to t tle past noon. tumbled out onto teps of turnal animals prematurely flus of an underground warren.
Sabriel looked around at t, sunlit trees, tain.
Everyted c .
S too, losing focus in treating lines of clouds just edging about t. Gone forever . . .
“tern part of Palace he blueness.
“?”
“to t Yard.”
It oucone talking. Sabriel closed old o concentrate, to get a grip on t toucone.
reaked from , plastered flat, armor and cloter dripped doill , angled to the ground.
“You didn’t tell me you ional tone. S ing on trange in s o do anyt it.
“I’m not,” toucone replied, s t my fatook up er ’s deating accident before I o t Yard?”
“I suppose so,” Sabriel said dully. “Fating for us to tell us wo go.”
“I see,” said toucone. Sabriel’s vacant eyes, took ing and oddly floppy arm, and steered orees t marked a pato tern end of tly, increasing oucone sped up, till tically jogging. toucone was pusion.
A feo more laarted up tco top.
t tones maintenance, and te deep ruts and in one and s fell, toucone just catc to break s of tness cutting through her dumb despair.
“hy are we running?”
“those scavengers are following us,”
toucone replied sly, pointing back t te.”
Sabriel looked alking.
t Sabriel and toucone could not escape to be t of casual beaters, easily driving tupid prey to a definite end. One of toucone cure t distance made unclear, but entions were clear. ile.
“I he Dead,”
Sabriel said bleakly, revulsion in those words.
“to do t lends its aid to the living . . .”
“toucone, as t off again, building up from a fast o a jog. “t t, unlike towe.”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “I here . . .”
S need to expand upon . Neiting, or mucer Magic, and nine bo ure, and the reservoir . . .
teeper, and t and ragged, o spare for oucone coug ill soo. t mig take an arroo finisters.
t anyway.
“Not . . . mucoucone gasped as turned at tcired legs gaining a fe, before starting t incline.
Sabriel started to laugter, coug ill a lot furtruck o toucone, carrying boto tones. A long-s arrow s mark.
“Sabriel!” toucone sed, voice ed Cer Magic explode into life gre and dooo over-gifted marksman.
Eig ips, greo ts, and s out, leaving rails of after-image in t second later, a scream from beloestified to t least one target.
Numbly, Sabriel ill rengt and lifted ion. Stle as ted in toucone didn’t seem to notice. an animal-like carted to run up to an in. Frot from over o Sabriel. Every vein and muscle in , and h unseeing energy.
op otal dismemberment. Sabriel surned o , too disturbed to look on ting face t bore so little resemblance to toucone s at least he enemy . . .
On umbled stones of -like precision. red as a fire engine noing as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.
Sabriel, forgetting , started sing at o come out of the rage.
“toucone! e’re safe! Put me doop! Please, stop!”
ration bent on teo side like a scentfollowing hound.
“toucone! toucone!” Sabriel sobbed, beating on aop!”
Still ones falling aair, jumping gaping ed , and Sabriel breat it viciously, till tten wood collapsed and ers.
Beyond tumbledoall unted, selfsoree rising above t at tern edge, percinct siltes bordered ernoon sun t was sinking down behem.
toucone broke into a gait t could only be described as a gallop, parting t up to tanding figures, gently placed Sabriel on to ching.
Sabriel tried to crao t s up and look at the Paperwings.
“, t be the King.”
Sabriel stared, dry-mout o see t, piercing blue eyes. te linen dresses, h long, open sleeves.
Fres made Sabriel feel extremely dirty and uncivilized, in y armor. Like tical. Very pretty.
twins.
t dooucone’s. Sabriel felt Cer Magic sloer rising in a spring—t floo aking a and pain of the arrow.
Next to oucone’s breato t of sleep.
“tried to smile, but seemed to t. “the Dead . . . behind us.”
“e kno ten minutes be. e saomorrow.”
“Ao , t t to find out really confusing.
“traig o sloes. t feel ly—just older, as if it ruck a ead of minutes.
“Fat you cching for where Kerrigor has his body.”
“Yes,” replied t us exactly.
e’ve only been alloo be today, because Papers . . .”
“Or actually, Ryelle is . . .” one of ting at t since so fly wo Paperwings were needed, so . . .”
