'There's no time here, remember. Time seems to be forbidden in the Realm.' He sat back, and there were feathers stuck to him, and his eyes were steady and obsessive as a hawk's.
'You are Sapphique,' Jared said quietly. 'I took that name in the Prison.' 'Is that where we are?'
Sapphique pulled plumage from his hair. 'This is a prison, Master. Whether it's Inside or Out, I've learnt, is not really important. I fear they both may be the same.'
Jared struggled to think. He had been riding in the Forest. There were many outlaws in the Forest, many woodwoses and madmen. Those who couldn't bear the stagnation of Era, who wandered as beggars. Was this one of them?
Sapphique sat back, his legs stretched out. In the firelight he was young and pale, his hair lank with the forest—damp. 'But you Escaped,' Jared said. 'Finn has told me some of the tales they tell about you in there, in Incarceron.' He rubbed at his face and found it rough, faintly stubbled. How long had he been here?
'There are always stories.'
'They're not true?'
Sapphique smiled. 'You're a scholar, Jared. You know that the word truth is a crystal, like the Key. It seems transparent, but it has many facets. Different lights, red and gold and blue, flicker in its depths. Yet it unlocks the door.'
'The door. . . You found a secret door, they say.'
Sapphique poured more water. 'How I searched for it. I spent whole lifetimes searching. I forgot my family, my home; I gave blood, tears, a finger. I made myself wings and I flew so high the sky struck me down. I fell so far into the dark that there seemed no ending to the abyss. And yet in the end, there it was, a tiny plain door in the Prison's heart. The emergency exit. Right there all the time.'
Jared sipped the cold water. This must be a vision, like Finn had in his seizures. He himself was probably lying delirious now in the dark rainy woodland. And yet could it be so real?
'Sapphique . I must ask you...'
'Ask, my friend.'
'The door. Can all the Prisoners leave by it? Is that possible?'
But Sapphique had gathered the feathered coat and was examining its holes. 'Each man has to find it himself, as I did.'
Jared lay back. He tugged the blanket around him, shivering and tired. In the Sapient tongue he said softly, 'Tell me, Master, did you know Incarceron was tiny?'
'Is it?' Sapphique replied in the same language, his green eyes as he looked up lit by deep points of flame. 'To you, perhaps. Not to its Prisoners. Every prison is a universe for its inmates. And think, Jared Sapiens. Might not the Realm also be tiny, swinging from the watchchain of some being in a world even vaster? Escape is not enough; it does not answer the questions. It is not Freedom. And so I will repair my wings and fly away to the stars. Do you see them?' He pointed, and Jared drew in a breath of awe, because there they were, all around him, the galaxies and nebulae, the thousands of constellations he had so often watched through the powerful telescope in his tower, the glittering brilliance of the universe.
'Do you hear their song?' Sapphique murmured.
But only the silence of the Forest came to them, and Sapphique sighed. 'Too far away. But they do sing, and I will hear that music.'
Jared shook his head. Weariness was creeping over him, and the old fear. 'Perhaps Death is our escape 'Death is a door, certainly.' Sapphique stopped threading a blue feather and looked at him. 'You fear death, Jared?' 'I fear the way to it.'
The narrow face seemed all angles in the firelight. It said, 'Don't let the Prison wear my Glove, use my hands, speak with my face. Whatever you have to do, do not allow that.'
There were so many questions Jared wanted to ask. But they scuttled away from him like rats into holes and he closed his eyes and lay back. Like his own shadow, Sapphique leant beside him.
'Incarceron never sleeps. It dreams, and its dreams are terrible. But it never sleeps.'
He barely heard. He was falling down the telescope, through its convex lenses, into a universe of galaxies.
Rix blinked. He paused, barely for a second.
Then he slashed the sword down. Attia flinched and screamed but it whistled behind her and sliced the ropes that held her to Keiro, nicking her wrist so that it bled. 'What the hell are you doing?' she gasped, scrambling away.
The magician didn't even look at her. He pointed the trembling blade at Keiro. 'What did you say?'
