Sappique

by Catherine Fisher

  They all saw his consternation. ‘I don’t understand what it means,’ he whispered.

  Dismay struck Claudia like a blow. ‘But you’re the Warden

  …‘

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  ‘I have lost control, Claudia. I told you, we’re all Prisoners It was Attia who said, ‘Do you hear that?’

  A low thudding. It came from across the hail, and as they stared out they realized that the snow had stopped falling. The electric snakes slid silently into the black tiles of the floor, which clicked across and became solid again.

  ‘Hammering,’ Rix said.

  Attia shook her head. ‘More than that.’

  Blows against the door, far off in the suddenly frosty air of the great hail. Blows of axes and sledgehammers and fists.

  ‘Prisoners,’ the Warden said. And then, ‘A riot.’

  When Jared walked into the Great Chamber Finn turned in relief. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘The Portal is working. But the screen shows only snow.’

  ‘Snow!’

  Jared sat, wrapping his Sapient coat around him. ’It seems to be snowing in the Prison. The temperature is five degrees below zero and dropping.’

  Finn jumped up and paced in despair. ‘It’s taking its revenge.’

  ‘So it seems. For this.’ Jared took the Glove out and placed it carefully on the table. Finn came and touched its scaly skin.

  ‘Is it really Sapphique’s?’

  Jared sighed. ‘I have tried every analysis I know. It just

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  seems to be what it looks like. Reptile skin. Claws. Much of it is recycled matter.’ He looked baffled and anxious. ‘I have no idea how it works, Finn.’

  They were silent. The shutters had been drawn back and sunlight slanted in. A wasp murmured in the window panes. It was hard to believe a besieging army was encamped outside.

  ‘Have they made any move?’ Jared said.

  ‘None. It’s a stand-off. But they may attack and try to rescue Caspar.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In there.’ Finn nodded at the door to the next chamber. ‘It’s locked, and that’s the only way in.’

  He leant against the empty fireplace. ‘I’m lost without Claudia, Master. She’d know what to do.’

  ‘You have Keiro instead. As you wanted.’

  Finn smiled, wan. ‘Not instead. As for Keiro ... I’m beginning to wish—’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Jared’s green eyes watched him. ‘He’s your brother.’

  ‘Only when it suits him.’

  As if the words had summoned him like a spell, a soldier flung the door open and Keiro walked in.

  He was breathless and exhilarated and looked every inch a prince. His coat was deepest midnight blue, his blond hair shone clean. Rings glinted on his fingers. He sprawled on the bench, admiring his expensive leather boots. ‘This

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  is fantastic he said. ‘I can’t believe it’s real.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Jared said quietly. ‘Keiro, tell us about the situation Inside.’

  Keiro laughed and poured some wine. ‘I can only guess that the Prison is furious, Master Sapient. I suggest you destroy your machines and nail up the door that leads there and forget all about it. No one can save the Prisoners now’

  Jared watched him. ‘You sound just like its builders,’ he said.

  ‘Claudia’ Finn said.

  ‘Oh yes, well I’m sorry about the Princess. But it was me you wanted to rescue, wasn’t it? And I’m here. So let’s win our little war, brother, and enjoy our perfect kingdom.’

  Finn stood over him. ‘Why did I ever make an oath with you?’

  ‘To survive. Because without me you couldn’t’ Keiro stood lightly, gazing at Finn. ‘But something’s changed in you, Finn. Not just all this. Something inside.’

  ‘I’ve remembered.’

  ‘Remembered!’

  ‘Who I am Finn said. ‘I remembered that I am a prince and that my name is Giles.’

  Keiro said nothing for a moment. His eyes flickered to Jared’s and back. ‘Well. So will the Prince ride into the Prison with all his men and all his horses?’

  ‘No.’ Finn took the watch out and set it down on the table beside the Glove. ‘Because this is the Prison. This is 414

  where you came from. This is the vast edifice that had us all fooled He grasped Keiro’s hand and put the watch in it, lifting the silver cube close to his eyes. ‘This is Incarceron Jared expected awe, or astonishment. He saw neither. Keiro burst into a fit of laughter. ‘You believe that?’ he managed to gasp. ‘Even you, Master?’

