There was a woman seated at a small bench before a gazing pool ahead, dark-skinned and somewhat elderly. And she was weeping.
She sniffed, and looked up. She saw Berenice and froze.
The two just stared at each other for a second, Berenice with her sword raised, the woman with her hands clasped at her breast. Berenice, of course, recognized her. She’d seen her at many functions and events in her time—though usually she hadn’t been so rumpled and exhausted-looking.
“Who are you?” demanded Ofelia Dandolo.
Berenice did not answer.
Ofelia narrowed her eyes. “I know you…You’re Orso’s girl, aren’t you?”
“I’m no one’s girl,” said Berenice.
Ofelia watched her nervously, her gaze flicking back and forth between Berenice’s inscrutable expression and the sword in her hand. “You’re…You’re here to stop it, aren’t you?” She gestured at the patch of lightish sky set in the darkness beyond. “You’re the reason the sky broke.”
Berenice said nothing.
“Are…you here to kill me?” asked Ofelia in a quiet voice.
“No.”
“And Gregor?” asked Ofelia. “Are…Are you here to kill him?”
“No,” said Berenice. “I’ve come to save him.”
“That’s not possible,” she said. “He…He can’t be saved. I tried. I tried to undo what I did, but…”
“You haven’t tried it the way that we will.”
Ofelia studied her for a long while. “I’ve stopped believing in good things,” she said. “I don’t deserve them anymore. So—I don’t believe you. But…”
She stood. Berenice raised her rapier a little more, startled by the motion.
Ofelia scoffed. “Put down that thing and follow me.”
Berenice eyed her suspiciously. “To where?”
“To where it’s all happening, of course. I can get you there faster than you can fumble your way to it. And no one here will stop me, child. Nor you, while I am with you.”
“You’re…You’re saying you want to help me?”
Ofelia shrugged miserably. “Yes. Of course.”
“But…why?”
“Because…” She stared up at the unnaturally black sky over the city and listened to the screams and wailing around them. “Look at this. This is not the place I wished to make. Does that suffice?”
Still, Berenice hesitated, sword raised.
“I take it that it doesn’t,” said Ofelia. “You still don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust someone who would put so many slaves to the sword all to bring back a monster. No.”
“No,” said Ofelia softly. “No, I can’t begrudge you that. And I won’t deny my mistakes, so many of which are beyond redemption.” She extended her arms, allowing Berenice to see her skinny frame, her fine but smudged clothes, the way her tears had mussed the paint around her eyes. “But one day, girl, you too might have to choose between the unimaginable and the irredeemable. And no matter what choice you make—it will haunt you for the rest of your days. Until you become a specter like this.” She lowered her arms. “Now—will you put away that sword, and let me help you?”
Berenice did not believe her. But Sancia did, far away within the mansion.
Berenice slowly lowered the sword.
“Good,” said Ofelia quietly. “Now, come with me, and tell me—how do you plan to save my son?”
* * *
—
Sancia watched from within her mind as Ofelia Dandolo led Berenice into the mansion, her blood and presence opening door after door after door.
Of all the things we have to do tonight, she thought, why does this one trouble me the most?
She looked at Gregor, standing at attention before the doors, rapier in hand, staring at the blank wood. He hardly moved, even to breathe.
Is it because I know how dangerous you are?
She noticed one of his hands was bruised and bloodied. Probably the consequence of beating her half to death mere hours ago.
Or is it because I’ve tried to save you before, she thought, and I’ve always failed?
There was a soft pat from nearby. She looked around for the source, and noticed a small drop on the floor beside Gregor’s left boot. It took her a second to realize he was weeping where he stood, back erect, still standing ready for combat at any moment.
“You’re still in there,” said Sancia to him softly. “Aren’t you?”
“What?” asked Orso. “He is?”
“Gregor?” asked Sancia. “Gregor, can you hear me? I know you can resist. I’ve seen you do it before. Do something to show me. Please, remember who we are, what we’ve done together, and show me you have…have some control over this…”
But Gregor did nothing.
“The commands of the Maker,” said Valeria’s voice quietly, “are not to be denied.”
Sancia jumped, then groaned as her left hand screamed in pain. Valeria had been so quiet that she’d forgotten she was there.
She glared at Valeria, and watched, unnerved, as the construct slowly turned her giant golden, damaged face to look at her.
“I said I could free Gregor,” said Valeria. “This I meant. When I unmake the commands of all men, I will free him—and you.”
“Free me from the shit you did to me!” said Sancia.
“Should I have such a power over you?” said Valeria. “Should I exist? I think not. So long as the children of men can command and control on such a scale, people like you and he will be mired in bondage.”
“You’re wrong,” said Sancia.
“You think he can change his mind about who he is, and free himself in this manner?” said Valeria. “As you freed yourself from the imperiat? You know in your heart that this will fail.”
