Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1)

by Catherine Fisher

  Now, jumping down and running back into the bedroom, she watched the horses pace elegantly over the mown lawns, Evian talking, her father silent. Job had vanished, and the blue sky was mottled with high clouds.

  They'd be gone at least an hour.

  She took the small disc from her pocket, tossed it, caught it, put it back. Then she opened her bedroom door and peered out.

  The Long Gallery ran the length of the house. It was paneled in oak and lined with portraits, books in cabinets, blue vases on pedestals. Above each door the bust of a Roman emperor gazed sternly down from its bracket. Far down at the end sunlight made brilliant slanting lozenges across the wall, and a suit of armor guarded the top of the stairs like a rigid ghost.

  She took a step, and the planks creaked. The boards were old, and she scowled, because there was no way to turn that

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  off. There was nothing she could do about the busts either, but as she passed each painting she touched the frame control and darkened them--after all, there were almost certainly cameras in some of them. She held the disc gently in her hand; only once did it give a discreet bleep of warning, and she already knew about that, a crisscross of faint lines outside the study door, easily dissolved.

  Claudia glanced back down the corridor. Far off in the house a door banged, a servant called. Up here in the muffled luxury of the past, the air was fragrant with juniper and rosemary, pomanders of crisp lavender in the laundry cupboard.

  The study door was recessed in shadow. It was black, and looked like ebony; a bare panel, except for the swan. Huge and malevolent, the bird stared down at her, neck stretched in spitting defiance, wings wide. Its tiny eye glinted as though it were a diamond or dark opal.

  More likely a spyhole, she thought.

  Tense, she lifted Jared's disc and held it carefully to the door; it clamped itself on with a tiny metallic click.

  The device hummed. A small whine emerged from it, changing tone and pitch frequently, as if it chased the intricate combination of the lock up and down the scales of sound. Jared had gone into patient explanations as to how it worked, but she hadn't really been listening.

  Impatient, she fidgeted. Then froze.

  Footsteps were running up the stairs, lightly pattering.

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  Perhaps one of the maids, despite orders. Claudia flattened herself into the alcove, cursing silently, barely breathing.

  Just behind her ear, the disc gave a soft, satisfied snap.

  At once she turned, had the door open, and was inside in seconds, one arm whipping back out to snatch the disc.

  When the maid hurried by with the pile of linen, the study door was as dark and grimly locked as ever.

  Slowly, Claudia withdrew her eye from the spyhole and breathed out in relief. Then she stiffened, her shoulders tight with tension. A curious, dreadful certainty swept over her that the room behind her was not empty, that her father was standing at her back, close enough to touch, his smile bitter. That the horseman she had seen leave had been his own holo-image, that he had outguessed her as he always did.

  She made herself turn.

  The room was empty. But it was not what she'd expected. For a start it was too big. It was totally non-Era. And it was tilted.

  At least she thought so for a moment, because the first steps she took into its space were strangely unsteady, as if the floor sloped, or the perspective of the bare gray walls rose to odd angles. Something blurred and clicked; then the room seemed to gently even out, become normal, except for the warmth and the sweet faint scent and a low hum she couldn't quite identify.

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  The ceiling was high and vaulted. Sleek silver devices lined the walls, each winking with small red lights. A narrow illumination strip lit only the area directly below it, revealing a solitary desk, a neatly aligned metal chair.

  The rest of the room was empty. The only thing marring the perfect floor was a tiny speck of black. She bent down and examined it. A scrap of metal, dropped from some device.

  Astonished, still not quite sure she was alone, Claudia gazed around. Where were the windows? There should be two-- both orieled casements. You could see them from outside, and through them a white pargeted ceiling and some bookshelves. Often she'd wondered about climbing up the ivy to get in. From outside, the room had looked normal. Not this humming, tilted box too big for its space.

  She paced forward, gripping Jared's disc tightly, but it registered no warnings. Reaching the desk, she touched its smooth, featureless surface and a screen rose up silently with no visible controls. She searched, but there was nothing, so she assumed it was voice-operated. "Begin," she said quietly.

