Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,117

know why he called it a shell, though—shells have something inside them, usually.”

“And he thought the shell itself was the problem,” said Berenice. “The imperiats they’d made somehow weren’t exactly like the original imperiat.”

“Yeah. That seemed to be it.”

There was a pause. Then Berenice and Orso looked at each other in horror.

“It’s the Occidental alphabet,” Berenice said. “The lingai divina.”

“Yes,” said Orso faintly.

“He’s…he’s missing a piece. A sigil, or more. That’s got to be it!”

“Yes.” Orso heaved a deep sigh. “That’s why he’s been stealing Occidental artifacts. That’s why he stole my scrumming key! Of course. He wants to complete the alphabet. Or at least get enough of it to make a functional imperiat.”

“I’m lost,” said Gregor. “Alphabets?”

“We only have pieces of the Occidental alphabet of sigils,” said Berenice. “A handful here, a handful there. It’s the biggest obstacle to Occidental research. It’s like trying to solve a riddle in a foreign language where you only know the vowels.”

“I see,” said Gregor. “But if you steal enough samples—the bits and pieces and fragments that have the right sigils on them…”

“Then you can complete the alphabet,” said Orso. “You can finally speak the language to command your tools to have hierophantic capabilities. Theoretically. Though it sounds like that greasy bastard Ziani is having a time of it.”

“But he is getting help,” said Berenice. “It is Tribuno Candiano who’s writing the sigil strings to make rigs like the gravity plates, and the listening device. Only he’s doing it thoughtlessly, mindlessly, in his madness.”

“But that still doesn’t hang together for me,” said Orso. “The Tribuno I knew didn’t bother with the usual gravity bullshit so many scrivers wasted their lives on. His interests were far…grander.” He pulled a face, like remembering Tribuno’s interests disturbed him. “I feel like it just can’t be him.”

“The Tribuno you knew was sane,” said Gregor.

“True,” admitted Orso. “Either way, it sounds like Ziani does have all of Tribuno’s Occidental collection—that would be the trove that he’d moved out of the Mountain, right?”

“Yeah,” said Sancia. “He mentioned some other artifacts he’d hidden away somewhere—mostly to hide it from you, Orso.”

Orso smirked. “Well. At least we’ve got the scrummer rattled. I suspect he’s been stealing Occidental artifacts from all kinds of people. He must have quite the hoard. And…there was that last bit…the one I find most confusing. They had to dispose of a body?”

“Yeah,” said Sancia. “He made it sound like they’d been disposing of bodies for some time. Didn’t seem to matter whose bodies they were. I get the impression it had something to do with this ritual—but I don’t understand any of that.”

Gregor held up his hands. “We’re getting off track. Alphabets, hierophants, bodies—yes, all that is troubling. But the core issue is that Tomas Ziani intends to manufacture devices that can annihilate scriving on a mass scale. They would be as bolts in a vast quiver to him and his forces. But his entire strategy rests upon one item—the original imperiat. That’s the key to all of his ambitions.” He looked around at them. “So. If he were to lose that…”

“Then that would be a massive setback,” said Berenice.

“Yes,” said Gregor. “Lose the original, and he’ll have nothing to copy.”

“And if Sancia is right, Tomas flat-out said where he was keeping it,” said Orso thoughtfully. He turned in his chair to look out the window.

Sancia followed his gaze. There, huddled in the distant cityscape of Tevanne, was a vast, arching dome, like a smooth, black growth in the center of the city: the Mountain of the Candianos.

“Ah, hell,” she sighed.

* * *

“It’s insane,” said Sancia, pacing. “The damned idea is insane!”

“Breaking into a foundry on a whim was pretty goddamn insane,” said Orso. “But you seemed game about that!”

“We caught them with their hose down,” said Sancia. “In an abandoned foundry in the middle of nowhere. That’s different from trying to break into the scrumming Mountain, maybe the most guarded place in the damned city, if not the world! I doubt if Berenice has some delightful trinket in her pockets that could help us get into there.”

“It is insane,” said Gregor. “But it is, regrettably, our only option. I doubt if Ziani can be lured out of the Mountain with the original imperiat. So we must go in.”

“You mean me,” said Sancia. “I doubt if your dumb asses will be the ones being dropped in there.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Gregor. “But I admit, I’ve no idea how to break into such