Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,141

He started across a small square toward it—but then he paused ever so slightly.

Gregor abruptly turned right, away from the cross-streets. He walked to a small alley, stepped into a doorway, and stopped and watched the square and the streets around him.

There was no one. Yet he’d suddenly had an overpowering feeling that someone had been following him—there’d been a movement somewhere, out of the corner of his eye.

He waited, not moving. Perhaps I imagined it, he thought. He waited a bit longer. I need to hurry, he thought. Or else Sancia will try to jump off the Mountain with nowhere to fly to. He walked to the cross-streets, knelt, and started installing the anchor in the cobblestone.

* * *

What struck Sancia most about the Mountain was not just the size of the thing, but also the emptiness of it. She roved through huge banquet halls with vaulted ceilings, indoor gardens with pink, circling floating lanterns, immense counting offices filled with rows and rows of desks—and most were almost empty, occupied by only one or two people. She’d heard rumors that the Mountain was haunted, but maybe it just felt haunted because it seemed so abandoned.

said Clef.

She knew she needed to find a lift, and she needed to use it without attracting attention. She finally found a more populated segment of the Mountain, full of residents and employees. They sped past her or ambled this way and that as they went about their daily lives, ignoring her; but then, they would—Orso had supplied her with clothing that made her look like a mid-level functionary.

She spied a few important-looking young men and followed them until they finally came to a lift. They stood around, waiting on the little room to arrive, and chatted in bored tones. Finally the round brass doors opened for them—presumably the rig checked their blood to make sure they could use it—and they walked inside, chatting and gesturing. Then the doors shut, and the lift rose.

she thought.

said Clef.

The lift doors opened again, and she stepped inside. There was a brass panel by the door, with a round dial set in the middle. The dial was labeled with numbers running from 1 to 15, and it was currently pointed at 3. she thought.

She set the dial to 15, and the doors shut and the lift began to rise.

Clef said.

They rode in silence.

Then Sancia heard a voice. It was just like when she heard Clef’s voice—but this voice was not Clef’s. It was the voice of an imperious old man, and his words echoed loudly in her head as he said,

Sancia nearly fell over with shock. She stared around herself, and confirmed they were alone in the lift.

she asked.

he said. He sounded just as shocked as she was.

boomed the old man’s voice.

said Clef.

The doors of the lift opened. Sancia walked out onto the fifteenth floor, which appeared to be more industrial than residential. Everything here was blank gray stone and iron doors and pipes. A sign above read SCRIVING BAY 13.

Sancia barely had any mind for this, though. Someone was talking, to her and to Clef. Someone could apparently overhear them, like two people gossiping at a taverna. The idea was simply mad.

asked the old man’s voice. He spoke in clipped, harsh tones, like a parrot that had learned to imitate speech.

she asked.

said Clef.

said the old man’s voice.

she said. She turned a corner and followed a group of scrivers toward yet another lift. She glanced inside and saw this one only went