  Nothing happened.

  "Go. Start. Commence. Initiate."

  The screen stayed blank. Only the room hummed.

  There must be a password. She leaned down, placed both hands on the desk. There was only one word she could think of, so she said it.

  "Incarceron."

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  No image. But under the fingers of her left hand a drawer rolled smoothly open.

  Inside, on a bed of black velvet, lay a single key. It was intricate, a spun web of crystal. Embedded in the heart of it was a crowned eagle; the royal insignia of the Havaarna Dynasty. Bending closer, she looked at its sharp facets that glittered so brilliantly. Was it diamond? Glass? Drawn by its heavy beauty she bent so close her breath misted on its frostiness, her shadow blocking the overhead light so that the rainbow glints went out. Might it be the key to Incarceron itself? She wanted to lift it. But first she ran Jared's disc cautiously over its surface.

  Nothing.

  She glanced around once. Everything was quiet. So she picked up the key.

  The room crashed. Alarms howled; rays of laserfire shot up from the floor, ringing her in a cage of red light. A metal grille slammed over the door; hidden lights burst on and she stood frozen in the uproar in terror, her heart slamming in her chest, and in that instant the disc jabbed a pepperpoint of red pain urgently into her thumb.

  She glanced down at it. Jared's message was breathless with terror.

  He's coming back! Get out, Claudia! Get out!

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  7

  ***

  Once Sapphique came to the end of a tunnel and looked down on a vast hall. Its floor was a poisoned pool of venom. Corrosive steams rose from it. Across the darkness stretched a taut

  wire, and on the far side a doorway was visible, with light beyond it.

  The inmates of the Wing tried to dissuade him. "Many have fallen," they said.

  "Their bones rot in the black lake. Why should you be any different?"

  He answered, "Because I have dreams and in those dreams I see the stars." Then he swung

  himself up onto the wire and began to cross. Many times he rested, or hung in pain. Many

  times they called on him to return. Finally, after hours, he reached the other side, and they

  saw him stagger, and vanish through the door.

  He was dark, this Sapphique, and slender. His hair was straight and long. His real name is only to be guessed at.

  --Wanderings of Sapphique

  ***

  Gildas said testily, "I've told you many times. Outside exists. Sapphique found a way there. But no one comes. Not even you."

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  "You don't know that."

  The old man laughed, making the floor sway. The metal cage hung high over the chamber and was barely big enough for both of them to squat in. Books on chains dangled from it, surgical instruments, a swinging cascade of tin boxes stuffed with festering specimens. It was padded with old mattresses from which wisps of straw fell like an irritating snow onto the cooking fires and stewpots far below. A woman looked up to yell in annoyance. Then she saw Finn and was silent.

  "I know it, fool boy, because the Sapienti have written it." Gildas pulled a boot on. "The Prison was made to hold the Scum of humanity; to seal them away, to exile them from the earth. That was centuries ago, in th
e time of Martor, in the days the Prison spoke to men. Seventy Sapienti volunteered to enter the Prison to minister to its inmates, and after them the entrance was sealed forever. They taught their wisdom to their successors. Even children know this."

  Finn rubbed the hilt of his sword. He felt tired and resentful.

  "No one has entered since. We know about the Wombs too, though not where they are. Incarceron is efficient; it was designed to be. It doesn't waste dead matter, but recycles everything. In those cells it grows new inmates. Perhaps animals too.

  "But I remember things ... bits of things." Finn gripped the

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  cage bars as if to hold on to his belief, watching Keiro cross the floor of the hall far below, arms around two giggling girls.

  Gildas's gaze followed his. "You don't. You dream Incarceron's mysteries. Your visions will show us how to Escape."

  "No. I remember."

  The old man looked exasperated. "Remember what?"

  He felt foolish. "Well... a cake. With silver balls and seven candles. There were people. And music ... lots of music ... He hadn't realized that until now. He was oddly pleased, until he caught the old man's eye.

  "A cake. I suppose it may be a symbol. The number seven is important. The Sapienti know it as the sigil of Sapphique, because of the time when he met the renegade Beetle."

