Abarat: Absolute Midnight (31 page)

Chapter 55
Below

C
ANDY DRIFTED OFF TO
sleep. She let out a long, slow breath and let her dream-self slide out upon it and through the layers of timber and tar into the ship’s skin of paint. It was red, of course, what a fine thing it was, to be red! To be the color of fire and blood and poppies and the setting sun.

She flowed from the prison-ship with dreamy ease, freed of all bodily concerns, yet in that freedom reconnected to all that was essential in her. All that was true and real and right.

She glanced back one last time at the prison-ship, where her second prison, that of her body, awaited her return. The nearest island was plainly visible to her dream sight, the waves blazing white as they met its shore.

The prison-ship was not far from its destination. A makeshift harbor had been built on the northeastern corner of Scoriae, lit by banks of acidic lights that were being buffeted by the gusting winds. There were two prison-ships identical to the one Candy had just left already using the primitive facilities the harbor provided. She could see lines of prisoners, all exhibiting signs of mistreatment, hobbling, some of them, others carried by stronger
companions, as the Empress’s stitchlings beat them with bludgeons to keep them moving; cruelty heaped upon cruelty, prisoners begging for a judgment from some Higher Power Candy no longer believed would intervene.

She threw her rage high into the air, where it tumbled over like brawling birds, then dropped back into the Izabella to carry her down. It was dark here, yes, but her presence drew luminosities to her in the billions; tiny motes of life attended upon her anatomy, formless though it was, and made of her a bright cloak that sank, bejeweled into the lightless deeps.

Now she had to put some force into her descent, but that was not so hard when the alternative was what she’d seen on Scoriae. Yes, she would have to go back there, of course. But not yet . . . Not quite yet.

Another ten minutes, Mama, please, before you bid me leave. Just ten.

The sea indulged her, and so on down and down she took her gown of light.

Such illumination was rare here, and drew curious eyes. She’d seen many of their species on her plate or for sale in a market stall. But the species she’d made meals of gave way very soon to others that would happily have made a meal of her, many were relatives of species she knew from the Hereafter, albeit much changed by the waters in which they swam. The hammerhead shark had become less hammer and more ax; the whale that moved with solitary grandeur below her housed a bright globe of much smaller fish, which seemed to propel it.

And still she descended, increasingly mindful of how soon she would have to return to the ship and her body.

Just another minute or two,
she begged.

There were coral cliffs down here, though they seemed dead: their faces white with ash from the chimneys that vented volcanic fires, outposts of Mount Galigali’s Empire. And then—seconds before she knew she must return to the ship—she was blessed with a vision. A tree appeared in her head, driving away the gloom: a living tree with lemon-white blossoms and a canopy so perfectly blue . . . She’d heard a poem once about that very thing.

Life was . . . something

And dead the crew.

And sinking the ship—

No, no!

And holed the ship,

And drowned the crew.

But o! But o!

How very blue

The sea is!

She was tempted to dive on, deeper still. And she wondered how far would she have to propel her thoughts before she had sight of the legendary Requiax?

Diamanda, Candy remembered, had called them:
the “enemies of love, the enemies of life. Wicked beyond words.”

Candy had asked where they resided, and Joephi had told her that they were deep in the Izabella, where she hoped they’d stay. Diamanda had doubted that things would be so simple. She’d heard rumors that they were on the move.

“. . . there are those who say that when they surface, it will be the end of the world as we know it.”

Well, that had come true, already. So did this mean the creatures below her were now going to be walking the islands? She had to see them for herself. Just once, a quick peek. What did the enemy of life and love look like? She might never get another chance to find out for herself.

She willed her thoughts down into a darkness beyond all darknesses she had ever witnessed before.

Something down there knew she was coming. She could feel its vastness unfolding, its limbs or tongues or both, reaching up toward her thoughts, and touching them with a beguiling gentility. And as they touched her she remembered, for no reason she could fathom, something else she’d been told. Except that the subject hadn’t been the Requiax. It had been a remark about the fact that magic seemed to be just about everywhere nowadays.

“It’s going to take time to root out all the magic in these islands,”
she once heard somebody saying.
“We’ve got a lot of books to burn, a lot of spirits to break—”

Then very slowly, the tentacles unknotted themselves, and there below her was the man who’d spoken those words, though he’d changed much since their last encounter.

“Hello again,” said Rojo Pixler.

Chapter 56
The Hand in Fire

“
U
P
!”
THE
E
MPRESS YELLED
to the doorkeeper and his staff. “Quickly,
quickly
. They mean to harm the hand!”

The doorkeeper, Mister Drummadian, was already coming to greet his Empress on the broad walkway, which was automatically moving into position. She stepped off the air and onto the walkway. He had wiped the grin of welcome off his face at the first glimpse of his Empress’s expression. Before he could even murmur a word of welcome she said: “Get your soldiers down there, Drummadian!
Right now!
”

“Yes, ma’am.” He yelled an order to the Captain of the Guard. “You heard the order, Flayshak!”

Captain Flayshak, a gargantuan skullier stitchling with a uniform that barely constrained his six-armed torso, was on the task.

