– J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
It was an odd feeling, being invisible. Farid felt all-powerful and lost at the same time. As if he were nowhere and everywhere. The worst of it was that he couldn’t see Dustfinger. He had to rely on his hearing. “Dustfinger?” he kept whispering as he followed him through the night, and every time a quiet reply came back: “I’m here, right in front of you.”
The soldiers who had taken Meggie and the Barn Owl with them would have to follow a road – a bad one, almost entirely overgrown in many places – that wound up into the hills, bending and curving. Dustfinger, on the other hand, was making his way across country and up slopes too steep for horses, especially when they had to carry armed riders. Farid tried not to think how much it must be hurting Dustfinger’s leg. Now and then he heard him swearing quietly, and he kept stopping, invisible, nothing but a breathing in the night.
The castle was indeed farther away than it had looked from the beach, but finally its walls towered to the sky right in front of them. By comparison with this fortress, the castle of Ombra seemed to Farid like a toy, built by a prince who liked to eat and drink but had no intention of going to war. In the Castle of Night, every stone seemed to have been set in place with war in mind, and as Farid followed the sound of Dustfinger’s gasping breaths, he pictured to himself, with horror, what it must be like to storm up the steep slope with hot pitch raining down on you from the battlements above and bolts from crossbows flying your way.
Morning was still far off when they reached the castle gate. They still had a few precious hours of invisibility left, but the gate was shut, and Farid felt tears of disappointment fill his eyes. “It’s closed!” he whispered. “They’ve taken them into the castle already! Now what?” Every breath hurt him, they had traveled so fast. But what good did it do them now to be as transparent as glass, as invisible as the wind?
He sensed Dustfinger’s body beside him, warm in the windy night. “Of course it’s closed!” his voice whispered. “What did you expect? Did you think the two of us would overtake them? We wouldn’t have done that even if I wasn’t hobbling like an old woman! But you wait: They’re sure to open the gate for someone else tonight. Even if it’s only one of their informers.”
“Or maybe we could climb in?” Farid looked up hopefully at the pale gray walls. He saw the guards on the battlements, armed with spears.
“Climb in? You really do seem to be head over heels in love. Can’t you see how smooth and high these walls are? Forget it we’ll wait.”
Six gallows towered in front of them. Dead men hung from four of them. Farid was thankful that in the darkness they just looked like bundles of old clothes. “Damn it!” he heard Dustfinger murmur. “Why doesn’t the fairy venom make your fear go away as well as your body?” The same thing had occurred to Farid, too, but he was not afraid of the guards, Basta, or Firefox. His fear, his terrible fear, was for Meggie. Being invisible only made it worse. There seemed to be nothing left of him but the pain in his heart.
A chilly wind was blowing tonight, and Farid was just breathing on his invisible fingers to warm them when hoofbeats echoed through the dark.
“There, now!” whispered Dustfinger. “Looks like we’re in luck for a change! Remember, whatever happens, we must be out of here before daybreak. The sun will make us visible again almost as fast as you can summon fire.”
The hoofbeats grew louder, and a horseman emerged from the darkness – not in the Adderhead’s pale silver but clothed in red and black. “Well, would you believe it?” whispered Dustfinger. “Sootbird, no less!”
One of the guards called something down from the battlements, and Sootbird replied.
“Come on!” Dustfinger hissed to Farid as the gate swung open, creaking. They followed so close to Sootbird that Farid could have touched his horse’s tail. Traitor, he thought, filthy traitor! He would have liked to drag him down from the saddle, put a knife to his throat, and ask what news he was bringing to the Castle of Night – but Dustfinger thrust him on, through the gigantic gate and into the courtyard. He led Farid onward as Sootbird rode to the castle stables. They were swarming with men-at-arms. Obviously, the Castle of Night was as wakeful as its master was said to be.