  Before Jared could answer the door opened and Ralph came in with a guard at his back.

  ‘What?’ Finn barked.

  ‘Sire.’ Ralph was pale and breathless. ‘Sire …’

  The soldier stepped out from behind him and he had a drawn sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.

  Two more men slipped round the door. One slammed it shut and put his back to it.

  Jared stood, slowly.

  Keiro didn’t move, his eyes alert.

  ‘We’ve come for the Earl. One of you open that door and get him. If anyone else moves I fire.’

  The pistol was raised and pointed directly at Finn’s eyes. Ralph gasped, ‘I’m sorry; sire, so sorry! They made me tell them …’

  ‘It’s all right, Ralph.’ Finn stared at the Queen’s man.

  ‘Jared?’

  Jared said, ‘I’ll fetch him. Don’t shoot. There’s no need for violence.’

  He moved to the door, out of Finn’s eyeline, and Finn was left staring at the gun. He smiled, wan. ‘This is the 415

  second time this has happened to me.’

  ‘Oh come on, brother.’ Keiro’s voice was light and sharp. ‘It was an odd day in the Prison when such things didn’t happen.’

  A door was unlocked behind them. Jared’s voice spoke, low and quiet. Then there was a laugh of pure glee. That must be Caspar.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Finn said.

  The soldier’s aim did not waver. But he said, ‘We captured one of the Steel Wolves out there in the woods. He was . . . persuaded to talk. He showed us the tunnel the Sapient used.’

  Sweating, Finn said, ‘Do you really think you’ll get out the same way?’

  ‘No, Prisoner. I think we’ll go out through the front door.’

  Instantly, one of the other men swivelled his weapon. ‘Keep still!’

  Keiro must have moved. Finn could only see his shadow on the floor.

  Finn licked dry lips. ‘You are overconfident.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Have they harmed you, sire?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have dared.’ Caspar stalked into the room and stared around. ‘Well, this is better, don’t you think, Finn? Now I’m the one in command.’ He folded his arms.

  ‘What if I told these men to cut off a few ears and hands?’

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  Finn heard the threat in Keiro’s low laugh. ’You wouldn’t have the guts, little boy.’

  Caspar glared. ‘No? I might do it myself.’

  ‘Sire,’ Jared said. ‘We brought you here to stop the seige, not to harm you. You know that.’

  ‘Don’t try to fool me with words, Jared. These two cutthroats would have killed me anyway, and maybe you as well, later on. This is a nest of rebels. And I don’t know where Claudia is hiding but she won’t get any mercy from us either.’

  His eye fell on the Glove and he stared at it curiously. What is that?’

  ‘Please don’t touch that: Jared said, his voice edged with nerves.

  Caspar took a step nearer to the table. ‘Why not?’

  Keiro’s shadow had edged close. Finn tensed himself.

  ‘It’s a magical object of great power.’ Jared’s reluctance was just right. ‘It may give access to the Prison.’

  Greed lit Caspar’s face. ‘She’ll be thrilled if I take that back for her.’

  ‘Sire.’ The guard’s eyes wavere
d. ‘Don’t …’

  Caspar ignored him, took one step forward and in that instant Jared grabbed him, locked his arms behind him and held him in a tight grip.

  Keiro whooped. Jared said, ‘Lower the gun. Please.’

  ‘You won’t hurt the Earl, Master,’ the soldier said. ‘And my orders are clear. The Prisoner dies.’

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  His finger twitched and Finn crashed as Keiro shoved him aside. The blast detonated with an explosion that threw him against the side of the table and stunned him, so that the shouts and smashing cups as Ralph and Jared heaved the table over and dragged him behind it seemed like objects inside his own head falling and breaking, the pool of wine like his own blood, trickling along the floor.

  And then as the door was flung open, in all the stamping and shouts, he knew the blood was not his but Keiro’s because his brother lay still and crumpled beside him in the uproar.

  ‘Finn! Finn!’ Jared’s hands raised him. ‘Can you hear me?

  Finn?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said. But the words came out thick and groggy and he dragged himself out of Jared’s grip.

