Sapphique

by Catherine Fisher

  It whickered. Its ears flattened.

  Alert, Keiro said, “See anything?”

  Great briars wreathed round them, barbed with spines. “No,” she said.

  But she could hear something. A small sound, very far off, like a whisper from a nightmare.

  Keiro had heard it too. He turned, listening. “A voice? What’s it saying?”

  Faint, repeated over and over, a tiny breath of triple syllables.

  She kept very still. It seemed crazy, impossible. But.

  “I think it’s calling my name,” she said.

  “Attia! Attia, can you hear me?”

  Jared adjusted the output and tried again. He was hungry, but the bread roll on the platter was hard and dry. Still, it was better than feasting upstairs with the Queen. Would she notice he wasn’t there? He prayed not, and the anxiety made his fingers tremble on the controls. Over his head the screen was a stripped-down mass of wires and circuitry, cables rigged into and out of its connectors. The Portal was silent, apart from its usual hum.

  Jared had grown to like its silence. It soothed him, so that even the pain that pushed its jagged edge into his chest seemed blunted down here. Somewhere high above, the labyrinth of the Court teemed with intrigue, tower on tower, chamber within chamber, and beyond the stables and gardens lay the countryside of the Realm, wide and perfect in its beauty under the stars.

  He was a dark flaw in the heart of that beauty. He felt the guilt of it, and it made him work with agitated concentration. Since the Queen’s silken blackmail, her offer of the Academy’s hidden lore, he had barely been able to sleep, lying awake in his narrow bed, or pacing the gardens so deep in hope and fear that it had taken hours for him to notice how closely she was having him followed.

  So, just before the banquet, he had sent her a brief note.

  I accept your offer. I leave for the Academy tomorrow at dawn.

  Jared Sapiens

  Every word had been a wound, a betrayal. That was why he was here now.

  Two men had followed him to the Sapients’ Tower, he had made sure of that, but Protocol meant that they had not been able to enter. The Tower here at Court was a great stone keep full of the apartments of the Queen’s Sapienti, and unlike his own at home at the Wardenry, this was a model of Era, a maze of orreries and alchemical alembics and leather-bound books, a mockery of learning. But it was a true labyrinth, and in his first days here he had discovered passageways and covered vaults that led discreetly out to the stables, the kitchens, the laundry rooms, the stills.

  Losing the Queen’s men had been almost too easy.

  But he had made sure. For weeks now the staircase down to the Portal had been guarded by his own devices. Half of the spiders that hung on plastic webs in the dirty cellars were his observers.

  “Attia. Attia. Can you hear me? This is Jared. Please answer.”

  This was his last chance. The Warden’s appearance had shown him that the screen still worked. That artful flickering out had not fooled Jared—Claudia’s father had switched off rather than answer Finn’s question.

  At first he had thought of searching for Keiro, but Attia was safer. He had sampled the recordings of her voice, the images of her he and Claudia had seen through the Key; using the finding mechanism he had once seen the Warden use, he had experimented for hours with the complicated imputs. Suddenly, when he had been almost ready to give up, the Portal had sparked and crackled into life. He hoped it was searching, pinpointing the girl in the vastness of the Prison, but it had been humming all night now and in his weariness he could no longer keep out the feeling that it wasn’t really achieving anything at all.

  He drank the last of the water, then reached into his pocket and brought out the Warden’s watch and put it on the desk. The tiny cube clicked on the metal surface.

  The Warden had told him that this cube was Incarceron.

  He spun it gently, with his little finger.

  So small.

  So mysterious.

  A prison you could hang on your watch chain.

  He had subjected it to every analysis he knew, and there were no readings. It had no density, no magnetic field, no whisper of power. No instrument he possessed had been able to penetrate its silvery silence. It was a cube of unknown composition, and inside it was another world.

  Or so the Warden had told him.

  It struck Jared now that they had only John Arlex’s word for that. What if it had just been his last taunting legacy to his daughter? What if it had been a lie?

  Was that why he, Jared, hadn’t told her yet?

