 
blurry in his head, and impossible to focus. The 
pins and needles that had already plagued his 
feet spread up above his knees, shooting them 
through with rheumatic pains. But he blocked off 
the pain, narrowing his consciousness to just one 
342 
thing: the creation of a diamond of protection. 
Finally, the East mark flowed down Sabriel’s 
blade and took root in the reservoir floor. 
Without opening their eyes, the duo shuffled 
around to face the south, and the next mark. 
This was harder still, and both of them 
were sweating and shaking when it finally 
began its glowing existence. Sabriel’s hand was 
hot and feverish now, and Touchstone’s flesh 
ricocheted violently between sweating heat and 
shivering cold. A terrible wave of nausea hit 
him, and he would have been sick, but Sabriel 
gripped his hand, like a falcon its prey, and 
lent him strength. He gagged, dry-retched once, 
then recovered. 
The West mark was simply a trial of endurance. 
Sabriel lost concentration for a 
moment, so Touchstone had to hold the mark 
alone for a few seconds, the effort making him 

feel drunk in the most unpleasant way, the 
world spinning inside his head, totally out of 
control. Then Sabriel forced herself back and 
the West mark flowered under the water. 
Desperation gave them the North mark. They 
struggled with it for what seemed like hours, 
but was only seconds, till it almost squirmed 
343 
from them uncast. But at that moment, Sabriel 
spent all the force of her desire to free her father, 
and Touchstone pushed with the weight of two 
hundred years of guilt and sorrow. 
The North mark rolled brightly down the 
sword and grew to brilliance, brilliance dulled 
by the water. Lines of Charter-fire ran from it to 
the East mark, from East mark to South mark to 
West mark and back again. The diamond was 
complete. 
Immediately, they felt a lessening of the terrible 
presence of the broken stones. The high-pitched 
pain in Sabriel’s head dimmed; normal feeling 
returned to Touchstone’s legs and feet. Mogget 
stirred and stretched, the first significant movement 
he’d made since taking up position around 
Touchstone’s neck. 
“A good casting,” Sabriel said quietly, looking 
at the marks through eyes half-lidded in weariness. 
“Better than the last one I cast.” 
“I don’t know how we did it,” muttered 
Touchstone, staring down at the lines of Charterfire. 
He suddenly became aware that he was still 
holding Sabriel’s hand, and slumping like an 
aged wood collector under a heavy burden. He 
straightened up suddenly, dropping her hand as 
344 
if it were the fanged end of a snake. 
She looked at him, rather startled, and he 
found himself staring at the reflection of his 
candle-flame in her dark eyes. Almost for the 
first time, he really looked at her. He saw the 
weariness there, and the incipient lines of care, 
and the way her mouth looked a little sad 
around the edges. Her nose was still swollen, 
and there were yellowing bruises on her cheekbones. 

She was also beautiful and Touchstone 
realized that he had thought of her only in terms 
of her office, as Abhorsen. Not as a woman at 
all . . . 
“I’d better be going,” said Sabriel, suddenly 
embarrassed by Touchstone’s stare. Her left 
hand went to the bell-bandolier, fingers feeling 
for the straps that held Saraneth. 
“Let me help,” said Touchstone. He stood 
close, fumbling with the stiff leather, hands 
weakened by the effort spent on the diamond of 
protection, his head bowed over the bells. 
Sabriel looked down on his hair, and was 
strangely tempted to kiss the exact center, a tiny 
part marking the epicenter where his tight 
brown curls radiated outwards. But she didn’t. 
The strap came undone, and Touchstone 
345 
stepped back. Sabriel drew Saraneth, carefully 
stilling the bell. 
“It probably won’t be a long wait for you,” she 
said. “Time moves strangely in Death. If . . . if I’m 
not back in two hours, then I probably . . . I’ll 
probably be trapped too, so you and Mogget 
should leave . . .” 
“I’ll be waiting,” replied Touchstone firmly. 
“Who knows what time it is down here anyway?” 
“And I’ll wait, it seems,” added Mogget. 
“Unless I want to swim out of here. Which I 
don’t. May the Charter be with you, Sabriel.” 
“And with you,” said Sabriel. She looked 
around the dark expanse of the reservoir. She 
still couldn’t sense any of the Dead out there— 
and yet . . . 
“We’ll need it to be with us,” Mogget replied 
sourly. “One way or another.” 
“I hope not,” whispered Sabriel. She checked 
the pouch at her belt for the small things she’d 
prepared back at the Sign of Three Lemons, then 
turned to face the North mark and started to 
raise her sword, beginning her preparations to 
enter Death. 
Suddenly, Touchstone sloshed forward and 
quickly kissed her on the cheek—a clumsy, 

346 
dry-lipped peck that almost hit the rim of her 
helmet rather than her cheek. 
“For luck,” Touchstone said nervously. 
“Sabriel.” 
She smiled, and nodded twice, then looked 
back to the north. Her eyes focused on something 
not there and waves of cold air billowed 
from her motionless form. A second later, ice 
crystals began to crack out of her hair, and frost 
ran in lines down the sword and bell. 
Touchstone watched, close by, till it grew too 
cold, then he retreated to the far southern vertice 
of the diamond. Drawing one sword, he turned 
outwards, holding his candle high, and started 
to wade around inside the lines of Charter-fire as 
if he were patrolling the battlements of a castle. 
Mogget watched too, from his shoulder, his 
green eyes lit with their own internal luminescence. 
Both of them often turned to gaze at 
Sabriel. 
The crossing into Death was made easy—far 
too easy—by the presence of the broken stones. 
Sabriel felt them near her, like two yawning 
gates, proclaiming easy entry to Life for any 
347 
348 
Dead nearby. Fortunately, the other effect of 
the stones—the sickening illness—disappeared 
in Death. There was only the chill and tug of the 
river. 
Sabriel started forward immediately, carefully 
scanning the grey expanse before her. Things 
moved at the edge of her vision; she heard 
movement in the cold waters. But nothing came 
towards her, nothing attacked, save the constant 
twining and gripping of the current. 
She came to the First Gate, halting just beyond 
the wall of mist that stretched out as far as she 
could see to either side. The river roared beyond 
that mist, turbulent rapids going through to 
the Second Precinct, and on to the Second Gate. 
Remembering pages from The Book of the 
Dead, Sabriel spoke words of power. Free Magic, 

that shook her mouth as she spoke, jarring 
her teeth, burning her tongue with raw power. 
The veil of mist parted, revealing a series of 
waterfalls that appeared to drop into an unending 
blackness. Sabriel spoke some more words, 
and gestured to the right and left with her sword. 
A path appeared, parting the waterfall like a finger 
drawn through butter. Sabriel stepped out 
onto it, and walked down, the waters crashing 
harmlessly on either side. Behind her, the mist 
closed up and, as her rearmost heel lifted to 
make her next step, the path disappeared. 
The Second Precinct was more dangerous than 
the First. There were deep holes, as well as the 
ever-present current. The light was worse too. 
Not the total darkness promised at the end of 
the waterfalls, but there was a different quality 
in its greyness. A blurring effect, that made it difficult 
to see further than you could touch. 
Sabriel continued carefully, using her sword 
to probe the ground ahead. There was an easy 
way through, she knew, a course mapped and 
plotted by many necromancers and not a few 
Abhorsens, but she didn’t trust her memory to 
tread confidently ahead at speed. 
Always, her senses quested for her father’s 
spirit. He was somewhere in Death, she was positive 
of that. There was always the faintest trace 
of him, a lingering memory. But it was not this 
close to Life. She would have to go on. 
The Second Gate was essentially an enormous 
hole, at least two hundred yards across, into 
which the river sank like sinkwater down a 
drain. Unlike a normal drain, it was eerily silent, 
and with the difficult light, easy for the unwary 
349 
to walk up to its rim. Sabriel was always particularly 
careful with this Gate—she had learned to 
sense the feel of its tug against her shins at an 
early age. She stopped well back when the tug 
came, and tried to focus on the silently raging 
whirlpool. 
A faint squelching sound behind her made her 
turn, sword scything around at full arm-stretch, 

a great circle of Charter-spelled steel. It struck 
Dead spirit-flesh, sparks flying, a scream of rage 
and pain filling the silence. Sabriel almost 
jumped back, at that scream, but she held her 
ground. The Second Gate was too close. 
The thing she’d hit stepped back, its head 
hanging from a mostly severed neck. It was 
humanoid in shape, at least to begin with, but 
had arms that trailed down below its knees, into 
the river. Its head, now flopping on one shoulder, 
was longer than it was wide or tall, possessed a 
mouth with several rows of teeth. It had flaming 
coals in its eyepits, a characteristic of the deep 
Dead, from beyond the Fifth Gate. 
It snarled and brought its long, skewer-thin 
fingers up out of the water to try and straighten 
its head, attempting to rest it back atop the 
cleanly hewn neck. 
350 
Sabriel struck again, and the head and one 
hand flew off, splashing into the river. They 
bobbed on the surface for a moment, the head 
howling, eyes flaming with hate across the 
water. Then it was sucked down, down into the 
hurly-burly of the Second Gate. 
The headless body stood where it was for a 
second, then started to cautiously step sideways, 
its remaining hand groping around in front of it. 
Sabriel watched it cautiously, debating whether 
to use Saraneth to bind it to her will, and then 
Kibeth to send it on its way to final death. But 
using the bells would alert everything Dead 
between here and the First and Third Gates at 
least—and she didn’t want that. 
The headless thing took another step, and fell 
sideways into a deep hole. It scrabbled there, long 
arms thrashing the water, but couldn’t pull itself 
up and out. It only succeeded in getting across 
into the full force of the current, which snatched 
it up and threw it into the whirlpool of the Gate. 
Once again, Sabriel recited words of Free Magic 
power, words impressed into her mind long ago 
from The Book of the Dead. The words flowed 
out of her, blistering her lips, strange heat in this 

place of leeching cold. 
351 
With the words, the waters of the Second Gate 
slowed and stilled. The whirling vortex separated 
out into a long spiral path, winding downwards. 
Sabriel, checking for a few last holes near the 
edge, gingerly strode out to this path and started 
down. Behind and above her, the waters began to 
swirl again. 
The spiral path looked long, but to Sabriel it 
seemed only a matter of minutes before she was 
passing through the very base of the whirlpool, 
and out into the Third Precinct. 
This was a tricksome place. The water was 
shallow here, only ankle-deep, and somewhat 
warmer. The light was better too—still grey, but 
you could see farther out. Even the ubiquitous 
current was no more than a bit of a tickle 
around the feet. 
But the Third Precinct had waves. For the first 
time, Sabriel broke into a run, sprinting as fast 
as she could towards the Third Gate, just visible 
in the distance. It was like the First Gate—a 
waterfall concealed in a wall of mist. 
Behind her, Sabriel heard the thunderous 
crashing that announced the wave, which had 
been held back by the same spell that gave her 
passage through the whirlpool. With the wave 
352 
came shrill cries, shrieks and screams. There 
were clearly many Dead around, but Sabriel 
didn’t spare them a thought. Nothing and no 
one could withstand the waves of the Third 
Precinct. You simply ran as fast as possible, 
hoping to reach the next gate—whichever way 
you were going. 
The thunder and crashing grew louder, and one 
by one the various screams and shouts were submerged 
in the greater sound. Sabriel didn’t look, 
but only ran faster. Looking over her shoulder 
would lose a fraction of a second, and that might 
be enough for the wave to reach her, pick her up 
and hurl her through the Third Gate, stunned 
flotsam for the current beyond . . . 

Touchstone stared out past the southern vertice, 
listening. He had heard something, he was sure, 
something besides the constant dripping. 
Something louder, something slow, attempting 
to be surreptitious. He knew Mogget had heard 
it too, from the sudden tensing of cat paws on 
his shoulder. 
“Can you see anything?” he whispered, peering 
out into the darkness. The clouds were still 
353 
blocking the light from the sun-shafts, though 
he thought the intervals of sunlight were growing 
longer. But, in any case, they were too far 
away from the edge to benefit from a sudden 
return of sun. 
“Yes,” whispered Mogget. “The Dead. Many 
of them, filing out of the main southern stair. 
They’re lining up each side of the door, along 
the reservoir walls.” 
Touchstone looked at Sabriel, now covered in 
frost, like a wintering statue. He felt like shaking 
her shoulder, screaming for help . . . 
“What kind of Dead are they?” he asked. He 
didn’t know much about the Dead, except that 
Shadow Hands were the worst of the normal 
variety, and Mordicants, like the one that had 
followed Sabriel, were the worst of them all. 
Except for what Rogir had become. Kerrigor, 
the Dead Adept . . . 
“Hands,” muttered Mogget. “All Hands, and 
pretty putrescent ones, too. They’re falling apart 
just walking.” 
Touchstone stared again, trying by sheer force 
of will to see—but there was nothing, save 
darkness. He could hear them, though, wading, 
squelching through the still water. Too still for 
354 
his liking—suddenly he wondered if the reservoir 
had a drainhole and a plug. Then he dismissed 
it as a foolish notion. Any such plug or 
drain cover would have long since rusted shut. 
“What are they doing?” he whispered anxiously, 
fingering his sword, tilting the blade this 
way and that. His left hand seemed to hold the 

candle steady, but the little flame flickered, clear 
evidence of the tiny shakes that ran down his 
arm. 
“Just lining up along the walls, in ranks,” 
Mogget whispered back. “Strange—almost like 
an honor guard . . .” 
“Charter preserve us,” Touchstone croaked, 
with a weight in his throat of absolute dread 
and terrible foreboding. “Rogir . . . Kerrigor. 
He must be here . . . and he’s coming . . .” 
355 
chapter xxii 
Sabriel reached the Third Gate 
just ahead of the wave, gabbling a Free Magic 
spell as she ran, feeling it fume up and out of 
her mouth, filling her nostrils with acrid fumes. 
The spell parted the mists, and Sabriel stepped 
within, the wave breaking harmlessly around 
her, dumping its cargo of Dead down into the 
waterfall beyond. Sabriel waited a moment 
more, for the path to appear, then passed on— 
on to the Fourth Precinct. 
This was a relatively easy area to traverse. The 
current was strong again, but predictable. There 
were few Dead, because most were stunned and 
rushed through by the Third Precinct’s wave. 
Sabriel walked quickly, using the strength of 
her will to suppress the leeching cold and the 
plucking hands of the current. She could feel her 
father’s spirit now, close by, as if he were in one 
room of a large house, and she in another— 
tracking him down by the slight sounds of habitation. 
He was either here in the Fourth Precinct, 
or past the Fourth Gate, in the Fifth Precinct. 
She increased her pace a little again, eager to 
find him, talk with him, free him. She knew 
everything would be all right once Father was 
freed . . . 
But he wasn’t in the Fourth Precinct. Sabriel 
reached the Fourth Gate without feeling any 
intensification of his presence. This gate was 
another waterfall, of sorts, but it wasn’t cloaked 

in mist. It looked like the easy drop of water 
from a small weir, a matter of only two or three 
feet down. But Sabriel knew that if you 
approached the edge there was more than 
enough force to drag the strongest spirit down. 
She halted well back, and was about to launch 
into the spell that would conjure her path, when 
a niggling sensation at the back of her head 
made her stop and look around. 
The waterfall stretched as far as she could see 
to either side, and Sabriel knew that if she was 
foolish enough to try and walk its length, it 
357 
would be an unending journey. Perhaps it eventually 
looped back on itself, but as there were 
no landmarks, stars or anything else to fix 
one’s position, you’d never know. No one ever 
walked the breadth of an inner precinct or gate. 
What would be the point? Everyone went into 
Death or out of it. Not sideways, save at the 
border with Life, where walking along altered 
where you came out—but that was only useful 
for spirit-forms, or rare beings like the 
Mordicant, who took their physical shape with 
them. 
Nevertheless, Sabriel felt an urge to walk along 
next to the Gate, to turn on her heel and follow 
the line of the waterfall. It was an unidentifiable 
urge, and that made her uneasy. There were 
other things in Death than the Dead—inexplicable 
beings of Free Magic, strange constructs and 
incomprehensible forces. This urge—this calling— 
might come from one of them. 
She hesitated, thinking about it, then pushed 
out into the water, heading out parallel to the 
waterfall. It might be some Free Magic summoning, 
or it might be some connection with her 
father’s spirit. 
358 
“They’re coming down the east and west stairs, 
too,” said Mogget. “More Hands.” 
“What about the south—where we came in?” 
asked Touchstone, looking nervously from side 
to side, ears straining to hear every sound, listening 

to the Dead wading out into the reservoir 
to form up in their strange, regimented lines. 
“Not yet,” replied Mogget. “That stair ends 
in sunlight, remember? They’d have to go 
through the park.” 
“There can’t be much sunlight,” muttered 
Touchstone, looking at the light-shafts. Some 
sunshine was coming through, heavily filtered by 
clouds, but it wasn’t enough to cause the Dead 
in the reservoir any distress, or lift Touchstone’s 
spirits. 
“When . . . when do you think he will come?” 
asked Touchstone. Mogget didn’t need to ask 
who “he” was. 
“Soon,” replied the cat, in a matter-of-fact tone. 
“I always said it was a trap.” 
“So how do we get out of it?” asked Touchstone, 
trying to keep his voice steady. He was 
inwardly fighting a strong desire to leave the diamond 
of protection and run for the southern stair, 
splashing through the reservoir like a runaway 
359 
horse, careless of the noise—but there was Sabriel, 
frosted over, immobile . . . 
“I’m not sure we can,” said Mogget, with a 
sideways glance at the two ice-rimmed statues 
nearby. “It depends on Sabriel and her father.” 
“What can we do?” 
“Defend ourselves if we’re attacked, I suppose,” 
drawled Mogget, as if stating the obvious to a tiresome 
child. “Hope. Pray to the Charter that 
Kerrigor doesn’t come before Sabriel returns.” 
“What if he does?” asked Touchstone, staring 
white-eyed out into the darkness. “What if he 
does?” 
But Mogget was silent. All Touchstone heard 
was the shuffling, wading, splashing of the Dead, 
as they slowly drew closer, like starving rats creeping 
up to a sleeping drunk’s dinner. 
Sabriel had no idea of how far she’d gone before 
she found him. That same niggling sensation 
prompted her to stop, to look out into the waterfall 
itself, and there he was. Abhorsen. Father. 
Somehow imprisoned within the Gate itself, so 

only his head was visible above the rush of the 
water. 
360 
“Father!” cried Sabriel, but she resisted the 
urge to rush forward. At first, she thought he 
was unaware of her, then a slight wink of one 
eye showed conscious perception. He winked 
again, and moved his eyeballs to the right, several 
times. 
Sabriel followed his gaze, and saw something 
tall and shadowy thrust up through the waterfall, 
arms reaching up to pull itself out of the 
gate. She stepped forward, sword and bell at the 
ready, then hesitated. It was a Dead humanoid, 
very similar in shape and size to the one who 
had brought the bells and sword to Wyverley 
College. She looked back at her father, and he 
winked again, the corner of his mouth curving 
up ever so slightly—almost a smile. 
She stepped back, still cautious. There was 
always the chance that the spirit chained in the 
waterfall was merely the mimic of her father, or, 
even if it was him, that he was under the sway of 
some power. 
The Dead creature finally hauled itself out, 
muscles differently arranged to a human’s visibly 
straining along the forearms. It stood on the rim 
for a moment, bulky head questing from side to 
side, then lumbered towards Sabriel with that 
361 
familiar rolling gait. Several paces away from 
her—out of sword’s reach—it stopped, and 
pointed at its mouth. Its jaw worked up and 
down, but no sound issued from its red and 
fleshy mouth. A black thread ran from its back, 
down into the rushing waters of the Gate. 
Sabriel thought for a moment, then replaced 
Saraneth, one-handed, and drew Dyrim. She 
cocked her wrist to ring the bell, hesitated—for 
to sound Dyrim would alert the Dead all 
around—then let it fall. Dyrim rang, sweet and 
clear, several notes sounding from that one peal, 
mixing together like many conversations overheard 
in a crowd. 

