Abarat: Absolute Midnight (24 page)

Chapter 40
Bones and Laughter

F
INNEGAN HAD BEEN ON
the Nonce for a day, searching for a place that he had endeavored to find ever since the death of his Princess. He had finally discovered it, beneath the mountains of that Hour: the place where, according to the myth of the dragon families, their dying members went to pass the last portion of their lives. There they had perished, leaving their bodies to decay among the numberless bones of the worms who had come here to die over the centuries.

Now he was standing in that most secret of secret places, a cavern that had been fashioned over the millennia by the genius of water and stone into the likeness of a cathedral so big the city of Commexo could have comfortably fitted within it three or four times over. It was illuminated by the phosphorescence given off by a fungus that flourished on the bare architecture of the dead. They had spread to every corner of the caverns, laying a gray pallor on the air, which only served to add to the immensity of the space. But the
scale of this vast cathedral was barely large enough to contain the immense numbers of dragon’s bones that had collected here over the centuries, some laid here by mourners, carrying the corpses of dragon kings or common soldiers; some laid down by those who had owned them, and had made their final journey dressed in meat and scales, so as to lose them at least among the remnants of those who had gone before.

In places they were heaped like stained snowdrifts against the hundred-foot walls, in others simply littering the floor, broken by the passage of the centuries into splinters, the splinters into crumbs, and the crumbs to dust.

“That’s a fine sight,” Finnegan murmured to himself.

“Is that all it’s about, Hob?” said a voice of age and pain. Its vibrations, breaking the bleak silence, brought tiny changes among the bones. Dust ran hissing from eye sockets of dragons dead in their mothers’ wombs.

“Deetha Maas?” Finnegan said. He already had his sword and dagger drawn. “Show yourself.”

“I’m right here,” the ancient voice told him. “Look.”

Indeed, something directly in front of him
did
move. It was so uncannily slow that it was several seconds before he could make sense of the form. When he did so he recognized instantly that he was looking at a creature that was, like himself, the child of a forbidden union. Finnegan had been born of a Father of Day and a Mother of Night. But Deetha Maas, the keeper of this ossuary, had been made from a far stranger marriage: that of dragon and man. For sixteen years Finnegan had been slaughtering members of the Dragon Nation, but he had always let Maas see that in some secret place he knew that he was taking the lives of innocents. And that in allowing their corpses to be recovered and brought to this place was his way of making peace with that fact.

Once, perhaps, Maas had been an intimidating figure. He stood eleven or twelve feet tall, even stooped. His head was a calamitous mismatching of the infernal reptile—the long snouted skull, the slitted eyes, the gold-green scales, the teeth in a barbed array in rotting gums—with the humanish parts, the most significant part the fact that he was standing upright on his crooked back legs. He had fashioned a primitive walking aid out of bones bound with strips of cloth, on which he leaned his entire weight only advancing with the greatest difficulty, each step exacting its price in pain. There were other subtler signs of his human aspect: small places where his scales gave way to areas of translucent skin under which a network of dark blue veins was visible, pulsing against his pale purple sinew, his dirty white hair, which grew down to his waist, and here and there portions of a beard in the same wretched condition, which sprouted from pieces of flesh between the scaly patches beneath his snout.

“I’d expected you to be younger,” Finnegan said.

“I’m alive,” Deetha Maas said. “That’s some kind of triumph surely. I got to be one hundred and thirteen. And now I presume you have come to make sure I don’t see a hundred and fourteen.”

“You were the one who called me here,” Finnegan reminded him.

“Yes. Well, we go back sixteen years, Finnegan. I thought with what’s going on above we might never have another opportunity to meet face-to-face. So I seized the offer while it was there in the dust, so to speak.”

“What offer?”

“From the true dispatcher of the message I sent.”

“If not you, then who?” Finnegan said, raising his sword. It was a heavy blade, hard to wield with any great ease. Much broader, fuller, stronger men than Finnegan had attempted to use it and found it virtually impossible to wield. But Finnegan had its measure. It made him feel lighter on his feet to have it in his hand.

