The wrong boy. But what did the heart care about that?
21. SHARP WORDS
Oh, please! he felt his heart say to him. Oh, please, let me leave!
John Irving, The Cider House Rules
"Darius!" Elinor couldn't bear the sound of her own voice anymore. It was horrible – grouchy, irritable, impatient. She hadn't sounded like that in the old days, had she?
Darius almost dropped the books he was bringing in, and the dog raised his head from the rug she had bought to keep him from ruining her wonderful wooden floor with his slimy slobber. Quite apart from the fact that you were always slipping on it.
"Where's the Dickens we bought last week? For goodness' sake, how long does it take you to put a book back in its proper place? Am I paying you to sit in my armchair reading? That's what you do when I'm not here, admit it!"
Oh, Elinor. How she hated the words coming out of her mouth, and yet there was no keeping them back: bitter and venomous, spat out by her unhappy heart.
Darius bowed his head, as he always did when he was trying not to show her how hurt he was. "It's where it belongs, Elinor," he said in his gentle voice, which only infuriated her more than ever. She'd been able to have magnificent quarrels with Mortimer, and Meggie had been a real little fighter. But Darius! Even Resa, mute as she was, used to stand up to Elinor better.
Owl-faced coward. Why didn't he call her names? Why didn't he throw the books at her feet instead of clutching them so lovingly to his scrawny chest, as if he had to protect them from her?
"Where it belongs?" she repeated. "Do you think I can't even read these days?"
How anxiously the stupid dog was looking at her. Then he let his massive head sink to the rug again with a grunt.
Darius put the stack of books he was carrying down on the nearest glass case, went up to the shelf where Dickens made himself at home, taking up a lot of space in between Defoe and Dumas (the man had written just too many books, that was his trouble), went straight to the volume she wanted, and took it out. Without a word, he gave it to Elinor. Then he set about sorting the books he had brought into the library.
She felt so stupid, and Elinor hated to feel stupid. It was almost worse than feeling sad.
"It's dirty!"
Stop it, Elinor, she told herself. But she couldn't. The words simply came out of her mouth. "When did you last dust the books? Do I have to do that for myself, too?"
Darius kept his thin back turned to her. He took the words without flinching, like an undeserved beating.
"What's the matter? Has your stuttering tongue finally given up? Sometimes I wonder whether you have a tongue at all! Mortola ought to have taken you with her instead of Resa – even when she was mute, Resa was more talkative than you."
Darius put the last book on the shelf, straightened another, and marched toward the door, holding himself very straight.
"Darius! Come back!"
He didn't even turn.
Damn. Elinor hurried after him, holding the Dickens which, she had to admit, really wasn't so very dusty. To be perfectly honest, it wasn't dusty in the least. Of course it's not, Elinor! she told herself. As if you didn't know how devotedly Darius removes the tiniest speck of dust from the books every Tuesday and Friday. Her cleaning lady always laughed at the fine brush he used for the purpose.
"Darius! For heaven's sake, don't make such a big deal of it!"
No reply.
The dog overtook her on the stairs and looked down at her from the top step with his tongue hanging out.
"Darius!"
By that stupid dog's slobber – where was he?
His room was right next to the one Mortimer had used as an office. The door was open, and so was his suitcase, lying on the bed. It was the case she had bought him for their first trip together. Buying books with Darius had always been a pleasure (and she had to admit that he'd kept her from making many silly mistakes).
"What…?" How heavy her sharp tongue suddenly felt. "What the devil are you doing?"
Well, what did she think? Very obviously, he was packing the few clothes he possessed.
"Darius!"
He put the drawing of Meggie that Resa had given him onto the bed, with the notebook Mortimer had bound for him, and the bookmark that Meggie had made him from a blue jay's feathers.
"The bathrobe," he said hesitantly, as he put the photograph of his parents, the one that always stood by his bed, in the case. "Do you mind if I take it with me?"
"Don't ask such silly questions! Of course not! It was a present, for heaven's sake. But where are you going?"
Cerberus trotted into the room and went to the bedside cupboard. Darius always kept a few dog biscuits in the drawer.
