Sapphique

by Catherine Fisher

  There was a crack, a spitting of sparks.

  Where he had been, only an echo blinded her eyes, a faint smell of burning hung.

  Attia was startled, but she moved quickly, stooping and picking up the Glove, feeling again its heaviness, the warm, slightly oily texture of its skin. She turned to Rho.

  “Send someone to get Keiro. And show me the way down.”

  IT HAPPENED so quickly, Claudia almost thought she imagined it. One minute she was huddled miserably in the chair outside the guarded door, gazing down the gilded corridor, and in the next moment the corridor was a ruin.

  She blinked.

  The blue vase was cracked. Its marble pedestal was painted wood. The walls were a mess of wires and faded paint. Great damp patches soaked the ceiling; in one corner the plaster had fallen and drips cascaded in.

  She stood up, astonished.

  Then, with a ripple so subtle she felt it only in her nerves, the splendor came back.

  Claudia turned her head and stared at the two soldiers guarding the door. If they had noticed anything strange they weren’t showing it, their faces carefully blank.

  “Did you see that!”

  “I’m sorry, madam.” The left-hand one’s eyes kept straight ahead. “See what?”

  She swiveled to the other. “You?”

  He seemed pale. His hand was sweaty on the halberd. “I thought … but no. Nothing.”

  She turned her back on them and walked up the corridor. Her shoes clattered on the marble floor; she touched the vase and it was perfect. The walls were gilt paneling, beautifully ornamented with Cupid masks and wooden swags. Of course she had known that much of the Era here was illusion, but she felt that for a moment she had been granted a vision, a glimmer of the world as it really was. It was hard to breathe. As if, for that instant, even the air had been sucked away.

  The power had flickered.

  With a crack that made her jump the double doors opened behind her and the Privy Councilors surged out, a grave, chattering straggle. Claudia grabbed the nearest. “Lord Arto. What’s happened?”

  He disengaged her hand gently. “It’s all over, my dear. We are retiring to consider our verdict; it must be presented tomorrow. I must say I myself have no doubts as to …”

  Then, as if remembering her fate was involved, he smiled and fluttered a bow and was gone.

  Claudia saw the Queen. Sia chatted with her ladies and a foppish youth in a gold coat who was rumored to be her latest lover. He looked hardly older than Caspar. The dog had been dumped in his arms; Sia clapped her hands and everyone turned.

  “Friends! We have such a tiresome wait for the verdict, and I hate waiting! So tonight there will be a masked ball in the Shell Grotto, and everyone is to attend. Everyone, mind!” Her colorless eyes met Claudia’s and she smiled her sweetest smile. “Or I will be very, very displeased.”

  The men bowed, the women dropped curtsies. As the entourage swept past, Claudia breathed out in dismay, seeing the Pretender follow, surrounded by a group of the most fashionable young men. He was already gaining supporters, it seemed.

  He bowed graciously. “I’m afraid there’s no doubt about the verdict, Claudia.”

  “You were convincing?”

  “You should have seen me!”

  “You don’t convince me.”

  He smiled, a little sadly. Then he took her aside. “My offer still stands. Marry me, Claudia. We were betrothed a long time ago, so let’s do what our fathers wanted. Together we can give the people the justice they deserve.”

  She looked at his earnest face, his perfect confidence, his concerned eyes, remembering how just for a second the world had flickered around her. Now she had no idea again how much was false.

  She removed her arm from his and bowed. “Let’s wait for the verdict.”

  He seemed to draw back, and then he bowed too, coldly.

  “I would be a bitter enemy, Claudia,” he said.

  She didn’t doubt it. Whoever he was, wherever the Queen had found him, his confidence was real enough.

  She watched him rejoin the courtiers, their silk clothes brilliant in the flashes of sunshine through the casements. Then she turned and went into the empty Council Room.

  Finn was sitting on the chair in the center.

  He glanced up, and she saw at once what a struggle it had all been. He looked drained.

