Abarat - Barker Clive - Страница 26

"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.

M endelson 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.