A State of Constant Repair (Sabriel fanfiction) Part 2: Chapters 4-5
Rebuilding the Old Kingdom is going to be more difficult than Sabriel and Touchstone thought. When their troubles begin to seep into their relationship, Sabriel takes a vacation to learn more about the Abhorsens and about herself.
Warning: PG-13 violence, suicidal thoughts
Part 1
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The Dead returned in the night. Mogget woke Sabriel with a paw on the back of her neck. "The Diamond won't hold against all of them," he observed, pointing out the flickering of movement behind the first row of buildings around the square, "What are you going to do?"
It was Sabriel's turn to be smug. "You wouldn't miss so much if you didn't sleep all the time, Mogget," she said, "We'll be fine." She let Mogget wait to see what she meant until the first revenant darted forward to hurl itself at the barrier of the Diamond.
It never got that far. When it was still ten yards away, it stepped on a patch of ground that gave way and glowed brightly under the pressure of its rotting foot. It only had time to look down in confusion before a small explosion left it twisting, legless, on the ground.
Before going to bed that night, Sabriel had set up a dozen such traps - Charter Marks for detection of the Dead linked to powerful explosive runes. Now they lay dormant just under the dust, invisible until triggered. Mogget cocked his head and stared at the downed revenant. Sabriel had a feeling that he could sense every Mark. "Clever," he observed, "But you won't be able to repair the stone and still have strength left to set those every night."
He was right; Sabriel had wanted to set many more traps, but she had exhausted herself after only twelve. It left sizable gaps in her defenses, and the next revenant to advance slipped through without triggering an explosion. Sabriel watched impassively as it disintegrated against the wall of her Diamond. Many more attacks like that and the Diamond would fail, but luckily the Dead gave up before that happened. After the next revenant to advance lost the left half of its body to an explosion, its fellows seemed to reassess their chances. Slowly, they slinked back out of the city and left the town square still and silent except for the upper half of the first revenant still flailing in the dirt.
"Maybe," said Sabriel, belatedly answering Mogget's challenge, "But we're safe for tonight at least." When the revenant finally laid still, the soul attached to it fading into Death, Sabriel was able to sleep again.
She woke with renewed vigor. She had a job to do, and the sun would keep the Dead from bothering her while she worked. Mogget couldn't be roused, so she left a bit of dried fish out for him before going to stand before the Stone.
After sleeping next to it, she felt that she had almost gotten used to the unease and discomfort the Stone brought. Sure, her hands were a little clammy and her head somewhat light, but she was in control. The Stone was waiting. She steeled her nerves as she began tracing Charter Marks, arranging the puzzle pieces of the broken conduit.
At first she felt the same sense of rightness and certainty as the night before, but after a few hours of work frustration began to seep in. She changed her method and angle of attack again and again, but the more she modified her work the more she saw that it was hopeless. She had approached it in the wrong way completely. Ruefully, she undid all her work, letting go of her end of the chain of Marks she had woven and watching the links fall and disappear.
"Bitten off more than you can chew?" came a voice from behind her. Sabriel turned to see Mogget chewing on the fish and watching her. He seemed to time his moments of waking to be most inconvenient for her.
"I didn't expect to get it on the first try," she lied, "It's not as if anyone really knows how to do this properly. I just need to keep trying." She turned back to the Stone and raised her hands back into a casting stance.
Mogget's voice continued nagging her even as she resumed her work, "Then you'd better figure it out quickly. You don't have forever."
Sabriel said nothing, but she knew he was right. Her arms were heavier than before, and her mind weaker. She had grown much as a Charter Mage over the last few months, enough to rival any in the Kingdom. But she couldn't endure this indefinitely. After a few more hours of forcing her body to cast Marks despite its protests, she found herself unraveling her invisible tapestry for a second time.
Every failure added to the strain until she could barely stand.
"That's enough," said Mogget, interrupting the beginning of Sabriel's fifth attempt.
"But I've barely made any progress at all!" she protested. A few of her Marks had held, but the vast majority were wasted, falling apart as soon as Sabriel abandoned them. She thought the door to Death had closed by a fraction, but it might have been her imagination.
"You're finished," Mogget said unequivocally, "Save your strength to defend yourself tonight."
Sabriel looked up for the first time in hours and saw that the light was already fading. How had so much time gone by without her noticing? She drifted back to her bedroll and collapsed there, surprised at how exhausted she felt. She considered re-casting her Diamond of Protection to insulate her from the Stone while she slept, but her pride wouldn't allow it. Irrational as the thought may have been, it seemed to Sabriel that sleeping in its shadow was a fitting punishment for failing to repair it. Besides, she wasn't completely sure that she could cast another Diamond if she tried. She was so tired.
When the sun returned the next morning, Sabriel opened her eyes and wondered when she had closed them. It felt as if she hadn't slept at all. In fact, she felt even worse than she had the night before. She glanced around at the square; small craters and torn limbs told her that the Dead had returned again, and that they had set off more of her traps. How many remained? And how had she slept through it?
It was a few minutes before she noticed that Mogget was watching her. She expected him to make some sort of comment, but he only gave her a pointed look, curled up, and went to sleep. It seemed that, now that Sabriel was beginning to feel the weight of her task, he was content to silently judge her.
Sabriel fought her discomfort and stood. Though she felt nearly spent, she resolutely approached the Stone again and thrust herself into the Charter. At first glance, the disruption seemed so simple, as if it were a split board that she could repair with just a few nails. But she knew that it was deviously complex. For every connection she renewed, there were ten more beneath that remained fragmented. Every movement, every Mark, took all of Sabriel's concentration, and soon she lost track of time and place. All she knew was the Charter.
