Incarceron

by Catherine Fisher

  "Good enough," she snapped back, and Finn saw to his surprise that she was grinning, her eyes bright under the tangled hair, color back in her face.

  The anchor juddered. The ship swayed, then abruptly, lifted.

  "We've got it!" Keiro dug his heels in and pushed, and quite suddenly the capstan was turning quickly under their weight, the great chain of the anchor rasping up through the floor and looping obediently as they forced it around.

  When they had it all in and the mechanism ground to a stop Finn raced up the steps of the companionway, but as he burst out onto the deck he stopped with a yell of fright.

  They were sailing in a cloud. It wisped around him, opening to give glimpses of Gildas swearing at the wheel, the great billowing sails, a bird below them in a patch of light.

  "Where are we?" Attia muttered behind him.

  Then the ship dropped out of the mist, and they saw they were in an ocean of blue air, the tilted tower of the Sapient already far behind.

  Breathless, Keiro leaned on the rail and whooped with delight.

  340

  Finn stood next to him, looking back. "Why didn't he try to stop us?" Reaching into his jacket, he touched the crystal sharpness of the Key.

  "Who bloody cares!" his oathbrother said.

  And then he turned and punched Finn hard in the stomach.

  Attia screamed. Finn collapsed, all breath gone, the pain an amazement inside him, an airless blackness that loomed over his sight.

  From the wheel Gildas yelled something, his words snatched away.

  Slowly, the agony ebbed. When Finn could gasp in air he looked up and saw Keiro with both arms spread on the rail, looking down at him with a grin.

  "What...?"

  Keiro held out a hand and pulled him up, staggering, face-to-face. "That'll teach you not to draw a sword on me again," he said.

  341

  27

  ***

  Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass

  cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the sky above him and the sky said, "Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high"

  Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. "Not this time. This time I beat on you until you

  open."

  But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down.

  ---Legends of Sapphique

  ***

  "She's said that Jared has to leave." She turned and glared at her father, wanting to ask if it was his doing. "I told you. It was bound to happen." The Warden walked past her and sat on the chaise near the window of his room, gazing out at the pleasure gardens, where parties of courtiers walked in the evening cool. "I think you will have to comply, my dear. It's a small price to pay to gain a kingdom."

  She was ready to burst out in temper, but he turned and looked at her, that cold measuring look she so dreaded.

  "Besides, we have something more important to discuss. Come and sit down."

  342

  She didn't want to. But she crossed to the chair by the gilt table and sat.

  He glanced at his watch, then clicked the lid shut and kept it in his hand.

  He said quietly, "You have something that belongs to me."

  She felt her skin prickle with danger. For a moment she thought she couldn't speak at all, but then her voice came, surprisingly calm.

  "Do I? What could that be?"

  He smiled. "You are truly remarkable, Claudia. Even though I've created you, you always surprise me. But I've warned you before about pushing me too far." He put the watch in his pocket and leaned forward. "You have my Key."

  She drew in a breath of dismay. He leaned back, crossing one leg over another, the leather of his boots gleaming. "Yes. You don't deny it, and that's wise. It was ingenious to place an image of the Key in the drawer, quite ingenious. I suppose I have Jared to thank for that. When I checked my study that day the alarms went off, I rolled the drawer open and glanced inside; I didn't think to pick up the Key. And the ladybugs-- what a creative touch What a fool you must both have thought me.

  She shook her head, but he stood abruptly and paced to the windows. "Did you talk about me with Jared, Claudia? Did you laugh together because you had stolen it from me? I'm sure you must have enjoyed that."

  343

  "I cook it because I had to." She clutched her hands together. "You kept it from me. You never told me."

  He stopped and looked at her. He had smoothed his hair back now, and his gaze was as calm and considering as ever. "About what?"

  She stood up slowly, and faced him. "About Giles," she said.

  She had expected astonishment, a moment's startled silence. But he was not at all surprised. She knew, with sudden certainty, that he had been waiting for that name, that by saying it she had fallen into some trap.

