Abhorsen

In addition to this strange repulsive force, Nick noted, there were other effects around the hemispheres. They seemed to generate an acrid, hot-metal smell that cut through even the fetid, rotting odour of the Night Crew. The smell made him sick, though it did not seem to affect either Hedge or his peculiar labourers.

Then there was the lightning. Nick flinched as yet another bolt struck down, momentarily blinding him, deafening thunder coming an instant later. The lightning was striking even more frequently than before, and now both hemispheres were exposed, Nick could see a pattern. Each hemisphere was struck eight times in a row, but the ninth bolt would invariably miss, often striking one of the workers.

Not that this seemed to affect them, part of Nick’s mind observed. If they didn’t catch alight or get completely dismembered, they kept on working. But this information didn’t stay in his head, as Nick’s thoughts always came back to his primary goal with an intense focus that banished all extraneous thoughts.

“We will have to move the first hemisphere on,” he said, fighting the shortness of breath that came with the nausea he suffered whenever he went too close to the silver metal. “And we will need an additional barge. The two hemispheres won’t fit on the one we’ve got, not with a fifty-foot separation. I hope the import licence I have will allow two shipments... In any case, we have no choice. There must be no delay.”

“As you say, Master,” replied Hedge, but he kept staring at Nick as if he expected something else.

“I meant to ask if you’d found a crew,” Nick said at last, when the silence became uncomfortable. “For the barges.”

“Yes,” replied Hedge. “They gather at the lakeside. Men like me, Master. Those who served in the Army of Ancelstierre, down in the trenches of the Perimeter. At least till the night drew them from their pickets and listening posts and made them cross the Wall.”

“You mean deserters? Are they trustworthy?” Nick asked sharply. The last thing he wanted was to lose a hemisphere through human stupidity, or to introduce some additional complication for when they crossed back into Ancelstierre. That simply could not be allowed to happen.

“Not deserters, sir, oh, no,” replied Hedge, smiling. “Simply missing in action and too far from home. They are quite trustworthy. I have made certain of that.”

“And the second barge?” Nick asked.

Hedge suddenly looked up, nostrils flaring to sniff the air, and he didn’t answer. Nick looked up too and a heavy drop of rain splashed upon his mouth. He licked his lips, then quickly spat as a strange, numbing sensation spread down his throat.

“This should not be,” Hedge whispered to himself, as the rain came heavier and a wind sprang up around them. “Summoned rain, coming from the northeast. I had best investigate, Master.”

Nick shrugged, uncertain what Hedge was talking about. The rain made him feel peculiar, recalling him to some other sense of himself. Everything around him had assumed a dreamlike quality and for the first time he wondered what on earth he was doing.

Then a strange pain struck him in the chest and he doubled over. Hedge caught him and laid him down on to earth that was rapidly turning into mud.

“What is it, Master?” asked Hedge, but his tone was inquisitive rather than sympathetic.

Nick groaned and clutched at his chest, his legs writhing. He tried to speak, but only spittle came from his lips. His eyes flickered wildly from side to side, then rolled back.

Hedge knelt by him, waiting. Rain continued to fall on Nick’s face, but now it sizzled as it hit, steam wafting off his skin. A few moments later, thick white smoke began to coil out of the young man’s nose and mouth, hissing as it met the rain.

“What is it, Master?” repeated Hedge, his voice suddenly nervous.

Nick’s mouth opened and more smoke puffed out. Then his hand moved, quicker than Hedge could see, fingers clutching at the necromancer’s leg with terrible force. Hedge clenched his teeth, fighting back the pain, and asked again, “Master?”

“Fool!” said the thing that used Nick as its voice. “Now is not the time to seek our enemies. They will find this pit soon enough, but by then we will be gone. You must procure an additional barge at once and load the hemispheres. And get this body out of the rain, for it is already too fragile, and much remains to be done. Too much for my servants to laze and chatter!”

The last words were said with venom and Hedge screamed as the fingers on his leg dug in like a steel-toothed mantrap. Then he was released, to fall back into the mud.

“Hurry,” whispered the voice. “Be swift, Hedge. Be swift.”

Hedge bowed where he was, not trusting himself to speak. He wanted to edge out of reach of the grasping, inhuman power of those hands, but he feared to move.

The rain grew heavier, and the white smoke began to sink back into Nick’s nose and mouth. After a few seconds it disappeared completely and he went totally limp.

Hedge caught his head just before it splashed back into a puddle. Then he lifted him up and carefully arranged him over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. A normal man’s leg would have been broken by the force exerted through Nick’s hand, but Hedge was no normal man. He lifted Nick easily, merely grimacing at the pain in his leg.

He’d carried Nick halfway back to his tent before the inert body on his shoulders twitched and the young man began to cough.

“Easy, Master,” said Hedge, increasing his pace. “I’ll soon have you out of the rain.”

“What happened?” asked Nick, his voice rasping. His throat felt as if he’d just smoked half a dozen cigars and drunk a bottle of brandy.

“You fainted,” replied Hedge, pushing through the flaps of the tent door. “Are you able to dry yourself and get to bed?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” snapped Nick, but his legs trembled as Hedge put him down and he had to balance himself against a travelling chest. Overhead, the rain beat out a steady rhythm on the canvas, accentuated every few minutes by the dull bass boom of thunder.

“Good,” replied Hedge, handing him a towel. “I must go and give the Night Crew their instructions; then I have to go and...

acquire another barge. It would probably be best if you rested here, sir. I will make sure someone – not one of the afflicted – brings your meals and empties the necessaries and so forth.”

“I’m quite able to look after myself,” replied Nick, though he couldn’t stop shivering as he stripped off his shirt and began to weakly towel his chest and arms. “Including overseeing the Night Crew.”

“That will not be required,” said Hedge. He leant over Nick, and his eyes appeared to grow larger and fill with a flickering red light, as if they were windows to a great furnace somehow burning inside his skull.

“It would be best if you rested here,” he repeated, his breath hot and metallic on Nick’s face. “You do not need to supervise the work.”

“Yes,” agreed Nick dully, the towel frozen in mid motion. “It would be best for me to rest... here.”

“You will await my return,” commanded Hedge. His usual subordinate tone was completely gone and he loomed over Nick like a headmaster about to cane a pupil.

“I will await your return,” Nick repeated.

“Good,” said Hedge. He smiled and turned on his heel, striding back out into the rain. It evaporated instantly into steam as it touched his bare head, wreathing him with a strange white halo. A few steps later, the steam wafted away and the rain simply plastered down his hair.

Back in his tent, Nick suddenly started drying himself again. That done, he put on a pair of badly repaired pyjamas and went to his bed of piled furs. His camp bed from Ancelstierre had broken days before, the springs collapsing into rust and the canvas crumbling with mildew.

Sleep came quickly, but not rest. He dreamed of the two silver hemispheres and his Lightning Farm that was being set up across the Wall. He saw the hemispheres absorbing power from a thousand lightning strikes and, as they drew power, overcoming the force that kept them apart. He saw them finally hurtle together, charged with the strength of ten thousand storms... but then the dream began again from the begi