Lirael didn’t answer, but faint lines of golden light began to run in hairline cracks through the giant owl shape. The lines ran together till Sam could see individual Charter marks; then the whole thing began to blaze so brightly that Sam had to back off, shielding his eyes against the brilliance.
Then there was only soft twilight in his eyes, as the sun slowly set on the Old Kingdom side. And there was Lirael, lying spread-eagled on her stomach, groaning.
“Ow! Every muscle in my entire body hurts,” she muttered, slowly pushing herself up with her hands. “And I feel absolutely disgusting! Worse than the mud, that Charter-skin. Where’s the Dog?”
“Here, Mistress,” answered the Disreputable Dog, rushing over to surprise Lirael with a lick to her open mouth. “That was fun. Particularly flying over that man.”
“That wasn’t intentional,” said Lirael, using the Dog as a crutch to help herself up. “I was just as surprised as he was. Let’s just hope that we’ve saved enough time to make it worthwhile.”
“If we can get across the Wall – and the Perimeter – tonight, we have to be ahead of Hedge,” said Sam. “How fast can a barge go, after all?”
It was a rhetorical question, but it was answered.
“With a spelled wind, they could sail more than sixty leagues in a day and night,” said Mogget, a hidden voice of authority from inside Sam’s pack. “I would presume they reached the Redmouth around noon today. From there, who knows? It depends how quickly they can move the hemispheres. They may even have crossed, and time is disjointed between the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre. Hedge – aided by the Destroyer – may even be able to manipulate that difference to gain a day... or more.”
“Ever cheerful, aren’t you, Mogget?” said Lirael. She actually felt surprisingly cheerful herself, and not as tired as she’d thought she was. She felt quietly proud that the giant owl Charter-skin had worked, and she was sure that they had got ahead of Hedge and his barges.
“I suppose we should push on,” she said. Better not to count her apples before the tree grew. “Sam, I hadn’t actually thought of this, but how will we get into Ancelstierre? How do we get across the Wall?”
“The Wall is the easy part,” replied Sam. “There are lots of old gates. They’ll be locked and warded, except for the one at the current Crossing Point, but I think I can open them.”
“I’m sure you can,” said Lirael encouragingly.
“The Perimeter is more difficult in some ways. They shoot on sight over there, though most of the troops are around the Crossing Point, so there will only be a chance of a patrol this far west. To be on the safe side, I was thinking we might take on the semblance of an officer and a sergeant from the Crossing Point Scouts. You can be the sergeant, with a head wound – so you can’t talk and get us into trouble. They might believe that – enough not to shoot us straightaway.”
“What about the Dog and Mogget?” asked Lirael.
“Mogget can stay in my pack,” said Sam. With a backwards glance towards the cat, he added, “But you have to promise to be quiet, Mogget. A talking pack will get us killed for sure.”
Mogget didn’t answer. Sam and Lirael took this to be a surly agreement, since he didn’t protest.
“We can disguise the Dog with a glamour as well,” continued Sam. “To make her look like she’s got a collar and breastplate like the Army sniffer dogs.”
“What do they sniff?” asked the Disreputable Dog with interest.
“Oh, bombs and other... um... exploding devices – like the blasting marks we use, only made from chemicals, not magic,” explained Sam. “Down south, that is. But they have special dogs on the Perimeter that sniff out the Dead or Free Magic. The dogs are much better than ordinary Ancelstierrans at detecting such things.”
“Naturally,” said the Disreputable Dog. “I take it I’m not allowed to talk, either?”
“No,” confirmed Sam. “We’ll have to give you a name and number, like a real sniffer dog. How about Woppet? I knew a dog called that. And you can have my old service number from the cadet corps at school. Two Eight Two Nine Seven Three. Or Nine Seven Three Woppet for short.”
“Nine Seven Three Woppet,” mused the Dog, rolling the words around in her mouth as if they were something potentially edible. “A curious name.”
“We’d better cast the illusions here for us to take on,” said Sam. “Before we try to cross the Wall.”
He looked at the full dark of the Ancelstierran night beyond the Wall and said, “We need to cross before dawn, which can’t be too far away. We’re less likely to run into a patrol at night.”
“I’ve never cast a glamour before,” said Lirael doubtfully.
“I have to do them anyway,” replied Sam. “Since you don’t know what we want to look like. They’re not that hard – a lot easier than your Charter-skins. I can do three easily enough.”
“Thank you,” said Lirael. She sat down next to the Dog, easing her aching muscles, and scratched the hound under the collar. Sam walked a few paces away and began to reach into the Charter, gathering the marks that he needed for casting the spells of disguise.
“Funny to think he’s my nephew,” whispered Lirael to the Dog. “It feels very strange. An actual family, not just a great clan of cousins, like the Clayr. To be an aunt, as well as having one. To have a sister too...”
“Is it good as well as strange?” asked the Dog.
“I haven’t had a chance to think about it,” replied Lirael, after a moment of thoughtful silence. “It’s sort of good and sort of sad. Good, because I am... I am an Abhorsen, blood and bone, so I have found where I belong. Sad, because all my life before was about not belonging, not being properly one of the Clayr. I spent so many years wanting to be something I wasn’t. Now I think if I could have become a Clayr, would it have been enough for me? Or would I simply be unable to imagine being anything else?”
She hesitated, then quietly added, “I wonder if my mother knew what my childhood would be. But then Arielle was a Clayr too, and probably couldn’t comprehend what it would be like growing up at the Glacier without the Sight.”
“That reminds me,” Mogget said, unexpectedly emerging from the pack, his left ear crumpled by his rapid exit. “Arielle. Your mother. She left a message with me when she was at the House.”
“What!” exclaimed Lirael, jumping over to grab Mogget by the scruff of the neck, ignoring Ranna’s call to sleep and the unpleasant interchange of Free Magic under cat skin and the Charter-spelled collar. “What message? Why didn’t you give it to me before?”
“Hmmm,” replied Mogget. He pulled himself free, catching his collar against Lirael’s hand. She let go just before he could slip out of the leather band, and Ranna’s warning chime made the cat stop wriggling. “If you listen, I’ll tell you—”
“Mogget!” growled the Dog, stalking over to breathe in the cat’s face.
“Arielle Saw me with you, near the Wall,” said Mogget quickly. “She was sitting in her Paperwing and I was handing her a package – I had a different form in those days, you understand. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have remembered this if I hadn’t taken that shape again after my forced conversation under the House. It’s funny how in man shape I remember things differently. I suppose I had to forget in order to not remember until I was where she Saw me—”
“Mogget! The message!” pleaded Lirael.
Mogget nodded and licked his mouth. Clearly he would proceed only in his own time.
“I handed her the package,” he continued. “She was looking into the mist above the waterfall. There was a rainbow there that day, but she did not see it. I saw her eyes cloud with the Sight and she said, ‘You will stand by my daughter near the Wall. You will see her grown, as I will not. Tell Lirael that... that my going will be... will have been... no choice of mine. I have linked her life and mine to the Abhorsen, and put the feet of both mother and daughter on a path that will limit our own choosing. Tell her also that I love her, and will always love her, and that leaving her will be the death of my heart.’”