“Good! Good!” he said. “Jamjam! Get the young lady a mirror. How old are you?”
“Almost sixteen, why?”
“You wear something much more ladylike, huh? We got nice things. Like I say, no extra charge.”
“I’m fine. Thank you. I want to remember this the way it really was.” She smiled at Malingo. “Two wanderers in Tazmagor, tired but happy.”
“That’s what you want, that’s what I give you,” Guumat said.
Jamjam handed her a little mirror and Candy consulted her reflection. She was a mess, no doubt about it. She’d cut her hair very short a couple of weeks before so she could hide from Houlihan among some monks on Soma Plume, but the haircut had been very hurried, and it was growing out at all angles.
“You look fine,” Malingo said.
“So do you. Here, see for yourself.”
She handed him the mirror. Her friends back in Chickentown would have thought Malingo’s face—with his deep orange hide and the fans of leathery skin to either side of his head—fit only for Halloween. But in the time they’d been traveling together through the islands, Candy had come to love the soul inside that skin: tenderhearted and brave.
Guumat arranged them in front of his camera.
“You need to stand very, very still,” he instructed them. “If you move, you’ll be blurred in the picture. So, now let me get the camera ready. Give me a minute or two.”
“What made you want a photograph?” Malingo said from the corner of his mouth.
“Just to have. So I won’t forget anything.”
“As if,” said Malingo.
“Please,” said Guumat. “Be very still. I have to focus.”
Candy and Malingo were silent for a moment.
“What are you thinking about?” Malingo murmured.
“Being on Yzil, at Noon.”
“Oh yes. That’s something we’re sure to remember.”
“Especially seeing her . . .”
“The Princess Breath.”
Now, without Guumat requesting it, they both fell silent for a long moment, remembering their brief encounter with the Goddess on the Noon-Day island of Yzil. Candy had seen her first: a pale, beautiful woman in red and orange standing in a patch of warm light, breathing out a living creature, a purplish squid. This, it was said, was the means by which most of the species in the Abarat had been brought into Creation. They had been breathed out by the Creatrix, who had then let the soft wind that constantly blew through the trees and vines of Yzil claim the newborn from her arms and carry them off to the sea.
“That was the most amazing—”
“I’m ready!” Guumat announced from beneath the black cloth he’d ducked under. “On the count of three we take the picture. One! Two! Three! Hold it! Don’t move! Don’t move! Seven seconds.” He lifted his head out from under the cloth and consulted his stopwatch. “Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. That’s it!” Guumat slipped a plate into his camera to stop the exposure. “Picture taken! Now we have to wait a few minutes while I prepare a print for you.”
“No problem,” Candy said.
“Are you going down to the ferry?” Jamjam asked her.
“Yes,” said Candy.
“You look like you’ve been on the move.”
“Oh, we have,” said Malingo. “We’ve seen a lot in the last few weeks, traveling around.”
“I’m jealous. I’ve never left Qualm Hah. I’d love to go adventuring.”
A minute later Jamjam’s father appeared with the photograph, which was still wet. “I can sell you a very nice frame, very cheap.”
“No, thanks,” said Candy. “It’s fine like this.”
She and Malingo looked at the photograph. The colors weren’t quite true, but Guumat caught them looking like a pair of happy tourists, with their brightly colored, rumpled clothes, so they were quite happy.
Photograph in hand, they headed down the steep hill to the harbor and the ferry.
“You know, I’ve been thinking . . .” Candy said as they made their way through the crowd.
“Uh-oh.”
“Seeing the Princess Breath made me want to learn more. About magic.”
“No, Candy.”
“Come on, Malingo! Teach me. You know all about conjurations—”
“A little. Just a little.”
“It’s more than a little. You told me once that you spent every hour that Wolfswinkel was asleep studying his grimoires and his treatises.”
