Another voice said, "Well, I don't."
A girl stepped up behind him; he glared at her hotly and muttered, "Will you shut up?" but she crouched and spoke hurriedly to Claudia.
"I'm Attia. I think he's going to leave Finn and the Sapient and try to Escape as Sapphique did, and he thinks the Key will work for him. You musn't let him! Finn will die."
Bewildered by the names, Claudia said, "Wait. Slow down! Why will he die?"
"They seem to have some sort of ritual in this Wing. He has to face the Beast. Is there anything you can do? Some magic from the stars? You have to help us!"
The girl had the filthiest clothes Claudia had ever seen; her hair was dark and hacked into a rough, jagged cut. She was clearly worried sick. Trying to think, Claudia said, "How can I do anything? You have to get him out of it!"
"What makes you think we can?" Keiro asked calmly.
"You've got no choice." A shout out in the inn-yard made her glance around nervously. "Because Finn is the only one I'll talk to."
"Like him, do you? And who are you anyway?"
She glared. "The Warden of Incarceron is my father."
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Keiro snorted. "What Warden?"
"He ... oversees the Prison." She felt cold. His scorn chilled her. Quickly she went on. "Maybe I can find charts of the Prison, a map of its secret ways, its doorways and corridors that will show you the way out. But I won't tell you a thing until I see Finn."
It was a lie that would have made Jared groan, but she had no choice. She didn't trust this Keiro; he was too arrogant, and the girl seemed angry and scared.
Keiro shrugged. "What's so special about Finn?"
She hesitated. Then she said, "I think ... I think I recognize him. He's older, he looks different, but there's something about him, his voice ... If I'm right his real name is Giles, and he's the son of... a fairly important person out here." She shouldn't say too much. Just enough to get him to act.
Keiro stared, astonished. "Are you telling me all that guff about coming in from Outside is actually true? That mark on his wrist means something?"
"I've got to go. Just get him."
He folded his arms. "If I can't?"
"Then forget the magic of the stars." She looked at the girl, their eyes meeting briefly. "And this Key will just be a useless lump of crystal. But if you're his brother, you'd want to rescue him."
Keiro nodded. "I do." He nodded toward Attia. "Forget her. She's crazy. She knows nothing." His voice was low and
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earnest. "Finn and I are brothers and we watch each other's backs. Always."
Attia gazed at Claudia, her face bruised. Doubt moved in her eyes. "Is he related to you?" she asked quietly. "Your brother? Cousin?"
Claudia shrugged. "Just a friend. A friend, that's all." Hurriedly, she switched the field off.
The Key glimmered in the fetid darkness. She shoved it into the pocket in her skirt and ran out, desperate for fresh air. Alys was loitering anxiously in the passageway, servants bustling past her with trays and dishes.
"Oh, there you are, Claudia! Earl Caspar is looking for you."
But Claudia could already hear him, the thin annoying bray of his voice, and to her dismay she saw that it was Jared he was talking to, and Lord Evian, the three of them sitting on benches in the sunshine, the hostel dogs sprawled in an expectant row at their feet.
She came out and crossed the cobbles.
Evian stood immediately and made an ornate bow; Jared moved quietly to make a space for her. Caspar said crossly, "You're always avoiding me, Claudia!"
"Of course not. Why on earth would I do that?" She sat down and smiled. "How nice. All my friends together."
Caspar scowled. Jared shook his head slightly. Beside them Evian hid a smile with his lace-edged handkerchief. She wondered how he could sit there so coolly with the Earl, a boy he
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was plotting to have murdered. But then, he would probably protest that it wasn't personal, that this was politics, nothing more. The game, always.
She turned to Jared. "I want you to travel with me now. I'm so bored! We can discuss Menessier's Natural History of the Realm?
"Why not me?" Caspar tossed a hunk of meat to the dogs and watched them fight over it. "I'm not boring." His small eyes turned to her. "Am I?"
It was a challenge. "Indeed not, Your Grace." She smiled pleasantly. "And of course I'd love you to join us. Menessier has some excellent passages on the fauna in the coniferous forests."
