written those sentences, but a stranger – a stranger with a curious name. Orpheus.
Meggie knew more than most people about what waited beyond the words. She herself had already opened doors, had lured living, breathing creatures out of faded, yellowing pages – and she had been there when her father read this boy out of an Arabian fairy-tale, the boy of flesh and blood now standing beside her. However, this Orpheus seemed to know far, far more than she did, even more than Mo – Farid still called him Silvertongue – and suddenly Meggie was afraid of the words on that grubby piece of paper. She put it down on her desk as if it had burned her fingers.
‘Please! Do please at least try!’ Farid’s voice sounded almost pleading. ‘Suppose Orpheus has already read Basta back after all? Dustfinger has to learn that they’re in league with each other. He thinks he’s safe from Basta in his own world!’
Meggie was still staring at the words written by Orpheus. They sounded beautiful, enchantingly beautiful. Meggie felt her tongue longing to taste them. She very nearly began reading them aloud. Horrified, she clapped her hand to her mouth.
Orpheus.
Of course she knew the name, and the story that surrounded it like a tangle of flowers and thorns. Elinor had given her a book with a beautiful poem about him in it.
Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing die.
She looked at Farid with a question in her eyes. ‘How old is he?’
‘Orpheus?’ Farid shrugged. ‘Twenty, twenty-five, how should I know? Difficult to say. His face is like a child’s.’
So young. But the words on the paper didn’t sound like a young man’s words. They sounded as if they knew a great many things.
‘Please!’ Farid was still looking at her. ‘You will try, won’t you?’
Meggie looked out of the window. She couldn’t help thinking of the empty fairies’ nests, the glass men who had vanished, and something Dustfinger had said to her long ago: Sometimes, when you went to the well to wash early in the morning, those tiny fairies would be whirring above the water, hardly bigger than the dragonflies you have here, and blue as violets … they weren’t very friendly, but by night they shone like glow-worms.
‘All right,’ she said, and it was almost as if someone else were answering Farid. ‘All right, I’ll try. But your feet must get better first. The world my mother talks about isn’t a place where you’d want to be lame.’
‘Nonsense, my feet are fine!’ Farid walked up and down on the soft carpet as if to prove it. ‘You can try right away as far as I’m concerned!’
But Meggie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I must learn to read it fluently first. That’s not going to be easy, given his handwriting – and it’s smeared in several places, so I’ll probably copy it out. This man Orpheus wasn’t lying. He did write something about you, but I’m not quite sure that it will do. And if I try it,’ she went on, trying to sound very casual, ‘if I try it, then I want to come with you.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, why not?’ Meggie couldn’t keep her voice from showing how hurt she felt by his horrified look.
Farid did not reply.
Didn’t he understand that she wanted to see it for herself? She wanted to see everything that Dustfinger and her mother had told her about, Dustfinger in a voice soft with longing: the fairies swarming above the grass, trees so high that you thought they would catch the clouds in their branches, the Wayless Wood, the strolling players, the Laughing Prince’s castle, the silver towers of the Castle of Night, Ombra market, the fire that danced for him, the whispering pool where the water-nymphs’ faces looked up at you …
No, Farid didn’t understand. He had probably never felt that yearning for a completely different world, any more than he felt the homesickness that had broken Dustfinger’s heart. Farid wanted just one thing: he wanted to find Dustfinger, warn him of Basta’s knife and be back with him again. He was Dustfinger’s shadow. That was the part he wanted to play, never mind what story they were in.
‘Forget it! You can’t come too.’ Without looking at Meggie he limped back to the chair she had given him, sat down and pulled off the plasters that Resa had so carefully put on his toes. ‘People can’t read themselves into a book. Even Orpheus can’t! He told Dustfinger so himself: he’s tried it several times, he said, and it just won’t work.’
‘Oh no?’ Meggie tried to sound more sure of herself than she felt. ‘You said yourself that I read better than he does. So perhaps I can make it work!’ Even if I can’t write as well as he does, she added to herself.
Farid cast her an uneasy glance as he put the plasters in his trouser pocket. ‘But it’s dangerous there,’ he said. ‘Particularly for a g—’ He didn’t finish the word. Instead he began inspecting his blood-stained toes intently.
