Sam did not see, because he was sprinting for all he was worth, but behind him the interpreter and the matriarch spoke heatedly. Then the interpreter gestured back towards the center of the valley and the stream. The matriarch looked once more towards the lightning, then tore up the paper she held, threw it to the ground, and spat on it. Her action was mimicked by those around her, and then by others, and a great paper tearing and spitting slowly spread throughout the vast crowd. Then the matriarch turned and began to walk east, to the middle of the valley and the stream. Like a flock following its bellwether, all the other Southerlings turned as well.

Sam was panting up the spur, three quarters of the way back, when he heard shouts ahead.

“Halt! Halt!”

Sam couldn’t sense the Dead so close, but he found extra speed from somewhere, and his sword leaped into his hand. Startled soldiers stepped aside as he ran past them and up to Lirael. She was still standing frozen in the ring of stones. Greene and two soldiers were in front of her. About ten feet in front of them, two more soldiers were standing over a young man with their bayonets to his throat. The youth was lying still on the ground and was shrieking. His clothes and skin were blackened, and he had lost most of his hair. But he was not a Dead Hand. In fact, Sam saw that this scorched fugitive was not much older than he was.

“It’s not me, it’s not me, I’m not them, they’re behind me,” he shrieked. “You have to help me!”

“Who are you?” asked Major Greene. “What is happening over there?”

“I’m Timothy Wallach,” gasped the young man. “I don’t know what’s happening! It’s a nightmare! That . . . I don’t know what he is . . . Hedge. He killed my workmen! All of them. He pointed at them and they died.”

“Who’s behind you?” asked Sam.

“I don’t know,” sobbed Tim. “They were my men. I don’t know what they are now. I saw Krontas struck directly by lightning. His head was on fire, but he didn’t stop. They are—”

“The Dead,” said Sam. “What were you doing at Forwin Mill?”

“I’m from the University of Corvere,” whispered Tim. He made a visible effort to get himself under control. “I built the Lightning Farm for Nicholas Sayre. I didn’t . . . I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s nothing good. We have to stop it being used! Nick said he’ll try, but—”

“Nicholas is there?” snapped Sam.

Tim nodded. “But he’s in bad shape. He hardly knew who I was. I don’t think there’s much chance of him doing anything. And there was white smoke coming out of his nose—”

Sam listened with a sinking heart. He knew from Lirael that the white smoke was the sign of the Destroyer taking control. Any faint hope he’d had that Nick might escape was dashed. His friend was lost.

“What can be done?” asked Sam. “Is there any way to disable the Lightning Farm?”

“There are circuit breakers in each of the nine junction boxes,” whispered Tim. “If they were opened . . . But I don’t know how many circuits are actually needed. Or . . . or you could cut the cables from the lightning rods. There are a thousand and one lightning rods, and since they’re already being struck by lightning . . . you’d need very special gear.”

Sam didn’t hear Tim’s last few words. All thoughts of Nick’s plight and the Lightning Farm were swept away as a cold sensation froze the hair on the back of his neck. His head snapped up, and he pushed past Tim. The first wave of Dead were almost upon them, and any question of doing something to any junction boxes was academic.

“Here they come!” he shouted, and jumped up on a rock, already reaching into the Charter to prepare destructive spells. He was surprised by how easy it was. The wind was still blowing from the west, and it should have been harder this far from the Wall. But he could feel the Charter strongly, almost as clear and present as it was in the Old Kingdom, though it was somehow inside him as much as it was outside.

“Stand ready!” shouted Greene, his warning repeated by sergeants and corporals in the ring of soldiers around Lirael’s frozen form. “Remember, nothing must get through to the Abhorsen! Nothing!”

“The Abhorsen.” Sam closed his eyes for a second, willing that pain away. There was no time to grieve or think about the world without his parents. He could see the Dead Hands lumbering down the slope, gathering speed as they sensed the Life ahead.

