Inkspell

72. AN EXCHANGE

They almost all escaped. The fire saved them, the fury of the bear, the Black Prince's men – and Mo, who practiced killing that gray morning as if he meant to become a master of the craft. Basta was left dead under the trees, along with Slasher and so many of their men that the ground was covered with their corpses as if with dead leaves. Two of the strolling players had been killed, too – and Farid.

Farid.

Dustfinger himself was pale as death when he carried him back to the mine. Meggie walked beside him all the long, dark way. She held Farid's hand, as if that could help, feeling as sore inside herself as if it would never get better.

She was the only one whom Dustfinger did not send away when he had laid Farid down on his cloak in the most remote of the galleries. No one dared approach him as he bent over the dead boy and wiped the soot from his brow. Roxane did try to talk to him, but when she saw the expression on his face she left him alone. He allowed only Meggie to sit beside Farid, as if he had seen his own pain in her eyes. So they both sat with him in the depths of Mount Adder, as if they had come to the end of all stories. Without a single word still left to say.

Perhaps night had fallen outside by the time Meggie heard Dustfinger's voice. It came to her as if from far away, through the fog of pain that enveloped her as if she would never find her way out.

"You'd like him back, too, wouldn't you?"

It was difficult for her to turn her eyes away from Farid's face. "He'll never come back," she whispered, and looked at Dustfinger. She didn't have the strength to speak any louder. All her strength was gone, as if Farid had taken it away with him. He had taken everything away with him.

"There's a story." Dustfinger looked at his hands, as if what he was talking about was written there. "A story about the White Women."

"What kind of story?" Meggie didn't want to hear any more stories ever again. This one had broken her heart for all time. Nonetheless, there was something in Dustfinger's voice…

He bent over Farid and wiped some soot from his cold forehead. "Roxane knows it," he said. "She'll tell it to you. Just go to her and… and tell her I've had to go away. Tell her I'm going to find out if the story is true." He spoke with a strange kind of hesitation, as if it were infinitely difficult to find the right words. "And remind her of my promise – that I'll always find a way back to her, wherever I am. Will you tell her that?"

What was he talking about? "Find out?" Meggie's voice was husky with tears. "Find out what exactly?"

"Oh, people say this and that about the White Women. Much of it's just superstition, but there's sure to be some truth in it somewhere. Stories are always like that, aren't they? No doubt Fenoglio could tell me more, but to be honest I don't want to ask him. I'd rather ask them in person."

Dustfinger straightened up. He stood there looking around him, as if he had forgotten where he really was.

The White Women. "They'll be coming soon, won't they?" Meggie asked him anxiously. "Coming for Farid."

But Dustfinger shook his head, and for the first time since Farid's death he smiled, that strangely sad smile that Meggie had never seen on any face but his, and that she had never entirely understood. "No, why should they? They're sure of him already. They come only if you're still clinging to life, if they have to lure you to them with a look or a whispered word. Everything else is superstition. They come while you're still breathing, but very close to death. They come when your heart is beating more and more faintly, when they can smell fear, or blood, as in your father's case. If you die as quickly as Farid you go to them entirely of your own accord."

Meggie caressed Farid's fingers. They were colder than the stone where she was sitting. "Then I don't understand," she whispered. "If they aren't coming at all, how will you ask them anything?"

"I shall summon them," replied Dustfinger. "But you had better not be here when I do it, so will you go to Roxane and tell her what I have said to you?"

She was going to ask more questions, but he put a finger on his lips. "Please, Meggie!" he said. He didn't often call her by her name. "Tell Roxane what I have told you – and say… say I'm sorry. Now, off you go."

Meggie sensed that he was afraid, but she did not ask him what of, because her heart was asking other questions. How could it be true that Farid was dead, and how would it feel to have him dead in her heart forever? She caressed his still face one last time before she got to her feet. When she looked back once more at the entrance to the gallery, Dustfinger was looking down at Farid. And, for the first time since she had known him, his face showed all that he usually hid: affection, love – and pain.

Meggie knew where to look for Roxane, but she lost her way twice in the dark galleries before she finally found her. Roxane was tending the injured women, while the Barn Owl was looking after the men. Many of them had been hurt, and although the fire had saved their lives it had burned many of them badly. Mo was nowhere to be seen, and nor was the Prince; they were probably on guard at the entrance to the mine, but Resa was with Roxane. She was just bandaging an arm that had suffered burns, and Roxane was treating a cut on an old woman's forehead with the same ointment she had once used on Dustfinger's wounds. Its springlike fragrance did not suit this place.

