Inkheart 4 The Colour of Revenge

SHADOWS OF FLAME

Who’d be happy, let him be so:

Nothing’s sure about tomorrow.

Lorenzo de’ Medici

The world was black. It was night in Ombra. Only the castle walls were tinted red. On the battlements, burning shadows stood guard amongst soldiers of flesh and blood. They were there between the archways, and in the square where the living had gathered, flames taking the shapes of women, men and children. The inhabitants of Ombra had lived in peace for more than five years now. But on this cool September night they remembered all those who had given their lives for this peace. And, every year on this date, Dustfinger gave those they had lost bodies of flame. Fire-Dancer. Dustfinger heard the crowd murmuring the name they had given him, the low voices filled with gratitude. Through him, the fire not only summoned Ombra’s dead once a year; it illuminated the city’s narrow streets at night, it warmed the houses in winter, and, when Dustfinger made the flames dance and play with him, it brought joy. The fire delivered his thanks for all the happiness Ombra had granted him. Violante, the ruler who had kept and protected Ombra’s peace, stood on the balcony of the castle. From here she had announced both good and terrible news in the years of her reign. Her subjects no longer referred to her as ‘Her Ugliness’. ‘Violante the Brave’ they called her, sometimes even ‘the Kind’. Violante usually wore black, but tonight her dress was white, for that was the colour of mourning in Ombra. Dustfinger’s daughter stood, as always, by Violante’s side. Brianna had inherited her father’s fiery hair, but otherwise she resembled her mother. When Roxane stepped out of the waiting crowd and bowed her head before Violante, Brianna’s face blushed with love and pride. Roxane’s long hair had turned grey with the years, and, instead of wearing it loose, she usually wore it in a braid now. But in Dustfinger’s eyes the years had only made his wife more beautiful. The crowd fell silent when Roxane began to sing. Her audience had done the same the night that Dustfinger had heard her sing for the very first time – in a much darker, grander castle, in front of princes and rich merchants. Her voice had even distracted them from her beauty. The fire traced Roxane’s shadow on the walls as she sang of all those Ombra had lost. Her voice filled the courtyard with the longing for them, with memories of their laughter and tears, and just for one night – like Dustfinger’s fire – her song brought them back to life. Lost and found . . .

Dustfinger let his gaze wander over the crowd. So many faces. So many stories. Not all of them were interwoven with his own, but some had changed the fabric of his life for ever. There was Fenoglio, whose words had brought him such misfortune, with his little glass man, Rosenquartz, who had sharpened his quills for many years, sitting on his shoulder. The little boy who clung to Fenoglio’s hand was Dante, the son of Mortimer and Resa Folchart. Resa smiled at Dustfinger when their eyes met. Their stories had often intertwined, in this world as well as in another, and they shared memories darker than the sky above them. Her husband was the best bookbinder in Ombra, but nobody had forgotten that Mortimer used to wear the mask of the Bluejay, the legendary robber. Or that he had once sacrificed his own freedom in exchange for the lives of Ombra’s children. Stories . . . Mortimer Folchart looked over at Dustfinger as if he had heard his thoughts. Mortimer’s voice had a different magic from Roxane’s, but luckily he had stopped making use of it many years ago. No one in Ombra knew that he and Resa, like Fenoglio, came from another world. No one except Dustfinger. No. He didn’t want to think of that tonight: all the years in the wrong world, the all-consuming longing ...

You are here, Dustfinger, he reminded himself, as his eyes drifted from Roxane back to Brianna. You have what you longed for: your wife, your daughter, and the world that you love. Why, then, did he still feel the old restlessness that had haunted his youth? ‘You want to pack up and leave again, don’t you?’ Roxane had asked him just yesterday, only half in jest. Sing, sing, Roxane! Dustfinger thought. Just sing away the restlessness of my foolish heart. Her voice filled the night not only with the pain of losing the ones you love, but also with the certainty that love was always worth the pain. That was certainly what Meggie, Mortimer’s daughter, felt at this moment. She was no longer a girl but a young woman, and all of Ombra loved Doria, to whom she had given her heart. How could one resist a boy who built wings from wood and linen and used them to fly off the city walls? Roxane’s voice faded away and Dustfinger’s figures of flame turned into fiery pollen that the wind carried up into the night sky.

