Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) (25 page)

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bits of jewelry, bones, fragments of rags, shafts of weapons. They were centuries old; skin and hide had grown over them. With a tearing and cracking an outcrop of dark faceted rock became its head and reared up over him; spurs of metal slid out like claws, grasping the shuddering tilting floor of the cavern.

Finn couldn't move. Dust and fumes clouded over him.

"Strike!" Gildas grabbed his arm.

"Its useless. Can't you see ...?"

Gildas gave a roar of anger, snatched the sword from him, and thrust it into the clotted hide of the Beast, leaping back as if he expected blood to cascade out in a great gout. Then he stared, seeing what Finn had seen.

There was no wound. The hide opened and dissolved, absorbed the blade, reassembled around it. The Beast was a composite creature, a grinding, swift formation of millions of beings, of bats and bones and beetles, dark clouds of bees, an ever-changing kaleidoscope pattern of rock fragments and metal shards. As it turned and rose into the roof of the chamber, they saw that over the centuries it had absorbed all the terror and the fear of the City, that all the Tribute sent out to placate it had been absorbed, eaten, had only made it grow huger. Somewhere inside it were the billions of atoms of the dead, of the victims and the children dragged out here by decree of the Justices. It was a magnetized mass of flesh and metal, its crumbling tail studded with fingernails and teeth and talons.

It stretched out its head above them and leaned down,

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bringing the great red Eyes close to Finn's face, making his skin scarlet, his shaking hands look as if they were red with blood.

"Finn,'' it
said, in a voice of deep pleasure, a throaty treacle of huskiness.
"At last."

He stepped back, into Gildas. The Sapient's hand gripped his elbow. "You know my name."

"I gave you your name."
Its tongue flickered in the dark cavern of its mouth.
"Gave it long ago, when you were born in my cells. When you became my son."

He was shuddering. He wanted to deny it, shout Out, but no words would come.

The creature tipped its head, studying him. The long muzzle, dripping bees and scales, fragmented into a cloud of dragonflies and re-formed again.
"I knew you'd come,"
it said.
"I've been watching you, Finn, because you are so special. In all the entrails and veins of my body, in all the millions of beings I enclose, there is no one quite like you."

The head zoomed closer. Something like a smile formed and broke.
"Do you really think you can escape from me? Do you forget that I could kill you, shut down light and air, incinerate you in seconds?"

"I don't forget," he managed to say.

"Most men do. Most men are content to live in their prison and think it is the world, but not you, Finn. You remember about me. You look around and see my Eyes watching you, in those nights of darkness you called out to me and I heard you ..."

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"You didn't answer," he whispered.

"But you knew I was there. You are a Starseer, Finn. How interesting that is."

Gildas pushed forward. He was white, his sparse hair wet with sweat. "Who are you?" he growled.

"I am Incarceron, old man. You should know. It was the Sapienti who created me. Your great, towering, overreaching endless failure. Your nemesis."
I zigzagged closer, its mouth wide so that they could see the rags of cloth that hung there, smell the oily, oddly sweet stench of k.
"Ah, the pride of the Wise. And now you dare to seek a way free of your own folly."

It slid back, the red Eyes narrowing to slits.
"Pay me, Finn. Pay me as Sapphique paid. Give me your flesh, your blood. Give me the old man and his terrible desire for death. Then perhaps your Key may open doors you do not dream of"

Finn's mouth was dry as ash. "This isn't a game."

"No?"
The Beast's laugh was soft and slithering.
"Are you not pieces on a board?"

"People." His anger was rising. "People that suffer. People you torment."

For a moment the creature dissolved to clouds of insects. Then they clotted in abrupt gargoyles, a new face, serpentine and sinuous.
"I'm afraid not. They torment each other. There is no system that can stop that, no place that can wall out evil, because men bring it in with them, even in the children. Such men are beyond correction, and it is my task only to

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contain them. I bold them inside myself. I swallow them whole."