When Meggie came out of the dark passage, Roxane raised her head. Perhaps she had been hoping it was Dustfinger's footsteps that she had heard. Meggie leaned back against the cold wall of the gallery. This is all a dream, she thought, a terrible, terrible dream. She felt dizzy with weeping.

"What's that story?" she asked Roxane. "A story about the White Women… Dustfinger says you're to tell me. And he says he has to go away because he wants to find out if it's true."

"Go away?" Roxane put down the ointment. "What are you talking about?"

Meggie wiped her eyes, but there were no tears left in them. She supposed she had used them all up. Where did so many tears come from? "He says he's going to summon them," she murmured. "And he says you're to remember his promise. That he'll always come back, he'll find a way wherever he is…" The words still made no sense to her when she repeated them. But they obviously meant something to Roxane.

She straightened up, and so did Resa.

"What are you talking about, Meggie?" asked her mother, with concern in her voice. "Where's Dustfinger?"

"With Farid. He's still with Farid." It hurt so much to speak his name. Resa took her in her arms. But Roxane just stood there, staring at the dark gallery from which Meggie had come. Then she suddenly pushed Meggie aside, made her way past her, and disappeared into the darkness. Resa hurried after her, without letting go of Meggie's hand. Roxane was only a little way ahead of them. She trod on the hem of her dress, fell over, picked herself up again, and ran on. Faster and faster. But still she came too late.

Resa almost stumbled into Roxane, for she was standing rooted to the spot at the entrance of the gallery where Farid lay. Roxane's name burned on the wall in fiery letters, and the White Women were still there. They withdrew their pale hands from Dustfinger's breast as if they had torn out his heart. Perhaps Roxane was the last thing he saw. Perhaps he just had time to see Farid move before he himself collapsed without a sound, as the White Women vanished.

Yes, Farid was moving – like someone who has slept too long and too deeply. He sat up, his gaze blurred, with no idea who was suddenly lying there motionless behind him. Even when Roxane made her way past him he did not turn. He stared into space, as if there were pictures in front of him that no one else could see.

Hesitantly, as if he were a stranger, Meggie went to him. She didn't know what to feel. She didn't know what to think.

But Roxane stood beside Dustfinger, her hand pressed firmly to her mouth, as if she had to hold back her pain. Her name was still burning on the wall of the gallery as if it had stood there forever, but she took no notice of the letters of fire. Without a word she sank to her knees and took Dustfinger's head on her lap, as carefully as if she feared to break what was already broken, and she bent over him until her black hair surrounded his face like a veil.

Resa began to weep. But Farid still sat there as if numbed. Only when Meggie was right in front of him did he seem to notice her.

"Meggie?" he murmured, his tongue heavy.

It couldn't be true. He was really back.

Farid. Suddenly, his name did not taste of pain. He put his hand out to her and she took it, quickly, as if she had to hold on tight to prevent him from going away again, so far away. Was Dustfinger in that place now? How warm Farid's face felt again. Her fingers couldn't believe it. She kneeled beside him and put her arms around him, much too tight, felt his heart beating against her, beating strongly.

"Meggie!" He looked as relieved as if he had woken from a bad dream. There was even a smile stealing over his lips. But then Roxane, behind them, began sobbing very quietly, so quietly that you could hardly hear it through her curtain of hair – and Farid turned around.

For a moment he seemed unable to take in what he saw.

Then he tore himself away from Meggie, stood up, stumbled over the cloak as if his legs were still too weak for him to walk. He crawled over to Dustfinger's side on his knees and touched the still face with incredulous horror.

"What happened?" He was shouting at Roxane as if she were the cause of all misfortune. "What have you done? What did you do to him?"

Meggie kneeled down beside him, trying to soothe him, but he wouldn't let her. He pushed her hands away and bent over Dustfinger again, putting his ear to his chest, listening – and sobbing as he pressed his face to the place where no heart beat anymore.

The Black Prince entered the gallery. Mo was with him, and more and more faces appeared behind them.

"Go away!" Farid shouted at them. "Go away, all of you! What have you done to him? Why isn't he breathing? There's no blood anywhere, no blood at all."

