Foundryside: A Novel (The Founders Trilogy)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  She did not look up as he walked in. He stood before her, hands clasped behind his back, and waited for her to finish. He eyed her as she read a report: she was wearing evening attire, and her face was painted in an ornate pattern, with a red bar across her eyes and blue curls emanating from her blue lips. Her hair was also done up in an elaborate bun. He suspected she’d received news of the Foundryside blackout during a party of some sort, and had been working ever since.

  She was still grand, and beautiful, and strong. But she was also looking her age, he thought. Perhaps it was the job. She’d taken over for the merchant house after Gregor’s father had died in the carriage accident, and that had been, what, twenty-three years ago? Twenty-four? He’d assumed she’d eventually start relinquishing duties, but his mother had not—instead, she’d taken on more and more responsibilities until she practically was Dandolo Chartered, and all of its policies and decisions emanated solely from her person.

  Ten years of that would kill a normal person. Ofelia Dandolo had managed two decades—but he wasn’t sure she had a full third in her.

  “Your brow is damp,” she said quietly—without looking up.

  “Pardon?” he said, surprised.

  “Your brow is damp, my dear.” She scratched out a response to the report, and set it aside. “With sweat, I assume. You must have walked a long way. I will assume you refused a carriage from all the house guards? Again?”

  “I did.”

  She looked at him, and a lesser person would have winced: Ofelia Dandolo’s amber eyes shone bright against her dark skin, and they had the curious power of making her will feel almost palpable. A glare from her felt like a slap. “And I will assume you took smug delight in confusing and disappointing them?”

  Gregor opened his mouth, unsure what to say.

  “Oh, never mind,” she said, setting her report aside. She looked him over. “I hope, Gregor, that you’ve come to offer aid to your campo. I hope that you heard about the disasters in Foundryside, about how all the scrivings failed in what seems to have been a half-mile radius across the Commons, and came straight here to see how you could assist. I hope these things—but I do not expect these things. Because I doubt if even this disaster could make you come back to us, Gregor.”

  “Was Dandolo Chartered really affected by the blackout?”

  She laughed lowly. “Was it affected? A foundry lexicon failed in the Spinola site, right next to the Greens. We were lucky we had two others in the region to keep everything running smoothly. Otherwise things would have graduated from disaster to outright catastrophe.”

  This was startling. A foundry lexicon was an intricate, bafflingly complicated, and stupendously expensive device that essentially made all scrived devices work on the campo. “Do you suspect sabotage?”

  “Possibly,” she said reluctantly. “Yet whatever happened to us also hit the Michiel campo bordering Foundryside. It doesn’t seem to have discriminated much. But you’re not really here to talk about that—are you, Gregor?”

  “No, Mother,” he said. “I’m afraid I am not.”

  “Then…what are you interrupting me for, at this worst of all moments?”

  “The fire.”

  At first she looked surprised, then furious. “Really.”

  “Really,” he said.

  “Our entire civilization has just been gravely threatened,” she said, “and yet you want to talk about your little project? About resuscitating your…municipal militia?”

  “City police,” said Gregor quickly.

  She sighed. “Ah, Gregor…I know you were worried the fire had ruined your project, but trust me, that’s the last thing on everyone’s minds right now. Everyone’s probably forgotten all about it! I know I did.”

  “I wanted to make you aware, Mother,” said Gregor, stung, “that I believe I am mere moments away from catching the saboteur that set the fire. I was in the Commons last night.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You were in the Commons? Last night? When—”

  “Yes. When all hell broke loose. I was making inquiries at the time—and was quite successful, if I might say so. I have located the thief, and will almost certainly capture them tonight. When I do so, I would like to bring them before the Tevanni council.”

  “Ahhh,” she said. “You want a big, showy, public trial—to clear your name.”

  “To make it clear that the Waterwatch project is sustainable,” said Gregor. “Yes. So…if you would begin clearing the way for that process…”

  She smirked. “I thought, my dear, that you didn’t like using your family access,” she said.

