“It’s a name,” said the Dog blandly. Seeing Lirael’s expression, she cocked her head to one side and continued, “I

suppose you could say it means ‘forget-me-not.’ Though the irony is that Nehima herself is long forgotten. Still, better a sword than a block of stone, I suppose. It’s certainly an heirloom of the house, if ever I saw one,” the Dog added. “I’m surprised they gave it to you.”

Lirael nodded, unable to speak, her thoughts once again turning back to the Glacier and the Clayr. Ryelle and Sanar had just casually handed the sword to her. Made by the Wallmakers themselves, it must be one of the greatest treasures the Clayr possessed.

A nudge at her leg reminded her of the business at hand, so she blinked away an incipient tear and focused all her thought, as The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting had told her to. Apparently she should feel Death and then sort of reach out to it. It was easier in places where lots of people had died, or were buried, but theoretically it was possible anywhere. Lirael closed her eyes to concentrate harder, furrows forming across her forehead. She could feel Death now, like a cold pressure against her face. She pushed against it, feeling its chill sink into her cheekbones and lips, soaking into her outstretched hands. It was strange with the sun still hot against her bare neck.

It grew colder still, and colder, as the chill moved up her feet and legs. She felt a tug against her knees, a tug that wasn’t one of the Dog’s gentle reminders. It was like being gripped by a current, a strong current that wanted to take her away and force her under.

She opened her eyes. A river flowed against her legs, but it was not the Ratterlin. It was black and opaque, and there was no sign of the island, the blue sky, or the sun. The light was grey, grey and dull as far as she could see, out to a totally flat horizon.

Lirael shuddered, not just from the cold, for she had successfully entered Death. She could hear a waterfall somewhere in the distance. The First Gate, she supposed, from the description in the book.

The river tugged at her again, and without thinking, she went with it for a few steps. It tugged again, even harder, the cold spreading into her very bones. It would be easy to let that chill spread through her entire body, to lie down and let the current take her where it willed—

“No!” she snapped, forcing herself back a step. This was what the book had warned her about. The river’s strength wasn’t just in the current. She had also to resist its compulsion to walk farther into Death, or to lie down and let it carry her away.

Fortunately, the book was also right about something more favorable. She could feel the way back to Life, and instinctively knew exactly where to go and how to get back there, which was a relief.

Apart from the distant roar of the First Gate, Lirael could hear nothing else moving in the river. Lirael listened carefully, nerves drawn tight, muscles ready for immediate flight. Still there was nothing, not even a ripple.

Then her Death sense twitched, and she quickly scanned the river to either side of her again. For a moment, she thought she saw something move on the surface, a thin line of darkness under the water, moving farther back into Death. But then it was gone, and she could neither see nor sense anything. After a minute, she wasn’t even sure if there had been anything there in the first place.

Sighing, she carefully sheathed her sword, put the panpipes back in her waistcoat pocket, and drew out the Dark Mirror. Here, in the First Precinct of Death, she could look just a little way into the past. To look further back, she would have to travel deeper in, past the First Gate or even far beyond it. But today she only planned to look back a matter of twenty years or so.

The click that accompanied the opening of the Mirror seemed far too loud, echoing across the dark waters. Lirael flinched at the sound—then screamed as it was followed by a loud splash directly behind her!

Reflexively, she jumped—farther into Death—swapped the Mirror into her left hand, and drew her sword, all before she even knew what was happening.

“It’s only me,” said the Dog, her tail slapping the water as it wagged. “I got bored waiting.”

“How did you get here?” whispered Lirael, sheathing her sword with a shaking hand. “You scared me to death!”

“I followed you,” said the Dog. “It’s just a different sort of walk.”

Not for the first time, Lirael wondered what the Dog really was, and the extent of her powers. But there was no time for speculation now. The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting had warned her not to stay too long in any one place in Death, because things would come looking. Things she didn’t want to meet.

