The ring was complete. Everyone looked to Lirael. She took a deep breath and coughed, the corrosive Free Magic eating at her throat. Before she could recover and begin the spell, the sphere began to expand, and red flames leapt out from it, towards the ring of Seven, like a thousand long tongues that sought to taste their flesh.

As the flames writhed, Orannis spoke.

chapter twenty - nine

the choice of yrael

So Hedge has failed me, as such servants do,” said Orannis, its voice low like a whisper but harsh and penetrating. “As all living things must fail, till silence rings me in eternal calm, across a sea of dust.

“And now another Seven comes, all a-clamour to lock Orannis once more in metal, deep under earth. But can a Seven of such watered blood and thinner power prevail against the Destroyer, last and mightiest of the Nine?”

Orannis paused for a moment of terrible, absolute silence. Then it spoke three words that shook everyone around it, striking them like a harsh slap across the face.

“I think not.”

The words were said with such power that no one could move or speak. Lirael had to start the binding spell, but her throat was suddenly too dry for speech, her limbs too heavy to move. Desperately, she fought against the force that held her, drawing on the pain in her arm, the shock of seeing Nick’s dying face, and the awful and total destruction all around.

Her tongue moved then and she found a hint of moisture in her mouth, even as Orannis swelled towards the ring of Seven, its tongues of flame reaching out to wrap around the fools who sought to fight it.

“I stand for Astarael against you,” croaked Lirael, sketching a Charter mark with the tip of her sword. The mark hung there, glowing, and the fiery tongues recoiled from it – a little.

It was enough to free the others and begin the spell of binding. Sabriel drew a mark with her sword and said, “I stand for Saraneth against you.” Her voice was strong and confident, lending hope to all the others.

“I stand for Belgaer against you,” said Sam, his voice growing in strength and anger as he thought of Nick, his bloodless face looking up as he told him to “make it right.” Quickly, he drew his Charter mark, fingers almost flinging it in front of him.

“I stand for Dyrim against you,” Ellimere pronounced proudly, as if it were a challenge to a duel. Her mark was drawn deliberately, like a line in the sand.

“As I did then, so do I now,” said the Disreputable Dog. “I am Kibeth and I stand against you.”

Unlike the others, she didn’t draw a Charter mark, but her body rippled, brown dog skin giving way to a rainbow of marks that moved across her in strange patterns and conjunctions of shape and colour. One of these marks drifted in front of her snout and she blew on it, sending it out in front to hang in the air.

“We stand as one, for Mosrael, against you,” intoned Sanar and Ryelle in unison. They drew their mark together, in bold strokes with their clasped hands.

“I am Torrigan, called Touchstone, and I stand for Ranna against you,” declared Touchstone, and his voice was that of a king. He drew his mark, and as it flared, he was first to sound his bell. Then the Clayr added Mosrael’s voice, the Dog began a rhythmic bark, Ellimere swung Dyrim, Sam rang Belgaer, and Sabriel let Saraneth call deep and low over them all.

Finally, Lirael swung Astarael, and her mournful tone joined the ring of sound and magic that surrounded Orannis. Normally, Weeper would throw all who heard her into Death. Here, combined with the other six voices, her sound evoked a sorrow that could not be answered. Together, the bells and Dog sang a song that was more than sound and power. It was the song of the earth, the moon, the stars, the sea and the sky, of Life and Death and all that was and would be. It was the song of the Charter, the song that had bound Orannis in the long ago, the song that sought to bind the Destroyer once again.

On and on the bells went, till they seemed to echo everywhere inside Lirael. She was saturated with their power, like a sponge that can take no more. She could feel it inside her and in the others, a welling-up that filled them all and then had to go rushing out.

It did, flowing into the mark she’d drawn, which grew bright and spread sideways to become a strand of light that joined the next mark, and then the next, to form a glowing ring that closed around the globe of Orannis, a shining band in orbit around the dark and threatening sphere.

Lirael spoke the rest of the binding spell, the words flying out of her on a flood-tide of power. With the spell, the ring grew brighter still and began to tighten, forcing back the tongues of flame. It sent them writhing in retreat, back into the sphere of darkness that was Orannis.

Lirael took a step forward and all the seven did the same, closing the human ring behind the magic one of light. Then they took another step, and another, as the spell-ring tightened further, constricting the sphere itself. All around, the bells rang on in glory, the Dog’s bark a rhythm the bell-ringers followed without conscious thought. A great feeling of triumph and relief began to swell in Lirael, tempered with the dread of the sword on her shoulder. Soon she would wield it and, all too soon, would walk once more to the Ninth Gate, never to return.

Then the spell-ring stopped. The bells faltered as the ringers halted behind it in mid step. Lirael flinched, feeling a backlash of power, as if she’d suddenly walked into an unexpected wall.

“No,” Orannis said, its voice calm, devoid of all emotion.

The spell-ring shivered as Orannis spoke, and began to expand again, forced outwards by the growing sphere. The tongues of fire reappeared, more numerous than before.

The bells still rang, but the ringers were forced to step back, their faces showing emotions that ranged from grim despair to doomed determination. The spell-ring faded as it opened out, stretched too thin by the growing power of Orannis.

“Too long did I linger in my metal tomb,” spoke Orannis. “Too long have I borne the affront of living, crawling life. I am the Destroyer – and all will be destroyed!”

With the last word, the flames lashed out and gripped the spell-ring with a thousand tiny fingers of dark fire. They twisted and wrenched at it every way, hastening its destruction.

Lirael saw it happen as if she were far away. All was lost now. There was nothing else to do or try. She had seen the Beginning, and seen Orannis bound. Then, the Seven had prevailed. Here, they had failed. Lirael had known and accepted the certainty of her own death in this venture, and thought it a fair price for the defeat of Orannis and the saving of all she loved and knew.

Now, they would all merely be the first of a multitude to die, till Orannis brooded on a world of ash and cinders, kept company only by the Dead.

Then, in the midst of despair, Lirael heard Sam speak and saw a flash of brilliant light flow up next to him, to form a tall shape of white fire that was only vaguely human.

“Be free, Mogget!” shouted Sam, as he held a red collar high. “Choose well!”

The shape of fire grew taller. It turned away from Sam towards Sabriel, and its head descended as if it might suddenly bite. Sabriel looked up at it stoically, and it hesitated. Then it flowed over to Lirael and she felt the heat of it, and the shock of its own Free Magic that mixed with the lung-destroying impact of Orannis.

“Please, Mogget,” whispered Lirael, too soft to be heard by anyone at all.

But the white shape did hear. It stopped and turned inwards, to face Orannis, changing from a pillar of fire to a more human shape, but one with skin as bright as a burning star.

“I am Yrael,” it said, casting a hand out to throw a line of silver fire into the breaking spell-ring, its voice crackling with force. “I also stand against you.”