Sapphique Read online

  The courtiers applauded, the women whispering with delight. Claudia kept her face pleasant, though instantly she was alert. What was this? What was Sia up to? She loathed Finn. It had to be some sort of trap. Jared had always said the Queen would delay the Proclamation for months, let alone the coronation. Yet here she was announcing it. For tomorrow!

  Sia’s eyes met hers through the shimmering throng. She was laughing her tinkling laugh, making Finn stand, clasping his hand, lifting a thin glass of wine to toast him. Every nerve in Claudia’s mind was tense with disbelief.

  “Told you,” Caspar smirked.

  Finn looked furious. He opened his mouth but caught Claudia’s glare and kept silent, simmering.

  “He looks so cross.” Caspar grinned. She turned on him but he jerked back at once, alarmed. “Yuck! Get the filthy thing off me!”

  It was a dragonfly, a green glimmer of flickering wings; it darted at him and he swiped at it and missed. It landed, with a faint crackle, on Claudia’s dress.

  Before anyone else could see she took two steps toward the lake and turned, her voice a whisper. “Jared? This is not a good time.”

  No reply. The dragonfly flexed its wings. For a moment she thought she had made a mistake, that it was a real insect.

  Then it breathed. “Claudia … Please. Come quickly …”

  “Jared? What is it?” Her voice rose in anxiety. “What’s wrong?”

  No answer.

  “Master?”

  A faint sound. Glass falling, and smashing.

  Instantly she turned and ran.

  3

  Once Incarceron became a dragon, and a Prisoner crawled into its lair. They made a wager. They would ask each other riddles, and the one who could not answer would lose. If it was the man, he would give his life. The Prison offered a secret way of Escape. But even as the man agreed, he felt its hidden laughter.

  They played for a year and a day. The lights stayed dark. The dead were not removed. Food was not provided. The Prison ignored the cries of its inmates.

  Sapphique was the man. He had one riddle left. He said, “What is the Key that unlocks the heart?”

  For a day Incarceron thought. For two days. For three. Then it said, “If I ever knew the answer, I have forgotten it.”

  —Sapphique in the Tunnels of Madness

  The showmen left the village early, before Lightson.

  Attia waited for them outside the ramshackle walls, behind a pillar of brick where gigantic shackles still hung, rusting to red powder. When the Prison lights snapped on with their acrid flicker she saw seven wagons were already rumbling down the ramp, the bear cage strapped on one, the rest covered by contraptions of starry cloth. As they approached she saw the bear’s small red eyes squint at her. The seven identical jugglers walked alongside, tossing balls to one another in complex patterns.

  She swung up onto the seat and sat beside the Enchanter.

  “Welcome to the troupe,” he said. “Tonight’s triumph is in a village two hours away, through the tunnels. A rat-haunted heap, but I hear they have a good stash of silver. You can get down well before we reach it. Remember, Attia, my sweetkin. You must never be seen with us. You do not know us.”

  She looked at him. In the harsh glare of the lights he had none of the youth of his stage disguise. His skin was pocked with boils, his coppery hair lank and greasy. Half his teeth were gone, probably in some fight. But his hands were powerful and delicate on the reins. A magician’s dexterous fingers.

  “What do I call you?” she muttered.

  He grinned. “Men like me change their names like coats. I’ve been Silentio the Silent Seer, and Alixia the One-eyed Witch of Demonia. One year I was the Wandering Felon, the next, the Elastic Outlaw of the Ash Wing. The Enchanter is a new direction. Confers a certain dignity, I feel.” He flicked the reins; the ox plodded patiently around a hole in the metallic track.

  “You must have a real name.”

  “Must I?” He grinned at her. “Like Attia? Call that real?”

  Annoyed, she dumped her bundle of possessions at her feet. “Real enough.”

  “Call me Ishmael,” he said, and then laughed, a sudden throaty bark that startled her.

  “What?”

  “From a patchbook I once read. About a man obsessed with a great white rabbit. He chases it down a hole and it eats him and he’s in its belly for forty days.” He gazed out at the featureless plain of tilted metal, its few spiny shrubs. “Guess my name. Riddle me my name, Attia mine.”

