chapter viii

Sabriel awoke to soft candlelight, the warmth of a feather bed, and silken sheets, delightfully smooth under heavy blankets. A fire burned briskly in a red-brick fireplace and wood-paneled walls gleamed with the dark mystery of well-polished mahogany. A blue-papered ceiling with silver stars dusted across it, faced her newly opened eyes. Two windows confronted each other across the room, but they were shuttered, so Sabriel had no idea what time it was, no more than she had any remembrance of how she’d got there. It was definitely Abhorsen’s House, but her last memory was of fainting on the doorstep.

Gingerly—for even her neck ached from her day and night of travel, fear and flight—Sabriel lifted her head to look around and once again met the green eyes of the cat that wasn’t a cat.

The creature was lying near her feet, at the end of the bed.

“Who . . . what are you?” Sabriel asked nervously, suddenly all too aware that she was naked under the soft sheets. A sensuous delight, but a defenseless one. Her eyes flickered to her sword-belt and bell-bandolier, carefully draped on a clothes-horse near the door.

“I have a variety of names,” replied the cat. It had a strange voice, half-mew, half-purr, with hissing on the vowels. “You may call me Mogget. As to what I am, I was once many things, but now I am only several. Primarily, I am a servant of Abhorsen. Unless you would be kind enough to remove my collar?”

Sabriel gave an uneasy smile, and shook her head firmly. Whatever Mogget was, that collar was the only thing that kept it as a servant of Abhorsen . . . or anybody else. The Charter marks on the collar were quite explicit about that. As far as Sabriel could tell, the binding spell was over a thousand years old. It was quite possible that Mogget was some Free Magic spirit as old as the Wall, or even older. She wondered why her father hadn’t mentioned it, and with a pang, wished that she had awoken to find her father here, in his house, both their troubles over.

“I thought not,” said Mogget, combining a careless shrug with a limbering stretch. It . . . or he, for Sabriel felt the cat was definitely masculine, jumped to the parquet floor and sauntered over to the fire. Sabriel watched, her trained eye noting that Mogget’s shadow was not always that of a cat.

A knock at the door interrupted her study of the cat, the sharp sound making Sabriel jump nervously, the hair on the back of her neck frizzing to attention.

“It’s only one of the servants,” Mogget said, in a patronizing tone. “Charter sendings, and pretty low-grade ones at that. They always burn the milk.”

Sabriel ignored him, and said, “Come in.” Her voice shook, and she realized that shaky nerves and weakness would be with her for a while.

The door swung open silently and a short, robed figure drifted in. It was similar to the upper gatewarden, being cowled and so without a visible face, but this one’s habit was of light cream rather than black. It had a simple cotton underdress draped over one arm, a thick towel over the other and its Charter-woven hands held a long woollen surcoat and a pair of slippers.

Without a word, it went to the end of the bed and put the garments on Sabriel’s feet. Then it crossed to a porcelain basin that sat in a silver filigree stand, above a tiled area of the floor to the left of the fire. There, it twisted a bronze wheel, and steaming hot water splashed and gurgled from a pipe in the wall, bringing with it the stench of something sulphurous and unpleasant.

Sabriel wrinkled her nose.

“Hot springs,” commented Mogget. “You won’t smell it after a while. Your father always said that having permanent hot water was worth bearing the smell. Or was it your grandfather who said that? Or great-great-aunt? Ah, memory . . .”

The servant stood immobile while the basin filled, then twisted the wheel to cut the flow as water slopped over the rim to the floor, close to Mogget—who leapt to his feet and padded away, keeping a cautious distance from the Charter sending. Just like a real cat, Sabriel thought. Perhaps the imposed shape impressed behavior too, over the years—or centuries. She liked cats. The school had a cat, a plump marmalade feline, who went by the name of Biscuits.

Sabriel thought about the way it slept on the windowsill of the Prefect’s Room, and then found herself thinking about the school in general, and what her friends would be doing. Her eyelids drooped as she imagined an Etiquette class, and the Mistress droning on about silver salvers . . .

