Abarat: Absolute Midnight

drowned, or to drop into one of the fissures and be cooked alive.

At least, this had been its master plan. But the fracturing of the ground wasn’t proceeding as speedily as it had planned. There were more urgent claims upon its time right now than watching the little witch perish. It had come here to witness the elevation of the woman Mater Motley, into whose hands its species’ priests had put great power, for reasons more to do with their own Grand Designs than in service of her Imperial ambition. But she had underestimated the enemy, despite the elegance of her plotting.

The battle had been messier than the Nephauree had anticipated, but it had been won in the end. Even so, the priests who had dispatched the Nephauree here would not be pleased with the way things had gone. The sooner they had this news, the sooner they could make whatever strategic changes they judged appropriate. So the Nephauree could not afford to linger any longer. It needed this business with the girl and the fisherman over with, once and for all.

It needed to break the ground more effectively. And for that, it already had a plan. It willed its body to exude two horns of matter, into which it rerouted the darkness that had been dropped into its bowels. Now that same weighty darkness climbed up into the “horns” it had formed, turning them into vast hammers.

And down they came: two hammerheads of darkness that slammed into the wounded ground! Instantly, a fresh network of fissures appeared from the place where its hammerheads had landed. They zigzagged toward Candy and Gazza, separating them from the Johns, and causing every crack that had already gaped between the Nephauree and its victims to become even wider, creating a network of new fissures that drove the witch and her friends back and back and back, until they were at the top of the narrow shore that led down to the water’s edge.

The Nephauree lifted its hammerheaded horns again, reaching up even higher than it had previously, and brought them down like a judge slamming down his gavel to pass the final sentence. The shock wave it sent made the ground to gape everywhere, causing the tiny parcel of shore where the witch and her friends stood to be separated from the rest of the ground.

“We’re in trouble,” was all Candy could say.

Then the waters tugged at their little portion of ground with so much strength that it could no longer resist the demand. It parted from the rest of the shore with a violent shudder that threw Candy and Gazza to their knees.

Then the current caught it, and it was borne inexorably toward that place where the Sea of Izabella was lost to Oblivion.

Chapter 75

The End of the World

THE WATERS OF THE Izabella did more than simply carry the fragment of shoreline toward the limits of reality. It spun the makeshift vessel round and round, rocking it from side to side as it did so. But none of these chaotic maneuvers were sufficient to prevent Malingo from coming in to land on the slippery surface, with only the tips of his wing-ears to prevent him from sliding straight across the water-slickened surface to be dumped in the crazed surf on the other side, where he would certainly have drowned. Luckily Candy saw him slide past her and instinctively reached out, grabbing hold of one of his flailing wings, halting him before the worst could happen.

Not that there wasn’t an even more calamitous fate awaiting them all, just a few seconds away. Though the actual spot where the waters fell off into the Abyss was veiled in spray, there was no doubting its proximity. The closer the suicidal current brought them to their final moments, the less noise the waters made, their roar and rush fading as they dropped off the Edge of the World.

“You could still fly back,” Candy said to Malingo.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because we’re going to die!” Gazza said, sounding thoroughly furious. “I’d give my right arm for a chance to get off this damn rock.”

“Oh, really? And leave your lady?”

Gazza blushed.

“I knew it!” said Malingo.

“I knew it too,” Gazza said, looking to Candy. “From the moment I saw you. Don’t ask me how, but I did. I love you, Candy,” he said. “I’m glad I finally said it myself. I know it’s a bit late, but there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity, with one thing or another.”

Candy smiled at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Malingo said.

“What?”

“You’re just smiling at him.”

Any further words were drowned out by a vast silence, as the roaring sound of the waters’ chaos was stilled suddenly and completely, and the gray-blue mist that veiled the place where the waters actually fell away, cleared.

The currents that had carried the fragment of Scoriae to that place now vanished, for here the sea herself gave up possession of all form and will and power, and were tossed over the End of the Abarat, broken into innumerable beads of water, illuminated for a few seconds by the firelight, then extinguished. What had been, in the Reality from which the beads of water had now departed, an irresistible force was now no more than a million million drops falling away into the Abyss.

“This is it,” Gazza said.

Candy thought, After this, there’ll be no more magic, no more visions, no more love, or hope or —

“No, wait,” she said aloud. “Wait!”

“Who are you talking to?” Gaz said.

“I want more!” she yelled into the Void.

“More what?”

“Everything!” she told him.

“Why are you smiling?” Gaz said.

“We’re going over the Edge of the World!” Malingo said. “If there’s some good news, tell it, before we’re gone forever.”

“Later,” Candy said. “I’ll tell you later.”

They had run out of sea. The piece of land lurched and began to fall. But before it fell, Candy had time to look back toward the shore of Scoriae, and saw with heartbreaking clarity, John Mischief and his brothers. They were all watching her from a place so close to the water’s edge that every fresh surge of water threatened to carry them all away. Indeed, they almost seemed to be inviting that very fate, so close to calamity were they standing.

“Go back!” Candy yelled to them, though she very much doubted her words were audible.

John Mischief cupped his hands to either side of his mouth and the brothers tried yelling something in unison. But the air refused to carry the sound; the silence between shore and sea went unstirred. Then the little scrap of Scoriae tipped, and over the Edge it went, going where so much of the Sea of Izabella had already gone.

Down and down and down—

The John Brothers shouted the same word at the same instant: her name, of course.

“Cannndddeeeee.”

It did no good. It changed nothing. The waters carried Candy, Gazza and Malingo away, and down they went, out of the John Brothers’ sight.

“She’s gone!” Mischief shouted.

“She can’t have,” said Fillet.

“Well she has!” Mischief raged.