Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) (32 page)

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Keiro was calm. His blue eyes gave one glance at Attia as she curled in agony. Then he stared back. "You think it will work?"

"I don't know! But we can try."

"She's a girl. She's no one."

"One each, you said. I'm giving her mine."

"You've had yours already."

For a moment they faced each other, Gildas watching. Then Keiro tugged one of the rings over his knuckles and looked down at it. Wordless, he threw it at Finn.

Finn caught it, dropped the sword, and grabbed Attia's fingers, pushing the ring on; it was far too big for her, so he held it there, praying under his breath, to Sapphique, to the man whose life was in the ring, to anyone. Gildas crouched beside him, deeply cynical.

"Nothing's happening. What should happen?"

The Sapient scowled. "This is superstition. You yourself scorned it."

"Her breathing. It's slowing."

Gildas felt her pulse, touched the dirty scars where the chains had been. "Finn. Accept it. There's no ..." He stopped. His fingers tightened, felt again.

"What? What--"

"I thought... The pulse seems stronger ..."

Keiro said, "Then pick her up! Bring her. But let's go!"

Finn threw him the sword, crouched, and picked Attia up.

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She was so light, he could carry her easily, though her head lolled against him. Keiro already had the door open and was looking out. "This way. Keep quiet."

He led them out.

They ran up a dusty winding stair to a trapdoor; Keiro flung it back and hauled himself into darkness, dragging Gildas quickly after him. "The girl."

Finn passed her up. Then he looked back.

In the stairwell a strange hum seemed to ripple the air. It rose ominously toward him and he climbed hastily, scrambling up and slamming the trapdoor down. Keiro was wrestling with a grid on the wall, Gildas grasping it with his knotted hands.

Attia's eyes flickered, then opened.

Finn stared. "You should be dead."

She shook her head, speechless.

The grid came off the wall with a rattling crash; behind it he saw a great dark hall, and in the center, tethered to the floor by an iron cable, the silver ship, floating free. They ran, Finn with Attia's arm over his shoulder, tiny figures over the smooth gray floor, vulnerable and exposed, like mice under the wide stare of an owl, because in the roof above them a great screen lit, and as Finn stared up it showed him an eye. Not the tiny red Eyes he knew, but a human eye, gray-irised, magnified enormously, as if it stared into a powerful microscope.

Then the ripple in the air came through the floor and threw

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them all off their feet, a Prisonquake that made the thin needle of the Sapient's tower vibrate to its top.

Keiro rolled and leaped up. "Over here."

A shimmering rope ladder hung down. Gildas grasped it and began to climb, swaying awkwardly, though Keiro held the end firmly.

Finn said, "Can you get up there?"

"I think so." Attia pushed hair from her face. She was still deathly pale, but the blueness was ebbing. She seemed to be able to breathe.

He looked down at her finger.

The ring was shrunken. A thin brittle hoop, it fractured as she grasped the rope; tiny fragments fell unnoticed. Finn touched one with his foot. It looked like bone. Ancient, dried bone.

Behind them, the trapdoor clanged open. Finn whirled; he felt Keiro hand him back the sword and draw his own.

Together, they faced the dark square of blackness.

***

"AND SO everything is ready for tomorrow." The Queen placed the last of the papers on the red leather desk and sat back, putting her fingertips together. "The Warden has been so generous. Such a dowry, Claudia. Whole estates, a coffer of jewels, twelve black horses. He must love you very much."

Her nails were painted with gold. It was probably real,

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Claudia thought. She picked up one of the deeds and glanced over it, but all she was aware of was Caspar, striding up and down on the creaking wooden floor.

Queen Sia looked around. "Caspar. Be quiet."

"I'm bored rigid."

"Then go riding, dear. Or badger-baiting, or whatever it is you do."

He turned. "Right. Good idea. See you, Claudia."

The Queen raised a perfect eyebrow. "Hardly the way the Heir speaks to his fiancée, my lord."

Halfway to the door he stopped and came back. "Protocol is for the serfs, Mother. Not us."

"Protocol keeps us in power, Caspar. Don't forget that."

He grinned and made a low and elaborate bow to Claudia, then kissed her hand. "See you at the altar, Claudia." She stood and curtsied coldly.

"Right. Now I'm off."

He slammed the door and they could hear the thud of his boots down the corridor.

The Queen leaned across the table. "Fm so glad we have this little time alone, Claudia, because I have something to say. I know you won't mind it, my dear."

Claudia tried not to frown, but her lips tightened. She wanted to get away, find Jared. They had so little time!

"I have changed my mind. I have asked Master Jared to leave the Court."

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"No!"

It was said before she could stop herself.

"Yes, dear. After the wedding, he will return to the Academy."

"You have no right..." Claudia was on her feet.

"I have every right." The Queen's smile was sweet and deadly. She leaned forward. "Let us understand each other, Claudia. There is only one Queen here. I will teach you, but I will not tolerate any rival. And you and I need to understand this, because we are alike, Claudia. Men are weak; even your father can be ruled, but you have been brought up to be my successor. Wait your time. You can learn a lot from me." She leaned back, her fingers tapping the papers. "Sit down, my dear."

There was steely threat in the words. Claudia sat slowly. "Jared is my friend."

