Abarat

PROLOGUE: the mission

The storm came up out of the southwest like a fiend, stalking its prey on legs of lightning.

The wind it brought with it was as foul as the devil's own breath and it stirred up the peaceful waters of the sea. By the time the little red boat that the three women had chosen for their perilous voyage had emerged from the shelter of the islands, and was out in the open waters, the waves were as steep as cliffs, twenty-five, thirty feet tall.

"Somebody sent this storm," said Joephi, who was doing her best to steer the boat, which was called The Lyre . The sail shook like a leaf in a tempest, swinging back and forth wildly, nearly impossible to hold down. "I swear, Diamanda, this is no natural storm!"

Diamanda, the oldest of the three women, sat in the center of the tiny vessel with her dark blue robes gathered around her and their precious cargo pressed to her bosom.

"Let's not get hysterical," she told Joephi and Mespa. She wiped a long piece of white hair out of her eyes. "Nobody saw us leave the Palace of Bowers. We escaped unseen, I'm certain of it."

"So why this storm?" said Mespa, who was a black woman, renowned for her resilience, but who now looked close to being washed away by the rain beating down on the women's heads.

"Why are you so surprised that the heavens complain?" Diamanda said. "Didn't we know the world would be turned upside down by what just happened?"

Joephi fought with the sail, cursing it.

"Indeed, isn't this the way it should be?" Diamanda went on. "Isn't it right that the sky is torn to tatters and the sea put in a frenzy? Would we prefer it if the world did not care?"

"No, no of course not," said Mespa, holding on to the edge of the pitching boat, her face as white as her close-cropped hair was black. "I just wish we weren't out in the middle of it all."

"Well, we are!" said the old woman. "And there's not a thing any of us can do about it. So I suggest you finish emptying your stomach, Mespa—"

"It is empty," the sick woman said. "I have nothing left to bring."

"—and you Joephi, handle the sail—"

"Oh, Goddesses…"Joephi murmured. "Look ."

"What is it?" said Diamanda.

Joephi pointed up into the sky.

Several stars had been shaken down from the firmament—great white cobs of fire piercing the clouds and falling seaward. One of them was heading directly toward The Lyre .

"Down!" Joephi yelled, catching hold of the back of Diamanda's robes and pushing the old woman off her seat.

Diamanda hated to be touched; manhandling , she called it. She started to berate Joephi roundly for what she'd done, but she was drowned out by the roaring sound of the falling star as it rushed toward the vessel. It burst the billowing sail of The Lyre , burning a hole right through the canvas, and then plunged into the sea, where it was extinguished with a great hissing sound.

"I swear that was meant for us," Mespa said when they had all raised their heads from the boards. She helped Diamanda to her feet.

"All right," the old lady replied, yelling over the din of the seething waters, "that was closer than I would have liked."

"So you think we are targets?"

"I don't know and I don't care," Diamanda said. "We just have to trust to the holiness of our mission."

Mespa licked her pale lips before she chanced her next words.

"Are we sure it's holy?" she said. "Perhaps what we're doing is sacrilegious. Perhaps she should be left to—"

"Rest in peace ?" said Joephi.

"Yes," Mespa replied.

"She was barely more than a girl, Mespa," Joephi said. "She had a life of perfect love ahead of her, and it was stolen."

"Joephi's right," said Diamanda. "Do you think a soul like hers would sleep quietly, with so much life left to live? So many dreams that she never saw come true?"

Mespa nodded. "You're right, of course," she conceded. "We must do this work, whatever the cost."

The thunderhead that had followed them from the islands was now directly overhead. It threw down a vile, icy rain, thick as phlegm, which struck the boards of The Lyre like drumming. The lightning came down around the trembling vessel on every side, its lurid light throwing the curling waves into silhouette as they rose to break over the boat.

"The sail's no use to us now," said Joephi, looking up at the tattered canvas.

"Then we must find other means," said Diamanda. "Mespa. Take hold of our cargo for a few moments. And be careful."

With great reverence Mespa took the small box, its sides and lid decorated with the closely etched lines of talismans. Relieved of her burden, Diamanda walked down to the stern of The Lyre , the pitching of the boat threatening several times to throw her over the side before she reached the safety of the little seat. There she knelt and leaned forward, plunging her arthritic hands into the icy waters.

"You'd best be careful," Mespa warned her. "There's a fifty-foot mantizac that's been following us for the last half hour. I saw it when I was throwing up."

"No self-respecting fish is going to want my old bones," Diamanda said.

She'd no sooner spoken than the mottled head of a mantizac– not quite the size Mespa had described, but still huge—broke the surface. Its vast maw gaped not more than a foot from Diamnda's outstretched arms.

"Goddess !" the old lady yelled, withdrawing her hands and sitting up sharply.