"I don't know yet…"
He folded the bathrobe just as carefully as his other clothes (it was much too large for him, but how would she have known his size?), put the drawing, the notebook, and the bookmark in the case and closed it. Of course, he couldn't manage to close the catches. He was so clumsy sometimes!
"Unpack that again! At once! This is silly."
But Darius shook his head.
"Heavens above, you can't go as well and leave me all alone!" Elinor herself was frightened by the despair in her voice.
"You're alone even when I'm here, Elinor," said Darius in a strained voice. "You're so unhappy! I can't stand it anymore!"
The stupid dog gave up snuffling around the bedside table and stood in front of her, looking sad. He's right, said his watering doggy eyes.
As if she didn't know! She couldn't stand herself anymore, either. Had she been like this long ago? Before Meggie, Mortimer, and Resa came to live with her? Maybe. But then there'd only been the books around, and they weren't complaining. Although, to be honest, she'd never been as hard on the books as she was on Darius.
"All right, you go, then!" Her voice began shaking in the most ridiculous way. "Leave me alone. You're right. Why would you want to watch me getting more insufferable every day, always waiting for some miracle to bring them back? Perhaps I ought to shoot myself or drown myself in the lake, instead of perishing slowly in this miserable way. Writers sometimes do that, and it sounds good in stories."
Oh, the way he was looking at her with his farsighted eyes! (She really ought to have bought him new glasses long ago. His present pair looked just too silly.) Then he opened the case again and stared at his possessions. He took out Meggie's bookmark and stroked the boldly patterned blue feathers. Blue jay feathers. Meggie had glued them to a strip of pale yellow cardboard. It looked very pretty.
Darius cleared his throat. He cleared it three times.
"Oh, very well!" he said at last, in a voice that he carefully kept level. "You win, Elinor. I'll try it. Fetch me that sheet of paper. Or you probably will go and shoot yourself someday."
What? What was he saying? Elinor's heart began to race, as if hurrying on ahead of her into the Inkworld to see the fairies, the glass men, and the people she loved so much more than she loved any book.
"You mean…?"
Darius nodded, resigned, like a warrior who has fought too many battles. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Elinor."
"I'll get it!" Elinor turned on her heel. Everything that had made her heart so heavy these last few weeks, turning her limbs to an old woman's – it was all gone! Vanished without trace.
But Darius called her back. "Elinor! We ought to take some of Meggie's notebooks, too – and some practical things, like… like a lighter, for instance."
"And a knife!" Elinor added. After all, Basta was where they were going, and she had sworn that when next she met him she'd have a knife in her own hand.
She almost fell down the stairs, she was in such a hurry to get back to the library. Cerberus bounded after her, panting with excitement. Did he guess, in some corner of his doggy heart, that they were following his old master to the place where he'd gone when he had disappeared?
He's going to try it! He's going to try it! Elinor couldn't think of anything el
se. She didn't think of Resa's lost voice, Cockerell's stiff leg, or Flatnose's mutilated face. Everything's going to be all right, that was all she thought as, with trembling fingers, she took the words that Orpheus had written out of the glass case. This time there won't be any Capricorn to frighten Darius. This time he'll read beautifully. Oh, dear God, Elinor, you're going to see them again!
22. TAKING THE BAIT
If Jim had been able to read he might now have noticed a remarkable circumstance… but the fact was that Jim couldn't read.
Michael Ende, Jim Knopf and the Wild 13
A dwarf about twice the size of a glass man. Definitely not furry like Tullio – no, the dwarf was to have skin as white as alabaster, a head too big for it, and bandy legs. At least the Milksop always knew just what he wanted, even if his orders had come noticeably less often since the Piper arrived in the city. Orpheus was just wondering whether to give the dwarf red hair or the white hair of an albino when Oss knocked, and at his master's grunt of "Enter" put his head around the door. Oss had revolting table manners and was not much given to washing himself, but he never forgot to knock.
