Abarat

15. BUG

Maybe it was the warmth of the fire, maybe it was the strange scent of the dress she'd been given, maybe it was simply the fact that she was exhausted; whatever the reason, Candy slipped into a pleasant doze in front of Izarith's fire, while little Maiza played singsong games beside her. It wasn't a deep enough sleep to bring dreams, just a few flickering memories of sights she'd seen in the last few hours. The lighthouse, in all its ragged glory, standing in the long grass, neglected, but waiting. The turquoise ball, etched with the very same design she'd drawn on her workbook. The Sea of Izabella rolling out of nowhere, like a foaming miracle—

She opened her eyes suddenly, her heart jumping. Maiza had suddenly stopped her singing and had gone from the spot on the ragged rug beside her. She had retreated to the corner of the room, close to her brother's cot, her eyes fearful.

Behind her, Candy heard a whirring sound. Something told her to move very cautiously, which she did, turning her head oh-so-slowly to discover what was making such a peculiar noise.

Hovering in the middle of the room was a creature that looked to Candy like a cross between a very large locust and a dragonfly. Its wings were bright green, and it had uncannily large eyes, beneath which lay a design on its head that looked at first glance like a smile.

She glanced back at Maiza. Plainly the poor child didn't know what to make of this thing any more than Candy. She was gripping hold of the edge of the cot as though she was ready to climb in and hide with her brother if the creature made a move toward her.

Candy didn't have any time for bugs, big or small. Back in Chickentown they often had plagues of flies, because of the factories, and there was nothing she hated more than to go into the kitchen and find a host of big blue insects crawling on the dishes her mother had left caked with food in the sink before she went to work. Candy had no sentimentality about flies. She'd take a cloth and whip at them, catching them in mid-flight and killing them when they hit the ground.

She knew where they'd been: in the coops, eating chicken excrement, or feeding on the caked blood that stank in the gutters around the slaughterhouse. They were flying diseases as far as she was concerned. The only good fly was a dead fly. The same with roaches, which periodically invaded the Quackenbush house on Followell Street. Again, no mercy.

But this was a bug of a different order, and Candy wasn't sure how to treat it. For one thing, it was so big; more like a bird than an insect. She wasn't afraid of it stinging or biting her; she was quite ready to risk that. But she was afraid of enraging it and then having it turn on the children. She decided rather than swatting it like a very large wasp, she'd treat it as if it were a bird and try to coax it out it through the door.

"Maiza?"

"I want Muma."

"She's coming back soon. I want you to sit very still, yes?"

"Yes."

Having instructed the child, Candy tried to position herself so that she could shoo the insect through the door. But wherever she moved around the room, the creature repositioned itself, so that it was always staring directly at her, like an eager photographer determined to get a shot of her. When she approached it, the thing made no sign of retreating, but instead extended its neck so that its bug eyes seemed to get even bigger.

All this maneuvering gave Candy plenty of time to study the thing and appreciate its intricacies.

She should not have been surprised that a world which contained such a strange species as the Sea-Skippers should have insects as bizarre as this, but the more she looked at it, the more unusual it seemed. Its eyes had an unnerving depth to them, as if behind the layer of blue-green sheen was something more than insectoid intelligence.

In fact there was something almost too intelligent about the way it looked at her. Weren't bugs supposed to be stupid? Why then did this thing study her as though it had a mind of its own?

She tried everything to usher the creature out of the door, but it wouldn't go, so she decided to try Plan Two. When a bird got into the house (a rare event, but one that made Candy's mother become panicky), it always fell to Candy to get it out. She applied the same method now.

She went to the narrow pallet against the far wall, where apparently Izarith, her husband and Maiza slept, and picked up a sheet. When she turned, she found the creature had followed her across the room. Before it had time to work out what she was doing, she snatched up the sheet, threw it over the creature, and pulled it to the ground.

The dragonfly instantly began to flap wildly and give off what sounded remarkably like a baby sobbing, rising scales of complaint which the sheet did very little to muffle. Candy held on tight, attempting to capture the creature without hurting it. She gathered up the sheet beneath the insect and gently transported it to the door. But she had not counted on the violence of the creature's motion. It flapped so wildly—and its wings were so strong—that it began to tear the thin fabric open as if it were no more than a paper bag.

Candy hastened her trip to the door, but the creature was too quick for her. It tore out of the sheet and rose into the air again, hovering and turning on the spot seven or eight times. Plainly it wanted to ascertain who'd played this trick on it. When it fixed upon its captor, it defiantly flew closer than ever, and Candy saw the darkness behind its eyes close up like a mechanical iris.

"You're not real," she said to it, amazed and annoyed at the same time. Amazed because she'd been fooled by its perfection for so long, and annoyed for exactly the same reason.

The thing was spying on her.

"Damn thing!" she said, whipping the sheet around, as she would have done in the kitchen at Followell Street if she'd been in pursuit of a bluebottle.

The creature was so big (and perhaps a little dizzied by its own maneuvers) that she quickly caught it in the sheet and brought it down. It struck the ground very hard.

As soon as it hit the floorboards, she knew that her guess about its true nature was correct. The sound it made was undeniably metallic.

She pulled off the sheet. The thing was lying on its side, one of its wings flapping weakly, the other entirely still, and its six legs pedaled slowly as though somebody had just snatched a bicycle from between them.

But even now, wounded and dizzied, it turned its bug eyes toward Candy, and she heard a humming sound that the noise of its wings had hitherto disguised.

It was the noise of the creature's mechanism she could hear, and it was clearly badly damaged.

Even so, Candy didn't trust it. She'd seen roaches she was sure were dead and gone push themselves up off the ground and nonchalantly walk away. As long as this strange beast had life in it, it presented a danger.

She went to the hearth and picked up the iron rod that was used to poke the fire. Then—keeping her distance from the thing—she touched the creature with the end of the poker.

What happened next came so fast that it caught Candy completely off guard. The creature suddenly flipped itself over, and crawled up the poker with the speed of a striking snake.

Before Candy had time to let go of the poker, the design beneath the bug's eyes opened up like the mouth of a crab, and a spike, about five inches long, emerged and jabbed Candy's hand in the cradle of flesh between her forefinger and her thumb. Blood ran out of the wound. Yelping, Candy dropped the iron poker.

She put the cut to her mouth immediately, tasting the tang of her own blood, and perhaps something of the creature's metallic innards, from whence the spike had come.

Meanwhile, the insect had dropped off the poker and was finally retreating. It was wounded, she saw; two of its legs were set awry and were being dragged behind it.

Even so, as it retreated, it underwent an extraordinary transformation.

Without missing a steady step of its speedy stride, its back opened up, two doors sliding out of sight. Its wings were then raised and folded and slid with perfect accuracy into the opening and its back closed up again. At the same time a host of other smaller changes were taking place in its anatomy. A telescopic tail appeared, almost doubling the insect's length when it reached its full measure, and a second rack of legs appeared along its abdomen. When its reconfiguration was complete it no longer resembled a locust or a dragonfly, but a huge centipede. Even its color seemed to have changed subtly, its bright greens bled of their intensity, so that now it was a sickly, mottled yellow.

It no longer tried to record Candy or her surroundings. All it wanted now was to be away as fast as possible, so as to avoid another attempt on its artificial life. Candy made no further attempt to stop it from escaping. It wasn't worth the risk.

The creature was now about two feet from freedom. And then, in walked Izarith. She failed to notice the thing scuttling beneath her feet. Good mother that she was, her eyes went first to her frightened daughter.

"Watch out!" Candy yelled.

Too late. Izarith had trodden on the tail of the creature, which cracked like the shell of a lobster.

Izarith looked down. The food she'd brought in with her fell from her hands. An expression of the most intense disgust came to her face.

She raised her foot to stomp on it again.

"Get it, Muma!" Maiza said, silent tears running down her cheeks.

"Be careful," Candy warned her, still trying to stop the blood flowing from her hand. "It fights back."

Izarith didn't seem to care; her house had been invaded and her child had been terrorized. She was furious. She stamped on it twice, bringing her heel down hard. The creature was fast, however. It tried to rush away between Izarith's legs. But she took a step back to stop it, and realizing the way was barred, the creature turned, its bug eyes scanning the wall to the right of the door. Picking up the poker that Candy had dropped, Izarith pursued the creature to the corner of the room.

But again the insect showed a remarkable turn of speed. It ran toward the wall, and leaped , driving its feet into the plaster. Then it made a zigzag ascent, evading each and every blow Izarith attempted to deliver. In a matter of seconds, it was out of her reach and heading across the ceiling to a place where the plaster had fallen away, exposing a sizeable hole. It disappeared through it and was gone.

"Hush ," Izarith said to Nazre, who'd begun to cry out loud.

The child stopped crying almost instantly. Candy listened. She could still hear the creature's feet as it scuttled away. Eventually they grew so soft, Candy wasn't sure whether she was still hearing them, or imagining it.

Then they were finally gone.

