Incarceron Part 40

Finn frowned. This was all Keiro's fault.

The first thing the Crane-men had done after dragging them out of the trap had been to search Gildas's pack.

They had tipped out the powders and ointments, the carefully wrapped quills, the book of the Songs of Sapphique he always carried. None of those mattered.

But when they had found the packets of meat, they had looked at one another.

One of them, a thin scrawny man, had turned on his stilts and snapped, "So you're the thieves."

"Listen, friend," Gildas had said darkly,

"We had no idea the sheep was yours. Everyone has to eat. I'll pay you, with my learning. I am a Sapient of some skill."

"Oh, you'll pay, old man."

The man's stare had been level. He had looked at his comrades; they had seemed amused.

"With your hands, I would think, when the Justices see this."

Finn had been tied up, so tightly, the cords burned his skin. Dragged outside, he had seen a small cart harnessed to a donkey; the Crane-men leaped up onto it, sliding expertly out of the strange metal calipers.

Roped behind, Finn had stumbled beside the old man along the road that led to the City.

Twice he had glanced back, hoping to see Keiro or perhaps Attia, just a glimpse, a brief wave, but the forest was far away now, a distant glimmering of impossible colors, and the road ran straight as an arrow down the long metallic slope, the ground on each side studded with spikes and jagged with chasms.

Amazed at such defenses, he muttered, "What are they so scared of?"

Gildas scowled. "Attack, clearly. They're anxious to be in before Lightsout."

More than anxious. Almost all of the great crowds they had seen earlier were already inside the wall; as they hurried to the gate, a horn rang out in the citadel, and the Crane-men had urged the donkey on fiercely, so that Gildas was breathless with the pace, and almost fell.

Now, safe inside, Finn heard the clang of a portcullis and the rattle of chains.

Had Keiro and Attia gotten here too? Or were they out there in the wood?

He knew the Crane-men would have found the Key if he'd kept it, but the thought of Keiro having it, perhaps speaking to Claudia with it, made him nervous.

And there was another thought that nagged at him, but he would not think of that. Not yet.

"Come on."

The leader of the foraging party pulled him upright.

"We have to do this tonight. Before the Festival."

As he trudged through the streets, Finn thought he had never seen such a hive of people. The lanes and alleyways were festooned with small lanterns; when the Prison lights went off the world was transformed instantly into a network of tiny twinkling silver sparks, beautiful and brilliant.

There were thousands of inmates, setting up tents, bargaining in vast bazaars, searching for shelter, herding sheep and cyber-horses into corrals and market squares.

He saw beggars without hands, blinded, missing lips and ears. He saw disfiguring diseases that made him gasp and turn away.

And yet no halfmen. Here too it seemed, that abomination was restricted to animals.

The noise of clattering hooves was deafening; the stink of dung and sweat, of crushed straw and the sudden, vivid sweetness of sandalwood, of lemons.

Dogs ran everywhere, tugging over food sacks, rummaging in drains, and slyly behind them the small copper-scaled rats that bred so fast slunk into cracks and doorways, their tiny eyes red.

And he saw that images of Sapphique were on every corner, mounted above doorways and windows, a Sapphique who held out his right hand to show the missing finger, who held in the left what Finn recognized, with a silent leap of his heart, as a crystal Key.

"Do you see that?"

"I see it."

Gildas sat breathlessly on a step while one of their captors moved into the crowd.

"This is obviously some sort of festival. Perhaps in Sapphique's honor."

"These Justices ..."

"Leave the talking to me."

Gildas straightened, tried to adjust his robe.

"Don't say a word. Once they know what I am, we'll be released and this whole mess will be sorted. A Sapient will be listened to."

Finn scowled.

"I hope so."

"What else did you see, back there in the ruin? What else did Sapphique say?"

"Nothing."

He had run out of lies, and his arms ached from being tied in front of him. Fear was threading into his mind like a cold trickle.

"Not that we'll see the Key again," Gildas said bitterly. "Or that liar Keiro."