Incarceron Part 84

"It's impossible," Keiro growled.

"No."

Gildas seemed lit with joy.

"We can do it. Keep strong."

He gripped the wheel and stared ahead. Suddenly the s.h.i.+p dropped. The headlights picked out the cube's opening; as they closed on it, Finn saw it was filmed across with a strange viscosity like the surface of a bubble. Rainbows of iridescence glimmered on it.

"Giant snails," Keiro muttered.

Even now he was able to joke, Finn thought.

Nearer, nearer. Now the s.h.i.+p was so close, they could see the reflection of her lights, swollen and distorted. So close that the bowsprit touched the film, indented it, pierced it so that it popped with soft abruptness, vanis.h.i.+ng into a faint puff of sweet air. Gradually, fighting the upstream, the s.h.i.+p slewed into the dark cube. The buffeting slowed. Vast shadows overwhelmed the headlights. Finn stared up at the square of blackness.

As it opened as if to swallow him, he felt that he was very tiny, was an ant crawling into a fold of cloth, a picnic cloth laid on the gra.s.s far away and long ago, where a birthday cake with seven candles lay half eaten, and a little girl with brown curly hair was handing him a golden plate, so politely. He smiled at her and took it.

The s.h.i.+p cracked. The mast splintered, toppled, wood showering around them.

Attia fell against him, scrabbling after a crystal glitter that slid from his s.h.i.+rt. "Get the Key," she yelled.

But the s.h.i.+p hit the back of the cube and darkness crashed down on him.

Like a finger crus.h.i.+ng the ant.

Like a main mast falling.

THE LOST PRINCE.

29.

Despair is deep.

An abyss that swallows dreams.

A wall at the worlds end.

Behind it I await death.

Because all our work has come to this.

-Lord Calliston's Diary ***

The morning of the wedding dawned hot and fine. Even the weather had been planned; the trees were in full blossom and the birds sang, the sky was a cloudless blue, the temperature perfect, the breeze gentle and sweetly scented.

From her window Claudia watched the sweating servants unloading the carriage-loads of gifts, saw even from up here the glint of diamonds, the dazzle of gold. She put her chin on the stone sill, felt its gritty warmth. There was a nest just above, a swallow that dipped in and out regularly with beakfuls of flies. Invisible chicks cheeped urgently as the parents came and went.

She felt heavy-eyed and bone-weary. All night she had lain awake and looked up into the crimson hangings of the bed, listening to the silence of the room, her future hanging over her like a weighty curtain ready to fall.

Her old life was finished-the freedom, the studying with Jared, the long rides and tree-climbing, the carelessness of doing as she liked. Today she would be Countess of Steen, would enter the war of scheming and treachery that was the life of the Palace. In an hour they would come to bathe her, do her hair, paint her nails, dress her like a doll.

She looked down. There was a roof far below, the slope of some turret.

For a dreamy moment she thought that if she tied all the sheets of the bedclothes together, she might let herself down, slowly, hand over hand till her bare feet touched the hot tiles. She might scramble down and steal a horse from the stables and ride away, escape just as she was, in her white nightdress, into the green forests on the far hills.

It was a warming thought. The girl who disappeared. The lost Princess.

It made her smile.

But then a call from below jerked her back; she glanced down and saw Lord Evian, resplendent in blue and ermine, gazing up at her.

He called something; she was too high to hear what, but she smiled and nodded, and he bowed and walked away, his small heeled shoes clacking.

Watching him, she knew that all the Court was like him, that behind its perfumed and elaborate facade lurked a web of hatreds and secret murders, and her own part in that would begin very soon, and to survive it she must be as hard as they were.

Finn could never be rescued. She had to accept that.

She got up, sending the swallow off in panic, and walked to the dressing table. It was laden with flowers, tussy-mussies, nosegays, and bouquets. They had been arriving all morning, so that the room smelled exquisite and sickly. Behind her, on the bed, the white gown lay spread in its finery.

She looked at herself. All right. She would marry Caspar and become Queen. If there was a plot, she would be part of it. If there were killings, she would survive them. She would rule. No one would tell her what to do ever again.

She opened the dressing table drawer, took out the Key, and placed it on the tabletop. It glimmered, its crystal facets catching the sunlight, its eagle splendid.

But first she would have to tell Finn. Break it to him that there was no escape. Tell him their engagement was over.

She reached out to it, but just as she touched it, there was a low knock on the door and instantly she slid it smoothly into the drawer and picked up a brush.

"Come in, Alys."

The door opened.

"Not Alys," her father said. He stood, dark and elegant, framed by the gilt lintel. "May I come in?"

"Yes," she said. His coat was new, a deep black velvet, a white rose in the lapel, his knee breeches satin. He wore shoes with discreet buckles and his hair was caught in a black ribbon. He sat gracefully, flipping the tails of the coat.

"All this finery is rather a bother. But one has to be perfect on such a day."

Glancing at her plain dress, he took his watch out and opened it, so that the sun caught the silver cube that hung on the chain.

"You have only two hours, Claudia. You should dress now."

She leaned her elbow on the table.

"Is that what you came to tell me?"

"I came to tell you how proud I am."

His gray eyes held hers, and the light in them was keen and sharp.

"Today is the day I have planned and schemed for decades. Long before you were born. Today the Arlexi come to the heart of power. Nothing must go wrong."

He stood up and strode to the window, as if tension would not let him keep still.

He smiled. "I confess I have not slept, thinking of it."