  She scowled, silent.

  “Is my name Adrax, or Malevin, or Korrestan? Is it Tom Tat Tot or Rumpelstiltsker? Is it—”

  “Forget it,” she said. There was a crazy glint in his eye now; he was staring at her in a way that she didn’t like. To her alarm he leaped up and yelled out, “Is it Wild Edric who rides upon the wind?”

  The ox strode on, unbothered. One of the seven identical jugglers ran alongside. “All right, Rix?”

  The magician blinked. As if he had lost balance he sat down heavily. “Now you’ve told her. And it’s Master Rix to you, fumblefingers.”

  The man shrugged and glanced at Attia. Discreetly he tapped his forehead, rolled his eyes, and walked on.

  She frowned. She had thought he was high on ket, but maybe she’d gotten herself mixed up with a lunatic. There were plenty of those in Incarceron. Half-brained or broken cell-borns. The thought made her think of Finn, and she bit her lip. But whatever this Rix was, there was something about him. Did he really have Sapphique’s Glove, or was it just some stage prop? And if he did, how was she going to steal it?

  He was silent now, gloomy all at once. His moods seemed to change swiftly. She didn’t speak either, staring out at the grim landscape of the Prison.

  In this Wing the light was a muted, fiery glow, as if something burned just out of sight. The roof here was too high to see, but as the wagons rumbled down the track they swerved around the end of a vast chain hanging down; she gazed up, but its top was lost in rusty wisps of cloud.

  She had once sailed up there, in a silver ship, with friends, with a Key. But like Sapphique, she had fallen low.

  Ahead, a range of hills rose up, their shapes odd and jagged.

  “What are those?” she said.

  Rix shrugged. “Those are the Dice. There’s no way over them. The road goes under.” He glanced at her sidelong. “So what brings an ex-slave to our little group?”

  “I told you. I need to eat.” She bit her nail and said, “And I’m curious. I’d like to learn a few tricks.”

  He nodded. “You and everyone else. But my secrets die with me, sister. Magician’s Pledge.”

  “You won’t teach me?”

  “Only the Apprentice gets my secrets.”

  She wasn’t that interested, but she needed to find out about the Glove. “That’s your son?”

  His bark of laughter made her jump. “Son! I probably have a few of those around the Prison! No. Each magician teaches his life’s work to one person, his Apprentice. And that person comes once in a lifetime. It could be you. It could be anyone.” He leaned closer and winked. “And I know them only by what they say.”

  “You mean, like a password?”

  He swayed back in exaggerated respect. “That’s exactly what I mean. A word, a phrase, that only I know. That my old master taught to me. One day, I will hear someone speak it. And that someone will be the one I teach.”

  “And pass your props on to?” she said quietly.

  His eyes slid to her. He jerked the reins; the ox bellowed, hauled to a clumsy standstill.

  Attia’s hand shot to her knife.

  Rix turned to her. Ignoring the shouts of the wagoners behind, he watched her with sharp, suspicious eyes. “So that’s it,” he said. “You want my Glove.”

  She shrugged. “If it was the real one …”

  “Oh it’s real.”

  She snorted. “Sure. And Sapphique gave it to you.”

  “Your scorn is meant to draw ou
t my story.” He flicked the reins, and the ox lumbered on. “Well, I’ll tell you, because I want to. It’s no secret. Three years ago, I was in a Wing of the Prison known as the Tunnels of Madness.”

  “They exist?”

  “They exist, but you wouldn’t want to go there. Deep in one I met an old woman. She was sick, dying by the roadside. I gave her a cup of water. In return, she told me that when she was a girl, she had seen Sapphique. He had appeared to her in a vision, when she slept in a strange tilted room. He had knelt beside her, and taken from his right hand the Glove, and slid it under her fingers. Keep this safe for me until I return, he said.”

  “She was mad,” Attia said quietly. “Everyone who goes there ends up mad.”

  Rix laughed his harsh bark. “Just so! I myself have never been quite the same. And I didn’t believe her. But she drew from her rags a Glove, and closed my fingers over it. I have hidden it for a lifetime, she whispered, and the Prison hunts for it, I know. You are a great magician. It will be safe with you.”

