‘Not till I know which Giles is the true one, sir,’ the man said firmly. ‘But, as I said, nothing personal.’
Jared smiled, surprising himself. ‘I see.’ He felt calm and light. ‘Surely a sword is a little . . . obvious?’
‘Oh bless you, sir, I won’t need this. Not unless you make me. You see, in view of your illness, the Queen thought a little jump from the tower would look about right. All the learned Sapienti running out into the quad to find your 278
body. Poor Master Jared. Took the quick way out. So
understandable.’
Jared nodded. He put the disc down in front of him on the desk and heard a tiny metallic click. He glanced up, and his eyes were green and sad. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to put you to the trouble of a fight. I don’t intend to jump.’
‘Ah the porter sighed. ‘Well, as you wish. A man has his pride.’
‘Yes. He does.’ As he said it he moved, jerking to one side. The big man laughed. ‘You’ll not get past me, sir.’
Jared came round in front of the desk and stood face to face with him. ‘Then get it over with.’
Two-fisted, the man raised the sword and struck. Jared leapt to one side with all his agility as it clanged down, feeling the point whistle past his face, the blade smash across the desk. But he barely heard the scream, the sizzle of blue electrified flesh, because the charge seemed to suck the air out of the room and fling him back against the wall. Then there was nothing but a singed smell and an echoing that rang in his ears as if he was deafened.
Gripping the stone work, he pulled himself upright. The man lay in a heap on the floor; he was still, but breathing.
Jared gazed down at him. He felt a dull regret, a shame. And under that a fierce and surprising energy He laughed a shaky laugh. So this was how it felt to nearly kill a man. 279
But of course, there was nothing personal in it.
Carefully he detached the disc from the metal desk, switched its field off and dropped it in his pocket. Bending over the porter, he felt his pulse, and laid him gently on his side. The man was badly shocked and his hands were burnt but he would almost certainly live. Jared kicked the sword under the bed, then grabbed his pack and raced down the stairs. In the dark portico where the sunlight slanted through the stained-glass windows a tire-woman was hauling a basket of laundry from the Senior Sapient’s study. Jared paused. ‘Excuse me. I’m sorry. I’ve left a bit of a mess in my room, number fifty-six at the top. Do you think someone could clear it up?’
She looked at him, then nodded. ‘I’ll get someone. Master.’
The basket was obviously heavy and he wanted to tell her not to hurry, but the man needed help so he said, ‘Thank you,’ and turned away. He had to be careful. Who knows what other private arrangements the Queen had here?
In the stable the horses were sleepy, snuffling nosebags. He saddled his quickly, and then before mounting took the narrow syringe from its case and injected the medication into his arm, concentrating on breathing, on the ebbing of the pain in his chest.
He closed the case and leant a moment, giddy, on the animal’s warm flank; its long nose came round and nuzzled him.
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One thing was sure. There would be no cure now He had had his only chance, and it was gone.
‘Read it Finn,’ said.
She read, her voice shaky.
‘My dear Claudia,
Just a brief word. . .‘
As she said it her voice faltered and stopped because, as if she had activated it, the portrait came to life. Her father’s face turned to her and he spoke, his gaze as clear as if he really saw her.
It will be my last chance to contact you, I’m afraid. Incarceron has become rather demanding in its ambition. It has drained almost all the power of the Keys, and awaits only Sapphique’s Glove.
‘The Glove,’ Finn muttered, and she said, ‘Father. . .‘ but the voice went on, calm and amused and recorded...
Your friend Keiro holds that. It will certainly be the final piece of the puzzle. I begin to feel that I have served my purpose, and that Incarceron has begun to realize it does not need a Warden any more. It’s really very ironic. Like the Sapienti of old, I have created a monster, and it has no loyalty.
He paused, and then the smile went, and he looked drawn. He said Guard the Portal, Claudia. The terrible cruelty of the Prison must not infect the Realm. If anything tries to come 281
through, any person, any being, whoever it seems to be, you must destroy it. Incarceron is crafty, and I no longer know its plans. He laughed a wintry laugh.
It seems you will be my successor after all.
His face froze.
She looked up at Finn. Far below, the viols and flutes and fiddles struck up the first merry dance of the Ball.
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‘The fault is yours,’ the Enchanter said. ‘How could a Prison know of Escape but through your dreams? It would be best to give up the Glove.’
Sapphique shook his head. ‘Too late. It has grown into me now. How could I sing my songs without it?’
SAPPHIQUE AND THE DARK ENCHANTER
As they walked arm in arm along the terrace the crowding courtiers bowed and murmured. Fans fluttered. Eyes
watched through the faces of demons, wolves, mermaids, storks.
‘Sapphique’s Glove,’ Finn muttered. ‘Keiro has
Sapphique’s Glove.’
She could feel the charge of excitement through his arm. As if he had been shocked into some new hope.
Down the steps the flowerbeds were curves of twiit flowers. Beyond the formal gardens she could already see lit trails of lanterns over the lawns leading to the elaborate pinnacles of the Shell Grotto. Quickly she tugged him 283
behind a vast urn noisily overflowing with water.
‘How could he have it?’
