Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

"White flowers, tiny. Shady, moist surroundings." Fenoglio passed his hand over his tired face. Then he turned abruptly and took Meggie’s arm.

"Come with me," he told her in a low voice. "We must hurry."

"Moist and shady," he murmured as he led Meggie off with him. "Right, so if they grew at the entrance of a brownie’s burrow, protected by the warm air coming out of the burrow where a few brownies are hibernating. . . yes, that makes sense. Yes!"

The cave was almost empty. The women had taken the children out so that they wouldn’t hear the Prince’s cries of pain. A few small groups of robbers still sat there in silence, staring at one another as if wondering which of them had tried to kill their leader. Snapper was near the entrance with Gecko, and he returned Meggie’s glance with such a black expression that she quickly looked the other way.

Fenoglio, however, did not avoid his eyes. "I wonder if it was Snapper," he whispered to Meggie. "Yes, I really do wonder."

"If anyone ought to know, it’s you!" muttered Elinor, who had followed them. "Who else made up that horrible fellow?"

Fenoglio spun around as if something had stung him. "Now you listen to me, Loredan! I’ve been patient with you so far because you’re Meggie’s aunt—"

"Great-aunt," Elinor corrected him, unmoved.

"Whatever. I never invited you into this story, so you will kindly spare me any remarks about my characters in future!"

"Oh, will I?" Elinor’s voice rose. It was loud enough to echo right through the huge cave. "And suppose I’d spared you my comment just now? Your befuddled brain would never have thought of getting the flower here by—"

Fenoglio pressed his hand roughly over her mouth. "How many more times do I have to tell you?" he hissed. "Not a word about writing, understand? I haven’t the faintest desire to be drawn and quartered as a wizard because of a stupid woman.

"Fenoglio!" Meggie pulled him forcibly away from Elinor. "The Black Prince! He’s dying!" Fenoglio stared at her for a fraction of a second, as if he thought her interruption was in the worst possible taste, but then, without a word, he retreated to the corner where he slept. Stony-faced, he cleared a wineskin aside and found a bundle of papers under a few clothes. To Meggie’s surprise, most of the sheets already had writing on them.

"Curse it all, where’s Rosenquartz?" he muttered as he took a blank sheet. "Out and about with Jasper again, no doubt. The moment two of them get together they forget their work and go looking for wild glass women. As if the glass women would give one of those pink good-for-nothings so much as a glance!"

Paying no attention to the written pages, he put them aside. So many words. How long ago had he begun writing again? Meggie tried reading the first of the sheets.

"Only a few ideas," muttered Fenoglio when their eyes met. "Trying to see how all this could yet end well. What part your father will play in the story. .

Meggie’s heart turned over, but Elinor got in ahead of her.

"Aha! So it was you who wrote all that about Mortimer after all: letting himself be taken prisoner, then riding to that castle, while my niece cries her eyes out at night!"

"No, it wasn’t me!" Fenoglio snapped at her angrily as he quickly hid the written sheets under his clothes again. "I didn’t have him talking to Death, either — though I must say I really like that part of the story. I tell you, these are just some ideas!

Useless scribbling that leads nowhere! And it’ll probably be the same with what I’m trying to do now. But I’ll have a shot at it all the same. So kindly be quiet! Or do you want to talk the Black Prince into his grave?"

As Fenoglio dipped his pen in the ink, Meggie heard a slight sound behind her. With a clearly embarrassed expression, Rosenquartz emerged from behind the rock on which Fenoglio’s writing things stood. The pale green face of a wild glass woman appeared behind him. Without a word, she scurried away past Fenoglio and Meggie.

"I don’t believe it!" thundered the old man in such a loud voice that Rosenquartz put his hands over his ears. ‘The Black Prince is at death’s door, and you’re gadding about with a wild glass woman!"

"The Prince?" Rosenquartz looked at Fenoglio in such dismay that he calmed down at once. "But, but—"

"Stop all that gabbling and stir the ink!" Fenoglio snapped. "And if you were going to say something clever like, ‘But the Prince is such a good man!’ that never kept anyone alive yet in any world, did it?" He dipped his pen in the ink so vigorously that it splashed Rosenquartz’s pink face, but Meggie saw that the old man’s fingers were shaking. "Come on, then, Fenoglio!" he whispered to himself. "It’s only a flower.

You can do it!"

Rosenquartz was watching him with concern, but Fenoglio just stared at the blank sheet before him. He stared at it like a matador facing a bull.

"The entrance to the brownie burrow where the plant grows lies where Elfbane sets his snares!" he murmured. "And the flowers smell so horrible that the fairies give them a wide berth. But moths love them, gray moths with wings patterned as if a glass man had painted tiny death’s-heads on them. Can you see them, Fenoglio? Yes.

. ."

He put pen to paper, hesitated — and began to write.

New words. Fresh words. Meggie thought she could hear the story taking a deep breath. Nourishment at last, after all the time when Orpheus had merely fed it with Fenoglio’s old words.

"There we are! He only has to be brought up to the mark, you see. He’s a lazy old man," Elinor whispered to her. "Of course he can still do it, even if he won’t believe it himself. You don’t forget that kind of thing. I mean, could you forget how to read?"

I don’t know, Meggie was going to reply, but she said nothing. Her tongue was waiting for Fenoglio’s words. Healing words. Like the words she had once read for Mo.

"Why is the bear howling like that?" Meggie felt Farid’s hands on her shoulders. She supposed he had been off in some place where the children couldn’t find him, to try conjuring up fire again, but judging by his glum face the flames had refused to show anything.

"Oh no! Him, too!" cried the exasperated Fenoglio. "Why did j Darius and I pile up all these rocks? So that anyone and everyone can march into my bedroom? I need peace! This is a matter of life and death!"

"Life and death?" Farid looked at Meggie in alarm.

"The Black Prince. . . he. . . he. . ." Elinor was trying to sound composed, but her voice was shaking.

"Not another word!" said Fenoglio, without looking up. "Rosenquartz! Sand!"

"Sand? Where am I supposed to find sand?" Rosenquartz’s voice rose shrilly.

"Oh, you really are useless! Why do you think I dragged you —off to this wilderness with me? For a nice holiday so that you can j chase green glass women?" Fenoglio blew on the wet ink and handed Meggie the sheet he had just written. He looked unsure of himself.

"Make them grow, Meggie!" he said. "A few last healing leaves, warmed by the breath of sleeping brownies, picked before —the winter freezes them."