Текст книги "Incarceron"

Автор книги: Kathryn Fisher

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

26

You chose rashly. I've warned you before.

She is far too clever and you underestimate the Sapient.

-Queen Sia to the Warden; private letter

"It's poisoned!" Finn clambered over the table and grabbed her; she choked, clutching his arms. "Do something!" Gildas shoved him aside. "Get my bag of medicines. Hurry!"

It took him precious seconds to find it, and by the time he got back Gildas had Attia lying on her side, writhing in pain. The Sapient grabbed the bag and tore through it, then pulled the cap off a small vial and held it to her lips. Attia struggled.

"She's choking," Finn muttered, but Gildas only swore, forcing it on her so that she drank it and coughed and convulsed.

Then, with a horrible racking sound she was sick.

"Good," Gildas said quietly. "That's it." He held her tight, his quick fingers feeling her pulse, the clammy skin of her forehead. She was sick again, and then slumped back, her face white and mottled.

"Is it out? Is she all right?"

But Gildas was still frowning. "Too cold," he muttered. "Get a blanket." Then, "Close the door and guard it. If Blaize comes, keep him out."

"Why would he...?"

"The Key, fool boy. He wants the Key. Who else would have done this?"

Attia moaned. She was shivering now, a strange blueness on her lips and under her eyes.

He obeyed, slamming the heavy door.

"Is it out of her?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. It might have entered the bloodstream almost immediately."

Finn stared at him in dismay. Gildas knew about poisons; the women of the Comitatus had been experts, and Gildas had not been above learning from them.

"What else can we do?"

"Nothing."

The door shuddered; it hit Finn on the shoulder and he turned, drawing the sword with one fierce slash. Keiro stood still

"What's ...?" His quick eyes took in the scene. He said, "Poison?"

"Some corrosive." Gildas watched the girl retching and squirming. He stood slowly, resigned. "There is nothing I can do."

"There has to be!" Finn shoved him aside. "I could have eaten that! It could have been me!" He knelt down next to her, trying to lift her, make her easier, but her mutters of pain made him stop. He felt angry and helpless. "We have to do something!"

Gildas crouched by him. His harsh words cut through the moans. "It's acidic, Finn. Her internal system may be already burned, her lips, her throat. It will be over very soon."

Finn looked at Keiro.

"We go," his brother said. "Right now. I've found where he keeps the ship."

"Not without her."

"She's dying." Gildas forced him to look. "Nothing can be done. It would take a miracle and I don't have one."

"So we save ourselves?"

"That's what she'd want."

They had hold of him, but he shrugged them off and knelt by her. She was still and seemed to be barely breathing, the faded bruises clear in her skin. He had seen death, he was used to death, but his whole soul revolted against this, and the shame he had felt at the Maestra's betrayal came back and swept over him like heat, as if it would overwhelm him. He choked back words, knew tears were filling his eyes.

If it would take a miracle, Attia would get one.

He leaped up and turned to Keiro, grabbing at his hands. "A ring. Give me another of the rings."

"Now wait a minute." Keiro jerked back.

"Give it to me!" His voice was a rasp; he raised the sword. "Don't make me use this, Keiro. You'll still have one left."

Keiro was calm. His blue eyes gave one glance at Attia as she curled in agony. Then he stared back. "You think it will work?"

"I don't know! But we can try."

"She's a girl. She's no one."

"One each, you said. I'm giving her mine."

"You've had yours already."

For a moment they faced each other, Gildas watching. Then Keiro tugged one of the rings over his knuckles and looked down at it. Wordless, he threw it at Finn.

Finn caught it, dropped the sword, and grabbed Attia's fingers, pushing the ring on; it was far too big for her, so he held it there, praying under his breath, to Sapphique, to the man whose life was in the ring, to anyone. Gildas crouched beside him, deeply cynical.

"Nothing's happening. What should happen?"

The Sapient scowled. "This is superstition. You yourself scorned it."

"Her breathing. It's slowing."

Gildas felt her pulse, touched the dirty scars where the chains had been. "Finn. Accept it.

There's no ..." He stopped. His fingers tightened, felt again.

"What? What—"

"I thought... The pulse seems stronger ..."

Keiro said, "Then pick her up! Bring her. But let's go!"

Finn threw him the sword, crouched, and picked Attia up.

She was so light, he could carry her easily, though her head lolled against him. Keiro already had the door open and was looking out. "This way. Keep quiet."

He led them out.

