Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) (20 page)

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and intelligent. Behind her a grave dark-haired man watched, wearing a Sapient's coat that put Gildas's rag to shame.

Claudia was silent so long, Jared glanced at her. He saw she was stricken, probably by the boy's condition, so he said softly, "It seems Incarceron is no paradise then."

The boy glared at him. "Are you mocking me, Master?"

Jared shook his head sadly. "No indeed. Tell us how you came to have this artifact."

Finn glanced around. The ruin was silent and black; Attia's shadow crouched in the doorway, watching the darkness outside. She gave him a small nod of reassurance. He looked back at the holoscreen, afraid that its light would give them away.

As he told them about the eagle on his wrist, he watched Claudia. He was good at reading faces, but hers was difficult, so controlled, so unrevealing, though the faintest widening of her eyes told him she was fascinated. Then he slipped into lies, about finding the Key in a deserted tunnel, obliterating the Maestra, her death, his shame, as if none of it had ever happened. Attia glanced over, but he kept his face away. He told them about the Comitatus, about the terrible fight he had fought with Jormanric, how he had defeated the giant in single combat, stolen three skull-rings from his hands, led his friends out of that hell. About how they were following a sacred trail out of the Prison.

She listened intently, asking brief questions. He had no idea

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if she believed any of it. The Sapient was silent
,
once only raising an eyebrow, when Finn talked of Gildas.

"So the Sapienti still survive? But what happened to the Experiment, the social structures, the food supply? How did it all break down?"

"Never mind that," Claudia said impatiently. "Don't you see what the eagle mark means, Master. Don't you see?" She leaned forward eagerly. "Finn. How long have you been in Incarceron?"

"I don't know." He scowled. "I ... only remember ..."

"What?"

"The last three years. I get... memories, but--" He stopped. He didn't want to tell her about the seizures.

She nodded. Her hands were clasped in her lap, he saw. A diamond ring gleamed on one finger. "Listen, Finn. Do I look familiar to you? Do you recognize me?"

His heart leaped. "No. Should I?"

She was biting her lip. He felt her tension. "Finn, listen to me. I think you may be ..."

"FINN!"

Attia's scream was stifled. A hand grabbed her and clamped down on her mouth. "Too late," Keiro said gleefully.

Out of the darkness Gildas strode in and looked into the holoscreen. For a second he and Jared shared a startled stare.

Then the screen went blank.

The Sapient breathed a prayer. He turned and looked at

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Finn and the obsession was back in his hard blue eyes. "I saw! I saw Sapphique!"

Finn suddenly felt very tired. "No," he said, watching Attia struggle wildly out of Keiro's grip. "It wasn't."

"I saw, fool boy! I saw him!" The old man knelt painfully before the Key. He reached out and touched it. "What did he say, Finn? What was his message to us?"

"And why didn't you tell us you could see people with it?" Keiro snapped. "Don't you trust us?"

Finn shrugged. He, not Claudia, had done most of the talking, he realized. But he had to keep them guessing, so he said, "Sapphique ... warns us."

"Of what?" Nursing his bitten hand Keiro gave the girl a sour look. "Bitch," he muttered.

"Of danger."

"What sort? The whole place is--"

"From above." Finn muttered it at random. "Danger from above."

Together, they looked up.

Instantly Attia screamed and threw herself aside; Gildas swore. The net collapsed like the web of an uber-spider, each end weighted; it crashed down on Finn, flattening him under its impact, a crumpling of dust and screeching bats. For a moment the breath was knocked right out of him, then he realized Gildas was struggling and tangling next to him, that the two of them were meshed in heavy ropes sticky with an oozing resin.

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"Finn!" Attia knelt and pulled at the net; her hand stuck and she pulled it hastily away.

Keiro had his sword out; he pushed her aside and slashed at the cables, but they were threaded with metal and the blade clanged. At the same time a shrill alarm in the ruin began to whine, a high, wailing note.

"Don't waste your time," Gildas muttered. Then, furiously, "Get out of here!"

Keiro stared at Finn. "I don't leave my brother."

