Incarceron Part 46

Gildas was silent a moment. When he went on, his voice was lower.

"For three days nothing happened. Then, on the fourth, news went around like wildfire that the stranger had emerged from the Cave. The townspeople lined the walls, threw open the gates. Sapphique walked slowly up the road. When he reached the gates he lifted up his hand, and they saw that the index finger on the right was missing, and that the hand bled into the dust. He said, *The debt has not been paid. There is not enough of me to pay the debt. What lives in the Cave is a hunger that can never be satisfied. An emptiness that can never be filled.' Then he turned and walked away and the people let him go. But the girl, the one whose life he saved, she ran after him, and traveled with him for a while. She was the first of his Followers."

Finn said,

"What-?" but the door slammed open before he could finish.

The Crane-men beckoned. "Out. The boy must sleep now. At Lightson we leave."

Gildas went, with one swift look.

The man threw Finn some blankets; he dragged them around himself and sat huddled against the wall, listening to the voices and singing and barking in the street. He felt cold and utterly alone. He tried to think of Keiro, of Claudia, the girl the Key had shown him. And Attia, would she forget him? Would they all leave him to his fate? He rolled over and curled up. And then he saw the Eye. It was very tiny, up near the ceiling, half hidden in cobwebs. It watched him steadily and he stared back, then sat up and faced it.

"Speak to me," he said, his voice soft with anger and scorn. "Are you too scared to speak to me? If I was born from you, then talk to me. Tell me what to do. Spring the doors open."

The Eye was a red spark, unblinking.

"I know you're there. I know you can hear me. I've always known. The others forget, but I don't."

He was standing now; he came over and reached up, but the Eye was, as always, too high.

"I told her about you, the Maestra, the woman that was killed, that I killed. Did you see that? Did you see her fall, did you catch her? Have you got her somewhere, alive?"

His voice was shaking, his mouth was dry; he knew the signs but was too angry and scared to stop.

"I will Escape from you. I will, I swear it. There must be somewhere to go. Where you can't see me. Where you don't exist!"

He was sweating, sick. He had to sit down, lie down, let the dizziness sweep over him, the patchwork of images, a room, a table, a boat on a dark lake. He choked on them, fought them off, drowned in them.

"No," he said. "No."

The Eye was a star. A red star. It fell slowly into his open mouth. And as it burned inside him, he heard it speak in the faintest of breaths, the murmur of dust in deserted corridors, the scorch of ashes in the heart of the fire.

"I am everywhere" it whispered.

"Everywhere."

19.

Down the endless halls of guilt My silver thread of tears is spilt.

My fingerbone the key that broke My blood the oil that smoothes the lock.

-Songs of Sapphique ***

Claudia stared at the holo-image in dismay.

"What do you mean imprisoned? You're all in Prison, aren't you?"

The boy grinned, a soft mockery she already disliked. He sat on the curb of what looked like some sort of dark alleyway and leaned back, gazing at her with a considering scrutiny.

"Are we, indeed? And where are you then, Princess?"

She frowned. In fact she had run into the garderobe of the hostelry where the carriages had stopped for lunch, a stinking stone chamber too close to Protocol for comfort. But she wasn't going to waste time explaining.

"Listen to me, whatever your name is-"

"Keiro."

"Well, Keiro. It's vital I speak to Finn. How did you get this Key from him anyway? Did you steal it?"

He had very blue eyes, and his hair was blond and long. He was handsome and he certainly knew it.

He said, "Finn and I are oathbrothers, sworn to each other. He gave it to me for safety."

"So he trusts you?"

"Of course."

Another voice said,

"Well, I don't."

A girl stepped up behind him; he glared at her hotly and muttered, "Will you shut up?" but she crouched and spoke hurriedly to Claudia.

"I'm Attia. I think he's going to leave Finn and the Sapient and try to Escape as Sapphique did, and he thinks the Key will work for him. You musn't let him! Finn will die."

Bewildered by the names, Claudia said,