Foundryside: A Novel (The Founders Trilogy)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  There was the sound of stone groaning on stone. Gio shoved at the wall with his shoulder, and suddenly a large segment pivoted inward, swinging like a large, circular stone door. “Here we are!”

  Sancia and the rest all peered into the rounded door. Inside was a long, tall, narrow passageway, with ornately wrought walls that were lined with what appeared to be some kind of cubbyholes, most of which were empty—but not all. In some of the cubbyholes, Sancia spied urns and…

  “Skulls,” she said aloud. “A…Uh, a crypt?”

  “Precisely,” said Giovanni.

  “What in the hell is a crypt doing in the Gulf?” asked Orso.

  “Apparently there had been quite a few minor estates here before the merchant houses made the Gulf,” said Claudia, walking inside. “The houses just tore them down and paved over them. No one thought much about what was underneath, until they started digging the tunnels. Most of the crypts and basements have gotten flooded out—but this one is in fairly good condition.”

  Sancia followed her in. The crypt was large, with a big, round, central chamber, and several smaller, narrow wings splitting off from it. “How’d you find it?”

  “Someone once traded us jewelry for rigs,” said Claudia. “The jewelry was old and branded with a family crest—and one of us realized it’d had to come from a family grave. We went looking, and found this.”

  “We hole up here only when we’ve really pissed off a merchant house,” said Gio. “And it sounds like you lot have done exactly that. So—this should work nicely.”

  “So…” said Berenice, staring around. “We’re going to be scriving…and working…and, for a while, living…in a crypt. With…bones.”

  “Well, if you’re really going to try to break into the Mountain, then you’re probably going to wind up dead anyway,” said Gio. “Maybe this will help you get used to it.”

  Orso had found a hole in the vaulted ceiling. “Does this go up to the surface?”

  “Yeah,” said Claudia. “To let heat out if you’re doing any minor forging or smelting.”

  “Excellent. Then this should work quite well!” said Orso.

  Gregor was leaning over a large stone sarcophagus with a caved-in lid. He peered through the gap at the remains below. “Will it,” he said flatly.

  “Yes,” said Orso. He rubbed his hands. “Let’s get to work!”

  said Clef.

 

  said Clef.

 

  said Clef.

  * * *

  Once they’d gotten the lay of things, Orso waited out in the tunnel, staring out at the shantytowns beyond. Greasy campfires and thick, black smoke crawled across the surface of the Gulf. The smoke turned the starlit sky into a dull smear.

  Berenice emerged from the crypt and joined him. “I’ll make the requisitions now, sir,” she said. “We should be able to move in and get everything ready to start work tomorrow night.”

  Orso said nothing. He just stared out at the Gulf and the Commons beyond.

  “Is something the matter, sir?” she asked.

  “I didn’t think it would be like this, you know,” he said. “Twenty, thirty years ago, when I first started working for Tribuno…We all genuinely thought we were going to make the world a better place. End poverty. End slavery. We thought we could rise above all the ugly human things that held the world back, and…and…Well. Here I am. Standing in a sewer, paying a bunch of rogues and renegades to break into the place where I used to live.”

  “Might I ask, sir,” said Berenice, “if you could change anything—what would it be?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I suppose if I thought I had a chance, I’d start my own merchant house.”

  “Really, sir?” she said.

  “Sure. It’s not like there’s any law forbidding it. You just have to file papers with the Tevanni council. But no one bothers anymore. Everyone knows the four prime houses would crush you instantly if you tried. There used to be dozens when I was young…and now, only four, and four forever, it seems.” He sighed. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening, Berenice. If I’m still alive, that is. Good night.”

  She watched as he strolled down the tunnel and slipped out the iron grate. Her words echoed faintly after him: “Good night, sir.”

  * * *

  “This is nuts,” whispered Claudia in the dark. “It’s insane. It’s madness, Sancia!”

  “It’s lucrative,” said Sancia. “And keep your voice down.”

  Claudia peered down the warrens of the crypt, and confirmed they were alone. “You’ve got him on you now, don’t you?” she asked. “Don’t you?”

  “I told you to forget about him,” said Sancia.

  Claudia miserably rubbed her face. “Even if you didn’t have Clef, this is beyond foolish! How can you trust these people?”

  “I don’t,” said Sancia. “Not Orso at least. Berenice is…well, normal, but she reports to Orso. And Gregor…Well, Gregor seems…” She struggled for the right word. She was unused to complimenting men of the law. “Decent.”

  “Decent? Decent? Don’t you know who he is? And I don’t mean him being Ofelia’s son!”

  “Then what?”

  Claudia sighed. “There was a fortress city in the Daulo states, called Dantua. Five years ago a Dandolo house mercenary army captured it—a big victory for the entire region. But something went wrong, and their scrived devices failed. They were helpless, trapped in the fortress. A siege followed, with the Dandolos inside. Things went from bad to worse—starvation and plague and fire. When the Morsinis sailed in to rescue them all, they found only one survivor—just one. Gregor Dandolo.”

  Sancia stared at her as she listened to this. “I…I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. I swear to God, it’s true.”

