Incarceron Part 62

Claudia stared. Jared nodded slowly. "Yes."

"How do you know?"

"Because this is a palace, not a prison. Because the sun is above us, and the stars at night. Because Claudia has discovered the gate that leads to the Prison ..."

"Have you?" Finn gasped.

But before she could answer, Gildas snapped, "One thing more. If you are Outside, where is Sapphique? What did he do when he got out there? When will he return to release us?"

There were flowers in the garden, brilliant red poppies. Jared looked at Claudia, and in the silence between them a bee buzzed on the petals, a small murmur that made Finn shiver with lost memory.

Then Jared stood and came forward, so close, he and Gildas were face-to-face. "Master," he said courteously.

"Forgive me for my ignorance. For my curiosity. Forgive me if this seems a stupid question. But who is Sapphique?"

23.

Nothing has changed, or will change.

So we must change it.

-The Steel Wolves ***

Finn thought the bee would come out of the nimbus of gold and land on him.

As it buzzed near his hand, he jerked back and it darted away.

He looked at Gildas. The old man had almost staggered; Attia was helping him sit, and Jared was reaching his own hand out as if to help, dismay on his face.

He glanced at Claudia; Finn heard his murmur. "I shouldn't have asked. The Experiment ..."

"Sapphique Escaped."

Keiro pulled a bench over and sat in the hologlow, its light rich on his red coat.

"He got out. He's the only one that ever did. That's the legend."

"No legend," Gildas snapped hoa.r.s.ely.

He looked up. "You really don't know? I thought ... that out there he would be a great man ... a king."

Claudia said, "No. At least... Well, we could do some research. He may have gone into hiding. Things here aren't perfect either."

She stood quickly.

"Perhaps you don't know, but people here believe Incarceron to be a wonderful place. A paradise."

They stared at her. She saw the startled disbelief in their faces, Keiro's changing almost instantly to an amused, acid grin.

"Fabulous," he murmured.

So she told them. She told them about the Experiment, her father, the sealed enigma of the Prison. And then she told them about Giles.

Jared said, "Claudia ..." but she waved a hand at him and went on quickly, pacing on the astonishingly green gra.s.s. "They didn't kill him, we know that. They hid him. And I think they hid him in there. I think he's you."

She turned and faced them, and Keiro said, "Are you saying ..." and then stopped and stared up at his oathbrother. "Finn? A prince?" He laughed, wondering. "Are you crazy?"

Finn hugged himself. He was shaking, he knew, and that rarely lost bewilderment was back in the corner of his mind, glimmers of things gone as fast as shadows in dim mirrors.

"You look like him," Claudia said firmly.

"There are no photographs allowed now, it's not Protocol, but the old man had a painting."

She held it up, slipping off the blue bag.

"Look."

Attia breathed in. Finn shivered.

The child's hair was shining and his face lit with innocent happiness. Impossible health radiated from him. His tunic was cloth of gold, his skin chubby and pink. A tiny eagle seared his wrist.

Finn stepped closer. He reached out and she lifted the miniature to him, and his fingers closed around the gilt frame; for a moment he felt he had hold of it, that he touched it. And then his fingertips met on nothing and he knew that it was far away, farther than he could imagine. And long ago.

"There was an old man," Claudia said. "Bartlett. He looked after you."

He stared at her. His emptiness scared them both.

"Queen Sia then? Your stepmother, she must have hated you. Caspar, your half brother? Your father, the King, who died. You must remember!"

He wanted to. He wanted to drag them out of the blackness of his mind, but there was nothing there.

Keiro was standing and Gildas had his arm, but all he could see was Claudia, her eager, fierce gaze on him, willing him to remember.