Clive Barker - Abarat 2 - Days of Magic, Nights of War

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Clive Barker - Abarat 2 - Days of Magic, Nights of War» — ознакомительный отрывок электронной книги совершенно бесплатно, а после прочтения отрывка купить полную версию. В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: unrecognised, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

A dazzling fantasy adventure for all ages, the second part of a quartet appearing at two yearly intervals, richly illustrated by the author. Film rights sold to Disney for $8 million on the paintings alone.The Abarat; a magical otherworld composed on an archipelago of twenty-five islands – one for each hour of the day, plus an island out of time.Candy Quackenbush, escaping her dull, dull life from the most boring place in our world, Chickentown, USA, finds that in the Abarat she has another existence entirely, one which links her to marvels and mysteries–and even to murder…In this, the second volume in Clive Barker's extraordinary fantasy for both adults and children, Candy's adventures in the amazing world of the Abarat are getting more strange by the Hour. Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, has sent his henchmen to capture her. Why? she wonders. What would Carrion want with a girl from Minnesota? And why is Candy beginning to feel that the world of the Abarat is familiar to her? Why can she speak words of magic she doesn't even remember learning?There is a mystery here. And Carrion, along with his fiendish grandmother, Mater Motley, suspects that whatever Candy is, she could spoil his plans to take control of the Abarat.Now Candy's companions must race against time to save her from the clutches of Carrion, and she must solve the mystery of her past before the forces of Night and Day clash and Absolute Midnight descends upon the islands.A final war is about to begin. And Candy is going to need to make some choices that will change her life forever…

Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War — читать онлайн ознакомительный отрывок

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

“Good! Good!” he said. “Jamjam! Get the young lady a mirror. How old are you?”

“Almost sixteen, why?”

“You wear something much more ladylike, huh? We got nice things. Like I say, no extra charge.”

“I’m fine. Thank you. I want to remember this the way it really was.” She smiled at Malingo. “Two wanderers in Tazmagor, tired but happy.”

“That’s what you want, that’s what I give you,” Guumat said.

Jamjam handed her a little mirror and Candy consulted her reflection. She was a mess, no doubt about it. She’d cut her hair very short a couple of weeks before so she could hide from Houlihan among some monks on Soma Plume, but the haircut had been very hurried, and it was growing out at all angles.

“You look fine,” Malingo said.

“So do you. Here, see for yourself.”

She handed him the mirror. Her friends back in Chickentown would have thought Malingo’s face—with his deep orange hide and the fans of leathery skin to either side of his head—fit only for Halloween. But in the time they’d been traveling together through the islands, Candy had come to love the soul inside that skin: tenderhearted and brave.

Guumat arranged them in front of his camera.

“You need to stand very, very still,” he instructed them. “If you move, you’ll be blurred in the picture. So, now let me get the camera ready. Give me a minute or two.”

“What made you want a photograph?” Malingo said from the corner of his mouth.

“Just to have. So I won’t forget anything.”

“As if,” said Malingo.

“Please,” said Guumat. “Be very still. I have to focus.”

Candy and Malingo were silent for a moment.

“What are you thinking about?” Malingo murmured.

“Being on Yzil, at Noon.”

“Oh yes. That’s something we’re sure to remember.”

“Especially seeing her…

“The Princess Breath.”

Now, without Guumat requesting it, they both fell silent for a long moment, remembering their brief encounter with the Goddess on the Noon-Day island of Yzil. Candy had seen her first: a pale, beautiful woman in red and orange standing in a patch of warm light, breathing out a living creature, a purplish squid. This, it was said, was the means by which most of the species in the Abarat had been brought into Creation. They had been breathed out by the Creatrix, who had then let the soft wind that constantly blew through the trees and vines of Yzil claim the newborn from her arms and carry them off to the sea.

“That was the most amazing—”

“I’m ready!” Guumat announced from beneath the black cloth he’d ducked under. “On the count of three we take the picture. One! Two! Three! Hold it! Don’t move! Don’t move! Seven seconds. ” He lifted his head out from under the cloth and consulted his stopwatch. “Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. That’s it!” Guumat slipped a plate into his camera to stop the exposure. “Picture taken! Now we have to wait a few minutes while I prepare a print for you.”

“No problem,” Candy said.

“Are you going down to the ferry?” Jamjam asked her.

