Sappique

by Catherine Fisher

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Get on the horse!’

  She hauled herself up. The linked men lurched forward. Instantly the horse reared.

  Keiro fired.

  A blue bolt of flame drilled the central torso; the man vaporized instantly, and the Chain—gang screamed in

  unison; eleven voices in a howl of rage.

  Attia forced the horse round; leaning down to grab Keiro she saw the thing reunite, its hands joining, the skin-chains slithering, regrowing tight.

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  Keiro turned to leap up behind her but it was on him. He yelled and kicked out, but the hands were greedy; they had him round the neck and the waist; they tugged him from the horse. He struggled, swearing viciously, but there were too many of them, they were all over him, and their knives flashed in the blue ice-light. Attia fought the panicking horse, leant down, snatched the flrelock from him and aimed it. If she fired she’d kill him.

  Skin-chains were wrapping him like tentacles. It was absorbing him; he would take the place of the dead man.

  ‘Attia!’ His yell was muffled. The horse reared; she struggled to keep it from bolting.

  ‘Attia!’ For a moment his face was clear; he saw her. ‘Fire!’

  he screamed.

  She couldn’t.

  ‘Fire! Shoot me!’

  For a moment she was frozen in terror.

  Then she brought the weapon up and fired.

  ‘How can this have happened?’ Finn stormed across the room and flung himself into the metal chair. He stared round at the humming grey mystery that was the Portal. ‘And why meet here?’

  ‘Because it’s the only place in the entire Court that I’m certain isn’t bugged.’ Jared closed the door carefully, feeling the strange effect the room had, the way it straightened 135

  out, as if adapting to their presence. As it must do, if, as he suspected, it was some halfway stage to the Prison.

  Feathers still littered the floor. Finn kicked at them.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’ll be here.’

  Jared watched the boy; Finn stared back. Quieter, he said,

  ‘Master, do you doubt me too?’

  ‘Too?’

  ‘You saw him. And Claudia...’

  ‘Claudia believes you are Giles. She always has, from the moment she first heard your voice.’

  ‘She hadn’t seen him then. She said his name.’ Finn got up, walked restlessly to the screen. ‘Did you see how polished he was? How he smiled and bowed and held himself like a prince? I can’t do that, Master. If I ever knew how I’ve forgotten. The Prison has scoured it out of me.’

  ‘A skilled actor …’

  Finn spun round. ‘Do you believe him? Tell me the truth.’

  Jared linked his delicate fingers together. He shrugged slightly. ‘I am a scholar, Finn. I am not so easily convinced. These so-called proofs will be examined. There will certainly be a process of questioning, for both him and you, before the Council. Now that there are two claimants to the throne, everything has changed.’ He glanced sidelong at Finn. ‘I thought you weren’t eager to take up your inheritance.’

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  ‘I am now.’ Finn’s voice was a growl. ‘Keiro always says what you fought for, you should keep. I only ever talked him out of anything once’

  ‘When you left the gang?’ Jared watched him. ‘These things you’ve told us about the Prison, Finn. I need to know they are true. About the Maestra. About the Key:

  ‘I told you. She gave me the Key, and then she was killed. She fell into the Abyss. Someone betrayed us. It wasn’t my fault.’ He was resentful. But Jared’s voice was pitiless.

  ‘She died because of you. And this memory of the Forest, of falling from the horse. I need to be sure that it’s real, Finn. Not just what you think Claudia needs to hear.’

  Finn’s head jerked up. ‘A lie, you mean.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Jared knew he was taking a risk. He kept his gaze level.

  ‘The Council will want to hear it too, in every detail. They will question you over and over. It will be them you have to convince, not Claudia.’

  ‘If anyone else said this, Master, I’d …’

  ‘Is that why your hand is on your sword?’

  Finn clenched his fingers. Slowly, he wrapped both arms around himself and went and slumped in the metal chair. They were silent a while, and Jared could hear the faint hum of the tilted room, a sound he had never succeeded in isolating. Finally Finn said, ‘Violence was our way of life in the Prison.’

