Abarat: The First Book of Hours a-1

by Clive Barker

  Again, the person at the other end of the line had something to say in response. Wolfswinkel listened, drumming his stubby fingers—like the fingers of a chicken slaughterer, fat with blood—on the threadbare arm of his chair.

  “Have you quite finished, Houlihan?” he said finally. “You seem to forget that I’m the one with the cards at this table. I’ve got something Carrion wants badly. No, no, not the girl. The Key! I’ve got the Key! I don’t know how she got hold of it, but I’d stake my hats on the fact that it’s the real thing. I know what power feels like. And this is it.”

  He raised his right hand, which held the aforementioned key, and casually studied the object. He wore a smug smile as he listened to the reply from the fellow he was speaking to.

  Finally, he said, “Candy? Get over here, will you? I’m speaking to a friend of mine called Otto Houlihan. He’s a… deal maker and he wants to speak with you.” Woifswinkel beckoned to her, his gesture impatient. “Hurry up, girl! And be polite. He just wants to know you’re the real thing.” Candy kept her distance. “Come on” Woifswinkel muttered, his face reddening with fury.

  “Go,” Malingo murmured behind her. “He loses his temper in a heartbeat.”

  Very reluctantly, Candy went over to Woifswinkel.

  “Here she is, Otto,” Woifswinkel said. He handed Candy the receiver. “Like I said, you be nice. Otto Houlihan’s a very old friend of mine. We were at school together.”

  Candy took the receiver from Woifswinkel and put it to her ear.

  “Hello…?” she said.

  “Am I speaking to Candy Quackenbush?”

  The voice at the other end was silky smooth. She imagined she was talking to someone closely related to a snake, which—given the variety of people she’d met so far—was not beyond the bounds of possibility.

  “Yes, I’m Candy Quackenbush.”

  “Well, you’re a very lucky young lady.”

  “Am I?” Candy said. She didn’t feel very lucky at the moment. “Why’s that?”

  “Well, carrying that Key around could have been the death of you.

  “Really?” she said. She didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Agree with him,” Wolfswinkel mouthed.

  “I didn’t realize I even had a key,” Candy said. She remembered how passionately Mischief had impressed on her the need to deny that she had it.

  “You tell me the truth now,” Houlihan was saying. “It’ll be better for you if you tell the truth than be found out later.”

  “I am telling the truth.”

  “I won’t warn you again,” Otto Houlihan said, his voice losing its silkiness. “Where did you steal it from?”

  “I didn’t steal it,” Candy said. “I told you: I didn’t know I had it.”

  “Wolfswinkel tells me he found it in your thoughts. Are you telling me he’s a liar?”

  “No,” Candy said. “If that’s what he says, then I guess he must have found it there.”

  “But you don’t know how it got there?”

  “No. I don’t.” The line went quiet for a moment. “Can I go now?” Candy said. “I really don’t have anything else to tell you.”

  “Oh, I think you’ve got plenty more to tell me,” Houlihan said, his voice now entirely bereft of its silken quality. There was now a subtle element of threat in his words. “But we’ll have plenty of time to talk when I come to fetch you. Put Kaspar back on. I’ll be seeing you very soon.”

  “He wants to talk to you again,” Candy said, passing the receiver over to Wolfswinkel.

  “Are you finished with her?” Wolfswinkel said to Houlihan.

  The answer was apparently yes, because Wolfswinkel now waved Candy away. She retreated into the next room, relieved that the interrogation was over.

  Perhaps she might get out, she thought, while Wolfswinkel was occupied by his telephone call. She went over to the window and tried the handle, but it was locked. Outside, rain was falling. It pattered against the little panes of glass.

  “There’s no way out. At least not that way.”

  She looked around. Malingo was hanging upside down from the rafters. She wandered over to him.

  “Can I trust you?” she said. It was a silly question, of course; if she couldn’t, he wouldn’t confess to it. But still he nodded, as if he knew what was coming next.

  “You have to help me,” she whispered to him. “I need to get out of here.”

