Inkspell Read Free Page B

with, the words were rather hard to find. Perhaps because I was so excited. As I told you at our first meeting, this book, Inkheart” – Orpheus stroked the volume “was my favourite when I was a child. I was eleven when I last saw it. I kept borrowing it from our run-down library until it was stolen. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been brave enough to steal it myself, and then someone else did, but I never forgot it. This book taught me, once and for all, how easily you can escape this world with the help of words! You can find friends between the pages of a book, wonderful friends!
    Friends like you, fire-eaters, giants, fairies .. ! Have you any idea how bitterly I wept when I read about your death? But you’re alive, and everything will be all right! You will retell the story –”
    “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 13
     
    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