Sam readied a spell and quickly looked around. All the bowmen had arrows nocked, and they were teamed with pairs of bayonet men. Greene and Tindall were next to Sam, both ready with Charter spells. Lirael was several paces behind them, secure with soldiers all around her.

But where was Mogget? The little white cat was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Twenty-three

Lathal the Abomination

THE FIFTH GATE was a reverse waterfall: a waterclimb. The river hit an unseen wall and kept on flowing up it. The dark ribbon path that crossed the Fifth Precinct ended short of this waterclimb, leaving a gap. Lirael and the Dog stared up from the end of the path, their stomachs crowding their throats. It was very disorienting to see water rising where it should fall, though fortunately it blurred into grey fuzziness before it went too far up. Even so, Lirael had the unpleasant feeling that she was no longer subject to normal gravity and might fall upwards too.

That feeling was fueled by the knowledge that this was actually what was going to happen when she spoke the Free Magic spell to cross the Fifth Gate. There was no path or stair here—the spell simply made sure the waterclimb didn’t take you too far.

“You’d better hold my collar, Mistress,” said the Dog, eyeing the rising water. “The spell won’t include me otherwise.”

Lirael sheathed her sword and grabbed the Dog’s collar, her fingers feeling the warmth and comfortable familiarity of the Charter marks that made it up. She had a strange sense of déjà vu as she pushed her fingers through, as if she knew the Charter marks from somewhere else—somewhere relatively new, not just from the thousand times she had held the collar. But she had no time to follow that feeling to some conclusion.

Holding the Dog tight, Lirael spoke the words that would carry them up the waterclimb, once again feeling the heat of Free Magic through her nose and mouth. She would likely lose her voice from it eventually, she thought, but it also seemed to have cured her Ancelstierran cold. Though she might still have a cold in her real body, out in Life. She didn’t know enough about how things like that in Death would affect her in Life. Of course, if she were slain in Death, her body would die in Life as well.

The spell was slow to start, and for a moment Lirael contemplated saying it again. Then she saw a sheet of water reach out of the surface of the waterclimb, moving like a strange, very thin, very wide tentacle. It crossed the gap to the ribbon path in a series of shuddering extensions and wrapped around Lirael and the Dog like a large blanket, without actually touching them. Then it began to rise up the waterclimb, moving at the same rate as the vertical current—taking Lirael and her closely gripped hound with it.

They rose steadily for several minutes, till the precinct below was lost in the fuzzy grey light. The waterclimb continued upwards—perhaps forever—but the extension that held Lirael stopped. Then it suddenly snapped back into the face of the waterclimb—throwing its passengers out the other side.

Lirael blinked as she hurtled into what her common sense told her should be a cliff, but the back of the waterclimb no more followed common sense than the waterclimb acknowledged gravity. Somehow, it had pushed them through to the next precinct. The Sixth, a place where the river became a shallow pool and there was no current at all. But there were lots and lots of Dead.

Lirael felt them so strongly, they might have been standing next to her—and some probably were, under the water. Instantly, she let go of the collar and drew Nehima, the sword humming as it sprang from its scabbard.

The sword, and the bell she held, were warning enough for most of the Dead. In any case, the great majority were simply waiting here till something happened and they were forced to go on, since they lacked the will and the knowledge to go back the other way. Very few were actively struggling back towards Life.

Those that were saw the great spark of Life in Lirael, and they hungered for it. Other necromancers had assuaged their hunger in the past and helped them back from the brink of the Ninth Gate—willingly or not. This one was young, and should thus be easy prey for any of the Greater Dead who chanced to be close.

There were three who were.

Lirael looked out and saw that huge shadows stalked between the apathetic lesser spirits, fires burning where once their living forms had eyes. There were three close enough to intercept her intended path—and that was three too many.

But once again The Book of the Dead had advice upon such a confrontation in the Sixth Precinct. And, as always, she had the Disreputable Dog.

As the three monstrous Greater Dead thrust their way towards her, Lirael replaced Ranna and drew Saraneth. Carefully composing herself this time, she rang it, joining her indomitable will with its deep call.