Candy looked down at her hand. It was still bleeding. Not a lot, but enough to make Candy feel faintly sick. It was not just the blood that sickened her; Candy had a strong stomach. It was much more to do with the memory of the creature's scrutiny; the horrid intelligence in its stare.

"Do you know where that thing came from?" she asked Izarith.

Izarith picked up what looked like the remains of a child's shirt and tossed it over to Candy. "Here," she said, "it'll stop the blood."

"Well, do you?"

"No ," Izarith replied, not looking at Candy. "There are things like that all over. But never before in my home."

"But it wasn't real, Izarith. It was a machine of some kind."

Izarith shrugged, as though the matter of its being real or not was completely irrelevant.

Candy tore the old garment she'd been given into two strips and bound it around her hand. It slowly stopped throbbing. As she tied off the knot, Izarith—who'd been silently working to calm and then feed her children—said, "I think you should go."

She still wasn't looking at Candy. Plainly the fact that she was ushering the girl who'd been so generous to her out of her house was an embarrassment. But her primary concern was her children's safety.

"Will others like that thing come to replace it?"

"I don't know," Izarith said, finally glancing up at Candy. The blood had gone from her face. Though she'd dealt with the insect efficiently enough, she was obviously deeply afraid. There were tears in her eyes, but she was fighting them bravely. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just think it's better if you go."

Candy nodded. "Of course," she said. "I understand. I hope things go well for you and your family."

"Thank you," Izarith said. "I hope things go well for you, too. But be careful. This is a dangerous time."

"So I begin to see," Candy said.

Izarith nodded, then she returned to the business of feeding her children, leaving Candy to make her own way out.

16. THE UNIVERSAL EYE

Carrion had no love of things commexian. on the island of Pyon, where it was always Three O'clock in the Morning, Rojo Pixler had built Commexo City, his so-called city of Light and Laughter. It had been, many years before, the site of the Carrion Night Mansion. The Lord of Midnight had happy memories of the times preceding the fire that destroyed the Mansion; Hours when Pyon had been a place of play. He'd needed no magic then. He'd been the prince, his father's favorite. That was all he had needed in order to make the world glorious and Pyon a playground.

But after the fire he had never gone back. And when the man he'd thought was a harmless dreamer by the name of Rojo Pixler had offered to buy the land on which the ruins of the Night Mansion still stood, he'd readily sold it.

Only later did he discover that Pixler's representatives had been surreptitiously buying up other plots of land around Pyon, until he had enough ground to start the construction of his dream city; a place where night was to be permanently banished by a constant blaze of artificial light. What a mockery, that on the very site where the Carrion family had lived in a palace of shadow and enigma, was now a garish city whose every surface blazed. The dazzle and gaud of it could be seen at midnight, if you stood in certain spots along Marrowbone's Shore on the northwest where the wind off the Izabella thinned the red fogs.

Carrion had promised himself that he would personally extinguish those lights when his Night of Nights came. And Rojo Pixler would get a nightmare or two to replace his bright and wretched dream. Something plucked from Carrion's own cortex. Something that would leave the man a gibbering wreck, driven so far into madness he would be unable even to remember the name of his own damnable city.

But that was for the future. Until that happy Night came, it made sense to put the inventions that Pixler funded to use. Pixler was no fool. He had found a way to marry the ancient magical principles that had been practiced on the islands since the beginning of time with new machineries invented by the scientists he kept in gleaming laboratories in the towers of Commexo City.

Where had Pixler found those first magical principles? In books he had paid professional thieves to steal from Carrion's own library, among other places. Carrion had let it be known that he was aware of the theft and even of the price Pixler had paid the thief, a fellow by the name of John Mischief, for his illicit services.

Word had later reached him that Pixler—who was at heart a superstitious man—had become very agitated when he heard that his commissioned thefts were no secret. Fearing reprisal, he had casually offered the use of his "Sublime Verities," as he called his marriage of science and magic, to Carrion, should he ever have need of them.

Well, that time had come.

Immediately following his interrogation of Shape, Carrion had sent one of his trusted lieutenants, Otto Houlihan, the Criss-Cross Man, to Commexo City. He was sent with a very specific demand. He knew for a fact that, like any man of power—especially one who had risen suddenly, like Pixler—the King of Commexo City was not only superstitious, but paranoid. He feared for his life and for his city. And with reason. No doubt there were people on every island who hated Commexo City and all that it represented.

Being a practical man—a man who believed in finding solutions, not simply stewing in his fear—Pixler had instructed his magical scientists to use their Sublime Verities in the creation of spies that would take the shape of living things and would be dispersed through the islands to watch for and report any sign of rebellion against him.

Only a month before, the Criss-Cross Man had brought a dozen of these automaton spies to the Twelfth Tower for the Lord of Midnight's amusement. They were like exquisite toys to Carrion's eye; he had amused himself by having Houlihan blindfold them, then watched them batter themselves to pieces against the walls of his scrying room. Some of the finest he had turned over to his own scientists for closer analysis. One, an artificial meckle bird, he had caged and kept for himself, because it needed no nourishment, and it sang so fetchingly, even when blinded.

Now he had a new reason for Rojo Pixler's spying operations. He wanted to know if the girl who'd apparently been Mischief's accomplice had survived the waters of the Izabella, and if so, where she'd gone.

So he sent Houlihan to Commexo City; a short while later the man returned, not with information, but with one of Pixler's chief scientists, a certain Dr. Voorzangler.

The doctor appeared before Carrion dressed in a fine white linen suit, with white shoes and white tie; he wore one of the more peculiar ocular devices Carrion had ever seen. It had the effect of taking the image of his eyes and superimposing them, one over the other, in the middle of his face. Voorzangler's eyes were not a perfect match. One of them was a little bigger than the other, and one seemed to be a little slower in its motion than its companion, so the cyclopic eye the device created was seldom whole. One image was always trailing half an eye behind the other.

Whatever the reason for his wearing it, the thing didn't seem to impair Voorzangler's vision. He was studying the paintings on the walls of the gallery when Carrion came in.

His voice, when he spoke, was high-pitched and weaselly.

"I hear," he said, "that you are searching for somebody. Is that right? Somebody who has conspired against you? And you need Mr. Pixler's assistance?" Before Carrion could reply, the doctor continued, his voice, after a few sentences, already annoying Carrion. "Mr. Pixler instructed me to tell you that he is more than happy to help a friend and neighbor. Could you perhaps supply me with a brief description of the miscreant?"

"No," said Carrion. "But I have somebody who can." He turned to Houlihan. "Where's Shape?"

"I brought him up from the kitchens as you instructed, sir. He's waiting in the next room."

"Fetch him."

While Houlihan went off down the length of the gallery to fetch Shape, Carrion turned his full attention on Voorzangler.

"So what have you brought to impress me with?" he said.

Voorzangler began to blink his one and a half eyes vigorously. "It was Mr. Pixler's desire that you be given access to our most secret spying device," he said. "The Universal Eye."

"I'm honored," Carrion replied. "May I ask why, if it is so secret, Mr. Pixler so honors me?"

"He looks to the future, Lord Carrion. He sees a time when– if I may be so bold—you and he may be more than distant neighbors."

"Ah," said Carrion. "Good. Then let me see what proof of his intentions he has sent."

"Here," Voorzangler said, bringing Carrion's attention to a dark gray box, about three feet square, which was standing a little way down the gallery. He took a small control unit out from his white jacket and touched it with his thumb.

The response from the box was instantaneous. It rose into the air on a quintet of delicate legs on which it had been squatting. Then, without any further instruction from Voorzangler, it began to open up like a geometric flower, so that it now presented sixteen screens, four facing each wall of the room. An instant later, they all flickered into life, the images bright.

Carrion smiled.

"Well, well," he said.

He started to move around the other side of the device, but as he did so it accommodated him by flipping around, so as to present him with four more screens. Some of the images were static, but more were moving, their motion sometimes chaotic, as the camera—wherever it was situated—went in pursuit of a particular suspect.

By now Houlihan had brought Shape in. He was still wearing the same shabby coat, except that it was now decorated with the remains of his meal in the kitchens. He looked embarrassed when Carrion called him to hobble forward and view the multiplicity of screens.

"I'm hoping we're going to find our little Candy somewhere here," Carrion said to him. He turned to Voorzangler. "What kind of creatures do this spying for you?" he asked.

"You saw some of them yourself, sir, a month ago." His cyclopic gaze became sly. "I believe you still keep the meckle bird in your private rooms."

The meaning of this remark was not lost on Carrion. Voorzangler was subtly telling him that even he, the Lord of Midnight, was spied upon.

Carrion filed the information away for another time, and simply pretended not to understand what he'd been told.

"How many reports do you have in this device?" he asked.

"Nineteen thousand, four hundred and twelve," Voorzangler replied. "That's just from the last two days. Of course if you want to go back further—"

"No, no," said Carrion. "Two days is fine. Shape?"

"Yes, Lord?"

