Together, these four could be formidable opponents and they represented a serious threat. But the maker of the fog did not have to fight them directly, nor could she, for the House was too well guarded by both spell and swift water. Her orders were to make sure that they were trapped in the House. The House was to be besieged while matters progressed elsewhere – until it was too late for Lirael, Sam and their companions to do anything at all.

Chlorr of the Mask hissed as she thought of those orders and fog billowed around what passed for her head. She had once been a living necromancer and she took orders from no one. She had made a mistake, a mistake that had led to her servitude and death. But her Master had not let her go to the Ninth Gate and beyond. She had been returned to Life, though not in any living form. She was a Dead creature now, caught by the power of bells, bound by her secret name. She did not like her orders yet had no choice but to obey.

Chlorr lowered her arms. A few feathery tendrils of fog issued from her fingers. There were Dead Hands all around her, hundreds and hundreds of swaying, suppurating corpses. Chlorr had not brought the spirits that inhabited these rotten, half-skeletal bodies out of Death, but she had been given command of them by the one who had. She raised one thin, long arm of shadow and pointed. With sighs and groans and gurgles and the clicking of frozen joints and broken bones, the Dead Hands marched forward, sending the fog swirling all around them.

“There are at least two hundred Dead Hands on the western bank, and fourscore or more to the east,” reported Sameth. He straightened up from behind the bronze telescope and swung it down out of the way. “I couldn’t see Chlorr, but she must be there somewhere, I guess.”

He shivered as he thought of the last time he’d seen Chlorr, a thing of malignant darkness looming above him, her flaming sword about to fall. That had been only the night before, though it already felt much longer ago.

“It’s possible some other Free Magic sorcerer could have raised this mist,” said Lirael. But she didn’t believe it. She could sense the same brooding power out there that she’d felt last night.

“Fog,” said the Disreputable Dog, who was delicately balanced on the observer’s stool. Apart from the fact that she could talk, and the bright collar made of Charter marks around her neck, she looked just like any other large black and tan mongrel dog. The kind that smiled and wagged their tails more than they barked and growled. “I think it has thickened sufficiently to be called fog.”

The Dog, her mistress Lirael, Prince Sameth and the Abhorsen’s cat-shaped servant, Mogget, were all in the observatory that occupied the topmost floor of the tower on the northern side of Abhorsen’s House.

The observatory’s walls were entirely transparent and Lirael found herself taking nervous glances at the ceiling, because it was hard to see if anything was holding it up. The walls were not glass either, or any material she knew, which somehow made it even worse.

But she didn’t want her nervousness to show, so Lirael turned her most recent twitch into a nod of agreement as the Dog spoke. Only her hand betrayed her feelings, as she kept it resting on the Dog’s neck, for the comfort of warm dog skin and the Charter Magic in the Dog’s collar.

Though it was only early afternoon, and the sun still shone directly down on the House, the island and the river, there was a solid mass of fog on either bank, billowing up in sheer walls that kept on climbing and climbing, though they were already several hundred feet high.

The fog was clearly sorcerous in origin. It had not risen from the river as a normal fog would, or come with lowering cloud. This fog had flowed in from the east and west at the same time, moving swiftly regardless of the wind. Thin at first, it had grown thicker with every passing minute.

A further indication of the fog’s strangeness lay directly to the south, where it stopped sharply just before it might mix with the natural mist thrown up by the great waterfall where the river flung itself over the Long Cliffs.

The Dead had come soon after the fog. Lumbering corpses who climbed clumsily along the river banks, though they feared the swift-flowing water. Something was driving them on, something hidden further back in the fog. Almost certainly that something was Chlorr of the Mask, once a necromancer, now herself one of the Greater Dead. A very dangerous combination, Lirael knew, for Chlorr had probably retained much of her old sorcerous knowledge of Free Magic, combined with whatever powers she had gained in Death. Powers that were likely to be dark and strange. Lirael and the Dog had briefly driven Chlorr away in the last night’s battle on the river bank, but it had not been a victory.

Lirael could feel the presence of the Dead and the sorcerous nature of the fog. Though Abhorsen’s House was defended by deep running water and many magical wards and guards, she still shivered, as if a cold hand had trailed fingers across her skin.

No one commented on the shiver, though Lirael felt embarrassed at how obvious it had been. No one said anything, but they were all looking at her. Sam, the Dog and Mogget, all waiting as if she were going to pronounce some great wisdom or insight. For a moment Lirael felt a surge of panic. She wasn’t used to taking the lead in conversation or in anything else. But she was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting now. While Sabriel was across the Wall in Ancelstierre, Lirael was the only Abhorsen. The Dead, the fog and Chlorr were her problems. And they were only minor problems, compared to the real threat – whatever Hedge and Nicholas were digging up near the Red Lake.

I’ll have to pretend, thought Lirael. I’ll have to act like an Abhorsen. Maybe if I act well enough, I’ll come to believe it myself.

“Apart from the stepping stones, is there any other way out?” she asked suddenly, turning south to look at the stones that were just visible under the water, leading out to both eastern and western banks. Stepping stones was not quite the right name, Lirael thought. Jumping stones would be more appropriate, as they were set at least six feet apart and were very close to the edge of the waterfall. If you missed a jump, the river would snatch you up and the waterfall would throw you down. Down a very long way, under a great weight of crushing water.

“Sam?”

Sam shook his head.

“Mogget?”

The little white cat was curled up on the blue and gold cushion that had briefly been on the observer’s stool, before it was knocked off by a paw and put to better use on the floor. Mogget was not actually a cat, though he had the shape of one. The collar of Charter marks with its miniature bell – Ranna, the Sleepbringer – showed that he was much more than any simple talking cat.

Mogget opened one bright-green eye and yawned widely. Ranna tinkled on his collar, and Lirael and Sam found themselves yawning as well.

“Sabriel took the Paperwing, so we cannot fly out,” he said. “Even if we could fly, we’d have to get past the Gore Crows. I suppose we could call a boat, but the Dead would follow us along the banks.”

Lirael looked out at the walls of fog. She had been the Abhorsen-in-Waiting for only two hours and already she didn’t know what to do. Except that she had an absolute conviction that they must leave the House and hurry to the Red Lake. They had to find Sam’s friend Nicholas and stop him from digging up whatever it was that was imprisoned deep beneath the earth.

“There might be another way,” said the Dog. She jumped down from the stool and began to tread a circle near Mogget as she spoke, high-stepping as if she were pressing down grass beneath her paws rather than cool stone. On “way” she suddenly collapsed on to the floor near the cat and slapped a heavy paw near the cat’s head. “Though Mogget won’t like it.”