She had begun that morning as if it were a last-ditch effort, as if she didn't have much left in her. But she was wrong; every time she thought she was finished, she somehow found a new reserve of energy and continued. Sometimes she stopped to eat or sleep, and sometimes she got the feeling that she had fallen asleep on her feet, still chanting Marks. She had thought that she would get used to the Stone's influence, but if anything it was only getting worse. Everything ached. Every movement felt as if she were embedded in sand. Every moment was a fight to keep from vomiting. But she had to keep working. All the force of will that had allowed her to conquer Death and master the bells she now poured into her arms and lips, commanding them to keep moving at any cost.
By trial and error, she found a sort of method to her madness. One by one, connections held. The stone glowed brighter, and the door to Death closed another inch. But suddenly that doorway began to look very inviting. Sabriel could almost feel it calling to her, calling her away from her body. Her repairs were holding, and would continue to hold without her. She could slip away for just a moment, into Death where her body wouldn't hinder her, wouldn't hurt her…
"OW!" Sabriel's own voice snapped her out of her trance. Though most of her work held, the string of Marks she had been working on fell apart as she whirled to find four neat, red lines on her ankle. Mogget crouched by her heel, the low sun making his white fur look orange. Sabriel found that she wasn't sure whether it was sunset or sunrise.
"I've seen many Abhorsens die," Mogget declared, "In an astounding variety of ways. It would be awfully anticlimactic if the last Abhorsen died because she worked herself to death."
Sabriel was about to shoot back a witty retort, but all that came out of her mouth was a breathy groan. Slowly, as if her legs had simply decided to stop working, she sank to her knees. It was several moments before she was able to speak. "How long have I been at it?" she said huskily.
"Three days, off and on," said Mogget, and Sabriel wouldn't have believed him if he hadn't looked so serious, "You need to get away from the Stone. It's killing you."
Sabriel couldn't argue. With one last effort, she pushed herself to her feet and picked up her pack and bedroll. As she staggered away from the stone with only a vague idea of where she would go, she crossed the boundary of her Diamond of Protection, and it disappeared with a slight fizzle. Sabriel froze. Too late, her dulled brain realized that she didn't have the strength to cast another.
Mogget saw the horror on her face, and seemed to wait to let her stew for a moment before he said, "There's an offshoot of the Ratterlin north of here. Not far, if memory serves."
Sabriel could only follow, wishing for nothing but rest. Despite Mogget's promise, the river was over a mile outside of town. By the time they arrived, Sabriel was ready to drop and sleep wherever she happened to be. However, while her tiredness remained, she could already feel the effects of the Stone fading. Her mind was sharper, and her body more responsive.
This part of the river was heavily fished, and there was an extensive series of docks extending over the banks. Sabriel staggered as far out onto the docks as she could before she collapsed in a heap, her body too painfully exhausted to sleep. The hard, soggy wood felt as comfortable as her own bed, and she didn't even mind her bandolier digging into her side.
It was a long time before she was able to fall asleep, and to her mind it was far too short a time before she awoke again. But as she stretched experimentally and sat up, she realized that she had regained much of her strength. The next thing she realized was that she was famished. Mogget was lying near her pack where she had dropped it. As she rifled through the pack, looking for food, he flicked one eye open and regarded her disdainfully. "A fine mess you've made of this," he commented, "You've lost three days trying to repair that Stone by brute force, and now you've wasted another day and a half sleeping. If you keep this up, we'll be lucky to be finished by summer. If you don't die first."
Sabriel was so intent on her food that she barely listened. But once her stomach was full and her mind focused once more, she demanded, "What did you mean by 'brute force.' Do you know of another way to repair a Charter Stone?" She realized belatedly that she should have asked him that before she had started. Better late than never.
"No," said Mogget, much to Sabriel's disappointment. And much to her suspicion, he didn't elaborate. "But throwing Charter Marks at it willy-nilly until you collapse is hardly a sane way to go about it, even if you have the excuse of not knowing what you're doing."
"I don't see what else I'm supposed to do," said Sabriel, "It's not as if there's a manual for this. I've already searched my library and the castle's for some reference. The Clayr might know, but they can't talk about it in any kind of useful way, and their library isn't what you would call easy-to-navigate."
Mogget yawned. "Why don't you sit here and complain about it some more? I'm sure that will help matters."
Sabriel didn't feel like getting into a battle of sarcasm with the master, so she fell silent for a while. When she spoke again, she had something else on her mind. "Who was the first Abhorsen?"
Mogget's ears pricked up, and for a moment he seemed to be at a loss for words. But he recovered quickly and said, "Why would you want to know about that?"
"I'm trying to do my duty," Sabriel explained, "But I know almost nothing about my family. I can learn from them. And no one knows them better than you."
Mogget shrugged uncomfortably. "She was a Charter mage. A powerful one. Saraneth took a liking to her. What more is there to tell?"
Sabriel had the feeling that there was a lot more to tell, but she didn't pry in that particular direction. "And the others?" she prompted, "The ones who came after. What kind of people were they? How can I be more like them?"
"You're already quite like them," said Mogget, "Stupid, impulsive, young…"
Sabriel interrupted, "I won't be young for long."
"Not many of your kind live to grow old," Mogget snapped, "Where was I? Ah, yes. Young, naïve, self-sacrificing to a fault, completely incapable of seeing the big picture, idiotically trusting… except the ones who were idiotically paranoid. Incidentally, the latter tended to live longer, though they were insufferable."
