Foundryside: A Novel (The Founders Trilogy)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Gregor frowned at her, surprised. He’d never met this girl in his life. The girl calmly resumed slotting the blocks in and out of the tray.

  “Oh,” said Orso. “Ofelia’s boy?” He peered at Gregor. “My God, you’ve gained weight.”

  The girl—Gregor suspected she was Orso’s assistant of some kind—cringed ever so slightly.

  But Gregor was not insulted. The last time Orso had glimpsed him he’d probably just returned from the wars. “Yes,” said Gregor. “That tends to happen when a person goes from a place that has no food at all to a place that has some.”

  “Fascinating,” said Orso. “So. What the hell are you doing down here, Captain?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “You’re still slumming it down at the waterfront, right?” His eyes suddenly burned with a strange fury. “If there is still a waterfront to slum in, that is.”

  “Yes, and in fact I—”

  “Well, as you may notice, Captain…” He held his hands out and gestured to the large, dark, empty room. “Our current environs are bereft of waters, as well as fronts of all kinds. Not much for you to do here, it seems. Got plenty of doors, though. Loads of ’em.” Orso turned to examine something behind him. “I advise you scrumming make use of one. Any one, I frankly don’t care.”

  Gregor strode forward into the chamber, and said in a slightly louder voice, “I am here to ask you, Hypatus…” Then he stopped, wincing as a headache pulsed through his skull, and rubbed his forehead.

  Orso looked at him. “Yes?” he said.

  Gregor took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “Take your time.”

  He swallowed and tried to collect himself—but the headache persisted. “Does that…does that go away?”

  “No.” Orso was smiling unpleasantly. “Never been near a lexicon before?”

  “I have, but this one seems very…”

  “Big?”

  “Yes. Big. The machine is off, isn’t it? I mean—that’s the problem, correct?”

  Orso scoffed and turned to stare at the device behind him. “Right now, it is not ‘off,’ as you put it—the more accurate term is reduced. It’s difficult to turn a lexicon just off—it’s not a damned windmill, it’s a collection of assertions about physics and reality. Turning it off would be like, oh, converting a striper into all the carbon and calcium and nitrogen and whatever else makes it up—conceptually feasible? Sure, why not. Practically possible? Not scrumming likely.”

  “I…see,” said Gregor. Though in truth he was nowhere close to seeing.

  Orso’s assistant exhaled softly, as if to say—Here he goes again.

  Orso grinned at Gregor over his shoulder. “Want to come closer? Take a look?”

  Gregor knew Orso was goading him—the closer you got to a lexicon, the more uncomfortable it felt. But Gregor wanted to put Orso’s guard down, however he could—and allowing himself to be toyed with was one option.

  Squinting in pain, he walked over to the glass wall and looked in at the lexicon. It resembled a huge metal can lying on its side, only the can had been cut into tiny slivers or discs—thousands of them, or maybe even millions. He knew in vague terms that each disc was full of scriving definitions—the instructions or arguments that convinced scrived devices to work the way they ought to—though he was aware that he understood this to about the same degree that he understood that his brain was what did all his thinking for him.

  “I’ve never seen one this close before,” said Gregor.

  “Almost no one has,” said Orso. “The stress of all that meaning, forcing reality to comply with so many arguments—it makes the thing hot as hell, and damned difficult to be around. And yet, last night this device—all its assertions about reality—went poof, and turned off. Like blowing out a damned candle. Which, as I have just generously described to you, ought to be impossible.”

  “How?” asked Gregor.

  “Beats the ever-living shit out of me!” said Orso with savage cheer. He joined the girl at the scriving blocks and watched as she plugged in strings one after the other, the tiny metal cubes flying in and out as her fingers danced over the tray with blinding speed. Each time, a tiny glass at the top of the tiles would glow softly. “Now all kinds of goddamn strings work!” he said. “They work perfectly, implacably, and inarguably! How comforting. It’s like the whole thing never happened.”