A tentacle lashed out and around his wrist.
"Pay me, Finn."

Finn jerked back, glanced at Gildas. The Sapient looked shrunken, his face drawn as if all his dread had fallen on him at once, but he said slowly, "Let it take me, boy. There's nothing for me now."

"No." Finn stared up at the Beast, its reptilian smile inches from him. "I've already given you one life."

"Ah. The woman."
The smile lengthened.
"How her death tears at you. Conscience and shame are so rare. They interest me."

Something in its smirk made him catch his breath. A jolt of hope hurt him; he gasped, "She's not dead! You caught her, you stopped her fall! Didn't you? You saved her."

The red spiral winked at him.
"Nothing is wasted here," it
murmured.

Finn stared, but Gildas's voice was a growl in his ear. "It's lying, boy."

"Maybe not. Maybe ..."

"It's playing with you." Sour with disgust, the old man stared at the swirling confusion of the Eye. "If it is true we made such a thing as you, then I'm ready to pay for our folly."

"No." Finn grabbed him tight. He slid a dull circle of silver from his thumb and held it up, a glittering spark. "Take this for your Tribute instead,
Father?'

It was the skull-ring. And he was beyond caring.

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21

***

I have worked for years in secret to make a device that is a copy of the one Outside. Now
it protects me. Timon died last week and Pela is missing in the riots, and even though

I am hidden here in this lost hall, the Prison searches for me. "My lord" it whispers, "I feel

you. I feel you crawl on my skin."

--Lord Calliston's Diary

***

The Queen rose graciously.

In the porcelain whiteness of her face her strange eyes were clear and cold. "My dear, dear, Claudia."

Claudia dropped a curtsy, felt the whisper of a kiss on each cheek, and in the tight grip of the embrace sensed the thin bones of the woman, the small frame inside the boned corset and huge hooped skirts.

No one knew Queen Sia's age. After all, she was a sorceress. Older than the Warden perhaps, though beside her he was grave and dark, his silvered beard meticulous.

Brittle or not, her youth was convincing; she looked barely older than her son.

Turning, she led Claudia in, sweeping past Caspar's sullen

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stare. "You look so pretty, my sweet. That dress is wonderful. And your hair! Now tell me, is that natural or do you have it colored?"

Claudia breathed out, already irritated, but there was no need to answer. The Queen was already talking about something else. "... and I hope you won't consider that too forward of me."

"No," Claudia said blankly into a second of silence.

The Queen smiled. "Excellent. This way."

It was a double wooden door and was flung open by two footmen, but when Claudia was inside, the doors closed and the whole tiny chamber moved soundlessly upward.

"Yes I know," the Queen murmured, holding her close. "Such a breach of Protocol. But it's only for me, so who's to know?"

The small white hands were so tight on her arm, she could feel the nails digging in. She was breathless, as if she had been kidnapped. Even her father and Caspar were left behind.

When the doors opened, the corridor that stretched before her was a vision of gilt and mirrors; it had to be three times the size of the house at home. The Queen led her along it by the hand, between vast painted maps that showed every country in the Realm, adorned in their corners with fantasies of curling waves and mermaids and sea monsters.

"That's the library. I know you love books. Caspar, unfortunately, is not so studious. Really, I don't know if he can read at all. We won't go in."

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Escorted firmly past, she looked back. Between each map stood a blue and white china urn that could have hidden a man, and the mirrors reflected each other in such sunlit confusion that she suddenly had no idea where the corridor ended or if it ever did. And the small white figure of the Queen seemed repeated before her and behind and to the side, so that the dread Claudia had felt in the coach seemed to be concentrated in that swift, unnaturally young stride, that sharp, confiding voice.

"And this is your suite. Your father is next door."

Immense.

A carpet her feet sank into, a bed so canopied with saffron silk, she felt it would drown her.

Suddenly she pulled her hand from the Queen's and stood back, knowing the trap. Knowing she was caught in it.