"I'm sure you could list our faults all day," Sabriel sighed, "But could you tell me something more useful?"
Mogget considered for a moment before continuing in a less scathing tone, "The twelfth Abhorsen was tolerable sort of boy. He was called quite young - couldn't have been more than ten. He worked hard, didn't complain. Clever. A lot of potential. Pity he died so young."
"How young?" Sabriel wondered.
"Thirteen, I believe it was. Ambushed by a stilken. Not much left for his mother to bury," said Mogget flippantly. Sabriel suppressed a shudder. "His sister took over. She was useless, but somehow she managed to survive long enough to reproduce before that necromancer tracked her down and slaughtered her along with her lover and her children. Their cousin was called next. He was somewhat renowned for discovering a plot on the princess's life and apprehending the conspirators. Heh. Clearly he was better detective than a warrior, because a no-account revenant managed to catch him off-guard and tear out his throat. Pathetic."
"Stop telling me about how they died," Sabriel protested, "I'm more interested in how they lived."
"You shouldn't be," said Mogget, "How they died is much more entertaining, not to mention more relevant to you. You see, most of what the Abhorsen does is avoid death for as long as she or he can. Anything that happens along the way, however remarkable, is usually incidental."
Sabriel's mouth twisted impatiently. "You don't really believe that," she said, "It means something to be Abhorsen. Even you spoke of it as a calling."
"It's a set of abilities and a long, depressing legacy," Mogget replied, "As for what you do with it, there's no more a manual for that than there is for fixing Charter Stones."
Sabriel turned away from him then, ending the conversation. So Mogget was in a mood to bait and needle her. She would ask again later. Because despite what he had said, she believed that her ancestors' lives could be a manual of sorts. In any case, it would be better than flying blind.
Wordlessly, she gathered her things and began the hike back into the deserted town.
-----
Sabriel tried to take Mogget's advice by attacking the problem of the broken Stone intelligently instead of straightforwardly. But by the time she resumed her work, her mind was not as clear as it had been out on the docks surrounded by water. Each little task had drained her - clearing the town of the few Dead that had wandered back inside, resetting her traps and her Diamond, approaching the now-hated Stone with its poisonous aura - until she felt almost as bad as she had when she had stumbled away from the town at Mogget's insistence days ago.
She tried, but in the end it was all she could do to throw herself at it, willing it back into place. Her magic was strong, but not as strong as the damage that had been done there. After a few days of work, she was forced to retreat to the river again so she could regain her strength.
The pattern repeated itself again and again. Sabriel cycled between working on the Stone and recuperating by the river for nearly a month. While the lack of progress was unspeakably frustrating, that month proved fruitful in other ways. At night when she rested, and during their travels between the Stone and the river, Mogget told Sabriel the history of her people.
He told her of men and women who had been great mages, or great swordfighters, or great necromancers, or great diplomats, or great teachers. Sabriel had always thought of her ancestors as homogenous, as if her father were the template for all Abhorsens. After all, for most of her life she had thought that he was the only one there had ever been. But by listening to Mogget's stories, she soon found that there were many ways to be Abhorsen.
"Petriel, the thirty-third Abhorsen, was an archer," he said, continuing his long story as they walked back toward the Stone from the river, "She was never any good at swordmanship. She often said that she wished there were a more reliable way to identify herself as Abhorsen, because she hated having to drag that sword around with her."
"I didn't know that there were Abhorsens who didn't use the sword," said Sabriel thoughtfully, "It always seemed like such an important part of what we are."
Mogget stared at her as he walked. "The sword has never belonged to anyone but an Abhorsen since it was made. That's why it has become a badge of sorts," he said, "But that's idiotic. Just because something always has been doesn't mean it always will be. There was an Abhorsen before the sword was made, and there will be one after the sword has been destroyed, or stolen, or put away in some cellar and forgotten."
Sabriel nodded. "The sword isn't what makes me Abhorsen," she summed up. Then, after a few moments of silence, she said, "But then what does?"
Mogget climbed her leg and leaped into her pack in the blink of an eye, disappearing with a quiet, "That's the question, isn't it?"
Mogget slept for the rest of the short journey, and Sabriel soon found herself back at work. While she tried to convince herself that she was making progress, she had to admit that the Stone remained largely as she had found it. What few minor repairs she had made paled in comparison to the massive damage that had been wrought. She went to bed with a heavy heart whose weight was beginning to become familiar.
It didn't cheer her up when, as dusk settled, she began to hear the shuffling and grunting of the Dead circling the town. Even now they were wary of her; they remembered her initial onslaught and the trap she had set for them on the first night. But their numbers were still formidable. Too formidable to risk a battle. Even after her rests by the river, Sabriel was never at full strength these days, and she didn't dare face the army of Dead alone. And as long as they were content to circle her and snarl, she didn't have to.
With some effort, she blocked out their noise and went to sleep.
In the morning, she put off work to eat breakfast and listen to more of Mogget's stories. "Where was I?" he mumbled between bites of fish, "Right. Petriel. She trained her cousin's son. It took her forever to figure out that he was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. She expected it to be one of her brother's children, but sometimes the lineage skips around a bit. At certain points in history, when the Abhorsen's family was large, there were many candidates for the job."
"How did they know which was the true Abhorsen-in-Waiting?" Sabriel asked, "Why didn't Petriel just train one of her nieces or nephews?"
"She tried," said Mogget, "But if a person isn't meant for the job, it becomes clear fairly fast. Not that plenty of Abhorsens haven't trained the wrong person by mistake. Denial can be powerful."