“I did indeed, sir!”

He summoned three of his stitchlings to his side with a few sharp syllables in the old voice, and then simply plunged into the Elevation Beam with his fellow soldiers following behind.

“Who’s doing the attacking?” Drummadian asked.

“Insurgents! Radicals! Working to undermine the Throne! I want them alive, Drummadian. I want to take my time with them to get the truth.”

“I have every faith in Captain Flayshak, ma’am. He knows—”

There was a soft
whoomp
from the ground below, and a bloom of jaundiced light around the base of the hand.

“No,
damn them
!”
the Empress shrieked. “I don’t lose him too!”

Drummadian didn’t understand what she meant by that, but he understood perfectly well the wisdom of silence. Besides, the Empress needed no further prompting from him to speak out. She seemed, to the doorkeeper’s respectful eyes, to be a woman on the edge of insanity. Though her head was directed so as to allow her to look down at the ground, her eyes darted everywhere rather than look at the sight below. But then given that she seemed to feel some affection for the hand on which she was so often perched, it was little wonder she avoided sight of it. Drummadian turned his head away, and didn’t even realize his Empress was demanding he act until her words began to slap him on the face like blows from a thorny stick.

“Bring the thing up!”
she was screaming.

“Into the ship?” the doorkeeper said, plainly appalled at the notion.

“Yes! Of course into the ship! Quickly! Do you understand, you cretins! If he dies, so do you. You burn up the way he’s burning!”

“Oh, lady, no—”

“Then save him, you idiot!”

The doorkeeper became a blur of action, first slamming his fist against a large yellow alarm button, which caused panicking alarms to whoop throughout the vessel. Drummadian had very specific orders.

“All firefighters to the receiving bay.
We have an emergency!
” He then yelled down to Flayshak. “Extinguish the fires by any means possible, Flayshak! You hear me?”

Flayshak yelled something by way of reply, but it wasn’t audible over the sound of the crackling fire from below.

“BRING HIM UP!”
the Empress again demanded. “Did you not hear my order, Mr. Drummadian?”

“I heard, m’lady,” the doorkeeper replied. “And your . . . the . . . he’s on his way up to you, m’lady.”

The engines of the Stormwalker were indeed already at their churning labors, empowering the Elevation Beam to lift the blazing hand up off the ground into the belly of the Stormwalker. Waves of stinking heat rose up off the hand as it threw itself around within the confines of the beam. Drummadian’s alarms had by now brought responses from all directions. Pumps had been primed, and numberless hoses directed at the massive burning form.

“Get the water flowing!” Drummadian yelled.

He’d no sooner spoken than the hoses bucked and spat, and foaming waters poured out of them. There was a tremendous hissing sound, and clouds of steam rose up from the Elevation Beam as the flames were dowsed. Once the hand was within the confines of the vessel, Doorkeeper Drummadian ordered the aperture closed and the beam shut off, which allowed the firefighters to concentrate their hoses on the hand with even greater force. The flames were quickly subdued. But the damage that had been done to the hand was horrendous. It was so weakened by the flames that it could barely stay upright on its fingertips. It tottered like a vast infant as the waters buffeted it.

“Enough!”
Mater Motley yelled. “Do you hear me, Drummadian?”

“It’s done, m’lady,” the doorkeeper replied.

The hoses were shut off. The flow of water dwindled and died completely. Even without the water beating against it, the hand had difficulty standing upright. Its dead flesh blistered and in places burned away completely, leaving only blackened bone.

“Leave us,” the Old Mother said very quietly.

The doorkeeper was plainly uncomfortable with the notion of leaving his Empress in such unpredictable company.

“Perhaps if I just stayed at the door.”

“Out!”
the Old Mother yelled. Then more quietly: “I won’t have it watched while it suffers. You understand?”

“Of course,” Drummadian replied. “Captain Flayshak, you and your men—”

“Understood, sir,” the Captain replied. At a nod from their Captain the firefighters departed. Flayshak waited at the door for the doorkeeper to join him, then they too left.

“I’ll make this quick,” Mater Motley said. “You’ve served me well. I’m sorry I failed to do the same. Be free.”

She walked around the hand, counterclockwise. The crude circle her feet drew on the ground unleashed a wave of black energy, which converged on the hand. It knew what work it had to do, and summarily did it.

“Go,” the Hag said.

The hand took the comfort it was granted. Its fingers folded up beneath it as it toppled sideways, collapsing in the filthy water. Pieces of burned matter broke off the thing, and struck the walls of the chamber. The hand twitched where it had fallen, and then the unnatural life force that owned it for so many centuries went out of it, and was gone.

The Empress did not linger to keep the company of the twice dead. She went directly to the bridge so that she could speed the vessel on its way to Scoriae. The enemies of her Empire were there, awaiting their executions.

Chapter 57
A Knife for Every Heart

C
ANDY
’
S EYES SHOT OPEN.
She was on dry land; for that she was thankful. The last thing she’d seen was a glimpse of Rojo Pixler, or something that had once been Pixler, lurking in the depths of the Izabella. It had smiled at her hungrily and then reached for her with vast, tentacle limbs.

