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 the bolt back 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 round their faces, and their eyes above them 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 photo, 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 round 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 which 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. Only when it was trotting towards 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 towards 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, 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 towards 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 round. 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, further and further, until the surf, now rimmed with flames, rolled towards 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 sist
ers but surrounded by a fiery lustre, 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 further 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 at 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 Philosopher’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 further 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 intention 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 travelled 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 hopefully up at the pale grey 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.
A chilly wind was blowing tonight, and Farid was just breathing on his invisible fingers to warm them when hoofbeats echoed through the dark.
‘There, now!’ whispered Dustfinger. ‘Looks like we’re in luck for a change! Remember, whatever happens, we must be out of here before daybreak. The sun will make us visible again almost as fast as you can summon fire.’
The hoofbeats grew louder, and a horseman emerged from the darkness – not in the Adderhead’s pale silver, but clothed in red and black. ‘Well, would you believe it?’ whispered Dustfinger. ‘Sootbird, no less!’
One of the guards called something down from the battlements, and Sootbird replied.
‘Come on!’ Dustfinger hissed to Farid as the gate swung open, creaking. They followed so close to Sootbird that Farid could have touched his horse’s tail. Traitor, he thought, filthy traitor! He would have liked to drag him down from the saddle, put a knife to his throat, and ask what news he was bringing to the Castle of Night – but Dustfinger thrust him on, through the gigantic gate and into the courtyard. He led Farid onwards as Sootbird rode to the castle stables. They were swarming with men-at-arms. Obviously the Castle of Night was as wakeful as its master was said to be.
‘Listen!’ whispered Dustfinger, drawing Farid under an arch. ‘This castle is the size of a city and as full of nooks and crannies as a labyrinth. Mark the way you go with soot. I don’t want to have to search for you later because you’re lost like a child in the forest, understand?’
‘But what about Sootbird? He gave the Secret Camp away, didn’t he?’
‘Very likely. But forget him for now. Think of Meggie.’
‘But he was among the prisoners!’ A troop of soldiers marched past them. Farid flinched back in alarm. He still couldn’t believe that they really did not see him.
‘So?’ Dustfinger’s voice sounded like the wind itself speaking. ‘It’s the oldest disguise in the world for traitors. Where do you hide your informer? Among your victims. I expect the Piper told him once or twice what a magnificent fire-eater he was, and then they were best friends. Sootbird’s always had peculiar taste in friends. Well, come on, or we’ll still be standing here when the sun melts our invisibility off us.’
That made Farid look instinctively up at the sky. It was a dark night. Even the moon seemed lost in all the blackness, and he could not take his eyes off the silver towers.
‘The Adder’s nest!’ he whispered – an
d felt Dustfinger’s invisible hand drawing him on again, none too gently.
59
The Adderhead
Thoughts of death
Crowd over my happiness
Like dark clouds
Over the silver sickle of the moon.
St. Brown,
Poems to Read
The Adderhead was at table when Firefox brought Meggie to him. Exactly as she had read it in the story. The hall where he was feasting was so magnificent that the Laughing Prince’s throne-room seemed plain as a farmhouse by comparison. The tiles over which Firefox dragged Meggie to his master were strewn with white rose-petals. A sea of candles burned in claw-footed candelabra, standing between columns covered with silver scales. The light of the candles made them shimmer like snakeskin. Countless servants hurried around between the scaly pillars, soundlessly, heads bent. Maidservants waited in respectful rows for a sign from their master. They all looked tired, torn from sleep, just as Fenoglio had described it. Some were leaning their backs surreptitiously against the tapestries on the walls.
Beside the Adderhead, at a table that seemed to be laid for a hundred guests, sat a woman as pale as a porcelain doll, with such a childlike face that Meggie would have thought her the Adderhead’s daughter if she didn’t know better. The Silver Prince himself ate greedily, as if by swallowing the food that stood in countless dishes on the table covered with black cloth, he could swallow his own fear too. But his wife touched nothing. It seemed to Meggie that the sight of her husband eating so greedily nauseated her; she kept passing her ringed hands over her swollen belly. Oddly enough, her pregnancy made her look even more like a child: a child with a thin, bitter mouth and cool eyes.
The silver-nosed Piper stood behind the Adderhead, one foot on a stool, his lute supported on his thigh, singing softly as his fingers slowly plucked the strings. But Meggie’s eyes did not linger on him long.
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