Текст книги "Incarceron"

Автор книги: Kathryn Fisher

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"Maestra ..."

"Give it to them."

Sim hesitated. It was only for a second, though through his nausea Finn saw it strike the

Maestra like a blow. Then the man put his hand into his shirt and pulled out an object that caught a glimmer of light, so that a brief rainbow rippled in his fingers. 'We've found out something," he said. "Something it does ..."

She stopped him with a look. He tossed the crystal slowly down onto the pile.

The needle touched the mark.

At once Keiro shoved the woman away. Sim grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the second bridge. "Run!" he yelled.

Finn crouched. Saliva welled in his throat as he picked up the crystal. Inside it an eagle spread wide wings. It was the same as the mark on his wrist. Finn.

He looked up.

The Maestra had stopped and turned, her face white. "I hope it destroys you."

"Maestra!" Sim had her arm but she shook him off. Gripping the chains of the second bridge, she faced Finn and spat words at him.

"I curse the crystal, and I curse you."

"There's no time," he said hoarsely. "Just go."

"You've destroyed my trust. My compassion. I thought I could tell truth from lies. Now I'll never dare show kindness to a stranger again. For that I can never forgive you!"

Her hatred scorched him. Then, as she turned away, the bridge lurched.

The abyss swung crazily. In a second of frozen horror the Maestra screamed and he gasped, "No!" staggering one step toward her. Then Keiro had hold of him and was shouting and something was cracking and as if the pain in his head had slowed them down he saw the chains and rivets that held the bridge snapping and jerking out, heard

Jormanric's great howl of laughter and knew this was treachery.

The Maestra must have realized too. She stood upright.

She gave him one look, her eyes to his; then she was gone, she and Sim and the others were gone, down and down, and the bridge was a crazy contraption slamming and shedding wrecked ironware in a clattering uproar against the side of the cliff.

Screaming echoes faded.

Crumpling to his knees, Finn stared, appalled. A wave of nausea shuddered through him.

He clutched the crystal, and through the roaring in his ears heard Keiro say calmly, "I should have guessed the old rogue would do that. And a lump of glass doesn't look much for all your trouble. What is it?"

Then Finn knew, in a second of sour clarity, that he was right, that he must have been born

Outside; knew it because he held in his hand the one object that no one in Incarceron for generations had ever seen or would even guess the purpose of, and yet it was familiar to him, he had a word for it, he knew what it was.

It was a key.

Darkness and pain roared up and swallowed him. He fell into Keiro's firm grip.

UNERGROUND, THE STARS ARE LEGENDS

8

The Years of Rage are ended and nothing can be the same. The war has hollowed the moon and stilled the tides. We must find a simpler way of life. We must retreat into the past, everyone and everything, in its place, in order. Freedom is a small price to pay for survival.

-King Endor's Decree

Finn felt himself fall for a thousand miles down the abyss before he crashed onto a ledge.

Breathless, he raised his head. All around, darkness roared. Beside him, leaning back against the rock, someone was sitting. Finn said instantly, "The Key ..."

"At your side."

He groped for it in the rubble, felt its smooth heaviness. Then he turned.

A stranger sat there. He was young and had long dark hair. He wore a high-collared coat like a Sapient s, but it was ragged and patched. He pointed to the rock face and said, "Look, inn.

In the rock was a keyhole. Light shone through it. And Finn saw that the rock was a door, tiny and black, and in its transparency stars and galaxies were embedded.

"This is Time. This is what you must unlock," Sapphique said.

Finn tried to lift the Key, but it was so heavy he needed both hands, and even then it shook in his grasp. "Help me," he gasped.

But the hole was closing, swiftly, and by the time he got the Key steady, there was nothing left but a pinhole of light.

"So many have tried," Sapphique whispered in his ear. "Have died trying,"

FOR A second Claudia was stock-still with despair.

