Including, among other things, the sad task of dispatching the Fire-Dancer to the realm of Death for the last time."
The regret in his voice sounded almost genuine, and Mo remembered the day in Elinor’s library when Orpheus had bargained with Mortola for Dustfinger’s life.
"That’s enough talking. Get rid of him, Four-Eyes!" cried the Piper impatiently as his men tore off their burning clothes. "I want to get my hands on the Bluejay at last!"
"Yes, yes, you’ll have him in a minute!" replied Orpheus. He sounded irritated. "But first I want my share!"
He came so close to the fire that its light reddened his pale face.
"Whom did you give Fenoglio’s book to?" he asked Dustfinger through the flames.
"Him?" He nodded in Mo’s direction.
"Maybe," replied Dustfinger, and smiled.
Orpheus bit his lip like a child who has to hold back tears. "Very well, smile away!"
he said huskily. "Mock me! But you’ll soon be sorry for what you did to me.
"Will I?" replied Dustfinger, unmoved, as if the soldiers still aiming crossbows at them were not there at all. "How are you going to frighten a man who’s died once already?"
This time it was Orpheus who smiled, and Mo wished he had a sword, even though he knew that it wouldn’t help him.
"Piper, what is this man doing here? Since when has he served my fa. . . ." Violante’s voice died away as Orpheus’s shadow moved, like an animal waking from sleep.
A shape grew out of it, panting like a large dog. No face could be made out in that blurred, pulsating blackness, only eyes, cloudy and angry. Mo felt Dustfinger’s fear, and the fire died down as if the dark figure had taken its breath away.
"I don’t suppose I have to explain what a Night-Mare is, do I?" said Orpheus in a velvety voice. "The strolling players say they are the dead sent back by the White Women because even they couldn’t wash the dark stains from their souls. So they condemn them to wander without human bodies, driven by their own darkness, in a world that is no longer theirs .
until they are finally extinguished, eaten away by the air they can’t breathe, burned by the sun from which nobody protects them. But until that happens they are like hungry dogs — very hungry."
He took a step back. "Take him!" he told the shadowy form. "Get him, good dog!
Take the fire-eater for your own, because he broke my heart."
Mo moved closer to Dustfinger’s side, but Dustfinger pushed him back. "Get away, Bluejay!" he said sharply. "This thing is worse than death!" The flames around them went out, and the Night-Mare, breathing heavily, stepped into the soot-ringed circle.
Dustfinger did not shrink from it. He simply stood there as the shapeless hands reached for him, and then the life just went out of him, extinguished like a flame.
Mo felt as if his own heart stopped when the other man fell. But the Night-Mare bent over Dustfinger’s motionless body, snuffling like a disappointed dog, and Mo remembered something that Battista had once told him: Night-Mares were interested only in living flesh and avoided the dead, fearing to be taken back by them to the realm they had escaped for a short time.
"Oh, what happened?" cried Orpheus. He sounded like a disappointed child. "Why was it so quick? I wanted to watch him dying for longer!"
"Seize the Bluejay!" Mo heard the Piper calling. "Go on, do it!" But his soldiers just stared at the Night-Mare. It had turned and its dull gaze was now bent on Mo.
"Orpheus! Call it off!" The Piper’s voice almost cracked. "We still need the Bluejay!"
The Night-Mare moaned as if its mouth were trying to find words — if it had a mouth at all. For a second Mo thought he could make out a face in the blackness.
Evil seeped through his skin, covering his heart like mildew. His legs gave way, and he struggled desperately for breath. Dustfinger had been right; the creature was worse than death.
"Back, dog!" Orpheus’s voice made the Night-Mare freeze. "You don’t get him until later."
Mo fell to his knees beside Dustfinger’s motionless body. He wanted to lie down beside him, to stop breathing, too, stop feeling, but the solders hauled him up and bound his hands. He hardly felt it. He could still barely breathe.
When the Piper came up to him, Mo saw him as if through a veil. "Somewhere in this castle they say there’s a courtyard, an aviary with birdcages in it. Put him in one of those." He drove his elbow into Mo’s stomach, but all Mo felt was that he could breathe again as the Night-Mare withdrew, merging with Orpheus’s shadow.
"Stop! The Bluejay is still my prisoner!" Violante barred the soldiers’ way as they were dragging Mo along with them.
But the Piper pushed her roughly aside. "He was never your prisoner," he said. "Just how stupid do you think your father is? Take her to her room!" he ordered one of the soldiers. "And throw the Fire-Dancer into the courtyard, outside the cage where you lock up the Bluejay. After all, we shouldn’t part a shadow from its master, should we?"
Another of Violante’s soldiers was lying outside the door, his young face showing his terror as he saw death coming. They lay everywhere. The Castle in the Lake —
and the Bluejay with it — belonged to the Adderhead. So that was how the song ended.
"What a terrible ending!" Mo could almost hear Meggie saying. "I don’t want to listen to this book, Mo. Don’t you have another story?"
CHAPTER 57
Too LATE?
The lake. Resa wanted to run when she saw the water shining through the trees at the foot of the slope, but the Strong Man held her back, pointing without a word to the tents lining the bank. The black tent could belong to only one man, and Resa leaned against one of the trees growing on the steep hillside and felt all her strength failing her. They were too late. The Adderhead had reached this place before them. Now what?
She looked at the castle lying there in the middle of the lake, like a black fruit that the Silver Prince was about to pluck. Its dark walls looked menacing— and inaccessible. Was Mo really there? Even if he was, so was the Adderhead. And the bridge leading across the lake to it was guarded by a dozen soldiers. Now what, Resa?
"We can’t go over the bridge, that’s for sure," the Strong Man whispered to her. "I’ll have a look around. You wait here. Maybe there’s a boat somewhere."
But Resa hadn’t come all this way to wait. It was difficult finding a way over the steep slopes by the banks, and there were soldiers stationed everywhere among the trees, but their eyes were on the castle. The Strong Man led her away from the tents to the eastern bank of the lake, where trees grew all the way down to the water.
Perhaps they could try to swim across the lake under cover of darkness? But it would be cold, very cold, and there were grim stories about the water of this lake and the creatures living in it. Resa’s hand went to the child in her belly as she followed the Strong Man. She felt as if it had gone into hiding deep inside her.
Suddenly, the Strong Man took her arm and pointed to some rocks projecting into the lake. Two soldiers emerged among them, as suddenly as if they had come up out of the water. As they climbed to the bank, Resa saw horses waiting under the spruce trees only a few paces from the rocks.