They ran up a dusty winding stair to a trapdoor; Keiro flung it back and hauled himself into darkness, dragging Gildas quickly after him. "The girl."

Finn passed her up. Then he looked back.

In the stairwell a strange hum seemed to ripple the air. It rose ominously toward him and he climbed hastily, scrambling up and slamming the trapdoor down. Keiro was wrestling with a grid on the wall, Gildas grasping it with his knotted hands.

Attia's eyes flickered, then opened.

Finn stared. "You should be dead."

She shook her head, speechless.

The grid came off the wall with a rattling crash; behind it he saw a great dark hall, and in the center, tethered to the floor by an iron cable, the silver ship, floating free. They ran, Finn with Attia's arm over his shoulder, tiny figures over the smooth gray floor, vulnerable and exposed, like mice under the wide stare of an owl, because in the roof above them a great screen lit, and as Finn stared up it showed him an eye. Not the tiny red Eyes he knew, but a human eye, gray-irised, magnified enormously, as if it stared into a powerful microscope.

Then the ripple in the air came through the floor and threw them all off their feet, a Prisonquake that made the thin needle of the Sapient's tower vibrate to its top.

Keiro rolled and leaped up. "Over here."

A shimmering rope ladder hung down. Gildas grasped it and began to climb, swaying awkwardly, though Keiro held the end firmly.

Finn said, "Can you get up there?"

"I think so." Attia pushed hair from her face. She was still deathly pale, but the blueness was ebbing. She seemed to be able to breathe.

He looked down at her finger.

The ring was shrunken. A thin brittle hoop, it fractured as she grasped the rope; tiny fragments fell unnoticed. Finn touched one with his foot. It looked like bone. Ancient, dried bone.

Behind them, the trapdoor clanged open. Finn whirled; he felt Keiro hand him back the sword and draw his own.

Together, they faced the dark square of blackness.

"AND SO everything is ready for tomorrow." The Queen placed the last of the papers on the red leather desk and sat back, putting her fingertips together. "The Warden has been so generous. Such a dowry, Claudia. Whole estates, a coffer of jewels, twelve black horses. He must love you very much."

Her nails were painted with gold. It was probably real, Claudia thought. She picked up one of the deeds and glanced over it, but all she was aware of was Caspar, striding up and down on the creaking wooden floor.

Queen Sia looked around. "Caspar. Be quiet."

"I'm bored rigid."

"Then go riding, dear. Or badger-baiting, or whatever it is you do."

He turned. "Right. Good idea. See you, Claudia."

The Queen raised a perfect eyebrow. "Hardly the way the Heir speaks to his fiancée, my lord."

Halfway to the door he stopped and came back. "Protocol is for the serfs, Mother. Not us."

"Protocol keeps us in power, Caspar. Don't forget that."

He grinned and made a low and elaborate bow to Claudia, then kissed her hand. "See you at the altar, Claudia." She stood and curtsied coldly.

"Right. Now I'm off."

He slammed the door and they could hear the thud of his boots down the corridor.

The Queen leaned across the table. "Fm so glad we have this little time alone, Claudia, because I have something to say. I know you won't mind it, my dear."

Claudia tried not to frown, but her lips tightened. She wanted to get away, find Jared. They had so little time!

"I have changed my mind. I have asked Master Jared to leave the Court."

"No!"

It was said before she could stop herself.

"Yes, dear. After the wedding, he will return to the Academy."

"You have no right..." Claudia was on her feet.

"I have every right." The Queen's smile was sweet and deadly. She leaned forward. "Let us understand each other, Claudia. There is only one Queen here. I will teach you, but I will not tolerate any rival. And you and I need to understand this, because we are alike, Claudia. Men are weak; even your father can be ruled, but you have been brought up to be my successor. Wait your time. You can learn a lot from me." She leaned back, her fingers tapping the papers. "Sit down, my dear."

There was steely threat in the words. Claudia sat slowly. "Jared is my friend."

"From now on, I will be your friend. I have many spies, Claudia. They tell me much. It really will be for the best."

She stretched out and pulled the bell; a servant came in instantly, in powdered wig and livery. "Tell the Warden I await him."

When he had gone she opened a box of sweetmeats and took a moment to select one, then offered them to Claudia with a smile.

Numb, Claudia shook her head. She felt as if she had picked up a pretty flower and found it rotting away inside, crawling with maggots. She realized she had never seriously thought of Sia as the danger. Her father had always been the one to fear. Now she wondered how wrong she was.