  Attia wondered how much was true. “And you’ve kept it safe.”

  “Many have tried to steal it.” His eyes flicked sideways. “No one has succeeded.”

  He obviously had suspicions. She smiled and went on the attack. “Last night, in that so-called act of yours. Where did you get that stuff about Finn?”

  “You told me, sweetkin.”

  “I told you I’d been a slave and that Finn … rescued me. But what you said about betrayal. About love. Where did you get that?”

  “Ah.” He made his fingers into a quick elaborate steeple. “I read your mind.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “You saw. The man, the sobbing woman.”

  “Oh, I saw!” She let a rich disgust enter her voice. “Tricking them with that junk! He is safe in the peace of Incarceron. How can you live with yourself?”

  “The woman wanted to hear it. And you do both love and hate this Finn.” The gleam was back in his eye. Then his face fell. “But the rumble of thunder! I admit that astonished me. That has never happened before. Is Incarceron watching you, Attia? Is it interested in you?”

  “It’s watching us all,” she growled.

  From behind, a shrill voice screeched, “Speed up, Rix!” The head of a giantess was peering from the starry cloth.

  “And that vision of a tiny keyhole?” Attia had to know.

  “What keyhole?”

  “You said you could see Outside. The stars, you said, and a great palace.”

  “Did I?” His eyes were puzzled; she had no idea if it was pretense or not. “I don’t remember. Sometimes when I wear the Glove I really think something takes over my mind.” He shook the reins. She wanted to ask him more but he said, “I suggest you get down and stretch your legs. We’ll be at the Dice soon, and then we all need to be on our guard.”

  It was a dismissal. Annoyed, Attia jumped from the cart.

  “About time,” the giantess snarled.

  Rix smiled his toothless smile. “Gigantia, darling. Go back to sleep.”

  He whipped up the ox. Attia let the cart rumble ahead; in fact she let them all pass, the gaudy painted sides, the red and yellow spoked wheels, the pots and pans clattering underneath. Right at the back a donkey trailed on a long rope, and a few small children trudged wearily.

  She followed, head down. She needed time to think. The only plan, when she had heard the rumors of a magician who claimed to own Sapphique’s Glove, had been to find him and steal it. If she had been abandoned by Finn, she would try anything to find her own way Out. For a moment, as her feet tramped along the metal roadway, she allowed herself to relive the full misery of those hours in the cell at the world’s end, Keiro’s scorn and his pity and his “He’s not coming back. Get used to it.”

  She had turned on him then. “He promised! He’s your brother!”

  Even now, two months later, his cold shrug and his answer chilled her.

  “Not anymore.” Keiro had paused at the door. “Finn’s an expert liar. His specialty is getting people to feel sorry for him. Don’t waste your time. He’s got Claudia now, and his precious kingdom. We’ll never see him again.”

  “And where are you going?”

  He had smiled. “To find my own kingdom. Catch me up.” Then he had gone, shoving his way down the collapsed corridor.

  But she had waited.

  She had waited alone in the dingy silent cell for three days, until thirst and hunger drove her away. Three days of refusal to believe, of doubt, of anger. Three days to imagine Finn out in that world where the stars were, in some great marble palace with people bowing to him. Why hadn’t he come back? It must have been Claudia. She must have persuaded him, put a spell on him, made him forget. Or the Key must have gotten broken, or lost.

  But now it was harder to think like that. Two months was a long time. And there was another thought that hid in her mind, that crept out when she was tired or depressed. That he was dead. That his enemies out there had killed him.

  Except that last night, in that moment of fake death, she had seen him.

  A shout, ahead.

  She looked up and saw, towering over her, the Dice.

  That was exactly what they were. A great tumble of them, vaster than mountains, their sides white and faintly gleaming, as if a giant had tipped a pile of sugar cubes in the way, with smooth hollows that might be arranged in sixes and fives. In places, stunted stubby bushes struggled to grow; deep in the clefts and valleys a faint moss clung like grass. No roads led up there; the cuboid hills must be hard as marble, and smooth, impossible to climb. Instead the track ran into a tunnel hacked into the base.