If Keiro was amazed he didn't show it. He stared straight back, and his voice was cool and careful. 'I said, what's the Key that unlocks the heart. What's the matter, Rix? Can't answer your own riddle?'
Rix was white. He turned and walked in a rapid circle and came back. 'That's it. It's you. It's you!'
'What's me?'
'How can it be you ? I don't want it to be you! For a while I thought it might be her: He jabbed the blade at Attia. 'But she never said it, never came near saying it!'
He paced another frantic circle. Keiro had drawn his knife. Hacking at the ropes on his ankles he muttered, 'He's barking.'
No. Wait.' Attia watched Rix, her eyes wide. 'You mean the Question, don't you? The Question you once told me only your Apprentice would ever ask you. That was it? Keiro asked it?'
'He did.' Rix couldn't seem to keep still. He was shivering, his long fingers gripping and loosening on the swordhilt. 'It's him. It's you.' He tossed the sword down and hugged himself. 'A Scum thief is my Apprentice:
'We're all scum,' Keiro said. 'if you think...'
Attia silenced him with a glare. They had to be so t careful here.
He undid the ropes and stretched his feet out with a grimace. Then he leant back and she saw he understood. lie smiled his most charming smile. 'Rix. Please sit down.'
The lanky magician collapsed and huddled up like a spider. His utter dismay almost made Attia want to laugh aloud, and yet she felt sorry for him. Some dream that had kept him going for years had come true, and he was devastated in his disappointment. 'This changes everything.'
'I should think so.' Keiro tossed the knife to Attia. 'So I'm the sorcerer's apprentice, am I? Well, it might come in useful.'
She scowled at him. Joking was stupid. They had to use this.
'What does it mean?' Keiro leant forward, his shadow huge on the cave wall.
'It means revenge is forgotten.' Rix stared blankly into the flames. 'The Art Magicke has rules. It means I have to teach you all my tricks. All the substitutions, the replications, the illusions. How to read minds and palms and leaves. How to disappear and reappear.'
'How to saw people in half?'
'That too.'
'Nice.'
'And the secret writings, the hidden craft, the alchemies, the names of the Great Powers. How to raise the dead, how to live for ever. How to make gold pour from a donkey's ear.'
They stared at his rapt, gloomy face. Keiro raised an eyebrow at Attia. They both knew how precarious this was. Rix was unstable enough to kill; their lives depended on his whims. And he had the Glove.
Gently she said, 'So we're all friends again now?' 'You!' He glared at her. 'Not you!'
'Now now, Rix.' Keiro faced him. 'Attia's my slave. She does what I say.'
She swallowed her fury and glanced away. He was enjoying this. He would tease Rix within inches of Insanity; then grin and charm the danger away. She was trapped here between them, and she had to stay, because of the Glove. Because she had to get it before Keiro did.
Rix seemed sunk in torpor. And yet after a moment he nodded, muttered to himself and went to the waggon, tugging things out.
'Food?' Keiro said hopefully.
Attia whispered, 'Don't push your luck.'
'At least I have luck. I'm the Apprentice, I can twist him round my finger like flexiwire.'
But when Rix came back with bread and cheese Keiro ate it as gratefully as Attia, while Rix watched and chewed ket and seemed to recover his gap—toothed humour. 'Thieving not paying well these days then?'
Keiro shrugged.
'All the jewels you carry; Sacks of loot.' Rix snig
gered. Fine clothes.'
Keiro fixed him with a cold eye. 'So which is the tunnel we leave by?'
Rix looked at the seven slots. 'There they are. Seven narrow arches. Seven openings into the darkness. One leads to the heart of the Prison. But we sleep now. At Lightson, I take you into the unknown.' Keiro sucked his fingers. 'Anything you say, boss.'
Finn and Claudia rode all night. They galloped down the dark lanes of the Realm, clattering over bridges and through fords where sleepy ducks flapped from the rushes, quacking. They clopped through muddy villages where dogs barked and only a child's eye at the edge of a lifted shutter watched them go by.
They had become ghosts, Claudia thought, or shadows. Cloaked in black like outlaws, they fled the Court, and behind them there would be uproar, the Queen furious, the Pretender vengeful, the servants panicked, the army being ordered out.