Then she moved. She shoved the crystal key into her pocket, used Jared's disc to make a perfect holocopy of it nestled in the black velvet and slammed the drawer shut. Fingers hot with sweat she took out the box prepared just for this emergency and flipped out the ladybugs. They flew, landing on the control panel and the floor. Then she clicked the blue switch on the disc to red, swung, and aimed it at the door.

Three of the laserlights fizzed and died. She slid through the gap they left, flinching from imaginary bolts of weaponry. The grille was a nightmare; the disc chuntered and clicked, and she howled at it in desperation, sure it would break down, run out of power, but slowly a white-hot hole melted in the metal as the atoms scrambled and re-formed.

In seconds she was through it, had the door open, was in the corridor.

It was silent.

Amazed, she listened. As the study door clicked shut behind her, the panic alarms were sliced off as if they rang in some other world.

The house was peaceful. Doves cooed. And below, she heard voices.

She ran. Up the back stairs, right to the attics, then down a passageway through the servants' garrets to the tiny storeroom at the end; it stank of wormwood and cloves.

Diving in she groped hastily for the mechanism that opened the ancient priesthole, her fingernails scraping grime and spiderwebs and then, yes, there! The latch barely wide enough for her thumb.

As she jabbed it, the panel grated; she flung her weight on it, heaved it, swearing, and it shuddered open and she fell in.

Once she had it shut and her back against it, she could breathe.

Before her, the tunnel to Jared's tower ran into darkness.

FINN LAY crookedly on his bed.

He lay there a long while, gradually becoming aware of the noises of the Den outside, of someone running, of the clatter of dishes. Finally, groping with his hand, he found that a blanket had been laid carefully over him. His shoulders and neck ached; cold sweat chilled him.

He rolled over and looked up at the filthy ceiling. Echoes of a long scream were ringing in his ears, the tingling of alarms and panicking, flashing lights. For a sickening moment he had the sense that his vision had stretched into a long dark tunnel leading away from him, that he could step into it and grope his way toward the light.

Then Keiro said, "About time."

Blurred and distorted, his oathbrother came and sat on the bed. He made a face. "You look rough."

Finn's voice, when he tried it out, was hoarse. "You don't"

Slowly he focused. Keiro's mane of blond hair was tied back. He wore Sim's striped coat with far more panache than its owner ever had, a wide studded belt slung around his hips, a jeweled dagger strapped to it. He spread his arms. "Suits me, don't you think?"

Finn didn't answer. A wave of anger and shame was rising somewhere in him; his mind squirmed away from it. If he let it in, it would drown him. He croaked, "How long? How bad?"

"Two hours. You've missed the shareout. Again."

Carefully Finn sat up. The seizures left him dizzy and dry-mouthed.

Keiro said, "It was a bit more severe than usual. Convulsions. You jerked and struggled, but I held you down and Gildas made sure you didn't injure yourself. No one else took much notice; they were too busy gloating over the treasure. We carried you back."

Finn flushed with despair. The blackouts were impossible to predict, and Gildas knew of no cure, or so he said. Finn had no idea what happened after the hot, roaring darkness engulfed him, and he didn't want to know. It was a weakness and he was bitterly ashamed of it, even if the Comitatus held him in awe. Now he felt as if he had left his body and had come back to find it sore and empty, that he was aslant inside it. "I didn't have them Outside. I'm sure of it."

Keiro shrugged. "Gildas is desperate to hear about your vision."

Finn looked up. "He can wait." There was an awkward silence. Into it he said, "Jormanric ordered her death?"

"Who else? It's the sort of thing that amuses him. And it's a warning to us."

Grim, Finn nodded. He swung his feet off the bed and stared down at his worn boots. "I'm going to kill him for that."

Keiro raised an elegant eyebrow. "Brother, why bother? You got what you wanted."

"I gave her my word. I told her she'd be safe."

Keiro watched him a moment, then said, "We're Scum, Finn. Our word means nothing.

