Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

For ages the waterfront had been as corrupt and dangerous as any other part of Tevanne that wasn’t under direct control of the merchant houses — which was to say, incredibly, flagrantly, unbelievably corrupt. But a few months ago they’d gone and hired some hero from the Enlightenment Wars, and he’d booted out all the crooks, hired a bunch of professional guards, and installed security wards all over the waterfront — including scrived, defensive walls, just like those at the merchant houses, which wouldn’t let you in or out without the proper identification.

Suddenly it’d become difficult to do illegal things on the waterfront. Which was quite inconvenient for Sancia. So she’d needed to find an alternate way into the waterfront for her job tonight.

She kneeled, unbuttoned a pouch on her chest, and took out what was likely her most important tool of the night. It looked like a roll of cloth, but as she unfolded it, it gained a somewhat cuplike shape.

When she was finished, Sancia looked at the little black parachute lying on the rooftop.

“This is going to kill me, isn’t it?” she said.

She took out the final piece of the parachute: a telescoping steel rod. Set into the ends of this rod were two small, scrived plates — she could hear them chanting and whispering in her head. Like all scrived devices, she had no idea what they were saying, but her black-market contacts had given her strict instructions on how all this would work.

It’s a two-part system , Claudia had told her. You stick the guidance plate to the thing you want to go to. The guidance plate then says to the plates in the rod, “Hey, I know you think you’re your own thing, but you’re actually part of this thing that I’m attached to — so you need to get over here and be part of it, fast.” And the rod says, “Really? Oh gosh, what am I doing all the way over here? I need to go be a part of this other thing right away!” And when you hit the switch, it does. Really, really fast.

Sancia was vaguely familiar with this scriving technique. It was a version of the method the merchant houses used to stick bricks and other construction materials together, duping them into thinking they were all one object. But no one tried to use this method over distances — it was considered unstable to the point of being useless, and there were far safer methods of locomotion available.

But those methods were expensive. Too expensive for Sancia.

And the parachute keeps me from falling , Sancia had said when Claudia was done explaining it all.

Uh, no, Claudia had said. The parachute slows it down. Like I told you — this thing is going to go really, really fast. So you’re going to want to be high up when you turn it on. Just make sure the guidance plate is actually where you need it to be, and nothing’s blocking your path. Use the test piece first. If it’s all lined up, turn on the rod and go.

Sancia reached into yet another pocket and pulled out a small glass jar. In this glass jar was a bronze coin, and inscribed on this coin were sigils similar to the ones on the parachute rod.

She squinted at the coin. It was stuck firmly to the side of the glass facing the waterfront. She turned the glass over, and, as if magnetized, the coin zipped across the jar and stuck itself to the other side with a tinny tink! — again, the side facing the waterfront.

If this thing is attracted to the guiding plate, she thought, and if the guiding plate is on the carriage, then it means the carriage is at the waterfront. So I’m good.

She paused. Probably. Maybe .

She hesitated for a long time. “Shit,” she muttered.

Sancia hated this sort of thing. The logic behind scriving always seemed so stupidly simple — barely logic at all, really. But then, scriving more or less bent reality, or at least confused it.

She put the jar away and threaded the rod through the tapered end of the parachute.

Just think of what Sark told you , she thought. Just think of that number — twenty thousand duvots.

Enough money to fix herself. To make herself normal.

Sancia hit a lever on the side of the rod and jumped off the roof.

Instantly she was soaring through the air across the bay at a speed she’d never thought possible, hauled along by the steel rod, which, as far as she understood, was frantically trying to join the carriage down in the waterfront. She could hear the parachute whipping out behind her and finally catching the air, which slowed her down some — first not much at all, but then a little more, and a little more.

Her eyes watered and she gritted her teeth. The nightscape of Tevanne was a whirl around her. She could see water glittering in the bay below, the shifting forest of masts from the ships in the harbor, the shuddering roofs of the carriages as they made their way to the waterfront, the smoke unscrolling from the foundries clutched around the shipping channel…

Focus , she thought. Focus, idiot.

Then things…dipped.

Her stomach lurched. Something was wrong.

She looked back, and saw there was a tear in the parachute.

Shit .

She watched, horrified, as the tear began to widen.

Shit! Double shit!

The sailing rig lurched again, so hard that she barely noticed she’d flown over the waterfront walls. The rig started speeding up, faster and faster.

I need to get off this thing. Now. Now!

She saw she was sailing over the waterfront cargo stacks, huge towers of boxes and crates, and some of the stacks looked high indeed. High enough for her to fall and catch herself. Maybe.

She blinked tears out of her eyes, focused on one tall stack of crates, angled the rig, and then…

She hit the lever on the side of the rod.

Instantly, she started losing momentum. She was no longer flying but was instead drifting down toward the crates, which were about twenty feet below. She was slowed somewhat by the rapidly dissolving parachute — but not enough to make her comfortable.

She watched as the giant crates flew up to her.

Ah, hell .

She hit the corner of the crate so hard that it knocked the wind out of her, yet she still retained sense to reach out and snag the wooden corner, grabbing hold and clutching to its side. The sailing rig caught some wind, and was ripped out of her hands and went drifting away.

She hung fast to the side of the crate, breathing hard. She’d trained herself to fall, to catch onto walls in an instant, or bounce or slide off of surfaces — but she’d rarely had to use such training.

There was a clank from somewhere to her right as the sailing rig fell to the ground. She froze and just hung there for a moment, listening for any alarms being raised.

Nothing. Silence.

The waterfront was a big place. One noise was easy to disregard.

Hopefully.

Sancia took her left hand away from the crate, dangling by just one hold, and used her teeth to pull off her glove. Then she pressed her bare left hand to the crate, and listened.

The crate told her of water, and rain, and oil, and straw, and the tiny bite of many nails…

And also how to climb down it.

Step two — getting in the waterfront — had not gone quite as planned.

Now on to step three , she thought wearily, climbing down. Let’s see if I can avoid screwing that one up.

When Sancia made it to the ground, at first all she did was breathe hard and rub her bruised side.