Abarat: Absolute Midnight

immensely pleasurable. She was perfectly content to let it have custody of her body for a few seconds, opening her arms and turning her palms skyward as the beam lifted her toward the Stormwalker.

When she was no more than her own body’s length from the underbelly of the ship, she heard a cry rise to find her. It was intended for her attention, she had no doubt of it. Nothing so singular, so strange, was loosed without distinction or purpose. It quickly became more than a single cry; it turned into a litany of cries strung together, a churning murmur of lamentation, which in turn became a raw shriek of rage.

It wasn’t difficult to decode the meaning of this. Commexo’s citizens wanted her to be reminded that, although their city was now in darkness, its inhabitants were going to survive this dark time with their memories and their rage still very much alive. And they would find her, their cries promised, and finish the grim business she had begun.

Just in case their cries were not enough, they began to demonstrate one last proof of their fury. Some two hundred Commexians appeared from the darkness, converging on the small circle of light where the mummified hand waited for its turn to be raised up. But before the elevation beam could do its work, the Commexians descended upon the hand, fully intending to slay what was already a piece of something dead.

Chapter 55

Below

CANDY 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

“UP!” THE EMPRESS 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!”