The two barges met. Sabriel didn’t get up, but she held out her arms. A second later, she was hugging Ellimere and Sam, the barges rocking dangerously from their sudden rush and enthusiastic greetings.

“Ellimere! Sameth! I am so glad to see you, and so sorry I have been too long away,” said Sabriel, after the initial very tight hug had given way to a looser one.

“That’s all right, Mother,” replied Ellimere, who sounded more as if she were the mother and Sabriel her daughter. “It’s you we’re worried about. Let’s have a look at your leg.”

She started to lift the cloak, but Sabriel stopped her just as Sam caught the faint, horrible smell of decaying flesh.

“It’s still not pleasant,” Sabriel said quickly. “A wound from the Dead rots quickly, I’m afraid. But I have cast healingspells upon it, with the aid of the Great Stones, and fixed a poultice of feliac there too. All will soon be well.”

“This time,” said Touchstone. He was standing outside the close group of Sabriel, Ellimere, and Sam, looking down at his wife.

“Your father is angry with me because he thinks I almost got myself killed,” said Sabriel, with a slight grin. “I don’t understand it myself, since I think he should be glad that I didn’t.”

Silence greeted this remark, till Sam hesitantly asked,

“How badly were you hurt?”

“Badly,” replied Sabriel, wincing as she moved her leg.

Charter marks flared under the cloak, briefly visible even through the tightly woven wool. She hesitated, then quietly added, “If I hadn’t met your father on the way back, I might not have made it here.”

Sam and Ellimere exchanged horrified glances. All their lives they had heard stories of Sabriel’s battles and hard-won victories. She had been wounded before, but they had never heard her admit that she might have been killed, and had never really considered the possibility themselves. She was the Abhorsen, who entered Death only of her own accord!

“But I did make it, and I am going to be absolutely fine,” Sabriel said firmly. “So there is no need for anyone to fuss.”

“Meaning me, I suppose,” said Touchstone. He sat down with a sigh, then stood up irritably to re-arrange his swords and bathrobe before sitting again.

“The reason I am fussing,” he said, “is that I am concerned that all this winter someone, or something, has been deliberately and cleverly arranging situations to put you most at risk. Look at the places you’ve been called to, and how there are always more Dead than were reported, and more dangerous creatures—”

“Touchstone,” interrupted Sabriel, reaching out to take his hand. “Calm down. I agree. You know I agree.”

“Mmph,” grumbled Touchstone, but he did not say any more.

“It’s true,” replied Sabriel, looking squarely at Sam and Ellimere. “There is a clear pattern, and not just in the Dead that have been raised solely to ambush me. I think that the increasing number of Free Magic elementals is also connected, as is the trouble that your father has been having with the Southerling refugees.”

“It almost certainly is,” said Touchstone, sighing. “General Tindall believes that Corolini and his Our Country Party are

being funded with Old Kingdom gold, though he cannot definitely prove it. Since Corolini and his party now hold the balance of power in the Ancelstierre Moot, they’ve been able to get the Southerlings moved farther and farther north. They have also made it clear that their ultimate aim is to get all the Southerling refugees moved across the Wall, into our Kingdom.”

“Why?” asked Sam. “I mean, what for? It’s not as if northern Ancelstierre is over-populated.”

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

“How could that many people disappear? Surely they would leave some trace,” interrupted Ellimere. “Perhaps I should go—”

“No.” Touchstone smiled, amused by his daughter’s obvious belief that she could do a better job than he could when it came to looking for something. The smile faded as he went on. “This is not as simple as it appears, Ellimere. Sorcery is involved. Your mother thinks that we will find them when we least want to, and that they will not be living when we do.”

“This is the heart of the matter,” said Sabriel gravely.

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

Touchstone nodded and stood up. Drawing one of his swords, he concentrated for a moment. The Charter marks on

his sword began to glow and move, till the whole blade was wreathed in golden light. Touchstone flicked the sword up, and the Charter marks leapt across to the nearest Great Stone, splashing on it like liquid fire.

For a moment nothing happened. Then other marks caught the light, and the golden flames spread to cover the whole Stone, roaring up like a crown-caught wildfire. More marks leapt to the next Stone till it kindled, too, and then to the next, until all six Great Stones were ablaze, and streams of bright Charter marks flew up and across to weave a tracery of light like a dome above the two barges.

Looking over the side, Sam saw that the golden fire had spread underwater, too, forming a crazy maze of marks that covered the reservoir floor. The four were now completely enclosed by a magical barrier, one that relied upon the power of the Great Stones. He wanted to ask how it was cast, and enquire about the nature of the spell, but his mother was already speaking.

“We can talk now without fear of being overheard, by natural ears or other means,” said Sabriel. She took Sam’s hand, and Ellimere’s, holding them tight, so they felt the calluses on her fingers and palms, the result of so many years of wielding sword and bells.

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

“But I thought the Clayr could See everything,” said Ellimere. “I mean, they often get the time wrong, but they still See. Don’t they?”

“Over the past four or five years the Clayr have become aware that their Sight is clouded, and possibly has always been clouded, in the region around the eastern shores of the Red Lake and Mount Abed,” said Touchstone grimly. “A large area, which not coincidentally is also where our royal writ does not hold true. There is some power there that opposes both the Clayr and our authority, blocking their Sight and breaking the Charter Stones I have set there.”

