She had not often heard her father read aloud, but she remembered exactly how Mo gave every word the right sound, every single word…
It was quiet in the room, very quiet. The whole Inkworld – every fairy, every tree, even the sea – seemed to be waiting for her voice. "Night after night," Meggie began, "the Adderhead could get no rest. His wife slept soundly and deeply. She was his fifth wife, and younger than his three eldest daughters. Her body, pregnant with his child, was a mound under the bedclothes. It must be a boy this time; she had already borne him two daughters. If this child was another girl he would disown her, just as he had repudiated his other wives. He would send her back to her father or to some lonely castle in the mountains.
Why could she sleep, although she feared him, while he paced up and down the magnificent bedchamber like an old dancing bear in its cage?
Because he alone felt the truly great fear. The fear of Death.
Death waited outside the windows, outside the glass panes paid for by selling his strongest peasants. Death pressed its ugly face against them as soon as darkness swallowed up his castle like a snake swallowing a mouse. He had more torches lit every night, more candles, yet still the fear came – to make him shake and fall on his knees because they trembled so much, to show him his future: the flesh falling from his bones, the worms eating him, the White Women leading him away. The Adderhead pressed his hands to his mouth so that the guards outside the door would not hear him sobbing. Fear. Fear of the end of all his days, fear of the void, fear, fear, fear. Fear that Death was already in his body somewhere, invisible, growing and flourishing and eating him away – the one enemy he could never defeat, never burn or stab or hang, the one enemy from whom there was no escaping.
One night, blacker and more endless than any that had gone before, the fear was particularly terrible, and he had them all woken, as he quite often did, all who were sleeping peacefully in their beds instead of trembling and sweating like him: his wife, the useless physicians, the petitioners, scribes, administrators, his herald, the silver-nosed minstrel. He had the cooks driven into the kitchen to prepare him a banquet, but as he was sitting at his table, his fingers dripping with fat from the freshly roasted meat, a girl came to the Castle of Night. She walked fearlessly past the guards and offered him a deal: a bargain with Death.
That was how it would be. Because she was reading it. How the words made their way out through Meggie's lips. As if they were weaving the future. Every sound, every character a thread… Meggie forgot everything around her: the infirmary, the straw mattress she was sitting on, even Farid and his unhappy face as he watched her go. She went on spinning Fenoglio's story; that was why she was here, spinning it out of threads of sound with her breath and her voice – to save her father and her mother. And this whole strange world that had enchanted her.
When Meggie heard the agitated voices she thought at first that they were coming out of the words, but they grew louder and louder. Reluctantly, she raised her head. She hadn't read it all yet. There were still a few sentences waiting, waiting for her to teach them to breathe. Look at the words on the page, Meggie, she told herself. Concentrate!
She gave a start when a dull knocking resounded through the infirmary. The voices grew louder, she heard hasty footsteps, and Roxane appeared in the doorway. "They've come from the Castle of Night!" she whispered. "They have a picture of you, a strange picture. Quick, come with me!"
Meggie tried to put the parchment in her sleeve until she could read those last few sentences, but then thought better of it and pushed it down the neck of her dress. She hoped it would not show under the firm fabric. She could still taste the words on her tongue, she still saw herself standing before the Adderhead just as she had read it, but Roxane reached for her hand and pulled her along. A woman's voice came down the colonnade, Bella's voice, and then the voice of a man, loud and commanding. Roxane did not let Meggie's hand go but led her on, past the doors behind which the patients slept or else lay awake listening to their own heavy breathing.
The Barn Owl's room was empty. Roxane took Meggie in with her, bolted the door, and looked around. The window was barred, and the steps were coming closer. Meggie thought she heard the Barn Owl's voice, and another voice, rough and threatening. Then, suddenly, there was silence. They had stopped outside the door. Roxane put her arm around Meggie's shoulders.