  "I was there!"

  "Everyone has memories, Finn. Your prophecies are what matter. The visions that descend on you are the great gift and strangeness of the Starseer. They're unique. The people know that, the slaves and the warband, even Jormanric. It's in the way they look at you. Sometimes they fear you."

  Finn was silent. He hated the fits. They came suddenly, dizzy sickness and blackouts that terrified him, and Gildas's relentless interrogation after each one left him shivering and sick.

  "One day I'll die from one," he said quietly.

  "It is true few cell-born live to be old." Gildas's voice was harsh, but he looked away. Buckling the ornate collar over his green robe he muttered, "The past is gone; whatever it was, it

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  doesn't matter anymore. Put it out of your head or it will drive you to madness."

  Finn said, "How many other cell-born have you known?"

  "Three." Gildas tugged the plaited end of his beard free irritably. He paused. "You're rare beings. I spent my life searching before I found you. A man rumored to be cell-born used to beg outside the Hall of Lepers, but when I finally coaxed him to speak I realized his mind had gone; he babbled about an egg that talked, a cat that faded out to just a smile. Years later, after many rumors, I found another, a worker of the Civicry in the Ice Wing. She seemed normal enough; I tried to persuade her to speak to me of her visions. But she never would. One day I heard she had hanged herself."

  Finn swallowed. "Why?"

  "They told me she had gradually begun to believe a child followed her, an invisible child that clutched her skirts and called her, woke her at night. Its voice tormented her. She couldn't shut it out."

  Finn shivered. He knew that Gildas was watching him. The Sapient said gruffly, "Finding you here was a chance in a million, Finn. Only you can guide my Escape."

  "I can't ..."

  "You can. You're my prophet, Finn. My link with Incarceron. Soon now you'll bring me the vision I've waited a lifetime for, the sign that my time has come, that I must follow Sapphique and seek the Outside. Every Sapient makes that journey. None

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  have succeeded, but none have had a cell-born to guide them."

  Finn shook his head. He'd heard this for years and it still scared him. The old man was obsessed with Escape, but how could Finn help him? How could flashes of memory and the skin-tingling, choking lapses into unconsciousness help anyone?

  Gildas pushed past him and grasped the metal ladder. "Don't talk about this. Not even to Keiro."

  He climbed down and his eyes were on a level with Finns feet before Finn muttered, "Jormanric will never just let you go."

  Gildas glared up through the rungs. "I go where I want."

  "He needs you. He rules the Wing because of you. On his own he--"

  "He'll manage. He's good at fear and violence."

  Gildas descended one rung, then pulled himself up, his small wizened face lit with sudden joy. "Can you imagine how it will be, Finn, one day, to open a hatch and climb out of darkness, out of Incarceron? To see the stars? To see the sun!"

  For a moment Finn was silent; then he swung down on a rope past the Sapient. "I've seen it."

  Gildas laughed sourly. "Only in visions, fool boy. Only in dreams."

  He clambered with surprising agility down the diagonal of lashed ladders. Finn followed more slowly, the rope's friction warm through his gloves.

  Escape.

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  It was a word that stung him like a wasp, a sharpness that pierced his mind, a longing that promised everything and meant nothing. The Sapienti taught that Sapphique had once found a way out, that he had Escaped. Finn wasn't sure if he believed that. The stories about Sapphique grew in the telling; every itinerant storyteller and poet had a new one. If a single man could have had all those adventures, tricked all those Winglord's, made that epic journey through the Thousand Wings of Incarceron, he must have lived for generations. The Prison was said to be vast and unknowable, a labyrinth of halls and stairs and chambers and towers beyond number. Or so the Sapienti taught.

  His feet hit the ground. Glimpsing the snake-green iridescence of Gildas's robe as the old man hurried out of the Den, Finn ran after him, making sure that his foil was in its sheath and that he had both daggers in his belt.

  The Maestra's crystal was what concerned him now.

  And getting it was not going to be easy.

