“Thank you,” Candy said.

Mrs. Munn did not acknowledge her thanks, or say so much as a single word in reply. She had laid her hands on the body of her dead child, and her tears fell on it.

That was Candy’s last image of the great incantatrix, Laguna Munn: kneeling beside the body of the boy made from all the good in her, with her tears falling and falling.

Once out of his mother’s presence, Jollo became very talkative, keeping up a monologue of chatter about one subject only: himself. Was this a necessary part of evil? Candy wondered as she listened to him: this utter self-absorption, as though nothing else in the world mattered but Jollo and his boredom, Jollo and how he’d suffered during Boa’s attack, Jollo and what he was going to do when he left the rock and went out into the Abarat.

“There’s a time coming, Mama says, when someone with my genius for wicked things will be really useful. I mean, I’m going to be a King, at least. Probably something more than a King. What’s more than a King? Oh, like someone who kills a King. That’s what I’m going to be. Because if you kill something you’re more important than whatever you killed. Mama didn’t tell me that. I just thought it up myself. Because I have these dreams, see, where it’s the future, and everything boring and good is being lined up to be killed. They’ll have their heads chopped off. I might do the chopping, but no, that’d be boring wouldn’t it? I hate being bored. That’s why I’m going to leave very soon. . . .”

And so he went on, an endless speech about Jollo, Jollo and more Jollo. When they eventually emerged from the trees they saw before them a shallow bay with a short, wooden jetty that jutted from the steep beach. Candy and Malingo exchanged looks of relief. They were going to be out of the boy’s company very soon.

Jollo, however, had one subject left to pontificate upon.

“When I leave here,” he told Candy, “I’m going to be taking all of Mama’s magic books with me, because she’s got books that there’s only one of, and I could get thousands of paterzem for a magic book that there was only one of, right? So do you want me to bring them to you first? I know the geshrat’s too stupid to read a big book, but you’re famous aren’t you? Mama told me before you arrived—” They were on the jetty now, the boards creaking beneath them.

“She knew I was coming?” Candy said.

“Excuse me,” Jollo snarled. “I was still talking. How dare you interrupt me? You know what? I’m not going to bring Mama’s books. Not when you’re so rude. I can’t believe that! Ignorant peasant! Don’t try groveling because that won’t get you anywhere. Grovelers are pathetic. Like my brother. He used to grovel when I kicked him really hard. I’m going to miss him. I won’t have anyone to kick. I just had a brilliant idea! I’ll forgive you for being rude, and I’ll bring you the books like I said I would. All you have to do is leave the geshrat here. I won’t hurt him badly. I’ll just do the same stuff I did with my brother. You know, kicking and spitting and stuff. That’s a good deal, right? I mean, when I’m King you’re going to be so glad I forgave you because otherwise your life won’t be worth living.” He grinned. “Like my brother. I got his life because I’d made his so miserable.” The grin broke into squalid laughter. “That’s the stupidest thing anybody ever did, isn’t it? When I’m King I’m going to make him a saint. He’s going to be Saint Covenantis, the Patron Saint of Stupid People! Ha! I love that! He’ll have his own Holy Day. Today, the day he died. Nobody will work. They’ll just say stupid prayers for a stupid saint of stupid people. Wait! What’s your geshrat doing.”

Candy didn’t answer.

“Tell me! Oh. Oh, I get it. You need permission to speak, right? You may now speak. Tell me what your geshrat’s doing.”

“Are your eyes bad?” Candy said.

“No. My eyes are perfect.”

“Then you can see what he’s doing. Standing in the small boat, untying the rope.”

“Well, tell him to get out of the boat. We made a deal, you and me. The geshrat stays and when I’m King—”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Are your ears as bad as your eyes? I said: shut up. You’ll never be King of anything. You’re a nasty maggot-brained little nobody. You think of nothing but yourself, and the only thing you’ll ever be King of is something you’d find on the bottom of your shoe.”

“Enough, Candy . . .” Malingo said quietly. He was reaching out to take hold of Candy’s hand, but she wasn’t quite finished.

“King Turd,” she said. “That is the most you’ll ever be.”

Jollo’s hackles were rising, and he was giving off a vile bitter odor, which she hadn’t smelled earlier, perhaps because she’d been farther away from him. The acrid smell made her eyes water, and it was that fact more than Malingo’s summons that made her give up telling Jollo what she thought of him. She didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of believing he’d reduced her to tears so she turned her back on him and went to catch hold of Malingo.

The smell of Jollo’s rage suddenly became a lot stronger, and she knew without looking back that the little monster was right behind her reaching up to dig his claws into her neck. But that was another satisfaction he wasn’t going to get. She didn’t have time to grab Malingo’s hand. She just leaped off the jetty and into the boat, falling facedown in the stale water that had collected at the bottom. By the time she got up, Malingo had already gotten the oars in the water and was rowing the boat away from the jetty where Jollo B’gog was still standing, bristling and spitting, his wads of spittle expelled with such demonic force that they could be heard as they hit the stern of the boat.

That, however, was the worst he could do, at least for today. Perhaps tomorrow he would get his throne and crown. Stranger things had happened. Until then Candy would remember him as a frustrated brat standing on an antiquated jetty, spitting and spitting, until his target was out of range.

As soon as Malingo’s rowing brought the boat clear of the boy’s protection, it was collected by a current of surprising swiftness, which carried them off. The current moved with the speed of an instructed messenger, carrying the boat through a tunnel that in no way resembled the cavern through which they’d entered. It curved sinuously, first left, then right, then left again, the motion almost hypnotic. As she was rocked in the cradle of the boat, Candy allowed herself a moment of happiness.

I got rid of her, she thought to herself. The bitter monster who was in my head, killing my joy, has gone forever. And I’m a little different, maybe: but I’m still Candy Quackenbush, the way I always was.

“You’re smiling,” Malingo said. “It’s because she’s gone, isn’t it?”

“You know me so well,” Candy replied.

“I like that. Knowing you. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“And from now it’s going to get better and better,” Candy said.

They said no more, but lay content in their well-earned fatigue, as the boat moved on through the long, winding cavern, until its waters brought them out into the waters around Jibarish, which lay calm under a sky so bright with stars that they could see to the mists where this Hour faded and became another.

“Where now?” Malingo asked.

Part Three

Many Magics

The magic of the circle,

The magic of the eye,

The magic of the vortex,

The magic of the cry.

The magic of the head bone,

The round which bounds the mind,

The coin of gold which buys the bait

The ouroboros will find.

The worm surrounds the human heart,

Our hearts surround the world;

And sleeping, in the beating womb,

The naked babe is curled.

Chant your courage round the child,

Make joy its root and rhyme;