Sapphique

‘No idea.’

‘Great. All our stuff.’

‘All your stuff.’ She pushed her tangled hair back. ‘There’s something else. They work for the Warden. They call him the Unsapient.’ His blue eyes stared at her. ‘They want to take him the Glove!’ He was always so quick, she thought. ‘Yes, but—’

‘Attia, you have to get it back!’ He was up on his feet now, gripping the bars. ‘The Glove is our only way to Incarceron.’

‘How, exactly? We’re outnumbered.’ He kicked the bars, furious. ‘Get me out, Attia. Lie to them.

Tell them to throw me over the viaduct. Just get me out.’ As she turned he reached out and grabbed her. ‘They’re all halfmen, aren’t they?’

‘Some of them. Rho. Zeta. A woman called Omega has pincers instead of hands.’ She looked at him. ’Does that help you hate them more?’ Keiro laughed coldly, and tapped his fingernail on the bars.

It rang, metal against metal. ‘What hypocrisy that would be.’ She stepped away. ‘Listen. I think we’re wrong.’ Before he could explode she hurried on. ‘If we give the Prison this Glove it will carry out its crazy plan of Escape. Everyone here will die. I don’t think I can do that, Keiro. I just don’t think I can.’ He was staring at her, with that cold, intent look that always scared her.

She backed off. ‘Maybe I should just take the Glove and go.

Leave you here.’ She got to the door before his whisper came, icy with threat. ‘That would make you just the same as Fi

‘Tell us once more about the day you remember. The day of the hunt.’ The Shadow Lord loomed over him, eyes hard.

Fi

‘Alone?’

‘No . . . there must have been others. At first.’

‘Which others?’ He rubbed his face. ‘I don’t know. I’ve tried to think, over and over, but …’

‘You were fifteen.’

‘Sixteen. I was sixteen.’ They were trying to trick him.

‘The horse was chestnut?’

‘Grey: He stared, angry, towards the Queen. She sat, eyes half closed, a small dog on her lap. Her fingers stroked it rhythmically.

‘The horse jumped he said. ‘I told you, I felt a sort of sting in my leg. I fell off.’

‘With your courtiers around you.’

‘No I was alone.’

‘You just said . . .’

‘I know! Perhaps I got lost!’ He shook his head. The warning prickle moved behind his eyes. ‘Perhaps I took the wrong path. I don’t remember!’ He had to stay calm. To be alert. The Pretender lounged on the bench, listening with bored impatience.

The Shadow Lord came closer. His eyes were black and level. ‘The truth is that you invented this. There was no ambush. You are not Giles. You are the Scum of Incarceron.’

‘I am Prince Giles.’ But his voice sounded weak. He heard his own doubt.

‘You are a Prisoner. You have stolen. Haven’t you?’

‘Yes. But you don’t understand. In the Prison. . .’

‘You have killed.’

‘No. Never killed.’

‘Indeed?’ The Inquisitor drew back like a snake. ‘Not even the woman called the Maestra?’ Fi

‘How we know is not important. She fell, didn’t she, inside the Prison, down a great abyss, because the bridge on which she stood had been sabotaged. You were responsible.’

‘No!’ He was shouting now, eye to eye with the man. The Inquisitor did not back off.

‘Yes. You stole a device for Escape from her. Your words are a mass of lies. You claim visions. You claim to have spoken with ghosts.’

‘I didn’t kill her!’ He grabbed for his sword but it wasn’t there. ‘I was a Prisoner, yes, because the Warden drugged me and put me in that hell. He took away my memory. I am Giles!’

‘Incarceron is not a hell. It is a great experiment.’

‘It’s hell. I should know’

‘Liar.’

‘No...’

‘You are a liar. You have always been a liar! Haven’t you?

Haven’t you?’

‘No. I don’t know!’ He couldn’t bear it. His throat was ashes, the blurring of the impending seizure tormenting him. If it happened here he was finished.

He became aware of movement, dragged his head up. The Sun Lord was standing, beckoning for a chair to be brought, and the Shadow Lord had gone back to his seat.

‘Please, sire. Be seated. Be calm.’ The man’s hair was silver, his words sweet with concern. ‘Bring water, here.’ A footman brought a tray. A cool goblet was pressed into Fi

‘So,’ the Sun Lord mused. ‘You say the Warden imprisoned you?’

‘It must have been him.’ The man smiled kindly. Fi

‘But. . . if the Warden was responsible, he could not have acted alone. Not with the abduction of a royal prince. Do you claim that the Privy Council were involved?’

‘No.’

‘The Sapienti?’ He shrugged, wearily. ‘Someone with knowledge of drugs must have been.’

‘So you accuse the Sapienti?’

‘I don’t accuse. . .’

‘And the Queen?’ The room was silent. Sullen, Fi

‘She must have known.’ No one moved. The Queen’s hand was still. The Sun Lord shook his head sadly. ‘We need to be absolutely clear, sire.

Do you accuse the Queen of your abduction? Of your imprisonment?’ Fi

But he still said it.

‘Yes. I accuse the Queen.’

‘Look over there.’ Rho stood on the viaduct and pointed.

Narrowing her eyes, Attia strained to see across the dimness of the hail. Birds were flying towards her, dark flocks of them. Their wings creaked; in a second they were all around her and she ducked with a gasp under the cloud of plummage and beaks. Then they were streaming far into the east.

‘Birds, bats, people.’ Rho turned, her eye of gold shining. ‘We have to live, Attia, like everyone else, but we don’t steal, or kill. We work for a higher purpose. When the Unsapient asks for things he needs, we get them. In the last three months we’ve sent him—’

‘How?’

‘What?’ Attia caught the girl by the wrist. ‘How? How does this. . .

Unsapient tell you what he wants?’ Rho pulled away and stared. ‘He speaks to us.’ A shiver of the world interrupted her. Far below a scream arose; cries of terror. Instantly Attia fell flat, grabbing the rusted girders; another ripple of movement went right through her body, her very fingernails. Next to her a rivet snapped; ivy slithered over the edge.

They waited until the Prisonquake ended, Rho on hands and knees beside her, both of them breathless with fear. As soon as she could speak Attia said, ‘Let’s get back down.

Please.’ Through the hole the complex of the Nest hung apparently undisturbed.

‘The quakes are getting worse.’ Rho scrambled in the ivy tu

‘How does he speak to you? Please, Rho, I really need to know.’

‘Down here. I’ll show you.’ They hurried through the room of feathers. Three of the other women were there, cooking stew in a great cauldron, one mopping spills that had slopped out in the shiver. The smell of meat made Attia swallow in appreciation. Then Rho ducked under a doorway into a small rounded place, a bubble of a room. It contained nothing but an Eye.

Attia stopped dead.

The small red glimmer swivelled to look at her. For a moment she stood there, remembering Fi