Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

It was all black, so black, in spite of the sparks. He could still see them. Where did they come from? He heard the fluttering again, and suddenly he felt someone beside him. A hand was laid on his forehead, caressed his face. Such a familiar hand.

"What is it? Mo!"

Resa. This was impossible. Was Orpheus conjuring up her face, only to drown her the next moment before his eyes? He had never known that Orpheus could write so well. And how warm her hands were!

"What’s the matter with him?"

Dustfinger’s voice. Mo looked up and saw him, exactly where Orpheus had been standing. Madness. He was caught in a dream until Orpheus released him.

"Mo!" Resa took his face between her hands. Only a dream. But what did that matter? It was so good to see her. He sobbed with relief, and she held him tight. "You must get away from here!"

She couldn’t be real.

"Listen to me, Mo! You must get away.

"You can’t be here." How heavy his tongue was.

"Yes, I can.

"Dustfinger is dead." Resa. . . she looked so different with her hair pinned up.

Something swam between them. Spikes stuck up from the water, and Resa flinched in alarm. Mo drew her close and hit out at the swimming thing, still as if in a dream.

Dustfinger threw a rope down. It didn’t come low enough, but at a whisper from above it began growing longer, lengthened by fibers made of flames.

Mo reached for it, and let it go again.

"I can’t leave this place." The sparks made the water filling the cell seem as red as blood. "I can’t."

"What are you talking about?" Resa pressed the fiery rope into his damp hands.

"Death. Meggie." He had lost the words, too, in all the darkness. "I have to find the Book, Resa."

She put the rope back into his hands once more. They would have to climb fast to keep it from burning their skin. Mo began climbing, but it seemed as though the darkness clung to him like a black scarf Dustfinger helped him up over the rim of the shaft. Two guards lay there, dead or unconscious.

Dustfinger looked at him, looked into his heart, saw everything in it.

"Those are terrible pictures," he said.

"Black as ink." Mo’s voice was hoarse. "A greeting from Orpheus."

The words were still there. Pain. Despair. Hatred. Rage. His heart seemed to fill with them at every breath he took. As if the dark dungeon were inside him now.

He took a sword from one of the guards and drew Resa close. He felt her trembling under the men’s clothes she wore. Perhaps she really was here. But how? And why wasn’t the Fire-Dancer lying dead outside the cages anymore? Suppose these are only pictures conjured up by Orpheus, he thought as he followed Dustfinger.

Suppose he’s showing them to me only to fling me even deeper into the darkness?

Orpheus. Strike him dead, Mortimer, him and his words. His own hatred frightened him almost more than the darkness, it was so full of blood, so intemperate.

Dustfinger went ahead as fast as if he were leading them along paths he knew.

Flights of steps, gateways, endless passages, with never any hesitation, as if the stones themselves told him the way. Wherever he went, sparks sprang from the walls, spreading out and painting the black with gold. They met soldiers three times. Mo killed them with as much relish as if he were killing Orpheus. Dustfinger had to make him go on, and Mo saw the fear on Resa’s face. He reached for her hand, like a drowning man and felt the darkness still inside him.

CHAPTER 63

AH, FEN0GLI0!

In the hand of a giant. His own giant! Not bad, eh? No reason to be sad about it. If only the Black Prince had looked rather livelier! If, if, if, Fenoglio, he told himself. If only you’d finished writing the words for Mortimer! If only you had some idea how this story is to go on now. . .

The huge fingers held him both firmly and carefully, as they were used to carrying small humans around. Not necessarily a reassuring idea. Fenoglio really didn’t want to become some giant child’s toy. He had little doubt that it would be one of the nastiest ways of meeting one’s end. But would anyone ask his opinion? No.

Which brings us back to the one crucial question, thought Fenoglio as his stomach, bumped about as it was, slowly but surely began to feel as if he’d eaten too many of Minerva’s stuffed pigs’ trotters. The one great crucial question.

Was there another man writing this story?

Was there a scribbler sitting somewhere in the hills that he himself had described so vividly, another writer who had sent him falling into this giant’s hand? Or was the wretch sitting in the other world, the real world that hadn’t been written, the way he used to sit there himself, putting Inkheart down on paper?

Oh, come on! What would that make you, Fenoglio? he asked himself, both annoyed and badly shaken, as he always was when that question occurred to him. No, he wasn’t dangling from strings like the stupid puppet that Battista sometimes showed in marketplaces (although it did look a little like him). No, no, no. No strings for Fenoglio, no strings controlling either his words or his fate. He liked to keep his life in his own hands and didn’t want any interference although he admitted that he himself was very fond of pulling strings. But there it was: His story had simply swerved off course. No one was writing it. It was writing itself! And now it had come up with this stupid idea of the giant carrying him off!

Although his stomach rebelled, Fenoglio cast another glance at the depths below him.

It was definitely a long way down, but why should that bother him after he’d fallen from the tree like a ripe fruit? The sight of the Black Prince gave considerably more cause for concern. He really did look alarmingly lifeless lying in the giant’s other hand. What a shame. All the trouble he’d gone to to keep the man alive — all the words, the herbs in the snow, Roxane’s nursing, all for nothing! "Damn it!" Fenoglio swore so loudly that the giant raised him to his eyes to look at him. This was too much!

Would it help to smile? Was it any use talking to him? Well, jf you don’t know the answer, Fenoglio, you old fool, he told himself, then who does?

The giant stopped. He was still staring at him. He had opened his fingers out slightly, and Fenoglio took the opportunity of stretching his old limbs.

Words, words were wanted again — and of course, as always, they had to be exactly right. Perhaps it was a blessing to be mute and unable to rely on words at all!

"Er . . ." What a wretched start, Fenoglio! "Er. What’s your name?" Oh, for heaven’s sake!

The giant puffed air into his face and said something. The sounds that passed his lips were certainly words, but Fenoglio didn’t understand them. How could that be possible?

Good heavens, how the giant was looking at him! Fenoglio’s eldest grandson had looked like that when he found a big black beetle in his kitchen. The boy was both fascinated and troubled by it. And then the beetle began wriggling, and Pippo had dropped it in alarm and trodden on it. So keep still, Fenoglio! No wriggling, not the least little wriggle, however much your old bones ache. Good God, those fingers.

Each of them as long as one of his own arms!

But clearly the giant had lost interest in him for the moment. He was examining his other catch with obvious concern. Finally, he shook the Black Prince as if he were a watch that had run down, and sighed when he still didn’t move. With another deep sigh he sank to his knees — astonishingly gently, given his size looked sadly at the black face, and then carefully laid the Prince on the thick moss under the trees. It was just what Fenoglio’s grandchildren had done with the dead birds they took away from their cat. They’d had exactly the same look on their faces as they laid the small bodies to rest among his roses. Pippo used to make a cross out of twigs for every dead animal, but the giant didn’t do that for the Black Prince. He didn’t bury him, either. He just covered him with dry leaves, very carefully, as if he didn’t want to disturb his sleep. Then he rose to his feet again, looked at Fenoglio —perhaps to make sure that he, at least, was still breathing—and went on, every stride as long as a dozen human footsteps, perhaps more. Going where? Away from everything, Fenoglio, far away!