Sapphique - Incarceron 02 (17 page)

But he had made sure. For weeks now the staircase down to the Portal had been guarded by his own devices. Half of the spiders that hung on plastic webs in the dirty cellars were his observers.

'Attia. Attia. Can you hear me? This is Jared. Please answer.'

This was his last chance. The Warden's appearance had shown him that the screen still worked. That artful flickering out had not fooled Jared — Claudia's father had switched off rather than answer Finn's question.

At first he had thought of searching for Keiro, but Attia was safer. He had sampled the recordings of her voice, the images of her he and Claudia had seen through the Key; using the finding mechanism he had once seen the Warden use he had experimented for hours with the complicated imputs. Suddenly, when he had been almost ready to give up, the Portal had sparked and crackled into life. He hoped it was searching, pinpointing the girl in the vastness of the Prison, but it had been humming all night now and in his weariness he could no longer keep out the feeling that it wasn't really achieving anything at all.

He drank the last of the water, then reached into his pocket and brought out the Warden's watch and put it on the desk. The tiny cube clicked on the metal surface.

The Warden had told him that this cube was Incarceron.

He spun it gently, with his little finger.

So small.

So mysterious.

A prison you could hang on your watchchain.

He had subjected it to every analysis he knew, and there were no readings. It had no density, no magnetic field, no whisper of power. No instrument he possessed had been able to penetrate its silvery silence. It was a cube of unknown composition, and inside it was another world.

Or so the Warden had told him.

It struck Jared now that they had only John Arlex's word for that. What if it had just been his last taunting legacy to his daughter? What if it had been a lie?

Was that why he, Jared, hadn't told her yet?

He had to do it now. She should know.
The thought that she should also know about his arrangement with the Queen rose up at once and tormented him.

He said, 'Attia, Attia. Answer me. Please.'

But all that answered was a sharp beep in his pocket. He whipped out the scanner and swore softly. Maybe the watchers had got tired of snoring on the Tower doorstep and come looking for him.

Someone was creeping through the cellars.

* * *

'We should stay on the path,' Keiro snapped down at her; she was staring intently into the undergrowth. 'I tell you I heard it. My name.'

Keiro scowled and slid down from the horse. 'We can't ride in there.'

'Then we crawl' She had crouched, was on hands and knees. In the green gloom a tangle of roots sprawled under the high leaves. 'Underneath. It has to be fairly close!'

Keiro hesitated. 'If we turn aside the Prison will think we're double-crossing it.'

'Since when were you scared of Incarceron?' She looked up at him and he stared back hard, because she always seemed to know just how to needle him. Then she said, 'Wait here. I'll go on my own,' and crawled in.

With a hiss of irritation Keiro tethered the horse tight and crawled in after her. The leaf litter was a mass of tiny brittle foliage; he felt it crunch under his knees, stab through his gloves. The roots were vast, a snaky smooth mesh of metal. After a while he realized they were great cables, snaking out into the Prison's soil, supporting the foliage like a canopy. There was hardly room to raise his head, and over his bent back briars and thorns and brambles of steel tore and snagged his hair.

'Keep lower,' Attia muttered. 'Lie flat.'

Keiro swore long and viciously as his scarlet coat ripped at the shoulder. 'For god's sake, there's nothing—'

'Listen.' She stopped, her foot in his face. 'Hear it?' A voice.

A voice of static and crackle, as if the spiny branches themselves had picked up its repeated syllables.

Keiro rubbed his face with a dirty hand. 'Go on,' he said quietly.

They crawled under the razor-sharp tangle. Attia dug her fingers in the litter and pulled herself along. Pollen made her sneeze; the air was thick with micro — dust. A Beetle scurried, clicking, through her hair.

She wriggled past a thick trunk and saw, as if it was wreathed in the forest of thorn and razorwire, the wall of a dark building.

'It's like Rix's book,' she gasped.

'Another one?'

'A beautiful princess sleeps for a hundred years in a ruined castle.'

Keiro grunted, dragging his hair from thorns. 'So.'

'A thief breaks in and steals a cup from her treasure. She turns into a dragon and they fight.'

Keiro wriggled up next to her. He was breathless, his hair lank with dirt and sweat. 'I must be thick even to listen to you. Who wins?'

'The dragon. She eats him, and then . . .'

Static crackled.

Keiro hauled himself into a dusty space. Bines sprawled up a wall of dark glossy brick. In its base a very tiny

wooden door was smothered with ivy. Behind it, the voice sparked and crackled. 'Who's there?' it whispered.

14

I fooled the Prison I fooled my father.

I asked a question It could not answer.

SONGS OF SAPPHIQUE

'It's me! I've been looking everywhere for you!'

Jared closed his eyes in relief. Then he opened the door and let Claudia dart in. Her evening dress was covered with a dark cloak. She said, 'Is Finn here?'

'Finn? No

'He's challenged the Pretender to a duel
. Can you believe
that?'

Jared went back to the screen. 'I'm afraid I can, Claudia.'

She stared beyond him at the mess. 'Why are you here in the middle of the night?' Coming closer, she looked at him closely. 'Master, you look so drained. You should sleep.'

'I can sleep at the Academy.' There was a bitter note in his voice that she didn't recognize.