He stared at her in disgust. "Claudia, don't try that wide-eyed innocent junk with me. I told you, I don't care what you get up to. Anyway, I know all about it. Fax told me about last night."
She felt herself go pale, couldn't look at Jared. The dogs growled and fought. One brushed her skirt and she stamped at it.
Caspar stood up, smugly triumphant. He was wearing a garish collar of gold links and a frock coat of black velvet, and he kicked the dogs aside till they yelped. "But I'm warning you, Claudia, you'd better be more discreet. My mothers not as open-minded as I am. If she found out, she'd be furious." He grinned at Jared. "Your clever tutor might find that his illness gets suddenly worse."
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She was so angry, she almost leaped to her feet, but Jared's light touch kept her sitting. They watched Caspar stride away across the inn-yard, avoiding the puddles and dung heaps in his expensive boots.
Finally Lord Evian took out his snuffbox. "Dear me," he said quietly. "Now that was a threat if ever I heard one."
Claudia met Jared's eyes. They were dark and troubled. "Fax?" he said.
She shrugged, exasperated with herself. "He saw me coming out of your room last night."
His dismay showed. "Claudia ..."
"I know. I know. It's all my fault."
Evian sniffed the snuff delicately. "If I may be allowed to comment, that was a very unfortunate thing to happen."
"It's not what you think." I'm sure.
"No. Really. And you can drop the act. I've told Jared about... the Steel Wolves."
He glanced around quickly. "Claudia, not aloud, please." His voice lost its affectations. "I appreciate you trust your tutor, but--"
"Of course she should have told me." Jared tapped the table-top with his long fingers. "Because the whole plot is foolish, utterly criminal, and almost certain to be betrayed. How could you even think about bringing her into it!"
"Because we can't do it without her." The fat man was
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calm, but a film of sweat glistened on his forehead. "You above all, Master Sapient, understand what the iron decrees of the Havaarna have done to us. We are rich, some of us, and live well, but we are not free. We are chained hand and foot by Protocol, enslaved to a static, empty world where men and women can't read, where the scientific advances of the ages are the preserve of the rich, where artists and poets are doomed to endless repetitions and sterile reworkings of past masterpieces. Nothing is new. New does not exist. Nothing changes, nothing grows, evolves, develops. Time has stopped. Progress is forbidden."
He leaned forward. Claudia had never seen him so grave, so stripped of his effete disguise, and it chilled her, as if he were someone else entirely, an older, exhausted, desperate man.
"We are dying, Claudia. We must break open this cell we have bricked ourselves into, escape from this endless wheel we tread like rats. I have dedicated myself to freeing us. If it means my death, I don't care, because even death will be a sort of freedom."
In the stillness the rooks cawed around the trees overhead. Horses in the stable yard were being harnessed, their feet stamping the cobbles.
Claudia licked dry lips. "Don't do anything yet," she whispered. "I may have ... some information for you. But not yet." She stood quickly, not wanting to say any more, not wanting to feel the raw anguish he had opened in her like a stab wound.
"The horses are ready. Let's go."
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***
THE STREETS were full of
people, all silent. Their silence terrified Finn; it was so intense, and the hungry way they looked at him made him stumble, the women and the scruffy children, the maimed, the old, the soldiers; cold, curious stares that he dared not meet, so that he looked down, at his feet, at the dirt on the road, anywhere but at them.
The only sound that rang in the steep streets was the steady tramp of the six guards around him, the crack of their iron-soled boots on the cobbles, and far above, circling like an omen, a single large bird screeching mournful cries among the clouds and echoing winds of Incarceron's vault.
Then someone sang back, a single note of lament, and as if it was a signal, all the crowd picked it up and crooned it softly, their sorrow and their fear in one strange soft song. He tried to make out the words, but only fragments came to him ... the silver thread that broke ... all down the endless halls of guilt and dreams ... and like a chorus the haunting, repeated phrase: his fingerbone the key, his blood the oil that smoothes the lock.
