Even her face was stained: with a swarm of blots, then with rows of rising stripes, then a single black diamond, one form becoming another without lingering in any state for so much as a moment.
For some reason the display touched a nerve in Candy. It was literally sickening; it made her stomach rebel, and it was all she could do not to keep herself from puking.
Mrs. Munn’s half-opened hand was now in front of Candy.
“Take it!” Mrs. Munn said. “Just do it!”
“Take what?”
“Whatever you see in my hand.”
“It’s empty.”
“Look again. And be quick.” Candy was aware of Boa’s shape rising up behind Mrs. Munn, and beating at the air above her. “I can’t hold her off for long. The power in her!”
Candy could hear Boa calling to her as she beat at the Air Armor the incantatrix had put up to keep her from finishing the chase. The Armor, a conjuration Candy knew of but couldn’t wield, made Boa’s voice slurred and remote, but Candy could still comprehend enough to know what Boa was doing. She was trying to sow seeds of doubt in Candy concerning Mrs. Munn.
“She says you’re crazy,” Candy said.
“She’s probably right,” Laguna Munn replied. “Did she make you want to vomit when you saw the Sepulcaphs?”
“Is that what they’re called? Yes. It was horrible.”
“If she tries it again, you run, put your eyes out, bury your head in the ground, just don’t look at the patterns. If she’s strong enough to keep them in her skin, which she is, she can make you puke yourself inside out.”
“That’s . . . that’s not possible. Is it?”
“I’m afraid it is. She almost had me doing it two minutes ago, up the hill. Me? On my own rock! Where she got power to wield Sepulcaphs is . . .” She shook her head. “. . . unbelievable.”
“She was taught by Christopher Carrion.”
“Interesting. And of course the question remains: where did he get it? The Hereafter doesn’t have power. That’s why you did business with us. But even the Abarat doesn’t contain wieldings that powerful.”
There was a sharp stinging sound, as more pieces of the Air Armor behind Laguna Munn shattered beneath Boa’s assault.
“Lordy Lou. How did you ever live with her?”
“She wasn’t like this.”
“Or she was and you suppressed it.”
“Huh. I never thought of that.”
“No wonder you were a dull little batrat of a child. All your energy was going into keeping this monster from breaking out.”
“Who said I was a dull little ratbat—”
“Batrat.”
“—of a child?”
“You did. Who you are is the stone on which you stand. Now no more—”
There were two more brutal stings in quick succession. Then another three.
“She’s breaking through. Take your weapon!”
Once again she was offering her hand to Candy, and once again Candy was seeing nothing but an empty palm. There was a desperate urgency to the problem. Boa and her nauseating Sepulcaphs were a cracked plate of air away.
“Look again!” Mrs. Munn insisted. “Look away. Clear your head. Then look again. It’s right there!”
“What is?”
“Whatever you want.”
“Like a poisonous snake?”
She had but to ask, and there it was in Mrs. Munn’s hands: a seven-foot-long snake, its colors—a toxic yellow-green with a band of glistening black running along its length—designed to tell anyone that it was a venomous thing.
“Good choice, girl!” Mrs. Munn said, in a tone so ambiguous Candy had no idea whether she was serious or not. “Here! Take it!”
She tossed the snake at Candy, who, more out of instinct than intention, caught it in both hands.
“Now what?” she said.
Chapter 17
Snake Talk
JOLLO?”
There was no response from the wizened figure on the ground. His eyes were closed, and his pupils were motionless behind his gray, papery lids. Malingo kneeled down beside him, and spoke to him again:
“Are you still there?” he asked.
For several seconds there was no response. Then his gummy green eyelids opened and he spoke. His words were slurred, his voice watery.
“I’m still here. I just needed to rest. Everything was too noisy with my eyes open,” he said.
Malingo glanced up at Covenantis, hoping he’d know the significance of Jollo’s confusion of senses, but Covenantis’s focus was neither with his brother nor Malingo. Covenantis was turned away from his brother in the direction of the sound of—
“Shattering air,” Covenantis said.
“I didn’t even know air could shatter,” Malingo said.
“Glass can be poured like treacle if it’s hot enough. Did you not know that either?” Covenantis replied. “Are all geshrats so stupid?”
The noise came again. And again. Malingo was now looking in the same direction as Covenantis, curious as to what shattered air looked like. Suddenly, Jollo seized hold of Malingo’s arm, first with one hand then with both, pulling himself up into a sitting position, his eyes opening wide.
“She’s there,” he said, staring with eerie accuracy in precisely the same direction as his brother.
Malingo didn’t need to ask Jollo of whom he was speaking. There was only one “she” in the boys’ universe. And all Jollo wanted right now was the comfort of her presence.
“Mama . . .” said Jollo. “Find her, Covenantis.”
“She’s coming, little brother.”
“Hurry her up. Please?”
“I can’t hurry her when she has such important work, brother.”
“I’m almost dead,” Jollo said. “I want to see her one last time . . .”
“Hush, Jollo. No more talk of death.”
“Easy to say when it’s not your life that’s . . . fading away.” His face became a tragic mask. “I want my mama.”
