So Tullio had told the truth. As soon as the voices died away Resa fluttered down to Dustfinger. But the swift couldn’t weep any more than she could smile. Fly after the Piper, Resa, she told herself as she perched on the stones, wet with rain. Look for Mo. There’s no more you can do for the Fire-Dancer now, any more than you could before. She was only thankful that the Night-Mare hadn’t feasted on him as it had on Snapper. His cheek was so cold when she pressed her feathered head against it.
‘How did you come by that pretty dress of feathers, Resa?’
The whisper came from nowhere – out of the rain, the moist air, the painted stone – but surely not from the cold lips. Yet it was Dustfinger’s voice, husky and soft at the same time, ever familiar. Resa swiftly turned her bird’s head – and heard his quiet laughter.
‘Didn’t you look round like that for me before, back in the dungeons of the Castle of Night? I was invisible then too, as far as I remember, but it’s far more entertaining to be without a body. Although you can’t enjoy the entertainment too long. I’m afraid if I let my body lie here much longer it won’t fit me any more, and then I suppose not even your husband’s voice could bring me back. Apart from the fact that without the help of the flesh you soon forget who you are. I admit I’d almost forgotten already – until I saw you.’
It was like seeing a sleeper wake when the dead man moved. Dustfinger pushed back the damp hair from his face and looked down at himself, as if to make sure that his body did still fit him. It was just as Resa had dreamt it the night after his first death, when he did not wake again. Not until Mo brought him back to life.
Mo. She fluttered up on to Dustfinger’s arm, but he put a warning finger to his lips as she opened her beak. He called Gwin with a soft whistle, then looked up at the steps which the Piper had climbed with Jacopo, to the windows on their left and on again to the oriel tower casting its shadow down on them. ‘The fairies tell tales of a plant that turns human beings into animals and animals into humans,’ he whispered. ‘But they also say it’s dangerous to use it. How long have you been wearing your feathered clothing?’
‘About two hours.’
‘Then it’s time to take it off again. Luckily this castle has many forgotten chambers, and I explored them all before the Piper arrived.’ He put out his hand, and Resa perched on his skin, now warm again. He was alive! Wasn’t he?
‘I brought back a few very useful abilities from the realm of Death!’ whispered Dustfinger as he carried her down a passage painted with fish and water-nymphs so true to life that Resa felt as if the lake had swallowed them up. ‘I can take off this body like a garment, I can give fire a soul, and I can read your husband’s heart better than the letters you took such trouble to teach me.’
He pushed a door open. No window let any light into the room beyond, but Dustfinger whispered, and the walls were covered with sparks as if they were growing a fiery coat.
When Resa spat out the seeds she had been holding under her tongue, two were missing, and for a terrible moment she was afraid she would be a bird for ever, but her body still remembered itself. When she had human limbs again she instinctively stroked her belly and wondered whether the child inside it was changed by the seeds too. The idea frightened her so much that she was almost sick.
Dustfinger picked up a swift’s feather lying at her feet and looked at it thoughtfully.
‘Roxane is well,’ said Resa.
He smiled. ‘I know.’
He seemed to know everything. So she told him nothing about either Snapper or Mortola, or how the Black Prince had nearly died. And Dustfinger did not ask why she had followed Mo.
‘What about the Night-Mare?’ Even speaking the word frightened her.
‘I slipped through its black paws just in time.’ He rubbed a hand over his face as if to wipe a shadow away. ‘Luckily creatures of its kind aren’t interested in dead men.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘Orpheus brought it here with him. It follows him like a dog.’
‘Orpheus?’ But that was impossible! Orpheus was in Ombra, drowning his sorrows in drink and wallowing in self-pity, as he had been doing ever since Dustfinger stole the book from him.
‘That’s right, Orpheus. I don’t know how he fixed it, but he serves the Adder now. And he’s just had your husband thrown into one of the dungeons under the castle.’
Footsteps could be heard above them, but they soon died away.
‘Take me to him!’
‘You can’t go there. The cells are deep down and well guarded. I may be able to do it alone, but two of us would attract far too much attention. This castle will be teeming with soldiers once they discover that the Fire-Dancer is back from the dead again.’
