Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War. Clive Barker
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Название: Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War
Автор: Clive Barker
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Героическая фантастика
isbn: 9780007355259
isbn:
The zetheks quickly realized that the attack had ceased. They unstopped their ears and shook their heads, as though to put their thoughts back in order.
“Go, brothers!” Nattum said. “Before the witch-girl tries some new trick!”
He didn’t wait to see that his siblings were doing as he suggested. He started to beat his wings furiously and climbed into the air, weaving a zigzag course skyward. Methis was about to follow; then he turned to Kud.
“Let’s ruin their catch!”
Skebble let out a howl of complaint. “No!” he yelled. “Don’t—”
His cry was ignored. The two creatures squatted down among the fish, and the vilest smell Candy had ever smelled in her life rose up from the hold.
“Are they—?”
Malingo nodded grimly.
“The catch! The catch!” Skebble was howling. “Oh, Lord, no! No!”
Methis and Kud thought all this was hugely amusing. Having done their worst, they beat their wings and lifted off.
“Damn you! Damn you!” Skebble yelled as they flew past.
“That was enough fish to feed the village for half a season,” Galatea said mournfully.
“And they poisoned it?” Malingo said.
“What do you think? Smell that stink. Who could ever eat something that smelled like that?”
Kud had by now escaped into the darkness, following Nattum back to Gorgossium. But Methis was so busy laughing at what they’d just done that he accidentally clipped the top of the mast with his wing. For a moment he struggled to recover himself but lost his momentum and fell back toward the Parroto Parroto, hitting the edge of the wheelhouse roof and bouncing off onto the deck, where he lay unconscious.
There was a moment of surprised silence from everybody on deck. The whole sequence of events—from Candy’s speaking of the Word to Methis’ crash—had taken at most a couple of minutes.
It was old Mizzel who broke the hush.
“Charry?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Get a rope. And you, Galatea, help him. Tie up this burden of filth.”
“What for?”
“Just do it!” Mizzel said. “And be quick about it, before the damn thing wakes up!”
“SO,” SAID MIZZEL, ONCE the stunned zethek was firmly secured. “You want to know my plan?”
They were all sitting at the bow of the boat, as far from the stink of the hold as they could get. Candy was still in a mild state of shock: what she’d just witnessed herself doing (speaking a word she didn’t even know she knew) needed to be thought about very carefully. But now was not the time to do the thinking. Mizzel had a plan, and he wanted to share it.
“We’re going to have to dump out all the smatterlings. Every last fish.”
“A lot of people are going to go hungry,” Galatea said.
“Not necessarily,” Mizzel replied. He had a sly expression on his scarred and weatherworn face. “To the west of us lies the island of Six O’clock…”
“Babilonium,” Candy said.
“Precisely. Babilonium. The Carnival Island. Masques and parades and fairs and bug wrestling and music and dancing and freaks.”
“Freaks?” said Galatea. “What kind of freaks?”
“Every kind. Things that are too small, things that are too large, things with three heads, things with no head at all. If you want to see freaks and monsters, then Babilonium’s the place to find them.”
While the old man was speaking, Skebble had gotten up and gone to the door to study the bound zethek.
“Have you seen these freak shows on Babilonium?” he said to Mizzel.
“Certainly. I worked in Babilonium in my youth. Made a lot of money too.”
“Doing what?” said Galatea.
Mizzel looked a little uncomfortable. “I don’t want to go into details,” he said. “Let me just say it involved…um, bodily gases…and flame.”
Nobody said anything for a moment or two. Then Charry piped up. “You farted fire?” he said.
Everybody subdued their amusement with a great effort of will. All except for Skebble, who let out a whoop of laughter. “You did!” he said. “You did, didn’t you?”
“It was a living,” Mizzel said, staring fiercely at Charry, his ears bright red. “Now can I please get on with my story?”
“Go on,” said Skebble. “Get to the point.”
“Well, it seems to me if we could sail this damn boat to Babilonium, we would sure as certain find somebody to buy that zethek and put him in one of them freak shows.”
“Would we make much money from a deal like that?”
“We’ll make sure we do. And when we’ve done the deal we’ll sail to Tazmagor, get the hold scrubbed out
and buy a new supply of fish.”
“What do you think?” Candy said to Skebble.
He glanced out at the bound creature, scratching at his tatty beard.
“No harm in trying,” he replied.
“Babilonium, huh?” Candy said.
“What, you have a problem with this?” Skebble said testily. It had been a grim and eventful couple of hours. He was obviously weary, his energies exhausted. “If you don’t want to come with us—”
“No, no, we’ll come,” said Candy. “I’ve never been to Babilonium.”
“The playground of the Abarat!” Malingo said. “Fun for all the family!”
“Well, then…what are we waiting for?” said Galatea. “We can dump the smatterlings as we go!”
By chance Otto Houlihan was on Gorgossium at that time, waiting for an audience with the Lord of Midnight. It was not an appetizing prospect. He was going to have to report that though he came very close to capturing the girl in Hap’s Vault he had failed, and that she and her geshrat companion had most СКАЧАТЬ