Abarat: Absolute Midnight (32 page)

Chapter 58
Now, Because

C
ANDY SLID DOWN OFF
the rock. Her visitor was standing with his back to one of the fires, so he was almost entirely in silhouette, except for his eyes, which despite their sightlessness had somehow drawn into them all the light being shed by the peeping stars. Either the cold, or simply fatigue, filled the old man’s body with tremors. Only the starlight remained constant.

“I don’t understand,” Candy said. “What do you want?”

Zephario reached into the pocket of his baggy jacket.

“I used to make money by reading these.”

Candy accepted whatever he was handing over to her.

“These are tarot cards, aren’t they?”

“An Abaratian deck. I lost my old deck to the wind a long time ago. But I found another.”

“These look different from the ones I saw in Chickentown.”

“They are. There are eighty-eight cards in an Abaratian deck, not seventy-eight. And of course the images are different. Not all of them. Some faces are ever present.”

Candy couldn’t see the designs on the cards clearly from where she was standing; there wasn’t sufficient light. But she could feel the visions on them, their vibrations moving through her fingertips, and they made her want to get a better look at them. So she moved out of the blind man’s shadow, turning the cards down and out, so they were lit by the flames. Now she saw them, it was no wonder her fingers had felt their power. Such visions! Some of the images were beautiful, some were terrifying, some of them made melancholy music in her head, like the lost songs of things that would never come into this world or any other.

She was unable to take her eyes off the flow of images long enough to look back at the blind man, but he didn’t mind.

“Lost forever,” she said to herself.

“I didn’t quite catch—”

“I’ve just always believed that nothing was really lost.”

“Ah. If only . . .”

“So . . . you saw me here? In one of the cards?”

“It wasn’t just one of them. You will wear many faces.”

“I don’t see me anywhere.”

“Good. Only a fool thinks he sees.”

“You’re Christopher’s father?”

“Quite so,” he said with a strange calm. “Christopher . . . oh, my sweet Christopher . . . he was so small once.”

Zephario lifted his hands, cupped side by side to show how small his beloved son had been. Candy took the opportunity to take hold of one of his hands.

“Here,” she said. “Your cards.”

“Please. You keep them. Use them. They are already mapped with what I’ve learned. Now you add your own journeys to mine and it’s all part of the Thread.”

“What?”

“The Thread. Do you not know of it?”

“No. But I do believe there is a pattern in the Hours; a hidden connection, which will show the greater order of things when the time is right.”

“Ah,” said Zephario, “you
are
wise. I want you to
live
, Candy. I want you to know the greater order, and if you wish to, pass it back to me, so that those among the dead who are lost—and there are many—find their way to the Embrace of Everything.”

“Everything . . . that’s in the air a lot, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that or Nothing at All. It’s an Age of Absolutes.”

“What comes after this Age?”

“I’ve no idea. Why would I?”

“You must have asked the cards how this is all going to end.”

“The cards don’t tell the future. It hasn’t happened yet. We hope that certain things will happen. But none of it’s guaranteed. We may want one kind of future and get another kind entirely. My daughters used to sing a rhyme. All these years later I still hear it.

“There is no tomorrow,

There never—”

“Was,”
Candy said, picking up the rhyme immediately.

“
Beg, steal or borrow,

Now, because—

There is no tomorrow

There never was.

Beg, steal or borrow

Now, because—

“We used to sing it too,” Candy said. “Why tell me this now?

“Because now is all there is. And because you sense
her
too,” he said.

“Oh,” Candy said.

“She’s not alone, is she?”

“No, of course not. She must have at least seven thousand stitchlings with her. That’s what Christopher told me.”

“Is he with her now?”

“I doubt it. She thinks he’s dead. Drowned in the streets of Chickentown.”

“But he isn’t, is he? I came here to find you so that you could help make peace between us. I want to see my son, one last time before I die. He’s all I have, lady. He’s all that I have left to love.”

“You might find loving him a bit difficult. He’s no saint.”

“Well, nor was I. When he was born I was one of the most feared men in the Abarat. I thought that was something to be proud of, in my stupidity. I made it a point of pride to burn every harvest I hadn’t planted and tear down every tower that I hadn’t built. When I think of the harm I did . . .” He paused, drawing a ragged breath. Whatever memories his mind was seeing, they made him weep. “. . . My son can do no worse. I was only forty-two when the fire destroyed the mansion. It killed my wife, and all the children except for Christopher. Forty-two! It’s nothing, forty-two. But I managed to fill up that little time with so many shameful things. Terrible things. I just wanted to tell Christopher there’s still time . . .”