You can’t go there … wait here, Resa … it’s too dangerous. She was tired of hearing this kind of thing. ‘How is he?’ she asked. ‘You said you can read his heart.’
She saw the answer in Dustfinger’s eyes.
‘A bird will attract less attention than you would,’ she said, and put the seeds in her mouth before he could stop her.
62
Black
You are the bird whose soft wings came
When I cried out at night, waking from sleep.
Cried only with my arms, because your name
Is like a chasm, a thousand long nights deep.
Rainer Maria Rilke,
The Guardian Angel
The cell they threw Mo into was worse than the tower in the Castle of Night or the dungeon in Ombra. They had let him down on a chain, his hands bound, deeper and deeper down until the dark settled on his eyes like blindness. And the Piper had stood there above him, describing in his nasal whine how he was going to bring Meggie and Resa here and kill them before his eyes. As if the Piper’s words made any difference. Meggie was lost already. Death would take her as well as him. But perhaps the Great Shape-Changer would at least spare Resa and their unborn child if Mo refused to bind the Adderhead another book. Ink, Mortimer, black ink surrounds you, he thought. It was difficult to breathe in this damp void. But it made him feel strangely calm to think it was no longer up to him to go on with this story, on and on all the time. He was so tired of it …
He dropped to his knees. The damp stone felt like the bottom of a well. As a child he had always been afraid of falling into a well and starving to death, helpless and alone. He shuddered, longing for Dustfinger’s fire, for its light and warmth. But Dustfinger was dead. Extinguished by Orpheus’s Night-Mare. Mo thought he could hear it breathing beside him, so distinctly that he looked for its red eyes in all that blackness. But there was nothing. Or was there?
He heard footsteps, and looked up.
‘Well, how do you like it down there?’
Orpheus was standing on the edge of the shaft. The light of his torch didn’t reach the bottom of it; the cell lay too deep for that, and Mo instinctively stepped back so that the darkness would hide him. Like a caged animal, he thought.
‘Oh, so you’re not talking to me any more? Very understandable.’ Orpheus smiled with self-satisfaction, and Mo’s hand went to where his knife had been hidden, the knife so carefully concealed by Battista. Thumbling had found it all the same. Mo imagined thrusting it into Orpheus’s flabby body. Again and again. The pictures that his helpless hatred conjured up were so full of blood that they sickened him.
‘I’m here to tell you how this story goes on. Just in case you still think you play a leading part in it.’
Mo closed his eyes and leant back against the damp wall. Let him talk, he told himself. Think of Resa, think of Meggie. Or perhaps he’d better not. How had Orpheus heard about the cave?
All is lost, a voice inside him whispered. Everything. The composure that he had felt since the appearance of the White Women was gone. Come back, he wanted to whisper. Please! Protect me! But they didn’t come. Instead, words ate into his heart like pale maggots. Where did they come from? All is lost. Stop it, he told himself. But the words ate their wa
y on, and he writhed as if in physical pain.
‘You’re so quiet! Ah, do you feel it already?’ Orpheus laughed, happy as a child. ‘I knew it would work. I knew it when I read the first song. Oh yes, I have a book again, Mortimer. In fact I have three of them, full to the brim with Fenoglio’s words, and two of them are all about the Bluejay. Violante brought them to this castle. Wasn’t that kind of her? I had to make some changes, of course – move a few words here, a few more there. Fenoglio is very kind to the Bluejay, but I was able to put that right.’
Fenoglio’s Bluejay songs. All neatly written down by Balbulus. Mo closed his eyes.
‘And, by the way, the water isn’t my doing!’ Orpheus called down to him. ‘The Adderhead has had the sluices to the lake opened. You won’t drown, it doesn’t rise high enough for that, but it won’t be pleasant.’
At the same moment Mo felt the water rising up his legs as if the darkness had turned liquid, so cold and black that he fought for breath.
‘No, the water isn’t my idea,’ Orpheus went on, sounding bored. ‘I know you too well by now to think that fear of that kind would change your mind. Presumably you’re hoping your obstinacy may yet mollify Death, now that you haven’t kept your part of the bargain. Oh yes, I know about the deal you did with Death, I know everything … but however that may be, I’ll drive the obstinacy out of you. I’ll make you forget your high-minded virtues. I’ll make you forget everything except the fear, because the White Women can’t protect you from my words.’
