She swung the wrench in a wide arc. The tool was heavy, and in truth she had very little control over it, so it was more by accident than intention that she actually struck the creature. That said, it was quite a blow. The zethek dropped out of the sky as if shot, striking the boards of the wheelhouse so hard they cracked.

For a second he lay still.

“You killed him!” said Galatea. “Ha-ha! Good for you!”

“I…don’t think he’s dead…” Candy said.

What Galatea couldn’t hear, Candy could. The zethek was growling. Very slowly he raised his gargoylish head. Dark blood ran from his nose.

“You…hurt…me…”

“Well, come over here,” Candy said, beckoning to the beast across the fractured boards of the roof. “I’ll do it again.”

“The girl’s suicidal,” Mizzel remarked.

“Your friend is right,” the zethek said. “You are suicidal.”

Having spoken, the zethekaratchia opened his mouth and kept opening it, wider and wider, until it was literally large enough to bite off the top of Candy’s head. In fact, that seemed to be his intention, because he lunged forward, leaping across the hole in the roof and throwing Candy down on her back. Then he jumped on top of her. The wrench flew out of her hand; she had no time to pick it up. The zethek was upon her, his mouth vast—

She closed her eyes as a cloud of the beast’s breath broke against her face. She had seconds to live. And then suddenly Skebble was there, hammer in hand.

“Leave the girl alone,” he hollered, and brought the hammer down on the zethek’s skull, delivering it such a calamitous blow that he simply fell backward into the wheelhouse through the hole in the roof, dead.

“That was brave, girl,” he said, hauling Candy to her feet.

She patted the top of her head just to be sure it was still there. It was.

“One down,” said Candy. “Three to—”

“Help, somebody!” Mizzel yelled. “Help!”

Candy turned around to find that another of these wretched things had caught hold of Mizzel and was pinning him to the deck, preparing to make a meal of him.

“No, you don’t!” she yelled, and ran for the ladder.

Only when she was halfway down did she remember that she’d left the wrench on the roof. It was too late to go back for it.

The deck, when she reached it, was slick with fish oil and water, and instead of running she found herself sliding over it, completely out of control. She hollered for someone to stop her, but there was no one close enough. Straight ahead was the hold, its door already opened by one of the beasts. Her only hope of stopping herself was to reach out and grab the zethek that was assaulting Mizzel. But she’d have to be quick, before the opportunity slid by. She put out her hand and made a grab for the beast. The zethek saw her coming and turned to ward her off, but he wasn’t fast enough: she caught hold of his hair. He squawked like an enraged macaw and struggled to free himself, but Candy held on. Unfortunately, her momentum was too great to bring her to a halt. Quite the reverse. Instead, the creature came along with her, reaching up to try and untangle her fingers from his ratty locks even as they both slid toward the gaping hold.

Over the edge they went and down among the fish. Luckily it wasn’t a long fall; the hold was almost filled with smatterlings. But it wasn’t a pleasant landing, a thousand fish sliding beneath them, cold and wet and very dead.

Candy still had her grip on the zethek’s hair, so that when the creature stood up—which he did instantly—she was hauled to her feet too.

The creature wasn’t used to being held by anybody, especially some scrap of a girl. He writhed and raged, snapping at her with his over-sized mouth one moment, the next attempting to shrug her loose by shaking his body so violently that his bones clattered.

Finally, apparently despairing of escape, the zethek called to his surviving comrades: “Kud! Nattum! Here! In the hold! Now!”

A few seconds after the call had gone out, Kud and Nattum appeared over the edge of the hold.

“Methis!” Nattum said, grinning. “You have a girl for me!”

So saying, he opened his mouth and inhaled so powerfully that Candy had to fight to keep herself from being pulled straight into the maw.

Kud wasn’t interested in such tricks. He shoved Nattum aside. “I take her!” he said. “I’m hungry.”

Nattum shoved back.

“So am I!” he growled.

While she was being fought over, Candy took the opportunity to yell for help.

“Somebody! Malingo? Charry?”

“Too late,” said Kud, and leaning over the edge of the hold he caught hold of her and pulled her up. He was so quick and violent that Candy lost her grip on Methis. Her feet slid over the slimy fish for a moment; then she was in the air, being hauled toward Kud’s mouth, which now also opened like a toothed tunnel.

The next moment everything went dark. Her head—much to her horror—was in the mouth of the beast.

5 THE SPEAKING OF A WORD

THOUGH HER ENTIRE SKULL was suddenly enclosed by the zethek’s mouth, Candy was still able to hear one thing from the outside world. Just one stupid thing. It was the squeaking voice of the Commexo Kid, singing his eternally optimistic little song.

“Happy! Happy! Happy!” it squealed.

