"I came to tell you how proud I am." His gray eyes held hers, and the light in them was keen and sharp. "Today is the day I have planned and schemed for decades. Long before you were born. Today the Arlexi come to the heart of power. Nothing must go wrong." He stood up and strode to the window, as if tension would not let him keep still. He smiled. "I confess I have not slept, thinking of it."
"You're not the only one."
He looked at her closely. "You must have no fear, Claudia. Everything is arranged. Everything ready."
Something in his tone made her glance up. For a moment she looked at him and saw under the mask, saw a man driven so fiercely by his dream of power that he would sacrifice anything to achieve it. And with a cold shiver she saw that he would not share it. Not with the Queen, or Caspar. "What do you mean ... everything?"
"Just that things will turn out in our favor. Caspar is nothing but a stepping-stone."
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She stood. "You know, don't you? About the assassination plan ... the Steel Wolves. Are you one of them?"
He crossed the room in one step and grabbed her arm so tightly, she gasped. "Keep quiet," he snapped. "Do you think there aren't listening devices even here?"
He led her to the window and flung it open. Strains of lute and drum floated upward, the shouts of a guard commander drilling his men. Under cover of the noise his voice was low and husky. "Just do your part, Claudia. That's all."
"And then you kill them." She tugged away.
"What happens after doesn't concern you. Evian had no right to approach you."
"Doesn't it? How long before I'm in your way too? How long before I fall off my horse?"
She had shocked him. "That will never happen."
"No?" Her scorn was acid; she wanted it to burn him. "Because I'm your daughter?"
He said, "Because I have come to love you, Claudia."
There was something there that stuck her. Something odd. But he turned away. "Now. The Key."
She frowned, then went to the dressing table and opened the drawer. The Key gleamed; she took it out and laid it on the top, among the clustered flowers.
The Warden came and looked down at it. "Not even your precious Jared could have discovered all the mysteries of this device."
"I want to say good-bye," she said, stubborn. "To Finn, and
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the others. To explain to them. Then I'll give you the Key. At the wedding."
His eyes were cold and clear. "You always have to try my patience, Claudia."
For a moment she thought he would just take it. But he walked to the door.
"Don't keep Caspar waiting too long. He gets so ... sulky."
She locked the door after him and sat down, holding the Key in both hands. I have come to love you. Perhaps he even thought that was true.
She switched the field on.
Then she jumped back, so fast that the Key fell with a clatter onto the floor.
Attia was in her room.
"You have to help us," the girl said at once. "The ship has crashed. Gildas is hurt."
The field widened; she saw a dark place, heard a distant howling as of wind. Petals blew off the flowers on her table, as if a gale from that place moved here.
Attia was shoved aside; Finn said, "Claudia, please. Can Jared help ...?"
"Jared's not here." Helpless, she saw the wreckage of a strange craft littering the floor. Keiro was tearing a piece of sail into strips and binding Gildas's arm and shoulder; she saw blood already seeping through. "Where are you?"
"The Wall." Finn looked weary. "I think we've come as far
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as we can. This is the End of the World. There's a passageway beyond, but I don't know if he can travel ..."
"Of course I bloody can," Gildas snapped.
Finn pulled a face. "Not for long. We must be close, Claudia, to the gate."
"There is no gate." She knew her voice was flat.
He looked at her. "But you said--"
"I was wrong. I'm sorry. It's all over, Finn. There is no gate and there is no way out. Not ever. Not from Incarceron."
***
JARED WALKED into the Great Hall. It was thronged with courtiers and princes, ambassadors, Sapienti, dukes, and duchesses. It was a bewilderment of colored satins and the smell of sweat and powerful fragrances, and it made him feel a little weak. There were seats along the wall; he made for one and sat, leaning his head back against the cool stone. All around him, the guests at Claudia's wedding chattered and laughed. He saw the bridegroom, with a gang of his wild young friends, already drinking, laughing uproariously at some joke. The Queen was not present yet, nor the Warden.