Sia watched her, her red lips in a small smile. She wiped them with a lace-edged kerchief. And as the doors were flung open, she leaned back in the chair and dangled her arm over the side. "My dear Warden. What kept you?"

He was flushed.

Claudia noticed it at once, through the whirl of her dismay. He never hurried, yet now his hair was just a little askew, his dark coat unbuttoned at the top.

He bowed gravely, but his voice had an edge of breathlessness. "I'm sorry, ma'am.

Something that required my attention."

NOTHING CAME through the trapdoor.

Finn said, "Get up the ladder."

As Keiro turned, the floor rippled again. Finn stared at it. The quake lifted the flagstones as if a wave of water roared under them. Before he had rime to move, the whole world shifted. He fell crashing against the floor, then was rolling downhill, down a slope that should not be there. Slamming against a pillar he gasped, pain shooting down his side.

The hall was tilting.

With sickening certainty he thought that the Sapient's tower was falling, that it had been fractured at its spindly base. Then the rope ladder brushed him and he grabbed it. Keiro was already on board, leaning over the silver timbers of the deck. Finn scrambled up; as soon as he could reach, they linked hands.

"I've got him. GO!"

The ship rose. With a howl of fear Finn slid onto the deck; the whole contraption swung and rocked and then it drifted, ropes snapping one by one below it.

There was an opening in the tower wall ahead, the wide shelf where Blaize had landed the craft. But as Gildas hauled with all his wiry strength to spin the spoked wheel, the ship jerked and they all fell, rubble cascading from above onto the deck and sails.

"Something's holding us down!" he roared.

Keiro hung over the side. "God! There's an anchor!"

He clambered back. "There must be a winch. Come on!"

They opened a hatch and scrambled down into the darkness under the deck. Thuds of falling brickwork crashed overhead.

They found a maze of walkways and galleys . Running down and flinging the doors open, Finn saw each cabin was empty; there were no stores, no cargo, no crew. Before he had time to think about it, Keiro yelled from the darkness below.

In the lowest deck it was dark. A circular capstan filled the space; Keiro was jamming the bar into place. "Help me."

Together, they pushed. Nothing moved; the mechanism was stiff, the anchor chain heavy.

Again they heaved, Finn feeling his back muscles crack, and slowly, with a long reluctant groan, the capstan creaked into motion.

Finn gritted his teeth and heaved again, sweat breaking out on his face; beside him he heard Keiro gasp and grunt.

Then another body was there. Attia, still pale, laboring on the bar next to him.

"What... good ... are you?" Keiro growled.

"Good enough," she snapped back, and Finn saw to his surprise that she was grinning, her eyes bright under the tangled hair, color back in her face.

The anchor juddered. The ship swayed, then abruptly, lifted.

"We've got it!" Keiro dug his heels in and pushed, and quite suddenly the capstan was turning quickly under their weight, the great chain of the anchor rasping up through the floor and looping obediently as they forced it around.

When they had it all in and the mechanism ground to a stop Finn raced up the steps of the companionway, but as he burst out onto the deck he stopped with a yell of fright.

They were sailing in a cloud. It wisped around him, opening to give glimpses of Gildas swearing at the wheel, the great billowing sails, a bird below them in a patch of light.

"Where are we?" Attia muttered behind him.

Then the ship dropped out of the mist, and they saw they were in an ocean of blue air, the tilted tower of the Sapient already far behind.

Breathless, Keiro leaned on the rail and whooped with delight.

Finn stood next to him, looking back. "Why didn't he try to stop us?" Reaching into his jacket, he touched the crystal sharpness of the Key.

"Who bloody cares!" his oathbrother said.

And then he turned and punched Finn hard in the stomach.

Attia screamed. Finn collapsed, all breath gone, the pain an amazement inside him, an airless blackness that loomed over his sight.

From the wheel Gildas yelled something, his words snatched away.

Slowly, the agony ebbed. When Finn could gasp in air he looked up and saw Keiro with both arms spread on the rail, looking down at him with a grin.

"What...?"

Keiro held out a hand and pulled him up, staggering, face-to-face. "That'll teach you not to draw a sword on me again," he said.

27

Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the sky above him and the sky said, "Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high"

Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. "Not this time. This time I beat on you until you open."

But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down.

-Legends of Sapphique

"She's said that Jared has to leave." She turned and glared at her father, wanting to ask if it was his doing. "I told you. It was bound to happen." The Warden walked past her and sat on the chaise near the window of his room, gazing out at the pleasure gardens, where parties of courtiers walked in the evening cool. "I think you will have to comply, my dear.

