Incarceron

by Catherine Fisher

  "It's as if he's made cages for them all," she said quietly. "I hope he hasn't got one for us." Then, catching the sudden jerk of his reflection, "What is it? Finn?"

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  "Nothing." His hands left hot smears on the sphere as he leaned on it.

  "You saw something." Attia's eyes were wide. "Was it the stars, Finn? Are there really millions of them? Do they gather and sing in the darkness?"

  Stupidly, he didn't want to disappoint her. He said, "I saw ... I saw a lake in front of a great building. It was night. Lanterns were floating on the water, little paper lanterns each with a candle inside so they looked blue and green and scarlet. There were boats on the lake and I was in one of them." He rubbed his face. "I was there, Attia. I was leaning over the side and tried to touch my reflection in the water, and yes, there were stars. And they were angry because my sleeve got wet."

  "The stars?" She came closer.

  "No. The people."

  "What people? Who were they, Finn?" He tried. There was a scent. A shadow.

  "A woman," he said. "She was angry."

  It hurt. Remembering hurt. It triggered flashes of light; he closed his eyes against them, sweating, his mouth dry.

  "Don't." Anxious, she reached out to him, the welts red on her wrists where the chains had chafed the skin. "Don't upset yourself."

  He rubbed his face with his sleeve and the room was still with a quiet he had not known since the cell where he had been born. Awkwardly he muttered, "Is Keiro still asleep?"

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  "Oh him!" She scowled. "Who cares?" He watched her wander between the spheres. "You can't dislike him that much. You stuck with him in the City."

  She was silent, so he said, "How did you manage to follow us?"

  "It wasn't easy" She tightened her lips. "We heard rumors about the Tribute, so he said we should steal a flamethrower. I was the one who had to cause a diversion so he could get it. Not that I got any thanks."

  Finn laughed. "That's Keiro. He never thanks anyone." Splaying his hands on the sphere, he leaned his forehead on it and the reptiles inside stared back impassively. "I knew he'd come. Gildas said no, but Keiro would never betray me."

  She made no answer but he became aware that her silence was charged with an odd tension; when he looked up, she was watching him with something like anger. It burst out of her abruptly. "You're so wrong, Finn! Can't you see what he's like? He would have left you easily, just taken the Key and gone and not even cared!"

  "No," he said, surprised.

  "Yes!" She faced up to him, the bruises livid in the white skin of her face. "Because it was only the girl's threat that made him stay."

  He felt cold. "What girl?"

  "Claudia."

  "He spoke to her!"

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  "She threatened him. 'Find Finn,' she said, 'or the Key will be useless to you.' She was really angry with him." Attia shrugged lightly. "It's her you should thank."

  He wouldn't believe it.

  There was no way he would.

  "Keiro would have come." His voice was low and stubborn. "I know how he seems, that he doesn't care about anyone, but I know him. We've fought together. We took the oath."

  She shook her head. "You're too trusting, Finn. You must have been born Outside, because you don't fit here."

  Then, hearing footsteps, she said quickly, "Ask him for the Key. Ask him. You'll see."

  Keiro wandered into the room and whistled. He was wearing a doublet of dark blue, his hair wet, and he was still eating an apple from the plate in their room, the last two skull-rings gleaming on his fingers. "So this is where you are!" He turned a complete circle. "And this is a Sapient's tower. Beats the old man's cage."

  "I'm glad you think so." To Finn's dismay one of the largest spheres clicked open and a stranger stepped out, followed by Gildas. He wondered how much they had overheard, and how there could be steps inside the sphere leading down, but before he was sure about that, it clicked shut and was just a glimmer among the hundreds of others.

  Gildas wore a Sapient's robe of iridescent greens. His sharp face was washed, his white beard trimmed. He looked different,

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  Finn thought. Some of the hunger had gone; when he spoke his voice was not querulous but had a new gravity.

  "This is Blaize," he said. And then, softly, "Blaize Sapiens."

  The tall man bowed his head slightly. "Welcome to my Chamber of Worlds."

