Sappique

by Catherine Fisher

  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. 310

  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?’

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  23

  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. 312

  As if he had come home to find the house 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 313

  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?’

  ‘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

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  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...’

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  ‘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, 316

  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 arid 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 317

  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 318

  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.

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  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 sniggered. 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

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  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 321

  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 322

  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

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  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