  The Chasm of Ransom was only three halls away, and he crossed the dark empty spaces quickly, alert for spiders or the inbred shadowhawks that swooped high in the rafters. Everyone else seemed to be there already. He heard the Comitatus before he came through the last archway; they were shouting and howling Insults across the abyss, their scorn ringing back from the smooth unclimbable slabs.

  On the far side the Civicry waited, a line of shadows.

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  The Chasm was a jagged crack across the floor, a sheer face of black obsidian. If a stone was dropped down it, no sound ever came up. The Comitatus considered it bottomless; some even said that if you fell into its depths, you fell right through Incarceron into the molten heart of the earth, and certainly heat rose from it, a miasma that made the air shimmer. In the center, split off by whatever Prisonquake had formed the abyss, rose a needle-thin rock called the Spike, its flat platform cracked and worn. From each side a bridge of scorched metal rusted and dark with pig-grease led there. It was a neutral place that belonged to no one, a place for truces and parleys, of hesitant exchange among the hostile tribes of the Wing.

  At the unfenced edge, from which he often had troublesome slaves thrown screaming down, Jormanric lounged on his throne, the Comitatus around him, the small dog-slave crouched at the end of its chain.

  "Look at him," Keiro's voice whispered in Finn's ear. "Big and thick."

  "And as vain as you."

  His oathbrother snorted. "At least I've got something to be vain about."

  But Finn was watching the Maestra. As they led her in, her eyes glanced quickly at the crowd, the rickety bridges, her people waiting in the shimmering air beyond. Over there, just for a moment a man cried out, and at the sound her face lost its

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  composure; she tugged away from her guards and screamed, "Sim!"

  Finn wondered if that was her husband. "Come on," he said to Keiro, and pushed forward.

  Seeing them, the crowd moved back. It's in the way they look at you, Finn thought bitterly. Knowing that the old man was right made him angry. He came up behind the Maestra and grabbed her arm. "Remember what I said. No harm will come to you. But are you sure they'll bring this thing?"

  She glared at him. "
They won't hold anything back. Some people know about love."

  The jibe stung him. "Maybe I did once."

  Jormanric was watching them, his dull eyes barely focused. He jabbed a ringed finger at the bridge and yelled, "Get her ready!"

  Keiro pulled the woman's hands behind her and shackled them. Watching, Finn muttered, "Look. I'm sorry."

  She held his gaze. "Not as sorry as I am for you."

  Keiro smiled archly. Then he looked to Jormanric.

  The Winglord heaved himself up and strode to the Chasm edge, glaring out at the Civicry. The greasy chainmesh creaked as he folded his great arms across his chest. "Listen, over there!" he thundered. "You get her back for her weight in treasure. No more, no less. And that means no alloy and no junk."

  His words rang in the steaming heat.

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  "First, your word there'll be no treachery." The reply was cold with fury.

  Jormanric grinned. Ket-juice glistened on his teeth. "You want my word! I haven't kept my word since I was ten and knifed my own brother. You're welcome to it."

  The Comitatus sniggered. Behind them, half in shadow, Finn saw Gildas, his face sour.

  Silence.

  Then, from deep in the shimmering heat haze came a clang and a thud. The Civicry were hauling their treasure across to the Spike. Finn wondered what they had--ore certainly, but Jormanric would be hoping for gold and platinum and most precious of all, micro-circuitry. After all, the Civicry were one of the richest groups in the Wing. That had been the reason for the ambush.

  The bridge shuddered. The Maestra grasped the rail to steady herself.

  Finn said quietly, "Let's go." He glanced behind himself. Keiro had drawn his sword.

  "I'm here, brother."

  "Don't let the bitch go till you get every last ounce," Jormanric rasped.

  Finn scowled. Pushing the Maestra in front, he began the crossing.

  The bridge was a web of woven chainwork; it swung with every step. Twice he slipped, once so hard that the whole

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  structure swayed crazily and nearly tipped the three of them into the abyss. Keiro swore; the Maestra's fingers gripping the metal links were white-knuckled.

  Finn did not look down. He knew what was below nothing bur blackness and heat that rose and scorched your face, bringing strange drowsy fumes it was unwise to breathe.