‘Who cares? If it’s real, it might do anything! Unless it’s some scam he’s playing.’
‘No.’ She watched the crowd, thronging under the lanterns.
‘Attia mentioned a glove. And then she stopped, very suddenly. As if Keiro wouldn’t let her say any more.’
‘Because it’s real!’ Finn paced the path, brushing phlox that released its sweet, clinging scent. ‘It really exists!’
Claudia said, ‘People are looking.’
‘I don’t care! Gildas would have been so horrified. He never trusted Keiro.’
‘But you do.’
‘I’ve told you. Always. How did he get hold of it? How is he going to use it?’
She gazed at the hundreds of courtiers, a mass of peacock dresses, gleaming satin coats, elaborate wigs of piled flaxen hair, They streamed into the pavilions and the
grotto, their chatter loud and endless.
‘Perhaps this Glove was the power source Jared noticed.’
‘Yes!’ He leant against the urn, getting moss on his coat. Behind the mask his eyes were bright with hope. Claudia felt only unease.
‘Finn. My father seems to think this Glove will complete Incarceron’s plan to Escape. That would be a disaster. Surely Keiro wouldn’t...’
‘You never know what Keiro will do.’
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‘But would he do that? Would he give the Prison the means of destroying everyone in there, just so that he might Escape too?’ She had moved to stand right in front of him; he had to look at her.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure His voice was low and furious. ‘I know Keiro.’
‘You just said …’
‘Well … he wouldn’t do that.’
She shook her head, suddenly losing patience with his stupid, blind loyalty. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you’re afraid he will do it. I’m certain that Attia’s terrified of it. And you heard what my father said. Nothing — no one — must come through the Portal.’
‘Your father! He’s no more your father than I am.’
‘Shut up!’
; ‘And since when did you do what he says?’
Hot with anger, they faced each other, darkmask to catface.
‘I do what I want!’
‘But you’d believe him before Keiro?’
‘Yes,’ she spat. ‘I would. And before you, too:.’
For a second there was a hurt shock in his eyes; then they were cold. ‘You’d kill Keiro?’
‘If the Prison was using him. If I had to.’
He was very still. Then he hissed, ‘I thought you were 285
different, Claudia. But you’re just as false and cruel and stupid as the rest of them.’ He walked into the crowd, shoved two men aside and, ignoring their protests, barged into the grotto.
Claudia stared after him, every muscle scorched with wrath. How dare he talk to her like that! If he wasn’t Giles he was just some Scum of the Prison, and she, despite facts, was the Warden’s daughter.
She gripped her hands, controlling the rage. It took a deep breath to get her heartbeat down; she wanted to yell and smash things, but instead she had to plaster on the smile and wait here till midnight.
And what then?
After this, would Finn even come with her?
A ripple passed through the crowd, a flurry of elaborate courtesies, and she saw Sia pass, in a diaphanous gown of flimsy white, her wig a towering construction of woven hair in which an armada of tiny gilt ships tossed and drowned.
‘Claudia?’
The Pretender was beside her. ‘I see your brutish escort just stormed off.’
She took the fan from her sleeve and flicked it open. ‘We had a slight disagreement, that’s all.’
Giles’s mask was an eagle’s face, beautifully made with real feathers, its beak hooked and proud. As with everything he did, it was designed to reinforce his image as
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Prince-in-waiting. It gave him a strangeness, as masks always do. But his eyes were smiling.
‘A lovers’ tiff?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Then allow me to escort you in.’ He offered her his arm, and after a moment she took it. ‘And don’t worry about Finn, Claudia. Finn is history.’
Together, they walked across the lawns to the ball.
Attia fell.
She fell like Sapphique had fallen. A terrible, flapping, tumbling fall, arms splayed out, with no breath, no sight, no hearing. She fell through a roaring vortex, into a mouth, down a throat that swallowed her. Her clothes and hair, her very skin, rippled and seemed to be torn away so that she was nothing but a screaming soul plunging headlong into the abyss.
But then Attia knew that the world was impossible, that it was a creature that mocked her. Because the air thickened and nets of cloud formed under her — dense springy clouds that tumbled her from one to another — and somewhere there was laughter that might have been Keiro’s and might have been the Prison’s, as if she couldn’t tell them apart now. In a flicker between gasps she saw the world re-form; the hall floor convulsed, split, rolled away. A river erupted under the viaduct, a black torrent that rose up to meet 287
her so fast that she had hardly snatched a breath before she had plunged into it, deep, deep into a darkness of frothing bubbles.
A membrane of water webbed her wide mouth. And then her head burst out, gasping, and the torrent was slowing, drifting her under dark girders, into caves, into a dim underworld. Dead Beetles were washed along beside her; the stream was a conduit of rust, red as blood, channelled between steep metal sides, its surface greasy and bobbing with debris, stinking, the outfall of a world. As if it was the aorta of some great being, sick with bacteria, never to be healed.
The conduit tipped her over a weir and left her, sprawled, on a gritty shore, where Keiro was crouched on hands and knees, retching into the black sand.
Wet, cold, unbelievably battered, she tried to sit up, but couldn’t. And yet his choked voice was a rasp of triumph.
