Sabriel (The Abhorsen Trilogy) 精彩片段：
chapter xxii
Sabriel reached the Third Gate just ahead of the wave, gabbling a Free Magic spell as she ran, feeling it fume up and out of her mouth, filling her nostrils with acrid fumes.
The spell parted the mists, and Sabriel stepped within, the wave breaking harmlessly around her, dumping its cargo of Dead down into the waterfall beyond. Sabriel waited a moment more, for the path to appear, then passed on— on to the Fourth Precinct.
This was a relatively easy area to traverse. The current was strong again, but predictable. There were few Dead, because most were stunned and rushed through by the Third Precinct’s wave.
Sabriel walked quickly, using the strength of her will to suppress the leeching cold and the plucking hands of the current. She could feel her father’s spirit now, close by, as if he were in one room of a large house, and she in another— tracking him down by the slight sounds of habitation.
He was either here in the Fourth Precinct, or past the Fourth Gate, in the Fifth Precinct.
She increased her pace a little again, eager to find him, talk with him, free him. She knew everything would be all right once Father was freed . . .
But he wasn’t in the Fourth Precinct. Sabriel reached the Fourth Gate without feeling any intensification of his presence. This gate was another waterfall, of sorts, but it wasn’t cloaked in mist. It looked like the easy drop of water from a small weir, a matter of only two or three feet down. But Sabriel knew that if you approached the edge there was more than enough force to drag the strongest spirit down.
She halted well back, and was about to launch into the spell that would conjure her path, when a niggling sensation at the back of her head made her stop and look around.
The waterfall stretched as far as she could see to either side, and Sabriel knew that if she was foolish enough to try and walk its length, it would be an unending journey. Perhaps it eventually looped back on itself, but as there were no landmarks, stars or anything else to fix one’s position, you’d never know. No one ever walked the breadth of an inner precinct or gate.
What would be the point? Everyone went into Death or out of it. Not sideways, save at the border with Life, where walking along altered where you came out—but that was only useful for spirit-forms, or rare beings like the Mordicant, who took their physical shape with them.
Nevertheless, Sabriel felt an urge to walk along next to the Gate, to turn on her heel and follow the line of the waterfall. It was an unidentifiable urge, and that made her uneasy. There were other things in Death than the Dead—inexplicable beings of Free Magic, strange constructs and incomprehensible forces. This urge—this calling— might come from one of them.
She hesitated, thinking about it, then pushed out into the water, heading out parallel to the waterfall. It might be some Free Magic summoning, or it might be some connection with her father’s spirit.
“They’re coming down the east and west stairs, too,” said Mogget. “More Hands.”
“What about the south—where we came in?”