Sapphique

‘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.’ 

33

He raised his hands. They saw his coat was feathered like the wings of the Swan when it dies, when it sings its secret song.

And he opened the door that none of them had seen until now.

As Fi

‘Ralph!’ Ralph came hastening up, stepping over lumps of fallen plaster. ‘Sire.’

‘Evacuate. Everyone is to leave.’

‘But where will we go, sire?’ Fi

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,’ Fi

‘Nowhere is safe.’ Medlicote ducked as a suit of armour beside him suddenly crashed into dust. ‘Not while the Glove exists.’ Fi

The stairs were ruined. Keiro climbed two, his back flat against the wall, but on the third tread his foot plunged through, and he tugged it out, swearing. ‘We’ll never get up this.’

‘We must get to the study, and the Portal.’ Jared looked up anxiously. He felt utterly weary, his head light and dizzy.

When had he last taken his medication? He leant against the wall and tugged out the pouch and stared at it in despair.

The small syringe had broken into pieces, as if the glass had brittled and aged instantly. The serum had congealed to a yellow crust.

Fi

‘Rope. I need rope.’ Fi

Then he set off up the stairs.

The world had inverted, Jared thought, watching his inching progress, because a staircase he had climbed every day for years had became a treacherous obstacle, a deathtrap.

This was how tune transformed things, how your own body betrayed you. This was what the Realm had tried to forget, in its deliberate elegant amnesia.

Keiro had to ascend the stairs as a mountaineer climbs a scree slope. The whole central section was gone, and as he grabbed at the higher treads their edges crumbled away in his hands.

Fi

Finally, at Fi

‘Then you go too.’ Fi

‘The Queen, sire.’ Ralph wiped his smeared face with a filthy rag that might once have been a handkerchief. ‘The Queen is dead.’ The stab of shock was so distant that Fi

And then the news sank in, and he saw that Jared had heard it too. The Sapient bowed his head, sadly.

‘So you are King, sire.’ Was it that simple? he wondered. But all he said was, ‘Ralph, go now.’ The old steward didn’t move. ‘I would like to stay and help. To rescue the Lady Claudia and my master.’

‘I’m not sure there are any masters now.’ Jared drew in his breath. Keiro had slithered to one side; now all his weight was on the curved ba

He grabbed it with both hands, but as he did so the whole staircase collapsed behind him in a thunderous crashing of dust and worm-ridden timber, tumbling down on the hail, choking the stairwell.

Keiro swung, dragging himself up, every muscle in his arms straining, blinded by dust. Finally he got one knee over and crumpled on the landing in cold relief.

He coughed until the tears made tracks down his smudged face. Then he crawled to the edge and looked down. Below was a black swirling vortex of dust and debris. ‘Fi