Sabriel rang the bell again before the echoes 
died, in a series of slight wrist-twitches, moving 
the sound out towards the Dead creature, weaving 
into the echoes of the first peal. Sound 
seemed to envelope the monster, circling around 
its head and muted mouth. 
The echoes faded. Sabriel replaced Dyrim 
quickly, before it could try and sound of its own 
accord, and drew Ranna. The Sleeper could quell 
a large number of Dead at once, and she feared 
many would come to the sound of the bells. 
They would probably expect to find a foolish, 
362 
half-trained necromancer, but even so, they 
would be dangerous. Ranna twitched in her 
hand, expectantly, like a child waking at her 
touch. 
The creature’s mouth moved again, and now it 
had a tongue, a horrid pulpy mess of white flesh 
that writhed like a slug. But it worked. The thing 
made several gurgling, swallowing sounds, then 
it spoke with the voice of Abhorsen. 
“Sabriel! I both hoped and feared you would 
come.” 
“Father . . .” Sabriel began, looking at his 
trapped spirit rather than the creature. 
“Father . . .” 
She broke down, and started to cry. She had 
come all this way, through so many troubles, 
only to find him trapped, trapped beyond her 
ability to free him. She hadn’t even known that 
it was possible to imprison someone within a 
Gate! 
“Sabriel! Hush, daughter! We have no time for 
tears. Where is your physical body?” 
“In the reservoir,” sniffed Sabriel. “Next to 
yours. Inside a diamond of protection.” 
“And the Dead? Kerrigor?” 
“There was no sign of them there, but 
363 
Kerrigor is somewhere in Life. I don’t know 
where.” 
“Yes, I knew he had emerged,” muttered 
Abhorsen, via the thing’s mouth. “He will be 

near the reservoir, I fear. We must move quickly. 
Sabriel, do you remember how to ring two bells 
simultaneously? Mosrael and Kibeth?” 
“Two bells?” asked Sabriel, puzzled. Waker 
and Walker? At the same time? She had never 
even heard it was possible—or had she? 
“Think,” said Abhorsen’s mouthpiece. “Remember. 
The Book of the Dead.” 
Slowly, it came back, pages floating down into 
conscious memory, like leaves from a shaken 
tree. The bells could be rung in pairs, or even 
greater combinations, if enough necromancers 
were gathered to wield the bells. But the risks 
were much greater . . . 
“Yes,” said Sabriel, slowly. “I remember. 
Mosrael and Kibeth. Will they free you?” 
The answer was slow in coming. 
“Yes. For a time. Enough, I hope, to do what 
must be done. Quickly, now.” 
Sabriel nodded, trying not to think about what 
he had just said. Subconsciously, she had always 
been aware that Abhorsen’s spirit had been too 
364 
long from his body, and too deep in the realm of 
Death. He could never truly live again. 
Consciously, she chose to barricade this knowledge 
from her mind. 
She sheathed her sword, replaced Ranna, and 
drew Mosrael and Kibeth. Dangerous bells, 
both, and more so in combination than alone. 
She stilled her mind, emptying herself of all 
thought and emotion, concentrating solely on 
the bells. Then, she rang them. 
Mosrael she swung in a three-quarter circle 
above her head; Kibeth she swung in a reverse 
figure eight. Harsh alarm joined with dancing 
jig, merging into a discordant, grating, but energetic 
tone. Sabriel found herself walking 
towards the waterfall, despite all her efforts to 
keep still. A force like the grip of a demented 
giant moved her legs, bent her knees, made her 
step forward. 
At the same time, her father was emerging 
from the waterfall of the Fourth Gate. His head 

was freed first, and he flexed his neck, then 
rolled his shoulders, raised his arms over his 
head and stretched. But still Sabriel stepped on, 
till she was only two paces from the rim, and 
could look down into the swirling waters, the 
365 
366 
sound of the bells filling her ears, forcing her 
onwards. 
Then Abhorsen was free, and he leapt forward, 
thrusting his hands into the bell-mouths, gripping 
the clappers with his pallid hands, making 
them suddenly quiet. There was silence, and 
father and daughter embraced on the very brink 
of the Fourth Gate. 
“Well done,” said Abhorsen, his voice deep 
and familiar, lending comfort and warmth like 
a favorite childhood toy. “Once trapped, it was 
all I could do to send the bells and sword. Now 
I am afraid we must hurry, back to Life, before 
Kerrigor can complete his plan. Give me 
Saraneth, for now . . . no, you keep the sword, 
and Ranna, I think. Come on!” 
He led the way back, walking swiftly. Sabriel 
followed at his heels, questions bursting up in 
her. She kept looking at him, looking at the 
familiar features, the way his hair was ragged at 
the back, the silver stubble just showing on his 
chin and sideburns. He wore the same sort of 
clothes as she did, complete with the surcoat 
of silver keys. He wasn’t quite as tall as she 
remembered. 
“Father!” she exclaimed, trying to talk, keep 
up with him and keep watch, all at the same 
time. “What is happening? What is Kerrigor’s 
plan? I don’t understand. Why wasn’t I brought 
up here, so I would know things?” 
“Here?” asked Abhorsen, without slowing. 
“In Death?” 
“You know what I mean,” protested Sabriel. 
“The Old Kingdom! Why did . . . I mean, I 
must be the only Abhorsen ever who doesn’t 
have a clue about how everything works! Why! 
Why?” 

“There’s no simple answer,” replied Abhorsen, 
over his shoulder. “But I sent you to Ancelstierre 
for two main reasons. One was to keep you 
safe. I had already lost your mother, and the 
only way to keep you safe in the Old Kingdom 
was to keep you either with me or always at our 
House—practically a prisoner. I couldn’t keep 
you with me, because things were getting worse 
and worse since the death of the Regent, two 
years before you were born. The second reason 
was because the Clayr advised me to do so. 
They said we needed someone—or will need 
someone—they’re not good with time—who 
knows Ancelstierre. I didn’t know why then, 
but I suspect I do now.” 
367 
“Why?” asked Sabriel. 
“Kerrigor’s body,” replied Abhorsen. “Or 
Rogir’s, to give him his original name. He could 
never be made truly dead because his body is preserved 
by Free Magic, somewhere in Life. It’s like 
an anchor that always brings him back. Every 
Abhorsen since the breaking of the Great Stones 
has been looking for that body—but none of us 
ever found it, including me, because we never suspected 
it is in Ancelstierre. Obviously, somewhere 
close to the Wall. The Clayr will have located it 
by now, because Kerrigor must have gone to it 
when he emerged into Life. Right, do you want to 
do the spell, or shall I?” 
They had reached the Third Gate. He didn’t 
wait for her answer, but immediately spoke the 
words. Sabriel felt strange hearing them, rather 
than speaking them—curiously distant, like a 
far-off observer. 
Steps rose before them, cutting through the 
waterfall and the mist. Abhorsen took them two 
at a time, showing surprising energy. Sabriel followed 
as best she could. She felt tiredness in 
her bones now, a weariness beyond exhausted 
muscles. 
“Ready to run?” asked Abhorsen. He took her 
368 
elbow as they left the steps and went into the 

parted mists, a curiously formal gesture that 
reminded her of when she was a little girl, 
demanding to be properly escorted when they 
took a picnic basket out on one of her father’s 
corporeal school visitations. 
They ran before the wave, with hands inside 
the bells, faster and faster, till Sabriel thought 
her legs would seize up and she’d tumble head 
over heels, around and around and around, 
finally clattering to a halt in a tangle of sword 
and bells. 
But she made it somehow, Abhorsen chanting 
the spell that would open the base of the Second 
Gate, so they could ascend through the 
whirlpool. 
“As I was saying,” Abhorsen continued, taking 
these steps two at a time as well, speaking as 
swiftly as he climbed. “Kerrigor could never be 
properly dealt with till an Abhorsen found the 
body. All of us pushed him back at various 
times, as far back as the Seventh Gate, but that 
was merely postponing the problem. He grew 
stronger all the time, as lesser Charter Stones 
were broken, and the Kingdom deteriorated— 
and we grew weaker.” 
369 
“Who’s we?” asked Sabriel. All this information 
was coming too quickly, particularly when given 
at the run. 
“The Great Charter bloodlines,” replied 
Abhorsen. “Which to all intents and purposes 
means Abhorsens and the Clayr, since the royal 
line is all but extinct. And there is, of course, the 
relict of the Wallmakers, a sort of construct left 
over after they put their powers in the Wall and 
the Great Stones.” 
He left the rim of the whirlpool, and strode 
confidently out into the Second Precinct, Sabriel 
close at his heels. Unlike her earlier halting, 
probing advance, Abhorsen practically jogged 
along, obviously following a familiar route. 
How he could tell, without landmarks or any 
obvious signs, Sabriel had no idea. Perhaps, 
when she had spent thirty-odd years traversing 

Death, she would find it as easy. 
“So,” continued Abhorsen. “We finally have 
the chance to finish Kerrigor once and for all. 
The Clayr will direct you to his body, you will 
destroy it, and then banish Kerrigor’s spirit 
form—which will be severely weakened. After 
that, you can get the surviving royal prince out of 
his suspended state, and with the aid of the 
370 
Wallmaker relict, repair the Great Charter 
Stones . . .” 
“The surviving royal prince,” asked Sabriel, 
with a feeling of unlooked-for knowledge rising 
in her. “He wasn’t . . . ah . . . suspended as a 
figurehead in Holehallow, was he . . . and his 
spirit in Death?” 
“A bastard son, actually, and possibly crazy,” 
Abhorsen said, without really listening. “But he 
has the blood. What? Oh, yes, yes he is . . . you 
said was . . . you mean—” 
“Yes,” said Sabriel, unhappily. “He calls himself 
Touchstone. And he’s waiting in the reservoir. 
Near the Stones. With Mogget.” 
Abhorsen paused for the first time, clearly 
taken aback. 
“All our plans go astray, it seems,” he said 
somberly, sighing. “Kerrigor lured me to the 
reservoir to use my blood to break a Great 
Stone, but I managed to protect myself, so he 
contented himself with trapping me in Death. 
He thought you would be lured to my body, and 
he could use your blood—but I was not trapped 
as securely as he thought, and planned a reverse. 
But now, if the Prince is there, he has another 
source of blood to break the Great Charter—” 
371 
“He’s in the diamond of protection,” Sabriel 
said, suddenly feeling afraid for Touchstone. 
“That may not suffice,” replied Abhorsen 
grimly. “Kerrigor grows stronger every day he 
spends in Life, taking the strength from living 
folk, and feeding off the broken Stones. He will 
soon be able to break even the strongest Charter 
Magic defenses. He may be strong enough now. 

But tell me of the Prince’s companion. Who is 
Mogget?” 
“Mogget?” repeated Sabriel, surprised again. 
“But I met him at our House! He’s a Free 
Magic—something—wearing the shape of a 
white cat, with a red collar that carries a miniature 
Saraneth.” 
“Mogget,” said Abhorsen, as if trying to get his 
mouth around an unpalatable morsel. “That is 
the Wallmaker relict, or their last creation, or their 
child—no one knows, possibly not even him. I 
wonder why he took the shape of a cat? He was 
always a sort of albino dwarf-boy to me, and he 
practically never left the House. I suppose he may 
be some sort of protection for the Prince. We must 
hurry.” 
“I thought we were!” snapped Sabriel, as he 
started off again. She didn’t mean to be bad- 
372 
tempered, but this was not her idea of a heartfelt 
reunion between father and daughter. He hardly 
seemed to notice her, except as a repository for 
numerous revelations and as an agent to deal with 
Kerrigor. 
Abhorsen suddenly stopped, and gathered her 
into a quick, one-armed embrace. His grip felt 
strong, but Sabriel felt another reality there, as if 
his arm was a shadow, temporarily born of light, 
but doomed to fade at nightfall. 
“I have not been an ideal parent, I know,” 
Abhorsen said quietly. “None of us ever are. 
When we become the Abhorsen, we lose much 
else. Responsibility to many people rides roughshod 
over personal responsibilities; difficulties 
and enemies crush out softness; our horizons 
narrow. You are my daughter, and I have always 
loved you. But now, I live again for only a short 
time—a hundred hundred heartbeats, no more— 
and I must win a battle against a terrible enemy. 
Our parts now—which perforce we must play— 
are not father and daughter, but one old 
Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind 
this, there is always my love.” 
“A hundred hundred heartbeats . . .” whispered 

Sabriel, tears falling down her face. She 
373 
gently pushed herself out of his embrace, and 
they started forward together, towards the First 
Gate, the First Precinct, Life—and then, the 
reservoir. 
374 
chapter xxiii 
Touchstone could see the Dead 
now, and had no difficulty hearing them. They 
were chanting and clapping, decayed hands 
meeting together in a steady, slow rhythm that 
put all the hair on the back of his head on edge. 
A ghastly noise, hard sounds of bone on bone, 
or the liquid thumpings of decomposed, jellying 
flesh. The chanting was even worse, for 
very few of them had functioning mouths. 
Touchstone had never seen or heard a shipwreck— 
now he knew the sound of a thousand 
sailors drowning, all at once, in a quiet sea. 
The lines of the Dead had marched out close to 
where Touchstone stood, forming a great mass 
of shifting shadow, spread like a choking fungus 
around the columns. Touchstone couldn’t make 
out what they were doing, till Mogget, with his 
night-sight, explained. 
“They’re forming up into two lines, to make 
a corridor,” the little cat whispered, though the 
need for silence was long gone. “A corridor of 
Dead Hands, reaching from the northern stair to 
us.” 
“Can you see the doorway of the stair?” 
Touchstone asked. He was no longer afraid, now 
he could see and smell the putrescent, stinking 
corpses lined up in mockery of a parade. I should 
have died in this reservoir long ago, he thought. 
There has just been a delay of two hundred 
years . . . 
“Yes, I can,” continued Mogget, his eyes green 
with sparkling fire. “A tall beast has come, its 
flesh boiling with dirty flames. A Mordicant. It’s 
crouching in the water, looking back and up like 

a dog to its master. Fog is rolling down the stairs 
behind it—a Free Magic trick, that one. I wonder 
why he has such an urge to impress?” 
“Rogir always was flamboyant,” Touchstone 
stated, as if he might be commenting on someone 
at a dinner party. “He liked everyone to be 
looking at him. He’s no different as Kerrigor, no 
different Dead.” 
376 
“Oh, but he is,” said Mogget. “Very different. 
He knows you’re here, and the fog’s for vanity. 
He must have been terribly rushed making the 
body he wears now. A vain man—even a Dead 
one—would not like this body looked at.” 
Touchstone swallowed, trying not to think 
about that. He wondered if he could charge out 
of the diamond, flèche with his swords into that 
fog, a mad attack—but even if he got there, 
would his swords, Charter-spelled though they 
were, have any effect on the magical flesh 
Kerrigor now wore? 
Something moved in the water, at the limits of 
his vision, and the Hands increased the tempo of 
their drumming, the frenzied gurgle-chanting rising 
in volume. 
Touchstone squinted, confirming what he 
thought he’d seen—tendrils of fog, lazily drifting 
across the water between the lines of the Dead, 
keeping to the corridor they’d made. 
“He’s playing with us,” gasped Touchstone, surprised 
by his own lack of breath for speech. He felt 
like he’d already sprinted a mile, his heart going 
thump-thump-thump-thump . . . 
A terrible howl suddenly rose above the Dead 
drumming, and Touchstone leapt back, nearly 
377 
dislodging Mogget. The howl rose and rose, 
becoming unbearable, and then a huge shape 
broke out of the fog and darkness, stampeding 
towards them with fearful power, great swaths 
of spray exploding around it as it ran. 
Touchstone shouted, or screamed—he wasn’t 
sure—threw away his candle, drew his left 
sword and thrust both blades out, crouching to 

receive the charge, knees so bent he was chestdeep 
in the water. 
“The Mordicant!” yelled Mogget, then he was 
gone, leaping from Touchstone to the still-frosted 
Sabriel. 
Touchstone barely had time to absorb this 
information, and a split-second image of something 
like an enormous, flame-shrouded bear, 
howling like the final scream of a sacrifice—then 
the Mordicant collided with the diamond of protection, 
and Touchstone’s out-thrust swords. 
Silver sparks exploded with a bang that 
drowned the howling, throwing both Touchstone 
and the Mordicant back several yards. Touchstone 
lost his footing, and went under, water 
bubbling into his nose and still-screaming mouth. 
He panicked, thinking the Mordicant would be 
on him in a second, and flipped himself back up 
378 
with unnecessary force, savagely ripping his 
stomach muscles. 
He almost flew out of the water, swords at 
guard again, but the diamond was intact, and the 
Mordicant retreating, backing away along the 
corridor of Hands. They’d stopped their noise, 
but there was something else—something 
Touchstone didn’t recognize, till the water 
drained out of his ears. 
It was laughter, laughter echoing out of the 
fog, which now billowed across the water, 
coming closer and closer, till the retreating 
Mordicant was enveloped in it, and lost to 
sight. 
“Did my hound scare you, little brother?” said 
a voice from within the fog. 
“Ow!” exclaimed Sabriel, feeling Mogget’s claws 
on her physical body. Abhorsen looked at her, 
raising one silvery eyebrow questioningly. 
“Something touched my body in Life,” she 
explained. “Mogget, I think. I wonder what’s 
happening?” 
They stood at the very edge of Death, on the 
border with Life. No Dead had tried to stop them, 
379 

and they’d passed easily through the First Gate. 
Perhaps any Dead would quail from the sight of 
two Abhorsens . . . 
Now they waited. Sabriel didn’t know why. 
Somehow, Abhorsen seemed to be able to see into 
Life, or to work out what was happening. He 
stood like an eavesdropper, body slightly bent, ear 
cocked to a non-existent door. 
Sabriel, on the other hand, stood like a soldier, 
keeping watch for the Dead. The broken 
stones made this part of Death an attractive 
high road into Life, and she had expected to 
find many Dead here, trying to take advantage 
of the “hole.” But it was not so. They seemed 
to be alone in the grey, featureless river, their 
only neighbors the swells and eddies of the 
water. 
Abhorsen closed his eyes, concentrating even 
harder, then opened them to a wide-eyed stare 
and touched Sabriel lightly on the arm. 
“It is almost time,” he said gently. “When we 
emerge, I want you to take . . . Touchstone . . . 
and run for the southern stairs. Do not stop for 
anything, anything at all. Once outside, climb up 
to the top of the Palace Hill, to the West Yard. 
It’s just an empty field now—Touchstone will 
380 
381 
know how to get there. If the Clayr are watching 
properly, and haven’t got their whens mixed 
up, there’ll be a Paperwing there—” 
“A Paperwing!” interrupted Sabriel. “But I 
crashed it.” 
“There are several around,” replied Abhorsen. 
“The Abhorsen who made it—the forty-sixth, I 
think—taught several others how to construct 
them. Anyway, it should be there. The Clayr will 
also be there, or a messenger, to tell you where 
to find Kerrigor’s body in Ancelstierre. Fly as 
close to the Wall as possible, cross, find the 
body—and destroy it!” 
“What will you be doing?” whispered Sabriel. 
“Here is Saraneth,” replied Abhorsen, not 
meeting her gaze. “Give me your sword, and . . . 

