Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

said Sancia.

said the Mountain, though it now sounded distracted and impatient.

said Clef.

<���…Yes.>

Sancia walked ahead until she found it — a large, black door with a stone frame. And beside the frame was a nameplate reading:

TOMAS ZIANI

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OFFICER

She tried the door. It gave way easily — presumably because of the blood she carried. She slipped inside.

She stopped and stared. Ziani’s office was…unusual. Everything was built of huge dark, heavy stone, towering and forbidding and looming, even the desk. She saw none of the artful designs or colorful materials from the other rooms. Besides the side door leading to the balcony, there was nothing conventional about this place.

Yet it also looked familiar, she realized. Hadn’t she seen a place just like this before?

Yes, she had — the room beyond looked almost exactly like that chamber depicted in the engraving with Crasedes the Great, the one she’d glimpsed in Orso’s workshops, where the hierophants stood before the casket, and from it emerged the form of…something.

“The chamber at the center of the world,” she whispered. That could be the only explanation for the huge, strange stone plinths, and giant, arched windows…

Then she remembered. Because this used to be Tribuno’s office.

whispered the Mountain.

said Clef.

Sancia looked around, wondering where in the hell Ziani could have hidden the imperiat. There weren’t many shelves here — only the big stone desk in the middle. She walked over to it and started ripping through the drawers. All of them were full of conventional things, like papers and pens and inkwells. “Come on, come on,” she whispered.

whispered the Mountain.

asked Clef.

said Clef.

said the Mountain.

asked Clef.

said the Mountain.

Sancia stopped.

“ What? ” she shouted out loud.

said Clef faintly.

said the Mountain.

Sancia stood in the office, dumbstruck. “Clef…” she whispered. “What’s he talking about?”

Clef was silent for a long, long time. he said quietly.

said the Mountain,

Sancia felt dizzy. She slowly sat down on the ground. “Clef…are you…”

he said, frustrated.

“But you…You could be…”

She sat there, unnerved. She’d heard so many tales of how Crasedes the Great had tapped a stone with his wand, and made it dance, or tapped the seas with its tip, and parted the waters…to imagine this had not been some silly magic stick, but her friend, the person who’d saved her time and time again…

said Clef. He sounded upset.

said the Mountain, sounding surprised.

“Yes!” said Sancia.

said the Mountain.

“A trapdoor!” said Sancia. “Brilliant!” She sprang and ran over to the desk.

said the Mountain.

She stopped. “What? Where is it?>

said the Mountain.

Her heart plummeted. “He…he took it out into the campo? It’s gone? We did all this for nothing ?”

said the Mountain.

demanded Clef.

said the Mountain,

Sancia stood completely still as she listened to this.

“He what?” she whispered.

said the Mountain.

asked Clef.

said the Mountain.

Sancia swallowed. “How many?” she croaked. “And are they armed?”

Everything felt distant and faint. “Oh God,” she whispered. “My God, my God…It…It’s a trap. It was a trap, a trap all along!”

demanded Clef quickly.

said the Mountain.

said Clef.

She ran to the balcony door and heaved at the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked!” she cried. “Why won’t it open?”

said the Mountain.

“Open it!” she screamed. “Open it now, now!”

said the Mountain.

said Clef.

She grabbed him and did so. But the door did not spring open as she’d expected. It moved — but only barely.

said the Mountain.

said Clef, groaning like he was trying to pull a cart up a hill. It seemed like the Mountain was a formidable opponent.

said the Mountain. She imagined the whole of the building leaning against the door, every brick and every column.

said Clef.

The door inched open just a little more, and a little more…

cried Clef. The door was now cracked open about four inches.

Sancia tried to think of something to do, anything. She couldn’t be caught in here, especially not with Clef, not with the thing Tomas Ziani needed to complete his imperiat — and especially now that she knew he might be the one and only wand of Crasedes.

She looked at the door, and thought.

It was barely open more than a crack. But it might be enough.

She grabbed the flask of Tribuno Candiano’s blood and wedged it in the door, keeping it open. Then she took Clef away, grabbed the hardened cask attached to the air-sailing rig, and popped it open.

screamed Clef.

she said.

She stuffed him in the hardened cask, crammed it and the air-sailing rig out onto the balcony, and tore off the bronze tab.

With a snap , the air-sailing rig deployed. The thing hurtled out of her hands. She watched as the black parachute drifted out over the Candiano campo, rocketing off to what she hoped was safety.

Then the side of her head lit up with pain.

She wanted to scream. She had to scream, the agony was so fierce, so terrible. Yet she couldn’t — not because the pain was overwhelming, but because suddenly she couldn’t move at all. She couldn’t even blink, or breathe — she felt her body rapidly running out of oxygen.

Something was changing in her mind. The plate in her skull was like hissing acid in her bones — but she felt something invading her thoughts, taking them over. It was like when Clef had used her body to speak to Orso, but…so much worse .

She took a breath — yet it was not a voluntary gesture. It was as if her body had become a puppet, and her controller had realized her needs and forced as much oxygen into her lungs as possible. She could no longer control her own organs.

She watched, helpless, as her body was forced to turn around. Then she walked, stiffly and strangely, over to the door out to the hallway. She lifted a hand, slapped at the knob, opened the door, and awkwardly staggered out.

A dozen Candiano guards stood around her in the hallway, all armed, all armored, all ready to attack her if need be. Standing behind them was a young man, tall and stoop-shouldered, with curly hair and a scraggly beard — Tomas Ziani. He held a strange device in his hands — it looked like an oversized pocket watch, yet it was made of gold, and it was whining slightly as he manipulated it…

“It works!” he said, delighted. “I wasn’t sure it would. It started whining in my pocket the instant you walked into the office, just as it had in the Greens.”

Sancia, of course, said nothing — she was as still as a statue. Yet inside, in her mind, she was screaming and spitting and ranting in rage. She wanted nothing more than to fall on this young man and tear him to pieces, clawing and biting at him — but she was forced to be still.