  A pitiful expression crossed Malingo’s inverted face.

  “It’s impossible,” he said. “You think I haven’t tried over the years? But Kaspar always catches me. And when he catches me, he beats me with his stick. You don’t want to have that happen.”

  “I’ll risk the beating,” Candy said. “This fellow Otto Houlihan is coming to get me. And I really don’t want to be here when he arrives.”

  Malingo looked even more distressed. Rocking back and forth from the rafters he sang a little rhyme:

  “Houlihan, Houlihan,

  The Criss-Cross man,

  The Criss-Cross man.

  Fetch yourself a holyman

  Do it fast

  Fast as you can,

  Because here comes Houlihan,

  The Criss-Cross man—”

  “Well that’s not very useful,” Candy said. “I need help and you hang upside down, singing songs like a crazy man.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Malingo protested. “I’m just tired of being beaten all the time. When I sing my songs it makes me feel better.”

  He started swinging again, his arms wrapped around his body, a perfect picture of despair.

  “Listen to me,” Candy said, putting her hand on his shoulder to slow his swinging. “We both want the same thing. You want to get out of here and so do I.”

  “What are you two yabbering about in there?” Wolfswinkel yelled from the next room.

  “Nothing,” Malingo said plaintively.

  “Nothing? Nobody yabbers about nothing, unless they’re witless spit-for-brains fools. Is that what you are, Malingo?”

  “Y… y… yes, sir.”

  “Well, say it out loud so we can hear you! What are you?”

  “I’ve… forgotten, sir.”

  “A spit-for-brain fool. Say it! Go on! Say: I’m a spit-for-brain fool, sir.”

  “You’re a spit-for-brain fool, sir.”

  Wolfswinkel slammed down the telephone.

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

  “I mean: I’m a fool, sir. I! Me! I’m the spit-in-his-eye fool, sir.”

  “You know what I’m doing, Malingo?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m picking up my stick. And you know what that means… don’t you?”

  Candy watched as two tears formed in Malingo’s eyes and ran down over his forehead, then dropped to the carpet.

  “Come here, Malingo.”

  “Leave him alone!” Candy protested. “You’re frightening him.”

  “Keep your mouth shut, or you’ll be next! Malingo? Come here, you little rat-spasm!”

  Candy went to the door. “Please. It was me who was doing the talking, not him.”

  Wolfswinkel shook his head.

  “Why are you standing up for him?” he said. “Oh, I know. You’re trying to get him to help you, aren’t you?” He smiled, showing his mostly rotted teeth. “Well let me explain something to you. Malingo’s a geshrat. And geshrats are cowards, even the best of them. And Malingo makes most of his breed look like heroes. Come here, Malingo. Right now!”

  Candy heard a soft thump as Malingo dropped from the rafters.

  A few seconds later he appeared at the door.

  “Please sir, no sir,” he said, the words becoming one pitiful appeal.

  “Isaid here! NOW! If I have to wait one more second—”

  Malingo didn’t attempt to seek clemency any longer. He started to walk toward Wolfswinkel, casting a forlorn glance at Candy as he went, as though being beaten in front of her made the prospect even worse.

  “On
your knees,” Wolf swinkel said. “NOW! Come to me on your knees. Bare back!”

  Malingo went to his knees and shuffled over to the wizard.

  “Please—” Candy began.

  “You want to make it worse for him?” Wolfswinkel said, coldly.

  “No,” said Candy. “Of course not.”

  “Then shut up. And watch. You could very well be next. I have absolutely no compunction about beating a member of the fair sex, believe me.”

  I bet you haven’t, Candy thought. At that moment she couldn’t imagine despising anyone with the heat of the hatred she felt for Wolfswinkel. But she didn’t dare speak her mind. Not with Malingo at the bully’s feet, about to be beaten for the crime of speaking.

  “Fetch me a glass of rum, girl,” Wolfswinkel said. “And smile, girl, smile!”

  Candy made a pitiful attempt to look cheery.

