Whatever did the wretched man mean? Farid looked at Dustfinger.
Please, he thought, oh please! Don't listen to him. Take me with you.
Dustfinger returned his gaze. And smiled.
"Bad luck?" he said, and his voice conveyed the certainty that no one
could tell him anything he didn't already know about bad luck.
"Nonsense. So far the boy has brought me nothing but good luck
instead. And he's not a bad fire-eater. He's coming with me. And so is
this." Before Orpheus realized what he meant, Dustfinger picked up the
book that Cheeseface had put down on the wall beside him. "You won't
be needing it any more. And I shall sleep considerably more easily if
it's in my possession."
Dismay, Orpheus stared at him. "But...but I told you, it's my favorite
book! I really would like to keep it."
"And so would I," was all Dustfinger said as he handed Farid the book.
"Here, take good care of it."
Farid clutched it to his chest and nodded. "Now for Gwin," he said.
"We must call him." But just as he took a little dry bread from his
trouser pocket and was about to call Gwin's name, Dustfinger put his
hand over Farid's mouth.
"Gwin stays here," he said. If he had announced that he was planning
to leave his right arm behind, Farid couldn't have looked at him more
incredulously. "Why are you staring at me like that? We'll catch
ourselves another marten once we're there, one that's not so ready to
bite."
"Well, at least you've seen sense there," said Orpheus, his voice
sounding injured.
Whatever was he talking about? But Dustfinger avoided the boy's
questioning gaze. "Come on, start reading!" he told Orpheus. "Or we'll
still be standing here at sunrise."
Orpheus looked at him for a moment as if he were about to say
something else. But then he cleared his throat. "Yes," he said. "Yes,
you're right. Ten years in the wrong story --- that's a long time.
Let's start reading."
Words.
Words filled the night like the fragrance of invisible flowers. Words
made to measure, written by Opheus with his dough-pale hands, words
taken from the book that Farid was clutching tightly, and then fitted
together into a new meaning. They spoke of another world, a world full
of marvels and terrors. And Farid, listening, forgot time. He didn't
even feel that there was such a thing. Nothing existed but the voice
or Orpheus, so ill-suited to the mouth it come from. It obliterated
everything: the potholed road and the run-down houses at the far end
of it, the street lamp, the wall where Orpheus was sitting, even the
moon above the black trees. And suddenly the air smelt strange and
sweet...
He can do it, thought Farid, he really can do it, and meanwhile the
voice of Opheus made him blind and deaf to everything that wasn't made
of the written letters on the sheet of paper...
When Cheeseface suddenly fell silent, he looked around him in
confusion, dizzy from the beautiful sound of the words. But why were
the houses still there, and the street lamp, all rusty from wind and
rain? Orpheus was still there too, and his hellhound.
From Inkspell by Cornelia Funke. Copyright 2005 by Cornelia Funke. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, The Chicken House/Scholastic.
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