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

Author:Clive Barker [Barker, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure / General
ISBN: 9780062094117
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-10-02T05:00:00+00:00

31. NEWS IN NONCE

THE LITTLE COMPANY OF adventurers from the good ship Belbelo had been wandering the Nonce for several weeks now, in search of Finnegan Hob. So far they had little reason for optimism.

Though all reports had said he was here at Three in the Afternoon, hunting down the last of the dragons, they had caught no sight of him. The weather was uncommonly hot for the Hour, humid and oppressive, and it was beginning to take its toll on everyone.

Perpetual Afternoon could be exhausting; it left folks panting like tired dogs, their tongues hanging out. Right now they were all sit ting under the enormous leaves of the jackoline tree, while the monsoonal rain—which came regularly but did very little to clear the air—pelted down. The jackoline tree was in full blossom (what, in the Nonce, was not in blossom? Stones gave forth flowers here), and the rain, when it struck the blooms, made them ring like chimes. To those in a happier state of mind, the sound might have been welcomed as pretty. But nobody in the company was in any mood to get up and dance along to the jackoline’s unpredictable melody.

“Damnable flowers,” said John Moot, who was usually one of the better-tempered of the brothers John. “And this brain-bruising rain! I am sick to death of rain and flowers!”

“Not to mention the fecundity!” said John Drowze.

“Oh yes,” said John Serpent. “The endless fecundity!”

“Can you shut your kin up? ” Geneva said to John Mischief.

“They’re starting to get on my nerves.”

“They might live on my head,” Mischief said, “but I’m not their master. They have their opinions—”

“And the right to speak them,” said John Fillet.

“Peace, peace,” said Two-Toed Tom. “It’s no use arguing. It just makes everybody sweat more. We may as well get along with one another because we’re not leaving here until we find the man we came looking for. Finnegan’s here somewhere. This”—he lifted up the short stabbing sword they had found wedged between two rocks—”is proof of that.”

“It could have belonged to anybody,” John Serpent said.

“But it didn’t,” said Tria without a trace of doubt. “It was his. “

“Far be it from me to agree with John Serpent,” Captain McBean said, “but we really have no proof. And you know what?

This place is starting to take its toll on me too.”

“What’s wrong with this place? ” John Mischief said. “I think it’s paradise.”

“You can have too much of anything, ” McBean replied. “Even paradise.”

“And the way the flora changes every half hour,” said John Moot. “It’s bewildering. The rain comes down, washes half the plants away, and something completely new pops up. You know I saw a fruit hanging from a tree that looked like a face? That’s just not natural.”

“Who are we to say what’s natural? ” Two-Toed Tom remarked.

“Well, I might have known you’d be saying that,” John Serpent snapped back. “You with your weird little household. Talk about unnatural!”

Thomas said nothing. He simply leaped, his thick muscular legs carrying him high into the air above the company.

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