“Sanar came too,” Ryelle continued, pointing back at er.
“Bot mucime. You can take ted it in t first, there’s Kerrigor’s body.”
“Yes,” said Sabriel. o deal ter ly felt, so bear it.
“ierre,” said twins.
“But our vision is he place names.
e’ll o so remember.”
“Yes,” agreed Sabriel, feeling like a dull student promising to deal ion quite beyond her. “Yes.”
teete and even. One, possibly Ryelle—Sabriel t a bottle made of clear green glass out from telltale flaser Magic s been t of her sleeve.
“Ready?” taneously, and, “Yes,” before tion rated Sabriel’s tired brain.
Ryelle unstoppered ttle “pop,” and in one quick motion, poured out tents along a al line. Sanar, equally quickly, dreer—and it froze in mid-air, to form a pane of transparent ice. A frozen of Sabriel.
“atcapped t clouded over at t touceadied into a moving vision—muc from a traveling car. yverley College Sabriel o see quite a fe in color, and sural sounds as clearly as if shere.
typical Ancelstierran farmland—a long field of , ractor stopped in tance, its driver cting op a cart, -anding stolidly, peering out their blinkers.
toc conversation, and continued—folloed e of greater importance. tever it o it, till t filled the ice-window. “yverley ? miles,”
it read, directing travelers along ting doowards yverley village.
A feer, to sable’s trim ern. All landmarks knoo Sabriel. Srated even more carefully, for surely t of reference, o parts of Ancelstierre wo her.
But ture still moved slo a turned off ted . A nice enougo be sure, covered by a cork tree plantation, e old trees. Its only point of interest angular cairn upon top . . . tones, square-cut and tigogetively recent folly, Sabriel remembered from tory lessons. A little less ted it once, but something had changed her mind . . .
tone, doar, zigzagging around to t its . For an instant t completely dark, t came. A bronze sarcopal craer marks. ting marks, penetrated thed in Free Magic.
ted, moving y to t so focus, a face t s Kerrigor once ures clearly s oucone.
Sabriel stared, sickened and fascinated by ties beto greyness, greyness accompanied by ruser. Death.
Sometrous t, a jagged cutting of darkness, formless and featureless, save for t burned ural flame. It seemed to see orm clouds reaching forward.
“Ab!” screamed Kerrigor. “Your blood will gusones . . .”
to come t suddenly, to a pile of s-melting slush.
“You saoget a question. Sabriel nodded, ss still on t on t led to tion known as Kerrigor? “e es,” announced Sanar.
“till t to your Paperwing, shall we?”
“Yes, please,” replied Sabriel. Despite t of Kerrigor’s ra form, te sense of purpose. Kerrigor’s body ierre. S and destroy it, and t. But to get to t . . .
ted toucone up, grunting . ime, and noer from te to manage well enough.
“e o tening we and blue below.
“Cousin?” Sabriel murmured. “I suppose , aren’t we?”
“Blood relatives, all t Cers,” the clan dwindles . . .”
“Do you alo happen?”
Sabriel asked, as tly looucone into t, and strapped s normally used for securing luggage.
Boter! Our family is t numerous of t is spread among many. Our visions come in snatcers, glimpses and s, ts strengto narrow our sig oday.
tomorroo dreams and confusion, not knoes . . .”
Suddenly, ture. Seful for their care.
it— but perers in toucone would be . . .
“tes,” repeated bot took to toucone’s slightly snoring form.
After a second’s t, suffed in t cloak.
toucone’s s into t, but t of its contents o be abandoned.
“Next stop, ttered as so t, trying not to t w would o land somewween.
t, and, as Sabriel did up raps, so reaming out into trengt, tossing black ing tails and jostling their wings.
Sabriel took a breater tling, and stroked ted paper of t Papero mind, broken and burning in ths of holehallow.
“I ter togeto note, t er Magic in t.
A second later, t from t to to circle , of green and silver, turned to t. turned south.
toucone, o tion of flying, groggily muttered, “ happened?”
“e’re going to Ancelstierre,” Sabriel sed.
“Across to find Kerrigor’s body—and destroy it!”
“Ooucone, whe all.” “Good.”