Finn struggled to get up but couldn't. For a moment the whole nightmare of being chained before the trucks of the Civicry crashed back into his mind; then he gasped, "Do as he says."

"We can get that thing off you." Keiro looked around wildly. "If we had some sort of pivot."

Attia grabbed a metal strut from the wall. It fell to rust in her hands and she flung it down with a wail.

Keiro hauled at the net. The dark oil blackened his hands and coat; he swore bur kept pulling, and Finn heaved from below, but after a second they all collapsed, defeated by the weight.

Keiro crouched at the net. "I'll find you. I'll rescue you. Give me the Key."

"What?"

"Give it to me. Or they'll find it on you and take it."

Finn's fingers closed on the warm crystal. For a moment he saw Gildas's startled gaze through the mesh; the Sapient said, "Finn, no. We'll never see him again."

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"Shut your mouth, old man." Furious, Keiro turned. "Give it to me, Finn.
Now."

Voices outside. The barking of dogs down the track.

Finn wriggled. He squeezed the Key between the oily mesh; Keiro grabbed it and pulled it out, his fingers smearing oil on the perfect eagle. He shoved it inside his jacket, then tugged off one of Jormanric's rings and jammed it on Finn's finger. "One for you. Two for me."

The alarm stopped.

Keiro backed, glancing around, but Attia had already vanished. "I'll find you, I swear."

Finn didn't move. But just as Keiro faded into the night of the Prison, he gripped the chains and whispered, "It will only work for me. Sapphique speaks only to me."

If Keiro heard him, he didn't know. Because just then the doors crashed in, lights were beamed in his eyes, the teeth of dogs were snapping and growling at his hands and face.

***

JARED LOOKED at her aghast. "Claudia, this is madness ..."

"It could be him. It could be Giles. Oh yes, he looks different. Thinner. More worn. Older. But it could easily be him. Right age, right build. Hair." She smiled. "Right eyes."

She paced the room, consumed with restlessness. She didn't want to say how the boy's condition had appalled her. She knew that the failure of the Incarceron Experiment was a terrible blow, that all the Sapienti would be rocked by it.

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Crouching suddenly by the dying fire, she said, "Master, you need to sleep and so do I. Tomorrow I'll insist you travel with me. We can read Alegon's Histories till Alys falls asleep and then we can talk. Tonight, I'll just say this. If he isn't Giles, he could be. We could make a case out that he is. With the old man's testament and the mark on the boy's wrist, there would be doubt. Enough doubt to stop the marriage."

"His DNA..."

"Not Protocol. You know that."

He shook his head. "Claudia, I can't believe ... This is impossible ..."

"Think about it." She got up and crossed to the door. "Because even if this boy is not Giles, Giles is in there somewhere. Caspar's not the Heir, Jared. And I intend to prove that. If it means taking on the Queen and my father, I'll do it."

At the door she paused, not wanting to leave him in this pain, wanting to say something that would ease his distress. "We have to help him. We have to help all of them in that hell."

He had his back to her, but he nodded. Bleakly he said, "Go to bed, Claudia."

She slipped out into the dim corridor. One candle burned far down in an alcove. As she walked her dress swished the dry rushes on the floor, and at her door she paused and looked back.

The inn seemed silent. But outside the door that must be

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Caspar's, a sudden small movement made her stare, and she bit her lip in dismay.

The big man, Fax, was lying there across two chairs.

He was looking straight at her. Ironically, with a leer that chilled her, he waved the tankard in his hand.

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17

***

In ancient statutes Justice was always blind. But what if it sees, sees everything, and its Eye is cold and without Mercy? Who would be safe from such a gaze?

Year by year Incarceron tightened its grip. It made a hell of what should have been Heaven.

The Gate is locked; those Outside cannot hear our cries. So, in secret, I began to fashion a key.

--Lord Calliston's Diary

***

As he passed under the gate of the City, Finn saw it had teeth.

It was designed like a mouth, gaping wide, fanged with metal incisors that looked razor-sharp. He guessed there was some mechanism that closed it in emergencies, creating an impassible interlocking bite.

