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“Of course.”
“Why ‘of course’? Nobody has ever willingly chosen me for anything.”
“Why do you think, lord?”
Bill knew the answer without having to think.
“My daughter.”
“Yes,” said the thing. “She has great power. No doubt it comes from you.”
“From me? What does that mean?”
“It means you will possess greater influence than you ever dreamed of owning. Even in your wildest dreams of godhood.”
“I never dreamed of being God.”
“Then wake up, William Quackenbush! Wake up and know the reality!”
Though Bill was already awake, his instinctive self understood the deeper significance of what he was being told. The expression on his face opened like a door, and whatever was behind it caught the attention of the creature that had once been several hats.
“Look at you, Billy-boy!” it said, its five voices suddenly changed and harmonizing in admiration. “Such a radiance there is out of you! Such a strong, clear light to drive all the fear away.”
“Me?”
“Who else? Think Billy-boy. Think. Who can deliver us from the terror that your child is about to call down upon the world if not you who made her?”
At the moment when the creature had talked about Bill’s “radiance” the many silent birds Bill had seen rose into the air and circled around Bill in a vortex of bright black eyes and applauding wings.
“What are they doing?” Bill asked the shapeless thing.
“Paying homage to you.”
“Well, I don’t like it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stop them.”
“Stop them dead?”
“Sure.”
“Sure,” the creature said, catching perfectly the tone of Bill’s response.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Never,” came the reply.
A heartbeat later every single bird dropped out of the air and fell lifeless in the debris.
“Better?” the creature said.
Bill considered the silence.
“A whole lot,” he finally replied. He laughed lightly. It was a laugh he’d forgotten he was capable of: that of a man who had nothing to lose and nothing to fear.
He glanced at his watch.
“Almost dawn,” he said. “I’d better be going. What do I do with you?”
“Wear us. On your head. Like a turban.”
“Foreigners wear those.”
“You are a foreigner, Billy-boy. You don’t belong here. You’ll get used to wearing us. In our previous life we made very impressive hats. We’ve just come unglued of late.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” Bill said. “But that’s all going to change now, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” said the remnants of Kaspar Wolfswinkel’s five hats. “You’ve found us. Everything changes now.”
Chapter 6 Under Jibarish (#ulink_381e18da-1bb9-5674-98fa-2fe80d34454d)
RUTHUS’S LITTLE BOAT CARRIED Candy and Malingo southwest down the Straits of Dusk and between the islands of Huffaker and Ninnyhammer to Jibarish, in the wilds of which a tribe of women called the Qwarv lived by preying on weary travelers, who they then cooked and ate. Rumor had it that Laguna Munn, the sorceress they had come to find, was sympathetic to the Qwarv, despite their appetites, tending to them when they were sick, and even accepting their offer to eat with them on occasion. Certainly the island was a fit place for such repugnant events to occur. It stood at Eleven O’clock at Night: just one hour from the horror of Midnight.
The islands were still, however, slivers of time sealed off from one another. Only sounds would find their way through for some reason, echoes of echoes, eerily remote. But it wasn’t difficult to identify the sounds from the nearby Hour of Gorgossium. There was demolition going on. Massive land-clearing engines were at work, bringing down walls, digging up foundations. The noise echoed off the heights of Jibarish’s west-facing cliffs.
“What are they doing over there?” Malingo wondered aloud.
“It’s best not to ask,” Ruthus said in a hushed tone. “Or even think about it.” He stared up at the stars, which were so bright over Jibarish that the sum of their light was greater than even the brightest moon. “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 she goes, I go,” Malingo replied.
Ruthus shook his head.
“Crazy, the both of you,” he remarked.
“Well, if things go badly for us, you have nothing to blame yourself for, Ruthus,” Candy said. “We’re doing this in spite of your good advice.” She paused, smiled. “And we will see you again.”
Malingo had already climbed out of the boat and was squatting on the narrow step, trying the door. It opened without any forcing.
“Thank you again,” Candy said to Ruthus, and stepped out of the boat, heading through the small and roughly painted door in pursuit of Malingo.
Before she stepped over the threshold, though, she glanced back down the bank. She had no chance to call good-bye to Ruthus. The possessive waters of the Izabella had already seized hold of the little boat and it was being carried away from the island, while the winged crabs applauded the boat’s escape with a mingled ovation of wing and claw.
Chapter 7 The sorrows of the Bad Son (#ulink_3850e319-8608-5644-bf1c-d75ee64016ae)
A STEEP, NARROW- STEPPED PATH wound its way up from the door in the wall through the trees. Candy and Malingo climbed. Though there was a wash of visible brightness through the orange-red canopy, very little of it found its way down to the path. There were, however, small lamps set beside the steps to light the way. Beyond their throw the thicket was dense and the darkness denser still. But it wasn’t deserted.
“There’s plenty of eyes on us,” Candy said very quietly.
“But no noises. No birds chirping. No insects buzzing around.”
“Maybe there’s something else here. Something they’re scared of.”
“Well, if there is,” Malingo said, speaking with a fake clarity, “I hope it knows we’re here to cause trouble.”
His performance earned him a reply.
“You say you’re here to cause trouble, geshrat,” said a young voice, “but saying it doesn’t make it true.”
