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

“Then I’ll have to cross over without a pass,” declared Nicholas angrily, not even trying to hide the frustration that had built up in him over the past six months, during which he’d been forced to stay in Ancelstierre. Most of that time spent wishing he’d left with Lirael and Sam in the immediate aftermath of the Destroyer’s defeat, instead of deciding to recuperate in Ancelstierre. It had been weakness and fear that had driven his decision, combined with a desire to put the terrible past behind him. But he now knew that was impossible. He could not ignore the legacy of his involvement with Hedge and the Destroyer, nor his return to Life at the hands—or paws—of the Disreputable Dog. He had become someone else and he could only find out who that was in the Old Kingdom.

“You would almost certainly be shot if you try to cross illegally,” said Edward. “A fate you would richly deserve. Particularly since you are not giving me the opportunity to help you. I do not know why you or anyone else would want to go to the Old Kingdom—my year on the Perimeter as General Hort’s ADC certainly taught me the place is best avoided. Nor do I wish to annoy your father and hurt your mother, but there are certain circumstances in which I might grant you permission to cross the Perimeter.”

“What! Really?”

“Yes, really. Have I ever taken you or any other of my nephews or nieces to a house party before?”

“Not that I know—”

“Do I usually make a habit of attending parties given by someone like Alastor Dorrance in the middle of nowhere?”

“I suppose not…”

“Then you might exercise your intelligence to wonder why you are here with me now.”

“Gatehouse ahead, sir,” interrupted the bodyguard as the car rounded a sweeping corner and slowed down. “Recognition signal is correct.”

Edward and Nicholas leaned forward to look through the open partition and the windscreen beyond. A few hundred yards in front, a squat stone gatehouse lurked just off the road with its two wooden gates swung back. Two slate-grey Heddon-Hare roadsters were parked, one on either side of the gate, with several mackintosh-clad, weapon-toting men standing around them. One of the men waved a yellow flag in a series of complicated movements that Edward clearly understood and Nicholas presumed meant all was well.

“Proceed!” snapped the Chief Minister. Their car slowed more, the driver shifting down through the gears with practised double-clutching. The mackintosh-clad men saluted as the car swung off the road and through the gate, dropping their salute as the rest of the motorcade followed. Six motorcycle policemen were immediately behind, then another two cars identical to the one that carried Nicholas and his uncle, then another half dozen police motorcyclists, and finally four trucks that were carrying a company of fully armed soldiery. Corolini’s attempted putsch had failed and there had surprisingly been no further trouble from the Our Country Party since, but the government continued to be nervous about the safety of the nation’s Chief Minister.

“So, what is going on?” asked Nicholas. “Why are you here? And why am I here? Is there something you want me to do?”

“At last, a glimmer of thought. Have you ever wondered what Alastor Dorrance actually does, other than come to Corvere three or four times a year and exercise his eccentricities in public?”

“Isn’t that enough?” asked Nick with a shudder. He remembered the newspaper stories from the last time Dorrance had been in the city, only a few weeks before. He’d hosted a picnic on Holyoak Hill for every apprentice in Corvere and supplied them with fatty roast beef, copious amounts of beer, and a particularly cheap and nasty red wine, with predictable results.

“Dorrance’s eccentricities are all show,” said Edward. “Misdirection. He is in fact the head of Department Thirteen. Dorrance Hall is the Department’s main research facility.”

“But Department Thirteen is just a made-up thing, for the moving pictures. It doesn’t really exist…um…does it?”

“Officially, no. In actuality, yes. Every state has need of spies. Department Thirteen trains and manages ours, and carries out various tasks ill suited to the more regular branches of government. It is watched over quite carefully, I assure you.”

“But what has that got to do with me?”

“Department Thirteen observes all our neighbours very successfully, and has detailed files on everyone and everything important within those countries. With one notable exception. The Old Kingdom.”

“I’m not going to spy on my friends!”

Edward sighed and looked out the window. The drive beyond the gatehouse curved through freshly mown fields, the hay already gathered into hillocks ready to be pitchforked into carts and taken to the stacks. Past the fields, the chimneys of a large country house peered above the fringe of old oaks that lined the drive.

“I’m not going to be a spy, Uncle,” repeated Nicholas.

“I haven’t asked you to be one,” said Edward as he looked back at his nephew. Nicholas’s face had paled and he was clutching his chest. Whatever had happened to him in the Old Kingdom had left him in a very run-down state and he was still recovering. Though the Ancelstierran doctors had found no external signs of significant injury, his X-rays had come out strangely fogged and all the medical reports said Nick was in the same sort of shape as a man who had suffered serious wounds in battle.