Idiot. Meggie’s anger tasted bitter on her tongue. Who did he think she was? She probably knew more about the world she’d be reading him into than he did. ‘I know it’s dangerous,’ she said, piqued. ‘Either I go with you or I don’t read aloud from this sheet of paper. You must make up your mind. And now you’d better leave me alone. I have to think.’
Farid cast a final glance at the piece of paper with Orpheus’s words on it before he went to the door. ‘When will you try?’ he asked before he went back out into the corridor. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Perhaps,’ was all Meggie would say.
Then she closed the door behind him, and was alone with the words that Orpheus had written.
6
The Inn of the Strolling Players
‘Thank you,’ said Lucy, opening the box and taking out a match. ‘WATCH, EVERYONE!’ she cried, her voice echoing round the White Flats. ‘WATCH! THIS IS GOODBYE TO BAD MEMORIES!’
Philip Ridley,
Dakota of the White Flats
It took Dustfinger two whole days to get through the Wayless Wood. He met very few people on the way: a few charcoal-burners blackened with soot, a ragged poacher with two rabbits slung over his shoulder and hunger written large on his face, and a group of the Prince’s game wardens, armed to the teeth, probably on the trail of some poor devil who had shot a deer to feed his children. None of them saw Dustfinger. He knew how to pass unseen, and only on the second night, when he heard a pack of wolves howling in the nearby hills, did he dare to summon fire.
Fire. So different in this world and the other one. How good it would be to hear its crackling voice again at last, and to be able to answer. Dustfinger collected some of the dry wood lying around among the trees, with wax-flowers and thyme rambling over it. He carefully unwrapped the fire-elves’ stolen honey from the leaves that kept it moist and supple, and put a tiny morsel in his mouth. How scared he had been the first time he tasted the honey! Scared that his precious booty would burn his tongue for ever and he would lose his voice. But that fear had proved groundless. The honey did burn your mouth like red-hot coals, but the pain passed off – and if you bore it long enough, then afterwards you could speak to fire, even with a mere human tongue. The effect of a tiny piece lasted for five or six months, sometimes almost a year. Just a soft whisper in the language of the flames, a snap of your fingers, and sparks would leap crackling from dry wood, damp wood, even stone.
At first the fire licked up from the twigs more reluctantly than it had in the old days – as if it couldn’t really believe he was back. But then it began to whisper and welcomed him more and more exuberantly, until he had to rein in those wildly leaping flames, imitating the sound of their crackling until
the fire sank lower, like a wildcat that will crouch down and purr if you stroke its fur carefully enough.
While the fire devoured the wood and its light kept the wolves away, Dustfinger found himself thinking of the boy again. He couldn’t count the many nights when he’d had to tell Farid how fire spoke, for the boy knew only mute and sullen flames. ‘Heavens above,’ he muttered to himself as he warmed his fingers over the glowing embers, ‘you’re still missing him!’ He was glad that the marten at least was still with the boy, to keep him company as he faced the ghosts he saw everywhere.
Yes, Dustfinger did miss Farid. But there were others whom he had been missing for ten long years, missing them so much that his heart was still sore with longing. It was with those people crowding his mind that he strode out, more impatiently with every passing hour, as he approached the outskirts of the forest and what lay beyond it – the world of humans. It was not just his longing for fairies, little glass men and water-nymphs that had tormented him in the other world, nor his desire to be back in the silence under the trees. There weren’t many human beings he had missed, but he had missed those few all the more fiercely.
He had tried so hard to forget them since the day he came, half-starved, to Silvertongue’s door, and Silvertongue had explained that there could be no way back for him. It was then he had realized that he must choose. Forget them, Dustfinger – how often he had told himself that! – forget them, or the loss of them all will drive you mad. But his heart simply did not obey. Memories, so sweet and so bitter … they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?
Better not remember now either, Dustfinger told himself as the trees around him became younger and the canopy of leaves above grew lighter. Ten years – it’s a long time, and many may be lost and gone by now.