She knew that. She was a hostage; if they'd gotten hold of you, the Civicry would probably have done the same, so think no more about it. I've told you before, you brood over things too much. It makes you weak. There's no room for weakness in Incarceron. No mercy for a fatal flaw. Here it's kill or be killed." He was staring straight ahead and there was an odd sourness in his voice that was new to Finn. But when he turned his smile was sharp. "So.

What's a key, then?"

Finn's heart thumped. "The Key! Where is it?"

Keiro shook his head in mock wonder. "What would you do without me?" He held up his hand and Finn saw that the crystal was dangling from one hooked finger.

He snatched at it, but Keiro jerked it away. "I said, what's a key?"

Finn licked paper-dry lips. "A key is a device that opens."

"Opens?"

"Unlocks."

Keiro was alert. "The Winglocks? Any door?"

"I don't know! I just... recognize it." He reached out hastily and grabbed it, and this time, reluctantly, Keiro let it go. The artifact was heavy, woven of strange glassy filaments, and the holographic eagle in its heart glared at Finn majestically. He saw that it wore a fine collar shaped like a crown around its neck, and tugging back his sleeve he compared it with the fading blue marks in his skin.

Over his shoulder Keiro said, "It looks the same."

"It's identical."

"But it means nothing. In fact, if anything, it means you were born Inside."

"This didn't come from Inside." Finn nursed it in both hands. "Look at it. What material do we have like this? The workmanship ..."

"The Prison could have made it."

Finn said nothing.

But at that moment, just as if it had been listening, the Prison turned all the lights off.

WHEN THE Warden softly opened the observatory door the wall-screen was lit with images of the Havaarna Kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, those effete generations whose social policies had led directly to the Years of Rage. Jared was sitting on the desk, one foot propped on the back of Claudia's chair, the fox cub in his arms; she was leaning forward and reading from a pad in her hand.

"... Alexander the Sixth, Restorer of the Realm. Created the Contract of Duality.

Closed all theatres and public forms of entertainment... Why did he do that?"

"Fear," Jared said dryly. "By that time any crowd of people was seen as a threat to order."

Claudia smiled, her throat dry. This is what her father must see; his daughter and her beloved tutor. Of course he would know perfectly well that they knew he was here.

"Ahem."

Claudia jumped; Jared looked around. Their surprise was masterly.

The Warden smiled a cold smile, as if he admired it.

"Sir?" Claudia stood up, her silk dress uncreasing. "Are you back already? I thought you said one."

"That was indeed what I said. May I come in, Master?"

Jared said, "Of course," and the cub streaked from his hands and jumped up the bookshelves. "Were honored, Warden."

The Warden walked to the table littered with apparatus and touched an alembic. "Your Era detail is a little ... eccentric, Jared. But the Sapienti are not so bound by Protocol, of course." He lifted the delicate glassware and raised it so that his left eye, hugely magnified, gazed at them through it. "The Sapienti do as they will.

They invent, they experiment, they keep the mind of mankind active even in the tyranny of the past. Always searching for new sources of energy, new cures. Admirable. But tell me, how is my daughter progressing?"

Jared linked his frail fingers. Carefully he said, "Claudia is always a remarkable pupil."

"A scholar."

"Indeed."

"Intelligent and able?" The Warden lowered the glass. His eyes were fixed on her; she looked up and gazed calmly back at him.

"I'm sure," Jared murmured, "that she'll be a success in everything she attempts."

"And she would attempt anything." The Warden opened his fingers and the flask fell. It hit the corner of the desk and smashed, an explosion of glass slivers, sending a raven screeching out through the window.

Jared had leaped back; now he froze. Claudia stood behind him, quite still.

"I am so sorry!" The Warden surveyed the wreckage calmly, then took out a handkerchief and wiped his fingers. "The clumsiness of age, I'm afraid. I hope it didn't contain anything vital?"

Jared shook his head; Claudia caught the faintest glimmer of sweat on his forehead. She knew her own face was pale. Her father said, "Claudia, you'll be pleased to know that

Lord Evian and I have finalized the dowry arrangements. You had better begin gathering your trousseau, my dear."

