Inkdeath ti-3

by Cornelia Funke

  Barefoot, she went to the door, knife in hand, and listened, but there was nothing to be heard outside, and when she cautiously went out into the open air she felt as if she heard the night itself breathing deeply and regularly, like someone asleep. The stars shone down on her like flowers made of light, and their beauty hurt her weary heart.

  "Roxane…"

  The marten shot past her.

  It couldn't be true. The dead did not come back, even when they had promised they would. But the figure emerging from the shadows near the stable was so very familiar.

  Gwin hissed when he saw the other marten sitting on his master's shoulder.

  "Roxane." He spoke her name as if he wanted to savor it on his tongue, like something he hadn't tasted for a long time.

  It was a dream, one of the dreams she had almost every night. Dreams in which she saw his face so clearly that she touched it in her sleep, and next day her fingers still remembered his skin. Even when he put his arms around her, carefully, as if he wasn't sure whether he had forgotten how to hold her, she didn't move – because her hands did not believe they would really feel him, her arms did not believe they could hold him again. But her eyes could see him. Her ears heard him breathing. Her skin felt his, as warm as if the fire were inside him, after he had been so terribly cold.

  He had kept his promise. And even if he was coming to her only in a dream, it was better than nothing… so much better.

  "Roxane! Look at me. Look at me." He took her face between his hands, caressed her cheek, wiped away the tears she so often felt on her skin when she woke. And only then did she draw him close to her, let her hands tell her that she wasn't just embracing a ghost. It couldn't be true. She wept as she pressed her face to his. She wanted to hit him for having left her for the boy's sake, for all the pain she had already felt on his account, so much pain, but her heart gave her away, as it had the first time he came back. It always gave her away.

  "What is it?" He kissed her once more.

  The scars. They were gone, as if the White Women had washed them away before sending him back to life.

  She took his hands and laid them against his cheeks.

  "Well, who'd have thought it!" he said, stroking his own skin with his fingers as if it were a stranger's. "They've really gone! Basta wouldn't like that at all."

  Why had they let him go? Who had paid the price for him, as he had paid it for the boy?

  Why did she ask? He was back. That was all that mattered, back from the place from which there was no return. Where all the others were. Her daughter, the father of her son, Cosimo… so many dead. But he had come back. Even if she saw in his eyes that, this time, he had been so far away that something of him was still left there.

  "How long will you stay this time?" she whispered.

  He did not answer at once. Gwin rubbed his head against his neck and looked at him, as if he, too, wanted to know the answer.

  "As long as Death allows," he replied at last, and placed her hand on his beating heart.

  "What does that mean?" she whispered.

  But he closed her mouth with a kiss.

  28. A NEW SONG

  Bright hope arises from the dark

  And makes the mighty tremble.

  Princes can't fail to see his mark,

  Nor can they now dissemble.

  With hair like moleskin, smooth and black,

  And mask of blue jay feathers,

  He vows wrongdoers to attack,

  Strikes princes in all weathers.

  Fenoglio, The Bluejay Songs

  The Bluejay's come back from the dead!" It was Doria who brought the Black Prince the news. The boy stumbled into his tent just before dawn, so breathless that he could hardly get the words out. "A moss-woman saw him. By the Hollow Trees where the healers bury their dead. She says he's brought the Fire-Dancer back, too. Please! May I tell Meggie?"

  Incredible words. Far too wonderful to be true. All the same, the Black Prince set off at once for the place where the Hollow Trees grew – after making Doria promise not to tell anyone else what he had told him: neither Meggie nor her mother, neither Snapper nor any of the other robbers, not even his own brother, who was lying outside by the fire, fast asleep.

  "But they say the Piper's heard about it, too!" the boy faltered.

  "That's unfortunate," replied the Prince. "Let's hope I find him before the Piper does."

