Abarat: The First Book of Hours a-1

by Clive Barker

  Or so she thought.

  But as the tarrie-cats advanced upon them, she felt Kaspar’s hold on her weaken a little, and a few muttered words escaped his lips.

  “You stay away from me…” he warned them.

  The tarrie-cats ignored him. They simply continued their approach, their scrutiny frighteningly intense.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” Wolfswinkel said to them.

  Look at me? Candy thought. What did he mean by look at me? He was invisible, surely. How could they possibly be seeing him? Suddenly it was clear to Candy.

  “They can see you,” she said to Kaspar.

  The magician made no reply. But he didn’t need to. His body was answering for him. He’d begun to shake, and his grip on Candy had weakened so much that she was able to slip free of him. She went immediately to tend to Malingo, who was still curled up on the ground.

  “It’s all right,” she reassured him. “The tarrie-cats are here.”

  “That’s good?” he said, turning over to look at her. There was blood and fear on his face.

  “Oh, yes, it’s good,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Because the tarries can see him, Malingo.”

  “They can?”

  They both looked up.

  The animals’ eyes were all focused on the same spot, just a few feet from Candy and Malingo. And from that exact place came Wolfswinkel’s voice.

  “You keep your distance, you spit rags!” he wailed at the tarries. “Stay away, I’m warning you, or I’ll set fire to your tails. I mean it. You don’t know the things I can do to the likes of you!”

  A few of the tarries exchanged anxious glances at Wolfswinkel’s outburst, but none of them were intimidated enough to retreat.

  “He’s bluffing,” Candy said to them. “Do you understand me? He’s afraid of you.”

  “You be quiet, bug-rot!” Wolfswinkel yelled, his voice shrill now. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  Malingo, meanwhile, had got to his feet. The blood was running down the side of his face from the wound on his brow, but he seemed indifferent to his own hurt. There was a strange new confidence about him.

  “You know all you ever do is threaten people,” he said, striding toward the place where the many stares of the tarrie-cats converged; in other words, the spot where the wizard stood. Wolfswinkel said nothing more—presumably hoping to keep his ex-slave’s hands from touching him. Then he beat a rapid retreat. Candy and Malingo could hear the dirt his heels kicked up, and they could see the collective gaze of the tarries moving up the slope, following the magician as he fled for the sanctuary of his house.

  Malingo wasn’t about to let him get there. He chased Wolfswinkel up the slope, glancing back at the animals now and again to confirm that he was indeed running in the right direction.

  He was twenty yards shy of the front door when he pounced.

  There was a loud, profoundly outraged yell from the murk.

  “Unhand me, slave!” Wolfswinkel yelled.

  “I am not your slave!” Malingo yelled back.

  Clearly Wolfswinkel fought to be free of Malingo’s hold. It looked as though Malingo was wrestling with two armfuls of invisible eels, all slathered in fat. Threats and curses poured from Wolfswinkel.

  Tired of the wizard’s endless mouthing, Malingo shook his prisoner back and forth.

  “Show yourself,” he demanded.

  He had grabbed Wolfswinkel’s neck, as far as Candy could guess, and was threatening to choke him.

  “Take the hats off and show yourself.” he demanded.

  A moment later a flickering form began to appear in Malingo’s arms, and an irate Kaspar Wolfswinkel came into view. He had taken off his hats, and he was clutching three in each hand. By the expression on his face, he would gladly have murdered every living thing on Ninnyhammer at that instant—starting with Candy and Malingo, then going on to the tarries.

  “So now, Kaspar,” said a voice behind Candy, “you should perhaps go back to your house and stay there. You know you’re not supposed to be running around.”

  Candy turned, wondering who the speaker was, and found herself face-to-face with a two-legged creature who had clearly some familial relationship with the tarries. Its wide face was covered with a subtle down of red-dish-brown fur. Its luminous eyes were decidedly feline, as were the whiskers that sprouted from its cheeks. It had apparently wandered up the hill to see what was going on.