  “How? How did he survive?”

  “No one knows. But he did. The Revenant of Dantua, they call him. That’s your decent man for you. You’ve gone and surrounded yourself with lunatics, Sancia. I hope you know what you’re doing. Especially because you’ve got us mixed in with them too.”

  21

  The next night they stared at a map of the Candiano campo and brainstormed.

  “You all only need to worry about getting Sancia to and from the Mountain,” said Orso. “I’ve got my own ideas about maneuvering through the thing itself.”

  “There are always three ways,” Claudia said. “You can go under, over, or through.”

  “Over’s not an option,” said Giovanni. “She can’t fly to the Mountain. To do that, she’d have to plant an anchor or a construction scriving that would pull her to it—and you’d have to get in to plant one.”

  “And through is out,” said Gregor. He walked up to the map of the Candiano campo and traced the main road running up to the huge dome. “There are eleven gates from the outer wall to the Mountain. The last two will be under constant watch, and you need all kinds of papers and scrived credentials to get through.”

  Everyone stared at the map in silence.

  “What’s that?” asked Sancia. She pointed to a long, winding blue streak that led from the shipping channel to the Mountain.

  “That’s the delivery canal,” said Orso. “It’s used by barges full of wine and, hell, whatever else they need in the Mountain. It’s got the exact same problem as the roads, though—the last two gates are intensely guarded. Every delivery is stopped and thoroughly searched before it’s allowed to proceed.”

  Sancia thought about it. “Could I cling to the side of a barge? Just below the waterline? And you all could give
me some way to breathe air?”

  They all looked surprised by that idea.

  “The canal gates check sachets just like the rest of the walls,” said Orso slowly. “But…I believe they only pass things that go through them. Under them…that might be a different story.”

  “I bet the underside of the barge would trigger the check too,” said Claudia. “But if Sancia was walking along the bottom of the canal…”

  “Whoa,” said Sancia. “I didn’t say that.”

  “How deep are the canals?” asked Gregor.

  “Forty, fifty feet?” said Gio. “The walls definitely wouldn’t check that far down.”

  “I never suggested anything like this,” said Sancia, now alarmed.

  “We can’t scrive a way for a human to breathe air,” said Orso. “That’s impossible.”

  Sancia sighed with relief, since it sounded like they were abandoning this train of thought.

  “But . .” He glanced around, and laid one hand on a sarcophagus. “There are other options.”

  Claudia frowned at the sarcophagus for a moment. Then her mouth dropped open. “A vessel. A casket!”

  “Yes,” said Orso. “One that’s waterproof, and small, but capable of holding a person. We plant a weak anchor on one of the barges, and it drags the casket along the bottom of the canal behind it. Simple!”

  “With…with me in it?” asked Sancia weakly. “You’re saying I’m in this casket? Being dragged along? Under the water?”

  Orso waved a hand at her. “Oh, we can make it safe. Probably.”

  “Certainly safer than sneaking around the guards or whatever,” said Claudia. “The barge would secret you up the entire length of the canal, and you wouldn’t risk catching a bolt in the face this way.”

  “No,” said Sancia. “I’d just risk hitting a rock too hard and drowning.”

  “I told you, we can make it safe!” insisted Orso. “Probably!”

  “Oh my God,” said Sancia. She buried her face in her hands.

  “Is there any other proposed way of getting Sancia to the Mountain?” asked Gregor.

  There was a long silence.

  “Well,” said Gregor. “It seems this is our choice, for now.”

  Sancia sighed. “Can we at least call it something besides a casket, then?”

  * * *

  “This just leaves the issue of the Mountain itself,” said Gregor. “Getting Sancia up to Ziani’s office.”

  “I’m working on a way to give her access,” said Orso. “But access doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles. I haven’t seen the inside of the Mountain in a decade, I’ve no idea what could have changed. And I understand very little about how the thing really works.”

  Gregor turned to Berenice. “There’s nothing in Tribuno’s notes about this? Nothing about how he designed the Mountain?”

  She shook her head.

  “What is in Tribuno Candiano’s notes?” said Giovanni. “I’d be curious to see the writings of our most acclaimed genius and madman.”

  “Well,” said Berenice reluctantly, “there’s all these wax rubbings of what looks like human sacrifices—a body on an altar, and a dagger above—but as for Tribuno’s notes…” She cleared her throat, and read aloud: “I again return to the nature of this ritual. The hierophant Seleikos refers to a ‘collection of energies’ or a ‘focusing of minds’ and ‘thoughts all captured.’ The great Pharnakes refers to a ‘transaction’ or ‘deliverance’ or ‘transference’ of sorts that must take place at ‘the world’s newest hour.’ At other times he says it must be at ‘the darkest hour’ or ‘the forgotten minute.’ Does he mean midnight? The winter solstice? Something else?”

  Giovanni stared at her blankly. “What the hell is that?”

  “Tribuno’s efforts to determine the source of the hierophants’ nature,” said Orso. “In other words, a hell of a bigger problem than what we’re trying to solve here.”

