Inkspell

18. MORTOLA'S REVENGE

It was as if a transparent picture, like stained glass, came down over what Resa had just been seeing – Elinor's library, the backs of the books so carefully classified by Darius and arranged side by side – blurring it all, while the other picture itself became clearer. Stones eroded the books; soot-blackened walls replaced the bookshelves. Grass sprouted from Elinor's wooden floorboards, and the white plaster of the ceiling gave way to a sky covered by dark clouds.

Resa's arms were still wound around Mo. He was the only thing that didn't disappear, and she wouldn't let go of him for fear of losing him again after all, as she had lost him once before. So long ago.

"Resa?" She saw the alarm in his eyes as he turned and realized that she had come, too. Quickly, she put her hand over his mouth.

Honeysuckle climbed up the black walls on their left. Mo put out his hand to the leaves, as if his fingers must feel what his eyes had already seen. Resa remembered that she had once done the same, touching everything, bewildered to find the world beyond the letters on the page so real.

If she hadn't heard the words Orpheus had spoken for herself, Resa wouldn't have known where Mortola had made him read them all. Capricorn's fortress had looked so different when she had last stood in its courtyard. There had been men everywhere, armed men on the flights of steps, at the gate, on the wall. Where the bakehouse had stood there was nothing now but charred beams, and it was by the stairway over there that she and the other maids used to beat the dust from the tapestry hangings, tapestries that Mortola placed on the walls of the bare rooms only on special occasions.

Those rooms were gone. The walls of the fortress were crumbling and black from fire. Soot covered the stones as if someone had painted them with a black brush, and yarrow grew all over the once bare courtyard. Yarrow loved burned earth; it grew everywhere. Where a narrow stairway had once led up to the watchtower, the forest was now making its way into Capricorn's den. Young trees had taken root among the ruins, as if they had been just waiting to reclaim the place occupied by this human abode. Thistles grew in the gaping cavities of the windows, moss covered the ruined stairs, and ivy climbed to the charred wooden stumps that had once been Capricorn's gallows. Resa had seen many men hanging on them.

"What's this?" Mortola's voice echoed from the dead walls. "What are these miserable ruins? This isn't my son's fortress!"

Resa drew closer to Mo's side. He still seemed numbed, almost as if he were waiting for the moment when he would wake up and see Elinor's books again instead of the stones. Resa knew only too well how he was feeling. It was not so bad for her this second time; after all, she wasn't alone now, and she knew what had happened. But Mo seemed to have forgotten everything: Mortola, Basta – and why they had brought him here. Resa, however, had not forgotten, and she watched with a thudding heart as Mortola stumbled through the yarrow to the charred walls and felt the stones, as if she were running her fingers over her dead son's face.

"I'll cut that man Orpheus's tongue out with my own hands and serve it for supper!" she exclaimed. "With chopped foxglove! Is this supposed to be my son's fortress? Never!"

Her head moved frantically back and forth like a bird's as she looked around her. But Basta just stood there in silence, pointing his rifle at Resa and Mo.

"Well, say something!" shouted the Magpie. "Say something, you fool!"

Basta bent down and picked up a rusty helmet lying at his feet. "What do you expect me to say?" he growled, throwing the helmet back into the grass with a gloomy expression and giving it a kick that sent it clattering against the wall. "Of course it's our castle. Didn't you see the figure of the goat on the wall there? Even the carved devils are still standing, though they wear ivy crowns now – and look, there's one of the eyes that Slasher liked to paint on the stones."

Mortola stared at the red eye to which Basta was pointing. Then she hobbled over to the remains of the wooden gate, now splintered, torn off its hinges, and barely visible under the brambles and tall stinging nettles. She stood there in silence, looking around her. As for Mo, he had finally come back to his senses.

"What are they talking about?" he whispered to Resa. "Where are we? Was this where Capricorn used to hide out?"

Resa just nodded. However, the Magpie turned at the sound of Mo's voice and stared at him. Then she came over to him, stumbling as if she felt dizzy.

"Yes, this is his castle, but Capricorn isn't here!" she said in a dangerously low voice. "My son is not here. So Basta was right after all. He's dead, here and in the other world, too, dead, and what killed him? Your voice, your accursed voice!" There was such hatred in her face that Resa instinctively tried to draw Mo away, somewhere, anywhere he would be safe from that glance. But there was nothing behind them but the sooty wall with the figure of Capricorn's goat still displayed on it, a red-eyed goat with burning horns.

