It was little more than three miles from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen oher side of the Wall in Aierre, and not a cloud in sight. Here, there was a clouded su, and a steady rain had just begun to fall, ing faster thaents could be raised.
The midwife shrugged her cloak higher up against her ned bent over the woman again, raindrops spilling from her o the upturned face below. The midwife』s breath blew out in a cloud of white, but there was no answering billow of air from her patient.
The midwife sighed and slowly straightened up, that single movement telling the watchers everything they o know. The woman who had staggered into their forest camp was dead, only holding on to life long enough to pass it on to the baby at her side. But even as the midwife picked up the pathetically small form beside the dead woman, it shuddered within its ings, and was still.
「The child, too?」 asked one of the watchers, a man who wore the mark of the Charter freshdrawn in wood ash upon his brow. 「Then there shall be no need for baptism.」
His ha up to brush the mark from his forehead, then suddenly stopped, as a pale white hand gripped his and forced it down in a single, swift motion.
「Peace!」 said a calm voice. 「I wish you no harm.」
The white hand released its grip and the speaker stepped into the ring of firelight. The others watched him without wele, and the hands that had half sketched Charter marks, oo bs and hilts, did not relax.
The man strode towards the bodies and looked upoheuro face the watchers, pushing his hood back to reveal the face of someone who had taken paths far from sunlight, for his skin was a deathly white.
「I am called Abhorsen,」 he said, and his words sent ripples through the people about him, as if he had cast a large ay stoo a pool of stagnant water. 「And there will be a baptism tonight.」
The Charter Mage looked down on the bundle in the midwife』s hands, and said: 「The child is dead, Abhorsen. We are travelers, our life lived uhe sky, and it is often harsh. We know death, lord.」
「Not as I do,」 replied Abhorsen, smiling so his paper-white face kled at the ers and drew back from his equally white teeth. 「And I say the child is not yet dead.」
The man tried to meet Abhorsen』s gaze, but faltered and looked away at his fellows. None moved, or made any sign, till a woman said, 「So.
It is easily done. Sign the child, Arrenil. We will make a ne at Leovi』s Ford. Join us when you are finished here.」
The Charter Mage ined his head in assent, and the others drifted away to pack up their halfmade camp, slow with the reluce of having to move, but filled with a greater reluain near Abhorsen, for his name was one of secrets, and unspoken fears.
When the midwife went to lay the child down and leave, Abhorsen spoke: 「Wait. You will be needed.」
The midwife looked down on the baby, and saw that it was a girl child and, save for its stillness, could be merely sleeping. She had heard of Abhorsen, and if the girl could live . . . warily she picked up the child again and held her out to the Charter Mage.
「If the Charter does not—」 began the man, but Abhorsen held up a pallid hand and interrupted.
「Let us see what the Charter wills.」
The man looked at the child again and sighed.
Theook a small bottle from his poud held it aloft, g out a t that was the beginning of a Charter; ohat listed a