  ‘Our men heard the shot. It’s all over.’

  Finn’s hand touched Keiro’s arm. His heart was thudding; he gripped the blue velvet sleeve.

  ‘Keiro?’

  For a moment there was nothing, no movement, no answer, and he felt all colour drain away from the world, his life shrivel to a terrible fear.

  And then Keiro jerked and rolled and they saw that his hand was wounded, a slashed burnmark across the palm. He lay on his back and his body convulsed.

  ‘You’re laughing?’ Finn stared. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because it hurts, brother.’ Keiro pulled himself upright 418

  and there were tears of agony in his eyes. ‘It hurts, and that means it’s real.’

  It was his right hand, the metal thumbnail stark in the scorched flesh.

  Finn shook his head and croaked out a laugh with him.

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘Indeed he is,’ Jared said.

  But Keiro looked up at him. ‘It’s worth knowing, Master. Flesh and blood. It’s a start, anyway.’

  As they helped him up Finn looked round and saw Caspar under guard, the other men being hustled out.

  ‘Get that tunnel sealed,’ he hissed, and Soames bowed.

  ‘Immediately, my lord.’ But as he turned he stopped dead, and in that second something terrible happened to the world. The bees stopped buzzing.

  The table dissolved into worm-eaten dust and collapsed. Patches fell off the ceiling.

  The sun went out.

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  31

  My Realm will last for ever.

  KING ENDOR’S DECREE

  Finn lurched to the casement and stared out.

  He saw a darkening sky, clotted with clouds that built up and blotted out the daylight. The wind had risen, and the day was far, far colder than it should have been.

  And the world was transformed.

  He saw horses in the courtyard collapsing into twitching cybernetworks of limbs, their skin and eyes shrivelling and shredding. He saw walls crumbling into holes, a stinking moat where nothing grew, parched acres of arid grassland. Flowers withered as he gazed on them; the swans rose and flapped away. All the glorious beauty of the honeysuckle and clematis was dried into spindly crisp bines, the few weak petals blown away by the wind.

  Doors were flung open; a guardsman came running down the steps, his fine livery a mismatched moth-eaten suite of grey.

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  Pushing in next to Finn, Keiro stared. ‘What’s happening to it all? Are we still in the Prison? Is this one of Incarceron’s clean-ups?’

  Finn’s throat was dry. He couldn’t answer.

  It was like a spell dissolving. All around him Claudia’s paradise of the Wardenry was coming apart, the house a slipshod ruin, its golden-stoned splendour fading even as he watched, colour washing from the mews and the stables, even the maze twisting to a dank thicket of brambles. Jared murmured, ‘Perhaps the Prison is in us.’

  Finn turned. The room was a shell. The fine velvet hangings were rags, the once-white ceiling a mass of cracks. Jared bent over the wreck of the table, searching in its dust. The fire was out, every bust and portrait showed patches and crude repairs. And worst of all, on every wall, their illusory holoimages dead, hundreds of cables and wires were revealed in all their naked, ugly uselessness.

  ‘So much for Era.’ Finn grasped the red curtain and it fell to shreds in his fingers.

  ‘This was how it was all the time.’ Jared straightened, the Glove in his hand. ‘We fooled ourselves with images.’

  ‘But how …’

  ‘The power is gone. Completely.’ Jared gazed around, calm. ‘This is the true Realm, Finn. This is the kingdom you’ve inherited.’

  ‘So you’re telling me this whole place is a trick” Keiro 421

  kicked a vase over and watched it smash. ‘Like one of Rix’s tacky stage routines? And you knew? All along?’

  ‘We knew’

  ‘Are you all mad?’

  ‘Perhaps we are Jared said. ‘Reality is hard to bear, so Era was invented to shield us from it. And yes, most of the time it was easy to forget. After all the world is what you see and hear. For you that is the only reality.’

  ‘I might just as well have stayed Inside.’ Keiro’s disgust was complete. Then he turned, caught by the truth. ‘This destruction is the Prison’s work!’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Finn rubbed his sore shoulder. ‘How else—

  ’

  ‘Sire.’ The guard captain burst in, breathless. ‘Sire! The Queen!’

