Absolute Midnight. Clive Barker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “I’ve nothing to tell,” Candy replied.

      “There are laws defending the Abarat from your kind, you know that, don’t you?”

      “What will you do? Execute me?” Candy said. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. You’re not angels. Yes, you probably had good reason to protect yourselves from my kind. But no kind is perfect. Even Abaratians.”

      Boa was right, Candy thought. They were a bunch of bullies. Just like her dad. Just like everyone else. And the more they bullied, the more she was determined not to give them any answers.

      “I can’t help it whether you believe me or not. You can interrogate me all you like, but you’re just going to get the same answer. I don’t know anything!”

      Helio Fatha snorted with contempt. “Ah, let her go!” he said. “This is a waste of time.”

      “But she has powers, Fatha. She was seen wielding them.”

      “So maybe she saw them in a book. Wasn’t she with that idiot Wolfswinkel for a time? Whatever she may have learned, she’ll forget it. Humankind can’t hold on to mystery.”

      There was a long, irritated silence. Finally Candy said, “Can I go?”

      “No,” said the stone-faced representative from Efreet. “We’re not finished with our questions.”

      “Let the girl go, Zuprek,” Jimothi said.

      “Neabas still has something to say,” the Efreetian replied.

      “Get on with it.”

      Neabas spoke like a snail edging along a knife. He looked like irridescent gossamer. “We all know she has some affection for the creature, though why that should be is incomprehensible. She’s plainly concealing a great deal from us. If I had my way I’d call in Yeddik Magash—”

      “A torturer?” Jimothi said.

      “No. He’s simply somebody who knew how to get the truth when, as now, it was being willfully withheld. But I don’t expect this Council to sanction such a choice. You’re all too soft. You’ll choose fur over stone, and in the end we’ll all suffer for it.”

      “Do you actually have a question for the girl?” Yobias Thim asked wearily. “All my candles are down and I don’t have any others with me.”

      “Yes, Thim. I have a question,” Zuprek said.

      “Then, Lordy Lou, ask it.”

      Zuprek’s shards fixed upon Candy. “I want to know when it was you were last in the company of Christopher Carrion,” he said.

      Say nothing, Boa told her.

      Why shouldn’t they know? Candy thought, and without waiting for any further argument from Boa she told Zuprek, “I found him in my parents’ bedroom.”

      “This was back in the Hereafter?”

      “Yes, of course. My mother and father haven’t been to the Abarat. None of my family has.”

      “Well, that’s some sort of comfort, I suppose,” Zuprek said. “At least we won’t have an invasion of Quackenbushes to deal with.”

      His sour humor got a few titters from sympathetic souls around the table: Nyritta Maku, Skippelwit, one or two others. But Neabas still had further questions. And he was deadly serious:

      “What was Carrion’s condition?” he wanted to know.

      “He was very badly wounded. I thought he was going to die.”

      “But he didn’t die?”

      “Not on the bed, no.”

      “Somewhere close by, you’re implying?”

      “I only know what I saw.”

      “And what was that?”

      “Well . . . the window burst open, and all this water rushed in. It carried him away. That was the last time I saw him. Disappearing into the dark water, and then gone.”

      “Are you satisfied, Neabas?” Jimothi said.

      “Almost,” came the reply. “Just tell us all, without any lies or half-truths, what you believe the real reason for Carrion’s interest in you was?”

      “I already said: I don’t know.”

      “She’s right,” Jimothi reminded his fellow Councilors. “Now we’re going around in circles. I say enough.”

      “I have to agree,” Skippelwit remarked. “Though I, like Neabas, yearn for the good old days, when we could have left her with Yeddik Magash for a while. I don’t have any problem with using someone like Magash if the situation really calls for it.”

      “Which this doesn’t,” Jimothi said.

      “On the contrary, Jimothi,” Neabas said. “There is going to be One Last Great War—”

      “How do you know that?” Jimothi said.

      “Just accept it. I know what the future looks like. And it’s grim. The Izabella will be bloodred from Tazmagor to Babilonium. I do not exaggerate.”

      “And this will be all her fault?” Helio Fatha said. “Is that what you’re implying?”

      “All?” Neabas said. “No. Not all. There are ten thousand reasons why a war is bound to come eventually. Whether it will be the last war is . . . shall we say . . . open to speculation. But whether it is or isn’t, it’s going to be a disastrous conflict, because it comes with so many questions unanswered, many of them—maybe most, maybe all—are associated with this girl. Her presence has raised the heat under a simmering pan. And now it will quickly boil. Boil and burn.”

      What do I say to that? Candy silently asked Boa.

      As little as possible, Boa told her. Let him be the aggressor if that’s the game he wants to play. Just pretend you’re cool and sophisticated instead of some girl who was dragged up out of nowhere.

      You mean act more like a Princess? Candy replied, unable to keep the raw displeasure from her thoughts.

      Well, as you put it that way . . . the Princess said.

      As I put it that way what?

      Yes. I suppose I do mean more like me.

      Well, you keep thinking that, Candy said.

      Let’s not get into an argument about it. We both want the same thing.

      And what’s that?

      To keep Yeddik Magash from taking us into a sealed room.

      “So, if anyone has insight into Carrion’s nature, it’s our guest. Isn’t that right, Candy? May I call СКАЧАТЬ