He stopped even trying to take a breath, shunting his body’s urgent demands for air into a corner of his mind. Nothing was as important as stopping the Shadow Hands. He would concentrate every last particle of his mind and power upon them and every last wisp of air into the pipe. They would not reach Lirael. They must not. She was the last hope for the entire world against the Destroyer.

Besides, she was his blood kin, and he had promised.

The Shadow Hands took another step closer, and Sam’s entire body shuddered with effort as he tried to force them back, his muscles reflecting the struggle of his mind. But he was growing weaker, he knew, and the Dead stronger. He was also close to passing out from lack of breath, and an almost overpowering urge to step back was rising inside him. Get out of the way! Take a breath! Let these monsters past!

But as he fought the Dead, he fought his own fears, pushing them away into the same distant corner of his mind that so badly wanted to draw air into his lungs. They would stay there, and he was determined to fight well beyond his last breath. At the same time, he tried desperately to think of some stratagem or cunning ploy.

Nothing came to him, and though he hadn’t seen or felt them move, the Shadow Hands had stolen some ground. They were now only just out of sword’s reach, tall columns of inky blackness, spreading a chill colder than the coldest of winter days.

The two on the outside were moving around him, Sam realized, though not by much. Clearly they intended to surround and smother him with their shadow stuff, to wrap him in a cocoon of four hungry spirits. Then they would move on to Lirael.

Fire suddenly burst out around the head of the closest Shadow Hand, a fist-sized globe of pure blue flame. But the Dead creature didn’t so much as flinch, and the fire spluttered out into the individual marks that had made it, and these vanished into the fog.

Another Charter-spell struck, to no effect, save to set one of the stunted trees alight as the fire rebounded off the shadowy form of the Dead. Sam realized that Major Greene and Lieutenant Tindall were trying to help him with these spells, but he could spare neither thought nor breath to warn them of the uselessness of fire against such an enemy.

All Sam’s attention was on the Dead. In turn, all their attention was focused back on him, and on the struggle between them.

So neither noticed the fog suddenly swirl around them, as if disturbed by some mighty gust of air, nor the shouts and cries of the soldiers behind them.

That is, till they heard the bell. A strong, ferocious chime that fell from the air above them. It gripped the four Shadow Hands like a puppet master picking up marionettes to put back in the box. Unable to resist, they bent down, their shadowy heads raised to beg wordlessly for mercy.

No mercy was forthcoming. Another bell rang, building an angry, violent dance over the broad shout of the first. The Shadow Hands jerked upright at its sharp song, their shadow stuff stretching into thin lines, as if they were being sucked through a narrow hole.

Then they were gone, summarily executed, this time for good.

Sam fell to his knees as the Dead disappeared and drew a long, shuddering breath into his desperate lungs. Above him, a bright blue and silver Paperwing hovered for a moment, like a giant hawk over its prey. Then it fell quickly and circled down to the valley floor, where the ground was level and clear enough to land. Sam stared at it and at the two other Paperwings that were gliding down in front of the Southerlings.

Three Paperwings. The craft that had passed overhead was blue and silver, and that was the Abhorsen’s color. The second was of green and silver, for the Clayr. The third was the red and gold of the royal line. Two of the three paperwings had a passenger as well as a pilot.

“I don’t understand,” whispered Sam. “Who wields the bells?”

Mogget was just short of the top of the ridge, zigzagging between Dead Hands and lightning rods, when he heard the bells. He smiled and paused to shout at the single Dead Hand who stood in his way.

“Hear the full voice of Saraneth! Flee while you still can!”

As a ploy, it didn’t work. The Dead Hand was too newly returned to Life, too stupid to understand Mogget’s words, and it didn’t have Mogget’s unnaturally keen hearing. It hadn’t heard the bells through the thunder, and it had no sense of the power unleashed beyond the ridge. As far as it was concerned, living prey had just stopped in front of it. Close enough to grab.

Rotting fingers leapt out, clutching the little albino’s leg. Mogget yowled and kicked back, the dry bones of his captor snapping with the force of the blow. But still it hung on, and other Dead were lumbering towards Mogget now, drawn by the prospect of Life to feast on.

