Shorefall

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Please, said his mother. Please, please, no…

  And then his body shivered, and blurred…and to his shock, the wounds vanished. Or at least the most lethal of them vanished: he still had puncture wounds in his shoulder, but his stomach was now smooth and whole again, the horrid gash there completely gone.

  It’s working, his mother whispered. She sighed with relief. It’s working. But you’ve done so well, Gregor. You did exactly as we needed.

  Gregor tried to look around. He was in some kind of cave that was littered with bodies: soldiers, guards, slaves, all of them hacked to pieces. Everything was wet and slick with gore.

  Ofelia Dandolo stood and walked away, stepping over the bodies, ignorant of the hem of her dress soaking in blood. She approached the cave wall—it appeared to be some kind of ancient doorway, caved in and crumbling, its stone entryway marked by curious symbols.

  We’re getting closer, Ofelia whispered. You’ve done so, so, so well, Gregor.

  A soothing, powerful joy filled his mind—it was so good to have done well, to do what was expected of him.

  It was such a grand thing, to make war.

  I would die for this, he thought. He looked up into his mother’s beaming face. I have died for this. And I will gladly die again.

  Then the memory left him, and he knew no more.

  17

  “This thing is amazing,” said Berenice, studying the golden definition as they ran on through the halls of the Mountain. “I mean—it’s amazing.”

  “It’d goddamn better be,” said Sancia. Her boots slapped wetly on the ground as they ran up and up through the dark stairways of the Mountain, back to the secret exit on the fourth floor. She’d wiped off much of the muck, but she knew she was going to reek for days.

  “No, I mean…” Berenice held it up to her eye. “To access a hierophantic command, you have to first violate reality via the breaking of life, which allows you to briefly assert that you’re basically God Himself—and then you can snatch up one or several of the deeper commands.”

  “So?”

  “So, this little device…it does something similar, but it persuades reality that a lexicon is God Himself! It asserts that a damned rig is functionally the divine creator of…well, whatever little area it has influence over! Then you can issue whatever commands you want!”

  “Holy shit,” said Sancia. “So, the dome we’re in now…”

  “Yes!” said Berenice. “Reality in here believes, to a very slight degree, that the Mountain is the Creator of all reality! Yet it must be a very weak effect…That must be why Tribuno had to stack it six times over, just to make the Mountain powerful enough to perceive all the comings and goings within its barriers.”

  Sancia glanced sideways at Berenice, who was clutching the little golden cone like a child with a brand-new toy. “Neat,” she said. “You remember Tribuno had to kill a guy to make that thing, right?”

  Berenice blanched slightly and stowed the definition away. “I mean…Yes, of course, it’s just…Well, intriguing.”

  whispered the Mountain in her ear.

 

 

  She slowed down. Berenice saw her and did the same. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Sancia waved a hand at her to shush her.

 

  “The Michiels are here?” said Sancia aloud, recognizing the colors.

  There was a faint boom from the atrium. Berenice and Sancia jumped and looked at each other, surprised. They heard a distant screaming, more booms, and then an amplified voice, screaming at the Dandolos to stand down.

  “Oh God,” said Berenice. “We’re in the middle of a campo pissing match, aren’t we?”

  “Let’s just hope the goddamn Morsinis don’t show up and join the fray too,” said Sancia.

  They sprinted up the stairs to the fourth-floor walkway. said Sancia.

 

  “Shit!” whispered Sancia as they came to the fourth-floor walkway. They sank low, approached the balcony, and peered into the atrium.

  Whereas before the atrium had been dark and dusty and still, now it was lit bright by many new lamps, and it was echoing with screams, cries, and cracks as bolts bit into the walls. A fully fledged battle was taking place there on the main floor between the Dandolo and Michiel soldiers: men were fighting across the atrium floor with rapiers, shields, and espringals—and since all of the armaments were scrived, the damage was nothing short of catastrophic. Whole columns had been carved away. Every wall was pockmarked like it’d been hammered by a meteor shower. And the floor was absolutely swimming with blood.

  “I’m…guessing the Michiels want their shit back,” said Sancia.

  Berenice sat up. “San—look!”

  She pointed to one entrance by the main floor. Sancia squinted and saw two figures being led out of the hallway, their hands bound behind their backs. One was Orso, who looked as wet and miserable as a half-drowned rat—and the other was Gregor, who was covered in blood.

  “Oh my God!” gasped Sancia.

 

  Sancia shut her eyes in despair, and leaned forward until her forehead rested on the railing of the balcony. “Oh no…Oh, poor, poor Gregor…”

  “It…It looks like the Dandolos are losing,” said Berenice quietly. “The Michiels are mopping them up. They’re putting Orso and Gregor along the wall, and put lanterns all around them.” She looked at her. “San—how in hell are we going to get them out?”

