Inkspell

31. ELINOR

Elinor spent a couple of miserable days and nights in her cellar. The man built like a wardrobe brought them something to eat morning and evening – at least, they assumed it was morning and evening, always supposing that Darius's watch was still keeping time. When the bulky figure first appeared with bread and a plastic bottle of water, she had thrown the bottle at his head. Or rather, she'd tried to, but the colossus ducked just in time and the bottle burst against the wall.

"Never again, Darius!" Elinor whispered when the wardrobe-man, grunting contemptuously, had locked them in once more. "I was never going to let myself be locked up again, that's what I swore back in that stinking cage, when those arsonists walked past the bars with their rifles and flicked burning cigarette butts in my face. And now here I am locked up in my own cellar!"

On the first night, she'd gotten up from the air mattress, which made all her bones ache, and thrown cans of food against the wall. Darius just crouched there on the blanket he had spread out over the cushion for the garden bench, looking at her wide-eyed. By the afternoon of the second day – or was it the third? – Elinor was breaking jars, sobbing when she cut her fingers on the glass. Darius was just sweeping up the broken pieces when the wardrobe-man came to fetch her. Darius tried to follow, but the wardrobe-man pushed his thin chest so roughly that he stumbled and fell among the olives, preserved tomatoes, and all the other things that had spilled out of the jars when Elinor smashed them.

"Bastard!" she snapped at the colossus, but he just grinned, pleased as a child who has knocked down a tower of building bricks, and hummed to himself as he led Elinor to her library. Who says bad people can't be happy, too? she thought as he opened the door and jerked his head, indicating that she should go in.

Her library was a shocking sight. There were dirty mugs and plates strewn around everywhere – on the windowsill, on the carpet, even on the glass cases containing her greatest treasures – and that wasn't the worst of it. Her books were the worst. Hardly any of them were still in their right places. They were stacked on the floor among the unwashed coffee mugs, they were scattered in front of the windows. Many even lay flat on the floor, open, their spines upward. Elinor couldn't bear to look! Didn't the monster know that was the way to break a book's neck?

If he did, it didn't bother him. Orpheus was sitting in her favorite armchair, his dreadful dog beside him holding something between its paws that looked suspiciously like one of her gardening shoes. Its master had draped his plump legs over one arm of the chair and was holding a beautifully illustrated book about fairies that Elinor had bought in an auction only two months ago, paying such a high price that it had made Darius bury his head in his hands.

"That," she said, her voice trembling slightly, "that is a very, very valuable book."

Orpheus turned his head to her and smiled. It was the smile of a naughty boy. "I know!" he said in his velvety voice. "You have very, very many valuable books, Signora Loredan."

"Yes, indeed," replied Elinor icily. "That's why I don't stack them any old way, like egg cartons or slices of cheese. Each has its own place."

This observation only made Orpheus smile even more broadly. He closed the book, after dog-earing one of the pages. Elinor drew in her breath sharply.

"Books aren't glass vases, dear lady," said Orpheus as he sat up in the chair. "They're not as fragile or as decorative. They're just books! It's their contents that matter, and their contents won't fall out if you stack them in a pile." He ran his hand over his smooth hair, as if afraid his parting might have slipped. "Sugar says you wanted to speak to me?"

Elinor cast an incredulous glance at the wardrobe-man. "Sugar?"

The giant smiled, revealing such an extraordinary collection of bad teeth that Elinor didn't have to wonder how he got his nickname.

"I certainly do. I've been wanting to speak to you for days. I insist on being let out of the cellar – and my librarian, too! I'm sick of having to pee in a bucket in my own house, and not knowing whether it's day or night. I order you to bring my niece and her husband back. They're in the greatest danger, and it's all your fault, and I order you to keep your fat fingers off my books, damn it!"

Elinor shut her mouth – and cursed herself with every curse she could call to mind. Oh no! What was Darius always telling her? What had she told herself hundreds of times, lying down there on that horrible air mattress? Control yourself, Elinor, be cunning, Elinor, watch your tongue – all useless. She had burst like a balloon blown up too far.