Astarael.” 
The seventh bell. Astarael the Sorrowful. 
Weeper. 
Sabriel didn’t move, made no motion to hand 
over bell or blade. Abhorsen pushed Saraneth 
into its pouch, and did up the strap. He started 
to undo the strap that held Astarael, but Sabriel’s 
hand closed on his, gripping it tightly. 
“There must be another way,” she cried. “We 
can all escape together—” 
“No,” said Abhorsen firmly. He gently pushed 
her hand away. Sabriel let go, and he took 
Astarael carefully from the bandolier, making 
sure it couldn’t sound. “Does the walker choose 
the path, or the path the walker?” 
Numbly, Sabriel handed him her sword . . . his 
sword. Her empty hands hung open by her sides. 
“I have walked in Death to the very precipice of 
the Ninth Gate,” Abhorsen said quietly. “I know 
the secrets and horrors of the Nine Precincts. I do 
not know what lies beyond, but everything that 
lives must go there, in the proper time. That is 
the rule that governs our work as the Abhorsen, 
but it also governs us. You are the fifty-third 
Abhorsen, Sabriel. I have not taught you as well 
as I should—let this be my final lesson. Everyone 
and everything has a time to die.” 
He bent forward, and kissed her forehead, just 
under the rim of her helmet. For a moment, she 
stood like a stringed puppet at rest, then she flung 
herself against his chest, feeling the soft fabric of 
his surcoat. She seemed to diminish in size, till 
once again she was a little girl, running to his 
embrace at the school gates. As she could then, 
she heard the slow beating of his heart. Only 
now, she heard the beats as grains in a time- 
382 
piece, counting his hard-won hundred hundreds, 
counting till it was time for him to die. 
She hugged him tightly, her arms meeting 
around his back, his arms outstretched like a 
cross, sword in one hand, bell in the other. Then, 
she let go. 
They turned together, and plunged out into 

Life. 
Kerrigor laughed again, an obscene cackle that 
rose to a manic crescendo, before suddenly cutting 
to an ominous silence. The Dead resumed 
their drumming, softer now, and the fog drifted 
forward with horrible certainty. Touchstone, 
drenched and partly drowned, watched it with 
the taut nerves of a mouse captivated by a gliding 
snake. Somewhere in the back of his mind, 
he noted that it was easier to see the whiteness 
of the fog. Up above, the clouds had gone, and 
the edges of the reservoir were once again lit by 
filtered sunlight. But they were forty paces or 
more from the edge . . . 
A cracking noise behind him made him start, 
and turn, a jolt of fear suddenly overlaid with 
relief. Sabriel, and her father, were returning 
383 
to Life! Ice flakes fell from them in miniature 
flurries, and the layer of ice around Abhorsen’s 
middle broke into several small floes and drifted 
away. 
Touchstone blinked as the frost fell away from 
their hands and faces. Now Sabriel was emptyhanded, 
and Abhorsen wielded the sword and 
bell. 
“Thank the Charter!” exclaimed Touchstone, 
as they opened their eyes and moved. 
But no one heard him, for in that instant a terrible 
scream of rage and fury burst out of the 
fog, so loud the columns shivered, and ripples 
burst out across the water. 
Touchstone turned again, and the fog was flying 
away in shreds, revealing the Mordicant 
crouched low, only its eyes and long mouth, bubbling 
with oily flames, visible above the water. 
Behind it, with one elongated hand upon its bogclay 
head, stood something that might be 
thought of as a man. 
Staring, Touchstone saw that Kerrigor had 
tried to make the body he currently inhabited 
look like the Rogir of old, but either his skills, 
memory or taste were sadly lacking. Kerrigor 
stood at least seven feet tall, his body impossibly 

384 
deep-chested and narrow-waisted. His head was 
too thin, and too long, and his mouth spread 
from ear to ear. His eyes did not bear looking at, 
for they were thin slits burning with Free Magic 
fires—not eyes at all. 
But somehow, even so warped, he did have a 
little of the look of Rogir. Take a man, make him 
malleable, stretch and twist . . . 
The hideous mouth opened, yawning wider 
and wider, then Kerrigor laughed, a short laugh, 
punctuated by the snap of his closing jaws. 
Then he spoke, and his voice was as warped 
and twisted as his body. 
“I am fortunate. Three bearers of blood— 
blood for the breaking! Three!” 
Touchstone kept staring, hearing Kerrigor’s 
voice, still somewhat like Rogir’s, rich but rotten, 
wet like worm-ridden fruit. He saw both 
the new, twisted Kerrigor and the other, betterfashioned 
body he’d known as Rogir. He saw the 
dagger again, slashing across the Queen’s throat, 
the blood cascading out, the golden cup . . . 
A hand grabbed him, turned him around, took 
his left sword from his grasp. He suddenly refocused, 
gasping for air again, and saw Sabriel. 
She had his left sword in her right hand, and 
385 
now took his open palm in her left, dragging him 
towards the south. He let her pull, following in a 
splashing, loose-limbed run. Everything seemed 
to close in then, his vision narrowing, like a halfremembered 
dream. 
He saw Sabriel’s father—the Abhorsen—for the 
first time devoid of frost. He looked hard, determined, 
but he smiled, and bowed his head a fraction 
as they passed. Touchstone wondered why he 
was going the wrong way . . . towards Kerrigor, 
towards the dagger and the catching cup. Mogget 
was on his shoulder too, and that was unlike 
Mogget, going into danger . . . there was something 
else peculiar about Mogget too . . . yes, his 
collar was gone . . . maybe he should turn and go 
back, put Mogget’s collar back on, try and fight 

Kerrigor . . . 
“Run! Damn you! Run!” screamed Sabriel, as 
he half-turned. Her voice snapped him out of 
whatever trance he’d been in. Nausea hit, for 
they’d left the diamond of protection. Unwarned, 
he threw up immediately, turning his head as they 
ran. He realized he was dragging on Sabriel’s 
hand, and forced himself to run faster, though 
his legs felt dead, numbed by savage pins and 
needles. He could hear the Dead again now, 
386 
chanting, and drumming, drumming fast. There 
were voices too, raised loud, echoing in the vast 
cavern. The howl of the Mordicant, and a 
strange buzzing, crackling sound that he felt 
rather than heard. 
They reached the southern stair, but Sabriel 
didn’t slacken her pace, jumping up and off, out 
of the twilight of the reservoir into total darkness. 
Touchstone lost her hand, then found it 
again, and they stumbled up the steps together, 
swords held dangerously ahead and behind, 
striking sparks from the stone. Still they heard 
the tumult from behind, the howling, drumming, 
shouting, all magnified by the water and the 
vastness of the reservoir. Then another sound 
began, cutting through the noise with the clarity 
of perfection. 
It started softly, like a tuning fork lightly 
struck, but grew, a pure note, blown by a trumpeter 
of inexhaustible breath, till there was nothing 
but the sound. The sound of Astarael. 
Sabriel and Touchstone both stopped, almost 
in mid-stride. They felt a terrible urge to leave 
their bodies, to shuck them off as so much 
worn-out baggage. Their spirits—their essential 
selves—wanted to go, to go into Death and 
387 
plunge joyfully into the strongest current, to be 
carried to the very end. 
“Think of Life!” screamed Sabriel, her voice 
only just audible through the pure note. She 
could feel Touchstone dying, his will insufficient 
to hold him in Life. He seemed almost to expect 

this sudden summons into Death. 
“Fight it!” she screamed again, dropping her 
sword to slap him across the face. “Live!” 
Still he slipped away. Desperate, she grabbed 
him by the ears, and kissed him savagely, biting 
his lip, the salty blood filling both their 
mouths. His eyes cleared, and she felt him concentrate 
again, concentrate on Life, on living. 
His sword fell, and he brought his arms up 
around her and returned her kiss. Then he put 
his head on her shoulder, and she on his, and 
they held each other tightly till the single note 
of Astarael slowly died. 
Silence came at last. Gingerly, they let each 
other go. Touchstone shakily groped around for 
his sword, but Sabriel lit a candle before he could 
cut his fingers in the dark. They looked at each 
other in the flickering light. Sabriel’s eyes were 
wet, Touchstone’s mouth bloody. 
“What was that?” Touchstone asked huskily. 
388 
“Astarael,” replied Sabriel. “The final bell. It 
calls everyone who hears it into Death.” 
“Kerrigor . . .” 
“He’ll come back,” whispered Sabriel. “He’ll 
always come back, till his real body’s 
destroyed.” 
“Your father?” Touchstone mumbled. “Mogget?” 
“Dad’s dead,” said Sabriel. Her face was composed, 
but her eyes overflowed into tears. “He’ll 
go quickly beyond the Final Gate. Mogget—I 
don’t know.” 
She fingered the silver ring on her hand, 
frowned, and bent to pick up the sword she’d 
taken from Touchstone. 
“Come on,” she ordered. “We have to get up 
to the West Yard. Quickly.” 
“The West Yard?” asked Touchstone, retrieving 
his own sword. He was confused and sick, 
but he forced himself up. “Of the Palace?” 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “Let’s go.” 
389 
chapter xxiv 

The sunshine was harsh to their 
eyes, for it was surprisingly only a little past 
noon. They stumbled out onto the marble steps 
of the cave, blinking like nocturnal animals 
prematurely flushed out of an underground 
warren. 
Sabriel looked around at the quiet, sunlit trees, 
the placid expanse of grass, the clogged fountain. 
Everything seemed so normal, so far removed 
from the crazed and twisted chamber of horrors 
that was the reservoir, deep beneath their feet. 
She looked at the sky, too, losing focus in the 
blue, retreating lines of clouds just edging 
about the fuzzy periphery of her vision. My 
father is dead, she thought. Gone forever . . . 
“The road winds around the south-western 
part of Palace Hill,” a voice said, somewhere 
near her, beyond the blueness. 
“What?” 
“The road. Up to the West Yard.” 
It was Touchstone talking. Sabriel closed her 
eyes, told herself to concentrate, to get a grip on 
the here and now. She opened her eyes and 
looked at Touchstone. 
He was a mess. Face blood-streaked from his 
bleeding lip, hair wet, plastered flat, armor and 
clothes darkly sodden. Water dripped down the 
sword he still held out, angled to the ground. 
“You didn’t tell me you were a Prince,” Sabriel 
said, in a conversational tone. She might have 
been commenting on the weather. Her voice 
sounded strange in her own ears, but she didn’t 
have the energy to do anything about it. 
“I’m not,” Touchstone replied, shrugging. He 
looked up at the sky while he spoke. “The Queen 
was my mother, but my father was an obscure 
northern noble, who ‘took up with her’ a few 
years after her consort’s death. He was killed in a 
hunting accident before I was born . . . Look, 
shouldn’t we be going? To the West Yard?” 
“I suppose so,” Sabriel said dully. “Father said 
there will be a Paperwing waiting for us there, 
391 

and the Clayr, to tell us where to go.” 
“I see,” said Touchstone. He came closer, and 
peered at Sabriel’s vacant eyes, then took her 
unresisting and oddly floppy arm, and steered 
her towards the line of beech trees that marked a 
path to the western end of the park. Sabriel 
walked obediently, increasing her pace as 
Touchstone sped up, till they were practically 
jogging. Touchstone was pushing on her arm, 
with many backward glances; Sabriel moving 
with a sleepwalker’s jerky animation. 
A few hundred yards from the ornamental 
caves, the beeches gave way to more lawn, and a 
road started up the side of Palace Hill, switchbacking 
twice to the top. 
The road was well paved, but the flagstones 
had pushed up, or sunk down, over two decades 
without maintenance, and there were some quite 
deep ruts and holes. Sabriel caught her foot in 
one and she almost fell, Touchstone just catching 
her. But this small shock seemed to break her 
from the effects of the larger shock, and she 
found a new alertness cutting through her dumb 
despair. 
“Why are we running?” 
“Those scavengers are following us,” 
392 
Touchstone replied shortly, pointing back 
through the park. “The ones who had the children 
at the gate.” 
Sabriel looked where he pointed and, sure 
enough, there were figures slowly moving 
through the beech-lined path. All nine were 
there, close together, laughing and talking. 
They seemed confident Sabriel and Touchstone 
could not escape them, and their mood looked 
to be that of casual beaters, easily driving their 
stupid prey to a definite end. One of them saw 
Sabriel and Touchstone watching and used a 
gesture that distance made unclear, but was 
probably obscene. Laughter carried to them, 
borne by the breeze. The men’s intentions were 
clear. Hostile. 
“I wonder if they deal with the Dead,” 

Sabriel said bleakly, revulsion in those words. 
“To do their deeds when sunlight lends its aid 
to the living . . .” 
“They mean no good, anyway,” said Touchstone, 
as they set off again, building up from a 
fast walk to a jog. “They have bows and I bet 
they can shoot, unlike the villagers of Nestowe.” 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “I hope there is a 
Paperwing up there . . .” 
393 
She didn’t need to expand upon what would 
happen if it wasn’t. Neither of them were in any 
shape for fighting, or much Charter Magic, and 
nine bowmen could easily finish them off—or 
capture them. If the men were working for 
Kerrigor, it would be capture, and the knife, 
down in the dark of the reservoir . . . 
The road grew steeper, and they jogged in 
silence, breath coming fast and ragged, with 
none to spare for words. Touchstone coughed, 
and Sabriel looked at him with concern, till she 
realized she was coughing too. The shape they 
were in, it might not take an arrow to finish matters. 
The hill would do it anyway. 
“Not . . . much . . . further,” Touchstone 
gasped as they turned at the switchback, tired 
legs gaining a few seconds of relief on the flat, 
before starting the next incline. 
Sabriel started to laugh, a bitter, coughing 
laugh, because it was still a lot further. The laugh 
became a shocked cry as something struck her in 
the ribs like a sucker punch. She fell sideways, 
into Touchstone, carrying both of them down 
onto the hard flagstones. A long-shot arrow had 
found its mark. 
“Sabriel!” Touchstone shouted, voice high 
394 
with fear and anger. He shouted her name again, 
and then Sabriel suddenly felt Charter Magic 
explode into life within him. As it grew, he leapt 
up, and thrust his arms out and down towards 
the enemy, towards that over-gifted marksman. 
Eight small suns flowered at his fingertips, grew 
to the size of his clenched fists, and shot out, 

leaving white trails of after-image in the air. A 
split second later, a scream from below testified 
to their finding at least one target. 
Numbly, Sabriel wondered how Touchstone 
could possibly still have the strength for such a 
spell. Wonder became surprise as he suddenly 
bent and lifted her up, pack and all, cradling her 
in his arms—all in one easy motion. She 
screamed a little as the arrow shifted in her side, 
but Touchstone didn’t seem to notice. He threw 
his head back, roared out an animal-like challenge, 
and started to run up the road, gathering 
speed from an ungainly lurch to an inhuman 
sprint. Froth burst from his lips, blowing out 
over his chin and onto Sabriel. Every vein and 
muscle in his neck and face corded out, and his 
eyes went wild with unseeing energy. 
He was berserk, and nothing could stop 
him now, save total dismemberment. Sabriel 
395 
shivered in his grasp and turned her face into his 
chest, too disturbed to look on the savage, 
snorting face that bore so little resemblance to 
the Touchstone she knew. But at least he was 
running away from the enemy . . . 
On he ran, leaving the road, climbing over the 
tumbled stones of what had once been a gateway, 
hardly pausing, jumping from one rock to 
another with goat-like precision. His face was as 
bright red as a fire engine now, the pulse in his 
neck beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. 
Sabriel, forgetting her own wound in sudden fear 
that his heart would burst, started shouting at 
him, begging him to come out of the rage. 
“Touchstone! We’re safe! Put me down! Stop! 
Please, stop!” 
He didn’t hear her, his whole concentration 
bent on their path. Through the ruined gateway 
he ran, on along a walled path, nostrils wide, 
head darting from side to side like a scentfollowing 
hound. 
“Touchstone! Touchstone!” Sabriel sobbed, 
beating on his chest with her hands. “We’ve got 
away! I’m all right! Stop! Stop!” 

Still he ran, through another arch; along a 
raised way, the stones falling away under his 
396 
feet; down a short stair, jumping gaping holes. A 
closed door halted him for a moment, and 
Sabriel breathed a sigh of relief, but he kicked at 
it viciously, till the rotten wood collapsed and he 
could back through, carefully shielding Sabriel 
from splinters. 
Beyond the door was a large, open field, bordered 
by tumbledown walls. Tall weeds covered 
the expanse, with the occasional stunted, selfsown 
tree rising above them. Right at the western 
edge, perched where a wall had long since 
crumbled down the hill, there were two 
Paperwings, one facing south and the other 
north—and two people, indistinct silhouettes 
bordered with the flaming orange of the afternoon 
sun that was sinking down behind them. 
Touchstone broke into a gait that could only 
be described as a gallop, parting the weeds like a 
ship ploughing a sargasso sea. He ran right up to 
the two standing figures, gently placed Sabriel 
on the ground before them—and fell over, eyes 
rolling back to whiteness, limbs twitching. 
Sabriel tried to crawl over to him, but the pain 
in her side suddenly bit sharp and deadly, so it 
was all she could do to sit up and look at the two 
people, and beyond them, the Paperwings. 
397 
“Hello,” they said, in unison. “We are, for the 
moment, the Clayr. You must be the Abhorsen 
and the King.” 
Sabriel stared, dry-mouthed. The sun was in 
her eyes, making it hard for her to see them 
clearly. Young women, both, with long blond 
hair and bright, piercing blue eyes. They wore 
white linen dresses, with long, open sleeves. 
Freshly pressed dresses that made Sabriel feel 
extremely dirty and uncivilized, in her reservoirsoaked 
breeches and sweaty armor. Like their 
voices, their faces were identical. Very pretty. 
Twins. 
They smiled, and knelt down, one by Sabriel’s 

side, the other by Touchstone’s. Sabriel felt 
Charter Magic slowly welling up in them, like 
water rising in a spring—then it flowed into 
her, taking away the hurt and pain of the arrow. 
Next to her, Touchstone’s breath became less 
labored, and he sank into the easy quiet of 
sleep. 
“Thank you,” croaked Sabriel. She tried to 
smile, but seemed to have lost the knack of 
it. “There are slavers . . . human allies of the 
Dead . . . behind us.” 
“We know,” said the duo. “But they are ten 
398 
399 
minutes behind. Your friend—the King—ran 
very, very fast. We saw him run yesterday. Or 
tomorrow.” 
“Ah,” said Sabriel, laboriously pushing herself 
up onto her feet, thinking of her father and what 
he had said about the Clayr confusing their 
whens. Best to find out what she needed to know 
before things got really confusing. 
“Thank you,” she said again, for the arrow fell 
on the ground as she fully straightened up. It 
was a hunting arrow, narrow-headed, not an 
armor-punching bodkin. They had only meant 
to slow her down. She shivered, and felt the hole 
between the armor plates. The wound didn’t feel 
healed exactly—just older, as if it had struck a 
week ago, instead of minutes. 
“Father said you would be here . . . that you 
have been watching for us, and watching for 
where Kerrigor has his body.” 
“Yes,” replied the Clayr. “Well, not us exactly. 
We’ve only been allowed to be the Clayr today, 
because we’re the best Paperwing pilots . . .” 
“Or actually, Ryelle is . . .” one of the twins 
said, pointing at the other. “But since she would 
need a Paperwing to fly home in, two 
Paperwings were needed, so . . .” 
“Sanar came too,” Ryelle continued, pointing 
back at her sister. 
“Both of us,” they chorused. “Now, there isn’t 
much time. You can take the red and gold 

Paperwing . . . we painted it in the royal colors 
when we knew last week. But first, there’s 
Kerrigor’s body.” 
“Yes,” said Sabriel. Her father’s—her family’s— 
the Kingdom’s enemy. For her to deal with. Her 
burden, no matter how heavy, and how feeble 
her shoulders currently felt, she had to bear it. 
“His body is in Ancelstierre,” said the twins. 
“But our vision is weak across the Wall, so we 
don’t have a map, or know the place names. 
We’ll have to show you—and you’ll have to 
remember.” 
“Yes,” agreed Sabriel, feeling like a dull student 
promising to deal with a question quite 
beyond her. “Yes.” 
The Clayr nodded, and smiled again. Their 
teeth were very white and even. One, possibly 
Ryelle—Sabriel had already got them confused— 
brought a bottle made of clear green 
glass out from the flowing sleeve of her robe, the 
telltale flash of Charter Magic showing it hadn’t 
been there before. The other woman—Sanar— 
400 
produced a long ivory wand out of her sleeve. 
“Ready?” they asked each other simultaneously, 
and, “Yes,” before their question had even 
penetrated Sabriel’s tired brain. 
Ryelle unstoppered the bottle with a resonant 
“pop,” and in one quick motion, poured out the 
contents along a horizontal line. Sanar, equally 
quickly, drew the wand across the falling 
water—and it froze in mid-air, to form a pane of 
transparent ice. A frozen window, suspended in 
front of Sabriel. 
“Watch,” commanded the women, and 
Sanar tapped the ice-window with her wand. It 
clouded over at that touch, briefly showed a 
scene of whirling snow, a glimpse of the Wall, 
then steadied into a moving vision—much 
like a film shot from a traveling car. Wyverley 
College had frowned on films, but Sabriel 
had been to see quite a few in Bain. This was 
much the same, but in color, and she could hear 
natural sounds as clearly as if she were there. 