The frustrated fish pushed against the back of the boat, as if to nudge one of the human morsels on board into its own element.

"So…" said Diamanda. "I think this calls for some moon-magic."

"Wait," said Joephi. "You said if we used magic, we would risk drawing attention to ourselves."

"So I did," Diamanda replied. "But in our present state we risk drowning or being eaten by that thing ." The mantizac was now moving up the side of The Lyre , turning up its enormous head and fixing the women with its silver-and-scarlet eye.

Mespa clutched the little box even closer to her bosom. "It won't take me," she said, a profound terror in her voice.

"No," said Diamanda reassuringly. "It won't."

She raised her aged hands. Dark threads of energy moved through her veins and leaped from her fingertips, forming delicate shapes on the air, and then fled heavenward.

"Lady Moon," she called. "You know we would not call on you unless we needed your intervention. So we do. Lady, we three are of no consequence. We ask this boon not for ourselves but for the soul of one who was taken from among us before she was ready to leave. Please, Lady, bear us all safely through this storm, so that her life may find continuance…"

"Name our destination !" Joephi yelled over the roar of the water.

"She knows our minds," Diamanda said.

"Even so," Joephi replied. "Name it !"

Diamanda glanced back at her companion, faintly irritated. "If you insist," she said. Then, reaching toward the sky again, she said: "Take us to the Hereafter ."

"Good," said Joephi.

"Lady, hear us—" Diamanda started to say.

But she was interrupted by Mespa.

"She heard, Diamanda."

"What?"

"She heard."

The three women looked up. The roiling storm clouds were parting, as though pressed aside by titanic hands. Through the widening slit there came a shaft of moonlight: the purest white, yet somehow warm. It illuminated the trough between the waves where the women's boat was buried. It covered the vessel from end to end with light.

"Thank you, Lady…" Diamanda murmured.

The moonlight was moving over the boat, searching out every part of the tiny vessel, even to the shadowy keel that lay beneath the water. It blessed every nail and board from prow to stern, every grommet, every oar, every pivot, every fleck of paint, every inch of rope.

It touched the women too, inspiring fresh life in their weary bones and warming their icy skin.

All of this took perhaps ten seconds.

Then the clouds began to close again, cutting the moonlight off. Just as abruptly as it had begun, the blessing was over.

The sea seemed doubly dark when the light had passed away, the wind keener. But the timbers of the boat had acquired a subtle luminescence from the appearance of the moon, and they were stronger for the benediction they had received. The boat no longer creaked when it was broad-sided. Instead it seemed to rise effortlessly up the steep sides of the waves.

"That's better," said Diamanda.

She reached out to reclaim their precious cargo.

"I can take care of it," Mespa protested.

"I'm sure you can," said Diamanda. "But the responsibility lies with me. I know the world we're going to, remember? You don't."

"You remember the way it was ," Joephi reminded her. "But it will have changed."

"Very possibly," Diamanda agreed. "But I still have a better idea of what lies ahead of us than you two do. Now give me the box, Mespa."

Mespa handed the treasure over, and the women's vessel carved its way through the lightless sea, picking up speed as it went, the bow lifting a little way above the waters.

The rain continued to beat down on the women's heads, gathering in the bottom of the boat until it was four inches deep. But the voyagers took no notice of its assault. They simply sat together in grateful silence, as the magic of the moon hurried them toward their destination.

"There !" said Joephi. She pointed off toward the distant shore. "I see the Hereafter."

"I see it too!" said Mespa. "Oh, thank the Goddess! I see it! I see it!"

"Hush yourselves," Diamanda said. "We don't want to draw attention."

"It looks empty," Joephi said, scanning the landscape ahead. "You said there was a town."

"There is a town. But it's a little distance from the harbor."

"I see no harbor."

"Well, there's not much of it left," Diamanda said. "It was burned down, long before my time."

The keel of The Lyre was grating on the shore of the Hereafter. Joephi was first out, hauling on the rope and securing it to a piece of aged timber that was driven into the ground. Mespa helped Diamanda out, and the three of them stood side by side assessing the unpromising landscape spread before them. The storm had followed them across the divide between the two worlds, its fury undimmed.

"Now, let's remember," said Diamanda, "we're here to do one thing and one thing only. We get our business done and then we leave. Remember: we should not be here."

"We know that," said Mespa.

"But let's not be hasty and make a mistake," Joephi said, glancing at the box Diamanda carried. "For her sake we have to do this right. We carry the hopes of the Abarat with us."

Even Diamanda was quieted by this remark. She seemed to meditate on it for a long moment, her head downturned, the rain washing her white hair into curtains that framed the box she held. Then she said: "Are you both ready?"

The other women murmured that yes, they were; and with Diamanda leading the way, they left the shore and headed through the rain-lashed grass, to find the place where providence had arranged they would do their holy work.