Abarat: Absolute Midnight

“No,” Candy said. “Not hate. Just . . . why now?”

“Why now what?”

“You know why.”

“Do I?”

“Stop it.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“What you feel. What we feel.”

“So I’m not just imagining it?”

“Oh, Lordy Lou,” he said, throwing up his arms. She couldn’t tell who he was angry at. Or whether he was even angry. “No. You’re not imagining it.”

“So do you . . . ?” she asked.

“Well . . .” he said.

“Because I do.”

“Ha!”

Such relief flooded his face. He grinned the grin of all grins.

“You should see the grin on your face,” he said to her.

“My face? What about on yours?”

The glyph finished itself while they were standing there, exchanging their grins. She sensed its stillness. So did he.

“Your magic’s done,” he said.

“I know.”

“You want me to go find Malingo?”

“In a minute.”

“We don’t have much—”

“Half a minute?”

“No. A minute’s good.”

Before they’d been mortal enemies, Candy and Deborah Hackbarth had been friends. And two summers before, when on the first day back at school after summer vacation they walked home together, exchanging tales of summer, Deborah had one big story to tell. His name was Wayne Something or other and she’d met him in Florida, where she’d gone to visit her grandmother. Wayne was the One, Deborah had said; she knew so because it felt right when she said it, which she had, over and over, during that long walk home, and Candy, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the conversation would falter for a moment, and her best friend would sew the seeds of their enmity with the oh-so-casual: “And what about your summer, Candy?”

How times had changed! Perhaps the street had survived the flooding of Chickentown by the Sea of Izabella and even now there were two girls sharing secrets as they wandered home from school, but Candy would never know. Not because Mater Motley’s all-devouring darkness would devour her, though that was possible. But because she didn’t care. She didn’t want to go back there. She could live and die here, under these troubled heavens, perhaps even staring at the troubled face on the other side of the glyph.

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Then came the first shot. A missile was fired out of the west by a weapon of such power that the projectile it launched toward the shore punched its way through Hour after Hour before striking its target. The trail of fire it left on the air was still decaying when a second projectile was fired, this one aimed much lower than the first, barely clearing the shore as it screeched overhead.

When it landed, the force of the explosion was powerful enough to knock Candy to the ground. She got to her feet, gasping for breath, and raced up the dune. To her relief she saw that Malingo, along with the rest of the refugees, had sought shelter among the rocks.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called to him.

“Malingo!”

There was no answer from the landscape, which was illuminated afresh when a third volley came shrieking through, this one so low it clipped the hill that rose beyond the shore, sending up a plume of debris.

“I have to go, Malingo!” Candy screamed. “Be safe!”

When she turned back to the glyph, Gazza was already inside.

“We’re going together,” he said.

She had neither the time, nor in truth the will, to argue with him. They needed to be gone. Now. As she leaped into the glyph, the small, sleek gunship that had fired upon them appeared from the sea-mist that had, until now, veiled the sandy shore upon which they stood.

Behind it, Candy saw a vessel at least thirty times as big; its watchtowers and uniformed guards assuring its function. It was a prison ship, coming for them all. Candy willed the glyph into motion, but as it rose into the air, a fourth volley came suddenly from the west. It struck its target, and everything went dark.

Chapter 49

Of Those Who walk Behind the Stars

THOUGH THE OLD MOTHER had not known when she would have need of the Stormwalker, nor precisely to what purpose it would need to be put to when that time came, she had laid meticulous plans for how things were to proceed. It was crewed by three hundred and fifty stitchlings, and another four thousand were in the belly of the ship: massive legions of warriors, ready and waiting to go. They weren’t simple mindless cannon fodder. Far from it. They had been created to make war with the utmost ferocity and intelligence; war so terrible that once made would never be allowed to happen again, because the memory of its horrors would be so grim.

In addition, she had on board one member of that species who walked behind the stars. Its name was ninety-one syllables long, but it answered to Nephauree. The physical form it presented to her was an illusion: a thin wavering line of smoke-shadow, standing three times her height. Of its true form, she knew nothing. Once she’d made the error of demanding that she see it as it actually was, and the experience had almost made her ready to stab out her own eyes. The experience had been so traumatizing, she remembered nothing of what she’d seen, but she knew what lay just a few vibrations of vision beyond the smoke-shadow was a thing so vile, so repugnant, so utterly without beauty or virtue, that no mind could witness it and remain sane. It was an engine of venoms and despair.

The Old Mother was quite happy with this. She had no use for mercy or tenderness. She had given herself to the service of darkness and despair the day she had set fire to the mansion containing her entire family, murdering all those within, except for her baby, Christopher, whom she had raised after her own unholy fashion, educating him in all the joyless wisdom of her rotted heart.

But the teachings had failed. He’d fallen for Boa like a witless adolescent, giving her some of the most potent workings in Abaratian magic as tokens of his undying affections. Had Mater Motley not been more powerful she would have taken this betrayal of her trust more heavily. But Those Who Walk Behind the Stars had given her access to power that made Abaratian magic seem inconsequential. A power as old as Death itself was their muse. And what better proof of how inspiring this power was than the vessel in which the Old Mother presently traveled. The Stormwalker was full of the Nephauree’s genius for death dealing. One such creation was a vast display of the archipelago, which floated on the air before her, with the internal systems and structures of each Hour all rendered visible, so that, should it be her will to destroy an island completely, the maps knew of their frailties and would know exactly where to direct the missiles.

She studied it now, a thirty-foot-long tapestry, which looked as though it had been painted on fog with pastel luminosity. The things that were darkness were only a piece of the knowledge the tapestry provided. It also showed her what emotions were rife in the Hours. A simple map might have shown her the shape of an island, but never the feelings of those who lived there. This schematic showed the glad news that