“Abhorsen!” cried Nick. His body convulsed and Lirael felt his skin suddenly grow even colder. She hurriedly wrenched her hand free and backed as far away as she could, cursing herself for saying “Abhorsen” aloud when Nicholas was already on the edge of losing control. Of course it would set off the Free Magic inside him.
White smoke began to pour out of Nick’s nose and mouth. White sparks flickered behind his tongue as he desperately tried to speak. He mouthed it, but only smoke came out, and it took a moment for Lirael to work out what it was he was trying to say.
“No!” Or perhaps, “Go!”
chapter twelve
the destroyer in nicholas
For a moment, Lirael was caught in indecision, unable to decide whether to simply jump overboard and flee, or to reach for her bells. Then she acted, drawing Ranna and Saraneth, a difficult operation while sitting with a sword across her thighs.
Nick still hadn’t moved, but the white smoke was billowing out in slow, deliberate tendrils that reached this way and that, as if they had a life of their own. The nauseating stench of Free Magic came with them, biting at Lirael’s nose, bile rising in her throat in response.
She didn’t wait to see more but rang the bells together, focusing her will into a sharp command directed at the figure in front of her and the drifting smoke.
Sleep, Lirael thought, her whole body tense with the effort of concentrating the power of the two bells. She could feel Ranna’s lullaby and Saraneth’s compulsion, loud as they echoed across the water. Together they wreathed Nicholas with magic and sound, sending the Free Magic spirit inside him back into its parasitic sleep.
Or not, Lirael saw, as the white smoke only recoiled and the bells began to glow with a strange red heat, their voices losing pitch and clarity. Then Nick sat up, his eyes still rolled back and unseeing, and the Destroyer spoke through his mouth.
Its words struck at Lirael with physical force, the marrow in her bones suddenly burning and her ears pierced with a sudden, sharp ache.
“Fool! Your powers are thin hand-me-downs to pit against me! I almost sorrow that Saraneth and Ranna live on only in you and your trinkets. Be still!”
The last two words were spoken with such force that Lirael screamed with sudden pain. But the scream became a choking gurgle as she ran out of air. The thing inside Nick – the fragment – had bound her so fast that even her lungs were frozen. Desperately she tried to breathe, but it was no use. Her entire body was paralysed, inside and out, held by a force she could not even begin to combat.
“Farewell,” said the Destroyer. Then it stood Nick’s body up, carefully balancing as the reed boat swayed, and waved at the barges. At the same time, it shouted a name that echoed through the whole lake valley.
“Hedge!”
Panicking, Lirael tried to breathe again and again. But her chest remained frozen and the bells lay lifeless in her still hands. Wildly, she ran through Charter marks in her head, trying to think of something that might free her before she died of asphyxiation.
Nothing came to her, nothing at all, till she suddenly noticed she did have some sensation. In her thighs, where Nehima lay across her legs. She could only just see it there – being unable to move her eyes – but Charter marks were burning on the blade and flowing from there into her, fighting the Free Magic spell that held her in its deathly grip.
But the marks were only slowly defeating the spell. She would have do something herself, because at this rate, she would asphyxiate before her lungs were freed.
Desperate to do anything, she found she could twist her calves from side to side, trying to rock the boat. It wasn’t very stable, so perhaps if it went over and distracted the Free Magic spirit... it might break the spell.
She rocked again and water slopped into the craft, soaking into the tightly corded reeds. Still Nick’s body didn’t turn, his legs unconsciously adapting to the swaying motion. The thing inside him was clearly intent on the approaching barges and the hemispheres that held its greater self.
Then Lirael blacked out, her body starving for air. She came to in an instant, more panicked adrenalin flooding through her veins, and rocked again as hard as she could.
The reed boat rolled – but it didn’t go over. Lirael screamed inside and rocked for what she knew would be the last time, using every muscle that had been freed by her sword.
Water sloshed in like a tide and, for a brief moment, the boat seemed about to capsize. But the lakefolk had woven it too well and it righted. Nick’s body, surprised by the violence of the roll, didn’t. He swayed one way, made a grab at the prow, swung back the other – and fell into the lake.
Instantly, Lirael took a breath. Her lungs stayed frozen for a moment, then inflated with a shudder she felt through her entire body. The spell had broken with Nick’s fall. Sobbing and panting, she thrust the bells back into their pouches and grabbed her sword, the Charter marks in the hilt pulsing with warmth and encouragement.
All the time, she was looking for the Nick creature. At first there was no sign of anything moving in the water. Then she saw a great steaming and bubbling a few yards away, as if the lake were boiling. A hand – Nick’s hand – reached up and gripped the side of the boat, tearing away a whole section of the woven reeds with impossible strength; his mouth cleared the water and a high-pitched scream of anger sent every marsh bird within a mile into panicked flight.
It sent Lirael, too. Instinctively, she jumped straight off the other side of the boat as far as she could, smashing into the reeds and water and starting off at a wading run. The terrible scream came again, followed by a violent splashing. For a moment Lirael thought that Nick was right behind her; but instead there was a violent explosion of water and broken reeds: Nick had picked up the entire boat and thrown it at her. If she had been a little slower, it would have been the boat that struck her back, rather than spray and some harmless bits of reed.
Before he could do anything else, Lirael redoubled her efforts to get away. The water wasn’t as deep as she expected – only up to her chest – but it slowed her down, so every second she thought the creature would catch her, or strike her with a spell. Desperately, she headed back towards shallower water, hacking at the reeds with Nehima to speed the way.
She didn’t look back, because she couldn’t face what she might see, and she didn’t stop, not even when she was lost in the rushes with no idea where she was going, and her lungs and muscles ached and burnt with the effort of moving.
Finally, she was forced to a halt when the cramp in her side became impossible to ignore, and her legs were unable to hold her up out of the water. Fortunately, it was only knee-deep now, so Lirael sat down, crushing reeds into a wet and muddy seat.
All her senses were attuned to pursuit, but there didn’t seem to be anything behind her – at least nothing she could hear over the pounding of her heart echoing through every blood vessel in her entire body.
She rested there, in the muddy water, for what seemed like a long time. Finally, when she felt as if she could move without bursting into tears or vomiting, she got up and sloshed forward again.
As she waded, she thought about what she’d done – or hadn’t done. Over and over the scene played through her head. She should have been quicker with the bells, she thought, remembering her hesitation and clumsiness. Maybe she should have stabbed Nick – though that didn’t seem right, since he had no idea what lurked within him, awaiting the chance to manifest itself. It probably wouldn’t even have helped, since the fragment could probably inhabit a Dead Nick as easily as it did while he lived. Perhaps it could even have got inside her...