He turned.
The Realm might be ruined but nothing in this room had changed. As the Portal straightened itself he felt the quiet hum of its mystery calm him, the grey walls and single desk focus his vision. He raised a shaking hand to his mouth and licked blood from the grazed skin.
Suddenly, fatigue rippled through him. All he wanted to do was sleep, and he slumped in the metal chair before the snowy screen and fought the desire to lay his head on the desk and close his eyes and forget everything.
But the snow held his gaze. Behind its mystery Claudia was trapped, and the Prison and the Realm were caught in that destruction.
He made himself sit up, wiped his face with a grubby sleeve, brushed the hair from his eyes. He took the Glove out and laid it on the grey metal surface. Then he made a few adjustments to the controls and spoke.
He used the Sapient tongue. He said, ‘Incarceron!’ The snow still fell, but its patterns changed, to a swirl of wonder. It answered him, its voice amazed. How are you doing this, Rix? How are you doing this?
‘I’m not Rix.’ Jared spread his fine hands on the desk and stared at them. ‘You spoke to me once before. You know who I am.’ I knew a voice like this, long ago. The Prison’s murmur hung in the still air of the room.
‘Long ago,’ Jared whispered. ‘Before you were old, and evil. When the Sapienti first created you. And many times since, in my endless journeying.’ You are Sapphique.
He smiled, wearily. ’I am now. And you and I, Incarceron, have the same problem. We are both trapped in our bodies.
Maybe we can help each other.’ He picked up the Glove and fingered its fine scales. ‘Perhaps the hour has come that all the prophesies tell of. The hour that the world ends, and Sapphique returns.’ Claudia said, ‘They’re out of their minds with terror. They’ll rush us and kill him.’ The crowd were increasingly disturbed. She could feel their panic, sense the urgency in the way they pushed forward, craning to see, their hot sweaty stench rising towards her.
They knew if Incarceron Escaped it was the end for them. If they began to believe Rix could do this, they would have nothing left to lose.
Attia grabbed Rix’s knife. Claudia lifted the firelock and looked at her father. He didn’t move, his eyes fixed in fascination on Rix.
She pushed past him, Attia with her, and together they edged round to stand on the steps between Rix and the crowd, even though it was futile, a mere gesture of defence.
I knew a voice like this, long ago, the Prison murmured. Rix laughed harshly. The words of his act seemed charged now, like prophecy.
‘There is a way Out. Sapphique found it. The door is tiny, tinier than an atom. And the eagle and the swan spread their wings to guard it.’ You are Sapphique.
‘Sapphique returns. Did you ever love me, Incarceron?’ The Prison hummed. Its voice was hoarse. I remember you.
Out of them all, you were my brother and my son. We dreamt the same dream.
Rix swung to the statue. He gazed up at its calm face, its dead eyes. ‘Keep very still,’ he whispered anxiously, as if for only the Prison to hear. ‘Or the danger is extreme.’ He turned to the crowd. ‘The time has come, friends. I will release him. I will bring him back!’
‘Again!’ Finn and Keiro threw themselves at the door but it didn’t even shudder. There was no sound from inside.
Breathless, Keiro turned his back to the ebony swan and said, ‘We could get one of those planks and—’ He stopped.
‘Hear that?’ Voices. The clamour of men in the house, men swarming up the rope in the stairwell, shadowy figures crowding the fragmenting corridor.
Finn stepped forward. ‘Who’s there?’ But he knew who they were even before the flickering lightning showed him. The Steel Wolves had come in a pack of silver muzzles, their eyes bright behind the masks of assassins and murderers.
Medlicote’s voice said, ‘I’m sorry, Finn. I can’t leave it like this. No one will be surprised if you and your friend perish in the ruins of the Wardenry. Then a new world will begin, without kings, without tyrants.’
‘Jared is in there,’ Finn snapped. ‘And your Warden...’
‘The Warden has given his orders.’ Pistols were raised.
Beside him, Finn felt Keiro’s arrogant defiance, that odd way he had of making himself taller, every muscle taut.
‘Our last stand, brother,’ Finn said bitterly.
‘Speak for yourself,’ Keiro said.
The Steel Wolves advanced, a tentative line across the corridor.
Finn tensed, but Keiro seemed almost languid. ‘Come on, my friends. A little closer, please.’ They stopped, as if his words made them nervous. Then, just as Finn had known he would, he attacked.
Jared held the Glove in both hands. Its scales were curiously supple, as if the centuries had worn them. As if only Time had worn the Glove.
Aren’t you afraid? Incarceron asked, curious.
‘Of course I’m afraid. I think I’ve been afraid a long time now’ He touched the ridged and heavy claws. ‘But what would you know about that?’ The Sapienti taught me to feel.
‘Pleasure? Cruelty?’ Loneliness. Despair.
Jared shook his head. ‘They wanted you to love too. Your Prisoners. To care for them.’ Its voice was a wistful draught, a crack of sound. You know you were the only one I ever loved, Sapphique. The only one I cared for. You were the tiny crack in my armour. You were the door.
‘Was that why you let me Escape?’ Children always escape from their parents, in the end. A murmur came through the Portal like a sigh down a long, empty corridor. I am afraid too, it said.
‘Then we must be afraid together.’ Jared slipped his fingers into the Glove. He pulled it on, firmly, and as he did he heard far-off a pounding, maybe on a door, maybe in his heart, maybe of a thousand footsteps crowding close. He closed his eyes. As the Glove enfolded it his hand chilled, became one with the skin. His neurons burned. The claws curled as he clenched them. His body became icy, and vast, and crowded with a million terrors. And then his whole being collapsed, shrivelling inward and inward down an endless vortex of light. He bent his head, and cried aloud.
I am afraid too. The Prison’s murmur rang through all its halls and forests, over its seas. Deep in the Ice Wing its fear snapped icicles, sent flocks of birds flapping over metal forests no Prisoner had ever crossed.
Rix closed his eyes. His face was a rigour of ecstasy. He flung out his arms and cried, ‘None of us need to be afraid ever again. Behold!’ Claudia heard Attia’s gasp. The crowd gave a great roar and surged forwards, and as she jumped back she turned her head and saw her father staring intently at the image of Sapphique. Its right hand was wearing the Glove.
Amazed, she tried to say, ’How. .. ?‘ but her whisper was lost in the tumult.
The statue’s fingers were dragonskin, its nails were claws.
And they were moving.
The right hand flexed; it opened and reached out as if groping in the dark, or searching for something to touch.
The people were silent. Some fell on their knees, others turned and fought their way back through the packed rabble.
Claudia and Attia stood still. Attia felt as if her amazement would burst through her, as if the wonder of what she saw, of what it meant, would make her scream aloud with fear and joy.
Only the Warden watched calmly. Claudia realized that he knew what was happening here.
‘Explain,’ she whispered.
Her father gazed at the image of Sapphique and there was a grim appreciation in his grey eyes.
‘Why, my dear Claudia,’ he said in his acid voice. ‘A great miracle is happening. We are so privileged to be here: And then, quieter, ‘And it seems I have underestimated Master Jared yet again.’ A firelock slashed the roof. One man was already down, crumpled and moaning. Back to back, Finn and Keiro circled.
The ruined corridor was a breathless tangle of light, slanted with darkness. A musket fired, the ball