Sabriel mulled it over for a while, then said, "I suppose I won't have that problem. I'm the last, so my successor will have to be one of my children. I hope I can stay alive long enough to train them. I mean, when am I going to have time to get pregnant? And now…" She didn't bring it up because she thought Mogget would make fun of her, but she now wondered who the father or her children might be, if not Touchstone. Would she ever meet another man who she could love as much as him? Did such a man exist? For a moment, their prior quarrels seemed so small beside her loneliness.
Despite her silence, Mogget seemed to be reading her mind. "It wouldn't be that difficult," he said, "Plenty of Abhorsens have done their job while pregnant. As for conceiving, well, that's easy, isn't it? There are plenty of willing men, and it's not as if you don't know how it's done."
"Don't be crude," Sabriel huffed as she stood and turned away from Mogget. She had always thought of having children as something she might do one day, far in the future. She didn't want to think about doing it right now, and she found that she didn't want to think about bearing anyone's children but Touchstone's.
But that was no longer an option, was it?
"Ignore me if you want," said Mogget, "But you'd better start thinking about it. You need an apprentice, and the longer you wait to make one the younger they'll be when you die."
That was a chilling thought, and though Sabriel tried to tune Mogget out, his words were still ringing in her ears when she laid her hands on the Stone. It seemed sluggish today, less responsive. Was it because she was distracted? Or had she reached the end of her ability to repair it?
She stepped back, took a deep breath, and refocused. Nothing changed. She wasn't imagining it then; her impossible task really was becoming even more difficult. It was as if the Stone needed something more, something that she wasn't giving it.
After a long morning of trying to work out what it was she was missing, she stepped back with a sigh. Even after releasing her focus on the Stone, it took her a moment to realize that she and Mogget were not alone.
A revenant stood to her right. It was so close that if she and it both reached out their hands, they might barely touch.
Sabriel flinched and drew her sword with an undignified yelp before she realized that the revenant was still outside her Diamond. It just stood there, studying her. Daring her to do something about its presence. It was so close to the edge of her Diamond that she imagined it must have crept up slowly, gaining confidence with every step. Now its toes nearly touched the glowing line.
She whirled on Mogget. "You might have warned me that I had an audience," she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking after her shock.
Mogget shrugged, a gesture that looked strange on a cat. "He's not bothering you."
Sabriel could tell that Mogget would be no help. She was almost certain that he wanted the Dead to attack. It would put her in a life-or-death situation, and she might be tempted to loose his collar. She had started to see Mogget as a friend over the last several weeks, listening to his stories, but she had to remind herself of what he was.
With a motion so fast that the revenant had no time to jump back, Sabriel leaped, slashed, and separated its head from its neck. Only the blade of her sword passed over the line of her Diamond, leaving the glowing border intact. "You're right," she told Mogget, "He's not."
Her voice was still, but fear was rising beneath the surface. Even with her trips to the river, she was slowly weakening. And now the Dead were becoming bold. How long would it take before they realized that, in her condition, she was no match for their combined strength?
She was tired, an impossible task lay before her, Touchstone was beyond her reach, her only ally hoped for her death, and now her enemies drew in for the kill.
But even with the weight of all her worries on her, what else could she do but step back up to the hated Stone. The work was harder than ever, as if the Stone were actually fighting her. All her frustration and fear boiled into rage against it. Didn't it want to be repaired? What was she doing wrong?
Instead of backing off and taking a different strategy like she had always done, she impulsively pushed back against the Stone's resistance. It had tormented her for weeks. Now she would fix it even if it killed her. She poured all her strength into it, all her desperation, and all her longing to leave this place and go… where? Home? Where was that? Abhorsen's House was the natural answer, but it seemed unbearably lonely without…
Touchstone.
At the moment that she thought of him and remembered the rift that lay between them, the Stone seemed to sense her despair. The Charter pulsed angrily under her hand so strongly that it was almost as if the Stone were moving.
"Look out!" Mogget hissed, and suddenly Sabriel realized that the Stone really was moving. She leaped back just in time to see the two halves of it slide against each other like the two blades of a pair of scissors until the once-small gap between them grew wide. Wider and wider it grew, until the halves came to rest at right angles to each other, a letter V standing out of the earth.
There was no hope of bringing the pieces back together. Sabriel's heart sank even lower than she thought possible as it came to her that the Stone was truly irreparable now. She had broken it for good. And with it, she had broken her promise to the village of High Rock.
She didn't even have time to worry about breaking the news to them before she heard the Dead stir. They could sense that the Stone, which Sabriel had been slowly repairing, was even more broken than it had been before. They came for her. So fast, and more of them than she had expected, they came in a howling mob. And even if she had had the strength to resist them, she no longer had the will. She had failed in her task, she had failed at love, and she had failed as an Abhorsen. In that moment, she welcomed death.
"Take off my collar," Mogget suggested as the Dead approached.
Sabriel's hands didn't move from their sides. She didn't reach for Mogget's collar or even for her sword.
Wordlessly, she waited for the end.
"Forward! Forward! We've got the drop on them!"
At first Sabriel thought she had imagined the voice. Then she looked up to see a flash of swords as a squadron of men and women in the colors of Belisaere descended on the Dead. The mob of revenants was taken so completely by surprise that they never even reached Sabriel's Diamond. After a short, fierce battle, the few Dead who survived ran howling back to the woods.
As a few of the soldiers whooped and gave chase, and as the rest of them celebrated their victory with cheers and laughter, Sabriel stood stunned. The turn of events had been so sudden and so unexpected that her mind was still adjusting to being alive.