  “She started all this, Jimothi!” Kaspar said, pointing at Candy. “That damnable girl. Blame her, not me.”

  “Oh, for A’zo’s sake, be quiet, Wolfswinkel,” the creature said.

  Much to Candy’s surprise, Wolfswinkel did exactly that.

  The creature returned to its gaze to Candy. “My name is Jimothi Tarrie.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  “And you, of course are the famous—or is it infamous?—Candy Quackenbush.”

  “You know of me?”

  “There have been very few visitors to these islands whose presence has been so widely discussed,” Jimothi said.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, certainly.” He smiled, showing his pointed teeth. “I’ve been out among the islands these last two days, and it seems every second soul I met knows of you. Your celebrity grows by the Hour. People who can’t possibly have met you claim they have.”

  “Really?” said Candy.

  “Believe me. Did you buy a slice of Furini from the cheese maker in Autland?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he says you did. What about the shoes you ordered from a cobbler in Tazmagor?”

  “I’ve never even been to Tazmagor.”

  “You see how famous you are?” Jimothi said.

  “I don’t understand why,” Candy said.

  “Well, there are several good reasons,” Jimothi said. “One, of course, is your origins. You’re the first soul to have come through from the Hereafter in quite a while. Then there’s the fact that you seem to have left consternation wherever you traveled. Admittedly, none of this was of your doing. Others were causing trouble by pursuing you with such vehemence. But trouble is trouble.”

  Candy sighed, still confused.

  “And then,” said Jimothi, “there’s the matter of when you arrived.”

  “Why’s that so important?”

  “Well, because a lot of people, from street-corner elegiacs to the most respected bone-casters in the Abarat, have been saying for a long time that some transforming force was imminent. A force that would somehow upset the sad order of our lives.”

  “Why sad?” said Candy. “What’s so sad about things?”

  “Where do I begin?” Jimothi said softly. “Put it this way. We do not sleep well these days.”

  “We?”

  “Those of us who care to wonder where our lives are going. And what our dreams are worth. We wake with the taste of Midnight in our throats.”

  “You mean Christopher Carrion?”

  “He’s part of it. But he’s not the worst part of it,” Jimothi said. “After all, the House of Carrion has had its place in the balance of power since there were historians to write these things down. Darkness has always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It’s only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes—if necessary—brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must. In the end, following the Dark Road is no less honorable than following the Light, as long as it is done with a clear purpose.”

  Candy was not sure she entirely understood what she was being told, but she was sure when she thought it all over that Jimothi’s observations would come to make sense. Anyway, she had no chance to ask the tarrie-cat questions. Jimothi was continuing to talk about the state of the Abarat, and Candy drank it all down.

  “The real trouble is Commexo,” he said. “Rojo Pixler and his Kid. He buys holy sites and builds restaurants on them. And nobod
y seems to care. They’re too busy drinking his Panacea. It makes me sick. Hour by Hour, Day by Day, we’re letting him take the magic out of our lives. And what do we get in exchange? Soda and Panacea.” He shook his head in despair. “Do you begin to understand?” he said.

  “A little,” Candy said.

  “And now, here you come, out of the Hereafter. And the moment you arrive everybody starts to talk, everybody starts to wonder… is she the one?”

  “The one?”

  “To cure our ills. To save us from our own stupidities. To wake us up!”

  Candy had no answer to this, except to say no, she wasn’t the one; she was a nobody. But Jimothi didn’t want to hear that, she knew. So she kept her silence.

  “You’re an extraordinary spirit,” he said to her. “Of that I’m certain.”

  Candy shook her head. “How can that…? I mean… me?” She sighed, the words failing her, just as she knew she would fail Jimothi’s high hopes for her. How could she wake up anybody? She’d been asleep herself until a few days ago, doodling in her dreams.

  “Take courage in your purpose,” Jimothi said. “Even if it isn’t yet clear.”

  Candy nodded.

