Inkdeath

49. MASTERS NEW AND OLD

How his behind hurt! As if he'd never be able to sit on it again. Damn all this riding about the place. It was one thing to go through the streets of Ombra on horseback, his head held high, attracting envious glances. But it was no fun following the Adderhead's coach for hours in the dark, along rough paths where you were liable to break your neck the whole time.

For Orpheus's new master traveled only by night. As soon as dawn came he had his black tent pitched to hide there from the light of day, and only when the sun set did he heave his rotting body back into the coach standing ready for him. It was drawn by two horses as black as the velvet that lined the coach. Orpheus had cast a surreptitious glance inside it the first time they stopped to rest. The Adder's crest was embroidered on the cushions in silver thread, and they looked much softer than the saddle he'd been sitting in for days. He wouldn't have minded a coach like that himself, but he had to ride behind it with Jacopo, Violante's horrible brat, who kept demanding something to eat or drink, and showed such doglike devotion to the Piper that he wore a tin nose over his own. It still surprised Orpheus that the Piper wasn't traveling with them. Well, of course – he'd let the Bluejay escape. Presumably the Adderhead had sent him back to the Castle of Night to punish him. But why, for heaven's sake, didn't his master have more than four dozen men-at-arms to escort them? Orpheus had counted them twice, but that was all. Did the Adderhead think this handful of men was enough against Violante's child-soldiers, or did he still trust his daughter? If so, then the Silver Prince was either considerably more stupid than he was reputed to be, or the rot had attacked his brain, which might well mean that Mortimer would be playing the hero again and he, Orpheus, had backed the wrong side. A terrible idea, so he was very careful not to think of it too often.

They made such painfully slow progress in the heavy coach that Oss could keep up with the horses on foot. Cerberus had been left behind in Ombra. The Adderhead, too, thought keeping dogs was a privilege of the nobility… It really was high time the rules of this world were rewritten.

"Slow as snails!" grumbled one of the men-at-arms behind him. Those fellows stank to high heaven, as if competing with their master's odor. "You wait and see, by the time we reach that damn castle the Bluejay will have flown again." Idiots in armor. They still hadn't realized that the Bluejay had ridden to Ombra Castle with a plan in mind, and that plan had not yet been put into practice.

Ah, they were stopping at last. What a relief to his poor bones! The sky was still black as pitch, but Thumbling had probably spotted a fairy dancing at the approach of dawn in spite of the cold.

Thumbling…

The Adderhead's new bodyguard could teach anyone the meaning of fear. He was as thin as if Death had taken him once already, and the scaly snake from his master's crest was tattooed across his larynx, so that when he spoke it writhed on his skin as if it were alive. A very unsettling sight, but luckily Thumbling didn't talk much. He did not owe his name to his stature. Indeed, Thumbling was rather taller than Orpheus, not that it was likely anyone in this world knew the fairy tale of the same name and its tiny central character. No, this Thumbling apparently got his name from the cruel things he could do with his thumbs.

Orpheus hadn't found anything about him in Fenoglio's book, so presumably he was one of those characters who – if Fenoglio himself was to be believed – had been hatched out by the story itself, like midge larvae in a marshy pond. Thumbling dressed like a peasant, but his sword was better than the Piper's, and it was said that, like Silvernose, he had no sense of smell, which was why the two of them could be near the Adderhead without being overcome by nausea, unlike everyone else.

Lucky for them, thought Orpheus as he slid off his horse, groaning with relief.

"Rub it down!" he ordered Oss testily. "And then pitch my tent – and jump to it!" Orpheus thought his bodyguard extremely foolish since he had set eyes on Thumbling.

Orpheus's tent was not particularly large. He could hardly stand up in it, and it was so cramped that he almost knocked it down when he turned around, but he hadn't been able to read himself a better one in a hurry, even though he had searched all his books for a rather grander version. His books… well, they were his now, anyway. Formerly the property of the library of Ombra Castle, but no one had stopped Orpheus when he'd helped himself to them.

Books.