  He had to do it now. She should know. The thought that she should also know about his arrangement with the Queen rose up at once and tormented him.

  He said, “Attia, Attia. Answer me. Please!”

  But all that answered was a sharp beep in his pocket. He whipped out the scanner and swore softly. Maybe the watchers had gotten tired of snoring on the Tower doorstep and come looking for him.

  Someone was creeping through the cellars.

  “WE SHOULD stay on the path,” Keiro snapped down at her; she was staring intently into the undergrowth.

  “I tell you I heard it. My name.”

  Keiro scowled and slid down from the horse. “We can’t ride in there.”

  “Then we crawl.” She had crouched, was on hands and knees. In the green gloom a tangle of roots sprawled under the high leaves. “Underneath. It has to be fairly close!”

  Keiro hesitated. “If we turn aside, the Prison will think we’re double-crossing it.”

  “Since when are you scared of Incarceron?” She looked up at him and he stared back hard, because she always seemed to know just how to needle him. Then she said, “Wait here. I’ll go on my own,” and crawled in.

  With a hiss of irritation Keiro tethered the horse tight and crawled in after her. The leaf-litter was a mass of tiny brittle foliage; he felt it crunch under his knees, stab through his gloves. The roots were vast, a snaky smooth mesh of metal. After a while he realized they were great cables, snaking out into the Prison’s soil, supporting the foliage like a canopy. There was hardly room to raise his head, and over his bent back briars and thorns and brambles of steel tore and snagged his hair.

  “Keep lower,” Attia muttered. “Lie flat.”

  Keiro swore long and viciously as his scarlet coat ripped at the shoulder. “For god’s sake, there’s nothing—”

  “Listen.” She stopped, her foot in his face. “Hear it?”

  A voice.

  A voice of static and crackle, as if the spiny branches themselves had picked up its repeated syllables.

  Keiro rubbed his face with a dirty hand. “Go on,” he said quietly.

  They crawled under the razor-sharp tangle. Attia dug her fingers in the litter and pulled herself along. Pollen made her sneeze; the air was thick with micro-dust. A Beetle scurried, clicking, through her hair.

  She wriggled past a thick trunk and saw, as if it was wreathed in the forest of thorn and razorwire, the wall of a dark building.

  “It’s like Rix’s book,” she gasped.

  “Another one?”

  “A beautiful princess sleeps for a hundred years in a ruined castle.”

  Keiro grunted, dragging his hair from thorns. “So?”

  “A thief breaks in and steals a cup from her treasure. She turns into a dragon and they fight.”

  Keiro wriggled up next to her. He was breathless, his hair lank with dirt and sweat. “I must be thick even to listen to you. Who wins?”

  “The dragon. She eats him, and then …”

  Static crackled.

  Keiro hauled himself into a dusty space. Vines sprawled up a wall of dark glossy brick. In its base a very tiny wooden door was smothered with ivy.

  Behind it, the voice sparked and crackled.

  “Who’s there?” it whispered.

  13

  I fooled the Prison

  I fooled my father.

  I asked a question

 
It could not answer.

  —Songs of Sapphique

  “It’s me! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

  Jared closed his eyes in relief. Then he opened the door and let Claudia dart in. Her evening dress was covered with a dark cloak. She said, “Is Finn here?”

  “Finn? No …”

  “He’s challenged the Pretender to a duel. Can you believe that?”

  Jared went back to the screen. “I’m afraid I can, Claudia.”

  She stared beyond him at the mess. “Why are you here in the middle of the night?” Coming closer, she looked at him closely. “Master, you look so drained. You should sleep.”

  “I can sleep at the Academy.” There was a bitter note in his voice that she didn’t recognize.

  Worried, she crouched on the workbench, pushing the fine tools aside. “But I thought …”

  “I leave tomorrow, Claudia.”

  “So soon?” It shook her. She said, “But … you’re getting so close to success. Why not take a few more days …”

  “I can’t.”