But Orpheus still sat there, with his legs crossed and that impudent smile on his face. "I could probably bring them back. Yes, probably!" he said, patting his dog's ugly head. "But why should I?" His fat fingers stroked the cover of the book he had just so cruelly dog-eared. "A handsome cover, isn't it? Rather sentimental, perhaps, and I don't think of fairies quite like that, but all the same…"

"Yes, yes, I know it's handsome, but I'm not interested in the cover just now!" Elinor was trying not to raise her voice, but she simply couldn't keep it down. "If you can really bring them back, then for heaven's sake get a move on and do it! Before it's too late. The old woman is going to kill him, didn't you hear her? She's going to kill Mortimer!"

His expression indifferent, Orpheus straightened his crumpled tie. "Well, he killed Mortola's son, as far as I can make out. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as another – not entirely unknown – book so forcibly puts it."

"Her son was a murderer!" Elinor clenched her fists. She wanted to rush at the moon-face and snatch her book from his hands, hands that looked as soft and white as if they had never in their life done anything but turn the pages of a book. However, Sugar barred her way.

"Yes, yes, I know." Orpheus heaved a heavy sigh. "I know all about Capricorn. I've read the book telling his story more times than I can count, and I have to say he was a very good villain, one of the best I ever met in the realm of the written word. Just killing someone like that – well, if you ask me, it's almost a crime. Although I'm glad of it for Dustfinger."

Oh, if only she could have hit him just once, on his broad nose, on his smiling mouth!

"Capricorn had Mortimer abducted! He captured his daughter and kept his wife a prisoner for years on end!" Tears of rage and helplessness came into Elinor's eyes. "Please, Mr. Orpheus or whatever your real name is!" She put all her strength and self-control into sounding reasonably friendly. "Please! Bring them back, and while you're at it please bring Meggie back, too, before she gets trodden on by a giant or impaled on a spear in that story."

Orpheus leaned back and looked at her as if she were a picture on an easel. How naturally he had taken over her armchair – as if Elinor herself had never sat there with Meggie beside her, or with Resa on her lap when she was still tiny, so many years ago. Elinor bit back her fury. Control yourself, Elinor, she thought, as she kept her eyes fixed on Orpheus's pale, bespectacled face. Control yourself! For the sake of Mortimer, and Resa, and Meggie!

Orpheus cleared his throat. "I don't know what's bothering you," he said, examining his fingernails, which were bitten like a schoolboy's, "l envy all three of them!"

It was a moment before Elinor realized what he was talking about. Only when he went on did it become clear.

"What makes you think they want to come back?" he asked softly. "If I were there I never would! There's nowhere in this world I've ever wanted to be half as much as on the hill where the Laughing Prince's castle lies. I've walked through Ombra market countless times, I've looked up at the towers and the banners with the lion emblem. I've imagined what it would be like to wander through the Wayless Wood and watch Dustfinger stealing honey from the fire-elves. I've pictured the minstrel woman he loves, Roxane. I've stood in Capricorn's fortress smelling the potions that Mortola brewed from monkshood and hemlock. The Adderhead's castle often figures in my dreams, even today. Sometimes I'm in one of its dungeons, sometimes I'm stealing in through the gate with Dustfinger and looking up at the heads of minstrels set there on pikes by the Adderhead for singing the wrong song… By all the words and letters in the world, when Mortola told me her name I thought she was crazy! Yes, she and Basta did look like the characters they claimed to be, but could it really be true that someone had brought them here out of my favorite book? Were there other people who could read aloud the way I can? I didn't believe it until Dustfinger came up to me in that musty, ramshackle library. Oh God, how my heart beat when I saw his face with the three pale scars left by Basta's knife! It beat faster than on the day I first kissed a girl. It really was him, the melancholy hero of my very favorite book. And I helped him to disappear into it again, but what about me? Hopeless." He laughed, a sad and bitter laugh. "I just hope he doesn't have to die the death that idiot of an author intended for him. No, he can't! He'll be all right, I'm sure he will. After all, Capricorn is dead and Basta's a coward. Do you know, I wrote to that Fenoglio, the author, when I was twelve, telling him he must change his story, or at least write a sequel in which Dustfinger comes back? He never answered my letter, any more than Inkheart ever had a sequel. Oh well." Orpheus sighed deeply.

Dustfinger, Dustfinger… Elinor compressed her lips. Who cared what happened to the matchstick-eater? Keep calm, Elinor, don't go off the deep end again, you must be clever now, clever, go carefully… Easier said than done.

