The flares were ancient, foot-long things like batons, which came in two parts that had to be screwed together to mix the chemicals that in turn ignited the magnesium core. Nick grabbed a handful and rushed over the branch line to the main track. Or what he hoped was the main track. There were four railway lines next to each other, and he couldn"t be absolutely sure which one Dorrance"s train had taken heading north.
Even if he got it wrong, he told himself, any engineer seeing three red flares together would almost certainly stop. He screwed the first flare together and dropped it on the track, then the other two followed quickly, one to either side.
With the flares gushing bright-blue magnesium and red iron flames, Nick decided he couldn"t afford explanations, so he crossed the tracks and crouched down behind a tree to wait.
He didn"t have to wait long. He had barely looked over his shoulder at the expanding pall of smoke from Dorrance Hall, which now covered a good quarter of the sky, before he heard the distant sound of a big, fast-moving train. Then, only seconds after the noise, he saw the triple headlights of the engine as it raced down the track toward him. A moment later there was the shriek of the whistle, and then the awful screech of metal on metal as the driver applied the brakes, a screech that intensified every few seconds as the emergency brakes in each of the following carriages came on hard as well.
Nick, on hearing the horrid scream of emergency braking and seeing the sheer speed of the approaching lights, suddenly remembered the boast of the North by Northwest Railway, that its trains averaged 110 miles per hour, and for a fearful moment he wondered if he"d made a terrible mistake. It was one thing to risk his life pursuing the creature, but quite another if he was responsible for derailing the Bain Flyer and killing all the pa.s.sengers on board.
But despite the noise and speed, the train was slowing under total control, on a long straight path. It came to a shrieking, sparking halt just short of the flares.
Even before it completely stopped, the engineer jumped down from the engine and conductors leapt from almost every one of the fifteen carriages. No one got out on the far side, so it was relatively easy for Nick to run from his tree, climb the steps of a second-cla.s.s carriage, and go inside without being observed-or so he hoped.
The carriage was split into compartments, with a pa.s.sageway running down the side. Nick quickly glanced into the first compartment. It had six pa.s.sengers in it, almost the full complement of eight. Most of them were squashed together trying to look out the window, though one was asleep and another reading the paper with studied detachment. For a brief second, Nick thought of going in, but he dismissed the notion immediately. The pa.s.sengers would have been together for hours, and the appearance of a bloodied, blackened young man with burnt eyebrows could not go unnoticed or unremarked. Somehow, Nick doubted that any explanation he could provide would satisfy the pa.s.sengers, let alone the conductor.
Instead, Nick looked up at the luggage rack that ran the length of the carriage. It was pretty full, but he saw a less-populated section. Even as he hoisted himself up and discovered that his chosen resting place was on top of a set of golf clubs and an umbrella, the engine whistled twice, followed by the sound of doors slamming and then the appearance of a conductor and two large, annoyed male pa.s.sengers, who had just come back aboard.
"I don"t know what the railway"s coming to."
"Wrack and ruin, that"s what."
"Now, now, gentlemen, no harm"s done. We"ll make up our time, you"ll see. We"re expected in at twenty-five minutes after midnight, and the Bain Flyer is never late. The railway will buy you a drink or two at the station hotel, and all will be right with the world."
If only, thought Nicholas Sayre. He waited for the men to move along, then wriggled into a slightly less uncomfortable position and rearranged the flower chain across his chest so it would not get crumpled. He lay there, thinking about what had happened and what could happen, and built up plan after plan the way he used to build matchstick towers as a boy, only to have them suffer the same fate. At some point, they always fell over.
Finally, it hit him. Dorrance and the creature had gotten away. At least, they"d gotten away from him. His part in the whole sorry disaster was over. Even if Dorrance"s special train was going to Bain, they would arrive at least fifteen minutes ahead of Nick. And there was a good chance that Ripton would have made it to a phone, so the authorities would be alerted. The police in Bain had some experience with things crossing the Wall from the Old Kingdom. They"d get help-Charter Mages from the Crossing Point Scouts. There would be lots of people much more qualified than Nick to deal with the creature.
