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  "Remember what your father told you!" called Fenoglio when Meggie was out in the hallway. "Words don't come to life until you can taste them on your tongue. "

  The Magpie nudged Meggie in the back. "Get moving!" she said and closed the door behind them.

  54 . FIRE

  "And then – I have it!" said Bagheera, leaping up. "Go thou down quickly to the men's huts in the valley, and take some of the Red Flower which they grow there, so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a stronger friend than I or Baloo or those of the Pack that love thee. Get the Red Flower. "

  By Red Flower Bagheera meant fire, only no creature in the jungle will call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it.

  Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

  They set out when dusk fell over the hills, leaving Gwin at their camp. After what had happened on their last night time visit to Capricorn's village, even Farid could see it was better that way. Silvertongue made him go first. He knew nothing of the boy's fear of ghosts and other nocturnal terrors. Farid had hidden it from him more successfully than he had from Dustfinger. Silvertongue did not mock his fear of the dark either, as Dustfinger had, and curiously enough that made the fear less, shrinking it as only daylight usually did. But now Farid was going to use something else that Dustfinger thought him too foolhardy to handle.

  Fire. They had decided to start a fire next to Capricorn's house, so that it would not spread to the hills so fast but would threaten the only thing Capricorn cared about: his treasure chambers.

  This time, the village was not quiet and empty as it had been on the previous nights, but was buzzing like a wasp's nest. Four armed guards were patrolling the parking lot, and cars were parked all around the wire-netting fence that surrounded the former football field. Their headlights bathed the area in glaring light as if a bright cloth had been spread out in the dark.

  "So that's where the show's going to take place, " whispered Silvertongue as they approached the houses. "Poor Meggie."

  A kind of rostrum had been set up in the middle of this arena with a cage opposite it, perhaps for the monster that Silvertongue's daughter was to read out of the book, perhaps for the prisoners. On the left-hand side of the field, facing away from the wire fence and the village, stood long wooden benches. A few of the Black Jackets were already sitting on them, like ravens that had found a bright, warm place to spend the night.

  They had thought of stealing into the village from the parking lot. With so many strangers around, perhaps no one would notice them. But then they decided on a longer, darker route. Farid went ahead again, using every tree as cover, always keeping uphill from the houses until they were above the uninhabited part of the village that looked as if a giant had trodden on it. Even there, more guards than usual were patrolling. They had to keep retreating into the shadows of a gateway, ducking down behind a wall, or climbing through a window and waiting with bated breath for the guard to pass by. Luckily, there were many dark corners in Capricorn's village, and the guards strolled through the alleys with an air of boredom, as men do when they are sure there is no threat of danger.

  Farid had Dustfinger's backpack with him, containing all they would need to kindle a quick, hot fire. Silvertongue carried the wood they had collected in case the flames did not find enough to feed on among the stones. And there were Capricorn's stocks of gasoline, too. Farid still had the smell of it in his nostrils from the night when they had shut him up in the sheds. The tanks were seldom guarded, but they might not need them. It was a windless night; the flames would burn quietly and steadily. Farid remembered Dustfinger's warning: "Never light a fire when it's windy. The wind will catch hold of it and it will forget you, it will fan the flames until they leap up and bite you and lick the skin from your bones. " But the wind was sleeping tonight, and the still air filled the alleyways like warm water in a bucket.

  They had hoped to find the square outside Capricorn's house empty, but as they were about to enter it from one of the alleys, they saw a half-dozen men were standing outside the church.

  "Why are they still here?" whispered Farid as Silvertongue drew him into the shadow of a doorway. "The festivities are about to begin."

  Two maids came out of Capricorn's house, each with a pile of plates. They were taking them to the church. Obviously the successful execution was to be celebrated there later. When the maids passed the guards the men whistled at them. One of the women almost dropped the crockery when one of them tried to lift her skirt with the barrel of his gun. It was the man who had recognized Silvertongue when they slipped into the village the night before. Farid touched his forehead, which was still bloodstained, and cursed him with the worst curses he knew. Why did he have to be the one there? But even if they got past him unrecognized, how were they going to start a fire while the others were still standing around?