A crinkle of silk beside him made him turn. Lord Evian bowed. "You look a little tired, Master."
Jared stared back. "A sleepless night, sir."
"Ah yes. But soon now, all our worries will be over." The fat man smiled, and fanned himself with a small black fan. "Please give Claudia all my best wishes."
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He bowed again and turned. Jared said suddenly, "One moment, my lord. The other day ... when you made a certain promise ...
"Yes?" Evian's smug manner was gone; he looked guarded.
"You mentioned the Nine-Fingered One."
Evian glared. He grabbed Jared's arm and hauled him into the crowd, moving so fast, people stared as they were pushed aside. Out in the corridor he hissed, "Never say that name aloud. It is a sacred and a holy name for those who believe."
Jared tugged his arm free. "I have heard of many cults and beliefs. Certainly all the ones the Queen allows. But this--"
"This is not the day to discuss religion."
"Yes k is." Jared's eyes were sharp and clear. "And we have very little time. Does he have another name, this hero of yours?"
Evian breathed out angrily. "I really can't say."
"You will say, my lord," Jared said pleasantly, "or I'll make such an outcry right now about your assassination plan that every guard in the Palace will hear it."
Evian's brow prickled with sweat. "I think not."
Jared glanced down; the fat man had a dagger in his hand, the blade hard against Jared's stomach. With an effort, he met the man's eyes. "Either way, my lord, you would be discovered. Ail I ask is a name."
For a moment they were face-to-face. Then Lord Evian said,
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"You are a brave man, Sapient, but don't cross me again. As for the name, yes, indeed there is one, hidden in time, lost in legend. The name of the One who claimed to have escaped from Incarceron. In the most mysterious of our rites he is known as Sapphique. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
Jared stared at him for a split second. Then he shoved him aside. And ran.
***
KEIRO WAS wild with anger; he and Gildas were yelling at her. "How can you abandon us?" the Sapient scorched. "Sapphique Escaped! Of course there is a way out!"
She was silent. She was looking at Finn. He sat huddled up against a smashed angle of decking, stiff with misery. His jacket was torn and there were cuts on his face, but now more than ever she was sure he was Giles. Now that it was too late.
"And you're marrying him," he said quietly.
Gildas swore. Keiro gave his oathbrother a scathing look. "What does it matter who she marries! Perhaps she decided she likes him better than you." He turned, hands on hips, and faced her arrogantly. "Is that it, Princess? Was this all a little diversion for you, a pretty game?" He jerked his head. "Such lovely flowers! Such a sweet dress!"
He came up so close to her that she almost felt he would reach out and grab her, but then Finn said, "Shut up, Keiro." He got up and faced her. "Just tell me why. Why is it so impossible?"
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She couldn't. How could she tell them that? "Jared found some things out. You have to believe me."
"What things?"
"About Incarceron. It's finished, Finn. Please. Make a life for yourself there. Forget the Outside ..."
"And what about me?
" Gildas snapped. "I've spent sixty years planning my Escape! I scoured the Prison for a lifetime before I found a Starseer, and I'll never find another! We have traveled to the End of the World, girl! I will not give up my dreams of a lifetime!"
She stood up and stalked toward him, furious. "You use him like my father uses me. All he is to you is a way out; you don't care about him! Any of you!"
"That's not true!" Attia hissed.
Claudia ignored her. Looking hard at Finn she said, "I'm sorry. I wish things could have been different. I'm sorry."
There was some sort of commotion outside her door; she turned and yelled, "I won't see anyone! Send them away!"
Finn said, "Do you know what I'm escaping from? From not knowing myself. Having this darkness inside me, this emptiness. I can't live with that. Don't leave me here, Claudia!"
She couldn't bear it anymore. Not Keiro's anger, not the fierce old man, not him. He was hurting her, and none of this was her fault, none of it. She reached out for the Key. "This is good-bye, Finn. I have to give up the Key. My father knows about everything. It's over."
