Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

As his first official act, he had ordered a document to be hung up by the castle gates, listing the punishments that would be meted out in Ombra for various crimes from now on with pictures, so that those who couldn’t read would know what threatened them, too. The loss of an eye for this offense, the loss of a hand for that one, whippings, the pillory, branding, blinding. Fenoglio looked away whenever he passed that notice, and when he was out with Minerva’s children he put his hand over their eyes if they had to cross the marketplace, where most of the punishments were inflicted (although Ivo always wanted to peek). Of course they could still hear the screams.

Luckily, there weren’t too many offenders left to be punished in this city without men. Many of the women had left with their children, traveling far away from the Wayless Wood that no longer protected them from the prince who ruled on the other side of it, the immortal Adderhead.

And yes, Fenoglio thought, that had undoubtedly been his idea. But more and more rumors were being heard all the time, whispering that the Adderhead took little pleasure in his immortality.

There was a knock at the door. Who could that be? Oh, the devil, was he forgetting everything these days? Of course! Where was the damn note that crow had brought yesterday evening? Rosenquartz had been scared to death when he’d suddenly seen the bird perching on the skylight. Mortimer was coming to Ombra. Today! And wasn’t he, Fenoglio, supposed to meet him outside the castle gates? This visit was a reckless notion. There were "Wanted" posters up for the Bluejay on every street corner. Fortunately, the picture on them didn’t look the least like Ivlortimer, but all the same. . . Another knock.

Rosenquartz stayed where he was, beside his thimble. A glass man wasn’t even any good at opening doors! Fenoglio felt sure Orpheus didn’t have to open his door for himself Apparently, his new bodyguard was so large he could hardly get through the city gate. Bodyguard! If I ever do write again, thought Fenoglio, I’ll get Meggie to read me a giant here, and we’ll see what the Calf’s-Head has to say about that.

The knocking was getting rather impatient.

"Coming, coming!" Fenoglio stumbled over an empty wine jug as he looked for his trousers. Laboriously, he climbed into them. How his bones ached! The hell with old age. Why hadn’t he written a story in which people were young forever? Because it would be boring, he thought as he hopped over to the door, one leg in the scratchy trousers. Deadly boring.

"Sorry, Mortimer!" he called. "The glass man forgot to wake me up at the right time!"

Behind him, Rosenquartz began protesting, but the voice that replied to him outside wasn’t Mortimer’s — even if it was almost as beautiful as his. Orpheus. Talk of the devil! What did he want here? Come to complain that Rosenquartz had been in his house Spying? If anyone has a reason to complain, I do, thought Fenoglio. After all, it’s my story he’s plundering and distorting! Miserable Calf’s-Head, Milkface, Bullfrog, Whippersnapper . . . Fenoglio had many names for Orpheus, none of them flattering.

Wasn’t it bad enough that he kept sending Farid to bother him? Did he have to come himself? He was sure to ask thousands of stupid questions again. Your own fault, Fenoglio! How often he’d cursed himself for the words he’d written in the mine at Meggie’s urging: So he called on another, younger man, Orpheus by name skilled in letters, even if he could not yet handle them with the mastery of Fenoglio himself —

and decided to instruct him in his art, as every master does at some time. For a while Orpheus should play with words in his place, seduce and lie with them, create and destroy, banish and restore — while Fenoglio waited for his weariness to pass, for his pleasure in words to reawaken, and then he would send Orpheus back to the world from which he had summoned him, to keep his story alive with new words never used before.

"I ought to write him back where he came from!" Fenoglio growled as he kicked the empty jug out of his way. "Right now!"

"Write? Did I hear you say write?" Rosenquartz asked ironically behind him. He was back to his normal color. Fenoglio threw a dry crust of bread at him, but it missed Rosenquartz’s pale pink head by more than a hand’s breadth, and the glass man gave a sympathetic sigh.

"Fenoglio? Fenoglio, I know you’re in there! Open the door." God, how he hated that voice. Planting words in his story like weeds. His own words!

"No, I’m not here!" growled Fenoglio. "Not for you, Calf’s-Head!"

Fenoglio, is Death a man or a woman? Were the White Women once living human beings? Fenoglio, how am I to bring Dustfinger back if you can’t even tell me the simplest rules of this world? Enough of his questions. For God’s sake, who had asked him to bring Dustfinger back? If everything had gone the way Fenoglio had originally written it, the man would have been dead long ago in any case. And as for

"the simplest rules," since when, might he ask, were life and death simple? Hang it all (and there was more than enough hanging in Ombra these days anyway), how was he supposed to know how everything worked, in this or any other world? He’d never thought much about death or what came after it. Why bother? While you were alive, why would death interest you? And once you were dead — well, presumably you weren’t interested in anything anymore.

"Of course he’s there! Fenoglio?" That was Minerva’s voice. Damn it, the Calf’s-Head had roped her in to help him. Cunning. At least Orpheus was far from stupid.

Fenoglio hid the empty wine jugs under the bed, forced his other leg into his trousers, and unbolted the door.

"So there you are!" Minerva inspected him disapprovingly from his uncombed head to his bare feet. "I told your visitor you were at home." How sad she looked. Weary, too. These days she was working in the castle kitchen, where Fenoglio had asked Violante to find her a job. But the Milksop had a preference for feasting by night, so Minerva often didn’t get home until the early hours of the morning. Very likely she’d drop dead of exhaustion someday and leave her poor children orphans. It was a wretched situation. What had become of his wonderful Ombra?

"Fenoglio!" Orpheus pushed past Minerva with that ghastly, innocent smile he always had ready as camouflage. Of course he’d brought notes with him again, notes full of questions. How did he pay for the fine clothes he wore? Fenoglio himself had never worn such clothes, not even in his days of glory as court poet. Ah, he thought, but you forgot the treasures he’s writing for himself didn’t you, Fenoglio?

Without a word Minerva went down the steep staircase again, and a man made his way through Fenoglio’s door behind Orpheus. Even ducking his head, he almost got stuck in the doorway. Aha, the legendary bodyguard. There was even less space in Fenoglio’s modest little room with this huge meatball inside it.

Farid, on the other hand, didn’t take up much space, although so far he had played a big part in the story. Farid, Dustfinger’s angel of death - . . He followed his new master through the door hesitantly, as if ashamed to be keeping such company.

"Well now, Fenoglio, I’m truly sorry," said Orpheus, his supercilious smile giving the lie to his words, "but I’m afraid I’ve found a few more inconsistencies."

Inconsistencies!

"I’ve sent Farid here before with my questions, but you gave him some very strange answers. Looking portentous, he straightened his glasses and brought the book out from under his heavy velvet coat. Yes, that Calf’s-Head had brought Fenoglio’s book with him into the world of the story it told: the very last copy of Ink heart. But had he given it back to him, the author? Oh no. "I’m sorry, Fenoglio," was all he had said, with the arrogant expression that he had mastered so perfectly. (Orpheus had been quick to abandon the mask of a diligent student.) "I’m sorry, but this book is mine.