Read Online Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke - Free Book Online
Authors: Cornelia Funke
Tags: Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Magic, Fantasy & Magic, Literary Criticism, Kidnapping, Crafts & Hobbies, Law & Crime, Children's Literature, Books & Libraries, Books and reading, Characters in Literature, Characters and Characteristics in Literature, Bookbinding, Book Printing & Binding
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Fenoglio felt sure Orpheus didn’t have to open his door for himself Apparently, his new bodyguard was so large he could hardly get through the city gate. Bodyguard! If I ever do write again, thought Fenoglio, I’ll get Meggie to read me a giant here, and we’ll see what the Calf’s-Head has to say about that.
The knocking was getting rather impatient.
"Coming, coming!" Fenoglio stumbled over an empty wine jug as he looked for his trousers. Laboriously, he climbed into them. How his bones ached! The hell with old age. Why hadn’t he written a story in which people were young forever? Because it would be boring, he thought as he hopped over to the door, one leg in the scratchy trousers. Deadly boring.
"Sorry, Mortimer!" he called. "The glass man forgot to wake me up at the right time!"
Behind him, Rosenquartz began protesting, but the voice that replied to him outside wasn’t Mortimer’s — even if it was almost as beautiful as his. Orpheus. Talk of the devil! What did he want here? Come to complain that Rosenquartz had been in his house Spying? If anyone has a reason to complain, I do, thought Fenoglio. After all, it’s my story he’s plundering and distorting! Miserable Calf’s-Head, Milkface, Bullfrog, Whippersnapper . . . Fenoglio had many names for Orpheus, none of them flattering.
Wasn’t it bad enough that he kept sending Farid to bother him? Did he have to come himself? He was sure to ask thousands of stupid questions again. Your own fault, Fenoglio! How often he’d cursed himself for the words he’d written in the mine at Meggie’s urging: So he called on another, younger man, Orpheus by name skilled in letters, even if he could not yet handle them with the mastery of Fenoglio himself —
and decided to instruct him in his art, as every master does at some time. For a while Orpheus should play with words in his place, seduce and lie with them, create and destroy, banish and restore — while Fenoglio waited for his weariness to pass, for his pleasure in words to reawaken, and then he would send Orpheus back to the world from which he had summoned him, to keep his story alive with new words never used before.
"I ought to write him back where he came from!" Fenoglio growled as he kicked the empty jug out of his way. "Right now!"
"Write? Did I hear you say write?" Rosenquartz asked ironically behind him. He was back to his normal color. Fenoglio threw a dry crust of bread at him, but it missed Rosenquartz’s pale pink head by more than a hand’s breadth, and the glass man gave a sympathetic sigh.
"Fenoglio? Fenoglio, I know you’re in there! Open the door." God, how he hated that voice. Planting words in his story like weeds. His own words!
"No, I’m not here!" growled Fenoglio. "Not for you, Calf’s-Head!"
Fenoglio, is Death a man or a woman? Were the White Women once living human beings? Fenoglio, how am I to bring Dustfinger back if you can’t even tell me the simplest rules of this world? Enough of his questions. For God’s sake, who had asked him to bring Dustfinger back? If everything had gone the way Fenoglio had originally written it, the man would have been dead long ago in any case. And as for
"the simplest rules," since when, might he ask, were life and death simple? Hang it all (and there was more than enough hanging in Ombra these days anyway), how was he supposed to know how everything worked, in this or any other world? He’d never thought much about death or what came after it. Why bother? While you were alive, why would death interest you? And once you were dead — well, presumably you weren’t interested in anything anymore.
"Of course he’s there! Fenoglio?" That was Minerva’s voice. Damn it, the Calf’s-Head had roped her in to help him. Cunning. At least Orpheus was far from stupid.
Fenoglio hid the empty wine jugs under the bed, forced his other leg into his trousers, and unbolted the door.
"So there you are!" Minerva inspected him
The knocking was getting rather impatient.
"Coming, coming!" Fenoglio stumbled over an empty wine jug as he looked for his trousers. Laboriously, he climbed into them. How his bones ached! The hell with old age. Why hadn’t he written a story in which people were young forever? Because it would be boring, he thought as he hopped over to the door, one leg in the scratchy trousers. Deadly boring.
"Sorry, Mortimer!" he called. "The glass man forgot to wake me up at the right time!"
Behind him, Rosenquartz began protesting, but the voice that replied to him outside wasn’t Mortimer’s — even if it was almost as beautiful as his. Orpheus. Talk of the devil! What did he want here? Come to complain that Rosenquartz had been in his house Spying? If anyone has a reason to complain, I do, thought Fenoglio. After all, it’s my story he’s plundering and distorting! Miserable Calf’s-Head, Milkface, Bullfrog, Whippersnapper . . . Fenoglio had many names for Orpheus, none of them flattering.
Wasn’t it bad enough that he kept sending Farid to bother him? Did he have to come himself? He was sure to ask thousands of stupid questions again. Your own fault, Fenoglio! How often he’d cursed himself for the words he’d written in the mine at Meggie’s urging: So he called on another, younger man, Orpheus by name skilled in letters, even if he could not yet handle them with the mastery of Fenoglio himself —
and decided to instruct him in his art, as every master does at some time. For a while Orpheus should play with words in his place, seduce and lie with them, create and destroy, banish and restore — while Fenoglio waited for his weariness to pass, for his pleasure in words to reawaken, and then he would send Orpheus back to the world from which he had summoned him, to keep his story alive with new words never used before.
"I ought to write him back where he came from!" Fenoglio growled as he kicked the empty jug out of his way. "Right now!"
"Write? Did I hear you say write?" Rosenquartz asked ironically behind him. He was back to his normal color. Fenoglio threw a dry crust of bread at him, but it missed Rosenquartz’s pale pink head by more than a hand’s breadth, and the glass man gave a sympathetic sigh.
"Fenoglio? Fenoglio, I know you’re in there! Open the door." God, how he hated that voice. Planting words in his story like weeds. His own words!
"No, I’m not here!" growled Fenoglio. "Not for you, Calf’s-Head!"
Fenoglio, is Death a man or a woman? Were the White Women once living human beings? Fenoglio, how am I to bring Dustfinger back if you can’t even tell me the simplest rules of this world? Enough of his questions. For God’s sake, who had asked him to bring Dustfinger back? If everything had gone the way Fenoglio had originally written it, the man would have been dead long ago in any case. And as for
"the simplest rules," since when, might he ask, were life and death simple? Hang it all (and there was more than enough hanging in Ombra these days anyway), how was he supposed to know how everything worked, in this or any other world? He’d never thought much about death or what came after it. Why bother? While you were alive, why would death interest you? And once you were dead — well, presumably you weren’t interested in anything anymore.
"Of course he’s there! Fenoglio?" That was Minerva’s voice. Damn it, the Calf’s-Head had roped her in to help him. Cunning. At least Orpheus was far from stupid.
Fenoglio hid the empty wine jugs under the bed, forced his other leg into his trousers, and unbolted the door.
"So there you are!" Minerva inspected him
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