Sapphique Read online

  The ropes were cutting her hands and ankles. Keiro’s weight was heavy on her shoulder. But she just smiled. “How did you get here, Rix? However did you find us?”

  He spread his magician’s fingers. “For the Dark Enchanter, nothing is impossible. The magic of the Glove drew me, through the miles of corridors and echoing galleries.”

  He chewed the ket with red-stained teeth.

  Attia nodded. He looked thinner and lankier, his face pocked and scabbed and unwashed, his lank hair greasy.

  The crazy look was back in his eyes.

  He must already have the Glove.

  Keiro was stirring behind her, as if their voices had wakened him. As he moved she glanced quickly around, saw the dark tunnels that led out of the cave, each as narrow as a slot. The wagon would never get through them. Rix grinned his gappy grin. “Don’t worry, Attia. I have plans. It’s all arranged.”

  His voice hardened and he leaned over and kicked Keiro. “So, highwayman. Thieving isn’t so good for you now, is it?”

  Keiro swore under his breath. Attia felt him wriggle and jerk, pulling her painfully as he squirmed around to get a better look at Rix. Reflected grotesquely in a copper pan on the wagon she saw his blue eyes, a smear of blood on his forehead. But being Keiro, his voice was icily cool.

  “Didn’t think you’d bear such a grudge, Rix.”

  “Nothing so paltry as a grudge.” Rix stared back, his eyes glinting. “This is revenge. Served cold. I swore it, I’ll do it.”

  Keiro’s hand felt warm and sweaty. It groped for Attia’s fingers while he said, “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”

  “About what?” Rix leaned forward, drawing something dark and shining from his coat. “This?”

  She felt Keiro’s stillness. His dismay.

  Rix spread out the dragonskin fingers, smoothed the cracked and ancient claws. “It drew me. It called me. Through the transitways, through the humming air, I could hear it. See how its static shivers on my skin.”

  The hairs on his arm were lifting.

  He nuzzled his cheek against the gauntlet and its fine scales rippled. “This is mine. My touch, my senses. My magician’s art.” He watched them slyly, over the dragonskin. “No artist can lose his touch. It called me, and I found it again.”

  Attia clutched Keiro’s fingers, slid along the rope to the knots. He’s crazy, she wanted to tell him. Unstable. Be careful.

  But Keiro’s answer was quiet and mocking. “I’m happy for you. But Incarceron and I have a deal, and you wouldn’t dare—”

  “Long ago,” Rix said, “the Prison and I also had a deal. A wager. A game of riddles.”

  “I thought that was Sapphique.”

  Rix grinned. “And I won. But Incarceron cheats, you know? It gave me its Glove and promised Escape, but what Escape is there for those of us trapped in the mazes of our minds, highwayman ? What secret trapdoors are there, what tunnels to the Outside? Because I have seen the Outside, seen it, and it’s vaster than you could dream.”

  Attia felt icy with fear.

  Rix grinned at her. “Attia thinks I’m insane.”

  “No …” she lied.

  “Oh yes, sweetkin. And you may be right.” He straightened his lanky body and sighed. “And here you both are at my mercy, like the babes in the wood in a patchbook I once read.”

  Attia laughed. Anything to keep him talking. “Not another one.”

  “Their wicked stepmother left them in the dark forest. But they found a house all made of gingerbread and the witch that lived there turned them into swans. They flew away linked by a golden chain.” He was gazing at the tiny swans pinned to the Glove.

  “Right,” Keiro said acidly. “And then?”

  “They came to a great tower where a sorcerer lived.” Rix put the Glove away tidily and went and rummaged in the wagon.

  Attia felt the ropes burn her wrists as Keiro tugged at them furiously. “And he released them?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Rix turned. He had the long sword that he used in his act, and its blade was sharp. “I’m afraid it’s not a happy ending, Attia. You see, they had betrayed him, and stolen from him. He was very angry about it. So he had to kill them.”

  THREE LEAGUES from the Court Claudia dragged the winded horse to a halt and gazed back. The great complex of towers was brilliantly lit, the Glass Palace a shining splendor. Finn’s horse thudded to stillness beside her, its harness clinking. He stared silently.

