Abarat: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

“Better to think of the beauty of light, yes, than to think of what’s going on in the darkness. Curiosity kills. I lost my brother Skafta—my twin brother—just because he asked too many questions.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” Candy said.
    “Thank you, Candy. Now, where do you want me to let you off? On the big island or the little one?”
    “I didn’t know there was a big one and a little one.”
    “Oh yes. Of course. The Qwarv rule the big island. The little one is for ordinary folks. And the witch, of course.”
    “By witch, you mean Laguna Munn?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then that’s the island we want.”
    “You’re going to see the incantatrix?”
    “Yes.”
    “You do know she’s crazy?”
    “Yes. We’ve heard people say that. But people say a lot of things that aren’t true.”
    “About you, you mean?”
    “I wasn’t—”
    “They do, you know. They say all kinds of wacko things.”
    “Like what?” Malingo said.
    “It doesn’t matter,” Candy said. “I don’t need to hear silly things people dream up. They don’t know me.”
    “And you as well, Malingi,” said Ruthus.
    “Malingo,” said Malingo.
    “They say terrible things about you too.”
    “Now I have to know.”
    “You’ve got a choice, geshrat. Either I tell you some ridiculous gossip I heard, and while I’m wasting my time doing that the current throws us up on those rocks, or I forget the nonsense and do the job you’re paying me for.”
    “Get us to solid ground,” Malingo said, sounding disappointed.
    “Happily,” Ruthus said, and turned his attention back to the wheel.
    The waters around the boat were becoming frenzied.
    “You know . . . I don’t want to be telling you your job,” Candy said, “but if you’re not careful the current’s going to carry us into that cave. You do see it, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I see it,” Ruthus yelled over the roar and rage of the Izabella. “That’s where we’re going.”
    “But the water’s—”
    “Very rough.”
    “Yes.”
    “Frenzied.”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you’d better hold on tight, hadn’t you?”
    Before another word could be exchanged, the boat entered the cave. The passage into the cave forced the foaming waters to climb and quicken, quicken and climb, until the top two feet of the boat’s mast were snapped off as it scraped the roof. For a few terrifying moments it seemed the entire boat and those aboard would be scraped to mush and splinters against the roof. But, as quickly as the waters had risen, they subsided again without any further damage done. The channel widened and the racing current eased.
    Though they had already been borne a considerable distance into the body of the island, there was a plentiful supply of light, its source the colonies of phosphorescent creatures that encrusted the walls and stalactites that hung from the roof. They were an unlikely marriage of crab and bat, their bizarre anatomies decorated with elaborate symmetrical designs.
    Directly ahead of them lay a small island, with a steep wall around it, and rising in a very sharp gradient, a single hillock covered with red-leaved trees (that apparently had no need of sunlight to prosper) and a maze of whitewashed buildings arrayed beneath the garish canopy.
    “We’ll need rope to scale that wall,” Malingo said.
    “Either that or we use that ,” Candy said, pointing to a small door in the wall.
    “Oh . . .” said Malingo.
    Ruthus brought the boat around so that they could step out of the vessel and through the door.
    “Give my love to Izarith,” Candy said to Ruthus. “And tell her I’ll see her again soon.”
    Ruthus looked doubtful.
    “Are you sure you want me to just leave you here?” he said.
    “We don’t know how long we’ll be with Laguna Munn,” Candy said. “And I think things are getting chaotic. Everyone’s stirred up for some reason. So I really think you should go back and be with your family, Ruthus.”
    “And you, geshrat?”
    “Where