  This was true. His mother was one of the major committee chairs for the Council of Tevanne. The council was entirely populated by merchant-house elites, and generally ensured that the houses didn’t excessively sabotage or plagiarize one another—though the definition of “excessively” was getting more nebulous these days. It was the closest thing the city of Tevanne had to a real government, though in Gregor’s opinion, it was not that close at all.

  As such, Gregor could have used his mother’s position to press all kinds of advantages—yet he’d always refrained, thus far. But not today.

  “If it is to advance the greater good of Tevanne,” said Gregor, “then I will use any means necessary.”

  “Yes, yes. Gregor Dandolo, friend of the common man.” She sighed. “Odd that your solution is to start chucking so many common men in jail.”

  Gregor’s natural response would have been—It is not just common men that I wish to jail. But he wasn’t so stupid as to come out and say that.

  She considered it. A handful of moths flitted down out of the ceiling to rotate around her head in a drunken halo. She waved a hand at them. “Shoo, now. Damn things…We can’t even keep our offices clean.” She glared at Gregor. “Fine. I will initiate the proceedings—but the blackout takes precedence. Once that’s resolved, we will move on to your Waterwatches and your thieves and scoundrels. All right?”

  “And…how long will that take?”

  “How in the hell should I know, Gregor?” she snapped. “We don’t even know what happened, let alone what to do next!”

  “I see,” he said.

  “Are you satisfied?” she asked, picking up her quill.

  “Almost,” he said. “I had one last request…”

  She sighed and put her quill back down.

  “Would it be possible for me to consult with the Dandolo hypatus?” he said. “I had some questions I wanted to ask him.”

  She stared at him. “With…with Orso?” she said, incredulous. “Whatever do you want to do that for?”

  “I had some scriving questions related to the theft.”

  “But…but you could go to any scriver for that!”

  “I could go to ten different scrivers and get ten different answers,” said Gregor. “Or I could go to the smartest scriver in Tevanne and get the right one.”

  “At the moment, I doubt if he could give it to you,” said Ofelia. “Not only is he occupied with the blackout, but I’ve recently come to wonder if he’s even more insane than I’d previously thought.”

  That piqued Gregor’s interest. “Oh? Why would that be, Mother?”

  She seemed to debate whether to answer, then sighed. “Because he’s screwed up. Considerably. When they found the ruins in Vialto, Orso lobbied me heavily to try to secure some of the items before they were snatched up by our competitors. I consented—reluctantly—and Orso did his utmost to acquire one curious relic. It was an old, cracked stone box, but it had some similarities to a lexicon. Orso spent a fortune getting it—but then, while in transit between Vialto and here, it…vanished.”

  “It was lost at sea?” said Gregor. “Or was it stolen?”

  “No one can say,” said Ofelia. “But the loss was significant. I have seen the numbers in th
e balance books. They are large, and not positive. I forbade any future efforts. He didn’t take it well.”

  So…Orso Ignacio might have been robbed before, thought Gregor. He made a note of it.

  “If you really want to talk to Orso Ignacio,” she said, “you’ll need to go to the Spinola Foundry—the one bordering the Greens. That’s where the lexicon failed—so that, of course, is where Orso is, trying to figure out what the hell happened.” She looked at him sharply. Gregor suppressed a wince at the sight of it. “I know I can’t tell you what to do, Gregor. You’ve always made that clear. But I strongly suggest you consider going elsewhere with your questions. Orso is not someone to trifle with—and after the blackouts, I’ve no doubt he’ll be in the foulest of foul moods.”

  He smiled politely. “I have dealt with worse people,” he said. “I believe I can handle myself, Mother.”

  She smiled. “I’m sure you think so.”

  * * *

  “Son of a scrumming bitch!” echoed the voice up the stairs. “Son of a worthless, toothless, shitting whore!”

