He could hear Sabriel shouting something on the other side but could not hear the words. Whatever it was, Felicity was nodding her head. Almost immediately the plane began to spiral back to the south, gaining height. Touchstone nodded to himself. They would need to get as high as they could in order to have the greatest gliding range. With a north wind, it was likely the engine would fail within ten miles of the Wall. So they would have to be able to glide at least that far, and preferably a bit further. It would not do to land in the Perimeter.

Not that landing in the Old Kingdom would be easy. Touchstone looked at the fabric wing shivering above him and hoped that most of the plane was man-made. For if parts of it were not, they would fall apart too soon, the common fate of Ancelstierran devices and machinery once they were across the Wall.

“I am never flying again,” muttered Touchstone. Then he remembered Ellimere’s message. If they did manage to land on the other side of the Wall and get to Barhedrin, then they would have to fly somewhere in a Paperwing, to engage in a battle with an unknown Enemy of unknown powers.

Touchstone’s face set in grim lines at that thought. He would welcome that battle. He and Sabriel had struggled too long against opponents manipulated from afar. Now whatever it was had come out in the open, and it would face the combined forces of the King, the Abhorsen and the Clayr.

Provided, of course, that the King and the Abhorsen managed to survive this flight.

part three

chapter seventeen

coming home to

ancelstierre

Wind’s veering nor-noreast, sir,” reported Yeoman Prindel as he watched the arrow on the wind gauge, which was mechanically linked to the weathervane several floors above them. As the arrow swung, the electric lights overhead flickered and went out, leaving the room lit by only two rather smoky hurricane lamps. Prindel looked at his watch, which had stopped, and then at the striped time candle between the hurricane lamps. “Electric failure at approximately 16:49.”

“Very good, Prindel,” replied Lieutenant Drewe. “Order the switch to oil and sound general quarters. I’m going up to the light.”

“Aye aye, sir,” replied Prindel. He uncovered a speaking tube and bawled down it, “Switch to oil! General quarters! I say again, general quarters!”

“Aye aye!” came echoing out the speaking tube, followed by the scream of a hand-cranked siren and the clang of a cracked handbell, both of which could be heard throughout the lighthouse.

Drewe shrugged on his blue duffel coat and strapped on a broad leather belt that supported both a revolver and a cutlass. His blue steel helmet, adorned with the crossed golden keys emblem that proclaimed his current post as the Keeper of the Western Light, completed his equipment. The helmet had belonged to his predecessor and was slightly too large, so Drewe always felt a bit like a fool when he put it on, but regulations were regulations.

The control room was five floors below the light. As Drewe climbed steadily up the steps, he met Able Seaman Kerrick rushing down.

“Sir! You’d better hurry!”

“I am hurrying, Kerrick,” Drewe replied calmly, hoping his voice was steadier than his suddenly accelerating heart. “What is it?”

“Fog—”

“There’s always fog. That’s why we’re here. To warn any ship not to sail into it.”

“No, no, sir! Not on the sea! On the land. A creeping fog that’s coming down from the north. There’s lightning behind it and it’s heading for the Wall. And there’s people coming up from the south, too!”

Drewe abandoned his calm, drilled into him with so much care at the Naval College he’d left only eighteen months before. He pushed past Kerrick and took the rest of the steps three at a time. He was panting as he pushed open the heavy steel trapdoor and climbed into the light chamber, but he took a deep breath and managed to present some semblance of the cool, collected naval officer he was supposed to be.

The light was off and wouldn’t be lit for another hour or so. There was a dual system, one oil and clockwork, the other fully electric, to cater to the strange way that electricity and technology failed when the wind blew from the north. From the Old Kingdom.

Drewe was relieved to see his most experienced petty officer was already there. Coxswain Berl was outside on the walkway, big observer’s binoculars pressed to his eyes. Drewe went out to join him, bracing himself for the cold breeze. But when he went out, the wind was warm, another sign that it came from the north. Berl had told him the seasons were different across the Wall, and Drewe had been at the Western Light long enough to believe him now, though he had dismissed the notion at first.

“What’s going on?” Drewe demanded. The regular sea fog was sitting off the coast, as it always did, night and day. But there was another, darker fog rolling down from the north, towards the Wall. It was strangely lit by flashes of lightning and stretched to the east as far as Drewe could see.

“Where are these people?”

Berl handed him the binoculars and pointed.

“Hundreds of them, Mister Drewe, maybe thousands. Southerlings, I reckon, from the new camp at Lington Hill. Heading north, trying to get across the Wall. But they aren’t the problem.”

Drewe twiddled with the focus knob, clanged the binoculars against the rim of his helmet and wished he could be more impressive in front of Berl.

He couldn’t see anything at all at first, but as he got the focus right, all the fuzzy blobs sharpened and became running figures. There were thousands of them, men in blue hats and women in blue scarves, and many children dressed completely in blue. They were throwing planks on to the concertina wire, forcing their way through and cutting where they had to. Some had already made it through the no-man’s-land of wire and were almost at the Wall. Drewe shook his head at the sight. Why on earth were they trying to get into the Old Kingdom? To make matters even more confusing, some of the Southerlings who had made it to the Wall were starting to run back...

“Has Perimeter HQ been informed about these people?” he asked. There was an Army post down there, at least a company in the rear trenches with pickets and listening posts spread out forward and back. What were the pongoes doing?

“The phones will be out,” said Berl grimly. “Besides, those people aren’t the problem. Take a look at the leading edge of that fog, sir.”

Drewe swung the binoculars around. The fog was moving faster than he’d thought and it was surprisingly regular. Almost like a wall itself, moving down to meet the one of stone. Strange fog, with lightning illuminating it from the inside...

Drewe swallowed, blinked and fiddled with the focus knob on the binoculars again, unable to believe what he was seeing. There were things in the forefront of the fog. Things that might have once been people but now were not. He’d heard stories of such creatures when he was first posted to shore duty in the north, but hadn’t really believed them. Walking corpses, inexplicable monsters, magic both cruel and kind...

“Those Southerlings won’t stand a chance,” whispered Berl. “I grew up in the north. I seen what happened twenty years ago at Bain—”

“Quiet, Berl,” ordered Drewe. “Kerrick!”

Kerrick poked his head out the door.

“Kerrick, get a dozen red rockets and start firing them. One every three minutes.”

“R-red rockets, sir?” quavered Kerrick. Red rockets were the ultimate distress signal for the lighthouse.

“Red rockets! Move!” roared Drewe. “Berl! I want every man but Kerrick assembled outside in five minutes, number-three rig and rifles!”

“Rifles won’t work, sir,” said Berl sadly. “And those Southerlings wouldn’t have got across the Perimeter unless the garrison was already dead. There was a whole Army company down there—”