"They're going to take you with them!" she whispered as the Barn Owl talked to the intruders on the other side of the door. "We'll send word to the Black Prince. He has spies in the castle. We'll try to help you, understand?"
Meggie just nodded.
Someone was hammering on the door. "Open up, little witch, or do we have to come and get you?"
Books, books everywhere. Meggie retreated among the stacks of volumes. There wasn't a single book here she could have gone to for help, even if she'd wanted to. The knowledge in them could give her no aid. She'd have needed a story for that, but she remembered looking for a suitable story in vain in Capricorn's house. She glanced at Roxane in search of help – and saw the same helplessness on Roxane's face, too.
What would happen if they took her away with them? So many sentences were still unread. Meggie tried desperately to remember just where she had been interrupted…
More hammering on the door. The wood groaned; it would soon splinter and break. Meggie went to the door, pushed back the bolt, and opened it. She couldn't count the soldiers standing out in the narrow corridor, but there were a great many of them.
They were led by Firefox; Meggie recognized him in spite of the scarf he had tied over his mouth and nose. They all had such scarves wound around their faces, and their eyes above the cloth were terrified. I hope you've all caught the plague here, thought Meggie. I hope you die like flies. The soldier beside Firefox stumbled back as if he had heard her thoughts, but it was Meggie's face that frightened him. "Witch!" he exclaimed, staring at what Firefox held in his hand. Meggie recognized the narrow silver frame at once. It was her photograph, from Elinor's library.
A murmur arose among the men-at-arms. But Firefox put his hand roughly under her chin, making her turn her face to him. "I thought so. You're the girl from the stable," he said. I'll admit you didn't look to me like a witch there!" Meggie tried to turn her head away, but Firefox's hand did not let go. "Well done!" he said to a girl who was standing among the men-at-arms looking lost. Her feet were bare, and she wore the same plain tunic as all the women who worked in the infirmary. Carla, wasn't that her name?
She bent her head and looked at the piece of silver that the soldier pressed into her hand as if she'd never seen such a beautiful, shiny coin before. "He said I'd get work," she whispered almost inaudibly. "In the castle kitchen. The minstrel with the silver nose said so."
Firefox shrugged scornfully. "You've come to the wrong man here," he said, turning his back to her heedlessly. "And this time I'm to take you, too, sawbones," he said to the Barn Owl. "You've let the wrong sort of visitors through your gate once too often. I told the Adderhead it was high time to light a fire here, a great fire. I can still do that kind of thing extremely well, but he wouldn't hear of it. Someone's told him his death will come out of a fire. Since then he won't let us light anything but candles."
There was no missing his contempt for his master's weakness.
The Barn Owl looked at Meggie. I'm sorry, said his eyes. And she read a question in them, too: Where's Dustfinger? Yes, where?
"Let me go with her." Roxane went up to Meggie and tried to put an arm around her shoulders again, but Firefox pushed her roughly back.
"Only the girl in the witch picture," he said, "and the physician."
Roxane, Bella, and a few of the other women followed them to the gate leading out to the sea. The surf shone in the moonlight, and the beach lay there deserted, except for a few footprints that no one, luckily, examined closely. The soldiers had brought horses for their prisoners. Meggie's laid its ears back when one of the soldiers put her on its back. On
ly when it was trotting toward the mountains with her did she dare to look surreptitiously around. But there was no sign of Dustfinger and Farid. Except for the footprints in the sand.
57. FIRE AND WATER
And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless
knowledge?
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
All was quiet behind the walls of the infirmary when Dustfinger gestured to Farid to come out from among the trees. No weeping, no cursing the men who had come from the Castle of Night. Most of the women had gone back to the sick and dying. Only Roxane still stood on the beach, looking at the path the soldiers had taken.
She went to Dustfinger, her footsteps weary.
"I'll go after them!" stammered Farid beside him, his fists clenched. "At least there's no missing that accursed castle!"
"What do you think you're talking about, damn it?" Dustfinger snapped at him. "Do you believe you can just walk through the gates? That is the Castle of Night, where they stick chopped-off heads on the battlements."
