Incarceron

The door shuddered inward, and stuck.

For a moment they waited, because the narrow slit was dark and a cool, oddly sweetsmelling air moved beyond. Then Finn kicked the rubble aside and put his shoulder to the door. He heaved, and rammed it until it stuck again. But now there was room to squeeze through.

Gildas nudged him. 'Take a look. Be careful.'

Finn glanced back at Keiro, sitting slumped and weary. He drew his sword and slipped sideways through the gap.

It was colder. His breath frosted. The ground was uneven, and ran downhill. As he took a few steps a strange tinny litter rustled around his ankles; putting a hand down, he felt drifts of crisp stuff, cold and wet, sharp against his fingertips. As his eyes grew used to the deeper gloom, he thought he was standing in a sloping hall of columns; tall black pillars rose to a tangle overhead. Groping to the nearest one, he felt it over with his hands, puzzled. It was icy cold and hard, but not smooth. A mass of fissures and cracks seamed it, knots and swelling growths, and branches of intricate mesh.

'Finn?'

Gildas was a shadow at the door.

'Wait.' Finn listened. The breeze moved in the tangle, making a faint silvery tinkle that seemed to stretch for miles. After a moment he said, 'There's no one here. Come through.'

A few rustles and stirrings. Then Gildas said, 'Bring the Key, Keiro. We need to shut this.'

'If we do, can we get back?' Keiro sounded worn.

'What's to get back for? Give me a hand.' As soon as the dog-slave had slipped through, Finn and the old man shoved and forced the tiny door back into its frame. It clicked quietly shut.

A rustle. A scrape of sound. Light, steadying, in a lantern.

'Someone might see it,' Keiro snapped.

But Finn said, 'I told you. We're alone.'

As Gildas held the lantern high, they looked around at the ominous enclosing pillars.

Finally Keiro said, 'What are they?'

Behind him, the dog-creature crouched down. Finn glanced at it, and knew it was looking at him.

'Metal trees.' The light caught the Sapient's plaited beard, the gleam of satisfaction in his eye. 'A forest where the species are iron, and steel, and copper, where the leaves are thin as foil, where fruits grow gold and silver.' He turned. 'There are stories, from the old times, of such places. Apples of gold guarded by monsters. It seems they're true.'

The air was cold and still. It held an alien sense of distance. It was Keiro who asked the question Finn didn't dare to.

'Are we Outside?'

Gildas snorted. 'Do you think it's that easy? Now sit before you fall.' He glanced at Finn.

'I'll deal with his wounds. This is as good a place as any to wait for Lightson. We can rest.

Even eat.'

But Finn turned and faced Keiro. He felt cold and sick, but he spoke the words stubbornly.

'Before we go any further I want to know what Jormanric meant. About the Maestra's death.'

There was a second of silence. In the ghostly light Keiro gave

Finn one exasperated glare and crumpled wearily in the rustling leaves, pushing back his hair with blood- streaked hands. 'For God's sake, Finn, do you really think I know? You saw him. He was finished. He would have said anything! It was just lies. Forget it.'

Finn looked down at him. For a second he wanted to insist, ask again, to silence the nagging fear inside him, but Gildas eased him aside. 'Make yourself useful. Find something to eat.

While the Sapient poured water, Finn tipped out a few packages of dried meat and fruit from his pack and another lantern, which he lit from the first. Then he trampled down the icy metal leaves into a clotted mass, spread some blankets on them, and sat. In the shadowed forest beyond the pool of light, small rustles and scrapings disturbed him; he tried to ignore them. Keiro swore viciously as Gildas cleaned his cuts, stripped his jacket and shirt, and rubbed chewed-up herbs of a disgusting pungency onto the wound across his chest.

In the shadows the dog-slave crouched, barely visible. Finn took one of the food packets, opened it, and held some out.

'Take it,' he whispered.

A rag-bound hand, crusted with sores, snatched it from him. While the creature ate he watched, remembering the voice that had answered him, a low, urgent voice. Now he whispered, 'Who are you?'

'Is that thing still here?' Sore and irritable, Keiro pulled his jacket back on and laced it, scowling at the slashes and tears. Finn shrugged.

'We dump it.' Keiro sat, wolfed down the meat, and looked around for more. 'It's poxed.'

'You owe that thing your life,' Gildas remarked.

Hot, Keiro glared up. 'I don't think so! I had Jormanric where I wanted him.' His eyes turned to the creature; then they widened in sudden fury and he leaped up, strode to where it crouched, and snatched away something dark. 'This is mine!'

It was his bag. A green tunic and a jeweled dagger spilled out. 'Stinking thief.' Keiro aimed a kick at the creature; it jerked away. Then, to their astonishment, it said in a girl's voice, 'You should be grateful to me for bringing it.'

Gildas turned on his heel and stared at the shadow of rags. Then he stabbed a bony finger at it. 'Show yourself,' he said.

The ragged hood was pushed back, the wrapped paws unwound bandages and gray strips of binding. Slowly, out of the crippled huddle a small figure emerged, crouched up on its knees, a dark cropped head of dirty hair, a narrow face with watchful, suspicious eyes. She was layered with clothes strapped and tied to make humps and bulges; as she tugged the clotted wrappings from her hands, Finn stepped back in disgust at the open sores, the running ulcers. Until Gildas snorted. 'Fake.'

He strode forward. 'No wonder you didn't want me near you.'

In the dimness of the metal forest the dog-slave had become a small thin girl, the sores clever messes of color. She stood upright slowly, as if she had almost forgotten how. Then she stretched and groaned. The ends of the chain around her neck clattered and swung.

Keiro laughed harshly. 'Well, well. Jormanric was slyer than I thought.'

'He didn't know.' The girl looked at him boldly. 'None of them knew. When they caught me

I was with a group—one old woman died that night. I stole these rags from her body and made the sores out of rust, rubbed muck all over myself, hacked off my hair. I knew I had to be clever, very clever, to stay alive.'

She looked scared, and defiant. It was hard to tell her age; the brutal haircut made her seem like a scrawny child, but Finn guessed she was not so much younger than himself.

He said, 'It didn't turn out to be such a good idea.'

She shrugged. 'I didn't know I'd end up as his slave.'

'And tasting his food?'

She laughed then, a bitter amusement. 'He ate well. It kept me alive.'

Finn glanced at Keiro. His oathbrother watched the girl, then turned away and curled up in the blankets. 'We dump her in the morning.'

'It's not up to you.' Her voice was quiet but firm. 'I'm the servant of the Starseer now.'

Keiro rolled and stared. Finn said, 'Me?'

'You brought me out of that place. No one else would have done that. Leave me, and I'll follow you. Like a dog .' She stepped forward, 'I want to

Escape. I want to find the Outside, if there is one. And they said in the slavehall that you see the stars in your dreams, that Sapphique talks to you. That the Prison will show you the way out because you're its son.'

He stared at her in dismay. Gildas shook his head. He looked at Finn and Finn looked back.

'Up to you,' the old man muttered.

He had no idea what to do, so he cleared his throat and said to the girl, 'What's your name?' 'Attia.'

'Well, look, Attia. I don't want a servant. But ... you can come with us.'

'She has no food. That means we have to feed her,' Keiro said.