"Silvertongue!" Mortola spat out the word as if it were poison. "Killertongue suits you better. Your daughter couldn't bring herself to utter the words that killed my son, but you – oh, you didn't hesitate for a moment!" Her voice was little more than a whisper as she went on: "I can still see you before me, as if it had happened only last night – taking the piece of paper from her hand and putting her aside. And then the words came out of your mouth, fine-sounding as everything you say, and when you'd finished my son lay dead in the dust." For a moment she put her fingers to her mouth as if to suppress a sob. When she let her hand drop again, her lips were still quivering.

"How – how can this be?" she went on, in a trembling voice. "Tell me, how is it possible? He didn't belong in your false world at all. So how could he die there? Was that the only reason you lured him over with your wicked tongue?" And again she turned and stared at the burned walls, her bony hands clenched into fists.

Basta bent down again. This time he picked up an arrow point. "I'd really like to know what happened!" he muttered. "I always said Capricorn wasn't here, but what about the others? Firefox, Pitch-Eater, Humpback, the Piper, Slasher… Are they all dead? Or are they in the Laughing Prince's dungeon?" He looked uneasily at Mortola. "What are we going to do if they're all gone?" Basta sounded like a boy afraid of the dark. "Do you want us to live in a cave like brownies until the wolves find us? Have you forgotten the wolves? And the Night-Mares, the fire-elves, all the other creatures crawling around the place… I for one haven't forgotten them, but you would come back to this accursed spot where there are three ghosts lurking behind every tree!" He reached for the amulet dangling around his neck, but Mortola did not deign to look at him.

"Oh, be quiet!" she said, so sharply that Basta flinched. "How often must I tell you that ghosts are nothing to be afraid of? As for wolves, that's why you carry a knife, isn't it? We'll manage. We managed in their world, and we know our way around in this one a good deal better. And, don't forget, we have a powerful friend here. We're going to pay him a visit, yes, that's what. But first I have something else to do, something I should have done long ago." And again her eyes were on Mo. On him and no one else. Then she turned, walked steadily up to Basta, and took the rifle from his hand.

Resa reached for Mo's arm and tried to pull him aside, but Mortola was too quick on the draw. The Magpie had some skill with a rifle. She had often shot at the birds who pecked the seed from her garden beds, back in Capricorn's yard. Blood spread over Mo's shirt like a flower blossoming, red, crimson. Resa heard herself scream as he fell and suddenly lay there motionless, while the grass around him turned as red as his shirt. She flung herself down on her knees, turned him over, and pressed her hands to the wound, as if she could hold back the blood, all the blood carrying his life away…

"Come along, Basta!" she heard Mortola say. "We have a long way to go, and it's time we found safe shelter before it gets dark. This forest is not a pleasant place by night."

"You're going to leave them here?" That was Basta's voice.

"Why not? I know you were always attracted to her, but the wolves will take care of them. The fresh blood will bring them this way."

The blood. It was still flowing so fast, and Mo's face was white as a sheet. "No. Oh, please, no!" whispered Resa. Aloud, in her own voice. She pressed her fingers to her shaking lips.

"Well, what do you know? Our little pigeon can speak again!" Basta's mocking voice hardly penetrated the rushing in her ears. "What a pity he can't hear you anymore, eh? So long, Resa!"

She did not look around. Not even when their footsteps died away. "No!" she heard herself whispering again and again. "No!" like a prayer. She tore a strip of fabric from her dress – if only her fingers weren't shaking so badly – and pressed it to the wound. Her hands were wet with his blood and her own tears. Resa, she told herself sternly, crying won't do him any good. Try to remember! What did Capricorn's men do when they were wounded? They cauterized the wound, but she didn't want to think of that. There had been a plant, too, a plant with hairy leaves and pale mauve flowers, tiny bells into which bumblebees flew, buzzing. She looked around, through the veil of tears over her eyes, as if hoping for a miracle…

Two blue-skinned fairies were hovering among the twining honeysuckle. If Dustfinger had been here now, he'd surely have known how to entice them. He'd have called to them softly, persuaded them to give him some of their fairy spit, or the silvery dust that they shook out of their hair.