At least I tried, Nick thought. When I see Lirael . . . and Sam . . . and the Abhorsen-though I hope I don"t have to explain it to her-then I can honestly say I really did my best. I mean, even if I had managed to catch up with them, I don"t know if I"d have been able to do anything. Maybe my Charter-spelled dagger would have worked . . . maybe I could have tried something else . . .
Nick suddenly felt very tired, and sore, the weariness more urgent than the pain. Even his feet hurt, and for the first time he realized he was still wearing carpet slippers. He was sure his shoes had been wonderfully shined, but by now they would be ash in the ruins of Dorrance Hall.
Nick shook his head at the thought, pushed back on the golf bag, and, without meaning to, fell instantly asleep.
He woke to find something gripping his elbow. Instantly he lashed out with his fist, connecting with something fleshy rather than the scaly, hard surface his dreaming mind had suggested might be the case.
"Ow!"
A young man dressed in ludicrously bright golfing tweeds looked up at Nick, his hand covering his nose. Other pa.s.sengers were already in the corridor, most of them with their bags in hand. The train had arrived in Bain.
"You"ve broken my nose!"
"Sorry!" Nick said as he vaulted down. "I"m very sorry! Mistaken ident.i.ty. Thought you were a monster."
"I say!" called out the man. "Wait a moment. You can"t just hit a man and run away!"
"Urgent business!" Nick replied as he ran to the door, weaving past several other pa.s.sengers, who quickly stood aside. "Nicholas Sayre"s the name. Many apologies!"
He jumped out onto the platform, half expecting to see it swarming with police, soldiers, and ambulance attendants. He would be able to report to someone in authority and then check into the hotel for a proper rest.
But there was only the usual bustle of a big country station in the middle of the night, with the last important train finally in. Pa.s.sengers were disembarking. Porters were gathering cases. A newspaper vendor was hawking a late edition of the Times Times, shouting, "Flood kills five men, three horses. Getcher paper! Flood kills three-"
There"d be a different headline in the next edition, Nick thought, though it almost certainly wouldn"t be the real story. "Fire at Country House" would be most likely, with the survivors paid or pressured to shut up. He would probably get to read it over breakfast, which reminded him that he was extremely hungry and needed to have a very late, much-delayed dinner. Of course, in order to eat, he"d need to get some money, and that meant . . .
"Excuse me, sir, could I see your ticket, please?" Nick"s train of thought derailed spectacularly. A railway inspector was standing too close to him, looking sternly at the dishevelled, blackened, eyebrowless young man in ruined evening wear with a chain of braided daisies around his neck and carpet slippers on his feet.
"Ah, good evening," replied Nick. He patted his sides and tried to look somewhat tipsy and confused, which was not hard. "I"m afraid I seem to have lost my ticket. And my coat. And for that matter my tie. But if I could make a telephone call, I"m sure everything can be put right."
"Undergraduate, are you, sir?" asked the inspector. "Put on the train by your friends?"
"Something like that," admitted Nick.
"I"ll have your name and college to start with," said the inspector stolidly. "Then we can see about a telephone call."
"Nicholas Sayre," replied Nick. "Sunbere. Though technically I"m not up this term."
"Sayre?" asked the inspector. "Would you be . . ."
"My uncle, I"m afraid," said Nick. "That"s whom I need to call. At the Golden Sheaf Hotel, near Applethwick. I"m sure that if there is a fine to pay, I"ll be able to sort something out."
"You"ll just have to purchase a ticket before you leave the station," said the inspector. "As for the phone call, follow me and you can-"
He stopped talking as Nick suddenly turned away from him and stared up at the pedestrian bridge that crossed the railway tracks. To the right, in the direction of the station hotel and most of the town, everything was normal, the bridge crowded with pa.s.sengers off the Flyer eager to get to the hotel or home. But to the lonely left, the electric lights on the wrought-iron lampposts were flickering and going out. One after the other, each one died just as two porters pa.s.sed by, wheeling a very long, tall box.
"It must be the . . . but Dorrance was at least fifteen minutes ahead of the Flyer!"
"You"re involved in one of Mr Dorrance"s j.a.pes, are you?" The inspector smiled. "His train just came in on the old track. Private trains aren"t allowed on the express line. Hey! Sir! Come back!"
Nick ran, vaulting the ticket inspection barrier, the inspector"s shouts ignored behind him. All his resignation burned away in an instant. The creature was here, and he was still the only one who knew about it.