  He rode fast, so fast that the bear was soon snorting with disapproval as he trotted along beside him. Why such haste? For a foolish hope? Why did his heart always insist on believing that there was a light in all the darkness? Where did he keep getting new hope from, after he had been disappointed countless times? You have the heart of a child, Prince. Hadn't Dustfinger always told him so? And he's brought the Fire-Dancer back, too. It couldn't be true. Such things happened only in songs, and in the stories that mothers told their children in the evening to drive away nighttime fears.

  Hope can make you careless; he should have known that, too. The Black Prince didn't see the soldiers until they emerged ahead of him through the trees. A good number of them. He counted ten. They had a moss-woman with them, her thin neck already rubbed sore by the rope on which they were pulling her along. Presumably they had caught her to make her lead them to the Hollow Trees, for hardly anyone knew the place where the healers buried their dead. They themselves, so rumor said, made sure that all the paths to it were hidden by undergrowth. But after helping Roxane to take Dustfinger there, the Black Prince knew the way.

  It was a sacred place, but in her fear the moss-woman had indeed led the men-at-arms the right way. The crowns of the dead trees could already be seen in the distance. They rose, as gray as if morning had stripped them bare, among the oaks, which were still autumnal gold, and the Prince prayed the Bluejay wasn't there. Better to be with the White Women than in the Piper's hands.

  Three men-at-arms came upon him from behind, swords in their hands. The moss-woman sank to her knees as her captors drew their own swords and turned to their new quarry. The bear reared up on his hind legs and bared his teeth. The horses shied, and two of the soldiers retreated, but there were still a great many of them – too many for a knife and a pair of claws.

  "Well, guess what! Obviously the Piper's not the only one stupid enough to believe moss-women's gossip!" Their leader was almost as pale as the White Women, and his face was sprinkled with freckles. "The Black Prince, none other! There was I cursing my luck, sent riding into this damn forest to catch a ghost, and who should stumble into my path but his black brother! The price on your head isn't as high as the price for the Bluejay, but it'll make us all rich men!"

  "You're wrong there. Touch him and you'll be dead men instead."

  And his voice wakens the dead from sleep and makes the wolf He down with the lamb… The Bluejay stepped out from behind a beech tree as naturally as if he had been waiting for the soldiers there. Don't call me Bluejay; it's only a name from the songs! He had said that to the Prince so often, but what else was he to call him?

  Bluejay. They were whispering his name, their voices hoarse with terror. Who was he? The Prince had often wondered. Did he really come from the land where Dustfinger had spent so many years? And what kind of country was it? A land where songs came true?

  Bluejay.

  The bear roared him a welcome that made the horses rear, and the Jay drew his sword very slowly, as he always did, the sword that had once belonged to Firefox and had killed so many of the Black Prince's men. The face beneath the dark hair seemed paler than usual, but the Prince could see no fear in it. Presumably you forgot what fear was once you visited Death.

  "Yes, as you see, I'm really back from the dead. Even if I still feel Death's claws in me." He spoke dreamily, as if a part of him were still with the White Women. "I'm willing to show you the way if you want. It's entirely up to you. But if you do prefer to live a little longer," he added, flourishing his sword in the air as if he were writing their names, "then let him go.
Him and the bear."

  They just stared at him, and their hands, resting on their swords, trembled as if they were reaching out for their own deaths. Nothing is more terrifying than fearlessness, and the Black Prince went to the Bluejay's side and felt that the words were like a shield for them, the words sung quietly up and down the country… all about the White Hand and the Black Hand of Justice.

  There'll be a new song now, thought the Prince as he drew his sword, and his heart felt so foolishly young that he could have fought a thousand men. As for the Piper's soldiers, they wrenched their horses' heads around and fled – from just two men. And the words.

  When they had gone the Bluejay went over to the moss-woman, who was still kneeling in the grass with her hands pressed to her bark-brown face, and undid the rope from her neck.

  "A few months ago one of you tended a bad wound I had," he said. "It wasn't you, was it?"