  “It’s amazing that you’ve survived your journey thus far. You do know that? Somebody must be taking care of you.”

  His observation brought to mind all that Candy had faced in the hours since she’d met John Mischief: narrowly avoiding death at the hands of Mendelson Shape, and nearly drowning in the Sea of Izabella; the bolts of Pixler’s hunting party whistling past her head; then falling out of the skies, clinging to the corpse of the great moth. Finally, of course, there’d been her encounter with Wolfswinkel. Everywhere she looked there was jeopardy.

  “This all began with a key,” she said, trying to make sense of what had brought her to this moment. “And Wolfswinkel took it, out of my mind. Can you get it back from him?”

  “Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about that. Although Wolfswinkel is a prisoner and I am his warden, I have no authority to take back what he has taken from you, any more than I can confiscate his hats.”

  “Why not?”

  Here Wolfswinkel, who had once again set his hats upon his head, spoke up:

  “Because I’m a great magician, and a Doctor of Philosophy, and he’s just a flea-bitten tarrie, who happens to stand on two legs. He can’t do anything to me, except prevent me from getting off this wretched island. And all of that will change when Otto Houlihan gets here.”

  “Houlihan!” Candy said. She’d been so engrossed in listening to Jimothi she’d forgotten Houlihan.

  “What business does that wicked man have with you?” Jimothi asked.

  It was Wolfswinkel who replied.

  “Arrangements have been made to have him take her to the Lord Midnight, along with the Key she stole.”

  “Go back to your house, wizard,” Jimothi said, waving Wolfswinkel away. “I don’t want to hear any more of you. Brothers and sisters, take him.” The cats, which had followed Wolfswinkel up the hill, gathered around him now, yowling as they pressed him back toward his prison.

  “Damnable creatures,” Kaspar said. Then, calling back to Candy: “Why couldn’t you just have poisoned them when I asked you to?”

  The cats set up a chorus of yowling that blotted out whatever else he had to say.

  “He’s a lunatic,” Candy said.

  “Maybe,” Jimothi replied, though he sounded doubtful. “I’m sorry you had to deal with him. But in the end he’s a very small player in a very large game.”

  “Who’s organizing the game?” Candy wanted to know. “Christopher Carrion?”

  “I’d rather not talk about him, if you don’t mind,” Jimothi said. “I believe the more you talk about death and darkness, the closer it comes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Candy said. “This is all my fault.”

  “How so?”

  “Because I let that man have the Key. I should have fought him harder.”

  “No, lady,” Malingo said, speaking for the first time since this whole exchange had begun. (He calls me lady, Candy thought, like John Mischief. That’s nice.) “You’re not responsible,” Malingo went on. “He had a Spell of Revelations on you. Nobody could have resisted something like that. At least, nobody who was not a magician.”

  “He’s right,” Jimothi said. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s a waste of energy.”

  Up on the hill Wolfswinkel slammed the door to his house. His threats and inanities were finally silenced, and so was the barrage of yowling that the tarrie-cats had set up to drown him out.

  All that remained was the moan of the wind in the long grass. Its sighing put Candy in mind of home, of the tall-grass prairie around Chickentown. She suddenly felt a pang of loneliness. It wasn’t that she necessarily wanted to be back in the confines of Followell Street. It was just that the distance between this windy place and that modest little house seemed so immeasurably immense. Even the stars were different here, she remembered. Lord, even the stars.

  Whatever this world was—a waking dream, another dimension, or simply a corner of Creation that God had made and forgotten—she was going to have to find herself a place in it and make sense of why she was here. If she didn’t, her loneliness would grow and consume her in time.

  “So what happens to me now?” she said.

  “A very good question,” Jimothi replied.

  30. “Come Thou Glyph to Me”

  “Our first priority,” Jimothi said, “is to get you both off this island before Otto Houlihan arrives. I don’t want to see you taken to Christopher Carrion.”

  “Do you happen to have a boat?” Candy asked him.