How excited he had been, standing in the Laughing Prince's library. He had been so sure that he'd find at least one book there containing words by Fenoglio. And he had, indeed, come upon a book of Bluejay songs on the very first lectern. His fingers had been shaking as he freed the book from its chain (the locks were easily picked; he knew how to do these things). Got you now, Mortimer, he had thought. I'll knead you into shape like dough. You won't know who and where you are once I get my tongue around your robber's name! He had been all the more painfully disappointed when he read the first words. Oh, those leaden sounds, those badly rhymed lines! Fenoglio couldn't have written any of the songs in that book. Where were the old man's songs? Violante took them with her, you fool, he told himself. Why didn't you think of that before?

The disappointment still hurt. But who said only Fenoglio's words could come alive in this world? Weren't all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!

However that might be, what Orpheus had read so far during those endless hours in the saddle was not, unfortunately, very promising. It seemed that there wasn't a single storyteller in this world who understood his art, or at least not in the Laughing Prince's library. What a pitiful collection of beautifully handwritten tedium, what wooden babbling! And the characters! Not even his voice would bring them to life.

Originally, Orpheus had intended to impress the Adderhead with a sample of his skill the next time they stopped to rest, but he still hadn't found anything that tasted better on his tongue than dry paper. Damn it all!

Of course the Adderhead's tent was already pitched. Thumbling always sent a few servants on ahead so that his master could stumble out of the coach and straight into it. It was a fabric palace, the dark lengths of cloth embroidered with silver snakes shimmering in the moonlight as if thousands of slugs had been crawling over the material.

Suppose he summons you now, Orpheus said to himself. Didn't you promise him entertainment? He still heard the Milksop's malicious words only too clearly: My brother-in-law doesn't like to have his expectations disappointed.

Orpheus shivered. He sat down under a tree, feeling wretched, lit a candle, and fished another book out of the saddlebags, while Oss went on struggling with the tent.

Children's stories! Oh, for heaven's sake! Damn it, damn it, damn it… or not? Wait a minute! This sounded familiar! Orpheus's heartbeat quickened. Yes, these were Fenoglio's words, no doubt about it.

"That's my book!" Small fingers snatched the book from Orpheus's hands. There stood Jacopo, lips pouting, brows drawn together above his eyes – probably in imitation of his grandfather. He wasn't wearing the tin nose. Maybe it had become rather a nuisance after a while.

With difficulty, Orpheus resisted the temptation to tug the book out of those slender hands. Not a clever move. Be nice to the little devil, Orpheus!

"Jacopo!" He gave him a broad and slightly deferential smile, the kind a prince's son would like, even if the prince in question was dead. "This is your book? Then I'm sure you know who wrote it, don't you?"

Jacopo stared darkly at him. "Tortoise-Face."

Tortoise-Face. What a fabulous name for Fenoglio.

"Do you like his stories?"

Jacopo shrugged. "I like the songs about the Bluejay better, but my mother won't let me have them."

"That's not very nice of her, is it?" Orpheus stared at the book that Jacopo was clutching so possessively to his chest. He felt his hands sweating with desire for it. Fenoglio's words… suppose the words in that book worked as well as the words in Inkheart itself?

"How would it be, Jacopo…" (oh, how happily he could have wrung his stupid princely neck!), "how would it be if I told you a few robber stories, and you lent me that book in return?"

"Can you tell stories? I thought you sold unicorns and dwarves."

"I can do that, too!" And I'll have you impaled on a unicorn's horn if you don't give me that book this minute, thought Orpheus, hiding his savage reflections behind an even broader smile.

"What do you want the book for? It's for children. Only for children."

Horrible little know-it-all. "I want to look at the pictures."

Jacopo opened the book and leafed through the parchment pages. "They're boring. Just animals and fairies and brownies. I can't stand brownies. They stink, and they look like Tullio." He looked at Orpheus. "What will you give me if I lend it to you? Do you have any silver?"

Silver. It ran in the family – although Jacopo resembled his dead father far more than his grandfather.

"Of course." Orpheus put his hand into the bag at his belt. Just you wait, princeling, he thought. If this book can do what I suspect it can, I'll think up a few nasty surprises for you.

