"Yes," agreed the dog. "I'm the Disreputable Dog, Nicholas."
"Pleased to meet you," said Nick formally. The Dog offered a paw, and Nicholas shook it. "Do you happen to know where we are? I thought I-"
"Died," replied the Dog cheerily. "You did. This is Death."
"Ah," replied Nick. Once he might have wanted to argue about that. Now he had a different perspective, and other things to think about. "Do you ... did they ... the hemispheres?"
"Orannis has been bound anew," announced the Dog. "It is once again imprisoned in the hemispheres. In due course, they will be transported back to the Old Kingdom and buried deep beneath stone and spell."
Relief crossed Nick's face and smoothed out the lines of worry around his eyes and mouth. He knelt down beside the Dog to hug her, feeling the warmth of her skin in sharp contrast to the chill of the river. The bright collar around her neck was nice, too. It gave him a warm feeling in his chest.
"Sam and ... and Lirael?" asked Nick hopefully, his head still bowed, close to the Dog's ear.
"They live," replied the Dog. "Though not without scathe. My mistress lost her hand. Prince Sameth will make her one, of course, of shining gold and clever magic. Lirael Goldenhand, she'll be forever after. Remembrancer and Abhorsen, and much else besides. But there are other hurts, which require different remedies. She is very young. Stand up, Nicholas."
Nicholas stood. He wavered a little as the current tried to trip him and take him under.
"I gave you a late baptism to preserve your spirit," said the Dog. "You bear the Charter mark on your forehead now, to balance the Free Magic that lingers in your blood and bone. You will find Charter mark and Free Magic both boon and burden, for they will take you far from Ancelstierre, and the path you will walk will not be the one you have long thought to see ahead."
"What do you mean?" asked Nick in bewilderment. He touched the mark on his forehead and blinked as it flared with sudden light. The Dog's collar shone too, with many other bright marks that surrounded her head with a corona of golden light. "What do you mean, far from Ancelstierre? How can I go anywhere? I'm dead, aren't-"
"I'm sending you back," said the Dog gently, nudging Nick's leg with her snout, so he turned to face towards Life. Then she barked, a single sharp sound that was both a welcome and a farewell.
"Is this allowed?" asked Nick as he felt the current reluctantly release him, and he took the first step back.
"No," said the Dog. "But then I am the Disreputable Disreputable Dog." Dog."
Nick took another step, and he smiled as he felt the warmth of Life, and the smile became a laugh, a laugh that welcomed everything, even the pain that waited in his body.
In Life, his waking eyes looked up, and he saw the sun breaking through a low, dark cloud, and its warmth and light fell on a diamond-shaped patch of earth where he lay, safe amidst ruin and destruction. Nick sat up and saw soldiers approaching, picking their way across an ashen desert. Southerlings followed the soldiers, their just-scrubbed hats and scarves bright blue, the only color in the wasteland.
A white cat suddenly appeared next to Nicholas's feet. He sniffed in disgust and said, "I might have known"; then he looked past Nick at something that wasn't there and winked, before trotting off in a northerly direction.
The cat was followed a little later by the weary footsteps of six people, who were supporting the seventh. Nick managed to stand and wave, and in the space of that tiny movement and its startled response, he had time to wonder what all the future held, and think that it would be much brighter than the past.
The Disreputable Dog sat with her head cocked to one side for several minutes, her wise old eyes seeing much more than the river, her sharp ears hearing more than just the gurgle of the current. After a while a small, enormously satisfied rumble sounded from deep in her chest. She got up, grew her legs longer to get her body out of the water, and shook herself dry. Then she wandered off, following a zigzag path along the border between Life and Death, her tail wagging so hard, the tip of it beat the river into a froth behind her.
About the Author.
GARTH NIX was born in 1963 in Melbourne, Australia, to the sound of the Salvation Army band outside playing "Hail the Conquering Hero Comes" or possibly "Roll Out the Barrel." Garth left Melbourne at an early age for Canberra (the federal capital) and stayed there till he was nineteen, when he left to drive around the UK in a beat-up Austin with a trunk full of books and a Silver Reed typewriter.
Despite a wheel literally falling off the Austin, Garth survived to return to Australia and study at the University of Canberra. After finishing his degree in 1986, he worked in a bookshop, then as a book publicist, a publisher's sales representative, and an editor. Along the way he was also a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve, serving in an Assault Pioneer platoon for four years. Garth left publishing to work as a public-relations and marketing consultant from 1994 to 1997, till he became a full-time writer in 1998. He did that for a year before becoming a part-time literary agent in 1999. In January 2002 Garth went back to writing full time again, despite his belief that full-time writing explains the strange behavior of many authors.
Garth currently lives in a beach suburb of Sydney with his wife, Anna, a publisher, and their son, Thomas.