Incarceron

by Catherine Fisher

  She was looking at him now. She said, "Finn. Can you hear me?

  Claudia.

  ***

  " IT'S READY ." Jared looked up. "You speak, and the translation will be instant."

  The "warden had been pacing, listening to the voices outside; now he came and stood by the desk, his arms folded.

  "Incarceron," he said.

  Silence. Then, on the screen, a small red point of light. It was tiny, like a star. It gazed out at them. It said, "Who is this speaking the old tongue?"

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  The voice was uncertain. It seemed to have lost some of its echoing rumble.

  The Warden glanced at Jared. Then he said quietly, "You know who this is, my father. This is Sapphique."

  Jared's eyes widened, but he stayed silent.

  There was another silence. This time the Warden broke it. "I speak to you in the language of the Sapienti. I order you not to harm the boy Finn."

  "He has the Key. No prisoner is allowed to Escape."

  "But your anger may injure him. And Claudia." Had the Warden's voice changed as he spoke her name? Jared wasn't sure.

  A moment of stillness. Then, "Very well. For you, my son."

  The Warden made a sign to Jared to cut communications, but as his finger reached out to the panel, the Prison said softly, "But if you are indeed Sapphique, we have spoken often before. You will remember."

  "That was long ago," the Warden said cautiously.

  "Yes. You gave me the Tribute I required. I hunted you and you thwarted me. You hid in holes and stole my children's hearts. Tell me, Sapphique, how did you Escape from me? After I struck you down, after the terrible fall through darkness, what doorway did you find that I had overlooked? Through what crevice did you crawl? And where are you now, out there in the places I cannot even imagine?"

  The voice was wistful; the Warden looked up at the steady

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  Eye on the screen. He was hushed as he answered. "That is a mystery I cannot reveal."

  "A pity. You see, they did not give me any way to see outside myself. Can you imagine, Sapphique, you the wanderer, the great traveler, can you even dream of how it is to live forever trapped in your own mind, watching only the creatures that inhabit it? They made me powerful and they made me flawed. And only you, when you return, can help me."

  The Warden was still. Dry-mouthed, Jared flicked the switch. His hands were shaky and damp with sweat. As he watched it, the Eye faded.

  ***

  FINNS SIGHT was blurred and his whole body had emptied. He lay crooked; only Keiro's arm kept his head off the floor. But for a moment, before the Prison stench crept back, before the world surged in, he knew he was a prince and the son of a prince, that his would was golden with sunlight, that he had ridden into a dark forest one morning in a fairy tale and never ridden out again.

  "Drink some of this." Attia gave him water; he managed a swallow and coughed and tried to sit up.

  "He gets worse," Keiro was saying to Claudia. "This is what your father has done to him."

  She ignored it and bent over Finn. "The Prisonquake has stopped. It just went quiet."

  "Gildas?" Finn muttered.

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  "The old man's gone. He doesn't have to worry about Sapphique anymore." Keiro's voice was gruff. Turning, Finn saw the Sapient lying in the rubble, his eyes closed, his body curled, as if he slept. On his finger, loose and dull, as if Keiro had pushed it there in some vain effort to save him, shone the last skull-ring.

  "What did you do?" Claudia asked. "He said ... odd things."

  "I showed him the way out." Finn felt raw, scraped clean. He didn't want to talk about it now, not to tell them what he thought he had remembered, so he sat up slowly and said, "You tried the ring on him?"

  "It didn't work. He was right about that too. Maybe none of them ever worked." Keiro pushed the Key into his hands. "Go. Get out now. Get the Sapient to design a key to spring me. And send someone back for the girl."

  Finn looked at Attia. "I'll come back myself. I swear."

  Attia smiled, wan, but Keiro said, "See you do. I don't want to be stuck with her."

  "And for you too. I'll get all the Sapienti in my kingdom on it. We made a vow, brother. Do you think I've forgotten?"

  Keiro laughed. His handsome face was grimy and bruised, his hair dull with dirt, his fine coat ruined. But he was the one, Finn thought, who looked like a prince. "Maybe. Or maybe this is your chance to be rid of me. Maybe you're afraid I'd kill you and take your place. If you don't come back, believe me, I'll do it."

