Chapter 80
Ombra
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"Doria! How are you?" Meggie involuntarily put out her hand and caressed the scar on his forehead. Farid gave her a strange look. It was almost as if he was wondering if he was going to make the right decision.
"Fine. My head's as good as new." Doria brought something out from behind his back. "Is this what they're like?"
Meggie stared at the wooden airplane he had made.
"That's how you described them, isn't it? The flying machines."
"But you were unconscious!"
He smiled and put his hand to his head. "The words are in here, all the same. But I don't know how the music thing is supposed to work. You know the little box that plays music."
Meggie had to smile. "Oh yes, a radio. That wouldn't be any good here. I don't know just how to explain it to you…"
Farid was still looking at her. Then he abruptly took her hand. "Excuse us," he told Doria, and led Meggie into the nearest doorway. "Does Silvertongue know you look at him like that?"
"Look at who?"
"Who!" He passed his finger over his forehead as if tracing Doria's scar. "Listen, he said stroking her hair back. "Why don't you come with me? We could go from village to village together. The way we and Dustfinger were following your mother and father. Do you remember?"
How could he ask that?
Meggie looked over his shoulder. Doria was standing beside Fenoglio and Elinor. Fenoglio was looking at the airplane.
"I'm sorry Farid," she said, gently removing his hand from her shoulder. "But I don't want to leave."
"Why not?" He tried to kiss her, but Meggie turned her face away. Even though she felt tears coming to her eyes. Do you remember?
He looked down at his feet and hesitated before he talked. "I…I owe you an explanation." He raised his gaze to meet hers.
"About?" She asked even though she knew what he wanted to talk about.
"About when I helped Orpheus get what he wanted for Dustfinger's return." He fell silent before starting up again. "Meggie… Dustfinger… well, he was like a father to me Meggie, not just a father either, a master… and a friend." His gaze repeatedly fell to the floor and back up to her eyes again. "I loved him, as you love your father."
He looked up and gazed into her eyes. He really did have the most beautiful eyes of any boy she had ever seen. He waited for a minute but she did not respond.
"Meggie, if you had to choose between me or your father, who would you choose?"
"Well… I would have chosen…I would have at least thought about trying to find another way so we could still be together." Meggie said defiantly.
"And I guess my sleepless nights don't count?" Farid responded.
Meggie's expression did not change, but Farid saw the question gleaming in her eyes. "Meggie you thought that I would have helped you leave the Inkworld and never return? Meggie I…I love you." There. He had said it. And it hit Meggie like a rock.
How could he expect her to love him back? He had betrayed her, no matter if he did not want to. She looked into his deep black eyes and saw nothing but a pit of depression. He really did love her.
But she could not say the same for him. The pain he had caused her was unbearable. Leaving her for Dustfinger in a second. Doria would never have left her. No. She did not love Farid anymore. Not after he betrayed her.
"I'm sorry Farid, I wish you luck on your journey," She kissed him on the cheek and left the doorway to go and find Doria.
Meggie was back in the farm where her and her parents had hidden for a time, when Mo still played the part of the Bluejay, and the immortal Adderhead reigned over the Inkworld. The cool night air blue into her room through her open window, and she could see the shinning stars and glowing moon. Was it the same stars, and the same moon in her world? Or were these different, only the creation of an old man? These questions she often asked herself, but she could get no answers in return. She listened to the soft breeze running through the leaves of the Wayless Wood.
She truly did love this world more than hers, even with all of the violence that it contained. She loved the woods, and the fairies, and the giants, and the castles, and the glassmen. But most of all she loved Doria.
She heard a small scuttling and a hiss from outside her window and looked out curiously. A black shape approached her window and held out its hand. Fire leapt up onto the shape's hand, after a few whispered words in a language that Meggie would never understand.
The dark shape of Farid was illuminated.
Farid.
He was there. At her home in the Inkworld, outside of her window. She looked incredulously at him, and he smiled. She stammered to grip the right words, "How did you…why are you here?" she asked in an angry whisper.
Farid put his finger to his lips and whispered, "Meggie, I want to show you something. Please come with me, its not far from here." He looked at her hopefully.
She looked back at him, doubt glowing in her eyes. What could he possibly want to show her?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Farid's voice. "Please Meggie, it won't take long." The hopefulness in his voice moved her. She could tell that what he wanted to show her was important.
She sighed and got out of bed, throwing on some clothes, and quietly exiting her room, and out of the front door. She did not hear her parents so she figured they were still asleep. Good. The less they knew about this the better.
She met Farid outside of the house, and looked expectantly at him. "We need to go a little bit into the forest; it's not that far though." She shrugged and he led her towards the Wayless Wood, and through the giant trees.
