Abarat: The First Book of Hours a-1

by Clive Barker

  “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.” Car
rion 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.