“Still time to do what?” Candy said.

“Heal those he’s hurt,” Zephario said.

“You can’t heal the dead.”

“You’re quite the plain speaker, aren’t you?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. My son has done a lot of terrible things. I see the stain he leaves behind him, on whatever he’s touched. Even on you.”

Candy suddenly felt as though somebody had just emptied a bucket of sewer water over her head. How clear was the stain on her that a blind man could see it?

“You do know it wasn’t me he wanted, right? It was Princess Boa. She’d been hidden in me all my life. I didn’t know she was there until . . . until I found the Abarat. Or it found me.”

“Are you sure?”

“About what?”

“Christopher wanting Boa and not you?”

“Yes. I know it,” Candy said, nodding.

“I saw you in a vision once, while I was laying out the cards. I had no idea who you were, but you were talking to Christopher, who was lying down, barely able to lift his head . . .”

“That was back in Chickentown. Yes. He was very weak. I thought for certain he was going to die. He wanted to talk to Boa, and of course I let him.”

“What did he want from her?”

“He wanted them to die together.”

“And she was ready to go along with that?”

“No, I don’t think she was. I can’t be sure . . .”

“Even though you were sharing a mind?”

“Sometimes I couldn’t find her. She hid from me. Even in my own head. Why does it matter?”

“Does he know that you and the Princess are—?”

“No longer together? Yes, he knows. I saw him, in Tazmagor. He came to find me . . . well, no, to find
her
, but in the end all he got was me. He came to warn one of us about what was coming.”

Some tension that Candy hadn’t seen in the blind man’s face until now suddenly melted away.

“You know that for certain?”

“What? That he’d wanted to save my life? Or her life? Yes. Yes, I know that for certain. Why? Does it matter?”

“That he has a shred of goodness in him? That he cares enough about somebody to put himself in harm’s way? Yes, it matters a great deal. Only to me, perhaps. But then I’m the only one who has to live with the knowledge anyway.”

“The knowledge of . . .”

“All the terrible things he did. The families he destroyed. The love he destroyed. I was a bad man before the fire, Candy. I’ll be the first to say so. But I didn’t teach him to murder people with their own nightmares. That was my mother’s doing. The Mad Hag of Gorgossium . . . and now our Empress and executioner. She’s there . . .” As he spoke, he pointed to the card that had surfaced in Candy’s hands. She’d been sifting through them as they talked and one had drawn the blind man’s attention. “My mother,” he said.

The image on the card was one of heart-stopping terror. In a bare room, lacking even the most rudimentary comfort or decoration was a single occupant: a small unclothed figure stood looking at a window that filled most of the left-hand quadrant of the picture. Through it, staring down at him, was the vast bloodless face of a devourer, its teeth glittering.

“I don’t think this is your mother,” Candy said.

“It’s a symbol, not a likeness,” Zephario replied. “There is a difference. That thing at the window represents the power that allowed my mother to do all that she’s done. It is Nephauree. One of Those Who Walk Behind the Stars.”

Candy could feel cold emanating from the painted image. It made her head throb.

“It’s Nephauree magic she wields. That’s why she’s been able to do so much harm. I pray my son has not made the same bargains with them.”

“Why?”

“Because the price of that power will be a terrible thing to pay. I could perhaps persuade him to turn his back on the Nephauree if I could speak with him.”

“Then talk to him.”

“I need your help to do that.”

“This isn’t something I had planned for.”

“I have no wish to put you in harm’s way—”

“That’s not what worries me.”

“I have no money—”

“I wouldn’t want it even if you did,” Candy replied.

“Then what do you want?”

“We need to leave this place, Zephario.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be difficult. You have the power to make a glyph, do you not?”

“Oh, I do. And this one is going to be
very
unusual.”

Chapter 59
A Whisper of Infinitude

T
HE
E
MPRESS
T
HANT
Y
EYLA
Carrion stood at the fifty-foot-wide battle window of her Stormwalker and viewed with immense pleasure and subtle satisfaction the spectacle of the Ceremonial Assembly of the Imperial Executioners. Everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion. There were eight battalions of stitchling executioners, each a thousand stitchlings strong. The excess of knives to hearts was intentional, a precaution taken in case the number of condemned turned out to be significantly larger than expected, or there was a failure to successfully kill among some portion of the executioners. Their commander stitchlings were sewn with special symmetry from remnants of finely woven fabric and the bleached skins of scaly reptiles.

