Foundryside: A Novel (The Founders Trilogy)
Page 43
Sancia took a breath. This was, to say the least, incredibly frustrating. She understood now what Clef had shown her, long ago when he’d opened the Candiano door: scrivings were like minds, but they were not smart minds. And Clef was better at talking to them than she was. But then, he’d grown much more powerful as he’d corroded.
She asked:
That was surprising. If a scriving wasn’t activated or deactivated by another scriving command—then what?
She tried to think of a clearer term for it.
She gritted her teeth. She realized she’d need to phrase each question exactly right.
Sancia glanced at the guards. They were still debating something furiously. They hadn’t noticed the slight movements she’d been making for the past few minutes—but she knew she didn’t have all the time in the world.
A long, long pause.
Finally, the shackles answered.
Another pause. Then the shackles said,
Silence. It seemed the shackles had no idea how to answer that.
So. What was breath that was not a breath? Or not just breath, at least. If she could figure that out, then she could escape.
But before she could think more on it, there was a distant shouting, which grew to a scream, and then the door slammed open and Tomas Ziani stormed in.
* * *
“Useless!” he shouted. “Scrumming useless! We found the goddamn capsule, but it was just that—a capsule, and nothing more! She either lied to us, or she’s exactly as worthless as I suspected!”
Sancia watched them carefully through a crack in her eyelids. She found she could see the augmentations in their blades, in their shields, in their clothing. And there was one scriving on Tomas’s person that shone with an unpleasant, queer red light, like a sunbeam filtering through bloody water…
The imperiat, she thought. I can see it…My God, it’s horrible…
Tomas wheeled to look at Sancia. “What the hell is the matter with her?”
“She, uh, started screaming about two hours ago,” said one of the guards. “Then she passed out. She was bleeding from…Well. Everywhere, it seemed. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Again?” said Tomas. “She started bleeding again?” He looked at Enrico, who sprinted in behind him. “What’s going on with her? Apparently she keeps spurting blood out of her scrumming face!”
Sancia kept her eyes shut. She focused on the shackles, and asked:
The shackles were silent. It seemed they didn’t understand.
“Is she dead?” asked Tomas’s voice.
“She’s breathing,” said Enrico.
“And is this kind of thing just, like, regular when you’re a scrived person?”
“Ah…as I have only had about ten minutes of engagement with a scrived human, sir, it would be difficult to say.”
She heard Tomas grow close. “Well. If she’s passed out…maybe she’s done us a favor. Maybe now’s the time to rip that damned plate out of her skull without her causing a fuss.”
“Sir…I am not sure if rash action is wise,” said Enrico’s voice.
“Why not? If Orso’s thug makes it out of here with the key, then we need to be getting pretty goddamn rash!”
“We’ve barely questioned her, sir. She is the only person in Tevanne to have ever touched the key. That makes her a resource in itself!”
“That plate in her head might make the key irrelevant,” said Tomas. “Or at least that’s what you said.”
“The operative word being might,” Enrico said. An unsettling pleading tone entered his words. “And we also don’t know how to extract the plate! Proceeding without caution might damage the thing we’re trying to salvage!”
Sancia, who still hadn’t moved an inch, wondered what else to ask the shackles. But then she saw something.
A handful of scrivings had just come into view. New ones, and they were bright—because they were powerful, she saw. Incredibly powerful.
And they were moving.
She cracked her eye just a bit, and saw that the scrivings were on the other side of the wall, approaching the door.
Someone was coming. Quietly and slowly, someone was coming. And they had a lot of potent toys at their disposal.
Uh-oh, thought Sancia.
“You goddamn scrivers!” snarled Tomas. “Don’t you see that you are no longer men of action? I swear to God, are your crotches as smooth as a riverbank? Did your candles wither and fall off while you peered at your sigils?”
The handful of bright scrivings grew closer to the door.
“I recognize, sir, that you are attempting to salvage this project,” said Enrico. His voice was quaking. “But…but surely you must see that she is valuable?”
