‘I don’t know – which, I’m afraid, means I can’t teach you. Any more than I can teach you this.’ Dustfinger placed his hands together. Farid heard him whispering, but he couldn’t make out the words. When a fiery bluejay flew out of Dustfinger’s hands and soared into the night sky on wings of blue and white fire, he felt a pang of envy like a wasp-sting.
‘Oh, show me!’ he whispered. ‘Please! Let me try, at least!’
Dustfinger looked at him thoughtfully. One of the guards above them was raising the alarm. The fiery spiders had reached the castle battlements. ‘Death taught me the trick of it, Farid,’ he said softly.
‘Well? So I was dead too, like you, although not for so long!’
Dustfinger laughed. He laughed so loudly that a sentry looked down, and he quickly drew Farid back with him into the blackest shadows.
‘You’re right. I’d quite forgotten!’ he whispered, as the guards on the wall shouted in confusion and shot arrows at the fiery jay. The arrows smouldered and went out among its feathers. ‘Very well, copy me! Try this.’
Farid quickly curved his fingers, feeling the excitement he always felt when he was going to learn something new about fire. It wasn’t easy to repeat the strange words that Dustfinger whispered, and Farid’s heart leapt when he really did feel a fiery tingling between his fingers. Next moment spiders were swarming all over the wall from his hand too, their burning bodies hurrying up the stones like an army of sparks. He smiled proudly at Dustfinger. But when he tried the bluejay, only a few pale moths fluttered out from between his fingers.
‘Don’t look so disappointed!’ whispered Dustfinger as he sent two more bluejays flying into the night. ‘There’s plenty more to learn. But we’d better hide from our silver-nosed friend now.’
Ombra Castle wore a burning coat as they made their way through the trees, and Sootbird’s fire had gone out. The sky belonged to the fire conjured up by Dustfinger. The Piper sent patrols out, but Dustfinger made the flames give birth to wolves and big cats, snakes slithering out of the branches, fiery moths that flew in the faces of the men-at-arms. The forest at the foot of the castle seemed to be all aflame, but the fire did not take hold, and Farid and his master were shadows among all the red, untouched by the fear they were spreading.
Finally the Piper had water poured from the battlements. It froze to ice in the branches of the trees, but Dustfinger’s fire burnt on, shaping new creatures all the time, and died down only in the morning, like a spectre of the night. The fiery bluejays, however, went on circling in the air above Ombra, and when the Milksop sent his hounds into the forest where the flames were now extinguished, fiery hares threw them off any track they found. But Farid sat with Dustfinger in a thicket of thorn apple and brownie-thorn, feeling happiness warm his heart. It was so good to be near Dustfinger again, as he had been in the old days, during all the nights when he had watched over him or kept him from bad dreams. Now, however, there didn’t seem to be anything he had to protect him from. Except yourself, Farid, he thought, and his happiness was gone like the fiery creatures that Dustfinger had conjured up to protect the Bluejay.
‘What’s the matter?’ Dustfinger looked at him as if it wasn’t only Silvertongue’s thoughts he could read.
Then he took Farid’s hand and blew gently into it, until a woman made of white fire rose from his fingers. ‘They’re not as bad as you think,’ Dustfinger whispered to him, ‘and if they come for me again it won’t be because of you. Understand?’
‘What do you mean?’ Farid’s heart missed a beat. ‘Are they going to come for you again? Why? Soon?’ The White Woman on his hand changed into a moth, fluttered away, and dissolved in the grey light of dawn.
‘That depends on the Bluejay.’
‘What does?’
Dustfinger placed a warning hand over his mouth and pushed the thorny tendrils aside. Soldiers had taken up positions under the window slits of the dungeons. They were staring at the forest, eyes wide with fear. Sootbird was with them. He was examining the castle wall as if he could read in the stones how Dustfinger had set the night on fire. ‘Look at him!’ Dustfinger whispered. ‘He hates the fire, and the fire hates him.’
But Farid didn’t want to talk about Sootbird. He reached for Dustfinger’s arm. ‘They mustn’t come to take you away again! Please!’