  “It’s not as useful as I hoped,” said Berenice. “He just goes on and on about this transaction—the ‘filling of the pitchers’—though it’s pretty clear Tribuno himself doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.”

  “But obviously it was of great value to Tomas Ziani,” said Gregor.

  “Or he just thought it was of value,” said Orso, “and he’s wasting blood and treasure on nonsense.”

  At that comment, Gregor froze. “Ahh,” he said softly.

  “Ahh what?” said Sancia.

  Gregor stared into the middle distance. “Blood,” he said quietly. A look of horrible revelation entered his face. “Tell me, Orso. Does…does Estelle Ziani ever see her father?”

  “Estelle? Why?” asked Orso suspiciously.

  “He’s ill, isn’t he?” He looked at Orso and narrowed his eyes. “Surely she oversees his medical attention—yes, Orso?”

  Orso was very still. “Uh. Well…”

  “The Mountain checks the blood of a person to make sure they’re the right person,” Gregor said. “You’d have to find a way to log your own blood with the Mountain in order to let you in.” He stepped closer to Orso. “But…what if you had access to the blood of a resident? Like Estelle Ziani—or, better yet, her father? The man who made the Mountain itself? That’s what you aim to do—isn’t it, Orso? To use Tribuno Candiano’s blood as a pass key for Sancia?”

  Orso glared at him. “Well. Aren’t you a clever bastard, Captain.”

  “Wait,” said Sancia. “You’re going to steal Tribuno Candiano’s blood? Really?”

  Everyone stared at Orso. Finally he sighed. “I never said steal,” he said huffily. “It would be voluntarily donated. I thought I’d just…you know, ask Estelle for it.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said Claudia.

  “What?” he said. “It’s an opportunity we can’t pass up! With his blood, the damned thing should open for her like a schoolgirl’s legs! The Mountain’s a kingdom, riddled with scrived guards, and no guard can turn away their king!”

  “And, what, I cover myself with his blood?” asked Sancia. She pulled a face. “That’s not exactly stealthy.”

  “I’m sure we can make some kind of container for it!” he said, exasperated.

  “Assuming Estelle even consents,” said Berenice, “surely the Candianos have rewritten all the permissions so Tribuno no longer has access, yes?”

  “That would suggest there’s someone on the Candiano campo who’s a better scriver than Tribuno,” said Orso. “Which is unlikely. If I’d scrived my own massive house, I’d have put in all kinds of permissions and goodies just for me.”

  “And Ziani certainly isn’t a scriver,” said Gio. “But all this assumes our boy here can actually get the man’s blood.”

  “You really think that Estelle would do that for you, Orso?” asked Sancia.

  “She might if I tell her you saw her husband kissing hips with some girl in a rundown foundry,” said Orso. “Or maybe I don’t even need to say that. Everyone knows Ziani is a privileged shit, and from the sound of it, he practically keeps her shackled up in the Mountain. I suspect she wouldn’t turn down a way to stick a knife in Ziani’s ribs.”

  “True,” said Berenice. “Maybe it’s not as heavy an ask as we’re all assuming. In a way, you’d be offering her freedom. And people risk many things for that.”

  Then a curious thing happened: a deeply guilty look crossed Gregor’s face, and he turned to Sancia and opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he seemed to think better of it, and he shut his mouth and was silent for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  Much later, they slept. And Sancia’s dreams were filled with old memories.

  She had never known her parents. Either she or they had been sold before she could know them, and instead she’d become, like so many slave children, a communal burden on the shifting assortment of w
omen all crammed together in the quarters on the plantation. In some ways, Sancia’d had not one mother but thirty, all indistinct.

  Except one. Ardita, a Gothian woman. She was a ghost to Sancia now, and all she retained were flashes of the woman’s dark eyes, the wrinkles of her olive-colored skin on her hard, scarred hands, her jet-black ringlets, and the way her smile showed the far back teeth in her wide mouth.

  There are many dangers here, child, she’d said once. Many. Many ugly things you’re going to have to do. It will be a great contest for you. And you’re going to think: How do I win? And the answer is—so long as you are alive, you are winning. The only hope you should ever have is to see the next day, and the next. Some here will whisper of liberty—but you can’t be free if you aren’t alive.

  And then, one day, Ardita had been gone. It had not been commented upon in the quarters. Perhaps because such things were common and forgettable, or perhaps because nothing needed to be said.

  Sometime later, Sancia and the other children had been led to a new field to work, and they’d walked by a tree full of corpses hanging from ropes—slaves who had been executed for any number of crimes. The overseer called out, “Look well, little ones! Look well, and see what’s done to those who disobey.” And Sancia had looked up into the canopy of leaves and seen a woman suspended in the branches, her feet and hands hacked off, and Sancia had thought she’d spied jet-black ringlets on the corpse’s shoulders, and a wide, toothy mouth.

  In the darkness of the crypt, Sancia awoke. She heard snores and soft sighs from the others. She stared at the dark stone ceiling, and thought about what these people were proposing she do, the enormous risks they were asking her to take. Is this survival? Is this liberty?