  Finn smiled. For a moment they looked at each other across

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  the tilted cell, across the spilled manacles and shackles. Then Finn turned to Claudia.

  "You first." She said,

  "You will come?"

  "Yes."

  She looked at him, then the others. Quickly she touched the eye of the eagle and was gone, in a brilliance that made them all gasp.

  Finn looked down at the Key he held. "I can't," he said. Attia smiled brightly. "I trust you. I'll be waiting." But his finger didn't move, paused above the eagle's dark eye, so she reached over and pressed it for him.

  CLAUDIA FOUND herself sitting in the chair amidst an uproar of voices and hammering. Outside the gate Caspar was shouting, "... under arrest for high treason. Warden! Can you hear me?" The bronze resounded to frenzied blows.

  Her father took her hand and raised her to her feet. "My dear. So where is our young Prince?"

  Jared was watching the bronze gate buckle inward. He flashed a quick, glad glance at Claudia.

  Her hair was tangled, her face dirty. A strange smell hung around her. She said, "Right behind me."

  FINN WAS sitting in a chair too, but this room was dark, a small cell, like the one he remembered from long ago, ancient, the walls greasy with carved names.

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  Opposite him sat a slim dark-haired man. For a moment he thought this was Jared, and then he knew who it was.

  He looked around, confused. "Where am I? Is this Outside?"

  Sapphique was sitting against the wall, knees drawn up. He said quietly, "None of us have much idea where we are. Perhaps all our lives we are too concerned with where, and not enough with who."

  Finn's fingers were tight on the crystal Key. "Let me go," he breathed.

  "It's not me who's stopping you." Sapphique watched Finn and his eyes were dark and the stars were points of light deep inside them. "Don't forget us, Finn. Don't forget the ones back there in the dark, the hungry and the broken, the murderers and thugs. There are prisons within prisons, and they inhabit the deepest."

  He stretched out his hand and took a length of chain from the wall; it clanked, rust flaking off. He slipped his hands inside the links. "Like you, I went out into the Realm. It wasn't what I'd expected. And I made a promise too." He dropped the metal on the floor, an enormous crash, and Finn saw the maimed finger. "Maybe that's what's imprisoning you."

  He turned sideways and beckoned. A shadow rose from behind him and walked forward, and Finn stifled a cry, because it was the Maestra. She had the same tall, lanky walk, the red hair, the scornful eyes. She stood looking down at Finn and he felt that a chain bound him, fine and invisible and she

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  held the end of it, because he could not move hand or foot.

  "How can you be here?" he whispered. "You fell."

  "Oh yes, I fell! Through realms and centuries. Like a bird with a broken wing. Like an angel cast down." He could barely tell if it was her whisper or Sapphique's. But the anger was hers. "And that was all your fault."

  "I ..." He wanted to blame Keiro, or Jormanric. Anyone. But he said, "I know."

  "Remember it, Prince. Learn from it."

  "Are you alive?" He was struck with the old shame; it made it hard to speak.

  "Incarceron doesn't waste anything. I'm alive in its depths, in its cells, the cells of its body." I'm sorry.

  She wrapped her coat about h
er with the old dignity. "If you are, that's all I ask."

  "Will you keep him here?" Sapphique murmured.

  "As he kept me?" She laughed calmly. "I don't need a ransom for my forgiveness. Good-bye, scared boy. Guard my crystal Key."

  The cell blurred and opened. He felt as if he were dragged through a blinding concussion of stone and flesh; that huge wheels of iron rumbled over him, that he was opened and closed, riven and mended.

  He stood up from the chair and the dark figure held out a hand to steady him.

  And this time it was Jared.

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  35

  ***

  I have walked a stair of swords,

  I have worn a coat of scars.

  I have vowed with hollow words,

  I have lied my way to the stars.

  --Songs of Sapphique

  ***

  The gate shuddered.

