Inkdeath (Inkworld #3)

"Well?" Cerberus dropped the glass man into his outstretched hands. Ugh! Dog slobber really was disgusting.

"He’s not writing. Not a line!" Ironstone passed his sleeve over his moist face. "I told you so, master! He’s drunk himself silly. His fingers shake if he so much as sees a pen!"

Orpheus looked up at Fenoglio’s room. Light showed underneath the door. Ironstone, who was slippery as an eel, always crawled through the broad crack underneath it.

"Are you sure?" He fastened the chain to Cerberus’s collar again.

"Absolutely sure! And he doesn’t have the book, either. He has visitors, though."

The old woman tipped a bucket of water out of her window. Assuming it was water.

Once again Cerberus was snuffling around with far too much interest.

"Visitors? I don’t want to know about them. But whatever it looks like, I’m sure he’s writing again!"

Orpheus looked up at the dilapidated houses. A candle burned in every window.

They were burning all over Ombra. For the Bluejay. Curse him! Curse them all: Fenoglio and Mortimer, his stupid daughter — and Dustfinger. He cursed the FireDancer most of all. Dustfinger had betrayed him — stolen from him, Orpheus, whose heart had been given to him for so many years, who had read him home to his own story and snatched him away from Death! What was it they called him now? The Bluejay’s fiery shadow. A shadow! It served him right. He, Orpheus, would have made him more than a shadow in this story, but that was over and done with. He had declared war on them all. He was going to write them a story that was to his own liking — just as soon as he had the book back!

A child came out of the house and ran barefoot over the muddy yard to disappear into one of the outbuildings. Time to get out of here. Orpheus mopped the dog slobber off Ironstone with a cloth, put him on his shoulder, and stole away before the child came out again. Away from this filth—not that it was much better in the streets.

"Blank sheets, nothing but blank sheets, master!" Ironstone whispered to him as they hurried back through the night to Orpheus’s house. "No more than a few sentences, and those were crossed out. . . . That’s all, I swear! His glass man almost spotted me today, but I managed to hide in one of his master’s boots just in time. You can’t imagine how it stank in there!"

Oh yes, he could. "I’ll have one of the maids soap you all over."

"No, no, better not. Last time the soapsuds left me belching for more than an hour, and my feet turned white as milk!"

"So? You think I’m letting a glass man who stinks of sweaty feet march all over my parchment?"

A night watchman came toward them, swaying as he walked. Why were those fellows always drunk? Orpheus pressed a few copper coins into the man’s wrinkled hand, in case he was thinking of calling a patrol. Now that the Bluejay was a prisoner in the castle, troops of soldiers were out and about in Ombra night and day.

"How about the book? Did you really search for it thoroughly?"

Two boards in Butchers’ Alley sang the praises of fresh unicorn meat. Ridiculous.

Where was anyone supposed to get that? Orpheus turned into Glaziers’ Alley, although Ironstone hated going that way.

"Well, it wasn’t easy." Ironstone looked nervously at the notices advertising artificial limbs for broken glass men. "Like I told you, he has visitors, and with all those eyes to notice things, getting around his room was tricky! I even searched his clothes, all the same, and he nearly shut me up in his chest! But no luck. He doesn’t have the book, master, I swear he doesn’t!"

"Death and the devil!" Orpheus felt an almost irresistible urge to throw or break something. Ironstone knew these moods of his by now, and clung to his sleeve to be on the safe side.

Who but the old man could have the book? Even if Dustfinger had given it to Mortimer, he certainly hadn’t taken it to his dungeon with him! No, Dustfinger himself must have kept it. Orpheus felt a burning sensation in his stomach, as bad as if one of Dustfinger’s martens were sitting there gnawing his guts. He was familiar with this pain, which always attacked him when something wasn’t going as he wanted. A stomach ulcer, that was it. For sure. So? he asked himself. Mind you don’t make it even worse, or do you want to have to go to one of the local quacks and have your blood let?

Ironstone was crouching on his shoulder, silent and depressed, probably thinking about the soapy water ahead of him. However, Cerberus was sniffing every wall he padded past. No wonder dogs liked this world — it stank to high heaven. I’d change that, too, thought Orpheus. And I’d write myself a better spy, one as tiny as a spider and definitely not made of glass. But you won’t be writing anything here anymore, Orpheus, a voice whispered inside him, because you’ve lost the book!

Cursing, he quickened his pace, hauling Cerberus impatiently along with him—only to tread in cat dirt. Mud, chicken droppings, cat dirt. . . His boots were ruined, and where was he going to get the silver for a new pair? His last attempt to write himself a chest of treasure on Gallows Hill had been a dismal failure, producing coins as thin as silver foil.

At last. There it was in all its glory. His house. The finest house in Ombra. His heartbeat always quickened when he saw the front steps shining in the darkness, white as alabaster, and the coat of arms over the entrance that made even Orpheus himself believe he was of royal descent, No, up to now things really hadn’t gone badly for him here. He had to keep reminding himself of that when he felt like smashing glass men or wishing a plague of boils on the neck of a certain skinny Arab boy. Not to mention ungrateful fire-eaters!

Orpheus stopped suddenly. A bird was perching on the steps. It sat as if it intended to build a nest right there on the spot. It didn’t fly away even when Orpheus came closer, but just stared at him with its black button eyes. Birds—he hated them. They left their droppings everywhere. And all that fluttering, those sharp beaks, those feathers full of mites and worm eggs. . .

Orpheus undid the chain from Cerberus’s collar. "Go on, catch it!"

Cerberus loved to chase birds, and now and then he even caught one. But this time he put his tail between his back legs and retreated as if a snake were wriggling there on the steps of Orpheus’s house. What the devil.. .?

The bird jerked its head and hopped one step lower.

Cerberus ducked, and the glass man clung uneasily to Orpheus’s collar. "It’s a magpie, master!" he whispered in his ear. "They His voice almost failed him. "They smash glass men and collect the colored splinters for their nests! Please, master, chase it away!"

The magpie jerked its head again and stared at him. This was a strange bird, decidedly strange.

Orpheus bent and threw a stone at it. The magpie spread its wings and uttered a hoarse cry.

"Oh, master, master, it’s going to smash me to pieces!" wailed Ironstone, clinging to his ear. "Gray glass men are very rare!"

This time the magpie’s cry sounded like laughter.

"You still look as stupid as ever, Orpheus."

He knew the voice at once.

The magpie stretched its neck. It coughed as if it were choking on grain pecked up too greedily. Then it spat out some seeds on the alabaster-white steps — one, two, three seeds — and began to grow.