Incarceron Part 56

"Tomorrow, perhaps we ..." He stopped. A shrill, urgent bleep. Insistent and loud.

Startled, Claudia stared around. "What's that?"

Her father stood very still. Then he reached into his waistcoat pocket and took out his watch, and with a click of his thumb, sprang the gold case open. She saw the handsome dial, the time. Quarter to eleven. But this was no chime. It was an alarm. The Warden stared.

When he looked up, his eyes were cold and gray. "I have to go. Good night, Claudia. Sleep well."

Astonished, she watched him stride to the door.

"Is it ... is it the Prison?" she said.

He turned, his gaze sharp. "What makes you say that?"

"The alarm .. , I've never heard it before ..."

He was watching her. She cursed herself.

Then he said, "Yes. There seems to be an incident. Don't worry. I'll see to it personally."

The doors closed after him.

For a moment she stayed there, frozen. She stared at the wooden panels; then, as if the stillness galvanized her into action, she grabbed a dark shawl, wrapped it around herself, and flung herself at the door, opening it quickly.

He was well down the gilt corridor, walking fast. As soon as he rounded the corner, she ran after him, breathless, silent on the soft carpets. Her image flickered in dim mirrors.

At the side of a great china vase a curtain swirled; slipping behind it she found herself at the top of a dim flight of spiral stairs. She waited, her heart hammering, watching his dark figure descend below, and she saw he was running, a quick, agitated step.

Hurriedly she edged down after him, around and around, one hand on the damp rail, until the gilt walls became brick and then stone, the steps hollowed with use, slimed with green lichen.

It was cold down here, and very dark. Her breath clouded. She shivered and wrapped the shawl tight.

He was going to the Prison.

He was going to Incarceron!

Faint, very far ahead, the alarm was bleeping, loud and urgent, a relentless panic.

These were the wine cellars. They were huge chambers, vaulted, piled with barrels and casks, wiring snaking down their walls, hung with white salts that had oozed from the brickwork.

If it was Protocol, it was very convincing.

Peering around a stack of casks, she made herself keep still. He had come to a gate. It was green bronze, set deep in the wall, glistening with snail trails, corroded with age. Great rivets studded it. Rusted chains hung across it. With a silent leap of her heart she saw the Havaarna eagle, its outspread wings almost lost under layers of verdigris.

Her father glanced around and she ducked back, breathless. Then he tapped a swift combination into the globe the eagle held; she heard a click.

Chains slid and swung, crashing down. In a shower of spiderwebs and snails and dusty the gate juddered open.

She leaned out, desperate to see what lay behind, to see Inside, but there was only darkness and a smell, a sour, metallic stink, and she had to dive back hastily as he turned.

When she looked again he was gone, and the gate was closed.

Claudia leaned back on the wet bricks and breathed out a soundless whistle of damp breath.

At last. Finally. She had found it.

THE ALARM screamed in their teeth, in their nerves, in their bones.

Finn thought it would bring on a fit; terrified, he scrambled for the slit, against the icy wind that howled through it.

The Beast was gone.

Even as Keiro climbed over Finn and grabbed Gildas, it dissolved; suddenly they were all tumbling in a cascade of fragments, and then they slammed against the wall, a chain of bodies held only by Finn's grip.

He yelled with the agony. "I can't hold you!"

"You b.l.o.o.d.y will!" Keiro gasped.

Terror stretched him. Keiro's hand slid, an agonizing jerk. He couldn't do it. His hand scorched.

A shadow fell on him. He thought it was the Beast's head, or a great eagle, but as he twisted in despair and stared up, he saw it swoop in through the slit, humming with contained power, a silver ship, an ancient sailing ship, its sails a patchwork of cobweb, its ropes tangled and dangling over the side.

It loomed above them, and very slowly, a hatch opened in its base.

A basket was lowered, swaying on four immense cables, and above it a face looked over the side of the ship, a hideous, gargoyle face, deformed by goggles and a bizarre breathing apparatus,

"Get in," it rasped. "Before I change my mind."

How they did it he had no idea, but in seconds Keiro had tumbled into the wildly rocking basket; Gildas hauled after him. Attia leaped, pausing only for a moment, and then Finn let himself drop, his mind so black with relief that he fell without fear, and didn't feel himself land, until a welcome silence exploded into Keiro's yell in his ear.

"Get off me, Finn!"

He struggled up. Attia was bending over him, concerned.

"Are you all right?"

"... Yes."

He wasn't, he knew, but he leaned past her to the edge and he looked over, giddy with the swaying, the icy wind. They were out of the Cave, above the plain, miles above the City.

It lay like a toy on the plain, and from this height they could see the scorch marks and the fumaroles around it, as if the land itself was the skin of the Beast that rumbled beneath, fuming with wrath. Clouds wisped across, vapors of metallic yellow, a rainbow.

Finn felt Gildas grab him, the old man's voice delirious with joy, s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the wind.

"Look up, boy! See! There are Sapienti still, with power!"

He twisted his head. And saw, as the silver ship spiraled upward, a tower so narrow and impossibly high that it seemed like a needle balanced upright on a cloud, its top glimmering with light.

He felt his breath frost and condense on the rail, crack and splinter, each ice shard polarized by the tower, each crystal aligned as if by a magnet.

Gasping in the thin air, he gripped the old man's arm, shaking with cold and fear, not daring to look down again, seeing only the minute landing place at the needle's tip grow bigger, the slowly revolving globe at its apex.

And yet, high as they were, above them for miles and miles, the night of Incarceron extended into the freezing sky.

THE HAMMERING woke Jared in a cold sweat of fear.

For a moment he had no idea what it was, and then he heard her whisper, "Jared! Quickly, it's me!"

He sat up and stumbled over, tugging the scanner off the frame, fumbling for the latch. As soon as he lifted it, the door flew open, almost hitting him in the face; then Claudia was inside, breathless and dust-smeared, a filthy shawl around her silk dress.

"What is it?" he gasped.

"Claudia, has he found out? Does he know we have the Key?"

"No. No."

She had no breath; she plumped down on the bed and bent double, clutching her side.

"Then what?"

She raised her hand, making him wait; after a moment, when she could speak and looked up, he saw her face was lit with triumph.

He stepped back, suddenly wary."What have you done, Claudia?"