surface.
Nothing.
She glanced around once. Everything was quiet. So she picked up the key.
The room crashed. Alarms howled; rays of laserfire shot up from the floor, ringing her in a cage of red light. A metal grille slammed over the door; hidden lights burst on and she stood frozen in the uproar in terror, her heart slamming in her chest, and in that instant the disc jabbed a pepperpoint of red pain urgently into her thumb.
She glanced down at it. Jared's message was breathless with terror.
He's coming back! Get out, Claudia! Get out!
7
Once Sapphique came to the end of a tunnel and looked down on a vast hall. Its floor was a poisoned pool of venom. Corrosive steams rose from it. Across the darkness stretched a taut wire, and on the far side a doorway was visible, with light beyond it. The inmates of the Wing tried to dissuade him.
'Many have fallen,' they said.
'Their bones rot in the black lake. Why should you be any different?'
He answered, 'Because I have dreams and in those dreams I see the stars.' Then he swung himself up onto the wire and began to cross. Many times he rested, or hung in pain. Many times they called on him to return. Finally, after hours, he reached the other side, and they saw him stagger, and vanish through the door.
He was dark, this Sapphique, and slender. His hair was straight and long. His real name is only to be guessed at.
Gildas said testily, 'I've told you many times. Outside exists. Sapphique found a way there. But no one comes. Not even you.'
'You don't know that.'
The old man laughed, making the floor sway. The metal cage hung high over the chamber and was barely big enough for both of them to squat in. Books on chains dangled from it, surgical instruments, a swinging cascade of tin boxes stuffed with festering specimens. It was padded with old mattresses from which wisps of straw fell like an irritating snow onto the cooking fires and stewpots far below. A woman looked up to yell in annoyance. Then she saw Finn and was silent.
'I know it, fool boy, because the Sapienti have written it.' Gildas pulled a boot on. 'The
Prison was made to hold the Scum of humanity; to seal them away, to exile them from the earth. That was centuries ago, in the time of Martor, in the days the Prison spoke to men.
Seventy Sapienti volunteered to enter the Prison to minister to its inmates, and after them the entrance was sealed forever. They taught their wisdom to their successors. Even children know this.'
Finn rubbed the hilt of his sword. He felt tired and resentful.
'No one has entered since. We know about the Wombs too, though not where they are.
Incarceron is efficient; it was designed to be. It doesn't waste dead matter, but recycles everything. In those cells it grows new inmates. Perhaps animals too.
'But I remember things ... bits of things.' Finn gripped the
81 cage bars as if to hold on to his belief, watching Keiro cross the floor of the hall far below, arms around two giggling girls.
Gildas's gaze followed his. 'You don't. You dream Incarceron's mysteries. Your visions will show us how to Escape.'
'No. I remember.'
The old man looked exasperated. 'Remember what?'
He felt foolish. 'Well... a cake. With silver balls and seven candles. There were people.
And music ... lots of music ... He hadn't realized that until now. He was oddly pleased, until he caught the old man's eye.
'A cake. I suppose it may be a symbol. The number seven is important. The Sapienti know it as the sigil of Sapphique, because of the time when he met the renegade Beetle.'
'I was there!'
'Everyone has memories, Finn. Your prophecies are what matter. The visions that descend on you are the great gift and strangeness of the Starseer. They're unique. The people know that, the slaves and the warband, even Jormanric. It's in the way they look at you. Sometimes they fear you.'
Finn was silent. He hated the fits. They came suddenly, dizzy sickness and blackouts that terrified him, and Gildas's relentless interrogation after each one left him shivering and sick.
'One day I'll die from one,' he said quietly.
'It is true few cell-born live to be old.' Gildas's voice was harsh, but he looked away.
Buckling the ornate collar over his green robe he muttered, 'The past is gone; whatever it was, it doesn't matter anymore. Put it out of your head or it will drive you to madness.'
Finn said, 'How many other cell-born have you known?'
'Three.' Gildas tugged the plaited end of his beard free irritably. He paused. 'You're rare beings. I spent my life searching before I found you. A man rumored to be cell-born used to beg outside the Hall of Lepers, but when I finally coaxed him to speak I realized his mind had gone; he babbled about an egg that talked, a cat that faded out to just a smile.
Years later, after many rumors, I found another, a worker of the Civicry in the Ice Wing. She seemed normal enough; I tried to persuade her to speak to me of her visions. But she never would. One day I heard she had hanged herself.'
Finn swallowed. 'Why?'
'They told me she had gradually begun to believe a child followed her, an invisible child that clutched her skirts and called her, woke her at night. Its voice tormented her. She couldn't shut it out.'
Finn shivered. He knew that Gildas was watching him. The Sapient said gruffly, 'Finding you here was a chance in a million, Finn. Only you can guide my Escape.'
'I can't ...'
'You can. You're my prophet, Finn. My link with Incarceron. Soon now you'll bring me the vision I've waited a lifetime for, the sign that my time has come, that I must follow
Sapphique and seek the Outside. Every Sapient makes that journey. None have succeeded, but none have had a cell-born to guide them.'
Finn shook his head. He'd heard this for years and it still scared him. The old man was obsessed with Escape, but how could Finn help him? How could flashes of memory and the skin-tingling, choking lapses into unconsciousness help anyone?
Gildas pushed past him and grasped the metal ladder. 'Don't talk about this. Not even to
Keiro.'
He climbed down and his eyes were on a level with Finns feet before Finn muttered, 'Jormanric will never just let you go.'
Gildas glared up through the rungs. 'I go where I want.'
'He needs you. He rules the Wing because of you. On his own he—'
'He'll manage. He's good at fear and violence.'
Gildas descended one rung, then pulled himself up, his small wizened face lit with sudden joy. 'Can you imagine how it will be, Finn, one day, to open a hatch and climb out of darkness, out of Incarceron? To see the stars? To see the sun!'
For a moment Finn was silent; then he swung down on a rope past the Sapient. 'I've seen it.'
Gildas laughed sourly. 'Only in visions, fool boy. Only in dreams.'
