Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

She slipped off the desk and got her bearings. This seemed to be a large, empty meeting room, one that hadn’t been used in some time. She walked over to the door opposite the window and squinted through the keyhole. There was some kind of a wide, open area beyond, with four armored Candiano guards standing around, looking bored and tired.

“Whoof,” she said quietly. She stepped back and looked around. There were two other doors on the left and right, presumably leading to adjoining offices.

She walked over to the door on the right and tried the handle. It was unlocked. She silently opened it and looked in. Another office, empty and dark.

She closed it and went to the final door. Yet as she approached…

She stopped. she said.

said Clef.

Sancia got close to the door, knelt, and pressed a hand to the floor. She let the floor pour into her mind — a difficult thing, since there were so many scrivings wearing her stamina thin. Yet soon she felt it…

A bare foot. Just one, the ball of the foot pressed into the floor. And it was pumping, up and down.

said Clef.

Sancia peered through the keyhole. This office was somewhat grand. There were scrived lanterns inside, a long desk covered with old, wrinkled papers, and a set of wooden boxes. There was also a bed in the far corner, and there were two people on the bed, a man and a woman — and they were quite naked and obviously coupling, the man keeping one foot on the floor and his other knee on the bed.

Due to her condition, Sancia did not know a great deal about sex, but she got the impression that this was not particularly good sex. The woman was quite young, about her own age, and terribly pretty, and though her face was fixed in an expression of pleasure there was something anxious and artificial about it, like she was dreading the displeasure of the man more than she was enjoying the experience. And though the man had his back turned to her — his skinny, pale back — there was a mechanical and determined quality to his thrusting, like he’d set his mind to do a job and was hell-bent on doing it.

Sancia watched them, wondering what to do now. She didn’t think she could sneak out and snatch the papers off the desk. The girl kept looking around, anxious and yet bored, like she’d prefer to look at anything else than what was being done to her.

Then there was a knock from somewhere within the office — there must be another door there, she guessed, also leading to the open area beyond.

“Just a minute!” shouted the man, somewhat angrily. He doubled the pace of his thrusting. The girl cringed.

Another knock. “Sir?” said a muffled voice. “Mr. Ziani? It’s done.”

The man continued his endeavors.

“You said to notify you immediately,” said the voice.

The man stopped and bowed his head in frustration. The girl watched him warily.

said Sancia.

said Clef.

“Just a second!” shouted the man, louder. Then he turned and dug around on the floor for his clothes.

Sancia’s eyes shot wide. Though it wasn’t particularly bright in the room, she knew that face — the curls, the scraggly beard, the narrow cheeks.

It was her client. The man who’d turned on the imperiat that night in the Greens, and caused the blackouts — and the man who’d almost certainly had Sark killed.

She stared at him, trying not to move.

said Clef.

she thought. The sight of him filled her with a raging mix of terror, fury, and confusion. She briefly considered leaping in and planting her stiletto in his gut. That seemed an appropriate way for him to die, naked and confused and sexually frustrated. But then she remembered the guards mere feet away from them, and thought better of it.

asked Clef.

Ziani pulled on a pair of hose. Then he sighed and barked, “Come in!”

A door opened somewhere in the office, and bright light spilled in. The nude girl in the bed pulled the sheets up to cover herself, glaring at them sullenly.

“Ignore her,” snapped Ziani. “And come in .”

A man entered the room and shut the door behind him. He appeared to be a clerk of some sorts, dressed in Candiano colors, and he carried a small wooden box with him.

“I assume if it was a success,” said Ziani, sitting at the desk, “you’d be looking much happier.”

“Did you expect a success, sir?” said the clerk, surprised.

Ziani impatiently waved a hand. “Just bring it over.”

The clerk approached and held out the box. Ziani took it, glaring at him, and opened it.

Sancia almost gasped. Inside the box was another imperiat — but this one appeared to be made of bronze, not the gleaming gold she’d seen before.

said Clef.

Ziani examined it. “It’s shit,” he said. “It’s shit , is what it is. What happened?”

“The…the same thing that’s always happened, sir,” said the clerk. He was obviously uncomfortable having this conversation with a nude girl in the room. “We forged the device to your specifications. Then we attempted the exchange…and, ah, well. Nothing happened. The device remained as you see it now.”

Ziani sighed and pawed through the notes on the desk. He pulled out one browned, wrinkled sheet of parchment and examined it.

“Perhaps…” said the clerk. Then he stopped.

“Perhaps?” said Ziani.

“Perhaps, sir, since Tribuno has been of such great help on the other devices…Perhaps you could also discuss his notes with him, regarding this subject?”

Ziani tossed the papers back onto the desk. Sancia watched the page fall. Tribuno Candiano’s notes? On what?

“Tribuno is still mad as a tick on a burning hare’s ass,” Ziani said. “And he’s only been somewhat useful. About once a month, we find something scrawled in his cell that, yes, is useful — like the strings for the gravity plates — but it’s not like we can control that. And he’s written shit-all about the hierophants.”

There was a silence. Both the girl and the clerk watched Ziani anxiously, wondering what he’d make them do next.

“The problem is with the shell itself,” said Ziani, looking at the bronze imperiat. “Not the ritual. We’re following the ritual’s instructions exactly . So there must be some sigil we’re missing…Some component of the original we either don’t have or aren’t using right.”

“Do you think we need to reexamine the other artifacts, sir?”

“Absolutely not. It took a lot of work to move the trove out of the Mountain. I wouldn’t want to lead Ignacio or any other of these slippery bastards to it just because I wanted to check notes.” He tapped the bronze imperiat before him. “We’re doing something wrong. Something on these is being made improperly…”

“So…what would you suggest we do, sir?”

“Experiment.” Ziani stood and started getting dressed. “I want a hundred of the shells made before morning and sent to the Mountain,” he said. “Enough for us to experiment on and adjust, comparing it with the original.”

The clerk stared at him. “A hundred? Before morning ? But…sir, the Cattaneo’s lexicon is at a reduced state right now. To produce that many, we’d have to spin it up quickly.”