"Dustfinger!" It did him good at least to try whispering the name and know he was alive. How often Farid had imagined what it would be like to see him again. Longing made him tremble as if he were shaken by a fever. Which of the martens had jumped on Dustfinger's shoulder first to lick his scarred face, he wondered, Gwin or Jink?
The hours went by, and after a while Farid managed to spit out the gag. He tried gnawing through the rope that Oss had used to tie him up, but even a mouse could have done better. Would they look for him when he was lying dead and buried on Gallows Hill? Dustfinger, Silvertongue, Meggie… oh, Meggie. He would never kiss her again. Not that he'd done that so very often recently. All the same… that bastard Cheeseface! Farid called down every curse he could remember on him – curses from this world, his own world, and the one where he had met Dustfinger. He shouted them all out loud, because that was the only way they worked – and fell silent in alarm when he heard the cellar door above him opening.
Was it evening already? Probably. How could anyone tell in this damp, moldy hole? Would Oss break his neck like a rabbit's or simply press his fat hands down over his mouth until he couldn't breathe anymore? Don't think about it, Farid, you'll find out soon enough. He pressed his back against the pillar. Perhaps he could at least kick Oss's nose in. A well-aimed kick at that stupid face when he was taking off Farid's bonds, and it would break like a dry twig. He desperately braced himself against the rough rope, but unfortunately Oss was good at tying people up. Meggie! Can't you send a few words to save me as you did for your father? Fear was making his arms and legs weak. He listened to the footsteps coming down the stairs. They were surprisingly quiet for the Chunk. And suddenly two martens scurried toward him.
"By all the fairies, that moonfaced fellow really has been making money," a voice whispered in the darkness. "What a grand house!" A flame began dancing, then a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth… five flames, just bright enough to light up Dustfinger's face – and Jasper sitting on his shoulder with a shy smile.
Dustfinger.
Farid's heart felt so light that he wouldn't have been surprised if it had simply floated out of him. But what had happened to Dustfinger's face? It looked different. As if all the years had been washed away, all the sad, lonely years, and -
"Your scars – they're gone!"
Farid could only whisper. Happiness muted his words like cotton wool. Jink jumped up to him and licked his bound hands.
"Yes, and would you believe it – I think Roxane misses them." Dustfinger reached the bottom step of the stairs and kneeled down beside him. From above, agitated voices came down to them.
Drawing a knife from his belt, Dustfinger cut through Farid's bonds. "Hear that? I'm afraid Orpheus is about to find out he has a visitor."
Farid rubbed his numb wrists. He couldn't take his eyes off Dustfinger. Suppose he was only a ghost after all – or even worse, nothing but a dream? But then would Farid have felt his warmth and the beating of his heart when he leaned over him? No more of the dreadful silence that had surrounded Dustfinger in the mine. And he smelled of fire.
The Bluejay had brought him back. Yes, it must have been him. Whatever Orpheus said. Oh, he'd write his name in fire on the city walls of Ombra – Silvertongue, Bluejay, whichever name he liked! Farid put out his hand and timidly touched Dustfinger's face, so familiar and yet so strange.
Dustfinger laughed quietly and raised him to his feet. "What is it? Do you want to make sure I'm not a ghost? I expect you're still afraid of them, aren't you? Suppose I was a ghost?"
By way of answer Farid flung his arms around him so impetuously that Jasper, with a sharp little scream, slid off Dustfinger's shoulder. Luckily, he caught the glass man before Gwin did.
"Careful, careful!" whispered Dustfinger, putting Jasper onto Farid's shoulder. "You're still as clumsy as a young calf. You have your glass friend to thank for my being here. He told Brianna what Orpheus was planning to do to you, and she rode to Roxane."
"Brianna?" The glass man blushed when Farid put him on his arm. "Thank you, Jasper!"
Then he spun around. Orpheus's voice came ringing down the cellar stairs. "A stranger? What are you talking about? How did he get past you?"
"It's the maid's fault!" Farid heard Oss protesting. "The red- haired maid let him in through the back door!"