“Well, shouldn’t we call out the Trained Bands and take them and the Guard and go down there and sort it out once and for all?” protested Ellimere, in the same tone that Sam imagined she had used when she led the Wyverley College hockey team back in Ancelstierre.

“We don’t know where—or what—it is,” said Sabriel.

“Every time we undertake to really search the area for the source of the trouble, something happens somewhere else. We did think we might have found the root of it five years ago, at the Battle of Roble’s Town—”

“The necromancer woman,” interrupted Sam, who remembered the story well. He had thought a lot about necromancers over the past months. “The one with the bronze mask.”

“Yes. Chlorr of the Mask,” replied Sabriel, staring out at the golden barrier, obviously recalling unpleasant memories. “She was very old, and powerful, so I had presumed she was the architect of our difficulties there. But now I am not sure. It is clear someone else is still working to befuddle the Clayr and incite trouble across the Kingdom. There is also someone behind Corolini in Ancelstierre and perhaps even the Southerling wars as well. One possibility is the man you encountered in Death, Sam.”

“The . . . the necromancer?” asked Sam. His voice came out as a pathetic squeak, and he unconsciously rubbed his wrists, his sleeves briefly riding up to show the skin still scarred from the burns.

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

She paused, and her eyes stared out at nothing, unfocused. Then she blinked and continued. “Chlorr was old, old enough for other Abhorsens to have encountered her in the past, and I suspect that this other necromancer is also ancient. But I have found no record of either at the House. Too much knowledge was destroyed when the Palace burnt, and more has been lost besides, simply by the march of time. And the Clayr, while they keep everything in that Great Library of theirs, rarely find anything useful in it. Their minds are too much bent upon the future. I should like to look there myself, but that is a task that would take months, if not years. I think Chlorr and this other necromancer were in league, and may be still, if Chlorr has survived. But who leads and who follows is unclear. I also fear that we will find they are not alone. But whoever or whatever moves against us, we must make sure their plans come to naught.”

The light seemed to darken as Sabriel spoke, and the water rippled as if an unwanted breeze had somehow passed the protection of the golden light around the Stones.

“What plans?” asked Ellimere. “What are they . . . it . . . whatever . . . going to do?”

Sabriel looked at Touchstone, and a brief flash of uncertainty passed between them before she continued.

“We think that they plan to bring all two hundred thousand Southerling refugees into the Old Kingdom—and kill them,” whispered Sabriel, as if they might be overheard after all. “Two hundred thousand deaths in a single poisoned minute, to make an avenue out of Death for every spirit that has lingered there from the First Precinct to the very precipice of the Ninth Gate. To summon a host of the Dead greater than any that has ever walked in Life. A host that we could not possibly defeat, even if all the Abhorsens who have ever lived were somehow to stand against them.”
Chapter Twenty-Five. A Family Conference

Silence greeted Sabriel’s words, a silence that went on and on, as they all imagined a host of the Dead two hundred thousand strong, and Sam struggled not to. A

horde of the Dead, a great sea of stumbling, Life-starved corpses that stretched from horizon to horizon, inexorably marching towards him—

“That will not happen, of course,” said Touchstone, breaking into Sam’s terrible imaginings. “We will make sure that it doesn’t, that the refugees never even cross the Wall. However, we can’t stop them on our side. The Wall is too long, with too many broken gates and too many old Crossing Points on the other side. So we must ensure that the Ancelstierrans don’t send them across in the first place. Consequently your mother and I have decided to go to Ancelstierre ourselves—secretly, so not to arouse alarm or suspicion. We will go to Corvere and negotiate with their government, which will undoubtedly take several months. That means we will be relying on you two to look after the Kingdom.”

More silence greeted this revelation. Ellimere looked deeply thoughtful but otherwise calm. Sam swallowed several times, then said, “What, ah, what exactly do you mean?”

“As far as both our friends and enemies need know, I will be on a diplomatic mission to the barbarian chiefs at their Southern Stop, and Sabriel will be going about her business as mysteriously as she always does,” replied Touchstone. “In our absence, Ellimere will continue as co-regent with Jall Oren—everyone seems to have become accustomed to that. Sameth, you will assist her. But most important, you will continue in your studies of The Book of the Dead.”

“Speaking of such things, I have something for you,”

added Sabriel, before Sam could interject. She pushed her pack across with obvious effort. “Look in the top.”

Slowly, Sam undid the straps. He suddenly felt very sick, knowing that he must tell them now or he would not be able to. Ever.

There was an oilskin-wrapped package in the pack. Sameth slid it out slowly, his fingers gone cold and clumsy. His eyes seemed to be strangely blurry, too, and Sabriel sounded as if she were talking from another room.

“I found these at the House—or rather, the sendings had set them out. I don’t know where they found them, or why they’ve got them out now. They are very, very old. So old that I have no record of who bore them first. I would have asked Mogget, but he still sleeps—”

“Except for when I caught that salmon last year,” interjected Touchstone crossly. Mogget, the Abhorsen’s cat-shaped familiar, was bound by Ranna, the Sleepbringer, first of the seven bells. He had woken only five or six times in nearly twenty years, on three of those occasions to steal and eat fish caught by Touchstone.