Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) (41 page)

"But you do not think you can lock me out, I hope?"
Incarceron laughed its rumbling laugh.
"No one can do that. I am inescapable. "

"Sapphique Escaped." Gildas's voice was a rasp of pain, but he spat the words out. His hands clutched his chest; they shook uncontrollably. "How did he do that then, without a Key? Is there another way out, that only he discovered? A way so secret, so amazing, you can't block it? A way needing no gate and no machinery? Is that it, Incarceron? Is that what you fear, always watching, always listening?"

"I fear nothing.

"Not what you told me," Claudia snapped. She was breathing hard; she glanced at Finn. "I must go back. Jared's in trouble. Will you come?"

"I can't leave them. Take the old man with you."

Gildas laughed: his body convulsed into wheezing gasps. Attia gripped his hands; then she turned her head. "He's dying," she whispered.-

"Finn," the Sapient croaked.

Finn crouched down, sick with the prickling behind his eyes. Whatever injuries Gildas had were internal, but the shiver of his hands, the sweat and pallor of his face were only too clear.

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The Sapient brought his mouth close to Finns ear. "Show me the stars," he whispered.

Finn looked at the others. "I can't..."

"Then allow me,"
the Prison said. The glimmer of light in the cell went out. One red Eye was a spark in the corner of the wall.
"Look at this star, old man. This is the only star you will ever see."

"Stop tormenting him!" Finn's howl of rage startled them all. And then to Claudia's amazement he turned back to Gildas and clasped his hand. "Come with me," he said. "I'll show you."

The dizziness of his mind swept over him and he let it. He walked deliberately into its darkness and dragged the old man with him, and all around them the lake glimmered under its floating lanterns, blue and purple and gold, and the boat rocked beneath him as he lay in it and stated up at the stars.

They blazed in the summer night. Like silver dust they lay across the cosmos as if a great hand had scattered them, and their mystery enchanted the velvety blackness.

Beside him, Finn felt the old mans awe.

"These are the stars, Master. Whole worlds, far away, seeming tiny, but really huger than anything we know."

Lake water lapped.

Gildas said, "So far. So many!"

A heron rose from the water with a graceful flap. On the shore the music sounded sweet; voices laughed softly.

The old man said hoarsely, "I have to go to them now, Finn.

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I have to go and find Sapphique. He won't have been content, you know, just to be Outside. Not once he had seen this."

Finn nodded. He felt the boat unmoor beneath him, the Hit and slip of the swell. He felt the old man's fingers loosen in his. And as he stared at them, the stars grew and burned, became flames, tiny flames on the tips of tiny candles, and he was blowing them out, blowing at them with his whole breath, all his energy.

They vanished, and he laughed, a great laugh of triumph, and all the people around laughed with him, the King in his red coat, and Bartlett, and his pale new stepmother, and all the courtiers and nurses and musicians, and the little girl in the pretty white dress, the girl who had come that day, that they said would be his special friend.

She was looking at him now. She said, "Finn. Can you hear me?

Claudia.

***

" IT'S READY ." Jared looked up. "You speak, and the translation will be instant."

The "warden had been pacing, listening to the voices outside; now he came and stood by the desk, his arms folded.

"Incarceron," he said.

Silence. Then, on the screen, a small red point of light. It was tiny, like a star. It gazed out at them. It said,
"Who is this speaking the old tongue?"

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The voice was uncertain. It seemed to have lost some of its echoing rumble.

The Warden glanced at Jared. Then he said quietly, "You know who this is, my father. This is Sapphique."

Jared's eyes widened, but he stayed silent.

There was another silence. This time the Warden broke it. "I speak to you in the language of the Sapienti. I order you not to harm the boy Finn."

"He has the Key. No prisoner is allowed to Escape."

"But your anger may injure him. And Claudia." Had the Warden's voice changed as he spoke her name? Jared wasn't sure.

A moment of stillness. Then,
"Very well. For you, my son."

The Warden made a sign to Jared to cut communications, but as his finger reached out to the panel, the Prison said softly,
"But if you are indeed Sapphique, we have spoken often before. You will remember."

"That was long ago," the Warden said cautiously.

"Yes. You gave me the Tribute I required. I hunted you and you thwarted me. You hid in holes and stole my children's hearts. Tell me, Sapphique, how did you Escape from me? After I struck you down, after the terrible fall through darkness, what doorway did you find that I had overlooked? Through what crevice did you crawl? And where are you now, out there in the places I cannot even imagine?"

The voice was wistful; the Warden looked up at the steady

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Eye on the screen. He was hushed as he answered. "That is a mystery I cannot reveal."

"A pity. You see, they did not give me any way to see outside myself. Can you imagine, Sapphique, you the wanderer, the great traveler, can you even dream of how it is to live forever trapped in your own mind, watching only the creatures that inhabit it? They made me powerful and they made me flawed. And only you, when you return, can help me."

The Warden was still. Dry-mouthed, Jared flicked the switch. His hands were shaky and damp with sweat. As he watched it, the Eye faded.

***

FINNS SIGHT was blurred and his whole body had emptied. He lay crooked; only Keiro's arm kept his head off the floor. But for a moment, before the Prison stench crept back, before the world surged in, he knew he was a prince and the son of a prince, that his would was golden with sunlight, that he had ridden into a dark forest one morning in a fairy tale and never ridden out again.

"Drink some of this." Attia gave him water; he managed a swallow and coughed and tried to sit up.

"He gets worse," Keiro was saying to Claudia. "This is what your father has done to him."

She ignored it and bent over Finn. "The Prisonquake has stopped. It just went quiet."

"Gildas?" Finn muttered.

