“No,” replied Sam quietly. “If this woman’s voice is so dangerous, then perhaps we should make earplugs before we go. Out of wax, or something.”

“It wouldn’t help,” said Mogget. “If she speaks, you will hear her through your very bones. If she sings... We had best hope she will not sing.”

“We will avoid her,” said the Dog. “Trust to my nose. We will find our path.”

“Can you tell us who Kalliel was?” asked Sam.

“Kalliel was the twelfth Abhorsen,” replied Mogget. “A most untrusting individual. He kept me locked up for years. The well must have been dug then. His grandson released me when Kalliel disappeared, and he inherited his grandsire’s bells and title. I do not wish to share Kalliel’s doom. Particularly down a well.”

Lirael twitched as she suddenly felt some shift out in the fog. The brooding presence that had been lurking further back was moving. She could sense it, a being far more powerful than the Shadow Hands who were beginning to flicker in and out of the edge of the fog.

Chlorr was coming closer, almost down to the river bank. Or if not Chlorr, someone of equal or greater power. Perhaps it was even the necromancer she had encountered in Death.

Hedge. The same necromancer who had burnt Sam. Lirael could still see the scars on Sam’s wrists, through the slits in the sleeves of his surcoat.

That surcoat was another mystery – for another day, Lirael thought wearily. A surcoat that quartered the royal towers with a device that had not been seen for millennia. The trowel of the Wallmakers.

Sam caught her glance and picked at the heavy golden thread where the Wallmakers’ symbol was woven through the linen. It was only slowly entering his head that the sendings hadn’t made a mistake with the surcoat. For a start, it was newly made, not some old thing they’d dragged out of a musty cupboard or centuries-old laundry basket. So he probably was entitled to wear it for some reason. He was a Wallmaker as well as a royal prince. But what did that mean? The Wallmakers had disappeared millennia ago, putting themselves into the creation of the Wall and the Great Charter Stones. Quite literally, as far as Sam knew.

For a moment, he wondered if that would be his destiny too. Would he have to make something that would end his life, at least as a living, breathing man? For the Wallmakers weren’t exactly dead, Sam thought, remembering the Great Charter Stones and the Wall. They were more transformed or transfigured.

Not that he fancied that, either. In any case, he was far more likely to simply get killed, he thought, as he looked out to the fog and felt the cold presence of the Dead within it.

Sam touched the gold thread on his chest again and took comfort from it, his fear of the Dead receding. He had never wanted to be an Abhorsen. A Wallmaker was much more interesting, even if he didn’t know what it meant to be one. It would have the added benefit of driving his sister Ellimere crazy, since she would never believe he didn’t know and couldn’t, rather than wouldn’t, explain what it was to be a Wallmaker.

Presuming he ever saw Ellimere again...

“We’d best be moving,” said the Dog, startling both Lirael and Sam. Lirael had been staring out into the fog again too, lost in her own thoughts.

“Yes,” said Lirael, tearing her gaze away. Not for the first time, she wished she were back in the Great Library of the Clayr. But that, like her lifelong wish to wear the white robes and the silver and moonstone crown of a fully fledged Daughter of the Clayr, had to be pushed away and buried deep. She was an Abhorsen now, and there was a great and momentous task ahead of her.

“Yes,” she repeated. “We’d best be moving. We will go by way of the well.”

chapter two

into the deep

It took little more than an hour to prepare for their departure, once the decision had been made. Lirael found herself wearing armour for the first time since her Fighting Arts lessons many years before – but the coat the sendings brought her was much lighter than the mail hauberks the Clayr kept in their schoolroom armoury. It was made of tiny overlapping scales or plates of some material Lirael didn’t recognise, and despite its length to her knees and its long, swallow-tailed sleeves, it was quite light and comfortable. It also didn’t have the characteristic odour of well-oiled steel, for which Lirael was grateful.

The Disreputable Dog told her the scales were a ceramic called “gethre”, made with Charter Magic but not magic in itself, though it was stronger and lighter than any metal. The secret of its making was long lost and no new coat had been made in a thousand years. Lirael felt one of the scales and was surprised to find herself thinking, “Sam could make this,” though she had no real reason to suppose that he could.

Over the armoured coat, Lirael wore the surcoat of golden stars and silver keys. The bell-bandoleer would lie across that, but Lirael had yet to put it on. Sam had reluctantly taken the panpipes, but Lirael kept the Dark Mirror in her pouch. She knew it was very likely that she would need to look into the past again.

Her sword Nehima, her bow and quiver from the Clayr, and a light pack cleverly filled by the sendings with all manner of things that she hadn’t had a chance to look at completed her equipment.

Before she went to join Sam and Mogget downstairs, Lirael paused for a moment to look at herself in the tall silver mirror that hung on the wall of her room. The image that faced her bore little resemblance to the Second Assistant Librarian of the Clayr. She saw a warlike and grim young woman, dark hair bound back with a silver cord rather than hanging free to disguise her face. She no longer wore her librarian’s waistcoat, and instead of a library-issue dagger, she had long Nehima at her side. But she couldn’t completely let go her former identity. Taking the end of a loose thread from her waistcoat, she drew out a single strand of red silk, wound it around her little finger several times to make a ring, tied it off and tucked it into the small pouch at her belt with the Dark Mirror. She might not wear the waistcoat any longer, but part of it would always travel with her.

She had become an Abhorsen, Lirael thought. At least on the outside.

The most visible sign of both her new identity and her power as the Abhorsen-in-Waiting was the bell-bandoleer. The one Sabriel had given to Sam after it had mysteriously appeared in the House the previous winter. Lirael loosened the leather pouches one by one, slipping her fingers in to feel the cool silver and the mahogany, and the delicate balance between Free Magic and Charter marks in both metal and wood. Lirael was careful not to let the bells sound, but even the touch of her finger on a bell rim was enough to summon something of the voice and nature of each bell.

The smallest bell was Ranna. Sleeper, some called it, its voice a sweet lullaby calling those who heard it into slumber.

The second bell was Mosrael, the Waker. Lirael touched it ever so lightly, for Mosrael balanced Life with Death. Wielded properly, it would bring the Dead back into Life and send the wielder from Life into Death.

Kibeth was the third bell, the Walker. It granted freedom of movement to the Dead, or it could be used to make them walk where the wielder chose. Yet it could also turn on a bell-ringer and make her march, usually somewhere she would not wish to go.

The fourth bell was called Dyrim, the Speaker. This was the most musical bell, according to The Book of the Dead, and one of the most difficult to use as well. Dyrim could return the power of speech to long-silent Dead. It could also reveal secrets, or even allow the reading of minds. It had darker powers too, favoured by necromancers, for Dyrim could still a speaking tongue for ever.

Belgaer was the name of the fifth bell. The Thinker. Belgaer could mend the erosion of mind that often occurred in Death, restoring the thoughts and memory of the Dead. It could also erase those thoughts, in Life as well as in Death, and in necromancers’ hands had been used to splinter the minds of enemies. Sometimes it splintered the mind of the necromancer, for Belgaer liked the sound of its own voice and would try to steal the chance to sing of its own accord.