She was glad to be delivered from that vision.

“What island is this?” she murmured, hoping there would be someone close by to answer.

There was. Beaming with happiness, Malingo’s face came into her field of vision.

“Malingo?”

“You’re awake! I thought you’d really got away this time.”

Candy offered a smile, back up at him; or at least she tried her best to do so. But she felt so dislocated from her body she wasn’t entirely sure it was doing what she thought it was doing. All she knew with any certainty was that her eyelids still felt very leaden, and that despite the pleasure of seeing Malingo again, all that she really wanted to do was to feel sleep gather her up into its arms again and carry her away to some kinder time and place.

“No,” Malingo protested. “Please don’t leave again. I need you. We all need you.”

“All?”

He looked away from her, and curious to see what Malingo was seeing, Candy pushed herself up into a sitting position.

“Lordy Lou . . .” she murmured.

They weren’t alone. There was an immense crowd here, sitting or standing, most of them silent and seemingly alone, the whole assembly contained within a long rectangle of razor wire.

“From what I gather, there are about seven thousand of us,” Gazza said from somewhere behind her.

She looked around at him. He was climbing up onto the top of the boulder followed by, much to Candy’s surprise, Betty Thunder. Candy took a good look around.

“How come we get to sit on the only rock?” she asked.

“You’re famous,” Gazza said. “So we get the rock.”

“Who are all these people?”

“We’re all the Empress’s prisoners.”

“Is it just the four of us?”

“No. Eddie and the Johns are here too,” Gazza said.

“What about Geneva? Tom? Clyde?”

Betty gave a sad shrug.

“We might find them, though,” said Malingo. “Eddie and the Johns are out there looking for them and trying to find out why we’re here. What we’ve all got in common.”

“She doesn’t like us,” Candy said. “What more reason does she need? She’s the Empress now. She doesn’t answer to anyone.”

“Everybody answers to somebody,” said Gazza.

Candy shrugged and stood up to survey the crowd. Bonfires were blazing in dozens of places around the camp. By their light, Candy saw that the crowd here was just as diverse as it had been on the boardwalks of Babilonium. Though these were prisoners, not pleasure seekers, the familiar exuberance of Abaratian life was visible: the same dream-bright colors that had no name; the same elaborate configurations of feathered crests and fanning tails; eyes that looked like smoking embers and rings that were decorated with constellations of golden eyes. The only real difference was in the noise the crowd made, or rather its absence. The pleasure seekers at Babilonium had whooped and shouted and howled at the dusky sky as if to call it down to join in the fun. But there were no whoops nor shouts here. Nor were there tears. Just whispered exchanges, and perhaps here and there some murmured prayers.

“They’re all watching the sky,” Candy said. “Seeing the cracks opening up.”

“Well, that
is
a good thing, isn’t it?” Malingo said. “I saw a star just a little while ago. See it? Oh, and there!”

“She knew this would happen,” Candy said.

“She knew the darkness wouldn’t stay?”

“Of course,” Candy said, momentarily forgetting she’d kept her conversation with Carrion a secret. She quickly added a defensive, “I mean, how could she not? She had to know that whatever creatures she put up there wouldn’t live forever. Otherwise why would she have all the troublemakers locked up? It just makes sense.”

“What’s going to happen to us now?” Malingo said.

“We’re going to get out of here,” Candy said. “Before Mater Motley gets here.”

“What makes you think she’s going to come here?” Gazza asked.

“She’s worked a long time to get all her enemies in one place. She can take us all out at the same time.”

“
What?
There are thousands of us!” said Malingo.

“Yes. And we’re hidden behind a volcano at the end of the world! Nobody will ever know if we’re murdered here. But she’ll want it soon, before some order is put back into things.”

“How can you be so sure?” said Betty.

“I just am. I think I have come to understand her . . . a little.”

“Well, I don’t see how we get the six of us out of here,” Betty said. “Maybe you and Malingo . . .”

“No,”
Candy said.

“What do you mean
no
? Is six too many?”

“When I say all of us,” Candy said, glancing back toward the compound and all the souls imprisoned within it, “I mean:
All. Of. Us.
”

“There are stitchlings in every direction, Candy,” Gazza said.

“Yes, and no doubt she’ll bring more with her when she comes.”

“Lordy Lou . . .” Malingo murmured.

“How many more?” Gazza wanted to know.

“What does it matter?” Candy said.

“I need to know what we’re going to face,” he said to her.

“I don’t have precise numbers, Gaz. I wish I could explain it better, but I can’t. All I can say I know she’s coming, and that she’ll have a knife for every heart.”

She’d no sooner given her grim answer to his question than a commotion started running through the crowd. Candy tore her gaze away from her friends.

“What now?” she asked.

Candy walked to the edge of the boulder in time to see a blind man emerge in front of the crowd.

“Candy Quackenbush?” he said.

“Do I know you?”

“No,” said the blind man. “I’m Zephario Carrion. I believe you know my son.”