Кэтрин Фишер: Sapphique

‘Here it is.’ Keiro tugged the receiver out of Medlicote’s pocket and tossed it to Finn, who let the man go and flicked it open.

‘How does this work?’ Medlicote crumpled on to the floor, half choked. ‘Touch the dial. Then speak.’ Finn looked at Jared. Then he jabbed his thumb down on the small disc at one edge.

‘Warden he said. ‘Can you hear me?’ Rix stood.

Attia grabbed a piece of wood as a weapon and tested it.

But she knew that before the sweeping anger of that mob nothing would be strong enough.

On the steps the Warden turned.

A tiny bleep sounded inside his coat; he reached for the disc but as he brought it out Claudia grabbed it, her eyes widening as the Prisoners poured in, a jostling, stinking, roaring host.

A voice said, ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Finn?’

‘Claudia!’ The relief was clear in his voice. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We’re in trouble. There’s a riot here. We’re going to burn the statue, Finn, or try’ She caught, out of the corner of her eye, the flicker of flame in Rix’s hand. ‘Then Incarceron has no way out.’

‘Is the Glove destroyed?’ the Warden hissed.

A murmur. A blur of static. And then, in her ear, Jared’s voice. ‘Claudia?’ She felt only a stab of joy.

‘Claudia, it’s me. Listen to me please. I want you to promise me something.’

‘Master . . .’

‘I want you to promise me that you will not burn the image, Claudia.’ She blinked. Attia stared.

‘But. . . we have to. Incarceron. . .’

‘I know what you think. But I’m beginning to understand what is happening here. I have spoken to Sapphique.

Promise me, Claudia. Tell me you trust me.’ She turned. Saw the crowd reach the bottom step, the front runners flinging themselves up.

‘I trust you, Jared,’ she whispered. ‘I always did. I love you, Master.’ The sound rose to a screech that made Jared jerk away; the disc fell and rolled on the floor.

Keiro pounced on it and yelled, ‘Claudia!’ but there was only a hissing and spitting that might have been the noise of a multitude or the chaos of interstellar static.

Finn turned on Jared. ‘Are you crazy? She was right! Without its body...’

‘I know.’ Jared was pale. He leant against the fireplace, the Glove tight in his hand. ‘And I ask you what I asked her. I have a plan, Finn. It may be foolish, it may be impossible.

But it might save us all.’ Finn stared at him. Outside the rain lashed, flinging the casement open, snuffing the last flicker of the candle out. 1-Ic was cold and shaken, his hands icy. The fear in Claudia’s voice had infected him like a taste of the Prison, and for a moment he was back in that white cell where he had been born, and was no prince but a Prisoner with no memory and no hope.

The house shivered around them as lightning struck. ‘What do you need?’ Finn said.

It was Incarceron that stopped them. As the Prisoners surged to the second step its voice rang out in power through the vast hall.

I will kill anyone who comes closer.

The step pulsed with sudden light. Currents of power ran along it and rippled in blue waves. The crowd convulsed. Some pushed on, others stopped, or squirmed back. It became a vortex of movement, and the spotlights circled lazily over it, stabbing down to show a terrified eye, a flailing hand.

Attia snatched the kindling from Rix.

She moved to thrust it into the rotten fibres, but Claudia grabbed her hand. ‘Wait.’

‘For what?’ She turned, but Claudia jerked her wrist savagely and the tiny burning scrap fell, flaring in the air. It landed on the tapestries but before the whoof of flame took hold Claudia had stamped it out.

‘Are you mad? We’re finished!’ Attia was furious. ‘You’ve finished us. . .‘

‘Jared. .

‘Jared is wrong!’ I am very pleased to have you all here for this execution. The Prison’s sarcasm echoed through the freezing air; tiny, icy snowflakes drifting from its heights. You will see my justice and understand that I have no favourites. Behold, the man before you. John Arlex, your Warden.

The Warden was grey and grim but he drew himself up, his dark coat glistening with snow.

‘Listen to me,’ he yelled. ‘The Prison is trying to leave us!

To leave its own people to starve!’ Only the nearest heard him, and they howled him down.

As she closed up beside him Claudia knew that only the Prison’s proclamation kept the mob back, and that the Prison was playing with them.

John Arlex, who hates and detests you. See how he cowers under this image of Sapphique. Does he think it will protect him from my wrath?

They needn’t have bothered with the tapestries. Claudia realized that Incarceron would burn its own body, that its anger at the Glove’s loss, at the end of all its plans, would be their end too. The same pyre would consume them all.

And then, beside her, a sharp voice said, ‘Oh my father.

Listen to me.’ The crowd hushed.

They stilled as if the voice was one they knew, had heard before, so that they quietened to hear it again.

And Claudia felt in her bones and nerves how Incarceron zigzagged closer, moved in, its reply murmured in her ear and against her cheek, a quiet, fascinated question of secret doubt.

Is that you, Rix?

Rix laughed. His eyes were narrowed, his breath stank of ket. He opened his arms wide. ‘Let me show you what I can do. The greatest magic ever performed. Let me show you, my father, how I will bring your body to life.’

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.