Garth Nix - Terciel and Elinor

T HE O LD K INGDOM SERIES

(in reading order)

Terciel and Elinor

Sabriel

Lirael

Abhorsen

Goldenhand

Clariel (prequel)

Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories

To Hold the Bridge: Tales from the Old Kingdom and Beyond

Newts Emerald

For younger readers:

T HE K EYS TO THE K INGDOM SERIES

Frogkisser!

Have Sword, Will Travel

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

To my wife, Anna, my sons, Thomas and Edward, and our dog, Snufkin; and to all my family and friends. Also to the many readers who have found the Old Kingdom over the years and keep coming back to visit.

CONTENTS

T he fig tree was ancient and huge, its lower trunk buttressed by enormous roots that rose out of the lawn around it like the fins of some vast subterranean creature, while its upper branches topped out at two hundred feet, a full hundred feet higher than even the red-roofed tower of the Abhorsens House nearby.

A boy, perhaps eight years old, brown-skinned, dark-haired, thin in the face and everywhere else from lack of food, was climbing swiftly up through the branches of the fig with fierce determination. He was wearing ragged, many-times-repaired breeches and a new linen shirt, far too large for him, that had been cinched in the middle with a silk scarf, also new, to make a kind of tunic, and his bare feet were extremely dirty.

It was very quiet in and around the tree, but the boy climbed in a frenzy, as if he were pursued. Several times he almost lost his grip or footing, but he didnt slow or falter. Finally, as he neared the top and the branches became slimmer and began to bend and creak, he slowed down. Soon after, reaching a point some twenty or thirty paces short of the crown, he stopped and straddled a horizontal branch, setting his thin shoulders against the gnarled trunk of the mighty tree.

He couldnt see much from his vantage point. The leaves were too thick around him. But there were a few spots where the foliage thinned. Through these gaps he could catch a glimpse of the red-roofed tower house below and the white limestone walls that surrounded the island it was built on, an island in the middle of a broad, fast-rushing river that only a few hundred yards to the south plunged over a massive waterfall.

The boy stared at the mist rising along the line of the cliffs, marvelling again at the quiet, the roar of the falls held back from the island by magic, or so he supposed. It had been noisy enough on the riverbank, and almost deafening when the old woman had jumped across the stepping-stones with him on her back, the boy gripping her so hard around the neck shed told him crossly to stop choking her or they would both die.

The old woman. Shed said she was his great-aunt, but he didnt think that could be true. Shed repeated this claim to the beadle at the workhouse in Grynhold, and the mayor, so they would let him go, but they wouldnt have stopped her anyway. They were all bowing and begging her pardon and asking if she wanted wine or oysters or cake or anything at all the town might give her.

But all she had wanted was him, and they had been happy to hand him over. No one had asked what he wanted.

There was a rustle higher above, and a crunching, snapping sound. For a moment the boy thought it was a branch breaking, but the sound went on too long. A continuous crunching noise. He stood up and parted the branches immediately above him. All the boy saw was glaring green, elongated eyes and a broad open mouth full of very sharp white teeth.

He flinched, lost his footing, and almost fell, but sacrificing skin, he managed to keep his grip on the higher branches. He swung there for a heart-stopping second before he scrabbled his feet back onto a thicker, lower branch.

Branches creaked above, as if suddenly bearing more weight, and the foliage moved so Terciel got a proper look at what was above him. He was surprised to see it was a man, or sort of a man, because his first, half-seen impression was of something smaller. That said, this man was no taller than Terciel, albeit much broader across the shoulders. He had an odd pinkish nose, and there was that hideous, many-toothed mouth and the huge emerald eyes. Adding to his strangeness, his skin was entirely covered in fine, very white fur or down, which grew longer on his head and chin to give the appearance of hair and a beard. He had been eating fig-bird chicks out of a nest, crunching their tiny bones. There was a feather in the corner of his mouth and a single drop of blood on his broad white chest.

A red leather collar was fastened tight around his neck, a collar that swarmed with Charter marks to make some sort of spell, and a tiny silver bell hung from the collar. The boy could see the clapper swing inside, but it made no sound, at least not one that he could hear.

So, said whatever this thing was, spitting out the feather. His voice was that of a grown man, and sardonic. Youre her new one.

The boy crouched lower on the branch, ready to drop down to the next branch below, to climb down as fast as or even faster than he had climbed up.

Dont fret, said the creature. Youre safe enough from me.

What are you? asked the boy nervously. He had one foot on the branch below, but he stayed where he was. For the moment. I mean who? Sir.

Many things once, said the stranger, yawning. His teeth were even longer and sharper than they had seemed at first, and there were more of them. I am a servant of the Abhorsens. Or to be more accurate, a slave. I have had many names. Your mistress calls me Moregrim.

The Abhorsen. Her, down there, said the boy, frowning. He gestured at the house. Shed taken him inside as soon as they arrived and handed him over to two strange magical servants she called sendings. They were like daytime ghosts, their skin and eyes and hair and everything all Charter marks, uncountable tiny marks in different colours, swarming and crawling about to create the illusion of living people. The sendings had tried to give him a bath, but hed managed to escape and climb the tree.

Yes indeed, replied the dwarf, his green eyes sparkling with mischief. Her down there is the current Abhorsen, and you, I presume, are her latest Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Terciel, thats your name, isnt it?

How do you know that?

I listen at doors, said Moregrim blithely. And windows. Both the real and the metaphorical.

Terciel frowned again, not understanding what the strange creature was talking about.

Tell me, said the dwarf idly, not even looking at the boy, have you wielded the bells yet? Touched the handles? Worn the bandolier at least?