She heard her own sobbing again. She lifted the dark hair back from Mo's brow with her bloodstained fingers, called him by name. He couldn't be gone, not now, not after all those years…

Over and over she called his name, put her fingers on his lips, felt his breath, shallow and irregular, coming with difficulty as if someone were sitting on his chest. Death, she thought, it's Death…

A sound made her jump. Footsteps on soft leaves. Had Mortola changed her mind? Had she sent Basta back to fetch them? Or were the wolves coming? If only she at least had a knife. Mo always carried one. Feverishly, she put her hands in his trouser pockets, feeling for the smooth handle…

The footsteps grew louder. Yes, they were human footsteps, no doubt about it. And then suddenly all was still. Menacingly still. Resa felt the handle in her fingers. She quickly removed the knife from Mo's pocket and snapped it open. She hardly dared to turn, but at last she did.

An old woman was standing in what had once been Capricorn's gateway. She looked as small as a child among the pillars that still stood erect. She had a sack slung over her shoulder and was wearing a dress that looked as if she had woven it from nettles. Her skin was burned brown, her face furrowed like the bark of a tree. Her gray hair was as short as a marten's fur, and had leaves and burrs clinging to it. Without a word, she came toward Resa. Her feet were bare, but she didn't seem to mind the nettles and thistles growing in the courtyard of the ruined fortress. Her face expressionless, she pushed Resa aside and bent over Mo. Unmoved, she lifted the bloody scraps of fabric that Resa was still pressing to the wound.

"I never saw a wound like that before," she remarked, in a voice that sounded hoarse, as if it wasn't often used. "What did it?"

"A rifle," replied Resa. It felt strange to be speaking with her tongue again instead of her hands.

"A rifle?" The old woman looked at her, shook her head, and bent over Mo again. "A rifle. What may that be?" she murmured as her brown fingers felt the wound. "Dear me, these days they go inventing new weapons faster than a chick hatches from its egg, and I have to find out how to mend what they stab and cut." She put her ear to Mo's chest, listened, and straightened up again with a sigh. "Are you wearing something under that dress?" she asked abruptly, without looking at Resa. "Take it off and tear it up. I need long strips." Then she put her hand into a leather bag at her belt, took out a little bottle, and used its contents to soak one of the strips of fabric that Resa was offering her. "Press that down on it!" she said, handing the fabric back to Resa. "This is a bad wound. I may have to cut or cauterize it, but not here. The two of us can't carry him on our own, but the strolling players have a camp not far off, for their old and sick people. I may find help there." She dressed the wound with fingers as nimble as if she had never done anything else. "Keep him warm!" she said as she rose to her feet again and slung the sack over her shoulder. Then she pointed to the knife that Resa had dropped in the grass. "Keep that with you. I'll try to be back before the wolves get here. And if one of the White Women turns up, make sure she doesn't look at him or whisper his name."

Then she was gone, as suddenly as she had come. And Resa kneeled there in the courtyard of Capricorn's fortress, her hand pressed down on the blood-soaked dressing, and listened to Mo's breathing.

"Can you hear me? My voice is back," she whispered to him. "Just as if it had been waiting for you here." But Mo did not move. His face was as pale as if the stones and grass had drunk all his blood.

Resa didn't know how much time had passed when she heard the whispering behind her, incomprehensible and soft as rain. When she looked around, there stood the figure on the ruined stairway. A White Woman, blurred as a reflection on water. Resa knew only too well what such an apparition meant. She had told Meggie about the White Women often enough. Only one thing lured them, and faster than blood lured the wolves: failing breath, a heart beating ever more feebly…

"Be quiet!" Resa shouted at the pale figure, bending protectively over Mo's face. "Go away, and don't you dare look at him. He isn't going with you, not today!" They whisper your name if they want to take you with them, so Dustfinger had told her. But they don't know Mo's name, thought Resa. They can't know it, because he doesn't belong here. All the same, she held her hands over his ears.

The sun was beginning to set. It sank inexorably behind the trees. Darkness fell between the charred walls, and the pale figure on the stairs stood out more clearly all the time. It stood there motionless, waiting.