  “Now, get me my libation! It’s on the dresser in the living room. Go!”

  Candy turned her back and returned to the room where she’d conversed with Malingo.

  There was a large, elaborately carved dresser set against the far wall. On it sat a crystal decanter of liquor and a small glass.

  She took the stopper from the decanter. As she did so, she glanced up at the row of five paintings lined up on the wall above the dresser. They were all portraits: two women and three men. Underneath the portraits were the names of those portrayed:

  Jengle Small, Doctor Inchball, Hetch Heckler, Biddy Stuckmeyer and Deborah Jib. There was nothing about the group that suggested they were related or in any way connected, except perhaps for one detail. They were all wearing hats. The same style of hats—no, the same hats, the very same—that were now piled somewhat absurdly upon Kaspar Wolfswinkel’s head.

  As she took notice of this oddity, she heard the sound of Wolfswinkel’s stick whistling through the air and landing on Malingo’s back. She winced. A second stroke came quickly after the first, then a third, and a fourth and fifth. Between the blows she heard the soft sound of Malingo’s sobs. She understood those heart-wracking tears; she’d shed them herself, when her father was done with her. Tears of relief that it was all finished, for now. And tears of fear that it would happen again when she least expected it. Her father hadn’t used a stick to strike her, but he’d had his own ways to cause pain.

  Trembling with anger and frustration, she poured the glass of rum—silently wishing the wizard would choke on the stuff—put the stopper back in the decanter and started to carry the liquor back to Wolfswinkel. The blows kept falling as she walked in, but as she entered they stopped.

  Malingo was curled up in a little ball of pain and tears at Wolfswinkel’s feet like a punished animal. The magician was out of breath. There was a catarrhal rattle in his chest.

  “The rum! The rum!” he said, beckoning to Candy.

  He took the glass from Candy’s fingers.

  “Out of my sight!” he shouted.

  Malingo scuttled away on all fours, up the wall, through the top of the door, and back—Candy assumed—to his favorite hanging place. Back to his rocking and his song about Houlihan and the holy-man.

  Wolfswinkel downed the rum in one gulp.

  “More! More!” he said, proffering the empty glass. “Where’s the decanter, girl?”

  “I didn’t bring it.”

  “Didn’t bring it, you maggoty clod? Well, get it!”

  Candy ducked just in time.

  He swung his staff in her direction. It missed her nose by precious inches.

  She backed away from the sweating Wolfswinkel before he could aim a second blow at her, and she retreated out of his range.

  Then—cursing the little man under her breath, using a few choice adjectives she had picked up from her dad—she headed into the next room for the rum decanter.

  28. A Slave’s Soul

  She had guessed correctly about Malingo.

  He was indeed rocking from the rafters, his tears running down his brow and soaking the carpet beneath him.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Candy mouthed.

  He shook his head, his expression one of bottomless despair.

  Candy picked up the rum decanter and returned to the front room. As she arrived at the door, the telephone rang. Wolfswinkel picked up the receiver, thrusting the empty glass at Candy to have it refilled.

  He had put down his staff, she saw. It lay across the arms of his chair.

  What if she threw the decanter at Wolfswinkel, and while he was busy trying to catch it, picked up his staff and made a break for the front door? No; that was no good. Even if she made it out there—and who knew what traps Wolfswinkel had laid around the house to prevent escapees?—she’d be leaving Malingo behind.

  She couldn’t do that. Though they had had no more than two minutes’ worth of conversation, she felt responsible for him. They had to get out together.

  She poured the wizard some more rum. Wolfswinkel wasn’t even noticing what she was doing. Whatever he was being told on the telephone had him absurdly excited.

  “He wants to talk to me?” he said. “Really?”

  He downed the glass of rum and thrust it toward Candy to be refilled. She obliged happily. She knew from experience what alcohol did to sharp minds. It dulled them, stupefied them. A drunk magician, she reasoned, was a sluggish magician, which was exactly what she wanted right now.