If—as he suspected—that this summons from Deetha Maas was a last attempt by the surviving dragons to kill him, he would not go easily. This was, after all, the night of Midnight’s Empire. He’d seen all the stars go out as he’d made his way here. If this was not the end of the world he would be surprised—in truth, disappointed. He wanted an end to his loneliness and to his rage. And if it was going to be anywhere, where better than here? And who better to cure him of life than one of the very species who’d also cured him of hope and happiness? One last battle then, fought to the death, his own.

“I’m ready,” he told Maas.

“I doubt that,” Maas said.

“Death holds no fears for me,” Finnegan replied.

“I didn’t imagine for a moment that it did. But it isn’t death that’s waiting for you.”

“What then?”

“Your love.”

“I have no love!”

A spring of clear, sweet laughter appeared from behind a litter of bones and echoed around the ossuary. An elegantly dressed woman emerged from the shadows. Finnegan let his raised sword sink down under its own tremendous weight.

“Hello, Finn.” Boa smiled.

Chapter 41
Dragon Dust

“Y
OU CAN
’
T BE HER
,” Finnegan said. There was a tremor in his voice. “She was dead. I held her in my arms.”

“I know. I was there.”

“No!”

“I thought you’d be happy—”

“If you were real—”

“Do you remember the letter you found? Written by your grandfather from the battlefield of the Nonce, during the last war? The letter to your grandmother? You read a part of it to me.”

“Go on,” Finnegan replied. His voice was hushed now.

“I remember there was a part of it that made you angry because it was your grandfather’s story about what happened after death. You thought he was wrong. It was a selfish letter, you said. Because your grandfather wasn’t thinking about how it would affect someone who read it. You were so furious, you wanted your grandfather to know how you felt.”

“Yes. I remember. I couldn’t tell him, though, because he was dead.”

The smile came back to Boa’s face, bright as ever.

“You’re trying to trick me, Finnegan Hob. You’re trying to catch me out, aren’t you?”

“I don’t see how.”

“You know he wasn’t dead. He was alive when you read that letter to me.”

Both members of her audience, man and dragon, gazed at her in astonishment.

“All right,” Finn said. “It’s you. I don’t know how, but it is.”

“I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

“Well . . . you know . . . you were dead. I’ve lived thinking you were dead. Buried in that royal mausoleum on the Nonce. And you weren’t.”

“No. I was a prisoner. But I escaped.” Her smile became laughter. “I escaped, Finn! And I’m back, to love you.”

Finnegan tried to put on a smile but it didn’t quite stick. “It just seems so impossible.”

“Of course it seems that way. But then yesterday you wouldn’t have thought you’d be seeing the stars go out, would you?”

“Is that why you’re here? Are you responsible for that?”

“For murdering the stars?” she said. As she spoke there was a subtle change in her very being. Something caught fire in her, and threw off a garish light. It was in her skin, in her eyes, in her throat. “Do you think I’m capable of that, Finn? Of throwing the world into darkness?” She had lowered her head, like a wild animal preparing to charge. “Well . . . do you?”

“I don’t know what you’re capable of,” Finnegan said. “How could I?”

“Because I’m your Princess.”

“Stop saying that.”

“But it’s the truth. Look at me, Finn!
Look!
Am I not the same woman you were about to marry?”

“Too much the same,” he said, half turning his face from hers, as though he might better break the spell of her perfection if he looked at her askance, and in breaking it, might see what hid behind her beauty. But it didn’t work. He still had to ask her: “How can I believe what I see if I don’t understand how it happened?”

“Touch me, Finn, and I’ll tell you.” She offered him a playful little smile. “I promise I won’t turn into a monster when you touch me.” She walked toward him raising her arm to proffer her hand. “Please, Finn. I’m begging you. I’ve waited a long time.”

“Waited where? Who was holding you prisoner?”

“Touch me and I’ll tell you.
Go on.
I came back so I could be with you, Finn. Where’s the harm in a little touch?”

“I don’t know.”

“There is none,” she said. “Here. Look.” She took hold of his hand. “I’m real. I’m warm.”

Finally, Finn smiled, his hand moving up over the back of her hand, his thumb tenderly brushing the bone of her wrist. He could feel her blood pulsing through her veins. And, as promised, Boa told him everything, more or less. She told how while the wedding guests had been watching the struggle between Finnegan and the dragon, the women of the Fantomaya had reached into her dead body and claimed her soul, how they’d carried it across the divide between the Abarat and the Hereafter, and hidden it in the womb of a woman who was very close to giving birth.

