"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.
A great solid metal wall. The Wall at the End of the World.
Rising from unknown depths it soared into the hidden reaches of the sky.
And they were heading straight for it.
28
Entry is through the Portal, Only the Warden will have a key, and this will be the only way to leave.
Though every prison has its chinks and crannies.
-Project report; Manor Sapiens
It was late; the bell in the Ebony Tower was chiming ten. In the summer dusk, moths flitted in the gardens and a distant peacock cried as Claudia hurried down the cloister. Servants passed her and struggled to bow, loaded down with chairs and tapestries and great haunches of venison. The whole bustle of the feast preparations had been under way for hours. She frowned, annoyed, not daring to ask one of them where Jared's room was.
But he was waiting.
As she turned a dank corner by a fountain of four stone swans, his hand came out and clutched her. Tugged through an archway she stood breathless as he closed the oaken door almost shut and put his eye to the slit.
A figure strode past. She thought she recognized her father's secretary.
"Medlicote. Is he following me?"
Jared put a finger to his lips. He looked paler and more drawn than usual, and there was a nervous energy about him that worried her. He led her down some stone steps, across a neglected courtyard, into a pathway overarched with yellow hanging laburnum. Halfway down he paused and whispered, "There's a folly down here
I've been using. My room is bugged."
A great moon hung over the Palace. The scars of the Years of Rage pockmarked its face; its silvery sheen lit the orchard and glasshouses, reflected on diamond-paned casements that hung open in the heat. A small burst of music drifted from a room, with voices and laughter and the chink of plates. Jared's dark figure slipped between two pillars where stone bears danced, through bushes that smelled of lavender and lemon balm, to a small structure built into a wall, in the most neglected corner of the walled garden. Claudia glimpsed a turret, a ruined parapet overgrown with ivy.
He unlocked the door and ushered her in.
It was black, and stank of damp soil. Light flickered over her; Jared had a small torch; he pointed it at an inner door.
"Quickly."
The door was mildewed with age, the wood so soft it crumbled. Inside the dim room, the windows had been blocked with ivy; as Jared lit lamps, Claudia stared around. "Just like home." He had set up his electron microscope on a rickety table, unpacked a few boxes of instruments and books.
He turned; in the flame light his face was haggard. "Claudia, you must look at this. It changes everything. Everything."
His anguish scared her. "Calm down," she said quietly. "Are you well?"