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"The old man's gone. He doesn't have to worry about Sapphique anymore." Keiro's voice was gruff. Turning, Finn saw the Sapient lying in the rubble, his eyes closed, his body curled, as if he slept. On his finger, loose and dull, as if Keiro had pushed it there in some vain effort to save him, shone the last skull-ring.

"What did you do?" Claudia asked. "He said ... odd things."

"I showed him the way out." Finn felt raw, scraped clean. He didn't want to talk about it now, not to tell them what he thought he had remembered, so he sat up slowly and said, "You tried the ring on him?"

"It didn't work. He was right about that too. Maybe none of them ever worked." Keiro pushed the Key into his hands. "Go. Get out now. Get the Sapient to design a key to spring me. And send someone back for the girl."

Finn looked at Attia. "I'll come back myself. I swear."

Attia smiled, wan, but Keiro said, "See you do. I don't want to be stuck with her."

"And for you too. I'll get all the Sapienti in my kingdom on it. We made a vow, brother. Do you think I've forgotten?"

Keiro laughed. His handsome face was grimy and bruised, his hair dull with dirt, his fine coat ruined. But he was the one, Finn thought, who looked like a prince. "Maybe. Or maybe this is your chance to be rid of me. Maybe you're afraid I'd kill you and take your place. If you don't come back, believe me, I'll do it."

Finn smiled. For a moment they looked at each other across

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the tilted cell, across the spilled manacles and shackles. Then Finn turned to Claudia.

"You first." She said,

"You will come?"

"Yes."

She looked at him, then the others. Quickly she touched the eye of the eagle and was gone, in a brilliance that made them all gasp.

Finn looked down at the Key he held. "I can't," he said. Attia smiled brightly. "I trust you. I'll be waiting." But his finger didn't move, paused above the eagle's dark eye, so she reached over and pressed it for him.

CLAUDIA FOUND herself sitting in the chair amidst an uproar of voices and hammering. Outside the gate Caspar was shouting, "... under arrest for high treason. Warden! Can you hear me?" The bronze resounded to frenzied blows.

Her father took her hand and raised her to her feet. "My dear. So where is our young Prince?"

Jared was watching the bronze gate buckle inward. He flashed a quick, glad glance at Claudia.

Her hair was tangled, her face dirty. A strange smell hung around her. She said, "Right behind me."

FINN WAS sitting in a chair too, but this room was dark, a small cell, like the one he remembered from long ago, ancient, the walls greasy with carved names.

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Opposite him sat a slim dark-haired man. For a moment he thought this was Jared, and then he knew who it was.

He looked around, confused. "Where am I? Is this Outside?"

Sapphique was sitting against the wall, knees drawn up. He said quietly, "None of us have much idea where we are. Perhaps all our lives we are too concerned with where, and not enough with who."

Finn's fingers were tight on the crystal Key. "Let me go," he breathed.

"It's not me who's stopping you." Sapphique watched Finn and his eyes were dark and the stars were points of light deep inside them. "Don't forget us, Finn. Don't forget the ones back there in the dark, the hungry and the broken, the murderers and thugs. There are prisons within prisons, and they inhabit the deepest."

He stretched out his hand and took a length of chain from the wall; it clanked, rust flaking off. He slipped his hands inside the links. "Like you, I went out into the Realm. It wasn't what I'd expected. And I made a promise too." He dropped the metal on the floor, an enormous crash, and Finn saw the maimed finger. "Maybe that's what's imprisoning you."

He turned sideways and beckoned. A shadow rose from behind him and walked forward, and Finn stifled a cry, because it was the Maestra. She had the same tall, lanky walk, the red hair, the scornful eyes. She stood looking down at Finn and he felt that a chain bound him, fine and invisible and she

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held the end of it, because he could not move hand or foot.

"How can you be here?" he whispered. "You fell."

"Oh yes, I fell! Through realms and centuries. Like a bird with a broken wing. Like an angel cast down." He could barely tell if it was her whisper or Sapphique's. But the anger was hers. "And that was all your fault."

"I ..." He wanted to blame Keiro, or Jormanric. Anyone. But he said, "I know."

"Remember it, Prince. Learn from it."

"Are you alive?" He was struck with the old shame; it made it hard to speak.

"Incarceron doesn't waste anything. I'm alive in its depths, in its cells, the cells of its body." I'm sorry.

She wrapped her coat about her with the old dignity. "If you are, that's all I ask."

"Will you keep him here?" Sapphique murmured.

"As he kept me?" She laughed calmly. "I don't need a ransom for my forgiveness. Good-bye, scared boy. Guard my crystal Key."

The cell blurred and opened. He felt as if he were dragged through a blinding concussion of stone and flesh; that huge wheels of iron rumbled over him, that he was opened and closed, riven and mended.

He stood up from the chair and the dark figure held out a hand to steady him.

And this time it was Jared.

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***

I have walked a stair of swords,

I have worn a coat of scars.

I have vowed with hollow words,

I have lied my way to the stars.

--Songs of Sapphique

***

The gate shuddered.

"Don't worry. It will never break." Calm, the Warden surveyed Finn. "So this is the one you think is Giles." She glared at him. "You should know." Finn stared around. The room was so white it hurt, the glare of the lights making his eyes ache. The man he recognized as Blaize laughed lightly, folding his arms. "Actually, it doesn't matter whether he is or not. Now you have him, you will have to make him Giles. Because only he stands between you and disaster." Curious, he stepped closer to Finn. "And what do you think, Prisoner? Who do you think you are?"

Finn felt shaky and filthy; suddenly he knew that his skin was grimed with dirt, that he stank in this sterile room. "I ... think I remember. The betrothal..

"Are you sure? Or might it not be that these are memories