Worried, she crouched on the workbench, pushing the fine tools aside. 'But I thought 'I leave tomorrow, Claudia.'

'So soon?' It shook her. She said, 'But . . . you're getting so close to success. Why not take a few more days. . 'I can't.'

He was never so short with her. She wondered if it was the pain, driving him on. And then he sat, folding his long thin fingers together on the desk, and said sadly, 'Oh Claudia, how I wish we were safely at home at the Wardenry. I wonder how my foxcub is doing, and the birds. And I miss my observatory, Claudia. I miss looking out at the stars.'

Gently she said, 'You're homesick, Master.'

'A little.' He shrugged. 'I'm sick of the Court. Of its stifling Protocol. Of its exquisite meals and endlessly sumptuous rooms where each door hides a watcher. I should like a little peace.'

It silenced her. Jared was rarely gloomy; his grave calm was always there, a safe presence at her back. She fought down her alarm. 'We'll go home then, Master, as soon as Finn is safely on the throne. We'll go home. Just you and me.'

He smiled, nodding, and she thought he looked wistful. 'That may be a long time. And a challenge won't help.'

'The Queen's forbidden them to fight.'

'Good.' His fingers tapped together on the desk. She realized that the systems were all live, the Portal humming with distorted energy.

He said, 'I have something to tell you, Claudia. Something important.' Leaning forward, he didn't look at her. 'Something I should have told you before, that I shouldn't have kept from you. This journey to the Academy. There is a reason that . . . the Queen has allowed me to go
...'

'To search the Esoterica, I know,' she said impatiently, pacing up and down. 'I know! I just wish I could come. Why let you and not me? What's she up to?'

Jared raised his head and watched her. His heart was hammering; he felt almost too ashamed to speak. 'Claudia

'But then perhaps it's just as well I'm staying. A duel! He's got no idea how to behave! It's as if he's forgotten all he ever was
.'

Catching her tutor's eye she stopped and laughed an awkward laugh. 'Sorry What were you going to say?'

There was an ache in him that was not caused by his illness. Dimly he recognized it as anger, anger and a deep, bitter pride. He had not known he was proud.
You are her tutor, her brother, and more her father than I have ever been.
The Warden's scorching words of jealousy came back to him; for a moment he savoured them, gazing at Claudia as she waited, so unsuspecting. How could he destroy the trust between them?

'This,' he said. He tapped the watch that lay on the desk. 'I think you ought to have it.'

Claudia looked relieved, then surprised. 'My father's watch?' 'Not the watch. This.'

She came closer. He was touching the silver cube that hung on the chain. It had been so familiar in her father's hands that she barely noticed it, but now a sudden wonder swept her that her father — so austere a man — should have worn a charm.

'Is it for good luck?'

Jared did not smile. 'It's Incarceron,' he said.

Finn lay in the long grass looking up at the stars.

Through the dark blades the distant brilliance of their light brought him a sort of comfort. He had come here with the hot jealousy of the banquet still burning in him, but the silence of the night and the beauty of the stars were easing it away.

He shuffled his arm behind his head, feeling the prickle of grass down his neck.

They were so far away. In Incarceron he had dreamt of them, his symbol of Escape; now he realized they were still that, that he was still imprisoned. Perhaps he always would be. Perhaps it would be best just to disappear, to ride away into the Forest and not come back. It would mean abandoning Keiro, and Attia.

Claudia wouldn't care. He moved uncomfortably as he thought it, but the thought
stayed. She wouldn't. She'd end
up marrying this Pretender and being Queen, as she'd always meant to be.

Why not?

Why not just go?

Where, though? And how would he feel riding through the endless Protocol of this stifled world and dreaming every night of Keiro in the metallic, livid hell of Incarceron, not knowing if he was alive or dead, maimed or insane, killing or already dead?

He rolled over, curling up. Princes were supposed to sleep in golden beds with damask canopies, but the Palace was a nest of enemies, he couldn't breathe there. The familiar prickle behind his eyes had gone, but the dryness in his throat warned him that the fit had been near. He had to be careful. He had to have more control.

And yet the angry moment of the challenge was dear to him. He relished it, over and again, seeing the Pretender jerking aside, the slap of redness on his face. He'd lost his cool then, and Finn smiled in the dark, his cheek resting on the damp grass.

He rolled swiftly and sat up. The wide lawns were grey in the starlight. Beyond the lake the woods of the estate raised black heads against the sky. The gardens smelt of roses and honeysuckle, sweet in the warm summer air.

He lay back again, staring up.

The moon, a ruined hollow, hung like a ghost in the east. Jared had told him that it had been attacked in the Years of Rage, that now the ocean tides were altered, that the fixed orbit had changed the world.

And after that they had stopped all change altogether.

When he was King, he would change things. People would be free to do or say what they wanted. The poor wouldn't have to slave on great estates for the rich. And he would find Incarceron, he would release them all.. . But then, he was going to run away.

He stared up at the white stars.
Finn Starseer doesn't run.
He could almost hear Keiro's sarcasm.

He turned his head, sig
hed, stretched out. And touched
something cold.

With a shiver of steel his sword was in his hand; he had leapt up, was alert, his heart thudding, a prickle of sweat on his neck.

Far off in the lighted palace a drift of music echoed.

The lawns were still empty. But there was something small and bright stuck in the grass just above where his head had been.