* * *
“What?” said Tomas.
“Huh?” said Sancia.
Enrico put back down the imperiat. “Well. That is my suspicion, I believe, from reading Tribuno’s notes.”
“That doesn’t make any damned sense!” said Tomas. “No one—and I note to my frustration that this also includes us—has ever been able to duplicate anything the hierophants have ever done! Why would it work here, in a damned human being? Why would not one, but two incredibly unlikely things be achieved at once?”
“Well,” said Enrico, “we know that the hierophants were able to produce devices using the, ah, spiritual transference.”
“Human sacrifice,” said Sancia.
“Shut up!” snapped Tomas. “Go on.”
“That method is a zero-sum exchange,” said Enrico. “The entirety of the spirit is transferred to the vessel. But within this, ah, person before us, the relationship is symbiotic. The scrivings do not sap their host entirely, but rather borrow from her spirit, altering it, becoming a part of it.”
“But I thought you said Occidental sigils could only be used by things that were deathless,” said Tomas. “By things that had never been born and never could die.”
“But also by that which takes and gives life,” said Enrico. “The plate in her head is symbiotic, but still parasitic. It is siphoning her life from her, slowly, probably painfully. Perhaps it will one day consume her, much like the other Occidental shells. My theory is that the effect is far weaker than what the hierophants produced, but she is still…well. A functioning device.”
“You figured that out,” said Tomas, “just because the imperiat started ringing like a damned bell when we chased her into the Greens?”
Enrico pinkened again. “At that time, we only knew the imperiat was a weapon. We had not figured out the full capabilities of the device…”
“I’ll say,” said Sancia. “Since you dumb idiots knocked down half the houses in Foundryside, and killed God knows how many people.”
Tomas drove his fist into her stomach again. Again, she wrenched her body against the restraints as she gagged for air.
“And how the shit,” said Tomas, “did a bunch of scrivers on the damned plantations figure that out?”
“I don’t think they did,” said Enrico. “I think they just did it by…well, by random luck. Tribuno was not in the best mind in his later years. He might have sent them the hierophantic alphabet he’d compiled thus far, and told them to try all the combinations, any of them, always at midnight. This likely resulted in…quite a lot of deaths.”
“Something we’re familiar with,” said Tomas. “Though they got one accidental miracle—this girl.”
“Yes. And I suspect she might have something to do with why that plantation burned.”
Tomas sighed and shut his eyes. “So right when we’re trying to steal hierophantic devices…is when we just have to go and hire some thief with a head full of Occidental sigils.”
Enrico coughed. “We did hire her because they said she was the best. I suspect her successful career has something to do with her alterations.”
“No shit,” said Tomas. His eyes traced over her body. “But the problem is—if the plantation scrivers were using Tribuno’s instructions…then they were using sigils we already have, since we have Tribuno’s notes.”
“Possibly,” said Enrico. “But—like I said, Tribuno was not in his best mind. He grew secretive. He might not have included all his discoveries in one place.”
“So you’re saying it’s just worth checking?” said Tomas flatly. “Is that it?”
“Ah—yes? I suppose so?”
Tomas pulled out a stiletto. “Then why didn’t you just scrumming say so?”
“Sir? Sir, wh-what are you doing?” said Enrico, alarmed. “We’d need a physiquere, and someone with more knowledge about this art…”
“Oh, shut up, Enrico!” Tomas grabbed a fistful of Sancia’s hair. She screamed and struggled against him, but he slammed her head against the back of the table, then ripped it to the side, exposing her scar to the ceiling.
“I’m no physiquere,” rasped Tomas, straddling her to keep her from struggling. “But one doesn’t need to know the details of anatomy.” He lowered the stiletto to press its edge against her scar. “Not for things like this…”
She felt the stiletto bite into her scalp. She shrieked.
And as she shrieked, the sound seemed to…grow.
A deafening, ear-splitting screech filled the room. Yet it did not come from Sancia—even with Tomas’s dagger pressed against her head, she knew that. Rather, it came from the imperiat.
Tomas dropped his stiletto, pressed his hands to his ears, and fell sideways off of Sancia. Enrico crumpled to the floor, as did the guards.
A voice filled her mind, huge and deafening:
Sancia shuddered and choked as the words coursed through her—yet though it was impossibly loud, she realized she knew that voice.
The golden woman in the cell.
The imperiat’s dreadful screech faded. She lay on the table, breathing hard and staring up at the dark ceiling.
Slowly, Tomas, Enrico, and the guards all staggered to their feet, groaning and blinking.
“What was that?” cried Tomas. “What in hell was that?”
“It was…the imperiat,” said Enrico. He picked up the device and stared at it, dazed.
“What’s wrong with the damned thing?” said Tomas. “Is it broken?”
Sancia slowly turned her head to stare at the ancient lexicon with the golden lock.
“It…it was like the alarm was set off,” said Enrico. He blinked in panic. “But it was set off by something…significant.”
“What?” Tomas said. “What do you mean? By her?”
“No!” said Enrico, glancing at Sancia. “Not by her! She couldn’t have…” He paused, staring at her.