“She’ll come as soon as she can,” Covenantis said, only this time much more quietly, his voice filled with sorrow as though he knew, however fast she came it would never be fast enough.
“Don’t look up!” Mrs. Munn yelled over another round of shattering air. “Just be ready!”
“What do you mean?”
“You wanted the snake. Get ready to use it!”
Candy felt stupid and angry and confused all at once. She’d never imagined letting Boa go would escalate into such chaos: the Princess nearly killing Mrs. Munn, her firstborn, and Candy, and now breaking through Mrs. Munn’s defenses, still no doubt wearing the Sepulcaphs. The mere thought of them was enough to stir up nausea, so Candy concentrated on the snake.
Its body was too thick for her to get her hand around, but it didn’t seem to want to escape her grip. Quite the reverse. It slid the cool, dry length of its tail twice around one of her arms and then, raising up its large head so that it could look down imperiously at Candy it said, “I think myself a very fine snake. Do you not agree?”
Its speech, which was as elegant and smooth as its motion, came as no great surprise to Candy. It had been the greatest disappointment of growing up—far more wounding than finding out that there was neither an Oz nor a Santa Claus—to discover that though animals talked often and wisely in the stories she loved, few of them did so in life. It made perfect sense then that a creature she had fashioned in a moment of blind instinct would possess the power of speech.
“Are you the one who called me into being?” the serpent inquired.
“Yes, I’m the one.”
“Lovely work, if one may be so bold,” the snake said, admiring his gleaming coils. “I would have done nothing different. Not a scale. One finds oneself . . . perfect.” He looked a little embarrassed. “Oh dear, I think I’m in love,” he said, kissing his own coils.
“Aren’t you poisonous?” Candy said.
“Indeed. I can taste the bitterness of my ow
n poison. One is of course immune to one’s own toxins, but if a single drop fell on your tongue—”
“Dead?”
“Guaranteed.”
“Quick?”
“Of course not! What’s a poison worth if it’s quick?”
“Painless?”
“No! What’s a—”
“Poison worth if it’s painless?”
“Precisely. My bite may be quite swift, but the consequence? I assure you, it’s the very worst. It feels like a fire is cooking your brains and your muscles are rotting on your bones.”
“Lordy Lou.”
Hearing the animal speak so lovingly of the agonies it could cause made Candy think of Christopher Carrion. Much like the snake’s poison, Carrion’s soup of nightmares had been lethal to others. But to Carrion, they’d been companions, trusted and loved. The similarity was too strong to be a coincidence. Candy had laced her invented snake with a little of Carrion’s essence.
The chat with the snake, along with Candy’s recollection of Carrion, had taken but a few seconds, during which time the sound of Boa battering on the last plate of air had grown steadily louder.
“Does your snake know what to do when Boa gets in?” Mrs. Munn yelled over the noise. “Because she’s a vehement one. She’s going to be through very soon, and you’d better be ready.”
“Oh, I think my snake knows his business,” Candy yelled back.
“Your snake, am I?”
“As long as you don’t object,” she said, doing her best to reproduce the snake’s imitation of high birth.
“Why would one mind?” the snake replied. “In truth, lady, one is both honored and moved.”
It raised its finely formed snout a little way, in order to deepen the bow that followed. Candy did her best to conceal her impatience (what part of her, conceiving of a snake, had created one with such humorless formality?) but it was difficult. The only thing that kept her from losing her composure was the serpent’s genuine commitment to her.
“You’ve won me over entirely,” it said to her. “I would kill the world for you, I swear I would.”
“Candy . . .” Mrs. Munn said. “Be quick or it’s ended.”
“I hear you,” Candy replied. “We’re ready.”
“Is it to be the world then?” the snake said.
“Thanks for the offer, but no, I just need you to stop one person.”
“And who’s that? The fat woman?”
“I heard that, snake!” Mrs. Munn yelled.
“No, snake,” Candy said. “Absolutely not. That’s our friend.”
“It’s not the world and it’s not the fat one. So who?”
“The one on the other side of the air,” Candy said.
“Why her?”
“Because she’s a bad piece of work,” Candy said. “Trust me. Her name’s Boa. Princess Boa.”
“Oh, now wait,” the serpent said. “This one’s royalty? No. No no. One has one’s limits. She’s one of my own!”
“Look at her! She’s no snake.”
“I don’t care to.”
“You were ready to kill the world for me just a minute ago!”
“The world, yes. Her? No.”
Mrs. Munn had not heard a single word of this. She’d been too busy using her strengths—mental, physical and magical—to keep the final plate of air, which was already badly cracked, from shattering completely.
It was a struggle she was going to lose very soon, Candy feared. Boa’s power was now so formidable that despite all the incantatrix’s years of wieldings, she had run out of energies to oppose her. In desperation she had reached into her very soul for strength. But even that had not been sufficient. Its fuel had been almost entirely burned through in seconds. When it was gone, her life would be over.
“I’m sorry, Candy . . .” The thundering of Boa’s forces beating against the final plate of air almost drowned her out. She drew a deep breath and tried again one last time. “I can’t hold her back. I’ve used everything I have. There’s no life left in me.”
