Sapphique - Incarceron 02

by Catherine Fisher

  Finn grabbed her and held the pistol to her back as she swore and struggled.

  The guard dropped to one knee. 'Sire, the verdict has been given.'

  'What was it?' Claudia gasped.

  The guard ignored her. 'You indeed are Prince Giles.'

  Finn gave a harsh laugh that made Claudia stare at him. I know who I am.' His breath came harsh from inside the eagle's beak. 'This Scum from the Prison is wounded. Take him and throw him in some cell. Where is the Queen?'

  'In the ballroom ...'

  'Stand aside.' Leading Claudia like a prisoner he stalked off towards the lights. Once out of earshot he muttered, 'Where are the horses?'

  'At Shear's Folly.'

  He dropped her arm, threw the pistol into the grass, and took one look back at his lost, enchanted palace. Then he said, 'Let's go.'

  What Key Unlocks the Heart

  ... deep forests and dark lanes. A Realm of magic and beauty. A land like those in legends.

  KING ENDOR'S DECREE

  Lightning flickered.

  It blinked silently across the sky, lighting the underside of the ominous clouds, and Jared pulled the nervous horse to a halt.

  He waited, counting the seconds. Finally, when the weight of tension seemed almost too heavy to bear, the rumble broke; it thundered across the sky above the Forest, as if a being of enormous anger raged over the treetops.

  The night was close, sticky with humidity. The reins in his hands creaked, the soft leather greasy with sweat. He leant forward over the horse's neck, breathing painfully, every bone in his body aching.

  At first he had ridden recklessly, afraid of pursuit, turning off the road on to obscure forest tracks, anything that led west, towards the Wardenry. But now, after hours, the track had dwindled to this narrow foxtrail, the undergrowth so matted it brushed his knees and the horse's flank, raising a rank smell of trampled weeds and the decay of centuries of leaves.

  He was deep in the Forest, there was no way of seeing the stars, and though he wasn't really lost — he always carried a small way-finder — there was no way on from here. The ground was broken with streams and slopes, the darkness intense. And the storm was coming.

  Jared rubbed the horse's mane. He would have to backtrack to the stream. But he was so tired, and the pain that lived inside him had somehow come out and was wrapping itself around him; he couldn't help thinking he was riding deeper into it, that its thorns were the Forest's. He was thirsty and hot. He would go back to the stream, and drink.

  The horse whickered as he coaxed it; its ears flickered as the thunder rumbled again. Jared let it find the way; he only realized that his eyes were closed when the reins slid from his fingers and the horse's long neck dipped; there was a quiet slurp of water.

  'Good boy,' he whispered.

  Carefully, he slid down, holding on to the saddlebow. As soon as his feet met the ground he crumpled, as if he had no strength even to stand. Only clinging on kept him upright.

  Ghostly umbels of hemlock rose all around, higher than his head, their perfume sickly. Jared breathed deeply; then he slid to his knees and felt in the darkness until his fingers touched water.

  Icy cold, it flowed among stems and stones.

  He cupped it and drank, and its cold made him cough, but it was better than wine. He drank more, splashing his face and hair and the back of his neck with its freezing shock. Then he unrolled the syringe from his pack and injected the usual dose.

  He had to sleep. There was fog in his mind, a numbness that scared him. He wound the Sapient coat around him and curled up in the scratchy, rustling nettles. But now he could not close his eyes.

  It wasn't the Forest he feared. It was the thought that he might die here, and never wake again. That the horse would wander away and the leaves of autumn cover him, that he would decay to bones and never be found. That Claudia would...

  He told himself to stop. But the pain laughed at him. The pain was his dark twin now, sleeping with its arms tight about him.

  With a shudder he sat up, pushing back wet hair. This was hysteria. He was quite certainly not about to die here. For one thing, he had information Finn and Claudia needed, about the door in the Prison's heart, about the Glove. He intended to get it to them.

  For another, his death was unlikely to be this easy.

  Then he saw the star.

  It was red, and small. It was watching him. He tried to stop shivering, and focus, but the glimmer was hard to see. Either his fever was causing him to hallucinate, or this was some marsh-gas, flickering above the ground. Grasping a branch, he scrambled to his knees.

