Incarceron Part 57

Her smile was bitter. "What I've longed to do for years. I've found the door to his secret. The entrance to Incarceron."

A WORLD THAT HANGS IN s.p.a.cE.

22.

"Where are the leaders?" Sapphique asked.

"In their fortresses," the swan replied.

"And the poets?"

"Lost in dreams of other worlds."

"And the craftsmen?"

"Forging machines to challenge the darkness."

"And the Wise, who made the world?"

The swan lowered its black neck sadly.

"Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers."

-Sapphique in the Kingdom of Birds ***

Finn carefully touched one of the spheres.

It showed him his own face, swollen grotesquely in delicate lilac gla.s.s. Behind him he saw Attia come through the archway and stare around.

"What is this?"

She stood amazed among the bubbles that hung from the ceiling, and he saw how clean she was this morning, her hair scrubbed, the new clothes making her seem younger than ever.

"His laboratory. Look in here."

Some of the spheres contained whole landscapes. In one, a colony of small golden-furred creatures slumbered peacefully or dug in sandy hillocks.

Atria spread her hands on it, flat on the gla.s.s. "It feels warm."

He nodded. "Did you sleep?"

"A bit. I kept waking up because it was so quiet. You?"

He nodded, not wanting to say that his exhaustion had made him fall onto the small white bed and sleep at once, without even undressing. Though when he had woken this morning, he had found that someone had wrapped the blankets around him, and laid clean clothes on the chair in the bare white room. Had it been Keiro?

"Did you see the man on the ship? Gildas thinks he's a Sapient."

She shook her head.

"Not without the facemask. And all he said last night was *Take those rooms and we'll talk in the morning.' "

She glanced over. "It was brave, going back for Keiro."

They were silent for a while. He came around and stood next to her, and as they watched the animals scratch and roll, they became aware that beyond this globe was a whole chamber of gla.s.s worlds, aquagreen and gold and pale blue, each hanging from a fine chain, some tinier than a fist, others vast as halls, where birds flew, or fish swam, or billions of insects clouded and swarmed.

"It's as if he's made cages for them all," she said quietly.

"I hope he hasn't got one for us."

Then, catching the sudden jerk of his reflection, "What is it? Finn?"

"Nothing."

His hands left hot smears on the sphere as he leaned on it.

"You saw something."

Attia's eyes were wide. "Was it the stars, Finn? Are there really millions of them? Do they gather and sing in the darkness?"

Stupidly, he didn't want to disappoint her.

He said,"I saw ... I saw a lake in front of a great building. It was night. Lanterns were floating on the water, little paper lanterns each with a candle inside so they looked blue and green and scarlet. There were boats on the lake and I was in one of them."

He rubbed his face.

"I was there, Attia. I was leaning over the side and tried to touch my reflection in the water, and yes, there were stars. And they were angry because my sleeve got wet."

"The stars?" She came closer.

"No. The people."

"What people? Who were they, Finn?"

He tried. There was a scent. A shadow.

"A woman," he said. "She was angry."

It hurt. Remembering hurt. It triggered flashes of light; he closed his eyes against them, sweating, his mouth dry.

"Don't." Anxious, she reached out to him, the welts red on her wrists where the chains had chafed the skin. "Don't upset yourself."

He rubbed his face with his sleeve and the room was still with a quiet he had not known since the cell where he had been born.