  “I see,” said Gregor. “And, may I ask—who is this, exactly?” He nodded at the girl.

  “Her?” Orso seemed surprised by the question. “She’s my fab.”

  Gregor did not know what a “fab” was, and the girl seemed uninterested in answering, ignoring them as she tested string after string of sigils. He decided to move on.

  “Was it sabotage?” he asked. “Another merchant house?”

  “Again—beats the ever-living shit out of me,” said Orso. “I’ve checked all the infrastructural scrivings that keep the thing afloat, and those strings are all working away, cheery as can be. The lexicon itself doesn’t show any damage. It shows no sign of having been properly or improperly reduced. If the dumb piece of shit who’s in charge of maintenance could confirm the thing’s regularly scheduled checkups, I could rule that out. And the tiles are all arranged in some pretty basic, boring, conventional configurations. Right?”

  His assistant nodded. “Correct, sir.” She gestured to the walls behind her. “Manufacturing, security, lighting, and transport. That’s the extent of the wall’s load.”

  Gregor looked at the walls and slowly realized what she meant. “The wall” was the industry term for a tremendous wall of thousands of white tiles, covered in sigils, which slid up or down on a short track. Each tile represented a scriving definition: if the tile was in the up position, the definition was inactive, and thus did not work; if it was in the down position, then it did.

  This sounded simple, but only a scriver with decades of high-level training could look at a wall and tell exactly what was going on. A lexicon’s wall, of course, was carefully watched and maintained: if someone slid the wrong tile up, and deactivated a crucial definition, it could, say, render all the scrived carriages in the Dandolo campo suddenly unable to stop. Which would be bad.

  Or, if someone slid several critical tiles down, and activated some extremely complicated definitions, then it could overload the lexicon, and then…

  Well. That would be much, much worse.

  Because a lexicon was essentially a giant violation of reality—that was why it was so unpleasant to be close to one. The consequences of a lexicon going haywire were too horrific to contemplate. And this was the chief reason that the city of Tevanne, with all of its power, corruption, and fractious merchant houses, had yet to experience much deliberate turmoil: as the entire city was essentially maintained by a system of huge bombs, that tended to make people cautious.

  “How troublesome,” said Gregor.

  “Yes. Isn’t it?” Orso peered at him suspiciously. “Doesn’t your mother know all this? I thought I’d been a good boy and properly kept her up to date.”

  “I cannot speak to my mother’s knowledge regarding your situation here, Hypatus,” said Gregor. “I’m not here about the blackouts. Rather, I had a question for you regarding the waterfront.”

  “The waterfront?” said Orso, irritated. “Why the hell would you bother me about that?”

  “I wanted to ask you about the theft that took place.”

  “What a waste of time! You can’t expect me to…” He paused. “Wait. Theft? You mean the fire.”

  “No, no,” said Gregor politely. “I mean the theft. Our investigations suggest that the fire was set as a distraction to allow a thief to get at our safes.”

  “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  “Because we have looked in our safes,” said Gregor. “And found something missing.” />
  Orso blinked, very slowly. “Ah,” he said. He was quiet for a moment. “I…had thought the safes burned down along with the Waterwatch headquarters. I thought they were destroyed.”

  “That was nearly the case,” said Gregor. “But when it became clear that the fire would spread, I had all of our safes loaded on carts and removed to safety.”

  Again, Orso blinked. “Really.”

  “Yes,” said Gregor. “And we found something was stolen. A small, plain, wooden box, from safe 23D.”

  Orso and his assistant had gone very, very still. Gregor could not help but feel pleased.

  It’s nice to be right, sometimes.

  “Odd…” said Orso carefully. “But you said you had a question for me—and I’ve yet to hear a question, Captain.”

  “Well, I did some follow-ups in the Commons last night, trying to track down the thief. I located their fence—the person who sells the things a thief steals—and found a note in their belongings referencing the Dandolo hypatus, in relation to this theft, and fire. My question, Hypatus, would be—why do you think that is?”

