Days of Magic, Nights of War

  “Do you believe in that?”

  “Oh, certainly. It happened to me. The very moment I set eyes on the Princess Boa, I knew that there was no other soul I could ever love. No other, to the end of the Hours.” Finnegan looked up at the rain, which was beginning to ease. He licked some of the raindrops off his lips, then he went on telling the story.

  “So Numa Child told Elathuria instantly. ‘Lady,’ he said. ‘I will never love anyone the way I love you.’ And much to his surprise, Elathuria invited him to kiss her.

  “‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Because the sun is hot and the hour is passing.’

  “Numa didn’t think very much about the significance of this. He was simply happy to be invited to kiss his beloved. And as they kissed and talked and kissed again, the hour of the Nonce ticked away. . . .”

  “This isn’t going to end happily, is it?” Malingo said.

  Finnegan didn’t answer. He just went on with his story. “When Numa Child kissed her again, there was a little bitterness on her lips.

  “‘What’s happening?’ he said to her.

  “She told him: ‘Time is passing, my beloved.’

  “And to his horror, he saw that her blossoms, which had been so bright and beautiful when he’d first set eyes on her, were now beginning to lose that brightness, and her green leaves were beginning to turn gold and brown.”

  Finnegan’s voice, as he told this part of the story, grew soft and full of sadness.

  “Finally she said to him: ‘Don’t leave me, love. Promise me you’ll never leave. Find me again, wherever I go. Find me.’

  “Of course, Numa didn’t understand what she was telling him. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked her.

  “But it soon became clear. She was leaving him. The wind had risen, and it was shaking her, the way it would shake a tree, so that its blossoms and leaves fall, and its beauty is carried away. That was what was happening to Elathuria. She was losing her very being, right in front of his eyes. It was terrible.”

  Malingo heard the catch in Finnegan’s throat as he spoke and looked up to see that there were tears running down Finnegan’s cheeks.

  “Elathuria was still strong enough to speak to Numa. ‘Look for me wherever the wind comes,’ she said, her voice getting more and more hushed. ‘I will grow again from the seed that is carried away from this place.’

  “Numa was, of course, happy to hear this, but his mind was filled with questions and doubts.

  “‘Will it really be you?’ he said to her.

  “‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘It will be me in every particularity. Except one.’

  “‘And what’s that?’ Numa asked her.

  “‘I won’t remember you,’ she replied.

  “Even as she spoke these words, a breath of harsh wind sprang up and shook her violently, so that she was entirely shaken apart—”

  “No!” Malingo said. “Had she gone?”

  “Well . . . yes and no. The wind had scattered the seeds over a considerable distance, but Numa was determined to find some trace of her—any trace—so he searched like a wild man, not resting until his search was rewarded.

  “At last, after a long time searching for her, he finally found her, rooted in a new place. She was still growing, but he knew her immediately, and fell in love with her again, just as he had the first time.”

  “And she with him?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Even though she didn’t remember him?”

  “Yes. She was still the same soul, after all. And so was he. . . .”

  Now Malingo began to see the significance of what he was being told. It was no accident that Finnegan was the bearer of this story; he was, after all, here on this island because he had lost the love of his life. It stood to reason that this legend would capture his imagination as it so clearly did.

  “So history repeated itself?” Malingo said.

  “Indeed it did. Not once, but over and over. Though Numa Child swore his undying devotion to Elathuria, the hour would always pass, and the wind would always come and she would be carried away to some new place. Sometimes he would find her quickly. Sometimes not.”

  “And so do you really think they’re still out there, loving each other, and then being separated, and him finding her again, only to be separated again?”

  “Yes. I do,” Finnegan said.

  “What a terrible way to live.”

  Finnegan considered this for a moment. “Love makes its demands, and you listen. You can’t bargain with it. You can’t fight it. Not if it’s really love.”

  “Are you still talking about Numa Child and Elathuria?” Malingo said.

