“Maybe,” said Mogget. “I can’t remember.”
“Mogget, can you break Chlorr’s dam? Mother, Father, they’re fighting on the other side, but if we could drown most of the cavalry—”
“No,” said Mogget blandly. “None of my business. As I said, I was merely curious.”
“I knew you couldn’t be the athask,” said Ferin, grumpily getting back up on her crutches and settling herself against the merlon so she could ready her bow again. “Too small and too—”
Mogget blazed brighter than a star, and there was suddenly a huge white cat upon the wall, one three times the size of a nomad horse. He put his head back and yowled with tremendous energy outward to the moon and the advancing nomads under it, a caterwaul that reeked of Free Magic, white sparks spraying out for tens of paces, accompanied by great gouts of white smoke and an almost overwhelming stench of hot metal. Then he lowered his face to yowl more softly at Ferin, who covered her face with one arm, fell off her crutches, and would have gone backward off the wall to certain death if Sam hadn’t flung himself forward and caught her.
“If you won’t help, then go!” shouted Sam, holding Ferin with one hand as he clutched at an iron staple in the wall, his heart hammering with panic. “I’m never going to catch a fish for you again! Or get you sardines from Ancelstierre!”
“You don’t have to be like that,” said Mogget, shrinking down to his normal size. His green eyes twinkled. “I have helped you. In a small way, I admit. But surely it’s better than nothing. The rest is up to you lot, though I do hope you can make Chlorr regret interfering with one of my favorite rivers and the fish in it.”
With that, he leaped over the wall and was gone. The cat shouted something as he jumped, about sardine tins always rusting and the fish tasting terrible, but Sam paid no attention to that. He was too busy hauling Ferin in. As she fell across an embrasure, Sam let her go, wincing as he felt a muscle in his left arm stretch almost to the tearing point. He massaged it, already thinking about a healing spell he would have to use, and quickly, so he could once again take up his bow . . .
Ferin made a noise, something between a choking laugh and a gasp of amazement.
Sam forgot his arm, and looked out over her head at the line of Athask warriors. They were not charging forward, but were instead in the process of reversing their coats once again, and those who had already done so were slipping away, in the opposite direction from the castle.
“So that was the athask, then?” asked Ferin in the smallest voice Sam had ever heard come from her, one filled with wonderment. “He has given us his protection, and the clan have seen.”
“Maybe he is . . .” said Sam. He eyed the retreating mountaineers with relief, tempered by the knowledge they were only a small part of Chlorr’s great host. “I’ll tell you about Mogget later. He’s tricky. I wish he would have done more. . . . It’s all up to Lirael and Nick now. There’s . . . there’s no way Dad and Mother can hold the southern bank. Not against so many.”
“Then let us shoot some more, and make them fewer,” said Ferin. “And hope Lirael can do what must be done. What else can we do?”
“Nothing,” said Sam grimly, and picked up his bow.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A TIME TO DIE
Beyond the Great Rift/In Death
Nick looked worriedly at Lirael’s ice-encased form once again, and continued counting. As soon as she had gone into Death he had done a rough calculation of the amount of air within the globe, and though he wasn’t sure of the exact amount two humans would use, he figured what Lirael had said about the spell was probably right. One hour for two people, and they had used fifteen minutes even before Lirael went into Death. That’s how long it would take to get back to where they could breathe.
“Nine hundred and eleven hippopotami,” said Nick. His arms hurt, but he kept them up, kept holding the globe. “Nine hundred and twelve hippopotami.”
When he got to a thousand, he thought, he could drop the “hippopotami.” The numbers would be long enough said to be a full second. But when he got to a thousand seconds, they would have been stationary out here just over half an hour. There would be only fifteen minutes left for them to get back.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered. “Come back to me, Lirael. Come back. Damn. That must be four seconds . . . nine hundred and twenty hippopotami . . . nine hundred and twenty-one hoppopittami . . . damn again, I should have used potato . . . okay . . . nine hundred and twenty-three hippopotato, I mean nine hundred and twenty-four potatoes . . .”
