"Stay together. Finn, go at the back, and keep the Key safe."
Gildas snorted but took his place between them.
It was a voice. It was speaking somewhere ahead, and as they crept toward it, the pa.s.sageway became cluttered; great chains lay across it, manacles and shackles, scattered heaps of tools, a broken Beetle on its back.
They pa.s.sed small cells, some with the doors locked, and through the grille in one Finn saw a tiny dark room with rats clambering over an empty plate, a filthy pile of rags in one corner that might have been a body.
Everything was still. He felt that this was a place forgotten even by its makers, a corner of itself even Incarceron had overlooked for centuries. Had it been somewhere like this that the Maestra"s people had found the Key, with the desiccated bones of the man who had made it, or stolen it?
Stepping around a great pillar he realized he was beginning to forget her. Already it seemed so long ago, and yet the clatter of the bridge, her single look, were still inside him, waiting for him to sleep, to think he was safe. And her pity.
Attia grabbed him; he realized he had been walking past them.
"Stay awake, brother."
Keiro"s hiss was fierce. Heart thudding, he tried to clear his head. The p.r.i.c.kling in his face subsided. He took deep breaths.
"All right?" Gildas whispered.
He nodded. The fit had nearly crept up on him. It made him feel sick.
Peering around the corner, he stared.
The voice was speaking in a language he had never heard, of clicks and squeaks and stilted syllables. It was addressing Beetles and Sweepers and Flies, and the metallic rats that came out of the walls to carry off corpses. Millions of them crouched motionless on the floor of a great hall, lined ropes and aerial walkways, all of them facing one brilliant star that shone like a spark in the darkness.
Incarceron instructed its creatures and the words it spoke were a patchwork of sounds, a poetry of cracks and rumbles.
"Can they hear?" Keiro whispered.
"It"s not just words."
It was a vibration too, deep in the heart of the darkness, a sound like a vast heart beating, a great clock chiming.
The voice stopped. At once the machines turned and filed away, moving in silent rows into the darkness till the last one was gone, barely making a sound.
Finn moved, but Keiro grabbed him tight. The Eye still watched. Its light lit the empty hall.
Then the voice said softly, "Have you got the Key with you, Finn? Shall I take it now?"
He gasped. He wanted to run, but Keiro"s grip said no.
Biting his lip, he heard the Prison"s low amused chuckle. "Claudia is Inside. Did you know that? Of course I intend to keep you both apart. I am so vast, it will be only too easy. Won"t you speak to me, Finn?"
"It"s not sure we"re here," Keiro muttered.
"It sounds sure to me."
He had an irrational urge to step out from the Key"s protection, to open his arms and go out. But Keiro wouldn"t let go, and wriggled around to Attia.
"Back. Quickly."
"Of course I am only a machine," Incarceron said acidly.
"Unlike you. Or are you? Are you all so pure? Perhaps I should try a little experiment of my own."
Keiro shoved him, panicking. "Run!"
It was too late. There was a hiss and a crack. The sword flew out of Keiro"s hand and clanged against the wall, held there upside down. And Finn was hauled back, slammed against the stones, the Key in his belt pinning him there, the dagger he held whipping his arm flat with enormous power.
"Ah. Now I feel you, Finn. Now I feel your fear."
He couldn"t move. For a moment of terror he thought he was being sucked into the very fabric of the wall; then Gildas was there tugging at him, and he let go of the knife and his hand came free, and he realized the wall had become a magnet. Sc.r.a.ps of iron, flakes of bronze were flying in a fierce horizontal blizzard; the wall became clotted instantly with tools, chainwork, vast links. Finn ducked, cursing, as one clanged right next to his ear.
"Get me off!" he screamed. His body was crushed between the Key and the magnet. Gildas already had hold of the crystal; the old man dug his heels and gasped,
"Help me," and Attia"s small hands grabbed tight. Slowly, as if they were tugging it away from invisible fingers they pulled the weight of the Key from him and he fell forward, stumbling.
"Go.Go!"
Incarceron laughed its deep laugh. "But you can"t go. Not without your brother."
Poised to flee, he stopped. Keiro was standing by the wall. He had one hand oddly propped against it, the back of his hand to the black surface.
For a moment Finn thought he was trying to pry away the sword and yelled "Leave that!" , but then Keiro turned and gave him a look of cold fury.
"It"s not the sword."
Finn caught his oathbrother"s arm and pulled. It was held tight.