  The moss-woman let him help her up, but she looked at him suspiciously. "What do you mean by that? That we all look the same to human eyes?" she snapped. "Well, we feel the same about you. So how am I supposed to know if I ever set eyes on you before?"

  And she limped away without another look at her rescuer, who stood there watching her go as if he had forgotten where he was.

  "How long have I been away?" he asked when the Black Prince joined him.

  "Over three days."

  "As long as that?" Yes, he had been far away, very far away. "Of course. Time runs differently when you meet Death, isn't that what they say?"

  "You know more about it than I do now," replied the Prince.

  The Bluejay made no comment on that.

  "Have you heard who I brought with me?" he asked at last.

  "It's difficult for me to believe such good news," said the Black Prince huskily, but the Bluejay smiled and ran a hand over the Prince's short hair.

  "You can let it grow again," he said. "The man you shaved it for is breathing again. He's left his scars with the dead, that's all."

  It couldn't be true.

  "Where is he?" His heart still ached from the night when he had kept watch with Roxane at Dustfinger's side.

  "No doubt with Roxane. I didn't ask him where he was going. We were neither of us particularly talkative. The White Women leave silence behind them, Prince, not words."

  "Silence?" the Black Prince laughed, and embraced him. "What are you talking about? They've left joy behind, pure joy! And hope, hope again at last! I feel younger than I've felt for years! As if I could tear up trees by the roots – well, maybe not that beech, but many others. By this evening, everyone will be singing that the Bluejay fears Death so little that he seeks it out, and the Piper will tear the silver nose off his face in a rage…"

  The Bluejay smiled again, but his look was still grave – very grave for a man who has just come back from the dead unscathed. And the Black Prince realized that there was bad news behind the good news, a shadow behind all the light. But they didn't speak of that. Not yet.

  "What about my wife and my daughter?" asked the Bluejay, "Have they… have they already gone?"

  "Gone?" The Black Prince looked at him in surprise. "No. Where would they go?"

  Relief and worry were mingled equally in the other man's face.

  "Sometime I'll explain all that to you, too," he said. "Sometime. But it's a long story."

  29. A VISITOR TO ORPHEUS'S CELLAR

  So many lives,

  So many things to remember!

  I was a stone in Tibet

  A tongue of bark

  At the heart of Africa

  Growing darker and darker.

  Derek Mahon, "Lives"

  When Oss, gripping Farid firmly by the back of his neck, told him that Orpheus wanted to see him in his study at once, he took two bottles of wine with him. Cheeseface had been drinking like a fish ever since their return from the graveyard of the strolling players, but the wine didn't make Orpheus talkative like Fenoglio, just extremely malicious and unpredictable.

  As so often, he was by the window when Farid entered the study. He was swaying slightly and staring at the sheet of paper that he'd studied over and over again these last few days, cursing, crumpling it up and then smoothing it out again.

  "There it is in black and white, every letter perfect as a picture, and it sounds good, too, it sounds damn good!" he said thickly as his finger kept tapping the words. "So why, by all the infernal spirits, did the bookbinder come back again, too?"

  What was Cheeseface talking about? Farid put the wine bottles on the table and stood there waiting. "Oss says you want to speak to me?" he asked.

  Jasper was sitting beside the jug of pens, making frantic signals, but Farid couldn't work out what they meant.

  "Ah yes, Dustfinger's angel of death." Orpheus put the paper down on his desk and turned to him with a nasty smile.

  Why on earth did you come back to him? Farid asked himself, but he had only to think of the hatred on Meggie's face in the graveyard to answer his own question. Because you didn't know where else to go.

  "Yes, I sent for you." Orpheus looked at the door. Oss had followed Farid into the room, more silently than you would have thought possible for a man of his size, and before Farid had time to realize why Jasper was waving to him so frantically, Oss's meaty hands had seized him.

  "So you haven't heard the news yet!" said Orpheus. "Of course not. If you had, I'm sure you'd have gone chasing straight off to him."

