Abarat: The First Book of Hours - Barker Clive - Страница 40

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“Candy Quackenbush.”

“Candy, I’m Rojo. I won’t beat around the bush. The fact that you’ve come from the Hereafter is of the greatest possible importance to me.”

“I don’t see why,” said Candy. “It’s not as interesting there as it is here.”

“Well, maybe not to you,” Rojo replied. “But you’re used to it. To me it’s… new territory to explore. A new frontier. I’ve done all I can here. I need somewhere new to—”

“Conquer?” Candy said, standing up and looking down at Pixler.

“No,” he protested mildly. “Do I look like a conqueror? I’m a civilized man, Candy. I build cities—”

“And burn books,” she said.

He looked pained to have been caught in a lie. Before he could come back with another response, she had more to say: “And shoot down defenseless creatures.”

“I didn’t see you being carried by the moth, I swear. If I had, I wouldn’t have fired.”

“There was a rider on the moth too.”

“Really?”

“Yes. His name was Mendelson Shape. He fell to his death.”

Rojo looked genuinely distressed. “That’s a tragedy. I am completely culpable. In the heat of the hunt I did something I shouldn’t have done. Did you know him? The rider, I mean? If he has family I’ll make whatever reparations I can.”

“I don’t know if he had any family. He worked for someone called Christopher Carrion.”

“Carrion? Really?” Rojo glanced away from Candy toward the moth, which Doggett’s men were seconds away from bringing down out of the trees. “So that was Carrion’s handiwork, eh?” he said, his voice touched by awe. “Very impressive.”

Candy followed his gaze toward the moth. Light and color were still pouring from it, dissipating on the air, illuminating the trees: blue and purple and yellow and red.

“So tell me—” Pixler said, “—what were you doing, taking a ride on Carrion’s moth?”

“If you must know I wasn’t taking a ride. Shape abducted me.”

“Abducted?”

“Yes.”

Rojo gave a little self-satisfied smile. “Well then,” he said. “I saved you from some very serious trouble. You wouldn’t have wanted to be Carrion’s prisoner, believe me. He has the morals of the very Devil, that man. And if he ever found a way to get over to the Hereafter…”

“It’s not that difficult,” Candy said.

“To get there, perhaps. But to gain a foothold…” He passed his hand through his hair. “That’s the challenge. Please listen to me. Candy. I truly believe we could be very useful to one another.”

Candy was not convinced. “How?” she said.

“Think it through. I’m in need of somebody with a good working knowledge of the Hereafter, and you need somebody here to protect you from Carrion.”

“I don’t need protection.”

“Oh, my dear, you don’t have the first clue what this man will do to you if he takes it into his head to be cruel. He is a law unto himself, believe me.”

“Even so, I don’t care to tell you about the Hereafter,” Candy said, backing away from him.

“Oh, now don’t be difficult,” Pixler said. “I realize we met under difficult circumstances. But I’m genuinely sorry about the moth. It was just an accident. It could have happened to anyone.”

“Anyone who was out hunting,” Candy said.

“I realize not everybody approves of it. But it relaxes me. And I have a huge collection of stuffed animals in Commexo City. Nineteen thousand specimens, from fleas to Kiefalent whales. I’d really like you to see it.”

“Some other time, maybe,” Candy said.

Pixler shrugged. “Believe me or not,” he said, his tone hardening, “I don’t really care. In the end, you’re going to come begging to me, when Carrion’s on your tail. Begging for me to hide you from him.”

“Yes, well maybe…” Candy said. “But right now I’d prefer to take my chances.”

“Please,” Pixler said, making one last desperate attempt to convince her, “let me bring you back to Commexo City. It’s not safe on half these islands. The inhabitants are savages. Totally uncivilized.”

“I am not going back to Commexo City with you. That’s final,” Candy said.

In truth there was a little part of Candy that wanted to accept Pixler’s invitation. He was polite enough, after all; he seemed more like an ordinary human being than many of the creatures she’d met on her travels, which right now she found reassuring. She was feeling very much alone, and very tired. She’d lost count of the time that had passed since she and Mischief had plunged into the Sea of Izabella (though she’d reset her watch when Mischief had told her to, it had stopped); now she felt the way travelers in the Hereafter felt when they’d traveled around the world and their body clocks had become confused. Her thoughts were sluggish and her limbs ached. The thought of going with Pixler to some civilized place where the showers were probably hot and the beds were surely soft was not without its attractions.

But then she’d effectively be in Pixler’s control, wouldn’t she? In his city, as his guest. Or his prisoner.

“I can see you’re having second thoughts,” Pixler said, reading the confusion on Candy’s face. “You’re thinking about a comfortable place to lay your head, no doubt.”

Candy tried to block out his seductions by concentrating on something else. She turned her attention to the moth.

Off between the trees, Doggett’s team was close to bringing down the creature’s body. There was much shouting and a flurry of orders, then—sooner than any of the workmen had anticipated—the moth’s corpse came crashing down out of the trees. As it struck the ground, it erupted in a brilliant shower of light and color.

But there was something else in the substance of the creature that was also set free as it flew apart. Candy saw four or five skeletal faces rise up out of the blazing remains of the moth and weave their way skyward.

The spectacle didn’t just draw her attention. It drew that of Pixler and Birch too. Candy seized her moment. She cautiously retreated a step, then another, then another. Birch and Pixler hadn’t noticed: the disintegration of the moth was like a fireworks display; it claimed all their attention.

After five backward steps Candy turned and ran.

It didn’t take her long to get to the other side of the copse, and there she paused to take a backward glance. She could see Birch and Pixler, silhouetted against the brightness of the moth. By now they had both realized that she’d gone. They were looking around, obviously trying to locate her. But apparently they’d been staring into the blaze of the disintegrating moth for too long, and it was still blinding them. Or perhaps the darkness simply concealed her. Whatever the reason, when they looked in her direction—as now and then they did—they failed to see her.

Pixler yelled something at Birch, who immediately went back to the balloon’s gondola.

He’s gone for more men, Candy thought. I’d better get out of here.

She turned her back on the men and the moth and surveyed the starlit terrain in front of her. Ninnyhammer was an island of gentle hills; on top of one of those hills, perhaps two miles from where she was standing, was a building with a large dome upon it. There was light in its windows, so if it was a house, then somebody was at home, and if it was a religious building of some kind (which the dome made her think perhaps it was), then it was open for worship. Or sanctuary, which was what she needed right now.

She didn’t look back now at Rojo Pixler, or the moth with its colors and its weaving ghosts. She simply started down the gentle slope that led away from the trees. Very soon, the copse was out of sight, and the men’s voices had been carried away by the wind.

She was alone for the first time since she’d arrived in the Abarat. There were no hunters, no Sea-Skippers; no Izarith, no Samuel Klepp, no John Mischief and his brothers.

Just her, Miss Candy Quackenbush of Chickentown, under a heaven filled with alien stars.

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