  She sat on the bench.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “He had witnesses. A whole line of people—servants, courtiers, friends. They all looked at us both and said he was Giles. He had answers to every question. He even had this.” He rolled up his sleeve and stared at the eagle on his wrist. “And I had nothing, Claudia.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She hated this powerlessness.

  “But do you know what?” He gently rubbed the faded tattoo with his finger. “Now, when no one else believes me—maybe not even you—now is the first time since I came here that I really know I’m Giles.”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it.

  “This mark. It used to keep me going, in the Prison. I used to lie awake at night and dream of how things would be Outside, of who I really was. I imagined my mother and father, a warm house, having enough to eat, Keiro in all the splendid clothes he wanted. I used to look at this and know it must mean something. A crowned eagle with its wings spread wide. Like it was about to fly away.”

  She had to snap him out of this. “We needn’t wait for their stupid verdict. I’ve made plans. Two horses will be ready for us, secretly saddled, at the edge of the forest, at midnight. We can ride for the Wardenry, and use the Portal there to contact my father.”

  He wasn’t listening. “The old man in the forest said that Sapphique flew, in the end. Flew away to the stars.”

  “And the Queen has ordered a masked ball. What better cover!”

  His eyes lifted to her and she saw the signs Jared had warned her of: the whitening of the lips, the strangely unfocused gaze. She hurried across to him. “Stay calm, Finn. Nothing is over. Keiro will find my father and—”

  The room vanished.

  It became a chamber of grime, of cobwebs, of cables. For a second Finn knew he was back in the gray world of Incarceron.

  Then the Privy Council chamber gleamed around him.

  He stared at her. “What was that?”

  Claudia pulled him roughly to his feet. “I think that was reality, Finn.”

  KEIRO SPAT the last wet rag out of his mouth and gasped in air. Breathing was a great relief; he allowed himself a few vicious swear words too. They had gagged him to keep him from talking to them. Obviously, they knew he was irresistible. Quickly, he pulled his chained wrists under him, dragged his feet through them, the muscles in his arms straining. He stifled a groan as his bruises ached. But at least his hands were in front now.

  The cell swayed under his feet. If the place really was wicker, he should be able to hack a way through. He had no tools, though, and there was always the chance that there was nothing below but empty air.

  He shook the chain and tested it.

  The links were the finest steel and it had been elaborately tied. The knots would take hours to undo, and they were bound to hear the chink.

  Keiro scowled. He had to get out of here now because Attia had not been joking. The girl was crazy and he should dump her here, with this nest of star-blind devotees.

  Another oath-betrayer. He certainly knew how to pick them.

  He chose the weakest-looking link and twisted his hands so that the fingernail of his right forefinger could slide into the thin gap. Then he prised.

  Metal against metal, the fine links strained. He felt no pain, and that terrified him, because where did the metal end and the nerves begin? In his hand? In his heart?

  The thought made him lever the link open with a swift anger; at once he bent it far enough to slip the next link out. The chain fell from around his wrists.


  But before he could get up he heard footsteps, and the swaying of the cage told him one of the girls was coming, so instantly he looped the chain loosely over his hands and sat back.

  When Omega came through the door with two others pointing firelocks at him, Keiro just grinned at her. “Hello, gorgeous,” he said. “I knew you couldn’t keep away.”

  JARED HAD been given a room at the top of the Seventh Tower. The climb made him breathless, but it was worth it for the view of the forest, dark miles of trees over the twilit hills. He leaned out of the casement, both hands on the gritty sill, and breathed in the warm dusk.

  There were the stars, brilliant and unreachable. For a moment he thought a ripple passed over them, that their brightness dimmed. For a moment the nearest trees were dead and white and ghostly. Then the dizziness passed. He rubbed his eyes with both hands. Was this the illness?

  Moths danced around the lantern.

  The room behind him was stark. It had a bed, a chair and table, and a mirror that he had taken down and turned to the wall. Still, the less there was in the room, the less chance of it being bugged.

