Jared ran straight to it, Claudia close behind. ‘What was that? What happened?’
‘Some connection. Maybe...’ He turned. Something had changed in the hum of the room. It seemed to draw back, to ratchet up the scale. With a screech Claudia ran and hauled Fim out of the chair with such a jerk that they both almost fell over. ‘It’s working! The Portal! But how!’
‘From Inside.’ White with tension Jared watched the chair.
They all stared at it, not knowing what to expect, who might come. Finn snatched out his sword.
Light flashed, the blinding brilliance Jared remembered.
And on the chair was a feather.
It was as big as a man.
The firelock spat flame. It sliced through the ice under the feet of the Chain-gang and the creature howled, toppling and sliding down the collapsed floe. Its bodies tangled, grabbing at each other. Attia fired again, targeting the smashed plates of ice, yelling, ‘Come on!’ Keiro struggled to get clear. He fought and bit and kicked with furious energy, but his feet too were slipping into the slush, and there was still a hand gripping his long coat. Then the fabric tore and for a moment he was free. He reached up and she leant and grabbed him; he was heavy, but the terror of being pulled back and smothered made him scramble over the horse’s back behind her.
Attia shoved the weapon under her arm, struggling with the reins. The horse was panicking; as it reared a great crack split the night. Glancing down Attia saw that all the ice was breaking up; from the crater she had made black crevasses were zigzagging out. Icicles snapped off the waterfall, smashing in jagged heaps.
The firelock was snatched from her. Keiro yelled, ‘Keep it still!’ but the horse tossed its head in fear, its hooves clattering and sliding down the frozen slabs.
The Chain-gang was struggling, half in meltwater. Some of its bodies lay under the others, its chains of sinew and skin iced with frost.
Keiro raised the weapon.
‘NO!’Attia breathed. ‘We can get away.’ And then, when he didn’t lower it, ‘They were men once!’
‘If they remember they’ll thank me.’ Keiro’s voice was grim.
The blast scorched them. He fired three, four, five times, coldly and efficiently, until the weapon sputtered and coughed and was useless. Then he threw it down into the charred crater.
Attia’s hands were sore on the leather reins.
She fought the horse to a standstill.
In the eerie silence the faintest whisper of wind crusted the snow. She could not look down at the dead men; instead she gazed up at the distant roof and felt a shiver of wonder, because for a moment she thought she saw thousands of tiny points of shimmering light in that black firmament, as if the stars that Finn had told her of were there.
Keiro said, ‘Let’s get out of this hell-hole.’
‘How?’ she muttered.
The tundra was a web of crevasses. Under the broken ice water was rising, an ocean of metallic grey. And the glistening specks were not stars, they were the outlying skeins of a silver fog, slowly circling down from Incarceron’s heights.
The fog came down into their faces. It said, You should not have killed my creatures, halfman.
Claudia stared at the huge central stalk of the feather, the great blue barbs linked stiffly with each other. Carefully she reached out and touched the fluffy plumes at the end. The feather was identical with the tiny one Jared had picked up from the lawn. But gross, swollen. Wholly wrong.
Amazed, she whispered, ‘What does it mean?’ An amused voice answered her. ‘It means, my dear, that I am returning your little gift.’ For a moment she couldn’t move. Then she said, ‘Father?’ Finn took her arm and turned her. She saw, appearing on the screen very slowly, pixel by pixel, the image of a man. As the picture completed itself she recognized him, the severity of his dark coat, the brushed perfection of his hair, tied elegantly back. The Warden of Incarceron, the man she still thought of as her father, was looking down at her.
‘Can you see me?’ she gasped.
There it was. His old, cold smile.
‘Of course I can see you, Claudia. I think you would be surprised what I can see His grey eyes turned to Jared.
‘Master Sapient, I congratulate you. I had thought the damage I had done to the Portal would be enough. It seems, as ever, that I underestimated you.’ Claudia linked her hands in front of her. She straightened up, the way she always stood rigidly upright before him, as if she was a small child again, as if his clear gaze diminished her.
‘I return the materials of your experiment: the Warden said drily. ‘As you can see, the problems of scale remain. I would advise you strongly, Jared, not to send anything living through the Portal. The results might be fatal to all of us.’ Jared frowned. ‘But the feathers arrived there?’ The Warden smiled and did not answer.
Claudia couldn’t wait any longer. The words burst out of her. ‘Are you really in Incarceron?’
‘Where else?’
‘But where is it? You never told us!’ A flicker of surprise crossed his face. He leant back, and she saw he was in some dark place, because a glimmer like flamelight reflected briefly in his eyes. A soft pulsing sound came from somewhere in the darkness. ‘Didn’t I? Well I’m afraid, Claudia, that you must ask your precious tutor about that.’ She glanced at Jared. He seemed embarrassed, not meeting her eyes.
‘Can you really not have told her, Master?’The mockery in her father’s voice was clear. ‘And I thought you had no secrets in your little partnership. Well, it seems you should be careful, Claudia. Power corrupts all men. Even Sapienti.’
‘Power?’ she snapped.
His hands opened elegantly but before she could demand more Finn elbowed her aside.
‘Where’s Keiro? What’s happening to him?’ The Warden said coldly, ‘How should I know?’
‘When you were Blaize you had a tower full of books! The Prison’s records of everyone.You could find him. .
‘Do you really care?’ The Warden leant forward. ‘Well, then I’ll tell you. At this moment he is fighting for his life with a monstrous creature of many heads’ Catching Finn’s shocked stillness he laughed. ‘And you’re not there to watch his back. That must hurt. But this is where he belongs. This is Keiro’s world, without friendship, without love. And you, Prisoner, belong here too.’ The screen flickered and spat.
‘Father. . .‘ Claudia said quickly.
‘So you still call me that?’
‘What else can I call you?’ She stepped forward. ‘You’re the only father I know.’ For a moment he gazed at her, and she noticed in the disintegrating image that his hair was a little greyer than it had been, his face more lined. Then he said quietly, ‘I am a Prisoner too now, Claudia.’
‘You can Escape. You have the Keys...’
‘Had.’ He shrugged. ‘Incarceron has taken them The image was rippling. Desperately she said, ‘But why?’
‘The Prison is consumed with desire. Sapphique began it, because when he wore the Glove he and the Prison became one mind. He infected it.’
‘With a disease?’
‘A desire. And desire can be a disease, Claudia: He was watching her, his face shivering and dissolving and reforming. ‘You are to blame too, for describing it all so well.
And so Incarceron burns with longing. For all its thousand eyes there is one thing it has never seen, and it will do anything to see.
‘What?’ she breathed, already knowing.
‘Outside,’ he whispered.
For a moment no one spoke. Then Finn leant forward.
‘What about me? Am I Giles? Did you put me in the Prison?
Tell me!’ The Warden smiled at him.
Then the screen went blank.