Jacopo put out his hand, and Orpheus dropped a coin bearing his grandfather's head into it.

The little hand stayed open, demanding more. "I want three."

Orpheus snarled with annoyance, and Jacopo clutched the book a little more firmly.

Greedy little bastard. Orpheus dropped two more coins into the child's hand, and Jacopo was quick to close his fingers over them. "That's for one day."

"One day?"

Oss trudged toward them. His toes were sticking out of his boots; he was always needing new boots for his elephantine feet. Too bad. Let him go barefoot for a while.

"Your tent is ready, my lord."

Jacopo stuffed the coins into the bag at his own belt and held out the book to Orpheus with a gracious expression.

"Three silver coins, three days!" said Orpheus, taking the book. "And now get out before I change my mind."

Jacopo ducked, but the next moment he remembered whose grandson he was.

"That's no way to talk to me, Four-Eyes!" he cried shrilly, stomping on Orpheus's foot so hard that he screamed. The soldiers who were sitting under the trees, freezing in the cold, laughed, and Jacopo stalked away like a shrunken copy of the Adderhead.

Orpheus felt the blood shoot to his face. "What kind of bodyguard are you?" he snapped at Oss. "Can't you even protect me from a six-year-old?"

With that, he limped toward his tent.

Oss had lit an oil lamp and spread a bearskin on the cold forest floor, but Orpheus missed his own house the moment he stepped inside. "All because of Mortimer and his stupid robber games!" he grumbled as he sat down on the bearskin in a bad temper. I'll send him to hell, and Dustfinger with him. From all I hear, those two seem to be inseparable these days. And if there isn't any hell in this world, well, I'll write one especially for them. Even Dustfinger won't like that kind of fire!"

Write… He avidly opened the book he had bargained for with that avaricious little devil. Bears, brownies, fairies… the child was right, these were children's stories. It wouldn't be easy to read something out of them to tempt the Adderhead, who was sure to summon him soon, for who else was going to help him pass the sleepless night?

More brownies. The old man seemed to have a soft spot for them. A very sentimental story about a glass woman in love… another featuring a nymph madly in love with a prince… For heaven's sake, even Jacopo could hardly be expected to take much interest in that. Was a robber at least mentioned somewhere? Or, if not that, a blue jay calling? Yes, that would do it: He could step into the Adderhead's tent and, with just a few words, read the enemy he'd been hunting so long into his presence. But instead he found woodpeckers, nightingales, even a talking sparrow – no blue jay. Curse it, curse it, curse it! He hoped his three silver coins had been a good investment. Nose-Nipper… hmm, that at least sounded like a creature he could use to get back at the boy. But wait a moment! There, where the forest was at its darkest… Orpheus's lips formed the words soundlessly… and where not even the brownies ventured out to search for mushrooms…

"This camp is a very uncomfortable place to stay, master!" Ironstone was suddenly there beside him, looking gloomy. "How long do you think we'll be traveling?"

The glass man was getting grayer every day. Perhaps he missed quarreling with that treacherous brother of his. Or maybe it was because he kept catching wood lice and maggots and eating them with obvious relish.

"Don't disturb me!" Orpheus snapped at him. "Can't you see I'm reading? And what's that leg clinging to your jacket? Haven't I told you not to eat insects? Do you want me to chase you away into the forest to join the wild glass men?"

"No. No, I really don't! I won't let another word pass my lips, Your Grace – and no insects, either!" Ironstone bowed three times. (How Orpheus loved his servility!) "Just one more question. Is that the book that was stolen from you?"

"No, unfortunately – only its little brother," replied Orpheus without looking up. "And now for heaven's sake shut up!"

… and where not even the brownies ventured out to search for mushrooms, he read on, lived the blackest of all shadows, the worst of all nameless terrors. Night-Mare it was now called, but once it had borne a human name, for Night-Mares are human souls so evil that the White Women cannot wash the wickedness from their hearts, and send them back again…

Orpheus raised his head. "Well, well, what a dark story!" he murmured. "What was the old man thinking of? Had that ghastly imp annoyed him so much that he set out to sing him a very special lullaby? This sounds rather as if Jacopo's grandfather might like it, too. Yes." Once again he bent over the pages on which Balbulus had painted a shadow with black fingers reaching through the letters on the page. "Oh yes, fabulous!" he whispered. "Ironstone, bring me pen and paper – and quick, or I'll feed you to one of the horses."