The Dead creatures hesitated as Saraneth’s strong voice echoed out across the Precinct, and they prepared to fight, to struggle against this presumptuous necromancer who thought to bend them to her will.

Then they laughed, awful laughter that sounded like a great crowd of people caught between absurdity and sorrow. For this necromancer was so incompetent that she had focused her will not upon them, but on the Lesser Dead who lay all around.

Still laughing, the Greater Dead plunged forward, greedy now, each warily eyeing the others to gauge if they were weak enough to push out of the way. For whoever reached this necromancer first would gain the delight of consuming the greater part of her life. Life and power, the only things that were of any use for the long journey out of Death.

They didn’t even notice the first few spirits who clutched at their shadowy legs or bit at their ankles, shrugging them off as a living person might ignore a few mosquito bites.

Then more and more spirits began to rise out of the water and hurl themselves at the three Greater Dead. They were forced to stop and swat these annoying Lesser Dead away, to rip them apart and rend them with their fiery jaws. Angrily, they stomped and threshed, roaring with anger now, the laughter gone.

Distracted, the Greater Dead closest to Lirael hardly noticed the Charter Spell that revealed its name to her, and it didn’t see her as she walked almost right up to where it fought against a churning mass of its lesser brethren.

But Lirael gained the creature’s full attention when a new bell rang, replacing Saraneth’s strident commands with an excitable march. This bell was Kibeth, close by the thing’s head, sounded with a dreadful tone specifically for its hearing. A tune that it couldn’t ignore, even after the bell had stopped.

“Lathal the Abomination!” commanded Lirael. “Your time has come. The Ninth Gate calls, and you must go beyond it!”

Lathal screamed as Lirael spoke, a scream that carried the anguish of a thousand years. It knew that voice, for Lathal had made the long trek into Life twice in the last millennium, only to be forced back into Death by others with that same cold tone. Always, it had managed to stop itself being carried through to the ultimate gate. Now Lathal would never walk under the sun again, never drink the sweet life of the unsuspecting living. It was too close to the Ninth Gate, and the compulsion was strong.

Drubas and Sonnir heard the bell, the scream, and the voice, and knew that this was no foolish necromancer—it was the Abhorsen. A new one, for they knew the old and would have run from her. The sword was different, too, but they would remember it in future.

Still screaming, Lathal turned and stumbled away, the Lesser Dead tearing at its legs as it staggered and tumbled through the water and constantly tried to turn back without success.

Lirael didn’t follow, because she didn’t want to be too close when it passed the Sixth Gate, in case the sudden current took her, too. The other Greater Dead were moving hastily away, she noted with grim satisfaction, clubbing a path through the clinging spirits who still harassed them.

“Can I round them up, Mistress?” asked the Dog eagerly, staring after the retreating shapes of darkness with tense anticipation. “Can I?”

“No,” said Lirael firmly. “I surprised Lathal. Those two will be on their guard and would be much more dangerous together. Besides, we haven’t got time.”

As she spoke, Lathal’s scream was suddenly cut off, and Lirael felt the river current suddenly spring up around her legs. She set her feet apart and stood against it, leaning back on the rock-steady Dog. The current was very strong for a few minutes, threatening to drag her under; then it subsided into nothing—and once again the waters of the Sixth Precinct were still.

Immediately, Lirael began to wade through to the point where she could summon the Sixth Gate. Unlike the other precincts, the Gate out of the Sixth Precinct wasn’t in any particular place. It would open randomly from time to time—which was a danger—or it could be opened anywhere a certain distance away from the Fifth Gate.

Just in case it was like the previous gate, Lirael clutched the Disreputable Dog’s collar again, though it meant sheathing Nehima. Then she recited the spell, wetting her lips between the phrases to try to ease the blistering heat of the Free Magic.

As the spell built, the water drained away in a circle about ten feet wide around and under Lirael and the Dog. When it was dry, the circle began to sink, the water rising around it on all sides. Faster and faster it sank, till they seemed to be at the base of a narrow cylinder of dry air bored into three hundred feet of water.