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Her fingers closed on the link. Voices argued outside the door.
And then Attia said, "He's not your father, Claudia." They all turned to her.
She was sitting on the floor, arms around her knees. She didn't get up or say anything more but just sat there in the shocked silence she had created, her narrow face grimy and calm, her dark hair greasy.
Claudia came right up to her, "What?" Her own voice sounded small and unfamiliar.
"I'm afraid it's true." Attia was cool and distant. "I wouldn't have told you, but now you're forcing me to, and it's time you knew. The Warden of Incarceron is not your father."
"You lying little bitch!"
"No, it's true."
Keiro grinned.
Claudia felt as if the world had shaken. Suddenly the hubbub outside was too much; turning her back on them, she hauled open the door. Jared was there, and two guards holding him back.
"What is this?" Her voice was steel. "Let him through."
"Your father's orders, lady--"
"My father," she screamed, "can go to hell!" Jared pushed her back into the room and slammed the door. "Claudia, listen--"
"Please, Master! Not now!"
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He saw the lightfield. Claudia stalked back to it. "All right. Tell me," she said.
For a moment Attia said nothing. Then she stood up, brushing dirt from her bare arms. "I never liked you. Haughty, selfish, spoiled. You think you're so tough--you wouldn't last ten minutes in here. And Finn is worth ten of you."
"Attia" Finn growled, but Claudia said sharply, "Let her speak."
"Back there in the Sapient's tower we found lists of all the Prisoners who have ever been in this place. They all looked for their own names, but I didn't." Attia came close to Claudia. "I looked for yours."
Finn turned, chilled. "You said it wasn't there."
"I said she wasn't in Incarceron. But she has been."
He felt so cold. Looking at Claudia, he saw her face was white; it was Jared who said quietly, "When?"
"She was born here, and she lived here for one week. Then, nothing. She vanishes from the records. Someone took a week-old baby girl out of the Prison, and there she is, look, the daughter of the Warden. He must have been very desperate for a daughter. And there must have been one who died, or he would have chosen a son."
Keiro said, "You recognize her from a photo of a baby? That's--"
"Not just a baby." Attia kept her eyes on Claudia. "Someone put paintings of her into the book. Images, just like us. Of
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her growing up. Of her having everything she wanted, clothes, toys, horses. Of her ..."
"Getting betrothed?" Keiro said slyly.
Finn turned with a gasp. "Was I there? Was I in that image too? Attia!"
Her lips set. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'd tell you if you were." She turned earnestly. "I would tell you, Finn. It was just her."
He looked at Claudia. She seemed stunned with shock. He glanced at Jared, who muttered, 'T have also found the name of Sapphique here. It seems he truly did Escape."
Gildas spun around and the two Sapienti exchanged glances. "You see what this means." The old man was triumphant. He was bleeding and limping, but his whole body was charged with energy. "They took her out. Sapphique got out. There is a way. Perhaps if we brought both the Keys together, we could unlock it."
Jared frowned. "Claudia?" he said.
She couldn't move for a moment. Then her head jerked up and she looked Finn hard in the eyes and he saw her gaze was fierce and bitter. "Keep the Key switched on, all the time," she said. "When I get Inside, I'll need to find you."
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30
***
All my years to this moment
All my roads to this wall.
All my words to this silence
All my pride to this fall
--Songs of Sapphique
***
She paced the study floor anxiously, dressed in dark trousers and jacket. "Well?"
"Five minutes." Jared worked on the controls without looking up. He had already placed a handkerchief on the chair and operated the device; the handkerchief had disappeared, but he couldn't get it back.
Claudia stared at the door.
She had torn up her wedding dress in a fury that had amazed even herself, shredding the lace and ripping the flouncy skirt wide open. All that was over. Protocol was over. She was at war now. Racing down here through the dark cellars, she had run through anger and bewilderment and the emptiness of a wasted past.
