Inkheart ti-1

by Cornelia Funke

  Dustfinger spent most of the time perched in one of the oaks that had once given the old woman a shady place to sit outside her cottage. Its branches hid him from the curious eyes of anyone who might stray up the hillside. He perched there motionless for hour upon hour, watching the parking lot and the houses through his binoculars. He had told Farid to stay farther away, in the hollow behind the house. The boy had reluctantly obeyed. He was sticking close to Dustfinger, close as a burr, and he didn't like the gutted cottage. "Her ghost is still here, for sure, " he kept saying. "That old woman's ghost. Suppose she was a witch?" But Dustfinger just laughed at him. There were no ghosts in this world, or if there were they never showed themselves. The hollow was so well sheltered that he had even risked lighting a fire the previous night. The boy had snared a rabbit; he was good at setting traps and more ruthless than Dustfinger. When Dustfinger caught a rabbit he didn't take it out of the trap until he was quite sure the poor thing had stopped wriggling. Farid had no such scruples. Perhaps he had gone hungry too often.

  Above all he loved to watch with wonder and admiration whenever Dustfinger took a few little sticks and lit a fire. The boy had already burnt his fingers playing games with matches. The flames had bitten his nose and his lips, yet Dustfinger kept finding him making torches of cotton wool and thin twigs. Once he set light to the dry grass, and Dustfinger grabbed him and shook him like a disobedient dog until tears came into his eyes. "Listen hard, because I'm not telling you again! Fire is a dangerous creature!" he had shouted at Farid. "Fire is not your friend. It will kill you if you don't respect it. And its smoke will give you away to your enemies!"

  "But it's your friend!" the boy had stammered defiantly.

  "Nonsense! I'm not careless, that's all. I take note of the wind! You let it play with the fire. I've told you a hundred times: Never light a fire when it's windy. Now go and look for Gwin. "

  "It is your friend, though!" the boy had muttered before running off. "Or anyway, it obeys you better than the marten does. "

  He was right there, though that didn't mean much, for a marten obeys only itself, and even fire didn't obey Dustfinger in this world as well as in his own, where the flames turned to flower shapes whenever he told them to. They had forked up in the air for him, like trees branching in the night, and rained down sparks. They had roared and whispered with their crack ling voices, they had danced when he said the word. The flames here were both tame and mutinous, strange, silent beasts that sometimes bit the hand that fed them. Only occasionally, on cold nights when there was nothing but the flames to stave off his loneliness, did he think he heard them calling to him, but they whispered words he didn't understand.

  However, the boy was probably right. Yes, fire was his friend, but it was also the reason why Capricorn had summoned him back in that other life. "Show me how to play with fire!" he had said when his men dragged Dustfinger before him, and Dustfinger had obeyed. He still regretted teaching him so much, for Capricorn loved to give fire free rein, catching it again only when it had eaten its fill of crops and stables, houses and anything that couldn't run fast enough.

  "Is he still away?" Farid was leaning against the rough bark of the tree. The boy was as quiet as a snake. Dustfinger always jumped when he appeared so suddenly.

  "Yes, " he said. "Luck's on our side. " On the day they came to this hideout Capricorn's car had been standing in the parking area, but that afternoon two of the boys had begun polishing its silver paintwork until they could see their reflections in it, and shortly before it was dark he had driven off. Capricorn often had himself driven around the countryside, to the villages farther down the coast or to one of his other bases, as he liked to call them, although these so-called bases were often little more than a hut in the woods with a couple of bored men guarding it. Like Dustfinger, he couldn't drive a car, but some of his men had mastered the art of it. Hardly any of them held a driver's license, though, because to pass the test they would have to be able to read.

  "Yes, I'll go over there again tonight, " murmured Dustfinger. "He won't be away much longer, and Basta is sure to be back soon, too. " Basta's car had not been in the lot at all since they'd come here. It was unusual for it to be gone so long because Basta didn't like to be away from the village for any length of time. Were he and Flatnose still lying in the ruined cottage, bound and gagged?