  “I’ve no idea.” The man’s face—which had previously been riddled with contempt, impatience, and suspicion—was now perfectly bereft of almost all emotion. “You think I commissioned the theft, Captain?”

  “I think little so far, because I know little so far, sir. You could have been the person who was robbed.”

  Orso smirked. “You think someone stole scriving definitions from me?”

  A diversion. But Gregor was willing to be diverted for a bit. “Well…they are the most valuable thing in Tevanne, usually. And they can be quite small, sir.”

  “They can be. That’s true.” Orso stood, walked over to a shelf, pulled out three huge tomes, each about seven inches thick, and walked back over to Gregor. “Do you see these, Captain?”

  “I do.”

  Orso dropped one on the ground, and it made a large thud. “That is the opening definition for reducing a lexicon.” Then the second—which also made a huge thud. “This is a continuation of that definition.” He dropped the third. “And that is the closing definition for reducing a lexicon. Do you know how I know that?”

  “I…”

  “Because I wrote them, Captain. I wrote every sigil and every string in those big goddamn books.” He stepped closer. “A scriving definition might have fit in a small box. But not one of mine.”

  It was a good performance. Gregor was almost impressed. “I see, sir. And nothing else was stolen from you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Well, then. I suppose the fence made the note concerning you by accident, perhaps.”

  “Or you misread it,” said Orso.

  Gregor nodded. “Or that. We shall find out soon, I believe.”

  “Soon? Why?”

  “Well…I think I am close to catching the thief. And unless my instincts are incorrect, I think that their arrangements to sell what was stolen have gone quite wrong. Which means they might still have what was stolen. So we might soon find it, and get to the bottom of all this.” He smiled broadly at Orso. “Which I’m sure we all find reassuring.”

  Orso was perfectly frozen now—the man was barely breathing. Then he said, “Yes. We certainly do, I’m sure.”

  “Yes.” Gregor looked at the grand machine behind him. “Is it true what they say about lexicons, and the hierophants, sir?”

  “What?” said Orso, startled.

  “About the hierophants. I’ve heard old stories about how when people were close to a true hierophant—like Crasedes the Great himself—they suffered from powerful migraines. Much like how one feels these days, when close to a lexicon. Is that true, sir?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I understand that you’re interested in the Occidentals yourself, yes?” asked Gregor. “Or you were, once.”

  Orso glared at him, and the severity of his harsh, pale eyes rivaled Ofelia Dandolo’s stare. “Once. Yes. But no longer.”

  For a moment the two men just stared at each other, Gregor smiling placidly, Orso’s face fixed in a furious glare.

  “Now,” said Orso. “If you will excuse us, Captain.”

  “Of course. I will let you get back to your business, sir,” said Gregor. “Sorry to trouble you.” He started toward the steps, but paused. “Oh, I’m sorry, but—young lady?”

  The girl looked up. “Yes?”

  “I apologize, but I believe I have been quite rude. I don’t think I ever learned your name.”

  “Oh. It’s Grimaldi.”

  “Thank you—but I meant your first name?”

  She glanced at Orso, but he still had his back to her. “Berenice,” she said.

  Gregor smiled. “Thank you. It was nice meeting you both.” Then he turned and trotted up the stairs.

  * * *

  Orso Ignacio listened as the captain’s footfalls faded. Then he and Berenice turned to look at each other.

  “Sir…” said Berenice.

  Orso shook his head and lifted a finger to his lips. He pointed at the various hallways and doors leading out of the lexicon chamber, then pointed to his ears: Could be people listening.

  She nodded. “Workshop?” she asked.

  “Workshop,” he said.