  Finn shoved him aside and raced up the corridor, Keiro close behind. Jared paused to slip the Glove in his robe and then followed, quickly. He climbed the great staircase as fast as he could, over rotten treads and mice-gnawed wainscots, gusted at by the wind whipping through the windows where plastiglas had vanished. He dared not think about his Tower

  — but at least all the scientific equipment there was genuine. Or was it?

  Stopping with one hand on the bannister, he realized that he had no way of knowing. That nothing he had taken for granted could now be trusted.

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  And yet this disintegration didn’t devastate him, as it had Finn and his wayward brother. Perhaps it was because he had always felt his own illness to be a tiny flaw in the Realm’s perfection, a crack that could not be patched up or disguised.

  Now everything was as marred as he was.

  In the unsilvered mirror he caught a slant of his own delicate face, and smiled gently at himself. Claudia had wanted to overthrow Protocol. Perhaps the Prison had done it for her.

  From the battlements, though, the terrible vista drained his smile away.

  The Wardenry was a wasteland. All its meadows were scrub, all its rich woodlands mere naked branches against the grey winter sky.

  The world had turned old in an instant.

  But it was the enemy camp that held everyone’s eyes. All the gaudy pennants, the flimsy pavilions were wrecked, their poles snapped. Horses neighed in confusion, men’s armour rusted and fell from their bodies in the turmoil, their muskets suddenly useless antiques, their swords so brittle that they snapped in the hand.

  ‘The cannon.’ Fin’s voice was hard with joy. ‘They’ll never dare fire the cannon now, in case they explode. They can’t touch us.’

  Keiro glanced at him. ‘Brother, this ruin doesn’t need cannon. A good shove would knock it down.’

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  A trumpet rang out. From the Queen’s pavilion a woman came out. She was veiled, and she leant on the arm of a boy in a gaudy coat who could only be the Pretender. Together they walked through the camp, almost unnoticed in the panic.

  ‘Is she surrendering?’ Finn muttered.

  Keiro turned to a guard. ‘Get Caspar up here.’

  The soldier hesitated, glancing at Finn who said, ‘Do as
my brother says.’

  The man ran. Keiro grinned.

  The Queen came to the edge of the moat and looked up through her veil. Jewels glinted at her throat and ears. At least those must be real.

  ‘Let us in!’ the Pretender yelled up. He looked shaken, all his composure lost. ‘Finn1 The Queen wants to speak with you!’

  There was no ceremony, no Protocol, no heralds, no courtiers. Just a woman and a boy, looking lost. Finn drew back. ‘Lower the drawbridge. Take them to the Great

  Chamber.’

  Jared was staring down. ’It seems it’s not just me then,’ he murmured.

  ‘Master?’ Finn looked at him. The Sapient was gazing down at the veiled Queen with a great sadness in his eyes.

  ‘Best leave this to me, Finn,’ he said softly.

  ‘There must be hundreds of them out there!’ Attia 424

  stared across at the juddering door.

  ‘Stay here,’ the Warden snapped. ‘I’m the Warden. I’ll face them.’

  He stepped down on to the snowy floor and trudged quickly towards the hammering. Claudia watched.

  ‘If they’re Prisoners they’re desperate,’ Attia said.

  ‘Conditions must be impossible.’

  ‘They’ll be looking for anyone to tear apart.’ Rix stared, his eyes glinting with the crazy brilliance Attia dreaded. Claudia shook her head with fur ‘This is all your fault. Why did you have to bring that evil Glove here!’

  ‘Because your dear father ordered me to, sweetkin. I, too, am a Wolf of Steel.’

  Her father. She turned and ran down the steps, across the floor, after him. Locked in with madmen and thieves, her father was the only familiar presence here. Just behind her Attia gasped, “Wait for me.’

  ‘Doesn’t the apprentice want to stay with the sorcerer?’

  Claudia snapped.

  ‘I’m not his apprentice. Keiro is.’ Attia caught up with her. Then she said, ‘Is Finn safe?’

  Claudia glanced at her thin face and short, hacked hair.

  ‘His memory has come back.’