The window showed typical Ancelstierran 
farmland—a long field of wheat, ripe for the 
harvest, with a tractor stopped in the distance, 
its driver chatting with another man perched 
atop a cart, his two draft-horses standing 
401 
stolidly, peering out through their blinkers. 
The view raced closer towards these two men, 
veered around them with a snatch of caught conversation, 
and continued—following a road, up 
and over a hill, through a small wood and up to 
a crossroads, where the gravel intersected with a 
macadamized route of greater importance. There 
was a sign there, and the “eye,” or whatever it 
was, zoomed up to it, till the signpost filled the 
whole of the ice-window. “Wyverley 21¤2 miles,” 
it read, directing travelers along the major road, 
and they were off again, shooting down towards 
Wyverley village. 
A few seconds later, the moving image slowed, 
to show the familiar houses of Wyverley village; 
the blacksmith-cum-mechanic’s shop; the Wyvern 
public house; the constable’s trim house with 
the blue lantern. All landmarks known to 
Sabriel. She concentrated even more carefully, 
for surely the vision, having shown her a fixed 
point of reference, would now race off to parts 
of Ancelstierre which were unknown to her. 
But the picture still moved slowly. At a walking 
pace, it went through the village, and turned 
off the road, following a bridle-path up the 
forested hill known as Docky Point. A nice 
402 
enough hill, to be sure, covered by a cork tree 
plantation, with some quite old trees. Its only 
point of interest was the rectangular cairn upon 
the hilltop . . . the cairn . . . The image changed, 
closing in on the huge, grey-green stones, 
square-cut and tightly packed together. A relatively 
recent folly, Sabriel remembered from 
their local history lessons. A little less than two 
hundred years old. She’d almost visited it once, 
but something had changed her mind . . . 
The image changed again, somehow sinking 

through the stone, down between the lines of 
mortar, zigzagging around the blocks, to the dark 
chamber at its heart. For an instant the icewindow 
went completely dark, then light came. A 
bronze sarcophagus lay under the cairn, metal 
crawling with Free Magic perversions of Charter 
marks. The vision dodged these shifting marks, 
penetrated the bronze. A body lay inside, a living 
body, wreathed in Free Magic. 
The scene shifted, moving with jagged difficulty 
to the face of the body. A handsome face, that 
swam closer and closer into focus, a face that 
showed what Kerrigor once had been. The human 
face of Rogir, his features clearly showing that he 
had shared a mother with Touchstone. 
403 
Sabriel stared, sickened and fascinated by the 
similarities between the half-brothers—then the 
vision suddenly blurred, spinning into greyness, 
greyness accompanied by rushing water. Death. 
Something huge and monstrous was wading 
against the current, a jagged cutting of darkness, 
formless and featureless, save for two eyes that 
burned with unnatural flame. It seemed to see her 
beyond the ice-window, and lurched forward, two 
arms like blown storm clouds reaching forward. 
“Abhorsen’s Get!” screamed Kerrigor. “Your 
blood will gush upon the Stones . . .” 
His arms seemed about to come through the 
window, but suddenly, the ice cracked, the pieces 
collapsing into a pile of swift-melting slush. 
“You saw,” the Clayr said together. It wasn’t a 
question. Sabriel nodded, shaking, her thoughts 
still on the likeness between Kerrigor’s original 
human body and Touchstone. Where was the 
fork in their paths? What had put Rogir’s feet on 
the long road that led to the abomination known 
as Kerrigor? 
“We have four minutes,” announced Sanar. 
“Till the slavers come. We’ll help you get the 
King to your Paperwing, shall we?” 
“Yes, please,” replied Sabriel. Despite the fear- 
404 
some sight of Kerrigor’s raw spirit form, the 

vision had imbued her with a new and definite 
sense of purpose. Kerrigor’s body was in 
Ancelstierre. She would find it and destroy it, 
and then deal with his spirit. But they had to get 
to the body first . . . 
The two women lifted Touchstone up, grunting 
with the effort. He was no lightweight at any 
time, and now was even heavier, still sodden 
with water from his ducking in the reservoir. But 
the Clayr, despite their rather ethereal appearance, 
seemed to manage well enough. 
“We wish you luck, cousin,” they said, as they 
walked slowly to the red and gold Paperwing, 
balanced so close to the edge of the broken wall, 
the Saere glistening white and blue below. 
“Cousin?” Sabriel murmured. “I suppose we 
are cousins—of a sort, aren’t we?” 
“Blood relatives, all the children of the Great 
Charters,” the Clayr agreed. “Though the clan 
dwindles . . .” 
“Do you always—know what is going to happen?” 
Sabriel asked, as they gently lowered 
Touchstone into the back of the cockpit, and 
strapped him in with the belts normally used for 
securing luggage. 
405 
Both the Clayr laughed. “No, thank the 
Charter! Our family is the most numerous of 
the bloodlines, and the gift is spread among 
many. Our visions come in snatches and splinters, 
glimpses and shadows. When we must, the 
whole family can spend its strength to narrow 
our sight—as it has done through us today. 
Tomorrow, we will be back to dreams and confusion, 
not knowing where, when or what we 
see. Now, we have only two minutes . . .” 
Suddenly, they hugged Sabriel, surprising her 
with the obvious warmth of the gesture. She 
hugged them back, gladly, grateful for their care. 
With her father gone, she had no family left— 
but perhaps she would find sisters in the Clayr, 
and perhaps Touchstone would be . . . 
“Two minutes,” repeated both the women, one 
in each ear. Sabriel let them go, and hurriedly 

took The Book of the Dead and the two Charter 
Magic books from her pack, wedging them 
down next to Touchstone’s slightly snoring form. 
After a second’s thought, she also stuffed in 
the fleece-lined oilskin and the boat cloak. 
Touchstone’s swords went into the special holders 
next, but the pack and the rest of its contents 
had to be abandoned. 
406 
“Next stop, the Wall,” Sabriel muttered as she 
climbed into the craft, trying not to think about 
what would happen if they had to land somewhere 
uncivilized in between. 
The Clayr were already in their green and silver 
craft, and, as Sabriel did up her straps, she 
heard them begin to whistle, Charter Magic 
streaming out into the air. Sabriel licked her lips, 
summoned her breath and strength, and joined 
in. Wind rose behind both the craft, tossing 
black hair and blond, lifting the Paperwings’ 
tails and jostling their wings. 
Sabriel took a breath after the wind-whistling, 
and stroked the smooth, laminated paper of the 
hull. A brief image of the first Paperwing came 
to mind, broken and burning in the depths of 
Holehallow. 
“I hope we fare better together,” she whispered, 
before joining with the Clayr to whistle 
the last note, the pure clear sound that would 
wake the Charter Magic in their craft. 
A second later, two bright-eyed Paperwings 
leapt out from the ruined palace of Belisaere, 
glided down almost to the swell in the Sea of 
Saere, then rose to circle higher and higher 
above the hill. One craft, of green and silver, 
407 
turned to the north-west. The other, of red and 
gold, turned south. 
Touchstone, waking to the rush of cold air on 
his face, and the unfamiliar sensation of flying, 
groggily muttered, “What happened?” 
“We’re going to Ancelstierre,” Sabriel shouted. 
“Across the Wall, to find Kerrigor’s body—and 
destroy it!” 

“Oh,” said Touchstone, who only heard 
“across the Wall.” “Good.” 
408 
chapter xxv 
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the 
soldier, saluting at the doorway to the officer’s 
bathroom. “Duty officer’s compliments and can 
you come straight away?” 
Colonel Horyse sighed, put down his razor, 
and used the flannel to wipe off the remains of 
the shaving soap. He had been interrupted shaving 
that morning, and had tried several times 
during the day to finish the job. Perhaps it was a 
sign he should grow a moustache. 
“What’s happening?” he asked, resignedly. 
Whatever was happening, it was unlikely to be 
good. 
“An aircraft, sir,” replied the private, stolidly. 
“From Army HQ? Dropping a message 
cylinder?” 
“I don’t know, sir. It’s on the other side of the 
Wall.” 
“What!” exclaimed Horyse, dropping all his 
shaving gear, picking up his helmet and sword, 
and attempting to rush out, all at the same time. 
“Impossible!” 
But, when he eventually sorted himself out and 
got down to the Forward Observation Post—an 
octagonal strongpoint that thrust out through 
the Perimeter to within fifty yards of the Wall— 
it quite clearly was possible. The light was fading 
as the afternoon waned—it was probably close 
to setting on the other side—but the visibility 
was good enough to make out the distant airborne 
shape that was descending in a series of 
long, gradual loops . . . on the other side of the 
Wall. In the Old Kingdom. 
The Duty Officer was watching through big 
artillery spotter’s binoculars, his elbows perched 
on the sandbagged parapet of the position. 
Horyse paused for a moment to think of the fellow’s 
name—he was new to the Perimeter 

Garrison—then tapped him on the shoulder. 
“Jorbert. Mind if I have a look?” 
The young officer lowered the binoculars 
reluctantly, and handed them across like a boy 
410 
deprived of a half-eaten lollipop. 
“It’s definitely an aircraft, sir,” he said, brightening 
up as he spoke. “Totally silent, like a glider, 
but it’s clearly powered somehow. Very maneuverable, 
and beautifully painted, too. There’s 
two . . . people in it, sir.” 
Horyse didn’t answer, but took up the binoculars 
and the same elbow-propping stance. For a 
moment, he couldn’t see the aircraft, and he 
hastily panned left and right, then zigzagged up 
and down—and there it was, lower than he 
expected, almost in a landing approach. 
“Sound stand-to,” he ordered harshly, as the 
realization struck him that the craft would land 
very close to the Crossing Point—perhaps only a 
hundred yards from the gate. 
He heard his command being repeated by 
Jorbert to a sergeant, and then bellowed out, to 
be taken up by sentries, duty NCOs, and eventually 
to hand-cranked klaxons and the old bell 
that hung in the front of the Officer’s Mess. 
It was hard to see exactly who or what was 
in the craft, till he twiddled with the focus, and 
Sabriel’s face leapt towards him, magnified up 
to a recognizable form, even at the current 
distance. Sabriel, the daughter of Abhorsen, 
411 
accompanied by an unknown man—or something 
wearing the shape of a man. For a 
moment, Horyse considered ordering the men 
to stand-down, but he could already hear hobnailed 
boots clattering on the duckboards, 
sergeants and corporals shouting—and it might 
not really be Sabriel. The sun was weakening, 
and the coming night would be the first of the 
full moon . . . 
“Jorbert!” he snapped, handing the binoculars 
back to the surprised and unready subaltern. 
“Go and give the Regimental Sergeant-Major my 

compliments, and ask him to personally organize 
a section of the Scouts—we’ll go out and take a 
closer look at that aircraft.” 
“Oh, thank you, sir!” gushed Lieutenant 
Jorbert, obviously taking the “we” to include 
himself. His enthusiasm surprised Horyse, at 
least for a moment. 
“Tell me, Mr. Jorbert,” he asked. “Have you 
by any chance sought a transfer to the Flying 
Corps?” 
“Well, yes, sir,” replied Jorbert. “Eight 
times . . .” 
“Just remember,” Horyse said, interrupting 
him. “That whatever is out there may be a flying 
412 
creature, not a flying machine—and its pilots 
may be half-rotted things that should be properly 
dead, or Free Magic beings that have never 
really lived at all. Not fellow aviators, knights of 
the sky, or anything like that.” 
Jorbert nodded, unmilitarily, saluted, and 
turned on his heel. 
“And don’t forget your sword next time you’re 
on duty, officer,” Horyse called after him. 
“Hasn’t anyone told you your revolver might 
not work?” 
Jorbert nodded again, flushed, almost saluted, 
then scuttled off down the communication 
trench. One of the soldiers in the Forward 
Observation Post, a corporal with a full sleeve of 
chevrons denoting twenty years’ service, and a 
Charter mark on his forehead to show his 
Perimeter pedigree, shook his head at the departing 
back of the young officer. 
“Why are you shaking your head, Corporal 
Anshy?” snapped Horyse, irked by his many 
interrupted shaves and this new and potentially 
dangerous appearance of an aircraft. 
“Water on the brain,” replied the corporal 
cheerfully—and rather ambiguously. Horyse 
opened his mouth to issue a sharp reprimand, 
413 
then closed it as the corners of his mouth involuntarily 
inched up into a smile. Before he 

could actually laugh, he left the post, heading 
back to the trench junction where his section 
and the RSM would meet him to go beyond the 
Wall. 
Within five paces, he’d lost his smile. 
The Paperwing slid to a perfect landing in a 
flurry of snow. Sabriel and Touchstone sat in it, 
shivering under oilskin and boat cloak, respectively, 
then slowly levered themselves out to 
stand knee-deep in the tightly packed snow. 
Touchstone smiled at Sabriel, his nose bright 
red and eyebrows frosted. 
“We made it.” 
“So far,” replied Sabriel, warily looking 
around. She could see the long grey bulk of 
the Wall, with the deep honey-colored sun of 
autumn on the Ancelstierran side. Here, the 
snow lay banked against the grey stone, and 
it was overcast, with the sun almost gone. Dark 
enough for the Dead to be wandering around. 
Touchstone’s smile faded as he caught her 
mood, and he took his swords from the 
414 
Paperwing, giving the left sword to Sabriel. She 
sheathed it, but it was a bad fit—another 
reminder of loss. 
“I’d better get the books, too,” she said, bending 
in to retrieve them from the cockpit. The two 
Charter Magic books were fine, untouched by 
snow, but The Book of the Dead seemed wet. 
When Sabriel pulled it out, she found it wasn’t 
snow-wet. Beads of dark, thick blood were 
welling up out of its cover. Silently, Sabriel wiped 
it on the hard crust of the snow, leaving a livid 
mark. Then she tucked the books away in the 
pockets of her coat. 
“Why . . . why was the book like that?” asked 
Touchstone, trying, and almost succeeding, to 
sound curious rather than afraid. 
“I think it’s reacting to the presence of many 
deaths,” Sabriel replied. “There is great potential 
here for the Dead to rise. This is a very weak 
point—” 
“Shhh!” Touchstone interrupted her, pointing 

towards the Wall. Shapes, dark against the snow, 
were moving in an extended line towards them, at 
a deliberate, steady pace. They carried bows and 
spears, and Sabriel, at least, recognized the rifles 
slung across their backs. 
415 
416 
“It’s all right,” Sabriel said, though a faint stab 
of nervousness touched her stomach. “They’re 
soldiers from the Ancelstierran side—still, I 
might send the Paperwing on its way . . .” 
Quickly, she checked that they’d taken everything 
from the cockpit, then laid her hand on the 
nose of the Paperwing, just above its twinkling 
eye. It seemed to look up at her as she spoke. 
“Go now, friend. I don’t want to risk you 
being dragged into Ancelstierre and taken apart. 
Fly where you will—to the Clayr’s glacier, or, 
if you care to, to Abhorsen’s House, where the 
water falls.” 
She stepped back, and formed the Charter 
marks that would imbue the Paperwing with 
choice, and the winds to lift it there. The marks 
went into her whistle, and the Paperwing moved 
with the rising pitch, accelerating along till it 
leapt into the sky at the peak of the highest 
note. 
“I say!” exclaimed a voice. “How did you do 
that?” 
Sabriel turned to see a young, out-of-breath 
Ancelstierran officer, the single gold pip of a second 
lieutenant looking lonely on his shoulderstraps. 
He was easily fifty yards in front of the 
rest of the line, but he didn’t seem frightened. He 
was clutching a sword and a revolver, though, 
and he raised both of them as Sabriel stepped 
forward. 
“Halt! You are my prisoners!” 
“Actually, we’re travelers,” replied Sabriel, 
though she did stand still. “Is that Colonel 
Horyse I can see behind you?” 
Jorbert turned half around to have a look, 
realized his mistake, and turned back just in 
time to see Sabriel and Touchstone smiling, 

then chuckling, then out-and-out laughing, 
clutching at each other’s arms. 
“What’s so funny?” demanded Lieutenant 
Jorbert, as the two of them laughed and laughed, 
till the tears ran down their cheeks. 
“Nothing,” said Horyse, gesturing to his men 
to encircle Sabriel and Touchstone, while he 
went up and carefully placed two fingers on 
their foreheads—testing the Charter they bore 
within. Satisfied, he lightly shook them, till they 
stopped their shuddering, gasping laughter. 
Then, to the surprise of some of his men, he put 
an arm around each of them and led them back 
to the Crossing Point, towards Ancelstierre and 
sunshine. 
417 
Jorbert, left to cover the withdrawal, indignantly 
asked the air, “What was so funny?” 
“You heard the Colonel,” replied Regimental 
Sergeant-Major Tawklish. “Nothing. That was 
an hysterical reaction, that was. They’ve been 
through a lot, those two, mark my words.” 
Then, in the way that only RSMs have with 
junior officers, he paused, crushing Jorbert completely 
with a judicious, and long delayed “Sir.” 
The warmth wrapped Sabriel like a soft blanket 
as they stepped out of the shadow of the 
Wall, into the relative heat of an Ancelstierran 
autumn. She felt Touchstone falter at her side, 
and stumble, his face staring blindly upwards to 
the sun. 
“You both look done in,” said Horyse, speaking 
in the kindly, slow tone he used on shellshocked 
soldiers. “How about something to eat, 
or would you rather get some sleep first?” 
“Something to eat, certainly,” Sabriel replied, 
trying to give him a grateful smile. “But not 
sleep. There’s no time for that. Tell me—when 
was the full moon? Two days ago?” 
Horyse looked at her, thinking that she no 
longer reminded him of his own daughter. 
She had become Abhorsen, a person beyond 
418 
his ken, in such a short time . . . 

“It’s tonight,” he said. 
“But I’ve been in the Old Kingdom at least sixteen 
days . . .” 
“Time is strange between the kingdoms,” 
Horyse said. “We’ve had patrols swear they were 
out for two weeks, coming back in after eight 
days. A headache for the paymaster . . .” 
“That voice, coming from the box on the pole,” 
Touchstone interrupted, as they left the zigzag path 
through the wire defenses and climbed down into 
a narrow communication trench. “There is no 
Charter Magic in the box, or the voice . . .” 
“Ah,” replied Horyse, looking ahead to where 
a loudspeaker was announcing stand-down. “I’m 
surprised it’s working. Electricity runs that, Mr. 
Touchstone. Science, not magic.” 
“It won’t be working tonight,” Sabriel said 
quietly. “No technology will be.” 
“Yes, it is rather loud,” Horyse said, in a 
strong voice. More softly, he added, “Please 
don’t say anything more till we get to my 
dugout. The men have already picked something 
up about tonight and the full moon . . .” 
“Of course,” replied Sabriel, wearily. “I’m 
sorry.” 
419 
They walked the rest of the way in silence, 
slogging along the zigzagging communication 
trench, passing soldiers in the fighting trenches, 
ready at their stand-to positions. The soldier’s 
conversations stopped as they passed, but 
resumed as soon as they turned the next zig or 
zag and were out of sight. 
At last, they descended a series of steps into 
Colonel Horyse’s dugout. Two sergeants stood 
guard outside—this time, Charter Mages from 
the Crossing Point Scouts, not the regular garrison 
infantry. Another soldier doubled off to the 
cookhouse, to fetch some food. Horyse busied 
himself with a small spirit-burner, and made tea. 
Sabriel drank it without feeling much relief. 
Ancelstierre, and the universal comforter of its 
society—tea—no longer seemed as solid and 
dependable as she had once thought. 