  Finnegan looked up at him. “I’m talking about all lovers,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Malingo. “I see. This is your way of telling me that you won’t be joining us on our voyage.”

  “No, no. You misunderstand me. It’s my way of telling you I will. But that I must come back here to the Nonce when our work is done.”

  “To kill what’s left of the dragons?”

  “To keep searching,” Finnegan said. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we? Just to keep searching.”

  Chapter 41

  An Ambitious Conjuration

  “WE HAVE TO GO!” Tria said when Malingo and Finnegan came inside.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “She had a vision!” said Deaux-Deaux.

  “It was very impressive,” John Drowze observed.

  “One of the women of the Fantomaya,” Geneva said. “The old woman, Diamanda. She’s dead, Malingo.”

  “By whose hand?” Malingo asked grimly. “Surely the war hasn’t already begun?”

  “No, no. Apparently she went to the aid of Candy Quackenbush and was killed by one of the Beasts of Efreet. Not a happy death.”

  “So she wants us to kill the beast that killed her?” Finnegan said, his bloodlust roused.

  “No!” said Tria with more agitation in her voice than anyone had heard before. “This isn’t about avenging Diamanda. It’s Candy we have to save. She’s in the Dead Man’s House, on Efreet.”

  “What’s it doing there?” John Mischief said.

  “The Lord of Midnight brought it there,” Tria reported.

  “As a trap?” said Mischief.

  “Yes.”

  “Which the Quackenbush girl, of course, fell into,” said John Serpent.

  “How was she to know?” said John Moot.

  Serpent made a moan. “Why does everybody always defend her? I’m telling you, that girl is trouble. She was trouble right from the very beginning, and she will—”

  “Shut up!” said Tria. Her volume, not to mention the uncharacteristic vehemence in her words, instantly silenced Serpent.

  “Yes,” said Malingo a little more quietly. “Now we have to do something about getting Candy out of the Dead Man’s House before Carrion . . .” He shook his head, unable to voice the worst.

  “It’s a long way down to the ship,” Deaux-Deaux said grimly.

  “And when we get there, we have to plan a course—” said McBean.

  “Pray for a favorable wind—” said Tom.

  “There’s no time for ships!” Malingo said.

  “What do you have in mind?” said Geneva.

  There was a little silence into which Malingo gently lobbed two words.

  “A glyph.”

  The ripple effect spread across the room, bringing to each face its own combination of doubt, confusion and a tiny breath of hope.

  “Where would we get such an unlikely means of transport?” John Mischief asked Malingo.

  “It takes magic, surely,” said McBean.

  “Big magic,” said Geneva.

  “But it can be done,” Malingo said. Then, with a show of confidence he didn’t exactly feel, he added: “I can do it.”

  “You can?” said Geneva.

  “I did it before. Just once.”

  “And did the glyph fly?” said Finnegan.

  “Yes. I
t flew. Of course it was only a two-seater. This one would need to be much bigger.”

  “We’ll help,” said Tria. “All of us can work together.”

  “I think it’s our only choice,” said Finnegan. “If getting this girl is such an urgent business, then the ship’s not going to get us there in time.”

  “Well then,” said Tom. “We should start.”

  “First we need to clear a space outside,” Malingo said.

  This being the Nonce, of course, there was greenery everywhere. But Tom quickly took charge and organized the clearing of an area of ground about twenty yards wide. It was hard, hot work in the eternal Afternoon of the Nonce, but they got the job done quickly, Finnegan and Tom laboring with particular gusto.

  Malingo, meanwhile, took himself off a little distance from the clearing and meditated on the task that he was about to undertake. When he came back, John Mischief said: “How does this conjuration actually work? I’ve seen a few pieces of big magic in my time, but I’ve never actually understood the principle of it.”

  “Neither do I,” Malingo admitted. “It’s a spell I first read in one of Kaspar Wolfswinkel’s books.”

  “So if something goes wrong . . .”

  “We just have to pray that it won’t.”

