The Creature in the Case: An Old Kingdom Novella

DEDICATION

To Anna, Thomas, and Edward,

and all my family and friends

CONTENTS

Dedication

Introduction to The Creature in the Case

The Creature in the Case

An Excerpt from Goldenhand

Prologue

Chapter One: An Unlikely Messenger at the Gate

Chapter Two: Two Hawks Bring Messages

Back Ads

About the Author

Books by Garth Nix

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION TO

THE CREATURE IN THE CASE

I have explored Ancelstierre and the Old Kingdom a little in my novels Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, and in the process I have found out (for that’s often what it feels like, even though I’m the one making it up) quite a lot about these lands, the people and creatures that inhabit them, and their stories.

But there is much, much more that I don’t know about, and will never know about unless I need it for a story. Unlike many fantasy writers, I don’t spend a lot of time working out and recording tons of background detail about the worlds that I make up. What I do is write the story, pausing every now and then to puzzle out the details or information that I need to know to make the story work. Some of that background material will end up in the story, though it might be veiled, mysterious, or tangential. Much more will sit in my head or roughly jotted down in my notebooks, until I need it next time or until I connect it with something else.

Every time I reenter the world of the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre, I find myself stitching together leftover bits and pieces that I already knew about, as well as inventing some more that seem to go with what is already there.

The Creature in the Case was particularly interesting for me to write, because in it I connect various bits and pieces of information about Ancelstierre, rather than the Old Kingdom. As always, the story is the most important thing to me, but this novella also gives a glimpse of the people, customs, government, technology, and landscape of Ancelstierre.

Like nearly everything I write, this is a fantasy adventure story, this time with a dash of country-house mystery, a twist of 1920s-style espionage, and a humorous little umbrella on the side that may be safely ignored by those who don’t like it (or don’t get it). Some readers may detect the influence of some of the authors outside the fantasy genre (as it is usually defined today) whom I admire, including Dorothy Sayers and P. G. Wodehouse.

Planned to be a longish short story, The Creature in the Case grew and grew till it became a novella and ended up taking many more months to write than I had anticipated. It started with these notes:

Nicholas and Uncle to country house

Full of debs and stupid young men

Thing in the Case, eyes follow Nick

Autumn haymaking

thing gets some of Nick’s blood?

refuge in river, thing closes sluice

hay fires in a circle

it is powerful, but poisoned

how far are we from the Wall?

That was the kernel, from which a novella grew over about ten months. I don’t know why I wrote it rather than something else. It wasn’t sold to a publisher, I didn’t have a deadline for it, and I had plenty of other things to do. But only a week or so after writing those notes, I sat down and wrote the first three or four pages in one sitting. I kept coming back to it thereafter, caught up (as I often am as both writer and reader) simply by the desire to see what happened next.

THE CREATURE IN THE CASE

"I am going back to the Old Kingdom, Uncle, said Nicholas Sayre. Whatever Father may have told you. So there is no point in your trying to fix me up with a suitable Sayre job or a suitable Sayre marriage. I am coming with you to what will undoubtedly be a horrendous house party only because it will get me a few hundred miles closer to the Wall."

Nicholas’s uncle Edward, more generally known as The Most Honorable Edward Sayre, Chief Minister of Ancelstierre, shut the red-bound letter book he was reading with more emphasis than he intended, as their heavily armored car lurched over a hump in the road. The sudden clap of the book made the bodyguard in front look around, but the driver kept his eyes on the narrow country lane.

Have I said anything about a job or a marriage? Edward enquired, gazing down his long, patrician nose at his nineteen-year-old nephew. Besides, you won’t even get within a mile of the Perimeter without a pass signed by me, let alone across the Wall.

I could get a pass from Lewis, said Nicholas moodily, referring to the newly anointed Hereditary Arbiter. The previous Arbiter, Lewis’s grandfather, had died of a heart attack during Corolini’s attempted coup d’état half a year before.