  Leaning out, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, unwrapped the disc, placed it on the sill, and activated it.

  The screen was minute, but as yet there was nothing wrong with his eyesight.

  Duties of the Warden. The words unraveled quickly. There were dozens of subtitles. Food provision, educational facilities, health care—his hand hovered over that, but he moved on quickly—social care, structural maintenance. So much information—it would take weeks to read it all. How many Wardens had ever done so? Probably only Martor Sapiens, the first. The designer.

  Martor.

  He searched for design, narrowed it down to structure, found a doubly encrypted entry in the last file. He couldn’t decipher it, but he opened it.

  The screen showed an image that made him smile, leaning there under the stars. It showed the crystal Key.

  “JOIN US,” Rho begged. “Let him take the Glove and you stay with us.”

  Up on the viaduct Attia waited with the Glove in her hand and a pack of food on her back and watched three armed women push Keiro up through the hole.

  His coat was filthy and his bright hair dull with grease. For a moment she was tempted. Meeting his inquiring stare she dreamed for a moment of sidestepping this crazy obsession of his, of finding her own place of warmth and safety. Maybe she could even try to find her brothers and sisters, somewhere far off in the Wing she had lived in before the Comitatus had dragged her away to be their dog-slave.

  But then Keiro snapped, “Are you going to stand there all day! Get these chains off me,” and something rippled in her that might have been a cold shiver of reality. It made her feel hard and determined. If Incarceron had the Glove its ambition would be complete. It would break free of itself and leave the Prison a dark and lifeless shell. Keiro might Escape, but no one else would.

  She took the Glove and held it out.

  “I’m sorry, Keiro,” she said. “I can’t let you do it.”

  His hands gripped the chains. “Attia!”

  But she flung the Glove out into the empty air.

  AFTER AN hour’s work, the moths flitting around the lamp on the sill, the code gave way with a sigh of rippling letters and the word EXITS came up on the screen. Jared’s weariness vanished. He sat up and read avidly.

  1. There will be only one Key and this will remain in the possession of the Warden at all times

  2. The Key is not needed for the Portal but is the only way of return from Incarceron, except for

  3. The Emergency exit

  Jared drew in a breath. He glanced quickly around the room. It was dim and silent, the only movement his own vast shadow on the wall, and the dark moths, fluttering in the light and over the tiny screen.

  Should you lose the Key, there is a secret door. In the Heart of Incarceron a chamber has been constructed to withstand any catastrophic spatial collapse or environmental catastrophe. Do not use this channel unless absolutely necessary. Its stability cannot be guaranteed. To use the exit a mobile neural net has been constructed, to be worn on the hand. It is activated by extremes of emotion, and thus will not work until a time of great danger. We have given the door a codename, known only to you. That name is SAPPHIQUE.

  Jared read the final sentence. Then he read it again. He sat back, his breath frosting in the night air, ignoring the moth that landed on the screen, the heavy footsteps up the stair.

  Outside, the stars shimmered in the eternal sky.

  20

  When he was born, silent and alone, his mind was empty. He had no past, no being. He found himself in the deepest place of darkness and loneliness.

  “Give me a name,” he begged.

  The Prison said, “I lay this fate on you, Prisoner. You shall have no name unless I give it to you. And I will never give it.”

  He groaned. He reached out his fingers and found raised letters on the door. Great iron letters, riveted through.

  After hours, he had grasped their shape.

  “Sapphique,” he said, “will be my name.”

  —Legends of Sapphique

  Keiro leaped.

  With a gasp Attia saw him jump high, the chain flung away. He caught the Glove.

  And then he was gone.

  Attia dived for him; Rho grabbed her. As he fell his hand shot out; grabbing the ivy, he swung and crashed into the side of the viaduct, a concussion that should have stunned him, but somehow he held tight, twisted around, scrabbling in the glossy leaves.

  “You fool!” Attia stormed.

  Keiro grabbed the ivy. He glanced up at her and she saw the bruised triumph in his eyes. “Now what, dog-slave?” he yelled. “Do you pull me up, or do I fall?”