Farid ducked his head and stared up at the silver towers. They rose to the sky as if to impale the stars.
"But… but Meggie," he stammered.
"Yes, all right, we'll follow her," said Dustfinger, irritation in his voice. "My leg's already looking forward to the climb. But we're not stumbling off just like that. You have something to learn yet."
The relief in the boy's face when he looked at him – as if he were delighted at the prospect of creeping into the Adder's nest! Dustfinger could only shake his head at such idiocy.
"Something to learn? What?"
"What I was going to show you anyway." Dustfinger went toward the water. He wished his leg would hurry up and heal.
Roxane followed him. "You two are going after them? What are you talking about?" Fear and rage were mingled on her face as she came between him and the boy. "You can't go to the castle! There's no more you can do! Either for the girl, or for the Barn Owl, or for any of the others. Your wonderful letter came to nothing, nothing at all!"
"We'll see," was all Dustfinger would reply. "It depends whether Meggie read it out loud, and if so, how far she got."
He tried to move her aside, but Roxane pushed his hands away. "Let's send a message to the Black Prince!" There was desperation in her voice. "Have you forgotten all the fire-raisers up there at the castle? You'll be dead before the sun rises! What about Basta? What about Firefox and the Piper? Someone is bound to recognize your face!"
"Who says I'm going to show my face?" he replied.
Roxane flinched back. She cast Farid such a hostile glance that the boy turned away. "But that's our secret. You've never shown anyone but me before. And you yourself said you're the only one who can do it!"
"The boy will be able to do it, too!"
The sand crunched under his feet as he walked toward the waves. He did not stop until the surf was washing around his boots.
"What's she talking about?" asked Farid. "What are you going to show me? Is it very difficult?"
Dustfinger looked around. Roxane was walking slowly back to the infirmary. She disappeared behind the plain wooden gate without once turning.
"What is it?" Impatiently, Farid tugged at his sleeve. "Tell me."
Dustfinger turned his back to him. "Fire and water," he said, "don't really mix. You could say they're incompatible. But when they do love each other, they love passionately."
It was a long time since he had last spoken the words he now whispered. But the fire understood. A flame licked up between the wet pebbles that the sea had washed up on the sand. Dustfinger bent and enticed it into the hollow of his hand as if it were a young bird, whispered, told it what he wanted, promised it a nocturnal game such as it had never played before… and when it answered, crackling, flaring up, so hot that it burned his skin, he threw it into the foaming sea, fingers outstretched as if he still held the fire on invisible strings. The water snapped at the flame like a fish snapping at a fly, but the fire only burned brighter, while Dustfinger, standing on the shore, spread his arms wide.
Hissing and flaring, the fire imitated him, moving to left and right along the sea wave, farther and farther, until the surf, now rimmed with flames, rolled toward the shore, and a band of fire was washed up at Dustfinger's feet like a love token. He plunged both hands into the blazing foam, and when he straightened up again he held a fairy fluttering in his fingers, as blue as her forest sisters but surrounded by a fiery luster, and her eyes were as red as the flames from which she was born. Dustfinger held her in his hands like a rare moth, waited for the prickling of his skin, the heat running up his arms as if he suddenly had liquid fire instead of blood in his veins. Not until it had burned its way right up to his armpits did he let the tiny creature fly away, chattering and swearing crossly, as they always did when you lured them to you by making the sea play with fire.
"What's that?" asked Farid in alarm, looking at Dustfinger's blackened hands and arms.
Dustfinger took a cloth from his belt and carefully rubbed the soot into his skin. "That," he said, "is something that will get us into the castle. But the soot works only if you get it from the fairies for yourself. So it's your turn now."
Farid looked at him incredulously. "But I can't do that!" he stammered. "I don't know how you did it."
"Nonsense!" Dustfinger stepped back from the water and sat down on the damp sand. "Of course you can do it! Just think of Meggie!"
