Serpent said nothing. He was comprehensively hushed.
“I think the rain’s stopped,” said McBean.
The rest of the company now emerged from the cover of the jackoline tree to see the flawless blue of a Noncian sky appearing above their heads; the rain clouds receding to the northeast. And as the sun warmed the waterlogged Hour, the charmed dirt of the Nonce staged another Genesis, bringing forth a new generation of flora and fauna: their scents sweet, their colors and shapes written from a limitless alphabet of hues and forms. The company had, of course, witnessed this phenomenon many times now, but since no two verses from this Book of Beginnings were ever the same, they invariably found fresh reasons for wonderment. This time was no exception.
“Look at that,” said John Drowze. “The purple-and-yellow flower!”
As he spoke, the blossom he’d been pointing at flapped its petals, raised its antennaed head and took to the air, inspiring a host of its petal-winged brethren to do the same thing.
“Maybe we’re going to be like those flower flies one of these days,” said Tria.
“What do you mean?” said Geneva.
“Oh, it was just a silly thought.”
“No, tell us.”
Tria frowned. The words seemed hard to come by. “I just meant that maybe one day—if we stay here long enough, and get rained on often enough—maybe we’ll all change. Maybe we’d just take off on the wind . . .” She stared at the sky, eyes bright and wide; the idea obviously enchanted her. Then she seemed to realize that everybody was watching her, and she suddenly became embarrassed. “What am I yabbering about?” she said, looking from one of her companions to the next. “I’m just being silly,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not silly,” John Moot said. “I’ve thought some of the exact same things while we’ve been here. I think we all have. I’ve even talked about it with my brothers.”
“I think your memory must be misleading you,” John Serpent said snottily. “I was never a part of a conversation about anyone turning into a bloody insect.”
“Forget him,” Tom said to Tria. “Go on with what you were saying.”
Tria shrugged. “I’ve said what I was going to say,” she replied. “Except—”
“In heaven’s name, what?”
“I don’t think it’s only here on the Nonce. There’s change happening everywhere.”
“Big deal,” said John Pluckitt. “So things change. What’s so important about that? It stops raining, it starts raining—”
“It’s not the kind of change I mean,” Tria said.
“Well, can you be more specific?” Geneva asked her.
Tria shook her head. “Not exactly,” she admitted. She went down on her haunches and gently plucked a tiny flower that was nestled in the mud at her feet. It came out of the earth complete with a pale green root that squirmed gently, as if reaching back toward the earth. “Maybe these changes will all seem small at first,” she said dreamily, as though she didn’t really understand what she was talking about. “But their effects will be enormous.”
“And what about us?” Geneva said. “Are we a part of the changes?”
“Oh yes,” Tria replied. “Whether we like it or not. The world is going to be turned upside down.”
She tenderly returned the eager plant to the earth, where it sank into the ground with a kind of polite gratitude, turning its petaled head up toward Tria as it did so.
“Will you listen to that?” said Tom.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“I do,” said Tria.
Everybody fell silent now. But they heard nothing.
“I could have sworn I heard a voice,” Tom said.
“Maybe an echo of us.”
“No, it wasn’t one of us,” Tria said. “Tom’s right. There’s somebody nearby.”
Geneva scanned the landscape carefully, looking for any sign of a presence.
Tria did the opposite. She closed her eyes and stood absolutely still, focusing her attention minutely. Finally she said: “He’s somewhere off to the left of us.” Her eyes still closed, she pointed. “He’s very close.”
Then she opened her eyes and looked in the direction in which she’d pointed. The landscape wasn’t entirely empty. The area had obviously been washed clear in the last cloudburst, but already bore new growths, which were appearing everywhere to carpet the ground.
“I don’t like this,” John Moot said. “I think we should get out of here.”
“It’s not a dragon,” said Tria.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m not. I just don’t think it is.”
“Finnegan?” said Geneva.
“Well, where is he?” McBean said. “If he’s close, why don’t we see him?”
Tria was staring at the ground. “Down there . . .” she murmured.
“That’s why we haven’t found him,” Geneva said. “He’s underground!”
“Underground?” said Tom.
“Yes.”
“Maybe he’s using the tunnels and caves under the island to creep up on the dragons?”
“Yeah, or else he got lost down there,” said John Drowze. “And now he can’t get out.”
“Either way, we’re going to discover the truth,” said Geneva. “We haven’t come all this way to turn back because he’s underground.”
“Let me lead the way,” Tria said. “I’ll find a hole in the ground, and we’ll go after him.”
“All agreed?” said Geneva.
“Anything to get off this island,” said McBean.
Chapter 32
Events at the Threshold
DIAMANDA LOOKED WEARIER THAN Candy remembered her looking, but she was certainly a welcome sight.
“I heard you were in a bit of trouble,” the old lady said.
“You could say that,” Candy said.
She glanced past Diamanda, to see the Sanguinius rounding the corner of the house. It had apparently already sniffed the presence of power in its vicinity, because it had slowed its approach and now came cautiously, its teeth bared like a crazed dog.