"There's another letter for you, my lord!" Ah, how good it made him feel being called that! My lord…
Oss came in, bowed his bald head (he sometimes overdid the servility), and handed Orpheus a sealed piece of paper. Paper? That was strange. The fine gentlemen usually sent their orders written on parchment, and the seal didn't look familiar, either. Well, never mind that. This would be the third order today; business was good. The Piper's arrival had made no difference to that. This world could have been made for him! Hadn't he always known it, ever since he first opened Fenoglio's book with his sweaty schoolboy fingers? His accomplished lies didn't get him jailed as a forger or con man here; they valued his talents at their true worth in this world – and all Ombra bowed to him when he crossed the marketplace in his fine clothes. Fabulous.
"Who's the letter from?"
Oss shrugged his ridiculously broad shoulders. "Dunno, my lord. Farid gave it to me."
"Farid?" Orpheus sat up straight. "Why didn't you say so at once?" He quickly snatched the letter from Oss's clumsy fingers.
Orpheus – of course he didn't begin "Dear Orpheus." Even in the salutation of a letter the Bluejay told no lies! – Farid has told me what you want in return for the words my wife has asked you for. I agree.
Orpheus read the words three times, four, five times, and yes, there it was in black and white.
I agree.
The bookbinder had taken the bait! Could it really be that easy?
Yes, why not? Heroes are fools. Hadn't he always said so? The Bluejay had fallen into the trap, and all he had to do was snap it shut. With a pen, some ink… and his tongue.
"Go away! I want to be alone!" he snarled at Oss, who was standing there looking bored and throwing nuts at the two glass men. "And take Jasper with you!" Orpheus liked talking to himself out loud when he was writing down his ideas, so the glass man had better be out of the room. Jasper sat on Farid's shoulder far too often, and on no account must the boy learn what Orpheus was planning to write now. It was true that the stupid boy wanted Dustfinger back even more fervently than he did, but Orpheus wasn't so sure that he would sacrifice his girlfriend's father in return. No, by now Farid worshipped the Bluejay as much as everyone else here did.
Ironstone gave his brother a gleefully malicious glance as Oss picked up Jasper from the desk with fleshy fingers.
"Parchment!" Orpheus ordered as soon as the door had closed behind the two of them, and Ironstone busily spread the best sheet they had on the desk.
Orpheus, however, went to the window and looked out at the hills from which, presumably, the Bluejay's letter had come. Silvertongue, Bluejay… fine names they'd given him, and yes, Mortimer was certainly very much braver and more noble than Orpheus himself was, but such a paragon couldn't compete with him in cunning. The good are stupid.
You have his wife to thank for this, Orpheus, he told himself as he began pacing up and down (nothing helped him think better). If his wife wasn't so afraid of losing him, you might never have found the bait you need!
Oh, it would be fantastic! His greatest triumph! Unicorns, dwarves, rainbow-colored fairies… not bad at all, but nothing compared to what he'd do now! He would bring the Fire-Dancer back from the dead. Orpheus. Had the name he had taken ever suited him better? But he would be wilier than the singer whose name he had stolen. He would indeed. He would send another man into the realm of Death in the Fire-Dancer's place – and he'd make sure that he didn't come back.
"Do you hear me, Dustfinger, in the cold land where you are now?" whispered Orpheus, while Ironstone busily stirred the ink. "I've caught the bait to buy your freedom, the most wonderful bait of all, decked out with the finest pale blue feathers!"
He began humming, as he always did when he was pleased with himself, and picked up Mortimer's letter again. What else had the Bluejay written?
It will be as you require. By the Devil's cloven hoof, he was writing in the style of public proclamations, like the robbers of the old days. I will try to call up the White Women, and in return you will write words to take my wife and daughter back to Elinor's house. But all you are to say about me is that I will follow them later.
Well, well. What was this?
Surprised, Orpheus lowered the sheet of paper. Mortimer wanted to stay? Why? Because his noble and heroic heart wouldn't let him steal away now that the Piper had made his threat? Or did he just like playing the part of a robber too much?
"Well, never mind which, noble Bluejay," said Orpheus softly (oh, how he liked the sound of his own voice!). "It won't turn out the way you think it will. Because I have plans of my own for you!"