Sia was silent. The empty chatter was gone. They faced each other.

Then the Queen smiled. "You will not need to be warned, I'm sure, Claudia. John Arlex's daughter will be well trained, but I suppose it won't hurt to tell you that many of the mirrors are double sided and the listening devices all over the Palace are most efficient." She stepped closer. "You see, I have heard you were recently a little curious about dear lost Giles."

Claudia kept her face perfectly composed, but her hands were icy. She glanced down. "I've thought about him. If things had been different..."

"Yes. And we were all devastated by his death. But even if

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the Havaarna Dynasty is over, the Realm must be governed. And I have no doubt, Claudia, that you will do it very well."

"Me?"

"Of course." The Queen turned and sat elegantly on a gilt chair. "Surely you know Caspar is incapable even of ruling himself? Come and sit here, my sweet. Let me advise you."

Surprise was freezing her. She sat.

The Queen leaned forward, her red lips making a coy smile. "Now, your life here can be a very pleasant one. Caspar is a child--let him have his toys, horses, palaces, girls, and he will make no trouble. I have made quite sure he knows nothing about politics. He gets bored so easily! You and I can have such a pleasant time, Claudia. You have no idea how tiresome It gets with just these men."

Claudia stared at her hands. Was this real, any of it? How much of it was the game?

"I thought..."

"That I hated you?" The Queen's giggle was girlish. "I need you, Claudia! We can rule together, and you'll be so good at it! And your father will smile his grave smile. So." Her small hands tapped Claudia's. "No more sad thoughts about Giles. He's in a better place, my dear."

Slowly, she nodded and stood, and the Queen stood too, with a rustle of silk.

"There's just one thing."

One hand on the door, Sia turned. "Yes?"

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"Jared Sapiens. My tutor. I ..."

"You won't need a tutor. I can teach you everything now."

"I want him to stay." She said it firmly.

The Queen stared straight back. "He's young for a Sapient. I don't know what your father was thinking of..."

"He will stay." She made sure it was a statement, not a question.

The Queen's red lips twitched. Her smile was pleasant. "Whatever you say, my sweet. Whatever you want."

***

JARED PLACED the scanner on the door frame, opened the tiny
casement,
and sat on the bed. The room was sparse, as perhaps the Court thought a Sapient's cell should be, with wooden floorboards and dark paneling topped with trefoils and crude roses.

It smelled of rushes and damp, and seemed bare enough, but he had already removed two small listening devices and there might be others. Still, he had to take the chance.

He took out the Key and held it, activating the speechlink.

Nothing but darkness.

He touched it again, concerned: The darkness grew to a wide circle but remained dark. Then, very faintly, he saw the edge of a crouching figure in it. "We can't talk," it whispered. "Not now."

"Then listen." Jared kept his voice low. "This may help. A combination of two, four, three, one on the touch panel produces a dampening field. Any surveillance system will lose

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track of you, completely. You'll disappear from its scanners. Do you understand, that?"

"I'm not stupid." Keiro's scornful whisper barely came through.

"Have you found Finn?"

Nothing. They'd switched off.

Jared linked his fingers and swore softly in the Sapient tongue. Outside the window, the voices of people rose up, some fiddlers in the distant gardens scraping a jig.

There would be dancing tonight to welcome the bride of the Heir.

And yet if the old man Bartlett had been right, the real Heir was still alive, and Claudia was convinced it was this boy Finn. Jared shook his head, unfastening the collar of his coat with long fingers. She wanted it so much. His doubts would have to stay silent, because without this hope, she would have nothing. And after all, it was possible, just possible, that her instinct was right.

"wearily, he leaned back against the stiff bolster, took the medication pouch from his pocket, and prepared the dose. It was three grains stronger now, and had been for the last week, but the pain that lived deep in his body seemed still to grow slowly, like a living thing; he sometimes thought that it devoured the drug, that he was feeding its appetite.

He applied the syringe, frowning. These were morbid and foolish ideas.