Inkspell (76 page)

Silvertongue was with the robbers, and hanging from his belt was the sword with which he had apparently killed Basta – and not just Basta. Almost a dozen men had died at his hands, so several of the robbers had told Farid, their voices lowered in respect. Amazing. Back in the hills around Capricorn’s village, Silvertongue couldn’t have killed a blackbird when they were in hiding together, let alone a human being. On the other hand, how had he himself learned to kill?

The answer was not hard to find. Fear and rage. And there was enough of those in this story.

Roxane was with the robbers, too. She turned her back on Farid when she noticed him looking at her. She treated him like air – as if he had never returned to the land of the living, as if he were only a ghost, an ill-intentioned ghost who had devoured her husband’s heart. “What was it like being dead, Farid?” Meggie had asked him. But he couldn’t remember. Or perhaps he didn’t want to remember.

Orpheus was standing barely two paces away from him, shivering in the thin shirt he wore. The Prince had told him he must change his light-colored suit for a dark cloak and woolen trousers.

But in spite of the clothes he still looked like a cuckoo among sparrows. Fenoglio was watching Orpheus like an old tomcat keeping a wary eye on a young one who has invaded his territory.

“He looks a fool!” Fenoglio had whispered this comment to Meggie just loud enough for everyone to hear it. “Look at him. A callow youth, knows nothing about life, how is he going to be able to write? It might well be best to send him straight back, but never mind. There’s no saving this wretched story now, anyway.”

He was probably right. But why hadn’t he at least
tried
to write Dustfinger back? Didn’t he care anything for the characters he had created? Was he just moving them like pawns in a game of chess, enjoying their pain?

Farid clenched his fists in helpless anger.
I would have tried
, he thought.
A hundred times, a
thousand times, for the rest of my life
. But he couldn’t even read those strange little signs! The few that Dustfinger had taught him would never be enough to bring him back from where he was now. Even if he wrote his name in letters of fire on the walls of the Castle of Night, Dustfinger’s face would remain as terribly still as when he last saw it.

No, only Orpheus could try it. But he hadn’t written a single word since Meggie read him here.

He just stood there – or paced up and down, up and down, while the robbers watched him suspiciously. The glances Silvertongue cast him were not very friendly, either. He had turned pale when he saw Orpheus again. For a moment Farid had thought he would seize Cheeseface and beat him to a pulp, but Meggie had taken his hand and drawn him away. Whatever the two of them had said to each other, she wasn’t telling Farid. She had known that her father would not approve if she read Orpheus here, but she had done it all the same. For him. Was Orpheus interested in any of that? Oh no.

He was still acting as if his own voice, not Meggie’s, had brought him here. Stuck-up, thrice-accursed son of a bitch!

“Farid? Have you made up your mind?” Farid came out of his gloomy thoughts. Meggie was standing in front of him. “You will come with us, won’t you? Resa says you can stay with us as long as you like, and Mo doesn’t mind, either.”

Silvertongue was still standing with the robbers, talking to the Black Prince. Farid saw Orpheus watching the two of them .. then he began pacing up and down once more, rubbed his forehead, smoothed back his hair, muttered as if talking to himself.
Like a lunatic,
thought Farid.
I’ve
pinned my hopes on a lunatic!

“Wait here.” He turned away from Meggie and went over to Orpheus. “I’m going with Meggie,” he said brusquely. “You can go wherever you like.”

Cheeseface straightened his glasses. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m coming with you! After all, I want to see everything – the Way less Wood, the Laughing Prince’s castle.” He looked up at the hill. “And of course I’d have liked to see the Castle of Night, too, but after what’s happened here, I suppose it isn’t a good time. Well, this is only my first day here. . Have you seen the Adderhead yourself? Is he very terrifying? I’d like to see those silver scales on the columns. . ”

“You’re not here to go sightseeing!” Farid’s voice was choked with anger. What on earth was Cheeseface thinking of? How could he stand there looking around him as if he were on a pleasure trip, while Dustfinger would soon be lying in some dark crypt or wherever Roxane planned to take him?

“Oh no?” Orpheus’s round face darkened. “Is that any way to talk to me? I’ll do as I like. Do you think I’ve finally arrived where I always wanted to be just to have a snotty boy, who has no business here, anyway, order me around? You think words can simply be plucked from the empty air? This is all about Death, you stupid boy! It could take months for me to get the right idea. Who knows? You don’t call up ideas just like that, not even with fire, and we need a brilliant, a divine idea. Which means” Orpheus inspected his fingernails – “that I shall need a servant! Or do you want me to waste my time washing my own clothes and finding myself something to eat?”

The dog. The accursed dog. “Very well. I’ll be your servant, too.” Farid brought the words out only with difficulty. “If you will bring him back.”

“Excellent!” Orpheus smiled. “Then, for a start, get me some food. It looks as if we’re going to be embarking on a long and uncomfortable march.”

Farid gritted his teeth, but of course he obeyed. He would have scraped the silver from the towers of the Castle of Night to get Dustfinger breathing again.

“Farid? What is it? Are you coming with us?” Meggie stepped into his path as he ran past her, with bread and dried meat for Cheeseface in his pockets.

“Yes – yes, we’re coming with you!” He flung his arms around her neck, but only once he saw that Silvertongue’s back was turned to him. You never knew with fathers. “I’ll save him, Meggie!”

he whispered in her ear. “I’ll bring Dustfinger back. This story will have a happy ending. I swear!”

The author and publisher would like to thank the following for the permission to use copyrighted material:

DAVID ALMOND: from
Skellig
(Hodder Children’s Books, 1998), reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

YEHUDA AMICHAI: from “The Mother,” translated by Azila, from
Isibongo 2,
No. 1 (January 1997), reprinted by permission of the translator.

