Legends of Sapphique In Chronological Order
There was a man and his name was Sapphique. Where he came from is a mystery. Same say he was born of the Prison, grown from its stored components. Some say he came from Outside, because he alone of men returned there. Some say he was not a man at all, but a creature from those shining sparks lunatics see in dreams and name the stars. Some say he was a liar and a fool.
When he was born, silent and alone, his mind was empty. He had no past, no being. He found himself in the deepest place of darkness and loneliness.
“Give me a name,” he begged.
The Prison said, “I lay this fate on you, Prisoner. You shall have no name unless I give it to you. And I will never give it.”
He ground. He reached out his fingers and found raised letters on the door. Great iron letters, riveted through.
After hours, he had grasped their shape.
“Sapphique,” he said, “will be my name.” --
Sapphique rode out of the Tanglewood and saw the Fortress of Bronze. People were streaming into its walls from all around.
“Come inside,” they urged him. “Hurry! Before it attacks!”
He looked around. The world was metal and the sky was metal. The people were ants on the plains of the Prison.
“Have you forgotten,” he said, “that you are already Inside?”
But they hurried past and said he was deranged.
--
He worked night and day. He made a coat that would transform him; he would be more than a man; a winged creature, beautiful as light. All the birds brought him feathers. Even the eagle. Even the swan.
He raised his hands. They saw his coat was feathered like the wings of the Swan when it dies, and when it sings its secret song. And he opened the door that none of them had seen until now.
Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the sky above him and the sky said, “Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high.”
Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. “Not this time. This time I beat on you until you open.”
But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down.
He fell all day and all night. He fell into a pit of darkness. He fell like a stone falls, like a bird with broken wings, like an angel cast down. His landing bruised the world.
He woke and found them all around him. The old, lame, the diseased, the half-made men. He hid his head and was filled with shame and anger. “I have failed you,” he said. “I have journeyed so far and I have failed.”
“Not so,” they answered. “There is a door we know, a tiny, secret door. None of use dare crawl through, in case we die there. If you promise to come back for us, we will show you.” Sapphique was lithe and slender. He looked at them with his dark eyes. “Take me there,” he whispered.
Sapphique, they say, was not the same after his Fall. His mind was bruised. He plunged into despair, the depths of the Prison. He crawled into the Tunnels of Madness. He sought dark places, and dangerous men.
So he rose up and sought the hardest way, the road that leads inward. And all the time he wore the Glove he did not eat or sleep and Incarceron knew all his desires.