The glass man obeyed eagerly, and Orpheus set to work. Half a sentence stolen here, a few words there, a snippet plucked from the next page to link them. Fenoglio's words. Written with a rather lighter touch than in Inkheart – you almost thought you could hear the old man chuckling – but the music was the same. So why shouldn't the words from this story act like those from the other book – the one so shamefully stolen from him?

"Yes. Yes, that sounds just like the old man's work!" whispered Orpheus as the paper soaked up the ink. "But it needs a little more color…" He was leafing through the illuminated pages, looking for the right words, when the glass man suddenly gave a shrill scream and scurried into hiding behind his hand.

There was a magpie in the opening of the tent.

Alarmed, Ironstone clutched Orpheus's sleeve (he was brave only when dealing with smaller specimens of his own kind), and Orpheus's hope that this might be just an ordinary magpie was dashed as soon as the bird opened her beak.

"Get out!" she spat at the glass man, and Ironstone scurried outside on his thin, spidery legs, although the Adderhead's men threw acorns and fairy-nuts at him.

Mortola. Of course Orpheus had known she'd turn up again sooner or later, but why couldn't it have been later? A magpie, he thought as she hopped toward him. If I could turn myself into an animal or a bird, I'd make sure to choose something more impressive. How bedraggled she looked. Presumably a marten had been after her, or a fox. A pity it hadn't eaten her.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped. "Did I say anything about offering your services to the Adderhead?"

She sounded completely crazy, apart from the fact that her harsh voice lost all its terrors when it came out of a yellow beak. Your story's finished, Mortola, thought Orpheus. Over. Whereas mine is only just beginning…

"Why are you sitting staring at me like that? Did he believe what you told him about his daughter and the Bluejay? Well, come on, out with it!" She pecked angrily at a beetle that had wandered into the tent, crunching it up so noisily that Orpheus felt sick.

"Oh yes, yes," he said, irritated. "Of course he believed me. I was very convincing."

"Good." The Magpie fluttered up onto the books that Orpheus had stolen from the library and peered down on what he had been writing. "What's all this? Has the Adderhead ordered a unicorn from you, too?"

"No, no. That's nothing. Just a… er… a story I'm supposed to be writing for his pest of a grandson." Orpheus placed his hand over the words, as if by chance.

"What about the White Book?" Mortola preened her ruffled feathers. "Have you found out where the Adderhead is hiding it? He must have it with him!"

"Death and the devil, of course not! Do you think the Adderhead carries it about with him publicly?" This time Orpheus didn't even try to keep the contempt out of his voice, and Mortola pecked his hand so hard that he screeched.

"I don't like your tone, Moonface! He must have it somewhere, so look for it, seeing as you're here. I can't take care of everything."

"When did you ever take care of anything?" Oh, why don't I wring her skinny neck, he said to himself, wiping the blood from the back of his hand, the way my father used to kill chickens and pigeons?

"Is that any way to speak to me?" The Magpie pecked at his hand again, but this time Orpheus snatched it away in time. "Do you think I've just been perching on a branch doing nothing? I've rid the world of the Black Prince and made sure that his men will help me in future, not the Bluejay."

"Really? The Prince is dead?" Orpheus took a great deal of trouble to sound unimpressed. That would hurt Fenoglio. The old man was ridiculously proud of his character. "What about the children he stole? Where are they?"

"In a cave northeast of Ombra. The moss-women call it the Giants' Chamber. There are still a few robbers with them, and some women. It's a stupid hiding place, but since the Adderhead thought it was a good idea to send his brother-in-law to look for them, the children are probably safe there for a good while yet. Folk say even a rabbit can outwit that man."

Interesting! And wasn't that a piece of news that could convince the Adderhead of his own usefulness?

