Abhorsen Read Online Free

Some might say it would be safer to cross the stones and fight our way through the Dead.”
    “But not you?” asked Lirael. “You think there is an alternative?”
    Lirael was afraid of the Dead, but not so much that she could not face them if she had to. She was just not entirely confident in her newfound identity. Perhaps an Abhorsen like Sabriel, in the full flower of her years and power, could simply leap across the stepping-stones and put Chlorr, the Shadow Hands, and all the other Dead to rout. Lirael thought if she tried that herself, she would end up retreating back across the stones and quite likely fall into the river and be smashed to pieces in the waterfall.
    “I think we should investigate it,” pronounced the Dog. She stretched out, almost hitting Mogget again with her paws, then slowly stood up and yawned, revealing many extremely large, very white teeth. All of this, Lirael was sure, was to annoy Mogget.
    Mogget looked at the Dog through narrowed eyes.
    “Deep?” mewed the cat. “Does that mean what I think it does? We cannot go there!”
    “She is long gone,” replied the Dog. “Though I suppose something might linger. . . .”
    “She?” asked Lirael and Sameth together.
    “You know the well in the rose garden?” asked the Dog. Sameth nodded, while Lirael tried to remember if she’d seen a well as they’d crossed the island to the House. She did vaguely recall catching a glimpse of roses, many roses sprawled across trellises that rose up past the eastern side of the lawn closest to the House.
    “It is possible to climb down the well,” continued the Dog. “Though it is a long climb, and narrow. It will bring us to even deeper caves. There is a way through them to the base of the waterfall. Then we will have to climb back up the cliffs again, but I expect we will be able to do that farther west, bypassing Chlorr and her minions.”
    “The well is full of water,” said Sam. “We’ll drown!”
    “Are you sure?” asked the Dog. “Have you ever looked in it?”
    “Well, no,” said Sam. “It’s covered, I think. . . .”
    “Who is the ‘she’ you mentioned?” asked Lirael firmly. She knew very well from past experience when the Dog was avoiding an issue.
    “Someone once lived down there,” replied the Dog. “Someone who had considerable and dangerous powers. There might be some remnant of her there.”
    “What do you mean, ‘someone’?” asked Lirael sternly. “How could someone have lived deep underneath Abhorsen’s House?”
    “I refuse to go anywhere near that well,” interjected Mogget. “I suppose it was Kalliel who thought to dig into forbidden ground. What use to add our bones to his in some dark corner of the depths?”
    Lirael’s gaze flicked across to Sam for an instant, then back to Mogget. She regretted it instantly, for it showed her own doubts and fears. Now that she was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, she had to set an example. Sam had been open about his fear of Death and the Dead, and his desire to hide out here in the heavily protected House. But he had overcome his fear, at least for now. How could Sam continue to be brave if she didn’t set an example?
    Lirael was also his aunt. She didn’t feel like an aunt, but she supposed that it carried certain responsibilities towards a nephew, even one who was only a few years younger than herself.
    “Dog!” ordered Lirael. “Answer me plainly for once. Who . . . or what . . . is down there?”
    “Well, it’s difficult to put into words,” said the Dog. She shuffled her front paws again. “Particularly since there’s probably no one down there at all. If there is, I suppose that you would call her a leftover from the creation of the Charter, as am I, and so many others of varying stature. But if she is there, or some part of her, then it’s possible she is as she was, which is dangerous in a very . . . elemental . . . way, though it’s all so long ago and really I’m only telling you what