Incarceron Part 81

"Then-"

Keiro yelled. Finn looked up and what he saw made his fingers clutch on the Key, so that seconds before the image flicked off, Claudia saw it too. A great solid metal wall. The Wall at the End of the World. Rising from unknown depths it soared into the hidden reaches of the sky.

And they were heading straight for it.

28.

Entry is through the Portal, Only the Warden will have a key, and this will be the only way to leave.

Though every prison has its c.h.i.n.ks and crannies.

-Project report; Manor Sapiens ***

It was late; the bell in the Ebony Tower was chiming ten. In the summer dusk, moths flitted in the gardens and a distant peac.o.c.k cried as Claudia hurried down the cloister. Servants pa.s.sed her and struggled to bow, loaded down with chairs and tapestries and great haunches of venison. The whole bustle of the feast preparations had been under way for hours.

She frowned, annoyed, not daring to ask one of them where Jared's room was. But he was waiting. As she turned a dank corner by a fountain of four stone swans, his hand came out and clutched her. Tugged through an archway she stood breathless as he closed the oaken door almost shut and put his eye to the slit.

A figure strode past. She thought she recognized her father's secretary.

"Medlicote. Is he following me?"

Jared put a finger to his lips. He looked paler and more drawn than usual, and there was a nervous energy about him that worried her. He led her down some stone steps, across a neglected courtyard, into a pathway overarched with yellow hanging laburnum.

Halfway down he paused and whispered, "There's a folly down here I've been using. My room is bugged."

A great moon hung over the Palace. The scars of the Years of Rage pockmarked its face; its silvery sheen lit the orchard and gla.s.shouses, reflected on diamond-paned cas.e.m.e.nts that hung open in the heat. A small burst of music drifted from a room, with voices and laughter and the c.h.i.n.k of plates.

Jared's dark figure slipped between two pillars where stone bears danced, through bushes that smelled of lavender and lemon balm, to a small structure built into a wall, in the most neglected corner of the walled garden. Claudia glimpsed a turret, a ruined parapet overgrown with ivy.

He unlocked the door and ushered her in. It was black, and stank of damp soil. Light flickered over her; Jared had a small torch; he pointed it at an inner door.

"Quickly."

The door was mildewed with age, the wood so soft it crumbled. Inside the dim room, the windows had been blocked with ivy; as Jared lit lamps, Claudia stared around.

"Just like home."

He had set up his electron microscope on a rickety table, unpacked a few boxes of instruments and books. He turned; in the flame light his face was haggard.

"Claudia, you must look at this. It changes everything. Everything."

His anguish scared her.

"Calm down," she said quietly.

"Are you well?"

"Well enough."

He leaned over the microscope, his long fingers adjusting it deftly. Then he stepped back.

"You remember that sc.r.a.p of metal I took from the study? Take a look at it."

Puzzled, she put her eye to the lens. The image was blurred; she refocused very slightly. And then she went very still, so rigid that Jared knew she had seen, and in that instant, had understood.

He went and sat wearily on the floor, among the ivy and nettles, the Sapient robe wrapped around him, its hem trailing in the dirt.

And he watched her as she stared.

IT WAS the Wall at the End of the World. If Sapphique had truly fallen down it from top to bottom, it must have taken years.

As Finn gazed up he felt the wind rebound from its immensity, making a slipstream that roared before them. Debris from the heart of Incarceron was blasted upward and then plummeted in an endless maelstrom; once trapped in that wind nothing would escape.

"We need to turn!"

Gildas was staggering to the wheel; Finn scrambled after him. Together they squeezed beside Keiro, hauling, trying to make the ship veer before she struck the updraft. With the thunder, Lightsout came. In the blackness Finn heard Keiro swear, felt Gildas struggle around him, holding on tight.

"Finn. Pull the lever! In the deck."

His hand groped, found it, and he tugged. Lights blinked on, two beams of light horizontal from the bow of the ship. He saw how close the Wall was. The discs of light played on huge rivets, bigger than houses, the bolted panels immense, battered by the impact of fragments, immeasurably cracked and scarred and corroded.

"Can we back out?" Keiro yelled.

Gildas threw him a glance of scorn. And in that instant they fell. Plunging down, spilling beams and spars and ropes, the ship dropped down the side of the Wall like a great silvery angel, the sails its flailing wings, shredding in seconds, until just as they thought she would break, the slipstream caught them. Mast snapping, the silver craft shot upward again, spinning uncontrollably, the headlights wheeling on the Wall, darkness, a rivet, darkness.

Tangled in the ropes Finn clung on, grabbing an arm that might have been Keiro's. The raging wind hurtled them high, the up-current welling from a roaring darkness, and as they rose the air thinned, the clouds and storm left far below, the Wall a sheer nightmare that sucked them close.

They were so near, Finn could see its pitted surface was webbed with cracks and tiny doors, openings where bats gusted out and navigated the gale with ease. Scoured by the collision of a billion atoms the metal gleamed in the headlights. The ship rolled. For a long second Finn was sure it would roll right over; he held on to Keiro and closed his eyes, but when he opened them it had righted, and Keiro was crashing against him, flailing in the ropes. The stern swung around. There was a great slither, a tremendous jerk.

Gildas roared. "Attia! She's let the anchor go!"

Attia must have gone below and pulled the pins from the capstan. The ascent slowed, the sails shredding. Gildas hauled himself up and pulled Finn close.

"We have to get right into the Wall, and jump."