Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

A chill ran through Sancia’s body. I’ve got to get away from this sadistic little shit.

“So, she’s scrived,” said Tomas. “So what? How does that make her different? And how does that help us make imperiats, like you said?”

“Well, I don’t know if it will,” said Enrico. “But it’s an interesting acquisition.”

“Why?” demanded Tomas. “You said we needed Occidental items to complete the alphabet. That only then could we start making our own imperiats. What does this grubby slut have to do with it?”

“Yes, sir, yes. But…well. Here.” Enrico looked at her, his face slightly ashamed, like he’d caught her undressed. “Which…which plantation was the procedure done on?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She could tell she frightened him.

“Answer him,” said Tomas.

“Silicio,” she said reluctantly.

“I thought as much,” said Enrico. “I thought so! That was one of Tribuno’s personal plantations! He went there quite a lot himself, at the start of things. So the experiments being done out there were likely orchestrated by him.”

“So?” said Tomas, impatient.

“Well…we’ve theorized so far that the imperiat was a hierophantic weapon. A tool to use against other hierophants or other scrivers during some kind of Occidental civil war, to detect and control and suppress their rigs.”

“And?” said Tomas.

“My suspicion is that the imperiat doesn’t identify normal scrivings,” said Enrico. “Otherwise it would have been wailing the second we got close to Tevanne. It only identifies scrivings that it feels could be a threat — in other words…it only identifies Occidental scrivings. So…do you see?”

Tomas stared at him, then at Sancia. “Wait. So you’re saying…”

“Yes, sir.” Enrico wiped sweat from his brow. “I think she is an anomaly in two manners, and they must be interrelated. She is the only scrived human we have ever seen. And written inside her body…the very things that power her, that make her work, are Occidental sigils — the language of the hierophants.”

“What?” said Tomas.

“Huh?” said Sancia.

Enrico put back down the imperiat. “Well. That is my suspicion, I believe, from reading Tribuno’s notes.”

“That doesn’t make any damned sense!” said Tomas. “No one — and I note to my frustration that this also includes us —has ever been able to duplicate anything the hierophants have ever done! Why would it work here, in a damned human being? Why would not one, but two incredibly unlikely things be achieved at once?”

“Well,” said Enrico, “we know that the hierophants were able to produce devices using the, ah, spiritual transference.”

“Human sacrifice,” said Sancia.

“Shut up!” snapped Tomas. “Go on.”

“That method is a zero-sum exchange,” said Enrico. “The entirety of the spirit is transferred to the vessel. But within this, ah, person before us, the relationship is symbiotic. The scrivings do not sap their host entirely, but rather borrow from her spirit, altering it, becoming a part of it.”

“But I thought you said Occidental sigils could only be used by things that were deathless,” said Tomas. “By things that had never been born and never could die.”

“But also by that which takes and gives life ,” said Enrico. “The plate in her head is symbiotic, but still parasitic. It is siphoning her life from her, slowly, probably painfully. Perhaps it will one day consume her, much like the other Occidental shells. My theory is that the effect is far weaker than what the hierophants produced, but she is still…well. A functioning device.”

“You figured that out,” said Tomas, “just because the imperiat started ringing like a damned bell when we chased her into the Greens?”

Enrico pinkened again. “At that time, we only knew the imperiat was a weapon. We had not figured out the full capabilities of the device…”

“I’ll say,” said Sancia. “Since you dumb idiots knocked down half the houses in Foundryside, and killed God knows how many people.”

Tomas drove his fist into her stomach again. Again, she wrenched her body against the restraints as she gagged for air.

“And how the shit ,” said Tomas, “did a bunch of scrivers on the damned plantations figure that out?”

“I don’t think they did,” said Enrico. “I think they just did it by…well, by random luck. Tribuno was not in the best mind in his later years. He might have sent them the hierophantic alphabet he’d compiled thus far, and told them to try all the combinations, any of them, always at midnight. This likely resulted in…quite a lot of deaths.”

“Something we’re familiar with,” said Tomas. “Though they got one accidental miracle — this girl.”

“Yes. And I suspect she might have something to do with why that plantation burned.”

Tomas sighed and shut his eyes. “So right when we’re trying to steal hierophantic devices…is when we just have to go and hire some thief with a head full of Occidental sigils.”

Enrico coughed. “We did hire her because they said she was the best. I suspect her successful career has something to do with her alterations.”

“No shit,” said Tomas. His eyes traced over her body. “But the problem is — if the plantation scrivers were using Tribuno’s instructions…then they were using sigils we already have, since we have Tribuno’s notes.”

“Possibly,” said Enrico. “But — like I said, Tribuno was not in his best mind. He grew secretive. He might not have included all his discoveries in one place.”

“So you’re saying it’s just worth checking?” said Tomas flatly. “Is that it?”

“Ah — yes? I suppose so?”

Tomas pulled out a stiletto. “Then why didn’t you just scrumming say so?”

“Sir? Sir, wh-what are you doing?” said Enrico, alarmed. “We’d need a physiquere, and someone with more knowledge about this art…”

“Oh, shut up, Enrico!” Tomas grabbed a fistful of Sancia’s hair. She screamed and struggled against him, but he slammed her head against the back of the table, then ripped it to the side, exposing her scar to the ceiling.

“I’m no physiquere,” rasped Tomas, straddling her to keep her from struggling. “But one doesn’t need to know the details of anatomy.” He lowered the stiletto to press its edge against her scar. “Not for things like this…”

She felt the stiletto bite into her scalp. She shrieked.

And as she shrieked, the sound seemed to…grow.

A deafening, ear-splitting screech filled the room. Yet it did not come from Sancia — even with Tomas’s dagger pressed against her head, she knew that. Rather, it came from the imperiat.

Tomas dropped his stiletto, pressed his hands to his ears, and fell sideways off of Sancia. Enrico crumpled to the floor, as did the guards.

A voice filled her mind, huge and deafening:

Sancia shuddered and choked as the words coursed through her — yet though it was impossibly loud, she realized she knew that voice.

The golden woman in the cell.