“So this was all planned out?” Finnegan said.

“I really don’t know, to tell you the truth. I don’t see how it could have been. The Fantomaya just wanted to protect my soul, and when they saw a chance to hide it—somewhere no one from the Abarat was going to look—they took it. The child was born a few hours later. But you had already worked most of it out for yourself, hadn’t you?” Boa said. “I saw the confusion on your face several times. You felt something for the girl but you didn’t know what or why. I’m right, aren’t I?” She took a half step toward him, her hand going up to his face. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” she said. “You weren’t seeing her. You were seeing me through her. I was her prisoner. I had no defense against her. All I could do was stay locked up in that head of hers and watch her despicable little life go by year after year. Wondering what was happening here. Always, always thinking about you. Wondering who you’d married now that I was dead.”

“Finn, it’s all lies,” Maas insisted.

“Then none of it can do any harm, can it?” Finnegan replied.

“You should be careful with your affections, Finnegan Hob. There is a greater wickedness close to you than the crimes any of the beasts whose bones we stand among may have committed. Some of them were weak. Some of them were stupid. And some had masters who demanded they do terrible things. But there were innocents here too. You know that, Finnegan.”

“You’re right. I concede it. I killed in anger. I killed in loneliness. I will make my peace with the spirits here. But not now. We have other problems right now.”

“By other problems, you mean Midnight’s Empire?” Maas said.

“Since when did it become an Empire?” he said.

Maas shrugged.

“I don’t know that it ever did. That’s just the way Mater Motley spoke of it. The darkness that’s gathering. It’s her work. She will see herself Empress of the islands if she has her way.”

“Is darkness so terrible?”

“This darkness, yes. And it’s spreading like the plague. I think a woman with your skills might know a thing or two, Princess,” Maas said, turning to Boa.

“Don’t listen, Finn. He’s doing exactly what I told you he’d do. He’s trying to poison our happiness.”

“What skills, Maas?” Finnegan said. “What are you talking about? If you have something to say—”

“He has nothing to say,” Boa said quickly. “It’s all dragon slime he means to coat me with. I’ve been in their jaws before, Finn. I know how they stink. The closest he gets to having any real humanity in him is when he dines on it.”

“Nicely done, Princess,” Maas said with sour appreciation. “Inflame his rage with talk of dragons and maybe he’ll forget that he really doesn’t trust you.”

“Enough, Maas,” Finnegan said sharply. “Just because the stars have gone out, and the world is likely to go with them, it doesn’t mean I’ll simply forgive every utterance that spills out of you. An insult is an insult. And trust me, Maas, one more word spoken against my Princess and your head will fall farther than any star.”

Whether out of fear for his life or from a genuine sense of contrition, Maas laid his clawed hands, right over left, across his heart.

“Forgive me, Finnegan Hob,” he said inclining that burdensome head, “I have been too long in the company of the dead. I have forgotten simple courtesies.”

“Not good enough,” Boa said.

She took hold of Finnegan’s hand, and he felt a surge of cold power move down her arm and through her palm into his. It felt as though his arm was actually gaining muscle mass, and he was glad of it. There would be enemies out there in Midnight’s Empire that had only risen up now because the circumstances were propitious: he would need all the strength he owned to protect Boa from their assaults. It wouldn’t be easy, but with her help he would find a way to get them to a place of safety, assuming such a place existed.

“How do you feel?” Boa asked him.

“Good,” he said. He shook the arm she’d touched as though it had been asleep all his life and was now waking up.

“It feels a lot stronger than it did before you . . . what did you do?”

“Just rolled away a stone,” Boa said, “that had been between you and what was always in you. Take out your sword.”

He did so, the blade making a sound like the chiming of a perfect bell as it slid from the sheath.

“It’s never felt so light before.”

“Nor has it ever been so sharp,” Boa said, making a pass over the sword with her hand. A gleam of light ran up along the blade. “Now,” she said softly, “use it.”

“Use it to do what?”

“What it was meant to do. Kill.”

“Maas?”

“Of course.”

“He has no harm in him, my lady.”

“I say he does, Finnegan. Trust me. Kill him. Then we need never to think of him again.”

Maas made no attempt to move while his fate was considered. He simply waited, his hands still pressed to his chest.