  He was never so short with her. She wondered if it was the pain, driving him on. And then he sat, folding his long thin fingers together on the desk, and said sadly, “Oh Claudia, how I wish we were safely at home at the Wardenry. I wonder how my fox cub is doing, and the birds. And I miss my observatory, Claudia. I miss looking out at the stars.”

  Gently she said, “You’re homesick, Master.”

  “A little.” He shrugged. “I’m sick of the Court. Of its stifling Protocol. Of its exquisite meals and endlessly sumptuous rooms where each door hides a watcher. I should like a little peace.”

  It silenced her. Jared was rarely gloomy; his grave calm was always there, a safe presence at her back. She fought down her alarm. “We’ll go home then, Master, as soon as Finn is safely on the throne. We’ll go home. Just you and me.”

  He smiled, nodding, and she thought he looked wistful. “That may be a long time. And a challenge won’t help.”

  “The Queen’s forbidden them to fight.”

  “Good.” His fingers tapped together on the desk. She realized that the systems were all live, the Portal humming with distorted energy.

  He said, “I have something to tell you, Claudia. Something important.” Leaning forward, he didn’t look at her. “Something I should have told you before, that I shouldn’t have kept from you. This journey to the Academy. There is a reason that … the Queen has allowed me to go …”

  “To search the Esoterica, I know,” she said impatiently, pacing up and down. “I know! I just wish I could come. Why let you and not me? What’s she up to?”

  Jared raised his head and watched her. His heart was hammering; he felt almost too ashamed to speak. “Claudia …”

  “But then perhaps it’s just as well I’m staying. A duel! He’s got no idea how to behave! It’s as if he’s forgotten all he ever was …”

  Catching her tutor’s eye she stopped and laughed an awkward laugh. “Sorry. What were you going to say?”

  There was an ache in him that was not caused by his illness. Dimly he recognized it as anger, anger and a deep, bitter pride. He had not known he was proud. You are her tutor, her brother, and more her father than I have ever been. The Warden’s scorching words of jealousy came back to him; for a moment he savored them, gazing at Claudia as she waited, so unsuspecting. How could he destroy the trust between them?

  “This,” he said. He tapped the watch that lay on the desk. “I think you ought to have it.”

  Claudia looked relieved, then surprised. “My father’s watch?”

  “Not the watch. This.”

  She came closer. He was touching the silver cube that hung on the chain. It had been so familiar in her father’s hands that she barely noticed it, but now a sudden wonder swept her that her father—so austere a man—should have worn a charm.

  “Is it for good luck?”

  Jared did not smile. “It’s Incarceron,” he said.

  FINN LAY in the long grass looking up at the stars.

  Through the dark blades the distant brilliance of their light brought him a sort of comfort. He had come here with the hot jealousy of the banquet still burning in him, but the silence of the night and the beauty of the stars were easing it away.

  He shuffled his arm behind his head, feeling the prickle of grass down his neck.

  They were so far away. In Incarceron he had dreamed of them, his symbol of Escape; now he realized they were still that, that he was still imprisoned. Perhaps he always would be. Perhaps it would be best just to disappear, to ride away into the forest and not come back. It would mean abandoning Keiro, and Attia.

  Claudia wouldn’t care. He moved uncomfortably as he thought it, but the thought stayed. She wouldn’t. She’d end up marrying this Pretender and being Queen, as she’d always meant to be.

  Why not?

  Why not just go?

  Where, though? And how would he feel riding through the endless Protocol of this stifled world and dreaming every night of Keiro in the metallic, livid hell of Incarceron, not knowing if he was alive or dead, maimed or insane, killing or already dead?

  He rolled over, curling up. Princes were supposed to sleep in golden beds with damask canopies, but the Palace was a nest of enemies; he couldn’t breathe there. The familiar prickle behind his eyes had gone, but the dryness in his throat warned him that the fit had been near. He had to be careful. He had to have more control.

  And yet the angry moment of the challenge was dear to him. He relished it, over and over again, seeing the Pretender jerking aside, the slap of redness on his face. He’d lost his cool then, and Finn smiled in the dark, his cheek resting on the damp grass.

  A rustle, behind him.

