Inkdeath

70. BURNING WORDS

Farid found Doria. When they carried him to the tree, Meggie thought at first that the giant had crushed him, just as he had crushed the Milksop's men, who lay in the frosty grass like broken dolls.

"No, it wasn't the giant," said Roxane as they put Doria down with the other injured men: the Black Prince and Woodenfoot, Silkworm and Hedgehog. "This is the work of humans."

Roxane had made one of the lowest nests into a sickroom. Luckily, there were only two dead among the robbers, while the Milksop had lost many men. Even fear of his brother-in-law wasn't going to bring him back another time.

Sootbird, too, was dead. He lay on the grass with his neck broken, staring up at the sky with empty eyes. Wolves prowled among the trees, lured by the smell of blood. But they dared not come any closer, because the giant was curled up like a child under the tree with its nests, sleeping as deeply as if Roxane's singing had sent him into the realm of dreams forever.

Doria did not come around when Minerva bandaged his bleeding head, and Meggie sat beside him as Roxane cared for the other wounded. Hedgehog was in a very bad way, but the other men's injuries would heal. Fortunately, the Black Prince had only a couple of broken ribs. He wanted to go down to his bear, but Roxane had forbidden it, and Battista had to keep assuring him that the bear was already chasing snow hares again, now that Roxane had pulled out the arrow from his furry shoulder. But Doria didn't move. He just lay there, his brown hair full of blood.

"What do you think? Will he ever wake up again?" Meggie asked as Roxane bent over him.

"I don't know," Roxane replied. "Talk to him. Sometimes that calls them back."

Talk to him. What should she tell Doria? He had asked her about the other world again and again, so in a soft voice Meggie began talking to him about horseless carriages and flying machines, ships without sails and devices that carried voices from one part of the world to another. Elinor came to see how she was. Fenoglio sat beside her for a while. Even Farid came and held her hand while she held Doria's, and for the first time Meggie felt as close to him as she had when the two of them followed her captured parents with Dustfinger. Can one heart love two boys at once?

"Farid," said Fenoglio quietly after a while, "let's see what your fire can tell us about the Bluejay, and then this

story will be brought to an end. A good end."

"Maybe we ought to send the giant to the Bluejay!" said Silkworm. Roxane had cut an arrow out of his arm, and his tongue was heavy with the wine she had given him to dull the pain. The Milksop had left all sorts of things behind: wine and blankets, weapons, riderless horses.

"Have you forgotten where the Bluejay is?" asked the Black Prince. Meggie was so glad he was alive. "No giant can wade through the Black Lake. Even if they did once like to look at their reflections in its water."

No, it wouldn't be as simple as that.

"Come on, Meggie, let's ask the fire," said Farid, but Meggie was reluctant to let go of Doria's hand.

"You go. I'll stay with him," said Minerva, and Fenoglio whispered, "Don't look so anxious! Of course the boy will wake up again! Have you forgotten what I told you? His story is only just beginning."

But Doria's pale face made that hard to believe.

The branch that Farid kneeled on to summon the fire was as broad as the road outside Elinor's garden gate. As Meggie crouched beside him, Fenoglio looked suspiciously up at the children sitting in the branches above them watching the sleeping giant.

"Don't you dare!" he called, pointing to the fir cones in their small hands. "The first of you to throw one of those at the giant will go down after it. I promise you!"

"But they will throw one sometime, and then what?" asked Farid as he carefully sprinkled a little ash on the tree's wooden skin. There wasn't much left, even though he gathered it up again meticulously every time he'd used it. "What will the giant do when he wakes up?"

"How would I know?" grumbled Fenoglio, casting a slightly worried look downward. "I just hope poor Roxane doesn't have to spend the rest of her life singing him to sleep."

The Black Prince came over to them, too. Battista had to support him. He sat down beside Meggie without a word. The fire was sleepy today. However hard Farid enticed and flattered it, it seemed forever before flames rose from the ashes. The giant began humming to himself in his sleep. Jink jumped up onto Farid's knees, a dead bird in his mouth, and suddenly the pictures came: Dustfinger in a courtyard, surrounded by large cages. There was a girl in one of them, weeping. Brianna. A black figure stood between her and her father.

"Night-Mare!" whispered Battista. Meggie looked at him in alarm. The picture dissolved into grayish smoke, and another appeared in the heart of the flames. Farid took Meggie's hand, and Battista uttered a soft curse. Mo. He was chained to a table. The Piper was with him. And the Adderhead, his swollen face looking even more terrible than Meggie had seen it in her worst dreams. Leather and blank sheets of paper lay on the table.

"He's binding him another White Book!" whispered Meggie. "What does that mean?" In alarm, she looked at Fenoglio.

"Meggie!" Farid drew her attention to the fire again.

Letters were rising from the flames, burning letters that formed into words.

"What the devil is that!" Fenoglio uttered. "Who wrote that?"

The words blew away and went out among the branches before anyone could read them. But the fire gave Fenoglio the answer to his question. A round, pale face appeared in the flames, its circular glasses looking like a second pair of eyes.

"Orpheus!" Farid whispered.

The flames burned low, slipping back into the ashes as if returning to their nest, but a few fiery words still drifted through the air. Bluejay… fear… broken… die…

"What does that mean?" asked the Black Prince.

"It's a long story, Prince," Fenoglio replied wearily. "And I'm afraid the wrong man has written the end of it."