Something moved on Lirael, on her ribs, low on the left. Ice cracked over the smallest pocket of her bandolier. Nick stopped counting and stared at it, wondering what it meant and what he should do. He counted the pockets while he tried to remember the names of the bells. Lirael had talked about them a little. So had Sam, but Nick couldn’t remember, and the pocket seemed to be the eighth from the top . . . he counted them again, got eight again . . . but that couldn’t be right. There were only seven bells.
A long, pointy, tan-colored ear suddenly stuck out of the pocket, followed by the curve of a head, and another pointy ear.
Nick drew his sword while keeping his left hand firmly on the globe.
The complete long-snouted head of a dog burst out of the pocket, and about two-thirds of a leg ending in a large paw.
“Put that sword away and help me out!” barked the Disreputable Dog. “Hurry! No, don’t let go of the globe.”
Nick dropped his sword, gaped for only a second, which was far less time than he felt like gaping, and reached across to pull on the Dog’s foreleg. As he touched it, he felt the sudden surge of both Charter Magic and Free Magic flow into his body.
The Dog came out all in a rush. She was smaller than Nick remembered from when she had sent him back into Life, but she was still the same pointy-eared, lolling-tongued, black-backed mostly tan-colored mongrel. She shook herself violently for several seconds, drops of icy water spraying all over Nick.
“Listen,” said the Dog quickly. “You will need to put more of yourself into the globe and breathe less.”
“Breathe less! And what do you mean put more of myself?” asked Nick. “What’s happening?”
He could feel himself trembling from fear, fear for Lirael.
“Lirael has had to ring Astarael,” snapped the Dog. “Lie down with your hands out to keep contact with the globe. You must feel the Charter within you, let it flow through your hands, give it to the globe. Shut your eyes and breathe shallowly. And stop that stupid counting.”
“Can you help her?” asked Nick, fighting the panic he suddenly felt, the urge to not breathe shallowly but to gulp air as fast as he could.
“No,” said the Dog sadly. “But you can, if she makes it back.”
She went on point, nose forward, leg up—and then was gone, an intensely cold breeze rushing over Nick from where she had been. In her place, the little soapstone statuette balanced on two legs for a moment, and then fell over.
Nick took one last deep breath and edged forward, bringing his arms down, making sure he was sti
ll keeping hold of the side of the globe of air. Then he knelt, and lay down on his side so he could still see Lirael, though she was now entirely encased in ice. His arms felt like lumps of dead meat he had been holding them up so long, and he laughed dully at how stupid he’d been. It was much easier to touch the globe while lying down.
He felt the marks under his fingers, shut his eyes, and concentrated on the Charter that moved within him, swirling and shifting around the inner fire of Free Magic, willing both to rise, to move through him and into the magic that sustained his and Lirael’s life.
Through the Fourth Gate, tumbling madly, rushed through the Fifth Precinct by a current so swift Lirael barely glimpsed the Dark Path above, and then she and Clariel were flung upside down and lifted up, swept high by the reverse waterfall of the Fifth Gate, spat out again in the shallow waters of the Sixth Precinct, where Lirael and Sabriel had talked of Chlorr so few scant weeks ago, but still Astarael sounded and Lirael’s throat was raw from screaming and so she did nothing but croak and whimper as the Sixth Gate opened beneath their feet and they fell from the river upon dry ground, or something that supported them and was not the river, a circle some ten paces in diameter, and it sank with them, the water rising all around, and again Lirael did not try to still the bell, but kept it ringing.
Deeper and deeper the small circle fell, the river around them but not crashing in, until they came to a stop and the water fell away on all sides, frothing and roaring, though Lirael hardly heard it, for she could hear almost nothing but Astarael’s single note, the sound of a dying scream.
The river took them up again, the current lifting them, sending them like two tiny, bobbing corks to the endless line of fire that burned ahead, flames dancing on the water. This fire arched up as they approached, in answer to Astarael’s call, as all the gates so answered, opening the way.