"Looks like we arrived just in the nick of time," boomed the voice that had first given the call to arms. And as the soldiers parted to make a path for the giant who now approached the center of the square, Sabriel belatedly recognized it.
The one who had saved her was Karstel.
Warning: PG-13 violence, suicidal thoughts
Part 1
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The Dead returned in the night. Mogget woke Sabriel with a paw on the back of her neck. "The Diamond won't hold against all of them," he observed, pointing out the flickering of movement behind the first row of buildings around the square, "What are you going to do?"
It was Sabriel's turn to be smug. "You wouldn't miss so much if you didn't sleep all the time, Mogget," she said, "We'll be fine." She let Mogget wait to see what she meant until the first revenant darted forward to hurl itself at the barrier of the Diamond.
It never got that far. When it was still ten yards away, it stepped on a patch of ground that gave way and glowed brightly under the pressure of its rotting foot. It only had time to look down in confusion before a small explosion left it twisting, legless, on the ground.
Before going to bed that night, Sabriel had set up a dozen such traps - Charter Marks for detection of the Dead linked to powerful explosive runes. Now they lay dormant just under the dust, invisible until triggered. Mogget cocked his head and stared at the downed revenant. Sabriel had a feeling that he could sense every Mark. "Clever," he observed, "But you won't be able to repair the stone and still have strength left to set those every night."
He was right; Sabriel had wanted to set many more traps, but she had exhausted herself after only twelve. It left sizable gaps in her defenses, and the next revenant to advance slipped through without triggering an explosion. Sabriel watched impassively as it disintegrated against the wall of her Diamond. Many more attacks like that and the Diamond would fail, but luckily the Dead gave up before that happened. After the next revenant to advance lost the left half of its body to an explosion, its fellows seemed to reassess their chances. Slowly, they slinked back out of the city and left the town square still and silent except for the upper half of the first revenant still flailing in the dirt.
"Maybe," said Sabriel, belatedly answering Mogget's challenge, "But we're safe for tonight at least." When the revenant finally laid still, the soul attached to it fading into Death, Sabriel was able to sleep again.
She woke with renewed vigor. She had a job to do, and the sun would keep the Dead from bothering her while she worked. Mogget couldn't be roused, so she left a bit of dried fish out for him before going to stand before the Stone.
After sleeping next to it, she felt that she had almost gotten used to the unease and discomfort the Stone brought. Sure, her hands were a little clammy and her head somewhat light, but she was in control. The Stone was waiting. She steeled her nerves as she began tracing Charter Marks, arranging the puzzle pieces of the broken conduit.
At first she felt the same sense of rightness and certainty as the night before, but after a few hours of work frustration began to seep in. She changed her method and angle of attack again and again, but the more she modified her work the more she saw that it was hopeless. She had approached it in the wrong way completely. Ruefully, she undid all her work, letting go of her end of the chain of Marks she had woven and watching the links fall and disappear.
"Bitten off more than you can chew?" came a voice from behind her. Sabriel turned to see Mogget chewing on the fish and watching her. He seemed to time his moments of waking to be most inconvenient for her.
"I didn't expect to get it on the first try," she lied, "It's not as if anyone really knows how to do this properly. I just need to keep trying." She turned back to the Stone and raised her hands back into a casting stance.
Mogget's voice continued nagging her even as she resumed her work, "Then you'd better figure it out quickly. You don't have forever."
Sabriel said nothing, but she knew he was right. Her arms were heavier than before, and her mind weaker. She had grown much as a Charter Mage over the last few months, enough to rival any in the Kingdom. But she couldn't endure this indefinitely. After a few more hours of forcing her body to cast Marks despite its protests, she found herself unraveling her invisible tapestry for a second time.
Every failure added to the strain until she could barely stand.
"That's enough," said Mogget, interrupting the beginning of Sabriel's fifth attempt.
"But I've barely made any progress at all!" she protested. A few of her Marks had held, but the vast majority were wasted, falling apart as soon as Sabriel abandoned them. She thought the door to Death had closed by a fraction, but it might have been her imagination.
"You're finished," Mogget said unequivocally, "Save your strength to defend yourself tonight."
Sabriel looked up for the first time in hours and saw that the light was already fading. How had so much time gone by without her noticing? She drifted back to her bedroll and collapsed there, surprised at how exhausted she felt. She considered re-casting her Diamond of Protection to insulate her from the Stone while she slept, but her pride wouldn't allow it. Irrational as the thought may have been, it seemed to Sabriel that sleeping in its shadow was a fitting punishment for failing to repair it. Besides, she wasn't completely sure that she could cast another Diamond if she tried. She was so tired.
When the sun returned the next morning, Sabriel opened her eyes and wondered when she had closed them. It felt as if she hadn't slept at all. In fact, she felt even worse than she had the night before. She glanced around at the square; small craters and torn limbs told her that the Dead had returned again, and that they had set off more of her traps. How many remained? And how had she slept through it?
It was a few minutes before she noticed that Mogget was watching her. She expected him to make some sort of comment, but he only gave her a pointed look, curled up, and went to sleep. It seemed that, now that Sabriel was beginning to feel the weight of her task, he was content to silently judge her.
Sabriel fought her discomfort and stood. Though she felt nearly spent, she resolutely approached the Stone again and thrust herself into the Charter. At first glance, the disruption seemed so simple, as if it were a split board that she could repair with just a few nails. But she knew that it was deviously complex. For every connection she renewed, there were ten more beneath that remained fragmented. Every movement, every Mark, took all of Sabriel's concentration, and soon she lost track of time and place. All she knew was the Charter.
