Abarat: Absolute Midnight (18 page)

Chapter 33
No Stranger Now

E
VERYONE HAD QUESTIONS, OF
course. Where had Candy been in her dream travels? And who (or what) had she encountered on her journey that had caused her to struggle so desperately while she slept?

“It’s complicated,” Candy told them all. “And I’m hungry. Could we go find some food and I’ll tell you while we eat?”

There was no disagreement on that. Everybody was hungry.

“Let me and the boys lead the way,” Mischief said. “We’ll find somewhere to eat. Eight pairs of eyes are better than one.”

So saying, he and his brothers headed down the gangplank and onto the dock, leaving the others to follow at a more leisurely pace. As she walked Candy was struck by the peculiar hush that lay upon the harbor. Though it was far from deserted—there were people working on board the fishing boats that were moored along the quay, and the streets that led up into the town were busy—everyone was talking very quietly. There was no shouting or cursing from the fishermen, nor laughter and chatter among the women in the market. Even the large Abaratian seagulls, which were usually even more raucous than their brethren in the Hereafter, were not making their usual demands. In fact all but those few too ancient to fly were in the harbor. The rest had gone; the only sign of their numbers was the white droppings all along the seawall where they’d perched.

Candy surreptitiously snagged Malingo’s arm.

“There’s something wrong here, isn’t there?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said quietly. “But what?”

In search of an answer Candy scanned the streets of the town, which was built on the flank of a steep hill, its whitewashed houses neatly arrayed on its zigzagging streets. Many of their windows were shuttered and their drapes drawn. Clearly, a lot of the residents in the town had no desire to even look outside, much less step.

“Oh, Lordy Lou,” Malingo murmured.

“What?”

She glanced at Malingo. He was staring at the sky. She did the same.

There was a wind blowing up there, carrying before it, in a northerly direction, a great flotilla of clouds. It wasn’t the clouds, however, that had caught Malingo’s eye. It was the birds that were flying through them. A mass migration was underway, not just of the seabirds that had vacated the harbor, but of hundreds of species—no thousands—many of which challenged the very definition of a bird. There was a flock of what looked to be winged boars, and several flights of feathered dragonflies. Their size was hard to gauge, but if the boars were the size of pigs, the dragonflies were the size of seagulls. The giants of this chaotic flock, however—creatures as big as airships, and kept aloft by the same bloated bodies, but trailed streams of flickering tentacles, like the tails of countless kites intertwined with quarter-mile strings of Christmas tree lights.

“So many,” Geneva said, amazed. Then, more darkly, “But where are they all going?”

“Have you seen anything like this before?” Candy asked.

“No, nothing,” Malingo said. “Even as a kid.”

“Me neither.”

There were shaken heads from everyone.

“There’s plenty of eating places along the harbor front,” Mischief and his brothers had already returned to report.

“It’s mostly fish,” said John Slop.

“It’s all fish,” said John Fillet.

“There’s crab,” said John Moot, “and squidling.”

“It’s still fish,” countered John Fillet.

“A crab isn’t a fish,” John Drowze said.

“Let’s just eat,” said Tom.

Candy looked at Malingo. The massive migration of birds had passed out of sight. With their disappearance there wasn’t much else to discuss.

“Agreed,” Candy said.

They wandered along the small cafés and restaurants along the harbor front, consulting the menus on view outside. But their harassed proprietors quickly appeared to offer them some bad news. Tonight’s dining would be delayed. It had yet to be filleted, battered and fried because it had yet to arrive. Everyone tried to make the delay sound quite inconsequential, a common occurrence. But they didn’t fool Candy.

“Where were they fishing?” she asked one of the café owners.

“To the west,” the owner replied, “in the straits between Gnomon and Gorgossium.”

West,
Candy thought.
The direction from which the birds were flying. What was going on? Something out of Gorgossium, more likely than not.

With all the premises along the harbor front proving useless, they decided to head up into the town in search of other sources of sustenance. The cobbled streets were steep, and the climb was hard work. But the reward was the sound of laughter, mainly where children were playing. Busy though the market street was, it was hard to miss the sight of the green-skinned man with piercing eyes towering over the crowd. It was an odd sight, considering the green man was shorter than he was green.

“Well, look who’s here,” Candy said with a smile. “Legitimate Eddie!”

“Where?” said Malingo.

“Straight ahead. And he’s standing on Betty Thunder’s shoulders.”

“Eddie and Betty?” said Two-Toed Tom. “Are you making this up?”

“They’re actors,” said Malingo. “They put on a play about us once. It was very funny.”

“I don’t see anyone,” said John Mischief, who was the shortest of his brothers.

Tom peered ahead and nodded.

“I see them. Oh, look at that. She looks so glamorous. All those sequins. All those muscles.”

