"I'm so glad you're back!" he stammered, his voice awkward with longing, "And your scars have gone! How amazing. I didn't write that. Well anyway.... you're back! This world is only half as much without you, but now it will be as wonderful as it was when I first read about you in
Inkheart. It will always be the best of all stories, but now you'll be its hero- you alone, thanks to my art, that took you home and now has even brought you back from the realm of Death!"
"Your art? More likely Silvertongue's courage." Dustfinger made a flame dance on his hand. It took the shape of a White Woman so distinctly that Oss cowered against the cellar wall in terror.
"Nonsense!" for a moment Orpheus sounded like a boy with hurt feelings, but he soon has himself in hand again. "Nonsense!" he repeated, with more self-control this time, although his tongue was still rather thick from the wine. "Whatever he told you, it isn't true. I did it all."
"He didn't tell me anything. He didn't have to. He was there, he and his voice."
"But I had the idea- and I wrote the words! He was only my tool." Orpheus spluttered the last word furiously, as if he were spitting it into Silvertongue's face.
"Ah yes.... Your words! Very cunning words, according to all I've heard from him." the image of a White Woman was still burning on Dustfinger's hand. "Maybe I ought to take those words to Silvertongue so that he can read them once more and find out what kind of part you intended him to play in all this."
Orpheus stood up very straight. "I wrote them like that for you, only for you!" he cried in an injured voice. "That was all I cared about- for you to come back. After all, I had to offer Death something!"
Dustfinger blew gently into the flame burning on his hand. "Oh, I understand you very well!" he said quietly, while the fire formed a shape of a bird, a golden bird with a red breast. "I understand a good deal now that I've been on the other side, and I know two things for sure: Death obeys no words, and Silvertongue- not you- went to the White Woman."
"He was the only one who could call them. What was I supposed to do?" cried Orpheus. "And he did it for his wife! Not for you!"
"Well now, I'd call that a good reason." the fiery bird fell apart in Dustfinger's hand. "And as for words... to be honest, I like his voice so much better than yours, even if the sound of it doesn't always make me happy. Silvertongue's voice is full of love. Yours speaks only of yourself. Quite apart from the fact that you're much too fond of reading words no one knows about, or forgetting a few you promised to read. Isn't that so, Farid?"
Farid just stared at Orpheus, his face rigid with hate.
"Be that as it may," Dustfinger went on as the flame in his hand licked out of the ashes again, forming the shape of a tiny skull, "I'll take the words with me. And the book."
"The book?" Orpheus stepped back as if the fire on Dustfinger's hand had turned into a snake.
"Yes,
Inkheart. You stole it from Farid, remember? That hardly makes it yours... even if you seem to busily be making use of it, from all I hear. Rainbow-colored faries, spotted brownies, unicorns... They say there are even dwarves in the castle now. What's the idea of all that? Weren't the blue faries beautiful enough for you? The Milksop kicks the dwarves and you bring the unicorns here only to die."
"No, no!" Orpheus raised his hands defensively. "You don't understand! I have great plans for this story. I'm still working on them, but believe me, it will be wonderful! Fenoglio left so much unsaid, there was so much he didn't describe- I'm going to change it all. I'm going to improve it..."
Dustfinger turned his hand over and dropped the ashes on the floor of Orpheus's cellar. "You sound like Fenoglio himself- but I suppose you're much worse than he is. This world is spinning its own threads. The two of you only confuse them- take them apart and put them together again in ways that don't really fit, instead of leaving it to the people to live in the place to improve it."
"Like who, for instance?" Orpheus's voice turned vicious. "The Bluejay? Since when has he belonged here?"
Dustfinger shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? Perhaps all of us belong in more than one story. Now, bring me the book. Or stall I ask Farid to go and get it?"
-Orpheus and Dustfinger,
Inkdeath.
My favorite part in the book so far. ^^^^
There are days, Hunch, when you're correctness goes too far. Is it her virtue or mine you're worried about?
