She glared at him. "G.o.d, you gave me a fright! Have you got everything?"
"Yes."
He was pale, his eyes dark-shadowed.
"Your medication?"
"Everything."
He forced a wan smile.
"Anyone would think I was the pupil here."
She smiled back, wanting to cheer him. "It will be all right. We have to look, Master. We have to see Inside."
He nodded. "Hurry then."
She led him through the vaulted halls.
Tonight the bricks seemed damper than before, the exhalations of the salted walls a fetid air that clouded their breathing. The gate seemed higher, and as she came near to it, Claudia saw that the chains were back across, each metal link thicker than her arm.
But it was the snails that made her shiver: fat, large creatures, their silvery trails crisscrossing the condensation on the metal as if they had bred down here for centuries.
"Yuck."
She pulled one off; it came away with a soft plop and she threw it down.
"This is it. He put a combination into the lock."
The Havaarna eagle spread wide wings. In the globe it held were seven small circular hollows; she was about to touch them when Jared caught her fingers.
"No! If the wrong combination goes in, alarms will go off. Or worse, we may be trapped. This must be done carefully, Claudia"
He pulled out the small scanner and began, very gently, to take readings and adjust them, crouching among the rusted chains.
Impatient, she went back, checked the cellars, returned.
"Hurry, Master."
*I can"t hurry this." He was absorbed, his fingers moving gently.
After long minutes she was almost sick with impatience. She took the Key out, looked at it behind his back.
"Do you think ...?"
"Wait, Claudia, lm almost certain of the first number."
It could take hours. There was a disc on the door; it gleamed greenish bronze, slightly brighter than the surrounding metal. Over his head, she reached out and slid it aside.
A keyhole. Shaped like the crystal, hexagonal. She reached out and fitted the Key into it.
Instantly it leaped out of her fingers. With a great crack that made her screech and made Jared jump back in terror, the Key turned by itself. Chains crashed. Rust fell. The gate shuddered ajar.
Scrambling up, Jared was frantically checking all the alarms; he gasped, "Claudia, that was so stupid!"
But she didn"t care, she was laughing because it was open, the gate, the Prison. She had unlocked Incarceron.
The last chain slid. The cellars rang with echoes. Jared waited until every last whisper of noise was stilled.
"Well?" she said.
"No one coming. Everything up there is normal."
He wiped sweat from his forehead with one hand.
"We must be too far down for them to hear. More than we deserve, Claudia."
She shrugged.
"I deserve to find Finn. And he deserves to be free."
They stared at the dark slit, waiting. She half expected a crowd of Prisoners to burst through.
But nothing happened, so she stepped forward and opened the gate.
And looked Inside.