  "Take it easy!" Silvertongue whispered to him. "They'll soon go away. The first thing we have to do is make sure Meggie really has left the house. "

  Farid nodded, looking at the big house. There were still lights on in two of the windows, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. "I'll sneak down to the football field and see if she's there, " he whispered to Silvertongue. Perhaps they had already gotten Dustfinger from the church, perhaps he was in the cage they had set up, and he could whisper to him that they had brought his best friend, fire, to save him.

  Night shadows filled many of the nooks and crannies among the houses, despite the brightness of the streetlights. Farid was about to set off, using their shelter, when the door of Capricorn's house opened. The old woman with a face like a vulture came out. She was dragging Silvertongue's daughter along behind her. Farid hardly recognized Meggie in the long white dress she wore. After them, gun in hand, came the man who had shot at him and Silvertongue. He looked around, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, locked the door, and beckoned to one of the men standing outside the church. He was obviously telling him to guard the house. So, only one man would stay on guard when the others went off to see the show.

  Farid felt Silvertongue tensing every muscle – as if he wanted to run to his daughter, who looked almost as pale as her dress. The boy clutched his arm in a warning gesture, but Silvertongue seemed to have forgotten him. He had eyes only for the girl. One reckless step and he would be out of the shelter of the shadows.

  "Don't!" Farid pulled him back in alarm – as best he could, for he scarcely came up to Silvertongue's shoulder. Luckily, Capricorn's men were watching the old woman as she crossed the square, walking so fast the girl stumbled over the hem of her dress a couple of times.

  "She looks so pale!" whispered Silvertongue. "Heavens, do you see how frightened she is? Perhaps she'll look this way, perhaps we can give her a signal -"

  "No!" Farid was still hanging on to him with both hands. "We must start the fire. That's the only way we can help her. Please, Silvertongue – they'll see you!"

  "Don't keep calling me Silvertongue. It gets on my nerves. "

  The old woman disappeared among the houses with Meggie. Flatnose was following them, lumbering like a bear in a black suit, and at last, the other men left, too. They went down the street, laughing, looking forward to what the night promised them: death spiced with fear and the appearance of a new terror in this accursed village.

  Only the guard outside Capricorn's house was left. He watched the others go, his face gloomy as he kicked an empty cigarette packet and struck the wall with his fist. He was the only one who was going to miss the fun. Even the guard at the top of the church tower could at least watch the show from a distance.

  They had expected a guard to be posted outside the house. Farid had explained the best way to get rid of him, and Silvertongue had nodded and agreed to the plan. When the footsteps of Capricorn's men had died away and they could hear nothing but the noise from the direction of the parking lot, they moved out of the shadows, acting as if they had only just emerged from the alley, and openly approached the guard side by side.
He looked at them suspiciously, pushed himself away from the wall against which he had been leaning, and took the gun from his shoulder. Alarmed, Farid involuntarily put his hand to his forehead, but at least the guard was not one of the men who might have recognized them, not the man with the limp, or Basta, or any of Capricorn's other personal henchmen.

  "Hey, lend us a hand!" called Silvertongue, ignoring the gun. "Those fools forgot Capricorn's armchair. We've been sent to get it."

  The guard was holding his gun in front of his chest. "Oh, for heaven's sake! That thing's so heavy it'd break your back. Where are you from?" He scrutinized Silvertongue's face, as if trying to remember whether he had seen it before. He took no notice of Farid at all. "You from the north, then? I heard you have a lot of fun up there."

