Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

The Adderhead, Orpheus, the Piper, the soldiers, two servants with the cushions to support their master’s aching flesh — Resa saw them all go, but just as she thought she was alone and was putting her head over the edge of the wardrobe, there stood Jacopo staring straight up at her. One of the servants came back to fetch the Adderhead his coat.

"See that bird up there?" Jacopo asked. "Catch it for me!"

But the servant dragged him unceremoniously to the door. "You don’t give the orders around here! Go and see your mother. I’m sure she’ll be glad of company where she is now!"

Jacopo resisted, but the servant pushed him roughly through the doorway. Then he closed the door — and came over to the wardrobe. Resa retreated. She heard him pushing something in front of the wardrobe. Fly into his face, she told herself. But then where? The door was closed, the windows draped. The servant threw a black coat at her. She fluttered against the door, against the walls, heard the man cursing.

Where could she go? She flew up to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but something hit her wing. It hurt, it hurt badly, and she fell.

"You just wait, I’ll wring your neck! Who knows, maybe you won’t taste bad. Sure to be better than what our fine master gives us to eat." Hands reached for her. She tried to fly away, but her wing hurt, and the man’s fingers held on tightly. In desperation, she pecked them with her beak.

"Let it go!"

Bewildered, the servant turned, and Dustfinger struck him to the ground. There was fire behind him. A traitor’s fire. Gwin was staring hungrily at her, but Dustfinger shooed him away. Resa tried to peck his hands when he reached for her, but she had no strength left, and he carefully lifted her from the floor and stroked her feathers.

"What’s the matter with your wing? Can you move it?"

The bird in her trusted him, as all wild creatures did, but her human heart remembered what the Piper had said. "Why did you give Mo away?"

"Because that’s what he wanted. Spit the seeds out, Resa! Have you forgotten that you’re human?"

Perhaps I want to forget it, she thought, but she obediently spat the little seeds out into his hand. This time none were missing, but she still felt the bird growing stronger and stronger inside her. Small and large, large and small, skin with feathers, skin without feathers. . . She stroked her arms, felt fingers again, not claws, felt tears in her eyes, a woman’s tears.

"Did you see where the White Book is hidden?"

She shook her head. Her heart was so glad that it could love Mo again.

"We have to find it, Resa," Dustfinger whispered. "Your husband is going to bind the Adder another book, remembering his old trade and forgetting the Bluejay, and in that way he will be safe from Orpheus’s words. But that book must never be finished, do you understand?"

Yes, she understood. They looked everywhere by the light of the fire, groping among damp towels, clothes and boots, swords, pitchers, silver salvers, and embroidered cushions. They even reached into the bloody water. When they heard footsteps outside, Dustfinger dragged the unconscious servant with him, and they hid behind the wardrobe on which Resa had been perching. For a bird, the room had seemed as large as a whole world, but now it seemed too cramped to breathe in. Dustfinger placed himself in front of Resa to protect her, but the servants who came in were too busy emptying their master’s bath of blood to notice anything. They cursed as they cleared the damp towels away, covering up for their disgust at the Adderhead’s rotting flesh with mockery. Then they carried the tub out and left Dustfinger and Resa alone again.

Search . . . in every corner, in every chest, in and under the tumbled bed. Search for the Book.

CHAPTER 7O

BURNING WORDS

Farid found Doria. When they carried him to the tree, Meggie thought at first that the giant had crushed him, just as he had crushed the Milksop’s men, who lay in the frosty grass like broken dolls.

"No, it wasn’t the giant," said Roxane as they put Doria down with the other injured men: the Black Prince and Woodenfoot, Silkworm and Hedgehog. "This is the work of humans,"

Roxane had made one of the lowest nests into a sickroom. Luckily, there were only two dead among the robbers, while the Milksop had lost many men. Even fear of his brother-in-law wasn t going to bring him back another time.

Sootbird, too, was dead. He lay on the grass with his neck broken, staring up at the sky with empty eyes. Wolves prowled among the trees, lured by the smell of blood.

But they dared not come any closer, because the giant was curled up like a child under the tree with its nests, sleeping as deeply as if Roxane’s singing had sent him into the realm of dreams forever.

Doria did not come around when Minerva bandaged his bleeding head, and Meggie sat beside him as Roxane cared for the other wounded. Hedgehog was in a very bad way, but the other men’s injuries would heal. Fortunately, the Black Prince had only a couple of broken ribs. He wanted to go down to his bear, but Roxane had forbidden it, and Battista had to keep assuring him that the bear was already chasing snow hares again, now that Roxane had pulled out the arrow from his furry shoulder. But Doria didn’t move. He just lay there, his brown hair full of blood.

"What do you think? Will he ever wake up again?" Meggie asked as Roxane bent over him.

"I don’t know," Roxane replied. "Talk to him. Sometimes that calls them back."

Talk to him. What should she tell Doria? He had asked her about the other world again and again, so in a soft voice Meggie began talking to him about horseless carriages and flying machines, ships without sails and devices that carried voices from one part of the world to another. Elinor came to see how she was. Fenoglio sat beside her for a while. Even Farid came and held her hand while she held Doria’s, and for the first time Meggie felt as close to him as she had when the two of them followed her captured parents with Dustfinger. Can one heart love two boys at once?

"Farid," said Fenoglio quietly after a while, "let’s see what your fire can tell us about the Bluejay, and then this story will be brought to an end. A good end."

"Maybe we ought to send the giant to the Bluejay!" said Silkworm. Roxane had cut an arrow out of his arm, and his tongue was heavy with the wine she had given him to dull the pain. The Milksop had left all sorts of things behind: wine and blankets, weapons, riderless horses.

"Have you forgotten where the Bluejay is?" asked the Black Prince. Meggie was so glad he was alive. "No giant can wade through the Black Lake. Even if they did once like to look at their reflections in its water."

No, it wouldn’t be as simple as that.

"Come on, Meggie, let’s ask the fire," said Farid, but Meggie was reluctant to let go of Doria’s hand.

"You go. I’ll stay with him," said Minerva, and Fenoglio whispered, "Don’t look so anxious! Of course the boy will wake up again! Have you forgotten what I told you?

His story is only just beginning."

But Doria’s pale face made that hard to believe.

The branch that Farid kneeled on to summon the fire was as broad as the road outside Elinor’s garden gate. As Meggie crouched beside him, Fenoglio looked suspiciously up at the children sitting in the branches above them watching the sleeping giant.

"Don’t you dare!" he called, pointing to the fir cones in their small hands. "The first of you to throw one of those at the giant will go down after it. I promise you!"