High-minded idiot! Hadn't Mortimer ever read any tale of robbers right through? No happy ending for Robin Hood, for Angelo Duca, for Dick Turpin, and all the rest of them. Why would there be a happy ending for the Bluejay? No, he was going to play just one part: the bait on the hook, a tasty bait – and one condemned to certain death.
And I will write the last song about him! thought Orpheus as he strode up and down with a spring in his step, as if he already felt the right words inside him all the way down to his toes. Good people, hear the amazing tale of the Bluejay who brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead but then, sad to say, lost his own life. Heartrending. Like Robin Hood's death at the hands of the treacherous nun, or Angelo Duca's end on the gallows beside his dead friend, with the hangman riding him to death on his shoulders. Yes, every hero needs a death like that. Even Fenoglio wouldn't write it in any other way.
Ah, but he hadn't finished reading the letter yet! What else did that most noble of robbers have to say? Hang a piece of blue cloth in the window when you have written the words. (How romantic! A real robber's idea. He really did seem to be turning more and more into the character made by Fenoglio in his image!) I will meet you at the graveyard of the strolling players on the following night. Farid knows where it is. Come alone, bringing one servant at the most. I know you are on friendly terms with the new governor, and I will not show myself until I am certain that none of his men is with you. Mortimer. (Well, well, so he actually still signed his old name. Who did he think he was fooling?)
Come alone? Oh yes, I'll come alone, thought Orpheus. And you won't be able to see the words I've sent on ahead of you!
He rolled up the letter and slid it under his desk.
"Everything ready, Ironstone? A dozen sharpened pens, ink stirred slowly while you take sixty-five breaths, a sheet of the best parchment?"
"A dozen pens. Sixty-five breaths. The very best parchment."
"What about this list of words?" Orpheus looked at his bitten fingernails. He had recently taken to bathing them in rose water every morning, but unfortunately that just made them tastier. "Your useless brother left his footprints all over the words beginning with B."
The list. The list of all the words used by Fenoglio in Inkheart, arranged in a
lphabetical order. He had only recently told Jasper to prepare it – his brother had terrible handwriting. But unfortunately the glass man had only just reached the letter D, so Orpheus still had to look everything up in Fenoglio's book if he wanted to be sure that any words he used were in Inkheart, too. It was a nuisance, but it had to be done, and so far his method had proved its merits.
"All ready!" Ironstone nodded eagerly.
Good! The words were already coming. Orpheus sensed them like a tingling of his scalp. As soon as he picked up the pen he could hardly dip it in the ink fast enough. Dustfinger… the tears still came to his eyes when he remembered seeing him lying dead in the mine. Certainly one of the worst moments of his life.
And how the promise he'd given Roxane had come to haunt him, even if she had never believed a word of it! He had given it with the dead man at his feet. "I'll find words as precious and intoxicating as the scent of a lily, words to beguile Death and open the cold fingers he has closed around Dustfinger's warm heart!" He had been looking for those words ever since he arrived in this world – even if Farid and Fenoglio thought he did nothing but write unicorns and rainbow-colored fairies into it. But after his first failed attempts he had accepted the bitter fact that beauty of sound alone was not enough in this case. Words like lilies would never bring Dustfinger back. Death demanded a more substantial price – a price paid in flesh and blood.
Incredible that he hadn't hit upon the idea of Mortimer before – the man who had made Death a laughingstock to the living when he had bound an empty book to make the Adderhead immortal!
So away with him! This world needed only one silver tongue, and it was his. Once he had fed Mortimer to Death, and Fenoglio's brain was wrecked by the drink, only he would go on telling this story, on and on – with a suitable part in it for Dustfinger and a not inconsiderable part for himself.
"Yes, call up the White Women for me, Mortimer!" whispered Orpheus as he filled the parchment with word after word in his elegant script. "You'll never know what I've whispered into their pale ears first! 'Look what I've brought you! The Bluejay. Take him to your cold lord with greetings from Orpheus, and give me the Fire- Dancer in exchange.' Ah, Orpheus, Orpheus, they can say many things about you, but they can never call you stupid."
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