They emerged from within the crowd and everyone could now see that they were accompanied by their playwright friend, a five-foot ape named Clyde, who was waving.

“Well, well, well,” said Legitimate Eddie. “If it isn’t Qwandy Tootinfruit and her friend Jingo.”

Everyone except Candy and Malingo looked extremely confused.

“Oh, I love reunions,” Candy said, and proceeded to make a round of introductions.

Once everyone had become acquainted, everyone decided that eating would be the next order of business, and proceeded up through the streets of Qualm Hah. At the top of one street, a market with all manner of things for sale: the produce of an Hour blessed by sun and showers; the endless balm of late spring morning; there were even some fruits here Candy knew and could name—Abaratian specialties like tuntarunts and doemanna rotts and kuthuries—but there were far more that she did not know.

“Forbidden fruits,” Legitimate Eddie said, plucking one very lushly shaped fruit from a pile. “She’s a big girl, this one,” he said with a mischievous grin. “Looks like you, Betty.”

The fruit did indeed resemble a very curvaceous woman. Betty was not offended.

“If it’s me then I’ll take it,” she said.

“They’re the best moriana we’ve had in a very long time,” the stallkeeper said.

“What’s the big deal?” Candy said.

“You tell her,” Betty said, biting the head off the moriana, then the upper body. The smell that spread from the coral-pink flesh of the fruit was so delicious it made Candy dizzy with pleasure.

“Oh wow,” she said.

“Aren’t they good? And no you can’t have a bite. Ask Eddie to buy you one,” said Betty.

“Why should I—?”

“You bought
me
one,” Betty said.

“I’m paying for that?”

“You’d better,” the wood-toothed stallkeeper said.

“I’ll pay for
one
,” Eddie said, putting up a single, stubby green finger.

“Uno moriana is seven paterzem.”

“Seven?” said Candy. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Where have you been?” the stallkeeper asked. “Paterzem ain’t worth what they used to be.”

As Eddie paid for Betty’s meal, Candy searched her pockets. She had two patterzem and some change.

“Where’s Malingo?” she said more to herself than anyone. “He’s got all our cash.”

She told everyone that she was going to look for Malingo and headed off along the line of stalls, assuming he’d wandered on ahead. She was surprised to find that he wasn’t just a few paces farther on, but had apparently gone on to explore the more elaborate stalls farther on, and more particularly, knowing Malingo, he’d headed for the marionette show that was playing for a crowd of adults and children at the very end of the street. She started to make her way through the throng toward the puppet theater, standing on tiptoe now and then or jumping up and down on the spot in the hope of catching a glimpse of him.

The third time she tried jumping she saw him. He was no longer on the street, however. He’d had a bad experience in Babilonium when he and Candy had been separated from each other. It had scarred him, causing him to feel uncomfortable in large crowds, and he’d apparently decided to get out of the press of people for a little while. Now he was standing in a narrow alleyway, barely more than a vague form beckoning to her from the shadows.

“There you are!” she yelled to him as she made her way across the street. Once on the other side she slid cautiously between two stalls piled high with produce. Then she stepped out of the bright, noisy street into the hushed, shadowy alley.

“I thought for sure you’d be watching the puppet show,” Candy said to him.

“I took a quick look,” Malingo said. “But it was the same old story. You know . . .”

“Not really,” Candy said, a little mystified.

“Yes, you do. Love and Death. It’s always Love and Death. Though at least with puppets you see things the way they really are. Everything has strings attached.”

It was unusual for Malingo to make a joke. And this one actually made Candy laugh, though there seemed to be some significance in the remark that she couldn’t connect with Malingo and his life.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked him.

It was Malingo who laughed now: though there was something about the echo in the alleyway that made the sound darker and deeper than it should have been. Candy slowed her approach. Now she stopped.

“What secret would I have from you?” Malingo said. “You of
all people.”

“I don’t know,” Candy said.

“Then why are you asking?”

“Just that you were talking about love.”

“Ah,” he said softly. “Yes, and I was talking as though I’d actually experienced it. Yes. As though I knew how it felt to fall for somebody. And then to hear them making all the right promises. That they’d love you forever if you’d just give them . . .” He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Something inconsequential.”

Candy felt an icy nail run down her spine. This wasn’t Malingo.

“I’m sorry,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice from betraying her fear. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“It’s not you who needs to apologize, Candy,” the figure in the shadows said. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” she said, still attempting to sound as though there was nothing of great importance here, simply a misunderstanding. “I have to go. I have friends . . . waiting . . .” She made an attempt to look back, but her gaze returned to the stranger.

Except, of course, he
wasn’t
a stranger.

“I thought you were dead,” she said very quietly.

“So did I,” Christopher Carrion replied.