The subject of the wizard Wolfswinkel wasn’t often raised between them: the memories were so painful for Malingo. He’d been sold into slavery as a child (by his own father), and his life as Wolfswinkel’s possession had been an endless round of beatings and humiliations. It had only been Candy’s arrival at the wizard’s house that had given him the opportunity to finally escape his enslavement.
“Magic can be dangerous,” Malingo said. “There are laws and rules. Suppose I teach you the wrong things and we start to unknit the fabric of time and space? Don’t laugh! It’s possible. I read in one of Wolfswinkel’s books that magic was the beginning of the world. It could be the end too.”
Candy looked irritated.
“Don’t be cross,” Malingo said. “I just don’t have the right to teach you things that I don’t really understand myself.”
Candy walked for a while in silence. “Okay,” she said finally.
Malingo cast Candy a sideways glance. “Are we still friends?” he said.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Always.”
Chapter 2
What There Is To See
AFTER THAT CONVERSATION THEY never mentioned the subject of magic again. They just went on with their island hopping, using the time-honored guide to the islands, Klepp’s Almenak, as their chief source of information. Every now and again they’d get a feeling that the Criss-Cross Man was closing in on them, and they’d cut short their exploring and move on. About ten days after they’d left Tazmagor, their travels brought them to the island of Orlando’s Cap. It was little more than a bare rock with an asylum for the insane built on its highest point. The asylum had been vacated many years before, but its interior bore the unmistakable signs of the madness of its occupants. The white walls were covered with strange scrawlings that here and there became a recognizable image—a lizard, a bird—only to dwindle into scrawlings again.
“What happened to all the people who used to be in here?” Candy wondered.
Malingo didn’t know. But they quickly agreed that this wasn’t a spot where they wanted to linger. The asylum had strange, sad echoes. So they went back to the tiny harbor to wait for another boat. There was an old man sitting on the dock, coiling a length of frayed rope. He had the strangest look on his face, his eyes all knotted up, as though he were blind. This wasn’t the case, however. As soon as Candy and Malingo arrived, he began to stare at them.
“You shouldn’t have come back here,” he growled.
“Me?” Malingo said.
“No, not you. Her. Her!” He pointed at Candy. “They’ll lock you away.”
“Who will?”
“They will, soon as they know what you are,” the man said, getting to his feet.
“You keep your distance,” Malingo warned.
“I’m not going to touch her,” the man replied. “I’m not that brave. But I see. Oh, I see. I know what you are, girl, and I know what you’ll do.” He shook his head. “Don’t you worry, I won’t touch you. No sir. I wouldn’t do a damn-fool thing like that.”
And so saying he edged around them, being sure to keep his distance, and ran off down the creaking dock, disappearing among the rocks.
“Well, I guess that’s what happens when you let the crazy folks out,” Malingo said with forced brightness.
“What was he seeing?”
“He was crazy, lady.”
“No, he really seemed to be seeing something. The way he was staring at me.”
Malingo shrugged. ??
?I don’t know,” he said. He had his copy of the Almenak open and used it to nimbly change the subject. “You know I’ve always wanted to see Hap’s Vault,” he said.
“Really?” said Candy, still staring at the rocks where the man had fled. “Isn’t it just a cave?”
“Well, this is what Klepp says—” Malingo read aloud from the Almenak. “‘Huffaker’—Hap’s Vault’s on Huffaker, which is at Nine O’clock in the Evening—‘Huffaker is an impressive island, topographically speaking. Its rock formations—especially those below ground—are both vast and elaborately beautiful, resembling natural cathedrals and temples.’ Interes-ting, huh? You want to go?”
Candy was still distracted. Her yes was barely audible.
“But listen to this,” Malingo went on, doing his best to draw her thoughts away from the old man’s talk. “‘The greatest of these is Hap’s Vault’ . . . blah, blah, blah . . . ‘discovered by Lydia Hap’ . . . blah, blah, blah . . . ‘It is Miss Hap who was the first to suggest the Chamber of the Skein.’ ”
“What’s the Skein?” Candy said, becoming a little more interested now.