  Sancia sighed deeply. “I have no idea.”

  * * *

  —

  Orso sat on the floor of the atrium, his hands bound tightly behind his back. At first he wished to complain, but then he noticed the number of Dandolo corpses lying about the atrium, victims of a variety of injuries—many heads, chests, and limbs had been unartfully removed by a scrived bolt or rapier—and he suddenly thought himself quite lucky.

  Orso watched as a Michiel captain walked about the atrium, conferring with his lieutenants as the battle tapered off around them. He was a somewhat aged but still powerful man, his shoulders broad but his belly pressing at the limits of his cuirass, a pipe clutched in his teeth. He bore many scars on his arms and face, Orso noted, the mementos of many wars and battles. One hand was missing two fingers.

  One of the soldiers walked up to him, said something, and pointed at Gregor and Orso.

  Shit, thought Orso.

  He looked sideways at Gregor, who appeared to be catatonic, his blood-spattered face fixed in an expression of deep grief.

  “Gregor,” whispered Orso. “Can you hear me?”

  Gregor did not answer.

  “We can’t tell them about Ber and San. Just…try and get them to think we’re important so they take us prisoner to their campo or—”

  “No talking!” shouted a nearby soldier. He approached with one hand on his sheathed rapier, and Orso bowed his head, cowed. When the soldier finally turned his back on them, Orso looked at Gregor. His face had barely moved.

  “Gregor?” asked Orso quietly.

  “I…remember,” whispered Gregor. His eyes were blank and crazed. “I remember, I remember, I remember…”

  He broke himself, thought Orso. Damn it…Gregor’s gone somewhere in his head, and I can’t call him ba—

  �
��So…exactly who in the hell are you?” asked a gruff voice.

  Orso looked up and saw the Michiel captain standing over them, his small, puffy eyes darting back and forth between their faces.

  Orso wondered what to say. Before he could speak, the captain said, “My boys here tell me they found you hacking up Dandolo soldiers in the halls…so I highly doubt you’re with those thieves. So—who are you?”

  Orso thought as fast as he could. “Saboteurs,” he said.

  The captain took his pipe out of his teeth. “What’s that? Here to sabotage…what? Us?”

  “N-No,” said Orso. “The Dandolos.”

  “Ohh?” said the captain appraisingly. “And why’s that?”

  “We knew what they were doing here. A…A power grab. Trying to steal bits of the lexicons of this place. We had to stop them.”

  “And…again, why’s that?”

  Orso had an idea. “Because…I am Orso Ignacio. And this is Gregor Dandolo.”

  The captain blinked. “You lot…You’re the Foundryside people, are you?”

  “Yes.” Orso waited, hoping this worked—perhaps the enemy of an enemy might be a friend.

  “And you’re here to piss in Ofelia Dandolo’s wine?” The captain looked at Gregor. “In his mother’s wine? Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  The captain looked at them, his small eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids. “I see,” he said quietly.

  Orso waited, hoping that perhaps, just once, the night could go their way.

  “You think that impresses me?” demanded the captain. “That it makes me warm to you, that you were here trying to sabotage the people who stole this shithole from us?”

  “I…I would think that it mi—”

  The captain spat on the ground. “You prissy little shitlings are the very reason my house is in the woeful state that it is! Did you know that?”

  “W-What?” said Orso, surprised.

  “Slaves rebelling left and right? Scrivers starting their own houses in the Commons?”

  “Ah…”

  The captain pulled out his rapier and pointed it at Orso. “It’s heresy! It’s madness! It goes against everything that Tevanne has ever stood for! And it’s all your fault. It’s all your doing, every bit of it!”

  Orso glanced at the number of bodies being stacked in the atrium. He wanted to mention how another thing that had once been considered madness and heresy had been the idea of two merchant houses going to war in Tevanne. No one had ever thought to attempt such a thing, given that the foundry lexicons that made the campos run were so unstable. It was like tossing lit matches around in a granary mill.

  “I told our house officers not to wait,” continued the captain, looking out at the atrium around them. “The second you all went and set up your bastard little shop, I told them to wade right into the Commons and burn you all out. Can’t let the Commoners start handling scrived rigs. They’d get ideas. Start thinking they were above their stations.”

  “We…are not precisely Commoners, though,” said Orso. “We—”

  “Yes, yes, yes, you’re Lamplanders,” said the captain with a sneer. “Talk about thinking above your station…Scrivers think just because they’ve read a book or two they know everything in the world. I always knew they’d start questioning their betters. Trying to tear down all the founders have given us. What ingratitude!”

  The captain ranted on—apparently he’d been writing this speech in his head for some time—but Orso just watched as this aged, scarred man, a man who’d shed and spilled blood in God only knew how many battles, passionately defended the campo elites: people who had never known a tenth of the hardship and pains that he had, and never would.

