Incarceron Part 104

Attia gave him water; he managed a swallow and coughed and tried to sit up.

"He gets worse," Keiro was saying to Claudia.

"This is what your father has done to him."

She ignored it and bent over Finn.

"The Prisonquake has stopped. It just went quiet."

"Gildas?" Finn muttered.

"The old man's gone. He doesn't have to worry about Sapphique anymore."

Keiro's voice was gruff.

Turning, Finn saw the Sapient lying in the rubble, his eyes closed, his body curled, as if he slept. On his finger, loose and dull, as if Keiro had pushed it there in some vain effort to save him, shone the last skull-ring.

"What did you do?" Claudia asked.

"He said ... odd things."

"I showed him the way out."

Finn felt raw, sc.r.a.ped clean. He didn't want to talk about it now, not to tell them what he thought he had remembered, so he sat up slowly and said,

"You tried the ring on him?"

"It didn't work. He was right about that too. Maybe none of them ever worked."

Keiro pushed the Key into his hands.

"Go. Get out now. Get the Sapient to design a key to spring me. And send someone back for the girl."

Finn looked at Attia.

"I'll come back myself. I swear."

Attia smiled, wan, but Keiro said,

"See you do. I don't want to be stuck with her."

"And for you too. I'll get all the Sapienti in my kingdom on it. We made a vow, brother. Do you think I've forgotten?"

Keiro laughed. His handsome face was grimy and bruised, his hair dull with dirt, his fine coat ruined. But he was the one, Finn thought, who looked like a prince.

"Maybe. Or maybe this is your chance to be rid of me. Maybe you're afraid I'd kill you and take your place. If you don't come back, believe me, I'll do it."

Finn smiled. For a moment they looked at each other across the tilted cell, across the spilled manacles and shackles.

Then Finn turned to Claudia. "You first."

She said, "You will come?"

"Yes."

She looked at him, then the others. Quickly she touched the eye of the eagle and was gone, in a brilliance that made them all gasp.

Finn looked down at the Key he held. "I can't," he said. Attia smiled brightly.

"I trust you. I'll be waiting."

But his finger didn't move, paused above the eagle's dark eye, so she reached over and pressed it for him.

CLAUDIA FOUND herself sitting in the chair amidst an uproar of voices and hammering. Outside the gate Caspar was shouting, "... under arrest for high treason. Warden! Can you hear me?"

The bronze resounded to frenzied blows. Her father took her hand and raised her to her feet.