"Don’t look so disappointed!" whispered Dustfinger as he sent two more blue jays 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 out patrols, 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 burned on, shaping new creatures all the time, and died down only in the morning, like a specter of the night. The fiery blue jays, 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 gray 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.
CHAPTER 39
STOLEN CHILDREN
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 protective arm around Meggie’s shoulders. "So don’t talk as if you didn’t care what became of him! You’d never have gotten 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.