  The ground had now been cleared, and everybody was waiting—not looking at Malingo necessarily (well, perhaps from the corners of their eyes)—and wondering when he was going to begin the conjuration. As for Malingo, he was jiggling from foot to foot as though he were in need of a toilet.

  “Are you all right?” Deaux-Deaux said.

  “Yeah . . . just a bit nervous, that’s all.”

  “You’ll do just fine,” the Sea-Skipper reassured him. “We’re in this together, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But we should start, my friend. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  Malingo nodded. “I know. I know,” he said. “I was just getting limbered up.” He wiped the beads of golden geshrat sweat from his brow with his arm and went to stand in the middle of the cleared ground.

  “I’m going to need all your concentration,” Malingo said. “We need to act as one mind. All pull together.”

  “To do what?” said John Moot.

  “There’s a summoning chant, which I will start reciting. I want everyone to join in with me.”

  “And this helps the conjuration?” Mischief said.

  “No, I’m just embarrassed to do it on my own,” Malingo said with a big grin. “Yes, Mischief, it would help greatly. When I start circling and throwing air—”

  “Doing what?” said Tom.

  “You’ll see,” said Malingo. “You just fall in step and copy what I’m doing. Now, everyone spread out in a rough circle. That’s it. There’s nothing to be worried about. If the conjuration doesn’t work, we simply won’t get a glyph.”

  “And Candy’s left there to the tender mercies of Christopher Carrion—” said Mischief. “No.” He looked intently from one person to the next until he’d completed the circle. “This has to work.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Malingo, and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye he saw the scene on Ninnyhammer when he and Candy had performed this ritual together. It was wonderfully clear in his head. He took a deep breath, raised his hands over his head and clapped three times.

  Then he began to recite the words of the spell.

  “Ithni asme ata,

  Ithni manamee,

  Drutha lotacata,

  Come thou glyph to me.

  Ithni, ithni,

  Asme ata:

  Come thou glyph to me.”

  The syllables came easily to his lips, and once he’d established their rhythm, he opened his eyes and began to walk around the circle snatching at the air outside it and tossing it in.

  “Ah,” Two-Toed Tom murmured. “So that’s throwing air.”

  Geneva was the first to join in with what Malingo was doing, adding her own powerful voice to that of the geshrat. Then, one by one, the rest picked up on the process and added their voices and gestures to the conjuration: all circling as they spoke the words and caught the air.

  “When will we know whether it’s working or not?” McBean whispered to Mischief somewhere between the fourth repetition and the fifth.

  “Oh, I think we’ll know,” Mischief said.

  He had no sooner replied than a few sparks ignited in their midst, their colors intense, even in the brightness of midafternoon. They weren’t just red and blue, as the sparks had been the first time Malingo had performed this ritual. Now they were also violet and lime and gold. They wove around and around like delirious fireflies, leaving trails of color behind them as they quickened.

  “Yes!” Malingo said. “It’s happening. Don’t stop, everyone. Keep the ritual going.”

  The beauty of this display gave the novice magicians confidence. Their voices became stronger, their snatching at the air more rhythmical. And in turn, as their confidence grew, so did its effect. The dance of light became more ambitious, the colors beginning to weave an elaborate shape in the Noncian air. Malingo let out a whoop of pleasure, seeing his ambitions for his second glyph were going to be realized. He could already recognize the immense curve of its bow, and the backward sweep of its cabin.

  And still the number of fireflies grew, and their elegant dance became more elaborate, so that everyone in the circle of conjurors (even the resolutely unimpressed John Serpent) wore expressions of pleasure, seeing word become fact in front of them.

  “We can stop now,” Malingo said after a certain point. “It will finish itself.”

  The novices stood back and watched in delight as the glyph did as Malingo had predicted. The points of light apparently knew their own way from here on, weaving themselves an invisible loom, back and forth and around and around, until the shimmering vehicle stood completed, shining in the afternoon sun and steaming ever so slightly from the heat of its coming into being.

