‘You mean, like a password?’ He swayed back, in exaggerated respect. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. A word, a phrase, that only I know. That my old master taught to me. One day, I will hear someone speak it. And that someone will be the one I teach
‘And pass your props on to?’ she said quietly.
His eyes slid to her. He jerked the reins; the ox bellowed, hauled to a clumsy standstill.
Attia’s hand shot to her knife.
Rix turned to her. Ignoring the shouts of the waggoners behind he watched her with sharp, suspicious eyes. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘You want my Glove’ She shrugged. ‘If it was the real one...'.
‘Oh it’s real.’ She snorted. ‘Sure. And Sapphique gave it to you.’
‘Your scorn is meant to draw out my story’ He flicked the reins, and the ox lumbered on. ‘Well I’ll tell you, because I want to. It’s no secret. Three years ago, I was in a wing of the Prison known as the Tunnels of Madness.’
‘They exist?’
‘They exist, but you wouldn’t want to go there. Deep in one I met an old woman. She was sick, dying by the roadside. I gave her a cup of water. In return, she told me that when she was a girl, she had seen Sapphique. He had appeared to her in a vision, when she slept in a strange tilted room. He had knelt beside her, and taken from his right hand the Glove, and slid it under her fingers. Keep this safe for me until I return, he said.’
‘She was mad,’ Attia said quietly. ‘Everyone who goes there goes mad.’ Rix laughed his harsh bark. ‘Just so! I myself have never been quite the same. And I didn’t believe her. But she drew from her rags a Glove, and closed my fingers over it. ‘I have hidden it for a lifetime,’ she whispered, ‘and the Prison hunts for it, I know. You are a great magician. It will be safe with you.’ Attia wondered how much was true. Not the last sentence, for sure. ‘And you’ve kept it safe.’
‘Many have tried to steal it.’ His eyes flicked sideways. ‘No one has succeeded.’ He obviously had suspicions. She smiled, and went on the attack. ‘Last night, in that so-called act of yours. Where did you get that stuff about Finn?’
‘You told me, sweetkin.’
‘I told you I’d been a slave and that Finn. . . rescued me.
But what you said about betrayal. About love. Where did you get that?’
‘Ah.’ He made his fingers into a quick elaborate steeple.
‘I read your mind.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘You saw. The man, the sobbing woman
‘Oh I saw!’ She let a rich disgust enter her voice. ‘Tricking them with that junk! He is safe in the peace of Incarceron. How can you live with yourself?’
‘The woman wanted to hear it. And you do both love and hate this Finn’ The gleam was back in his eye. Then his face fell. ‘But the rumble of thunder! I admit that astonished me.
That has never happened before. Is Incarceron watching you, Attia? Is it interested in you?’
‘It’s watching us all,’ she growled.
From behind, a shrill voice screeched, ‘Speed up, Rix!’ The head of a giantess was peering from the starry cloth.
‘And that vision of a tiny keyhole?’ Attia had to know.
‘What keyhole?’
‘You said you could see Outside. The stars, you said, and a great palace.’
‘Did I?’ His eyes were puzzled; she had no idea if it was pretence or not. ‘I don’t remember. Sometimes when I wear the Glove 1 really think something takes over my mind.’ He shook the reins. She wanted to ask him more but he said, ‘I suggest you get down and stretch your legs.
We’ll be at the Dice soon, and then we all need to be on our guard It was a dismissal. Annoyed, Attia jumped from the cart.
‘About time,’ the giantess snarled.
Rix smiled his toothless smile. ‘Gigantia, darling. Go back to sleep.’ He whipped up the ox. Attia let the cart rumble ahead; in fact she let them all pass, the gaudy painted sides, the red and yellow spoked wheels, the pots and pans clattering underneath. Right at the back a donkey trailed on a long rope, and a few small children trudged wearily.
She followed, head down. She needed time to think. The only plan, when she had heard the rumours of a magician who claimed to own Sapphique’s Glove, had been to find him and steal it. If she had been abandoned by Finn, she would try anything to find her own way out. For a moment, as her feet tramped along the metal roadway, she allowed herself to relive the frill misery of those hours in the cell at the World’s end, Keiro’s scorn and his pity and his ‘He’s not coming back. Get used to it.’ She had turned on him then. ‘He promised’ He’s your brother!’ Even now, two months later, his cold shrug and his answer chilled her.
‘Not any more.’ Keiro had paused at the door. ‘Finn’s an expert liar. His speciality is getting people to feel sorry for him. Don’t waste your time. He’s got Claudia now, and his precious kingdom. We’ll never see him again.’
‘And where are you going?’ He had smiled. ‘To find my own kingdom. Catch me up.’ Then he had gone, shoving his way down the collapsed corridor.
But she had waited.
She had waited alone in the dingy silent cell for three days, until thirst and hunger drove her away. Three days of refusal to believe, of doubt, of anger. Three days to imagine Finn out in that world where the stars were, in some great marble palace with people bowing to him. Why hadn’t he come back? It must have been Claudia. She must have persuaded him, put a spell on him, made him forget. Or the Key must have got broken, or lost.
But now it was harder to think like that. Two months was a long time. And there was another thought that hid in her mind, that crept out when she was tired or depressed. That he was dead. That his enemies out there had killed him.
Except that last night, in that moment of fake death, she had seen him.
A shout, ahead.
She looked up, and saw, towering over her, the Dice.
That was exactly what they were. A great tumble of them, vaster than mountains, their sides white and faintly gleaming, as if a giant had tipped a pile of sugar cubes in the way, with smooth hollows that might be arranged in sixes and fives. In places stunted stubby growths struggled to grow; deep in the clefts and valleys a faint moss clung like grass. No roads led up there; the cuboid hills must be hard as marble, and smooth, impossible to climb. Instead the track ran into a tunnel hacked into the base.
The waggons halted. Rix stood up, and said, ‘People.’ Quite suddenly faces were peering out from the waggons, all the stunted, enormous, shrivelled, dwarfish faces of the freakshow. The seven jugglers clustered round. Even the bearguard ambled back.
‘The rumour is that the gang that runs this road is greedy but thick.’ Rix took a coin from his pocket and spun it. It vanished into the air. ‘So we should get through without problems. If there are. . . obstructions, you all know what to do. Be alert, my friends. And remember, the Art Magicke is the art of illusion He made an elaborate bow and sat back down. Puzzled, Attia saw how the seven jugglers were distributing swords and knives, and small balls of blue and red. Then each of them climbed up by a driver. The carts closed together, a tight formation.
She climbed hastily behind Rix and his guard.
‘Are you seriously taking on some Scum gang with collapsible knives and fake swords?’ Rix didn’t answer. He just grinned his gappy grin.
As the tunnel entrance loomed Attia loosened her own knife and wished desperately that she had a firelock. These people were crazy, and she didn’t intend to die with them.
Ahead, the tunnel’s shadow loomed. Soon intense darkness closed over her.