11
There is a growing terror in speaking with the Prison. My secrets seem small and pitiful. My dreams seem foolish. I begin to fear it can see even into my mind.
The fog slid between them. It was icy A mist of millions of droplets. Attia felt it chill her skin, condense on her lips.
Remember me, Attia? it whispered.
She scowled. ‘I remember.’
‘Ride,’ Keiro muttered.
She urged the horse on, gently. But it slithered and the ground tilted, and she knew Incarceron had them trapped here, because the temperature was rising fast and the whole Wing was melting around them.
Keiro must have felt it too. He snapped, ‘Leave us alone.
Go and torture some other Inmates.’ I know you, hafman. The voice was close, in their ears, against their cheeks. You are part of me, my atoms beat in your heart, itch in your skin. I should kill you now. I should melt the ice and let you drown here.
Suddenly Attia slid down from the horse. She stared up into the grey night. ‘But you won’t. You’ve been watching me all the time. You wrote that message on the wall!’ That I would see the stars? Yes, I used the fool’s hand. Because I will see them, Attia, and you will help me.
Light was gathering. It showed her that through the fog two great red Eyes were being lowered on cables. They gleamed like rubies, one so close to Keiro its hot glare scorched him. He slid down hastily, close behind her.
I have spent centuries longing to Escape, but who can escape themselves? The Warden tries to tell me it won’t work, but my plan had only one flaw and you have solved that.
‘What do you mean, the Warden?’ Keiro snapped. ‘He’s out there with his precious daughter and her Prince.’ The Prison laughed. Its amusement was a rumble that split the ice; floes splashed into the rising sea of meltwater. The berg they were standing on tipped; lumps fell from its edge.
The fog opened a cavernous mouth. I see you don’t know.
The Warden is Inside now, and for ever, because both the Keys are mine. I have used their energy to build my body.
The ice was unsteady. Attia grabbed the horse. ‘Your body?’ she whispered.
In which I will Escape.
Keiro said, ‘That’s not possible .’ They both knew somehow that they had to keep it talking, that one whim of the Prison’s fickle cruelty could tip them into the icy water, that it could open ducts that would sweep them away, deep into the endless drains and tunnels of its metaffic heart.
You would say that. Incarceron’s voice was rich with contempt. You who cannot leave here because of your imperfections. But Sapphique’s dream of the stars is mine now, and there is a way. A secret way, a way no one expects. I am building myself a body. Like a man c but greater, a winged creature. It will be tall and beautiful and perfect. Its eyes will be of emerald and it will walk and run and fly and in it I will put all my personality and power and leave the Prison an empty shell. You have the final piece that I need to complete it.
‘Do we?’ You know you do. I have sought my son’s lost Glove for centuries; it has been kept secret, even from me. It laughed, amused. But now that fool Rix has found it. And you have it here.
Keiro gave Attia a stare of alarm. The ice platform was floating now, and on each side the fog swirled so thickly they could see nothing of the tundra. She felt that the Prison had indeed swallowed them, that they were travelling deep inside its vast belly, like the man in the whale in Rix’s patchbook.
Rix. His words flared in her memory The Art Magicke is the art of illusion.
Waves lifted under the thinning ice. Far off in the fog she saw the links of a vast chain, hanging down. They were being washed towards it. Rapidly she said, ‘You want it?’ It will be my right hand.
Keiro’s eyes were blue and bright. She saw at once what he was planning. He said, ‘You’ll never get it.’ My son, I could kill you now and take it.
The Glove was in Keiro’s hands. ‘Not before I put it on. Not before I know everything about you.’ No.
‘Watch me.’ NO! Lightning flickered. The fog poured in, over the horse, hiding them from each other. Attia gripped Keiro’s elbow, felt his heat through the coat.
‘Perhaps it’s time we made a few conditions then.’ Keiro was invisible but his voice was steely. ‘I have the Glove. I could wear it. I could tear it apart in seconds. But if you want it, I could bring it to you.’ The Prison was silent.
She felt Keiro shrug. ‘It’s up to you. It seems to me this is the only thing in this Hell you can’t control. The Glove was Sapphique’s. It has strange power. Spare our lives and show us the way, and it’s yours. Otherwise I put it on. And what will that make me?’ She could see him now. The fog retreated, drew back. In a moment of horror she realized that they were alone on a berg of ice in a wide sea of water, a greasy metallic ocean. It stretched as far as she could see in every direction, and the two Eyes of the Prison slid into it and stared up at her thoughtfully through its slow, turgid ripples.
Your arrogance is surprising
‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ Keiro said.
You cannot know what the Glove does.
‘You don’t know what I know.’ He stared down, defiant.
‘There are no little red Eyes in my brain, tyrant.’ Lights came on. High in the roof Attia glimpsed walkways and suspended roads, a whole Wing miles above them, where tiny dots that must be people clustered and looked down.
Ah but what if there are, halfman? What f I see even there?
Keiro laughed. It was hollow, but if the Prison had just named his own darkest dread he covered it well. ‘You don’t scare me. Men made you, men can unmake you.’ Indeed. The voice was dry and angry. Then very well, we will make a deal. Bring me the Glove and I will reward you with Escape. But should you ever attempt to put it on I will burn you and it to a cinder. I will have no rivals.
The chain hung before them. It was huge and heavy and it fell into the sea with a splash, the molten water sending up a thick spray that Attia could taste on her lips. As the metal rattled down they saw that a transitway was hauled behind it, a track that unrolled on the sea’s heaving surface, vanishing into the remnants of mist.
Keiro hauled himself back on to the horse, but before he could ride Attia said, ‘Don’t even think about leaving me here.’
‘I don’t need you. I’ve got the Glove now’
‘You need an oathbrother.’
‘I’ve got one of those, too.’
‘Yes,’ she said sourly. ‘But he’s busy.’ Keiro stared down at her. His hair was long and damp; it gleamed in the light. His eyes were cold and calculating; for a moment she knew he would ride away. And then he leant down and hauled her up.
‘Only till I find someone better.’ he said.
The Queen held a State dinner that evening in the Claimants’ honour.
As Claudia sat at the long table licking the last traces of lemon syllabub from her spoon she thought of her father.
Seeing him had shaken her. He had looked thinner, his contempt less assured. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what he’d said. But surely Incarceron, the very intelligence the Sapienti had created, could never leave the Prison, because if it did all that would be left would be a dark shell of metal. Millions of Prisoners would die, without light, air, food. It had to be impossible.
Trying not to think of it she watched Finn anxiously through the candles and wax fruit and hothouse arrangements. He had been placed next to the Countess of Amaby, one of the teasing, mincing women of the Court