“Who’s going to guard my body if you’re here?” she asked reproachfully. If anything happened to her body back in Life, she would have no choice but to follow the river onwards, or to become some sort of Dead spirit herself, eternally trying to get back into Life, by stealing someone else’s body. Or to become a shadow, drinking blood and Life to keep itself out of Death.

“I’ll know if anyone comes close,” said the Dog, sniffing the river. “Can we go farther in?”

“No!” snapped Lirael. “I’m going to use the Dark Mirror here. But you’re going back straight away! This is Death, Dog, not the Glacier!”

“True,” mumbled the Dog. She looked up pleadingly at Lirael and added, “But it’s only the very edge of Death—”

“Back! Now!” commanded Lirael, pointing. The Dog stopped her pleading look, showed the whites of her eyes in disapproval, and slunk away with her tail down. A second later, she vanished—back into Life.

Lirael ignored her and opened the Mirror, holding it close to her right eye. “Focus on the Mirror with one eye,” the book had said, “and look into Death with the other, lest harm befall you there.”

Good advice, but hardly practical, Lirael thought, as she struggled to focus on two different things at once. But after a minute, the Mirror’s opaque surface began to clear, its darkness lifting. Instead of looking at her reflection, Lirael found that she was somehow looking through the mirror, and it was not the cold river of Death she saw beyond. She saw swirling lights, lights that she soon realized were actually the passage of the sun across the sky, so fast it was a blur. The sun was going backwards.

Excitement grew in her as she realized this was the beginning of the magic. Now she had to think of what she wanted to see. She began to form an image of her mother in her mind, borrowing more from the charcoal drawing Aunt Kirrith had given her years ago than from her own recollection, which was the mixed-up memory of a child, all feelings and soft-edged images.

Holding the picture of her mother in her head, she spoke aloud, infusing her voice with the Charter marks she’d learned from the book, symbols of power and command that would make the Dark Mirror show her what she wanted to see.

“My mother I knew, a little,” Lirael said, her words loud against the murmur of the river. “My father I knew not, and would see through the veil of time. So let it be.”

The swift passage of backwards suns began to slow as she spoke, and Lirael felt herself drawn closer to the image in the Mirror, till a single sun filled all her vision, blinding her with its light. Then it was gone, and there was darkness.

Slowly, the darkness ebbed, and Lirael saw a room, strangely superimposed upon the river of Death she saw through her other eye. Both images were blurry, as if her eyes were full of tears, but they were not. Lirael blinked several times, but the vision grew no clearer.

She saw a large room—a hall, in fact—dominated at one end by a large window, which was a blur of different colors rather than clear glass. Lirael sensed there was some sort of magic in the window, for the colors and patterns changed, though she couldn’t see it clearly enough to make it out. A long, brilliantly polished table of some light and lustrous wood stretched the full length of the hall. It was loaded with silver of many kinds: candelabra with beeswax candles burning clean yellow flames, salt cellars and pepper grinders, sauce boats and tureens, and many ornaments Lirael had never seen. A roast goose, half-carved, sat on a platter, encircled by plates of lesser foods.

There were only two people at the table, sitting at the other end, so Lirael had to squint to try to see them more clearly. One, a man, sat at the head of the table in a high-backed chair, almost a throne. Despite his simple white shirt and lack of jewelry, he had the bearing of a man of rank and power. Lirael frowned and shifted the Dark Mirror a little, to see if she could make the vision sharper. Rainbows briefly rippled through the room, but nothing else seemed to change.

There were spells to use to refine the vision, but Lirael didn’t want to try them just yet, in case they made the vision go away completely. Instead she concentrated on the other person. She could see her more clearly than the man.

It was her mother. Arielle, Kirrith’s little sister. She looked beautiful in the soft candlelight, her long blond hair hanging in a brilliant waterfall down the back of her dress, an elegant creation of ice-blue adorned with golden stars. It was cut low

across the neck and back, and she wore a necklace of sapphires and diamonds.

