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He raised his hands. They saw his coat was feathered like the wings of the Swan when it dies, when it sings its secret song.
And he opened the door that none of them had seen until now.
As Finn moved out into the corridor he saw that Keiro was right. The very antiquity of the house was against them now; all its true decay, like the Queen’s, had come upon it at once.
‘Ralph!’ Ralph came hastening up, stepping over lumps of fallen plaster. ‘Sire.’
‘Evacuate. Everyone is to leave.’
‘But where will we go, sire?’ Finn scowled. ‘I don’t know! Certainly the Queen’s camp’s in no better shape. Find what shelter you can in the stables, the outlying cottages. No one must stay here but us. Where’s Caspar?’ Ralph tugged off his decaying wig. Underneath, his own hair was shaved close. His chin was stubbled, and his face unwashed. He looked weary and lost. ‘With his mother. The poor lad is devastated. I think even he had no idea of her reality.’ Finn glanced round. Keiro had Medlicote in an armlock.
Jared, tall in his Sapient robe, carried the Glove.
‘Do we need this scum?’ Keiro muttered.
‘No. Let him go with the rest.’ Giving the secretary’s arm one last painful jerk, Keiro shoved him away.
‘Get outside,’ Finn said, ‘Where it’s safe. Find the rest of your people.’
‘Nowhere is safe.’ Medlicote ducked as a suit of armour beside him suddenly crashed into dust. ‘Not while the Glove exists.’ Finn shrugged. He turned to Jared. ‘Let’s go.’ The three of them ran past the secretary and along the corridors of the house. They moved through a nightmare of dissolving beauty, of fragmented hangings and paintings lost under grime and mould. In places chandeliers of white candles had fallen; the crystal droplets lay like tears in the broken wax. Keiro moved ahead, heaving wreckage aside; Finn kept near Jared, unsure of the Sapient’s strength. They struggled to the foot of the great stairway, but as Finn looked up he was appalled at the destruction on the upper floors. A silent blink of lightning showed him a vast crack running right down the outside wall. Debris of vases and plastiglas crunched under their feet; potpourri and fungal spores and the dust of centuries blurred the air like snow.
The stairs were ruined. Keiro climbed two, his back flat against the wall, but on the third tread his foot plunged through, and he tugged it out, swearing. ‘We’ll never get up this.’
‘We must get to the study, and the Portal.’ Jared looked up anxiously. He felt utterly weary, his head light and dizzy.
When had he last taken his medication? He leant against the wall and tugged out the pouch and stared at it in despair.
The small syringe had broken into pieces, as if the glass had brittled and aged instantly. The serum had congealed to a yellow crust.
Finn said, ‘What will you do?’ Jared almost smiled. He replaced the pieces and tossed the pouch out into the dark corridor, and Finn saw his eyes were remote and dark. ‘It was only ever a stopgap, Finn. Like everyone else, I must now live without my little comforts.’ If he dies, Finn thought, if I let him die, Claudia will never forgive me. He glared up at his oathbrother. ‘We have to get up there. You’re the expert, Keiro. Do something!’ Keiro frowned. Then he tugged off his velvet coat and tied back his hair in a scrap of ribbon. He tore away some of the hangings and bound them rapidly round his hands, swearing as he touched his scorched palm.
‘Rope. I need rope.’ Finn snatched down the thick tasselled ties that held the curtains and knotted them firmly together — bizarre cables of gold and scarlet. Keiro looped them over his shoulder.
Then he set off up the stairs.
The world had inverted, Jared thought, watching his inching progress, because a staircase he had climbed every day for years had became a treacherous obstacle, a deathtrap.
This was how tune transformed things, how your own body betrayed you. This was what the Realm had tried to forget, in its deliberate elegant amnesia.
Keiro had to ascend the stairs as a mountaineer climbs a scree slope. The whole central section was gone, and as he grabbed at the higher treads their edges crumbled away in his hands.
Finn and Jared watched, anxious. Above the house thunder rumbled; far off in the stableyard they heard the shouts of the guards, ushering everyone out, the neighing of horses, the screech of a hawk.
Finally, at Finn’s elbow, a breathless voice said, ‘The drawbridge is down, sire, and everyone across.’
‘Then you go too.’ Finn didn’t turn, willing Keiro on as he balanced precariously between a bannister and a fallen panel.
‘The Queen, sire.’ Ralph wiped his smeared face with a filthy rag that might once have been a handkerchief. ‘The Queen is dead.’ The stab of shock was so distant that Finn almost missed it.
And then the news sank in, and he saw that Jared had heard it too. The Sapient bowed his head, sadly.
‘So you are King, sire.’ Was it that simple? he wondered. But all he said was, ‘Ralph, go now.’ The old steward didn’t move. ‘I would like to stay and help. To rescue the Lady Claudia and my master.’
‘I’m not sure there are any masters now.’ Jared drew in his breath. Keiro had slithered to one side; now all his weight was on the curved bannister, and it was bending, the wood snapping out, dry and brittle. ‘Be careful!’ Keiro’s reply was inaudible. Then he heaved himself up, leapt two steps that cracked under him and flung himself at the landing.
He grabbed it with both hands, but as he did so the whole staircase collapsed behind him in a thunderous crashing of dust and worm-ridden timber, tumbling down on the hail, choking the stairwell.
Keiro swung, dragging himself up, every muscle in his arms straining, blinded by dust. Finally he got one knee over and crumpled on the landing in cold relief.
He coughed until the tears made tracks down his smudged face. Then he crawled to the edge and looked down. Below was a black swirling vortex of dust and debris. ‘Finn?’ he said. He stood, his legs aching. ‘Finn? Jared?’ He was either completely crazy or off his head on ket, Attia thought.
Rix stood before his audience in perfect confidence, and the people stared up at him, bewildered, excited, thirsting for truth. But this time the Prison was in the audience too.
Are you mad, Prisoner? it said.
‘Almost certainly, father,’ Rix said. ‘But if I succeed, you will take me with you?’ Incarceron spat a laugh. If you succeed you really would be the Dark Enchanter. But you’re just a fraud, Rix. A liar, a mountebank, a conman. Do you think to con me?
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Rix glanced at Attia. ‘I’ll need my old assistant.’ He winked, and before she could stammer an answer he had turned to the crowd and stepped forward to the edge of the pedestal.
‘Friends he said. ‘Welcome to my greatest wonder! You think you will see illusions. You think I will fool you with mirrors, with hidden devices. But I am not like other magicians. I am the Dark Enchanter, and I will show you the magic of the stars!’ The crowd gasped. So did Attia.
He raised his hand, arid he was wearing a glove. It was made of skin, dark as midnight, and flickers of light sparked from it.
Behind Attia, Claudia said, ‘I thought . . . Don’t tell me Keiro had the wrong one.’
‘Of course not. This is a prop. Just a prop.’ But the doubt had slid into Attia too, like a cold knife, because how could you know, with Rix, what was real and what was not?
He waved his hand in a great arc, and the snow stopped falling. The air grew warmer, lights in every colour rainbowing from the high roof. Was he doing this? Or was Incarceron amusing itself at his expense?
Whatever the truth, the people were transfixed. They stared upwards, crying out. Some fell on their knees. Some moved back, afraid.
Rix was tall. Somehow he had brought nobility to his craggy face, made the wildness in his eyes a holy glimmer.