  "That's right. " Silvertongue went so close to the guard that the man took a step back. "Come on, you know Capricorn doesn't like to be kept waiting. "

  The guard nodded sullenly. "Yes, yes, all right, " he muttered, looking over to the church. "There's no point standing guard here anyway. What do they think will happen? Do they expect the fire-eater to come and steal the gold? That fellow was always lily-livered, he'll be well away by now, he -" But suddenly, while the guard was still looking at the church, Silvertongue seized the gun and hit him on the head with the butt. Then he dragged him around behind Capricorn's house where it was pitch dark.

  "Did you hear what he said?" Farid had quickly gagged the guard and was expertly tying a rope around the man's legs. "Dustfinger must have escaped! He said, 'he'll be well away,' He can't have meant anyone else!"

  "Yes, I heard. But my daughter is still here. " Silvertongue gave him the backpack and looked around, but the square was now so deserted and quiet it was as if they were the only people left in Capricorn's village. Not a sound was heard from the guard up in the church tower. No doubt, tonight he had eyes for nothing but the events taking place on the brightly lit football field. Farid took two torches and the bottle of inflammable liquid from Dustfinger's backpack. He got away, he was thinking, he got away! He could almost have laughed out loud. Silver tongue went back to Capricorn's house, peered into several windows, and finally knocked one of them in, taking off his jacket and pressing it against the glass to muffle the sound when it broke. Laughter and music drifted up from the parking lot.

  "The matches! I can't find them!" Farid rummaged among Dustfinger's things until Silvertongue took the backpack from his hand.

  "Give it to me!" he whispered. "You get the torches ready. "

  Farid did as he was told. He carefully soaked the cotton wool in the acrid-smelling spirits. Dustfinger will come back, he thought, he'll come back to look for Gwin, and then he'll fetch me. Voices came from one of the alleys. Men's voices. For a few terrible moments they seemed to be coming closer, but they died away again, swallowed up by the music coming from the parking lot and filling the night like a foul smell.

  Silvertongue was still looking for the matches. "Ugh!" he said, swearing softly and removing his hand from the backpack. Marten droppings were smeared over his thumb. He wiped them off on the nearest wall, put his hand in the pack again, and threw Farid a box of matches. Then he took something else out – the little book that Dustfinger kept in a side pocket he had sewn inside. Farid had often looked at it. It had pictures stuck in it, cutout pictures of fairies and witches, trolls and dragons, goblins, nymphs, and ancient trees. Silvertongue flicked through it while Farid was soaking the second torch. A photograph was lying between the pages – the photograph of Capricorn's maid, the woman who had tried to help Dustfinger and was to die for it tonight! Or had she escaped with him? Silvertongue was staring at the photograph and suddenly it was as if nothing else in the world existed.

  "What's the matter?" Farid put the match to the dripping torch. The flame flared up, hissing and hungry. How beautiful it was! Farid licked his finger and passed it through the flame. "Here, take this. " He held the torch out to Silvertongue. It would be best for him, as the taller of them, to throw it through the window. But Silvertongue just stood there gazing at the photo.

  "That's the woman who helped Dustfinger, " said Farid. "The one they caught, too. I think he's in love with her. Here. " Once again he held the burning torch out to Silver tongue. "What are you waiting for?"

  Silvertongue looked at him as if he had been woken from a dream. "In love… in love," he murmured as he took the torch from Farid's hand. Then he put the photograph in the breast pocket of his shirt, cast another glance at the empty square, and threw the torch through the broken window into Capricorn's house.

  "Give me a leg up! I want to see it burning!" cried Farid. Silvertongue did as he asked. The room seemed to be some kind of office. Farid saw paper, a desk, a picture of Capricorn on the wall. Someone here could write after all. The burning torch lay among the sheets of paper covered with writing, it licked and gulped, it whispered with delight at such a feast, flared up and leaped on, from the desk to the curtains at the window. Greedily, it consumed the dark fabric. The whole room was filled with red and yellow. Smoke billowed out of the broken window, stinging Farid's eyes.