  Gregor paused at the top of the Spinola Foundry stairs and glanced at the foundry guard, who gave him a nervous shrug. The voice continued screaming.

  “What do you mean, you think the records are accurate? How do you shitting think records are accurate? Accuracy is a binary scrumming state—they either are accurate, or they ARE! NOT!” These last two words were screamed so loud, they genuinely hurt Gregor’s ears, even from here. “Are you married, man? Do you have children? If so, I’m stunned, I’m just flummoxed, because I’d have thought you were so damned stupid you wouldn’t know how to stick your candle in your wife! Maybe check around and see if there are any other slack-jawed idiots about with a strong resemblance to your grubby spawn! I swear to God, if you aren’t back here in one hour with records that are genuinely, unimpeachably, undeniably accurate, I’ll personally paint your balls with fig jelly and toss you stark naked into a hog pit! Now, get out of my goddamn sight!”

  There was the sound of frantic footfalls below. Then silence.

  “It’s been like that all morning,” said the foundry guard quietly. “I’d have thought his voice would’ve given out by now.”

  “I see,” said Gregor. “Thank you.” He started off down the stairs to the lexicon chamber below.

  The stairs went down, and down, and down, into the dark.

  As Gregor descended, things began to feel…different.

  They felt heavier. Slower. Denser. Like he was walking not through dank, musty air but was instead at the bottom of the sea, with miles and miles of water pressing down on him.

  How I hate getting near lexicons, thought Gregor.

  Like most people, Gregor did not understand the mechanics of scriving. He could not tell one sigillum from another. In fact, he couldn’t even differentiate one house’s scriving language from another, which was even more fundamental. But he knew how scriving worked, in broad terms.

  The basic sigillums were symbols that naturally occurred within the world. No one knew exactly where the base sigils came from. Some said the Occidentals had invented them. Others said that the symbols were written into the world by the Creator, by God Himself, that He had defined reality by encoding it with these sigillums, forging the world much as the foundries forged scrived rigs. No one was sure.

  Each basic sigillum referenced specific things: there were symbols for stone, wind, air, fire, growth, leaves, and even ones for more abstract phenomena, for “change” or “stop” or “start” or “sharp.” There were millions, if not billions, of them. If you knew these symbols—though few did—then there was nothing stopping you from using them. Even in the most primitive settlement out in the middle of nowhere, if you were trying to carve wood into some intricate shape, you could inscribe it with the base sigil for “clay” or “mud,” and this tiny alteration would make the wood slightly, slightly more malleable.

  But despite all the legends around its origins, basic scriving was very restricted. To start with, its effects were minor, no more than a slight nudge. But worse, if you wanted to tell an ax, “You are very durable, very sharp, very light, and you part the wood of the cedar tree as if it were water”—something much more complicated than just “sharp” or “hard,” in other words—such a command would be fifty or sixty sigils long. You’d run out of room on the ax blade—and you’d also have to get the sigil logic just right so the ax blade would understand what it was supposed to be. You had to be specific, and definite—and this was hard.

  But then the city of Tevanne had discovered an old cache of Occidental records in a cave down the coast. And in those records they’d discovered something crucial.

  The sigil for “meaning.” And then some cunning Tevanni had gotten a brilliant idea.

  They’d figured out that you could take a blank slate of iron, write out that extensive, complicated scriving command; but then, you could follow it with the sigil for “meaning,” and next write a completely new sigil, one you yourself just made up. Then that new sigil would essentially mean “You are very durable, very sharp, very light, and you part the wood of the cedar tree as if it were water”—and then you’d just have to write that one sigil on your ax blade.

  Or on a dozen blades. Or a thousand. It didn’t matter. Every blade would do the same thing.

  After that discovery, much more complicated scriving commands were suddenly possible—yet even this was still quite limited.

  For one thing, you had to stay close to whichever slate of iron had the commands written on it. If you walked too far away, then the ax blade essentially forgot what that new sigil was supposed to mean, and it stopped working. It no longer had a reference point, in a way.