  The wagons halted. Rix stood up and said, “People.”

  Quite suddenly faces were peering out from the wagons, all the stunted, enormous, shriveled, dwarfish faces of the freak show. The seven jugglers clustered around. Even the bear guard ambled back.

  “The rumor is that the gang that runs this road is greedy but thick.” Rix took a coin from his pocket and spun it. It vanished into the air. “So we should get through without problems. If there are … obstructions, you all know what to do. Be alert, my friends. And remember, the Art Magicke is the art of illusion.”

  He made an elaborate bow and sat back down. Puzzled, Attia saw how the seven jugglers were distributing swords and knives, and small balls of blue and red. Then each of them climbed up by a driver. The carts closed together, a tight formation.

  She climbed hastily behind Rix and his guard. “Are you seriously taking on some Scum gang with collapsible knives and fake swords?”

  Rix didn’t answer. He just grinned his gappy grin. As the tunnel entrance loomed Attia loosened her own knife and wished desperately that she had a firelock. These people were crazy, and she didn’t intend to die with them. Ahead, the tunnel’s shadow loomed. Soon intense darkness closed over her.

  Everything disappeared. No, not everything. With a wry smile she realized that if she leaned out she could see the lettering on the wagon behind; that it was picked out in glowing luminous paint—The One, the Only, Traveling Extravaganza—that its wheels were whirling spokes of green. There was nothing else. The tunnel was narrow; from its roof the noise of rumbling axles reverberated into an echoing thunder.

  The farther in they went, the more worried she became. No road was without its owners; whoever held this one had a surefire ambush site. Glancing up she tried to make out the roof, whether anyone was up there on walkways or hanging from nets, but apart from the web of one uberspider she could see nothing.

  Except, of course, the Eyes.

  They were very obvious in the darkness. Incarceron’s small red Eyes watched her at intervals, tiny starpoints of curiosity. She remembered the books of images she had seen, imagined how she must look to the curious Prison, tiny and grainy, gazing up from the wagon.

  Look at me, she thought bitterly. Remember, I’ve heard you speak. I know there is a way Out from you.

  “They’re here,” Rix muttered.<
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  She stared at him. Then, with a crash that made her jump, a grid smashed down ahead in the darkness; and another, behind. Dust billowed up; the ox bellowed as Rix dragged it to a halt. The wagons creaked into a long straggling stillness.

  “Greetings!” The shout came from the darkness ahead. “Welcome to the tollgate of Thar’s Butchers.”

  “Sit tight,” Rix whispered. “And follow my lead.” He jumped down, a lanky shadow in the darkness.

  Immediately a beam of light lit him. He shaded his eyes against it. “We’re more than willing to pay great Thar whatever he wants.”

  A snort of laughter. Attia glanced up. Some of them were overhead, she was sure. Stealthily she drew her knife, remembering how the Comitatus had captured her with a flung net.

  “Just tell us, great one, what’s the fee?” Rix sounded apprehensive.

  “Gold or women or metal. Whatever we choose, showman.”

  Rix bowed, and let relief creep into his voice. “Then come forward and take what you want, masters. All I ask is that the properties of our art are left us.”

  Attia hissed, “You’re just going to let them—”

  “Shut up,” he muttered. Then, to a juggler, “Which one are you?”

  “Quintus.”

  “Your brothers?”

  “Ready, boss.”

  Someone was coming out of the dark. In the red glimmer of the Eyes, Attia saw him in flickers, a bald head, stocky shoulders, the glint of metal strapped all over him.

  Behind, in a sinister line, other figures.

  On each side, green lights flared with a sizzle.

  Attia stared; even Rix swore.

  The gang leader was a halfman.

  Most of his bald skull was a metal plate, one ear a gaping hole meshed with filaments of skin.

  In his hands he held a fearsome weapon, part ax, part cleaver. The men behind him were all shaven-headed, as if that was their tribemark.

  Rix swallowed. Then he held up a hand and said, “We’re poor folk, Winglord. Some thin silver coins, a few precious stones. Take them. Take anything. Just leave us our pathetic props.”