"No one did anything to him, Farid!" whispered Meggie. You'd like him back, too, wouldn't you? Meggie heard Dustfinger saying. She kept hearing the words in her head, over and over again. "It was the White Women. We saw them. He summoned them himself."

"You're lying!" Farid was almost shouting at her. "Why would he do a thing like that?"

But Roxane ran her finger over Dustfinger's scars, fine, pale lines, as fine as if a glass man's pen, and not a knife, had drawn them. "There's a story that the strolling players tell their children," she said, without looking at any of them. "About a fire-eater whose son the White Women took. In his despair he remembered something that was said about them: They fear fire, yet long for its warmth. So he decided to summon them by his art and ask them to give him back his son. It worked. He summoned them with fire, he made it dance and sing for them, and they did not deliver his son to death but gave him back his life. However, they took the fire-eater with them, and he never came back. The story says he must live with them forever, until the end of time, and make fire dance for them." Roxane picked up Dustfinger's lifeless hand and kissed the soot-blackened fingertips. "It's only a story," she went on. "But he loved to hear it. He always said it was so beautiful that there must be a grain of truth in it. Whether that's so or not – he's made it come true himself now, and he'll never return. In spite of his promise. Not this time."

Farid stared at her in horror. Watching his face, Meggie saw memory return: the memory of Basta's knife. He reached around to his back, and when he withdrew his hand his own blood was sticking to his fingers. His tunic was still damp with it.

"You were dead, Farid!" Meggie whispered. "And Dustfinger brought you back." She closed her eyes so as not to see that motionless figure anymore. She wanted to see other pictures: Dustfinger breathing fire for her in Elinor's garden, or guiding her and Mo through the hills away from Capricorn's dreadful village, and his happiness when she first saw him in his own world. He had both betrayed and rescued her – and now he had given her Farid back. Tears were running down her face, and she hardly noticed when her mother kneeled down beside her.

It was a long night.

Roxane and the Prince kept watch by Dustfinger's side, but Farid had climbed out of the mine to where the moon was showing through black clouds, and mist rose from the ground that was wet with rain. He had pushed aside the guards who tried to stop him and thrown himself down on the moss. He lay there now under Mortola's venomous trees, sobbing – while the two martens scuffled in the darkness as if they still had a master to quarrel over.

Of course Meggie went to him, but Farid sent her away, so she set off to find Mo. Resa was asleep beside him, her face wet with tears, but Mo was awake. He sat there with his arm around her sleeping mother and looked into the darkness as if a story was written there – a story that he didn't yet understand. For the first time, Meggie couldn't read in his face what he was thinking. There was something strange and closed in it, hard as the scab over a wound, but when he noticed her inquiring look he smiled at her, and all the strangeness was gone.

"Come here," he said softly, and she sat down beside him and pressed her face into his shoulder. "I want to go home, Mo!" she whispered.

"No, you don't," he whispered back, and she sobbed into his shirt, as she had done so often when she was a little girl. She had been able to unload all her grief onto him, however heavily it weighed. Mo had brushed it away simply by stroking her hair, putting his hand on her brow, and whispering her name, and that was what he did now in this sad place, on this sad night. He couldn't take away all the pain, there was too much of it, but he could help just by holding her close. No one could do it better. Not Resa. Not even Farid.

Yes, it was a long night, as long as a thousand nights, darker than any that Meggie had ever known. And she didn't know how long she had been sleeping beside Mo when Farid was suddenly shaking her awake. He led her off with him, away from her sleeping parents, into a dark corner that smelled of the Prince's bear.

"Meggie," he whispered, taking her hand between his and pressing it so hard that it hurt. "I know how we can make everything right again. You go to Fenoglio! Tell him to write something that will bring Dustfinger back to life! He'll listen to you!"

Of course. She might have known he would think up this idea. He was looking at her so pleadingly that it hurt, but she shook her head.

"No, Farid. Dustfinger is dead. Fenoglio can't do anything for him. And even if he could – haven't you heard what he keeps muttering to himself? He says he'll never write another word, not after what happened to Cosimo."

