Charter Magi Clove.
It was like a st on the wind to the thing that lurked in the caves below the hill, some mile or more to the west of the broken Charter Stone.
It had been human once, or human-like at least, in the years it had lived uhe sun.
That humanity had been lost in the turies the thing spent in the chill waters of Death, ferociously holding its own against the current, demonstrating an incredible will to live again. A will it didn』t know it possessed before a badly cast hunting spear bounced from a rod clipped its throat, just enough for a last few minutes of frantic life.
By sheer effort of will, it had held itself on the life side of the Fate for three hundred years, growing in power, learning the ways of Death. It preyed on lesser spirits, and served or avoided greater ones. Always, the thing held on to life. Its ce finally came when a mighty spirit erupted from beyond the Seventh Gate, smashing through each of the Upper Gates in turn, till it went ravening into Life. Hundreds of the Dead had followed, and this particular spirit had joihe throng. There had been terrible fusion and a mighty enemy at the very border between Life ah, but, in the melee, it had mao sneak around the edges and squirm triumphantly into Life.
There were plenty of retly vacated bodies where it emerged, so the thing occupied one, animated it and ran away. Soon after, it found the caves it now inhabited. It even decided to give itself a hralk. A simple name, not too difficult for a partially deposed mouth to voice. A male hralk could not remember what its inal sex had been, those turies before, but its new body was male.
It was a o instill fear in the few small settlements that still existed in this area of The Borderlands, settlements Thralk preyed upon, capturing and ing the human life he o keep himself on the living side of Death.
Charter Magic flared on Clove again, and Thralk sehat it was strong and pure— but weakly cast. The strength of the magic scared him, but the lack of skill behind it was reassuring and strong magic meant a strong life. Thralk hat life, to shore up the body he used, to replenish the leakage of his spirit bato Death. Greed won over fear. The Dead thihe mouth of the cave and started climbing the hill, his lidless, rotting eyes fixed on the distant crest.
Sabriel saw her guide, first as a tall, pale light drifting over the swirling water towards her, and then, as it stopped several yards away, as a blurred, glowing, human shape, its arms outstretched in wele.
「Sabriel.」
The words were fuzzy and seemed to e from much farther away thahe shining figure stood, but Sabriel smiled as she felt the warmth in the greeting. Abhorsen had never explained who or what this luminous person was, but Sabriel thought she knew. She』d summohis advisor only once before—when she』d first menstruated.
There was minimal sex education at Wyverley College— all till you were fifteen. The irls』 stories about menstruation were many, varied and ofte to scare. None of Sabriel』s friends had reached puberty before her, so in fear and desperation she had entered Death. Her father had told her that the ohe paper boat summoned would answer any question and would protect her—and so it had. The glowing spirit answered all her questions and many more besides, till Sabriel was forced to return to Life.
「Hello, Mother,」 said Sabriel, sheathing her sword and carefully muffling Sarah with her