“Very well.” The Adderhead dipped the pen in the ink again – and stopped once more. “White,”
he murmured, staring at the blank pages. “See how white they are. White as the women who bring death, white as the bones the Cold Man leaves behind when he’s had his fill of flesh and blood.”
Then he wrote. Wrote his name in the blank book and closed it. “That’s done!” he cried triumphantly. “That’s done, Taddeo! Lock him in the book, the soul-swallower, the enemy who can’t be killed. Now he can’t kill me, either. Now we’re equals. Two Cold Men ruling the world together, for all eternity.”
The librarian obeyed, but as he was engaging the clasps he looked at Mo. Who are you? his eyes seemed to ask. What’s your part in this game? But even if Mo had wanted to, he couldn’t have given him the answer.
The Adderhead, however, seemed to think he knew it. “You know, I like you, Bluejay,” he said, never taking his lizard-like gaze off Mo. “Yes, you’d make a good herald, but that’s not the way the parts are shared out, is it?”
“No, indeed not,” said Mo. But you don’t know who shares them out, and I do, he added in his thoughts.
The Adderhead nodded to the men-at-arms. “Let him go,” he ordered. “And the girl, and anyone else he wants to take.” They stepped aside, if reluctantly.
“Come on, Mo!” whispered Meggie, pressing his hand.
How pale she was. Pale with fear, and so defenseless. Mo looked past the men-at-arms and thought of the walled courtyard waiting for them out there, the silver vipers staring down, the openings for boiling pitch above the gate. He thought of the crossbows of the guards on the battlements, too, the spears of the guards at the gate – and the soldiers who had pushed Resa down in the dirt. Without a word, he bent down and picked up the sword that had fallen from Firefox’s hand.
“Mo!” Meggie let go of his hand and looked at him in horror. “What are you doing?”
But he just pulled her close to him without a word, while the men-at-arms all drew their weapons. Firefox’s sword weighed heavy, heavier than the one he had used to chase Capricorn out of his house.
“Well, fancy that!” said the Adderhead. “You don’t seem to trust my word, Bluejay!”
“Oh, I trust it,” said Mo, without lowering the sword. “But everyone here except me has a weapon, so I think I’ll keep this masterless sword. You keep the book, and if we’re both lucky we’ll never see each other again after this morning.”
Even the Adderhead’s laughter sounded as if it were made of silver – dark, tarnished silver.
“Well, now,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to play games with you, Bluejay. You’re a good opponent.
Which is why I’ll keep my word. Let him go,” he told the men-at-arms again. “Tell the guards at the gate the Adderhead is letting the Bluejay go because he need never fear him! again. For the Adderhead is immortal!”
The words echoed in Mo’s ears as he took Meggie’s hand. Taddeo was still holding the book, holding it as if it might bite him. Mo thought he could still feel its paper between his fingers, the wood of the boards, the leather covering it, the thread stitching the pages. Then he saw Meggie’s gaze. She was staring at the sword in his hand as if it made a stranger of him.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s join your mother!”
“Yes, go, Bluejay, take your daughter and your wife and all the others,” the Adderhead called after them. “Before Mortola reminds me how stupid it is to let you go free!”
Only two men-at-arms followed them on their long journey through the castle. The courtyard was almost empty at this early hour of the morning. The sky above the Castle of Night was gray, and fine rain was falling like a veil before the face of the dawning day. The few servants already at work retreated in alarm from the sight of the sword in Mo’s hand, and the men-at-arms waved them aside without a word.
The other prisoners were already waiting at the gate, a forlorn little troop guarded by a dozen soldiers. At first Mo couldn’t see Resa, but suddenly one figure moved away from the others and ran toward him and Meggie. No one stopped her. Perhaps the soldiers had heard of Firefox’s fate. Mo felt their eyes on him, full of horror and fear – the man who bound Death between white pages and was a robber in the bargain! Didn’t the sword in his hand prove that for all time? He didn’t care what they thought. Let them be afraid of him. He had felt more than enough fear for one lifetime in all those days and nights when he thought he had lost everything – his wife, his daughter – and there was nothing left for him but a lonely death in this world made of words.
Resa hugged him and Meggie in turn, she almost crushed them, and his face was wet with her tears when she let go of him again.
“Come on, let’s go through the gate, Resa!” he urged in a low voice. “Before the lord of this castle changes his mind! We all have a great deal to tell one another, but for now let’s go!”
The other prisoners joined them in silence. They watched incredulously as the gate opened for them, as its ironbound wings swung open and let them go free. Some of them stumbled over their own feet in their haste as they crowded out. But still no one from the castle followed them.
The guards just stood there, swords and spears in their hands, staring as the prisoners stumbled uncertainly away, their legs stiff from weeks in the dungeons. Only one man-at-arms came out of the gate with them, wordlessly indicating the path they should take. Suppose they shoot at us from the battlements? Mo thought, when he saw that there was not a single tree or bush to give them cover as they followed the road down the bare slope. He felt like a fly on the wall ready to be swatted. But nothing happened. They walked through the gray morning, through the rain now pouring down, with the castle crouched menacingly behind them like a monster – and nothing happened.
“He’s keeping his promise!” Mo heard the others whispering these words more and more often.
“The Adderhead is keeping his word.” Resa asked anxiously about his wound, and he replied quietly that he was all right, while he waited to hear footsteps behind them, soldier’s footsteps.
But all was still. It seemed as if they had been going down the bare hillside for an eternity when trees suddenly appeared in front of them. The shade that their branches cast on the road was as dark as if night itself had taken refuge under them.
Chapter 71 – Only A Dream
One day a young man said, “This tale about everybody having to die doesn’t sit too well with me. I will go in search of the land where one never dies.”
– Italo Calvino, “The Land Where One Never Dies,” Italian Folk Tales
Dustfinger was lying among the trees, drenched to the skin by the rain, with Farid beside him.
The boy’s black hair clung to his forehead, and he kept shivering. The others were certainly in no better shape. They had been waiting for hours; they’d taken up their positions before sunrise, and it had been raining ever since. It was dark under the trees, as dark as if day had never dawned. And quiet, as quiet as if the waiting men were not alone in holding their breath. Only the noise of the rain splashed and dripped onto the trees and branches, falling and falling. Farid wiped his wet nose on his sleeve, and someone sneezed somewhere. Stupid fool, hold your nose, thought Dustfinger – then started when he heard something rustling on the other side of the road. But it was only a rabbit scuttling out of the thickets. It stopped in the middle of the road, sniffing the air, ears twitching, eyes wide open. It’s probably not half as scared as I am, thought Dustfinger, wishing himself back with Roxane in the dark underground galleries of the mine.