At the door he paused. Jared had crouched and was picking up the sharp, curved fragments of glass. Claudia did not move. She watched the Warden, and his look reminded her, for a moment, of her own reflection as she stared at it in the looking glass each morning. He said, "I won't take lunch after all. I have a lot of work to do. In my study.

We seem to have an insect problem."

When the door closed behind him, neither of them spoke. Claudia sat, and Jared dumped the glass into a disposer and switched the monitor on for the tower stairs.

Together they watched the Warders dark angular figure pick a fastidious way through the mouse droppings and hanging webs.

Finally Jared said, "He knows."

"Of course he knows." Claudia realized she was shivering; she pulled an old coat of

Jared's around her shoulders. She had the jumpsuit on under her dress, her shoes were on the wrong feet, and her hair was scrunched back in a sweaty tangle. "He came here just to show us that."

"He doesn't believe the ladybugs set the alarms off."

"I told you. The room has no windows. But he won't admit that I got the better of him, and he never will. So we play the game."

"But the Key ... to bring it away ..."

"He won't know if he just opens the drawer and looks at it. Only when he tries to pick it up.

I can put the original back before then."

Jared wiped his face with one hand. He sat shakily. "A Sapient should not say this, but he terrifies me."

"Are you all right?"

He turned his dark eyes to her, and the fox cub jumped back down and pawed at his knee.

"Yes. But then you terrify me equally, Claudia. Why on earth did you steal it? Did you want him to know it was you?"

She frowned. Sometimes he was too acute. "Where is it?"

Jared looked at her a moment, then made a rueful face. He took the lid from an earthenware crock and dipping a hook in, lifted the Key out of the formaldehyde. The acrid smell of the chemical filled the chamber; Claudia pulled the coat sleeve over her face. "God. Wasn't there anywhere else?"

She had thrust it into his hand and had been too busy dressing to see where he put it.

Now he unwrapped it carefully from the protective seal and laid it on the gnarled, singed wood of the workbench. They stared down at it.

It was beautiful. She could see that clearly, its facets catching the sunlight from the window in brilliant rainbow glints. Embedded in its heart the crowned eagle glared out proudly.

But it seemed too fragile to turn in any lock, and its transparency showed no circuitry. She said, "The password to open the drawer was Incarceron!'

Jared raised an eyebrow. "So you thought..."

"It's obvious, isn't it? What else could such a key unlock? Nothing in this house has a key like that."

"We have no idea where Incarceron is. And if we did we couldn't use it."

She frowned. "I intend to find out."

For a moment Jared considered. Then, as she watched, he placed the Key on a small scale and weighed it accurately, took its mass and length, noting the results in his precise script. "It's not glass. A crystal silicate. Also"—he adjusted the scale—"it has a very peculiar electromagnetic field. I would say its not a key in a strictly mechanical sense but some very complex technology, very pre-Era. It won't just unlock a prison door, Claudia."

She'd guessed that. She sat down again and said thoughtfully, "I used to be jealous of the

Prison."

Astonished, he turned, and she laughed.

"Yes. Really. When I was tiny and we were at Court. People flocked to see him—the

Warden of Incarceron, the Guardian of the Inmates, Protector of the Realm. I didn't know what the words meant, but I hated them. I thought Incarceron was a person, another daughter, a secret spiteful twin. I hated her." She picked up a pair of compasses from the table and opened them. "When I found out it was a prison, I imagined him going down into the cellars here with a lantern and a huge key—a rusty, ancient key. There would be an enormous door, studded and nailed with the dried flesh of criminals."

Jared shook his head. "Too many gothic novels."

She balanced the compasses on one point and spun them. "For a while I dreamed of the

Prison, imagined the thieves and murderers deep under the house, banging on the doors, struggling to get out, and I used to wake up scared, thinking I could hear them coming for me. And then I realized it wasn't that simple." She looked up. "That screen in the study. He must be able to monitor it from there."