Mo wanted to strike the man dead. With his bare hands. But they were bound, he reminded himself
‘At first I was going to write something about your wife and daughter, but then I said to myself: no, Orpheus, that way he won’t feel the words himself!’ How the moon-faced creature was enjoying every syllable he spoke. As if he had dreamt of this moment. There he is up above, thought Mo, and here I am down in a black cell, helpless as a rat that he could kill at any moment.
‘No,’ Orpheus went on. ‘No, I said to myself. Let him feel the power of your words for himself. Show him that from now on you can play with the Bluejay like a cat playing with a mouse. Except that your claws are made of letters!’
And Mo felt the claws. It was as if the water were seeping through his skin and straight into his heart. So black. Then came the pain. As violent as if Mortola had shot him a second time, and so real that he pressed his hands to his chest, thinking he would feel his own blood between his fingers. Although the darkness blinded him, he saw it stain his shirt and his hands, and felt his strength fading away as it had before. He could hardly stand upright; he had to brace his back against the wall to keep from slipping into the water that was already up to his waist. Resa. Oh God. Resa, help me.
Despair shook him like a child. Despair and helpless rage.
‘I wasn’t sure at first what would work best.’ Orpheus’s voice cut through the pain like a blunt knife. ‘Should I send a few unpleasant water-monsters to visit you? I have the book here that Fenoglio wrote for Jacopo. It has some rather nasty creatures in it. But I decided on another, far more interesting way! I decided to drive you mad with beings out of your own head, come to haunt you with old fears, old anger and old pain all dammed up in your heroic heart, locked away but not forgotten. Bring it all back to him, Orpheus! I told myself. With some added images that he’s always been afraid of: a dead wife. A dead child. Send them all down to him in the darkness, let him drown in his own anger. Who feels like a hero when he’s trembling with fright and knows it comes from nowhere but himself? How does the Bluejay feel when he dreams of bloody slaughter? How does it feel to doubt your own sanity? Yes, I told myself, if you want to break him, that’s the way. Let him lose himself, let the Bluejay howl like a mad dog, let him trap himself in his own fear. Let loose the Furies who can kill him so cleverly from the inside.’
Mo felt what Orpheus was describing even as the other man spoke, and he realized that Orpheus had already read the words aloud some time ago, with a tongue as powerful as his own. Yes, it was a new Bluejay song. Telling how he lost his mind in a damp, black cell, how he nearly drowned himself in his despair, and how at last he begged for mercy and bound the Adderhead another White Book, his hands still shaking from hours in the dark.
The water had stopped rising, but Mo felt something brush past his legs. Breathe slowly, Mortimer, breathe very steadily. Shut out the words, don’t let them in. You can do it. But how, when a gunshot had just entered his breast again, when his blood was mingling with the water and everything in him cried out for revenge? He felt feverish again, feverish and yet so cold. He bit his lip to keep Orpheus from hearing him groan, pressed his hand to his heart. Feel it; there isn’t really any blood there. Meggie isn’t dead, even if you see that image as clearly as Orpheus could write the scene. No, no, no! But the words whispered: yes! And he felt as if he were breaking into a thousand tiny shards.
‘Throw your torch down, guard! I want to see him.’
The torch fell. It dazzled Mo, and drifted on the dark water for a moment before going out.
‘Well, well, so you do feel them! You feel every single word, don’t you?’ Orpheus looked down at him like a child looks at a worm he has put on a hook, fascinated to see it writhe. Mo wanted to put his head under the water until he couldn’t breathe any more. Stop it, Mortimer, he told himself, what is he doing to you? Defend yourself. But how? He felt like sinking into the water just to escape the words, but he knew that even there they would be waiting for him.
‘I’ll be back in an hour’s time!’ Orpheus called down. ‘Of course, I couldn’t resist reading at least a few nasty creatures into the water for you, but don’t worry, they won’t kill you. Who knows, perhaps you’ll even find them a welcome diversion from what your mind shows you? Bluejay … yes, you really ought to be careful when you choose what part to play. Get them to call me as soon as you realize that your high-minded approach is out of place here. Then I’ll write you a few words to save you. Along the lines of: but morning came, and the Bluejay’s madness left him …’
Orpheus laughed, and went away. Leaving him alone with the water and the darkness and the words.