  Before she could answer, movement shook them all.

  Under her feet the viaduct was humming. A high, faint vibration trembled in its girders and meshes. “What is it?” she breathed.

  Rho turned, her mismatched eyes gazing into the darkness. She drew in a breath; her face was white.

  “They’re coming.”

  “What? Another migration? Up here?”

  “There!” Keiro yelled.

  Attia stared into the darkness, but whatever had terrified them both was invisible to her. The bridge was shivering, as if a great host had set foot on it, as if their massed tramp had set the whole thing moving on a frequency that would make it shudder and rupture into impossible waves.

  Then she saw them.

  Fist-sized shapes, dark and rounded, they crawled, on the meshes and wires, in the ivy leaves. For a second she had no idea what they were; then with a creeping of her skin she realized they were Beetles, millions of them, the Prison’s all-devouring carnivores. Already the viaduct was glistening with them; there was a terrible new sound, the acidic crack and dissolving of metal, the rustle of carapaces and small pincers cutting steel and wire.

  Attia snatched a firelock from the nearest girl. “Get your people! Get them down!” But the Cygni were already moving, she could see them unraveling ladders that flipped out far below, the rungs lashing to and fro.

  “Come with us,” Rho said.

  “I can’t leave him.”

  “You have to!”

  Firelocks were slashing; looking down she saw that Keiro had hauled himself up and was kicking savagely at one of the Beetles that had reached him. It fell with a sudden high whine.

  Two of the things came out of the ivy at her feet; she leaped back, staring, and saw the metal under them begin to smoke and corrode rapidly, its surface dulling to black.

  Then it crumbled to dust.

  Rho fired at them, and jumped the gap. “Attia! Come on!”

  She could have gone. But if she did she would never see Finn again. Never see the stars.

  She said, “Good-bye, Rho. Thank the others for me.”

  Smoke rose between them, blurring the world. Rho said, “I see both dark and gold for you, Attia. I see Sapphique openi
ng the secret door to you.” She stepped back. “Good luck.”

  Attia wanted to say more, but the words seemed to choke in her throat. Instead she raised the weapon and fired a vicious sweep at the Beetles swarming toward her.

  They burst into blue and purple flame, a sizzling explosion of circuits.

  “That’s what I like to see!” Keiro had climbed up the ivy, now he was hauling himself over the side of the viaduct, the Glove tucked in his belt. He grabbed for the weapon.

  Attia jerked back. “Not this time.”

  “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

  “I don’t need to. They’ll do it for me.”

  He watched the relentless glistening insects devour the viaduct, and his face was bright and hard. Already the bridge was severed; chunks of it fell away into the unguessable distances below. The gap to Rho’s empty ladders was too far to jump now.

  He turned.

  Mesh shuddered; a vibration sent a great crack splitting through girders. With a sound like gunshot, bolts and rivets snapped.

  “No way out.”

  “Only down.” Attia glanced over. “Do you think … If we climbed … ?”

  “It would collapse before we were halfway.” He bit his lip, then yelled out at the sky, “Prison! Do you hear me?”

  If it did, it did not answer. Under Attia’s feet the metal began to separate.

  “Do you see this?” Keiro pulled out the dragonglove. “If you want it, you have to save it. You have to catch it. And us!”

  The road broke open. Attia slid, bracing her feet wide.

  Frost fell in showers from girders; a great creaking, straining howl rang through the structure. Metal struts sprang out. Keiro grabbed her by the arm. “Time to take a chance,” he hissed in her ear.

  And before she could yell in terror he had leaped with her off the bridge.

  CLAUDIA PONDERED the selection of masks. One was a Columbine’s upper face with glittering blue sapphires, topped with a blue feather. Another was white silk, a cat with elegant slanting eyes and whiskers of silver wire. Fur trimmed its edge. She picked a red devil from the bed, but it had to be held on a stick, so that was no use. Tonight, she needed to be as secret as she could.