She could feel the Dead beyond the ridge as she climbed. No more than a score at first, but at least a dozen more appeared as she climbed. Obviously Hedge was bringing spirits in from Death. He must have found a source of corpses somewhere. Lirael did not think they would be Shadow Hands, for it took longer to prepare a spirit for Life if there was no flesh to house it in. At least, it was supposed to take longer. Lirael was afraid that she had no idea what Hedge was capable of.
Then, without warning, she was on top of the ridge and there were no more white-barked trees, no great boulders. She could see clearly down the bare western slope to the blue waters of the loch. The hillside had been totally cleared, swept clean as if by fire and a giant broom, leaving only furrowed brown dirt. But the dirt had sprouted a strange crop. Slender metal poles, twice Lirael’s height. Hundreds of them, spaced six feet apart, and joined at the roots by fat black cables that snaked down the slope and into a ramshackle stone building that had lost its roof. Parallel metal lines laid on top of many short wooden beams formed a track of some sort. They ran on the ground through the building, ending abruptly twenty yards on either side of it. There were two flat-bed metal-wheeled wagons on the line, one at each end. Lirael instinctively knew that these were for the hemispheres. They would be mounted on the wagons and somehow be brought together by using the power of the lightning storm.
Lightning flashed as if to punctuate her thoughts. It came forking down all around the quay, so bright that Lirael had to shield her eyes with her hand. She knew what she would see there because she could smell the hot-metal scent, the corrosive smell of Free Magic. It turned her stomach and she was thankful that she hadn’t eaten for hours.
One of the silver hemispheres was already on the quay. It flashed blue as the lightning struck it. The other hemisphere was on a boat out on the loch. Though most of the lightning was hitting the hemispheres, Lirael saw that it was also spreading out and up the slope, and most of the strikes hit the tall poles. They were lightning rods, the thousand lightning rods that together made up Nicholas’s Lightning Farm.
As if the dark clouds above were not enough, fog was beginning to swirl off the loch. Lirael could sense this was a magical fog, built with real water, so it would be much harder to force back or dispel. She felt the Free Magic working in it, and the source of it. Hedge was somewhere down on the quay. There were Dead down there with him, moving the first hemisphere, and there were more Dead around the various small buildings that lined the quay. Lirael could sense them moving about, with Hedge at the centre of everything. She felt like a fly on the edge of a cobweb, feeling the movement of the great mother spider at the centre and its many offspring further around the web.
Lirael drew Nehima, and then after a moment’s hesitation her hand fell on Astarael. The Weeper. All who heard her would be thrown into Death, including Lirael. If she could get close enough, she could send Hedge and all the Dead a long, long way. Hedge, at least, would probably be able to return to Life, but there was a slim chance Lirael could return as well, and it would gain her precious time.
But as she started to draw the bell out of the bandoleer, the Dog jumped up against her and pushed Lirael’s hand away with her nose.
“No, Mistress,” she said. “Astarael alone cannot prevail here. We are too late to prevent the hemispheres from being joined.”
“Sam, the soldiers...” said Lirael. “If we attack at once—”
“I do not think we would easily pass through this Lightning Farm,” said the Dog, shaking her head. “The Destroyer’s power is less constrained here, and the Destroyer is directing the lightning. Besides, the Dead here are led by Hedge, not Chlorr.”
“But if the hemispheres join...” Lirael whispered to herself. Then she swallowed and said, “It’s time, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the Dog. “But not here. Hedge will have noticed us, as we have noticed him. His mind is on the hemispheres for the moment, but I do not think it will be long before he orders an attack.”
Lirael turned to retreat back down the eastern side of the ridge, then stopped and looked back.
“Nicholas? What about him?”
“He is beyond our help now,” replied the Dog sadly. “When the hemispheres join, the shard within him will burst from his heart to become part of the whole. But he will know nothing of it. It will be a swift end, though I fear Hedge will enslave his spirit.”
“Poor Nick,” said Lirael. “I should never have let him go.”
“You had no choice,” said the Dog. She nudged Lirael behind the knee, anxious to make her move. “We must hurry!”
Lirael nodded and turned back to retrace her path down the slope. As she hurried down, sliding and almost falling in the steeper parts, she thought of Nicholas and then of everyone else, including herself. Perhaps Nick would have the easiest path. After all, it was likely he would be only the first to die, unknowing. Everyone else would be only too aware of their fate, and they would probably all end up serving Hedge.
Lirael was halfway down when an enormously loud, booming voice filled the valley. It shocked her for a second, till she recognised it was Sam, his speech greatly magnified by Charter Magic. He was standing on a large boulder only a hundred yards or so further down the spur, his hands cupped around his mouth, his fingers glowing from the spell.
“Southerlings! Friends! Do not go beyond the western ridge! Only death awaits you there! Do not believe the papers you hold – they offer only lies! I am Prince Sameth of the Old Kingdom and I promise to give land and farms to everyone who stays in the valley! If you stay in the valley, you will be given farms and land beyond the Wall!”
Sam repeated his message as Lirael panted to a stop next to his boulder. Below it, Major Greene’s men were strung out in a long line along the bottom of the ridge. The Southerlings were gathered beyond that line, overlapping it by several hundred yards at the southern end. Most of them had stopped to listen to Sam, but a few were still climbing up the ridge.
Sam stopped talking and jumped down.
“Best I can do,” he said anxiously. “It might stop some of them. If they even understood what I was saying.”
“Nothing else we can do,” said Major Greene. “We can’t shoot the beggars, and they’d overwhelm us if we tried to stop them with just the bayonet. I’d like a word with the police who were supposed to be—”
“One of the hemispheres is already ashore and the other is close behind,” interrupted Lirael, her news provoking instant attention. “Hedge is there, and he is raising a fog and creating many more Dead. The Lightning Farm is also beginning to work, and the Destroyer is calling down and directing the lightning.”
“We’d best attack at once,” said Major Greene. He started to take a breath to shout, but Lirael interrupted him again.
“No,” she said. “We can’t get through the Lightning Farm and there are too many Dead. We cannot stop the hemispheres from joining now.”
“But that’s... that means we’ve lost,” said Sam. “Everything. The Destroyer—”
“No,” snapped Lirael. “I’m going into Death, to use the Dark Mirror. The Destroyer was bound and broken in the Beginning. Once I find out how it was done, we can do it again. But you will have to protect my body until I can come back, and Hedge is sure to attack.”
As she spoke, Lirael looked firmly into Sam’s eyes, then Major Greene’s and the two Lieutenants’, Tindall and Gotley. She hoped some sort of confidence was being transferred. She had to believe that there was an answer in Death, in the past. Some secret that would let them defeat Orannis.
“The Dog is coming with me,” she said. “Where’s Mogget?”
“Here!” said a voice near her feet. Lirael looked down and saw Mogget in the shadow of the boulder, licking the second of two empty sardine tins.