  The red Eye winked.

  Jared reached up, caught the reins and dragged the horse from its grazing, towards the light.

  He was burning, the darkness tugging him back, each step a clutch of pain, a shiver of sweat. Nettles stung him; he pushed through low branches, a cloud of metallic moths, a sky where a thousand stars slid and slithered. Under a vast oak he stopped, breathless. Before him was a clearing, with a fire burning there, and feeding it with kindling a thin, dark-haired man, flamelight playing over his face.

  The man turned.

  'Come, Master Jared he said quietly. 'Come to the fire.' Jared crumpled, holding the oak bough, its ridged bark powdery under his nails.

  Then the man's arms were around him. 'I've got you,' the voice said. 'I've got you now.'

  When Attia wanted to wake she found she couldn't. Sleep lay heavy on her eyelids like stones. Her arms were behind her and for a moment she was back in the tiny box-bed in the cell her family had once called home, a cramped corridor where six families camped in ramshackle shelters of stolen wire and mesh.

  She smelt the damp and tried to turn and something held her still.

  She realized she was sitting upright, and a serpent was coiled round her wrists. Instantly, her eyes snapped open.

  Rix was squatting by the fire. He was folding a small wad of ket, and he blurred before her as he slipped it into his cheek and chewed.

  She tugged. There was no snake; her hands were tied behind her and she leant against something warm and slumped. She realized it was Keiro. Rix had trussed them back to back.

  'Well, Attia.' Rix's voice was cold. 'You look a little uncomfortable.'

  The ropes were cutting her hands and ankles. Keiro's weight was heavy on her shoulder. But she just smiled. 'How did you get here, Rix? However did you find us?'

  He spread his magician's fingers. 'For the Dark Enchanter nothing is impossible. The magic of the Glove drew me, through the miles of corridors and echoing galleries.'

  He chewed the ket with red-stained teeth.

  Attia nodded. He looked thinner and lankier, his face pocked and scabbed and unwashed, his lank hair greasy.

  The crazy look was back in his eyes.

  He must already have the Glove.

  Keiro was stirring behind her, as if their voices had wakened him. As he moved she glanced quickly round, saw the dark tunnels that led out of the cave, each as narrow as a slot. The waggon would never get through them. Rix grinned his gappy grin. 'Don't worry, Attia. I have plans. It's all arranged.'

  His voice hardened and he leant over and kicked Keiro. 'So, highwayman. Thieving isn't so good for you now, is it?'

  Keiro swore under his breath. Attia felt him wriggle and jerk, pulling her painfully as he squirmed round to get a better look at Rix. Reflected grotesquely in a copper pan on the waggon she saw his blue eyes, a smear of blood on his forehead. But being Keiro, his voice was icily cool.

  'Didn't think you'd bear such a grudge, Rix.'

  'Nothing so paltry as a grudge.' Rix stared back, his eyes glinting. 'This is revenge. Served cold. I swore it, I'll do it.'

  Keiro's hand felt warm and sweaty. It groped for Attia's fingers while he said, 'I'm sure we can come to some arrangement.'

  'About what?' Rix leant forward, drawing something dark and shining from his coat. 'This?'

  She felt Keiro's stillness. His dismay.

&n
bsp; Rix spread out the dragonskin fingers, smoothed the cracked and ancient claws. 'It drew me. It called me.

  Through the transitways, through the humming air, I could hear it. See how its static shivers on my skin.'

  The hairs on his arm were lifting.

  He nuzzled his cheek against the gauntlet and its fine scales rippled. 'This is mine. My touch, my senses. My magician's art.' He watched them, slyly, over the dragonskin. 'No artist can lose his touch. It called me, and I found it again.'

  Attia clutched Keiro's fingers, slid along the rope to the knots. He's crazy, she wanted to tell him. Unstable. Be careful. But Keiro's answer was quiet and mocking.

  'I'm happy for you. But Incarceron and I have a deal and you wouldn't dare... '

  'Long ago,' Rix said, 'the Prison and I also had a deal. A wager. A game of riddles.'