“No! Mrs. Munn, you can’t die. Just get out of her way.”
“If I move, it’s over,” she said. “Boa will be through and we’ll both be vomiting.”
“You know what?” said Candy. “Let her come. I’m not afraid of her. I’ve got a killer snake right here at my side.”
“You don’t have me,” the snake said.
Candy had neither the time nor the temper left for debate. She raised the snake still coiled around her arm. “Now you listen to me, you pretentious self-loving, empty-headed worm—”
“Worm? Did you call me a worm?”
“Shut up. I’m shouting! You exist because I made you. And I can unmake you just as easily.” She had no idea whether this was actually true, but given that she’d brought the snake into being, it was a reasonable assumption.
“You wouldn’t dare!” the snake said.
“What?” Candy said, not even looking at him.
“Unmake me.”
Now she looked. “Really? Is that a request?”
“No. No!”
“Are you quite sure?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Oh, you’ve seen nothing yet.”
“And I don’t want to, thank you very much.”
“Well then, do as I say.”
She met the snake’s beady black gaze, and held it. And held it. And held it.
“All right!” it said finally, breaking his gaze. “You win! There’s no dealing with insanity.”
“Good choice.”
“I’ll bite her, but then you let me go.”
Before Candy could reply, Boa unleashed a shriek, which was drowned out seconds later, overwhelmed by the crash as the final plate of air shattered. The blast of energy slammed into Laguna Munn, who shielded Candy and the snake from the worst of its force. She, however, was picked up, despite her weight, and thrown like a straw doll, off into the darkness between the trees.
The snake’s instant response was to escape from Candy’s grip, the entire muscular length of its body writhing around in panic.
“So sorry. One has to leave. Look at the time.”
“Nice try, worm,” Candy said, reaching out and grabbing hold of its body, somewhere, she guessed, close to its head. She was loathe to open her eyes too wide to check on where she’d fallen in case an exploratory glance, however brief, gave her a lethal glimpse of Boa and her Sepulcaphs. On the other hand she wasn’t going to be able to use the snake against Boa unless she knew where the enemy was standing.
Suddenly the snake’s frenzied twists and turns stopped, and seizing the chance its sudden passivity offered, Candy slid her hand up along its body. She’d seen how real snake handlers worked. They seized hold of the animal right behind its head and held on with all their strength so that the snake couldn’t whip around and bite them.
But Candy’s snake showed no intention of doing so. It didn’t move at all. In fact, the reason for its sudden stillness was clear just a few inches farther along its body. A shoeless foot was pressed down upon the snake’s head.
“So . . .” Boa said. “I think it’s time you looked at me, don’t you? I can make you if I want to.”
Chapter 18
An EndGame
MALINGO WAS STILL STARING off between the trees, hoping to catch some sign of Candy’s return—so far no luck. What he did see was a flock of perhaps ten or twelve winged creatures, which looked through the trees in his general direction, barking and squealing, chattering and howling with the stolen voices of a dog, pig, monkey and hyena.
“What’s that noise?” Covenantis said.
“You need to see for yourself,” Malingo said, his vocabulary too impoverished to do the sight justice.
“I can’t look right now,” the slug-boy replied. “I’m . . . concentrating on something. It’s not something I can take my eyes off.”
“You need some help?”
“No,” the boy said. “This is for me to do and on
ly me. Why don’t you just keep watching for Candy and Mama? And please . . . don’t watch me while I’m doing the wielding.”
“Are you going to do some magic?”
“I’m going to try. Just a verse and a chorus.”
“What?”
“They’re songs. Mama wrote down all the spells she learned or created as songs. They’re harder to steal that way, she says. I’ve been listening to Mama’s songs as recordings since I was about two. So I know all her magic because I could sing all her songs, every single one.”
“Did you understand them?”
“We’re about to find out, aren’t we? That’s why I don’t want anyone watching. If something goes wrong, at least you’ll have your back to it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing too ambitious. I’m a horrible singer. But I’d like to ease Jollo’s pain if I can.”
“Isn’t your mother going to go crazy when she finds out you’ve been stealing her magic?”
“Probably. But she’ll go even crazier if she gets back and finds Jollo’s dead. It’ll break her heart. And what kind of son will I be if I don’t try to stop my own mother’s heart from being broken? I’ll tell you. A bad one. I’ve disappointed her enough. This once I’m going to get it right.”
“Couldn’t you just wait a few more minutes?”
“Don’t ask me. Ask Jollo.”
Malingo glanced back at Jollo, and had his answer. If it hadn’t been for the very subtle rise and fall of Jollo’s chest, Malingo might easily have assumed the life had already left Jollo’s body.
“I have to start,” Covenantis said. “You keep looking for Mama or the Quackenbush girl.”
“They’ll come,” Malingo said, and turning his back to Covenantis he did as the boy had requested and stared off between the trees.
As he studied the corridor of shadow before him and ever-deeper shadow ahead of him he became aware that he, the studier, was himself being studied. He let his gaze follow his instinct up into the