Jared nodded and folded his arms. "Incarceron, all the records say, was made and sealed. No one enters or leaves. Only the Warden oversees its progress. Only he knows its location. There is a theory, a very old one, that it lies underground, many miles below the earth's surface, a vast labyrinth. After the Years of Rage half the populations were removed there. A great injustice, Claudia."

She touched the Key lightly. "Yes. But none of this helps me. I needed some proof of the murder, not..." A flicker.

A dissolving of light.

She jerked her finger away.

"Amazing!" Jared breathed.

A fingerprint of darkness remained there in the crystal, a circular black opening, like an eye.

Inside it, far off, they saw two glimmers of moving light, tiny as stars.

9

You are my father, Incarceron.

I was born from your pain.

Bones of steel; circuits for veins.

My heart a vault of iron.

– Songs of Sapphique

Keiro lifted his lantern. "Where are you, Wise One?" Gildas had not been in his sleeping cage or anywhere in the main chamber, where the Comitatus had defiantly lit flares in every brazier and were celebrating their victory with raucous song and boasting. It had taken a few clouts of Keiro's fist among the slaves to find someone who had seen the old man, heading for the hovels. Now they had tracked him down to a small cell; he was bandaging a suppurating sore on a slave-child's leg, his mother holding a feeble candle and waiting anxiously.

"I'm here." Gildas glared around. "Bring that lantern closer. I can't see a thing."

Finn came in and saw the light glimmer on the boy, noticing how sickly he looked.

"Cheer up," he said gruffly.

The boy smiled, terrified.

"If you'd only touch him, sir," the mother murmured.

Finn turned. She might once have been pretty; now she was haggard and thin.

"The touch of a Starseer cures, they say."

"Superstitious bloody nonsense," Gildas snorted, tying the knot, but Finn did it anyway, putting his fingers lightly to the boy's hot forehead.

"Not so different to yours, Wise One," Keiro said silkily.

Gildas straightened, wiped his fingers on his coat, and ignored the taunt. "Well, that's the best I can do. The wound needs to drain. Keep it clean."

As they followed him out he growled, "Always more infections, more disease. We need antibiotics, not gold and tinware."

Finn knew him in this mood; the dark gloom that kept him sometimes for days in his cage, reading, sleeping, speaking to no one. The Maestra's death would be tormenting the old man. So, abruptly he said, "I saw Sapphique."

"What!" Gildas stopped dead. Even Keiro looked interested.

"He said—"

"Wait." The Sapient looked around hastily. "In here."

It was a dark archway and it led to one of the vast chains that hung in loops from the Den roof. Gildas put his foot in the links and climbed until the darkness hid him; when Finn clambered after him he found the old man on a narrow shelf high in the wall, shoving ancient birdmuck and nests aside.

"I'm not sitting in that," Keiro said.

"Stand then." Gildas took the lantern from Finn and propped it on the chain. "Now. Tell me everything. Each word, exactly."

Finn put his feet over the edge and looked down. "It was a place like this, high up. He was there with me, and I had the Key."

"That crystal? He called it a key?" Gildas looked stunned; he rubbed his stubbly white chin. "That is a Sapient word, Finn, a magic word. A device for unlocking."

"I know what a key is." His voice was angry; he tried to be calm. "Sapphique told me to use it to unlock Time; there was a keyhole in some black, shining rock, but the Key was so heavy I couldn't manage it. I felt... devastated."

The old man gripped Finns wrist, a hard, fierce grip. "What did he look like?"

"Young. Long dark hair. Like the stories."

"And the door?"

"Very small. The rock had light inside, like stars."

Keiro propped himself elegantly against the wall. "Strange dreams, brother."

"Not dreams." Gildas released him; the old man looked incredulous with joy. "I know that door. It has never been opened. It lies about a mile from here, up in Civicry land." He rubbed his face with both hands and said, "Where is this Key?"