"Doctor Voorzangler is going to show you a lot of pictures. If the girl is among them, I want to know. Otto? Come and find me when you're ready."

Carrion left them to it and went out into the midnight, his thoughts straying from Voorzangler's Sublime Verities to subjects more massive and remote.

It was the stars glimmering through the fog that were the present subject of his meditations.

He knew from his books that each one of those distant lights was a sun unto itself. And though their meager illumination did not disturb him , there were other creatures in the Abarat for which those little stars (not to mention the brightness of the noonday sun or the light of the pallid moons that hung over the islands) were a curse.

They were called the Requiax, these creatures, and their home was in the deepest trenches of the Sea of Izabella.

Their age and their capacity for evil were both beyond calculation. Such indeed was the scale of their wickedness and the extent of their age, that many learned men and women who'd made it their business to study the innumerable life-forms of the Abarat did not even believe they existed. Wickedness of such proportions was a mythic invention, they said. The Requiax could not be real.

But Carrion had it from atrustworthy source that the Requiax lived. And having that certain knowledge he had wondered many times how things would be for his enemies across the archipelago if the light of the sun, moon and stars were somehow to be blotted out for a little while.

In that time would the Requiax not rise up from their unfathomable trenches, forsaking the temples where they were still paid homage by the blind monsters of the deep, and turn their vast, depraved faces toward the lightless sky? Rise up and come where they had not ventured since the time when great clouds of ash had covered the sun and moon and stars?

What harm would they do, if they walked the islands again?

What cities would they bring down, what peoples would they erase?

It was beyond even Carrion's power to fully conceive of the devastation they would unleash.

But he knew one thing: he wanted to be there to witness it. And he wanted to be ready, when the Hour of Darkness passed, and the Requiax returned to their temples and their trenches. Ready with his masons and his priests, to lay down the foundations of a New World and rebuild it in his image.

"Lord?"

The voice that had disturbed his thoughts was not that of Houlihan, as he'd expected. It was one of his grandmother's many stitchlings, creatures sewn together from skin and leather and fabric, then filled with a living mud. This particular stitchling was called Knotchek, and he was a wretched piece of work in every way.

"What is it?" Carrion said to him.

"Your grandmother, Mater Motley, summons you, my lord. She needs to talk with you about the visitation you have had from Commexo City."

"She misses nothing , does she?" Carrion remarked.

"Little, m'lord," Knotchek agreed.

"Well, I cannot come now," Carrion told the stitchling. "I have too much urgent business."

"She told me… um…"

Knotchek was getting nervous. Plainly this was not a message he wished to deliver.

"Go on," Carrion said.

"She says… sheforbids any further presence on Gorgossium of visitors from Commexo."

"She forbids ?' Carrion said. There was a menacing undertow to his voice. The nightmares in the water around his head grew agitated. "She forbids me . That harridan? That seamstress ?"

He caught Knotchek with one backward sweep of his gloved hand, so powerful it threw the stitchling ten yards.

"Go back to her !" Carrion shouted. "And you tell her if she ever forbids me ANYTHING EVER AGAIN I will loose a pack of nightmares among her little tribe of stitchlings and drive them to tear down the Thirteenth Tower, till there is nothing left but a heap of rubble! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR ?"

As he spoke, he moved toward Knotchek as though to strike him again. The stitchling drew itself up into a little ball of terror and waited to be brutalized.

But the blow never fell. Houlihan had emerged from the gallery, smiling.

"She's found!" he exclaimed.

Carrion waved Knotchek away. "Go. Tell her," he said.

Knotchek fled into the crimson mist and was gone.

"A problem, sir?" Houlihan said.

"Only my grandmother. She has too many fancy ideas about herself. One of these days she's going to go too far. So… you say you've found her? Show me."

Houlihan led Carrion back inside. The same image was now playing on all sixteen screens of Voorzangler's device. The white-suited cyclops had a smug smile on his face.

"She was in the Yebba Dim Day, in a house down on Krux Street, which is in the Fishermen's Ghetto. I must say, my lord, I can't see why you would have any interest in her. She doesn't look like much."

"I'll be the judge of that," Carrion said.

He approached the screens. The images before him were crystal clear. There was the girl, staring straight at the eyes of the spy, which moved to keep her centered and focused whenever she turned or backed away.

Carrion turned to Mendelson Shape. "Are you absolutely sure that this is the girl who was with Mischief?"

Shape nodded.

"No doubt?"

"No, Lord. None."

Carrion returned his gaze to the screens. "So…" he said quietly, staring at the girl. "Who are you?" He continued to stare at the image for several seconds, as though his eyes were attempting to interrogate the screen. Then he glanced around at Voorzangler.

"When did this happen?"

"Three hours ago. Maybe four."

"So she's probably still in the Yebba Dim Day. What do you think, Otto?"

"There have been some troubles there," Voorzangler said, before Houlihan had a chance to respond. "The dock collapsed. So there have been no boats getting out these last couple of hours."

"So she is still there," Houlihan said.

"What's the big deal?" Voorzangler said. "She's just—"

Carrion suddenly raised his finger to silence the doctor and stared with renewed intensity at the image on the screens. The stranger from the Hereafter had become angry, and her face– recorded by the very thing that was irritating her—had changed.

The girlishness had gone out of it. A young woman had been ignited by the fury she felt.

The change had Carrion entranced.

"Now what is this?" he said, so, so softly. He narrowed his eyes, taking off his glove and putting his naked hand on one of the screens as if wishing he could reach into it and seize hold of the girl herself.

"Do I know you?" he said, his voice even more mellifluous. "I do, don't I?"

The screen suddenly went blank. Carrion let out a little sob of pain, as though he'd been woken from a trance.

"It ends there," Voorzangler said.

Carrion didn't speak for a long while.

He simply continued to stare at the blank screen with an expression of profound bemusement on his face. Voorzangler opened his mouth to speak again, but Houlihan hushed him with a sharp look.

Finally, after fully two minutes, Carrion said: "Shape?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Go to Vesper's Rock and wait for me there."

"Am I to go after the girl?"

"Oh yes. You are to go after her. But not by glyph. I'm going to give you something a little more in keeping with the significance of your mission."

"I don't understand."

"Just go ," Carrion said, still staring at the blank screen.

Shape hurried away.

"There is something in that face, Otto, that makes me think my enemies are wilier than I suspected. They play with dreams now."

"Dreams?" asked the Criss-Cross Man.

"Yes, Otto. I have dreamed that face. That innocent face. But who… ?" He glanced up and met Voorzangler's strange stare. "Oh, are you still here?" he said to the doctor. "You may go. Thank Mr. Pixler for his kindness, will you?"

"The Universal Eye," Voorzangler said. "I have to return to Commexo City with it."

"No," said Carrion, very plainly. "I'll keep it here for now."

"No, no, no, you, you, you don't understand," Voorzangler said, panic making his words skip. "The, the science of, of—"

"—is of no interest to me, Voorzangler. So don't fret yourself. I won't be stealing back any of your precious Verities. It's her I'm interested in. And until I have the real thing in front of me, I will keep your Universal Eye."

"It's, it's just not, just not—"

The doctor didn't get to finish his reply. Carrion was on him in a heartbeat, his hands at the man's throat. Voorzangler tried to drag Carrion's huge grasp away from his windpipe, but his own thin little fingers weren't equal to the job.

Carrion lifted him off the floor; his feet were dangling in the air.

"You were saying, Doctor?" Carrion said.

The life was rapidly going out of Doctor Voorzangler. His conjoined eyes were becoming glassy. His limbs were jangling as though he was having a fit.

"We might need Mr. Pixler's help in the future," Houlihan remarked casually.

Carrion chewed on this for a moment. Then he took his hands off Voorzangler. The man dropped to a gasping, sobbing heap at the Lord of Midnight's feet.

"Take him outside."

Houlihan hauled the doctor up and dragged him toward the door, pausing only to pluck the controls to the Universal Eye out of Voorzangler's pocket.

Once he'd deposited him outside the gallery door, he returned to await Carrion's next instruction. When it came, it was simple enough.

"Show me the girl again," Carrion said. "Then you can go."

Voorzangler's device was easy to work. The image of the girl from the Hereafter was soon called up onto the screen again, ready to be replayed and replayed.

"Arrange a glyph to take me to Vesper's Rock," Carrion said as he stared at the images of Candy. "I want five corpses there, waiting for me. The usual place. Get some off the gallows. But they have to be old. I'm going to need dust ."

He stared at the screens.

"Dust for the girl from the Hereafter." He smiled to himself. "It's the least I can do."

17. ALMENAK

Given how close together the cottages were, Candy had fully expected to find a small crowd outside Izarith's door, drawn there by the noise of their fight with the insect. But there was far more interest in what was going on down at the dock; everybody was headed that way. So Candy made her way up the street, against the flow of the crowd. She was much more aware of the insect population now. Which of the numberless creatures buzzing around was a spy, like the one in Izarith's house? Every now and then something whined past her ear, and she swatted it away. None, she was pleased to see, came back.