Chapter 34
Unfinished

“I
WOULD HAVE DIED,” HE
said, “except that I knew you were still here, Princess. I think that’s what kept me from giving up completely. The thought of finding my way back to you. Oh, and my nightmares, of course.”

As he spoke, two of the filament creatures slid out of hiding among the tattered robes Carrion was wearing, and encircled his neck. Though they were not as bright as they’d once been, the phosphorescence they gave off was still enough to offer her a glimpse of Carrion’s face. He looked like something that had been thumbed out of mud and excrement, his eyes little more than pits in which there were slivers of light, his lips ragged strips of dirt and sinew that could not conceal his dead bone smile.

“Don’t look at me, Princess,” he said. He tried to turn away from her, to conceal his diminished state but he did so too quickly for his mismade legs. They failed him, and he stumbled. He would have fallen in the filth underfoot had he not reached out and forced his fingers—which for all their crude form, did not lack strength—into the rotted plaster and fractured stone.

“I’m ashamed that you should see me like this. But I needed to be in your presence, just for a little time. When you next see me—”

“She isn’t here,” Candy said.

“What?”

“We parted ways.”

“You drove her out?”

“Not all by myself. I needed help to be sure I had the details right. But she is gone
.
See for yourself. Look in my mind.” She approached his hunched-over figure as she spoke to him, raising her arm as she did so, offering contact. “Go on. Do whatever you need to do. I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

It was true. The Lord of Midnight who’d stalked her in the Dead Man’s House was nowhere visible in this frail shadow figure that stood before her now. He glanced at her face, his raw features riddled with suspicion. Then he reached out and touched her, fingertips to fingertips. She felt his inquiring presence in her, like ice water swallowed on a baking-hot day.

“She’d used you up,” she said to him. “So she left.”

She seemed to hear him calling for his Princess in her head. Just her name. No endearments. No filigrees. Just that plaintive crying out.

“You loved her, didn’t you?” Candy said. “You still do.”

Carrion raised his head a few inches and turned to look at Candy. There was such despair in that broken face, and such rage there too, mingled with it.

“Yes, I love her,” he said. “Of course I love her.”

“And she promised she’d love you, if you gave her what she wanted.”

Carrion made a tiny nod of his head.

“Which was . . . ?”

“Magic, of course. Nothing significant at the beginning, she just wanted to find out whether she had an aptitude for it.”

“Which she did.”

“Yes. Then of course she wanted more.”

“When was all this? Before I was born?”

“Of course, years and years. These things don’t happen quickly.”

“What do you mean:
these things
?”

“I mean I fell in love with her. She was a very powerful creature. But this was long before you were born, Candy. I was a very young man. I couldn’t resist her. I gave her access to the Abarataraba. And I think she probably started to steal secrets from it immediately. So many secrets. I let her steal whatever she wanted as proof of my love. I even built her a place where she could practice what she’d learned.”

“Where was that?”

“On the Isle of the Black Egg. Building her that place was my first big mistake. She told me she wanted her privacy, and I could only step foot there if she invited me. Which I didn’t do much. Sometimes I’d wait maybe two or three months before she’d deign to let me see her.”

“But you put up with it.”

“I loved her beyond all reason.”

“And she knew . . .”

“She knew.”

Before Carrion could reply, Candy heard John Mischief calling her name. Then Drowze. Then Serpent. She glanced back toward the market. There was no sign of them. But it was only a matter of time before one of them came looking.

“It’s time we parted, Carrion. If any of my friends see you they’ll assume the worst and you’ll get hurt.”

“Do you really care?”

“I suppose . . . yes. I suppose I must. Seems to me you’ve been hurt enough one way or another.”

“I’ve taken a lot of lives in my time. I don’t suppose that comes as any surprise.”

“Not really.”

“But you still wish me no harm? I find that . . . unusual, to say the least. It’s not as though you’re a sentimental girl.”

“I thought I saw you die once already,” Candy said. “And that was enough. Nobody needs to suffer that twice.”

“One life, one death . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“If only things were that equitable.”

“Well, aren’t they? You live a life, you die. That’s it.”

“No, Candy, that’s not it. We each of us die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame and humiliation. We perish from despair. And of course we die for . . .” He stared at the garbage-strewn ground, the word he wanted to say defying him.

Candy said it for him.

“Love.”

He nodded, still looking at the ground. “Nothing else wounds so deeply and irreparably. Nothing else robs us of hope so much as being unloved by one we love.”

“Why can’t you let her go?”

“Because if I did, I’d have no reason to live.”

“Come on,” Candy said with a smile in her voice. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Have you ever loved, then lost your beloved?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Then let us remember to talk again, when things are different.”

Candy heard her name called again.

“Somebody is looking for you?” Carrion said.

“Yes. I have friends here. They’ll come looking for me soon.”

“And—”

“Well . . . they wouldn’t . . .” She struggled for the words. “I haven’t . . . I mean, what we . . .”