“All I want you to do is to spend the weekend here with some of the Department’s technical people,” continued Edward. “Answer their questions about your experiences in the Old Kingdom, that sort of thing. I doubt anything will come of it and, as you know, I strictly adhere to the wisdom of my predecessors, which is to leave the place alone. But that said, they haven’t exactly left us alone over the past twenty years. Dorrance has always had a bit of a bee in his bonnet about the Old Kingdom, greatly exacerbated by the…mmm…event at Forwin Mill. It is possible that he might discover something useful from talking to you. So if you answer his questions, you shall have your Perimeter pass on Monday morning. If you’re still set on going, that is.”

“I’ll cross the Wall,” said Nick forcefully. “One way or another.”

“Then I suggest it be my way. You know, your father wanted to be a painter when he was your age. He had talent too, according to old Menree. But our parents wouldn’t hear of it. A grave error, I think. Not that he hasn’t been a useful politician and a great help to me. But his heart is elsewhere and it is not possible to achieve greatness without a whole heart.”

“So all I have to do is answer questions?”

Edward sighed the sigh of an older and wiser man talking to a younger, inattentive and impatient relative.

“Well, you will have to appear a little bit at the party. Dinner and so forth. Croquet perhaps, or a row on the lake. Misdirection, as I said.”

Nicholas took Edward’s hand and shook it firmly.

“You are a splendid uncle, Uncle.”

“Good. I’m glad that’s settled,” said Edward. He glanced out the window. They were past the oak trees now, gravel crunching beneath the wheels as the car rolled up the drive to the front steps of the six-columned entrance. “We’ll drop you off, then and I’ll see you Monday.”

“Aren’t you staying here? For the house party?”

“Don’t be silly! I can’t abide house parties of any kind. I’m staying at the Golden Sheaf. Excellent hotel, not too far away. I often go there to get through some serious confidential reading. Place has got its own golf course too. Thought I might go round tomorrow. Enjoy yourself!”

Nicholas hardly caught the last two words as his door was flung open and he was assisted out by Edward’s personal bodyguard. He blinked in the afternoon sunlight, no longer filtered through the smoked glass of the car’s windows. A few seconds later, his bags were deposited at his feet; then the Chief Minister’s cavalcade started up again and rolled out the drive as quickly as it had arrived, the Army trucks leaving considerable ruts in the gravel.

“Mr Sayre?”

Nicholas looked around. A top-hatted footman was picking up his bags, but it was another man who had spoken. A balding, burly individual in a dark blue suit, his hair cut so short it was practically a monkish tonsure. Everything about him said policeman, either active or recently retired.

“Yes, I’m Nicholas Sayre.”

“Welcome to Dorrance Hall, sir. My name is Hedge—”

Nicholas recoiled from the offered hand and nearly fell over the footman. Even as he regained his balance, he realised that the man had said Hodge and then followed it up with a second syllable.

Hodgeman. Not Hedge.

Hedge the necromancer was finally, completely and utterly dead. Lirael and the Disreputable Dog had defeated him and Hedge had gone beyond the Ninth Gate. He couldn’t come back. Nick knew he was safe from him, but that knowledge was purely intellectual. Deep inside him, the name of Hedge was linked irrevocably with an almost primal fear.

“Sorry,” gasped Nick. He straightened up and shook the man’s hand. “Ankle gave way on me. You were saying?”

“Hodgeman is my name. I am an assistant to Mr Dorrance. The other guests do not arrive till later, so Mr Dorrance thought you might like a tour of the grounds.”

“Um, certainly,” replied Nick. He fought back a sudden urge to look around to see who might be listening and, as he started up the steps, resisted the temptation to slink from shadow to shadow just like a spy in a moving picture.

“The house was originally built in the time of the last Trouin-Durville Pretender, about four hundred years ago, but little of the original structure remains. Most of the current house was built by Mr Dorrance’s grandfather. The best feature is the library, which was the great hall of the old house. Shall we start there?”

“Thank you,” replied Nicholas. Mr Hodgeman’s turn as a tour guide was quite convincing. Nicholas wondered if the man had to do it often for casual visitors, as part of what Uncle Edward would call “misdirection”.

The library was very impressive. Hodgeman closed the double doors behind them as Nick stared up at the high dome of the ceiling, which was painted to create the illusion of a storm at sea. It was quite disconcerting to look up at the waves and the tossing ships and the low scudding clouds. Below the dome, every wall was covered by tiers of shelves stretching up twenty or even twenty-five feet from the floor. Ladders ran on rails around the library, but no one was using them. The library was silent; two crescent-shaped couches in the centre were empty. The windows were heavily curtained with velvet drapes, but the gas lanterns above the shelves burned very brightly. The place looked like there should be people reading in it, or sorting books, or something. It did not have the dark, dusty air of a disused library.

“This way, sir,” said Hodgeman. He crossed to one of the shelves and reached up above his head to pull out an unobtrusive, dun-coloured tome, adorned only with the Dorrance coat of arms, a chain argent issuant from a chevron argent upon a field azure.

The book slid out halfway, then came no further.