Dustfinger looked at him. His eyes were so different since he had come back. There was no fear in them now, only the old watchfulness. ‘I’ll say it again. It all depends on the Bluejay. So help me to protect him, because he’s going to need protection. Five days and nights in the Piper’s power – that’s a long time. I think we’ll all be glad when the Adderhead finally arrives.’
Farid wanted to ask more questions, but he saw in Dustfinger’s face that he would get no further answers. ‘How about Her Ugliness? Don’t you believe she can protect him?’
‘Do you?’ Dustfinger asked back.
A fairy was struggling through the thorny undergrowth. She almost tore her wings on the branches, but finally, exhausted, she perched on Dustfinger’s knee. It was the fairy he had sent out to look for the Bluejay. She had found him, and was bringing back his thanks. Nor did she forget to mention that he had assured her that she was indeed the most beautiful fairy he had ever set eyes on.
39
Stolen Children
when I was a child
i was a squirrel a bluejay a fox
and spoke with them in their tongues
climbed their trees dug their dens
and knew the taste
of every grass and stone
the meaning of the sun
the message of the night
Norman H. Russell,
The Message of the Rain
It was snowing, tiny icy flakes, and Meggie wondered whether her father could see the snowflakes falling from wherever he was held captive. No, she told herself, the dungeons of Ombra lie too deep under the castle, and the idea that Mo was missing his first sight of snow in the Inkworld made her almost as sad as knowing that he was a prisoner.
Dustfinger was protecting him, as the Black Prince had so often assured her. Battista and Roxane kept saying so as well. But Meggie could think of nothing but the Piper, and how frail and young Violante had looked beside him.
The Adderhead was only two days’ journey away now, so Nettle had said yesterday. Two days, and everything would be decided.
Two days.
The Strong Man drew Meggie to his side and pointed through the trees. Two women were looking for a way through the snow-covered thickets. They had a couple of boys and a girl with them. The children of Ombra had been disappearing one by one ever since the Bluejay gave himself up. Their mothers took them out into the fields, down to the river to do their laundry, into the forest to look for firewood – and came back alone. There were four places where the Prince’s men waited for the children. News of their whereabouts was passed on from mouth to mouth, and there was a woman as well as a robber waiting at each of those places, so that it wouldn’t be too hard for the children to let go of their mothers’ hands.
Resa, Battista and Gecko were receiving them at the infirmary run by the Barn Owl. Roxane and Elfbane waited at the place where the healers gathered the bark of oak trees. Two more women met children by the river, and Meggie, with Doria and the Strong Man, waited for them in a charcoal-burner’s abandoned hut not far from the road to Ombra.
The three children hesitated when they saw the Strong Man, but their mothers led them on, and when Doria caught a couple of snowflakes on his outstretched tongue the youngest, a girl of about five, began giggling.
‘Suppose we just make the Piper angry again by hiding them with you?’ asked the child’s mother. ‘Suppose he’s given up any idea of taking the children away now the Bluejay is his prisoner? It was all about the Bluejay, wasn’t it?’
Meggie could have hit her for the coldness in her voice.
‘Yes, and this is his daughter!’ said the Strong Man, putting a pr
otective arm around Meggie’s shoulders. ‘So don’t talk as if you didn’t care what became of him! You’d never have got your child back but for her father, have you forgotten that already? But the Adderhead will still need children for his mines, and yours would be easy prey.’
‘That’s his daughter? The witch?’ The other woman drew her children close to her, but the girl looked curiously at Meggie.
‘You sound like the Adder’s men!’ The Strong Man held Meggie more firmly, as if to ward off the words. ‘What’s the matter with you? Do you want to know your children are safe or don’t you? You can always take them back to Ombra and hope the Piper doesn’t come knocking at your door!’
‘But where are you taking them?’ The younger woman had tears in her eyes.
‘If I told you, you’d be able to give it away.’ The Strong Man put the smaller boy up on his shoulders as if he weighed no more than a fairy.
‘Can we come too?’
‘No, we can’t feed so many. It will be difficult enough to fill the children’s bellies.’