The Empress stood, admiring her steamstresses’ handiwork, when a voice, entirely unwelcome, interrupted her reverie.

“Hello, Grandmother.”

The Old Hag bristled.

“Christopher.” She didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. She saw his reflection in the window as he stepped out of the shadows. “This is—”

“Unexpected? Yes. I have new scars. But then you know that. You gave them to me.”

As he spoke, a flicker of the old rage, the fury that had erupted from him on the deck of the
Wormwood
, reappeared. The nightmares caught the infection of anger, and became still more livid.

“I sense that you still harbor a measure of resentment toward me,” the Empress said, turning to face her grandson.

He hardly resembled at all the despairing, forsaken creature Candy Quackenbush had met in the alleyway behind the marketplace at Tazmagor. Now he was wearing fine robes, new white linens that made a perfect screen for the light from the blazing ziggurat on Scoriae. And the nightmares in his new collar threw their own illumination up onto his face as they circled his head.

“Are my reasons hard to fathom, lady?” Carrion said. “With just a few words you could have saved me.”

“You suffered. And so did I. But we recovered. We can still plan for the future.” She looked past the interwoven strands of nightmares to find the glittering gaze of her grandson. “Now you should go.”

“I don’t choose to go now, Grandmother. I want to see why you’re not going home to Gorgossium. I hear you tore my tower down—”

“I tore all of those ugly things down.”

“Why?”

“Don’t be angry about your tower, darling, please. I thought you were dead.”

“You thought no such thing. You knew I was still living, just as you knew the soul of my Princess was hidden in Candy Quackenbush. You just see the things you want to see and disregard the rest.”

The Empress offered no reply to this. At least not for half a minute or more. She just tapped on the window, watching her army. Finally she spoke: “You can take my tower!”

Carrion was genuinely shocked at the proposal.

“I can . . . take it?”

“It’s yours. I’ll have you escorted back to Gorgossium.”

Carrion laughed into his night terrors.

“Oh, you are
very
clever, aren’t you? You can’t slip out of this so easily. I want to see what you’ve got hidden in Scoriae.”

“Enemies, Christopher. Just the same old enemies. Only in an hour they’ll all be dead. Every last one of them.”

“Ah. Now I see.
A knife for every heart.
”

The Old Mother nodded, the weight of the years and the crimes and the betrayals heavy upon her.

“Yes,
a knife for every heart
,” she confessed. “Are you happy now? I am about to do the last and bloodiest business of a very bloody time. You needn’t witness it.”

“No, but I will. You may keep your fine tower, lady. I want to see this business to the very end. Then you can deny me no part of the spoils. For my hands will be as stained red as yours.”

“Then come,” she said. “But they all die. Understand that. All of them die, no exceptions.”

“Of course not, lady,” he said as though he had ever been the compliant student, learning the ways of the Empire. “What must be done must be done.”

“You want
all
of them out in a
single
glyph?” Zephario said.

“There’s no other way to do it. There are thousands of people here.”

“It’s impossible.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It’s never been done.”

“Maybe not. But that doesn’t make it impossible. The two of us working together . . .”

“I’m no magician,” he said.

“Well, then why do I get such a buzz of power off you?”

“Maybe it’s the cards.”

“
I’m
holding the cards, Mr. Carrion, so try again. We have very little time. Tell me about the Abarataraba.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Not very much,” Candy said. “I know what it isn’t. It’s not like the
Almenak
. It’s not a guide to magic. I think maybe it’s magic itself. Am I right?”

“Well, to an extent, yes. Wherever there’s the Abarataraba, there is magic. A lot of magic.”

“Is ‘a lot’ enough?”

“Enough to fuel the creation of a glyph to carry all these innocent people away from here before their executioners arrive? If I had an entire book, the answer would be yes. More than enough.”

“But you don’t.”

“No,” Zephario said. “No.”

“You have a piece?”

“A piece of a page.”

Disappointment crossed Candy’s face.

“You have
one
piece of
one
page?”

“I know it seems like a small amount but it isn’t. Each book had eight pages. Each page was square, and divide: eight horizontally, eight vertically.”

“Sixty-four squares on each of eight pages. That’s . . .” She closed her eyes to do the calculation in her head. “. . . that’s sixty times eight . . . is four hundred and eighty, plus eight times four . . . is thirty-two . . . so that’s . . .
five hundred and twelve.
What does that even mean?”

“It brings us back to eight again.”

“How?”

“Five plus one plus two.”

“Equals eight. Okay. So what’s the big deal about eight?”

