But then he spoke, and all of her concerns vanished.
“I wish to apologize for how all of that proceeded, Ofelia,” he said. “It was…not as I intended, or desired, to say the least. You have helped me greatly in the past years. I would have seen you better attended to than that.”
“Th-Thank you, My Prophet,” she said.
He lifted his face to the sky, his black mask shining in the dawning sun. “But it is good to be back. It’s good to persist in this world for another morning more, no matter what condition I might be in. And we have so many works to do.”
“Did…Did Gregor…Did he make it off the—”
“Oh, he survived,” he said. “He and Sancia both.” He cocked his head. “She is a very…resourceful thing. But she still has no idea what the construct will do to her—or what it’s already done to her. That may prove useful.” He looked at her. “He came to you? You saw him?”
She nodded.
“What did he say?”
“He threatened to kill me. I…I knew our struggle would ask much of us, My Prophet. But I admit…I never imagined my own child would threaten me with murder.”
“No…No, that is regrettable,” he said. “I promised you that I would return your son to you, Ofelia, in exchange for all your labors. And I do not break promises. But it is a regrettable thing that in order to fix a monstrous world, one must become a little monstrous in one’s own right.”
Together they looked out as the city came into view. The tremendous coastal batteries towered over the mouth of the bay, their massive shrieker arrays carefully tracking the progress of their caravel. Next they saw the campo walls, tall and smooth and white, and beyond them the spires and towers of the campos, all brightly lit with countless colors.
Ofelia had no mind for any of this—and she knew her guest did not either. Instead they both stared at the huge, black dome set in the far back center of the city, its crown cracked and crumbling, its walls graying with dust.
“The site is still not in our possession?” he asked.
“I thought it wisest to devote our resources toward your restoration, My Prophet,” she said.
“Well. I can’t fault you that, of course…And I doubt if ownership will be an issue. I’ve always found myself to be a very convincing negotiator.” He sighed slightly and looked around at the rambling skyline of Tevanne as they sailed into the harbor. “What a difficult thing it is, to change the world. One must have some powerful tools to go about doing it. And where you don’t have tools”—he turned back to the Mountain of the Candianos—“you have to improvise.”
II
THE VEILED KING
11
Sancia awoke to the sight of a giant purple jellyfish emerging from a Commons street.
She stared at it where she lay, blinking. It was early morning, the air was hot and steamy, and she was lying on her side on the wet earth. She even knew where she was—close to the Slopes, along the canal. And yet, what she was seeing was true: there was definitely a large, bright-purple jellyfish emerging from the Commons street. She wondered if she’d injured her head during the madness of last night, or gone mad, or maybe she was dreaming.
“What…” she croaked. “What exactly am I seeing right now?”
“It appears to be,” said a harsh voice nearby, “a big purple jellyfish lantern…thing. But I’ve no idea why.”
She sat up, looked around, and struggled to orient herself. She was in some kind of a camp in the Commons, one she didn’t immediately recognize. Nor did she recognize any of the people waking and milling around her, starting fires and boiling water.
Then she saw a brand on the arm of one—indicating he was the property of the Isle of Ontia—and she remembered.
“Oh,” she said. She rubbed her eyes. “Right. That’s right.”
“Yes,” said the harsh voice from nearby. Polina Carbonari was leaning up against a stack of crates, smoking a pipe and watching the giant purple jellyfish lantern rising into the sky. She turned her hard, iron-gray eyes on Sancia. “You are still my guests. At a very strange time, it seems.”
Sancia struggled to stand up, and slowly remembered the trip back to Tevanne. It had all been so surreal: trying to fight through her hysteria to tell Orso and Berenice what had happened aboard the galleon; peering through the night sky, convinced she’d spy Crasedes flitting after them like a blackfly; and then as they’d neared the shore, realizing that Foundryside would no longer be safe for any of them, since both Ofelia Dandolo and Crasedes Magnus knew exactly who they were, and where they slept.
Then Gregor had led them to the smugglers’ camp. “Polina owes me a favor,” he’d explained. “I told them where the Dandolos maintained a very large and very secret stash of weapons in the plantations. She still hasn’t quite paid me back for that one. She can shelter us for the night.”
All night long, Sancia had stayed up in the camp, sitting in the mud with Berenice next to her, rocking back and forth and waiting for…something. For Crasedes to arrive, for the apocalypse to begin, or for Valeria to manifest before her and tell her that she’d failed.
But nothing had happened. She must have passed out from sheer exhaustion. She couldn’t understand why they’d let her sleep.
“Feeling better?” asked Polina.
“No,” said Sancia. She cracked the lower vertebrae of her spine, groaning. I am getting too damn old, she thought, too damn fast. “Where the hell is Berenice? And Orso?”
“Off talking a lot,” said Polina with a sigh. “As seems his wont. If you would like to see them, they are this way.”
She led Sancia along the banks of the canal, back through the camp. It was wholly unrecognizable in the light of day. As they walked, Polina watched as another floating lantern joined the one that looked like a big purple jellyfish.