MARGARET ATWOOD: from “Orpheus 2,” from
Poems 1976-86
(Virago Press, 1992), in
Eating
Fire: Selected Poetry, 1965-95
(Virago Press, 1998), © 1987 by Margaret Atwood, reprinted by permission of Time Warner Book Group UK, Oxford University Press Canada, and Houghton Mifflin Company; from “Down,” from
Morning in the Burned House
(Virago Press, 1995), © 1995

by Margaret Atwood, in
Eating Fire: Selected Poetry, 1965-95
(Virago Press, 1998), reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd., Houghton Mifflin Company, and McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

CLIVE BARKER: from
Abarat
(Voyager, 2004), text © 2004 by Clive Barker, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

J. M. BARRIE: from
Peter Pan
(Penguin Popular Classics, 1995).

RAY BRADBURY: from
Something Wicked This Way Comes
(Simon & Schuster, 1962).

STERLING ALLEN BROWN: from “Thoughts of Death,” from
The Collected Poems of Sterling
Allen Brown,
edited by Michael S. Harper (Harper & Row, 1980), © 1980 by Sterling Allen Brown, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

ITALO CALVINO: from
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler,
translated by William Weaver (Seeker & Warburg, 1981), © 1981 by Italo Calvino, reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency Inc.; from
Italian Folk Tales,
translated by George Martin (Penguin Books, 1982), © 1982 by Italo Calvino, reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency Inc.

XI CHUAN: “Books,” from
New Generation: Poems from China Today,
translated by Wang Ping and Murat Nemet-Nejat from the Chinese of Xi Chuan (Hanging Loose Press, 1999), © 1999 by Wang Ping, reprinted by permission of the publisher.

FRANCES CORNFORD: “The Watch,” from
Collected Poems
(Cresset Press, 1954), reprinted by permission of the Trustees of Mrs. F. C. Cornford Deceased Will Trust.

KEVIN CROSSLEY-HOLLAND: from
The Seeing Stone
(Orion Books, 2000), reprinted by permission of the author.

KATE DlCAMILLO: from
The Tale of Despereaux,
illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering (Walker Books, 2003), text © 2003 Kate DiCamillo, reprinted by permission of Walker Books Ltd., London SRE11 5HJ/Candlewick Press, Cambridge, MA.

368

EMILY DICKINSON: #1263 (“There is no frigate like a book”) and #254 (“Hope”), from
The
Poems of Emily Dickinson,
edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1955), © 1951, 1955, 1979 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College.

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ: from “The Love I Gave You Once,” translated by Mahbubul Haq, from
An
Elusive Dawn: Selections from the Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz
(Islamabad: Pakistan National Commission for UNESCO, 1985).

EVA IBBOTSON: from
Das Geheimnis der Siebten Hexe
(Cecilie Dressier Publishing House, 2002).

PHILIPPE JACCOTTET: from “Songs from Below,” from
Selected Poems,
translated by Derek Marion (Penguin Books, 1987).

RUDYARD KIPLING:
from Just So Stories
(Penguin Popular Classics, 1994), reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.

HARPER LEE: from
To Kill a Mockingbird
(William Heinemann, 2003), © 1960 by Harper Lee; renewed © 1988 by Harper Lee. Foreword copyright © 1993 by Harper Lee, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. and The Random House Group Ltd.

ASTRID LlNDGREN: from
The Brothers Lionheart,
translated by Jean Tate (Hodder Children’s Books, 1979), reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. and Saltkrakan AB. MICHAEL

LONGLEY: from an interview/profile published in
The Observer
(March, 1991), reprinted by permission of LAW Ltd. on behalf of the author.

Xl MURONG: “Poetry’s Value,” from
Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry,
edited by Michelle Yeh (Yale University Press, 1993), © 1992 Yale University Press, reprinted by permission of the publisher.

PABLO NERUDA: “Word,” from
Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970,
translated by Ben Belitt (Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly Press, 1983), English translation © 1974 by Ben Belitt, reprinted by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.; from “The Dead Woman,” in
Pablo Neruda: The Captain’s
Verses,
translated by Brian Cole (Anvil Press Poetry, 1994), reprinted by permission of the publisher.

GARTH NlX: from
Sabriel
(HarperCollins Publishers, 2002), reprinted by permission of the publisher.

BRIAN PATTEN: from
The Story Giant
(Flamingo, 2001), © 2001 Brian Patten, reprinted by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London Wll 1JN.

MERVYN PEAKE: from
Titus Groan
(Vintage, 1998), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.

PHILIP PULLMAN: from
Northern Lights
(Scholastic Books, 1995), © Philip Pullman, 1995 and
The Subtle Knife
(Scholastic Books, 1997), © Philip Pullman, 1997, the first and second books in Philip Pullman’s
His Dark Materials
trilogy (Scholastic Inc., 2004), reprinted by permission of
369

Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., and Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.

PHILIP REEVE: from
Mortal Engines
(Scholastic Inc., 2001), © Philip Reeve, 2001, reprinted by permission of Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.

PHILIP RIDLEY: from
Dakota of the White Flats
(Collins, 1989), reprinted by permission of A. P.

Watt Ltd. on behalf of Philip Ridley.

J. K. ROWLING: from
Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone
(Bloomsbury Books, 1997), © J. K.

Rowling, 1997, reprinted by permission of the author c/o Christopher Little Literary Agency.

L. S. SCHWARTZ: from
Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books
(Beacon Press, 1996), © 1996 by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, reprinted by permission of the publisher and SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic.

JERRY SPINELLI: from
Maniac Magee
(Little, Brown & Company, 1990).