  "I must go!" Silvertongue put him down abruptly. The music had stopped. Suddenly, it was eerily quiet. Silvertongue ran off along the street leading down to the parking lot. Farid watched him go. He had something else to do. He waited until the flames were shooting out of the window, then he began shouting. "Fire! Capricorn's house is on fire!" His voice echoed over the empty square.

  Heart thudding, he ran to the corner of the big house and looked up at the church tower. The guard there had leaped to his feet. Farid lit the second torch and threw it at the church porch. The air began to smell of smoke. The guard froze, turned, and at last – he rang the bell.

  And Farid ran off to follow Silvertongue.

  55. TREACHERY, LOOSE TALK, AND STUPIDITY

  Then he said, "Without a doubt, I must perish; there is no way I can get out of this narrow prison. "

  Tales from the Thousand and One Nights

  Elinor thought she was showing considerable courage. Of course she still did not know exactly what fate awaited her – and if her niece knew more than she did, she hadn't told her – but she could be sure it would be nothing pleasant. Nor did Teresa give the men who came to take them up from the crypt the satisfaction of seeing her shed tears. She couldn't curse them or shout at them anyway; her voice was gone, like a garment she no longer wore. Luckily, she had two pieces of paper with her, crumpled, dirty scraps, much too small for all the words unspoken over nine years. She had filled the paper with tiny writing until there wasn't space for a single word more. She didn't want to say anything about herself and what had happened to her, and just waved Elinor's whispered questions impatiently away. There were questions of her own she wanted to ask, question after question about her daughter and her husband. Elinor whispered the answers into her ear, very quietly so Basta in the adjoining cell would not realize that the two women who were about to die with him had known each other ever since the younger one had learned to walk holding onto Elinor's endless bookshelves.

  Basta was not in a good way. Whenever they looked at him they saw his hands clinging to the bars, knuckles white under his suntanned skin. Once, Elinor thought she heard him weeping, but when they were taken out of the cells his face was as vacant as a dead man's, and when their guards locked them up in that unspeakable cage he crouched on the floor in a corner and sat as motionless as a doll that no one wants to play with.

  The cage smelled of dogs and raw meat, and indeed it did look like a kennel. Several of Capricorn's men ran the butts of their shotguns along the silvery gray bars before sitting down on the benches that had been made ready for them. Basta in particular was the object of enough scorn and derision for ten men, and from his failure to react at all one could only guess at the depths of his despair. All the same, Elinor and Teresa kept as far away from him as they could in the same cage. They also kept away from the bars, from all the fingers poking throu
gh, the faces the men made at them, and the burning cigarettes flicked at them. They stood close together, both glad and sorry to be with each other.

  On the outskirts of the arena, right beside the entrance and carefully segregated from the men, sat the women who worked for Capricorn. They showed none of the men's ghastly excitement. Most of their faces were downcast but, again and again, their glances strayed over to Resa with expressions of pity – and dread.

  Capricorn arrived when the long benches were full. There were no seats for the boys, so they had squatted on the ground in front of the Black Jackets. His face emotionless, Capricorn strode past them all as if they were nothing but a flock of crows that had assembled at his command. Only in front of the cage containing his prisoners did he slow his pace to examine each of the three with a small, satisfied glance. For the fraction of a second life came back into Basta as his former lord and master stopped by the bars; he raised his head, his eyes pleading silently, like a dog begging for forgiveness, but Capricorn walked on without a word. When he had seated himself in his black leather armchair Cockerell placed himself behind it, legs planted wide apart. Obviously, he was the new favorite now.

  "For heaven's sake, stop looking at him like that!" Elinor snapped at Basta when she realized his eyes were still following Capricorn. "He's planning to feed you to his friend like a fly to a frog, so how about a little indignation? You were always so ready with a choice selection of threats: 'I'll cut your tongue out, I'll slice you to pieces…' What's happened to all that, then?"

  But Basta only bowed his head and stared at the floor beneath his boots. Elinor thought he looked like an oyster with the flesh and life sucked out of it.