Fenoglio had indeed changed. Meggie had hardly recognized him when she saw him again. Once, his eyes had always reminded her of a little boy's. Now they were an old man's eyes. His gaze was suspicious, uncertain, as if he didn't trust the ground under his feet anymore, and since Cosimo's death he cared nothing for shaving himself, combing his hair, or washing. He had asked only about the book that Mo had bound. But not even Meggie's assurance that its blank pages did indeed ward off death had wiped the bitterness from his face. "Oh, wonderful!" he had muttered. "The Adderhead's immortal and Cosimo's dead as a doornail. Nothing goes right with this story anymore." And he had gone off again, far from all the others. No, Fenoglio wouldn't help anyone anymore, not even himself. All the same, when Farid set off in search of him, Meggie went, too.

Fenoglio was spending most of his time these days in one of the deepest galleries of the mine, a place almost entirely filled with rubble, to which no one else climbed down. He was asleep when they clambered down the steep ladder, the fur that the robbers had given him drawn up to his chin, his old forehead wrinkled as if he were thinking hard even in his dreams.

"Fenoglio!" Farid roughly shook him awake.

The old man turned over on his back with a grunt that would have done the Prince's bear credit. Then he opened his eyes and stared at Farid as if seeing his dark face for the very first time. "Oh, it's you!" he growled, dazed with sleep, and propped himself on his elbows. "The boy who came back from the dead.

Something else that I never wrote! What do you want? Do you know I was just having my first good dream for days?"

"You must write us something!"

"Write something? I'm never going to write again. Haven't we seen what comes of it? I have this fabulous idea about the book of immortality that will set the good characters free and bring the Adderhead to his death in the most subtle way. And what happens? The Adder is immortal now, and the forest is full of corpses again! Robbers, strolling players, the two-fingered man – dead! Why do I keep making them up if this story is only going to kill them? Oh, this thrice-accursed story! It's in love with Death!"

"But you must bring him back!" Farid's lips were trembling. "You made the Adderhead immortal, so why not him?"

"You're talking about Dustfinger, aren't you?" Fenoglio sat up and rubbed his face, sighing heavily. "Yes, he's dead now, too, dead as a doornail, but I'd planned that a long way back, as you perhaps remember. Be that as it may, Dustfinger is dead, you were dead… Minerva's husband, Cosimo, the boys who rode with him, they're all dead! Can't this story think of anything else? I'll tell you something, my boy. I'm not its author anymore. No, the author is Death, the Grim Reaper, the Cold Man, call him what you like. It's his dance, and never mind what I write he'll take my words and make them serve him!"

"Nonsense!" Farid was no longer even wiping away the tears that streamed down his face. "You must fetch him back. It wasn't his death at all, it was mine! Make him breathe again! It will only take a few words. After all, you did it for Cosimo and for Silvertongue."

"Just a moment – Meggie's father wasn't dead yet," Fenoglio soberly pointed out. "And as for Cosimo, he only looked like

Cosimo – how many more times do I have to explain that? Meggie and I made a brand-new Cosimo, and unfortunately it went terribly wrong. No!" He reached into his belt, produced something resembling a handkerchief, and blew his nose noisily. "This is not a story in which the dead come to life! All right, I admit I brought immortality into it, yes. But that's different from bringing back the dead. No, when someone is dead here, he stays dead! It's the same in this world as in the one I come from. Dustfinger got around that rule very cleverly on your behalf. Perhaps I wrote the sentimental story that gave him the idea myself… I really don't remember, but never mind, there are always gaps. And he paid for your life with his own. That's always been the only trade-off that Death will accept. Who'd have thought it? Dustfinger, of all people, gets so fond of a good-for-nothing boy that he ends up dying for him. I admit it's a much better idea than the one about the marten, but it isn't mine. Oh no! So if you're looking for someone to blame, then blame yourself. Because one thing is certain, my boy" – and so saying he jabbed his finger roughly into Farid's thin chest – "and it's that you don't belong in this story! And if you hadn't taken it into your head to wangle your way into it, Dustfinger would still be alive -"

Farid punched Fenoglio in the face before Meggie could pull him back.

"How can you say a thing like that?" she shouted at Fenoglio as Farid, sobbing, put his arms around her. "Farid saved Dustfinger at the mill. He's protected him ever since he arrived here -"

"Yes, yes, all right!" growled Fenoglio, feeling his nose. It hurt. "I'm a heartless old man, I know. But although you may not believe it, I felt dreadful when I saw Dustfinger lying there. And then Roxane's tears, appalling, really appalling. All the wounded men, Meggie, all the dead, so many dead… No, Meggie, the words don't obey me anymore. Except when it suits them. They've turned against me like snakes."