  They exited the lexicon chamber, called a carriage, and rode back to the Hypatus Department of the inner Dandolo enclaves, a sprawling, rambling structure that somewhat resembled a university. Orso and Berenice walked in, then silently climbed the stairs to Orso’s workshop. The thick, heavy wooden door felt Orso coming, and began opening. He’d scrived it to sense his blood—a deviously difficult trick—but he was impatient, and shoved it open the rest of the way.

  He waited for the door to shut after him. Then he exploded.

  “Shit. Shit! Shit!” he screamed.

  “Ah,” said Berenice. “Yes. I agree, sir.”

  “I…I thought the goddamn thing had been destroyed!” cried Orso. “Along with the rest of the goddamn waterfront! But…It was stolen? Again? I’ve been robbed again?”

  “It would seem so, sir,” said Berenice.

  “But how? We kept it between us, Berenice! We only discussed it in this room! How did someone find out again?”

  “That is concerning, sir,” said Berenice.

  “Concerning! It’s a hell of a lot more than conce—”

  “True, sir. But the larger question is…” She glanced at him, anxious. “What happens if Captain Dandolo does as he suggested, and catches this thief tonight—and they still have the item in their possession?”

  Orso went pale. “Then when he brings the thief back…Ofelia will find out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She’ll find out that I paid for another expedition, another artifact.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And…and she’ll find out how I paid for it! And how much.” Orso grabbed the sides of his head. “Oh, God! All the thousands of duvots I took, all that money I took, all that money I arranged in the ledgers just right!”

  She nodded. “That is my concern, sir.”

  “Shit,” said Orso, pacing. “Shit! Shit! We have to…We have to…” He looked at her. “You have to follow him.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Follow him!” said Orso. “You have to follow him, Berenice!”

  “Me, sir?”

  “Yes!” He ran to a cabinet and grabbed a small box. “He can’t have left yet. Gregor Dandolo walks all over the campo, like an idiot! Ofelia complains about it all the time! Grab a carriage, go to the southern gates, wait for him, and follow him! And…” He fumbled with the box, frantic, and snatched something out of it. “Take this.”

  He shoved what appeared to be a small, scrived strip of tin into her hands, with small tabs at th
e top and the bottom. “A twinned plate, sir?” she asked.

  “Yes!” he said. “I’ll keep its pair. Ah, let’s see—snap off the top tab if Gregor catches the thief. Snap off the bottom if he doesn’t. And snap off both if he catches them and they still have the artifact! If the thief gets away, follow them if you can, and find out where they are. Whatever you do, the same thing will happen to my plate, so I’ll know exactly what’s happened.”

  “And you will stay here and do what, exactly, sir?”

  “There are favors I can call in,” said Orso. “Debts people owe me, so that I can maybe cover up my own debts to the goddamn company! If Gregor Dandolo comes back here with that key, I need to make it look like I put just a toe out of line, not my whole damn body and thirty thousand scrumming duvots of Dandolo Chartered money!”

  “And you plan to arrange all that in…” She glanced out the open workshop window at the Michiel clock tower. “Eight hours?”

  “Yes!” he said. “But it would certainly be nice if Gregor Dandolo didn’t bring the thief back here, so then I’d never have to do this at all!”

  “I hesitate to say this, sir,” she said. “But I’m surprised that you aren’t asking me to interfere with the captain’s efforts, and make sure the thief gets away. Then Ofelia would never know.”

  He paused. “Gets away? Gets away? Berenice—that key could change everything, everything we know about scriving. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do to get it. If I’ve got to let Ofelia Dandolo cane me raw, so be it! I just don’t want her tossing me in the campo prison and keeping it for herself! And…” His face slowly twisted into an expression of pure, murderous rage. “And I certainly wouldn’t mind getting ahold of that damned thief—who has humiliated me not once, but twice—and seeing them dismembered right in front of my scrumming nose, either.”

  11

  asked Clef.

  Seated on the edge of a Michiel rooftop, just downwind from the foundries, Sancia tried to shrug, and found she didn’t have the spirit.