“I’m . . . I’m Nicholas John Andrew Sayre,” he whispered. “I’m Nicholas . . . Nicholas . . .”
“Yes!” urged Lirael. She put her sword down by her side and took his hands, shuddering as she felt the Free Magic coursing in the blood under his cold skin. “Tell me more about yourself, Nicholas John Andrew Sayre! Where were you born?”
“I was born at Amberne, my family home,” whispered Nick. His voice grew stronger and the smoke receded. “In the billiard room. No, that’s a joke. Mother would kill me for that. I was born all proper for a Sayre, doctor and midwives in attendance. Two midwives, no less, and the society doctor . . .”
Nick closed his eyes, and Lirael gripped his hands tighter.
“Tell me . . . anything!” she demanded.
“The specific gravity of orbilite suspended in quicksilver is . . . I don’t know what it is. . . . The snow in Korrovia is confined to the southern Alps, and the major passes are Kriskadt, Jorstschi, and Korbuk. . . . The average blue-tailed plover lays twenty-six eggs in the course of its fifty-four-year lifespan. . . . More than a hundred thousand Southerlings landed illegally in the last year. . . . The chocolate tree is an invention of—”
He stopped suddenly, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes. Lirael kept holding his hands for a moment, but when she saw no sign of smoke or strangeness in his gaze, she dropped them and took up her sword again, resting the blade across her thighs.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” said Nick. His voice was unsteady. He looked down at the bottom of the boat, hiding his face, taking very controlled breaths.
“Yes,” said Lirael. “But Sameth and I, and the . . . our friends . . . will do the best we can to save you.”
“But you don’t think you can,” said Nicholas softly. “This . . . thing . . . inside me. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” replied Lirael. “But it is part of some great and ancient evil, and you are helping it to be free. To wreak destruction.”
Nick nodded slowly. Then he looked up and met Lirael’s gaze.
“It’s been like a dream,” he said simply. “Most of the time I don’t really know whether I’m awake or not. I can’t remember things from one minute to the next. I can’t think of anything except the hemi—”
He stopped talking. Fear flashed in his eyes and he reached out for Lirael. She took his left hand but kept hold of her sword. If the thing inside him took over and wouldn’t let her go, she knew she would have to cut her way free.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Nick repeated to himself, rocking backwards and forwards as he spoke. “I’ve got it under control. Tell me what I have to do.”
“Keep fighting,” Lirael instructed, but she didn’t know what else to tell him. “If we can’t keep you, then when the time comes, you must do whatever you can to stop . . . to stop it. Promise me you will!”
“I promise,” groaned Nick through clenched teeth. “Word of a Sayre. I’ll stop it! I will! Talk to me, please, Lirael. I have to think about something else. Tell me . . . tell me . . . where were you born?”
“In the Clayr’s Glacier,” said Lirael nervously. Nick’s grip was tightening, and she didn’t like it. “In the Birthing Rooms of the Infirmary. Though some Clayr have their babies in their own rooms, most of us . . . them . . . have their children in the Birthing Rooms because everyone’s there and it’s more communal and fun.”
“Your parents,” gasped Nick. He shuddered and started to speak very quickly. “Tell me about them. Nothing to tell about mine. Father’s a bad politician, though enthusiastic with it. His older brother is the success. Mother goes to parties and drinks too much. How is it you are Sameth’s aunt? I don’t understand how you could be Touchstone’s or Sabriel’s sister. I’ve met them. Much older than you. Ancient. Must be forty, if a day. . . . Speak to me, please, speak to me—”
“I’m Sabriel’s sister,” said Lirael, though the words felt strange on her tongue. “Sabriel’s sister. But not by the same mother. Her . . . my father was . . . . um . . . with my mother only for a little while, before he died. I didn’t even know who he was till quite recently. My mother . . . my mother went away when I was five. So I didn’t know my father was the Abhorsen— Oh no!”
“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 Ni
ck—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 paralyzed, 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.