Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

And then the small, red ball that had once been Tomas Ziani simply…popped.

There was a loud, curious coughing sound, and the room instantly filled with a fine, swirling red mist. Sancia shut her eyes and turned her head away as she felt warm drops stippling her face and neck.

She heard Estelle sputtering and spitting somewhere in the room. “Ugh. Ugh! I suppose I hadn’t thought of that…But every design does have its limit.”

Sancia tried not to shake. She tried not to think of Clef in Estelle’s hands, of what she could have done to poor Gregor. Focus. What can I do now? How can I get out of this?

Estelle spat some more, coughed, and called out, “ It’s done! ”

The red mist continued to settle. There was the sound of footsteps in the hallway beyond. Two Candiano soldiers walked in. They did not seem surprised by the sight of all these corpses, or the whole room coated in a thin layer of blood.

“Shall we burn them as discussed, ma’am?” asked one.

“Yes, Captain,” said Estelle. She was now red from head to foot, and she cradled the imperiat and Clef in her hands like twin infants. “I am quite eager to finally play with these on my own, but…Have we seen any movements from the Dandolos?”

“Not yet, ma’am.”

“Good. Arrange for my escort to the Mountain, and mobilize our forces,” said Estelle. “The entire Candiano campo must be locked down and patrolled from now until midnight. Issue orders suggesting Tomas has gone missing — and we suspect foul play.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sancia listened closely. And that word—“orders”—suddenly gave her an idea.

She took a breath, focused on the shackles again — and realized she’d been thinking of them wrong.

She’d been focused purely on the shackles, on the bands of steel, and what they expected or wanted — but she hadn’t realized there might be more to the system.

What’s breath but not a breath?

There were the restraints for her ankles and wrists, yes. But now that she searched them, she realized the shackles were eagerly awaiting a signal from another part of the rig — one she’d totally missed, set on the end of the operating table.

She looked down, and saw this component was small, set on the edge of the stone surface. She reviewed its commands, and saw it was constructed similarly to how Orso had described the aural relay device: a thin, delicate needle, trapped in a cage, that moved with vibrations of sound…only, it needed to move in a specific fashion.

Of course , thought Sancia. Of course!

she asked the shackles quickly.

said the shackles simply.

She nearly sighed with triumph. It must be like a safe word — someone could say the right phrase aloud, and the needle would move in just the right way, and then the shackles would pop open…

asked Sancia.

said the shackles. They sounded amused.

she said.

This was frustrating. She wondered how Clef would have figured this out. He always phrased and rephrased questions or ideas until they didn’t break the rules, in essence — so how to do that here?

She got an idea. she said.

A long pause. Then the shackles said,

She swallowed, relieved. Of course , she thought. Because asking about phonetics, not words, doesn’t break the rules.

<���…Yes,> said the shackles.

She took a breath. So the password starts with an “m.” Now I just need to keep guessing — as fast as I can.

“And the girl?” said the guard.

“Dispose of her,” said Estelle. “However you like. She is of no consequence.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted as Estelle turned and left, leaving him alone in the room with Sancia.

Shit! thought Sancia. She started guessing, faster and faster — and she realized then that she could communicate faster with rigs than she could with people. Just like when there’d been a sudden, impenetrable burst of messages between Clef and a rig, she could focus her thoughts and ask dozens if not hundreds of questions at once.

Her mind became a chorus of noes with the occasional yes . And slowly, steadily, she assembled the password in her mind.

The guard walked over and looked down at her. His eyes were small and watery and deep set. He looked her over with the air of a man reviewing a meal and wrinkled his nose. “Hm. Not really my type…”

“Uh-huh,” said Sancia. She shut her eyes, ignored him, and focused on her restraints.

“You praying, girl?”

“No,” said Sancia. She opened her eyes.

“You going to make any noise?” he asked. He thoughtlessly pinched the fabric of his trousers, just next to his crotch, and started kneading it back and forth. “I don’t mind that, honestly. But it’d be a bit inconvenient, with the boys in the hall…”

“The only noise I’m going to make,” she said, “is mango .”

“Is wha—”

With a pop! all of Sancia’s shackles swung open.

The guard stared, and said, “What in the h—”

Sancia sat up, snatched his hand, stuffed his wrist into the shackles, and snapped them shut.

Stunned, the guard stared at his hand and heaved at it. It didn’t budge. “You…You…”

Sancia jumped off the table and smashed the listening needle in the cage. “There. Now you’ll stay put.”

“ Clemente! ” he bellowed. “ She’s loose, she’s loose! Send everyone, everyone! ”

Sancia punched the guard in the side of the head as hard as she could. He staggered and slipped, his hand still stuck in the shackles. Before he could react, she knelt and unsheathed his scrived rapier.

She looked at the blade, alight with commands. She could see it was made to amplify gravity, to believe it’d been hurled through the air with inhuman force.

Then there were footsteps in the hallway — lots of them. Sancia took stock of the situation. The hallway beyond was the only exit, and it was rapidly filling up with guards, from the sound of it. She had just the sword on her — and, given her new talents, that gave her a considerable advantage. But probably not enough to take on a dozen men with espringals and the like.

She looked around the room. The far wall was made of stone, and her talents allowed her to glimpse the commands on the other side. These were fainter and more difficult to read, probably due to the distance — but she could see that one rig was scrived to be unnaturally dense, almost unbreakable, a thin, rectangular plate seemingly set in the wall…

A foundry window , she thought. And she’d had recent experience with those.

She addressed the rapier:

the sword bellowed back promptly.

said the sword.

The guards were close now. Sancia put the sword on the ground and stood on it with both feet. Then she picked it back up, took a few steps away from the far wall, and lifted the blade.

She aimed carefully. Then she hurled the sword forward, dropped to the floor behind the table, and covered her head.

It had been a stupefyingly easy thing to do, really. The sword’s weight had been essentially undefined, so she’d just stood on the blade and told it that this new weight it was experiencing was the sword’s actual weight.