Cornelia Funke - Inkdeath

Inkdeath

by Cornelia Funke

To Rolf, always--it was the best of things to be married to Dustfinger.

To Ileen, who knows all about loss and was always there to understand and ease the pain.

To Andrew, Angie, Antonia, Cam and James, Caroline, Elinor, and last hut for sure not least, Lionel and Oliver, who all brought so much light, warmth, and true friendship to dark days.

And to the City of Angels, which fed me with beauty and wilderness and with the feeling that I had found in Inkworld.

Contents:

1 Nothing but a Dog and a Sheet of Paper

2 Only a Village

3 Written Silver

4 Ink-Clothes

5 Fenoglio Feels Sorry for Himself

6 Sad Ombra

7 A Dangerous Visit

8 Roxanes Pain

9 A Giveaway

10 As If Nothing Had Happened

11 Sick with Longing

12 Back in the Service of Orpheus

13 A Knife through the Heart

14 News from Ombra

15 Loud Words Soft Words

16 The Pipers Offer

17 The Wrong Fear

18 A Dangerous Ally

19 Soldiers Hands

20 A Sleepless Night

21 Sharp Words

22 Taking the Bait

23 The Graveyard of the Strolling Players

24 To Blame

25 The End and the Beginning

26 A Familiar Voice

27 Lost and Back Again

28 A New Song

29 A Visitor to Orpheuss Cellar

30 Sootbirds Fire

31 The Bluejays Answer

32 At Last

33 Herbs for Her Ugliness

34 Burnt Words

35 The Next Verse

36 A Surprising Visitor

37 Only a Magpie

38 A Greeting to the Piper

39 Stolen Children

40 A New Cage

41 Pictures from the Ashes

42 An Audience with the Adderhead

43 Four Berries

44 The Hand of Death

45 Written and Unwritten

46 The Castle in the Lake

47 The Role of Women

48 Waiting

49 Masters New and Old

50 Lazy Old Man

51 The Wrong Helpers

52 The Dead Men in the Forest

53 Human Nests

54 The White Whispering

55 The Wrong Time

56 Fire and Darkness

57 Too Late?

58 Help from Mountains Far Away

59 The Bluejays Angels

60 Mother and Son

61 Clothed and Unclothed

62 Black

63 Ah, Fenoglio!

64 Light

65 Made Visible

66 Love Disguised as Hate

67 The Other Name

68 Back

69 The Adderheads Bedchamber

70 Burning Words

71 The Bookbinder

72 So Many Tears

73 The Night-Mare

74 The Other Side

75 The Book

76 White Night

77 Over

78 Staked on the Wrong Card

79 Leaving

80 Ombra

81 Later

An AZ of the Inkworld

Inkheart

Mortimer Folchart (Mo) a bookbinder, has such a beautiful voice that it can bring characters out of books when he reads aloud He discovered his dangerous gift by accident when he was reading a story called Inkheart to his wife, Resa, and daughter, Meggie Several characters, including the evil Capricorn and some of his followers, came out of the book and into our world while Resa vanished into the story. Meggie, only three at the time, cant even remember her mother.

Nine years later, the fire-eater Dustfinger, one of the Inkheart characters and desperately homesick for his own world, visits Mo and Meggie (now twelve years old) to warn them that Capricorn is looking for all copies of the book to destroy them, so that no one can ever move between the two worlds again by reading from it. He is after the copy that Mo still has, and healso wants to force Mo to read treasure out of books for him.

Capricorn and his criminal gang have made an Italian village their headquarters, and when Dustfinger treacherously tells them where to find Mo, he is kidnapped and taken there. Meggie, her great-aunt Elinor (a book collector with a fine library), and the repentant Dustfinger join forces to rescue Mo. But they no longer have the book that might help Dustfinger to get home and Mo to find his wife at last. With a new friendFarid, a boy read accidentally out of the Arabian Nights by Mo they track down the author of Inkheart, onl Fenoglio, but his own copies have also been stolen. Although a single copy is left, it is in the hands of Capricorn andhis witchlike mother, Mortola. After many more perilous adventures, Fenoglio and Meggie end up as captives back in Capricorns village. Meggie, who has inherited her fathers unusual talent, is to be made to read Capricorns ally, a terrible creature known as the Shadow, out of the remaining copy of Inkheart. But with the help of Fenoglio, who writes new words to add to the story, Meggie and Mo turn the tables and Capricorn falls dead. Fenoglio himself disappears intothe Inkworld in exchange for the Shadow. With Dustfingers help, Resa, who spent years in the Inkworld serving Capricorn and Mortola and lost her voice in passing between the two worlds, is found again. Reunited, the Folcharts all go home to Elinors house.

INKSPELL

At the end of Inkheart, Dustfinger goes away with the only existing copy of Fenoglios story and with Farid, who wants to learn to be a fire-eater. Now, in Inkspefl, Dustfinger has finally found someone to read him back to his own world: a petty criminal calling himself Orpheus who has a wonder-working voice like Mos. Orpheus wants the book for himself, and reads Dustfinger into the Inkworld, but not his devoted apprentice, Farid, who is left holding the book. Farid takes refuge with the Folcharts in Elinors house.

Meggie, longing to see the Inkworld, too, discovers that she can read herself and Farid there. It is a place of marvels fairies, water-nymphs, brownies and when they meet a band of strolling players whose leader is known as the Black Prince, they are taken to the city of Ombra, capital of Lombrica, and find Fenoglio there. Ombra is in mourning for its ruling princes son, Cosimo the Fair, killed by a gang of fire-raisers led by Firefox, one of Capricorns men. And it is threatened by the ruler of the country of Argenta, known as the Adderhead, whose daughter, Violante, is Cosimos widow. Near Ombra, Dustfinger has been reunited with his wife, Roxane, once a minstrel woman and now wise in herbal- healing lore. But his daughter, Brianna, Violantes maid, is hostile to him. Back in our own world, Orpheus has allies: Capricorns mother, Mortola, and his henchman Basta, who turn up at Elinors house. Orpheus is to read them and Mo into the Inkworld, where Mortola believes her son will still be alive. Inher fury at finding that he is dead there, too, she shoots and wounds Mo, to the horror of Resa, who grabs his hand at the last moment and goes into the Inkworld, too. Resa nurses her husband devotedly, keeping away the White Women who visit those close to death. They meet the strolling players, who take Mo for a famous robber known as the Bluejay. Left behind inr world, Elinor and her friend Darius, formerly reader to Capricorn, are still imprisoned in Elinors house, while Orpheus acts as if he were lord of Elinor's Library.

Once again, Fenoglio and Meggie combine their talents for writing and reading aloud, this time in order to bring Cosimo the Fair back to life. But Cosimos campaign against the Adderheads forces ends in a disastrous defeat and many deaths. Fenoglio has lost control of his story, which now seems to be telling itself. Full of remorse, he vows never to write again. Mo and Resa have been captured and taken to the Castle of Night in Argenta, where Mo, with Meggies help, is forced to bind a magic book to keep the Adderhead alive forever. In return the Adderhead releases them, as agreed, but he sends soldiers after them and their friends: Dustfinger, the Black Prince, and his men. Basta kills Farid in the fighting, and is killed himself by Mo. Dustfinger bargains with the White Women, daughters of Death, to take Farids place and dies instead. Farid, alive again but distraught, persuades Fenoglio to write words for Meggie to read aloud that will bring Orpheus to the Inkworld, hoping that if he read Dustfinger home he can also read him back to life. And Orpheus arrives, clutching the single remaining copy of Inkheart. But was it safe to bring him here? And will Orpheus do what Farid wants...?