Кэтрин Фишер - Incarceron

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."

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!"

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 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."

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 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 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.