The street had broad shallow steps, which made climbing a little easier. Even so, the labor of walking soon began to take its toll on her. The short sleep she'd had in front of the fire in Izarith's cottage had not been sufficient to fully restore her.

What she still needed, she knew, was some food. There were a number of stalls set out to the left and right of her on the steps, and they seemed to be selling a variety of edible goods: dried fish were hanging up on one stall (not her first choice); at another somebody was deep frying something that looked remarkably like a doughnut, especially when it had been dusted with sugar. She dug in the pockets of the little dress Izarith had given her and pulled out the six dollars she had kept. Perhaps it wasn't wise to use them, she thought. They marked her out as an alien here.

That left two options. She could either beg for food or steal it.

Since she was in urgent need of sustenance, in her present situation morality didn't really enter the picture. She looked up the street a little way. One stall seemed to have been deserted by its owner, who'd probably gone down to the dock with the rest of the crowd.

As she started to make her way toward the empty stall there was a surge of noise behind her, and a portion of the crowd, along with a number of police officers, came back, all gathered around three or four people who had clearly been pulled out of the water.

"Make way! Make way !" one of the officers yelled. "We've got injured people here !"

That was, of course, precisely the wrong thing to say. As soon as the words escaped from his lips, more spectators appeared to swell the crowd, eager to see how horrible the injuries were. Many of them clogged the street ahead of the advancing throng. The officer began to yell again. But people wanted to see, and no amount of shouting from a police officer was going to stop them getting a glimpse.

It was a curiously familiar scene. Watching it, Candy flashed on something that had happened four or five years ago, back home—or in the Hereafter, as she now thought of home. The family had been on a midsummer trip to see Grandma Hattie, Melissa's mother's mother, in Pelican Rapids. They'd been on Highway 94, and the trip had been going smoothly until suddenly the traffic had ground almost to a complete halt.

For the next hour and a half they had crawled along. The air conditioning in the car was not working properly so the heat was ferocious. It made everybody bad-tempered.

It had quickly become clear that the problem up ahead was a collision, and Candy's father had started to rage on about the fact that the real reason the traffic had come to a halt was because people were slowing down to see the wreckage.

"Damn lookeeloos ! Everybody has to slow down and take a look! It's sick ! Why can't people mind their own damn business?"

Of course, half an hour of sweat and curses later, when the Quackenbushes' car finally came up to the accident site, Candy's father had slowed down just like everybody else. In fact he had almost brought the line to a complete halt so that he could watch a body being brought out from under one of the seven vehicles—trucks, cars and an eight-wheeler rig—that were involved in the collision.

Candy should have known better, but her tongue had been quicker than her self-protective instincts. "I thought you told us it was sick, Dad?" she'd said.

Without missing a beat, Bill Quackenbush had leaned back between the seats and slapped her hard.

"Don't you give me cheek!"

"I just said—"

He slapped her again, harder.

"Enough, Bill," Candy's mother had said.

"I'll be the judge of that," came the reply, and just to show that he didn't care about his wife's opinion, he slapped Candy a third time, bringing tears to her eyes.

As she wiped them away, she caught sight of her mother in the mirror throwing an accusatory glance up at her husband. Bill Quackenbush had not seen the look: he was still staring at the bloody scene across the highway. But Candy had read the look clearly, and in the confusion of feelings she had for her father, it had given her a kind of sad satisfaction to see the cold loathing in her mother's eyes. But it wasn't enough. Why didn't she ever stick up for Candy—or herself? Why was she so weak?

All of this came back to Candy while she was watching the crowd come up the street, as clear as if it had happened yesterday. The heat of the car; the smell of her brothers' sweat and farts; her own discomfort and boredom. Then the horrible sight of the tangled wreckage; and the moment of regret when she'd spoken but it was too late to take the words back; followed by the slap and the tears and her mother's glacial stare.

That was the world she'd left. Boredom, violence and tears.

Whatever lay ahead of her here, she thought, it had to be better than that. It had to be.

She looked away from the crowd back up the street, to see that more than one stall had been deserted by their owners, who had all hurried down to see what could be seen.

She went up two or three steps, to a stall with a variety of pastries laid out on it. The display looked very similar to some thing she might have found in the supermarket in Chickentown, only tastier. Turnovers, croissants, sticks of bread rolled in dried fruit and a variety of small cakes.

She selected three very quickly: two turnovers and one huge scone; and then, greedily, went back for a croissant. Having got herself more than a meal's worth, she glanced up and down the street, just to check that the vendor wasn't making his or her return. It seemed she was free and clear.

She hurried away, clamping one turnover between her teeth and pocketing the other three pastries. Then she went on up the street and found a low stone wall where she could sit and eat.

The pastry was doughy, perhaps undercooked, but the filling was extremely sweet, with an odd, almost peppery edge, which she didn't like on the first bite but quickly changed her mind about. While she ate, her eyes went to a large advertisement on the opposite side of the street. It showed a deliriously happy boy, drawn in a cartoony style, with baggy striped pants and a big curl of blue hair, like a wave about to break, in the center of his head. He was animated by carefully laid lines of neon light and was walking on the spot, waving as he walked.

Beside him, on the wall, was a sign that read:

The Commexo Kid says:

FOR EVERYTHING THAT AILS YOU,

FROM TOE-ROT TO TAXES,

TRY THE PANACEA.

Candy laughed, her mood—which had been darkened by her memories of the events on Highway 94—lightening again.

And then, from the corner of her eye a figure appeared. A man dressed in a blue coat, wearing a spotted all-in-one suit underneath, stepped into view.

"I saw you," he said.

"You saw me do what?"

"Take the pastries."

"Oh, dear."

"It's okay," the man said, sitting down on the wall beside her. "As long as you share."

He was smiling as he spoke, so it seemed the threat, such as it was, carried no weight. Candy pulled the scone out of her pocket and broke it in half.

"Here," she said, handing one half over to her new companion.

"Most generous," he replied, rather formally. "And you are?"

"Candy Quackenbush. And you are?"

"Samuel Hastrim Klepp. The Fifth. Here." He fished a little pamphlet, printed on coarse brown paper, out of his pocket.

"What is this?"

"Klepp's Almenak; first published by my great-great-grandfather, Samuel Hastrim Klepp the First. This is the new edition."

Candy took the pamphlet and flicked through its pages. It was rather chaotically designed, its illustrations in black and white, but it was packed to the margins with information. There were maps, gaming rules, a page or two of astrology, and a few pages of pictures of what the author described as New Animals , which was an interesting notion. Further pages listed Celestial Events (the times of meteor showers and eclipses), even a collection of recipes. And interspersed between these relatively commonplace pieces were articles with a rather more Abaratian twist: "The Cat's Hair Cathedral: Myth or Reality?" "The Dung-Jewels of Efreet: A. Gatherer's Tale." And "The Golden Warrior: Alive or Dead?"

"So you publish this?" Candy said.

"Yes. And I sell it here in The Great Head and in Tazmagor and Candlemas and Kikador. But there's not much of a market for it any longer. People can get all the information they need from him ." He jerked his finger, rather rudely, at the Commexo Kid.

"He doesn't exist, does he? I mean that kid?"

"No, not yet. But take it from me, it's only a matter of time."

"You are joking?"

"No, not at all," Samuel said. "These people over at Commexo City, Rojo Pixler and his gang, have plans for us. And I don't think any of us are going to like what they have up their sleeve."

Candy looked at him blankly.

"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Not exactly, no."

"Where are you from?" Samuel said.

"Oh… here and there."

Samuel put his hand on her arm. "Tell me," he said. "I can keep a secret."

"I guess there's no reason why you shouldn't know," Candy said. "I came over from the other world. You call it the Hereafter."

A broad grin came over Samuel Klepp's face. "You did?" he said. "Well, isn't that something! I thought when I first laid eyes on you stealing those cakes: there's something about that girl…" He shook his head, his expression one of delight. "You see, a lot of people think the Hereafter is a myth, but I've always believed in it. So did my father and my father's father, all the way back to Samuel Hastrim Klepp the First. Tell me more, please. I want to know everything about the Hereafter."

"Really?" said Candy. "I don't think it's very interesting."

"Well, it might not be to you , because you were born there. But my readers need to hear about your world. They need to know the truth."

"But if people think it's all just a myth, how will you make anyone believe it?"

"Put it this way: I think it's better to try to get them to believe in new things than just to be content to have Commexo run their lives. Curing everything from toe-rot to taxes ! I ask you! How ridiculous can you get?"

There was a new commotion from farther down the street, as more drowned or nearly drowned people were brought in from the docks. Klepp made a face.

"I'll never be able to hear you talking over that din and hulla-baloo. Why don't you come back to the Press with me—?"

"The Press?"

"The place where I print the Almenak . I can show you a little of my world, while you tell me about yours . How does that sound?"

"Sure," said Candy. She was happy to get off the street, to be away from all the noise and confusion, so that she could gather her thoughts.