“I quote: ‘It is the thread that joins all things—living and dead, sentient and unthinking—to all other things—’”
Now Candy was interested. She came to stand beside Malingo, looking at the Almenak over his shoulder. He went on reading aloud. “‘According to the persuasive Miss Hap, the thread originates in the Vault at Huffaker, appearing momentarily as a kind of flickering light before winding its way invisibly through the Abarat . . . connecting us, one to another.’” He closed the Almenak. “Don’t you think we should see this?”
“Why not?”
The island of Huffaker stood just one Hour from the Yebba Dim Day, the first island Candy had ever visited when she’d come to the Abarat. But whereas the great carved head of the Yebba Dim Day still had a few streaks of late light in the sky above it, Huffaker was smothered in darkness, a thick mass of clouds obscuring the stars. Candy and Malingo stayed in a threadbare hotel close to the harbor, where they ate and laid their plans for the journey, and after a few hours of sleep they set out on the dark but well sign-posted road that led to the Vault. They’d had the foresight to pack food and drink, which they needed. The journey was considerably longer than they’d been led to expect by the owner of the hotel, who’d given them some directions. Occasionally they’d hear the sound of an animal pursuing and bringing down another in the murk, but otherwise the journey was uneventful.
When they finally reached the caves themselves, they found that a few of the steep passageways had flaming torches mounted in brackets along the cold walls to illuminate the route. Surprisingly, given how extraordinary the phenomenon sounded, there were no other visitors here to witness it. They were alone as they followed the steeply inclined passageway that led them into the Vault. But they needed no guide to tell them when they had reached their destination.
“Oh Lordy Lou . . .” said Malingo. “Look at this place.”
His voice echoed back and forth across the vast cavern they had come into. From its ceiling—which was so far beyond the reach of the torches’ light as to be in total darkness—there hung dozens of stalactites. They were immense, each easily the size of an inverted church spire. They were the roosts of Abaratian bats, a detail Klepp had failed to mention in his Almenak. The creatures were much larger than any bat Candy had seen in the Abarat, and they boasted a constellation of seven bright eyes.
As for the depths of the cavern, they were as inky black as the ceiling.
“It’s so much bigger than I expected it to be,” Candy said.
“But where’s the Skein?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll see it if we stand in the middle of the bridge.”
Malingo gave her an uneasy look. The bridge that hung over the unfathomable darkness of the Vault didn’t look very secure. Its timbers were cracked and antiquated, its ropes frayed and thin.
“Well, we’ve come this far,” Candy said. “We may as well see what there is to see.”
She set a tentative foot on the bridge. It didn’t give way, so she ventured farther. Malingo followed. The bridge groaned and swayed, its boards (which were laid several inches apart) creaking with every step they took.
“Listen . . .” Candy whispered as they reached the middle of the bridge.
Above them they could hear the chittering of a chatty bat. And from far, far below the rushing of water.
“There’s a river down there,” Candy said.
“The Almenak doesn’t—”
Before Malingo could finish his sentence, a third voice came out of the darkness and echoed around the Vault.
“As I live and breathe, will you look at that? Candy Quackenbush!”
The shout stirred up a few bats. They swooped from their roosts down into the dark air, and in doing so they disturbed hundreds of their siblings, so that in a matter of a few seconds countless bats were on the move; a churning cloud pierced by shifting constellations.
“Was that—?”
“Houlihan?” Candy said. “I’m afraid it was.”
She’d no sooner spoken than there was a footfall at the far end of the bridge, and the Criss-Cross Man stepped into the torchlight.
“Finally,” he said. “I have you where you cannot run.”
Candy glanced back along the bridge. One of Houlihan’s stitchling companions had appeared from the shadows and was striding toward them. It was a big, ill-shapen thing, with the teeth of a death’s head, and as soon as it set foot on the bridge the frail structure began to sway from side to side. The stitchling clearly liked the sensation, because it proceeded to throw its weight back and forth, making the motion more and more violent. Candy grabbed hold of the railings, and Malingo did the same, but the frayed ropes offered little comfort. They were trapped. Houlihan was now advancing from his end of the bridge. He had taken the flaming torch from the wall and held it ahead of him as he advanced. His face, with its criss-crossed tattoos, was gleaming with sweat and triumph.
