The Chain-gang waited. It was male, twelve-headed, helmeted, the bodies fused at hand and wrist and hip, linked with umbilical skin-chains from shoulder to shoulder or waist to waist. Beams of light shone from some of its hands; in others were weapons; blades, cleavers, a rusted firelock.
Keiro had his own firelock out. He levelled it at the centre of the huddled thing. ‘No nearer. Keep well away.’ Torch-beams focused on him. Attia clung to the horse, its sweaty flank hot and trembling under her hand.
The Chain-gang opened and its bodies moved apart; it became a line of shadows, the movement making her think stupidly of paper chains she had made as a child, cutting a man and then pulling wide a line of them.
‘I said keep back!’ Keiro swivelled the weapon along the line. His hand was steady, but he could only fire at one part of it, and then surely the rest would attack. Or would they?’ The Chain-gang spoke.
‘We want food.’ Its voice was a ripple of repetitions, one over another.
‘We’ve nothing to give you.’
‘Liar. We smell bread. We smell flesh.’ Was it one, or many? Did it have one brain, controlling its bodies like limbs, or was each of them a man, eternally and horribly joined? Attia stared at it, fascinated.
Keiro swore. Then he said, ‘Throw it the bag.’ Carefully, Attia took the food-bag back off the horse and threw it on to the ice. It skittered over the ground. A long arm reached down and gathered it up. It disappeared into the creature’s misshapen darkness.
‘Not enough.’
‘There’s no more,’ she said.
‘We smell the beast. Its hot blood. Its sweet meat.’ She glanced at Keiro in alarm. Without the horse they were trapped here. She stood beside him. ‘No. Not the horse.’ Faint crackles of static lit the sky. She prayed the lights would come on. But this was the Ice Wing, eternally dark.
‘Leave,’ Keiro said savagely. ‘Or I blow you away. I mean it!’
‘Which of us? The Prison has joined us. You cannot divide us.’ It was moving in. Out of the corner of her eye Attia saw movement; she gasped, ‘It’s all round.’ She backed off, terrified, suddenly sure that if one of its hands touched her, the fingers would grow into hers.
Clinking with steel the Chain-gang had almost surrounded them. Only the frozen falls behind offered some protection; Keiro backed up against the seamed ice and snapped, ‘Get on the horse, Attia.’
‘What about you?’
‘Get on the horse!’ She hauled herself up. The linked men lurched forward.
Instantly the horse reared.
Keiro fired.
A blue bolt of flame drilled the central torso; the man vaporized instantly, and the Chain—gang screamed in unison; eleven voices in a howl of rage.
Attia forced the horse round; leaning down to grab Keiro she saw the thing reunite, its hands joining, the skin- chains slithering, regrowing tight.
Keiro turned to leap up behind her but it was on him.
He yelled and kicked out, but the hands were greedy; they had him round the neck and the waist; they tugged him from the horse. He struggled, swearing viciously, but there were too many of them, they were all over him, and their knives flashed in the blue ice-light. Attia fought the panicking horse, leant down, snatched the flrelock from him and aimed it.
If she fired she’d kill him.
Skin-chains were wrapping him like tentacles. It was absorbing him; he would take the place of the dead man.
‘Attia!’ His yell was muffled. The horse reared; she struggled to keep it from bolting.
‘Attia!’ For a moment his face was clear; he saw her. ‘Fire!’ he screamed.
She couldn’t.
‘Fire! Shoot me!’ For a moment she was frozen in terror.
Then she brought the weapon up and fired.
‘How can this have happened?’ Finn stormed across the room and flung himself into the metal chair. He stared round at the humming grey mystery that was the Portal. ‘And why meet here?’
‘Because it’s the only place in the entire Court that I’m certain isn’t bugged.’ Jared closed the door carefully, feeling the strange effect the room had, the way it straightened out, as if adapting to their presence. As it must do, if, as he suspected, it was some halfway stage to the Prison.
Feathers still littered the floor. Finn kicked at them.
‘Where is she?’
‘She’ll be here.’ Jared watched the boy; Finn stared back. Quieter, he said, ‘Master, do you doubt me too?’
‘Too?’
‘You saw him. And Claudia...’
‘Claudia believes you are Giles. She always has, from the moment she first heard your voice.’
‘She hadn’t seen him then. She said his name.’ Finn got up, walked restlessly to the screen. ‘Did you see how polished he was? How he smiled and bowed and held himself like a prince? I can’t do that, Master. If I ever knew how I’ve forgotten. The Prison has scoured it out of me.’
‘A skilled actor …’ Finn spun round. ‘Do you believe him? Tell me the truth.’ Jared linked his delicate fingers together. He shrugged slightly. ‘I am a scholar, Finn. I am not so easily convinced.
These so-called proofs will be examined. There will certainly be a process of questioning, for both him and you, before the Council. Now that there are two claimants to the throne, everything has changed.’ He glanced sidelong at Finn. ‘I thought you weren’t eager to take up your inheritance.’
‘I am now.’ Finn’s voice was a growl. ‘Keiro always says what you fought for, you should keep. I only ever talked him out of anything once’
‘When you left the gang?’ Jared watched him. ‘These things you’ve told us about the Prison, Finn. I need to know they are true. About the Maestra. About the Key:
‘I told you. She gave me the Key, and then she was killed.
She fell into the Abyss. Someone betrayed us. It wasn’t my fault.’ He was resentful. But Jared’s voice was pitiless.
‘She died because of you. And this memory of the Forest, of falling from the horse. I need to be sure that it’s real, Finn.
Not just what you think Claudia needs to hear.’ Finn’s head jerked up. ‘A lie, you mean.’
‘Indeed.’ Jared knew he was taking a risk. He kept his gaze level.
‘The Council will want to hear it too, in every detail. They will question you over and over. It will be them you have to convince, not Claudia.’
‘If anyone else said this, Master, I’d …’
‘Is that why your hand is on your sword?’ Finn clenched his fingers. Slowly, he wrapped both arms around himself and went and slumped in the metal chair.
They were silent a while, and Jared could hear the faint hum of the tilted room, a sound he had never succeeded in isolating. Finally Finn said, ‘Violence was our way of life in the Prison.’
‘I know. I know how hard it must be …’
‘Because I’m not sure.’ He turned. ‘I’m not sure, Master, who I am! How can I convince the Court when I’m not even convinced myself!’
‘You have to. Everything depends on you.’ Jared’s green eyes were fixed on him. ‘Because if you are supplanted, if Claudia loses her inheritance, and I am …’ He stopped. Finn saw his pale fingers fold together. ‘Well, there will be no one to care about the injustices of Incarceron. And you will never see Keiro again.’ The door opened, and Claudia swept in. She looked hot and flustered; there was dust on her silk dress. She said,’ He’s staying in Court. Would you believe it! She’s given him a suite of rooms in the Ivory Tower.’ Neither of them answered. Feeling the tension in the room, she glanced at Jared, then took the blue velvet pouch out of her pocket and crossed the room with it. ‘Remember this, Master?’ Undoing the drawstring, she tipped it up and a miniature painting slid out, a masterly work in its frame of gold and pearls, the back engraved with the crowned eagle. She gave it to Finn, and he held it in both hands.
It showed a boy smiling, his eyes dark in the sunlight. His gaze was shy, but direct and open.