Incarceron Part 60

"We know nothing about Sapphique but a muddle of tales and legends. Those fools down there in the City, whose doings I watch to relieve my boredom, they invent new tales of Sapphique every year."

He folded his arms, his gray eyes relentless.

"Men love to make stories, brother. They love to dream. They dream that the world is deep underground, and if we could journey up we would find the way out, a trapdoor into a land where the sky is blue and the land breeds corn and honey and there is no pain. Or that there are nine circles of the Prison surrounding its center, and if we go deep into them we find the heart of Incarceron, its living being, and we will emerge through it into another world."

He shook his head.

"Legends. Nothing more."

Finn was shocked. He glanced at Gildas; the old man seemed stricken, then anger burst out of him.

"How can you say this?" he snapped. "You, a Sapient? I thought when I saw what you were, that our struggles would be easier, that you'd understand ..."

"I do, believe me."

"Then how can you say there is no Outside?"

"Because I have seen."

His voice was so somber and heavy with despair that even Keiro stopped pacing up and down and stared at him.

Beside Finn, Attia s.h.i.+vered. "How?" she whispered.

The Sapient pointed to a sphere, a black, empty sh.e.l.l. "There. The experiment took me decades, but I was determined. My sensors penetrated metal and skin, bone and wire. I felt my way through miles of Incarceron, its halls and corridors, its seas, its rivers. Like you, I believed."

He laughed harshly, biting the worn nails of his hand. "And yes, I found Outside, in a way."

He turned and touched the controls, and the sphere lit. "I found this."

They saw an image in the darkness. A sphere within the sphere, a globe of blue metal. It hung in the everlasting blackness of s.p.a.ce, alone, silent.

"This is Incarceron."

Blaize jabbed a ringer at it.

"And we live inside it. A world. Constructed, or grown, who knows. But alone, in a vastness, a vacuum. In nothing. There is Nothing outside."

He shrugged. "I am sorry. I do not wish to destroy the dreams of your lifetime. But there is nowhere else to go."

Finn couldn't breathe. It was as if the bleak words drew the life out of him. He stared at the globe and felt Keiro come close behind him, sensed his oathbrother's warmth and energy, and it comforted him.

But it was Gildas who surprised them all.

He laughed. A gruff, throaty roar of scorn. Drawing himself upright, he turned on Blaize and glared at him.

"And you call yourself Wise! Fooled by the Prison's malice, more like. It shows you lies and you believe them, and live up here above men and despise them. Worse than a fool!"

He strode up to the taller man; Finn took a quick step after him. He knew the old man's temper.

But Gildas stabbed the air with his knotty finger, and his voice was hard and low.

"How dare you stand there and deny me my hope and these their chance of life. How dare you tell me Sapphique is a dream, that the Prison is all there is!"

"Because it's true," Blaize said.

Gildas wrenched out of Finn's grip. "Liar! You're no Sapient. And you forget. We've seen Outsiders."

"Yes!" Attia said.

"And spoken to them."

Blaize paused. He said, "Spoken to them?"

For a moment it almost seemed his certainty was shaken. He linked his fingers together and his voice was tight.

"Spoken to whom? Who are they?"

Everyone looked at Finn, so he said, "A girl called Claudia. And a man. She calls him Jared."