No, you couldn’t, and you know it, said Edward. Lewis has more sense than to involve himself in any aspect of government other than the ceremonial.

Then I’ll have to cross over without a pass, declared Nicholas angrily, not even trying to hide the frustration that had built up in him over the past six months, during which he’d been forced to stay in Ancelstierre. Most of that time spent wishing he’d left with Lirael and Sam in the immediate aftermath of the Destroyer’s defeat, instead of deciding to recuperate in Ancelstierre. It had been weakness and fear that had driven his decision, combined with a desire to put the terrible past behind him. But he now knew that was impossible. He could not ignore the legacy of his involvement with Hedge and the Destroyer, nor his return to Life at the hands—or paws—of the Disreputable Dog. He had become someone else, and he could only find out who that was in the Old Kingdom.

You would almost certainly be shot if you try to cross illegally, said Edward. "A fate you would richly deserve. Particularly since you are not giving me the opportunity to help you. I do not know why you or anyone else would want to go to the Old Kingdom—my year on the Perimeter as General Hort’s ADC certainly taught me the place is best avoided. Nor do I wish to annoy your father and hurt your mother, but there are certain circumstances in which I might grant you permission to cross the Perimeter."

What! Really?

Yes, really. Have I ever taken you or any other of my nephews or nieces to a house party before?

Not that I know—

Do I usually make a habit of attending parties given by someone like Alastor Dorrance in the middle of nowhere?

I suppose not. . . .

Then you might exercise your intelligence to wonder why you are here with me now.

Gatehouse ahead, sir, interrupted the bodyguard as the car rounded a sweeping corner and slowed down. Recognition signal is correct.

Edward and Nicholas leaned forward to look through the open partition and the windscreen beyond. A few hundred yards in front, a squat stone gatehouse lurked just off the road, with its two wooden gates swung back. Two slate gray Heddon-Hare roadsters were parked, one on either side of the gate, with several mackintosh-clad, weapon-toting men standing around them. One of the men waved a yellow flag in a series of complicated movements that Edward clearly understood and Nicholas presumed meant all was well.

Proceed! snapped the Chief Minister. Their car slowed more, the driver shifting down through the gears with practiced double-clutching. The mackintosh-clad men saluted as the car swung off the road and through the gate, dropping their salute as the rest of the motorcade followed. Six motorcycle policemen were immediately behind, then another two cars identical to the one that carried Nicholas and his uncle, then another half dozen police motorcyclists, and finally four trucks that were carrying a company of fully armed soldiery. Corolini’s attempted putsch had failed, and there had surprisingly been no further trouble from the Our Country Party since, but the government continued to be nervous about the safety of the nation’s Chief Minister.

So, what is going on? asked Nicholas. Why are you here? And why am I here? Is there something you want me to do?

At last, a glimmer of thought. Have you ever wondered what Alastor Dorrance actually does, other than come to Corvere three or four times a year and exercise his eccentricities in public?

Isn’t that enough? asked Nick with a shudder. He remembered the newspaper stories from the last time Dorrance had been in the city, only a few weeks before. He’d hosted a picnic on Holyoak Hill for every apprentice in Corvere and supplied them with fatty roast beef, copious amounts of beer, and a particularly cheap and nasty red wine, with predictable results.

Dorrance’s eccentricities are all show, said Edward. Misdirection. He is in fact the head of Department Thirteen. Dorrance Hall is the Department’s main research facility.

But Department Thirteen is just a made-up thing, for the moving pictures. It doesn’t really exist . . . um . . . does it?

Officially, no. In actuality, yes. Every state has need of spies. Department Thirteen trains and manages ours, and carries out various tasks ill suited to the more regular branches of government. It is watched over quite carefully, I assure you.

But what has that got to do with me?

Department Thirteen observes all our neighbors very successfully, and has detailed files on everyone and everything important within those countries. With one notable exception. The Old Kingdom.

I’m not going to spy on my friends!

Edward sighed and looked out the window. 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