Overhead, the cloud of bats continued to swell, as events on the bridge disturbed more and more of them. A few of the largest, intending perhaps to drive out these trespassers, swooped down on Candy and Malingo, letting out shrill shrieks. Candy did her best to ignore them: she was much more concerned with the Criss-Cross Man, who was now no more than seven or eight feet away.
“You’re coming with me, girl,” he said to her. “Carrion wants to see you in Gorgossium.”
He suddenly tossed the torch over the railing, and with both hands free he raced at Candy. She had nowhere left to run. “What now?” he said.
She shrugged. Desperate, she looked around at Malingo. “We may as well see—”
“What is there to see?” he replied.
She smiled, the tiniest smile, and then, without even glancing up at their pursuers again, they both threw themselves headfirst over the rope railing.
As they plunged into the darkness, Malingo let out a wild whoop of exhilaration, or perhaps fear, perhaps both. Seconds passed, and still they fell and fell and fell. And now everything was dark around them and the shrieking of the bats was gone, erased by the noise of the river below.
Candy had time to think: If we hit the water at this speed we’ll break our necks, and then suddenly Malingo had hold of her hand, and using some trick of acrobatics he’d learned hanging upside down from Wolfswinkel’s ceiling, he managed to flip them both over, so that they were now falling feet first.
Two, three, four seconds later, they hit the water.
It wasn’t cold. At least not icy. Their speed carried them deep, however, and the impact separated them. For Candy there was a panicky moment when she thought she’d used up all her breath. Then—God bless him!—Malingo had hold of her hand again, and gasping for air, they broke surface together.
“No bones broken?” Candy gasped.
“No. I’m fine. You?”
“No,” she said, scarcely believing it. “
I thought he had us.”
“So did I. So did he.”
Candy laughed.
They looked up, and for a moment she thought she glimpsed the dark ragged line of the bridge high above. Then the river’s current carried them away, and whatever she’d seen was eclipsed by the roof of the cavern through which these waters ran. They had no choice but to go wherever it was going. Darkness was all around them, so the only clues they had to the size of caverns through which the river traveled was the way the water grew more tempestuous when the channel narrowed, and how its rushing din mellowed when the way widened again.
Once, for just a few tantalizing seconds, they caught a glimpse of what looked like a bright thread—like the Skein of Lydia Hap’s account—running through the air or the rock above them.
“Did you see that?” Malingo said.
“Yes,” said Candy, smiling in the darkness. “I saw it.”
“Well, at least we saw what we came to see.”
It was impossible to judge the passage of time in such a formless place, but some while after their glimpsing of the Skein they caught sight of another light, a long way ahead: a luminescence which steadily grew brighter as the river carried them toward it.
“That’s starlight,” Candy said.
“You think so?”
She was right; it was. After a few more minutes, the river finally brought them out of Huffaker’s caverns and into that quiet time just after nightfall. A fine net of cloud had been cast over the sky, and the stars caught in it were turning the Izabella silver.
Their journey by water wasn’t over, however. The river current quickly carried them too far from the dark cliffs of Huffaker to attempt to swim back to it and bore them out into the straits between Nine and Ten O’clock. Now the Izabella took charge, her waters holding them up without their needing to exert themselves with swimming. They were carried effortlessly out past Ninnyhammer (where the lights burned bright in the cracked dome of Kaspar Wolfswinkel’s house) and south, into the light, to the bright, tropical waters that surrounded the island of the Nonce. The sleepy smell of an endless afternoon came off the island, which stood at Three O’clock, and the breeze carried dancing seeds from the lush slopes of that Hour. But the Nonce was not to be their destination. The Izabella’s currents carried them on past the Afternoon to the vicinity of the island of Gnomon.