Undecided, Farid looked up at the castle, while the waves licked his bare toes as if inviting him to play.
"Won't they see the fire up there?"
"The castle is farther away than it looks. Believe me, your feet will show you that when we start climbing. And if the guards up there do see anything they'll think it's lightning, or fire-elves dancing over the water. When did you start thinking so hard before you began to play? All I can say is, if you wait much longer I shall certainly start remembering what a crazy notion going up there is."
That convinced Farid.
The flame went out three times when he threw it into the breakers. But on the fourth attempt the waves were rimmed with fire for him as he had demanded – perhaps not quite such bright fire as they had made for Dustfinger, but the sea burned for Farid, too. And for the second time that night, fire and water played together.
"Well done," said Dustfinger, as the boy looked proudly at the soot on his arms. "Spread it well over your chest and legs and face."
"Why?" Farid looked at him, wide-eyed.
"Because it will make us invisible," replied Dustfinger, rubbing soot into his own face. "Until sunrise."
58. INVISIBLE AS THE WIND
"So sorry, your bloodiness, Mr. Baron, sir," he said greasily. "My mistake, my mistake – I didn't see you – of course I didn't, you're invisible – forgive old Peevsie his little joke, sir."
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
It was an odd feeling, being invisible. Farid felt all-powerful and lost at the same time. As if he were nowhere and everywhere. The worst of it was that he couldn't see Dustfinger. He had to rely on his hearing. "Dustfinger?" he kept whispering as he followed him through the night, and every time a quiet reply came back: "I'm here, right in front of you."
The soldiers who had taken Meggie and the Barn Owl with them would have to follow a road – a bad one, almost entirely overgrown in many places – that wound up into the hills, bending and curving. Dustfinger, on the other hand, was making his way across country and up slopes too steep for horses, especially when they had to carry armed riders. Farid tried not to think how much it must be hurting Dustfinger's leg. Now and then he heard him swearing quietly, and he kept stopping, invisible, nothing but a breathing in the night.
The castle was indeed farther away than it had looked from the beach, but finally its walls towered to the sky right in front of them. By comparison with this fortress, the castle of Ombra seemed to Farid like a toy, built by a prince who liked to eat and drink but had no inte
ntion of going to war. In the Castle of Night, every stone seemed to have been set in place with war in mind, and as Farid followed the sound of Dustfinger's gasping breaths, he pictured to himself, with horror, what it must be like to storm up the steep slope with hot pitch raining down on you from the battlements above and bolts from crossbows flying your way.
Morning was still far off when they reached the castle gate. They still had a few precious hours of invisibility left, but the gate was shut, and Farid felt tears of disappointment fill his eyes. "It's closed!" he whispered. "They've taken them into the castle already! Now what?" Every breath hurt him, they had traveled so fast. But what good did it do them now to be as transparent as glass, as invisible as the wind?
He sensed Dustfinger's body beside him, warm in the windy night. "Of course it's closed!" his voice whispered. "What did you expect? Did you think the two of us would overtake them? We wouldn't have done that even if I wasn't hobbling like an old woman! But you wait: They're sure to open the gate for someone else tonight. Even if it's only one of their informers."
"Or maybe we could climb in?" Farid looked up hopefully at the pale gray walls. He saw the guards on the battlements, armed with spears.
"Climb in? You really do seem to be head over heels in love. Can't you see how smooth and high these walls are? Forget it – we'll wait."
Six gallows towered in front of them. Dead men hung from four of them. Farid was thankful that in the darkness they just looked like bundles of old clothes. "Damn it!" he heard Dustfinger murmur. "Why doesn't the fairy venom make your fear go away as well as your body?" The same thing had occurred to Farid, too, but he was not afraid of the guards, Basta, or Firefox. His fear, his terrible fear, was for Meggie. Being invisible only made it worse. There seemed to be nothing left of him but the pain in his heart.
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