"Then let's depart, before the pastry cook comes back and counts her scones," Samuel said mischievously, and led Candy away up the long stairs to the heart of the city.

18. THE TALE OF HARK'S HARBOR

They passed several more images of the Commexo Kid as they made their way to Klepp's Press. He was on a poster advertising his cinematic adventures: The Commexo Kid and the Wardogs , and there were several more advertisements for his Panacea. His face was on the T-shirts of children who ran by, and the toys they were playing with were plastic versions of the Commexo Kid.

"Do you have anything like this in the Hereafter?" Klepp said.

"Things like the Kid?"

"Yes. You can't escape him."

Candy thought about this. "Not one thing," she said. "Not like the Kid. He seems to be everywhere."

"He is," said Klepp grimly. "You see the Commexo Company has this promise: they will take care of you from the cradle to the grave, literally. They have Commexo Kid Maternity Hospitals and a Commexo Kid Funeral Service. And in between, while you're living your life, there's nothing they can't supply. Food for your table. Clothes for your back. Toys for your children…"

"What does Commexo want?" Candy said.

"It's not Commexo, it's the man who owns Commexo: Rojo Pixler. It's what he wants…"

"And what's that?"

"Control. Of all of us. Of all the islands. He wants to be King of the World. He wouldn't use the word king because it's old-fashioned. But it's what he wants."

"And you think he'll get what he wants?"

Klepp shrugged. "Probably," he said.

They were almost at the top of the hill now, and Samuel paused to look up at a sculpted version of the Commexo Kid that was mounted on the building that awaited them at the end of their journey. It was huge.

"Behind that happy smile," he said, "is a very cold mind. Cold and clever. Which is why he's the richest man in the islands and the rest of us are left buying his Panacea."

"You too?"

"Me too," Klepp said, sounding almost ashamed of his confession. "When I get sick, I drink his Panacea like everybody else."

"Does it work?"

"Well, that's the trouble," Samuel said. "It does. It makes me feel better, whether I've got a bellyache or a bad back."

He shook his head despairingly and dug in his pocket, pulling out a bunch of keys. Selecting one, he led Candy to a little door, which was so dwarfed by the statue of the kid that she would have missed it if Klepp hadn't led her to it.

As he put the key in the lock he spoke again, his voice now the lowest of whispers.

"You know what I heard?"

"No, what?"

"Now this is just a rumor. Maybe it's nonsense. I hope it's nonsense. But I heard that Rojo Pixler has approached the Council of Magicians to buy the Conjuration of Life."

"What's that?"

"What does it sound like?"

Candy pondered on this for a moment. "The Conjuration of Life?" she said. "Well, it sounds like something that raises the dead."

"You're right. It's certainly been used for that purpose in the past. Though the results are unpredictable. And they can be grotesque, sometimes tragic. But no, that's not what Pixler wants it for."

"What then?" Candy said. Then her eyes grew wide. "No," she said. "Not the Kid?"

"Yes," said Samuel. "He wants to use the Conjuration to give life to the Commexo Kid. According to my sources, he was refused. Which, if any of this is true, is all good."

"What was his response?"

"Outrage. He flung a fit. He kept saying: The Kid is a joy bringer! You can't deny him life! He could spread so much happiness ."

"But you don't believe that? About being a joy bringer?"

"Here's what I believe," said Samuel. "I believe that if Pixler had the Conjuration of Life, we wouldn't just have one living, breathing Kid. There'd be armies of them! All of them wearing that idiotic smile as they took over the islands." He shuddered. "Horrible."

He turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. The smell of printer's ink stung Candy's nostrils.

"Before you come inside, I should warn you," Klepp said, "it's chaos."

Then he swung the door wide. Chaos it was; from ceiling to floor. There was a small printing press in the middle of the room and dozens of unruly piles of Klepp's Almenak on every side. Clearly Samuel slept in the midst of his work, because there was an old sofa against the wall, with pillows and a couple of blankets strewn upon it.

But what immediately drew Candy's eye was a number of faded sepia photographs that were framed and hung up on one of the walls. The first in the series pictured the lighthouse where Candy's journey had begun.

"Oh, my…" she said.

Klepp came over to look at the pictures with her.

"You know this place?"

"Yes, of course. It's near my home in Chickentown."

She moved on to the next picture. It was a photograph of the jetty that had appeared from the ground when she'd summoned the Sea of Izabella. The picture had been taken at a busy and apparently happy time. There were people crowding the jetty from end to end, some dressed in what looked to be frock coats and top hats, others—the stevedores and the sailors—more simply attired. Moored at the end of the jetty was a three-masted sailing ship.

A sailing ship! In the middle of Minnesota. Even now, having walked on the jetty and skipped that sea, the notion still astonished Candy.

"Do you know when this was taken?" Candy asked Klepp.

"1882 by your calendar, I believe," Samuel said.

He moved on to the next photograph, which showed the other end of the jetty, where there were several two-story buildings, stores advertising ship's supplies and what looked like a hotel.

"There's my great-grandfather," Samuel said, pointing to a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to him.

"Who's the lady beside him?"

That's his wife, Vida Klepp."

"She was beautiful."

"She left him, the day after this photograph was taken."

"Really?" said Candy, her thoughts going for a moment to Henry Murkitt, who had also lost his wife when he'd turned his attention to the Abarat.

"Where did she go?" Candy said.

"Vida Klepp? Nobody knows for sure. She took herself off with a man from Autland and was never seen again. Whatever happened to her, wherever she went, it nearly broke my great-grandfather's heart. He only went back to Hark's Harbor once after that…"

"Hark's Harbor? That's the name of this place?"

"Yes. It was the largest of the harbors that served the Abarat, so that's where all the big ships came. The clippers and the schooners."

Of all things to think of at that moment, Candy pictured Miss Schwartz, instructing her class to find ten interesting facts about Chickentown. Well, how about this ? Candy thought. What would the look on Miss Schwartz's face have been had Candy brought these pictures in to show the class? That would have been quite a moment.

"It's all gone now, of course," Samuel said.

"Not all of it," Candy replied. "That jetty—" She tapped the glass covering the photograph."—is still there. And the lighthouse. But all the rest of it—these stores, for instance—they've all gone. I suppose they must have rotted away over the years."

"Oh no, they didn't rot," Klepp said. "Remember I said my great-grandfather went back there one last time?"

"Yes."

"Well, it was for the burning of Hark's Harbor."

"The burning?"

"Look." Samuel moved on to the next to last photograph in the sequence. It showed a somewhat blurred image, perhaps the consequence of an old-fashioned plate camera capturing a scene filled with movement. The photograph was of the burning of the harbor. The buildings at the end of the jetty were all on fire, with smeared bright flames shooting out of the windows and through the doors. There was no attempt to put the fire out, as far as Candy could see. People were just standing along the jetty, watching the spectacle. She couldn't make out their expressions.

"Was it arson?"

"Well, it wasn't an accident," Klepp said. "But it wasn't strictly arson either. It was a piece of authorized destruction."

"I don't understand."

"As I told you, Hark's Harbor was the place where most of the business between the islands and the Hereafter was done. It was a very busy place. Sometimes there were as many as ten ships unloading and loading every day. There were cargoes of Abaratian wine and spices from the islands. And slaves, of course."

"And these people knew where the slaves came from?" Candy said, amazed by the idea. "People knew about the Abarat?"

"Oh yes, they knew," Klepp said. "But it wasn't common knowledge, you understand. There was a select circle of merchants from your world who liked doing business over here, and they did a roaring trade. Obviously they didn't want to have to divide the profit, so they didn't share the secret. And then of course there were merchants over here who imported art and plants and animals from the Hereafter, and made a fine business out of that."

"So why the burning?"

"Greed," said Samuel. "In the end everybody began to get greedy. The Abaratian merchants started to sell things that should never have been seen in your world. Magical treasures that were stolen out of temples and dug up from burial sites, then sold in the Hereafter for enormous sums of money. Obviously, this couldn't go on. Our people were being soiled by the ways of your world, and probably vice versa. There were bitter disputes. Some ended in murder.

"No doubt there was fault on both sides, but my greatgrandfather was of the opinion that the Hereafter was a place of infinite corruption. He said in the Almenak that it would wither the soul of a saint. Now he had a reason to hate the Hereafter: it had claimed his wife. But I believe he was probably right. The trade between the Hereafter and the Abarat corrupted everyone. The merchants, the seamen and probably the people who bought the merchandise in the end."

"That's sad."

Klepp nodded. "It's a tragic tale," he said. "Anyway, it was decided that the trade had to stop. No more selling of Abaratian slaves, or magic."

"So the harbor was burned down?"

"To almost nothing," Klepp said. He moved on to look at the last photograph in the sequence. It showed the gutted buildings, still smoking. And a row of people along the jetty, waiting to board a clipper ship.

"The last ship out," Klepp said. "My great-grandfather was on it. This is the final picture he took in your world."

