第 57 页

at once, and he adjusted them, frowning, as if they had gotten out of line without his permission.

"That's why I went to the police," said Elinor. "To avenge them. And my books."

Cockerell laughed. "You didn't have to bury those books, right? They burned beautifully, like the

very best firewood, and their pages — ah, they quivered like pale little fingers." He raised his

hands and imitated the movement. Elinor hit him in the face with all her might, and she was

quite strong. Blood flowed from Cockerell's nose. He wiped it away with his hand and looked at

it as if he were surprised to see something so red coming out of him. "Look at that!" he said,

showing Capricorn his bloodstained fingers. "You wait, she'll give the Shadow more trouble than

Basta."

When he led her away Elinor walked beside him with her head held high. Only when she saw the

steep stairway disappearing into a bottomless black hole did her courage forsake her for a

moment. The crypt, of course, now she remembered — the place where they put the

condemned. That was what it smelled like, anyway, damp and moldy, just as one imagines the

odor of death.

At first, Elinor couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Basta's wiry figure pressed up against the

iron bars. She had thought she must have misheard Cockerell's last remark, but sure enough,

there was Basta shut up in the cage like an animal, with all the fear and hopelessness of a

trapped beast in his eyes. Even the sight of Elinor did not cheer him. He looked straight through

her and Cockerell, as if they were two of the ghosts he feared so much.

"What's he doing here?" asked Elinor. "Have you taken to locking each other up now?"

Cockerell shrugged. "Should I tell her?" he asked Basta, who responded with nothing but the

same glazed stare. "First he let Silvertongue escape, and now Dustfinger. That's a sure way to

ruin your chances with the boss, even if you do think you're his personal pet. And, of course, it's

been years since you managed to light a decent fire." He smiled maliciously at Basta.

Signora Loredan, it's time to think about making a will, Elinor told herself as Cockerell pushed

her into the crypt. If Capricorn intends to kill his most faithful dog, he's certainly not going to

stop short at you.

"Hey, you might look a bit more cheerful!" Cockerell told Basta as he fished a bunch of keys out

of his jacket pocket. "You've got two women for company now!"

Basta pressed his forehead against the grating. "Haven't you caught the fire-eater yet?" he

croaked. His voice sounded as if he had shouted himself hoarse.

"No, but the fat woman here says we did hit Silvertongue. Says he's dead as a doornail. Sounds

like I winged him after all. Well, I have had plenty of practice on the cats."

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Behind the door with the grating that Cockerell unlocked for her something moved. A woman

was sitting there in the dark, leaning back against something that looked suspiciously like a

stone coffin. Elinor could not see the woman's face, but then the figure straightened up.

"Company for you, Resa!" called Cockerell as he pushed Elinor through the open door. "You two

can have a nice chat!"

He was laughing uproariously as he trudged away.

As for Elinor, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She would rather have seen her favorite

niece again anywhere but here.

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Chapter 51 – A Narrow Escape

"I don't know what it is," answered Fiver wretchedly. "There isn't any danger here, at this

moment. But it's coming —it's coming."

– Richard Adams, Watership Down

Farid heard footsteps just as they were making the torches. The torches had to be larger and

more solid than those Dustfinger used in his shows, for they would have to burn a long time.

Farid had already cut Silvertongue's hair with the knife Dustfinger had given him. It was short

and bristly now, and at least that made Silvertongue look slightly different. Farid had also shown

him the kind of earth he needed to rub on his face to darken his skin. No one must recognize

them, not this time — but then he heard the footsteps.

And voices: One was speaking angrily, the other laughed and called out. But they were still too

far away for him to make out the words.

Silvertongue picked up the torches, and Gwin snapped at Farid's fingers as the boy pushed him

roughly into the backpack. "Where can we hide, Farid? Where?" whispered Silver-tongue.

"I know a place." Farid threw the backpack over his shoulder and led Silvertongue over to the

charred wall. He climbed over the blackened stones where there had once been a window,

jumped down in the dry grass behind the wall, and crouched low. The metal cover he now

pushed aside had buckled in the fire and was overgrown by alyssum. Its tiny white flowers

rambled like snow over the opening. Farid had found the metal plate while he was exploring

during the long hours he spent here with the silent and ever-reserved Dustfinger. He had

jumped off the wall and noticed the hollow sound. Perhaps the space under it had originally

been a store for perishable foodstuffs, but at least once before it had also been used as a hiding

place.

Silvertongue recoiled when he touched the skeleton in the darkness. It looked small, scarcely big

enough for an adult, and it lay there in the cramped, underground space quite peacefully, curled

up as if it had lain down to sleep. Perhaps it was because it looked so peaceful that Farid was not

afraid of it. If there was a ghost down here, he felt sure, it could be only a sad, pale creature,

nothing to be frightened of.

There wasn't much space when Farid drew the metal cover across again. Silvertongue was tall,

almost too tall to hide here, but it was reassuring to have him close, even if his heart was beating

just as fast as Farid's own. The boy could feel every single beat, as they crouched there side by

side, listening for sounds from above.

The voices were coming closer, but it was difficult to make them out, for the ground muffled

them as if they came from another world. Once a foot stepped on the metal cover, and Farid dug

his fingers into Silvertongue's arm and wouldn't let him go until all was quiet again overhead. It

was a long time before they dared trust the silence, such a very long time that once or twice

Farid turned his head because he imagined that the skeleton had moved.