Mogget yowled again and put Nick down. Then he whipped around, his long-nailed fingers scratching and his sharp-toothed mouth fastening on the Dead Hand’s wrist.

If it still had human intelligence, the Hand would have been surprised, because no man ever fought like this one, with an arched back and a wild combination of hissing, biting, and scratching.

Mogget bit through the Dead creature’s wrist, severing it completely. Instantly, he sprang back, picked up Nick, dodged around the Hand, and sprinted off with a triumphant yowl.

The creature ignored its missing hand and tried to follow them. Only then did it discover that its strange opponent had clawed through its hamstrings as well. It took two uncertain steps and fell, the Dead spirit that inhabited it already looking desperately around for some other body to inhabit.

By then, Mogget was on the other side of the ridge. He held Nick’s arm out to one side as he ran, keeping it well away from his own body. That arm shook and shivered, muscles twitched under the skin, and dark bruises blossomed all around the elbow and forearm.

Behind Mogget, the lightning storm began to abate and the thunder to lessen. The fog was still lit with electric blue around the edges—but at the center, both the fog and the storm clouds above it had become a bright, bright red.

Chapter Twenty-seven

When the Lightning Stops

SAM PICKED HIMSELF up. He felt very weak, washed out, and confused. Slowly he turned to look down at the three Paperwings in the valley, several hundred yards away. They looked very small in front of the crowd of Southerlings. Magical flying craft made from laminated paper and Charter Magic, they were rather like large, brilliantly feathered birds.

The pilots and passengers from the three Paperwings were already climbing out of their craft. Sam stared at them, unable to believe who he was seeing.

“That’s the King and the Abhorsen, isn’t it, Prince Sameth?” asked Lieutenant Tindall. “I thought they were dead!”

Sam nodded and smiled and shook his head at the same time. He felt an irresistible spring of relief flow up through every part of his body. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or sing, and was unsurprised to find that tears were running down his cheeks and laughter had come unbidden and was leaping out of his mouth. Because the people climbing out of the blue and silver Paperwing were indisputably Touchstone and Sabriel. Alive and well, all tales of their demise proven false in that single joyous sight.

But the surprises did not end there. Sam wiped the tears away, calmed his laughter before it became hysterical, and caught his breath as he saw a young, raven-haired woman vault out of the red and gold craft and run to catch up with his parents, her sword already out and flashing. Behind her, two very blond, brown-skinned, and willowy women were leaving the green and silver Paperwing, a little more sedately but also in a hurry.

“Who’s that girl?” asked Lieutenant Tindall, with more than professional interest in their saviors. “I mean, who are those ladies?”

“That’s my sister, Ellimere!” exclaimed Sam. “And two of the Clayr, by the look of them!”

He started to run down to them but stopped after only two paces. They were all hurrying up, and his place was here, by Lirael. She was still frozen in place, still somewhere in Death, facing who knew what dangers. That realization brought Sam back to the current situation. The Dead had fled from Saraneth as wielded by the Abhorsen. But they were only lesser minions of the real Enemy.

“The lightning has stopped,” said Tim Wallach. “Listen—there’s no thunder now.”

Everyone turned back to the ridge. Sam’s feelings of relief vanished in an instant. The thunder and lightning had faded away to nothing, sure enough, but the fog was as thick as ever. It was no longer lit with blue flashes but by a steady, pulsing red that grew brighter as they watched—as if an enormous heart of fire grew in the valley beyond.

Something was coming down from the ridge, a shape that seemed to have too many arms, an awful silhouette backlit by the blood-red glow from behind the ridge.

Sam raised his sword and felt for the panpipes. Whatever this was didn’t seem to be Dead—or at least he couldn’t sense it. But it carried the hot stench of Free Magic with it—and it was coming straight towards him.

Then the thing shouted, with the voice of Mogget.

“It’s me—Mogget! I’ve got Nicholas!”

The fog eddied, and Sam saw that the voice came from the strange little man with the pale hair and skin who he had last seen on the hill above the Red Lake. He was carrying an emaciated body that just might be Nick. Whoever it was, Mogget held the man’s right arm out to the side, where it writhed and twitched with a life of its own, all too like a tentacle.