  They stared at him. Without the breathing mask, his face was remarkable, mottled with sores and spots and acid bums, his thin straggle of hair tied back in a greasy ribbon.

  Under the Sapient's coat he wore ancient knee breeches stained with chemicals, and a ruffled shirt that perhaps had once been white.

  For a moment no one spoke. Then, to Finn's surprise it was Attia who said, "We have to thank you, Master, for saving us. We would have died."

  "Ah ... well. Yes." He looked at her, his smile lopsided and awkward. "That is indeed true. I thought I had better come down."

  "Why?" Keiro's voice was cool. The Sapient turned. "I don't quite understand ...?"

  "Why bother? To save us? Do we have something you need?"

  Gildas frowned. "This is Keiro, Master. The one with no manners."

  Keiro snorted. "Don't tell me he doesn't know about the Key." He bit the apple, a loud crunch in the silence.

  Blaize turned to Finn. "And you must be the Starseer." His

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  eyes looked at Finn with unnerving scrutiny. "My colleague tells me Sapphique sent this Key to you, and that it will lead you Outside. That you believe you came from Outside."

  "I did."

  "You remember?"

  "No. I just... believe."

  For a moment the man gazed at him, one thin hand absently scratching a sore on his cheek. Then he said, "Regretfully, I have to tell you that you are mistaken."

  Gildas turned in astonishment; Attia stared.

  Annoyed, Finn said, "What do you mean?"

  "I mean you didn't come from Outside. No one has ever come from Outside. Because, you see, there is no Outside."

  For a moment the silence in the room was appalled, full of disbelief. Then Keiro laughed softly and threw the apple core on the stone slabs of the floor. He came over, took out the Key, and slapped it down next to the glass sphere. "Ail right, Wise One. If there's no Outside, what's this for?"

  Blaize reached out and picked it up. He turned it carelessly and calmly. "Ah yes. I have heard of such devices. Perhaps the original Sapienti invented them. There is a legend that Lord Calliston made one in secret and died before he could try it. It renders the user invisible to the Eyes, and no doubt has other abilities. But it cannot let you out."

  Gently he placed the crystal on the table. Gildas glared at him. "Brother, this is folly! We all know Sapphique himself--"

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  "We know nothing about Sapphique but a muddle of tales and legends. Those fools down there in the City, whose doings I watch to relieve my boredom, they invent new tales of Sapphique every year." He folded his arms, his gray eyes relentless. "Men love to make stories, brother. They love to dream. They dream that the world is deep underground, and if we could journey up we would find the way out, a trapdoor into a land where the sky is blue and the land breeds corn and honey and there is no pain. Or that there are nine circles of the Prison surrounding its center, and if we go deep into them we find the heart of Incarceron, its living being, and we will emerge through it into another world." He shook his head. "Legends. Nothing more."

  Finn was shocked. He glanced at Gildas; the old man seemed stricken, then anger burst out of him. "How can you say this?" he snapped. "You, a Sapient? I thought when I saw what you were, that our struggles would be easier, that you'd understand ..."

  "I do, believe me."

  "Then how can you say there is no Outside?"

  "Because I have seen."

  His voice was so somber and heavy with despair that even Keiro stopped pacing up
and down and stared at him. Beside Finn, Attia shivered. "How?" she whispered.

  The Sapient pointed to a sphere, a black, empty shell. "There. The experiment took me decades, but I was determined. My

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  sensors penetrated metal and skin, bone and wire. I felt my way through miles of Incarceron, its halls and corridors, its seas, its rivers. Like you, I believed." He laughed harshly, biting the worn nails of his hand. "And yes, I found Outside, in a way." He turned and touched the controls, and the sphere lit. "I found this."

  They saw an image in the darkness. A sphere within the sphere, a globe of blue metal. It hung in the everlasting blackness of space, alone, silent.

  "This is Incarceron." Blaize jabbed a ringer at it. "And we live inside k. A world. Constructed, or grown, who knows. But alone, in a vastness, a vacuum. In nothing. There is Nothing outside." He shrugged. "I am sorry. I do not wish to destroy the dreams of your lifetime. But there is nowhere else to go."