Dustfinger listened to the sounds above, smiling the old mocking smile that Farid had missed so much. Sparks were dancing on his shoulders and his hair. They seemed to be shining even under his skin, and Farid's own skin was hot, as if the fire had been licking it since he touched Dustfinger.
"The fire…" he whispered. "Is it in you?"
"Maybe," Dustfinger whispered back. "I'm probably not entirely what I was, but I can do a few interesting new things."
"New things?"
Farid looked at him, eyes wide, but the voice of Orpheus came down again from above. "Smells of fire, does he? Let me past, you human rhinoceros! Is his face scarred?"
"No. Why?" Oss sounded offended.
And footsteps came down the stairs again, heavy and uncertain footsteps this time. Orpheus hated climbing either up or down stairs, and Farid heard him cursing.
"Meggie read Orpheus here!" he whispered as he pressed close to Dustfinger's side. "I asked her to do it because I thought he could bring you back!"
"Orpheus?" Dustfinger laughed again. "No, it was only Silvertongue's voice I heard."
"His voice perhaps, but it was my words that brought you back!" Orpheus stumbled down the last few steps, his face red from the wine. "Dustfinger. It really is you!" There was genuine delight in his voice.
Oss appeared behind Orpheus, fear and rage on his coarse face. "Look at him, my lord!" he managed to get out. "He's not human. He's a demon, or a spirit of the night. See those sparks on his hair? When I tried to hold on to him I almost burned my fingers – as if the executioner had put red-hot coals in my hands!"
"Yes, yes" was all Orpheus said. "He comes from far away, very far away. Such a journey can change a man." He was staring at Dustfinger as if afraid he might dissolve into thin air at any moment – or, more likely, into a few lifeless words on a sheet of paper.
"I'm so glad you're back!" he stammered, his voice awkward with longing. "And your scars have gone! How amazing. I didn't write that. Well, anyway… you're back! This world is worth only half as much without you, but now it will all be as wonderful as it was when I first read about you in Inkheart. It was always the best of all stories, but now you'll be its hero – you alone, thanks to my art, that took you home and now has even brought you back from the realm of Death!"
"Your art? More likely Silvertongue's courage." Dustfinger made a flame dance on his hand. It took on the shape of a White Woman so distinctly that Oss cowered against the cellar wall in terror.
"Nonsense!" For a moment Orpheus sounded like a boy with hurt feelings, but he soon had himself in hand again. "Nonsense!" he repeated, with more self-control this time, although his tongue was still rather thick from the wine. "Whatever he told you, it isn't true. I did it all."
"He didn't tell me anything. He didn't have to. He was there, he and his voice."
"But I had the idea – and I wrote the words! He was only my tool." Orpheus spluttered the last word as furiously as if he were spitting it into Silvertongue's face.
"Ah yes… your words! Very cunning words, according to all I've heard from him." The image of the White Woman was still burning on Dustfinger's hand. "Maybe I ought to take those words to Silvertongue so that he can read them once more and find out what kind of part you intended him to play in all this."
Orpheus stood up very straight. "I wrote them like that for you, only for you!" he cried in an injured voice. "That was all I cared about – for you to come back. Why would that bookbinder interest me? After all, I had to offer Death something!"
Dustfinger blew gently into the flame burning on his hand. "Oh, I understand you very well!" he said quietly, while the fire formed the shape of
a bird, a golden bird with a red breast. "I understand a good deal now that I've been on the other side, and I know two things for sure: Death obeys no words, and Silvertongue – not you – went to the White Women."
"He was the only one who could call them. What was I supposed to do?" cried Orpheus. "And he did it for his wife! Not for you!"
"Well, now, I'd call that a good reason." The fiery bird fell apart in Dustfinger's hand. "And as for the words… to be honest, I like his voice so much better than yours, even if the sound of it didn't always make me happy. Silvertongue's voice is full of love. Yours speaks only of yourself. Quite apart from the fact that you're much too fond of reading words no one knows about, or forgetting a few you promised to read. Isn't that so, Farid?"
Farid just stared at Orpheus, his face rigid with hate.
