PRAISE FOR
GARTH NIX ’ S
OLD KINGDOM TRILOGY
‘Sabriel is a winner, a fantasy that reads like realism. Here is a world with the same solidity and four-dimensional authority as our own, created with invention, clarity and intelligence. I congratulate Garth Nix.’
Philip Pullman
‘Weaving horror and fantasy into a rich, original story, Nix creates complex and fascinating lores, rituals and tools of necromancy ... a powerful, gripping quest story.’
The Age
‘Sabriel has a fast pace, drama, vivid decriptions, excitement and humour. Packs of putrefying zombies, too. What more could you want?’
Susan Price, The Guardian
‘The reader’s absorption into the intrigue, magic and dazzling richness of of the worlds and characters created by Nix is irresistable pleasure.’
Australian Review of Books
DISCOVER MORE ABOUT GARTH NIX AT:
www.allenandunwin.com
Other books by Garth Nix
Shades Children
The Ragwitch
Across the Wall
The Old Kingdom trilogy
Sabriel
Lirael
Abhorsen
The Keys to the Kingdom series
Mister Monday
Grim Tuesday
Drowned Wednesday
Sir Thursday
This edition published in 2006
First published in the USA by HarperCollinsPublishers 2003
Copyright © Garth Nix, 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
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ISBN 978 1 74175 020 1
This book was printed in December 2009 at
McPherson’s Printing Group
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
To Anna and Thomas Henry Nix
Contents
prologue
part one
chapter one: a house besieged
chapter two: into the deep
chapter three: amaranth, rosemary and tears
chapter four: breakfast of ravens
chapter five: blow wind, come rain!
chapter six: the silver hemispheres
chapter seven: a last request
chapter eight: the testing of sameth
first interlude
part two
chapter nine: a dream of owls and flying dogs
chapter ten: prince sameth and hedge
chapter eleven: hidden in the reeds
chapter twelve: the destroyer in nicholas
chapter thirteen: details from the disreputable dog
chapter fourteen: flight to the wall
chapter fifteen: the perimeter
chapter sixteen: a major ’s decision
second interlude
part three
chapter seventeen: coming home to ancelstierre
chapter eighteen: chlorr of the mask
chapter nineteen: a tin of sardines
chapter twenty: the beginning of the end
chapter twenty - one: deeper into death
chapter twenty - two: junction boxes and southerlings
chapter twenty - three: lathal the abomination
chapter twenty - four: mogget’s inscrutable initiative
chapter twenty - five: the ninth gate
chapter twenty - six: sam and the shadow hands
chapter twenty - seven: when the lightning stops
chapter twenty - eight: the seven
chapter twenty - nine: the choice of yrael
epilogue
Extra...
Garth Nix answers FAQs...
books remembered: Garth Nix’s favourite books from childhood
prologue
Fog rose from the river, great billows of white weaving into the soot and smoke of the city of Corvere, to become the hybrid thing that the more popular newspapers called smog and The Times “miasmic fog”. Cold, dank and foul-smelling, it was dangerous by any name. At its thickest, it could smother, and it could transform the faintest hint of a cough into pneumonia.
But the unhealthiness of the fog was not its chief danger. That came from its other primary feature. The Corvere fog was a concealer, a veil that shrouded the city’s vaunted gaslights and confused both eyes and ears. When the fog lay on the city, all streets were dark, all echoes strange, and everywhere set for murder and mayhem.
“The fog shows no signs of lifting,” reported Damed, principal bodyguard to King Touchstone. His voice showed his dislike of the fog even though he knew it was only a natural phenomenon, a blend of industrial pollution and river mist. Back in their home, the Old Kingdom, such fogs were often created by Free Magic sorcerers. “Also, the... telephone... is not working, and the escort is both understrength and new. There is not one of the officers we usually have among them. I don’t think you should go, sire.”
Touchstone was standing by the window, peering out through the shutters. They’d had to shutter all the windows some days ago, when some of the crowd outside had adopted slingshots. Before that, the demonstrators hadn’t been able to throw half bricks far enough, as the mansion that housed the Old Kingdom Embassy was set in a walled park and a good fifty yards back from the street.
Not for the first time, Touchstone wished that he could reach the Charter and draw upon it for strength and magical assistance. But they were five hundred miles south of the Wall, and the air was still and cold. Only when the wind blew very strongly from the north could he feel even the slightest touch of his magical heritage.