Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

Two more days, Mortimer, two days and two nights. Then the Adderhead will arrive.

And then what? Yes, he was a fool to hope he might yet be able to give Death and her pale daughters what they demanded.

Would Resa realize that he had also ridden to the castle for Meggie’s sake when the White Women came for their daughter? Would she understand that he hadn’t told her anything about it so that fear for Meggie wouldn’t eat away at her own heart?

The two soldiers who entered his cell had soot on their hands and faces. They always came in pairs, but where was their silversnouted master? Without a word, they hauled Mo to his feet. The chains were heavy and cut into his skin.

"The Piper’s going to be visiting you in another cell today!" they muttered to him.

"One that your friend’s fire can’t find."

They went farther down, down, and down, past holes from which the smell of rotting flesh rose. Once Mo thought he saw a fiery snake creeping through the darkness, but one of his guards hit him when he turned to look at it.

The cell into which they pushed him was much larger than the one he had been kept in before. There was dried blood on the walls, and the air was both cold and musty.

The Piper kept him waiting, and when he finally arrived, followed by two more soldiers, he, too, had soot on his face. The men who had dragged Mo here made way respectfully for their master, but Mo saw how anxiously they looked around — as if they were waiting for Dustfinger’s fiery spiders to crawl out of the walls any minute now. Mo could sense Dustfinger searching for him. It was as if his thoughts were putting out feelers for Mo, but the dungeons in Ombra lay almost as deep as those in the Castle of Night.

Perhaps tonight he would use the knife that Battista had sewn into the hem of his shirt although his hands hurt so much that he probably wouldn’t even be able to hold it, let alone stab with it. But it felt good to have it with him when the fear became unbearable. The fear and the hatred.

"Your fire-eating friend is getting bolder all the time, but that won’t help you tonight, Bluejay. I’m tired of it!" The Piper’s face was white under the soot that blackened even his silver nose. One of the soldiers hit Mo in the face. Two more days. . .

The Piper looked at his soot-smeared gloves with distaste. "All Ombra is laughing at me. ‘Look at the Piper,’ they whisper. ‘The Fire-Dancer is running rings around his men, and the Black Prince is hiding the children from him! The Bluejay will save us after all.’ Well, enough of that! When I’ve finished with you tonight they won’t think so anymore.

He came so close to Mo that his nose was almost prodding his enemy’s face. "What about it? Don’t you want to use your wonderful voice to call for help? Call all your ragged friends, the Prince and his bear, the Fire-Dancer or how about Violante? Her hairy servant is always on my heels, snooping, and hardly an hour goes by without her telling me that you’re no use to her father Unless you’re alive. But these days her father is nowhere near as terrifying as he used to be. You’ve made sure of that yourself" Violante. Mo had seen her only once, when they were dragging him off his horse in the castle courtyard. How could he have been stupid enough to believe she’d be able to protect him? He was lost. And Meggie with him. Despair rose in him, such black despair that he felt sick, and the Piper smiled.

"Ah, you’re afraid. I like that. I ought to write a song about it. But from now on the only songs sung will be about me dark songs, the kind I enjoy. Very dark."

With a foolish grin, one of the soldiers went up to Mo holding a stick studded with iron.

"‘The Bluejay will run away from them again!’ That’s what they say!" The Piper took a step back. "But you’re never going to run away from anything anymore. From now on you’re going to crawl, Bluejay. Crawl to me."

The two men who had brought him here seized Mo. They forced him up against the bloodstained wall, while the third man raised the iron-studded stick. The Piper stroked his silver nose.

"You’ll need your hands for the Book, Bluejay. But why would the Adder mind if I break your legs? And even if he did . . . as I was saying, the Adderhead’s not what he used to be."

Lost.

Oh God. Meggie, he thought. Had he ever told her such a terrible story as this? "No, Mo, no fairy tales!" she always used to say when she was little. "They’re much too sad." Not as sad as this one.

"What a pity my father was unable to hear your little speech for himself, Piper."

Violante did not raise her voice much, but the Piper whipped around as if she had shouted at him. The soldier with the silly grin lowered the stick, and the others retreated, making way for the Adderhead’s daughter. Violante was almost invisible in the black dress she wore. How could they call her ugly? At this moment Mo felt he had never seen a more beautiful face. He hoped the Piper didn’t notice how his legs were trembling. He grudged the silver-nosed man that satisfaction.

A small, furry face appeared beside Violante. Tullio. Had he fetched her? Her Ugliness had half a dozen of her beardless soldiers with her, too. They looked so young and vulnerable compared to the Piper’s men, but their young hands held crossbows, weapons to be respected even by seasoned men-at-arms.

But the Piper quickly recovered.

"What do you want here?" he snarled at Violante. "I’m only making sure your precious prisoner doesn’t fly the coop again. It’s bad enough for his fiery friend to make us all a laughingstock. Your father’s not going to like that one bit."

"And you are not going to like what I’m about to do." There was no emotion at all in Violante’s voice. "Tie them up!" she ordered her soldiers. "Take the chains off the Bluejay and tie him up, too, but so that he can still ride."

The Piper reached for his sword, but three of Violante’s young men overpowered him and dragged him down. Mo could physically feel their hatred for the man.

They’d happily have killed the Piper, he saw it on their young faces, and obviously the Piper’s men saw it, too, for they let themselves be tied up without resisting.

"You ugly little snake!" The Piper’s noseless voice sounded even stranger when he raised it. "So the Milksop was right! You’re hand in glove with that pack of robbers.

What do you want? The throne of Ombra, and perhaps your father’s, too?"

Violante’s face was as still as if Balbulus had painted it. "I want just one thing," she replied. "I want to deliver the Bluejay to my father intact, so that he can still be useful to him. And in return for that service I will indeed demand the throne of Ombra.

Why not? I have ten times more right to it than the Milksop" The soldier who removed Mo’s chains was the boy who had opened the sarcophagus for him in Cosimo’s vault. "I’m sorry!" he murmured as he tied him up. He didn’t pull the rope very tight around Mo’s arms, which were chafed and sore, but it still hurt, and all the time Mo never took his eyes off Violante. He could hear Snapper’s hoarse voice in his ears only too clearly. She’ll sell you for the throne of Ombra. "Where are you taking him?" The Piper spat in the face of the soldier tying him up. "Even if you hide him with the giants, I’ll find you!"

"Oh, I’ve no intention of hiding him," replied Violante with composure. "I shall take him to my mother’s castle. My father knows the way. And if he is to agree to my conditions, he must go there. I’m sure you’ll tell him that."