Inkspell (Inkworld 2)

The marten licked his paw and looked at him from dark eyes. When he dreamed it was surely only of hunting, not of dead boys.

Suppose the old man was sending the dreams? The idea made Dustfinger shudder as he lay down beside Roxane on the hard ground again. Yes, Fenoglio could be sitting in some corner, as he had often done these last few days, spinning bad dreams for him. That was exactly what he had done with the Adderhead’s fears! Nonsense, thought Dustfinger angrily, putting his arm around Roxane. Meggie isn’t here. Without her, the old man’s words are nothing but ink. Now try to get some sleep, or you’ll be nodding off as you wait among the trees with the others tomorrow.

But it was a long time before he could close his eyes.

He just lay there and listened to the boy’s breathing.

Chapter 70 – The Pen and The Sword

“Of course not,” said Hermione. “Everything we need is here on this paper.”

– J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Mo worked all night, while the storm raged outside as if Fenoglio’s world could not accept that soon immortality would arrive in it. Meggie had tried to stay awake, but finally she had nodded off again, head on the table, and he had put her to bed as he had done so many times before.

Marveling yet again to see how big she was now. Almost grown-up. Almost.

Meggie woke as he snapped the clasps shut. “Good morning,” he said as she raised her head from the pillow – and hoped it would really be a good morning. Outside, the sky was turning red like a face with the blood streaming back into it. The clasps held well. Mo had filed them so that no part of them pricked or dug into the fingers. They held the blank pages together as firmly as if Death were already between them. The leather he had been given for the binding had a reddish tinge, and it surrounded the wooden boards of the covers like their natural skin. The back was gently rounded, the stitching firm, the quires carefully planed. But the fact was that none of that mattered with this book. No one would read it. No one would keep it beside his bed to leaf through its pages again and again. The book was eerie for all its beauty, even Mo felt that, although it was the work of his own hands. It seemed to have a voice that whispered barely perceptible words, words that were not to be found on its blank pages. But they existed.

Fenoglio had written them, in a place far away, where women and children now wept for their dead husbands and fathers. Yes, the clasps were important.

Heavy footsteps echoed along the corridor outside the door. Soldiers’ footsteps. They came closer and closer. Outside, the night was fading. The Adderhead was taking Mo at his word. By the time the sun rises ..

Meggie quickly got out of bed, passed her hand over her hair, and smoothed down her creased dress.

“Is it finished?” she whispered.

He nodded and took the book from the table. “Do you think the Adderhead will like it?”

The Piper opened the door, with four men following him. His silver nose sat on his face as if it had grown from the flesh.

“Well, Bluejay? Have you finished?”

Mo inspected the book from all sides. “Yes, I think so,” he said, but when the Piper put out his hand he hid it behind his back. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m keeping this until your master has kept his side of the bargain.”

“You are?” The Piper smiled in derision. “Don’t you think I know ways of taking it from you? But hold on to it for a while. Fear will make you weak at the knees soon enough.”

It was a long way from the part of the Castle of Night where the ghosts of forgotten women lived to the halls where the Adderhead held court. The Piper walked behind Mo all the way with his curiously arrogant gait, stiff as a stork, so close behind that Mo felt his breath on the nape of his neck. Mo had never been in most of the corridors along which they marched, yet he felt as if he had walked down them all before – in the days when he read Fenoglio’s book over and over again as he tried to bring Resa back. It was a strange feeling to be here himself, behind the words on the page – and looking for her again.

He had read about the hall whose mighty doors opened for them, too, and when he saw Meggie’s look of alarm he knew only too well what other dreadful place it reminded them both of.

Capricorn’s red church had not been half as magnificent as the Adderhead’s throne room, but thanks to Fenoglio’s description Mo had recognized the model at once. Red-washed walls, column ranged beside column on both sides, except that, unlike those in Capricorn’s church, these were faced with scales of silver. Capricorn had even taken the idea of a statue from the Adderhead, but the sculptor who immortalized the Silver Prince clearly knew his trade better.

Capricorn had not tried to imitate the Adderhead’s throne. It was in the shape of a nest of silver vipers, two of them rearing up with their mouths fixed and wide open, so that the Adderhead’s hands could rest on their heads. The lord of the Castle of Night was magnificently clad, despite the early hour, as if to welcome his immortality with due honor. He wore a cape of silvery-white heron feathers over garments of black silk. Behind him, like a flock of birds with bright plumage, stood his court: administrators, ladies’ maids, servants – and among them, dressed in the ashen gray of their guild, a number of physicians.

Mortola was there, too, of course. She stood in the background, almost invisible in her black dress. If Mo had not been looking out for her he would have missed her. There was no sign of Basta, but Firefox was standing next to the throne, arms crossed under his fox-fur cloak. He was staring their way with hostility, but to Mo’s surprise his dark looks were aimed not at him but mainly at the Piper.

It’s a game, thought Mo as he walked past the silver columns. Fenoglio’s game. If only it hadn’t felt so real. How quiet it was in the red hall, in spite of all the people. Meggie looked at him, her face so pale under her fair hair, and he gave her the most encouraging smile his lips could manage – feeling thankful that she couldn’t hear how fast his heart was beating.

The Adderhead’s wife sat beside him. Meggie had described her perfectly: an ivory porcelain doll. Behind them stood the nurse with the eagerly awaited son. Mo had never wanted a son, only a daughter. Resa had teased him about it when they didn’t yet know what their baby would be. The child’s crying sounded strangely lost in the great hall. Even the rain beating against glazed windows high above them drowned out the shrill little voice.

It’s a game, thought Mo once more when he was standing before the steps of the throne, only a game. If only he’d known more about the rules. There was someone else present whom they knew. Taddeo the librarian, head humbly bent, stood right behind the Adderhead’s throne and gave Mo an anxious smile.

The Adderhead looked even more exhausted for lack of sleep than he had on their last meeting.

His face was blotched and full of shadows, his lips colorless. Only the rubies in the corners of his nostrils shone red. Who could say how many sleepless nights he had spent? For a moment it seemed to Mo as if all his life had gone into the rubies at the corners of his nose.

“Good, so you have really finished,” he said. “Of course, you’re in a hurry to see your wife again, I’m sure. I’ve been told she asks about you every day. That’s love, I expect, isn’t it?”

A game, only a game . . It didn’t feel like that. Nothing had ever seemed more real than the hatred that Mo felt at this moment, as he looked at that coarse and arrogant face. And he felt something else beating in his breast again: his new, cold heart. Or was it just his old heart, burned out with hatred?