Cornelia Funke - Inkdeath

Night-Mare.

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 around 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 anymore, 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 dreamed 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 onto 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 that 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 forever, 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.

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 anymore? 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 leaned 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 way on, and he writhed as if in physical pain.