Inkdeath

73. THE NIGHT-MARE

Resa had flown away to Silvertongue in the Hall of a Thousand Windows. "The bird will never leave you again, Resa!" Dustfinger had warned her, but she had put the seeds into her mouth all the same.

He had had great difficulty in dragging her out of the bedchamber before the Silver Prince came back. The despair in her face went to his heart. They had not found the White Book, and both of them knew what that meant: It wasn't the Adderhead who would die, but the Bluejay – by the hand of the Piper, Thumbling, or the White Women coming for him because he hadn't been able to pay the price Death demanded for his life.

Resa had flown to him so that Silvertongue would not be alone when he died. Or did she still hope for some miracle to save him? Perhaps. Dustfinger had not told her that Death was going to take him again, too – and then her daughter.

"If you don't find the Book," Silvertongue had whispered to him before sending him away to lay the fiery trail for the

Piper, "then at least let us try to save our daughters."

Our daughters… Dustfinger knew where to find Brianna, but how was he to protect Meggie from the Piper or the White Women themselves?

Of course the Piper's men had tried to hold him fast once he'd led them to the Bluejay, but it was easy to escape them. They were still looking for him, but the darkness in the castle hid the Adderhead's enemies as well as eased the pain in his eyes.

Orpheus seemed very sure that his black dog was enough to guard Brianna. Two torches burned beside the cage where she sat, crouching like a captive bird. But there was no soldier on guard. The real guard lurked somewhere in the shadows, in a place that the torchlight didn't reach.

How in the world had Orpheus managed to tame it?

"Don't forget, he read it out of a book," Silvertongue had said. "A book for children, too, although I'm not sure that Fenoglio made the Night-Mare any less dangerous because of that. But it's made of words, and I'm sure that Orpheus himself used words to make it obey him. Just a few rearranged words, a couple of slightly twisted sentences, and the terror in the night becomes an obedient dog."

But, Silvertongue, Dustfinger had thought, have you forgotten that everything in this world is made of words? He knew only that this Night-Mare was not less dangerous, but even more sinister, than those found in the Wayless Wood. It would not, like its fellows, be driven away by fairy dust and fire – it was woven of darker stuff. What a pity you didn't ask the White Women its name, he said to himself as he slowly made his way toward the cages. Don't the songs say that's the only way to kill a Night-Mare? For that was what he had to do: destroy the creature so that Orpheus could not call it back. Forget the songs, Dustfinger, he told himself as he looked around. Write your own, just as the Bluejay must write his now.

At the sound of his whispering the torches flared up as if to welcome him, weary of the darkness surrounding them. And Brianna raised her head.

How beautiful she was, as lovely as her mother.

Dustfinger looked around again, waiting for the darkness to start moving. Where was it?

He heard a snuffling sound, felt cold breath, panting like a large dog's. To his left the shadows grew and became blacker than black. His heart began to beat painfully fast. Ah. So the fear was still there, even though he so seldom felt it now.

Brianna got to her feet and stumbled away until her back was up against the bars. Behind her, a painted peacock spread its tail on the gray wall. "Go away!" she whispered. "Please! It will eat you!"

Go away. A tempting idea. But he had once had two daughters, now he had only one… and he would keep her, not forever but perhaps for a few years yet. Precious time. Time – whatever that was.

All was cold behind him, dreadfully cold. Dustfinger called up the flames and wrapped himself in their warmth, but the cold made the fire burn low and go out, leaving him alone with the shadow.

"Please! Please go away!" Brianna's voice urged, and the love in it, that she usually hid so well, warmed him more than the fire ever could. He called on the flames again, more sternly this time, reminding them that he and they were brothers, inseparable. Hesitantly, they licked up from the ground, trembling as if a cold wind were blowing through them, but they burned, and the Night-Mare retreated and stared at him.

Yes, what the songs said about him and his like was true. It must be true. The songs said Night-Mares were made entirely of the blackness of the soul, of evil that could not be forgotten or forgiven until they were snuffed out, consuming themselves and taking with them everything they had ever been.

The eyes transfixed him, red eyes in all that blackness, eyes both fierce and dull, lost in themselves, with no yesterday and no tomorrow, without light and warmth, caught in their own cold, the freezing entity of evil.

Dustfinger felt the fire around him like a warm fur. It almost burned his skin, but it was his only protection against those dull eyes and the hungry mouth that opened, screaming so horribly that Brianna sank to her knees and put her hands over her ears.

The Night-Mare reached a black hand out to the fire. It hissed when he dipped it into the flames – and Dustfinger thought he recognized a face in all the blackness. A face he had never forgotten.

Was it possible? Had Orpheus seen it, too, and so tamed his black dog by calling it by its forgotten name? Or had he given it that name himself and brought back the man whom Silvertongue had sent to his death?

Brianna was crying behind him. Dustfinger sensed her trembling through the bars, but he felt no fear now. He was just grateful. Grateful for this moment. Glad of this new encounter – which he hoped would be their last.

"Well, look! Who have we here?" he said softly, as Brianna's weeping died down on the other side of the bars. "Do you remember yourself in all your darkness? Do you remember the knife, and the boy's thin, unprotected back? Do you remember the sound my heart made when it broke?"

The Night-Mare stared at him, and Dustfinger stepped toward it, still surrounded by flames – flames burning hotter and hotter, nourished by all the pain and despair he was bringing back to mind.

"Away with you, Basta!" he said, speaking the name loud enough to pierce the heart of all the darkness. "Be gone for all eternity."

The face showed more clearly – the narrow, foxy face that he had once feared so much – and Dustfinger made the flames bite into the cold, made them penetrate the blackness like swords, all of them writing Basta's name, and the Night-Mare screamed again, its eyes suddenly full of memories. It screamed and screamed, while its shape ran like ink, melting into the shadows, dispersing like smoke. Only the cold was left, but the fire ate that, too, and Dustfinger fell on his knees and felt the pain leaving him – pain that had outlasted death itself. He wished Farid were here with him. He wished it so much that, for a few moments, he forgot where he was.

"Father?" Brianna's whisper reached him through the smoke.

Had she ever called him that before? Yes, long ago. But had he been the same man then?

The bars of the cage bent under the heat of his hands. He dared not touch Brianna because he felt the fire so strongly in them. Footsteps approached – heavy, rapid footsteps. The Night-Mare's screams had brought them. But the darkness swallowed up Dustfinger and Brianna before the soldiers reached the cages, and they looked in vain for their black watchman.