It all seemed so real, however often he told himself it was made of nothing but paper and ink. The hard ground where he lay, the dry leaves that rustled when he tossed and turned in his fever, the bear's hot breath – and the Black Prince, whom he had last seen in the pages of a book. Now the man himself sometimes sat beside him, cooling his brow and talking quietly to Resa. Or was it all just a fevered dream?
Death felt real in this Inkworld, too. Very real. It was strange to encounter death here in a world out of a book. But even if the dying was made only of words – even if, perhaps, it was nothing but a game played by the letters on the page – his body thought it was real. His heart felt fear, his flesh felt pain. And the White Women had not gone away, even if Resa couldn't see them. Mo felt them near him, every minute, every hour, every day, and every night. Fenoglio's angels of death. Did they make dying easier than it was in the world he came from? No. Nothing could make it easier. You lost what you loved. That was death, here as well as there.
It was light outside when Mo heard the first scream. At first he thought the fever was taking hold of him again. But then he saw from Resa's face that she could hear it, too: the clash of weapons and screaming. Cries of fear – death cries. Mo tried to sit up, but the pain pounced on him like an animal digging its teeth into his chest. He saw the Black Prince standing outside the cave, his sword drawn; he saw Resa jump up. Fever made her face blur before his eyes, but then Mo suddenly saw another picture: He saw Meggie sitting in Fenoglio's kitchen staring at the old man in horror as, full of pride, he told her of the fine death scene he had written for Dustfinger. Oh yes, Fenoglio liked sad stories. And perhaps he had just written another.
"Resa!" Mo cursed the way his tongue felt, heavy with fever, "Resa, go and hide – hide somewhere in the forest."
But she stayed with him as she always had – except for that one day, the day when his own voice had banished her.
37. BLOODSTAINED STRAW
Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be.
Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built
Meggie had often felt frightened in the Wayless Wood with Farid, but it was different with Dustfinger. The trees seemed to rustle more loudly when he passed them, the bushes seemed to reach their branches out to him. Fairies settled on his backpack like butterflies on a flower, pulling his hair until he brushed them away, talking to them. Other creatures, too, appeared and disappeared, beings whose names Meggie didn't know either from Resa's stories or from any other source, some of them no more than a pair of eyes among the trees.
Dustfinger led them as purposefully as if he could see their road laid out like a red guideline before him. He never even stopped to rest, but took them on and on, uphill and downhill! going deeper into the forest every hour. Away from human beings. When at last he stopped, Meggie's legs were shaking with exhaustion. It must be late in the afternoon. Dustfinger passed his hand over the snapped twigs of a bush, bent down, examined the damp ground, and picked up a handful of berries that had been trodden underfoot.
"What's the matter?" asked Farid anxiously.
"Too many feet. And above all, too many boots."
Dustfinger swore quietly and began to go faster. Too many boots… Meggie realized what he meant when the camp appeared among the trees. She saw tents that had been torn down, a trampled campfire…
"You two stay here!" Dustfinger ordered, and this time they obeyed. They watched anxiously as he stepped out of the shelter of the trees, looked around, raised tent panels, reached his hand into cold ashes – and turned over two bodies lying motionless near the fireplace. Meggie was going to follow him when she saw the corpses, but Farid held her back. When Dustfinger disappeared into a cave and came out again, pale-faced, Meggie tore herself away and ran to him.
"Where are my parents? Are they in there?" She recoiled as her foot struck another dead body.
"No, there's no one left in there. But I found this." Dustfinger held out a strip of fabric. Resa had a dress with that pattern. The fabric was bloodstained. "Do you know it?"
Meggie nodded.
"Then your parents really were here. The blood is probably your father's." Dustfinger passed a hand over his face. "Perhaps someone got away – someone who can tell us what happened here. I'll take a look around. Farid!"
Farid hurried to his side. Meggie was going to thrust her way Past the two of them, but Dustfinger held her back. "Listen,
Meggie!" he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "The fact that your parents aren't here is a good sign. It probably means they're still alive. There's a bed in the cave; I expect your mother was nursing your father there. And I've found a bear's paw prints, which means the Black Prince was here. Perhaps all this was a plan to capture him, although I don't know why they would have taken the others… no, that I don't understand."
Before setting off with Farid in search of survivors, Dustfinger told Meggie to wait in the cave. The entrance was tall and broad enough for a man to stand in it upright. The cave beyond it led deep into the mountain. The ground was strewn with leaves, and blankets and beds of straw were arranged side by side there, some of them just the right size for a child.
It was not difficult to see where Mo had been lying. The straw in that place was bloodstained, like the blanket beside it. A bowl of water, an overturned wooden mug, a bunch of dried flowers… Meggie picked them up and ran her fingers over the petals. She kneeled down and stared at the bloodstained straw. Fenoglio's parchment was close to her breast, but Mo was gone. How could Fenoglio's words help him now?
Try, something inside her whispered. You can't tell how powerful his words are in this world. It's made of them, after all.
She heard footsteps behind her. Farid and Dustfinger were back, and Dustfinger was holding a child in his arms, a little girl. She stared at Meggie, wide-eyed, as if she were in a bad dream and couldn't wake up.
"She wouldn't talk to me, but luckily Farid inspires rather more confidence," said Dustfinger, carefully putting the child down on her feet. "She says her name is Lianna and she's five years old. And there were a lot of men: silver men with swords, and snakes on their breasts. Not so very surprising, if you ask me. They obviously killed the guards and some of those who defended themselves, and then took the rest away, even the women and children. As for the wounded" – he glanced briefly at Meggie – "they were clearly loaded onto some kind of cart. The men had no horses with them. The girl is here only because her mother told her to hide among the trees."
Gwin scurried into the cave, followed by Jink. The little girl jumped when the martens leaped up at Dustfinger. Then she watched, fascinated, as Farid took Gwin off Dustfinger's shoulder and put him on his own lap.
"Ask her if there were other children here," said Dustfinger softly.
Farid held up five fingers and showed them to the girl. "How many children, Lianna?"
The child looked at him and tapped first Farid's forefinger, then his second and third fingers. "Merle. Fabio. Tinka," she whispered.
"Three," said Dustfinger. "Probably no older than she is."