She had begun that morning as if it were a last-ditch effort, as if she didn't have much left in her. But she was wrong; every time she thought she was finished, she somehow found a new reserve of energy and continued. Sometimes she stopped to eat or sleep, and sometimes she got the feeling that she had fallen asleep on her feet, still chanting Marks. She had thought that she would get used to the Stone's influence, but if anything it was only getting worse. Everything ached. Every movement felt as if she were embedded in sand. Every moment was a fight to keep from vomiting. But she had to keep working. All the force of will that had allowed her to conquer Death and master the bells she now poured into her arms and lips, commanding them to keep moving at any cost.
By trial and error, she found a sort of method to her madness. One by one, connections held. The stone glowed brighter, and the door to Death closed another inch. But suddenly that doorway began to look very inviting. Sabriel could almost feel it calling to her, calling her away from her body. Her repairs were holding, and would continue to hold without her. She could slip away for just a moment, into Death where her body wouldn't hinder her, wouldn't hurt her…
"OW!" Sabriel's own voice snapped her out of her trance. Though most of her work held, the string of Marks she had been working on fell apart as she whirled to find four neat, red lines on her ankle. Mogget crouched by her heel, the low sun making his white fur look orange. Sabriel found that she wasn't sure whether it was sunset or sunrise.
"I've seen many Abhorsens die," Mogget declared, "In an astounding variety of ways. It would be awfully anticlimactic if the last Abhorsen died because she worked herself to death."
Sabriel was about to shoot back a witty retort, but all that came out of her mouth was a breathy groan. Slowly, as if her legs had simply decided to stop working, she sank to her knees. It was several moments before she was able to speak. "How long have I been at it?" she said huskily.
"Three days, off and on," said Mogget, and Sabriel wouldn't have believed him if he hadn't looked so serious, "You need to get away from the Stone. It's killing you."
Sabriel couldn't argue. With one last effort, she pushed herself to her feet and picked up her pack and bedroll. As she staggered away from the stone with only a vague idea of where she would go, she crossed the boundary of her Diamond of Protection, and it disappeared with a slight fizzle. Sabriel froze. Too late, her dulled brain realized that she didn't have the strength to cast another.
Mogget saw the horror on her face, and seemed to wait to let her stew for a moment before he said, "There's an offshoot of the Ratterlin north of here. Not far, if memory serves."
Sabriel could only follow, wishing for nothing but rest. Despite Mogget's promise, the river was over a mile outside of town. By the time they arrived, Sabriel was ready to drop and sleep wherever she happened to be. However, while her tiredness remained, she could already feel the effects of the Stone fading. Her mind was sharper, and her body more responsive.
This part of the river was heavily fished, and there was an extensive series of docks extending over the banks. Sabriel staggered as far out onto the docks as she could before she collapsed in a heap, her body too painfully exhausted to sleep. The hard, soggy wood felt as comfortable as her own bed, and she didn't even mind her bandolier digging into her side.
It was a long time before she was able to fall asleep, and to her mind it was far too short a time before she awoke again. But as she stretched experimentally and sat up, she realized that she had regained much of her strength. The next thing she realized was that she was famished. Mogget was lying near her pack where she had dropped it. As she rifled through the pack, looking for food, he flicked one eye open and regarded her disdainfully. "A fine mess you've made of this," he commented, "You've lost three days trying to repair that Stone by brute force, and now you've wasted another day and a half sleeping. If you keep this up, we'll be lucky to be finished by summer. If you don't die first."
Sabriel was so intent on her food that she barely listened. But once her stomach was full and her mind focused once more, she demanded, "What did you mean by 'brute force.' Do you know of another way to repair a Charter Stone?" She realized belatedly that she should have asked him that before she had started. Better late than never.
"No," said Mogget, much to Sabriel's disappointment. And much to her suspicion, he didn't elaborate. "But throwing Charter Marks at it willy-nilly until you collapse is hardly a sane way to go about it, even if you have the excuse of not knowing what you're doing."
"I don't see what else I'm supposed to do," said Sabriel, "It's not as if there's a manual for this. I've already searched my library and the castle's for some reference. The Clayr might know, but they can't talk about it in any kind of useful way, and their library isn't what you would call easy-to-navigate."
Mogget yawned. "Why don't you sit here and complain about it some more? I'm sure that will help matters."
Sabriel didn't feel like getting into a battle of sarcasm with the master, so she fell silent for a while. When she spoke again, she had something else on her mind. "Who was the first Abhorsen?"
Mogget's ears pricked up, and for a moment he seemed to be at a loss for words. But he recovered quickly and said, "Why would you want to know about that?"
"I'm trying to do my duty," Sabriel explained, "But I know almost nothing about my family. I can learn from them. And no one knows them better than you."
Mogget shrugged uncomfortably. "She was a Charter mage. A powerful one. Saraneth took a liking to her. What more is there to tell?"
Sabriel had the feeling that there was a lot more to tell, but she didn't pry in that particular direction. "And the others?" she prompted, "The ones who came after. What kind of people were they? How can I be more like them?"
"You're already quite like them," said Mogget, "Stupid, impulsive, young…"
Sabriel interrupted, "I won't be young for long."
"Not many of your kind live to grow old," Mogget snapped, "Where was I? Ah, yes. Young, naïve, self-sacrificing to a fault, completely incapable of seeing the big picture, idiotically trusting… except the ones who were idiotically paranoid. Incidentally, the latter tended to live longer, though they were insufferable."
"I'm sure you could list our faults all day," Sabriel sighed, "But could you tell me something more useful?"