Charcoal-burners’ huts appeared among the trees more and more often now, but Dustfinger did not let the soot-blackened men see him. Outside the forest, people spoke of them slightingly, for the charcoal-burners lived deeper in the forest than most dared to go. Craftsmen, peasants, traders, princes: they all needed charcoal, but they didn’t like to see the men who burned it for them in their own towns and villages. Dustfinger liked the charcoal-burners, who knew almost as much about the forest as he did, although they made enemies of the trees daily. He had sat by their fires often enough, listening to their stories, but after all these years there were other stories he wanted to hear, tales of what had been going on outside the forest, and there was only one place to hear those: in one of the inns that stood along the road.
Dustfinger had one particular inn in mind. It lay on the northern outskirts of the forest, where the road appeared among the trees and began to wind uphill, past a few isolated farms, until it reached the city gate of Ombra, the capital city of Lombrica, the Laughing Prince’s realm.
The inns on the road outside Ombra had always been places where the strolling players called the Motley Folk met. They offered their skills there to rich merchants, tradesmen and craftsmen, for weddings and funerals, for festivities to celebrate a traveller’s safe return or the birth of a child. They would provide music, earthy jokes and conjuring tricks for just a few coins, taking the audience’s minds off their troubles large and small. And if Dustfinger wanted to find out what had been happening in all the years he was away, then the Motley Folk were the people to ask. The players were the newspapers of this world. No one knew what went on in it better than these travellers who were never at home anywhere.
Who knows, thought Dustfinger as he walked down the road, with the autumn sun, by now low in the sky, on his face. If I’m lucky I may even meet old acquaintances.
The road was muddy and full of puddles. Cartwheels had made deep ruts in it, and the hoofprints left by oxen and horses were full of rainwater. At this time of year it sometimes rained for days on end, as it had yesterday, when he had been glad to be under the trees where the leaves caught the rain before it drenched him to the skin. The night had been cold, all the same, and his clothes were clammy even though he had slept beside his fire. He was glad that the sky was clear today, apart from a few shreds of cloud drifting over the hills.
Luckily he had found a few coins in his old clothes. He hoped they would be enough for a bowl of soup. Dustfinger had brought nothing with him from the other world. What would he do here with the printed paper they used for money in that world? Only gold, silver and ringing copper counted in this one, with the local prince’s head on the coins if possible. As soon as his money was gone he’d have to look for a market place where he could perform, in Ombra or elsewhere.
The inn that was his destination hadn’t changed much in the last few years, either for better or for worse. It was as shabby as ever, with a few windows that were hardly more than holes in the grey stone walls. In the world where he had been living until three days ago, it was unlikely that any guests at all would have crossed such a grubby threshold. But here the inn was the last shelter available before you entered the forest, the last chance of a hot meal and a place to sleep that wasn’t damp with dew or rain … and you got a few lice and bugs thrown in for free, thought Dustfinger as he pushed the door open.
It was so dark in the room inside that his eyes took a little while to adjust to the dim light. The other world had spoilt him with all its lights, with the brightness that made even night into day there. It had accustomed him to seeing everything clearly, to thinking of light as something you could switch on and off, available whenever you wanted. But now his eyes must cope again with a world of twilight and shadows, of long nights as black as charred wood, and houses from which the sunlight was often shut out, because its heat was unwelcome …
All the light inside the inn came from the few sunbeams falling through the holes that were the windows. Dust-motes danced in them like a swarm of tiny fairies. A fire was burning in the hearth under a battered black cauldron. The smell rising from it was not particularly appetizing, even to Dustfinger’s empty stomach, but that didn’t surprise him. This inn had never had a landlord who knew the first thing about cooking. A little girl hardly more than ten years old was standing beside the cauldron, stirring whatever was simmering in it with a stick. Some thirty guests were sitting on rough-hewn benches in the dark, smoking, talking quietly and drinking.
Dustfinger strolled over to an empty place and sat down. He surreptitiously looked round for a face that might seem familiar, for a pair of the motley trousers that only the players wore. He immediately saw a lute-player by the window, negotiating with a much better dressed man than the musician himself, probably a rich merchant. No poor peasant could afford to hire an entertainer, of course. If a farmer wanted music at his wedding he must play the fiddle himself. He couldn’t have afforded even the two pipers who were also sitting by the window. At the table next to them, a group of actors were arguing in loud voices, probably about who got the best part in a new play. One still wore the mask behind which he hid when they acted in the towns’ market places. He looked strange sitting there among the others, but then all the Motley Folk were strange – with or without masks, whether they sang or danced, performed broad farces on a wooden stage or breathed fire. The same was true of their companions – travelling physicians, bonesetters, stonecutters, miracle healers. The players brought them customers.
