Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

“You what ?” sputtered Tomas. “Your maid knows about this place? Who else knows?”

“What?” she said, surprised. “No one.”

“ No one?” he demanded. “You’re sure?”

“I…I just wanted to assist you, my love,” she said. “I wanted to be the dutiful wife you’ve always expected me to b—”

“Oh God.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You wanted to help, didn’t you? Again . You wanted to be a scriver. Again . I told you the last time, Estelle, I would not tolerate another intrusion…”

She looked crushed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re sorry,” said Tomas. “That’ll help! I can’t believe you’ve somehow found a way to make this situation worse !”

“I promise, it will go no further!” she said. “It will be just you, me, Enrico, and…and these two faithful servants.” She touched the Candiano guards on the shoulder — the two men exchanged a look — but Sancia saw she left two tiny scrived pieces on them as well.

Tomas was shivering with rage. “I told you,” he hissed, “I’d had enough of these silly fancies of yours. Enough silly games about scriving, and finances. You people…You’re all so quibbling and weak and…and academic !” He said this last word like it was the worst slur he could imagine. “I’ve spent a decade of my life trying to modernize this damned place! And right when I might actually get things turned around, you and your maid come stumbling through the door, leading God knows who else to my last remaining advantage!”

She looked down. “I just wanted to be your obedient spouse…”

“I don’t want a spouse!” shouted Tomas. “I want a company !”

She paused, her head at an angle. Sancia could not see Estelle’s expression — her face was shadowed now, lost in darkness — but when she spoke, her voice was not the high, breathy, drunken ramble she’d been using so far. Now she spoke in the dry, firm, cold tones of an assertive woman.

“So if you could end our arrangement,” she said, “would you?”

“Absolutely!” screamed Tomas.

Estelle nodded slowly. “Well, then. Why didn’t you say so?” She pulled out a small stick of some kind — its edges were alight with bindings, Sancia saw — and snapped it like it was a toothpick.

The instant she did, the room lit up with screams.

The screams started in perfect unison, so it was difficult to understand exactly what was happening, or who was screaming.

Enrico and the Candiano guards all shrieked in agony, shuddering and writhing as if in the grips of a horrible fever. They clawed at their bodies — at their arms, their chests, their necks and sides — much like a bug had suddenly hopped into their clothes.

And Sancia saw that something was indeed crawling on them: the tiny, shiny scrived pieces Estelle had placed on their persons had somehow slipped into them, below their skin and into their bodies, and were slowly making their way into their torsos. She saw that all the bugs — she couldn’t help but think of them as such now — had apparently burned their way into the men: tiny strings of smoke emerged from their shoulders, their arms, their backs. All from exactly where Estelle had placed the tiny scrived dots.

Tomas stared around in alarm. “What…what is this?” he cried. “What’s happening?”

“This, Tomas,” said Estelle quietly, “is the beginning of our separation.”

Tomas ran to kneel beside Enrico, who lay on the floor, wracked with horrible tremors, his eyes wide and pained. Enrico opened his mouth to scream…and a tiny wisp of smoke unscrolled from his lips.

“What’s happening to them?” said Tomas, panicked. “What did you do ?”

“It’s a device I made,” Estelle said calmly, looking down on the dying Candiano guards. “It’s like an eraser. Only I designed it to be attracted to erase one specific thing — the tissue lining the human heart.”

The screams around the room tapered off into whimpers, then a hideous, soft gurgling. Enrico choked and gasped. More smoke billowed up from his throat.

Tomas looked at Estelle, stunned and horrified. “You…you what? You made a device ? A scrived device?”

“It was tricky,” admitted Estelle. “I had to tune the scrivings just right to seek out the proper biologies. Went through a lot of pig hearts. Did you know, Tomas, that the lining of a pig heart is quite similar to a human’s?”

“You…You’re lying.” He looked back at Enrico. “You didn’t do this! You didn’t make some blasted rig! You…You’re just a foolish little wo—”

He turned around just in time to see Estelle’s foot flying toward his face.

Her kick caught him perfectly on the chin, and sent him sprawling. As he groaned and tried to sit up, Estelle knelt, reached into his robes, and pulled out the imperiat.

“You…you hit me!” said Tomas.

“I did,” said Estelle calmly, standing back up.

Tomas touched his chin, as if unable to believe it. Then saw the imperiat in Estelle’s hands. “You…Give me that back!”

“No,” said Estelle.

“I…I am ordering you!” spat Tomas. “Estelle, you give me that back, or this time I’ll really break your arm! I’ll break your arms and a whole lot more besides!”

Estelle just watched him, her face serene and untroubled.

“You…” Tomas stood and charged forward. “How dare you! How dare you defy m—”

He never finished the word. As he neared Estelle, she reached out and placed a small plate on Tomas’s chest — and the second it touched him, he froze and hung in the air, completely still, like a statue suspended by strings from the ceiling.

“There,” said Estelle softly. “That’s better.”

Sancia surreptitiously studied the scrived plate stuck to Tomas’s chest. She saw right away that it was a gravity plate, much like the ones that the assassins had used when attacking her and Gregor.

But this one was smaller. Better. Much sleeker and more elegant.

She watched it for a second, and realized that although the plate had frozen Tomas in place, it wasn’t finished yet. It was still doing something to him…

Estelle paced around the frozen Tomas, head cocked in delight and fascination. “Is this what it’s like?” she asked quietly. “Is this what it’s like to be you, my husband? To be a man of power? To stop a life at a whim, and silence those you disdain as you please?”

Tomas did not respond, but Sancia thought his eyes wriggled.

“You’re sweating,” said Estelle.

Sancia lay still, unsure what she meant. Tomas did not seem to be sweating.

“You, on the table,” said Estelle, louder. “You’re sweating.”

Shit . Sancia still did not move.

Estelle sighed. “Give it up. I know you’re awake.”

Sancia took a breath and opened her eyes all the way. Estelle turned and studied her, her face fixed in an expression of icy, regal dignity.