Кэтрин Фишер - Sapphique

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 round, saw the dark tunnels that led out of the cave, each as narrow as a slot. The waggon 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 leant 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 round to get a better look at Rix. Reflected grotesquely in a copper pan on the waggon 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 leant 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 waggon.

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 splendour.

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 round 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 clamour 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 muttered. ‘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.