Old faces, young faces, happy and unhappy faces: there were all of those in the smoke-filled room, but none of them seemed familiar to Dustfinger. He too sensed he was being scrutinized, but he was used to it. His scarred face attracted glances everywhere, and the clothes he wore did the rest – a fire-eater’s costume, black as soot, red as the flames that he played with, but that others feared. For a moment he felt curiously strange amidst all this once-familiar activity, as if the other world still clung to him and could be clearly seen: all the years, the endless years sin
ce Silvertongue plucked him out of his own story and stole his life without intending to, as you might crush a snail-shell in passing.
‘Hey, who have we here?’
A hand fell heavily on his shoulder, and a man leaned over him and stared at his face. His hair was grey, his face round and beardless, and he was so unsteady on his feet that for a moment Dustfinger thought he was drunk. ‘Why, if I don’t know that face!’ cried the man incredulously, grasping Dustfinger’s shoulder hard, as if to make sure it was really flesh and blood. ‘So where’ve you sprung from, my old fire-eating friend? Straight from the realm of the dead? What happened? Did the fairies bring you back to life? They always were besotted with you, those little blue imps.’
A few men turned to look at them, but there was so much noise in the dark, stuffy room that not many people noticed what was going on.
‘Cloud-Dancer!’ Dustfinger straightened up and embraced the other man. ‘How are you?’
‘Ah, and there was I thinking you’d forgotten me!’ Cloud-Dancer gave a broad grin, baring large, yellow teeth.
Oh no, Dustfinger had not forgotten him – although he had tried to, as he had tried to forget the others he had missed. Cloud-Dancer, the best tightrope-walker who ever strolled around the rooftops. Dustfinger had recognized him at once, in spite of his now grey hair and the left leg that was skewed at such a curiously stiff angle.
‘Come along, we must drink to this. You don’t meet a dead friend again every day.’ He impatiently drew Dustfinger over to a bench under one of the windows. A little sunlight fell through it from outside. Then he signalled to the girl who was still stirring the cauldron, and ordered two goblets of wine. The little creature stared at Dustfinger’s scars for a moment, fascinated, and then scurried over to the counter. A fat man stood behind it, watching his guests with dull eyes.
‘You’re looking good!’ remarked Cloud-Dancer. ‘Well-fed, not a grey hair on your head, hardly a hole in your clothes. You even still have all your teeth, by the look of it. Where’ve you been? Maybe I should set out for the same place myself – seems like a man can live pretty well there.’
‘Forget it. It’s better here.’ Dustfinger pushed back the hair from his forehead and looked round. ‘That’s enough about me. How have you been yourself? You can afford wine, but your hair is grey, and your left leg …’
‘Ah, yes, my leg.’ The girl brought their wine. As Cloud-Dancer searched his purse for the right money, she stared at Dustfinger again with such curiosity that he rubbed his fingertips together and whispered a few fire-words. Reaching out his forefinger, he smiled at her and blew gently on the fingertip. A tiny flame, too weak to light a fire but just bright enough to be reflected in the little girl’s eyes, flickered on his nail and spat out sparks of gold on the dirty table. The child stood there enchanted, until Dustfinger blew the flame out and dipped his finger in the goblet of wine that Cloud-Dancer pushed over to him.
‘So you still like playing with fire,’ said Cloud-Dancer, as the girl cast an anxious glance at the fat landlord and hurried back to the cauldron. ‘My own games are over now, sad to say.’
‘What happened?’
‘I fell off the rope, I don’t dance in the clouds any more. A market trader threw a cabbage at me – I expect I was distracting his customers’ attention. At least I was lucky enough to land on a cloth-merchant’s stall. That way I broke my leg and a couple of ribs, but not my neck.’
Dustfinger looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Then how do you make a living now you can’t walk the tightrope?’
Cloud-Dancer shrugged. ‘Believe it or not, I can still go about on foot. I can even ride with this leg of mine – if there’s a horse