‘It needs us, Attia! We’ve won. We’ve beaten it’
She didn’t answer.
She was watching the Eye.
The Shell grotto was well named.
A vast cavern, its walls and pendulous roof gleamed with mother-of-pearl and crystal; each shell arranged in patterns that whorled and spiralled. False stalactites, hand-adorned with a million minute crystals, hung from the ceiling. It was a glassy, dazzling spectacle.
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Claudia danced with Giles, with men with foxfaces and knights’ helms, with highwaymen and harlequins. She felt icily calm, and had no idea where Finn was, but perhaps he could see her. She hoped he could. She chatted, fluttered the fan, made eyes at everyone through the slanted holes of the mask, and told herself she was enjoying it. When the chimes of the clock formed of a million tiny periwinkles struck eleven, she sipped iced tea from rosy glasses and nibbled on the cakes and cool sorbets handed out by serving-girls dressed as nymphs.
And then she saw them.
They wore masks, but she knew they were the Privy Council. A sudden influx of loud, brilliantly dressed men, some in long robes, their voices dry and parched from debate, harsh with relief.
She edged to the nearest, safe behind her mask. ‘Sire. Have the Council come to a verdict?’
The man winked behind his owlface, and toasted her with a glass. ‘We certainly have, my pretty kitten He came close, his breath foul. ‘Meet me behind the pavilion and I might even tell you what it was.’
She bowed, flicked the fan, and backed away.
Stupid, simpering fools. But this changed everything! The Queen wouldn’t wait for tomorrow; suddenly Claudia
realized they had been tricked, that the announcement would be made here, tonight, and the loser arrested on the spot.
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***
Outside, on the dark lawns beside the lake, Finn stood with his back to the distant Grotto and ignored the silky voice. Hut it spoke again, and he felt it like a knife between his shoulder blades.
‘They’ve reached the verdict. We both know what it will be.’
The eagleface was reflected, hideously swollen, in the glass he held. He said, ‘Then let’s finish it now. Right here.’
The lawns were deserted, the lake a ripple of boats and torches.
Giles laughed, a low amusement. ‘You know I accept.’
Finn nodded. A great relief surged up in him. He threw down the wineglass, turned and drew his sword.
But Giles was beckoning to a servant who came from the shadows with a small leather case.
‘Oh no Giles said softly. ‘After all, you were the one who challenged me. That means by all the rules of honour I get to choose the weapons.’
He flipped the lid open.
Starlight gleamed on two long, ivory-handled pistols.
Forcing her way through the crowd Claudia searched the glittering room, was snatched into the dance and squirmed out of it, ducked under curtains into kissing couples, dodged troupes of strolling minstrels. The ball became a nightmare of grotesque faces, but where was Finn?
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Suddenly, near the arched entrance a jester in cap and bells sprang out in front of her. ‘Oh Claudia, is that you? I insist you dance with me. Most of these women are complete
clod—hoppers.’
‘Caspar! Have you seen Finn?’
The jester’s painted lips curled in a smile. They came close to her ear and whispered, ‘Yes. But I’ll only tell you where he is if you dance with me.’
‘Caspar, don’t be an idiot …’
‘It’s the only way you’ll find him.’
‘I haven’t got time …’ But he had caught her hands and dragged her into the gavotte, a great stately square of couples pacing and joining hands to the music, their masks forming crazy partnerships of devil and cockerel, goddess and hawk.
‘Caspar!’ She hauled him out and pinned him against the glittering wall. ‘Tell me where he is now or you get my knee where it hurts. I mean it!’
He scowled, waving the bells crossly. ‘You’re a t
otal bore about him. Forget him.’ His eyes went sly. ‘Because my dear mama’s explained it all to me. You see, when the Pretender is chosen then Finn is dead and after a few weeks we expose the other one as a fake too and so I get the throne.’
‘So he is a fake?’
‘Of course he is.’
She stared at him so hard he said, ‘You look really strange. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.’
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‘Did you know that when Finn dies I do?’
He was silent. Then, ‘My mother wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t let her.’
‘She’ll eat you alive, Caspar. Now where is Finn?’
The jester’s face had lost its mirth. ‘He’s with the other one. They’ve gone out by the lake.’
For a second she stared at him and felt nothing but cold fear.
Then she ran.
Finn stood in the darkness and watched the muzzle of the pistol as it rose. Giles held it at arm’s length, ten paces away across the dark lawn. He held it steady, and the hole that the bullet would fire from was a perfect circle of blackness, the dark eye of death.
Finn stared into it.
He would not flinch.
He wouldn’t move.
Every muscle was so tense he felt he would break, that he had become wooden, that the shot would fracture him into pieces.
But he would not move.
He felt calm, as if this was the moment of decision. If he died here he could never have been Giles. If he was meant to live he would live. Stupid, Keiro would say.
But it made him feel strong.
And as the Pretender’s finger clicked back on the trigger 292
he felt its answer deep in his mind, as if a cascade of images was shifting and unlocking.
‘Giles! No!’
He didn’t know which of them Claudia’s scream was for. But neither of them were looking at her when Giles fired.
It was a huge Eye and it was brilliantly red.
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