“What is that?” asked Major Greene quietly as he signaled his men to close up again around Lirael.

“It’s Mogget,” replied Sam with a frown. “He had that shape in my grandfather’s time. And that . . . that is my friend Nick.”

“Of course it is!” shouted Mogget, who hadn’t stopped walking down. “Where is the Abhorsen? And Lirael? We must hurry—the hemispheres have almost joined. If we can get Nicholas farther away, the fragment will not be able to join and the hemispheres will be incomplete—”

He was interrupted by a terrible scream. Nick’s eyes flashed open and his whole body jerked into rigidity, one arm pointed back towards the loch valley like a gun. Something brighter than the sun flared at his fingertip for a moment, then it flashed over the ridge, too fast to follow.

“No!” Nick screamed. His mouth frothed with bloody foam, and his fingers clutched uselessly at empty air. But his scream was lost in another sound, a sound that welled up from the red heart of the fog beyond the ridge. An indescribable shout of triumph, greed, and fury. With that shout, a column of fire boiled up to the sky. It climbed up and up till it loomed high above the ridge. The fog swirled around it like a cloak and began to burn away.

“Free!” boomed the Destroyer. The word howled across the watchers like a hot wind, stripping the moisture from their eyes and mouths. On and on the sound carried, echoing from distant hills, screaming through far-off towns, striking fear into all who heard it, long after the word itself was lost.

“Too late,” said Mogget. He laid Nick carefully down on the rocky ground and crouched himself. His pale hair began to spread down his neck and face, and his bones contracted and tightened under the skin. Inside a minute, he was once again a little white cat, with Ranna tinkling on his collar.

Sam hardly noticed the transformation. He hurried up to Nick and bent over him, already reaching for the strongest Charter marks he knew for healing, assembling them in his mind. There was no question that his friend was dying. Sam could feel his spirit slipping through to Death, see the terrible pallor of Nick’s face, the blood on his mouth, and the deep bruises on his chest and arm.

Golden fire grew in Sam’s gesturing hands as he pulled marks from the Charter with ferocious haste. Then he gently laid his palms on Nick’s chest and sent the healing magic into his damaged body.

Only the spell wouldn’t take hold. The marks slid away and were lost, and blue sparks crackled under Sam’s palms. He cursed and tried again, but it was no use. There was still too strong a residue of Free Magic in Nick, and it repulsed all Sam’s efforts.

All it did do was bring Nick back into consciousness—of a sort. He smiled as he saw Sam, thinking himself back at school again, struck down by a fastball. But Sam was in some weird armor, not in cricket whites. And there was thick fog behind him, not bright sunshine, and stones and stunted trees, not new-mown grass.

Nick remembered, and his smile disappeared. With memory came pain, everywhere in his body, but there was a welcome lightness as well. He felt clear and unrestricted, as if he were a prisoner freed from a lifetime locked in a single room.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, the blood in his mouth choking him as he spoke. “I didn’t know, Sam. I didn’t know . . .”

“It’s all right,” said Sam. He wiped the bloody froth away from Nick’s mouth with the sleeve of his surcoat. “It’s not your fault. I should have realized something had happened to you. . . .”

“The sunken road,” whispered Nick. He closed his eyes again, his breath coming in choking gasps. “After you went into Death on the hill. I can remember it now. I ran down to see what I could do and fell into the road. Hedge was waiting. He thought I was you, Sam. . . .”

His voice trailed off. Sam bent over him again, trying to force the healing marks into him by strength of will. For the third time, they slid off.

Nick’s lips moved and he said something too faint to hear. Sam bent still closer, his ear to Nick’s mouth, and he took his hand and held it as if he might physically drag his friend back from Death.

“Lirael,” whispered Nick. “Tell Lirael I remembered her. I tried . . .”

“You can tell her yourself,” Sam said urgently. “She’ll be here! Any moment. Nick—you have to fight it!”

“That’s what she said,” coughed Nick. Specks of blood stained Sam’s cheek, but he didn’t move. He didn’t hear the soft bark of the Dog as she returned to Life, or the cracking of ice, or Lirael’s exclamation of surprise. For Sam, there was only the space he and Nicholas occupied. Everything else had ceased to exist.