“So—this is carnival,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Sancia. She tried to remember what Polina had been told about last night. Had Gregor or Orso explained what the hell had happened aboard that galleon? And if so—had she believed it?
Polina studied the lantern with an expression like she was being presented with a dish she found utterly reprehensible. “Everyone makes big lanterns…for the monsoons?” she asked dubiously.
“Yeah,” said Sancia.
“Why?”
“Apparently one monsoon season, like, a hundred years ago, the rains washed out the entire city. So they have a big carnival before the monsoons now, drinking and eating all they want, because you could die when the storms hit. The lanterns are all reminders of what’s coming. Though I think the city is a lot more well built now.” She eyed one tottering rookery. “Or at least parts of it are.”
“And then at the end, the devil arrives?”
“In the stories and plays, yeah,” said Sancia. “Shorefall Night. When the storms hit, brought by…”
A flash from last night: Crasedes, garbed in black, floating in the shadows.
Hello, Sancia.
She shivered.
“By Papa Monsoon?” asked Polina.
“Yes.”
They turned a corner, and the massive tent emerged ahead.
“That’s where they’re at?” asked Sancia.
“Yes. They have been in palaver and parley for the past hours. Sharing their secrets. They thought it wise to let you sleep.”
“I’m grateful,” said Sancia, rubbing her eyes. She felt like she could have slept for another two days. “I guess.”
“Now,” said Polina. She turned to face Sancia, her flinty eyes staring at her so hard they practically hurt. “Will you tell me what happened on the galleon? Because while you and Gregor and the other scrivers staggered up acting like the sky was about to fall, begging for shelter, no one has actually told me what you’re needing shelter from.”
Sancia wondered
what to say. She hardly knew how to describe what had happened to herself, let alone to someone who knew little of scriving, or hierophants.
“If you will not speak,” said Polina, “then I will guess. You attempted to sabotage some kind of merchant house plot?”
“Yes,” said Sancia.
“And I take it things went poorly?”
“Yeah.”
“And the slaves on board?”
Sancia hesitated. Her body hurt from sleeping on the ground, she was starving, and she stank of seawater and sweat. She was in no mood for games—so she chose not to play any.
“They killed them,” she said.
Polina paled. “W-What? All of them?”
Sancia nodded grimly.
“How many were there?”
“At least a hundred.”
“And the women? And…And children?”
Sancia shook her head.
“But…for the love of God, why?”
Sancia thought about it. “If I said it was merchant house scheming bullshit,” she said, “would you believe me?”
A multitude of emotions worked through Polina’s face. “Yes,” she said finally. “And no. I have to know more. Damn it, girl, I have to know why they died. And if they’re going to kill more.”
Sancia walked up to the entrance of the tent, then nervously searched the skies, half expecting to see a man in black floating cross-legged in the air.
“To be perfectly honest, Polina,” she said, “more will die. I can’t guarantee that it’ll be slaves. But I am absolutely sure now that more will die.”
She turned to walk into the tent. Then Polina’s hand flashed out and grabbed her by the arm.
“You say that with such regret,” she said. “But not anger. Not wrath. When will you realize that this city is content to purchase a foot of land with a river of our blood? When will you see that these people will never be convinced to change themselves?”
“I’ve got a heap of nightmares and problems to deal with,” snapped Sancia. “I don’t need your goddamn warmongering right now, of all times.”
“Maybe if you’d made war earlier,” said Polina, “you wouldn’t be where you are this morning, and all those people would still be alive.”
She released Sancia, and walked away.
* * *
—
“…filtrating the Dandolo campo simply not an option,” Berenice was saying within the tent. “I doubt if any of us have contacts close to Ofelia Dandolo.”
“It’s true,” Gregor admitted. “Even when I was still in good graces with her, I rarely knew my mother’s mind.”
“More to the point,” said Orso, “how do we know Ofelia knows what Crasedes will do, or what he wants? It sounds like when you found her aboard the galleon, things had not precisely gone as she’d anticipated…”
“I’ll goddamn say,” muttered Sancia, staggering in.
“Ahh!” said Orso, turning around on the ground where he sat. “She’s awake at last. I suppose you noticed the world hasn’t ended yet. Guess Crasedes hasn’t made progress on that one.” He shot to his feet, strode over, and bent over to peer into her eyes. “Tell us,” he said. “Any contact from your little golden friend?”
Sancia was still shaken from her conversation with Polina, so it took her a moment to focus on what he was saying. “Valeria?” she asked. “What the hell do you mean?”
“The last time she spoke to you was while you slept,” said Berenice. “She seems to have more…access to you, I suppose I should say, while you’re asleep. We’d hoped she’d speak to you.”
“I take it that’s a no, then?” said Orso.
Sancia shook her head.
“Son of a bitch!” he snarled. He started pacing about the tiny, cramped tent. “We let you pass out in the mud for hours, and got nothing for it! How the hell are we going to get ahold of her? She’s the only person, or entity, or whatever the hell she is, that could possibly tell us what Crasedes is doing!”