A sharp clang woke her with yet another start, sending further stabs of pain through tired muscles.

The Charter sending had tapped the bronze wheel with the poker from the fireplace. It was obviously impatient for Sabriel to have her wash.

“Water’s getting cold,” explained Mogget, leaping up to the bed again. “And they’ll be serving dinner in half an hour.”

“They?” asked Sabriel, sitting up and reaching forward to grab slippers and towel, preparatory to sidling out of bed and into them.

“Them,” said Mogget, butting his head in the direction of the sending, who had stepped back from the basin and was now holding out a bar of soap.

Sabriel shuffled over to the basin, the towel wrapped firmly around her, and gingerly touched the water. It was delightfully hot, but before she could do anything with it, the sending stepped forward, whisked the towel off her and upended the whole basin over her head.

Sabriel shrieked, but, again before she could do anything else, the sending had put back the basin, turned the wheel for more hot water and was soaping her down, paying particular attention to her head, as if it wanted to get soap in Sabriel’s eyes, or suspected an infestation of nits.

“What are you doing!” Sabriel protested, as the strangely cool hands of the sending scrubbed at her back and then, quite without interest, at her breasts and stomach. “Stop it! I’m quite old enough to wash myself, thank you!”

But Miss Prionte’s techniques for dealing with domestic servants didn’t seem to work on domestic sendings. It kept scrubbing, occasionally tipping hot water over Sabriel.

“How do I stop it?” she spluttered to Mogget, as still more water cascaded over her head and the sending started to scrub lower regions.

“You can’t,” replied Mogget, who seemed quite amused by the spectacle. “This one’s particularly recalcitrant.”

“What do you . . . ow! . . . stop that! What do you mean, this one?”

“There’s lots about the place,” said Mogget.

“Every Abhorsen seems to have made their own.

Probably because they get like this one after a few hundred years. Privileged family retainers, who always think they know best. Practically human, in the worst possible way.”

The sending paused in its scrubbing just long enough to flick some water at Mogget, who jumped the wrong way and yowled as it hit him.

Just before another great basin-load of water hit Sabriel, she saw the cat shoot under the bed, his tail dividing the bedspread.

“That’s enough, thank you!” she pronounced, as the last drench of water drained out through a grille in the tiled area. The sending had probably finished anyway, thought Sabriel, as it stopped washing and started to towel her dry.

She snatched the towel back from it and tried to finish the job herself, but the sending counterattacked by combing her hair, causing another minor tussle. Eventually, between the two of them, Sabriel shrugged on the underdress and surcoat, and submitted to a manicure and vigorous hair-brushing.

She was admiring the tiny, repeated silver key motif on the black surcoat in the mirror that backed one of the window-shutters, when a gong sounded somewhere else in the house and the servant-sending opened the door. A split second later, Mogget raced through, with a cry that Sabriel thought was “Dinner!” She followed, rather more sedately, the sending closing the door behind her.

Dinner was in the main hall of the house. A long, stately room that took up half the ground floor, it was dominated by the floor to ceiling stained-glass window at the western end. The window showed a scene from the building of the Wall and, like many other things around the house, was heavily laden with Charter Magic.

Perhaps there was no real glass in it at all, Sabriel mused, as she watched the light of the evening sun play in and around the toiling figures that were building the Wall. As with the sendings, if you looked closely enough you could see tiny Charter marks making up the patterns.

It was hard to see through the window, but judging from the sun, it was almost dusk. Sabriel realized she must have slept for a full day, or possibly even two.

A table nearly as long as the hall stretched away from her—a brightly polished table of some light and lustrous timber, heavily laden with silver salt cellars, candelabra and rather fantastic-looking decanters and covered dishes.

But only two places were fully set, with a plethora of knives, forks, spoons and other instruments, which Sabriel only recognized from obscure drawings in her Etiquette textbook.

She’d never seen a real golden straw for sucking the innards out of a pomegranate before, for example.

