Abhorsen

“Good,” said the Disreputable Dog. “You do the next one, Mistress.”

Lirael bent over the next chain and breathed lightly upon it. Nothing happened for a moment and she felt a stab of uncertainty. Her identity as an Abhorsen was so new, and so precarious, that it could be easily doubted.

Then the chain frosted, the marks shone and the links came pouring out of the stone with the sharp rattle of metal. The sound was echoed almost immediately from the other side, as Sam breathed on the third chain.

Lirael breathed on the last chain, touching it for a moment as she took in a breath. She felt the marks shiver under her fingers, the lively reaction of a Charter-spell that knew its time had come. Like a person tensing muscles in that frozen instant before the begi

With the loosening of the chains, Lirael and Sam were able to lift one end of the cover and slide it away. It was very heavy, so they didn’t drag it completely off, just making an opening large enough for them to climb down with their packs on.

Lirael had expected a wet, dank smell to come up from the open well, even though the Dog had said it wasn’t full of water. There was a smell, strong enough to overcome the scent of the roses, but it wasn’t of old standing water. It was a pleasant herbal odour that Lirael couldn’t identify.

“What can I smell?” she asked the Dog, whose nose had often picked up scents and odours that Lirael could neither smell, spell or imagine.

“Very little,” replied the Dog. “Unless you’ve improved recently.”

“No,” said Lirael patiently. “There’s a particular smell coming out of the well. A plant, or a herb. But I can’t place it.”

Sam sniffed the air and his forehead furrowed in thought.

“It’s something used in cooking,” he said. “Not that I’m much of a cook. But I’ve smelled this in the Palace kitchens, when they were roasting lamb, I think.”

“It’s rosemary,” said the Dog shortly. “And there is amaranth too, though you probably ca

“Fidelity in love,” said a small voice from Sam’s backpack.

“With the flower that never fades. And you still say she is not there?”

The Dog didn’t answer Mogget but stuck her snout down the well. She sniffed around for at least a minute, pushing her snout further and further down the well. When she pulled back, she sneezed twice and shook her head.

“Old smells, old spells,” she said. “The scent is already fading.”

Lirael sniffed experimentally, but the Dog was right. She could smell only the roses now.

“There is a ladder,” said Sam, who was also looking into the well, a Charter-conjured light bobbing above his head. “Bronze, like the chains. I wonder why I can’t see the bottom, though – or any water.”

“I’ll go first,” said Lirael. Sam seemed about to protest but stepped away. Lirael didn’t know whether this was because he was afraid or because he was acquiescing – to the familial authority of Lirael as his newfound aunt or because she was now the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.

She looked into the well. The bronze ladder gleamed near the top, disappearing down into darkness. Lirael had climbed up, down and through many dark and dangerous tu

Climbing down this dark hole was only the begi

She took one last look at the sun, ignoring the climbing walls of fog to either side. Then she knelt down and gingerly lowered herself into the well, her feet finding secure footholds on the ladder.

After her came the Disreputable Dog, her paws elongating to form stubby fingers that gripped the ladder better than any human fingers could. Her tail brushed in Lirael’s face every few rungs, sweeping across with greater enthusiasm than Lirael could have mustered if she’d had a tail of her own.

Sam came last, his Charter light still hovering above his head, Mogget securely fastened in his backpack.

As Sam’s hobnailed boots clanged on the rungs, there was an answering clatter above as the chains suddenly contracted. He barely had time to bring in his hands before the cover was dragged across and slammed into place with a rattle and a deafening crash.

“Well, we won’t be going back that way,” said Sam, with forced cheerfulness.

“If at all,” whispered Mogget, his voice so low that it was possible no one heard him. But Sam hesitated for a moment and the Dog let out a low growl, while Lirael continued to climb down, cherishing that last memory of the sun as they descended further into the dark recesses of the earth.

chapter three

amaranth, rosemary

and tears

The ladder went down and down and down. At first Lirael counted the rungs, but when she got to 996 she gave up. Still they climbed down. Lirael had conjured a Charter light herself. It hovered about her feet, to complement the one Sam had dancing above his head. In the light of these two glowing balls, with the shadows of the rungs flickering on the wall of the well, Lirael found it easy to imagine that they were somehow stuck on the ladder, repeating the same section time after time.

A treadmill that they could never leave. This fancy grew on her and she started to think it real, when suddenly her foot met stone instead of bronze, and her Charter light rebounded as high as her knee.

They had reached the bottom of the well. Lirael pronounced a Charter mark and her light flew up to join the spoken word, circling her head. In its light she saw that they had come to a rectangular chamber, roughly hewn from the rich red rock. A passage led off from the chamber into darkness. There was an iron bucket next to the passage, filled with what looked like torches, simple lengths of wood topped with oil-soaked rags.

Lirael walked forward as the Disreputable Dog jumped down behind her, closely followed by Sam.

“I suppose this is the way,” Lirael whispered, indicating the passage. Somehow she felt that it was safer not to raise her voice.

The Dog sniffed at the air and nodded.

“I wonder if I should take—” Lirael said, reaching out for one of the torches. But even before her hand could close on it, the torch puffed into dust. Lirael flinched, almost falling over the Dog, who stepped back into Sam.

“Watch it!” Sam called out. His voice echoed in the well shaft and reverberated past Lirael down the corridor.

Lirael reached out again, more gingerly, but the other torches also simply fell into dust. When she touched the bucket, it collapsed in on itself, becoming a pile of rusted shards.

“Time never truly falters,” said the Dog enigmatically.

“I guess we have to go on,” said Lirael, but she was really only speaking to herself. They didn’t need the torches, but she would have felt better with one.

“The faster the better,” said the Dog. She was sniffing the air again. “We do not want to tarry anywhere under here.”

Lirael nodded. She took one step forward, then hesitated and drew her sword. Charter marks burnt brightly on the blade as it came free of the scabbard and the name of the sword rippled down the steel, briefly changing into the inscription Lirael had seen before. Or was it different? She couldn’t remember, and the words rippled away too quickly for her to be sure.

The Clayr Saw asword and so Iwas. Remember the Wallmakers. Remember Me.