  And as he listened to the captain speak, Orso felt something deeply unpleasant spool into his belly: doubt.

  He doubted for the very first time whether the merchant houses could really be overthrown—if Tevanne really could be restored, or remade, or at least changed, just a little. What change could possibly be accomplished in the face of such thoughtless, ignorant conviction?

  There was a silence as the captain’s rant tapered to an end. He turned around and studied them, his eyes cold and distant. “I knew it would always come to this,” he said. He pointed his rapier at Orso. “Haul this one to the center of the atrium, boys.”

  “W-What?” said Orso, startled.

  The soldiers picked him up by the arms and dragged him away. The captain called to his men to bring a table and some rope, and they did so.

  “I don’t…Stop…Stop, please…” said Orso.

  They ignored him. The soldiers brought the wooden table over, and the captain shoved Orso down so his head was bent to its surface. Then they held him down and tied his head and body so he was laid flat against the wood.

  “What are you doing?” asked Orso weakly. “What…What are you doing to m—”

  “You know who this is?” shouted the captain. “This here is Orso Ignacio, lads! He’s the man who caused all the trouble our city has seen! He’s the man who’s ducked the loop and laughed at us all!”

  The soldiers clapped and jeered at him. Orso realized what the captain was about to do. “No! No!” he cried.

  Goddamn it, Orso thought as he struggled against his bonds. I probably designed the scrumming sword in your hand! And now you’re going to kill me with it, you oaf!

  “Now let’s see if the founder of Foundryside can scheme his way out of this one,” said the captain, walking close, “with his head separated from his body!”

  The soldiers cheered, and the captain lifted the sword high.

  * * *

  —

  Berenice almost screamed in horror as the captain raised the sword. Sancia sat frozen, unable to think. She wanted to jump down there and attack…but if she did, they’d surely kill her too.

  Then the Mountain spoke in her mind:

 

 

  * * *

  —

  Orso shut his eyes as the captain raised his rapier, bracing for him to bring it down and slash it through his neck.

  But then a voice echoed through the atrium—a voice that was rich, and silky, and impossibly, impossibly deep.

  “My, my. It seems like you boys are having quite a night.”

  Orso felt a sudden, churning nausea in his belly.

  He opened his eyes. Oh no.

  He tried to look around, panicked. The Michiels were turning to face the main entryway, which was dark with shadows—and then a figure appeared in the darkness, clad in a three-cornered hat, a short dark cloak, and his mask, black and glinting.

  “What on earth…” whispered a soldier nearby.

  This…This might actually be worse, thought Orso.

  18

  “Who in the hell are you?” demanded the Michiel captain.

  Crasedes slowly walked into the light and turned his blank, black eyes on the man. There was a long, long silence.

  “I should ask the same of you,” he said finally. “Being as you’re trespassing on my property.” He looked down at all the bodies around them. “And getting blood and…bits everywhere. Is this what passes for civility in Tevanne?”

  Crasedes walked forward with the casual air of a man returning to his home after work. The Michiel soldiers backed away from him. Orso found he couldn’t blame them: Even if you lacked Sancia’s scrived vision, something about him made your eyes water. Just from a glance, you somehow knew that this being’s very existence was torturing reality.

  But the Michiel capt
ain did not seem to care. “This enclave is the rightful property of Michiel Body Corporate!” he said. “It was ceded to Dandolo Chartered through an unlawful transaction, conducted unilaterally by a discredited agent acting in bad faith! The transaction is null and void, and the ownership of this enclave is now being negotiated by campo authorities!”

  Crasedes stopped and studied the captain. He cocked his head. “Is that so?” he asked.

  Orso struggled against his bonds, desperate to free himself and run. I…really don’t like how this seems to be going.

  Crasedes resumed strolling among the Michiel soldiers. “You know, for people who do a lot of work to avoid having laws,” he told the captain, “you certainly do seem to invoke a lot of them when it’s to your benefit…”

  “I see no colors on you,” said the captain. “Save black. But do you say you act on behalf of the Dandolos?”

  Crasedes shrugged, bored. “I suppose.”

  The captain brandished his rapier at him. “And do you see the many dead that litter this place now? Do you see the blood that fills these halls, and these many corridors?”

  Another bored shrug. “Certainly.”

  “These are the signs of our ownership of this place,” said the captain proudly. “We have bought this place with blood. All the tricks of the Dandolos are but nothing compared to the might and the will of the Michiels.” The soldiers murmured in agreement. “Know this—break our rules, and we shall break you!”

  “Hm,” said Crasedes lightly. Then he spied Orso tied to the table, and stopped.

  Crasedes paced over—the nausea in Orso’s belly quintupled until it was almost unbearable—and he bent low to stare into Orso’s face. Orso shut his eyes, but he could still hear his voice.

  “I know you…” said Crasedes.