  He said, "Giles is dead."

  "No he isn't." The jewels around her neck tickled; with a sudden fury, she tugged them off and flung them on the floor, then folded her arms and all the pent-up words burst out of her. "His death was faked. You and the Queen faked it. Giles is in Incarceron, locked away. You took his memory so he doesn't even know who he is. How could you do that?" She kicked a footstool aside; it fell and rolled. "I can understand why she did it, why she wanted her useless son to be King, but you! I was already engaged to Giles. Your precious plan would have worked out anyway. Why did you do that to us?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "Us?"

  "Don't I count? Didn't the fact that I would end up with Caspar mean anything to you? Did you ever think about me?" She was trembling. All the anger of her life was coming out,

  344

  frustration for all the times he had driven away and left her for months, had smiled down at her and not touched her.

  He rubbed his stubbly beard with thumb and forefinger. "I did think of you." His voice was quiet. "It was obvious you liked Giles. But he was a stubborn boy, too kind, too honorable. Caspar is a fool and will make a poor King. You will be able to rule him far more effectively."

  "That's not the reason you did it."

  He looked away. She saw his fingers tapping on the fireplace. He picked up a dainty china figurine and examined it, then put it down. "You're right."

  He was silent ; she wanted him to speak so much, she could have screamed. It seemed an age before he went back to the chair and sat and said calmly, "I'm afraid the real reason is a secret you will never learn from me."

  Seeing her astonishment, he raised his hand. "I know you despise me, Claudia. I'm sure you and your Sapient think me a monster. But you are my daughter and I have always acted in your interests. Besides, Giles's imprisonment was the Queen's plan, not mine. She forced me to agree."

  She snorted in scorn. "Forced! She has power over you!"

  He whipped his head up and hissed, "Yes. And so do you."

  For a second the venom in his voice stung her. "Me?"

  His hands were fists on the wooden armrests. He said, "Let it go, Claudia. Let it be. Don't ask, because the answer may destroy you. That's all I'm going to say." He stood, tall and

  345

  dark, and his voice was bleak. "Now, about the Key. Nothing you have done with it has escaped me. I know about your search for Bartlett, about your communication with Incarceron. I know about this Prisoner you believe is Giles."

  She stared in amazement and he laughed his dry laugh. "There are a thousand million Prisoners in Incarceron, Claudia, and you believe you've found the right one? Time and space are different there. This boy could be anyone."

  "He has a birthmark."

  "Does he now! Let me tell you something about the Prison." His voice cruel now, he came up to her and stared down at her. "It's a closed system. Nothing enters. Nothing leaves. When Prisoners die their atoms are reused, their skin, their organs. They are made from each other. Repaired, recycled, and when the organic tissues are not available, they are patched with metal and plastic. Finn's eagle means nothing. It may not
even be his. The memories he thinks he sees may not be his."

  Horrified, she wanted to stop him, but no words would come. "The boy is a thief and a liar." He went on, remorseless. "One of a gang of cutthroats that preyed on others. I suppose he's told you that?"

  "Yes," she snapped.

  "How very honest. Has he told you that in order to get his copy of the Key an innocent woman was thrown to her death down a precipice? After he had promised her she was safe?"

  She was silent.

  346

  "No," he said. "I thought not." He stood back. "I want all this nonsense to cease. I want the Key. Now." She shook her head.

  "Now, Claudia."

  "I haven't got it," she whispered.

  "Then Jared--"

  "Leave Jared out of this!"

  He caught hold of her. His hand was cold and he gripped her wrist like iron. "I want the Key or you will regret defying me."

  She tried to shake him off, but he held tight. She glared at him through her tumbling hair. "You can't hurt me. I'm all you've got to make your plan work and you know it!"

  For a moment they stared at each other. Then he nodded, and let her go. A white circle of bloodless skin looped her wrist like the mark of a manacle.

  "I can't hurt you," he said hoarsely.

  Her eyes widened.

  "But there is this Finn. And there is Jared."