  Finn couldn't breathe. It was as if the bleak words drew the life out of him. He stared at the globe and felt Keiro come close behind him, sensed his oathbrother's warmth and energy, and it comforted him. But it was Gildas who surprised them all.

  He laughed. A gruff, throaty roar of scorn. Drawing himself upright, he turned on Blaize and glared at him. "And you call yourself Wise! Fooled by the Prison's malice, more like. It shows you lies and you believe them, and live up here above men and despise them. Worse than a fool!" He strode up to the taller man; Finn took a quick step after him. He knew the old man's temper.

  But Gildas stabbed the air with his knotty finger, and his

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  voice was hard and low. "How dare you stand there and deny me my hope and these their chance of life. How dare you tell me Sapphique is a dream, that the Prison is all there is!"

  "Because it's true," Blaize said.

  Gildas wrenched out of Finn's grip. "Liar! You're no Sapient. And you forget. We've seen Outsiders."

  "Yes!" Attia said. "And spoken to them."

  Blaize paused. He said, "Spoken to them?"

  For a moment it almost seemed his certainty was shaken. He linked his fingers together and his voice was tight. "Spoken to whom? Who are they?"

  Everyone looked at Finn, so he said, "A girl called Claudia. And a man. She calls him Jared."

  There was a second of silence. Keiro said, "So explain that."

  Blaize turned his back. But almost at once he swung around and his face was grave. "I have no wish to upset you. But you've seen a girl and a man. How do you know where they are?"

  Finn said, "They're not here."

  "No?" Blaize glanced at him quickly, his pocked face tipped sideways. "How do you know? Have you not thought that they also may be in Incarceron? In some other Wing, some distant level where life seems different, where they don't even know they are imprisoned? Think, boy! This quest for Escape will become a folly that will eat up your life. You will spend years in hopeless traveling, searching, and all for nothing! Find a place to live, learn peace instead. Forget the stars."

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  His voice murmured among the glass spheres, high into the timbered rafters of the roof. Dismayed, barely hearing Gildas's angry outburst, Finn faced the window and stood there, staring out through the sealed glass at the drifting clouds of Incarceron's stratosphere, too high for birds, the icy landscape miles below, the distant hills and dark slopes that might be walls beyond his sight.

  His own fear terrified him.

  If this was true, there was no Escape, from here or from himself...

  He was Finn and always would be, with no past and no future and there was nowhere to go back to. No one else that he had once been.

  Gildas and Attia were angry; they were arguing, but Keiro's cool comment sliced through the noise and silenced everyone. "Why don't we ask them?" he said. He picked the Key up and touched the controls; turning quickly, Finn saw how adept at it he was.

  "There's no point," Blaize said rapidly. "For us there is."

  "Then I will leave you to speak to your friends." Blaize turned. "I have no wish to do so. Feel free to treat the tower as your home. Eat, rest. Think about what I've said."

  He walked between the spheres and out of the door, the robe flapping about his stained clothes, a faint scent of acid and something else, something sweet, drifting behind him.

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  As soon as he was gone Gildas swore, long and bitterly.

  Keiro grinned. "You learned something useful from the Comitatus then."

  "To think that after all these years I should find a Sapient and he should be so weak!" The old man sounded sick with disgust. Then he thrust out his hand. "Give me that Key."

  "No need." Keiro placed it hastily on the table and stepped back. "It's working."

  The familiar hum rose; the holo-image sprang out and cleared to a circle of light. Today it seemed even brighter than before, as if they were nearer its source, or its power had grown. Into it, as close as if she were among them, Claudia stepped. Her eyes were bright, her face alert. Finn almost felt he could reach out and touch her.

  "They found you," she said.

  "Yes," he whispered.

  "I'm so pleased."

  Jared was with her, one arm leaning against what seemed like a tree. And suddenly Finn realized they were sitting in a field , or a garden, and the light in that place was a glorious gold.

  Gildas shouldered past him. "Master," he said curtly. "You are a Sapient?"

  "I am." Jared stood and bowed formally. "As are you, I see."

