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—'
'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 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 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.'
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.
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?'
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 ...'