One place was before a high-backed chair at the head of the table and the other was to the left of this, in front of a cushioned stool. Sabriel wondered which was hers, till Mogget jumped up on the stool and said, “Come on! They won’t serve till you’re seated.”

“They” were more sendings. Half a dozen in all, including the cream-dressed tyrant of the bedroom. They were all basically the same; human in shape, but cowled or veiled. Only their hands were visible, and these were almost transparent, as if Charter marks had been lightly etched on prosthetic hands carved from moonstone.

The sendings stood grouped around a door—the kitchen door, for Sabriel saw fires beyond them, and smelled the tang of cooking— and stared at her. It was rather unnerving, not to meet any eyes.

“Yes, that’s her,” Mogget said caustically.

“Your new mistress. Now let’s have dinner.”

None of the sendings moved, till Sabriel stepped forward. They stepped forward, too, and all dropped to one knee, or whatever supported them beneath the floor-length robes. Each held out their pale right hand, Charter marks running bright trails around their palms and fingers.

Sabriel stared for a moment, but it was clear they offered their services, or loyalty, and expected her to do something in return. She walked to them and gently pressed each upthrust hand in turn, feeling the Charter-spells that made them whole. Mogget had spoken truly, for some of the spells were old, far older than Sabriel could guess.

“I thank you,” she said slowly. “On behalf of my father, and for the kindness you have shown me.”

This seemed to be appropriate, or enough to be going on with. The sendings stood, bowed and went about their business. The one in the cream habit pulled out Sabriel’s chair and placed her napkin as she sat. It was of crisp black linen, dusted with tiny silver keys, a miracle of needlework.

Mogget, Sabriel noticed, had a plain white napkin, with evidence of old stains.

“I’ve had to eat in the kitchen for the last two weeks,” Mogget said sourly, as two sendings approached from the kitchen, bearing plates that signaled their arrival with a tantalizing odor of spices and hot food.

“I expect it was good for you,” Sabriel replied brightly, taking a mouthful of wine. It was a fruity, dry white wine, though Sabriel hadn’t developed a palate to know whether it was good or merely indifferent. It was certainly drinkable.

Her first major experiments with alcohol lay several years behind her, enshrined in memory as significant occasions shared with two of her closest friends. None of the three could ever drink brandy again, but Sabriel had started to enjoy wine with her meals.

“Anyway, how did you know I was coming?”

Sabriel asked. “I didn’t know myself, till . . . till Father sent his message.”

The cat didn’t answer at once, his attention focused on the plate of fish the sending had just put down—small, almost circular fish, with the bright eyes and shiny scales of the freshly caught.

Sabriel had them too, but hers were grilled, with a tomato, garlic and basil sauce.

“I have served ten times as many of your forebears as you have years,” Mogget replied at last.

“And though my powers wane with the ebb of time, I always know when one Abhorsen falls and another takes their place.”

Sabriel swallowed her last mouthful, all taste gone, and put down her fork. She took a mouthful of wine to clear her throat, but it seemed to have become vinegar, making her cough.

“What do you mean by ‘fall’? What do you know? What has happened to Father?”

Mogget looked up at Sabriel, eyes half-lidded, meeting her gaze steadily, as no normal cat could.

“He is dead, Sabriel. Even if he hasn’t passed the Final Gate, he will walk in life no more. That is—”

“No,” interrupted Sabriel. “He can’t be! He cannot be. He is a necromancer . . . he can’t be dead . . .”

“That is why he sent the sword and bells to you, as his aunt sent them to him, in her time,”

Mogget continued, ignoring Sabriel’s outburst.

“And he was not a necromancer, he was Abhorsen.”

“I don’t understand,” Sabriel whispered. She couldn’t face Mogget’s eyes anymore. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know enough. About anything.

The Old Kingdom, Charter Magic, even my own father. Why do you say his name as if it were a title?”

“It is. He was the Abhorsen. Now you are.”

