‘That’s what I’ve missed about you. Your tact and courtesy.’
‘Not to mention my quicksilver wit and devastating looks.’ They stood face to face. Finn said, ‘Keiro. . .‘ A sudden explosion rumbled over their heads. The room shook, a plate sliding to the floor and smashing.
Finn swung to Jared. ‘They’ve opened fire!’
‘Then I suggest you get the Queen’s beloved son up to the battlements,’ Jared said quietly. ‘I have work to do here.’ He exchanged one swift look with Finn, and Finn saw the discarded Glove was in his hand. ‘Be careful, Master.’
‘Just stop them firing. And Finn.’ Jared came over and gripped his wrist. ‘Do not, on any account, leave this house. I need you here. Do you understand me?’ After a moment Finn said, ‘I understand.’ Another rumble. Keiro said, ‘Tell me that’s not cannon-fire.’
‘A whole regiment of it,’ Caspar said, smug.
Finn pushed him away and turned to Keiro. ‘Look. We’re beseiged. There’s an army out there and we’re outgunned and outmanned. Things are not good. I’m afraid you haven’t come into some paradise. You’ve come into a battle.’ Keiro had always been an expert at taking things in his stride. Now he looked curiously up the sumptuous corridor.
‘In that case, brother, I’m exactly what you need.’ Claudia felt as if she had been broken apart and reassembled, badly, piece by piece. As if she had been forced through some barrier of mesh, a matrix of collapsing dimensions.
She was standing on a great bare floor of black and white tiles.
Facing her father.
He seemed utterly dismayed. ‘No!’ he breathed. And then, almost like a cry of pain. ‘No!’ The floor rippled. She steadied herself, arms out, and then breathed in, and the stink of the Prison overwhelmed her, the stench of endlessly recycled air and human fear. She gasped, and put both hands over her face.
The Warden came towards her. For a moment she thought he would take her hands in his cold fingers, print her cheek with his icy kiss. Instead he said, ‘This shouldn’t have happened. How could this happen!’
‘You tell me.’ She glanced round, saw Attia staring at her, and a tall ragged man who seemed utterly astounded, his hands knotted and his eyes deep hollows of awe.
‘Magic,’ he breathed. ‘The true Art.’ It was Attia who said, ‘Keiro’s vanished. He vanished and you appeared. Does that mean he’s Outside?’
‘How am I supposed to know?’
‘You have to know!’ Attia yelled. ‘He has the Glove!’ The floor rippled, a wave of cracking tiles.
‘No time now for this.’ The Warden pulled out a firelock and gave it to Claudia. ‘Take this. Protect yourself against whatever the Prison sends.’ She held the weapon limply, but then she saw that behind them the whole vast space was flooding with clouds that swirled and blackened and sparked lightning. One flash cracked into the floor beside the Warden. He swung round, staring up. ‘Listen to me, Incarceron’ This is not our fault!’ Then whose fault is it? The voice of the Prison seethed with fury. Its words were crackled and raw, dissolving into hisses of static. You told him to do it. You betrayed me.
The Warden said coldly, ‘Not at all. It may look that way, but you and—’ Why should I not burn you all into ash?
‘Because you would damage your delicately-made creation.’ The Warden stepped close to the statue; Claudia stared up at it in awe as he pulled her after him. ’I think you are too astute to do that.’ He smiled. ‘It seems to me, Incarceron, that things have changed now between us. For years you have done what you wanted, ruled as you liked.
You controlled yourself. I was Warden only in name. Now the one thing you want is beyond your grasp.’ Claudia felt Attia jump up on the step behind her. ‘Listen to him,’ the girl whispered. ‘This is all about him and his power.’ The Prison laughed, a sinister chuckle. You think so?
John Arlex shrugged. He looked at Claudia. ‘I know so.
The Glove has been taken Outside. It will be returned to you only by my orders.’ Your orders? Indeed?
‘My orders, as Clanlord of the Steel Wolves.’ He was bluffing, Claudia thought. She said aloud, ‘Do you remember me, Prison?’ I remember you. You were mine and you are mine again. But now, unless I have my Glove, I will close down the lights and the air and the heat. I will leave millions to suffocate in darkness.
You will not the Warden said evenly, ‘or you will never have the Glove.’ He spoke as if to a child, with a clear severity. ‘Instead, you show me the secret door that Sapphique used.’ So that you and your so-called daughter can release yourselves, and leave me trapped here? The voice was clotted with sparks.
Never.
The Prison convulsed. Claudia staggered and fell against Rix. He grabbed her arm, grinning.
‘My father’s anger,’ he whispered.
I will destroy you all now.
The black squares of the floor rolled back and were holes.
Out of them rose cables with open mouths of venom. They kinked and curled like snakes of power, cracking and spitting.
‘Up the steps.’ The Warden climbed quickly to the feet of the winged man, Rix shoving Claudia after him. Attia came last, glancing round.
White vivid shocks split the darkness.
‘It won’t harm the statue: the Warden murmured.
Attia glared. ‘You can’t be sure …’ High in the roof, a great rumble silenced her. The clouds were storm- black. Tiny hard pellets of snow were falling from them. In seconds the temperature was below zero and dropping fast, and Rix’s breath steamed as he breathed out.
‘It won’t have to damage it. It’ll just freeze us here to its feet: And each of the tiny flakes whispered as it fell, in millionfold anger.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
The first shot had just been a warning. The ball had sailed right over the roof and crashed somewhere in the woods beyond. But Finn knew the next one would smash through; as he ran up the last stair and out on to the battlements he saw through the acrid smoke the Queen’s artillerymen adjusting the angles of the five great cannon they had ranged across the lawns.
Behind him, Keiro gasped.
Finn turned. His oathbrother stood transfixed, gazing out at the pale dawn sky slashed with gold and scarlet. The sun was rising. It hung like a great red globe above the beechwoods, and rooks rose in clouds to meet it from the branches.
The long shadow of the house stretched over lawns and gardens, and on the moat light glimmered on the ripples the swans made as they woke.
Keiro walked to the battlements and gripped the stonework, as if to make sure it was all real. He gazed for a long moment on the perfection of the morning, at the scarlet and gold pennants flapping over the Queen’s pavilions, the lavender hedges, the roses, the bees that hummed in the honeysuckle flowers under his hands.
‘Amazing,’ he breathed. ‘Totally amazing.’
‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ Finn muttered. ‘When the sun gets high, it’ll dazzle you. And at night …’ He stopped.
‘Go inside. Ralph, get him some hot water, the best clothes
…’ Keiro shook his head. ‘Tempting, brother, but not yet. First we deal with this enemy Queen.’ Medlicote came up behind them, a little breathless, and behind him the soldiers pushed Caspar, red in the face and furious.
‘Finn, get these ropes off me. I insist!’ Finn nodded and the nearest guard sliced the knot swiftly.
Caspar made a great show of rubbing his chafed wrists, staring haughtily around at everyone except Keiro, whose eyes he seemed too terrified to meet.
Captain Soames stared at him in disbelief. ‘Isn’t that . . . ?‘
‘That’s a miracle.’ Finn said. ‘Now. Can we get their attention before they blast us to pieces?’ The flag was raised; it flapped loudly. In the Queen’s camp a few men pointed; someone ran into the large tent. No one came
