Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

“Intake,” muttered Berenice as they reviewed them. “Outtake…Intake, intake, intake…and outtake.”

“These all look like iron,” said Sancia. “Not stone wall.”

“Yes, thank you, that’s clear.” She pointed at one, a huge, gaping iron pipe with a thick grate across its mouth. “That’s it. That’s the one — the metallurgical outtake pipe.”

“What are we going to do about the grate?”

“Go through it,” said Berenice. She walked to the closest tunnel and tried to climb onto its top, but despite her height, she rather pathetically slid back down the side. “Ah — little help?”

Sancia shook her head and gave her a boost. “I guess fabs and scrivers don’t get out much,” she muttered.

Together they crawled across the tunnel tops to the big outtake pipe. Berenice sat and took out a case of what appeared to be a dozen small, scrived components, and many small plates covered with complicated sigils. She selected one component — a slim metal wand whose rounded, bulbous tip looked like molten glass — and looked it over.

“What’s that?” asked Sancia.

“I’d made it to be a small spotlight, but we obviously need something a bit more now. Hmm.” She reviewed her components, selected a rounded handle with a bronze knob on the side, and slid the small end of the wand inside until there was a click . Then she took a long, thin plate, and slotted it into the side of the handle. “There. A heating element. That should do.”

“Do what?”

“Help me down. I’m going to get the grate out of the way.”

Sancia lowered Berenice down until the girl delicately balanced on the lip of the pipe. Then she lifted the wand to one of the big rivets holding up the grate, adjusted the knob on the side, and…

> said Clef.

The tip of the wand flared bright hot, like a shooting star had plummeted down to land in the scummy pipe. Sancia cringed and looked away, eyes watering. There was a loud, furious hissing sound. She looked back when it stopped, and saw the rivet was now a glowing blob of smoking, molten metal.

Berenice coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. “I’ll do the sides and the tops, and leave one rivet on the bottom. Then you pull me back up and I’ll attach an anchor to the top — like the one the captain used to weigh you down. This should pry the grate open, and we can slip inside.”

“Shit,” said Sancia. “Why did you bring all this?”

Berenice touched the wand to another rivet. “I got shot at the other night. Rather a lot. I came prepared to prevent such a thing from happening again. A lot of components that can do a lot of different things — when combined the right way, that is.” The wand flared bright.

When Berenice was finished, Sancia hauled her back up. Berenice took out the anchor — a small bronze ball that was covered in shiny brass sigils, with a shiny latch on its side — and chained it to the top of the grate. She slid the latch aside, revealing a wooden button, and touched it. Suddenly the grate groaned and creaked, until it slowly fell open, like a drawbridge.

“Inside,” said Berenice. “Quick.”

They dropped down into the mouth of the pipe and ran into the darkness. Sancia was about to touch a hand to the wall to see, but there was a click , and Berenice’s wand glowed bright again — yet she’d apparently removed whatever component made it capable of burning through iron, and it now only gave out light. “Keep your eyes out for any stone,” she said. She adjusted the light, turning down the brightness.

“Where the hell are we, again?”

“We’re in the metallurgical outtake tunnel of the foundry. Processing so much metal — iron, brass, bronze, lead — it takes a lot of water, which gets tainted and rendered unusable after the forging’s done. So they dump it all out into the canals. It’s a big pipe that runs through a lot of the foundry — and if we see any brick, I should be able to get you in.”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you once we find it.”

They kept walking, and walking, until finally Sancia saw it. “There. On the side.” She pointed. The iron walls of the pipe stopped short about ten feet ahead, and from there on out the walls were stone and brick, like an old sewer.

Berenice reviewed the stone wall and glanced back at the mouth of the tunnel. “Hum. This could work. I think we’re next to the storage bays. But I’m not sure — and I would really prefer to be sure.”

“Why?”

“Well, we could be next to the water reservoirs — which means the tunnel would flood and we’d drown.”

“Crap. Hold on.” Sancia slid off a glove, placed her hand to the bricks, and shut her eyes.

The wall was thick, at least two to three feet. She kept letting it pour into her mind, telling her what it felt, or at least what was on the other side…

She opened her eyes. “It’s just wall,” she said. “Nothing on the other side.”

“Is it thick?”

“Yeah. At least two feet.”

Berenice grimaced. “Well. Maybe it will still work, then…”

“Maybe what will work?”

She didn’t answer. She reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like four small bronze spheres with sharp steel screws on their ends. She examined the wall, sucked her teeth, and started screwing the bronze spheres into the wall in the shape of a square, with one ball at each corner.

“Can you please just tell me what this is?” asked Sancia impatiently.

“You know about construction scrivings, right?” said Berenice, adjusting the bronze spheres.

“Yeah. They glue bricks together to make them think they’re all one thing instead of separate things.”

“Yes. But lots of foundries use the same kind of stone, or something close to it — which makes it a lot easier to twin.”

“Twin with…what?” asked Sancia.

“With a section of stone wall that’s back in my office,” said Berenice, standing up. “One that has a big hole in the middle.”

Sancia stared at the wall, then at Berenice. “What? Really?”

“Yes,” said Berenice. She scrunched her nose, reviewing her handiwork. “If it works, it should convince this section of wall that it’s the same as the one in my office. That’d then weaken all the Candiano construction scrivings in a circle, and basically carve a hole for you. But…I’ve really never tested this in the field before. Especially not on a wall this thick. ”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Frankly, I don’t have a damned clue what will happen if it goes wrong.” She glanced at Sancia. “Still feeling experimental?”

“I’ve done dumber shit in the past few days.”

Berenice took a breath, and twisted the tops of all four brass spheres, one after another. Then she stepped back and slowly moved away, like she was preparing to run.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the color of the brick changed, ever so slightly, growing just a tiny bit darker. Then came a creaking sound. The bricks shuddered and rippled — and then, suddenly, the wall fractured in the middle in a perfect circle, like someone had carved it with a saw.

“It works,” said Berenice. “It works!”

“Great,” said Sancia. “Now, how the hell do we get that big plug of stone out of the way?”

“Oh. Right.” Berenice pulled out yet another trinket from her pockets: this one appeared to be just a small iron handle with a button on the side. “Just a construction scriving. It’ll stick to the plug’s center.” She placed the handle in the center of the stone plug, confirmed it was stuck, and gave a mighty heave.