  He rolled swiftly and sat up. The wide lawns were gray in the starlight. Beyond the lake the woods of the estate raised black heads against the sky. The gardens smelled of roses and honeysuckle, sweet in the warm summer air.

  He lay back again, staring up.

  The moon, a ruined hollow, hung like a ghost in the east. Jared had told him that it had been attacked in the Years of Rage, that now the ocean tides were altered, that the fixed orbit had changed the world.

  And after that they had stopped all change altogether.

  When he was King, he would change things. People would be free to do or say what they wanted. The poor wouldn’t have to slave on great estates for the rich. And he would find Incarceron, he would release them all … But then he was going to run away.

  He stared up at the white stars.

  Finn Starseer doesn’t run. He could almost hear Keiro’s sarcasm.

  He turned his head, sighed, stretched out.

  And touched something cold.

  With a shiver of steel his sword was in his hand; he had leaped up, was alert, his heart thudding, a prickle of sweat on his neck.

  Far off in the lighted Palace a drift of music echoed.

  The lawns were still empty. But there was something small and bright stuck in the grass just above where his head had been.

  After a moment, listening intently, he bent down and picked it up. And as he stared at it, a shiver of fear made his hand shake.

  It was a small steel knife, wickedly sharp, and its handle was a wolf, stretched thin, jaws open and savage.

  Finn drew himself up and looked all around, his hand tight on the sword hilt.

  But the night was silent.

  THE DOOR gave at the third kick. Keiro dragged a cable of bramble away and ducked his head inside. His voice came back, muffled. “Corridor. Have you got the handlight?”

  She handed it to him.

  He scraped in, and she waited, hearing only muffled movement. Then he said, “Come on.”

  Attia crawled through, and stood up beside him.

  The interior was dark, and filthy. It had obviously been abandoned years ago, maybe centuries. A lumber of junk lay in heaps under cobwebs and grime.

  Keiro shoved something aside and ma
neuvered himself between a heaped desk and a broken cupboard. He wiped the dust off with his gloved hand and stared down at the litter of broken crockery. “Just what we need.”

  Attia listened. The corridor led into darkness, and nothing moved down there but the voices. There were two of them now, and they faded oddly in and out of hearing.

  Keiro had his sword ready. “Any trouble, we’re out of here. One Chain-gang is enough for any lifetime.”

  She nodded, and made to move past him, but he grabbed her and shoved her behind him. “Watch my back. That’s your job.”

  Attia smiled sweetly. “And I love you too,” she whispered.

  They walked warily down the dim space. At the end a great door stood ajar, fixed immovably half open, and when she slipped through behind Keiro, Attia saw why; furniture had been piled and heaped against it, as if in some last desperate attempt to keep it closed.

  “Something went on here. Look there.” Keiro flashed the handlight at the floor. Dark stains marred the paving. Attia guessed it might once have been blood. She looked closer at the junk, then around at the galleried hall. “It’s all toys,” she whispered.

  They stood in the wreckage of a sumptuous nursery. But the scale was all wrong. The dollhouse that she stared at was enormous, so that she could almost have crawled in, her head squashed against the ceiling of the kitchen, where plaster hams hung and a joint had fallen from its spit. The upstairs windows were too high to see into. Hoops and tops and balls and skittles were littered across the room’s center; walking over to them she felt an amazing softness under her feet, and when she knelt and felt it, it was carpet, black with grime.

  Light grew. Keiro had found candles; he lit a few and stuck them around.

  “Look at this. A giant, or dwarves?”

  The toys were bewildering. Most were too big, like the huge sword and ogre-sized helmet that hung from a hook. Others were tiny—a scatter of building blocks no bigger than salt grains, books on a shelf that started as vast folios at one end and went down to minuscule locked volumes at the other. Keiro heaved open a wooden chest and swore to find it overflowing with dressing-up clothes of all sizes. Still, he rummaged in there and found a leather belt with gilt trappings. There was a pirate’s coat too, of scarlet leather. Immediately he tugged off his own and put the new one on, strapping the belt tight around it.