Mogget considered for a moment before continuing in a less scathing tone, "The twelfth Abhorsen was tolerable sort of boy. He was called quite young - couldn't have been more than ten. He worked hard, didn't complain. Clever. A lot of potential. Pity he died so young."
"How young?" Sabriel wondered.
"Thirteen, I believe it was. Ambushed by a stilken. Not much left for his mother to bury," said Mogget flippantly. Sabriel suppressed a shudder. "His sister took over. She was useless, but somehow she managed to survive long enough to reproduce before that necromancer tracked her down and slaughtered her along with her lover and her children. Their cousin was called next. He was somewhat renowned for discovering a plot on the princess's life and apprehending the conspirators. Heh. Clearly he was better detective than a warrior, because a no-account revenant managed to catch him off-guard and tear out his throat. Pathetic."
"Stop telling me about how they died," Sabriel protested, "I'm more interested in how they lived."
"You shouldn't be," said Mogget, "How they died is much more entertaining, not to mention more relevant to you. You see, most of what the Abhorsen does is avoid death for as long as she or he can. Anything that happens along the way, however remarkable, is usually incidental."
Sabriel's mouth twisted impatiently. "You don't really believe that," she said, "It means something to be Abhorsen. Even you spoke of it as a calling."
"It's a set of abilities and a long, depressing legacy," Mogget replied, "As for what you do with it, there's no more a manual for that than there is for fixing Charter Stones."
Sabriel turned away from him then, ending the conversation. So Mogget was in a mood to bait and needle her. She would ask again later. Because despite what he had said, she believed that her ancestors' lives could be a manual of sorts. In any case, it would be better than flying blind.
Wordlessly, she gathered her things and began the hike back into the deserted town.
-----
Sabriel tried to take Mogget's advice by attacking the problem of the broken Stone intelligently instead of straightforwardly. But by the time she resumed her work, her mind was not as clear as it had been out on the docks surrounded by water. Each little task had drained her - clearing the town of the few Dead that had wandered back inside, resetting her traps and her Diamond, approaching the now-hated Stone with its poisonous aura - until she felt almost as bad as she had when she had stumbled away from the town at Mogget's insistence days ago.
She tried, but in the end it was all she could do to throw herself at it, willing it back into place. Her magic was strong, but not as strong as the damage that had been done there. After a few days of work, she was forced to retreat to the river again so she could regain her strength.
The pattern repeated itself again and again. Sabriel cycled between working on the Stone and recuperating by the river for nearly a month. While the lack of progress was unspeakably frustrating, that month proved fruitful in other ways. At night when she rested, and during their travels between the Stone and the river, Mogget told Sabriel the history of her people.
He told her of men and women who had been great mages, or great swordfighters, or great necromancers, or great diplomats, or great teachers. Sabriel had always thought of her ancestors as homogenous, as if her father were the template for all Abhorsens. After all, for most of her life she had thought that he was the only one there had ever been. But by listening to Mogget's stories, she soon found that there were many ways to be Abhorsen.
"Petriel, the thirty-third Abhorsen, was an archer," he said, continuing his long story as they walked back toward the Stone from the river, "She was never any good at swordmanship. She often said that she wished there were a more reliable way to identify herself as Abhorsen, because she hated having to drag that sword around with her."
"I didn't know that there were Abhorsens who didn't use the sword," said Sabriel thoughtfully, "It always seemed like such an important part of what we are."
Mogget stared at her as he walked. "The sword has never belonged to anyone but an Abhorsen since it was made. That's why it has become a badge of sorts," he said, "But that's idiotic. Just because something always has been doesn't mean it always will be. There was an Abhorsen before the sword was made, and there will be one after the sword has been destroyed, or stolen, or put away in some cellar and forgotten."
Sabriel nodded. "The sword isn't what makes me Abhorsen," she summed up. Then, after a few moments of silence, she said, "But then what does?"
Mogget climbed her leg and leaped into her pack in the blink of an eye, disappearing with a quiet, "That's the question, isn't it?"
Mogget slept for the rest of the short journey, and Sabriel soon found herself back at work. While she tried to convince herself that she was making progress, she had to admit that the Stone remained largely as she had found it. What few minor repairs she had made paled in comparison to the massive damage that had been wrought. She went to bed with a heavy heart whose weight was beginning to become familiar.
It didn't cheer her up when, as dusk settled, she began to hear the shuffling and grunting of the Dead circling the town. Even now they were wary of her; they remembered her initial onslaught and the trap she had set for them on the first night. But their numbers were still formidable. Too formidable to risk a battle. Even after her rests by the river, Sabriel was never at full strength these days, and she didn't dare face the army of Dead alone. And as long as they were content to circle her and snarl, she didn't have to.
With some effort, she blocked out their noise and went to sleep.
In the morning, she put off work to eat breakfast and listen to more of Mogget's stories. "Where was I?" he mumbled between bites of fish, "Right. Petriel. She trained her cousin's son. It took her forever to figure out that he was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. She expected it to be one of her brother's children, but sometimes the lineage skips around a bit. At certain points in history, when the Abhorsen's family was large, there were many candidates for the job."
"How did they know which was the true Abhorsen-in-Waiting?" Sabriel asked, "Why didn't Petriel just train one of her nieces or nephews?"
"She tried," said Mogget, "But if a person isn't meant for the job, it becomes clear fairly fast. Not that plenty of Abhorsens haven't trained the wrong person by mistake. Denial can be powerful."