"All right." Jared looked up. "I think I understand what's what, but where this machine will take you, Claudia ...?"
"I know where it takes me. Away from him." The knowledge
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that he was not her father still rang in her head like a great blare of sound, endlessly echoing, so that she felt she would never hear anything else but that girl's quiet, devastating words. Jared said, "Sit in the chair."
She grabbed her sword and walked over and stopped. "What about you? When he finds out..
"Don't worry about me." He took her arm gently and made her sit. "It's about time I stood up to your father. I'm sure it will be good for me."
Her face clouded. "Master ... if he hurts you ..."
"All you need to worry about is finding Giles and bringing him back. Justice must be done. Good luck, Claudia." He raised her hand and kissed it formally. For a moment she was stricken with the thought that she would never see him again; all she wanted to do was jump up and hug him, but he moved away to the panel of instruments and looked up. "Ready?"
She couldn't speak. She nodded. And then, just before his fingers touched the panel, she said hurriedly, "Good-bye, Master."
He pressed the blue square, and it happened. From the ceiling slots a cage of white light fell, so blindingly brilliant and so quick that it was gone as soon as it had come, and all he could see was the black aftermath imprinted on his retina.
He brought his hands away from his face.
The room was empty. He could smell a faint sweetness.
"Claudia?" he whispered.
Nothing. For a long moment he waited in the silence. He
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wanted to stay, but he had to get out of the study; the Warden must not know what had happened for as long as possible, and if they found him here ... Hurriedly he slammed the controls back, slid out through the great bronze door, and locked it behind him.
All the way up through the cellars Jared sweated with fear. There must be some alarm he had overlooked, some screaming trigger his scanner had failed to detect. At every step he expected to hurtle into the Warden or a posse of Palace guards, and by the time he came up to the formal corridors, he was pale and shivering and had to lean in an alcove and take deep, careful breaths, a passing maid staring at him curiously.
> In the Great Hall, the crowd's noise was louder. As he threaded among them he sensed the growing tension, the expectation heightened almost to hysteria. The staircase that Claudia should descend was in full view, lined by footmen in powdered wigs. As he slipped into a seat by the fireplace he saw the Queen, glorious in cloth of gold and a tiara of diamonds, flicker an irritated glance at it.
But brides were always late.
Jared leaned back and stretched out his legs. He was lightheaded with fear and fatigue and yet he felt something else that surprised him: a strange peace. He wondered how long it would last.
Then he saw the Warden.
Tall and grave, the man who was not Claudia's father. Jared
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watched as the Warden smiled, nodded, exchanged graceful small talk with the waiting courtiers. Once he took out his watch and glanced at it, held it to his ear as if in all the hubbub he needed to check it was going. Then he put it away and frowned.
Impatience grew, slowly.
The crowd murmured. Caspar came over and said something to his mother, she spoke to him sharply, and he went back to his supporters. Jared watched the Queen.
Her hair was swept up elaborately, her lips red in the whitened pallor of her face, but her eyes were cool and shrewd and he recognized the growing suspicion in them.
She crooked a finger and the Warden moved to her side. They spoke briefly. A servant was called, a smooth silver-haired steward, and he bowed and vanished discreetly.
Jared rubbed his face.
It must be panic up there in her rooms, the maids searching for her, fingering the dress, terrified for their own skins. Probably they had all fled. He hoped Alys wouldn't be there--the old nurse would be blamed.
He leaned back against the wall and tried to summon up all his courage.
He didn't have long to wait.
There was a disturbance on the stairs. Heads turned. Women craned to see, a rustle of dresses and faint applause that petered out into bewilderment, because the silver-haired servant was
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racing down, breathless, and in his hands he had the dress, or rather what was left of it. Jared wiped sweat from his lip. He had never seen Claudia so furious as when she had torn it to shreds.
Confusion erupted.
A scream of anger, orders, the clash of weapons. Slowly, Jared stood.