  "For these fifty years, son. Before you were born. Now answer me three questions and answer them true. Are you Outside Incarceron?"

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  Claudia stared. Jared nodded slowly. "Yes."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because this is a palace, not a prison. Because the sun is above us, and the stars at night. Because Claudia has discovered the gate that leads to the Prison ..."

  "Have you?" Finn gasped.

  But before she could answer, Gildas snapped, "One thing more. If you are Outside, where is Sapphique? What did he do when he got out there? When will he return to release us?"

  There were flowers in the garden, brilliant red poppies.

  Jared looked at Claudia, and in the silence between them a bee buzzed on the petals, a small murmur that made Finn shiver with lost memory.

  Then Jared stood and came forward, so close, he and Gildas were face-to-face. "Master," he said courteously. "Forgive me for my ignorance. For my curiosity. Forgive me if this seems a stupid question. But who is Sapphique?"

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  23

  ***

  Nothing has changed, or will change.

  So we must change it.

  --The Steel Wolves

  ***

  Finn thought the bee would come out of the nimbus of gold and land on him. As it buzzed near his hand, he jerked back and it darted away.

  He looked at Gildas. The old man had almost staggered; Attia was helping him sit, and Jared was reaching his own hand out as if to help, dismay on his face. He glanced at Claudia; Finn heard his murmur. "I shouldn't have asked. The Experiment ..."

  "Sapphique Escaped." Keiro pulled a bench over and sat in the hologlow, its light rich on his red coat. "He got out. He's the only one that ever did. That's the legend."

  "No legend," Gildas snapped hoarsely. He looked up. "You really don't know? I thought ... that out there he would be a great man ... a king."

  Claudia said, "No. At least... Well, we could do some research. He may have gone into hiding. Things here aren't perfect either." She stood quickly. "Perhaps you don't know, but people here believe Incarceron to be a wonderful place. A paradise."

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  They stared at her.

  She saw the startled disbelief in their faces, Keiro's changing almost instantly to an amused, acid grin. "Fabulous," he murmured.

  So she told them. She told them about the Experiment, her father, the sealed enigma
of the Prison. And then she told them about Giles. Jared said, "Claudia ..." but she waved a hand at him and went on quickly, pacing on the astonishingly green grass. "They didn't kill him, we know that. They hid him. And I think they hid him in there. I think he's you."

  She turned and faced them, and Keiro said, "Are you saying ..." and then stopped and stared up at his oathbrother. "Finn? A prince?" He laughed, wondering. "Are you crazy?"

  Finn hugged himself. He was shaking, he knew, and that rarely lost bewilderment was back in the corner of his mind, glimmers of things gone as fast as shadows in dim mirrors.

  "You look like him," Claudia said firmly. "There are no photographs allowed now, it's not Protocol, but the old man had a painting." She held it up, slipping off the blue bag. "Look."

  Attia breathed in.

  Finn shivered.

  The child's hair was shining and his face lit with innocent happiness. Impossible health radiated from him. His tunic was cloth of gold, his skin chubby and pink. A tiny eagle seared his wrist.

  Finn stepped closer. He reached out and she lifted the

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  miniature to him, and his fingers closed around the gilt frame; for a moment he felt he had hold of it, that he touched it. And then his fingertips met on nothing and he knew that it was far away, farther than he could imagine. And long ago.

  "There was an old man," Claudia said. "Bartlett. He looked after you."

  He stared at her. His emptiness scared them both.

  "Queen Sia then? Your stepmother, she must have hated you. Caspar, your half brother? Your father, the King, who died. You must remember!"

  He wanted to. He wanted to drag them out of the blackness of his mind, but there was nothing there. Keiro was standing and Gildas had his arm, but all he could see was Claudia, her eager, fierce gaze on him, willing him to remember. "We were betrothed. When you were seven there was a big feast. A great celebration."

  "Leave him alone," Attia snapped. "Leave him."

  Claudia stepped closer. She stretched her hand out and tried to touch his wrist. "Look at it, Finn. They couldn't take it away. It proves who you are."