Who disappeared.
Sam tried to stop. He dug his heels in, but his feet skidded in the mud and he ran straight into a tree trunk, rebounded into a fern and fell flat on his back. Down in the mud, he remembered his arms master telling him, “Most who go down in a battle never get up again. So don’t bloody well fall down!”
Sam dropped the sun dagger, which was extinguished immediately, the individual marks melting into the ground, and pushed himself up. He had been down for only a second or two, he thought, as he stared wildly around. But there was no sign of the... whatever it was...
Lirael.
The thought struck him like a blow and instantly he was running up the slope he’d just careered down, grabbing at ferns and branches and anything that could make him go faster. He had to get back! What if Lirael was attacked while she was still in Death? Struck from behind with a dagger, or a knife? She wouldn’t have a chance.
He made it back to the small clearing. Lirael still stood there. Icicles made from raindrops hung from her outstretched arms. The frozen pool around her feet had spread, so strange in this warm forest. She was unharmed.
“Lucky I was here,” said a voice behind Sam. A familiar voice.
Mogget’s voice.
Sam whirled around.
“Mogget? Is that you? Where are you?”
“Here, and regretting it as per usual,” replied Mogget, and a small white cat sauntered out from behind a fern tree.
Sam did not relax his guard. He could see that Mogget still wore his collar and there was a bell on it. But it could be a trick. And where... or who... was that strange pale man?
“I saw a man,” said Sam. “His hair and skin were white, white as snow. White as your fur...”
“Yes,” yawned Mogget. “That was me. But that shape was forbidden to me by Jerizael, who was... let me see... she was the forty-eighth Abhorsen. I cannot use it in the presence of an Abhorsen, even an apprentice, without prior permission. Your mother does not generally give me permission, though her father was more flexible. Lirael cannot currently say yea or nay, so once again you see me as I am.”
“The Dog said that she... Astarael... wasn’t going to let you go,” said Sam. He had not lowered his sword.
Mogget yawned again and the bell rang on his neck. It was Ranna – Sam recognised both the voice and his own reaction: he couldn’t help yawning himself.
“Is that what that hound said?” remarked the cat as he padded over to Sam’s pack and delicately sliced open half the stitches on the patch with one sharp claw so he could climb in. “Astarael? Is that who it was? It’s been so long, I can’t really remember who was who. In any case, she said what she wanted to say and then I left. Wake me up when we’re somewhere dry and comfortable, Prince Sameth. With civilised food.”
Sam slowly lowered his sword and sighed in exasperation. It clearly was Mogget. Sam just wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not that the cat had returned. He kept remembering that gloating chuckle in the tunnel below the House, and the stench and dazzle of Free Magic...
Ice cracked. Sam whirled about again, his heart hammering. With the cracking of the ice, he heard the echo of a distant bell. So distant it might have been a memory or an imagined sound.
More ice cracked and Lirael fell to one knee, ice flaking off her like a miniature snowstorm. Then there was a bright flash and the Dog appeared, jumping around anxiously and growling deep in her chest.
“What happened?” asked Sam. “Are you hurt?”
“Not really,” said Lirael, with a grimace that showed there was something wrong, and she held up her left wrist. “Some horrible little Fifth Gate Rester tried to bite my arm. But it didn’t get through the coat – it’s only bruised.”
“What did you do to it?” asked Sam. The Dog was still running around as if the Dead creature might suddenly appear.
“The Dog bit it in half,” said Lirael, forcing herself to take several long, slow breaths. “Though that didn’t stop it. But I made it obey me in the end. It’s on its way to the Ninth Gate – and it won’t be coming back.”
“You really are the Abhorsen-in-Waiting now,” said Sam, admiration showing in his voice.
“I guess I am,” replied Lirael slowly. She felt as if she’d claimed something when she’d announced herself as such in Death. And lost something too. It was one thing to take up the bells at the House. It was another to actually use the bells in Death. Her old life seemed so far away now. Gone for ever, and she did not yet know what her new life would be, or even what she was. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin and it had nothing to do with the melting ice, or the rain and mud.
“I can smell something,” announced the Dog.
Lirael looked up and for the first time noticed that Sam was much muddier than he had been, and was bleeding from a scratch across the back of his hand, though he didn’t appear to have noticed it.
“What happened to you?” she asked sharply.
“Mogget came back,” replied Sam. “At least I think it’s Mogget. He’s in my pack. Only at first he was a sort of really short albino man and I thought he was an enemy—”
He stopped talking as the Dog prowled over to his pack and sniffed at it. A white paw flashed out and the Dog jerked back just in time to avoid a clawed nose. She settled back on her haunches and her forehead furrowed in puzzlement.
“It is the Mogget,” she confirmed. “But I don’t understand—”
“She gave me what she chooses to call another chance,” said a voice from inside the pack. “More than you’ve ever done.”
“Another chance at what?” growled the Dog. “This is no time for your games! Do you know what is being dug up four leagues from here?”
Mogget thrust his head out of the pack. Ranna jangled, sending a wave of weariness across all who heard the bell.
“I know!” spat the little cat. “I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. It is the Destroyer! The Unmaker! The Unraveller—”
Mogget paused for breath. Just as he was about to speak again, the Dog suddenly barked, a short, sharp bark infused with power. Mogget yowled as if his tail had been trodden on and sank hissing back into the pack.
“Do not speak Its name,” ordered the Dog. “Not in anger, not when we are so close.”
Mogget was silent. Lirael, Sam and the Dog looked at the pack.
“We have to get away from here.” Lirael sighed, wiping the most recent raindrops off her forehead before they could get into her eyes. “But first I want to get something straight.”
She approached Sam’s pack and leant over it, careful to stay out of striking distance of a paw.
“Mogget. You are still bound to be a servant of the Abhorsens, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” came the grudging reply. “Worse luck.”
“So you will help me, help us, won’t you?”
There was no answer.
“I’ll find you some fish,” interjected Sam. “I mean, when we’re somewhere where there are fish.”
“And a couple of mice,” added Lirael. “If you like mice, that is.”
Mice chewed books. All librarians disliked mice and Lirael was no exception. She was quite pleased to discover that becoming an Abhorsen had not removed that essential part of the librarian in her. She still hated silverfish as well.
“There is no point bargaining with the creature,” said the Dog. “He will do as he is told.”
“Fish when available, and mice, and a songbird,” said Mogget, emerging from the pack, his little pink tongue tasting the air as if the fish were even now in front of him.
“No songbird,” said Lirael firmly.
“Very well,” agreed Mogget. He cast a disdainful glance at the Dog. “A civilised agreement and in keeping with my current form. Food and lodging in return for what help I care to offer. Better than being a slave.”
“You are a—” the Dog began hotly, but Lirael grabbed her collar and she subsided, growling.