He glanced at Gildas, leaning wearily on the wagon. The old man was bruised and his lip swollen from the blow they had given him. Finn said, "There must be some of your people here."

The Sapient scratched his face with his tied hands and said dryly, "If so, they don't command much respect."

Finn frowned. This was all Keiro's fault. The first thing the

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Crane-men had done after dragging them out of the trap had been to search Gildas's pack. They had tipped out the powders and ointments, the carefully wrapped quills, the book of the Songs of Sapphique he always carried. None of those mattered. But when they had found the packets of meat, they had looked at one another. One of them, a thin scrawny man, had turned on his stilts and snapped, "So you're the thieves."

"Listen, friend," Gildas had said darkly, "we had no idea the sheep was yours. Everyone has to eat. I'll pay you, with my learning. I am a Sapient of some skill."

"Oh, you'll pay, old man." The man's stare had been level. He had looked at his comrades; they had seemed amused. "With your hands, I would think, when the Justices see this."

Finn had been tied up, so tightly, the cords burned his skin. Dragged outside, he had seen a small cart harnessed to a donkey; the Crane-men leaped up onto it, sliding expertly out of the strange metal calipers.

Roped behind, Finn had stumbled beside the old man along the road that led to the City. Twice he had glanced back, hoping to see Keiro or perhaps Attia, just a glimpse, a brief wave, but the forest was far away now, a distant glimmering of impossible colors, and the road ran straight as an arrow down the long metallic slope, the ground on each side studded with spikes and jagged with chasms.

Amazed at such defenses, he muttered, "What are they so scared of?"

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Gildas scowled. "Attack, clearly. They're anxious to be in before Lightsout."

More than anxious. Almost all of the great crowds they had seen earlier were already inside the wall; as they hurried to the gate, a horn rang out in the citadel, and the Crane-men had urged the donkey on fiercely, so that Gildas was breathless with the pace, and almost fell.

Now, safe inside, Finn heard the clang of a portcullis and the rattle of chains. Had Keiro and Attia gotten here too? Or were they out there in the wood? He knew the Crane-men would have found the Key if he'd kept it, but the thought of Keiro having it, perhaps speaking to Claudia with it, made him nervous. And there was another thought that nagged at him, but he would not think of that. Not yet.

"Come on." The leader of the foraging party pulled him upright. "We have to do this tonight. Before the Festival."

As he trudged through the streets, Finn thought he had never seen such a hive of people. The lanes and alleyways were festooned with small lanterns; when the Prison lights went off the world was transformed instantly into a network of tiny twinkling silver sparks, beautiful and brilliant. There were thousands of inmates, setting up tents, bargaining in vast bazaars, searching for shelter, herding sheep and cyber-horses into corrals and market squares. He saw beggars without hands, blinded, missing lips and ears. He saw disfiguring diseases that made him gasp and turn away. And yet no

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half-men. Here too it seemed, that abomination was restricted to animals.

The noise of clattering hooves was deafening; the stink of dung and sweat, of crushed straw and the sudden, vivid sweetness of sandalwood, of lemons. Dogs ran everywhere, tugging over food sacks, rummaging in drains, and slyly behind them the small copper-scaled rats that bred so fast slunk into cracks and doorways, their tiny eyes red.

And he saw that images of Sapphique were on every corner, mounted above doorways and windows, a Sapphique who held out his right hand to show the missing finger, who held in the left what Finn recognized, with a silent leap of his heart, as a crystal Key.

"Do you see that?"

"I see it." Gildas sat breathlessly on a step while one of their captors moved into the crowd. "This is obviously some sort of festival. Perhaps in Sapphique's honor."

"These Justices ..."

"Leave the talking to me." Gildas straightened, tried to adjust his robe. "Don't say a word. Once they know what I am, we'll be released and this whole mess will be sorted. A Sapient will be listened to."

Finn scowled. "I hope so."

"What else did you see, back there in the ruin? What else did Sapphique say?"

"Nothing." He had run out of lies, and his arms ached from