“Now,” said Horyse. “Tell me why you don’t 
have time to sleep.” 
“My father died yesterday,” Sabriel said, 
stony-faced. “The wind flutes will fail tonight. 
At moonrise. The Dead here will rise with the 
moon.” 
“I’m sorry to hear about your father. Very 
sorry,” Horyse said. He hesitated, then added, 
420 
“But as you are here now, can’t you bind the 
Dead anew?” 
“If that were all, yes, I could,” Sabriel continued. 
“But there is worse to come. Have you ever 
heard the name Kerrigor, Colonel?” 
Horyse put his tea down. 
“Your father spoke of him once. One of the 
Greater Dead, I think, imprisoned beyond the 
Seventh Gate?” 
“More than Greater, possibly the Great,” 
Sabriel said bleakly. “As far as I know, he is the 
only Dead spirit to also be a Free Magic adept.” 
“And a renegade member of the royal family,” 
added Touchstone, his voice still harsh and dry 
from the cold winds of their flight, unquenched 
by tea. “And he is no longer imprisoned. He 
walks in Life.” 
“All these things give him power,” Sabriel continued. 
“But there is a weakness there, too. 
Kerrigor’s mastery of Free Magic, and much of his 
power in both Life and Death, is dependent on 
the continual existence of his original body. He 
hid it, long ago, when he first chose to become a 
Dead spirit—and he hid it in Ancelstierre. Near 
the village of Wyverley, to be exact.” 
“And now he’s coming to fetch it . . .” said 
421 
Horyse, with terrible prescience. Outwardly, he 
looked calm, all those long years of Army service 
forming a hard carapace, containing his feelings. 
Inwardly, he felt a trembling that he hoped 
wasn’t being transmitted to the mug in his hand. 
“When will he come?” 
“With the night,” replied Sabriel. “With an 
army of the Dead. If he can emerge out of Death 

close to the Wall, he may come earlier.” 
‘‘The sun—” Horyse began. 
“Kerrigor can work the weather, bring fog or 
dense cloud.” 
“So what can we do?” asked Horyse, turning 
his palms outwards, towards Sabriel, his eyes 
questioning. “Abhorsen.” 
Sabriel felt a weight placed upon her, a burden 
adding to the weariness that already pressed 
upon her, but she forced herself to answer. 
“Kerrigor’s body is in a spelled sarcophagus 
under a cairn, a cairn atop a little hill called 
Docky Point, less than forty miles away. We need 
to get there quickly—and destroy the body.” 
“And that will destroy Kerrigor?” 
‘‘No,” said Sabriel, shaking her head wistfully. 
“But it will weaken him . . . so there may be a 
chance . . .” 
422 
“Right,” said Horyse. “We’ve still got three 
or four hours of daylight, but we’ll need to 
move quickly. I take it that Kerrigor and his . . . 
forces . . . will have to cross the Wall here? They 
can’t just pop out at Docky Point?” 
“No,” agreed Sabriel. “They’ll have to emerge 
in Life in the Old Kingdom, and physically cross 
the Wall. It would probably be best not to try 
and stop him.” 
“I’m afraid we can’t do that.” replied Horyse. 
“That’s what the Perimeter Garrison is here for.” 
“A lot of your soldiers will die to no purpose 
then,” said Touchstone. “Simply because they’ll 
be in the way. Anything, and anybody, that gets 
in Kerrigor’s way will be destroyed.” 
“So you want us to just let this . . . this thing 
and a horde of Dead descend on Ancelstierre?” 
“Not exactly,” replied Sabriel. “I would like to 
fight him at a time and a place more of our 
choosing. If you lend me all the soldiers here 
who have the Charter mark, and a little Charter 
Magic, we may have enough time to destroy 
Kerrigor’s body. Also, we will be almost thirtyfive 
miles from the Wall. Kerrigor’s power may 
only be slightly lessened, but many of his minions 

will be weaker. Perhaps so weak, that 
423 
destroying or damaging their physical forms will 
be sufficient to send them back into Death.” 
“And the rest of the garrison? We’ll just stand 
aside and let Kerrigor and his army through the 
Perimeter?” 
“You probably won’t have a choice.” 
“I see,” muttered Horyse. He got up, and 
paced backwards and forwards, six steps, all 
the dugout would allow. “Fortunately, or unfortunately 
perhaps—I am currently acting as 
the General Officer commanding the whole Perimeter. 
General Ashenber has returned south, due 
to . . . ah . . . ill health. A temporary situation 
only—Army HQ is loath to give any sort of 
higher command to those of us who wear the 
Charter mark. So the decision is mine . . .” 
He stopped pacing, and stared back at Sabriel 
and Touchstone—but his eyes seemed to see 
something well beyond them and the rusty corrugated 
iron that walled the dugout. Finally, he 
spoke. 
“Very well. I will give you twelve Charter 
Mages—half of the full complement of the 
Scouts—but I will also add some more mundane 
force. A detachment to escort you to . . . what 
was it? Docky Point. But I can’t promise we 
424 
won’t fight on the Perimeter.” 
“We need you, too, Colonel,” Sabriel said, in 
the silence that followed his decision. “You’re 
the strongest Charter Mage the Garrison has.” 
“Impossible!” Horyse exclaimed emphatically. 
“I’m in command of the Perimeter. My responsibilities 
lie here.” 
“You’ll never be able to explain tonight, anyway,” 
Sabriel said. “Not to any general down 
south, or to anyone who hasn’t crossed the 
Wall.” 
“I’ll . . . I’ll think about it while you have 
something to eat,” Horyse declared, the rattle 
of a tray and plates tactfully announcing the 
arrival of a mess orderly on the steps. “Come 

in!” 
The orderly entered, steam rising around the 
edges of the silver dishes. As he put the tray 
down, Horyse strode out past him, bellowing. 
“Messenger! I want the Adjutant, Major 
Tindall and the CSM from ‘A’ Company, 
Lieutenant Aire from the Scouts, the RSM and 
the Quartermaster. In the Operations Room in 
ten minutes. Oh . . . call in the Transport Officer 
too. And warn the Signals staff to stand by for 
coding.” 
425 
chapter xxvi 
Everything moved rapidly 
after the tea was drunk. Almost too rapidly for 
the exhausted Sabriel and Touchstone. Judging 
from the noises outside, soldiers were rushing 
about in all directions, while they ate their belated 
lunch. Then, before they could even begin 
to digest, Horyse was back, telling them to get 
moving. 
It was somewhat like being a bit player in the 
school play, Sabriel thought, as she stumbled out 
of the communication trench and onto the 
parade ground. There was an awful lot happening 
around her, but she didn’t really feel part of 
it. She felt Touchstone lightly brush her arm, and 
smiled at him reassuringly—it had to be even 
worse for him. 
Within minutes, they were hustled across the 
parade ground, towards a waiting line of 
trucks, an open staff car and two strange steelplated 
contraptions. Lozenge-shaped, with gun 
turrets on either side, and caterpillar tracks. 
Tanks, Sabriel realized. A relatively recent 
invention. Like the trucks, they were roaring, 
engines belching blue-grey smoke. No problem 
now, Sabriel thought, but the engines would 
stop when the wind blew in from the Old 
Kingdom. Or when Kerrigor came . . . 
Horyse led them to the staff car, opened the 
back door and gestured for them to get in. 

“Are you coming with us?” Sabriel asked, hesitantly, 
as she settled back in the heavily padded 
leather seats, fighting a wave of tiredness that 
threatened immediate sleep. 
“Yes,” replied Horyse, slowly. He seemed surprised 
at his own answer, and suddenly far away. 
“Yes, I am.” 
“You have the Sight,” said Touchstone, looking 
up from where he was adjusting his scabbard 
before sitting down. “What did you see?” 
“The usual thing,” replied Horyse. He got 
in the front seat, and nodded to the driver—a 
thin-faced veteran of the Scouts, whose Charter 
427 
mark was almost invisible on his weather-beaten 
forehead. 
“What do you mean?” asked Sabriel, but her 
question was lost as the driver pressed the starter 
switch, and the car coughed and spluttered into 
life, a tenor accompaniment to the bass cacophony 
of the trucks and tanks. 
Touchstone jumped at the sudden noise and 
vibration, then smiled sheepishly at Sabriel, 
who’d lightly rested her fingers on his arm, as if 
calming a child. 
“What did he mean ‘the usual thing’?” asked 
Sabriel. 
Touchstone looked at her, sadness and exhaustion 
vying for first place in his gaze. He took her 
hand in his own and traced a line across her 
palm—a definite, ending sort of line. 
“Oh,” muttered Sabriel. She sniffed and 
looked at the back of Horyse’s head, eyes blurring, 
seeing only the line of his cropped silver 
hair extending just past his helmet rim. 
“He has a daughter the same age as me, back 
at . . . somewhere south,” she whispered, shivering, 
clutching Touchstone’s hand till his fingers 
were as white as her own. “Why, oh why, does 
everything . . . everyone . . .” 
428 
The car started forward with a lurch, preceded 
by two motorcycle outriders and followed by 
each of the nine trucks in turn, carefully spaced 

out every hundred yards. The tanks, with tracks 
screeching and clanking, took a side road up to 
the railway siding where they would be loaded 
up and sent on to Wyverley Halt. It was unlikely 
they would arrive before nightfall. The road 
convoy would be at Docky Point before six in 
the afternoon. 
Sabriel was silent for the first ten miles, her 
head bowed, hand still clutching tightly on 
Touchstone’s. He sat silently too, but watching, 
looking out as they left the military zone, looking 
at the prosperous farms of Ancelstierre, the 
sealed roads, the brick houses, the private cars 
and horse-drawn vehicles that pulled off the 
road in front of them, cleared aside by the two 
red-capped military policemen on motorcycles. 
“I’m all right now,” Sabriel said quietly, as 
they slowed to pass through the town of Bain. 
Touchstone nodded, still watching, staring at 
the shop windows in the High Street. The 
townspeople stared back, for it was rare to see 
soldiers in full Perimeter battle equipment, 
with sword-bayonets and shields—and Sabriel 
429 
and Touchstone were clearly from the Old 
Kingdom. 
“We have to stop by the Police Station, and 
warn the Superintendent,” Horyse announced 
as their car pulled in next to an imposing 
white-walled edifice with two large, blue electric 
lanterns hanging out the front, and a sturdy 
sign proclaiming it to be the headquarters of the 
Bainshire Constabulary. 
Horyse stood up, waved the rest of the convoy 
on, then vaulted out and dashed up the 
steps, a curiously incongruous figure in mail 
and khaki. A constable descending the steps 
looked ready to stop him, but stopped himself 
instead and saluted. 
“I’m all right,” Sabriel repeated. “You can 
let go of my hand.” 
Touchstone smiled, and flexed his hand a little 
in her grip. She looked a bit puzzled, then 
smiled too, her fingers slowly relaxing till 

their hands lay flat on the seat, little fingers 
just touching. 
In any other town, a crowd would certainly 
have formed around an Army staff car with 
two such unusual passengers. But this was 
Bain, and Bain was close to the Wall. People 
430 
took one look, saw Charter marks, swords 
and armor, and went the other way. Those 
with natural caution, or a touch of the Sight, 
went home and locked their doors and shutters, 
not merely with steel and iron, but also 
with sprigs of broom and rowan. Others, even 
more cautious, took to the river and its sandy 
islets, without even pretending to be fishing. 
Horyse came out five minutes later, accompanied 
by a tall, serious-looking man whose large 
build and hawk-like visage were made slightly 
ridiculous by a pair of too-small pince-nez clinging 
to the end of his nose. He shook hands with 
the Colonel, Horyse returned to the car, and they 
were off again, the driver crashing through the 
gears with considerable skill. 
A few minutes later, before they’d left the last 
buildings of the town, a bell began to ring 
behind them, deep and slow. Only moments 
later, another followed from somewhere to the 
left, then another, from up ahead. Soon, there 
were bells ringing all around. 
“Quick work,” Horyse shouted into the back 
of the car. “The Superintendent must have made 
them practice in the past.” 
“The bells are a warning?” asked Touchstone. 
431 
432 
This was something he was familiar with, and he 
began to feel more at home, even with this 
sound, warning of dire trouble. He felt no fear 
from it—but then, after facing the reservoir for a 
second time, he felt that he could cope with any 
fear. 
“Yes,” replied Horyse. “Be inside by nightfall. 
Lock all doors and windows. Deny entry to 
strangers. Shed light inside and out. Prepare candles 

and lanterns for when the electricity fails. 
Wear silver. If caught outdoors, find running 
water.” 
“We used to recite that in the junior classes,” 
Sabriel said. “But I don’t think too many people 
remember it, even the people around here.” 
“You’d be surprised, ma’am,” interrupted the 
driver, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, 
eyes never leaving the road. “The bells haven’t 
rung like this in twenty years, but plenty of folk 
remember. They’ll tell anyone who doesn’t 
know—don’t fret about that.” 
“I hope so,” replied Sabriel, a momentary flash 
of remembrance passing through her mind. The 
people of Nestowe, two-thirds of their number 
lost to the Dead, the survivors huddled in fishdrying 
sheds on a rocky island. “I hope so.” 
“How long till we reach Docky Point?” asked 
Touchstone. He was remembering too, but his 
memories were of Rogir. Soon he would look on 
Rogir’s face again, but it would only be a husk, 
a tool for what Rogir had become . . . 
“About an hour at the most, I should think,” 
replied Horyse. “Around six o’clock. We can 
average almost thirty miles an hour in this 
contraption—quite remarkable. To me, anyway. 
I’m so used to the Perimeter, and the Old 
Kingdom—the small part we saw on patrol, anyway. 
I’d have liked to see more of it . . . gone further 
north . . .” 
“You will,” said Sabriel, but her voice lacked 
conviction, even to her own ears. Touchstone 
didn’t say anything, and Horyse didn’t reply, so 
they drove on in silence after that, soon catching 
the truck convoy, overtaking each vehicle till 
they were in front again. But wherever they 
drove, the bells preceded them, every village belltower 
taking up the warning. 
As Horyse had predicted, they arrived at 
Wyverley village just before six. The trucks 
stopped in a line all through the village, from 
policeman’s cottage to the Wyvern pub, the men 
debussing almost before the vehicles stopped, 
433 

quickly forming up into ranks on the road. The 
signals truck parked under a telephone pole and 
two men swarmed up to connect their wires. The 
military policeman went to each end of the village, 
to redirect traffic. Sabriel and Touchstone 
got out of the car and waited. 
“It’s not much different from the Royal 
Guard,” Touchstone said, watching the men 
hurry into their parade positions, the sergeants 
shouting, the officers gathering around Horyse, 
who was speaking on the newly connected 
phone. “Hurry up and wait.” 
“I’d have liked to see you in the Royal Guard,” 
Sabriel said. “And the Old Kingdom, in . . . I 
mean before the Stones were broken.” 
“In my day, you mean,” said Touchstone. “I 
would have liked that too. It was more like here, 
then. Here normally, I mean. Peaceful, and sort 
of slow. Sometimes I thought life was too slow, 
too predictable. I’d prefer that now . . .” 
“I used to think like that at school,” Sabriel 
answered. “Dreaming about the Old Kingdom. 
Proper Charter Magic. Dead to bind. Princes to 
be—” 
“Rescued?” 
“Married,” replied Sabriel, absently. She 
434 
seemed intent on watching Horyse. He looked 
like he was getting bad news over the telephone. 
Touchstone didn’t speak. Everything seemed 
to sharpen in focus for him, centering on Sabriel, 
her black hair gleaming like a raven’s wing in the 
afternoon sun. I love her, he thought. But if I say 
the wrong thing now, I may never . . . 
Horyse handed the telephone back to a signaler, 
and turned towards them. Touchstone 
watched him, suddenly conscious that he probably 
only had five seconds to be alone with 
Sabriel, to say something, to say anything. 
Perhaps the last five seconds they would ever 
have alone together . . . 
I am not afraid, he said to himself. 
“I love you,” he whispered. “I hope you don’t 
mind.” 

Sabriel looked back at him, and smiled, almost 
despite herself. Her sadness at her father’s death 
was still there, and her fears for the future—but 
seeing Touchstone staring apprehensively at her 
somehow gave her hope. 
“I don’t mind,” she whispered back, leaning 
towards him. She frowned, “I think . . . I think I 
might love you too, Charter help me, but now 
is—” 
435 
“The telephone line to the Perimeter Crossing 
Point just went out,” Horyse announced grimly, 
shouting above the village bell even before he 
was close enough to talk. “A fog started rolling 
across the Wall over an hour ago. It reached the 
forward trenches at four forty-six. After that, 
none of the advance companies could be reached 
by phone or runner. I was just speaking to the 
Duty Officer then—that young chap who was so 
interested in your aircraft. He said the fog was 
just about to reach his position. Then the line 
went silent.” 
“So,” said Sabriel. “Kerrigor didn’t wait till 
sundown. He’s working the weather.” 
“From the timings given by the Perimeter,” 
Horyse said, “this fog—and whatever’s in it— 
is moving southwards at around twenty miles 
an hour. As the crow flies, it’ll reach us around 
half past seven. Dark, with the moonrise yet to 
come.” 
“Let’s go then,” snapped Sabriel. “The bridlepath 
to Docky Point starts from behind the pub. 
Shall I lead?” 
“Best not,” replied Horyse. He turned, and 
shouted some orders, accompanied by considerable 
waving and pointing. Within a few seconds, 
436 
men were moving off around the pub, taking the 
path to Docky Point. First, the Crossing Point 
Scouts, archers and Charter Mages all. Then, the 
first platoon of infantry, bayonets fixed, rifles 
at the ready. Past the pub, they shook out 
into an arrowhead formation. Horyse, Sabriel, 
Touchstone and their driver followed. Behind 

them came the other two platoons, and the signalers, 
unreeling field telephone wire from a 
large and cumbersome drum. 
It was quiet among the cork trees, the soldiers 
moving as silently as they could, communicating 
by hand signals rather than shouts, only their 
heavy tread and the occasional rattle of armor or 
equipment disturbing the quiet. 
Sunshine poured down between the trees, rich 
and golden, but already losing its warmth, like a 
butter-colored wine that was all taste and no 
potency. 
Towards the top of the hill, only the Crossing 
Point Scouts went on up. The lead platoon of 
infantry followed a lower contour around to the 
northern side; the other two platoons moved to 
the south-west and south-east, forming a defensive 
triangle around the hill. Horyse, Sabriel, 
Touchstone and the driver continued on. 
437 
The trees fell away about twenty yards from 
the top of the hill, thick weeds and thistles 
taking their place. Then, at the highest point, 
there was the cairn: a solid, hut-sized square 
of grey-green stones. The twelve Scouts were 
grouped loosely around it, four of them already 
levering one of the corner stones out with a 
long crowbar, obviously carried up for this 
purpose. 
As Sabriel and Touchstone came up, the stone 
fell with a thud, revealing more blocks underneath. 
At the same time, every Charter Mage 
present felt a slight buzzing in their ears, and a 
wave of dizziness. 
“Did you feel that?” asked Horyse, unnecessarily, 
as it was clear from everyone’s expressions 
and the hands that had gone to ears that they all 
had. 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. To a lesser extent, it was 
the same sort of feeling the Broken Stones caused 
in the reservoir. “It will get worse, I’m afraid, as 
we get closer to the sarcophagus.” 
“How far in is it?” 
“Four blocks deep, I think,” said Sabriel. “Or 

five. I . . . saw it . . . from an odd perspective.” 
Horyse nodded, and indicated to the men to 
438 
keep prying away the stones. They went to it 
with a will, but Sabriel noticed they kept looking 
at the position of the sun. All the Scouts were 
Charter Mages, of various power—all knew 
what sundown would bring. 
In fifteen minutes, they’d made a hole two 
blocks wide and two deep in one end, and 
the sickness was growing worse. Two of the 
younger Scouts, men in their early twenties, 
had become violently sick and were recuperating 
further down the hill. The others were working 
more slowly, their energies directed to 
keeping lunches down and quelling shaking 
limbs. 
Surprisingly, given their lack of sleep and generally 
run-down state, Sabriel and Touchstone 
found it relatively easy to resist the waves of 
nausea emanating from the cairn. It didn’t compare 
with the cold, dark fear of the reservoir, 
there on the hill, with the sunshine and the 
fresh breeze, warming and cooling at the same 
time. 
When the third blocks came out, Horyse 
called a brief rest break, and they all retreated 
down the hill to the tree line, where the cairn’s 
sickening aura dissipated. The signalers had a 
439 
telephone there, the handset sitting on the 
upturned drum. Horyse took it, but turned to 
Sabriel before the signaler wound the charging 
handle. 
“Are there any preparations to be made before 
we remove the last blocks? Magical ones, I 
mean.” 
Sabriel thought for a moment, willing her 
tiredness away, then shook her head. “I don’t 
think so. Once we have access to the sarcophagus, 
we may have to spell it open—I’ll need 
everyone’s help for that. Then, the final rites on 
the body—the usual cremation spell. There will 
be resistance then, too. Have your men often cast 

Charter Magic in concert?” 
“Unfortunately, no,” replied Horyse, frowning. 
“Because the Army doesn’t officially admit 
the existence of Charter Magic, everyone here is 
basically self-taught.” 
“Never mind,” Sabriel said, trying to sound 
confident, aware that everyone around her was 
listening. “We’ll manage.” 
“Good,” replied Horyse, smiling. That made 
him look very confident, thought Sabriel. She 
tried to smile too, but was uncertain about the 
result. It felt too much like a grimace of pain. 
440 
“Well, let’s see where our uninvited guest has 
got to,” Horyse continued, still smiling. “Where 
does this phone connect to, Sergeant?” 
“Bain Police,” replied the Signals Sergeant, 
winding the charging handle vigorously. “And 
Army HQ North, sir. You’ll have to ask 
Corporal Synge to switch you. He’s on the board 
at the village.” 
“Good,” replied Horyse. “Hello. Oh, Synge? 
Put me through to Bain. No, tell North you can’t 
get through to me. Yes, that’s right, Corporal. 
Thank you . . . ah . . . Bainshire Constabulary? 
It’s Colonel Horyse. I want to speak to Chief 
Superintendent Dingley . . . yes. Hello, 
Superintendent. Have you had any reports of a 
strange, dense fog . . . what! Already! No, on no 
account investigate. Get everyone in. Shutter the 
windows . . . yes, the usual drill. Yes, whatever 
is in . . . Yes, extraordinarily dangerous . . . 
hello! Hello!” 
He put the handset down slowly, and pointed 
back up the hill. 
“The fog is already moving through the northern 
part of Bain. It must be going much faster. Is 
it possible that this Kerrigor could know what 
we’re up to?” 
441 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel and Touchstone, together. 
“We’d better get a move on then,” Horyse 
announced, looking at his watch. “I’d say we 
now have less than forty minutes.” 

