Keiro in all the splendid clothes he wanted. I used to look at this and know it must mean something. A crowned eagle with its wings spread wide. Like it was about to fly away.’ She had to snap him out of this. ‘We needn’t wait for their stupid verdict. I’ve made plans. Two horses will be ready for us, secretly saddled, at the edge of the Forest, at midnight.
We can ride for the Wardenry, and use the Portal there to contact my father.’ He wasn’t listening. ‘The old man in the Forest said that Sapphique flew, in the end. Flew away to the stars.’
‘And the Queen has ordered a masked ball. What better cover.’ His eyes lifted to her and she saw the signs Jared had warned her of; the whitening of the lips, the strangely unfocused gaze. She hurried across to him. ’Stay calm, Finn.
Nothing is over. Keiro will find my father and—’ The room vanished.
It became a chamber of grime, of cobwebs, of cables. For a second Finn knew he was back in the grey world of Incarceron.
Then the Privy Council chamber gleamed around him.
He stared at her. ‘What was that?’ Claudia pulled him roughly to his feet. ‘I think that was reality, Finn.’ Keiro spat the last wet rag out of his mouth and gasped in air. Breathing was a great relief he allowed himself a few vicious swearwords too. They had gagged him to keep him from talking to them. Obviously, they knew he was irresistible. Quickly, he pulled his chained wrists under him, dragged his feet through them, the muscles in his arms straining. He stifled a groan as his bruises ached. But at least his hands were in front now.
The cell swayed under his feet. If the place really was wicker he should be able to hack a way through. He had no tools, though, and there was always the chance that there was nothing below but empty air.
He shook the chain and tested it.
The links were finest steel and it had been elaborately tied.
The knots would take hours to undo, and they were bound to hear the chink.
Keiro scowled. He had to get out of here now because Attia had not been joking. The girl was crazy and he should dump her here, with this nest of star-blind devotees. Another oath-betrayer. He certainly knew how to pick them.
He chose the weakest-looking link and twisted his hands so that the fingernail of his right forefinger could slide into the thin gap. Then he prised.
Metal against metal, the fine links strained. He felt no pain, and that terrified him, because where did the metal end and the nerves begin? In his hand? In his heart?
The thought made him lever the link open with a swift anger; at once he bent it far enough to slip the next link out.
The chain fell from around his wrists.
But before he could get up he heard footsteps, and the swaying of the cage told him one of the girls was coming, so instantly he looped the chain loosely over his hands and sat back.
When Omega came through the door with two others pointing firelocks at him, Keiro just grinned at her. ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘I knew you couldn’t keep away.’ Jared had been given a room at the top of the Seventh Tower.
The climb made him breathless but it was worth it for the view of the Forest, dark miles of trees over the twilit hills. He leant out of the casement, both hands on the gritty sill, and breathed in the warm dusk.
There were the stars, brilliant and unreachable.
For a moment he thought a ripple passed over them, that their brightness dimmed. For a moment the nearest trees were dead and white and ghostly. Then the dizziness passed.
He rubbed his eyes with both hands. Was this the illness?
Moths danced around the lantern.
The room behind him was stark. It had a bed, a chair and table and a mirror that he had taken down and turned to the wall. Still, the less there was in the room the less chance of it being bugged.
Leaning out, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocked, unwrapped the disc, placed it on the sill, and activated it.
The screen was minute, but as yet there was nothing wrong with his eyesight.
Duties of the Warden.The words unravelled quickly. There were dozens of subtitles. Food provision, educational facilities, healthcare — his hand hovered over that but he moved on quickly — social care, structural maintenance. So much information — it would take weeks to read it all. How many Wardens had ever done so? Probably only Martor Sapiens, the first. The designer.
Martor.
He searched for design, narrowed it down to structure, found a doubly encrypted entry in the last file. He couldn’t decipher it, but he opened it.
The screen showed an image that made him smile, leaning there under the stars. It showed the crystal Key.
‘Join us,’ Rho begged. ‘Let him take the Glove and you stay with us.’ Up on the viaduct Attia waited with the Glove in her hand and a pack of food on her back and watched three armed women push Keiro up through the hole.
His coat was filthy and his bright hair dull with grease.
For a moment she was tempted. Meeting his enquiring stare she dreamt for a moment of sidestepping this crazy obsession of his, of finding her own place of warmth and safety. Maybe she could even try to find her brothers and sisters, somewhere far off in the Wing she had lived in before the Comitatus had dragged her away to be their dog-slave.
But then Keiro snapped, ‘Are you going to stand there all day! Get these chains off me,’ and something rippled in her that might have been a cold shiver of reality. It made her feel hard and determined. If Incarceron had the Glove its ambition would be complete. It would break free of itself and leave the Prison a dark and lifeless shell. Keiro might Escape, but no one else would.
She took the Glove and held it out.
‘I’m sorry, Keiro,’ she said. ‘I can’t let you do it.’ His hands gripped the chains. ‘Attia!’ But she flung the Glove out into the empty air.
After an hour’s work, the moths flitting round the lamp on the sill, the code gave way with a sigh of rippling letters and the word EXITS came up on the screen. Jared’s weariness vanished. He sat up and read avidly.
1 There will be only one Key and this will remain in the possession of the Warden at all times
2 The Key is not needed for the Portal but is the only way of return from Incarceron, except for
3 The Emergency exit Jared drew in a breath. He glanced quickly round the room.
It was dim and silent, the only movement his own vast shadow on the wall, and the dark moths, fluttering in the light and over the tiny screen.
Jared read the final sentence. Then he read it again. He sat back, his breath frosting in the night air, ignoring the moth that landed on the screen, the heavy footsteps up the stair.
Outside, the stars shimmered in the eternal sky.
20
When he was born, silent and alone, his mind was empty. He had no past, no being. He found himself in the