  Off to whom? Farid tried to wriggle free, but Oss pulled his hair so hard that tears of pain came to his eyes.

  "He really doesn't know. How touching." Orpheus came so close to him that the smell of the wine on his breath made Farid feel sick.

  "Dustfinger," said Orpheus in his velvety voice. "Dustfinger is back."

  Farid immediately forgot all about Oss's rough fingers and Orpheus's unpleasant smile. There was nothing in him but joy, like a violent pain, too much for his heart to bear.

  "Yes, he's back," Orpheus went on. "Thanks to my words – but the rabble out there are saying the Bluejay brought him back!" he added, with a dismissive gesture to the window. "Curse them. May the Piper make maggot flesh of them all!"

  Farid wasn't listening. His own blood was roaring in his ears. Dustfinger was back! Back!

  "Let go of me, Chunk!" Farid drove his elbows into Oss's stomach and tugged at his hands. "Dustfinger will turn his fire on you!" he shouted. "That's what he'll do, the moment he hears you two didn't let me go to him at once!"

  "Really?" Orpheus blew wine-laden breath into his face again. "I'm more inclined to think he'll be grateful to me – or do you suppose he'd like you to bring him to his death again, you ill-omened brat? I warned him about you once before. He wouldn't listen to me then, but he'll have learned better now, believe you me. If I had the book you came from here, I'd have read you back into your own story long ago, but sad to say it's out of print in this world."

  Orpheus laughed. He liked to laugh at his own jokes. "Lock him in the cellar," he told the Chunk, "and as soon as it's dark you can take him out to the hill where the gallows stand and wring his neck. No one will notice a few bones more or less up there."

  Jasper put his hands over his eyes when Oss picked up Farid and threw him over his shoulder. Farid shouted and kicked, but the Chunk hit him in the face so hard that he almost lost consciousness.

  "The Bluejay! The Bluejay! I sent him to the White Women! I did it!" he heard Orpheus's voice ringing down the stairs after them. "So why, by the Devil's tail, didn't Death keep him? Didn't I make that high-minded idiot sound tempting enough with the finest words I could write?"

  At the bottom of the stairs Farid made another attempt to free himself, but Oss hit him in the face again so hard that blood ran from his nose, and then shifted him to his other shoulder. A maid, alarmed, stuck her face out of the kitchen doorway as he carried Farid past – it was the little brown-haired girl who was always making eyes at him, but she didn't help him. How could she?

  "
Get out!" was all Oss growled at her before dragging Farid down to the cellar. He tied him to one of the pillars supporting Orpheus's house, stuffed a dirty rag into his mouth, and left him alone, but not without giving him another vigorous kick first.

  "See you later, when it's dark!" he grunted before trudging back upstairs, and Farid was left behind with the cold stone at his back and the taste of his own tears in his mouth.

  It hurt so much to know that Dustfinger was back and all the same he would never see him again. But that's how it will be, Farid, he told himself. And, who knows, maybe Cheeseface is right. Perhaps you'd only bring him to his death again!

  His tears burned his face, so sore from Oss's blows. If only he could have called up fire to consume Orpheus, complete with his house and the Chunk, even if it meant that he, too, would burn! But he couldn't move his hands, and his tongue could not conjure up a word of fire, so he just crouched there sobbing, as he had sobbed on the night of Dustfinger's death, waiting for evening to come and Oss to fetch him and wring his neck, under the same gallows where he had dug up silver for Orpheus.

  Luckily, the marten had gone. Oss would certainly have killed him, too. But presumably Jink had found his way to Dustfinger long ago. The marten would have sensed that he was back. Why didn't you sense it yourself, Farid? he wondered. Never mind, at least Jink was safe. But what would become of Jasper if he couldn't protect him anymore? Orpheus had often shut the glass man up in a drawer without any light or sand, just for cutting paper clumsily or splashing ink on his master's sleeve!