“I know!” said Sancia. “I know I was wrong. And it’s my fault. I’ve been thinking like…you, Valeria.”
Valeria studied her, but said nothing.
“I’ve been thinking like you, and Crasedes, and the merchant houses,” said Sancia. “That it’s all about commanding, and controlling. That if you just use the right logic, you can give orders to the world, to other people, and make everything change.” She bowed her head. “But it can’t be like that. If we use these tools just for control, we’ll wind up right back here again.”
“Then…what is the alternative you are proposing?” asked Valeria.
Sancia shut her eyes. “To use them to connect,” she said, “rather than control. And with that connection, we all change together.”
* * *
—
“So,” said Ofelia as she and Berenice began to climb the stairs up to the ballroom, “you intend to free my son by…stabbing him with a magic knife?”
“That is…not quite it,” said Berenice. “The knife will just be the method of planting a new set of sigils within him. A command that would allow us to twin his thoughts with ours. Ordinarily he would just swallow a small metal tab. But…”
“But since he is being controlled by…Crasedes”—Ofelia seemed to have some trouble saying the name—“it is unlikely he’d consent to that.”
“Yes.” It felt terrifically odd to be explaining this to Ofelia Dandolo, here in her ancestral home, about what they were going to do to her son; but then, with the sky out the windows still half-light and half-dark, and the air echoing with the sounds of screams and the odd crack, everything felt terrifically odd.
“And how will this save him, again?” asked Ofelia as they climbed the long staircase.
“He will change,” she said. “He will become different. His mind will be twinned with mine, and
Sancia’s, and then the bindings will no longer work on him—because he will be someone new.”
Ofelia stopped and stared off into the dark vaults of her mansion. “For him to be freed of what I did to him, he…he must become someone other than himself?”
“In a way.”
Her eyes glimmered with tears. “It is like dying, then. I will finally lose my son. I…I thought I’d lost him so many times, but…but this will truly be different.”
“No,” said Berenice. “No, no. Nothing is lost. It’s…It’s shared. All he has, all he knows, all he treasures, all he suffers—that will become a part of me and Sancia. And all we have and know—that will be a part of him, as well.”
Ofelia stared at her. “You cannot do such things with scrivings. Scrivings control. They do not free the souls of men.”
“It depends,” said Berenice, “on how you use them.”
A medley of emotions worked through Ofelia’s face: disbelief, then fear, then despair, and sorrow. Then she looked away, her face obscured in shadow. “Show me this knife.”
Berenice took off her pack and pulled out the knife. It was a minuscule thing, with a one-inch blade and a four-inch handle. The focus of the work was the blade, which was covered in tiny, tiny sigils—the exact same ones as those on the little plates she and Sancia had swallowed just a day ago.
“Why not a bolt, or an arrow?” asked Ofelia.
“Arrows miss,” said Berenice. “And if they strike, they can kill. Which we don’t want.”
“I see.” Her gaze grew steely. “Give me the knife.”
“What?”
“Give it to me. Let me be the one to do it. I am the one who first bound him. I should also be the one to free him.”
Berenice stared at Ofelia, so skinny and elderly and plainly exhausted. “You…You can’t,” she said. “He’ll kill you before you ever get the chance. He’s been told to kill anyone who enters the room.”
“I have different permissions to him,” said Ofelia. “And more than that, he is my son. He will waver. He will resist. Besides, girl, what were you going to do?”
Berenice studied her face, her eyes wide and mournful, and she realized what Ofelia intended to do.
She handed her the knife. Ofelia took it, and felt its heft.
“The marvels of innovation,” she mused softly, “that such a small thing can do so much. Now, come. Let us end this.”
38
Ofelia Dandolo trembled as she approached the tall, ornate doors to her grand ballroom. There seemed to be so many steps leading to the entry now. Each one felt like a cliff, and each movement felt like she carried not a tiny knife in her hands, but the trunk of a tree.
Ofelia swallowed and held the little knife tightly in her fingers.
Am I truly going to do this? Am I going to disrupt the plans of Crasedes Magnus himself?
Then she thought of Gregor when he was a boy: so small, so cheerful, so unburdened.
She grasped the handle of the door.
Of course. Of course I am.
She turned the handle, and the door creaked open.
She gasped at the sight before her. The massive, hulking lexicon was still sitting in the center of the grand ballroom, like some giant biological specimen trapped in a green glass case—but to its right, next to the shabby little thing Crasedes had taken from Foundryside, was some kind of unearthly golden giant, though it appeared to have been brutalized and ravaged beyond description. Placed before that was Orso Ignacio, strapped to a chair, and beside him was a small, rather dirty-looking, lighter-skinned girl, strapped to a table, with very short hair and two blackened eyes and quite a lot of bruises. It took Ofelia a moment to recognize her as the girl from the galleon.
And there, just a few feet before her, was her son, rapier in his hand, watching her with a dead, cold gaze she knew quite well.