Bind the Book for the Adderhead. The sentence formed in Mo’s mind as if written in perfect calligraphy. Bind him another White Book and all will be well.
Again pain shot through him so violently that he cried out. He saw Thumbling taking his fingers in a pair of pincers, saw the Milksop dragging Meggie out of a cave by her hair, saw the dogs snapping at Resa. He was shivering with fever, or was it from the cold? It’s only in your mind, Mortimer! He struck his forehead against the stone. If only he could have seen something, anything but Orpheus’s images. If only he could have felt something other than the words. Press your hands on the stone, go on, dip your face in the water, strike yourself with your fists, that’s all that’s real, nothing else. Oh yes?
Mo sobbed, and pressed his bound hands to his forehead. He heard a fluttering above him. Sparks sprang up in the blackness. The dark retreated as if someone were removing a blindfold from his eyes. Dustfinger? No, Dustfinger was dead. Even if his heart refused to believe it.
The Bluejay is dying, the voice inside him whispered, the Bluejay is losing his mind. And he heard fluttering again. Of course. Death was coming to visit him, and she wasn’t sending the White Women to protect him again. This time she was coming herself to take him away, because he had failed. Death would take first him, then Meggie … but perhaps even that was better than the words Orpheus had written.
It was all black, so black, in spite of the sparks. He could still see them. Where did they come from? He heard the fluttering again, and suddenly he felt someone beside him. A hand was laid on his forehead, caressed his face. Such a familiar hand.
‘What is it? Mo!’
Resa. This was impossible. Was Orpheus conjuring up her face, only to drown her the next moment before his eyes? He had never known that Orpheus could write so well. And how warm her hands were!
‘What’s the matter with him?’
Dustfinger’s voice. Mo looked up and saw him, exactly where Orpheus had been standing. Madness. He was caught in a dream until Orpheus released him.
‘Mo!’ Resa took his face between her hands. Only a dream. But what did that matter? It was so good to see her. He sobbed with relief, and she held him tight. ‘You must get away from here!’
She couldn’t be real.
‘Listen to me, Mo! You must get away.’
‘You can’t be here.’ How heavy his tongue was.
‘Yes, I can.’
‘Dustfinger is dead.’ Resa … she looked so different with her hair pinned up.
Something swam between them. Spikes stuck up from the water, and Resa flinched in alarm. Mo drew her close and hit out at the swimming thing. Still as if in a dream. Dustfinger threw a rope down. It didn’t come low enough, but at a whisper from above it began growing longer, lengthened by fibres made of flames.
Mo reached for it, and let it go again.
‘I can’t leave this place.’ The sparks made the water filling the cell seem as red as blood. ‘I can’t.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Resa pressed the fiery rope into his damp hands.
‘Death. Meggie.’ He had lost the words, too, in all the darkness. ‘I have to find the Book, Resa.’
She put the rope back into his hands once more. They would have to climb fast to keep it from burning their skin. Mo began climbing, but it seemed as though the darkness clung to him like a black scarf. Dustfinger helped him up over the rim of the shaft. Two guards lay there, dead or unconscious.
Dustfinger looked at him, looked into his heart, saw everything in it.
‘Those are terrible pictures,’ he said.
‘Black as ink.’ Mo’s voice was hoarse. ‘A greeting from Orpheus.’
The words were still there. Pain. Despair. Hatred. Rage. His heart seemed to fill with them at every breath he took. As if the dark dungeon were inside him now.
He took a sword from one of the guards and drew Resa close. He felt her trembling under the men’s clothes she wore. Perhaps she really was here. But how? And why wasn’t the Fire-Dancer lying dead outside the cages any more? Suppose these are only pictures conjured up by Orpheus, he thought as he followed Dustfinger. Suppose he’s showing them to me only to fling me even deeper into the darkness? Orpheus. Strike him dead, Mortimer, him and his words. His own hatred frightened him almost more than the darkness; it was so full of blood, so intemperate.
Dustfinger went ahead as fast as if he were leading them along paths he knew. Flights of steps, gateways, endless passages, with never any