A sob escaped his throat. He pressed his hands to his mouth. The book, Basta had the book! He’d been supposed to look after it – and how was he ever going to find Dustfinger again now? Farid felt the sheet of paper that held Orpheus’s words. He was still holding it tight. It was damp and dirty – and now it was his only hope.
“Hey, you little bastard! Bite me, would you?” Basta’s voice reached him through the quiet night air. “You can run, but I’ll get you yet, do you hear? You, the fire-eater, Silvertongue and his hoity-toity daughter – and the old man who wrote those accursed words! I’ll kill you all! One by one!
The way I’ve just slit open the beast that came out of the book.” Farid hardly dared to breathe.
Go on, he told himself. Go on! He can’t see you! Trembling, he felt for the next tree trunk, sought a handhold, and was grateful to the wind for blowing through the leaves and drowning out his footsteps with their rustling. How many times do I have to tell you? There aren’t any ghosts in this world. One of its few advantages. He heard Dustfinger’s voice as clearly as if he were still following the fire-eater. Farid kept repeating the words as the tears ran down his face and thorns gashed his feet: There are no ghosts, there are no ghosts!
A branch whipped against his face so hard that he almost cried out. Were they following him? He couldn’t hear anything except the wind. He slipped again and stumbled down the slope. Nettles stung his legs, burrs caught in his hair. And something jumped up at him, furry and warm, pushing its nose into his face.
“Gwin?” Farid felt the little head. Yes, there were the tiny horns. He pressed his face into the marten’s soft fur. “Basta’s back, Gwin!” he whispered. “And he has the book! Suppose Orpheus reads him into it again? He’s sure to go back into the book sometime, don’t you think? How are we going to warn Dustfinger about him now?”
Farid twice found himself back at the road that wound down the mountain, but he dared not walk along it and instead made his way on through the prickly undergrowth. Soon every breath he drew hurt, but he did not stop. Only when the first rays of the sun made their way through the trees, and Basta still hadn’t appeared behind him, did he know that he had gotten away.
Now what? he thought as he lay in the damp grass, gasping for breath. Now what? And suddenly he remembered another voice, the voice that had brought him into this world. Silvertongue. Of course. Only Silvertongue could help Farid now, he or his daughter, Meggie. They were living with the bookworm woman these days. Farid had once been there with Dustfinger. It was a long way to go, particularly with the cuts on his feet. But he had to get there before Basta did. .
Chapter 3 – Dustfinger Comes Home
“What is this?” said the Leopard, “that is so ‘sclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?”
– Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
For a moment Dustfinger felt as if he had never been away as if he had simply had a bad dream, and the memory of it had left a stale taste on his tongue, a shadow on his heart, nothing more. All of a sudden everything was back again: the sounds, so familiar and never forgotten; the scents; the tree trunks dappled in the morning light; the shadow of the leaves on his face. Some were turning color, like the leaves in that other world, so autumn must be coming here, too, but the air was still mild. It smelled of overripe berries, fading blossoms, a thousand or more flowers dazing his senses – flowers pale as wax glimmering under the shade of the trees, blue stars on stems so thin and delicate that he walked carefully so as not to tread on them. Oaks, planes, tulip trees towering to the sky all around him! He had almost forgotten how huge a tree could be, how broad and tall its trunk, with a leaf canopy spreading so wide that a whole troop of horsemen could shelter beneath it. The forests of the other world were so young, their trees still children.
They had always made him feel old, so old that the years covered him like cobwebs. Here he was young again, just a child among the trees, not much older than the mushrooms growing among their roots, not much taller than the thistles and nettles.
But where was the boy?
Dustfinger looked around, searching for him, calling his name again and again. “Farid!” It was a name that had become almost as familiar to him as his own over these last few months. But there was no reply. Only his own voice echoing back from the trees.
So that was it. The boy had been left behind. What would he do now, all alone? Well, thought Dustfinger as he looked around in vain one last time, what do you think? He’ll manage better in that world than you ever did. The noise, the speed, the crowds of people, he likes all that. And you’ve taught him enough of your craft, he can play with fire almost as well as you. Yes, the boy will manage very well. But for a moment the joy of his homecoming wilted in Dustfinger’s heart like one of the flowers at his feet, and the morning light that had welcomed him only a moment ago now seemed wan and lifeless. The other world had cheated him again: Yes, it had let him go after all those years, but it had kept the only beings there to whom he had given his heart. .
Well, and what does that teach you? he thought, kneeling in the dewy grass. Better keep your heart to yourself, Dustfinger. He picked up a leaf that glowed red as fire on the dark moss. There hadn’t been any leaves like that in the other world, had there? So what was the matter with him?
Angry with himself, he straightened up again. Listen, Dustfinger, you’re back! he told himself firmly. Back! Forget the boy –yes, you’ve lost him, but you have your own world back instead, a whole world. You’re back, can you finally believe it?
If only it wasn’t so difficult. It was far easier to believe in unhappiness than in happiness. He would have to touch every flower, feel every tree, crumble the earth in his fingers and feel the first gnat-bite on his skin before he really believed it.
But yes, he was back. He really was back. At last. And suddenly happiness went to his head like a glass of strong wine. Even the thought of Farid couldn’t cloud it anymore. His ten-year nightmare was over. How light he felt, light as one of the leaves raining down from the trees like gold!
He was happy.
Remember, Dustfinger? This is what it feels like. Happiness.
Sure enough, Orpheus had read him to the very place he had described. There was the pool, shimmering among gray and white stones, surrounded by flowering oleander, and only a little way from the bank stood the plane tree where the fire-elves nested. Their nests seemed to cluster more densely around the trunk than he remembered. A less practiced eye might have taken them for bees’ nests, but they were smaller and rather paler, almost as pale as the bark peeling from the tall trunk to which they clung.
Dustfinger looked around, once again breathing the air he had missed so much these last ten years. Scents he had almost forgotten mingled with those that could be found in the other world, too. And you could find trees like the ones around the pool there, too, although smaller and much younger. Branches of eucalyptus and alder reached out over the water as if to cool their leaves. Dustfinger cautiously made his way through the trees until he reached the bank. A tortoise made off at a leisurely pace when his shadow fell on its shell. The tongue of a toad, sitting on a stone, shot out and swallowed a fire-elf. Swarms of them were whirring about over the water, with their high-pitched buzzing that always sounded so angry.