Diamanda raised her left hand, and with an elegant flourish she said:
“Be still—
Thing!
That’s my will—
Thing!
Or I will make you mourn—
Thing!
The day that you were born—
Thing!”
The simplicity of the spell brought a smile to Candy’s lips; but simple or not, it did the trick. The expression on the Sanguinius’ face grew suddenly peaceful and pleasant, and it sank dutifully down to the ground, its head laid on its front legs. Despite its enormous size, it suddenly resembled some domestic animal, lying down beside the hearth.
“There are four other beasts around here,” Candy warned Diamanda.
“Yes, I know. But by the time they come looking for us, we’ll be away, back to the Twenty-Fifth.”
“I’ve got so much to tell you.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“But before we go . . .”
“Yes?”
“. . . the boy who brought me here—his name is Letheo—is somewhere around here, and he’s hurt.”
“Well, we’ll have to leave him to the tender mercies of some passing Samaritan,” Diamanda replied. “I can’t risk anything happening to you.”
“Can’t we take him with us?”
“Are you fond of this boy?” Diamanda said in her usual straightforward manner.
“No. I just promised I wouldn’t leave him, that’s all. And I don’t like breaking promises.”
“As it happens, I know of this boy. He has a curse in his blood, did you know that?”
“Yes. I saw. He needs to take medicine, he told me.”
“Was this before or after he kidnapped you?” Diamanda said.
“He didn’t mean to hurt me. I’m sure of that.”
“You have quite a capacity for forgiveness, girl, I’ll giv
e you that. I suppose it doesn’t surprise me, given what I know about you. Still”—she smiled indulgently—“you must be careful with kindness. It’s usually mistaken for weakness by stupid people.”
“I understand,” Candy said. “I won’t—” She stopped and studied the Sanguinius. “I could swear it blinked,” she said.
“That’s impossible.”
“It did, Diamanda. It—”
Before she could finish speaking, Diamanda’s gaze was also distracted: not toward the beast, but up to a window high above them. She caught sight of somebody moving away from the sill.
“Damn!” the old lady said. “Somebody in this House just undid my spell! We’re in trouble, girl—”
An instant later the Sanguinius let out a roar and rose up from its supine position. Instantly its eyes locked on Candy and it came at her, its mouth gaping as though it intended to simply scoop her up and swallow her.
She backed away, one step, two steps. But that was as far as she could go. The locked door of the Dead Man’s House was hard against her spine.
The Sanguinius let out a fetid breath. Candy put her hands up to ward off the creature, but its attack was a feint. Just as it seemed the jaws would close on her, the creature swung around and instead snapped up Diamanda. It all happened so fast that Candy had no time to yell a warning, much less do anything to save the old lady. One moment Diamanda was standing right beside her, the next the Sanguinius had taken the incantatrix in its jaws. Candy had never witnessed anything so horrible. It struck some nerve deep inside her to see this. She let out a sob and threw herself at the creature in a fury of frustration.
“Give her back!” she yelled.
But the beast had no intention of relinquishing its meal. Instead it retreated from Candy with a curious caution in its step. Was it nervous of her? Why? Because she had power in her. Yes, perhaps. She’d sent the zetheks packing from the hold of the Parroto Parroto, hadn’t she? Perhaps the same word would work now.
Too angry to be afraid, she pursued the Sanguinius, calling up the word—and the power that it contained—into her throat. But before she could unleash it, the beast casually closed its vast maw, its teeth skewering Diamanda in dozens of places.
The Sister of the Fantomaya did not cry out. She simply let out a shuddering sigh, and died. Then the Sanguinius turned and sauntered off, with Diamanda’s limp body hanging out of its mouth to left and right, her blood staining the snow.
Shaking from scalp to sole, Candy sank back against the locked door, her hands pressed against her face.
“No more . . .” she murmured, “please . . . no more . . .”
Too much had happened; she was overwhelmed. First Babilonium, and losing Malingo, then the mysteries of the Twilight Palace and her abduction; now this. To lose one of the few people in this troubled world who seemed to understand her and who she was. Gone, in a few terrible seconds. It was too much, too much.
After a minute or so she looked up through her fingers. The blizzard was getting worse with every gust of wind. The thickening veils of snow had already virtually eroded the Sanguinius and its victim. As Candy watched, it disappeared from sight completely.
There came a sound from behind her, the harsh grating of a bolt being drawn aside. She started to get up and step away from the door, but she wasn’t fast enough. As the door opened, she stumbled backward, flailing. She reached out for the door handle to steady her fall, but her hands were too numb, her body too weak, her brain too overburdened. She caught the briefest of glimpses of the world into which she had fallen; then her besieged senses gave up, and she willingly let darkness take her away from the world.