“Do it!”
Boa said.

“He has nothing left, Princess. Look at him.”

“I’d forgotten how much hard work you can be,” she said. “You never could see what was right in front of you.”

“You’re right in front of me, Princess. And right now you’re very hard to see. I’m trying. I really am. But there’s something . . .”

“Of course,” she said with weary irritation. “There’s always going to be more of me to find. Or it would all get boring very quickly, wouldn’t it?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she was there before him.

“You’re going to tell me this isn’t the time for games, because ‘very soon the world’s going to end’ and I’m here to say if it really is going to end then we may as well have some fun before it’s all over.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. So let me have my fun.”

“Doing what?”

“Finishing the job!”

“You’re both crazy . . .” Maas said, the words passing around the boneyard like a rumor, gathering force with every echo.

“Very likely,” Finnegan said.

“You think?” Boa said. “All those years locked away. All those years grieving. Making me crazy. Oh, I know crazy. I’ve had more than my share of crazy.”

“It’s over.”

“Almost . . .”

“No, it is. Whatever’s out there, we’ll deal with it together.”

“Finn, you’ve got to finish what we’re doing here.”

“It’s done.”

“But the dragon still has a head on his shoulders.”

“I’m not killing him, Boa.”

“Fine. Then I will.”

“You don’t want his blood on your hands.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” she said.

“These are powerful spirits, Boa.”

“You’re afraid of ghosts now?” she said, her contempt diseasing the air between them.

“Not fear. Respect.”

“For what? For Maas?” She glanced toward the place where Deetha Maas had last been standing, but he’d moved.

“Come here, worm!”
she said. There wasn’t a great deal of volume in her voice but there was immense power there, and it instantly carried to every corner of the boneyard.
“I! Will! Have! Your! Lying! Head!”

Maas had disappeared.

With every syllable Boa spoke her utterances grew in power, so that by the time she’d reached the fifth word the sound was causing the smaller bones on the slopes to shake themselves loose and tumble down the inclines like mobs of bones assembling in every part of the ossuary. The bones didn’t just slide down the slopes. They skipped, they tumbled, they leaped and somersaulted. Nor did their motion cease when they reached the bottom of the slope.

Instead, they cavorted among the shards and the bone dust, conferring upon the agitation they had carried down the slopes. As the clouds of dust rose into the darkness, they started to create unmistakable shapes, made from the dust’s memory of the beasts it had once been. The dragons were returning! No matter how large they had looked or how complex their forms and colors had been, it was all encoded in every mote of dust. Each beast in every grain remembered; they were waiting in every particle of dust in their entirety. Their majestic shapes sprang up from death throughout the caverns—the iridescence of their scales, the gilded beauty of their eyes, and the purples and reds and greens of their massive wings.

“Maas!”
Boa yelled.
“Why are you doing this? I demand you kill these things right now.”

“He can’t kill what’s already dead, Princess,” Finnegan said.

“This is dragon magic. I don’t like it
. Maas!
”

“I’m here,” the priest said, though now it was harder to be sure the direction from which his voice was coming.

“Show yourself,
Maas
. Finnegan’s not going to hurt you.” In the same breath she dropped her voice to the lowest of whispers and to Finnegan: “Slice off the top half of his head. He’s dangerous.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“If you’re too weak to do what has to be done—”

She raised her left hand, in which she was holding a brilliant blade.

“Maas!” she called out. “Where are you?”

She stopped in mid-syllable, and her eyes lost their hold on Finnegan. Her mouth couldn’t hold the words she had yet to say, nor could her hand hold the knife. It fell from her fingers and as it did so Finnegan caught a smeared glimpse of Deetha Maas, standing behind and a little to the right of the Princess. He had his hand at the back of her neck, touching some vital place, injecting his magical Order of Silence into her.

“Please! Don’t—” Finnegan said.

“Don’t what? Gut her the way she was about to gut me? She fully intended to do it, you know. You were too weak. She wanted it done fast, didn’t she? ‘He’s dangerous.’ That’s what she said about me. Doesn’t that make you wonder?
Why
am I so dangerous?”

“Just let her go, Maas. I won’t hurt you—”

“Don’t you want to know her secrets, Finnegan?”

“Not from you I don’t. Just let her go.”

“You’re going to have to see for yourself, then.”