"Be that as it may," Dustfinger went on as the flame in his hand licked out of the ashes again, forming the shape of a tiny skull, I'll take the words with me. And the book."
"The book?" Orpheus stepped back as if the fire on Dustfinger's hand had turned into a snake.
"Yes, Inkheart. You stole it from Farid, remember? That hardly makes it yours… even if you seem to be busily making use of it, from all I hear. Rainbow-colored fairies, spotted brownies, unicorns… They say there are even dwarves in the castle now. What's the idea of all that? Weren't the blue fairies beautiful enough for you? The Milksop kicks the dwarves, and you bring unicorns here only to die."
"No, no!" Orpheus raised his hands defensively. "You don't understand! I have great plans for this story. I'm still working on them, but believe me, it will be wonderful! Fenoglio left so much unsaid, there was so much he didn't describe – I'm going to change it all, I'm going to improve it…"
Dustfinger turned his hand over and dropped the ashes on the floor of Orpheus's cellar. "You sound like Fenoglio himself – but I'd guess you're much worse than he is. This world is spinning its own threads. The two of you only confuse them – take them apart and put them together again in ways that don't really fit, instead of leaving it to the people who live in the place to improve it."
"Like who, for instance?" Orpheus's voice turned vicious. "The Bluejay? Since when has he belonged here?"
Dustfinger shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? Perhaps all of us belong in more than one story. Now, bring me the book. Or shall I ask Farid to go and get it?"
Orpheus was staring at him as bitterly as a rejected lover.
"No!" he got out at last. "I need it. The book stays here. You can't take it away from me. I'm warning you. Fenoglio's not the only one who can write words to harm you! I can -"
"I'm not afraid of words anymore," Dustfinger interrupted impatiently. "Neither yours nor Fenoglio's. And neither of you was able to dictate how I'd die. Have you forgotten that?" He reached into the air, and a burning torch grew from his hand. "Bring me the book," he said, giving it to Farid. "Bring everything he's written. Every word."
Farid nodded. He was back. Dustfinger was back!
"You must take the list, too!" Jasper's voice was as slight as his limbs. "The list he made me draw up. Of all the words Fenoglio used! I'm as far as the letter F."
"Ah, not a bad idea! A list. Thank you, glass man." Dustfinger smiled. No, his smile hadn't changed. Farid was so glad he hadn't left that behind with the White Women.
He put Jasper on his shoulder and went to the stairs. Jink ran after him. Orpheus tried to bar his way, but he flinched back when the torch left his glasses clouded and its flame singed his silk shirt. Oss was braver than his master, but in response to a whisper from Dustfinger the torch reached out to him with fiery hands, and before Oss had recovered from his fright Farid was past him. Agile as a gazelle, he leaped up the stairs, his heart full of happiness and the taste of sweet revenge on his tongue.
"Jasper!" Orpheus called after him. "I'm going to smash you into such tiny splinters that no one will even be able to see what color you were!"
The glass man dug his fingers into Farid's shoulder, but he didn't turn around.
"As for you, you lying little camel-driver" – Orpheus's voice broke – "I'll make you disappear into a story full of horrible things specially written for you!"
The threat halted Farid for a moment, but then he heard Dustfinger's voice.
"Take care with your threats, Orpheus. If anything ever happens to the boy, or if he suddenly disappears – the fate you clearly intended for him this time – then I'll come to visit you again. And as you know, I never go anywhere without fire."
"It was for you!" Farid heard Orpheus shouting. "I did it all for you! Is this the thanks I get?"
Ironstone hurled furious abuse at Farid and his younger brother as soon as he realized what they were looking for in his master's study. But Jasper, unmoved, helped Farid to find first the book and then every scrap of paper that Orpheus had ever written on. Ironstone threw sand and sharp pens at them, he wished every imaginable disease that can afflict a glass man on Jasper, and finally flung himself heroically on the last sheet of paper that Jasper was rolling up on Orpheus's desk, but Farid merely pushed him roughly aside.
"Traitor!" shrieked Ironstone at his brother as Farid closed the door of the study behind him. "I hope you're smashed into a thousand pieces!" But Jasper did not turn back, any more than he had at the threats made by Orpheus.