  Wolfswinkel emptied the third glass of rum with the same speed as he had the first two. And demanded a fourth. Before he could get it to his lips, however, his whole demeanor changed, and a look of strange reverence came over his face.

  “My Lord Midnight,” he said. “This is indeed an honor, sir.”

  Lord Midnight? Candy thought. He’s speaking to Christopher Carrion, the Dark Prince himself. And what was the subject under discussion? Apparently she was.

  “Yes, my lord, she’s here,” Wolfswinkel said. “She’s here right beside me.” There was a pause. “Well, if I may be so bold, sir, she doesn’t seem to me in any way an extraordinary creature. She’s… just a girl, you know. Like most girls: something and nothing.” There was another pause while Wolfswinkel listened. “Oh, yes sir, I spoke to Otto Houlihan. He’s on his way to collect the Key.” Another pause. “And the girl, too? Oh yes, of course. She’s yours.”

  He drank the rum and again thrust the glass out to have it refilled. But the decanter was empty. Irritated, Wolfswinkel gestured that Candy should go find some more. She got the impression—judging by the slight trembling in his hands, and the twitches under his eye and at his mouth—that though he was honored to be speaking with the Lord of Midnight, he was also intimidated to his cowardly core.

  Candy went next door in search of the liquor. She didn’t have to look far. There was a bottle in the dresser. As she wrestled to unscrew it, her eyes went up to the portraits again.

  “Who are these people?” she murmured to Malingo.

  It took the beaten geshrat a moment to come out of the trance of unhappiness he was in. But when he did, he whispered:

  “They were all friends of his. Members of the Noncian Magic Circle. But then he swore allegiance to King Rot—”

  “Who?”

  “Carrion.”

  “Oh. King Rot. I get it. What did he do, once he’d sworn allegiance?”

  “He murdered them.”

  “What? He murdered his own friends?”

  “Rum!” Wolfswinkel roared.

  “Why?”

  “RUM!”

  Wolfswinkel was at the door now, with his empty glass. His face was flushed red with liquor and excitement, like a shiny tomato balanced on top of an overripe banana.

  “That,” he said, with an expansive gesture, “was Lord Midnight himself. My liberation, you see, is imminent. All thanks to you.” He smiled lopsidedly at Candy, displaying his ill-kept teeth. “It was quite a moment, missy, when you came knocking at my door. You changed my life. Fancy that, huh? Who’d have thought a little ferret’s dung-hole like you would be th
e cause of Uncle Kaspar’s Liberation?”

  He walked over and pinched Candy’s cheek, as if she were a little child and he the indulgent relative.

  “Give me another glass of rum, girl,” he said. “Keep me happy till Otto arrives, and maybe I won’t beat you black and blue.”

  Candy took the top off the bottle and poured another brimming glassful. As Wolfswinkel put the glass to his lips, Candy took her life in her hands and deliberately let the bottle slip from between her fingers. It smashed on the floor between them, releasing a pungent stench of rum.

  “You idiotic—”

  Candy didn’t give Wolfswinkel time to finish his next insult. Instead, she pressed her hands against his chest and pushed. The rum had made Wolfswinkel unsteady on his feet. He staggered to regain his balance, and while he did so she slipped through the door into the next room.

  There, still lying across the armchair where he’d left it, was his staff.

  Without giving herself time to question or doubt the wisdom of what she was about to do, Candy picked it up.

  The thing vibrated in her grip, as though it resented being handled by a stranger. But she refused to let the staff intimidate her. She held onto it and waited for the inevitable reappearance of its owner.

  Somehow, he knew what she’d done, because he yelled: “Put that down!” even before he appeared at the door.

  The staff’s vibrations became still more violent at the sound of its master’s voice. But Candy refused to release it.

  Wolfswinkel was at the door now, pointing at her.

  “I said put that down,” Wolfswinkel said, his voice slurred with alcohol. “Put it down, or I’ll—”

  “Or what?” Candy said, wielding the stick like a baseball bat. “What will you do? Huh? You can’t kill me because then you won’t have anything to hand over to your lord and master.”