Abarat: Absolute Midnight
Page 43
While her thoughts fought, she pulled herself, hand over hand, along the length of the braided cry. She could see the length of it receding from her grip, and could fix her eyes upon the spot, no more than three hauling-lengths away, where it went from sight. What else could she do but follow her hands to the place, and find out the why and the how of it?
And then—Lordy Lou—Malingo stopped yelling. Candy felt the cord slacken, and let out a panicked yell of her own, which instantly formed a turquoise ribbon in front of her, like her breath on a winter’s day, before fluttering away when she stopped her cry.
She wasn’t going to let their chance to get out of the Void slip away. Whatever was on the other side of the wall of murk, it couldn’t be any worse than falling forever into Oblivion, could it? She forced her body to reach, reach—go on, fingers! Go on, hands!—beyond the end of the cord, which was already slipping up and away, carried by a gust of wind that smelled like lightning and pineapples.
Her fingers went now, disappearing completely. Her hands searched, probing through the Void . . . and touched something on the other side of the Wall of Nothingness. It was moist and warm, as though it had been painted by a loaded brush, and as soon as she touched whatever it was, whatever it was reached toward her with the same urgency. Dozens of boneless feelers as thin as string wrapped themselves around her hands and wrists.
“What’s in there?” Gazza wanted to know.
“I’ve no idea,” she told him. “But it’s alive. And it’s got hold of me. It’s pulling.”
“Does it hurt?”
It didn’t, she realized. It was a tight grip, but it didn’t mean her harm.
“It’s all right,” she murmured.
“What?”
“I said: it’s all right.”
She saw a gleam of bright columns ripple past her face.
“What was that?”
The word that went by. It was written in turquoise on a strip of air the color of mangoes.
“Malingo?”
The three syllables came out of her mouth, and flowed in purples and blues in a woven streak of sound and color.
“Yes?” he said.
“I’m not afraid,” she told him.
Again, her words poured out in woven stream of color: red, purple, blue. . . .
“Oh, will you look at that. Words like ribbons.”
And out the words came.
Words like ribbons.
Green and yellow and orange.
“What’s happening?” Malingo said. “I just saw my name fly by.”
“I know.” She reached out toward the source of the tentacles. A gust of wind blew from the place where her hand was. She felt it on her face. She heard it telling her, as winds will:
Come away. Come away.
It carried the words off toward Oblivion.
“No, thanks . . .” she said very quietly, so quietly that the ribbon was translucent. “We’ve got somewhere to go.”
She reached out as far as her muscles and joints would allow, and grabbed hold of whatever tentacles were growing from the Other Side.
Something there understood the sign she was sending. And it pulled. Candy didn’t have time to offer further word to Malingo. It all happened too fast. Suddenly there were bits of color rushing at her, tiny bits, and with them, the briefest fragments of sound. Nothing made sense. It came too fast and it just got faster.
Color, color, color . . .
Note, note, note . . .
Color, note. Color, note.
Col—
No—
Col—
No—
Suddenly, nothing.
A long, empty, gray hush.
But she wasn’t afraid. She knew how these things worked now. Everything was a mirror.
If prisons—
O!
—therefore liberty.
It’s started.
If seas—
See it?
—therefore shores.
Hear it?
If silence,
Yes!
Therefore song.
And they were in another world entirely.
Hopelessness is reasonable.
But nothing of worth
in my life
came of reason.
Not my love,
not my art,
not my heaven.
So I am hopeful.
—Zephario Carrion
So Ends
The Third Book of Abarat
Copyright
Abarat: Absolute Midnight
Copyright © 2011 by Clive Barker
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barker, Clive.
Absolute midnight / Clive Barker. — 1st ed.
p.cm. — (Abarat ; [bk. 3])
Summary: Candy Quackenbush of Chickentown, Minnesota, is the only person who can stop the evil Mater Motley who, now that the hour of midnight has come, is prepared to unleash the end of the world.
ISBN 978-0-06-029171-6
[1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.B25046Ac 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010042665
CIP
AC
* * *
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062029669
11 12 13 14 15 SCP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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