"What about the Bluejay's wife and daughter? Are they there, too?"

"Certainly," Mortola hissed as if something were stuck in her throat. "I was going to poison the little witch as well and send her after the Prince, but her mother chased me away. She knows too much about me, far too much!"

This was getting better and better.

But Mortola could read his thoughts on his face. "Don't look so stupidly pleased with yourself! You're not to tell the Adderhead a word about any of this. They're both mine. I'm not leaving them to the Silver Prince this time, just for him to let them go again, understand?"

"Of course! My lips are sealed!" Orpheus immediately assumed his most innocent expression. "What about the others – the robbers who are going to help you?"

"They're following you. They'll lie in ambush for the Adder tomorrow night. They think it's their own idea, but I planted it in their silly heads! Where can the Book fall into their hands more easily than in the middle of the forest? Snapper's staged hundreds of such attacks in the past, and he won't have to deal with the Piper. The stupid Adder has left his best watchdog behind – I suppose to punish him for letting the Bluejay escape. But he's only cutting into his own rotting flesh, and perhaps the

Magpie will redeem her own son from Death with his corpse as early as tomorrow. It's a pity that if I do I won't see the White Women take the bookbinder away, but that can't be helped. Take him away they will, and this time they won't let him go again. Who knows? Perhaps Death will be so pleased to have both the Adderhead and the Bluejay that the White Book will be forgotten. Then I can write my son's name in it and never fear for him again!"

She was talking feverishly, faster and faster with every sentence, cackling as if she would choke on the words if she didn't get them out fast enough.

"Hide in the bushes when they attack!" she added. "I don't want Snapper killing you, too, by mistake. I may need you yet if the fool happens to fail!"

She really does still trust you, Orpheus, he thought. He could almost have laughed out loud. What had happened to Mortola's mind? Did she think of nothing but worms and beetles now? A poor prospect for her, thought Orpheus, and a very good one for me.

"Good. Excellent," he said, while his brain thought swiftly of the best way to use all this information. Only one thing was perfectly clear: If the White Book fell into Mortola's hands, he himself would have lost the game. Death would take the Adderhead, Mortola would write her son's name in the White Book, and he himself wouldn't even get back the book that Dustfinger had stolen from him, to say nothing of immortal life! He would be left with nothing but the stories Fenoglio had written for a spoiled child. No, there was no alternative, he must go on backing the Adderhead.

"Why are you standing there gaping like a mooncalf?" Mortola's voice sounded more like a bird's hoarse cry with every word.

"My lord!" Oss put his head into the tent, looking alarmed. "The Adderhead wants to see you. They say he's in a terrible temper."

"I'm coming." Orpheus almost trod on the Magpie's tail feathers as he stumbled out of the tent. She hopped aside with an angry cackle.

"Horrible creature!" grunted Oss, kicking out at her. "You ought to shoo it away, my lord. My mother says magpies are thieves reborn."

"I don't like it, either," whispered Orpheus. "I tell you what, why not wring its neck while I'm gone?"

Oss's mouth twisted in an unpleasant smile. He liked such tasks. Perhaps he wasn't such a bad bodyguard after all. No, he wasn't.

Orpheus passed his hand once more over his hair (old man's hair, they called it here; no one else in Ombra was such a pale blond) and made for the Adderhead's tent. He wouldn't be able to read the Bluejay here for him, and whatever was hidden in Jacopo's book must wait until his audience with the Silver Prince was over, but thanks to Mortola he had something else to offer now.

The Adderhead's tent was as black beneath the trees as if night had left a piece of itself behind there. And suppose it had? Night was always kinder to you than day, Orpheus, he told himself as Thumbling pushed back the dark cloth of the tent flap, his face expressionless. Didn't darkness and silence make it so much easier to dream the world to your own taste? Yes, perhaps he ought to make it always night in this world, once he had Inkheart back again…

"Your Highness!" Orpheus bowed low as the Adderhead's face emerged from the darkness like a distorted moon. "I bring news I've just learned from listening to the wind. I think you'll like it…"