Two policemen belatedly moved to intercept him before the stairs, but they were too slow. Nick jumped up the steps three at a time. He almost fell at the top step, but turned the movement into a fleche, launching himself into a sprint across the bridge.
At the top of the stairs at the other end, he slowed and drew his dagger. Down below, at the side of the road, the tall box was lying on its side, open. One of the two porters was sprawled next to it, his throat ripped out.
There was a row of shops on the other side of the street, all shuttered and dark. The single lamppost was also dark. The moon was lower now, and the shadows deeper. Nick walked down the steps, dagger ready, the Charter Marks swimming on the blade bright enough to shed light. He could hear police whistles behind him and knew that they would be there in moments, but he spared no attention from the street.
Nothing moved there until Nick left the last step. As he trod on the road, the creature suddenly emerged from an alcove between two shops and dropped the second porter at its hoofed feet. Its violet eyes shone with a deep, internal fire now, and its black teeth were rimmed with red flames. It made a sound that was half hiss and half growl and raised its spiked club hands. Nick tensed for its attack and tried to fumble the flower chain off his neck with his left hand.
Then Dorrance peered over the creature"s shoulder and whispered something in its ear slit. The thing blinked, single eyelids sliding across to dim rather than close its burning violet eyes. Then it suddenly jumped more than twenty feet-but away from Nick. Dorrance, clinging to it for dear life, shouted as it sped away.
"Stay back, Sayre! It just wants to go home."
Nick started to run, but stopped after only a dozen strides, as the creature disappeared into the dark. It had evidently not exhausted all the power it had gained from Nick"s blood, or perhaps simply being closer to the Old Kingdom lent it strength.
Panting, his chest heaving from his exertion, Nick looked back. The two policemen were coming down the stairs, their truncheons in hand. The fact that they were still approaching indicated they had not seen the creature.
Nick sheathed his dagger and held up his hands. The policemen slowed to a walk and approached warily. Then Nick saw a single headlight approaching rapidly toward him. A motorcycle. He stepped out into the street and waved his hands furiously to flag the rider down.
The motorcyclist stopped next to Nick. He was young and sported a small, highly-trimmed mustache that did him no favors.
"What occurs, old man?"
"No . . . time . . . to explain," gasped Nick. "I need your bike. Name"s Sayre. Nicholas."
"The fast bowler!" exclaimed the rider as he casually stepped off the idling bike, holding it upright for Nick to get on. He was unperturbed by the sight of Nick"s strange attire or the shouts of the policemen, who had started to run again. "I saw you play here last year. Wonderful match! There you are. Bring the old girl back to Wooten, if you don"t mind. St. John Wooten, in Bain."
"Pleasure!" Nick said as he pushed off and kicked the motorcycle into gear. It rattled away barely ahead of the running policemen, one of whom threw his truncheon, striking Nick a glancing blow on the shoulder.
"Good shot!" cried St John Wooten, but the policemen were soon left behind as easily as the creature had left Nick.
For a few minutes Nick thought he might catch up with his quarry fairly soon. The motorcycle was new and powerful, a far cry from the school gardener"s old Vernal Victrix he"d learned on back at Somersby. But after almost sliding out on several corners and getting the wobbles at speed, Nick had to acknowledge that his lack of experience was the limiting factor, not the machine"s capacity. He slowed down to a point just slightly beyond his competence, a speed insufficient to do more than afford an occasional glimpse of the creature and Dorrance ahead.
As Nick had expected, they soon left even the outskirts of Bain behind, turning right onto the Bain High Road, heading north. There was very little traffic on the road, and what there was of it was heading the other way. At least until the creature ran past. Those cars or trucks that didn"t run off the road as the driver saw the monster stalled to a stop, their electrical components destroyed by the creature"s pa.s.sage. Nick, coming up only a minute or so later, never even saw the drivers. As might be expected this far north, they had instantly fled the scene, looking for running water or, at the very least, some friendly walls.