  'I thought that was Sapphique'

  Rix grinned. 'And I won. But Incarceron cheats, you know? It gave me its Glove and promised Escape, but what Escape is there for those of us trapped in the mazes of our minds, highwayman? What secret trapdoors are there, what tunnels to the Outside? Because I have seen the Outside, seen it, and it's vaster than you could dream.'

  Attia felt icy with fear.

  Rix grinned at her. 'Attia thinks I'm insane.' 'No . . .' she lied.

  'Oh yes, sweetkin. And you may be right.' He straightened his lanky body and sighed. 'And here you both are at my mercy, like the babes in the wood in a patchbook I once read.'

  Attia laughed. Anything to keep him talking. 'Not another one.'

  'Their wicked stepmother left them in the dark forest. But they found a house all made of gingerbread and the witch that lived there turned them into swans. They flew away linked by a golden chain.' He was gazing at the tiny swans pinned to the Glove.

  'Right,' Keiro said acidly. 'And then?'

  'They came to a great tower where a sorcerer lived.' Rix put the Glove away tidily and went and rummaged in the waggon.

  Attia felt the ropes burn her wrists as Keiro tugged at them furiously. 'And he released them?'

  'I'm afraid not.' Rix turned. He had the long sword that he used in his act, and its blade was sharp. 'I'm afraid it's not a happy ending, Attia.You see, they had betrayed him, and stolen from him. He was very angry about it. So he had to kill them.'

  Three leagues from the Court Claudia dragged the winded horse to a halt and gazed back. The great complex of towers was brilliantly lit; the Glass Palace a shining splendour. Finn's horse thudded to stillness beside her, its harness clinking. He stared silently. 'Will Jared know we've gone?'

  'I sent him a message.'

  Her voice was taut; he glanced at her. 'What's wrong then?' It took a while for her to answer. 'Medlicote told me the Queen had bribed Jared.'

  'No chance. There's no way he would ...'

  'There's his illness. She'd use that against him.'

  Finn frowned. Under the perfect stars the Court glittered, as cold and cruel as scattered diamonds. 'Will he really die from it?'

  'I think so. He makes light of it. But I think so.' The desolation in her voice chilled him, but she sat upright and as the wind whipped her hair back he saw there were no tears in her eyes.

  Thunder rumbled, far off.

  He wanted to say something comforting, but the horse was restless, stamping its impatience, and in the Prison death had been too familiar to feel strange now. Controlling the horse, he brought it back round to her. 'Jared is brilliant, Claudia. He's far too clever to be controlled by the Queen, or anyone else. Don't worry. Trust him'

  'I told him I did.'

  Still she didn't move. He reached out and caught her arm. 'Come on. We need to hurry'

  She turned and looked at him. 'You could have killed Giles.'

  'I should have. Keiro would despair. But that boy is not Giles. I am.' He met her eyes. 'Standing there with that pistol pointed at me, I knew. I remembered, Claudia. I remembered.' She stared at him, astonished.

  Then the horse whinnied, and they saw the lights of the Court, all its hundreds of candles and lanterns and windows flicker and go out. For a whole minute the Palace was a blackness under the stars. Claudia held her breath. If they didn't come back on . . . If this was the end.

  Then the Palace was blazing again. Finn held out his hand. 'I think you should give me Incarceron.'

  She hesitated. Then she drew out her father's watch and handed it to him, and he held up the silver cube, so that it spun on its chain. 'Keep it safe, sire.'

  'The Prison is drawing power from its own systems.' He glanced down at the Palace, where a clamour of bells and shouts had begun to ring out. 'And from ours,' Claudia whispered.

  'You can't. Rix, you can't.'Attia's voice was earnest and low, anything to keep him calm. 'It's ridiculous. I worked for you — we went against that gang of bandits together, that mob in the plague village. You liked me. We got on. You can't hurt me:

  'You know a few too many secrets, Attia.'

  'Cheap tricks! Cons. Everybody knows them' It was the real sword, not the collapsible one. She licked sweat from her lip.

  'Well maybe.' He pretended to consider, and then grinned. 'But you see, it's the Glove. Stealing that was unforgivable. The Glove is telling me to do it. So I've decided you'll go first, and then your friend there can watch. It'll be quick, Attia. I'm a merciful man.'