  "Don't worry. It will never break." Calm, the Warden surveyed Finn. "So this is the one you think is Giles." She glared at him. "You should know." Finn stared around. The room was so white it hurt, the glare of the lights making his eyes ache. The man he recognized as Blaize laughed lightly, folding his arms. "Actually, it doesn't matter whether he is or not. Now you have him, you will have to make him Giles. Because only he stands between you and disaster." Curious, he stepped closer to Finn. "And what do you think, Prisoner? Who do you think you are?"

  Finn felt shaky and filthy; suddenly he knew that his skin was grimed with dirt, that he stank in this sterile room. "I ... think I remember. The betrothal..

  "Are you sure? Or might it not be that these are memories

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  someone else had, that are now buried in you, filaments of thought trapped in borrowed tissue, that the Prison built into you?" He smiled his cold smile.

  "Once we could have found out," Claudia snapped. "Before Protocol."

  "Yes." The Warden turned to her. "And that problem I will leave to you."

  Finn saw how pale she was, how angry. She said, "All my life you let me believe I was your daughter. And it was all a lie."

  "No."

  "Yes! You selected me, you educated me, you formed me ... you even told me all that! Created a creature that would be just what you wanted, that would be pliant and marry whom you said and be what you wanted. What would have happened to me afterward? Would poor Queen Claudia have met with an accident too, leaving only the Warden to be Regent? Was that the plan?"

  He met her eyes, and his were clear and gray. "If it was, I changed it because I grew to love you." "Liar!"

  Jared said unhappily, "Claudia, I ..." but the Warden held up his hand.

  "No Master, let me explain. I chose you, yes, and I freely admit at first you were a means to an end. A squalling infant that I saw as rarely as possible. But as you grew, I came ... to look forward to seeing you. To the way you curtsied to me,

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  showed me your work, were shy with me. And you have become dear to me."

  She stared at him, not wanting to hear this, or believe it. She wanted to keep her anger bright, newly minted like a coin.

  He shrugged. "I was not a good father. For that I am sorry."

  In the stillness between them the hammering broke out again, even louder. Jared said urgently, "It hardly matters, sir, what you did or who this boy is. We are all condemned now. There is no escape from death unless we all enter the Prison."

  Finn muttered, "I have to go back for Attia." He held out his hand to Claudia for the other Key; she shook her head. "Not you. I'll go back." Reaching out, she took the crystal copy from him and compared the two. "Who made this?"

  "Lord Calliston. The Steel Wolf himself." The Warden stared at the crystal. "I had often wondered if the rumors were true, whether a copy existed, somewhere in the depths of the Prison."

  She moved her finger toward the panel, but he stopped her. "Wait. First we must ensure our own safety, or the girl will be better where she is."

  Claudia looked at him. "How can I ever trust you again?"

  "You must." He put a finger to his lips and nodded. Then, striding across the white cell, he touched the door control and stood back.

  Two soldiers fell headlong into the room. Behind them, the ram on chains swung at empty air. Swords were drawn, sharp whispers of steel.

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  "Do please enter," the Warden said graciously.

  The Queen herself was there, Claudia saw with shock, wearing a dark cloak. Behind his mother Caspar glared at her. 'I'll never forgive you," he snarled.

  "Be quiet." His mother stalked past him into the room, paused at the strange shiver of energy at the threshold, then gazed around. "Fascinating. So this is the Portal."

  "Indeed." The Warden bowed. "I am happy to see you so well."

  "I very much doubt that." Sia stopped before Finn. She looked him up and down and her face paled. She pressed her red lips tight.

  "Yes," the Warden said softly. "Unfortunately a Prisoner has escaped."

  Furious, she turned on him. "Why have you done this? What treachery are you planning?"

  "None. We can all come out of this safely. All of us. With no secrets spilled, no assassinations. Watch me."

  He strode to the control desk, touched a combination of controls, and stood back. Claudia stared, because the wall blanked and showed an image that she took a moment to recognize. In a vast room courtiers crowded in a buzz of scandal. Half-eaten food lay ignored on huge tables. Servants gossiped in anxious huddles.

  It was her wedding feast.

  "What are you doing?" the Queen snapped, but it was too late. The Warden said, "Friends." Every head in the room

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  turned. Talk dried into a stillness of astonishment.

