“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.”
THE SHORT VOYAGE TO the Carnival Island quickly took the Parroto Parroto out of the darkness that surrounded Gorgossium. A golden glow on the horizon marked their destination, and the closer they came to it the more boats appeared in the waters around the little fishing boat, all making their way west. Even the most unremarkable of vessels was decorated with flags and lights and streamers, and all were filled with happy people on their way to celebrate on the island ahead.
Candy sat in the bow of the Parroto Parroto, watching the other vessels and listening to the singing and the shouts that echoed across the water.
“I don’t see Babilonium yet,” she said to Malingo. “All I see is mist.”
“But do you see the lights in that mist?” Malingo said. “That’s Babilonium for sure!” He grinned like an excited kid. “I can’t wait! I read about the Carnival Island in Wolfswinkel’s books. Everything you ever wanted to see or do, it’s there! In the old days, people used to come over from the Hereafter just to spend time in Babilonium. They’d go back with their heads so stuffed with the things they saw, they had to make up new words to describe it.”
“Like what?”
“Oh. Let me see. Phantasmagoric. Cathartic. Pandemonical.”
“I never heard of pandemonical.”
“I made that one up.” Malingo smirked. “But there were hundreds of words, all inspired by Babilonium.”
As he spoke, the mist began to thin out and the island it had been concealing came into view: a glittering, chaotic conglomeration of tents and banners, roller coasters and sideshows.
“Oh. My. Lordy. Lou,” Malingo said softly. “Will you look at that?”
Even Charry and Galatea, who were working on building a makeshift cage of timbers and rope to contain the captured zethek, stopped work to admire the spectacle.
And the closer the Parroto Parroto came to the island, the more extraordinary the sight seemed to be. Despite the fact that the Hour was still early and the sky was still light (showing just a few stars), the lanterns and lamps and myriad little fires on the island burned so brightly that they still made the island shimmer with their light. And by that light the crowds could be seen, busy about the happy labor of pleasure. Candy could hear their contented buzz, even over a considerable expanse of water, and it made her heart quicken with anticipation. What were these people seeing that made them so giddy with bliss? They chatted, they whooped, they sang, they laughed; more than anything they laughed, as though they’d only just learned how.
“This is all real, isn’t it?” Candy said to Malingo. “I mean, it isn’t a mirage or something?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, lady,” Malingo said. “I mean, I’ve always assumed it was perfectly real, but I’ve been wrong before. Oh…speaking of that…of being wrong, if you’re still interested in learning whatever magic I got out of Wolfswinkel’s books, I’d be happy to teach you.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“What do you think? The Word of Power you uttered.”
“Oh, you mean Jass—”
Malingo put his finger to Candy’s lips. “No, lady. Don’t.”
Candy smiled. “Oh yes. That might spoil the moment.”
“You see, what did I tell you in Tazmagor? There are laws to magic.”
“And you can teach me those laws? At least some of them. Stop me from making a bad mistake.”
“I suppose I could try,” Malingo conceded. “Though it seems to me you may know more than you think you know.”
“But how? I’m just—”
“—an ordinary girl from the Hereafter. Yes, so you keep saying.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Lady, I don’t know any other ordinary girls from the Hereafter besides you, but I’d be willing to bet none of them could take on three zetheks and come out the winner!”
Candy thought of the girls in her class. Deborah Hackbarth, Ruth Ferris. Malingo was right. It was very hard to imagine any one of them standing in her shoes right now.
“All right,” she said. “Supposing I am different, somehow? What made me that way?”
“That, lady, is a very good question,” Malingo replied.
After much maneuvering through the flotillas of boats and ferries and people on water bicycles that thronged the harbor, Skebble brought the Parroto Parroto in to dock at Babilonium. Though the catch had been dumped in the straits several miles back, the stink of the zetheks had permeated their clothes, so their first task before they ventured onto the crowded walkways was to purchase some sweeter-smelling outfits. It wasn’t difficult. Over the years a number of enterprising clothes merchants had set up their stalls close to the dock, realizing that many of the visitors would want to shuck off their workday clothes as soon as they arrived on Babilonium and buy something a little more appropriate to the