When Silvertongue cautiously raised the metal cover and looked out it did seem as if they really

had gone. Only the grasshoppers were chirping tirelessly, and a bird, startled, flew up from the

charred wall.

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Whoever it was had taken everything with them: the blankets, the sweater that Farid had curled

up in at night like a snail going into its shell, even the bloodstained bandages that Silvertongue

had tied around the boy's forehead the night they'd been shot at.

"Never mind," said Silvertongue as they stood beside their cold fireplace. "We won't be needing

our blankets tonight." Then he ran his fingers through Farid's dark hair. "What would I do

without you, master scout, rabbit-catcher, finder of hiding places?" he asked.

Farid stared at his bare toes and smiled.

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Chapter 52 – A Fragile Little Thing

When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her, he said,

"Who is Tinker Bell?"

"O Peter," she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not remember.

"There are such a lot of them," he said. "I expect she is no more."

I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so little that a short time

seems a good while to them.

– J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Capricorn's men were looking for Dustfinger in the wrong place. He hadn't left the village. He

hadn't even tried. Dustfinger was in Basta's house.

It was in an alley just behind Capricorn's yard, surrounded by empty houses inhabited only by

cats and rats. Basta did not want neighbors. Indeed, he wanted no other company but

Capricorn's. Dustfinger knew Basta would have slept on the threshold of Capricorn's room if he

had been allowed to, but none of the men lived in the main house. They stood guard there, that

was all. They ate in the church and slept in one or other of the many abandoned houses in the

village; that was the rule and it could not be broken. Most of the men kept moving around, living

in one house and going on to another when the roof began to leak. Only Basta had lived in the

same place ever since they came to the village. Dustfinger suspected he had chosen that house

because St. John's Wort grew beside the door, and there is no other plant with such a reputation

for keeping away evil — leaving aside the evil in Basta's own heart.

Like most of the buildings in the village the house was built of gray stone, with black-painted

shutters that Basta usually kept closed and on which he had painted the signs he believed would

keep bad luck away, just like the yellow flowers of St. John's Wort. Sometimes Dustfinger

thought Basta's constant fear of curses and sudden disaster probably arose from his terror of

the darkness within himself, which made him assume that the rest of the world must be exactly

the same.

Dustfinger had been lucky to make it as far as Basta's house. He had run into a whole crowd of

Capricorn's men almost as soon as he stumbled out of the church. Of course they had recognized

him instantly—Basta had long ago made that a certainty. But their surprise had given Dustfinger

just enough time to disappear down one of the alleys. Fortunately, he knew every nook and

cranny of this accursed village. He had meant to make for the parking area and go on into the

hills, but then he'd thought of Basta's empty house. He had forced his way through holes in

walls, crawled through cellars, and ducked down behind the parapets of balconies that were no

longer used. When it came to hiding, even Gwin had nothing to teach Dustfinger. A strange sense

of curiosity had always driven him to explore the hidden, forgotten corners of this and any other

place, and all that knowledge had now come in useful.

He was out of breath when he finally reached Basta's house. Basta was probably the only man in

Capricorn's village who locked his front door, but the lock was no great obstacle to Dustfinger.

He let himself in and hid in the attic until his heart had slowed down, even though the wooden

planks were so rotten he feared he would go through the floor at every step. Downstairs, he

found enough food in Basta's kitchen to quell the hunger that had been gnawing like a worm at

the walls of his stomach. Neither he nor Resa had been given anything to eat since they were put

in those nets, so it was doubly satisfying to fill his belly with Basta's food.

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When he had partially satisfied his hunger he opened one of the shutters just a crack, so he could

have warning in good time of any approaching footsteps, but the only sound that met his ears

was a tinkling, so faint he could hardly hear it. Only then did he remember the fairy that Meggie

had read into this world that normally had no fairies.

He found her in Basta's bedroom. The room contained nothing but a bed and a chest of drawers

on which a number of bricks lay carefully arranged side by side, all of them covered with soot.

They said in the village that whenever Capricorn had a house set on fire Basta took away a brick

or stone, even though he feared fire at other times, and clearly that story was true. On one of the

bricks stood a glass jug with a faint light coming from it, not much brighter than a glowworm

would have made. The fairy was lying at the bottom of the glass, crumpled up like a butterfly just

out of the cocoon.

Basta had put a plate over the top of the jug, but the fragile little thing didn't look as if she had

the strength to fly.

When Dustfinger took the plate away the fairy didn't even raise her head. Dustfinger put his

hand into her glass prison and carefully took the little creature out. Her limbs were so delicate

he was afraid his fingers would break them. The fairies he knew had looked different, smaller

but stronger, with fair blue skin and four shimmering wings. This one had skin the same color as

a human, a very pale human, and her wings were more like butterfly than dragonfly wings. But

would she like the same things to eat as the fairies he knew? It was worth a try. She looked half

dead.

Dustfinger took the pillow off Basta's bed and put it on the kitchen table, which was scrubbed

clean. (Everything in Basta's house was scrubbed clean, as spotless as his snow-white shirt.) He

laid the fairy on the pillow, then filled a dish with milk and put it on the table beside her. She

immediately opened her eyes — so, in having a good sense of smell and a taste for milk, she

seemed no different from the fairies he knew. He dipped his finger in the milk and let a white

drop fall on her lips. She licked it up like a hungry little cat. Dustfinger trickled drop after drop

into her mouth until she sat up and feebly beat her wings. Her face had a little color in it now,