Turning a corner, Finn glanced back.
Gildas walked behind, alone. The guards ignored him, but he walked firmly, his head high, and the peoples eyes moved wonderingly over the green of his Sapient coat.
The old man looked grim and purposeful; he gave Finn a brief nod of encouragement.
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There was no sign of Keiro or Attia. Desperately Finn stared into the crowds. Had they found out what was happening to him? Would they wait outside the Cave?
Had they spoken to Claudia? Anxiety tormented him, and he would not let himself think the thing that he dreaded, that lurked in the dark of his mind like a spider, like Incarceron's mocking whisper.
That Keiro might have taken the Key and gone.
He shook his head. In the three years of the Comitatus, Keiro had never betrayed him. Taunted him, yes, laughed at him, stolen from him, fought with him, argued with him. But he'd always been there. And yet now Finn realized with a sudden coldness how little he knew about his oathbrother, about where he had come from. Keiro just said his parents were dead. Finn had never asked any questions. He'd always been too absorbed in his own agonizing loss, in the memory flashes and the fits.
He should have asked.
He should have cared.
A rain of tiny black petals began to fall on him. Looking up he saw that the people were throwing them, tossing out handfuls that fell on the cobbles and made a fragrant dark carpet on the road. And he saw that the petals had a peculiar quality, that as they touched each other they melted, and that the gutters and streets ran with a sticky, clotted mass that exuded the sweetest of scents.
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It made him feel strange. And as if it broke into a dream, it made him remember the voice he had heard in the night.
I am everywhere. As if the Prison had answered him. He looked up now, as they marched under the gaping maw of the gate, and saw a single red Eye in the portcullis, its unblinking gaze fixed on him,
"Can you see me?" he breathed. "Did you speak to me?"
But the gate was behind him and they were out of the City.
The road led straight and it was deserted. The sticky oil trickled along it; behind he heard the gates and doors slam, the wooden bolts drawn across, the iron grilles crash down. Out here under the vault the world seemed empty, the plain swept by icy winds.
The soldiers hastily unshouldered the heavy axes they carried; the one in front also had some sort of device with a canister attached, a Same-throwing machine, Finn guessed. He said, "Let the Sapient catch up."
They slowed, as if now he was not their prisoner but their leader, and Gildas strode breathlessly up and said, "Your brother hasn't shown himself"
"He'll turn up." Saying it helped.
They walked swiftly, closed into a tight group. On either side the ground was seamed with pits and traps; Finn saw the steel teeth gleam in their depths. Glancing back, he was surprised at how the City was already far behind, its walls lined with people, watching, shouting, holding their children up to see.
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The guard captain said, "We turn off the road here. Be careful; step only where we step and don't think of running off. The ground is sewn with fireglobes."
Finn had no idea what fireglobes were, but Gildas frowned. "This Beast must be fearsome indeed."
The man glanced at him. "I have never seen it, Master, and don't intend to."
Once off the smooth road the going was rough. The coppery earth seemed to have been scored and clawed into vast furrows; in several places it was burned, carbonized to a charcoal crispness that rose in clouds of dust as they trod on it, or vitrified almost to glass. Enormous heat would have been needed to do that, Finn thought. It stank too, an acrid cindery smell. He followed the men closely, watching their steps with nervous attention; when they paused and he raised his head, he saw that they were far out on the plain, the Prison lights so high above they were brilliant suns, casting his and Gildas's shadows behind them.
Far in the mile-high vault the bird still circled. Once it screeched, and the guards looked up at it. The nearest muttered, "Looking for carrion."
Finn began to wonder how far they would walk. There were no hills out here, no ridges, so where would they find a cave? He had pictured it as some dark aperture in a metallic cliff. Now he was filled with a new apprehension, because even his imagination was betraying him.
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"Stop." The guard captain held up a hand. "This is it."
There was nothing there. That was Finn's first idea. Relief flooded him. It was all a pretense. They'd let him go now, run back to the City, spin some gruesome tale about a monster to keep the people quiet.