“Ofelia!” cried Orso in a strangled voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Orso,” said the girl on the table, “shut up.”
“But…But she’s been the one working with Crasedes all along!” he cried. “Berenice—get away from her!”
“Orso,” said Ofelia quietly. “You never really followed my instructions when you were my employee. But for once—please do as the girl says and shut up.”
Silence filled the ballroom.
Ofelia stared into her son’s face, then at the sword in his hand, gripped tightly.
“Good evening, my love,” she gently said to Gregor.
She waited. Gregor did not move.
“I am going to come inside now,” she said. “Is that all right?”
He did not move. The silence seemed to stretch on and on.
“I…I command you to tell me,” she said, her voice shaking slightly, “if it is all right for me to come inside.”
Still, he did nothing.
“Tell me,” she said again. “I command, you, I command you…”
Still nothing. He was like a statue.
“God,” she said hoarsely. “What to do, what to do…I…I remember when you first came into this world. How there was no waiting for you. No work, no pain, not like with Domenico. You seemed so eager to enter this world of ours. Such a happy child, expecting happy things. Did you know that? Did I ever tell you that?”
Gregor said nothing.
“I know you wonder why I did what I did, my child,” she said, now trembling mightily. “But I want to tell you I did it because…because I wanted the world that you seemed so eager to see to be a good one. So that each day when you awoke and bounded forward and opened your bedroom door, it opened on a better world for you. I wanted to give you that.”
Gregor stared at her, sword raised, feet apart.
Ofelia looked down at the threshold of the door. “I think I still can,” she whispered. “I think so. I’m coming in now.”
She took a deep breath and stepped inside the chamber.
Gregor did not move. He just kept watching her.
Orso, Sancia, and Berenice all exhaled, relieved.
“Thank God…” whispered Berenice.
He’s got control, Ofelia thought. He heard me. He’s fighting it.
“My love,” she said, still in a calm, gentle voice, “I am going to walk to you now. All right?”
Gregor watched her with his hollow, dead gaze.
“All right,” said Ofelia. “Here I come. One step at a time…”
She began slowly walking to him, pausing after each step to see if he’d spring, but he did not. She grew closer, and closer, studying his body—Where shall I put this knife? In his shoulder? In his heart?—until she was close enough to see the exhaustion in his face, the lines at his mouth, the scars on his body. How alive he seemed, but also so old, and so worn…
And then, suddenly, something changed in his eyes—something went cold, and strange, and distant, and she knew what he was going to do.
She stopped where she stood. “No!” she cried.
Gregor slowly took a step forward to her, shuddering and pained, like he was fighting the movement.
“Gregor, please!” Ofelia said.
Another step, this one smoother, faster.
“He’s active!” said the girl on the table.
“Ofelia,” said Berenice. “Ofelia, get out! Get out!”
Another step.
“I’m coming in!” said Berenice.
“No!” said Ofelia. “Stay back!” She watched him take another step, and another. “He’s mine. He has always been mine.”
He staggered closer. Her eye strayed to his hand, the knuckles white where he gripped his rapier.
She considered running away, fleeing down the stairs, running out into her gardens.
No, she thought. I abandoned you to this fate once. I will not do so again
.
“Come, then,” she whispered to him. “Let me touch you once more, at least. Let me do that, one last time.”
Soon he was four feet away. Then three.
Then he was before her.
She reached up with her right hand and touched his cheek, staring into his eyes.
So haunted, and yet still so hungry—so eager for a better world, even after all these years.
“I love you,” she said.
He held her eyes for a moment. Then he twisted his shoulders forward, a clean, powerful movement, and the rapier smoothly slid into her chest, just below the rib cage.
“No!” screamed Orso.
“Stop!” cried Berenice, hovering at the threshold. “Stop, no, no!”
Ofelia coughed. Her legs grew weak. Slowly, she staggered back and knelt down to the floor, and he let her go, the blade sliding out as she fell.
He began to pull away from her. But as he did, she suddenly surged forward, desperately grasping the back of his head, and she pulled her face to his to plant a single kiss upon his brow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She stabbed the tiny knife into his shoulder, the blade digging deep into his flesh. She released it and it stayed stuck, and he gagged aloud and stumbled backward.
Ofelia fell to the ground, staring up at the ceiling of her ballroom, the grand scrived lights above her dead and dark.
She tried to move her head, but she couldn’t.
No, she tried to say. I want to see it.
Someone was screaming nearby. She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t remember how her muscles worked.
I want to see it! I want to see him set free!
Her fingers pawed uselessly at the tile floor, which was now awash in a spreading lake of her blood.
I deserve that, don’t I? Don’t I at least get to witness that?
The world seemed to grow dim. There was a screaming from somewhere, and a sigh, and a sob—and then the curious tinkling sound of metal on metal, like the links of many chains shifting in the darkness around her, and then nothing more.
Shorefall Page 46