  "Good! When do we start?" Farid sounded as if he wanted to get moving at once. "After sunset? They'll all be in the church eating then."

  Dustfinger shooed a fly away from his binoculars. "I'm going alone. You're to stay here and keep an eye on our things. "

  "No!"

  "Yes. This will be dangerous. There's someone I want to visit, and to do that I have to get into the yard behind Capricorn's house. "

  The boy gazed at him with eyes full of astonishment-eyes that sometimes looked as if they had seen too much already.

  "Surprised, are you?" Dustfinger suppressed a smile. "You wouldn't have thought I had any friends in Capricorn's house!"

  The boy shrugged his shoulders and looked over to the village. A vehicle was driving into the parking lot, a dusty truck with two goats tethered on the open loading platform.

  "Look at that – another farmer's lost his goats!" muttered Dustfinger. "Wise of him to give them up freely, or there'd have been a note pinned to his stable door this evening."

  Farid looked at him, an unspoken question in his eyes.

  "The red rooster crows tomorrow, that's what the note would say. It's the only thing Capricorn's men know how to write. But sometimes they just hang a dead rooster above the door. Anyone can understand that."

  "Red rooster?" The boy shook his head. "Is it a curse or something?"

  "No! Good heavens, you sound like Basta. " Dustfinger laughed quietly. Capricorn's men were getting out of the truck. The smaller of them was carrying two plastic bags filled to bursting; the other was hauling the goats off the loading platform. "The red rooster means fire, the fire they'll light in the farmer's outhouses or olive groves. And sometimes the rooster crows in the attic of the house or, if a farmer has been particularly stubborn, in his children's bedroom. We almost all have something we love dearly."

  The men were leading the goats into the village, Dustfinger knew by his limp that one of them was Cockerell. He had often wondered whether Capricorn knew about all the little deals his men did, or whether they were working for themselves on the side now and then.

  Farid caught a grasshopper in the hollow of his hand and watched it through his fingers. "I'm going with you all the same, " he said.

  "No. "

  "I'm not afraid!"

  "That makes it worse. "

  Capricorn had had floodlights installed after the escape of his captives – outside the church, on the roof of his house, and in the parking area. They didn't exactly make it easier to walk the streets unobserved. The first night after their arrival here Dustfinger had stolen into the village, his scarred face blackened with soot because it was too easily recognizable. Capricorn had also reinforced the guards on sentry duty, probably because of all the treasure Silvertongue had brought him. By now, of course, that treasure had disappeared into the cellar of his house and was carefully locked in the heavy safes that Capricorn had fitted there. He didn't care to spend money; like the dragons of legend, he hoarded it. Sometimes he placed a ring on his finger or put a necklace around the neck of a maid who happened to take his fancy.

  "Who are you going to meet?"

  "None of your business. "

  The boy let the grasshopper go again. It hopped rapidly away on its spindly olive-green legs.

  "A woman, " said Dustfinger. "One of Capricorn's maids. She's helped me a couple of times before. "

  "The one in the photo in your backpack?"

  Dustfinger lowered his binoculars. "How do you know what's in my backpack?"

  The boy hunched his head down between his shoulders, like someone used to being beaten for every thoughtless remark. "I was looking fo
r matches. "

  "If I catch you with your fingers in my pack again I'll tell Gwin to bite them off."

  The boy grinned. "Gwin never bites me. "

  He was right. The marten was crazy about Farid.

  "Where is that faithless animal anyway?" Dustfinger peered through the branches. "I haven't seen him since yesterday. "

  "I think he's found a female. " Farid picked up a stick and Poked at the dead leaves that lay everywhere under the trees. By night the rustling leaves would give away anyone trying to steal up to their camp in silence. "If you don't take me with you tonight, " said the boy, without looking at Dustfinger, "I'll just follow you anyway."

  "If you follow me I will beat you black and blue. "

  Farid lowered his head and gazed inscrutably at his bare toes. Then he glanced at the ruined walls where they had made their camp.