Finn hesitated. He had strung it on an old piece of string around his neck, but that had been too heavy, so now it was belted inside his shirt. Reluctantly, he tugged it out.

The Sapient took it reverently. His small hands with their raised veins explored it; he brought it close to his eyes and gazed at the eagle. "This is what I've been waiting for. 1 ' His voice was choked with emotion."The sign from

Sapphique." He looked up. "It decides everything. We leave at once, tonight, before

Jormanric gets to know what this thing is. Sudden and swift, Finn, we begin our Escape."

"Now wait a minute!" Keiro peeled himself off the wall. "He's not going anywhere. He's sworn to me."

Gildas looked at him in distaste. "Only because he's useful to you."

"And not to you?" Keiro laughed in scorn. "You're a hypocrite, old man. A glass trinket and a few ravings when he's off his head are all you're interested in."

Gildas stood. He barely came to Keiro's shoulder, but his glare was malevolent, his wiry body tense.

"I would be careful, boy. Very careful.

"Or what? You'll turn me into a snake?"

"You're already doing that to yourself."

With a shiver of steel Keiro drew his sword. His eyes were blue and icy.

Finn said, "Stop this." Neither of them even looked at him.

"I've never liked you, boy. I've never trusted you," Gildas said grimly. "You're a preening, arrogant thief who considers only his own pleasures, who would murder if it suited him—as it certainly already has. And you'd like nothing more than to make Finn your twin."

Keiro's face was flushed. He raised the sword so that the sharp tip menaced the old man's eyes. "Finn needs me to protect him from you. I'm the one who looks after him, holds his head when he's sick, watches his back. If we're speaking home truths, I could say that the Sapienti are old fools clutching rags of sorcery—"

"I said that's enough!" Finn stepped between them and shoved the blade aside.

Glowering, Keiro whipped it away. "You're going with him? Why?"

"What's there to stay for?"

"For God's sake, Finn! We're well in here—food, girls, all we want! We're feared, respected—powerful enough to tackle Jormanric any time now. Then we'll be Winglords, both of us!

"And how long," Gildas sneered, "before two is one too many?"

"Shut up!" Finn turned, furious. "Look at you both! The only friends I have in this hell and all you can do is fight over me. Do either of you care about me? Not the seer, the fighter, the fool who takes all the risks, but me, Finn?" He stood shivering, suddenly bone-weary, and as they stared at him he crouched, hands to his head, his voice breaking. "I can't stand this anymore. I'm dying here, terrified, living between seizures, dreading the next one, I can't bear it anymore, I've got to get out, find out who I am! I have to Escape."

They were silent. Dust fell slowly through the beam of the lantern. Then Keiro sheathed his sword.

Finn tried to stop shivering. He looked up, dreading to see the mockery in Keiro's eyes, but his oathbrother held out a hand and pulled Finn up until they were face-to-face.

Gildas growled, "I care for you, you fool boy."

Keiro's eyes were sharp and blue. "Be quiet, old man. Can't you see he's manipulating us both, as ever? You're so good at that, Finn. You did it to the Maestra and you do it to us."

He released Finns arm and stepped back. "All right. Let's say we try to get out. Have you forgotten how she cursed you? A dying curse, Finn. Can we go up against that?"

"Leave that to me," Gildas snapped.

"Ah yes. Sorcery." Keiro shook his head in disbelief. "And how do we know the Key will open this door? Doors only open if Incarceron wants it."

Finn rubbed his chin. He made himself stand upright. "I need to try."

Keiro sighed. He turned away, gazing down at the fires of the Comitatus, and Gildas caught Finn's eyes and nodded. He seemed quietly triumphant.

Keiro swung back. "All right. But secretly. Then if we fail no one will know."

"You don't have to come," Gildas said.

"If he goes, I go."

As he said it his foot dislodged a scatter of birdmuck from the ledge; watching it fall, Finn thought he saw a shadow flicker below. He grabbed the chain. "Someone was there."