  She stepped back. She was shaking, her back cold with sweat. For a moment they looked at each other. Then, not trusting herself to speak, she turned and ran to the door, but his words caught her there and she had to hear them.

  "There is no way out of the Prison. Bring me the Key, Claudia."

  She slammed the door behind her. A passing servant stared in surprise. In the mirror opposite Claudia saw why;

  347

  her reflection showed a tousled, red-faced creature, scowling with unhappiness. She wanted to howl with rage. Instead she walked to her room and closed the door, and threw herself on the bed.

  She thumped the pillow and buried her head in it, curling up small, arms hugging her body. Her mind was a maze of confusion, but as she moved, paper crinkled on the pillow and she raised her head and saw the note pinned there. It was from Jared. I need to see you. I've discovered something incredible.

  As soon as she'd read it, it dissolved to ash.

  She couldn't even smile.

  ***

  PERCHED IN the rigging of the ship, Finn held on tight, seeing far below lakes of sulfurous yellow liquid, viscous and evil-smelling. On the landscape slopes, animals grazed, odd gawky creatures from here, the herd splitting and fleeing in terror as the shadow of the ship fell on them. Beyond were more lakes, small scrubby bushes the only things that grew near them, and away to the right a desert stretched as far as he could see into the shadows.

  They had been sailing for hours. Gildas had steered first, at random, high and steady until he had yelled irritably for someone to relieve him and Finn had taken a turn, feeling the strangeness of the craft below, its buffeting by drafts and breezes. Above him the sails had flapped; the winds catching and sloughing the white canvas. Twice he had sailed the ship

  348

  through cloud. The second time the temperature had dropped alarmingly and by the time they had emerged from the tingling grayness, the wheel and deck around him had been frosted with needles of ice that fell and clattered on the boards.

  Attia had brought him water. "Plenty of this," she'd said, "but no food."

  "What, nothing?"

  "No."

  "What did he live on?"

  "There's only some scraps Gildas has." As he'd drunk, she'd taken the wheel, her small hands on the thick spokes. She'd said, "He told me about the ring."

  Finn wiped his mouth.

  "It was too much to do for me. I owe you even more now."

  He'd felt proud and grumpy both at once; he'd taken the wheel back and said, "We stick together. Besides, I didn't think it would work."

  "I'm amazed Keiro gave it."

  Finn shrugged. She was watching closely. But then she had looked into the sky. "Look at this! This is so wonderful. All my life I lived in a little dark tunnel lined with shanties and now all this space ..."

  He said, "Do you have any family?"

  "Brothers and sisters. All older."

  "Parents?"

  "No." She shook her head. "You know ..."

  349

  He knew. Life in the Prison was short and unpredictable.

  "Do you miss them?"

  She was still, gripping the wheel tight. "Yes. But ... She smiled. "It's odd how things work out. When I was captured, I thought it was the end of my life. Bur instead it led to this."

  He'd nodded, then said, "Do you think the ring saved you? Or was it Gildas's emetic?"

  "The ring," she said firmly. "And you."

  He hadn't been so sure.

  Now, looking down at Keiro lazing on the deck, he grinned. Called to take his turn, his oathbrother had taken one look at the great wheel and gone below for some rope; then he'd lashed it and seated himself next to it, feet up. "What can we possibly hit?" he'd said to Gildas.

  "You fool," the Sapient had snarled. "Just keep your eyes open, that's all."

  They had passed over hills of copper and mountains of glass, whole forests of metal trees. Finn had seen settlements cut off in impenetrable valleys where the inhabitants lived in isolation; great towns; once a castle with flags flying from its turrets. That had scared him, thinking of Claudia. Rainbows of spray arched over them; they had flown through strange atmospheric effects, a reflected island, patches of heat, flickering blurs of purple and gold fire. An hour ago a flock of long-tailed birds had suddenly squawked and circled and dive-bombed the deck, making Keiro duck. Then just as

  350

  suddenly they had vanished, a mere drift of dimness on the horizon. Once, the ship had drifted very low; Finn had leaned out over mile on mile of stinking hovels, the people running from haphazard dwellings of tin and wood, lame and diseased, their children listless. He had been glad when the wind had lifted the ship away. Incarceron was a hell. And yet he possessed its Key.