It's a small price to pay to gain a kingdom."

She was ready to burst out in temper, but he turned and looked at her, that cold measuring look she so dreaded.

"Besides, we have something more important to discuss. Come and sit down."

She didn't want to. But she crossed to the chair by the gilt table and sat.

He glanced at his watch, then clicked the lid shut and kept it in his hand.

He said quietly, "You have something that belongs to me."

She felt her skin prickle with danger. For a moment she thought she couldn't speak at all, but then her voice came, surprisingly calm.

"Do I? What could that be?"

He smiled. "You are truly remarkable, Claudia. Even though I've created you, you always surprise me. But I've warned you before about pushing me too far." He put the watch in his pocket and leaned forward. "You have my Key."

She drew in a breath of dismay. He leaned back, crossing one leg over another, the leather of his boots gleaming. "Yes. You don't deny it, and that's wise. It was ingenious to place an image of the Key in the drawer, quite ingenious. I suppose I have Jared to thank for that. When I checked my study that day the alarms went off, I rolled the drawer open and glanced inside; I didn't think to pick up the Key. And the ladybugs– what a creative touch What a fool you must both have thought me.

She shook her head, but he stood abruptly and paced to the windows. "Did you talk about me with Jared, Claudia? Did you laugh together because you had stolen it from me? I'm sure you must have enjoyed that."

"I cook it because I had to." She clutched her hands together. "You kept it from me. You never told me."

He stopped and looked at her. He had smoothed his hair back now, and his gaze was as calm and considering as ever. "About what?"

She stood up slowly, and faced him. "About Giles," she said.

She had expected astonishment, a moment's startled silence. But he was not at all surprised. She knew, with sudden certainty, that he had been waiting for that name, that by saying it she had fallen into some trap.

He said, "Giles is dead."

"No he isn't." The jewels around her neck tickled; with a sudden fury, she tugged them off and flung them on the floor, then folded her arms and all the pent-up words burst out of her.

"His death was faked. You and the Queen faked it. Giles is in Incarceron, locked away.

You took his memory so he doesn't even know who he is. How could you do that?" She kicked a footstool aside; it fell and rolled. "I can understand why she did it, why she wanted her useless son to be King, but you! I was already engaged to Giles. Your precious plan would have worked out anyway. Why did you do that to us?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Us?"

"Don't I count? Didn't the fact that I would end up with Caspar mean anything to you? Did you ever think about me?" She was trembling. All the anger of her life was coming out, frustration for all the times he had driven away and left her for months, had smiled down at her and not touched her.

He rubbed his stubbly beard with thumb and forefinger. "I did think of you." His voice was quiet. "It was obvious you liked Giles. But he was a stubborn boy, too kind, too honorable.

Caspar is a fool and will make a poor King. You will be able to rule him far more effectively."

"That's not the reason you did it."

He looked away. She saw his fingers tapping on the fireplace. He picked up a dainty china figurine and examined it, then put it down. "You're right."

He was silent ; she wanted him to speak so much, she could have screamed. It seemed an age before he went back to the chair and sat and said calmly, "I'm afraid the real reason is a secret you will never learn from me."

Seeing her astonishment, he raised his hand. "I know you despise me, Claudia. I'm sure you and your Sapient think me a monster. But you are my daughter and I have always acted in your interests. Besides, Giles's imprisonment was the Queen's plan, not mine.

She forced me to agree."

She snorted in scorn. "Forced! She has power over you!"

He whipped his head up and hissed, "Yes. And so do you."

For a second the venom in his voice stung her. "Me?"

His hands were fists on the wooden armrests. He said, "Let it go, Claudia. Let it be. Don't ask, because the answer may destroy you. That's all I'm going to say." He stood, tall and dark, and his voice was bleak. "Now, about the Key. Nothing you have done with it has escaped me. I know about your search for Bartlett, about your communication with

Incarceron. I know about this Prisoner you believe is Giles."

She stared in amazement and he laughed his dry laugh. "There are a thousand million

Prisoners in Incarceron, Claudia, and you believe you've found the right one? Time and space are different there. This boy could be anyone."

"He has a birthmark."

"Does he now! Let me tell you something about the Prison." His voice cruel now, he came up to her and stared down at her. "It's a closed system. Nothing enters. Nothing leaves.

When Prisoners die their atoms are reused, their skin, their organs. They are made from each other. Repaired, recycled, and when the organic tissues are not available, they are patched with metal and plastic. Finn's eagle means nothing. It may not even be his. The memories he thinks he sees may not be his."