"Amazing," said Candy. "But look." She pointed to the lighthouse, which was visible in the picture beside the clipper, clearly undamaged by the fire. "Why did they leave the lighthouse intact?"

Klepp shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe one of your people paid somebody to leave it there, in the hope that business would one day resume. Or perhaps they thought it would fall apart in its own time."

"Well, it didn't," Candy said. "Not completely."

"I'd like to see it one of these days," Klepp said. "Maybe get some photographs for the Almenak . Before and after, you know? That would sell a few copies! Of course a lot of people would probably say I'd faked it."

"People really don't believe my world exists, do they?" Candy said.

"It depends who you ask. The ordinary man in the street? No. He thinks the Hereafter is a story to tell his children at night."

Candy smiled.

"What's so funny?" Klepp said.

"Oh, just the idea that the world where I live is a story for kids. What do they say about it?"

"Oh, that it's a place where time goes on forever. And where there are cities the size of an island. That it's a place full of wonders."

"Well they'd be very disappointed if they knew the truth."

"I don't believe that."

"One day maybe I'll get to show you."

"I'd like that," said Klepp. "In the meanwhile, do you want a bird's-eye view of my world?"

"Of course."

"Come with me then."

He led her to a small door on the far side of the room. It had an iron gate in front of it, which opened like a concertina.

"My private elevator," Klepp said, pulling the gate open. "All the way up to the top of the towers."

Candy stepped inside and Klepp followed, closing the gate behind him.

"Hang on tight," he said, turning an antiquated handle that was marked with two directions: Up and Down .

The elevator ascended with much creaking and complaint, sometimes passing an opening that gave Candy a tantalizing glimpse of the interior of the towers that were perched on top of The Great Head. Eventually, the elevator began to slow down and finally, with a loud grinding noise, came to a halt.

Candy could already smell the clean sea air, a pleasant contrast to the smoky interior of the Yebba Dim Day and the printing ink stench of the Almenak Press.

"Now, please," Samuel cautioned, "I urge you to be careful up here. The view is wonderful; however, we're very high up. I don't believe anybody comes up here but me. It's too dangerous. But you'll be fine as long as you take care."

His warning offered, Samuel opened the gate and led Candy up a narrow flight of steps. At the top was a grille, which he lifted up and threw back with a loud clang.

"After you," he said, moving aside to allow Candy to step out of the stairway and into the open air.

19. ON VESPER'S ROCK

Mendelson shape had been to vesper's rock on several previous occasions, doing little pieces of grim business for Carrion. Its name was in every way deceptive. For one thing, it was a good deal more than a rock. It was a collection of enormous boulders, perhaps fifteen in all, the smallest of them the size of a house, all surrounded by a wide beach—if that was the appropriate term for something so charmless and uncomfortable—made up of millions of smaller boulders, rocks, stones and pebbles. Though Shape had once been told that if he listened closely he would hear the voices of sweet spirits singing lullabies as they circled the island, he had never heard anything so reassuring. Quite the contrary. The Rock was home to a species of malignant night bird called a qwat, and it was their relentless screeching out of the cracks of the boulders that greeted any visitor there. Tonight, however, the qwat birds were as silent as those rumored spirit-voices, for Christopher Carrion was on Vesper's Rock, and even the most raucous bird was hiding its head rather than risk attracting the attention of the Lord of Midnight.

Carrion was working in a cavern formed by several boulders, a place he often used for conjurations, especially when he wanted to work out of sight of his grandmother. She had so many spies at Midnight, it was virtually impossible to do anything in secret. Vesper's Rock presented Carrion with the ideal spot for his private experiments, being close enough to Midnight for convenient travel and small enough that he could readily defend it with talismans.

Now, in his unholy place between the boulders, he had one of his grandmother's stitchlings at work pounding the remains of five mummified human cadavers to dust. The pounder's name was Ignacio, and he was one of Mater Motley's uglier creations, of which fact he was agonizingly aware. He hated the Hag (as he had dubbed her) for what she'd done to him, and though she often called him to service in the Thirteenth Tower, he escaped her summonings whenever he could to do odd jobs for Carrion.

"Are you done with the corpse dust yet?" Carrion said.

"Almost."

"Well, hurry. I don't have all night." Carrion allowed himself a smile. "Though one of these days," he murmured to himself, "I will."

"Will, what , Lord?"

"Have all night."

Ignacio nodded, not understanding, and continued to beat the bones. A cloud of human dust rose into his face. He sneezed, and spat out a wad of phlegm and dust. Then he hammered on for a minute or more just to be sure the job was properly done. Carrion was a perfectionist, and he wanted to please the Nightmare Man, which was Ignacio's secret name for the Lord of Midnight.

Eventually, he stood up, hammer in hand, and surveyed his handiwork.

"I always think they look better this way," he said.

"Everybody looks better that way," Carrion said, pressing Ignacio aside. "Go and alert Shape. He's down at the beach eating."

"Should we come straight back up?" Ignacio said.

He knew very well that some piece of secret conjuration was about to take place and was eager to witness it.

"No," said Carrion. "You'll know when the work's done. Now get out of here."

Ignacio retreated, leaving the Lord of Midnight to crouch down and put his finger into the pounded bones, like a child about to make mud pies. The Nightmare Man paused for a moment, breathing in two lungfuls of the fluid that seethed around his head before he began the labors before him. Then, fortified by the horrible visions that filled his every fiber, he began to draw in the dust the outline of the thing he intended to raise from it.

Ignacio found Mendelson Shape, whom he knew a little from various labors they'd performed together for Carrion, sitting on the starlit beach beside a small cairn of pebbles. He was adding his own choice of stones to the pile.

"Done eating?" Ignacio said.

"I killed something, then I wasn't hungry," Mendelson said, glancing over at the immense overturned crab, its leg span fully six feet, which lay a little way down the beach. Mendelson had torn out its underbelly and begun to eat the cold meat of the thing, but hadn't got very far.

"May I?" said Ignacio.

"Help yourself."

"Pity to let it go to waste."

He went to the crab and proceeded to plunge his hands into its gray-green entrails, claiming two healthy fistfuls of its bitter guts, his favorite portion of the animal, in part because it was the most despised. He was one of the rare—perhaps blessed—stitchlings who ate. Most of his kind had no means of digestion and elimination. Ignacio was a happy exception. Two thirds of his body were still functioning as ordinary human anatomy. He was plagued by constipation, and consequently, piles, but it was a small price to pay for the pleasure of eating the meat of a crab that still had a couple of nervous twitches in it.

He glanced back up the beach at Mendelson.

"What are you here to do?" he asked.

"I'm here to ride whatever he's raising back there," Mendelson said gloomily. "And then I'm to fetch some girl for him."

"Is he thinking of getting married then?"

"Not to this one," Mendelson said sourly.

"You know her?"

"We've had our encounters. She comes from the Hereafter."

"Really?"

Ignacio seized the crab by one of its spiny legs and hauled the carcass up over the stones to where Mendelson squatted.

"You went to the Hereafter?" he said.

Shape shrugged. "Yeah," he said.

"And? What was it like?"

"What do you mean, what was it like? Oh. You mean: is it heaven?"

He looked up at Ignacio, his beady eyes bright with contempt, even in the murk. "Is that what you think?"

"No," Ignacio said defensively. "Not necessarily."

"Angels guiding the souls of the dead to the immortal cities of light? The way the old preachers used to tell it?"

"I don't believe in all that nonsense," Ignacio said, concealing his true hopes on the matter, which had indeed been optimistic. He'd liked the idea that somewhere beyond the Sea of Izabella lay a world where a stitchling such as himself might be healed, his hurts melted away, his mismatchings erased. But much as he wanted to believe in what the preachers pronounced, he trusted Shape.

"So, this girl…"he went on, cracking the crab's huge claws and trying to sound indifferent to the news he'd just heard.

"Candy Quackenbush?"

"That's her name?"

"That's her name."

"She followed you here, and now you have to kill her?"

"I don't know if he wants her killed."

"But if he does?"

"Then I kill her."

"How?"

"I don't know yet, Ignacio. Why do you ask all these stupid questions?"

"Because one day I want to be doing what you're doing."

"If you think it's some great honor, it's not."

"It's better than digging up mummified bodies. You get to travel to the Hereafter."

"It's nothing special," Shape said. "Now help me up." He put out his arm so that Ignacio could haul him up onto his foot and stump.

"I'm getting old, Ignacio. Old and tired."

"You need an assistant," Ignacio said eagerly. "I could assist you. I could!"

Shape glanced at Ignacio, shaking his head. "I work alone," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I only like the company of one person."

"Who?"

"Me, you fool. Me !"

"Oh…"

Shape looked back to the boulders where Carrion was working. He had noticed something that Ignacio, in the midst of his envious chatter, had failed to catch.

"The birds," he said.

The qwat birds, which had been silent in their crannies since Carrion's arrival on the island, had risen into the air above the Rock without uttering a sound, and were now hovering in a vast black cloud, wingtip to wingtip, overhead.