"Exactly. You're a failure, a miserable failure!" Farid shook Meggie off. "You don't know your own trade. But someone else does. The man who brought Dustfinger here. Orpheus. He'll get him back, you wait and see. Write him here! You can at least do that! Yes, write Orpheus here at once or… or… I'll tell the Adderhead you were going to kill him, I'll tell all the women in Ombra it's your fault their menfolk are dead… I'll… I'll…"

He stood there with his fists clenched, quivering with rage and despair. But the old man just looked at him. Then, with difficulty, he rose to his feet. "Do you know something, my boy?" he said, putting his face very close to Farid's. "If you'd asked me nicely I might have tried, but not this way. No, no! Fenoglio must be asked, not threatened. I still have that much pride left."

At this Farid looked like going for him again, but Meggie held him back. "Fenoglio, stop it!" she shouted at the old man. "He's desperate, can't you see that?"

"Desperate? So what? I'm desperate, too!" Fenoglio snapped at her. "My story is foundering in misfortune, and these hands here," he said, holding them out to her, "don't want to write anymore! I'm afraid of words, Meggie! Once they were like honey, now they're poison, pure poison! But what is a writer who doesn't love words anymore? What have I come to? This story is devouring me, crushing me, and I'm its creator!"

"Fetch Orpheus!" said Farid hoarsely. Meggie could hear how much trouble he was taking to control his voice, to banish the rage from it. "Bring him here, and let him write it for you! Teach him what you know, the way Dustfinger taught me everything! Let him find the right words for you. He loves your story, he told Dustfinger so himself! He even wrote you a letter when he was a boy."

"Did he?" For a moment Fenoglio sounded almost like his old inquisitive self.

"Yes, he admires you! He thinks this is the best of all stories, he said so!"

"Really?" Fenoglio sounded flattered. "Well, it isn't bad. That is to say, it wasn't bad." He looked thoughtfully at Farid. "A pupil. A pupil for Fenoglio," he murmured. "A writer's apprentice. Hmm. Orpheus…" He spoke the name as if he had to taste it. "The only poet who ever challenged Death… appropriate."

Farid was looking at him so hopefully that it went to Meggie's heart again. But Fenoglio smiled, even though it was a sad smile.

"Look at him, Meggie!" he said. "He has the same pleading look as my grandchildren could turn on to wheedle anything out of me. Does he look at you the same way when he wants something from you?"

Meggie felt herself blushing. However, Fenoglio turned back to Farid. "You know we'll need Meggie's help, don't you?"

Farid nodded, and looked at her.

"I'll read it," she said quietly. "If Fenoglio writes it, I'll read it." And get the man who helped Mortola to bring my father here and almost kill him into this story, Meggie added in her thoughts. She tried not to think of what Mo would say about the deal.

However, Fenoglio already seemed to be searching for words in his mind. The right words – words that would not betray and deceive him. "Very well," he muttered abstractedly, "let's get down to work one last time. But where am I going to find paper and ink? Not to mention a pen and a helpful glass man? Poor Rosenquartz is still in Ombra."

"I have paper," said Meggie, "and a pencil."

"That's very beautiful," said Fenoglio when she put her notebook in his lap. "Did your father bind it?"

Meggie nodded.

"There are some pages torn out."

"Yes, for a message I gave my mother and the letter I sent you. The one that Cloud-Dancer brought you."

"Oh. Oh yes. Him." For a moment Fenoglio looked dreadfully tired. "Books with blank pages," he murmured. "They seem to be playing more and more of a part in this story, don't you think?" Then he asked Meggie to leave him alone with Farid so that the boy could tell him about Orpheus. "To be honest," he whispered to Meggie, "I think he vastly overestimates the man's abilities! What has this fellow Orpheus done? Put my own words together in a different order, that's all. But I'll admit I'm curious to meet him. It takes a fair amount of megalomania to give yourself a name like that, and megalomania is an interesting character trait."

Meggie did not share his opinion, but it was too late to go back on her promise. She would read again. For Farid this time. She went quietly back to her parents, laid her head on Mo's chest, and fell asleep hearing his heartbeat in her ear. Words had saved him, why shouldn't they do the same for Dustfinger? Even if he had gone far, far away… didn't the words of this world rule even the land of silence?