Horrified, she wanted to stop him, but no words would come. "The boy is a thief and a liar." He went on, remorseless. "One of a gang of cutthroats that preyed on others. I suppose he's told you that?"

"Yes," she snapped.

"How very honest. Has he told you that in order to get his copy of the Key an innocent woman was thrown to her death down a precipice? After he had promised her she was safe?"

She was silent.

"No," he said. "I thought not." He stood back. "I want all this nonsense to cease. I want the

Key. Now." She shook her head.

"Now, Claudia."

"I haven't got it," she whispered.

"Then Jared—"

"Leave Jared out of this!"

He caught hold of her. His hand was cold and he gripped her wrist like iron. "I want the

Key or you will regret defying me."

She tried to shake him off, but he held tight. She glared at him through her tumbling hair.

"You can't hurt me. I'm all you've got to make your plan work and you know it!"

For a moment they stared at each other. Then he nodded, and let her go. A white circle of bloodless skin looped her wrist like the mark of a manacle.

"I can't hurt you," he said hoarsely.

Her eyes widened.

"But there is this Finn. And there is Jared."

She stepped back. She was shaking, her back cold with sweat. For a moment they looked at each other. Then, not trusting herself to speak, she turned and ran to the door, but his words caught her there and she had to hear them.

"There is no way out of the Prison. Bring me the Key, Claudia."

She slammed the door behind her. A passing servant stared in surprise. In the mirror opposite Claudia saw why; her reflection showed a tousled, red-faced creature, scowling with unhappiness. She wanted to howl with rage. Instead she walked to her room and closed the door, and threw herself on the bed.

She thumped the pillow and buried her head in it, curling up small, arms hugging her body. Her mind was a maze of confusion, but as she moved, paper crinkled on the pillow and she raised her head and saw the note pinned there. It was from Jared. I need to see you. I've discovered something incredible.

As soon as she'd read it, it dissolved to ash.

She couldn't even smile.

PERCHED IN the rigging of the ship, Finn held on tight, seeing far below lakes of sulfurous yellow liquid, viscous and evil-smelling. On the landscape slopes, animals grazed, odd gawky creatures from here, the herd splitting and fleeing in terror as the shadow of the ship fell on them. Beyond were more lakes, small scrubby bushes the only things that grew near them, and away to the right a desert stretched as far as he could see into the shadows.

They had been sailing for hours. Gildas had steered first, at random, high and steady until he had yelled irritably for someone to relieve him and Finn had taken a turn, feeling the strangeness of the craft below, its buffeting by drafts and breezes. Above him the sails had flapped; the winds catching and sloughing the white canvas. Twice he had sailed the ship through cloud. The second time the temperature had dropped alarmingly and by the time they had emerged from the tingling grayness, the wheel and deck around him had been frosted with needles of ice that fell and clattered on the boards.

Attia had brought him water. "Plenty of this," she'd said, "but no food."

"What, nothing?"

"No."

"What did he live on?"

"There's only some scraps Gildas has." As he'd drunk, she'd taken the wheel, her small hands on the thick spokes. She'd said, "He told me about the ring."

Finn wiped his mouth.

"It was too much to do for me. I owe you even more now."

He'd felt proud and grumpy both at once; he'd taken the wheel back and said, "We stick together. Besides, I didn't think it would work."

"I'm amazed Keiro gave it."

Finn shrugged. She was watching closely. But then she had looked into the sky. "Look at this! This is so wonderful. All my life I lived in a little dark tunnel lined with shanties and now all this space ..."

He said, "Do you have any family?"

"Brothers and sisters. All older."

"Parents?"

"No." She shook her head. "You know ..."

He knew. Life in the Prison was short and unpredictable.

"Do you miss them?"

She was still, gripping the wheel tight. "Yes. But ... She smiled. "It's odd how things work out. When I was captured, I thought it was the end of my life. Bur instead it led to this."

He'd nodded, then said, "Do you think the ring saved you? Or was it Gildas's emetic?"

"The ring," she said firmly. "And you."

He hadn't been so sure.

Now, looking down at Keiro lazing on the deck, he grinned. Called to take his turn, his oathbrother had taken one look at the great wheel and gone below for some rope; then he'd lashed it and seated himself next to it, feet up. "What can we possibly hit?" he'd said to Gildas.

"You fool," the Sapient had snarled. "Just keep your eyes open, that's all."