  He took it out and touched the controls. He'd tried it before, but nothing had happened. Nothing happened now either, and he wondered if it would ever work again. But it was warm. Did that mean they were traveling in the right direction, toward Claudia? But if Incarceron was so vast, how many lifetimes might it take to travel to the exit?

  "Finn!"

  Keiro's yell was sharp. He looked up.

  Ahead, something flickered. He thought at first it was the lights; then he saw that the dimness was not the usual gloom of the Prison but a dark bank of storm clouds, right across their path. He scrambled down, rasping his palms to heat on the cables.

  Keiro was hastily untying the wheel.

  "What is that?"

  "Weather."

  It was black. Lightning flickered inside it. And as they sailed closer, thunder, a low rumble, an amused, dark chuckle. "The Prison," he whispered. "It's found us."

  "Get Gildas," Keiro muttered.

  351

  He found the Sapient below, poring over charts and maps under the creaking lamp. "Look at these." The old man glanced up, his lined face shadowed in the lamplight.

  "How can it be this vast? How can we hope to follow Sapphique through all this?"

  Appalled, Finn stared at the heap of charts slithering off the table, covering the floor. If these showed the extent of Incarceron, they could journey through it forever. "We need you. There's a storm ahead."

  Attia ran in. "Keiro says hurry."

  As if in response the ship heeled over. Finn grabbed the table as the charts slid and rolled. Then he climbed back up on deck.

  Black clouds reared up over the masts, the silver pennants flapping and snapping. The ship was almost lying on her side; he had to hang on to the rail and scramble across to the wheel by grabbing anything within reach.

  Keiro was sweating a
nd swearing. "This is the Sapient's sorcery!" he yelled.

  "I don't think so. It's Incarceron."

  The thunder rumbled again. With a scream the gale hit them; they both held the wheel and hung on, crouching behind its meager shelter. Objects flapped against them, shards of metal, leaves, fragments of debris rebounding like hail. And then a snow of tiny white grit, ground glass, bolts, stones that tore through the sails.

  352

  Finn turned.

  He saw Gildas lying flat behind the main mast, clinging on, one arm around Attia. "Stay there!" he yelled.

  "The Key!" Gildas's yell was snatched away by the wind. "Let me take it below. If you're lost..."

  He knew. And yet he hated the thought of parting with it.

  "Do it," Keiro growled without turning.

  Finn let go of the wheel.

  Instantly he was flung back, buffeted, tumbling, over the deck. And the Prison swooped. He felt it zoom in on him, and rolling over, he screamed in terror.

  From the heart of the storm, an eagle plummeted from the sky, black as thunder, its talons crackling with lightning. It stretched out for the Key, ready to snatch him and it.

  Finn threw himself to one side. A tangle of ropes slammed into him; he grabbed the nearest and whipped it up, whirling it around, the heavy tarred end so close to the bird's breast that it swerved and swept past, flying high to turn and swoop again.

  He dived past Gildas into the shelter of the deck. "It's coming back!" Attia screamed.

  "It wants the Key." Gildas ducked. Rain lashed them; thunder rumbled again, and this time it was a great voice, a murmur of anger far away and high above.

  The eagle dived. Keiro, exposed by the wheel, curled up small. They saw how it circled and screeched angrily, its beak

  353

  wide. Then, quite suddenly, it turned to the east and flew away.

  Finn tugged out the Key. He touched it and instantly Claudia was there, wet-eyed, her hair rumpled, "Finn," she said, "Listen to me. Eve--"

  "You listen," He grabbed tight as the ship rolled and swayed. "We need help, Claudia. You have to speak to your father. You have to get him to stop the storm or we'll all die!"

  "Storm?" She shook her head. "He's not ... He won't help. He wants you dead. He's found out everything, Finn. He knows!"

  "Then--"