"From now on, I will be your friend. I have many spies, Claudia. They tell me much. It really will be for the best."

She stretched out and pulled the bell; a servant came in instantly, in powdered wig and livery. "Tell the Warden I await him."

When he had gone she opened a box of sweetmeats and took a moment to select one, then offered them to Claudia with a smile.

Numb, Claudia shook her head. She felt as if she had picked up a pretty flower and found it rotting away inside, crawling with maggots. She realized she had never seriously thought of Sia as the danger. Her father had always been the one to fear. Now she wondered how wrong she was.

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Sia watched her, her red lips in a small smile. She wiped them with a lace-edged kerchief. And as the doors were flung open, she leaned back in the chair and dangled her arm over the side. "My dear Warden. What kept you?"

He was flushed.

Claudia noticed it at once, through the whirl of her dismay. He never hurried, yet now his hair was just a little askew, his dark coat unbuttoned at the top.

He bowed gravely, but his voice had an edge of breathlessness. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Something that required my attention."

***

NOTHING CAME through the trapdoor.

Finn said, "Get up the ladder."

As Keiro turned, the floor rippled again. Finn stared at it. The quake lifted the flagstones as if a wave of water roared under them. Before he had rime to move, the whole world shifted. He fell crashing against the floor, then was rolling downhill, down a slope that should not be there. Slamming against a pillar he gasped, pain shooting down his side.

The hall was tilting.

With sickening certainty he thought that the Sapient's tower was falling, that it had been fractured at its spindly base. Then the rope ladder brushed him and he grabbed it. Keiro was already on board, leaning over the silver timbers of the deck. Finn scrambled up; as soon as he could reach, they linked hands.

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"I've got him. GO!"

The ship rose. With a howl of fear Finn slid onto the deck; the whole contraption swung and rocked and then it drifted, ropes snapping one by one below it.

There was an opening in the tower wall ahead, the wide shelf where Blaize had landed the craft. But as Gildas hauled with all his wiry strength to spin the spoked wheel, the ship jerked and they all fell, rubble cascading from above onto the deck and sails.

"Something's holding us down!" he roared.

Keiro hung over the side. "God! There's an anchor!"

He clambered back. "There must be a winch. Come on!"

They opened a hatch and scrambled down into the darkness under the deck. Thuds of falling brickwork crashed overhead.

They found a maze of walkways and galleys
.
Running down and flinging the doors open, Finn saw each cabin was empty; there were no stores, no cargo, no crew. Before he had time to think about it, Keiro yelled from the darkness below.

In the lowest deck it was dark. A circular capstan filled the space; Keiro was jamming the bar into place. "Help me."

Together, they pushed. Nothing moved; the mechanism was stiff, the anchor chain heavy.

Again they heaved, Finn feeling his back muscles crack, and slowly, with a long reluctant groan, the capstan creaked into motion.

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Finn gritted his teeth and heaved again, sweat breaking out on his face; beside him he heard Keiro gasp and grunt.

Then another body was there. Attia, still pale, laboring on the bar next to him.

"What... good ... are you?" Keiro growled.

"Good enough," she snapped back, and Finn saw to his surprise that she was grinning, her eyes bright under the tangled hair, color back in her face.

The anchor juddered. The ship swayed, then abruptly, lifted.

"We've got it!" Keiro dug his heels in and pushed, and quite suddenly the capstan was turning quickly under their weight, the great chain of the anchor rasping up through the floor and looping obediently as they forced it around.

When they had it all in and the mechanism ground to a stop Finn raced up the steps of the companionway, but as he burst out onto the deck he stopped with a yell of fright.

They were sailing in a cloud. It wisped around him, opening to give glimpses of Gildas swearing at the wheel, the great billowing sails, a bird below them in a patch of light.

"Where are we?" Attia muttered behind him.

Then the ship dropped out of the mist, and they saw they were in an ocean of blue air, the tilted tower of the Sapient already far behind.

Breathless, Keiro leaned on the rail and whooped with delight.

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Finn stood next to him, looking back. "Why didn't he try to stop us?" Reaching into his jacket, he touched the crystal sharpness of the Key.

"Who bloody cares!" his oathbrother said.

And then he turned and punched Finn hard in the stomach.

Attia screamed. Finn collapsed, all breath gone, the pain an amazement inside him, an airless blackness that loomed over his sight.

From the wheel Gildas yelled something, his words snatched away.

Slowly, the agony ebbed. When Finn could gasp in air he looked up and saw Keiro with both arms spread on the rail, looking down at him with a grin.

"What...?"

Keiro held out a hand and pulled him up, staggering, face-to-face. "That'll teach you not to draw a sword on me again," he said.

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27

***

Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass

cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the
sky above him and the sky said, "Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high"

Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. "Not this time. This time I beat on you until you

open."

But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down.

---Legends of Sapphique

***

"She's said that Jared has to leave." She turned and glared at her father, wanting to ask if it was his doing. "I told you. It was bound to happen." The Warden walked past her and sat on the chaise near the window of his room, gazing out at the pleasure gardens, where parties of courtiers walked in the evening cool. "I think you will have to comply, my dear. It's a small price to pay to gain a kingdom."

She was ready to burst out in temper, but he turned and looked at her, that cold measuring look she so dreaded.

"Besides, we have something more important to discuss. Come and sit down."