As for you, Private, if you mention a word of this to anyone, I'll feed you to the cat thing here. Understand?" "Yum," said Mogget. "Yes, sir!" mumbled the telephone operator, his hands shaking as he tried to smother the burning wreckage of his switchboard with a fire blanket.

I am Abhorsen..." He looked at the baby again and added, almost with a note of surprise, "Father of Sabriel

Hear, hear," said the Dog, raising her head. "It's always better to be doing, Prince. Besides, you don't smell like a coward, so you can't be one.

So are you saying that somebody went to all the trouble to make you a crypt a thousand years ago on the off chance that you might turn up one day, walk in, and have a convenient heart attack?

Choosers will be beggars if the begging's not their choosing.

Why, Yrael?” it said, as the last of the dark gave way to silver, and the shining sphere of metal sank slowly to the ground. “Why?” “Life,” said Yrael, who was more Mogget than it ever knew. “Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.

For everyone and everything, there is a time to die. Some do not know it, or would delay it, but its truth cannot be denied. Not when you look into the stars of the ninth gate.