Then, as he pushed past the men, he saw the pit in the ground.
And the Cave.
***
JARED SAID, "You promised them maps that don't exist! It was a crazy idea, Claudia. Things are getting so dangerous for us!"
She knew he was deeply worried. She crossed to his side of the carriage and said, "Master, I know. But the stakes are so high."
He looked up and she saw the pain was back behind his eyes. "Claudia, tell me you're not thinking seriously about this folly of Evian's. We are not murderers!"
"I'm not. If my plan works, there'll be no need of it." But she didn't say what she was thinking: that if the Queen really did find out, that if he, Jared, was in any danger at all, she would have them all killed without hesitation, even her father, to save him.
Maybe he knew it. As the carriage jolted he glanced out of the window and his expression darkened, his black hair brushing the collar of the Sapient coat. "Here's our prison," he said bleakly.
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And following his gaze she saw the pinnacles and glass towers of the Palace, the turrets and towers festooned with flags and bunting, heard that all the bells were ringing to welcome her, all the doves flapping, all the cannon were being fired in deep booming salute from every mile-high terrace that rose in splendor into the pure blue sky.
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20
***
We have put everything that is left into this.
It is bigger than all of us now.
--Project report; Martor Sapiens
***
"Take this, and this."
The guard captain thrust a small leather bag and a sword into Finn's hands. The bag seemed so light, it must be empty. "What's in it?" he asked nervously.
"You'll see." The man stepped back and glanced at Gildas. Then he said, "Why not flee, Master? Why waste your life?"
"My life is Sapphique's," Gildas snapped. "His fate is mine." The captain shook his head. "Suit yourself. But no one else has ever come back." He jerked his head at the Cave entrance.
"There it is."
There was a moment of tense silence. The guards gripped their axes tightly; Finn knew that this was the moment they expected him to make some sort of break for freedom, now that he had a sword in his hand and his back to unknown terrors. How many of those brought as Tribute had screamed and fou
ght in panic here?
Not him. He was Finn.
Reckless, he turned and looked down at the crack.
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It was very thin, and utterly black. Its edges were burned and scorched, as if the metal of the Prison's structure had been superheated and melted countless times into grotesque twistings and taperings. As if whatever crawled out of these metal lips could melt steel like toffee.
He glanced at Gildas. "I'll go first." Before the Sapient could object, he turned and lowered himself into the slash of darkness, taking one last rapid look into the distance. But the scarred plain was empty, the City a remote fortress.
He slithered his boots over the edge, found a foothold, squeezed his body in.
Once he was below ground level, the darkness closed over him. By feeling with hands and feet he realized that the crack was a horizontal space between tilted strata, and it sloped down into the ground. He had to spread-eagle himself to fir in it, inching forward over a dark slab-like surface littered with debris that seemed to be stones and smooth balls of melted steel that rolled painfully under him. His fingers groped in dust and a lump of rubble that crumbled away like bone. He dropped it hastily.
The roof was low; twice it grazed his back and he began to fear being stuck. As soon as the thought touched him with cold terror he stopped.
Sweating, he gulped a deep breath. "Where are you?"
"Right behind." Gildas sounded strained. His voice echoed; a small shower of dust fell from above into Finn's hair and eyes. A hand grabbed his boot. "Move on."
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"Why?" He tried to roll his head to look back. "Why not wait here till Lightsout, then crawl back. Don't tell me those men will wait out there until dark. They've probably gone already. What's to stop us ...?"
"Fireglobes are to stop us, fool boy. Acres of them. One wrong step and your foot's blown off. And you didn't see what I saw last night, how they patrol the City walls, how vast searchlights sweep the plain all night. We'd be easily seen." He laughed, a grim bark in the darkness. "I meant what I said to the blind women. You are a Starseer. If Sapphique came here, so must we. Though I fear my theory that the way out leads upward seems doomed to be proved wrong."
Finn shook his head in disbelief. Even in this mess the old man cared more about his theories than anything else. He scrabbled on, digging the toes of his boots in and heaving himself forward.
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