As Lirael concentrated, the vision of the past grew sharper around the two people, but even muddier everywhere else, as if all the color and light were gathering around the point of her focus. At the same time, her view of the river of Death clouded. Sounds began to come to her, as if she were listening to two people conversing as they walked towards her. They were speaking in the courtly fashion, which was rarely used in the Glacier. Obviously they didn’t know each other very well. “I have heard many strange things under this roof, Mistress,” the man was saying as he poured himself more wine, waving back a sending servant that had begun to attend to him. “But none so strange as this.”

“It is not something I sought,” replied the woman, her voice strangely familiar to Lirael’s ears. Surely she didn’t remember it? She had been only five when Arielle had abandoned her. Then she realized that it was Kirrith’s voice it reminded her of. Though it was sweeter than Kirrith’s had ever been.

“And none of your Vision-Sisters have Seen what you wish of me?” asked the man. “None of the Nine Day Watch?”

“None,” said Arielle, bending her head, a blush spreading across her neck. Lirael watched in amazement. Her own mother embarrassed! But then the Arielle she saw here wasn’t much older than herself. She seemed very young.

The man seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because he said, “My wife has been dead these eighteen years, but I have a daughter grown who would be near your age. I am not unfamiliar with the . . . the . . .”

“Imaginings of young women? Or the infatuations of youth?” interrupted Arielle, looking back up at him, her face angry now. “I am five and twenty, sir, and no girlish virgin

dreaming of her mate. I am a Daughter of the Clayr, and nothing but my Sight would have brought me here to lie with a man I have never met who is old enough to be my father!”

The man put his cup down and smiled ruefully, but his eyes were tired and untouched by the smile.

“I beg your pardon, Mistress. In truth, I heard the sound of prophecy when you first spoke to me today, but I put it from my mind. I must leave here tomorrow, to face many perils. I have no time for thoughts of love, and I have been proven a less than perfect parent. Even if I were not away tomorrow, and could linger here with you, any child you bear would likely see little of its father.”

“This is not a matter of love,” said Arielle quietly, meeting his gaze. “And a single night may beget a child as well as a year of striving. As it will, for I have Seen her. As to the lack of a father, I fear she will have neither parent for very long.”

“You speak of a certainty,” said the man. “Yet the Clayr often See many threads, which the future may weave this way or that.”

“I See only a single thread in this, sir,” said Arielle, reaching across to take the man’s pale hand in her own brown fingers. “I am here, called by the visions granted by my Blood, as you are governed by yours. It is meant to be, cousin. But perhaps we can at least enjoy our single night, forgetting higher reasons. Let us to bed.”

The man hesitated, his fingers open. Then he laughed, and raised Arielle’s hand to his lips for a gentle kiss.

“We shall have our night,” he said, rising from the chair. “I know not what it means, or what future we will here secure. But for once I am tired of responsibility and care! As you say, my dear cousin, let us to bed!”

The two embraced, and Lirael shut her right eye, stricken with embarrassment and a slight, uneasy feeling of shame. If she kept watching, she might even see the moment of her own conception, and that was too embarrassing to even contemplate. But even with her eye shut, the vision lingered, till Lirael blinked it away, this time with an actual tear.

She had secretly expected more from the vision, some indication of her parents’ having a forbidden love or some great bond that would be revealed to their daughter. But it seemed she was the result of a single evening’s coupling, which was either predestined or the result of her mother’s mad imagination. Lirael didn’t know which would be worse. And she still had no clear idea who her father was, though some of the things she had seen and heard were certainly suggestive and would require further thought.

Snapping the mirror shut, she put it back into her belt pouch. Only then did she realize that the sound of the First Gate had stopped. Something was coming through the waterfall—something from the deeper reaches of Death.
Chapter Thirty-Six. A Denizen of Death

A few seconds after Lirael noticed the silence of the First Gate, the sound of the crashing water resumed. Whatever had stilled it had passed through, and was now in the First Precinct of Death. With Lirael.