  ‘I know. I know how hard it must be …’

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  ‘Because I’m not sure.’ He turned. ‘I’m not sure, Master, who I am! How can I convince the Court when I’m not even convinced myself!’

  ‘You have to. Everything depends on you.’ Jared’s green eyes were fixed on him. ‘Because if you are supplanted, if Claudia loses her inheritance, and I am …’ He stopped. Finn saw his pale fingers fold together. ‘Well, there will be no one to care about the injustices of Incarceron. And you will never see Keiro again.’

  The door opened, and Claudia swept in. She looked hot and flustered; there was dust on her silk dress. She said,’

  He’s staying in Court. Would you believe it! She’s given him a suite of rooms in the Ivory Tower.’

  Neither of them answered. Feeling the tension in the room, she glanced at Jared, then took the blue velvet pouch out of her pocket and crossed the room with it. ‘Remember this, Master?’

  Undoing the drawstring, she tipped it up and a miniature painting slid out, a masterly work in its frame of gold and pearls, the back engraved with the crowned eagle. She gave it to Finn, and he held it in both hands.

  It showed a boy smiling, his eyes dark in the sunlight. His gaze was shy, but direct and open.

  ‘Is it me?’

  ‘Don’t you recognize yourself?’

  When he answered the pain in his voice shocked her. ‘No. Not any more. That boy had never seen men killed for 138

  scraps of food, had never tormented an old woman to show where her few coins were hidden. He’d never wept in a cell with his mind torn away, never lain awake at night hearing the screams of children. He’s not me. He’s never been taunted by the Prison.’

  He thrust the image back at her and rolled up his sleeve.

  ‘Look at me, Claudia.’

  His arms were pocked with old scars and burns. She had no idea how he had got them. The mark of the Havaarna Eagle was faded and indistinct.

  She made her voice strong. ‘Well he’s never seen the stars, then, not like you’ve seen them. This was you.’ She held it alongside him, and Jared came to see.

  The resemblance was unquestionable. And yet she knew that the boy down there in the hail looked like this too, and without the haunted pallor Finn still had, without the thinness of face and that lost something in the eyes. Not wanting him to sense her doubt she said, ‘Jared and I found this in the cottage of a man called Bartlett. He looked after you when you were small. He left a document, about how much he loved you, how he thought of you as his son.’

  Hopelessly, Finn shook his head.

  She went on, fiercely. ‘I have paintings too, but this is better than all of them. I think you must have given it to him. He was the one who knew after the accident that the body wasn’t yours, that you were still alive.’

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  ‘Where is he? Can we get him here?’

  She caught Jared’s eye, and he said quietly, ‘Bartlett is dead, Finn.’

  ‘Because of me?’

  ‘He knew They got to him.’

  Finn shrugged. ‘Then I’m sorry. But the only old man I loved was called Gildas. And he’s dead too.’

  Something crackled.

  The screen on the desk spat light. It flickered.

  Jared ran straight to it, Claudia close behind. ‘What was that? What happened?’

  ‘Some connection. Maybe...’

  He turned.
Something had changed in the hum of the room. It seemed to draw back, to ratchet up the scale. With a screech Claudia ran and hauled Fim out of the chair with such a jerk that they both almost fell over. ‘It’s working! The Portal! But how!’

  ‘From Inside.’ White with tension Jared watched the chair. They all stared at it, not knowing what to expect, who might come. Finn snatched out his sword.

  Light flashed, the blinding brilliance Jared remembered. And on the chair was a feather.

  It was as big as a man.

  The firelock spat flame. It sliced through the ice under the feet of the Chain-gang and the creature howled, toppling and sliding down the collapsed floe. Its bodies tangled, 140

  grabbing at each other. Attia fired again, targeting the smashed plates of ice, yelling, ‘Come on!’

  Keiro struggled to get clear. He fought and bit and kicked with furious energy, but his feet too were slipping into the slush, and there was still a hand gripping his long coat. Then the fabric tore and for a moment he was free. He reached up and she leant and grabbed him; he was heavy, but the terror of being pulled back and smothered made him scramble over the horse’s back behind her.

