Abarat: Absolute Midnight

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

THE EMPRESS THANT YEYLA 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