The question of what the creature would do at the first Perimeter checkpoint was easily answered. When Nick saw the warning sign he slowed, not wanting to be shot. But when he idled up to the red-striped barrier, there were four dead soldiers lying in a row, their heads caved in. The creature had killed them without slowing down. None of them had even managed to get a shot off, though the officer had his revolver in his hand. They hadn"t been wearing mail this far south, or the characteristic neck- and nasal-barred helmets of the Perimeter garrison. After all, trouble came from the north. This most southern checkpoint was the relatively friendly face of the Army, there to turn back unauthorised travelers or tourists.
Nick was about to go straight on, but he knew there were more stringent checkpoints ahead, before the Perimeter proper, and the chance of being shot would greatly increase. So he put the motorcycle in neutral, sat it on its stand, and, looking away as much as he could, took the cleanest tunic, which happened to be the officer"s. It had a second lieutenant"s single pip on each cuff. The previous wearer had probably been much the same age as Nick, and moments before must have been proud of his small command, before he lost it, with his life. Nick figured wearing the khaki coat would at least give him time to explain who he was before he was shot at. He shrugged it on, left it unb.u.t.toned with the flower chain underneath, got back on the motorcycle, and set off once more.
He heard several shots before he arrived at the next checkpoint, and a brief staccato burst of machine-gun fire, followed a few seconds later by a rocket arcing up into the night. It burst into three red parachute flares that slowly drifted north by northwest, propelled by a southerly wind that would usually give comfort to the soldiers of the Perimeter. They would not have been expecting any trouble.
The second checkpoint was a much more serious affair than the first, blocking the road with two heavy chain-link-and-timber gates, built between concrete pillboxes that punctuated the first of the Perimeter"s many defensive lines, a triple depth of concertina wire five coils high that stretched to the east and west as far as the eye could see.
One of the gates had been knocked off its hinges, and there were more bodies on the ground just beyond it. These soldiers had been wearing mail coats and helmets, which hadn"t saved them. More soldiers were running out of the pillboxes, and there were several in firing positions to the side of the road, though they"d stopped shooting because of the risk of hitting their own people farther north.
Nick throttled back and weaved the motorcycle through the slalom course of bodies, debris from the gate, and the live but shaken soldiers who were staring north. He was just about to accelerate away when someone shouted behind him.
"You on the motorcycle! Stop!"
Nick felt an urge to open the throttle and let the motorcycle roar away, but his intelligence overruled his instinct. He stopped and looked back, wincing as the thin sole of his left carpet slipper tore on a piece of broken barbed wire.
The man who had shouted ran up and, greatly surprising Nick, jumped on the pillion seat behind him.
"Get after it!"
Nick only had a moment to gain a snapshot of his unexpected pa.s.senger. He was an officer, not visibly armed, wearing formal dress blues with more miniatures of gallantry medals than he should have, since he looked no more than twenty-one. He had the three pips of a captain on his sleeves and, more important, on his shoulders the metal epaulette tags NPRU, for the Northern Perimeter Reconnaissance Unit, or as it was better known, the Crossing Point Scouts.
"I know you, don"t I?" shouted the captain over the noise of the engine and rush of the wind. "You tried out for the Scouts last week?"
"Uh, no," Nick shouted back. He had just realized that he knew his pa.s.senger too. It was Francis Tindall, who had been at Forwin Mill as a lieutenant six months ago. "I"m afraid I"m . . . well, I"m Nicholas Sayre."
"Nick Sayre! I b.l.o.o.d.y hope this isn"t going to be like last time we met!"
"No! But that creature is a Free Magic thing!"
"Got a hostage, too, from the look of it. Skinny old duffer. Pointless carrying him along. We"ll still shoot."
"He"s an accomplice. It"s already killed a lot of people down south."
"Don"t worry, we"ll settle its hash," Tindall shouted confidently. "You don"t happen to know exactly what kind of Free Magic creature it is? Can"t say I"ve ever seen anything like it, but I only got a glimpse. Didn"t expect anything like that to run past the window at a dining-in night at Checkpoint Two."
"No, but it"s bulletproof and it gets power by drinking the blood of Charter Mages."
Whatever Tindall said in response was lost in the sound of gunfire up ahead, this time long, repeated bursts of machine-gun fire, and Nick saw red tracer bouncing up into the air.
"Slow down!" ordered Tindall. "Those are the enfilading guns at Lizzy and Pearl. They"ll stop firing when the thing hits the gate at Checkpoint One."