They had passed over hills of copper and mountains of glass, whole forests of metal trees. Finn had seen settlements cut off in impenetrable valleys where the inhabitants lived in isolation; great towns; once a castle with flags flying from its turrets. That had scared him, thinking of Claudia. Rainbows of spray arched over them; they had flown through strange atmospheric effects, a reflected island, patches of heat, flickering blurs of purple and gold fire. An hour ago a flock of long-tailed birds had suddenly squawked and circled and dive-bombed the deck, making Keiro duck. Then just as suddenly they had vanished, a mere drift of dimness on the horizon. Once, the ship had drifted very low; Finn had leaned out over mile on mile of stinking hovels, the people running from haphazard dwellings of tin and wood, lame and diseased, their children listless. He had been glad when the wind had lifted the ship away. Incarceron was a hell.

And yet he possessed its Key.

He took it out and touched the controls. He'd tried it before, but nothing had happened.

Nothing happened now either, and he wondered if it would ever work again. But it was warm. Did that mean they were traveling in the right direction, toward Claudia? But if

Incarceron was so vast, how many lifetimes might it take to travel to the exit?

"Finn!"

Keiro's yell was sharp. He looked up.

Ahead, something flickered. He thought at first it was the lights; then he saw that the dimness was not the usual gloom of the Prison but a dark bank of storm clouds, right across their path. He scrambled down, rasping his palms to heat on the cables.

Keiro was hastily untying the wheel.

"What is that?"

"Weather."

It was black. Lightning flickered inside it. And as they sailed closer, thunder, a low rumble, an amused, dark chuckle. "The Prison," he whispered. "It's found us."

"Get Gildas," Keiro muttered.

He found the Sapient below, poring over charts and maps under the creaking lamp. "Look at these." The old man glanced up, his lined face shadowed in the lamplight.

"How can it be this vast? How can we hope to follow Sapphique through all this?"

Appalled, Finn stared at the heap of charts slithering off the table, covering the floor. If these showed the extent of Incarceron, they could journey through it forever. "We need you. There's a storm ahead."

Attia ran in. "Keiro says hurry."

As if in response the ship heeled over. Finn grabbed the table as the charts slid and rolled. Then he climbed back up on deck.

Black clouds reared up over the masts, the silver pennants flapping and snapping. The ship was almost lying on her side; he had to hang on to the rail and scramble across to the wheel by grabbing anything within reach.

Keiro was sweating and swearing. "This is the Sapient's sorcery!" he yelled.

"I don't think so. It's Incarceron."

The thunder rumbled again. With a scream the gale hit them; they both held the wheel and hung on, crouching behind its meager shelter. Objects flapped against them, shards of metal, leaves, fragments of debris rebounding like hail. And then a snow of tiny white grit, ground glass, bolts, stones that tore through the sails.

Finn turned.

He saw Gildas lying flat behind the main mast, clinging on, one arm around Attia. "Stay there!" he yelled.

"The Key!" Gildas's yell was snatched away by the wind. "Let me take it below. If you're lost..."

He knew. And yet he hated the thought of parting with it.

"Do it," Keiro growled without turning.

Finn let go of the wheel.

Instantly he was flung back, buffeted, tumbling, over the deck. And the Prison swooped.

He felt it zoom in on him, and rolling over, he screamed in terror.

From the heart of the storm, an eagle plummeted from the sky, black as thunder, its talons crackling with lightning. It stretched out for the Key, ready to snatch him and it.

Finn threw himself to one side. A tangle of ropes slammed into him; he grabbed the nearest and whipped it up, whirling it around, the heavy tarred end so close to the bird's breast that it swerved and swept past, flying high to turn and swoop again.

He dived past Gildas into the shelter of the deck. "It's coming back!" Attia screamed.

"It wants the Key." Gildas ducked. Rain lashed them; thunder rumbled again, and this time it was a great voice, a murmur of anger far away and high above.

The eagle dived. Keiro, exposed by the wheel, curled up small. They saw how it circled and screeched angrily, its beak wide. Then, quite suddenly, it turned to the east and flew away.

Finn tugged out the Key. He touched it and instantly Claudia was there, wet-eyed, her hair rumpled, "Finn," she said, "Listen to me. Eve—"

"You listen," He grabbed tight as the ship rolled and swayed. "We need help, Claudia. You have to speak to your father. You have to get him to stop the storm or we'll all die!"

"Storm?" She shook her head. "He's not ... He won't help. He wants you dead. He's found out everything, Finn. He knows!"

"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.