This was rebellion, and nothing would be the same now.
They had rejected Protocol. Claudia wore the dark breeches and coat and Finn had flung the Pretender's finery into the hedge. As the dawn began to break they topped a rise and found themselves high above the golden countryside, the cocks crowing in its pretty farmyards, its picturesque hovels glowing in the new light.
'Another perfect day: Finn muttered.
'Not for long maybe. Not if Incarceron has its way.'
Grimly, she led the way down the track.
By midday they were too exhausted to go on, the horses stumbling with weariness. At an isolated byre shadowed by
elms they found straw heaped in a dim sun-slanted loft, where dull flies buzzed and doves cooed in the rafters. There was nothing to eat.
Claudia curled up and slept. If they spoke, she didn't remember it.
When she woke it was from a dream of someone knocking insistently at her door, of Alys saying, 'Claudia, your father's here. Get dressed, Claudia"
And then soft in her ear, Jared's whisper: 'Do you trust me, Claudia?'
With a gasp she sat upright.
The light was fading. The doves had gone and the barn was silent, with only a rustle in the far corner that might have been mice.
She leant back, slowly, on one elbow.
Finn had his back to her; he slept with his body curled up in the straw, the sword by his hand.
She watched him for a while until his breathing altered, and although he didn't move, she knew he was awake. She said, 'How much do you remember?'
'Everything.'
'Such as?'
'My father. How he died. Bartlett. My engagement with you. My whole life at Court before the Prison. In snatches ... foggy, but there. The only thing I don't know is what happened between the ambush in the Forest and the day I
woke in the Prison cell. Perhaps I never will.'
Claudia drew her knees up and picked straw from them. Was this the truth? Or had it become so necessary for him to know that he had convinced himself?
Maybe her silence revealed her doubts. He rolled over. 'Your dress that day was silver. You were so small — you wore a little necklace of pearls and they gave me white roses to present to you. You gave me your portrait in a silver frame.'
Had it been like silver? She had thought gold.
'I was scared of you.'
'Why?'
'They said I had to marry you. But you were so perfect, and shining, your voice was so bright. I just wanted to go and play with my new dog'
She stared at him. Then she said, 'Come on. They're probably only hours behind.'
Usually it took three days to travel between the Court and the Wardenry; but that was with inn stops, and carriages. Like this it was a relentless gallop, sore and weary and stopping only to buy hard bread and ale from a girl who came running out from a decaying cottage. They rode past watermills and churches, over wide downs where sheep scattered before them, through wool-snagged hedges, over ditches and the wide grassgrown scars of the ancient wars. Finn let Claudia lead. He no longer knew where they were, and every bone in his body ached with
the strain of the unaccustomed riding. But his mind was clear, clearer and happier than he ever remembered. He saw the land sharp and bright; the smells of the trampled grass, the birdsong, the soft mists that rose from the earth seemed new things to him. He dared not hope that the fits were over. But perhaps his memory had brought back some old strength, some certainties.
The landscape changed slowly. It became hilly, the fields smaller, the hedges thick, untrimmed masses of oak and birch and holly. All night they rode through them, down lanes and bridlepaths and secret ways as Claudia became more and more certain of where she was.
And then, when Finn was almost asleep in the saddle, his horse slowed to a halt, and he opened his eyes and looked down on an ancient manor house, pale in the glimmer of the broken moon, its moat a silver sheen, its windows lit with candles, the perfume of its ghostly roses sweet in the night.
Claudia smiled in relief. 'Welcome to the Wardenry.' Then she laughed ruefully. 'I left in a carriage full of finery to go to my wedding. What a way to come back
Finn nodded. 'But you still brought the Prince,' he said.
25
People will love you f you tell them of your fears.
THE MIRROR OF DREAMS TO SAPPHIQUE
'Well?'
Rix grinned. With a showman's flourish he pointed to the third tunnel from the left.
Keiro walked over to it and peered in. It seemed as dark and smelly as the rest. 'How do you know?'
'I hear the heartbeat of the Prison.'
