Free Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) by Catherine Fisher

was, it
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    doesn't matter anymore. Put it out of your head or it will drive you to madness."
    Finn said, "How many other cell-born have you known?"
    "Three." Gildas tugged the plaited end of his beard free irritably. He paused. "You're rare beings. I spent my life searching before I found you. A man rumored to be cell-born used to beg outside the Hall of Lepers, but when I finally coaxed him to speak I realized his mind had gone; he babbled about an egg that talked, a cat that faded out to just a smile. Years later, after many rumors, I found another, a worker of the Civicry in the Ice Wing. She seemed normal enough; I tried to persuade her to speak to me of her visions. But she never would. One day I heard she had hanged herself."
    Finn swallowed. "Why?"
    "They told me she had gradually begun to believe a child followed her, an invisible child that clutched her skirts and called her, woke her at night. Its voice tormented her. She couldn't shut it out."
    Finn shivered. He knew that Gildas was watching him. The Sapient said gruffly, "Finding you here was a chance in a million, Finn. Only you can guide my Escape."
    "I can't ..."
    "You can. You're my prophet, Finn. My link with Incarceron. Soon now you'll bring me the vision I've waited a lifetime for, the sign that my time has come, that I must follow Sapphique and seek the Outside. Every Sapient makes that journey. None
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    have succeeded, but none have had a cell-born to guide them."
    Finn shook his head. He'd heard this for years and it still scared him. The old man was obsessed with Escape, but how could Finn help him? How could flashes of memory and the skin-tingling, choking lapses into unconsciousness help anyone?
    Gildas pushed past him and grasped the metal ladder. "Don't talk about this. Not even to Keiro."
    He climbed down and his eyes were on a level with Finns feet before Finn muttered, "Jormanric will never just let you go."
    Gildas glared up through the rungs. "I go where I want."
    "He needs you. He rules the Wing because of you. On his own he--"
    "He'll manage. He's good at fear and violence."
    Gildas descended one rung, then pulled himself up, his small wizened face lit with sudden joy. "Can you imagine how it will be, Finn, one day, to open a hatch and climb out of darkness, out of Incarceron? To see the stars? To see the sun!"
    For a moment Finn was silent; then he swung down on a rope past the Sapient. "I've seen it."
    Gildas laughed sourly. "Only in visions, fool boy. Only in dreams."
    He clambered with surprising agility down the diagonal of lashed ladders. Finn followed more slowly, the rope's friction warm through his gloves.
    Escape.
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    It was a word that stung him like a wasp, a sharpness that pierced his mind, a longing that promised everything and meant nothing. The Sapienti taught that Sapphique had once found a way out, that he had Escaped. Finn wasn't sure if he believed that. The stories about Sapphique grew in the telling; every itinerant storyteller and poet had a new one. If a single man could have had all those adventures, tricked all those Winglord's, made that epic journey through the Thousand Wings of Incarceron, he must have lived for generations. The Prison was said to be vast and unknowable, a labyrinth of halls and stairs and chambers and towers beyond number. Or so the Sapienti taught.
    His feet hit the ground. Glimpsing the snake-green iridescence of Gildas's robe as the old man hurried out of the Den, Finn ran after him, making sure that his foil was in its sheath and that he had both daggers in his belt.
    The Maestra's crystal was what concerned him now.
    And getting it was not going to be easy.
    The Chasm of Ransom was only three halls away, and he crossed the dark empty spaces quickly, alert for spiders or the inbred shadowhawks that swooped high in the rafters. Everyone else seemed to be there already. He heard the Comitatus before he came through the last archway; they were shouting and howling Insults across the abyss,