Keiro stared down. "Are you sure?"

"I thought so."

The Sapient pulled himself to his feet. He looked dismayed. "If it was a spy, if he heard about the Key, we're in trouble. Get weapons and food and meet me in ten minutes at the foot of the shaft." He looked at the Key, its rainbow shimmer. "I'll keep this."

"No you won't." Finn took it back firmly. "It stays with me.

As he turned away with it, he felt a sudden strange warmth in its heaviness, and glanced down. Under the eagle's claw a circle of paleness was fading. Inside it he thought he saw, just for a moment, the shadow of a face, staring at him.

A girl's face.

"I HAVE to confess that I detest riding." Lord Evian walked between the flowerbeds examining the dahlias attentively. "It all seems such an unnecessarily long way from the ground." He sat next to her on the bench and gazed out at the sunny countryside, the church steeple shimmering in the heat haze. "And then your father wanting to come home so abruptly! I do hope it wasn't some sudden illness?"

"I suppose he must have remembered something," Claudia said carefully.

The afternoon light warmed the honey-colored stone of the manor; it glinted on the dark gold waters of the moat. Ducks arrowed toward the floating bread; she threw more for them, shredding it in her fingers.

Evian's reflection showed his smooth face as he leaned over. His mouth said, "You must be a little anxious, as well as eager, about this marriage."

She tossed a crust to a moorhen. "Sometimes."

"I assure you, everyone says you'll manage the Earl of Steen without any problems. His mother dotes on him."

Claudia had no doubt of that. Suddenly she felt weary, as if the whole effort of acting her part was overtaking her. She stood, her shadow darkening the water. "If you'll excuse me, my lord, I have so much to see to."

He didn't look up, reaching his plump fingers to the ducks. But he said, "Sit down, Claudia

Arlexa."

His voice. She stared in astonishment at the back of his head. The nasal whine was gone. Instead he sounded strong and commanding. He looked up.

She sat, silent.

"This will come as a shock, I'm sure. I enjoy my disguise, but it can be tiresome." The oily smile was gone too, and that made him look different, his heavily lidded eyes a little tired.

Older.

"Disguise?" she said.

"Assumed persona. We all have them, don't we, in this tyranny of Time? Claudia, can we be overheard here?"

"It's safer than the house."

"Yes." He turned on the bench, the pale silk suit rustling, and she caught a waft of the exquisite perfume he doused himself with. "Listen to me now. I have to speak with you, and this may be the only chance. Have you ever heard of the Steel Wolves?"

Danger. There was danger here and she had to be very careful. She said, "Jared is a thorough teacher. The Steel Wolf was the heraldic symbol of Lord Calliston, who was found guilty of plotting treason against the Realm, and was the first Prisoner to enter

Incarceron. But that was centuries ago."

"A hundred and sixty years," Evian murmured. "And that's all you know?"

"Yes." It was true.

He glanced quickly across the lawns. "Then let me tell you that the Steel Wolf is also the name of a secret organization of courtiers and ... shall we say ... malcontents who long for release from the endless playing at an idealized past. From the tyranny of the Havaarnas.

They ... we ... would have the Realm ruled by a queen who cared for her people, who would let us live as we want. Who would open Incarceron."

Her heart thudded with fear.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Claudia?"

She had no idea how to deal with this. Biting her lip she watched Medlicote come out of the gatehouse and look around for them. "I think so. You're one of this group?"

He had seen the secretary too. He said swiftly, "I may be. I'm taking a great chance talking to you. But I think you're not so much your father's daughter."

The secretary's dark figure crossed the drawbridge and strode toward them. Evian waved limply. He said, "Think about it. There are not many who would mourn the Earl of

Steen." He stood. "Are you looking for me, sir?"

John Medlicote was a tall man of few words. He bowed to Claudia and said, "I was, my lord. The Warden sends his compliments and begs me to inform you that these dispatches have arrived from Court." He held out a leather satchel.