442 
chapter xxvii 
The last blocks came away 
slowly, pulled out by sweating, white-faced men, 
their hands and legs shivering, breath ragged. As 
soon as the way was clear, they staggered back, 
away from the cairn, seeking patches of sunlight 
to combat the dreadful chill that seemed to eat 
at their bones. One soldier, a dapper man with a 
white-blond moustache, fell down the hill, and 
lay retching, till stretcher-bearers ran up to take 
him away. 
Sabriel looked at the dark hole in the cairn, and 
saw the faint, unsettling sheen from the bronze 
sarcophagus within. She felt sick too, with the 
hair on the back of her neck frizzing up, skin 
crawling. The air seemed thick with the reek of 
Free Magic, a hard, metallic taste in her mouth. 
“We will have to spell it open,” she announced, 
with a sinking heart. “The sarcophagus is very 
strongly protected. I think . . . the best thing 
would be if I go in with Touchstone taking 
my hand, Horyse his, and so on, to form a line 
reinforcement of the Charter Magic. Does everyone 
know the Charter marks for the opening 
spell?” 
The soldiers nodded, or said, “Yes, ma’am.” 
One said, “Yes, Abhorsen.” 
Sabriel looked at him. A middle-aged corporal, 
with the chevrons of long service on his 
sleeve. He seemed one of the least affected by 
the Free Magic. 
“You can call me Sabriel, if you want,” she 
said, strangely unsettled by what he had called 
her. 
The corporal shook his head. “No, Miss. I 
knew your dad. You’re just like him. The 
Abhorsen, now. You’ll make this Dead bugger— 
begging your pardon—wish he’d stayed 
properly bloody dead.” 
“Thank you,” Sabriel replied, uncertainly. 
She knew the corporal didn’t have the Sight— 

you could always tell—but his belief in her was 
so concrete . . . 
444 
“He’s right,” said Touchstone. He gestured for 
her to go in front of him, making a courtly bow. 
“Let’s finish what we came to do, Abhorsen.” 
Sabriel bowed back, in a motion that had 
almost the feel of ritual about it. The Abhorsen 
bowing to the King. Then she took a deep breath, 
her face settling into a determined mold. 
Beginning to form the Charter marks of opening 
in her mind, she took Touchstone’s hand and 
advanced towards the open cairn, its dark, shadowy 
interior in stark contrast with the sunlit thistles 
and the tumbled stones. Behind her, 
Touchstone half-turned to take Horyse’s calloused 
hand as well, the Colonel’s other hand 
already gripping Lieutenant Aire’s, Aire gripping 
a Sergeant’s, the Sergeant the long-service 
Corporal’s, and so on down the hillside. Fourteen 
Charter Mages in all, if only two of the first rank. 
Sabriel felt the Charter Magic welling up the 
line, the marks glowing brighter and brighter in 
her mind, till she almost lost her normal vision 
in their brilliance. She shuffled forwards into the 
cairn, each step bringing that all-too-familiar 
nausea, the pins and needles, uncontrollable 
shaking. But the marks were strong in her mind, 
stronger than the sickness. 
445 
She reached the bronze sarcophagus, slapped 
her hand down and let the Charter Magic go. 
Instantly, there was an explosion of light, and a 
terrible scream echoed all through the cairn. The 
bronze grew hot, and Sabriel snatched back her 
hand, the palm red and blistered. A second later, 
steam billowed out all around the sarcophagus, 
great gouts of scalding steam, forcing Sabriel 
out, the whole line going down like dominoes, 
tumbling out of the cairn and down the hill. 
Sabriel and Touchstone were thrown together, 
about five yards down from the entrance to the 
cairn. Somehow, Sabriel’s head had landed on 
Touchstone’s stomach. His head was on a thistle, 

but both of them lay still for a moment, drained 
by the magic and the strength of the Free Magic 
defenses. They looked up at the blue sky, already 
tinged with the red of the impending sunset. 
Around them there was much swearing and cursing, 
as the soldiers picked themselves up. 
“It didn’t open,” Sabriel said, in a quiet, 
matter-of-fact voice. “We don’t have the power, 
or the skill—” 
She paused, and then added, “I wish Mogget 
wasn’t . . . I wish he was here. He’d think of 
something . . .” 
446 
Touchstone was silent, then he said, “We need 
more Charter Mages—it would work if the 
marks were reinforced enough.” 
“More Charter Mages,” Sabriel said tiredly. 
“We’re on the wrong side of the Wall . . .” 
“What about your school?” asked Touchstone, 
and then “Ow!” as Sabriel suddenly shot 
up, disrupting his balance, then “Ow!” again as 
she bent down and kissed him, pushing his head 
further into the thistle. 
“Touchstone! I should have thought . . . the 
Senior magic classes. There must be thirty-five 
girls with the Charter mark and the basic 
skills.” 
“Good,” muttered Touchstone, from the 
depths of the thistle. Sabriel put out her hands, 
and helped him up, smelling the sweat on him, 
and the fresh, pungent odor of crushed thistles. 
He was halfway up when she suddenly seemed 
to lose her enthusiasm, and he almost fell back 
down again. 
“The girls are there,” said Sabriel, slowly, as if 
thinking aloud. “But have I any right to involve 
them in something that . . .” 
“They’re involved anyway,” interrupted 
Touchstone. “The only reason that Ancelstierre 
447 
isn’t like the Old Kingdom is the Wall, and it 
won’t last once Kerrigor breaks the remaining 
Stones.” 
“They’re only schoolchildren,” Sabriel said 

sadly. “For all we always thought we were 
grown women.” 
“We need them,” said Touchstone, again. 
“Yes,” said Sabriel, turning back towards the 
knot of men gathered as close as they dared to 
the cairn. Horyse, and some of the stronger 
Charter Mages, peering back towards the 
entrance and the shimmering bronze within. 
“The spell failed,” Sabriel said. “But Touchstone 
has just reminded me where we can get 
more Charter Mages.” 
Horyse looked at her, urgency in his face. 
“Where?” 
“Wyverley College. My old school. The Fifth 
and Sixth Form magic classes, and their teacher, 
Magistrix Greenwood. It’s less than a mile 
away.” 
“I don’t think we’ve got time to get a message 
there, and get them over here,” Horyse began, 
looking up at the setting sun, then at his watch— 
which was now going backwards. He looked 
puzzled for a moment, then ignored it. “But . . . 
448 
449 
do you think it would be possible to move the 
sarcophagus?” 
Sabriel thought about the protective spell that 
she’d encountered, then answered. “Yes. Most 
of the wards were on the cairn, for concealment. 
There’s nothing to stop us moving the sarcophagus, 
save the side effects of the Free Magic. If we 
can stand the sickness, we can shift it—” 
“And Wyverly College—it’s an old, solid 
building?” 
“More like a castle than anything,” replied 
Sabriel, seeing the way he was thinking. “Easier 
to defend than this hill.” 
“Running water . . . No? That would be too 
much to hope for. Right! Private Macking, run 
down to Major Tindall and tell him that I want 
his company ready to move in two minutes. 
We’re going back to the trucks, then on to 
Wyverley College—it’s on the map, about a 
mile . . .” 

“South-west,” Sabriel provided. 
“South-west. Repeat that back.” 
Private Macking repeated the message in a 
slow drawl, then ran off, clearly keen to get 
away from the cairn. Horyse turned to the longservice 
corporal and said, “Corporal Anshey. 
You look pretty fit. Do you think you could get 
a rope around that coffin?” 
“Reckon so, sir,” replied Corporal Anshey. He 
detached a coil of rope from his webbing as he 
spoke, and gestured with his hand to the other soldiers. 
“Come on you blokes, get yer ropes out.” 
Twenty minutes later, the sarcophagus was 
being lifted by shear-legs and rope aboard a 
horse-drawn wagon, appropriated from a local 
farmer. As Sabriel had expected, dragging it 
within twenty yards of the trucks stopped their 
engines, put out electric lights and disrupted the 
telephone. 
Curiously, the horse, a placid old mare, didn’t 
seem overly frightened by the gleaming sarcophagus, 
despite its bronze surface sluggishly crawling 
with stomach-churning perversions of 
Charter marks. She wasn’t a happy horse, but 
not a panicked one either. 
“We’ll have to drive the wagon,” Sabriel said to 
Touchstone, as the soldiers pushed the suspended 
coffin aboard with long poles, and collapsed the 
shear-legs. “I don’t think the Scouts can withstand 
the sickness much longer.” 
Touchstone shuddered. Like everyone else, he 
was pale, eyes red-rimmed, his nose dripping and 
450 
teeth chattering. “I’m not sure I can, either.” 
Nevertheless, when the last rope was twitched 
off, and the soldiers hurried away, Touchstone 
climbed up to the driver’s seat and picked up the 
reins. Sabriel climbed up next to him, suppressing 
the feeling that her stomach was about to 
rise into her mouth. She didn’t look back at the 
sarcophagus. 
Touchstone said “tch-tch” to the horse, and 
flicked the reins. The mare’s ears went up, and 
she took up the load, pacing forwards. It was 

not a quick pace. 
“Is this as fast as . . .” Sabriel said anxiously. 
They had a mile to cover, and the sun was 
already bloody, a red disc balanced on the line of 
the horizon. 
“It’s a heavy load,” Touchstone answered 
slowly, quick breaths coming between his words, 
as if he found it difficult to speak. “We’ll be 
there before the light goes.” 
The sarcophagus seemed to buzz and chuckle 
behind them. Neither of them mentioned that 
Kerrigor might arrive, fog-wreathed, before the 
night did. Sabriel found herself looking behind 
every few seconds, back along the road. This 
meant catching glimpses of the vilely shifting 
451 
surface of the coffin, but she couldn’t help it. The 
shadows were lengthening, and every time she 
caught a glimpse of some tree’s pale bark, or a 
whitewashed mile marker, fear twitched in her 
gut. Was that fog curling down the road? 
Wyverley College seemed much farther than a 
mile. The sun was only a three-quarter disc by 
the time they saw the trucks turn off the road, 
turning up the bricked drive that led to the 
wrought-iron gates of Wyverley College. Home, 
thought Sabriel for a moment. But that was no 
longer true. It had been home for the better part 
of her life, but that was past. It was the home of 
her childhood, when she was only Sabriel. Now, 
she was also Abhorsen. Now, her home lay in 
the Old Kingdom, as did her responsibilities. 
But like her, these traveled. 
Electric lights burned brightly in the two 
antique glass lanterns on either side of the gate, 
but they dimmed to mere sparks as the wagon 
and its strange cargo drove through. One of the 
gates was off its hinges, and Sabriel realized the 
soldiers must have forced their way through. It 
was unusual for the gates to be locked before 
full dark. They must have closed them when 
they heard the bells, Sabriel realized, and that 
452 
alerted her to something else . . . 

“The bell in the village,” she exclaimed, as the 
wagon passed several parked trucks and 
wheeled around to stop near the huge, gate-like 
doors to the main building of the school. “The 
bell—it’s stopped.” 
Touchstone brought the wagon to a halt, and 
listened, cocking an ear towards the darkening 
sky. True enough, they could no longer hear the 
Wyverley village bell. 
“It is a mile,” he said, hesitantly. “Perhaps 
we’re too far, the wind . . .” 
“No,” said Sabriel. She felt the air, cool with 
evening, still on her face. There was no wind. 
“You could always hear it here. Kerrigor has 
reached the village. We need to get the sarcophagus 
inside, quickly!” 
She jumped down from the wagon, and ran 
over to Horyse, who was standing on the steps 
outside the partially open door, talking to an 
obscured figure within. As Sabriel got closer, 
edging through groups of waiting soldiers, she 
recognized the voice. It was Mrs. Umbrade, the 
headmistress. 
“How dare you barge in here!” she was pronouncing, 
very pompously. “I am a very close 
453 
personal friend of Lieutenant-General Farnsley, 
I’ll have you know—Sabriel!” 
The sight of Sabriel in such strange garb and 
circumstance seemed to momentarily stun Mrs. 
Umbrade. In that second of fish-mouthed 
silence, Horyse motioned to his men. Before 
Mrs. Umbrade could protest, they’d pushed the 
door wide open, and streams of armed men 
rushed in, pouring around her startled figure 
like a flood around an island. 
“Mrs. Umbrade!” Sabriel shouted. “I need to 
talk to Miss Greenwood urgently, and the girls 
from the Senior Magic classes. You’d better get 
the rest of the girls and the staff up to the top 
floors of the North Tower.” 
Mrs. Umbrade stood, gulping like a goldfish, 
till Horyse suddenly loomed over her and 
snapped, “Move, woman!” 

Almost before his mouth closed, she was gone. 
Sabriel looked back to check that Touchstone 
was organizing the shifting of the sarcophagus, 
then followed her in. 
The entrance hall was already blocked by a 
conga line of soldiers, passing boxes in from the 
trucks outside, stacking them up all along the 
walls. Khaki-colored boxes marked “.303 Ball” 
454 
or “B2E2 WP Grenade,” piled up beneath pictures 
of prizewinning hockey teams, or giltlettered 
boards of merit and scholastic brilliance. 
The soldiers had also thrown open the doors to 
the Great Hall, and were busy in there, closing 
shutters and piling pews up on their ends against 
the shuttered windows. 
Mrs. Umbrade was still in motion at the other 
end of the entrance hall, bustling along towards a 
knot of obviously nervous staff. Behind them, 
peering down from the main stair, was a solid 
rank of prefects. Behind them, higher up the stair, 
and just able to see, were several gaggles of nonprefectorial 
fifth and sixth formers. Sabriel didn’t 
doubt that the rest of the school would be lining 
the corridors behind them, all agog to hear what 
the commotion was all about. 
Just as Mrs. Umbrade reached her staff, all the 
lights went out. For a moment, there was total, 
shocked quiet, then the noise redoubled. Girls 
screaming, soldiers shouting, crashes and bangs 
as people ran into things and each other. 
Sabriel stood where she was, and conjured the 
Charter marks for light. They came easily, flowing 
down to her fingertips like cool water from 
a shower. She let them hang there for a moment, 
455 
then cast them at the ceiling, drops of light that 
grew to the size of dinner plates and cast a steady 
yellow light all down the hall. Someone else 
was also casting similar lights down by Mrs. 
Umbrade, and Sabriel recognized the work of 
Magistrix Greenwood. She smiled at that recognition, 
a slight, upturning of just one side of 
her mouth. She knew the lights had gone out 

because Kerrigor had passed the electric substation, 
and that was halfway between the 
school and the village. 
As expected, Mrs. Umbrade wasn’t telling her 
teachers anything useful—just going on about 
rudeness and some General. Sabriel saw the 
Magistrix behind the tall, bent figure of the Senior 
Science Mistress, and waved. 
“And I was never more shocked to see one of 
our—” Mrs. Umbrade was saying, when Sabriel 
stepped up next to her and gently laid the marks 
of silence and immobility on the back of her 
neck. 
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Sabriel said, standing 
next to the temporarily frozen form of the Headmistress. 
“But this is an emergency. As you can 
see, the Army is temporarily taking over. I am 
assisting Colonel Horyse, who is in charge. Now, 
456 
we need all the girls in the two Senior Magic 
classes to come down to the Great Hall—with 
you, Magistrix Greenwood, please. Everyone 
else—students, staff, gardeners, everyone—must 
go to the top floors of the North Tower and 
barricade yourselves in. Till dawn tomorrow.” 
“Why?” demanded Mrs. Pearch, the Mathematics 
Mistress. “What’s all this about?” 
“Something has come from the Old 
Kingdom,” Sabriel replied shortly, watching 
their faces change as she spoke. “We will 
shortly be attacked by the Dead.” 
“So there will be danger to my students?” 
Miss Greenwood spoke, pushing her way forward, 
between two frightened English teachers. 
She looked Sabriel in the face, as if in recognition, 
and then added, “Abhorsen.” 
“There will be danger to everyone,” Sabriel 
said bleakly. “But without the aid of the Charter 
Mages here, there isn’t even a chance . . .” 
“Well,” replied Miss Greenwood, with some 
decision. “We’d better get organized then. I’ll go 
and fetch Sulyn and Ellimere. I think they’re the 
only two Charter Mages among the Prefects— 
they can organize the others. Mrs. Pearch, you’d 

better take charge of the . . . ah . . . evacuation to 
457 
the North Tower, as I imagine Mrs. Umbrade will 
be . . . err . . . deep in thought. Mrs. Swann, you’d 
best round up Cook and the maids—get some 
fresh water, food and candles, too. Mr. Arkler, if 
you would be so kind as to fetch the swords from 
the gymnasium . . .” 
Seeing that all was under control, Sabriel sighed, 
and quickly walked back outside, past soldiers 
stringing oil lamps up in the corridor. Despite 
them, it was still lighter outside, the sky washed 
red and orange with the last sunlight of the day. 
Touchstone and the Scouts had the sarcophagus 
down, and roped up. It now seemed to glow 
with its own, ugly inner light, the flickering Free 
Magic marks floating on the surface like scum, 
or clots in blood. Apart from the Scouts pulling 
the ropes, no one went close to it. Soldiers were 
everywhere, coiling out barbed wire, filling sandbags 
from the rose gardens, preparing firing 
positions on the second floor, tying trip flares. 
But in all this commotion, there was an empty 
circle around the glistening coffin of Rogir. 
Sabriel walked towards Touchstone, feeling 
the reluctance in her legs, her body revolting at 
the thought of going any closer to the bloody 
luminescence of the sarcophagus. It seemed to 
458 
radiate stronger waves of nausea now, now that 
the sun had almost fled. In the twilight, it looked 
larger, stronger, its magic more forceful and 
malign. 
“Pull!” shouted Touchstone, heaving on the 
ropes with the soldiers. “Pull!” 
Slowly, the sarcophagus slid across the old 
paving stones, inching towards the front steps, 
where other soldiers were hastily hammering a 
wooden ramp together, fitting it over the steps. 
Sabriel decided to leave Touchstone to it, and 
walked a little way down the drive, to where she 
could see out the iron gates. She stood there, 
watching, her hands nervously running over the 
handles of the bells. Six bells, now—all probably 

ineffective against the awful might of Kerrigor. 
And an unfamilar sword, strange to her touch, 
even if it was forged by the Wallmaker. 
The Wallmaker. That reminded her of Mogget. 
Who knew what he had been, that strange 
combination of irascible companion to the 
Abhorsens and blazing Free Magic construct 
sworn to kill them. Gone now, swept away by 
the mournful call of Astarael . . . 
I left this place knowing almost nothing about 
the Old Kingdom, and I’ve come back with not 
459 
much more, Sabriel thought. I am the most ignorant 
Abhorsen in centuries, and perhaps one of 
the most sorely tried . . . 
A clatter of shots interrupted her thoughts, followed 
by the zing of a rocket arcing up into the 
sky, its yellow trail reaching down towards the 
road. More shots followed. A rapid volley—then 
sudden silence. The rocket burst into a white 
parachute flare, that slowly descended. In its 
harsh, magnesium brilliance, Sabriel saw fog 
rolling up the road, thick and wet, stretching 
back into the dark as far as she could see. 
460 
chapter xxviii 
Sabriel forced herself to walk 
back to the main doors, rather than break into a 
screaming run. Lots of soldiers could see her— 
they were still placing lanterns out in lines, radiating 
out from the steps, and several soldiers 
were holding a coil of concertina wire, waiting 
to bounce it out. They looked anxiously at her as 
she passed. 
The sarcophagus was just slipping off the ramp 
into the corridor ahead of her. Sabriel could easily 
have pushed past it, but she waited outside, 
looking out. After a moment, she became aware 
that Horyse was standing next to her, his face 
half-lit by the lanterns, half in shadow. 
“The fog . . . the fog is almost at the gates,” 
she said, too quickly to be calm. 