Nick obediently slowed. The road was straight ahead of them, but dark, the moon having sunk farther. The red tracer was the only thing visible, crisscrossing the road four or five hundred yards ahead of them.
Then big guns boomed in unison.
"Star sh.e.l.l," said Tindall. "Thanks to a southerly wind."
A second after he spoke, four small suns burst high above, and everything became stark black and white, either harshly lit or in blackest shadow.
In the light, Nick saw another deep defensive line of high concertina wire, and another set of gates. He also saw the creature slow not at all, but simply jump up and over thirty feet of wire, smashing its way past the two or three fast but foolish soldiers who tried to stick a bayonet in it as it hit the ground running.
Dorrance was no longer on its back.
Nick saw him a moment later, lying in the middle of the road. Braking hard, he lost control of the bike at the last moment, and it flipped up and out, throwing both him and Tindall onto the road, but fortunately not at any speed.
Nick lay there for a moment, the breath knocked out of him by the impact. After a minute, he slowly got to his feet. Captain Tindall was already standing, but only on one foot.
"Busted ankle," he said as he hopped over to Dorrance. "Why, it"s that idiot jester Dorrance! What on earth would someone like him be doing with that creature?"
"Serving Her," whispered Dorrance, his voice startling both Tindall and Nick. The older man had been shot several times and looked dead, his chest black and sodden with blood. But he opened his eyes and looked directly at Nick, though he clearly saw something or someone else. "I knew Her as a child, in my dreams, never knowing She was real. Then Malthan came, and I saw Her picture, and I remembered Father sending Her away. He was mad, you know. Lackridge found Her for me again. It was as I remembered, Her voice in my head . . . She only wanted to go home. I had to help Her. I had to . . ."
His voice trailed away and his eyes lost their focus. Dorrance would play the fool no more in Corvere.
"If it wants to go north, I suppose we could do worse than just let it go across the Wall," said Tindall. He waved at someone at the checkpoint and made a signal, crossing his arms twice. "If it can, of course. We can send a pigeon to the Guards at Barhedrin, leave it to them to sort out."
"No, I can"t do that," said Nick. "I . . . I"m already responsible for loosing the Destroyer upon them, and I did nothing to help fight it. Now I"ve done it again. That creature would not be free if it weren"t for me. I can"t just leave it to Lirael, I mean the Abhorsen . . . or whoever."
"Some things are best left to those who can deal with them," said Tindall. "I"ve never seen a Free Magic creature move like that. Let it go."
"No," said Nick. He started walking up the road. Tindall swore and started hopping after him.
"What are you going to do? You have the Mark, I know, but are you a Mage?"
Nick shook his head and started to run. A sergeant and two stretcher bearers were coming through the gate, while many more soldiers ran purposefully behind them. With star sh.e.l.l continuing to be fired overhead, Nick could clearly see beyond the gates to a parade ground, with a viewing tower or inspection platform next to it, and beyond that a collection of low huts and bunkers and the communications trenches that zigzagged north.
"The word for the day is Collection Collection and the countersign is and the countersign is Treble Treble," shouted Tindall. "Good luck!"
Nick waved his thanks and concentrated on ignoring the pain in his feet. Both his slippers were ripped to pieces, barely more than shreds of cloth holding on at the heels and toes.
The sergeant saluted as he went past, and the stretcher bearers ignored him, but the two soldiers at the gate aimed their rifles at him and demanded the pa.s.sword. Nick gave it, silently thanking Tindall, and they let him through.
"Lieutenant! Report!" shouted a major Nick almost ran into as he entered the communications trench on the northern side of the parade ground. But he ignored the instruction, dodging past the officer. A few steps farther on, he felt something warm strike his back, and his arms and hands suddenly shone with golden Charter Magic fire. It didn"t harm him at all, but actually made him feel better and helped him recover his breath. He ran on, oblivious to the shocked Charter Mage behind him, who had struck him with his strongest spell of binding and immobility.
Soldiers stood aside as he ran past, the Charter Magic glow alerting them to his coming. Some cheered in his wake, for they had seen the creature leap over them, and they feared that it might return before a Scout came to deal with it, as they dealt with so many of the strange things that came from the north.