“He wants Clef,” said Sancia. “I told you all last night. Which makes me really nervous about him being stuck in our goddamn attic! Crasedes could just fly over there, smash the roof in, and pluck him out!”
“And yet,” said Gregor. “He has not. I paid some of Polina’s people to keep watch on the place. Crasedes has yet to make an appearance, or anyone Dandolo.”
“Which is what we’ve been debating all morning,” said Berenice with a yawn, “and indeed most of the night. What is he here to do? And if he can do nearly anything, why hasn’t he moved yet?”
There was a silence. Sancia slowly walked over to sit by Berenice, and she trembled a little. Her memories of last night—the voice in the darkness, and the immense pressure of his presence—began to circle her thoughts, and she struggled to beat them back.
“You weren’t in any state to discuss it last night,” said Orso. “But please—tell us everything you experienced regarding Crasedes. Any weakness, any feature, could prove valuable to us.”
She thought about it, remembering the sight of his body amid the shadows, his mask glinting in the moonlight, her bones reverberating with the sound of his voice.
She told them. When she was finished, she said, “He…talks more than I thought he would.”
“What does that mean?” asked Orso.
“I mean, he’s…compelling. He has immense power over gravity, which we all knew. But his voice…his voice might be the most dangerous thing about him. The more I listened to it, the more I believed everything he was saying. I think the only reason I could resist was because…well, apparently Valeria gave me some kind of protections against him.”
“Yes,” said Orso, grimacing. “Very proactive of her. I expect it’s like how we scrive objects to reject a certain person, telling a door, ‘If this person with this blood comes about, don’t open.’ Only she did it to your goddamn head, and told it to reject the first of all scrumming hierophants.” He laughed miserably. “I’m sorry, this is just the maddest conversation I’ve ever had…”
“But I think the thing in black…” said Sancia. “I’m not sure that’s actually him. I think he’s wearing a living body as a suit, or using it as a totem, puppeteering it about. They just tricked the world into thinking the live body is him, by scriving his wrappings and putting the little bone in the body’s hand.”
“You mean you think it was a living person once?” said Berenice, horrified.
“Probably, yeah. Maybe a slave’s. I think the body is like a, a focal point for his presence, and his permissions. If we destroy the wrappings, or cut the bone out of him…maybe it will disperse, and he’ll go back to being…whatever the hell he was before. Not dead, but close to it.”
“I am unsure how that could be attempted,” said Gregor. “He handled a broadside of shriekers quite well—and I couldn’t get close to him with my rapier.”
“Maybe Valeria knows,” said Sancia. “If I can find a way to get her to talk to me again.”
Orso stopped pacing and narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Has anyone found it funny that Valeria only made her appearance the night before Crasedes’s ship came in?”
“I have not found it funny,” said Gregor. “In fact, I have found it decidedly unfunny.”
“No, I mean—that ship was at sea for days. They must have found the…the…what was it?”
“A piece of Crasedes’s original bones,” said Sancia. “I guess.”
“Ugh. Right. That. They must have found it days or weeks ago. And obviously she knew about it, somehow—sensed it, or something. So why wait until the last minute to tell us?” He pivoted on his heel like a dancer, his face shining with excitement. “Unless something had changed. Not with Crasedes—but with Valeria, and her ability to access Sancia.”
Berenice rubbed her chin with the tip of her ring finger. “The twin
ned lexicons…”
“Exactly!” said Orso. “What else?”
“I can think of many things else,” said Gregor impatiently. “Please explain.”
“Valeria is like…like a giant scriving, yes?” said Orso. “From what Clef told Sancia, she’s like a huge command issued to reality, telling it to change. Once she was capable of changing…hell, I don’t know, all kinds of shit. Doesn’t matter. But you said the other day that she’d seemed damaged when she spoke to you in the dream…”
“Yeah,” said Sancia. “She said she was too weak to face him by herself.”
“So, if you were a damaged scriving who wanted to flee all that reality closing in on you, asserting that you were not true and that it didn’t have to listen to you—where would you go?”
“To…where reality was weakest?” said Gregor.
“And where would that be?” said Orso, so smug it was almost intolerable. “Why, near a lexicon, of course! Where thousands of arguments are all compiled, making reality very thin and pliant! To something like Valeria, a lexicon must be like a puddle in a desert. And when the Michiels used our techniques to twin all the cradles in all the lexicons together…”
“Then if she’d been near a Michiel lexicon, she’d suddenly be capable of…of moving,” said Sancia. “She could jump from lexicon to lexicon. And at Foundryside…God, it must have been like we’d opened a goddamn door in our basement for her!”
“And then she slipped out at night,” said Orso, “and whispered in your ear as you slept. Just in time, too. If we’d been a day later in robbing the Michiels, Crasedes could have showed up hale and hearty, and killed us all without us even raising a hand against him. Not that we can, you know, raise much of a hand against him now.”
“So…we need to get close to Foundryside to be able to talk to her?” said Berenice. “I’m not sure that’s wise. Even if no one’s broken in yet, they must know to watch there.”
Shorefall Page 14
