"Her Ugliness wants to kill her father?" Battista sounded incredulous.

"What’s so surprising about that?" Snapper raised his voice as if to speak for them all. "She’s the Adder’s spawn. What reply did you give her, Bluejay? Did you say you must wait until your damn book doesn’t protect him from death anymore?"

He hates Mo, thought Resa. He really hates him! But the look that Mo turned on Snapper was just as hostile, and Resa wondered, not for the first time, whether she simply used to overlook the anger in him or whether it was as new as the scar on his chest.

"The Book will protect Violante’s father for a long time yet." Mo sounded bitter.

"The Adderhead has found a way to save it.

Yet again there was murmuring among the robbers. Only the Black Prince didn’t seem surprised. So Mo had told him that, too. Had told him, and not her. He’s turning into a djfferent man, thought Resa. The words are changing him. This life is changing him. Even if it’s only a game. If it’s a game at all. . .

"But that’s impossible. If you left the pages damp it will turn moldy, and you’ve always said yourself that mold kills books as certainly as fire."

Meggie sounded so reproachful. Secrets.., nothing eats away at love faster.

Mo looked at his daughter. That was in another world, Meggie, said his eyes. But his mouth said something else. "Well, the Adderhead has taught me better. The Book will go on protecting him from death only if its pages stay blank."

No, thought Resa. She knew what was coming next, and she felt like putting her hands over her ears, although she loved nothing in the world more than Mo’s voice.

She had almost forgotten his face in all those years in Mortola’s service, but she had always remembered his voice. Now, however, it no longer sounded like her husband’s. It was the voice of the Bluejay.

"It doesn’t take long to write three words." Mo did not speak loudly, but the whole Inkworld seemed full of his voice. It seemed to have belonged here forever — among the tall, towering trees, the ragged men, the drowsy fairies in their nests. "The Adderhead still believes that only I can save the Book. He’ll give it to me if I go to him promising to cure it, and then.. . some ink, a pen, it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to write three words. Suppose Violante can gain those few seconds for me?"

His voice painted the scene in the air, and the robbers listened as if they could see the whole thing before their eyes. Until Snapper broke the spell.

"You’re out of your mind! Totally out of your mind!" he said hoarsely. "I suppose by now you believe everything the songs say about you how you’re invulnerable! The invincible Bluejay! Her Ugliness will sell you, and her father will skin you alive if he gets his hands on you again. That won’t take him much more than a few seconds!

But your liking for playing the hero will cost all the rest ofus our lives, too!"

Resa saw Mo’s fingers close around the hilt of his sword, but the Black Prince laid a hand on his arm. "Maybe he’d have to play the hero less frequently if you and your friends did it more often Snapper," he said.

Snapper rose to his feet menacingly slowly, but before he could say anything the Strong Man spoke up, quick as a child trying to settle his parents’ quarrel. "Suppose the Bluejay is right? Perhaps Her Ugliness really does want to help. She’s always been good to us strolling players! She even used to come and visit our camp. And she feeds the poor and sends for the Barn Owl to come to the castle when the Milksops had some unfortunate fellow’s hand or foot chopped off!"

"Yes, very generous of her, isn’t it?" Gecko made a mocking face, as he so often did when the Strong Man said anything, and the crow on his shoulder uttered a croak of derision. "What’s so generous about giving away kitchen scraps and clothes no one wants anymore? Does Her Ugliness go around in rags like my mother and my sisters? No! I expect Balbulus has run out of parchment, and she wants to buy more with the price on the Bluejay’s head!"

Once again some of the robbers laughed. As for the Strong Man, he looked uncertainly at the Black Prince. His brother whispered something to him and scowled at Gecko. Please, Prince! thought Resa. Tell Mo to forget what Violante said. He’ll listen to you. And help him to forget the Book he bound for her father! Please!

The Black Prince glanced at her as if he had heard her silent pleading. But his dark face remained inscrutable. She often found Mo’s face impossible to read these days, too.

"Doria!" the Prince said. "Do you think you can get past the castle guards and ask around among Violante’s soldiers? One of them may have heard more about what the Piper is here for."

The Strong Man opened his mouth as if to protest. He loved his brother and did all he could to protect him, but Doria was at an age when a boy doesn’t want protection anymore.

"Of course. Easy," he said with a smile that showed how happy he was to do as the Prince asked. "I’ve known some of them ever since I could walk. Most aren’t much older than me."

"Good." The Black Prince stood up. His next words were for Mo, although he didn’t look at him. "As for Violante’s offer, I agree with Gecko and Snapper. Violante may have a soft spot for strolling players and feel sorry for her subjects, but she’s still her father’s daughter, and we ought not to trust her."

All eyes went to the Bluejay.

But Mo said nothing.

To Resa, that silence spoke louder than words. She knew it, just as Meggie did. Resa saw the fear on her daughter’s face as she began talking earnestly to Mo. Yes, by now Meggie, too, probably felt what a hold this story had taken on her father. The letters were drawing him deeper and deeper down, like a whirlpool made of ink, and once again the terrible thought that had haunted Resa with increasing frequency these last few weeks came to her: that on the day when Mo had lain wounded in Capricorn’s burned-out fortress, close to death, perhaps the White Women really did take a part of him away with them to the place where Dustfinger had gone, and she would see that part of him again only there. In the place where all stories end.

CHAPTER 15

LOUD WORDS, SOFT WORDS

"Please, Mo! Ask him!"

At first Meggie thought she had heard her mother’s voice only in a dream, one of the dark dreams that sometimes came to her out of the past. Resa sounded so desperate.

But when Meggie opened her eyes she could still hear her voice. And when she looked out of the tent she saw her parents standing among the trees only a short way off, little more than two shadows in the night. The oak against which Mo was leaning was huge, an oak such as Meggie had never seen outside the Inkworld, and Resa was clutching his arm as if to force him to listen to her.

"Isn’t that what we’ve always done? When one of us didn’t like a story anymore, we closed the book! Mo, have you forgotten how many books there are? Let’s find another to tell us its story, a book with words that will stay words and not make us a part of them!"

Meggie glanced at the robbers lying under the trees only a little way off. Many of them were sleeping in the open, although the nights were already very cold, but her mother’s despairing voice didn’t seem to have woken any of them.

"If I remember correctly, I was the one who wanted to close this book long ago."