  Keiro was silent, as if he was leaving this to her. He had given up on the knots. Nothing would undo those in time.

  Attia said, 'You're tired, Rix. You're mad. You know it.'

  'I've walked a few wild Wings.' He swept the sword experimentally through the air. 'I've crawled a few crazy corridors.'

  'Talking of which,' Keiro said suddenly, 'where's that pack of freaks you usually travel with?'

  'Resting.' Rix was working himself up. 'I needed to move fast.' He swung the sword again. There was a sly light in his eye that terrified Attia. His voice was slurred with ket. 'Behold!' he muttered. 'You search for a Sapient who will show you the way Out. I am that man!'

  It was the patter of his act. She struggled, kicking, jerking against Keiro. 'He'll do it. He's off his skull!'

  Rix swung to an imaginary crowd. 'The way that Sapphique took lies through the Door of Death. I will take this girl there and I will bring her back!'

  The fire crackled. He bowed to its applause, to the ranks of roaring people, held up the sword in his hand. 'Death.

  We fear it. We would do anything to avoid it. Before your eyes, you will see the dead live.'

  'No.' Attia gasped. 'Keiro

  Keiro sat still. 'No chance. He's got us.'

  Rix's face was flushed in the red light; his eyes bright as if with fever. 'I will release her! I will bring her back!' With a whipping slash that made her gasp the sword was raised, and at the same time Keiro's voice, acid with scorn and deliberately conversational, came from the darkness behind her.

  'So tell me, Rix, since you seem to think you're Sapphique. What was the answer to the riddle you asked the dragon? What is the Key that unlocks the heart?'

  24

  He worked night and day. He made a coat that would transform him; he would be more than a man; a winged creature, beautiful as light. All the birds brought him feathers. Even the eagle. Even the swan.

  LEGENDS OF SAPPHIQUE

  Jared was sure he was still delirious. Because he lay in a ruined stable and there was a fire, crackling loudly in the silent night.

  The rafters were a mesh of holes above his head, and in one place a barn owl stared down with wide astonished eyes. From somewhere water dripped. The splashes landed rhythmically just beside his face, as if after some great rainstorm. A small pool had formed, soaking into the straw. Someone's hand lay half out of the blankets; he tried absently to make it move, and the long fingers cramped and stretched. It was his, then.

  He felt disconnected, only vaguely interested, as if he had been out of his body on some long and tiring journey.

  As if he had come home to find the hous
e cold and comfortless.

  His throat, when he remembered it, was dry His eyes itched. His body, when he moved it, ached.

  And he must be delirious because there were no stars. Instead, through the broken roof of the building a single red Eye hung huge in the sky, like the moon in some livid eclipse.

  Jared studied it. It stared back, but it wasn't watching him. It was watching the man.

  The man was busy. Over his knees he had some old coat — a Sapient robe, perhaps — and on each side of him rose a great stack of feathers. Some were blue, like the one Jared had sent through the Portal. Others were long and black, like a swan's, and brown, an eagle's plumage.

  'The blue ones are very useful: the man said, without turning. 'Thank you for them.'

  'My pleasure,' Jared murmured. Each word was a croak.

  The stable was hung with small golden lanterns, like the ones used at Court. Or perhaps these were the stars, taken down and propped here and there, hung on wires. The man's hands moved swiftly. He was sewing the feathers into the bare patches of the coat, fixing them first with dabs of pitchy resin that smelt of pine cones when it dripped on the straw. Blue, black, brown. A coat of feathers, wide as wings.

  Jared made an effort to sit up, and managed it, propping himself dizzily against the wall. He felt weak and shaky.

  The man put the coat aside and came over. 'Take your time. There's water here.'

  He brought a jug and cup, and poured. As he held it out Jared saw that the right forefinger of his hand was missing; a smooth scar seamed the knuckle.

  'Only a little, Master. It's very cold.'

  Jared barely felt the shock to his throat. As he drank he watched the dark-haired man and the man stared back, a rueful, sad smile.

  'Thank you.'

  'There's a well just near here. The best water in the Realm.' 'How long have I been here?'