Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

boomed the old man’s voice.

said Clef.

The doors of the lift opened. Sancia walked out onto the fifteenth floor, which appeared to be more industrial than residential. Everything here was blank gray stone and iron doors and pipes. A sign above read SCRIVING BAY 13.

Sancia barely had any mind for this, though. Someone was talking, to her and to Clef. Someone could apparently overhear them, like two people gossiping at a taverna. The idea was simply mad .

asked the old man’s voice. He spoke in clipped, harsh tones, like a parrot that had learned to imitate speech.

she asked.

said Clef.

said the old man’s voice.

she said. She turned a corner and followed a group of scrivers toward yet another lift. She glanced inside and saw this one only went down. She kept walking.

said the old man’s voice.

She walked down a long hallway, opened a door — it unlocked instantly for her — and found herself moving through what seemed to be some kind of party, with scrivers quaffing bubble rum out of glass tankards while a band of women — most scantily dressed — played flutes and brass instruments.

said the old man’s voice.

The scrivers ignored Sancia, who was dressed as a functionary. She passed through and walked out the door on the other side, desperately searching for another lift.

She was in a short hallway, with an open door at the end.

boomed the old man’s voice. The door at the end slammed shut. She stared at it, then turned and tried the one she’d just walked through, only to find it was locked.

demanded the old man’s voice. And then, though the voice’s previous statements had a queer, crude syntax to them, his next question sounded strangely genuine. Even passionate. He whispered, them ?>

said Clef.

She ran to the closed door and touched Clef to the knob — since the door, like so many in the Mountain, had no need of the lock.

said Clef.

She did so. The door opened for her, and beyond was a set of stairs up. She sprinted up them, taking three steps at a time.

said the old man’s voice.

She kept running up the stairs.

said the voice.

said Sancia.

Clef sighed as she came to the top of the stairs.

Sancia looked around for her next move.

said Clef.

asked the voice — the Mountain, she supposed.

thought Sancia. hell is going on?>

Sancia picked a corridor at random and started walking. Berenice and Orso had said that the Mountain might sniff her out before long, but she didn’t think it would be this fast.

said the Mountain, somewhat resigned.

said Clef.

she said, shocked.

said the Mountain,

Sancia walked to the third right, then looked down its long hallway and saw it ended in a lift.

said the Mountain.

asked Sancia.

said the Mountain.

Sancia started walking toward the lift.

The lift opened for her. She didn’t even get the chance to tell it which floor she wanted before it started up.

whispered the Mountain.

They ignored him as they continued up.

said the Mountain softly.

The doors of the lift opened — but not on a hallway or a room or a balcony. Before Sancia was a wide, sandy plain, with a black sky above dotted with tiny white stars. Standing in the center of this plain was a tall black stone obelisk, covered with strange engravings.

“What the hell ?” whispered Sancia.

said Clef.

said the Mountain.

Sancia anxiously looked around the sandy plain, then started off, the sigh of her footprints intensely loud in the empty room.

whispered Clef.

said the Mountain.

She shook her head, bewildered, as they crossed the weird sandy plain. She was getting the impression that the Mountain was not really hostile to them at all. Rather, it was like the thing was lonely, hungry for someone to talk to, and she suspected it’d brought her to this strange, fake place for a reason. Much like a party host might show a guest a painting, the Mountain had wanted to discuss this.

she asked.

said the Mountain.

asked Sancia.

said the Mountain.

said Clef.

said the Mountain.

She did as the Mountain asked. Nothing about the obelisk looked familiar at first, but…

On one side was a carven visage. An old man’s face, stern and high-cheekboned, and below it, a single hand, grasping a short shaft — a wand, perhaps. Below that was a familiar symbol to Sancia — the butterfly, or the moth. She’d seen it on Clef’s head, and in the engraving of the hierophants in Orso’s workshop.

“Crasedes the Great,” said Sancia.

said the Mountain.

She found the door and opened it. She started to walk out — but then screamed and fell back.

The door opened on a short, railed balcony, almost at the top of the huge hollow space she’d originally seen — she was hundreds of feet above the ground. If she’d run forward, she could have stumbled over the railing and fallen to her death.

“You could have told me that was there!” she said aloud.

said the Mountain, somewhat apologetically.

She returned to the balcony, and saw there was a short walkway that clung to the curving wall around the top of the giant hollow hall. A door was at the far end, and she started to walk to it.

she said. huge .>

said the Mountain.

asked Sancia.

It sounded amused.

said Sancia.

said the Mountain.

cried Clef, suddenly.

asked Sancia.

said Clef. are touching it?>

said Sancia.

said Clef.

said Sancia. mind .>

said Clef.

said the Mountain.

Sancia looked out on the rings and rings of floors below her. she asked.

said Clef.

Sancia continued across the walkway to the door. She slipped through it and found herself in some kind of maintenance shaft. said Sancia.

said the Mountain.

She walked down the shaft, found yet another door, and opened it onto another marble hallway.

the Mountain whispered.

She stopped. she asked.

asked Clef.

said the Mountain.

Sancia continued on until she found a lift that went all the way up, to the fortieth floor. She took a breath, relieved, and set the dial to the thirty-fifth floor.

asked Clef.

said the Mountain.

From the sound of its words, it seemed like the Mountain did not like him much.

The lift opened. Sancia stepped out onto the thirty-fifth floor. This was a floor of offices, and they were different from what she’d seen so far. For one, they were huge, nearly two stories in height. They also featured lots of sumptuous, complicated wallpapers, huge stone and metal doors, and lavish waiting areas.

asked Clef.

said the Mountain.

thought Clef.

said the Mountain.

said Clef.