But Sancia took no notice of him. She was looking at the ancient lexicon.
It’s not a lexicon, though, she thought dreamily. Is it? It’s a sarcophagus, just like the ones in the crypt. But there’s someone in there…Someone alive.
“Oh my God,” said Enrico lowly. “Look at her.”
Tomas grew closer. His mouth opened in horror. “God…Her ears…her eyes. They’re bleeding!”
Sancia blinked, and she realized he was right: blood was welling up from her eyelids and her ears, just like it had in Orso’s house. Yet she had no thought for it: she only thought of the words still echoing in her ears.
How do I get them to leave?
She realized she had one option—something she could give them that might make them go away. It would be an outrageous lie, but maybe they’d buy it.
“The capsule,” she said suddenly.
“What?” said Tomas. “What’s this about a capsule?”
“It’s how I got onto the campo,” she said. She coughed and swallowed blood. “How I got close to the Mountain. I had one of Orso’s men help me. He put me in a big, metal casket, and it swam deep underwater up the canal. And he’s the one who was supposed to catch the air-sailing rig. If he went anywhere to hide—it’d be there. You’d never think to look there.”
Enrico and Tomas exchanged a glance. “Where is this…this capsule?” asked Tomas.
“I left it in the canals by the barge docks south of the Mountain,” she said quietly. “Orso’s man could be hiding on the bottom of the canal…or he might be making it back to the Dandolo campo with the key.”
“Now?” said Tomas. “Right now?”
“It was one escape route for me,” she said, inventing the lie on the spot. “But the capsule doesn’t move fast.”
“We…we have not searched any of the canals on the campo, sir,” said Enrico
quietly.
Tomas chewed his lip for a minute. “Get a team ready. Immediately. We’re going to have to comb the waters. And take that thing.” He nodded at the imperiat.
“The device?” said Enrico. “Are you sure, sir?”
“Yes. This is Orso Ignacio we’re dealing with. I know what we give our thugs—but God only knows what he gives his.”
29
Sancia lay on the operating table, staring up at the ceiling. Enrico and Tomas had departed, leaving behind two of their guards, who both looked tired and bored. Sancia herself felt little better: her head still ached, and her face was now crusty and sticky with blood.
Mostly, though, she felt anxious. It had been nearly ten minutes since Enrico and Tomas had left, yet the voice in her head had not spoken again. Supposedly it was going to help her escape, but so far it had remained silent.
And even if it did speak again…what would it say? Who was it, really? Was it like the Mountain? But she’d only been able to hear the Mountain because she’d been touching Clef, like it was with every other scrived device—and now she didn’t have him, of course. So how could she hear it?
She suspected the voice came from whatever was in the box on the table…but the box likely came from the hierophants. In fact, if she was right, it resembled the box she’d glimpsed in Clef’s vision. And that meant…
Well. She didn’t know what that meant, really. But it disturbed her plenty.
One of the guards yawned. The other scratched his nose. Sancia sniffed and tried to dislodge a crust of blood from her nostril.
Then, slowly, the side of her head began to feel warm.
A voice flooded her thoughts:
Sancia stiffened. One of the guards glanced at her. The other ignored her. She sat there, frozen, wondering how to respond.
The voice spoke again:
Sancia flinched.
The warmth in her head receded.
The voice was strange. Clef had sounded quite human, and even the Mountain had displayed a few human affectations—but this voice did not. The impression she got was that it was struggling to make words, fashioning sentiments and intent from…something else. She was reminded of a street show she’d seen once, where a performer had artfully tapped on steel pans in such a way that they sounded like birdsong. This was like that, but with words and thought.
Yet she knew the voice was female. She couldn’t say why, but she understood that.
Sancia waited for more. When none came, she said,
Sancia’s mouth slowly fell open. She turned to look at the battered box with the golden lock.
This was almost impossible for her to believe. The Mountain had been sentient to a degree, but it had been a huge creation, powered by six advanced lexicons. Yet this entity occupied only a moderately large box. It was like hearing someone was carrying around a volcano in their pocket.
She remembered what the Mountain had said: I once contained…something…I sensed a mind there. Impossibly big, huge, powerful. But…it did not deign to speak to me…
This didn’t make Sancia feel any less disturbed.
said Valeria.
Sancia looked at the box—and looked closely at the golden lock set in its center.
A soft series of clicks echoed through her mind—and they sounded somewhat skittish to Sancia, like a cave of bats fleeing a beam of light.
Sancia watched the box. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking of it as a sarcophagus. The idea of opening up this ancient casket deeply unsettled her.
Should I believe this voice in my head? This thing that was wrought by the Occidentals themselves?
Sancia listened to this carefully. This matched with what she and Clef and Orso had determined—but she still found it difficult to trust this voice in her mind.
Sancia said nothing.
Sancia remembered the engraving in Orso’s workshop—the chamber at the center of the world.
Valeria was silent.
Another long silence.
Sancia shuddered, remembering her vision of the man in the desert, turning out the stars.
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