"That's something rare," Ignacio said, the wreckage of his stitched and overstitched face registering something close to wonder.

He had no sooner set eyes on the flock than from the place among the boulders where Carrion was working there came a flicker of dark blue-purple light, followed by another, this time orange-red, followed by a third, the hue of bone. The colors rose into the air above the rocks, driving the cloud of qwats still higher, and there colors broke into fragments, darts and slivers of light interlacing, performing an elaborate dance.

At this moment, the creator appeared from between the rocks, his hands raised in front of him as though he were conducting a symphony. Perhaps, in a sense, he was. Certainly the colors seemed to be responding to the subtle gestures he was making. They were becoming steadily more solid as he knitted them together.

Then, very gently he brought them down out of the air. At his silent instruction they settled on the long flat boulder that was the highest point of Vesper's Rock. There, finally, they began to cohere and form a recognizable shape.

"Is that what you're going to fly on?" Ignacio said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"Apparently."

"Good luck," he said.

A vast moth , its hairy abdomen twelve feet long, and four or five times thicker than Shape's body, was now perched on the rock, its newly formed anatomy still shedding flecks of color.

Apart from its gargantuan size, it was close in appearance to a commonplace moth. It had long, feathery antennae and six long, fine legs.

But it wasn't until Carrion ordered it to "Fly! Let me see you fly !" that its true eloquence was revealed.

When it rose up above the island and spread its wings, the markings on them seemed to resemble a vast, screaming face, unfolding against the sky then folding again, then again unfolding. It was as though heaven itself was giving vent to its anguish, as beat upon beat the great creature ascended.

"Shape !" Carrion yelled.

"Yes sir! I'm coming."

Carrion was gesturing to the creature, summoning it back down onto the rock. Shape came to his side.

"Lord."

"Prettier than a glyph, don't you think?" Carrion said, as the moth settled on the long boulder.

"Yes, Lord."

"Climb on its back and fetch me that girl," the Lord of Midnight instructed.

"Does it know where to look?"

"It will take your direction. But I suggest you start at the Yebba Dim Day. And don't try and get clever with it. It may not have much of a brain, but I can see what it sees , and I can feel what it feels . That's why I'm sending you on this, and not a glyph. So if you try to trick me in any way —

"Trick you?" Shape protested. "Lord, why would I—"

"The girl is mine , Shape. Don't think you can fly away with her. You understand me? You bring her right back to the Twelfth Tower."

"I understand."

"There's something about her that makes me uneasy. I want to know why she was brought here—"

"I told you, Lord. It was an accident. I saw it all."

"I don't believe in accidents, Shape. Everything is working toward some greater plan."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Do I have a place in that plan?"

Carrion gave Shape a hollow stare.

"Yes, Shape. Unlikely as it seems, I suppose even you have a purpose. Now go . The longer you wait the more chance that she's moved on."

"I'll find her for you," Shape promised.

"And—"

"Yes. I know. I'll bring her straight back here to Midnight. Straight back to you."

20. THE WORLD THROUGH BORROWED EYES

Of one thing candy was absolutely certain: there was no sight on earth to equal the view from the top of the colossal head of the Yebba Dim Day. Wherever she looked from that high, windswept platform, she saw wonders.

She had help, of course. Not only did she have Samuel Hastrim Klepp the Fifth by her side to point out things (and to occasionally catch hold of her arm when a particularly strong gust of wind threatened to carry her over the edge of The Great Head), he had also supplied two very accommodating squid, which clung to their heads, and then so positioned their boneless bodies that their eyes—which were immensely strong—could be used as telescopic lenses.

Klepp's squid were his pets. One he had called Squbb and the other Squiller. At first Candy found it a little odd to be wearing a living creature, but she supposed it was like any animal that worked with a human companion: a horse, a dog, a trained rat. It was just one more reminder that she was not in Chickentown.

"If you want to get closer to something," Klepp said to Candy, "just say 'A little closer if you don't mind, Squiller' . Or: 'A little farther away if you don't mind, Squiller' . It's important you be precise and polite in the way you speak to them. They're very particular about the little courtesies."

Candy didn't have any difficulty getting the trick of this, and after only a minute or two Squiller had made himself so much at home on her head that it was no more peculiar than wearing a hat that had been left in a box of fish for a few days.

Certainly Squiller appeared to be eager to give Candy the best possible view of the Abarat. Half the time, she didn't even need to ask him to alter his focus. He seemed to know what she wanted instinctively; as though he was reading the brain waves coming off her skull. Candy didn't entirely discount the possibility. She'd read back at home that squid showed extraordinary means of communicating with one another; how much more likely was it that the equivalent species here would be blessed with some miraculous power? The whole world was filled with magic. At least that was the impression Klepp gave her as he named the islands of the archipelago and spoke of the miracles they contained.

"Every island is a different Hour of the day," he began by saying. "And on each island you'll find all the things that our hearts and souls and minds and imaginations connect with that Hour. Look there."

He pointed toward a place not far from the Straits of Dusk.

"You see that island wreathed in light and cloud?"

Candy saw it. The cloud rose in a rolling spiral around what looked to be a vast mountain, or perhaps a tower of gargantuan size.

"What is it?" Candy asked Klepp.

"The Twenty-Fifth Hour ," he replied. "Sometimes called Odom's Spire. It's a place of mysteries and dreams."

"Who lives there?"

"That's one of those mysteries. Though I have heard the name Fantomaya associated with the place, I have no idea what it means."

Candy's new squiddy friend Squiller did his best to focus on the clouds around Odom's Spire, but for some reason the billowing spiral prevented her closer scrutiny.

"If you're looking for a glimpse of what's on the other side of the cloud," Klepp said, "don't bother. The light plays tricks with the eyes, somehow, and you just can't get a good grip on it. Then sometimes the clouds will part and give you the illusion that you're going to see something—"

"But you never do?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"So what would happen if you sailed a ship right into the clouds?"

"Oh, people have certainly tried that," Klepp said. "A few came out alive, but happily crazy. And of course completely incapable of describing anything they'd seen, while the rest—"

"—didn't come out at all?"

"You guessed it. One of them was my father…" He let this information hang in the air for a moment. Then he said: "You look cold, my dear."

"It's just the wind."

"Let me get you a jacket."

"No, I'm all right."

"I insist," Klepp said. "I don't want you getting pneumonia. I'll be back in a moment."

He headed for the elevator. Candy didn't protest. The wind was a lot chillier than she'd expected it to be.

"You stay away from the edge now!" Samuel said, and pulling the elevator gate closed, he disappeared from sight.

While he was gone, Candy and Squiller kept up their perusal of the islands. Samuel had named them all for her several times, and Candy now tested her memory by putting the names to the locations. Some she remembered easily, others she had to puzzle over for a while.

The island to the west of the Yebba Dim Day was called Qualm Hah, and its red-roofed city was called… Tazmagor. Yes, that was it: Tazmagor. To the southeast of it was a mountainous island called Spake, which stood at Ten O'clock in the Morning. At Eleven O'clock was the Island of Nully, and at Twelve Noon, the island of Yzil, which was bathed in the warmest, most magical light imaginable.

At One O'clock was either Orlando's Cap or Hobarookus, she couldn't remember which. At Two, conversely, was either Hobarookus or Orlando's Cap.

To the south-southeast lay another sun-drenched island, which was the place, she remembered, where Samuel had said life was supposed to have begun: Three O'clock in the Afternoon, also called the Nonce.

At Four was Gnomon, at Five an island called Soma Plume, in the center of which was a vast Ziggurat. At Six, far to the east of the Yebba Dim Day, though separated by only two hours, was an island called Babilonium, where it looked as though life was fun all the time. There were several huge circus tents pitched in the middle of the island, and colored lights in their tens of thousands flickered in the branches of every tree. I have to go there , Candy thought to herself.

To the north of Babilonium was an island the name of which she could not remember, though she remembered the name of the still-active volcano at its center, which was Mount Galigali. The tide of evening then wound around the archipelago, ending up where she was standing, at Eight in the Evening, looking down on the Straits of Dusk.

And then, in the vicinity of the Yebba Dim Day, lay a second series of islands. At Nine in the Evening was a place called Hap's Vault. (She'd asked Samuel who Hap was, and he'd told her he didn't remember.) At Ten in the Evening lay the island of Ninnyhammer, which had on it a town occupied by a species called tarrie-cats. The town was called High Sladder.

The name of the island at Eleven had skipped her mind, but she remembered the name of the Midnight Isle: Gorgossium. It's the most terrifying place in all the islands , Samuel Klepp had said: avoid it at all costs !

There were six pyramids—some large, some small—at One in the Morning, which was called Xuxux, and at Two, another island, wreathed in darkness, the name of which escaped her. Next door to it, however, lay the island that was the most attractive to her eye, despite all that Samuel had said about its architect.