“Yes,” said Candy.

“You look like you’ve been on the move.”

“Oh, we have,” said Malingo. “We’ve seen a lot in the last few weeks, traveling around.”

“I’m jealous. I’ve never left Qualm Hah. I’d love to go adventuring.”

A minute later Jamjam’s father appeared with the photograph, which was still wet. “I can sell you a very nice frame, very cheap.”

“No, thanks,” said Candy. “It’s fine like this.”

She and Malingo looked at the photograph. The colors weren’t quite true, but Guumat caught them looking like a pair of happy tourists, with their brightly colored, rumpled clothes, so they were quite happy.

Photograph in hand, they headed down the steep hill to the harbor and the ferry.

“You know, I’ve been thinking…” Candy said as they made their way through the crowd.

“Uh-oh.”

“Seeing the Princess Breath made me want to learn more. About magic.”

“No, Candy.”

“Come on, Malingo! Teach me. You know all about conjurations—”

“A little. Just a little.”

“It’s more than a little. You told me once that you spent every hour that Wolfswinkel was asleep studying his grimoires and his treatises.”

The subject of the wizard Wolfswinkel wasn’t often raised between them: the memories were so painful for Malingo. He’d been sold into slavery as a child (by his own father), and his life as Wolfswinkel’s possession had been an endless round of beatings and humiliations. It had only been Candy’s arrival at the wizard’s house that had given him the opportunity to finally escape his enslavement.

“Magic can be dangerous,” Malingo said. “There are laws and rules. Suppose I teach you the wrong things and we start to unknit the fabric of time and space? Don’t laugh! It’s possible. I read in one of Wolfswinkel’s books that magic was the beginning of the world. It could be the end too.”

Candy looked irritated.

“Don’t be cross,” Malingo said. “I just don’t have the right to teach you things that I don’t really understand myself.”

Candy walked for a while in silence. “Okay,” she said finally.

Malingo cast Candy a sideways glance. “Are we still friends?” he said.

She looked up at him and smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Always.”

2 WHAT THERE IS TO SEE

AFTER THAT CONVERSATION THEY never mentioned the subject of magic again. They just went on with their island hopping, using the time-honored guide to the islands, Klepp’s Almenak , as their chief source of information. Every now and again they’d get a feeling that the Criss-Cross Man was closing in on them, and they’d cut short their exploring and move on. About ten days after they’d left Tazmagor, their travels brought them to the island of Orlando’s Cap. It was little more than a bare rock with an asylum for the insane built on its highest point. The asylum had been vacated many years before, but its interior bore the unmistakable signs of the madness of its occupants. The white walls were covered with strange scrawlings that here and there became a recognizable image—a lizard, a bird—only to dwindle into scrawlings again.

“What happened to all the people who used to be in here?” Candy wondered.

Malingo didn’t know. But they quickly agreed that this wasn’t a spot where they wanted to linger. The asylum had strange, sad echoes. So they went back to the tiny harbor to wait for another boat. There was an old man sitting on the dock, coiling a length of frayed rope. He had the strangest look on his face, his eyes all knotted up, as though he were blind. This wasn’t the case, however. As soon as Candy and Malingo arrived, he began to stare at them.

“You shouldn’t have come back here,” he growled.

“Me?” Malingo said.

“No, not you. Her. Her! ” He pointed at Candy. “They’ll lock you away.”

“Who will?”

They will, soon as they know what you are,” the man said, getting to his feet.

“You keep your distance,” Malingo warned.

“I’m not going to touch her,” the man replied. “I’m not that brave. But I see. Oh, I see. I know what you are, girl, and I know what you’ll do.” He shook his head. “Don’t you worry, I won’t touch you. No sir. I wouldn’t do a damn-fool thing like that.”

And so saying he edged around them, being sure to keep his distance, and ran off down the creaking dock, disappearing among the rocks.

“Well, I guess that’s what happens when you let the crazy folks out,” Malingo said with forced brightness.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Clive Barker - Thief of Always
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - Galilee
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - Books of Blood Vol 2
Clive Barker
libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - Weave World
Clive Barker
libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - Books of Blood Vol 5
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - The Damnation Game
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - Medianoche absoluta
Clive Barker
Clive Barker - Abarat
Clive Barker
Отзывы о книге «Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Abarat 2: Days of Magic, Nights of War» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x