"You're alone even when I'm here, Elinor," said Darius in a strained voice. "You're so unhappy! I can't stand it anymore!"
The stupid dog gave up snuffling around the bedside table and stood in front of her, looking sad. He's right, said his watering doggy eyes.
As if she didn't know! She couldn't stand herself anymore, either. Had she been like this long ago? Before Meggie, Mortimer, and Resa came to live with her? Maybe. But then there'd only been the books around, and they weren't complaining. Although, to be honest, she'd never been as hard on the books as she was on Darius.
"All right, you go, then!" Her voice began shaking in the most ridiculous way. "Leave me alone. You're right. Why would you want to watch me getting more insufferable every day, always waiting for some miracle to bring them back? Perhaps I ought to shoot myself or drown myself in the lake, instead of perishing slowly in this miserable way. Writers sometimes do that, and it sounds good in stories."
Oh, the way he was looking at her with his farsighted eyes! (She really ought to have bought him new glasses long ago. His present pair looked just too silly.) Then he opened the case again and stared at his possessions. He took out Meggie's bookmark and stroked the boldly patterned blue feathers. Blue jay feathers. Meggie had glued them to a strip of pale yellow cardboard. It looked very pretty.
Darius cleared his throat. He cleared it three times.
"Oh, very well!" he said at last, in a voice that he carefully kept level. "You win, Elinor. I'll try it. Fetch me that sheet of paper. Or you probably will go and shoot yourself someday."
What? What was he saying? Elinor's heart began to race, as if hurrying on ahead of her into the Inkworld to see the fairies, the glass men, and the people she loved so much more than she loved any book.
"You mean…?"
Darius nodded, resigned, like a warrior who has fought too many battles. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Elinor."
"I'll get it!" Elinor turned on her heel. Everything that had made her heart so heavy these last few weeks, turning her limbs to an old woman's – it was all gone! Vanished without trace.
But Darius called her back. "Elinor! We ought to take some of Meggie's notebooks, too – and some practical things, like… like a lighter, for instance."
"And a knife!" Elinor added. After all, Basta was where they were going, and she had sworn that when next she met him she'd have a knife in her own hand.
She almost fell down the stairs, she was in such a hurry to get back to the library. Cerberus bounded after her, panting with excitement. Did he guess, in some corner of his doggy heart, that they were following his old master to the place where he'd gone when he had disappeared?
He's going to try it! He's going to try it! Elinor couldn't think of anything else. She didn't think of Resa's lost voice, Cockerell's stiff leg, or Flatnose's mutilated face. Everything's going to be all right, that was all she thought as, with trembling fingers, she took the words that Orpheus had written out of the glass case. This time there won't be any Capricorn to frighten Darius. This time he'll read beautifully. Oh, dear God, Elinor, you're going to see them again!
22. TAKING THE BAIT
If Jim had been able to read he might now have noticed a remarkable circumstance… but the fact was that Jim couldn't read.
Michael Ende, Jim Knopf and the Wild 13
A dwarf about twice the size of a glass man. Definitely not furry like Tullio – no, the dwarf was to have skin as white as alabaster, a head too big for it, and bandy legs. At least the Milksop always knew just what he wanted, even if his orders had come noticeably less often since the Piper arrived in the city. Orpheus was just wondering whether to give the dwarf red hair or the white hair of an albino when Oss knocked, and at his master's grunt of "Enter" put his head around the door. Oss had revolting table manners and was not much given to washing himself, but he never forgot to knock.
"There's another letter for you, my lord!" Ah, how good it made him feel being called that! My lord…
Oss came in, bowed his bald head (he sometimes overdid the servility), and handed Orpheus a sealed piece of paper. Paper? That was strange. The fine gentlemen usually sent their orders written on parchment, and the seal didn't look familiar, either. Well, never mind that. This would be the third order today; business was good. The Piper's arrival had made no difference to that. This world could have been made for him! Hadn't he always known it, ever since he first opened Fenoglio's book with his sweaty schoolboy fingers? His accomplished lies didn't get him jailed as a forger or con man here; they valued his talents at their true worth in this world – and all Ombra bowed to him when he crossed the marketplace in his fine clothes. Fabulous.
"Who's the letter from?"
Oss shrugged his ridiculously broad shoulders. "Dunno, my lord. Farid gave it to me."
"Farid?" Orpheus sat up straight. "Why didn't you say so at once?" He quickly snatched the letter from Oss's clumsy fingers.
Orpheus – of course he didn't begin "Dear Orpheus." Even in the salutation of a letter the Bluejay told no lies! – Farid has told me what you want in return for the words my wife has asked you for. I agree.
Orpheus read the words three times, four, five times, and yes, there it was in black and white.
I agree.
The bookbinder had taken the bait! Could it really be that easy?
Yes, why not? Heroes are fools. Hadn't he always said so? The Bluejay had fallen into the trap, and all he had to do was snap it shut. With a pen, some ink… and his tongue.
"Go away! I want to be alone!" he snarled at Oss, who was standing there looking bored and throwing nuts at the two glass men. "And take Jasper with you!" Orpheus liked talking to himself out loud when he was writing down his ideas, so the glass man had better be out of the room. Jasper sat on Farid's shoulder far too often, and on no account must the boy learn what Orpheus was planning to write now. It was true that the stupid boy wanted Dustfinger back even more fervently than he did, but Orpheus wasn't so sure that he would sacrifice his girlfriend's father in return. No, by now Farid worshipped the Bluejay as much as everyone else here did.
Ironstone gave his brother a gleefully malicious glance as Oss picked up Jasper from the desk with fleshy fingers.
"Parchment!" Orpheus ordered as soon as the door had closed behind the two of them, and Ironstone busily spread the best sheet they had on the desk.
Orpheus, however, went to the window and looked out at the hills from which, presumably, the Bluejay's letter had come. Silvertongue, Bluejay… fine names they'd given him, and yes, Mortimer was certainly very much braver and more noble than Orpheus himself was, but such a paragon couldn't compete with him in cunning. The good are stupid.
You have his wife to thank for this, Orpheus, he told himself as he began pacing up and down (nothing helped him think better). If his wife wasn't so afraid of losing him, you might never have found the bait you need!
Oh, it would be fantastic! His greatest triumph! Unicorns, dwarves, rainbow-colored fairies… not bad at all, but nothing compared to what he'd do now! He would bring the Fire-Dancer back from the dead. Orpheus. Had the name he had taken ever suited him better? But he would be wilier than the singer whose name he had stolen. He would indeed. He would send another man into the realm of Death in the Fire-Dancer's place – and he'd make sure that he didn't come back.
"Do you hear me, Dustfinger, in the cold land where you are now?" whispered Orpheus, while Ironstone busily stirred the ink. "I've caught the bait to buy your freedom, the most wonderful bait of all, decked out with the finest pale blue feathers!"
He began humming, as he always did when he was pleased with himself, and picked up Mortimer's letter again. What else had the Bluejay written?