Chapter 33
A Visit to Marapozsa Street
IN THE DEPTHS OF her unconscious state, Candy caught glimpses of Diamanda. On the shore of the Twenty-Fifth Hour, smiling at her. On a boat, sitting calmly, watching the waters, still smiling. And finally—much to Candy’s surprise—walking in the streets of Chickentown, unnoticed by those who passed her by. The dream, or vision, or whatever it was, reassured her. It seemed to say that Diamanda had already moved on about some new business, the hurt of life—and of her death—forgotten.
Candy murmured the old lady’s name in her sleep, and the sound of her own voice woke her. She was lying on a huge bed in one of the strangest rooms she had ever seen. It was dominated by a massive mantelpiece, which was carved from black marble. A small fire guttered in the hearth, its pale blue flames barely big enough to tickle the dark throat of the grate. And yet there was light in the room, even if it didn’t come from the fire. It bled out of the cracks in various objects around the room: from a vase, from under the door of a wardrobe, even up between the polished wooden floorboards. And where the strands and filigrees of light crossed, which they did in perhaps three dozen places, they threw off sparks like fireworks. The flickering filled the immensely tall room with dancing shadows.
Candy got up off the bed in which somebody had kindly laid her and did her best to orient herself, but the constant motion of the light made that difficult: everything had an eerie animation in it, thanks to the sparks, as though all the objects in the room were alive. But after a minute or two, her eyes became accustomed to the dance of light, and she began to tentatively explore the room. On a chair near the fire were some clothes, which had obviously been left for her. A pair of dark blue shoes with bright red laces. A baggy pair of trousers, which were dark purple. A blouse that was close to the color of the trousers. And a loose jacket, which seemed at first glance to be decorated with abstract designs, but which a second and third glance revealed to be representations of creatures from some Abaratian Eden; fish and fowl, bird and beast, all parading around the coat together.
She was grateful for the gift. Her present clothes were torn and damp. As she put on the new stuff, she found it was all made of extremely friendly material: fabric that seemed to be eager to comfort her.
Dressed in her new outfit, she felt much more prepared to meet the owner of this house, even a little curious. She opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. It was lit much the same way as the room behind her—light leaking from cracks in everything, criss-crossing and sparking. The passageway went on for a long way in both directions and was filled like a warehouse with bric-a-brac. For the third time in recent days—once in Babilonium, once in the Wunderkammen in the Twilight Palace—she was aware of the curious abundance of the Abarat. Sometimes it seemed to be a kind of encyclopedia of possibilities; an A to Z of things wonderful and strange, brimming, overspilling itself in its eagerness to be All and Everything and More Than Everything. And somewhere inside that ambition, she knew, lay a clue to what it really was.
Maybe her host would know. She called out.
“Hello? . . . Anybody? Hello!”
There was no reply but the echo of her voice, so she turned right and ventured down the corridor, continuing to call. As she went she noted a few of the oddities along the way. The stuffed head of an animal whose mouth was a seething nest of tongues. A screen covered with carved birds that seemed to rise up as she approached. A table with a game that had perhaps three hundred pieces laid out on it, in the form of two armies: Day and Night.
There were signs from both above and below of other presences in the house. Somebody seemed to be hammering on the floor above, and nearby somebody was singing in a high, thin voice. It was a sad, peculiar song: one that she knew from Malingo. It told of a man called Tailor Schmitt, who had been, the words claimed, the best tailor in the Abarat. The trouble was that he was a little crazy. And the idea soon came into his head that the sky was like a badly fitting suit, and soon the buttons that kept the sky in place would pop.
“Tailor Schmitt, poor Tailor Schmitt,
Thought the sky wouldn’t fit—”
The poor tailor was terrified of the consequences of this, the song said, because then whatever was lying in wait behind the sky—monsters, perhaps, or simply a devouring oblivion—would break through from the
other side and spill into his world. So, according to the song, he spent the rest of his life making buttons so that the heavens could be buttoned up again, and made safe.
“—thousands of buttons, bone and lead,
The tailor made till he was dead.
Perhaps now Tailor Schmitt has died,
He knows what lies on the other side,
But we remember him in song,
And pray to heaven that he was wrong.”
This was the sorrowful little tune that accompanied Candy as she moved through the house. Every now and then she’d open a door and look into one of the rooms. There was plenty of evidence of occupancy. In one room there was a large bed, which had recently been slept in, to judge by the shape of the sleeper’s head on the pillow. In another room there was a small table on which a large egg stood, recently hatched, the creature coming forth from it a sentient plant.
She continued to call out as she explored, and finally found somebody to talk to. A diminutive woman dressed in black, with an elaborate ruff around her neck, came hurrying down the corridor toward her. She beckoned to Candy.
“Are you the person who brought me here?” Candy asked her.
The woman shook her head.
“Do you know who did?”
“Mister Masper,” the woman said softly. “And I know he would like to talk to you.”
“Oh. So where will I find this Mister Masper?”
“Come with me,” the woman said, her eyes skipping over Candy’s face, all curiosity: studying her eyes, her mouth, even her ears and forehead.
“Is there something wrong?” Candy asked her.
“No no,” she said. “It’s just . . . you’re not the way I expected you to be.”