  "And don't start on about the old woman's ghost again!" said Dustfinger crossly. "How often do I have to tell you? All the danger is over in those houses. Light a fire in the hollow if you're afraid of the dark."

  "Ghosts don't fear fire. " The boy's voice was hardly more than a whisper.

  Sighing, Dustfinger clambered down from his lookout post. The boy was almost as bad as Basta. He wasn't afraid of curses, ladders, or black cats, but he saw ghosts everywhere, and not just the ghost of the old woman now sleeping buried somewhere in the hard ground. Farid saw other ghosts and spirits, too, whole armies of them: malignant, all-powerful beings who tore the hearts out of poor mortal boys and ate them. He refused to believe it when Dustfinger told him they hadn't come with him, he had left them behind in a book along with the thieves who used to beat and kick him. He might well die of fear if he stayed here alone all night. "Oh, very well then, you'd better come, " said Dustfinger. "But not a squeak out of you, understand? The men down there aren't ghosts. They're real people, and they have knives and guns."

  Gratefully, Farid flung his thin arms around him.

  "Yes, all right, that'll do!" said Dustfinger, pushing him away. "Come on, let's see if you can stand on one hand yet."

  The boy immediately obeyed. Bright red in the face, he balanced first on his right hand and then on his left, bare legs up in the air. After three wobbly seconds he landed in the prickly leaves of a rockrose, but he promptly got up, pulled a few thorns out of his foot, and tried again.

  Dustfinger sat down under a tree.

  It was high time to get rid of the boy, but how? You could throw stones at a dog, but a boy… Why hadn't he stayed with Silvertongue, who knew more about looking after young people? And it was Silvertongue, after all, who had brought him here. But no, the boy had to run after him, Dustfinger.

  "I'm going to look for Gwin, " said Dustfinger, getting to his feet.

  Without a word Farid trotted after him.

  32. BACK AGAIN

  She spoke to the King, hoping he would forbid his son to go, but he said: "Well, dear, it's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get into a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them. "

  Eva Ibbotson, The Secret of Platform 13

  Capricorn's village didn't look like a dangerous place on the gray rainy day when Meggie set eyes on it again. The houses standing among the green hills were a miserable sight with not a ray of sunlight to brighten their ruins. Meggie could hardly believe these same houses had looked so menacing on the night of their escape.

  "Interesting," whispered Fenoglio as Basta drove into the parking lot. "Do you know, this village is very like one of the settings I thought up for Inkheart? Well, there's no fortress, but the landscape around is similar, and the age of the village would be about right. Did you know that Inkheart is set in a world not unlike our own medieval times? Of course I added some things – the fairies and the giants. " Meggie wasn't really listening to them now. She remembered how, after their flight from the sheds where Capricorn had held them captive, she had stumbled toward Elinor's car, and the man had shot at them. She had hoped she would never again have to see this parking lot, the church, and these hills.

  "Come on, get moving!" grunted Flatnose, opening the car door. "I expect you remember the way. "

  Oh yes, Meggie could remember – even though it did all seem rather different today. Fenoglio looked around the gloomy alleys like a tourist, staring at windows and open doors as if he'd paid for entry. "I know this village!" he whispered to Meggie. "I mean, I've heard of it. There's more than one sad story about the place. That earthquake in the last century, and then in the last war there was -"

  "Save your tongue for later, scribbler!" Basta interrupted. "I don't like whispering. "

  Fenoglio shot him an angry glance but fell silent and did not utter another sound until they had reached the church.

  "Well, go on, open the door. What are you waiting for?" growled Flatnose.

  With Fenoglio's help, Meggie opened the heavy wooden door. The cool air that met them smelled as musty as on the day she had entered the church with Mo and Elinor. Nothing much had changed inside. The red walls looked even more threatening on this overcast day and the expression on the doll-like face of Capricorn's statue seemed even more malevolent than before, if that were possible. The braziers in which the books had been burned still stood in the same place, but there was no sign of Capricorn's chair at the top of the steps. Two of his men were just carrying a new chair up them. The old woman

  who looked like a magpie and who Meggie didn't really to remember was standing beside them, impatiently giving directions.