‘Your wife’s voice gets more beautiful each year, but your fire was not bad either.’ A warm hand settled on his shoulder. The cloak that the Black Prince wore was so blue that it made Dustfinger think of a deep lake or a dark summer sky. Nyame loved blue. Blue and gold had always been his colours, long before people had started calling him the Black Prince. Violante waved at the crowd one last time, before she disappeared into her chambers and the castle grounds began to empty. It was a cold night without the fire.

‘Where is your marten? Is your settled life boring Gwin?’ Nyame gave Dustfinger a knowing smile. They had been friends for so long that nobody knew better how much the marten embodied Dustfinger’s restlessness. The last years had not brought peace for the Black Prince. There was always a nobleman somewhere mistreating his subjects. And, whenever Nyame allowed himself a few days’ rest in the camp of the Motley Folk, a deputation of desperate farmers was sure to show up, entreating him for help.

‘Right there! Are you blind? There, behind the gate!’ Rosenquartz’s shrill voice cut through the night. ‘

There!’ The glass man almost fell off Fenoglio’s shoulder, pointing his pale red finger at the castle gates, where the people streamed past the guards.

‘Nonsense!’ Fenoglio snapped. ‘It was some other glass man. Just calm down. You are going to make yourself burst one day, getting overexcited about every figment of your imagination!’

‘My imagination?’ squealed Rosenquartz with his reedy voice. ‘It was Ironstone, I’m sure of it. And have you forgotten whom he served? Orpheus!’

Dustfinger thought he could feel his heart turn to ice. Orpheus. No. He was dead, or far, far away.

‘Enough!’ Fenoglio grumbled, annoyed. ‘Was Orpheus with him? No. There you are!’

‘So?’ Rosenquartz whined. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. He was sitting on the shoulder of a fellow who didn’t look trustworthy in the least!’

‘I said, enough!’ Fenoglio snapped again. ‘I’m cold, and I’m sure Minerva has already heated up the delicious soup she made this morning.’

So saying, he joined the crowd that was jostling out of the castle gates. Dustfinger, however, stood there, staring at every shoulder for a grey-limbed glass man. How painfully fast his heart was beating. Painfully fast. Just one mention of that name had brought back all the old fear: Orpheus. What if Rosenquartz was right? What if not only the glass man but Orpheus himself was in Ombra? Was he already sitting in some chamber, writing words that would once again rob the Fire-Dancer of everything he loved?

‘What?’ Nyame wrapped his arm around Dustfinger’s shoulder. ‘Don’t look so worried! Even if it was Orpheus’s glass man, you heard what Rosenquartz said: he has a new master now! Do you seriously believe that we wouldn’t have heard anything from Orpheus for all these years if he was still alive?’

He really did not sound worried. But the memories came back to Dustfinger, whether he wanted them to or not. A face, red with rage, like that of a hurt boy, pale blue eyes behind round lenses, devious despite their apparent innocence. And then the voice, so full and beautiful, which had brought him back here from the wrong world: You ranged yourself on the bookbinder’s side, although he snatched you out of your own story, instead of backing me, the man who brought you home. That was cruel, very cruel. Violante’s guards bolted the castle gates for the night, and the people who had gathered to honour the dead disappeared into the alleyways of the city. Did one of them carry the glass man who could tell him whether his master still lived? Go, Dustfinger. Look for him! Roxane had joined the other motley women. They wanted to meet at the camp down by the river. But Dustfinger still heard the velvet voice in his head, the one he first heard in another world: My black dog is guarding your daughter. I expect she’s terribly afraid. But I’ve ordered my dog not to feast on her sweet flesh and soul . . . just yet.

The horrors of the past were so much more powerful than the fiery shadows he had summoned tonight.

‘Nardo! Are you coming?’ Nyame called, looking back at Dustfinger. In their youth they had taken the fact that their names started with the same letter as proof that their friendship was predestined. Why had he never told Nyame – or Roxane – the truth? About the book and the other world, about all those terrible lost years and the man whose voice had brought him back here? Had life not taught him often enough how lonely keeping secrets made you? You don’t understand, Nyame! he wanted to cry out. There is a book that tells our story. And Orpheus came to this world only because of that book. But Dustfinger remained silent, as he had all the years since his return. The glass man must be wrong. Orpheus was dead. Or back in his world, where the Fire-Dancer and the Black Prince were nothing but heroes of a made-up story.