  “Yes, I do,” Jimothi said. “Cats hate to swim. But I’m afraid the boat’s way off over on the other side of the island. If we tried to get you to it, Houlihan would have caught up with you before you were halfway to the harbor.”

  “I… I have an idea,” Malingo put in tentatively.

  “You do?” Jimothi said.

  “Go on,” Candy said. “Let’s hear it.”

  Malingo licked his lips nervously. “Well…” he said. “We could leave the island in a glyph.”

  “A glyph?” Jimothi said. “My friend, it’s a fine proposal, but who among us has the knowledge to speak a glyph into creation?”

  “Well…” said Malingo, looking modestly down at his oversized feet, “I do.”

  Jimothi looked frankly incredulous. “Where in the name of Gosh and Divinium does a geshrat learn how to conjure a glyph?”

  “When Wolfswinkel used to pass out from drinking an excess of rum,” Malingo explained, “I would read his books of magic. He has all of the classics up there in the house. Saturansky’s Grimoire; The Strata Pilot’s Guide; The Wiles of Gawk; Chicanery and Guising. But it was Lutneric’s Six that I really studied.”

  “What are Lumeric’s Six?” Candy asked.

  “They are seven books of Incantations and Profound Enchantments,” Jimothi said.

  “If there’s seven books, why are they called Lumeric’s Six?”

  “It was Lumeric’s way of helping a true magician to quickly discover if they were dealing with a false one.”

  Candy smiled. “That’s clever,” she said.

  “There is another way,” Malingo said.

  “What’s that?” Jimothi wanted to know.

  “Just ask whether Lumeric was a man or a woman.”

  “And what’s the right answer?” Candy asked.

  “Both,” Malingo and Jimothi replied at the same moment.

  Candy looked confused.

  “Lumeric was a Mutep,” Malingo explained. “Therefore both a he and a she.”

  “So…” said Jimothi, obviously still a little suspicious of Malingo’s claim to the skill of glyph-speaking. “You’ve read the books. But have you actually done any of the magic?”

  Malingo made a little shrug. “Some small spells,” he said. “I got a chair to sit up and beg, one time.” Candy lau
ghed, amused by the image. “And I made fourteen white doves into one… uh… one very big white dove.”

  “Ha!” said Jimothi, apparently suddenly convinced. “I’ve seen that dove of yours. It’s the size of a tiger-kite. Enormous. That was your handiwork?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “You swear?”

  “If he says it’s his work, Jimothi, then it’s his,” Candy said. “I believe him.”

  “I’m sorry. That was remiss of me,” Jimothi replied. “Please accept my apologies.”

  This was plainly the first time Malingo had been offered an apology. “Oh,” he said, looking at Candy, his eyes wide. “What do I do now?”

  “Accept the apology, if you think he means it.”

  “Oh… yes. Of course. I accept the apology.”

  Jimothi offered his hand, and Malingo shook it, plainly delighted at this new proof of his advanced position in the world.

  “So, my friend,” Jimothi said. “I believe you have it in you to make a glyph. Go to it.”

  “I did tell you I’ve never actually done this before?” Malingo pointed out.

  “Just give it a try,” Candy said. “It’s our only way out. No pressure of course.”

  Malingo offered her a nervous smile. “You’d better both stand back then,” he said, spreading his arms.

  Jimothi took a small telescope from his jacket pocket, opened it up and wandered away to scan the skies.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Candy said to Malingo. “I have faith in you.”

  “You do?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

  “You won’t. If it works, it works. If not—” She waved the thought away. “We’ll find some other escape route. After all that you’ve done in the last few hours, you don’t have to prove anything.”

  Malingo nodded, though he looked far from happy. To judge by his expression, Candy guessed that a part of him was regretting that he’d spoken up in the first place.

  He stared down at the ground for a moment, as though recalling the spell.

  “Please stand away,” he said to Candy, without looking up. Then he raised his arms from his sides and clapped them together above his head, three times.