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 . . .

“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.

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 . . .”

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 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 . . .

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 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 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 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 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 “. Ball”

or “BE 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, 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, 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 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 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 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.