Incarceron Part 37

"All right. Now listen. There's a small finger panel at the base of the Key. It's invisible but the surface is slightly raised. Can you find it?"

His fingers groped, leaving dirty smudges.

"No," he said, fl.u.s.tered.

"Try! Do you think he has a different artifact?"

The question wasn't for Finn.

The other voice answered her, the one he remembered as Jared. "It's almost certainly identical. Finn, use your fingertips. Search the edge, the facets near the edge."

What did they think he was! He scrabbled, his hands sore.

"Finn!" Keiro's murmur was right behind him.

He jumped up, shoving the Key back, gasped, "For G.o.d's sake! Can't I take a drink in peace?"

His brother's hand shoved him back down into the leaf drift.

"Get down and shut up. We've got visitors."

CLAUDIA SAT back on her heels and swore with frustration.

"He's gone! Why is he gone?"

Jared went to the window and gazed out at the utter chaos in the courtyard.

"It's just as well. The Warden is coming up the steps."

"Did you hear the way he sounded? Again, it was so ... panicky."

"I know how he feels." Jared tugged a small pad from the pocket of his riding coat and thrust it at her.

"This is the full draft of the old man's testament. Read it while we travel."

Doors slamming. Voices outside. Her father's. Caspar's.

"Delete it straight afterward, Claudia. I have a copy."

"We should do something. About the body."

"We weren't there, remember?"

He barely had the words out before the door opened. Claudia calmly slipped the pad down her dress.

"My dear."

Her father came in and stood before her. She stood up to meet him. He wore his usual black frockcoat, the scarf at his neck silkily expensive, his boots the finest leather.

But today he wore a small white flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, as if to mark the occasion, and that was so unlike him she stared at it in surprise.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She nodded. She was wearing a dark blue traveling dress and cloak, with a special pocket sewn into it for the Key.

"A great morning for the House of Arlex, Claudia. The beginning of a new life for you, for us all."

His hair with its streak of silver was tied severely back, his eyes dark with satisfaction. He pulled on his gloves before he took her hand.

She looked at him without smiling, and the old dead man in the straw was in her mind, his eyes open.

She smiled and dropped a curtsy. "I'm ready, sir."

He nodded. "I always knew you would be. I always knew you'd never let me down."

Like my mother did? She wondered acidly. But she said nothing, and her father gave Jared the briefest nod and led her out.

They swept into the great hall, over the lavender-strewn floor, down between the rows of fascinated servants, the Warden of Incarceron and his proud daughter, setting out for the marriage that would make her a queen.

And on a signal from Ralph the staff cheered and applauded and threw sweet irises underfoot; they rang tiny silver bells in honor of the wedding they would never see.

Jared walked behind, a satchel of books under one arm. He shook hands with the servants, and the maids moped over him, pus.h.i.+ng tiny packets of sweetmeats at him, promising to keep the tower safe, not to touch any of his precious instruments, feed the fox cub and the birds.

As Claudia took her seat in the coach and looked back, she felt a rueful lump in the back of her throat. They would all miss Jared, his gentle ways, his fragile good looks, his willingness to dose their coughing children and advise their wayward sons. None of them seemed at all sorry to see her go.

But then whose fault was that? She had played the game. She was the mistress, the Warden's daughter. Cold as ice. Hard as nails. She raised her head and smiled across at Alys. "Four days' traveling. I intend to ride for at least half of it."

Her nurse frowned. "I doubt the Earl will. And he'll probably want you to sit in his coach for some of the time."

"Well, I'm not married to him yet. When I am, he'll soon find out it's what I want that counts."

If they thought her hard, she would be hard.

And yet, as the horses were mounted and the outriders gathered and the coaches began the slow turn to the gatehouse, all she wanted was to be staying here, in the house where she had lived since she was born, and she leaned out of the window and waved and called out all their names, her eyes stinging with sudden tears. "Ralph! Job! Mary-Ellen!"

And they waved back, a storm of handkerchiefs and the white doves rising from the gables and the bees in the honeysuckle buzzing as the carriage rumbled over the wooden drawbridge.

In the dark green waters of the moat she saw the house reflected, saw moorhens and swans arrow over it, and behind her in a great procession the wagons and coaches and riders and hounds and falconers of her entourage, of the household of the "Warden of Incarceron", on the day his plans began to come to fruition.

Windblown, she threw herself back in the leather seat and blew hair from her eyes.

Well, maybe.

THEY WERE men and yet how could they be? They were at least eight feet tall. They walked with an odd angular gait, stalking like herons, ignoring the vast drifts of sharp leaves, crunching straight through them.

Finn felt Keiro's hand grip so tight on his arm it hurt. Then his brother breathed a single syllable in his ear. "Stilts?"

Of course.

As one of them paced by he saw them up close, knee-high metallic calipers, and the men walked on them expertly, taking long strides, and he saw too that they used the height to touch certain points of the trees, small knots in the trunks, and that the trees instantly sprouted semi-organic fruits that the men harvested.

Turning his head he looked for Gildas, but wherever the Sapient and the girl were hidden, they were invisible to him. He watched the line of men work down through the trees. As they moved down the hillside they seemed to shrink, and Finn distinctly saw the man on the end s.h.i.+mmer, as if he pa.s.sed through some disturbance in the air.

After a while only their heads and shoulders showed. Then they were gone.

Keiro waited a long moment before getting up. He gave a soft whistle and a heap of leaves convulsed nearby. Gildas's silvery head came up.

He said, "Gone?"

"Far enough."

Keiro watched Attia scramble hurriedly out, then he turned. Taking one look at his oathbrother he said quietly, "Finn?"

It was happening. Looking at the s.h.i.+mmer in the air had done it. Finn's skin crawled with itches, his mouth was dry, his tongue felt stiff. He rubbed his hand over his mouth.

"No," he mumbled.

"Get hold of him," Gildas snapped.

From somewhere distant Keiro said, "Wait."

And then Finn was walking. Walking straight to the place, the emptiness between two great boughs of copper where the air had moved as if dust fell through a column of light there, as if a slot in Time opened there.

And when he came to it he stopped, stretching both arms before himself as if he were blind. It was a keyhole out of the world. Through it, a draft blew.

Small flashes of pain stung him. He struggled through them, feeling, touching the edges, bringing his face close, putting his eye to the sliver of light, gazing through. He saw a s.h.i.+mmer of color. It was so bright it made his eyes water, made him gasp.

Shapes moved there, a green world, a sky as blue as in his dreams, a great buzzing creature of black and amber hurtling toward him. He cried out and staggered back, felt Keiro grab both arms from behind.

"Keep looking, brother. What do you see? What is it, Finn?"

He crumpled. All the strength went from his legs and he collapsed in the leaf-litter. Attia shoved Keiro away. Quickly she poured water into a cup and held it out to Finn; blindly he took it and gulped it down, then closed his eyes and put his head in his hands, dizzy and sick. He retched. Then vomited.

Above him, voices raged. When he could hear, he realized one of them was Attia's, .. treating him like that! Don't you see he's sick!"

Keiro's laugh was scornful. "He'll get over it. He's a seer. He sees things. Things we need to know."

"Don't you care about him at all?" Finn dragged his head up.

The girl was facing up to Keiro, her hands gripped into fists at her sides. Her eyes had lost their bruised look; now they blazed with anger.

Keiro kept his mocking grin. "He's my brother. Of course I care about him."