Abarat - Barker Clive - Страница 42

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"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.

"I said 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.

S he 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 the cause of Uncle Kaspar's Liberation?"

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