  Attia shoved the weapon under her arm, struggling with the reins. The horse was panicking; as it reared a great crack split the night. Glancing down Attia saw that all the ice was breaking up; from the crater she had made black crevasses were zigzagging out. Icicles snapped off the waterfall, smashing in jagged heaps.

  The firelock was snatched from her. Keiro yelled, ‘Keep it still!’ but the horse tossed its head in fear, its hooves clattering and sliding down the frozen slabs.

  The Chain-gang was struggling, half in meltwater. Some of its bodies lay under the others, its chains of sinew and skin iced with frost.

  Keiro raised the weapon.

  ‘NO!’Attia breathed. ‘We can get away.’ And then, when he didn’t lower it, ‘They were men once!’

  ‘If they remember they’ll thank me.’ Keiro’s voice was grim.

  The blast scorched them. He fired three, four, five times, 141

  coldly and efficiently, until the weapon sputtered and coughed and was useless. Then he threw it down into the charred crater.

  Attia’s hands were sore on the leather reins.

  She fought the horse to a standstill.

  In the eerie silence the faintest whisper of wind crusted the snow. She could not look down at the dead men; instead she gazed up at the distant roof and felt a shiver of wonder, because for a moment she thought she saw thousands of tiny points of shimmering light in that black firmament, as if the stars that Finn had told her of were there.

  Keiro said, ‘Let’s get out of this hell-hole.’

  ‘How?’ she muttered.

  The tundra was a web of crevasses. Under the broken ice water was rising, an ocean of metallic grey. And the glistening specks were not stars, they were the outlying skeins of a silver fog, slowly circling down from Incarceron’s heights.

  The fog came down into their faces. It said, You should not have killed my creatures, halfman.

  Claudia stared at the huge central stalk of the feather, the great blue barbs linked stiffly with each other. Carefully she reached out and touched the fluffy plumes at the end. The feather was identical with the tiny one Jared had picked up from the lawn. But gross, swollen. Wholly wrong.

  Amazed, she whispered, ‘What does it mean?’

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  An amused voice answered her. ‘It means, my dear, that I am returning your little gift.’

  For a moment she couldn’t move. Then she said, ‘Father?’

  Finn took her arm and turned her. She saw, appearing on the screen very slowly, pixel by pixel, the image of a man. As the picture completed itself she recognized him, the severity of his dark coat, the brushed perfection of his hair, tied elegantly back. The Warden of Incarceron, the man she still thought of as her father, was looking down at her.

  ‘Can you see me?’ she gasped.

  There it was. His old, cold smile.

  ‘Of course I can see you, Claudia. I think you would be surprised what I can see His grey eyes turned to Jared.

  ‘Master Sapient, I congratulate you. I had thought the damage I had done to the Portal would be enough. It seems, as ever, that I underestimated you.’

  Claudia linked her hands in front of her. She straightened up, the way she always stood rigidly upright before him, as if she was a small child again, as if his clear gaze diminished her.

  ‘I return the materials of your experiment: the Warden said drily. ‘As you can see, the problems of scale remain. I would advise you strongly, Jared, not to send anything living through the Portal. The results might be fatal to all of us.’

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  Jared frowned. ‘But the feathers arrived there?’

  The Warden smiled and did not answer.

  Claudia couldn’t wait any longer. The words burst out of her. ‘Are you really in Incarceron?’

  ‘Where else?’

  ‘But where is it? You never told us!’

  A flicker of surprise crossed his face. He leant back, and she saw he was in some dark place, because a glimmer like flamelight reflected briefly in his eyes. A soft pulsing sound came from somewhere in the darkness. ‘Didn’t I? Well I’m afraid, Claudia, that you must ask your precious tutor about that.’

  She glanced at Jared. He seemed embarrassed, not meeting her eyes.