‘And how long do you mean to hide them for?’ How desperate every word sounded.
‘Until the Bluejay has killed the Adderhead.’
The women looked at Meggie.
‘How can he possibly do that?’
‘He’ll kill him, you wait and see,’ replied the Strong Man, and his voice sounded so confident that for a precious moment even Meggie forgot all her fears for Mo. But the moment passed, and once again she felt the snow on her skin, as cold as the end of all things.
Doria put the little girl on his back and smiled at Meggie. He was tireless in his efforts to cheer her up. He brought her berries hard with frost, flowers covered with rime – the last flowers of the year – and made her forget her troubles by asking her about the world she came from. She was beginning to miss him when he wasn’t near her.
The little girl cried when the women left, but Meggie stroked her hair and told her what Battista had said about the snow: many of the snowflakes, he had told her, were tiny elves who kissed your face with icy lips before melting on your warm skin. The child stared up at the whirling snow, and Meggie went on talking, letting the words comfort her too while the world around turned white, letting herself go back to the days when Mo used to tell her stories – before he was part of a story himself. It was a long time since Meggie had been able to say whether it was her story as well.
The snow did not fall for long, and left only a fine, light dusting on the cold ground. Twelve more women brought their children to the abandoned charcoal-burner’s hut, their faces full of anxiety and concern, and full of doubt too. Were they doing the right thing? Some of the children didn’t even look back at their mothers as the women left, others ran after them, and two cried so hard that their mothers took them away again, back to Ombra where the Piper was waiting for them like a silver spider in its web. By the time darkness fell, nineteen children stood under the trees with their powdering of snow, huddled together like a flock of goslings. The Strong Man looked like a giant beside them as he signalled to them to go with him. Doria conjured acorns out of their little noses and plucked coins from their hair when one of them started crying. The Strong Man showed them how he listened to the birds, and let three children ride on his shoulders all at once.
As for Meggie, she told them stories as darkness fell over them, stories Mo had told her so often that she thought she heard his voice with every word she spoke. They were all exhausted by the time they reached the robbers’ camp. The place was teeming with children. Meggie tried to count them, but soon gave up. How were the robbers to fill so many mouths, when the Black Prince could hardly feed his own men?
What Snapper and Gecko thought of all this showed only too clearly in their faces. Nursemaids, that was the whisper going around the camp. Is this what we went into the forest for? Snapper, Gecko, Elfbane, Woodenfoot, Wayfarer, Blackbeard … many of them were saying so. But who was the slightly-built man with the gentle face standing beside Snapper, looking around as if he had never seen his surroundings before? He looked like … no. No, it couldn’t be true. Meggie rubbed her eyes. She was obviously so tired that she was seeing ghosts. But suddenly two strong arms went around her, hugging her so hard that she gasped for air.
‘Why, just look at you! You’re almost as tall as me now, you shameless girl!’
Meggie turned.
Elinor.
What was happening? Had she lost her mind? Had it all been nothing but a dream, and now she was waking up? Would the trees dissolve next, would everything disappear – the robbers, the children – and she’d see Mo standing beside her bed asking if she intended to sleep right through breakfast?
Meggie pressed her face into Elinor’s dress. It was velvet, and looked like a theatrical costume. Yes, she was dreaming. Definitely. But then what was still real? Wake up, Meggie! she told herself. Come on, wake up!
The slightly-built stranger standing next to Snapper smiled shyly at her as he held his twisted spectacle frame up to his eyes, and yes, it really was Darius!
Elinor hugged her again, and Meggie began to cry. She wept into Elinor’s peculiar dress, shedding all the tears she had been holding back since Mo rode to Ombra Castle.
‘Yes, yes, I know! It’s just terrible,’ said Elinor as she awkwardly stroked Meggie’s hair. ‘You poor thing. I’ve already given that scribbler fellow a piece of my mind. Conceited old fool! But you wait, your father will show that silver-nosed Fiddler a thing or two!’
‘He’s the Piper.’ Meggie had to laugh although the tears went on running down her face. ‘The Piper, Elinor!’
