Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

"Oh yes. In fact, I saw it." Did Orpheus hear the abhorrence in Resa’s voice? If so, even that probably made him feel flattered.

Farid felt Jasper nervously digging his glass fingers into his shoulder. He’d almost forgotten the glass man. Jasper was scared to death of Orpheus, even more scared than he was of his big brother. Farid put him down on the dusty floor and laid a warning finger on his lips.

"It was immaculate," Orpheus went on in self-satisfied tones, "absolutely immaculate. . . . Well, anyway, to return to the daughters of Death. It’s said that they don’t take it kindly when someone slips through their fingers. They follow such mortals into their dreams, wake them from sleep by whispering to them, even appear to them when they’re awake. Has Mortimer been sleeping badly since he escaped the White Women?"

"What’s the point of all these questions?" Resa sounded annoyed—and afraid.

"Is he sleeping badly?" Orpheus repeated.

"Yes." Her reply was barely audible.

"Good! Very good! What am I saying? Excellent!" Orpheus’s voice was so loud that Farid involuntarily took his ear away from the hole in the floor. He hastily pressed it in place again. "In that case, then perhaps what I heard only recently about those pale ladies is true—and we come to the matter of my fee!"

Orpheus sounded very excited, but this time it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the prospect of silver.

"There’s a rumor — and rumors, as I am sure you know, often contain a kernel of truth in both this and any other world," said Orpheus, speaking in a velvety voice, as if to make it easy for Resa to swallow every word, "there’s a rumor that those whose hearts the White Women have touched"— here he inserted a little pause for effect—

"can summon them at any time. No fire is needed, such as Dustfinger used, no fear of death, only a voice that’s familiar to them, a heartbeat known to their fingers. . . and they’ll appear! I expect by now you can guess what payment I want? In return for the words I write you, I want your husband to call the White Women for me. So that I can ask them about Dustfinger."

Farid held his breath. It was as if he had heard the Devil in person bargaining. He didn’t know what to think or feel. Indignation, hope, fear, joy. . . he felt them all at once. But in the end one idea blotted out all the others: Orpheus wants to bring him back! He really is trying to bring Dustfinger back!

Down in the study there was such deathly silence that finally Farid put his eye, rather than his ear, to the spyhole. But all he could see was the careful parting in Orpheus’s pale hair. Jasper kneeled beside Farid, looking anxious.

"The best place for him to try it is probably a graveyard." Orpheus sounded as confident as if Resa had already agreed to the deal. "If the White Women really do show themselves, they’ll attract less attention there — and the strolling players could make up a very moving song about this latest Bluejay adventure."

"You’re abominable, just as abominable as Mo says!" Resa’s voice was trembling.

"Ah, does he indeed? Well, I take that as a compliment. And do you know what? I think he’ll be glad to summon them! As I was saying, a fine heroic song could be written about it all. A song praising his courage to the skies, celebrating the magic of his voice."

"Call them yourself if you want to talk to them."

"Sad to say, that’s what I can’t do. I thought I’d made that clear enough, so. . . "

Farid heard the door slam. Resa was going! He picked up Jasper, made his way out through Orpheus’s clothes, and ran downstairs. Oss was so surprised when he shot past that he even forgot to put out a leg to trip him. Resa was already in the hall.

Brianna was just giving her her cloak.

"Please!" Farid barred Resa’s way to the door, ignoring both Brianna’s hostile glance and Jasper’s cry of alarm as he almost slipped off the boy’s shoulder. "Please!

Perhaps Silvertongue really can summon them. Just get him to call them up, and then Orpheus can ask them how to get Dustfinger back! You want him to come back, too, don’t you? He protected you from Capricorn. He stole into the dungeons of the Castle of Night for you. His fire saved you all when Basta was lying in wait for you on Mount Adder!" Basta. . . on Mount Adder. . . For a moment the recollection silenced Farid as if Death had laid hands on him again. But then he went on, faltering, although Resa’s face remained as cold as ice. ‘Please! I mean, it’s not like when Silvertongue was wounded.., and even then they couldn’t do him any harm! He is the Bluejay!"

Brianna was staring at Farid as if he had lost his mind. Like everyone else, she thought Dustfinger was gone forever, Farid could have hit them all for thinking so!

"It was wrong of me to come here." Resa tried to push him aside, but Farid thrust her hands away.

"He only has to call them up!" he shouted at her. "Ask him!"

But Resa pushed him out of her way again, so roughly this time that he stumbled against the wall and the glass man clung to his shirt. "If you tell Mo I was here," she said, "I’ll swear you were lying!"

She was already in the doorway when Orpheus’s voice halted her. No doubt he had been standing at the top of the stairs for some time, waiting to see what would come of the quarrel. Oss stood behind him with the stolid expression that he always wore when he didn’t understand what was going on.

"Let her go. She very obviously doesn’t want to let anyone help her." Every word Orpheus spoke dripped contempt. "Your husband will die in this story. You know that, or you wouldn’t have come here. Maybe Fenoglio even wrote the right song about it himself before he ran out of words. ‘The Bluejay’s Death,’ touching and very dramatic, heroic as befits such a character, but it certainly won’t end with and they lived happily ever after. Be that as it may — the Piper struck up the first verse of the real song today. And, clever as he is, he wove a noose out of maternal love to put around your high-minded robber’s neck. Is there any deadlier rope? Your husband will certainly walk straight into the trap in the most heroic way imaginable; he’s playing the part Fenoglio created for him so enthusiastically, and his death will be the subject of another very impressive song. But I hope that when his head’s on a spike above the castle gates you’ll remember I could have kept him alive."

The voice in which Orpheus said this conjured up the picture he described so clearly that Farid thought he could see Silvertongue’s blood trickling down the castle walls while Resa stood in the doorway with her head bent, as if Orpheus’s words had broken her own neck.

For a moment Fenoglio’s whole story seemed to hold its breath again.

Then Resa raised her head and looked at Orpheus.

"Curse you!" she said. "I wish I could call up the White Women myself and get them to take you away, here and now."

She went down the steps outside the door unsteadily, as if her knees were trembling, but she did not turn back again.

"Close the door, it’s cold!" ordered Orpheus, and Brianna obeyed. But Orpheus himself remained standing there at the top of the stairs, staring at the closed door.

Farid looked uncertainly up at him. "Do you really believe Silvertongue can summon the White Women?"