  “Will Jared know we’ve gone?”

  “I sent him a message.”

  Her voice was taut; he glanced at her. “What’s wrong then?”

  It took a while for her to answer. “Medlicote told me the Queen had bribed Jared.”

  “No chance. There’s no way he would …”

  “There’s his illness. She’d use that against him.”

  Finn frowned. Under the perfect stars the Court glittered, as cold and cruel as scattered diamonds. “Will he really die from it?”

  “I think so. He makes light of it. But I think so.” The desolation in her voice chilled him, but she sat upright and as the wind whipped her hair back, he saw there were no tears in her eyes.

  Thunder rumbled, far off.

  He wanted to say something comforting, but the horse was restless, stamping its impatience, and in the Prison death had been too familiar to feel strange now. Controlling the horse, he brought it back around to her. “Jared is brilliant, Claudia. He’s far too clever to be controlled by the Queen, or anyone else. Don’t worry. Trust him.”

  “I told him I did.”

  Still she didn’t move. He reached out and caught her arm. “Come on. We need to hurry.”

  She turned and looked at him. “You could have killed Giles.”

  “I should have. Keiro would despair. But that boy is not Giles. I am.” He met her eyes. “Standing there with that pistol pointed at me, I knew. I remembered, Claudia. I remembered.”

  She stared at him, astonished.

  Then the horse whinnied, and they saw the lights of the Court, all its hundreds of candles and lanterns and windows flicker and go out. For a whole minute the Palace was a blackness under the stars. Claudia held her breath. If they didn’t come back on … If this was the end …

  Then the Palace was blazing again.

  Finn held out his hand. “I think you should give me Incarceron.”

  She hesitated. Then she drew out her father’s watch and handed it to him, and he held up the silver cube, so that it spun on its chain. “Keep it safe, sire.”

  “The Prison is drawing power from its own systems.” He glanced down at the Palace, where a clamor of bells and shouts had begun to ring out.

  “And from ours,” Claudia whispered.

  “YOU CAN’T. Rix, you can’t.” Attia’s voice was earnest and low, anything to keep him calm. “It’s ridiculous. I worked for you—we went against that gang of bandits together, that mob in the plague village. You liked me. We got on. You can’t hurt me.”

  “You know a few too many secrets, Attia.”

  “Cheap tricks! Cons. Everybody knows them.” It was the real sword, not the collapsible one. She licked sweat from her lip.

  “Well, maybe.” He pretended to consider, and then grinned. “But you see, it’s the Glove. Stealing that was unforgivable. The Glove is telling me to do it. So I’ve decided you’ll go first, and then your friend there can watch. It’ll be quick, Attia. I’m a merciful man.”

  Keiro was silent, as if he was leaving this to her. He had given up on the knots. Nothing would undo those in time.

  Attia said, “You’re tired, Rix. You’re mad. You know it.”

  “I’ve walked a few wild Wings.” He swept the sword experimentally through the air. “I’ve crawled a few crazy corridors.”

  “Talking of which,” Keiro said suddenly, “where’s that pack of freaks you usually travel with?”

  “Resting.” Rix was working himself up. “I needed to move fast.” He swung the sword again.
There was a sly light in his eye that terrified Attia. His voice was slurred with ket. “Behold!” he cried. “You search for a Sapient who will show you the way Out. I am that man!”

  It was the patter of his act. She struggled, kicking, jerking against Keiro. “He’ll do it. He’s off his skull!”

  Rix swung to an imaginary crowd. “The way that Sapphique took lies through the Door of Death. I will take this girl there and I will bring her back!”

  The fire crackled. He bowed to its applause, to the ranks of roaring people, held up the sword in his hand. “Death. We fear it. We would do anything to avoid it. Before your eyes, you will see the dead live.”

  “No.” Attia gasped. “Keiro …”

  Keiro sat still. “No chance. He’s got us.”

  Rix’s face was flushed in the red light; his eyes bright as if with fever. “I will release her! I will bring her back!”