“I know,” replied Horyse, steadily. “That firing 
was a picket. Six men and a corporal.” 
Sabriel nodded. She had felt their deaths, like 
slight punches in her stomach. Already she was 
hardening herself not to notice, to wilfully dull 
her senses. There would be many more deaths 
that night. 
Suddenly, she felt something that wasn’t a 
death, but things already dead. She stood bolt 
upright, and exclaimed, “Colonel! The sun is 
truly down—and something’s coming, coming 
ahead of the fog!” 
She drew her sword as she spoke, the Colonel’s 
blade flickering out a second later. The wiring 
party looked around, startled, then bolted for 
the steps and the corridor. On either side of the 
door, two-man teams cocked the heavy, tripodmounted 
machine-guns, and laid their swords 
across the newly made sandbag walls. 
“Second floor, stand ready!” Horyse shouted, 
and above her head, Sabriel heard the bolts of 
fifty rifles working. Out of the corner of her eye, 
she saw two of the Scouts step back outside, and 
take up position behind her, arrows nocked, 
bows ready. She knew they were ready to snatch 
her inside, if it came to that . . . 
462 
In the expectant quiet, there were only the 
usual sounds of the night. Wind in the big trees 
out past the school wall, starting to rise as the 
sky darkened. Crickets beginning to chirp. Then 
Sabriel heard it—the massed grinding of Dead 
joints, no longer joined by gristle; the padding of 
Dead feet, bones like hobnails clicking through 
necrotic flesh. 
“Hands,” she said, nervously. “Hundreds of 
Hands.” 
Even as she spoke, a solid wall of Dead flesh 
hit the iron gates, throwing them over in a split 
second’s crash. Then vaguely human forms were 
everywhere, rushing towards them, Dead 
mouths gulping and hissing in a ghastly parody 
of a war cry. 
“Fire!” 

In the instant’s delay after this command, 
Sabriel felt the terrible fear that the guns 
wouldn’t work. Then rifles cracked, and the 
machine-guns beat out a terrible, barking roar, 
red tracer rounds flinging out, ricocheting from 
the paving in a crazy embroidery of terrible 
violence. Bullets tore Dead flesh, splintered 
bone, knocked the Hands down and over—but 
still they came, till they were literally torn apart, 
463 
broken into pieces, hung up on the wire. 
The firing slowed, but before it could entirely 
cease, another wave of Hands came stumbling, 
crawling, running through the gateway, slipping, 
tumbling over the wall. Hundreds of them, so 
densely packed they crushed the wire and came 
on, till the last of them were mown down by the 
guns at the very foot of the front steps. Some, 
still with a slight vestige of human intelligence, 
retreated, only to be caught in great gouts of 
flame from white phosphorus grenades thrown 
out from the second floor. 
“Sabriel—get inside!” Horyse ordered, as the 
last of the Hands flopped and crawled in crazy 
circles, till more bullets thudded into them and 
made them still. 
“Yes,” replied Sabriel, looking out at the carpet 
of bodies, the flickering fires from the 
lanterns and lumps of phosphorus burning like 
candles in some ghastly charnel house. The 
stench of cordite was in her nose, through her 
hair, on her clothes, the machine-gun’s barrels 
glowing an evil red to either side of her. The 
Hands were already dead, but even so, this mass 
destruction made her sicker than any Free 
Magic . . . 
464 
465 
She went inside, sheathing her sword. Only 
then did she remember the bells. Possibly, she 
could have quelled that vast mob of Hands, 
sent them peaceably back into Death, without— 
but it was too late. And what if she had been 
overmastered? 

Shadow Hands would be next, she knew, and 
they could not be stopped by physical force, or 
her bells, unless they came in small numbers . . . 
and that was as likely as an early dawn . . . 
There were more soldiers in the corridor, 
but these were mailed and helmed, with large 
shields and broad-headed spears streaked with 
silver and the simplest Charter marks, drawn 
in chalk and spit. They were smoking, and 
drinking tea from the school’s second-best 
china. Sabriel realized they were there to fight 
when the guns failed. There was an air of controlled 
nervousness about them—not bravado 
exactly, just a strange mixture of competence 
and cynicism. Whatever it was, it made Sabriel 
walk casually among them, as if she were in no 
hurry at all. 
“Evening, miss.” 
“Good to hear the guns, hey? Practically never 
work up north!” 
“Won’t need us at this rate.” 
“Not like the Perimeter, is it, ma’am?” 
“Good luck with the bloke in the metal cigar 
case, miss.” 
“Good luck to all of you,” replied Sabriel, trying 
to smile in answer to their grins. Then the 
firing started again, and she winced, losing the 
smile—but their attention was off her, focused 
back outside. They weren’t nearly as casual as 
they pretended, Sabriel thought as she edged 
through the side doors leading from the corridor 
into the Great Hall. 
Here, the mood was much more frightened. 
The sarcophagus was up the far end of the Hall, 
resting across the speaker’s dais. Everyone else 
was as far away as possible up at the other end. 
The Scouts were on one side, also drinking 
tea. Magistrix Greenwood was talking to 
Touchstone in the middle, and the thirty or so 
girls—young women, really—were lined up on 
the opposite wall to the soldiers. It was all rather 
like a bizarre parody of a school dance. 
Behind the thick stone walls and shuttered 
windows of the Great Hall, the gunfire could 

almost be mistaken for extremely heavy hail, 
with grenades for thunderclaps, but not if you 
466 
knew what it was. Sabriel walked into the center 
of the Hall, and shouted. 
“Charter Mages! Please come here.” 
They came, the young women quicker than the 
soldiers, who were showing the weariness of the 
day’s work, and proximity to the sarcophagus. 
Sabriel looked at the students, their faces bright 
and open, a thin layer of fear laid over excitement 
at the spice of the unknown. Two of her 
best schoolfriends, Sulyn and Ellimere, were 
among the crowd, but she felt far distant from 
them now. She probably looked it too, she 
thought, seeing respect and something like wonder 
in their eyes. Even the Charter marks on 
their foreheads looked like fragile cosmetic replicas, 
though she knew they were real. It was so 
unfair that they had to be caught up in this . . . 
Sabriel opened her mouth to speak, and the 
noise of gunfire suddenly ceased, almost on cue. 
In the silence, one of the girls giggled nervously. 
Sabriel, however, suddenly felt many deaths 
come at once, and a familiar dread touched her 
spine with cold fingers. Kerrigor was closing in. 
It was his power that had stilled the guns, not a 
lessening of the assault. Faintly, she could hear 
shouts and even . . . screams . . . from outside. 
467 
They would be fighting with older weapons now. 
“Quickly,” she said, walking towards the sarcophagus 
as she spoke. “We must make a handfast 
ring around the sarcophagus. Magistrix, if 
you would place everyone—Lieutenant, please 
put your men in among the girls . . .” 
Anywhere else, at any other time, there would 
have been ribald jokes and giggles about that. 
Here, with the Dead about the building, and the 
sarcophagus brooding in their midst, it was simply 
an instruction. Men moved quickly to their 
places, the young women took their hands purposefully. 
In a few seconds, the sarcophagus was 
ringed by Charter Mages. 

Linked by touch now, Sabriel didn’t need to 
speak. She could feel everyone in the ring. 
Touchstone, to her right, a familiar and powerful 
warmth. Miss Greenwood, to her left, less 
powerful, but not without skill—and so on, right 
around the ring. 
Slowly, Sabriel brought the Charter marks of 
opening to the forefront of her mind. The marks 
grew, power flowing round and round the ring, 
growing in force till it started to project inwards, 
like the narrowing vortex of a whirlpool. Golden 
light began to stream about the sarcophagus, 
468 
visible streaks rotating clockwise around it, with 
greater and greater speed. 
Still Sabriel kept the power of the Charter 
Magic flowing into the center, drawing on everything 
the Charter Mages could produce. Soldiers 
and schoolgirls wavered, and some fell to their 
knees, but the hands stayed linked, the circle 
complete. 
Slowly, the sarcophagus itself began turning 
on the platform, with a hideous shrieking noise, 
like an enormous unoiled hinge. Steam jetted 
forth from under its lid, but the golden light 
whisked it away. Still shrieking, the sarcophagus 
began to spin faster and faster, till it was a blur 
of bronze, white steam and yolk-yellow light. 
Then, with a scream more piercing than any 
before, it suddenly stopped, the lid flying off to 
hurtle over the Charter Mages’ heads, smashing 
into the floor a good thirty paces away. 
The Charter Magic went too, as if earthed by 
its success, and the ring collapsed with fewer 
than half the participants still on their feet. 
Wavering, her hands still tightly gripped by 
Touchstone and the Magistrix, Sabriel tottered 
over to the sarcophagus and looked in. 
“Why,” said Miss Greenwood, with a startled 
469 
glance back up at Touchstone, “he looks just like 
you!” 
Before Touchstone could answer, steel clashed 
outside in the corridor, and the shouting grew 

louder. Those Scouts still standing drew their 
swords and rushed to the doors—but before they 
could reach them, other soldiers were pouring in, 
bloodied, terrified soldiers, who ran to the corners, 
or threw themselves down, and sobbed, or 
laughed, or shook in silence. 
Behind this rush came some of the heavily 
armored soldiery of the corridor. These men still 
had some semblance of control. Instead of running 
on, they hurled themselves back against the 
doors, and dropped the bar in place. 
“He’s inside the main doors!” one of them 
shouted back towards Sabriel, his face white 
with terror. There was no doubt about who “he” 
was. 
“Quick, the final rites!” Sabriel snapped. She 
drew her hands from the others’ grasp, and held 
them out over the body, forming the marks for 
fire, cleansing and peace in her mind. She didn’t 
look too closely at the body. Rogir did look very 
much like a sleeping, defenseless Touchstone. 
She was tired, and there were still Free Magic 
470 
protections around the body, but the first mark 
soon lingered in the air. Touchstone had transferred 
his hand to her shoulder, pouring power 
into her. Others of the circle had crept up and 
linked hands again—and suddenly Sabriel felt a 
stirring of relief. They were going to make it— 
Kerrigor’s human body would be destroyed, and 
the greater part of his power with it . . . 
Then the whole of the northern wall exploded, 
bricks cascading out, red dust blowing in like a 
solid wave, knocking everyone down in blinding, 
choking ruin. 
Sabriel lay on the floor, coughing, hands pushing 
feebly on the floor, knees scrabbling as she 
tried to get up. There was dust and grit in her 
eyes, and the lanterns had all gone out. Blind, 
she felt around her, but there was only the stillscalding 
bronze of the sarcophagus. 
“The blood price must be paid,” said a crackling, 
inhuman voice. A familiar voice, though 
not the liquid, ruined tones of Kerrigor . . . but 

the terrible speech of the night in Holehallow, 
when the Paperwing burned. 
Blinking furiously, Sabriel crawled away from 
the sound, around the sarcophagus. It didn’t 
speak again immediately, but she could hear it 
471 
closing in, the air crackling and buzzing at its 
passage. 
“I must deliver my last burden,” the creature 
said. “Then the bargain is done, and I may turn 
to retribution.” 
Sabriel blinked again, tears streaming down 
her face. Vision slowly came back, a picture 
woven with tears and the first rays of moonlight 
streaming through the shattered wall, a picture 
blurred with the red dust of pulverized bricks. 
All Sabriel’s senses were screaming inside her. 
Free Magic, the Dead, danger all around . . . 
The creature that had once been Mogget 
blazed a little more than five yards away. It was 
squatter than it had appeared previously, but 
equally misshapen, a lumpy body slowly drifting 
towards her atop a column of twisting, whirling 
energies. 
A soldier suddenly leapt up behind it, driving 
a sword deep into its back. It hardly noticed, but 
the man screamed and burst into white flames. 
Within a second, he was consumed, his sword a 
molten lump of metal, scorching the thick oak 
planks of the floor. 
“I bring you Abhorsen’s sword,” the creature 
said, dropping a long, dimly seen object to one 
472 
side. “And the bell called Astarael.” 
That, it laid carefully down, the silver glinting 
momentarily before it was lowered into the sea 
of dust. 
“Come forward, Abhorsen. It is long since 
time that we begun.” 
The thing laughed then, a sound like a match 
igniting, and it started to move around the sarcophagus. 
Sabriel loosened the ring on her finger, 
and edged away, keeping the sarcophagus 
between them, her thoughts racing. Kerrigor 

was very near, but there still might be time to 
turn this creature back into Mogget, and complete 
the final rites . . . 
“Stop!” 
The word was like a foul lick across the face 
by a reptilian tongue, but there was power 
behind it. Sabriel stood still, against her own 
desire, as did the blazing thing. Sabriel tried 
looking past it, lidding her eyes against the 
light, trying to puzzle out what was happening 
at the other end of the Hall. Not that she really 
needed to see. 
It was Kerrigor. The soldiers who’d barred the 
door lay dead around him, pale flesh islands 
about a sea of darkness. He had no shape now, 
473 
but there were semi-human features in the great 
ink-splash of his presence. Eyes of white fire, 
and a yawning mouth that was lined with flickering 
coals of a red as dark as drying blood. 
“Abhorsen is mine,” croaked Kerrigor, his 
voice deep and somehow liquid, as if his words 
came bubbling out like lava mixed with spittle. 
“You will leave her to me.” 
The Mogget-thing crackled, and moved again, 
white sparks falling like tiny stars in its wake. 
“I have waited too long to allow my revenge 
to be taken by another!” it hissed, ending on a 
high-pitched yowl that still had something of 
the cat. Then it flew at Kerrigor, a shining electric 
comet hurtling into the darkness of his 
body, smashing into his shadowy substance like 
a hammer tenderizing meat. 
For a moment, no one moved, shocked by the 
suddenness of the attack. Then, Kerrigor’s dark 
shape slowly recongealed, long tendrils of bitter 
night wrapping around his brilliant attacker, 
choking and absorbing it with the implacable 
voracity of an octopus strangling a brightshelled 
turtle. 
Desperately, Sabriel looked around for 
Touchstone and Magistrix Greenwood. Brick 
474 
dust was still falling slowly through the moonlit 

air, like some deadly rust-colored gas, the bodies 
lying around seemingly victims of its choking 
poison. But they had been struck by bricks, or 
wooden splinters from the smashing of the pews. 
Sabriel saw the Magistrix first, lying a little 
away, curled up on her side. Anyone else might 
have thought her merely unconscious, but 
Sabriel knew she was dead, struck by a long, 
stiletto-like splinter from a shattered pew. The 
iron-hard wood had driven right through her. 
She knew Touchstone was alive—and there he 
was, propped up against a pile of broken 
masonry. His eyes reflected the moonlight. 
Sabriel walked over to him, stepping between 
the bodies and the rubble, the patches of freshly 
spilled blood and the silent, hopeless wounded. 
“My leg is broken,” Touchstone said, his 
mouth showing the pain of it. He tilted his 
head towards the gaping hole in the wall. “Run, 
Sabriel. While he’s busy. Run south. Live a normal 
life . . .” 
“I can’t,” replied Sabriel softly. “I am the 
Abhorsen. Besides, how could you run with me, 
you with your broken leg?” 
“Sabriel . . .” 
475 
But Sabriel had already turned away. She 
picked up Astarael, practiced hands keeping it 
still. But there was no need, for the bell was 
choked with brick dust, its voice silent. It would 
not ring true until cleaned, with patience, magic 
and steady nerves. Sabriel stared at it for a second, 
then gently placed it back down on the 
floor. 
Her father’s sword was only a few paces further 
away. She picked it up, and watched the 
Charter marks flow along the blade. This time, 
they didn’t run through the normal inscription, 
but said: “The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker 
made me, the King quenched me, the Abhorsen 
wields me so that no Dead shall walk in Life. For 
this is not their path.” 
“This is not their path,” whispered Sabriel. She 
took up the guard position, and looked down 

the Hall to the writhing hulk of darkness that 
was Kerrigor. 
476 
chapter xxix 
Kerrigor seemed to have 
finished with the Free Magic thing that had 
once been Mogget. His great cloud of darkness 
was complete again, with no sign of white 
fire, no dazzling brilliance fighting away within. 
He was remarkably still, and Sabriel had a 
moment’s brief hope that he was somehow 
wounded. Then the awful realization came. 
Kerrigor was digesting, like a glutton after an 
overly ambitious meal. 
Sabriel shuddered at the thought, bile tainting 
her mouth. Not that her end was likely to 
be better. Both she and Touchstone would be 
taken alive, and kept that way, till they 
pumped out their life’s blood, throats yawning, 
down in the dark of the reservoir . . . 
She shook her head, dispelling that image. 
There had to be something . . . Kerrigor had to 
be weaker, so far from the Old Kingdom . . . 
perhaps weakened more than her Charter 
Magic. She doubted that a single bell could 
sway him, but two, in concert? 
It was dark in the Hall, save for the moonlight 
falling through the shattered wall behind 
her. And quiet. Even the wounded were slipping 
away in silence, their cries muted, last 
wishes whispered. They kept their agony 
close, as if a scream might attract the wrong 
attention. There were things worse than death 
in the Hall . . . 
Even in darkness, the form of Kerrigor was 
darker still. Sabriel watched him carefully, 
undoing the straps that held Saraneth and 
Kibeth with her left hand. She sensed other 
Dead all around, but none entered the Hall. 
There were still men to fight, or feast upon. 
What went on in the Hall was their Master’s 
business. 

