“I?” Dustfinger interrupted him with an amused look. “No, believe me, that’s a task for others.”
“Well, perhaps.” Orpheus cleared his throat as if he felt embarrassed to have revealed so much of his feelings. “However that may be, it’s a shame I can’t go with you,” he said, making for the wall beside the road with his curiously awkward gait. “But the reader has to stay behind, that’s the iron rule. I’ve tried every way I could to read myself into a book, but it just won’t work.” Sighing, he stopped by the wall, put his hand under his ill-fitting jacket, and brought out a sheet of paper.
“Well – this is what you asked for,” he told Dustfinger. “Wonderful words, just for you, a road of words to take you straight back again. Here, read it!”
Hesitantly, Dustfinger took the sheet of paper. It was covered with fine, slanting handwriting, the letters tangled like thread. Dustfinger slowly ran his finger along the words, as if he had to show each of them separately to his eyes. Orpheus watched him like a schoolboy waiting to be told the mark his work has earned.
When Dustfinger finally looked up again, he sounded surprised. “You write very well! Those are beautiful words. . ”
Orpheus turned as red as if someone had spilled mulberry juice over his face. “I’m glad you like it!”
“I like it very much! It’s all just as I described it to you. It even sounds a little better.”
Orpheus took the sheet of paper back with an awkward smile. “I can’t promise that it’ll be the same time of day there,” he said in a muted voice. “The laws of my art are difficult to understand, but believe me, no one knows more about them than I do. For instance, I’ve discovered that if you want to change or continue a story, you should only use words that are already in the book.
Too many new words and nothing at all may happen, or, alternatively, something could happen that you didn’t intend. Perhaps it’s different if you wrote the original story –”In the name of all the fairies, you’re fuller of words than a whole library!” Dustfinger interrupted impatiently.
“How about just reading it now?”
Orpheus fell silent as abruptly as if he had swallowed his tongue. “By all means,” he said in slightly injured tones. “Well, now you’ll see! With my help, the book will welcome you back like a prodigal son. It will suck you up the way paper absorbs ink.” Dustfinger just nodded and looked down the empty road.
Farid sensed how much he wanted to believe Cheeseface – and how afraid he was of another disappointment.
“What about me?” Farid went up to him. “He did write something about me, too, didn’t he? Did you check it?” Orpheus gave him a rather nasty look. “My God,” he said sarcastically to Dustfinger, “that boy really does seem fond of you! Where did you pick him up? Somewhere along the road?” “Not exactly,” said Dustfinger. “He was plucked out of his story by the man who did me the same favor.”
“Ah, yes! That. . Silvertongue!” Orpheus spoke the name in a disparaging tone, as if he couldn’t believe that anyone really deserved it.
“Yes, that’s what he’s called. How do you know?” There was no mistaking Dustfinger’s surprise.
The hellhound snuffled at Farid’s bare toes. Orpheus shrugged. “Sooner or later you get to hear of everyone who can breathe life into the letters on a page.”
“Indeed?” Dustfinger sounded skeptical, but he asked no more questions. He just stared at the sheet of paper covered with Orpheus’s fine handwriting. But Cheeseface was still looking at Farid.
“What book do you come from?” he asked. “And why don’t you want to go back into your own story, instead of his, which has nothing to do with you?”
“That’s none of your business!” replied Farid angrily. He liked Cheeseface less and less. He was too inquisitive – and far too shrewd.
But Dustfinger just laughed quietly. “His own story? No, Farid isn’t in the least homesick for that one. The boy switches from story to story like a snake changing its skin.” Farid heard something like admiration in his voice.
“Does he indeed?” Orpheus looked at Farid again, so patronizingly that the boy would have liked to kick his fat shins, but the hellhound was still glaring hungrily at him. “Very well,” said Orpheus, sitting down on the wall. “I’m warning you, all the same! Reading you back is easy, but the boy has no business in your story! I can’t put his name into it, I can only say ‘a boy,’ and as you know, I can’t guarantee that it will work. Even if it does, he’ll probably just cause confusion.
He may even bring you bad luck!”
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 anymore. And I shall sleep considerably more easily if it’s in my possession.” Dismayed, 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 the book to Farid. “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 Orpheus with his doughpale 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 of Orpheus, so ill-suited to the mouth it came from. It obliterated everything: the potholed road and the run-down houses at the far end of it, the streetlamp, the wall where Orpheus was sitting, even the moon above the black trees. And suddenly the air smelled strange and sweet. .