Sabriel digested this in silence, staring at the swirls of fish and sauce on her plate, silver scales and red tomato blurring into a pattern of swords and fire. The table blurred too, and the room beyond, and she felt herself reaching for the border with Death. But try as she might, she couldn’t cross it. She sensed it, but there was no way to cross, in either direction—Abhorsen’s House was too well protected. But she did feel something at the border. Inimical things lurked there, waiting for her to cross, but there was also the faintest thread of something familiar, like the scent of a woman’s perfume after she has left the room, or the waft of a particular pipe tobacco around a corner. Sabriel focused on it and threw herself once more at the barrier that separated her from Death.

Only to ricochet back to Life, as sharp claws pricked her arm. Her eyes snapped open, blinking off flakes of frost, to see Mogget, fur bristling, one paw ready to strike again.

“Fool!” he hissed. “You are the only one who can break the wards of this House and they wait for you to do so!”

Sabriel stared at the angry cat, unseeing, biting back a sharp and proud retort as she realized the truth in Mogget’s words. There were Dead spirits waiting, and probably the Mordicant would cross as well—and she would have faced them alone and weaponless.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, bowing her head into two frosted hands. She hadn’t felt this stupidly awful since she’d burned one of the Headmistress’s rose bushes with an uncontrolled Charter-spell, narrowly missing the school’s ancient and much-loved gardener. She had cried then, but she was older now, and could keep the tears at bay.

“Father is not yet truly dead,” she said, after a moment. “I felt his presence, though he is trapped beyond many gates. I could bring him back.”

“You must not,” said Mogget firmly, and his voice now seemed to carry all the weight of centuries.

“You are Abhorsen, and must put the Dead to rest. Your path is chosen.”

“I can walk a different path,” Sabriel replied firmly, raising her head.

Mogget seemed about to protest again, then he laughed—a sardonic laugh—and jumped back to his stool.

“Do as you will,” he said. “Why should I gainsay you? I am but a slave, bound to service. Why would I weep if Abhorsen falls to evil? It is your father who would curse you, and your mother too—and the Dead who will be merry.”

“I don’t think he’s dead,” Sabriel said, bright blushes of withheld emotion in her pallid cheeks, frost melting, trickling down around her face.

“His spirit felt alive. He is trapped in Death, I think, but his body lives. Would I still be reviled if I brought him back then?”

“No,” said Mogget, calm again. “But he has sent the sword and bells. You are only wishing that he lives.”

“I feel it,” Sabriel said simply. “And I must find out if my feeling is true.”

“Perhaps it is so—though strange.” Mogget seemed to be musing to himself, his voice a soft half-purr. “I have grown dull. This collar strangles me, chokes my wits . . .”

“Help me, Mogget,” Sabriel suddenly pleaded, reaching over to touch her hand to the cat’s head, scratching under the collar. “I need to know—I need to know so much!”

Mogget purred under the scratching, but as Sabriel leaned close, she could hear the faint peal of the tiny Saraneth bell cut through the purr, and she was reminded that Mogget was no cat, but a Free Magic creature. For a moment, Sabriel wondered what Mogget’s true shape was, and his true nature.

“I am the servant of Abhorsen,” Mogget said at last. “And you are Abhorsen, so I must help you. But you must promise me that you will not raise your father, if his body is dead. Truly, he would not wish it.”

“I cannot promise. But I will not act without much thought. And I will listen to you, if you are by me.”

“I guessed as much,” Mogget said, twisting his head away from Sabriel’s hand. “It is true that you are sadly ignorant, or you would promise with a will. Your father should never have sent you beyond the Wall.”

“Why did he?” asked Sabriel, her heart suddenly leaping with the question that had been with her all her school days, a question Abhorsen had always smiled away with the one word, “Necessity.”

“He was afraid,” replied Mogget, turning his attention back to the fish. “You were safer in Ancelstierre.”

“What was he afraid of?”

“Eat your fish,” replied Mogget, as two sendings appeared from the kitchen, bearing what was obviously the next course. “We’ll talk later. In the study.”