The island was called Pyon, and covering it from one end to the other (and so bright with light it couldn't have mattered that it was the middle of the night there) was Commexo City. The towers and the domes of Commexo City were completely unlike anything Candy had ever seen before: huge and elaborate configurations that looked as though they'd been conjured from a geometry that didn't exist back home, then raised in defiance of physics.

By contrast, the island beside it was an ominous place, with an impenetrable-looking mountain range. It was called The Isle of the Black Egg, and it was one of the Outer Islands, she remembered, along with Speckle Frew, which was at Five in the Morning. Beside Speckle Frew were the two islands, joined by the Gilholly Bridge that stood at Six and Seven in the Morning. That left only Obadiah, at Eight in the Morning, and she'd come full circle to the little sunlit city of Tazmagor, perched on the eastern flanks of Qualm Hah.

"You're looking rather pleased with yourself," said Klepp, as he emerged from the elevator. In his hand he had a light green jacket, covered with small bright-red designs. She accepted it gratefully and put it on.

"I was just trying to remember the islands," she told him as she pulled the collar of the jacket up. "There were a few I couldn't remember, but I think I made quite a good—"

She stopped talking.

A terrible look had appeared on Klepp's face. His eyes had grown huge, and he was no longer looking at Candy, but instead was staring past her into the sky high above her left shoulder.

"What… is… it?" she said, almost scared to turn, but turning anyway.

"Run !"he yelled.

She heard him, but her feet failed to obey her. She was too astonished, and appalled, at the sight that filled the sky behind her.

There was a moth swooping down on her, a moth with the wingspan of a small plane. And mounted on the back of this stupendous and terrifying insect was her old pursuer, Mendelson Shape.

"There! You! Are!" he yelled at her.

Now, finally, Candy's feet agreed to obey her panic.

She started to run toward the elevator, where Samuel Klepp was waiting to grab her and pull her to safety.

But even as she ran, some instinct deep in her gut told her she wasn't going to make it. The moth was coming down too fast. She could feel the freezing rush of its wings against her back, so fierce it almost threw her over. As she stumbled, the moth's immense and many-jointed legs closed around her body and plucked her up off the roof of the tower.

"Got you !" she heard Shape yelling triumphantly.

Then he spoke some incomprehensible order to his mount, and the moth beat its vast wings and rose up into the air.

Candy caught a smeared glimpse of Klepp's horrified face as he reached up to try and snatch her out of the grip of the moth, but he was inches short of catching her hand.

Then she was carried up and away, over the edge of The Great Head of the Yebba Dim Day. She was terrified. Her heart became like a drum, thumping in her chest, and in her head. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine.

Poor Squiller was still attached to her face, clinging now more fiercely than ever. Candy was curiously thankful for his presence. It was like having a good luck talisman. As long as Squiller was with her, she felt, she would survive whatever lay ahead.

Moving tentatively, so as not to alarm the moth (she was now hundreds of feet above the waters of the Sea of Izabella; to be dropped from such a height would certainly bring her adventures in the Abarat to a quick end), she put her hand up to stroke the squid.

"It's going to be all right," she murmured to the trembling creature. "I promise I won't let anything happen to you."

It helped her to have another life besides her own to protect in this terrible situation. She had made a promise to Squiller. Now it was up to her to make good on that promise and bring them both through the adventures ahead alive, however dangerous the journey became, and however terrible the destination.

21. THE HUNT

Under more pleasant circumstances, candy might have enjoyed the journey that took her away from the towers of Yebba Dim Day. She had never suffered from vertigo, so she didn't mind the fact that they were a thousand feet up. The view was spectacular: the patchwork of glittering sunlit sea where the Hours of Daylight fell, and the dark waters where the Night Hours held sway.

But she could scarcely play the blithe sightseer in their present precarious position. Though the moth's hold on her was reasonably secure, it was clear to her that she was a burden that the creature's anatomy was not designed to support. Every now and again there would be a breath-snatching moment when its spindly legs scrambled to secure a better hold on her. Whenever this happened, Squiller automatically clamped himself more tightly to her head, like a climber clinging for dear life to a rock face.

Nor was her fear of being dropped her only concern. Worse, in a way, was the threatening chatter of Mendelson Shape.

"I'm sure you thought you'd never see me again, eh?" he said.

She didn't reply.

"Well, you should know," he went on, "I'm not the kind of man who gives up easily. If Lord Carrion wants you, then Lord Carrion will have you. He is my prince. His word is law."

He paused, plainly hoping to get some fearful response from her. When none came, he continued in the same confident vein.

"I daresay he'll reward me for delivering you. He'll probably give me a piece of the Abarat when his Night of Victory comes, and Darkness takes everything under its wing. You realize that's what's going to happen? There's going to be an Absolute Midnight. And everyone in The Sinner's Emporium will be raised up on that Night, you'll see.

Candy had kept her silence thus far, but now her curiosity overcame her.

"What in God's name is The Sinner's Emporium ?" she said.

"A place God's name is not written," Mendelson said, amused by his own joke. "It's a book, penned by my Lord Carrion's grandmother, Mater Motley, in which she lists the seven thousand greatest sinners in the Abarat."

"Seven thousand sinners. And are you one of them?"

"I am."

"It doesn't sound like much to be proud of," Candy commented.

"What would you know?" Mendelson Shape snapped. "You outrun me once and you think you have all the answers! Well, you don't, missy! I could have you dropped in an instant!" He leaned forward, and said: "Cafire !"

In response to this instruction, the moth twitched, and let Candy go .

She loosed a shriek as she slipped out of the creature's grasp and started to fall—

"Jazah !" Shape yelled. "Jazah !"

With a heartbeat to spare, the moth caught hold of her again, though its hold was precarious. Shape seemed to realize this. He barked out a third incomprehensible order, and this time the moth responded by gathering Candy back to its upper body and drawing her closer than ever; so close that the stiff black hairs of its thorax pricked her, despite the padding on the jacket Samuel Klepp had given her.

She felt a trickle of fluid running down the side of her face. Poor Squiller had obviously thought they were going to fall to their doom and had lost control of his squiddish bladder in his panic. She reached up and stroked him. "It's all right," she whispered.

Her heart was beating furiously, her whole head throbbing. She glanced up at Shape, wondering if she shouldn't try to make some kind of peace with him, to prevent his playing that kind of lethal game again. Next time, the moth might not be quick enough to catch her.

But Shape's attention was focused upon something ahead of them. She followed the line of his gaze and saw a fleet of five or six air balloons appearing from a bank of moonlit cloud, perhaps a quarter mile away.

"What the Nefernow is this?" she heard Mendelson mutter to himself.

Nefernow , she thought; I think I just learned my first Abaratian curse word.

Apparently someone in the fleet had seen the moth, because the leading ship was changing direction and heading toward them.

"Skill! Skill !" Mendelson yelled.

The moth obeyed the instruction and began a vertiginous descent. It was so steep that Candy feared she and Squiller would slip right out through the loop of the moth's legs, so she reached up over her head and grabbed hold of the creature's thorax with both her hands, indifferent to the pricking of the hard hairs.

An island had come into view below them. If they fell now they would be dashed to death. She had to hold on. Her abductor was her only hope.

She glanced up again toward the fleet of balloons. They obviously had some other means of propulsion beside the wind, because in the ten or fifteen seconds since the moth had begun its descent, the ships had halved the distance between themselves and their quarry.

Candy heard a high-pitched whistling sound and something flew close to her face. A moment later came a second whistling, followed by a stream of Abaratian curse words. Shape had flattened himself against the body and head of the moth. It took her a moment to work out why. Then she understood: they were being fired at. There were hunters in the balloons, and they were obviously intent on bringing down the moth. Either they hadn't seen its rider and its captive, or else they didn't care what happened to Shape and Candy if their missiles hit home. Whichever it was, it scarcely mattered. The consequence for Candy and Squiller would be the same. She heard a third whistling now, which was followed by a thud. Then a traumatic shudder ran through the body of the moth.

"Oh, please…" she murmured. "Please don't let this be happening."

But it was too late for prayers.

She looked up at the insect's head to see that a crossbow bolt, fired by someone in one of the balloon's gondolas, had struck the insect directly between its huge eyes.

There was no blood spilling from the wound. Instead there came a spiraling stream of fragmented color that rose up into the darkened air. Apparently the insect was some kind of magical creation, which went a little way to explaining why it didn't die instantly, though it had surely been mortally wounded. Instead, it struggled to climb skyward again, its immense wings beating with a slow majesty as it attempted an ascent.

But it didn't get very far. A new round of shots came from the balloons, and the vicious bolts tore hole after hole in the delicate membrane of the moth's wings. Again, color streamed from the wounds, and as it discharged its myriad hues, the desperate beating of its wings began to falter. Then they stopped.

Their descent began a second time.

Candy looked back up at Shape. He was still bent close to the moth, desperately whispering to it in a panicked attempt to bring it out of its dive. But it was a lost cause.

Shot from the sky, the moth fell and fell and fell.

All Candy and her pursuer could do was hold on as the insect gathered speed and raced toward the unforgiving earth below.