“What we?”

“We have a strange . . .”

“Go on. Say whatever it is you were going to say.”

“Friendship. We have a strange friendship.”

“That we do,” he said. “Are you ashamed of it? Of me?”

“No. It’s just . . . when people talk about you—”

“You don’t need to go on. I know my reputation. After all, I earned it.”

“Please,” Candy said. “
Go.
I’m going back to—”

“Wait. Before you rush off. You need to know something.”

“Well, be quick.”

“Go back to the Hereafter.
Now.
And go quickly. Take your friends if you want to save their lives.”

“Why?”

Carrion sighed.

“Why can’t you just take my word this once?”

“I’m me. I ask questions. And try to stop you from getting killed.”

“And now I’m returning the favor.”

“Are you saying that if I stay in the Abarat I’ll be killed?”

“Not just you. Most of the Abarat is about to change forever.”

“How? Why?”

Carrion drew an aching breath and spoke.

“You may as well know, I suppose, if it’ll persuade you to go.” He took another breath, deeper still. Then came the answer to her question. “I’ve reconnected with a few of my spies. I used to pay them to inform on my grandmother. The Old Hag has a few tricks up her sleeve. She’s creating something called a stormwalker.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“No. You shouldn’t. Second, an army of stitchlings has been assembled. Enough to provide ‘a knife for every heart,’ was the phrase my employee used.”

“Lordy Lou,” Candy whispered.

“And—”

“There’s more?”

“Much. Absolute Midnight, Candy. That’s what my grandmother calls it. She plans to block out the light. No moons, no suns, no stars. The sky will be dark over land and sea. And it will be
cold
.”

Candy felt dizzy. This was a lot of information to process in far too short a time.

“She has enough power to blot out the suns?”

“Not personally. She’s unleashed a living darkness. A species called the sacbrood, who’ve been growing in number for years. Now there are millions of them. Enough to cover the heavens from one end of the Abarat to the other.”

“And you were part of this?”

“She raised me to release them. I was to be the one she knew she could trust. After the fire, there was only she and I. Everything I had I owed to her, starting with my life. And she never let me forget it.”

“So the sacbrood cover the skies? There’s no light? No warmth? It’s like the end of the world?”

“That’s right.”

“But they can’t stay up there forever, can they?”

“No. They’ll die off after a time. But it’ll only take a few days of darkness for the real trouble to show itself. There are fiends all across the Hours who have been waiting for this Midnight. Enemies of the light, waiting for a chance to strike down those who loved the sun, moon, and stars. These enemies are monsters of every kind, but they have hatred in common. They’re all outcasts, pariahs; fiends who’ve escaped the gallows or the guillotine, and want revenge. Ghouls, Malefics, Wrathaki, Babelites; fifty kinds of monsters you could maybe name, and three times as many you could not. They’ve been out of sight for so long, living with the dead, or in thunderheads, or in places where the waters of the Izabella are all bruise and blood. So they’ve been hiding. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting until this Midnight, when they will finally get their chance to slaughter everything that smells of happiness.”

“A plot like this can’t have been completely unseen. What about the Council? Or people who see the future?”

“If anyone saw the truth and spoke it, then that was the end of them. My grandmother has never needed the law to get a judgment. She is her own judge, and her seamstresses her executioners. One needle, driven into the eye, or one knife—”

“All right,” Candy said. “I get the idea. I wish I knew you for a liar.”

“But I’m not.”

“No. You’re not. They’re coming out of the west, aren’t they?”

“How did you know?” Carrion said.

“The birds,” Candy replied.

It wasn’t much of an answer, but it seemed to be all that Carrion needed.

“Well, now it’s no longer a secret. There’s no need for anyone to move carefully. So it’ll spread quickly.”

“So what’s to be done? How do we defend ourselves?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There is no defense, Candy. Just go back home while you still can. And be grateful that you’ve got Chickentown to go back to.”

“Back to Chickentown?
No
. I love the Abarat. I won’t give up on it.”

“So love it from afar. Sometimes it’s better that way.”

“There you are!”

She looked back down the alley. The John Brothers were heading toward her.

“Go,” she murmured to Carrion.

“Who’s your friend?” John Drowze wanted to know.

Carrion gave her one last puzzled look, then he started to stumble back away down the alley. She watched him take a few steps, then she turned back to face the brothers.

“Who was that?” Mischief said.

“It doesn’t matter, at least not now. We have more urgent problems. Where is everyone?”

Half the brothers were still looking back into the shadows where Candy’s mysterious friend had gone, while the rest were trying to follow Candy and there was an absurd moment when they went neither one way nor the other.

“Mischief, will you get your brothers in order? We have to ready ourselves.”

“For what?” Mischief said.

“The End of the World,” she replied.