Dustfinger was already waiting at the front door of the house. "Where are they?" asked Farid anxiously as he hurried toward him. There was no sign of Orpheus or Oss, but he could hear their angry voices.
"In the cellar," said Dustfinger. "I lost a little fire on the stairs. We'll be well into the forest before it goes out."
Farid nodded, and turned as one of the maids appeared at the top of the stairs, but it wasn't Brianna.
"My daughter left," said Dustfinger, as if he had read Farid's thoughts. "And I doubt if she'll be coming back to this house." "She hates me!" Farid stammered. "Why did she help me?" Dustfinger opened the door, and the martens scurried out. "Perhaps she likes Orpheus even less than you," he said.
30. SOOTBIRD'S FIRE
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Fenoglio was happy. He was happy even though Ivo and Despina had taken it into their heads to drag him off to the marketplace, where Sootbird was giving yet another show. The criers had been announcing it for days, and naturally Minerva wasn't letting the children go alone. The Milksop had had a platform specially made so that everyone could watch his court fire-eater's incompetent performance. Did they hope such things would make the people forget that the Fire-Dancer was back? Never mind, not even Sootbird could cast a shadow over Fenoglio's cheerful mood. His heart hadn't been so light since he had set off with Cosimo for the Castle of Night. And he wasn't going to think of what had happened after that; no, that chapter was closed. His story had struck up a new song, and whose doing was that? His own! Who else had brought the Bluejay into the story, the man who had run rings around the Piper and the Milksop and brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead? What a character! Orpheus's creations were grotesque by comparison: garishly colored fairies, dead unicorns, dwarves with a blue tinge to their hair. Yes, that Calf's-Head could bring such creatures into being, but only he, Fenoglio, could think up men like the Black Prince and the Bluejay. Well – he had to admit that only Mortimer had made the Bluejay flesh and blood. But the words had come first, all the same, and it was he who had written them, every single one!
"Ivo! Despina!" Where were they, damn it? It was easier to catch Orpheus's rainbow-colored fairies than those children! Hadn't he told them not to run too far ahead? Children were swarming all over the street, coming out of all the houses to forget, at least for an hour or so, the burdens the world had laid on their frail shoulders. It was no fun being a child in these dark times. The boys had become men too young, and t
he girls found their mothers' sadness hard to bear.
At first Minerva hadn't wanted to let Ivo and Despina go. There were too many soldiers in town, and too much work waiting at home, but Fenoglio had won her over, although he didn't like the thought of the stink that Sootbird would be spreading again. On a day when he was so happy, however, he wanted the children to be happy, too, and while Sootbird put on his pathetic show he would simply dream of Dustfinger breathing fire in Ombra's marketplace in the near future. Or he would imagine the Bluejay riding into Ombra and chasing the Milksop out of the gates like a mangy dog, knocking the silver nose off the Piper's face, and then, together with the Black Prince, founding a realm of justice, ruled by the people! Or perhaps not entirely. This world hadn't
reached that point yet, but never mind. It would be wonderful, it would move all hearts, and he, Fenoglio, had set the story on the course that would save it when he had written the first song about the Bluejay. In the end he'd done everything right! Well, perhaps Cosimo had been a mistake, but where would the excitement be in a story if it wasn't dark from time to time?
"Inkweaver! Where are you?" Ivo was waving to him impatiently. Did the boy think an old man could just wriggle like an eel through this tide of children's bodies? Despina turned and smiled in relief when Fenoglio waved to her. But then her little head disappeared among all the others again.
"Ivo!" called Fenoglio. "Ivo, keep an eye on your sister, can't you?
Good heavens, he'd never known how many children there were in Ombra! Many of them were dragging their smaller brothers and sisters along after them as they flocked to the marketplace. Fenoglio was the only grown man to be seen, and few of the mothers had come. No doubt most of the children had stolen away on the sly – from workshops and stores, from housework or the stables. They had even come from the surrounding farms in their poor shabby clothes. Their clear voices were like the twittering of a flock of birds among the buildings. It was unlikely that Sootbird had ever had such an excited audience before.
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