They must have walked for 10 minutes, delving deeper and deeper into the dark of the Wayless Wood, with only the fire on Farid's hand to guide them along the invisible path.
Finaly through the trees, she could see an orange glow. Fire. In the middle of the forest.
"We're here." He announced as they finally left the trees behind them. It was a circular clearing with a bonfire in it. The fire was so hot that Meggie felt its heat from 10 feet away. Farid removed a pouch from his waste and looked at Meggie.
"Meggie, what I wanted to show you is this trick with fire that Dustfinger taught me. Me and him are the only people who know how to do it. Only people who have felt the White Woman's hands can make it." Farid stopped and looked at her. His cheeks seemed to gain a reddish hue. "Dustfinger made one for Roxane and he told me to do the same…for the one I love." Once he had said this he turned his head back to the bag in his hand.
He poured out the contents on to his palm. It was a fine sand. He poured it all out carefully into his hand, making sure not to drop even a spec of it.
He walked over to the blazing fire, closer than she would have dared, and began whispering in the language that she would never understand. The flames began to dance and spin in the blackness of the clearing. Meggie felt the heat growing, until it was nearly unbearable from where she was standing. She didn't know how Farid did it.
With one quick motion of his hand he flicked the sand into the blazing fire and started whispering, so fast that even if she understood the fire language, she might not have understood what Farid was telling the fire. Near the top of the blaze, a fire started to grow.
The petals of fire, slowly unraveled and the flower grew, showering sparks on the ground. As soon as the flower grew to its full height, and sparks lit up the clearing, Farid lunged his hand into the blaze. Meggie flinched and yelled out but Farid did not respond. He delved his hand deeper into the inferno, ignoring the pain that was being etched on his face.
Farid felt pain worse than death. The blaze tore at his arm, and bit his chest, which was almost in the fire. He reached in, deeper and deeper until his hand touched what he was facing all of the pain for. Glass. He thanked every God that he had finally reached it. But he wasn't done. The hardest part was always yet to come. He whispered the words of fire that Dustfinger had learned from Death. Fire leaked from his fingertips and was absorbed by the glass object. He knew it was done. He reached out a little bit farther to grab the glass object from the blaze. Slowly he pulled it out so as not to damage it in any way. Finally his arm left the blaze and the fire died down, and Meggie saw the object that Farid had been nearly tortured for. In his burnt hands, was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was a glass rose. But that wasn't the amazing thing. Inside of the glass rose was fire. Living fire that licked the insides of the glass without doing any damage. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Farid turned to her, the rose in his hand. He saw the expression on her face and smiled. "It didn't really hurt too much," but he knew Meggie saw the lie in his face. "This is known as the Eternal Rose. Nobody knows about this but me and Dustfinger…..and Roxane." There was no mistaking the pride in his voice. "The White Woman saw the love in Dustfinger's heart, and taught him this, even though they knew he would not remember who she, or anybody else, was. The fire in here is part of a Fire-Dancer's soul. You can call them while holding this rose, and they will hear it, no matter how far they are away. It is the gift of eternal love." And at this he held out the Eternal Rose to Meggie.
She looked at bewilderment at the Rose. She knew that Farid truly loved her, and she knew that what he said was true. The Rose did contain part of Farid's soul. But when she looked at the Rose another image fought its way into her mind. It was the wooden plane that Doria had showed her. The one he had carved. And she remembered Fenoglio's story and what he had said. "This Doria has a wife who is said to come from a distant land, and she often gives him the idea in the first place." She knew Doria would give her, and her family, a happy life. She knew he would never betray her as Farid did.
But when she looked at Farid she saw the love in his beautiful black eyes. The Rose or the plane? Doria or Farid? Why were there two boys for one heart?
She reached out gingerly and touched the Rose. It didn't burn her, despite the fire inside of the glass. She moved her hand farther up, until it covered Farid's. The glass of the rose lay beneath her hand. She wrapped her fingers around it and picked it up. The glass was perfectly smooth. She held it up to her eye and examined it. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
Farid still had not moved. He was gazing at her uncomfortably. He had just given her part of his soul and she had not responded. He knew that she was concentrating though, and did not disturb her.
Finally, after a moment of hard thought, Meggie took a hesitant step forward. She put her hand on Farid's chest and her heart beat began to hasten. She hesitated then brought her lips to meet Farid's. When she kissed him Meggie knew that he was sorry, and that he would never betray her again. At that moment they both knew that they loved each other and their lives happy together.
When Meggie kissed Farid a realization dawned on her. She controlled her life. Not Fenoglio. Even in his own book, people were the master's of their own life. Nobody's life is written in stone, or ink as her case most commonly happened to be.