  With a whipping slash that made her screech, the sword was raised, and at the same time Keiro’s voice, acid with scorn and deliberately conversational, came from the darkness behind her.

  “So tell me, Rix, since you seem to think you’re Sapphique. What was the answer to the riddle you asked the dragon? What is the Key that unlocks the heart?”

  23

  He worked night and day. He made a coat that would transform him; he would be more than a man; a winged creature, beautiful as light. All the birds brought him feathers. Even the eagle. Even the swan.

  —Legends of Sapphique

  Jared was sure he was still delirious. Because he lay in a ruined stable and there was a fire, crackling loudly in the silent night.

  The rafters were a mesh of holes above his head, and in one place a barn owl stared down with wide astonished eyes. From somewhere water dripped. The splashes landed rhythmically just beside his face, as if after some great rainstorm. A small pool had formed, soaking into the straw.

  Someone’s hand lay half out of the blankets; he tried absently to make it move, and the long fingers cramped and stretched. It was his, then.

  He felt disconnected, only vaguely interested, as if he had been out of his body on some long and tiring journey.

  As if he had come home to find the house cold and comfortless.

  His throat, when he remembered it, was dry. His eyes itched. His body, when he moved it, ached.

  And he must be delirious, because there were no stars. Instead, through the broken roof of the building a single red Eye hung huge in the sky, like the moon in some livid eclipse.

  Jared studied it. It stared back, but it wasn’t watching him. It was watching the man.

  The man was busy. Over his knees he had some old coat—a Sapient robe, perhaps—and on each side of him rose a great stack of feathers. Some were blue, like the one Jared had sent through the Portal. Others were long and black, like a swan’s, and brown, an eagle’s plumage.

  “The blue ones are very useful,” the man said, without turning. “Thank you for them.”

  “My pleasure,” Jared murmured. Each word was a croak.

  The stable was hung with small golden lanterns, like the ones used at Court. Or perhaps these were the stars, taken down and propped here and there, hung on wires.

  The man’s hands moved swiftly. He was sewing the feathers into the bare patches of the coat, fixing them first with dabs of pitchy resin that smelled of pinecones when it dripped on the straw. Blue, black, brown. A coat of feathers, wide as wings.

  Jared made an effort to sit up and managed it, propping himself dizzily against the wall. He felt weak and shaky.

  The man put the coat aside and came over. “Take your time. There’s water here.”

  He brought a jug and cup, and poured. As he held it out Jared saw that the right forefinger of his hand was missing; a smooth scar seamed the knuckle.

  “Only a little, Master. It’s very cold.”

  Jared barely felt the shock to his throat. As he drank he watched the dark-haired man, and the man stared back with a rueful, sad smile.

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s a well just near here. The best water in the Realm.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “There’s no time here, remember. Time seems to be forbidden in the Realm.” He sat back, and there were feathers stuck to him, and his eyes were steady and obsessive as a hawk’s.

  “You are Sapphique,” Jared said quietly.

  “I took that name in the Prison.”

  “Is that where we are?”

  Sapphique pulled plumage from his hair. “This is a prison, Master. Whether it’s Inside or Out, I’ve learned, is not really important. I fear they both may be the same.”

  Jared struggled to think. He had been riding in the forest. There were many outlaws in the forest, many woodwoses and madmen. Those who couldn’t bear the stagnation of Era, who wandered as beggars. Was this one of them?

  Sapphique sat back, his legs stretched out. In the firelight he was young and pale, his hair lank with the forest damp. “But you Escaped,” Jared said. “Finn has told me some of the tales they tell about you in there, in Incarceron.” He rubbed at his face and found it rough, faintly stubbled.

  How long had he been here?

  “There are always stories.”

  “They’re not true?”

  Sapphique smiled. “You’re a scholar, Jared. You know that the word truth is a crystal, like the Key. It seems transparent, but it has many facets. Different lights, red and gold and blue, flicker in its depths. Yet it unlocks the door.”

  “The door … You found a secret door, they say.”