“If you turn the number on it’s side, it’s infinitude.”

“Oh, that little squiggly sign. I suppose that is more or less an eight, isn’t it? Where’s this all going?”

“I only have a little piece. But it’s a piece of an infinite thing. So it too is infinite. At least in theory.”

“Your piece of paper. What does it say?”

“Nothing. There are no words in the Abarataraba.”

“Then what’s in it?”

“Squares. Lots of squares, filled with color. And it is in the energy between the pieces that the magic ignites.”

“I want to see it.”

“I’m not sure you should.”

“What? Now you don’t want to show it to me?”

“It’s unpredictable.”

“All right, but we don’t have a lot of time. We agree on that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So unless you—”

“All right, all right,” Zephario said. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. I hope this isn’t more power than you can handle.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope made of coarsely woven cloth, pressing it into her hands. There was a strange fumbling moment between them when it seemed to Candy that, even though her head was telling her hands to take the package, they were refusing to play along.

“The flesh fears it,” Zephario said.

“Why?”

“Because the Abarataraba changes all that it touches.”

“I’m not afraid of change,” Candy said, her voice no longer playing tricks.

“Then take the magic wisely and regret nothing.”

That sounded like good advice, even to Candy’s reluctant hands. They accepted the envelope, and now resigned to the consequences, whatever they might be, they opened it up.

There was a piece of thick paper—perhaps four inches square—inside it. She saw red first, brighter than the hull of any ship she’d seen plying the waters of the Izabella. A blue current had caught it up, and it burst against one of the sides, shattering into blue and green. Not one blue, but a thousand, and green the same, every fleck of paint that the brush deposited a variation on the originating note.

“Be careful,” she heard Zephario say.

She glanced up at him, but her gaze never focused on his face. It slipped over his shoulder, through the crowd of prisoners and up over the fence, slipping through the coils of barbed wire on top of the boundary fence, and out, across the wasteland that lay between the camp and the slopes of Mount Galigali. It ascended in a heartbeat, up the steep slope. Her eyes had no interest in studying the barren heights, however. There was something above the volcano that had claimed their attention.

There was a storm up there, vast and implacable, moving in with the obscene certainty of a blood-hungry army. There was thunder in it, but it wasn’t a natural thunder, rising up to crack the sky then falling away again, muttering its complaint as it retreated. No, this was the churning thunder of an endgame machine; a funeral march played for those about to die. It neither cracked nor complained; it simply grew louder as its source approached.

“Oh, Lordy Lou,” Candy said very softly.

“What can you see?”

“The biggest storm clouds I’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculous how big they are. And that thunder.”

“That’s not thunder,” Gazza said as he climbed down the boulder, the rest of the group following closely behind.

“Who are they?” Zephario quickly demanded.

“They’re fine,” Candy said. “They’re my friends.”

“Nobody’s fine. Not around this much power.”

“Well, it’s too late.”

Gazza was staring at the Abarataraba.

“It’s so beautiful,” he said.

“See?” Zephario told Candy. “What did I tell you? Give me the piece back.”

“Let me look at it,” Gazza demanded.

“No,”
Candy said. “We have to hurry. You see that storm? Motley’s in there somewhere. Her and the stitchlings she’s bringing to execute us.”

“Mother . . .” Zehpario whispered.

With those two syllables, Zephario gained everyone’s silent attention. It was Malingo who broke it.

“Are we supposed to trust him?” Malingo said. His nostrils were widening ever so slightly, as he suspiciously inhaled the scent of Carrion the Elder. “I’ve had bad experiences with Carrions.”

“My mother has a lot to answer for,” Zephario said. “And it will be up to you to make sure she doesn’t get to keep her Empire. She’s murdered a lot of innocent people to get it.”

“We can talk about the future once we have it in our hands,” Candy said.

“And how do we do that?” Malingo said.

“A glyph,” Candy said with certainty.

“A glyph? How are we going to keep all these people from asking stupid questions and getting in our way?”

“Why would they get in our way?”

“Because they’ve never made a glyph before and we don’t have time to explain.”

“Just because it’s never been done before doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We just have to spread the word.
Very
quickly.”

Candy looked back at Zephario, who must have sensed her gaze on him because he said: “Go on. You’re doing just fine.”

“Mr. Carrion gave me a piece of magic. And we’re going to use it to spread the gospel of the glyph. It’s either that or waiting for the executioners to arrive.”

“Well, that’s an easy choice,” Gazza said. “Let’s spread the gospel.”