She offered up a little prayer in that dark moment, to ask any God or Goddess, of Abarat or the Hereafter, who would listen. It was a very simple prayer. It simply said: Please don’t let that ridiculous Kid be the last thing I hear before I die—

And, thank the divinities, her prayer was answered.

There was a dull thud directly above her, and she felt the tension of Kud’s jaws relax. She instantly pulled her head out of his mouth. This time the slickness of the fish beneath her was to her advantage. She slid across the carpet of smatterlings in time to see Kud collapse among the fish. She took her eyes off him and looked up at her savior.

It was Malingo. He was standing there with Skebble’s hammer in his hand. He smiled at Candy. But his moment of triumph was short. In the next instant Kud rose up roaring from his slimy bed of fish and pulled the legs out from under Malingo, who fell down on his back.

“Ah-ha!” Kud yelled, laying eyes on the hammer that slipped out of Malingo’s hand when he fell. Kud snatched it up and got to his feet. The brightness in his bones had become a furious blaze in the last few minutes. In the sockets of his skull, two dots of scarlet rage flickered as he turned his stare toward Candy. He looked like something from a ghost-train ride. Wielding the hammer, he raced at Candy.

“Run!” Malingo yelled.

But she had nowhere to run to. There was a zethek to the left of her and one to the right, and behind her a solid wall. A skeletal smile spread over Kud’s face.

“Any last words?” he said as he lifted the hammer above his head.

“Come on,” he growled. “You must have something in your head.”

Curiously, she did have something in her head: a word she could not even remember hearing until this moment—

Kud seemed to see the confusion in her eyes.

“Speak!” he said, striking the wall to the left of her head with the hammer. The reverberations echoed all around the hold. The dead smatterlings convulsed, as though they’d been given a spasm of life. “Talk to me!” Kud said, striking the wall to the right of Candy’s head. Showers of sparks erupted from the spot, and the fish jumped a second time.

Candy put her hand up to her throat. There was a word there. She could feel it, like something she’d eaten but not quite swallowed. It wanted to be spoken. That she was certain about. It wanted to be spoken.

And who was she to deny it its ambitions? She let the syllables rise up, unbidden. And spoke them.

“Jassassakya-thüm!”

she said.

From the corner of her eye she saw Malingo sit bolt upright on the bed of fish.

“Oh Lordy Lou…” he said, his voice hushed with awe. “How do you know that word?”

“I don’t,” Candy said.

But the air knew it. The walls knew it. No sooner were the syllables out of her lips than everything began to vibrate in response to the sound of whatever Candy had said. And with each vibration the air and the walls repeated the syllables in their own strange fashion.

Jassassakya-thüm!

“What…have…you…done…girl?” Kud said.

Candy didn’t know. Malingo, on the other hand, did.

“She’s uttered a Word of Power,” he said.

“I have?” Candy replied. “I mean, I have. That’s what I’ve done.”

“Magic?” Kud said. He began to retreat from her now, the hammer sliding out of his fingers. “I knew there was something about you from the beginning. You’re a witch-girl! That’s what you are! A witchgirl!”

As the zethek’s panic grew, so did the reverberations. With each repetition they gathered strength.

Jassassakya-thüm!

“I think you should get out of here now,” Malingo yelled to Candy as the din climbed.

“What?”

“I said: Get out! Out!”

As he spoke he stumbled toward her through the fish, which were also vibrating in rhythm with the words. The zetheks paid no attention to him, nor to Candy. They were suffering from the effects of the word. They had their hands clamped over their ears, as though they were afraid it was deafening them, which perhaps it was.

“This is not a safe place to be,” Malingo said when he got to Candy’s side.

She nodded. She was beginning to feel the distressing influence of the vibrations herself. Galatea was there to lift her up onto the deck. Then both girls turned to help Malingo, reaching down to catch hold of his long arms. Candy counted:

“One, two, three—”

And they hauled together, lifting him up with surprising ease.

The scene in the hold had become surreal. The Word was making the catch vibrate so violently that at first glance the fish seemed to be alive again. As for the zethek, they were like three flies caught in a jar, propelled back and forth across the hold, slamming against the sides. They seemed to have forgotten all about the possibility of escape. The word had made them crazy, or stupid, or both.

Skebble was standing on the opposite side of the hold. He pointed to Candy and yelled at her: “Make it stop! Or you’re going to shake my boat apart!”

He was right about the boat. The vibrations in the hold had spread throughout the vessel. The boards were shaking so violently nails were being spat into the air, the already cracked wheelhouse was rocking to and fro, the rigging was vibrating like the strings of a huge guitar; even the mast was swaying.

Candy looked over at Malingo.

“See?” she said. “If you’d taught me some magic I’d know how to turn this off.”

“Well, wait,” Malingo said. “Where did you learn that word?”

“I didn’t learn it.”

“You must have heard it somewhere.”

“No. I swear. It just appeared in my throat. I don’t know where it came from.”