"Listen, if you'd like to be in that book so much" – and this time she really did manage to make her voice sound as if what she was saying didn't matter all that much to her – "then why not just bring Meggie back? She knows how you can read yourself into a story. She's done it! I'm sure she can tell you how to do it or read you over there, too."

Orpheus's round face darkened so suddenly that Elinor immediately knew she had made a bad mistake. How could she have forgotten what a vain, conceited creature he was?

"No one," said Orpheus softly, rising slowly and menacingly from her chair, "no one can tell me anything about the art of reading. Certainly not a little girl!"

Now he'll put you straight back in the cellar, thought Elinor. What am I going to do? Think, Elinor, try to find the right answer in your silly head! Do something! Surely you can think up something! "Oh, of course not!" she stammered. "No one but you could have read Dustfinger back. No one. But -"

"No buts. You watch out." Orpheus posed as if he were about to sing an aria onstage and picked up the book lying on the chair where he had so carelessly put it down. He opened it right where the dog-ear disfigured the creamy white page, ran the tip of his tongue over his lips as if lie had to smooth them so that the words would flow freely – and then his voice filled Elinor's library again, the captivating voice that did not suit his outward appearance in the least. Orpheus read as if he were letting his favorite food melt in his mouth, relishing it, greedy for the sound of the letters, pearls melting on his tongue, words like seeds from which lie was making life emerge.

Perhaps he really was the greatest master ever of his art. He certainly practiced it with the utmost passion.

"There is a tale of a certain shepherd, Tudur of Llangollen, who came across a troop of faeries, dancing to the tune of a tiny fiddler."

A faint chirping sound arose behind Elinor, but when she turned around there was no one to be seen but Sugar, listening to Orpheus's voice with a bewildered expression on his face. "Tudur tried to resist the enchanting strains, but finally, throwing his cap inthe air and shouting, 'Now for it, then, play away, old devil!' he joined in."

The fiddling grew shriller and shriller, and when Elinor turned around this time she saw a man standing in her library, surrounded by small creatures dressed in leaves and prancing around on his bare feet like a dancing bear, while a step or so away a tiny little thing with a bellflower on its head was playing a fiddle hardly larger than an acorn.

"Immediately, a pair of horns appeared on the fiddler's head and a tail sprouted from beneath his coat!" Orpheus let his voice swell until he was almost singing. "The dancing sprites turned into goats, dogs, cats, and foxes, and they and Tudur spun around in a dizzying frenzy."

Elinor pressed her hands to her mouth. There they were, emerging from behind the armchair, leaping over the stacks of books, dancing on the open pages with their muddy hooves. The dog jumped up and barked at them.

"Stop it!" Elinor cried to Orpheus. "Stop it at once!"

He closed the book with a triumphant smile.

"Chase them out into the garden!" he told Sugar, who was standing there transfixed. Confused, the man groped his way over to the door, opened it – and let the whole troop dance past him, fiddling, screeching, barking, bleating, on down Elinor's corridor and past her bedroom, until the noise gradually died away.

"No one," repeated Orpheus, and now there was not the smallest trace of a smile to be seen on his round face, "no one can teach Orpheus anything about the art of reading. And did you notice? Nothing disappeared! Maybe a few bookworms if there are any in your library, maybe a couple of flies…"

"Maybe a couple of motorists down on the road," added Elinor in a hoarse voice, but unfortunately there was no hiding the fact that she was impressed.

"Maybe!" said Orpheus, carelessly shrugging his round shoulders. "But that wouldn't make any difference to my mastery, would it? And now I hope you understand something about the art of cooking, because I'm sick and tired of what Sugar serves up. And I'm hungry. I'm always hungry when I've been reading aloud."

"Cooking?" Elinor practically choked on her rage. "You expect me to act as your cook in my own house?"

"Well, of course. Make yourself useful. Or do you want to give Sugar the idea that you and your stammering friend are superfluous to requirements? He's in a bad mood, anyway, because he hasn't yet found anything worth stealing in your house. No, we really don't want to put any stupid notions into his head, do we?"

Elinor took a deep breath and tried to control her trembling knees. "No. No, we don't," she said, turned – and went into the kitchen.