  Sapphique poured more water. “How I searched for it. I spent whole lifetimes searching. I forgot my family, my home; I gave blood, tears, a finger. I made myself wings and I flew so high, the sky struck me down. I fell so far into the dark that there seemed no ending to the abyss. And yet in the end, there it was, a tiny plain door in the Prison’s heart. The emergency exit. Right there all the time.”

  Jared sipped the cold water. This must be a vision, like Finn had in his seizures. He himself was probably lying delirious now in the dark rainy woodland. And yet could it be so real?

  “Sapphique … I must ask you …”

  “Ask, my friend.”

  “The door. Can all the Prisoners leave by it? Is that possible ?”

  But Sapphique had gathered the feathered coat and was examining its holes. “Each man has to find it himself, as I did.”

  Jared lay back. He tugged the blanket around him, shivering and tired. In the Sapient tongue he said softly, “Tell me, Master, did you know Incarceron was tiny?”

  “Is it?” Sapphique replied in the same language, his green eyes as he looked up lit by deep points of flame. “To you, perhaps. Not to its Prisoners. Every prison is a universe for its inmates. And think, Jared Sapiens. Might not the Realm also be tiny, swinging from the watch chain of some being in a world even vaster? Escape is not enough; it does not answer the questions. It is not Freedom. And so I will repair my wings and fly away to the stars. Do you see them?”

  He pointed, and Jared drew in a breath of awe because there they were, all around him, the galaxies and nebulae, the thousands of constellations he had so often watched through the powerful telescope in his tower, the glittering brilliance of the universe.

  “Do you hear their song?” Sapphique murmured.

  But only the silence of the Forest came to them, and Sapphique sighed. “Too far away. But they do sing, and I will hear that music.”

  Jared shook his head. Weariness was creeping over him, and the old fear. “Perhaps Death is our escape.”

  “Death is a door, certainly.” Sapphique stopped threading a blue feather and looked at him. “You fear death, Jared?”

  “I fear the way to it.”

  The narrow face seemed all angles in the firelight. It said, “Don’t let the Prison wear my Glove, use my hands, speak with my face. Whatever you have to do, do not allow that.”

  There were so many questio
ns Jared wanted to ask. But they scuttled away from him like rats into holes and he closed his eyes and lay back. Like his own shadow, Sapphique leaned beside him.

  “Incarceron never sleeps. It dreams, and its dreams are terrible. But it never sleeps.”

  He barely heard. He was falling down the barrel of a telescope, through its convex lenses, into a universe of galaxies.

  RIX BLINKED.

  He paused, barely for a second.

  Then he slashed the sword down. Attia flinched and screamed, but it whistled behind her and sliced the ropes that held her to Keiro, nicking her wrist so that it bled.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she gasped, scrambling away.

  The magician didn’t even look at her. He pointed the trembling blade at Keiro. “What did you say?”

  If Keiro was amazed he didn’t show it. He stared straight back, and his voice was cool and careful. “I said, what’s the Key that unlocks the heart. What’s the matter, Rix? Can’t answer your own riddle?”

  Rix was white. He turned and walked in a rapid circle and came back. “That’s it. It’s you. It’s you! ”

  “What’s me?”

  “How can it be you? I don’t want it to be you! For a while I thought it might be her.” He jabbed the blade at Attia. “But she never said it, never came near saying it!”

  He paced another frantic circle.

  Keiro had drawn his knife. Hacking at the ropes on his ankles he muttered, “He’s crazy.”

  “No. Wait.” Attia watched Rix, her eyes wide. “You mean the Question, don’t you? The Question you once told me only your Apprentice would ever ask you. That was it? Keiro asked it?”

  “He did.” Rix couldn’t seem to keep still. He was shivering, his long fingers gripping and loosening on the sword hilt. “It’s him. It’s you.” He tossed the sword down and hugged himself. “A Scum thief is my Apprentice.”

  “We’re all scum,” Keiro said. “If you think—”

  Attia silenced him with a glare. They had to be so careful here.

  He undid the ropes and stretched his feet out with a grimace. Then he leaned back and she saw he understood.