Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,137

how I was made.”

“You do?” said Berenice.

“Yes,” said Clef. “I was lying on my back…and then I felt pain, shooting through me…and then…I…I became the key. I filled it. I moved within it. I filled its cracks and crevices…and…” He trailed off.

“And?” said Orso.

A cold horror filled Sancia’s body—and she suspected that it was Clef’s horror, not her own.

she said.

“What are you saying here?” asked Claudia.

“I’m saying it wasn’t human sacrifice,” said Clef softly. “Not entirely.”

“What?” said Orso. “Then what was it?”

“I…I remember the taste of wine,” whispered Clef. “I remember the feeling of wind on my back, the sound of breeze in the wheat, and a woman’s touch. I remember all these sensations—but how could I, if I was always a key?”

They stared at him. Then Berenice’s mouth opened in horror. “Unless…unless you weren’t always a key.”

“Yes,” said Clef.

“What do you mean?” asked Gregor.

“I think that…once, I was a person,” said Clef. “Once I was alive just as you all are…but then, during the lost minute, they took me out of me…and they put me in…in here. Inside this…contraption.” Sancia’s fingers curled around the golden key, gripping it so hard her knuckles turned white. “The histories don’t record the hierophants killing anyone—because they didn’t. They stripped a mind from raw flesh and bone, and during that lost moment in the depths of the night…they placed it inside a shell. A vessel.”

“All thoughts collected,” said Berenice.

Orso put his face in his hands. “Oh my God…It’s a loophole, isn’t it! A stupid, scrumming loophole!”

“A loophole?” said Claudia.

“Yes!” said Orso. “Occidental sigils—the sigillums of God Himself—can’t be used by anything that has been born or shall die. So what do you do? You take a person and turn them into something deathless—something that is not really born, and never will truly die. You do it during the world’s lost hour, when the rules aren’t enforced. That gives you access to untold permissions and privileges! Reality will happily follow the instructions of the tool you’ve created—because, in a way, it genuinely believes the tool is God Himself!”

“I’ve been trapped in here for…for forever,” said Clef faintly. “I’ve outlived the people who made me. I spent so long in the dark…all because they needed a tool to do a job. It’s not human sacrifice—it’s worse.”

And then, to everyone’s surprise, Clef burst into tears.

* * *

Berenice tried to comfort him as the rest looked on, hugging Sancia’s body close as Clef wept.

“To imagine it,” said Orso. “To imagine that the discovery you’ve sought for so long is…is this ghastly mutilation of the human body and soul…”

“And to imagine what the other houses would do,” said Gregor quietly, “if they were to make the same discovery. In many ways, Tevanne already runs on the fuels of human suffering. But if we were to switch to this method…imagine the sheer human cost.” He shook his head. “The hierophants were not angels at all. They were devils.”

“Why don’t you remember more about yourself?” Giovanni asked Clef. “If you were a person, why do you still think and act like…well, the key?”

“Why is bronze not like copper, or tin, or aluminum, or any of the rest of its components?” said Clef, sniffling. “Because they have all been remade for another purpose. The key looks like just an object to you all, but on the inside it’s…it’s doing things. Redirecting my mind, my soul, to act in a certain way. And because it’s breaking down, I…I remember more of myself.”

“And this is what Tomas Ziani is attempting,” said Gregor. “He is attempting this grand remaking of the human soul—only he is failing, over and over and over again. And he is willing to fail more, with over a hundred people.” He looked at Sancia. “Now we know. Now we truly know what’s at stake. Will you try to stop it tonight, Sancia? Are you willing to rob the Mountain?”

Sancia took control of her body again, like a hand sliding into a glove.

said Clef softly.

She shut her eyes and bowed her head.

27

Nightfall, and Berenice, Sancia, and Gregor skulked through the Commons south of the Candiano campo. Sancia’s blood buzzed and boiled in her veins. She often felt jittery before a big job, but tonight was different. She tried to stop glancing at the Mountain in the distance so she wouldn’t remember exactly how different it was.

“Slow down,” hissed Berenice behind her.