“The thing I see,” said Tomas, “is that she is a worthless, grubby Foundryside whore. And she and her master, Orso Ignacio, have frustrated me at every turn! Almost as much as you pinheaded, so-called experts have frustrated me! So now, Enrico—and I suggest you take this into suggestion regarding your own well-being—the only thing I want to see tonight, is to see someone die!”
The shining scrivings were at the door now. She watched as the handle began to turn.
I suddenly think, thought Sancia, that Tomas is going to get his wish soon.
The door fell open with a creak. All the men froze and turned. One guard whirled and pulled out a dagger—but then he paused as a woman walked into the room.
Tomas stared at her. “Estelle?”
32
Sancia cracked an eye to get a better a look. The woman stared around, eyes dull, her mouth open. Her facepaint had been smearily applied, and parts of her elaborate hairstyle had come unraveled. She took a breath, and slurred out the words, “T-Tomas…my darling! What’s going on? What’s…what’s happened to you?”
“Estelle?” said Tomas. “What the hell are you doing here?” His tone was not that of a husband greeting his wife, but rather a boy speaking to an older sister who was disrupting his slumber party.
Estelle Ziani? Sancia thought. Is that…Is that Orso’s old girlfriend, the one who gave us her father’s blood?
“I…I heard of some dis”—she hiccupped—“some disruption at the campo gates…All the walls are shut down?”
She didn’t talk at all like Sancia had expected—not like an educated, noble, wealthy woman, and a brilliant scriver at that, as Orso had described her. Her voice was oddly…breathy. High-pitched. She was talking, Sancia thought, like how a rich man would expect his dumb wife to talk.
“Dear God,” said Tomas. “You’re drunk? Again?”
“Uh, Founder,” said Enrico nervously. He glanced at Sancia. “Now might not be the time…”
Estelle looked at Enrico, swaying slightly, as if she hadn’t noticed him before. To the average eye, she would have appeared to simply be a drunk founder woman. Yet Sancia no longer possessed an average eye—and she could see incredibly powerful devices hidden in Estelle’s sleeves, like tiny stars.
What’s she playing at?
“Enrico!” cried Estelle in surprise. “Our most brilliant remaining scriver! How wonderful it is to see you…”
“Ah,” said Enrico. “Th-thank you, Founder?”
Yet Sancia saw that when Estelle touched Enrico, she left a tiny, shining dot on his shoulder, and he seemed to have no idea it was there. It’s a scrived rig, Sancia thought. But it’s tiny…and amazingly potent…She tried to decipher the nature of the thing from where she lay, yet this was harder than she’d thought it’d be. Apparently her new talents were aided by proximity and contact. But she thought the tiny thing looked…
Hungry. Weirdly, powerfully hungry.
“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Tomas. “How did you get in?”
Estelle shrugged. This slight motion pushed her off-balance, making her stumble to the side. “I…When you left the Mountain, you looked so upset, in such a hurry…I had my maid follow you, to here, to surprise y—”
“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 finis
hed 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.
“I suppose I need to thank you, girl,” she said.
“Why?” said Sancia.
“When Orso came to me and said he needed a way to sneak a thief into the Mountain, I realized right away that if Tomas caught this thief, he’d likely take them somewhere safe. And the safest place would likely also be where he’d hidden my father’s collection.” She turned to the table covered in artifacts. “Which I’d been seeking for some time. Looks like it’s all here.”
“It…it was you who backstabbed us,” said Sancia. “You tipped Tomas off that I’d be coming.”
“I told a person to tell a person to tell a person close to Tomas to be on alert,” said Estelle. “It wasn’t personal—surely you understand that. But a creature such as you must be accustomed to being used as a tool by your betters. I’d have hoped Tomas would have given you a quick death, though.” She sighed, slightly put out. “Now I’ll have to decide how to deal with you.”
At the mention of her death, Sancia focused back on the shackles, asking,
“He thought so much of himself, you know,” Estelle said, looking at Tomas. “He thought scrivers were pale, weak fools. He hated how much he depended on them. He wished to operate in a world of conquest and conflict, a savage world that substituted gold for blood.” She tutted. “Not a man of reflection, then. And when he started finding such valuable designs in Tribuno’s chambers, strings of sigils that just mysteriously appeared overnight, he rejoiced…And he never reflected on where they came from.”