Sabriel mulled it over for a while, then said, "I suppose I won't have that problem. I'm the last, so my successor will have to be one of my children. I hope I can stay alive long enough to train them. I mean, when am I going to have time to get pregnant? And now…" She didn't bring it up because she thought Mogget would make fun of her, but she now wondered who the father or her children might be, if not Touchstone. Would she ever meet another man who she could love as much as him? Did such a man exist? For a moment, their prior quarrels seemed so small beside her loneliness.
Despite her silence, Mogget seemed to be reading her mind. "It wouldn't be that difficult," he said, "Plenty of Abhorsens have done their job while pregnant. As for conceiving, well, that's easy, isn't it? There are plenty of willing men, and it's not as if you don't know how it's done."
"Don't be crude," Sabriel huffed as she stood and turned away from Mogget. She had always thought of having children as something she might do one day, far in the future. She didn't want to think about doing it right now, and she found that she didn't want to think about bearing anyone's children but Touchstone's.
But that was no longer an option, was it?
"Ignore me if you want," said Mogget, "But you'd better start thinking about it. You need an apprentice, and the longer you wait to make one the younger they'll be when you die."
That was a chilling thought, and though Sabriel tried to tune Mogget out, his words were still ringing in her ears when she laid her hands on the Stone. It seemed sluggish today, less responsive. Was it because she was distracted? Or had she reached the end of her ability to repair it?
She stepped back, took a deep breath, and refocused. Nothing changed. She wasn't imagining it then; her impossible task really was becoming even more difficult. It was as if the Stone needed something more, something that she wasn't giving it.
After a long morning of trying to work out what it was she was missing, she stepped back with a sigh. Even after releasing her focus on the Stone, it took her a moment to realize that she and Mogget were not alone.
A revenant stood to her right. It was so close that if she and it both reached out their hands, they might barely touch.
Sabriel flinched and drew her sword with an undignified yelp before she realized that the revenant was still outside her Diamond. It just stood there, studying her. Daring her to do something about its presence. It was so close to the edge of her Diamond that she imagined it must have crept up slowly, gaining confidence with every step. Now its toes nearly touched the glowing line.
She whirled on Mogget. "You might have warned me that I had an audience," she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking after her shock.
Mogget shrugged, a gesture that looked strange on a cat. "He's not bothering you."
Sabriel could tell that Mogget would be no help. She was almost certain that he wanted the Dead to attack. It would put her in a life-or-death situation, and she might be tempted to loose his collar. She had started to see Mogget as a friend over the last several weeks, listening to his stories, but she had to remind herself of what he was.
With a motion so fast that the revenant had no time to jump back, Sabriel leaped, slashed, and separated its head from its neck. Only the blade of her sword passed over the line of her Diamond, leaving the glowing border intact. "You're right," she told Mogget, "He's not."
Her voice was still, but fear was rising beneath the surface. Even with her trips to the river, she was slowly weakening. And now the Dead were becoming bold. How long would it take before they realized that, in her condition, she was no match for their combined strength?
She was tired, an impossible task lay before her, Touchstone was beyond her reach, her only ally hoped for her death, and now her enemies drew in for the kill.
But even with the weight of all her worries on her, what else could she do but step back up to the hated Stone. The work was harder than ever, as if the Stone were actually fighting her. All her frustration and fear boiled into rage against it. Didn't it want to be repaired? What was she doing wrong?
Instead of backing off and taking a different strategy like she had always done, she impulsively pushed back against the Stone's resistance. It had tormented her for weeks. Now she would fix it even if it killed her. She poured all her strength into it, all her desperation, and all her longing to leave this place and go… where? Home? Where was that? Abhorsen's House was the natural answer, but it seemed unbearably lonely without…
Touchstone.
At the moment that she thought of him and remembered the rift that lay between them, the Stone seemed to sense her despair. The Charter pulsed angrily under her hand so strongly that it was almost as if the Stone were moving.
"Look out!" Mogget hissed, and suddenly Sabriel realized that the Stone really was moving. She leaped back just in time to see the two halves of it slide against each other like the two blades of a pair of scissors until the once-small gap between them grew wide. Wider and wider it grew, until the halves came to rest at right angles to each other, a letter V standing out of the earth.
There was no hope of bringing the pieces back together. Sabriel's heart sank even lower than she thought possible as it came to her that the Stone was truly irreparable now. She had broken it for good. And with it, she had broken her promise to the village of High Rock.
She didn't even have time to worry about breaking the news to them before she heard the Dead stir. They could sense that the Stone, which Sabriel had been slowly repairing, was even more broken than it had been before. They came for her. So fast, and more of them than she had expected, they came in a howling mob. And even if she had had the strength to resist them, she no longer had the will. She had failed in her task, she had failed at love, and she had failed as an Abhorsen. In that moment, she welcomed death.
"Take off my collar," Mogget suggested as the Dead approached.
Sabriel's hands didn't move from their sides. She didn't reach for Mogget's collar or even for her sword.
Wordlessly, she waited for the end.
"Forward! Forward! We've got the drop on them!"
At first Sabriel thought she had imagined the voice. Then she looked up to see a flash of swords as a squadron of men and women in the colors of Belisaere descended on the Dead. The mob of revenants was taken so completely by surprise that they never even reached Sabriel's Diamond. After a short, fierce battle, the few Dead who survived ran howling back to the woods.
As a few of the soldiers whooped and gave chase, and as the rest of them celebrated their victory with cheers and laughter, Sabriel stood stunned. The turn of events had been so sudden and so unexpected that her mind was still adjusting to being alive.
"Looks like we arrived just in the nick of time," boomed the voice that had first given the call to arms. And as the soldiers parted to make a path for the giant who now approached the center of the square, Sabriel belatedly recognized it.
The one who had saved her was Karstel.