‘Well, whatever! How’s anyone supposed to remember all these strange names?’ Elinor looked around her. ‘That Fenoglio deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered for all this, but of course he doesn’t see it that way. I’m glad we’ll be able to keep an eye on him now. He refused to let Minerva come here on her own, I suppose just because he couldn’t stand the thought of not having her to cook and mend for him!’
‘You mean Fenoglio’s here too?’ Meggie wiped her tears away.
‘Yes. But where’s your mother? I can’t find her anywhere.’
Meggie’s face seemed to show that she still wasn’t on good terms with Resa, but Battista came between them before Elinor could ask her about that.
‘Bluejay’s daughter, will you introduce me to your splendidly-dressed friend?’ He bowed to Elinor. ‘To what guild of the strolling players do you belong, gracious lady? Let me guess. You’re an actress. Your voice would surely fill any marketplace!’
Elinor stared at him in such horror that Meggie quickly came to her aid. ‘This is Elinor, Battista – my mother’s aunt …’
‘Ah, one of the Bluejay’s family!’ Battista bowed even lower. ‘Presumably that information will keep Snapper there from wringing your neck. He’s trying to convince the Black Prince that you and this stranger –’ he indicated Darius, who joined them with a shy smile – ‘are spies of the Piper’s.’
Elinor spun round so abruptly that she drove her elbow into Darius’s stomach. ‘The Black Prince?’ She blushed like a girl as she saw him and his bear standing with Snapper. ‘Oh, he’s magnificent!’ she breathed. ‘And so is his bear – the bear looks just the way I imagined him! Ah, this is all so wonderful, so incredibly wonderful!’
Meggie felt her tears drying up. She was so glad Elinor was here, so very glad indeed.
40
A New Cage
Westley closed his eyes. There was pain coming and he had to be ready for it. He had to prepare his brain, he had to get his mind controlled and safe from their efforts, so that they could not break him.
William Goldman,
The Princess Bride
This time they came earlier than on the nights before. Night was only just falling outside. Not that it was ever light in Mo’s cell, but night brought a different kind of darkness, and with it came the Piper. Mo sat up as straight as he could in chains, and prepared to be ki
cked and struck. If only he hadn’t felt so stupid, so infinitely stupid. The fool who of his own free will had stumbled into his enemies’ net. Not a robber any more, not a bookbinder, only a fool.
The cells in the dungeons of Ombra were no more comfortable than the cells in the tower of the Castle of Night. In these dark holes, hardly high enough for a man to stand up, the same fear lurked as in all dungeons. Yes, the fear was back. It had been waiting for him at the gates, it had almost choked him when the Milksop’s men had bound his hands.
Captured. Helpless …
Think about the children, Mortimer! Only the memory of their faces soothed him when he cursed himself for what he had done and endured the blows and kicks that the night brought with it. Dustfinger’s fire at least made the Piper leave him in peace from time to time, but it also infuriated Silvernose more and more. In his mind Mo still heard the voice of the fairy who had fluttered up on to his shoulder that first night. He still saw the fiery spiders scuttering into the Piper’s velvet garments. Mo had laughed at him for the panic in his face – but he had paid for that, several times.
Two more days, Mortimer, two days and two nights. Then the Adderhead will arrive. And then what? Yes, he was a fool to hope he might yet be able to give Death and her pale daughters what they demanded.
Would Resa realize that he had also ridden to the castle for Meggie’s sake when the White Women came for their daughter? Would she understand that he hadn’t told her anything about it so that fear for Meggie wouldn’t eat away at her own heart?
The two soldiers who entered his cell had soot on their hands and faces. They always came in pairs, but where was their silver-snouted master? Without a word, they hauled Mo to his feet. The chains were heavy and cut into his skin.
‘The Piper’s going to be visiting you in another cell today!’ they muttered to him. ‘One that your friend’s fire can’t find.’
They went further down, down and down, past holes from which the smell of rotting flesh rose. Once Mo thought he saw a fiery snake creeping through the darkness, but one of his guards hit him when he
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