Across The Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories. Garth Nix
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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.
Hodgeman looked up at it. Nick looked too.
“Is something supposed to happen?”
“It gets a bit stuck sometimes,” replied Hodgeman. He tugged on the book again. This time it came completely out. Hodgeman opened it, took a key from its hollowed-out pages, pushed two books apart on the shelf below to reveal a keyhole, inserted the key and turned it. There was a soft click, but nothing more dramatic. Hodgeman put the key back in the book and returned the volume to the shelf.
“Now, if you wouldn’t mind stepping this way,” Hodgeman said, leading Nick back to the centre of the library. The couches had moved aside on silent gears and two steel-encased segments of the floor had slid open, revealing a circular stone staircase leading down. Unlike the library’s brilliant white gaslights, it was lit by dull electric bulbs.
“This is all rather cloak-and-dagger,” remarked Nick as he headed down the steps with Hodgeman close behind him.
Hodgeman didn’t answer, but Nick was sure a disapproving glance had fallen on his back. The steps went down quite a long way, equivalent to at least three or four floors. They ended in front of a steel door with a covered spy hole. Hodgeman pressed a tarnished bronze bell button next to the door and a few seconds later the spy hole slid open.
“Sergeant Hodgeman with Mr Nicholas Sayre,” said Hodgeman.
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