There was a small red Eye just inside each of the tunnels. They all watched Keiro. 'If you say so.' 'Don't you believe me?'
Keiro turned. 'Like I said, you're the boss. Which reminds me, when do I start my training?'
'Right now.' Rix seemed to have got over his disappointment. He had a self-important air this morning; he took a coin out of the air before Keiro's eyes, spun it, and held it out to him. 'You practise moving it between your fingers like this. And so. You see?'
The coin rippled between his bony knuckles.
Keiro took it. 'I'm sure I can manage that:
'You've picked enough pockets to be deft, you mean.'
Keiro smiled. He palmed the coin, then made it reappear. Then he ran it pleasantly through his fingers, not as smoothly as Rix but far better than Attia could have done.
'Room for improvements' Rix said loftily. 'But my Apprentice is a natural.'
He turned away, ignoring Attia completely, and strode into the tunnel.
She followed, feeling gloomy and a little jealous. Behind her the coin tinkled as Keiro dropped it, and swore.
The tunnel was high, its smooth walls perfectly circular. It was lit only by the Eyes, which were placed at regular intervals in the roof, so that the red glow of one was distant before the next made their shadows loom on the floor.
'Are you watching us so closely?' Attia wanted to ask. She could feel Incarceron here, its curiosity; its need, breathing in her ear, like a fourth walker in the shadows.
Rix was far in front, with a bag on his back and the sword, and somewhere, hidden on his person, the Glove. Attia had no weapons, nothing to carry. She felt light, because everything she knew or owned had been left behind, in some past that was slipping from her mind. Except Finn. She still carried Finn's words like treasure in her hands. I haven't abandoned you.
Keiro came last. His dark red coat was torn and ragged but he wore a belt with two knives from the waggon stuck in it and he had scrubbed his hands and face and tied up his hair. As he walked he tipped the coin between his fingers, tossed it and caught it, but all the time his blue eyes were fixed on Rix's back. Attia knew why. He was still smarting at the loss of the Glove. Rix might no longer want revenge, but she was sure Keiro did.
After hours she realized the tunnel was narrowing. The walls were appreciably closer, and the colour of them was changing to a deep red. Once she slipped, and looking down, saw that the metal floor was wet with some rusty liquid, running from the gl
oom ahead.
It was just after that that they found the first body.
It had been a man. He lay sprawled against the tunnel wall, as if washed there by some sudden flood, his crumpled torso barely more a rag-hung skeleton.
Rix stood over it and sighed. 'Poor human flotsam. He came farther than most.'
Attia said, 'Why is it still here? Not recycled?'
'Because the Prison is preoccupied with its Great Work. Systems are breaking down.' He seemed to have forgotten he wasn't speaking to her any more.
As soon as he had walked on, Keiro muttered, 'Are you with me or not?'
She scowled. 'You know what I think about the Glove.'
'That's a no then.' She shrugged.
'Suit yourself. Looks like you're back being the dog- slave. That's the difference between us.'
He walked past her and she glared at his back.
'The difference between us; she said, 'is that you're arrogant Scum and I'm not.'
He laughed, and tossed the coin.
Soon there was debris everywhere. Bones, carcasses of animals, wrecked Sweepers, tangled masses of crumpled wires and components. The rusty water flowed over them, deeper now, and Incarceron's Eyes saw everything. The travellers picked their way through, the water knee-high, and flowing fast.
'Don't you care?' Rix snapped suddenly, as if his thoughts had burst out of him. He was gazing down at what might have been a halfman, its metallic face grinning up through the water.
'Don't you feel for the creatures that crawl in your veins?' Keiro's hand was at his sword but the words were not for him. The answer came as laughter; a deep rumble that made the floor shake and the lights flicker.
Rix paled. 'I didn't mean it! No offence
Keiro came up and grabbed him. 'Fool! Do you want it to flood this and sweep us all away!'
'It won't do that.' Rix's voice was shaky but defiant. 'I have its greatest desire
'Yes and if you're dead when you deliver it what does Incarceron care? Keep your mouth shut!'
Sapphique - Incarceron 02 Page 21