  “I dreamed this once . . .” Finnegan said to himself as he stared in amazement at the craft. “Long ago . . . I dreamed it flew down from another galaxy.”

  “We should get going,” said Tria.

  “Indeed we should,” Malingo chimed. “Candy needs us.”

  “Does anyone have a map?” said McBean.

  “I’ve got an old copy of the Almenak,” Tom volunteered.

  “We won’t need a map, actually,” Malingo said. “The glyph will take direction from our thoughts.”

  “Clever piece of work,” Deaux-Deaux remarked.

  “It really is,” Geneva said. “Amazing.”

  She opened the door and ducked her head down to step inside. She was not easily impressed, but the iridescent gleam of the glyph, contrived from air and syllables, had her smiling. “Congratulations, Malingo,” she said. “It’s a fine thing.”

  “Don’t go congratulating me too soon,” Malingo replied cautiously. “We haven’t got it flying yet.”

  But there was little doubt that the glyph was ready for its duties. It looked visibly excited at the prospect of its maiden flight. Thousands of tiny motes of energy flickered through its form, starting at the nose of the craft and surging through its frame in schools of flickering particles, which then assembled at the other end of the glyph in what was apparently the engine: a ball of light and force, which was in constant chaotic motion. As everybody climbed into the craft, the engine picked up power. It gave off a noise like a choir of several thousand people all whispering a poem in some secret language. The glyph vibrated slightly. The doors closed with a soft sigh.

  “Are we ready?” Malingo said.

  “No!” said John Mischief. “I don’t like this thing!” He started to pull at the door. “It’s going to kill us all!”

  “Calm down!” said Deaux-Deaux. “We’re quite safe.”

  “No, we’re not! We’re not! I want to get out!”

  “Well, I don’t,” said John Moot.

  “Neither do I,” said John Fillet.


  In two seconds a chaotic argument erupted, with all the Johns throwing in their opinions at the same time.

  “It’s too late to leave,” Geneva yelled over the din of angry voices. “We’re moving!”

  “She’s right!” said Tom. “We’re off!”

  “Hold on!” Malingo yelled.

  Before he could finish speaking, the vehicle rose straight up into the air.

  “Yowza!” yelled John Moot.

  “I’m warning you all,” John Serpent said. “I’m going to be sick!”

  The glyph came to a halt about thirty feet off the ground and began to spin around, pointing its nose first at Noon, then to the Twenty-Fifth Hour, then Midnight.

  Halfway through all of this, John Serpent opened the door and made good on his promise.

  “Be careful, son . . .” McBean said, speaking with a captain’s caution. “Slowly does it.”

  “I don’t have any more control over it,” Malingo said. “I think it senses how impatient we are. It wants to get us there! Double quick!”

  “Well, let’s go then!” said Finnegan, standing up to peer out of the front window. “I’m suddenly looking forward to this fight with Carrion!” He turned to Malingo. “Does it hear me, geshrat?”

  Malingo didn’t need to supply an answer. The glyph did so. Its whole structure seemed suddenly to erupt with larval waves of iridescence.

  “This is it!” said Deaux-Deaux.

  With that the glyph took off toward Efreet, leaving the sky above the Nonce with such speed that it caused a spontaneous monsoon in the air above its creation space, which filled the ground they had worked to clear with a steamy little jungle of new birds and blossoms.

  Chapter 42

  The High Maze

  OF ALL THE SHOCKS and amazements of her journeys in the Abarat, surely this meeting on the narrow stairs was the strangest! Standing on the steps below her was the Lord of Midnight, the terror of the islands. She had heard him talked of as though he were the very Devil made flesh. But now she wasn’t so sure. He was ugly, certainly, and dangerous too. But there was also something pitiful about him. She did not doubt that behind that broken face of his there was suffering and sorrow.

  He stared up at her, his eyes drained of color. “You know, of course, that I’m supposed to kill you in this house?” he said. “My grandmother believes you are a disruptive force in the Abarat. She believes that unless you’re stopped you’ll cause our plans to be . . . inconvenienced.”