  ‘Can you really not have told her, Master?’The mockery in her father’s voice was clear. ‘And I thought you had no secrets in your little partnership. Well, it seems you should be careful, Claudia. Power corrupts all men. Even Sapienti.’

  ‘Power?’ she snapped.

  His hands opened elegantly but before she could demand more Finn elbowed her aside.

  ‘Where’s Keiro? What’s happening to him?’

  The Warden said coldly, ‘How should I know?’

  ‘When you were Blaize you had a tower full of books! The Prison’s records of everyone.You could find him. .

  ‘Do you really care?’ The Warden leant forward. ‘Well, then I’ll tell you. At this moment he is fighting for his life 144

  with a monstrous creature of many heads’

  Catching Finn’s shocked stillness he laughed. ‘And you’re not there to watch his back. That must hurt. But this is where he belongs. This is Keiro’s world, without friendship, without love. And you, Prisoner, belong here too.’

  The screen flickered and spat.

  ‘Father. . .‘ Claudia said quickly.

  ‘So you still call me that?’

  ‘What else can I call you?’ She stepped forward. ‘You’re the only father I know.’

  For a moment he gazed at her, and she noticed in the disintegrating image that his hair was a little greyer than it had been, his face more lined. Then he said quietly, ‘I am a Prisoner too now, Claudia.’

  ‘You can Escape. You have the Keys...’

  ‘Had.’ He shrugged. ‘Incarceron has taken them

  The image was rippling. Desperately she said, ‘But why?’

  ‘The Prison is consumed with desire. Sapphique began it, because when he wore the Glove he and the Prison became one mind. He infected it.’

  ‘With a disease?’

  ‘A desire. And desire can be a disease, Claudia: He was watching her, his face shivering and dissolving and

  reforming. ‘You are to blame too, for describing it all so well. And so Incarceron burns with longing. For all its thousand eyes there is one thing it has never seen, and it will do anything to see.

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  ‘What?’ she breathed, already knowing.

  ‘Outside,’ he whispered.

  For a moment no one spoke. Then Finn leant forward.

  ‘What about me? Am I Giles? Did you put me in the Prison?

  Tell me!’

  The Warden smiled at him.

  Then the screen went blank.

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  11

  There is a growing ter
ror in speaking with the Prison. My secrets seem small and pitiful. My dreams seem foolish. I begin to fear it can see even into my mind.

  LORD CALLISTON’s DIARY

  The fog slid between them. It was icy A mist of millions of droplets. Attia felt it chill her skin, condense on her lips. Remember me, Attia? it whispered.

  She scowled. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Ride,’ Keiro muttered.

  She urged the horse on, gently. But it slithered and the ground tilted, and she knew Incarceron had them trapped here, because the temperature was rising fast and the whole Wing was melting around them.

  Keiro must have felt it too. He snapped, ‘Leave us alone. Go and torture some other Inmates.’

  I know you, hafman. The voice was close, in their ears, against their cheeks. You are part of me, my atoms beat in your heart, itch in your skin. I should kill you now. I should 147

  melt the ice and let you drown here.

  Suddenly Attia slid down from the horse. She stared up into the grey night. ‘But you won’t. You’ve been watching me all the time. You wrote that message on the wall!’

  That I would see the stars? Yes, I used the fool’s hand. Because I will see them, Attia, and you will help me.

  Light was gathering. It showed her that through the fog two great red Eyes were being lowered on cables. They gleamed like rubies, one so close to Keiro its hot glare scorched him. He slid down hastily, close behind her. I have spent centuries longing to Escape, but who can escape themselves? The Warden tries to tell me it won’t work, but my plan had only one flaw and you have solved that.

  ‘What do you mean, the Warden?’ Keiro snapped. ‘He’s out there with his precious daughter and her Prince.’

  The Prison laughed. Its amusement was a rumble that split the ice; floes splashed into the rising sea of meltwater. The berg they were standing on tipped; lumps fell from its edge. The fog opened a cavernous mouth. I see you don’t know. The Warden is Inside now, and for ever, because both the Keys are mine. I have used their energy to build my body.