‘To survive. Because without me you couldn’t’ Keiro stood lightly, gazing at Finn. ‘But something’s changed in you, Finn. Not just all this. Something inside.’
‘I’ve remembered.’
‘Remembered!’
‘Who I am Finn said. ‘I remembered that I am a prince and that my name is Giles.’ Keiro said nothing for a moment. His eyes flickered to Jared’s and back. ‘Well. So will the Prince ride into the Prison with all his men and all his horses?’
‘No.’ Finn took the watch out and set it down on the table beside the Glove. ‘Because this is the Prison. This is where you came from. This is the vast edifice that had us all fooled He grasped Keiro’s hand and put the watch in it, lifting the silver cube close to his eyes. ‘This is Incarceron Jared expected awe, or astonishment. He saw neither. Keiro burst into a fit of laughter. ‘You believe that?’ he managed to gasp. ‘Even you, Master?’ Before Jared could answer the door opened and Ralph came in with a guard at his back.
‘What?’ Finn barked.
‘Sire.’ Ralph was pale and breathless. ‘Sire …’ The soldier stepped out from behind him and he had a drawn sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Two more men slipped round the door. One slammed it shut and put his back to it.
Jared stood, slowly.
Keiro didn’t move, his eyes alert.
‘We’ve come for the Earl. One of you open that door and get him. If anyone else moves I fire.’ The pistol was raised and pointed directly at Finn’s eyes.
Ralph gasped, ‘I’m sorry; sire, so sorry! They made me tell them …’
‘It’s all right, Ralph.’ Finn stared at the Queen’s man.
‘Jared?’ Jared said, ‘I’ll fetch him. Don’t shoot. There’s no need for violence.’ He moved to the door, out of Finn’s eyeline, and Finn was left staring at the gun. He smiled, wan. ‘This is the second time this has happened to me.’
‘Oh come on, brother.’ Keiro’s voice was light and sharp. ‘It was an odd day in the Prison when such things didn’t happen.’ A door was unlocked behind them. Jared’s voice spoke, low and quiet. Then there was a laugh of pure glee. That must be Caspar.
‘How did you get in here?’ Finn said.
The soldier’s aim did not waver. But he said, ‘We captured one of the Steel Wolves out there in the woods. He was . . . persuaded to talk. He showed us the tunnel the Sapient used.’ Sweating, Finn said, ‘Do you really think you’ll get out the same way?’
‘No, Prisoner. I think we’ll go out through the front door.’ Instantly, one of the other men swivelled his weapon. ‘Keep still!’ Keiro must have moved. Finn could only see his shadow on the floor.
Finn licked dry lips. ‘You are overconfident.’
‘I don’t think so. Have they harmed you, sire?’
‘They wouldn’t have dared.’ Caspar stalked into the room and stared around. ‘Well, this is better, don’t you think, Finn? Now I’m the one in command.’ He folded his arms.
‘What if I told these men to cut off a few ears and hands?’ Finn heard the threat in Keiro’s low laugh. ’You wouldn’t have the guts, little boy.’ Caspar glared. ‘No? I might do it myself.’
‘Sire,’ Jared said. ‘We brought you here to stop the seige, not to harm you. You know that.’
‘Don’t try to fool me with words, Jared. These two cut-throats would have killed me anyway, and maybe you as well, later on. This is a nest of rebels. And I don’t know where Claudia is hiding but she won’t get any mercy from us either.’ His eye fell on the Glove and he stared at it curiously. What is that?’
‘Please don’t touch that: Jared said, his voice edged with nerves.
Caspar took a step nearer to the table. ‘Why not?’ Keiro’s shadow had edged close. Finn tensed himself.
‘It’s a magical object of great power.’ Jared’s reluctance was just right. ‘It may give access to the Prison.’ Greed lit Caspar’s face. ‘She’ll be thrilled if I take that back for her.’
‘Sire.’ The guard’s eyes wavered. ‘Don’t …’ Caspar ignored him, took one step forward and in that instant Jared grabbed him, locked his arms behind him and held him in a tight grip.
Keiro whooped. Jared said, ‘Lower the gun. Please.’
‘You won’t hurt the Earl, Master,’ the soldier said. ‘And my orders are clear. The Prisoner dies.’ His finger twitched and Finn crashed as Keiro shoved him aside. The blast detonated with an explosion that threw him against the side of the table and stunned him, so that the shouts and smashing cups as Ralph and Jared heaved the table over and dragged him behind it seemed like objects inside his own head falling and breaking, the pool of wine like his own blood, trickling along the floor.
And then as the door was flung open, in all the stamping and shouts, he knew the blood was not his but Keiro’s because his brother lay still and crumpled beside him in the uproar.
‘Finn! Finn!’ Jared’s hands raised him. ‘Can you hear me?
Finn?’
‘I’m all right,’ he said. But the words came out thick and groggy and he dragged himself out of Jared’s grip.
‘Our men heard the shot. It’s all over.’ Finn’s hand touched Keiro’s arm. His heart was thudding; he gripped the blue velvet sleeve.
‘Keiro?’ For a moment there was nothing, no movement, no answer, and he felt all colour drain away from the world, his life shrivel to a terrible fear.
And then Keiro jerked and rolled and they saw that his hand was wounded, a slashed burnmark across the palm. He lay on his back and his body convulsed.
‘You’re laughing?’ Finn stared. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Because it hurts, brother.’ Keiro pulled himself upright and there were tears of agony in his eyes. ‘It hurts, and that means it’s real.’ It was his right hand, the metal thumbnail stark in the scorched flesh.
Finn shook his head and croaked out a laugh with him.
‘You’re mad.’
‘Indeed he is,’ Jared said.
But Keiro looked up at him. ‘It’s worth knowing, Master.
Flesh and blood. It’s a start, anyway.’ As they helped him up Finn looked round and saw Caspar under guard, the other men being hustled out.
‘Get that tunnel sealed,’ he hissed, and Soames bowed.
‘Immediately, my lord.’ But as he turned he stopped dead, and in that second something terrible happened to the world.
The bees stopped buzzing.
The table dissolved into worm-eaten dust and collapsed.
Patches fell off the ceiling.
The sun went out.
31
My Realm will last for ever.
Finn lurched to the casement and stared out.
He saw a darkening sky, clotted with clouds that built up and blotted out the daylight. The wind had risen, and the day was far, far colder than it should have been.
And the world was transformed.
He saw horses in the courtyard collapsing into twitching cybernetworks of limbs, their skin and eyes shrivelling and shredding. He saw walls crumbling into holes, a stinking moat where nothing grew, parched acres of arid grassland.
Flowers withered as he gazed on them; the swans rose and flapped away. All the glorious beauty of the honeysuckle and clematis was dried into spindly crisp bines, the few weak petals blown away by the wind.
Doors were flung open; a guardsman came running down the steps, his fine livery a mismatched moth-eaten suite of grey.
Pushing in next to Finn, Keiro stared. ‘What’s happening to it all? Are we still in the Prison? Is this one of Incarceron’s clean-ups?’ Finn’s throat was dry. He couldn’t answer.
It was like a spell dissolving. All around him Claudia’s paradise of the Wardenry was coming apart, the house a slipshod ruin, its golden-stoned splendour fading even as he watched, colour washing from the mews and the stables, even the maze twisting to a dank thicket of brambles.
Jared murmured, ‘Perhaps the Prison is in us.’ Finn turned. The room was a shell. The fine velvet hangings were rags, the once-white ceiling a mass of cracks.