  Basta pushed aside two women who were kneeling in the middle of the nave cleaning the floor and strode toward the altar steps. "Where's Capricorn, Mortola?" he called to the old woman as he approached. "I have news for him. Important news. "

  The old woman didn't even turn toward him. "Farther to the right, you fools!" she ordered the two men who were still struggling with the heavy armchair. "Yes, there, that'll do. " Then she turned toward Basta, her face expressionless.

  "We expected you back before this," she said.

  "What do you mean?" Basta had raised his voice, but Meggie caught the uncertainty it revealed. It sounded almost as if he were afraid of the old woman. "Do you know how many villages there are down this damn coast? And we weren't even sure whether Silvertongue was still in the area. But I can rely on my nose, and as you see, " he said, nodding in Meggie's direction, "I've done the job. "

  "You have?" The Magpie looked past Basta to where Meggie and Fenoglio were standing with Flatnose. "All I see is the girl and an old man. Where's her father?"

  "He wasn't there, but he'll come after her. The girl's the best bait we could have."

  "And how will he know she's here?"

  "I left him a message."

  "Since when can you write?"

  Meggie saw Basta's shoulders tense with anger. "I left him my name. He won't need more than that to know where to find his precious little daughter. Tell Capricorn I'm shutting her in one of the cages. " With these words he turned on his heel and stalked back to Meggie and Fenoglio.

  "Capricorn's not here and I don't know when he'll be back!" Mortola called after him. "But I'm in charge until then, and in my view you haven't been doing your job recently as well as we expect. "

  Basta swung around as if he had been bitten on the back of the neck, but Mortola continued unmoved.

  "First, you let Dustfinger steal a set of keys from you, then you lose our dogs and we have to send a search party out into the mountains for you, and now this! Give me your keys, " The Magpie put out her hand,

  "What?" Basta went white, like a boy being punished in front of the whole class,

  "You heard, I'm going to look after them: the keys to the cages, the crypt, and the fuel store. Bring them here,"

  Basta didn't move. "You've no right to them!" he snapped. "Capricorn gave them to me, and he's the only one who can take them away again." He turned around once more.

  "And so he will!" Mortola called af
ter him. "And he'll expect your report as soon as he gets back. Maybe he'll understand better than I do why you didn't bring Silvertongue."

  Basta did not reply. Seizing Meggie and Fenoglio by the arms, he hauled them toward the church door. Mortola the Magpie called something after him, but Meggie couldn't make out what it was. And Basta did not turn back this time.

  He locked her and Fenoglio in the shed marked number 5, the one where Farid had been imprisoned. "OK, you can wait here till your father arrives!" he said before pushing Meggie inside.

  She felt as if this were a nightmare and she was dreaming it all over again. Only here there wasn't even musty straw to sit on, and the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling didn't work. Although a little daylight did come in through a narrow hole in the wall.

  "Oh, wonderful!" said Fenoglio, sitting down on the cold floor with a sigh. "A cowshed. How unimaginative, I really would have expected Capricorn to at least have a proper dungeon for his prisoners, "

  "Cowshed?" Meggie leaned her back against the wall. She heard the rain pattering against the locked door,

  "Well, yes, what did you think it was? They always built houses like this in the old days: room for the livestock on the ground floor and living quarters for the family above them. They still keep their goats and donkeys like that in many mountain villages. Haven't you noticed when they've driven the animals out to pasture in the morning there are steaming heaps of dung left lying in the streets, and you tread in them when you go to buy your breakfast rolls?" Fenoglio plucked a hair from one nostril, looked at it as if he couldn't believe anything quite so bristly grew in his nose, and flicked it away. "This is really rather uncanny, " he murmured. "That's exactly how I imagined Capricorn's mother – that nose, the eyes set close together, even the way she folds her arms and her chin juts forward. "