  The other problem was that if you wrote too many complicated scriving definitions on one slate of metal, it had a tendency to burst into flames. A common object such as an iron plate, it seemed, could only bear so much meaning.

  So the city of Tevanne, and its many nascent scriving houses, then had a problem to solve: how were they to house all the definitions and meanings for these complicated scrivings without having everything burst into flames and melt?

  Which was why they’d invented lexicons.

  Lexicons were huge, complicated, durable machines built to store and maintain thousands and thousands of incredibly complex scriving definitions, and bear the burden of all of that concentrated meaning. With a lexicon, you didn’t have to worry about wandering a dozen feet too far and suddenly having all your scrived devices fail on you: lexicons could amplify and project the meaning of those definitions for great distances in all directions—enough to cover part of a campo, if not more. The closer you were to a lexicon, though, the better your scrivings worked—which was why a lexicon was always the beating heart of any foundry. You wanted all of your biggest, most intricate rigs to work at peak efficiency.

  And since lexicons were the beating heart of foundries, they were, in effect, the beating heart of all of Tevanne.

  But they were complicated. Incredibly complicated. Astoundingly complicated. Only geniuses and madmen, everyone agreed, could truly understand a lexicon, and the difference between the two was almost nil.

  So it probably said something that out of all the hypati in the entire history of Tevanne, Orso Ignacio understood lexicons better than anybody. After all, Orso had been the one to invent the combat lexicon—a smaller version of the regular kind, which ships and teams of oxen could haul around. That device was still quite large, complicated, and improbably expensive, and it could only manage to power a cohort’s armaments—but without that contribution, Tevanne would have never captured the Durazzo Sea, and all the cities around it.

  Gregor knew quite a bit about combat lexicons. He’d had one at the siege of Dantua—right up until he didn’t. So he also knew quite a bit about what it was like to lose a lexicon. And he thought he could understand
how Orso Ignacio felt right now. Perhaps he would be able to work the man from that angle.

  He found himself promptly disabused of these notions when he entered the lexicon chamber and instantly heard the words, “Who the shit are you?”

  Gregor blinked in the dim light while his eyes adjusted. The lexicon chamber was wide, dark, and mostly empty. There was a thick glass wall at the back with an open door set in its center, and a tall, thin man stood in the doorway, staring at Gregor. He wore a thick apron, thick gloves, and a pair of thick, dark goggles. He held in his hands a threatening-looking tool, some kind of bendy, looped metal wand with a lot of sharp teeth.

  “P-pardon?” said Gregor.

  The man tossed the wand away, lifted his goggles, and a pair of pale, deep-set, harsh eyes stared at him. “I said, who. The shit. Are you?” asked Orso Ignacio, this time much louder.

  Orso had the look of an artist or sculptor who’d just stepped away from his studio, wearing a stained, beige shirt and off-white hose under his apron, and his beaked shoes—customary for the highest echelons—were ratty and had holes in the toes. His white hair rose up in a wild, unkempt shock, and his once-handsome face was dark and lined and skeletally thin, as if the man had sat for too long in a fish curer’s shed.

  Gregor cleared his throat. “I apologize. Good morning, Hypatus. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you during this most diffic—”

  Orso rolled his eyes and looked across the room. “Who is he?”

  Gregor peered through the shadows, and saw that there was someone else at the back of the room, someone he’d missed: a tall, rather pretty girl with a still, closed face. She was sitting on the floor before a tray of scriving blocks—an abacus-like device that scrivers used to test scriving strings—and she was popping the blocks in and out with a frightening speed, like a professional scivoli player moving their pieces across the board, creating a steady clackclackclack sound.

  The girl paused and glanced at Gregor, her face immaculately inscrutable. “I believe,” she said, in a quiet, even voice, “that that is Captain Gregor Dandolo.”