Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

And, knowing it was Sark, it was suddenly likely that this young woman was the person who had robbed the Waterwatch and burned down the waterfront.

Without another word, Gregor rose and tried to dive at her — but between her stun bomb and the damage the shrieker had done to him, he could barely walk in a straight line.

The young woman danced aside and kicked his feet out from under him. Gregor tumbled down into the mud, cursing. He tried to stand up, but she put a boot in his back and shoved him down. Again, he was surprised at how strong she was — or maybe he was just that weakened.

“You burned down the waterfront!” he said.

“That was an accident,” she said.

“You robbed my damned safes!”

“Okay, well, that wasn’t. What did you find in Sark’s?”

Gregor said nothing.

“I saw you reading. I know you found something. What?”

He considered what to say — and then he considered her behavior: how she’d acted, and what she’d done, why she was here. And he started to develop an idea of her circumstances.

“What I found,” he said, “is that you have either stolen from, or stolen for, some of the most powerful, merciless people in the city of Tevanne. But I think you knew that. And I think your arrangement has gone quite wrong, and you are now desperate to escape. But you won’t. They will find you, and kill you.”

She pressed harder into his back and crouched down. He couldn’t see her face — yet he could smell her.

And strangely, her smell was…familiar.

I know that scent , he thought. How odd…

He felt something sharp being drawn along the side of his neck. She showed it to him — another dart. “Know what this is?” she asked.

He looked at it, then looked her in the eye. “I am not afraid to die,” he said. “If that is your intent, I suggest you hurry it along.”

She paused at that, clearly surprised. She tried to gather herself. “Goddamn it, tell me what you fo—”

“You are no killer,” said Gregor. “No soldier. That I can see. The wisest course of action here is to surrender now and come with me.”

“What, so you can have me harpered?” asked the girl. “This is some shit negotiation you’re trying.”

“If you surrender,” said Gregor, “I will plead mercy for you personally. And I will do everything I can to prevent your death.”

“You’re lying.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “I do not lie,” he said quietly.

She squinted at him, surprised by his tone.

“Nor do I kill anymore,” said Gregor, “unless I have to. I have had enough of that for one life. Surrender. Now. I will protect you. And though I will see justice done, I will not allow them to kill you. But if you do not surrender — I will not stop coming for you. And either I will catch you, or they will kill you.”

She seemed to be considering it. “I believe you,” she said. She leaned close. “But I’m still willing to take my chances, Captain.”

There was a sharp pain in his neck. Then everything went dark.

When Gregor Dandolo awoke, he was no longer convinced that consciousness was the best choice for him. It felt as if some foundryman had swung by, opened up his head, and filled it with smelted metals. He groaned and rolled over, and realized he’d been lying facedown in the mud for what must have been hours, since the sun was now out. It was a miracle someone hadn’t cut his throat and robbed him blind.

But then, it did look as if the young woman had covered him in trash and refuse so no one could see him. Which he supposed was a generous gesture — even if it made him smell like a canal.

He sat up, whimpering and rubbing his skull. Then his thoughts turned to the young woman, and he remembered how she’d smelled.

Her odor had been distinct. Because it had smelled like she’d been in a Tevanni foundry, or near a foundry’s smokestacks.

And as Ofelia Dandolo’s child, Gregor knew a great deal about Tevanni foundries.

He laughed to himself in disbelief, and stood and hobbled away.

The next morning, Gregor held his head high as he walked through the southern gates of the outermost Dandolo Chartered wall. As he moved from Commons to campo, the change was abrupt, and severe: from muddy pathways to clean cobblestone; from the odor of smoke and dung and rot to the faint aroma of spiced meat being grilled nearby; and then, of course, there were the people in the streets, whose clothing changed to being clean and colorful, whose skin became clear and unblemished, who suddenly walked without any ailment or deformity or drunkenness or exhaustion.

It never failed to amaze him: you walked exactly one dozen feet, and fell out of one civilization and into another. This was the outer campo too, not even one of the nicer parts. Behind each door , he thought, another world waits. And another and another and another…

He counted his steps as he walked across the threshold. “One,” he said. “Two…Three and four…”

The guardhouse door popped open, and a Dandolo house guard in full scrived armor trotted up to keep pace with him. “Morning, sir!” called the guard.

“Good morning,” said Gregor. Four steps — they’re getting slow.

“Going far, Founder?” asked the guard. “Would you like me to call you a carriage?”

“My formal title, lieutenant,” he said, glancing at the guard’s helm for his rank, “is Captain . Not Founder.”

“I see, Foun…I mean, I see, sir.” He coughed nervously. “But the sachet you carry, ah, it notified us tha—”

“Yes,” said Gregor. “I know what my sachet told you. Either way, there’s no need for a carriage, lieutenant. I am content to walk.” He bowed to the man, touching his brow with two fingers. “Good morning!”

The guard, confused, stopped and watched Gregor leave. “Good day, sir…”

Gregor Dandolo walked from the outer campo wall to the second wall gates. And, again, he had to turn down another offer of a carriage — as he did at the third wall, and the fourth, penetrating deeper and deeper into the Dandolo Chartered campo. The guards offered the carriages with a nervous eagerness, because Gregor’s sachet was flagged as founder lineage — and the idea of founderkin just walking around the campo on their own two feet was unthinkable to most Tevannis.

The truth of it was, he would have loved a carriage ride — his head still ached from that poison that girl had put in him, and he’d already walked damn near across Tevanne the night before, looking for Sark. But Gregor ignored all offers. He ignored them just as he ignored the flocks of floating lanterns that coiled above the Dandolo campo streets, and the bubbling fountains, and the tall, white stone towers, and the beautiful women picking their way through the campo parks, adorned in silk robes and sporting faces painted with intricate, curling patterns.

This could have been his — as the son of Ofelia Dandolo, he could have lived in these gleaming streets like the most pampered princeling in all the world. And maybe, once, he would have.