“If you two have quite finished chatting?” Skebble hollered over the din. “My boat—”

“Yes!” Candy shouted back. “I know, I know!”

“Inhale it!” Malingo said.

“What?”

“The Word! Inhale the Word!”

“Inhale it?”

“Do as he says!” Galatea yelled. “Before the boat sinks!”

Everything was now shaking to the rhythm of the Word. There wasn’t a board or a rope or a hook from bow to stern that wasn’t in motion. In the hold the three zetheks were still being pitched around, sobbing for mercy.

Candy closed her eyes. Strangely enough, she could see the word that she’d uttered in her mind’s eye. There it was, clear as crystal.

Jass…assa…kya…thüm…

She emptied her lungs through her nostrils. Then, still keeping her eyes tightly shut, she drew a deep breath.

The word in her mind’s eye shook. Then it cracked, and it seemed to fly apart. Was it just her imagination, or could she feel it coming back into her throat? She swallowed hard, and the word was gone.

The reaction was instantaneous. The vibrations died away. The boards dropped back into place, peppered by nails. The mast stopped lurching to and fro. The fish stopped their grotesque cavorting.

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!”

6 TWO CONVERSATIONS

“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 likely thrown themselves to their deaths. The news would not make Carrion happy, he knew. This made Houlihan nervous. He remembered all too well the feeding of the nightmares he’d witnessed in the Twelfth Tower. He didn’t want to die the same way as the wretched miner had died. In an attempt to put these troubling thoughts from his mind, he slipped away to a little inn called The Fool in Chains where he could drink some Hobarookian vodka. Perhaps it was time—he thought as he drank—to cease his life as a hunter and find a less risky means of making money. As a bug-wrestling promoter, perhaps; or a knife juggler. Anything, as long as he never had to come back to Gorgossium and wait…

His clammy meditations were interrupted by the sound of laughter from outside. He staggered out to see what all the fuss was about. Several customers, many in states of inebriation as bad or worse than his own, were standing in a rough circle, pointing to something on the ground in their midst.

The Criss-Cross Man went to see. There in the dirt was one of the uglier occupants of Gorgossium: a large zethek. He had apparently collided with a tree and had fallen to earth, under which he was now standing, looking very confused, picking leaves out of his hair and spitting out dirt. The drunkards just kept laughing at him.

“Go on, laugh at me!” the creature said. “Kud seen a thing you be way afraid of. A terrible thing I seen.”

“Oh yeah?” said one of the drunks. “And what was that?”

Kud spat out one last mouthful of dirt. “A witch-girl,” he said. “Does bad magic on me. Almost kills me with her Word.”

Houlihan elbowed his way through the crowd and grabbed hold of the zethek’s wing so that he wouldn’t try to escape. Then he peered into his broken, confounded face. “You said you fought with this girl?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Was she alone?”

“No. She was with a geshrat.”

“You’re sure?”

“You saying I don’t know what a geshrat looks like? I’ve been drinking their blood since I was a baby.”

“Never mind about the geshrat. Talk to me about the girl.”

“Don’t shake me! I will not be shaken. I’m—”

“Kud the zethek. Yes, I heard. And I’m Otto Houlihan, the Criss-Cross Man.”

The moment Houlihan offered up his name, the crowd that had been pressing around Kud suddenly melted away.

“I’ve heard of you,” Kud said. “You’re dangerous.”

“Not to my friends,” Otto replied. “You want to be my friend, Kud?”

The zethek took but a moment to think on this.

“Of course,” the creature said, bowing his head respectfully.

“Good,” said the Criss-Cross Man. “Then back to the girl. Did you catch her name?”

“The geshrat called her—” He frowned. “What was it? Mandy? Dandy?”

“Candy?”

“Candy! Yes! He called her Candy!”

“And on what island did you last see this girl?”

“No island,” Kud replied. “I saw her on a boat, out there—” He pointed behind him, toward the lightless waters of the Izabella. “You go after her?”

“Why?”

Kud looked nervous. “Magic in her,” he said. “Monstrous. She’s monstrous.”

Houlihan didn’t remark on the oddity of a creature like Kud calling Candy a monster. He simply said: “Where do I find her?”

“Follow your nose. We spoiled their catch by befouling their hold.”

“Very sophisticated,” Houlihan said, and turned his back on the befuddled beast to consider his options. If he stayed on Gorgossium he would eventually be admitted into Carrion’s presence and be obliged to explain how once again the girl had outmaneuvered him. The alternative was to leave Midnight and hope he would be able to find Candy and get some answers from her before Carrion summoned him back and demanded answers. Yes! That was better. A lot better.

“Are you finished with me?” the zethek growled.

Houlihan glanced back at the wretched thing.

“Yes, yes. Go,” he said. “I’ve got work to do, following your stink.”

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