  After a hundred years of Protocol the vast screen behind the throne had probably been forgotten; now Finn stared out at the Court through a fringe of cobwebs, a film of grime.

  "Please forgive all the unfortunate confusions of the day," the "warden said gravely. "And I beg all of you, ambassadors from Overseas, and courtiers, dukes and Sapienti, ladies and dowagers all, to overlook this breach of Protocol. But a great day has dawned, and a great wrong has been righted."

  The Queen seemed too astounded to speak; Claudia almost felt the same. But she moved; she grabbed Finns arm and hauled him close to her. They stood together facing the bewildered, fascinated faces of the Court as her father said, "Behold. The Prince we thought was lost, the heir of his father, the hope of the Court, Giles, has returned to us."

  A thousand eyes stared at Finn. He looked back, seeing in each one the pinpoint of light, feeling their intense curiosity, their doubt, descend right into his soul. Was this how it would be, to be King?

  "In her great wisdom the Queen found it necessary to conceal him in safe exile against a conspiracy against his life," the Warden said smoothly. "But at last, after many years, this danger is ended. The plotters have failed, and are arrested. Everything is calm again."

  He glanced once at the Queen; fury was in every inch of her upright back, but when she spoke, her voice was pleasant

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  with happiness. "My friends, I am so delighted! The "warden and I have worked so hard to counter this threat. I want you to prepare the banquet now, for the Prince's coming. Instead of a wedding, a great homecoming, but still a wonderful day, just as we planned."

  The Court was silent. Then, from the back, a ragged cheer began.

  She jerked her head; the Warden touched the panel. The screen dimmed.

  She took a deep breath. "I will never, never forgive you for this," she said evenly.

  "I know." John Arlex flicked another switch idly. He sat, and crossed one leg over another, his dark brocaded coat shimmering, and then he reached out and took both Keys from where Claudia had placed them and held them glinting in his hands.

  "Such small bright crystals," he murmured. "And such power contained in them! I suppose, Claudia, my dear, that if one cannot be the master of one world, one
should find another world to conquer." He glanced at Jared. "I leave her to you, Master. Remember our talk."

  Jared's eyes widened; he cried, "Claudia!" but she already knew what was happening. Her father was sitting in the chair of the Portal--she knew she should run forward, dart forward and snatch the Keys from him, but she couldn't move, as if the power of his terrible will kept her frozen.

  Her father smiled. "Do excuse me, Majesty. I think I would

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  be a specter at this feast." His ringers touched the panel.

  A brilliance exploded in the room, making them all flinch; then the chair was empty, spinning slightly in the white room, and as they stared at it a spark spat in the controls, then another. Acrid smoke rose; the Queen clenched her fists and screamed at the emptiness, "You can't do this!"

  Claudia was staring at the chair; as it imploded into flame, Jared tugged her hastily back. She said bleakly, "He can. He has."

  Jared watched her. Her eyes were overbright, her face flushed, but her head was high. The Queen raged with anger, stabbing every button and causing only explosions. As she swept out with Caspar running at her heels, Jared said, "He'll come back, Claudia. I'm sure ..."

  "It's nothing to me what he does." She turned to Finn, who was staring aghast at her.

  "Attia," he whispered. "What about Attia? I promised to go back for her!"

  "It's not possible ..."

  He shook his head. "You don't understand. I have to! I can't leave them there. Especially not Keiro." He was appalled. "Keiro will never forgive me. I promised."

  "We'll find a way. Jared will find one. Even if it takes years. That's my promise to you." She grabbed his hand and pushed the frayed sleeve up to show the eagle mark. "But you must think about this now. You're here. You're Outside and you're free. Of them, of all of that. And we have to

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  make this work, because Sia will always be there, plotting behind our backs."

  Bewildered, he stared at her and realized she had no idea of what he had lost. "Keiro is my brother."

  "I'll do all I can," Jared said quietly. "There must be another way. Your father came and went as Blaize. And Sapphique found it."

  Finn raised his head and gave him a strange look. "Yes. He did."