The straps came undone. Kerrigor didn’t 
move, his burning eyes closed, his fiery mouth 
shut. 
In one quick motion, Sabriel sheathed her 
478 
sword, and drew the bells. 
Kerrigor did move then. Swiftly, his dark 
bulk bounding forward, halving the gap 
between them. He grew taller too, stretching 
upwards till he almost reached the vaulted 
ceiling. His eyes opened to full, raging, flaming 
fury, and he spoke. 
“Toys, Abhorsen. And too late. Much too 
late.” 
It was not just words he spoke, but power, 
Free Magic power that froze Sabriel’s nerves, 
caught at her muscles. Desperately, she struggled 
to ring the bells, but her wrists were 
locked in place . . . 
Tantalizingly slowly, Kerrigor glided forward, 
till he was a mere arm’s length away, 
towering over her like some colossal statue of 
rough-hewn night, his breath rolling down on 
her with the stench of a thousand abattoirs. 
Someone—a girl quietly coughing out her 
last breath on the floor—touched Sabriel’s 
ankle with a light caress. A small spark of 
golden Charter Magic came from that dying 
touch, slowly swelling into Sabriel’s veins, 
traveling upwards, warming joints, freeing 
muscles. At last it reached her wrists and 
479 
hands—and the bells rang out. 
It was not the clear, true sound it should be, 
for somehow the bulk of Kerrigor took the 
sound in and warped it—but it had an effect. 
Kerrigor slid back, and was diminished, till he 
was little more than twice Sabriel’s height. 
But he was not subject to Sabriel’s will. 
Saraneth had not bound him, and Kibeth had 
only forced him back. 
Sabriel rang the bells again, concentrating 
on the difficult counterpoint between them, 
forcing all her will into their magic. Kerrigor 

would fall under her domination, he would 
walk where she willed . . . 
And for a second, he did. Not into Death, 
for she lacked the power, but into his original 
body, inside the broken sarcophagus. Even as 
the chime of the bells faded, Kerrigor changed. 
Fiery eyes and mouth ran into each other like 
molten wax, and his shadow-stuff folded into a 
narrow column of smoke, roaring up into the 
ceiling. It hovered among the rafters for a 
moment, then descended with a hideous scream, 
straight into the Rogir-body’s open mouth. 
With that scream, Saraneth and Kibeth 
cracked, shards of silver falling like broken stars, 
480 
crashing to the earth. Mahogany handles turned 
to dust, drifting through Sabriel’s fingers like 
smoke. 
Sabriel stared at her empty hands for a second, 
still feeling the harsh imprint of bell-handles . . . 
then, without any conscious thought, there was 
a sword hilt in her hand as she advanced upon 
the sarcophagus. But before she could see into it, 
Rogir stood up and looked at her—looked with 
the burning fire-pit eyes of Kerrigor. 
“An inconvenience,” he said, with a voice that 
was only marginally more human. “I should 
have remembered you were a troublesome 
brat.” 
Sabriel lunged at him, sword blowing white 
sparks as it struck, punching through his chest to 
project out the other side. But Kerrigor only 
laughed, and reached down till he held the blade 
with both hands, knuckles pallid against the 
silver-sparking steel. Sabriel tugged at the sword, 
but it would not come free. 
“No sword can harm me,” Kerrigor said, with 
a giggle like a dying man’s cough. “Not even one 
made by the Wallmakers. Especially not now, 
when I have finally assumed the last of their 
powers. Power that ruled before the Charter, 
481 
power that made the Wall. I have it now. I have 
that broken puppet, my half-brother—and I 

have you, my Abhorsen. Power, and blood— 
blood for the breaking!” 
He reached out, and pulled the sword further 
into his chest, till the hilt was lodged against his 
skin. Sabriel tried to let go, but he was too quick, 
one chill hand clutching her forearm. Irresistibly, 
Kerrigor drew her towards him. 
“Will you sleep, unknowing, till the Great 
Stones are ready for your blood?” whispered 
Kerrigor, his breath still reeking of carrion. “Or 
will you go waking, every step of the way?” 
Sabriel stared back, meeting his gaze for the 
first time. Surely, there in the hellfire of his eyes, 
she could see the faintest spark of blazing white? 
She unclenched her left fist, and felt the silver 
ring slip down her finger. Was it expanding? 
“What would you have, Abhorsen?” continued 
Kerrigor, his mouth peeling back, skin 
already breaking at the corners, the spirit within 
corroding even this magically preserved flesh. 
“Your lover crawls towards us—a pathetic 
sight—but I shall have the next kiss . . .” 
The ring was hanging in Sabriel’s hand, hidden 
behind her back. It had grown larger—but she 
482 
could still feel the metal expanding . . . 
Kerrigor’s blistered lips moved towards hers, 
and still the ring moved in her hand. His breath 
was overpowering, reeking of blood, but she had 
long gone beyond throwing up. She turned her 
head aside at the last second, and felt, dry, 
corpse-like flesh slide across her cheek. 
“A sisterly kiss,” chuckled Kerrigor. “A kiss 
for an uncle who has known you since birth—or 
slightly before—but it is not enough . . .” 
Again, his words were not just words. Sabriel 
felt a force grip her head, and move it back to 
face him, while her mouth was wedged apart, as 
if in passionate expectation. 
But her left arm was free. 
Kerrigor’s head bent forward, his face looming 
larger and larger—then silver flashed between 
them, and the ring was around his neck. 
Sabriel felt the compulsion snap off, and she 

leant back, trying to hurl herself away. But 
Kerrigor didn’t let go of her arm. He seemed surprised, 
but not anxious. His right hand went up 
to touch the band, fingernails falling as he did so, 
bone already pushing through at the fingertips. 
“What is this? Some relic of . . .” 
The ring constricted, cutting through the pulpy 
483 
flesh of his neck, revealing the solid darkness 
within. That too was compressed, forced 
inwards, pulsating as it tried to escape. Two 
flaming eyes looked down in disbelief. 
“Impossible,” croaked Kerrigor. Snarling, he 
pushed Sabriel away, throwing her to the floor. 
In the same motion he drew the sword from his 
chest, the blade slowly coming free with a sound 
like a rasp on hardwood. 
Swiftly as a snake, arm and sword went out, 
striking through Sabriel, through armor and 
flesh and deep into the wooden floor beyond. 
Pain exploded, and Sabriel screamed, body convulsing 
around the blade in one awful reflexive 
curve. 
Kerrigor left her there, impaled like a bug in a 
collection, and advanced upon Touchstone. 
Sabriel, through eyes fogged with pain, saw 
Kerrigor look down and rip a long, jagged splinter 
from one of the pews. 
“Rogir,” Touchstone said. “Rogir . . .” 
The splinter came down with a strangled shriek 
of rage. Sabriel closed her eyes and looked away, 
slipping into a world of her own, a world of pain. 
She knew she should do something about the 
blood pouring out of her stomach, but now— 
484 
with Touchstone dead—she just lay where she 
was, and let it bleed. 
Then Sabriel realized she hadn’t felt Touchstone 
die. 
She looked again. The splinter had broken on 
his armored coat. Kerrigor was reaching out for 
another splinter—but the silver ring had slipped 
down to his shoulders now, shredding the flesh 
away as it fell, like an apple corer punching the 

Dead spirit out of the rotting corpse. 
Kerrigor struggled and shrieked, but the ring 
bound his arms. Capering madly, he threw himself 
from side to side, seeking to cast off the silver 
band that held him—only causing yet more 
flesh to fall away, till no flesh remained, nothing 
but a raging column of darkness, constrained by 
a silver ring. 
Then the column collapsed upon itself like 
a demolished building, to become a mound of 
rippling shadow, the silver ring shining like a 
ribbon. A gleaming red eye shone amidst the 
silver—but that was only the ruby, grown to 
match the metal. 
There were Charter marks on the ring again, 
but Sabriel couldn’t read them. Her eyes wouldn’t 
focus, and it was too dark. The moonlight 
485 
seemed to have gone. Still, she knew what must be 
done. Saraneth—her hand crept to the bandolier, 
but the sixth bell wasn’t there—or the seventh, or 
the third. Careless of me, thought Sabriel, careless— 
but I must complete the binding. Her hand 
fell on Belgaer for a moment, and almost drew 
it—but no, that would be release . . . Finally, she 
drew Ranna, whimpering with the pain of even 
that small movement. 
Ranna was unusually heavy, for so slight a 
bell. Sabriel rested it against her chest for a 
moment, gathering strength. Then, lying on her 
back, transfixed with her own sword, she rang 
the bell. 
Ranna sounded sweet, and felt comforting, 
like a long-expected bed. The sound echoed 
through the Hall, and out, to where a few men 
still battled with the Dead. All who heard it 
ceased their struggles, and lay themselves down. 
The badly wounded slipped easily into Death, 
joining the Dead who had followed Kerrigor; 
those less hurt fell into a healing sleep. 
The mound of darkness that had been Kerrigor 
split into two distinct hemispheres, bounded by 
an equatorial ring of silver. One hemisphere was 
as black as coal; the other a gleaming white. 

486 
Gradually, they melted into two distinct forms— 
two cats, joined at the throat like Siamese twins. 
Then the silver ring split in two, a ring around 
each neck, and the cats separated. The rings lost 
their brilliance, slowly changing color and texture 
till they were red leather bands, each supporting 
a miniature bell, a miniature Ranna. 
Two small cats sat side by side. One black, one 
white. Both leaned forward, throats moving, 
and each spat up a silver ring. The cats yawned 
as the rings rolled towards Sabriel, then curled 
up and went to sleep. 
Touchstone watched the rings roll through the 
dust, silver flashing in the moonlight. They hit 
Sabriel’s side, but she didn’t pick them up. Both 
her hands still clutched Ranna, but it was silent, 
resting below her breasts. Her sword loomed 
above her, blade and hilt casting the moonshadow 
of a cross upon her face. 
Something from his childhood memory 
flashed through Touchstone’s mind. A voice, a 
messenger’s voice, speaking to his mother. 
“Highness, we bring sorrowful tidings. The 
Abhorsen is dead.” 
487 
Epilogue 
Death seemed colder than 
ever before, Sabriel thought, and wondered 
why, till she realized she was still lying down. 
In the water, being carried along by the current. 
For a moment, she started to struggle, 
then she relaxed. 
“Everyone and everything has a time to die . . .” 
she whispered. The living world and its cares 
seemed far away. Touchstone lived, and that 
made her glad, inasmuch as she could feel anything. 
Kerrigor was defeated, imprisoned if not 
made truly dead. Her work was done. Soon 
she would pass beyond the Ninth Gate, and 
rest forever . . . 
Something grabbed her arms and legs, 

489 
picked her up out of the water and set her 
down on her feet. 
“This is not your time,” said a voice, a voice 
echoed by half a hundred others. 
Sabriel blinked, for there were many shining 
human shapes around her, hovering above the 
water. More than she could count. Not Dead 
spirits, but something else, like the mothersending 
called by the paper boat. Their shapes 
were vague, but instantly recognizable, for all 
wore the deep blue with the silver keys. Every 
one was an Abhorsen. 
“Go back,” they chorused. “Go back.” 
“I can’t,” sobbed Sabriel. “I’m dead! I 
haven’t the strength . . .” 
“You are the last Abhorsen,” the voices whispered, 
the shining shapes closing in. “You cannot 
pass this way until there is another. You do have 
the strength within you. Live, Abhorsen, live . . .” 
Suddenly, she did have the strength. Enough 
to crawl, wade and fall back up the river, and 
gingerly edge back into Life, her shining escort 
dropping back at the very last. One of them— 
perhaps her father—lightly touched her hand 
in the instant before she left the realm of 
Death behind. 
A face swam into view—Touchstone’s, staring 
down at her. Sound hit her ears, distant, raucous 
bells that seemed out of place, till she realized 
they were ambulance bells, ambulances racing in 
from the town. She could sense no Dead at all, 
nor feel any great magic, Free or Charter. But 
then, Kerrigor was gone, and they were nearly 
forty miles from the Wall . . . 
“Live, Sabriel, live,” Touchstone was muttering, 
holding her icy hands, his own eyes so 
clouded with tears he hadn’t noticed hers opening. 
Sabriel smiled, then grimaced as the pain 
came back. She looked from side to side, wondering 
how long it would take Touchstone to 
realize. 
The electric lights had come back on in parts of 
the Hall, and soldiers were placing lanterns out 

again. There were more survivors than she’d 
expected, tending to the wounded, propping up 
dangerous brickwork, even sweeping up the 
brick-dust and grave mold. 
There were also many dead, and Sabriel sighed 
as she let her senses roam. Colonel Horyse, killed 
outside on the steps; Magistrix Greenwood; her 
innocent schoolfriend Ellimere; six other girls; 
at least half the soldiers . . . 
490 
Her eyes wandered to closer regions, to the 
two sleeping cats, the two silver rings next to her 
on the floor. 
“Sabriel!” 
Touchstone had finally noticed. Sabriel turned 
her gaze back to him, and lifted her head cautiously. 
He’d removed her sword, she saw, and 
several of her schoolfriends had cast a healing 
spell, good enough for the moment. Typically, 
Touchstone had done nothing for his own leg. 
“Sabriel,” he said again. “You’re alive!” 
“Yes,” said Sabriel, with some surprise. “I am.” 
491 
How I Write: The Process of Creating a Book 
Garth Nix offers some notes on his craft to the 
readers of the PerfectBound e-book edition of 
Sabriel 
This is a brief overview of how I go about writing a 
book, which may well be quite different from many 
other writers and different to the way you like to 
work yourself. However, in amongst the cries of 
“How could he work like that!,” there may be 
some useful pieces of information to help you with 
your own writing. 
To me, there are really four stages to writing a 
book, though they do overlap each other, swap 
places at times, or even take over for far longer 
than they should. These stages are: thinking, planning, 
writing, and revising. There is also a fifth 
stage, that runs concurrently with the above: staying 
motivated. 
Thinking 
Most of my books seem to stem from a single 
image or thought that lodges in my brain and slowly 
grows into something that needs to be expressed. 

That thought may be a “what if?” or perhaps just 
an image. Sabriel largely began from a photograph 
I saw of Hadrian’s Wall, which had a green lawn in 
front of it and snow on the hills behind it. Many 
other thoughts, conscious or otherwise, grew out, 
upon, and over that single image, both before and 
493 
during the writing of the book. 
Typically I seem to think about a book for a year or 
so before I actually start writing. In this thinking 
stage, I often write a few key points in my “ideas” 
notebook. At this stage, I merely put down bullet 
points or mnemonics that will remind me of what I 
was thinking. This can be very useful later on, particularly 
if the gestation period for a book is several 
years. Titles are also handy to jot down. The right 
title can be very useful as the seed from which the 
whole idea of the book can grow. 
Planning 
For all my longer works (i.e., the novels), I write 
chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of 
departing from them later on. Actually, while I do 
always depart from them, writing a chapter outline 
is a great discipline for thinking out the story and it 
also provides a road map or central skeleton you 
can come back to if you get lost. I often write the 
prologue or initial chapter first to get the impetus 
for the story going and then write the outline. 
Usually, I have to write a revised chapter outline 
two or three times in the course of writing the 
whole book, but once again it does focus the mind 
on where the story is going and where you want it 
to go. 
Writing 
494 
Short stories, articles, and items on my website I 
type straight into the computer (mostly a 
Macintosh, though I also use a PC) in Microsoft 
Word. However, I write the novels longhand first. 
Nowadays I use a Waterman fountain pen (for 
Shade’s Children and Lirael), though I used felt-tips 
earlier. I was interested to see that Stephen King 
wrote one of his recent novels with a Waterman 
fountain pen. He reportedly found that this did 
influence the actual style of the book. 
The advantages of writing longhand are several, at 
least for me. First of all, I write in relatively small 
handbound notebooks which are much more transportable 

than any sort of computer, particularly 
since you can take them away for several weeks 
without having to consider power supplies, batteries, 
or printouts. Parts of Sabriel, for example, were 
written on a trip through the Middle East. Parts of 
Shade’s Children and Lirael were written at the 
beach. 
The other major advantage of writing longhand is 
that when I type up a chapter from my notebook, I 
rewrite as I type, so the first printout is actually a 
second draft. Sometimes I change it quite a lot, 
sometimes not so much, but it gives me a distinctive 
and separate stage where I can revise. 
The first page of the first chapter of Sabriel (as 
opposed to the prologue, which I wrote earlier, 
before I did my chapter outline) was actually writ- 
495 
ten in a spiral-bound notebook, which I tore out 
and pasted into my preferred black and red notebook 
(8 1/4” x 6 1/4” or 210mm x 160mm “sewn 
memo book”). 
At the typing stage, I cleaned up the writing a bit 
and it had further minor revisions later, but in this 
case at least, it stayed much the same. You can see 
the original manuscript page and compare it to the 
finished version on my website. 
Which brings me to revising. 
Revising 
As I said, when I type the handwritten words, I am 
also carrying out my first major stage of revision. 
However, I usually have to go through at least two 
revision stages after that. The first of these is when 
I first print out the typed chapter. I go through it 
and make changes in pen, which I will incorporate 
later. The second stage (and sometimes a third time 
as well) occurs when the entire manuscript is finished 
for the first time. I leave that big, beautiful 
pile of printout on the shelf for a few weeks, then 
sit down and read the whole thing, making corrections 
as I go. 
Finally, I bundle the ms. off to my Australian and 
U.S. publishers and wait for their reaction(s), which 
generally will include some suggestions for revision 
and occasionally a request for rewriting. Sometimes 
496 
these will be good, worthwhile changes and I work 
them in. Sometimes they are not, and I argue about 
them and — unless I can be convinced otherwise — 

refuse to alter the text. Basically, I try and keep an 
open mind, since there is nearly always room for 
improvement. 
Staying Motivated 
I’m often asked by aspiring writers how I can invest 
a year or more in writing a full-length novel. 
My stock answer is that I never sit down and think 
“I have to write a novel today.” I sit down and 
think “I have to write a chapter,” or “revise a chapter,” 
or “finish the chapter.” That way, it’s only 
ever 2,500-5,000 words that are the immediate 
goal. 
As a further motivational gimmick, I always use the 
word count utility when I’ve finished typing a chapter, 
and write that down, with a running total of 
words and the date in the front of my first notebook 
for the current work (each novel takes 
between five and six of those red and black numbers). 
I also write down the music I’ve been listening 
to as I write and anything else that might be 
interesting to look back upon. Like the fact that I 
uploaded my first home page on 19 April 1996! 
The word count is a relatively small thing, but it 
has an amazing psychological effect, particularly as 
497 
more and more chapters appear and the word total 
grows. I find it very encouraging, particularly in the 
first third of the book, which always seems to take 
the majority of the time. 
Summary 
Here are several one-liners that sum up my writing 
philosophy. Some I’ve made up and some are probably 
paraphrases of other people’s sayings, only I 
can’t remember who said what. (Though I think the 
“read, write, revise” one is from Robert Heinlein.) 
“You can’t write if you don’t read.” 
“Just write one chapter at a time and one day you’ll 
be surprised by your own finished novel.” 
“Writing anything is better than not writing something 
perfect.” 
“Read, write, revise, submit, repeat.” 
“Expect rejection, but don’t let it stop you submitting 
again.” 
“Submit the very best work you can, not the first 
draft. Always read it again before you send it.” 
498 
About the Author 
Garth Nix was born in 1963 and grew up in 

Canberra, Australia. After taking his degree in professional 
writing from the University of Canberra, 
he slowly sank into the morass of the publishing 
industry, steadily devolving from sales rep through 
publicist, until in 1991 he became a senior editor 
with a major multinational publisher. After a period 
traveling in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and 
Asia in 1993, he left publishing to work as a marketing 
communications consultant. In 1999, he was 
lured back to the publishing world to become a 
part-time literary agent. He now lives in Sydney, a 
five-minute walk from Coogee Beach, with his wife, 
Anna, and lots of books. 
Garth is the author of, among other books, Sabriel, 
Lirael, and Shade’s Chldren.