A few minutes later they met in a tangle of jumping, licking and dancing around (on the Dog’s part), and hugging, kissing and keeping her sword out of the way (on Lirael’s part).

“It’s you, it’s you, it’s you!” woofed the Dog, wiggling her hindquarters and squeaking.

Lirael didn’t say anything. She knelt and put her head against the Dog’s warm neck and sighed, a sigh that held all her troubles in it.

“You smell worse than I usually do,” observed the Dog, after the initial excitement had worn off and she had had a chance to sniff Lirael’s mud-covered body. “You’d better get up. We have to get back to the stream. There are still plenty of Dead about – Hedge seems to have abandoned them to do what they will. At least so we suppose, since the lightning storm – presumably following the hemispheres – has moved out over the lake.”

“Yes,” said Lirael, after they’d starting walking back. “Hedge is there. Nick... the thing inside... called out to him from the reeds. They have two barges, and they’re taking the hemispheres to Ancelstierre.”

“It rose again in Nick,” mused the Dog. “That didn’t take long. Even the fragment must be stronger than I would have thought.”

“It was a lot stronger than I ever imagined,” replied Lirael, shivering. They were almost at the stream, and there was Sam waiting in the shadow of the trees, with an arrow nocked ready to fire. How was she going to explain to him that she’d rescued Nicholas – and lost him again?

Suddenly, Sam moved, and Lirael stopped in surprise. It looked as if he was going to shoot her – or the Dog. She just had time to duck as his bow twanged and an arrow leapt out – straight at her head.

chapter thirteen

details from the disreputable dog

As she ducked, Lirael suddenly sensed a Gore Crow’s cold presence directly above her. An instant later its dive was arrested and it smacked into the ground, transfixed by Sam’s arrow, the Charter Magic he’d set in the sharp point sparking as it ate into the splinter of Dead Spirit that was trying to crawl away.

Lirael found herself instinctively with a bell in hand, looking up for more Gore Crows. There was another, diving down, but an arrow lofted up and met it too. This missile punched straight through the ball of feathers and dried bone and kept on going – but the Gore Crow didn’t, and another fragment of Dead Spirit writhed on the ground near the first, suffering in the sunshine.

Lirael looked at the bell in her hand, and the spirit fragments, pools of inky darkness that were already creeping together, seeking to join for greater strength. The bell was Kibeth, which was appropriate, so she rang it in a quick S shape, producing a clear and joyful tune that made her left foot break out into a little jig.

It had a more inimicable effect upon the remnant spirit fragments of the Gore Crows. The two blots reared up like salted leeches and almost somersaulted as they sought to evade the sound. But there was nowhere for them to go, nowhere they could escape Kibeth’s peremptory call. Except the one place the spirit never wished to see again. But it had no choice. Shrieking inside, the spirit obeyed the bell and the two blots vanished into Death.

Lirael cast her eye around the sky again and smiled in satisfaction as three more distant black dots fell earthwards: Gore Crows destroyed when the first two banished fragments sucked the rest of the shared spirit back into Death. Then she put the bell away and walked forward to greet Sam, the Disreputable Dog taking a quick side trip to sniff at the crow feathers, to make absolutely sure the spirit was gone and there was nothing worth eating.

Sam, like the Dog, also seemed extremely happy to see Lirael, and was even about to give her a welcoming hug – till he smelt the mud. That made him change his open arms into an expansive welcoming gesture. Even so, Lirael noticed that he was looking behind her for someone else.

“Thanks for shooting the crows,” she said. Then she added, “I lost Nick, Sam.”

“Lost him!”

“There’s a fragment of the Destroyer inside him and it took him over. I couldn’t stop it. It almost killed me when I tried.”

“What do you mean a fragment of the Destroyer? Inside him how?”

“I don’t know!” snapped Lirael. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Sorry. The Dog says that there’s a sliver of the metal from one of the hemispheres inside Nicholas. I don’t know any more than that, though it does explain why he’s working with Hedge.”

“So where is he?” asked Sam. “And what... what are we going to do now?”

“He’s almost certainly on the barges Hedge is using to transport the hemispheres,” replied Lirael. “To Ancelstierre.”

“Ancelstierre!” exclaimed Sam, his surprise echoed by Mogget, who emerged from Sam’s pack. The little cat took several steps towards Lirael; then his nose wrinkled and he backed away.

“Yes,” said Lirael heavily, ignoring Mogget’s reaction. “Apparently Hedge – or the Destroyer itself, I suppose – knows some way to get across the Wall. They’re taking the hemispheres by barge as close as they can. Then they’ll cross the Wall and go to a place called Forwin Mill, where Nick will use a thousand lightning rods to funnel the entire power of a storm into the hemispheres. This will somehow help them come together, and then, I imagine, whatever it is will be whole again, and unbound. Charter knows what will happen then.”

“Total destruction,” said the Dog bleakly. “The end of all Life.”

Silence greeted her words. The Dog looked up to see Sam and Lirael staring at her. Only Mogget was unmoved, choosing that moment to clean his paws.

“I suppose it is time to tell you exactly what we face,” said the Dog. “But we should find somewhere defensible first. All the Dead that Hedge used to dig the pit are still about, and those strong enough to face the day will be hungry for life.”

“There’s an island at the mouth of the stream,” said Sam slowly. “It’s not much, but it would be better than nothing.”

“Lead on,” said Lirael wearily. She wanted to collapse on the spot and block her ears from whatever the Dog was going to tell them. But this wouldn’t help. They had to know.

The island was a tumbled patch of rocks and stunted trees. It had once been a low hillock on the edge of the lake, with the stream on one side, but centuries ago the lake had risen or the stream bed split. Now the island stood in the broad mouth of the stream, surrounded by swift water to the north, south and east, and the deep waters of the lake to the west.

They waded across, Mogget clinging to Sam’s shoulder and the Dog swimming in the middle. Unlike most dogs, Lirael noticed, her friend actually stuck her whole head underwater, ears and all. And whatever power fast-moving water had over the Dead and some Free Magic creatures clearly didn’t apply to the Disreputable Dog.

“How come you like to swim but hate baths?” asked Lirael curiously as they reached dry ground and found a sandy patch between the rocks to set up a makeshift camp.

“Swimming is swimming and the smells stay the same,” said the Dog. “Baths involve soap.”

“Soap! I would love some soap!” exclaimed Lirael. Some of the mud and reed pollen had come off in the stream, but not enough. She felt so filthy that she couldn’t think straight. But she knew from long experience that any delay would only encourage the Dog to avoid telling them anything. She sat down on her pack and looked expectantly at the Dog. Sam sat down too, and Mogget leapt down and stretched for a moment before settling comfortably into the warm sand.

“Tell us,” ordered Lirael. “What is the thing bound in the hemispheres?”

“I suppose the sun is high enough,” said the Dog. “We will not be bothered for a few hours yet. Though it might perhaps—”

“Tell us!”

“I am telling you,” protested the Dog with great dignity. “It’s just finding the best words. The Destroyer was known by many names, but the most common is one that I will write here. Do not speak it unless you must, for even the name has power, now that the silver hemispheres have been brought out under the sky.”