Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,143

Old Ones once remade the world.>

Sancia anxiously looked around the sandy plain, then started off, the sigh of her footprints intensely loud in the empty room.

whispered Clef.

said the Mountain.

She shook her head, bewildered, as they crossed the weird sandy plain. She was getting the impression that the Mountain was not really hostile to them at all. Rather, it was like the thing was lonely, hungry for someone to talk to, and she suspected it’d brought her to this strange, fake place for a reason. Much like a party host might show a guest a painting, the Mountain had wanted to discuss this.

she asked.

said the Mountain.

asked Sancia.

said the Mountain.

said Clef.

said the Mountain.

She did as the Mountain asked. Nothing about the obelisk looked familiar at first, but…

On one side was a carven visage. An old man’s face, stern and high-cheekboned, and below it, a single hand, grasping a short shaft—a wand, perhaps. Below that was a familiar symbol to Sancia—the butterfly, or the moth. She’d seen it on Clef’s head, and in the engraving of the hierophants in Orso’s workshop.

“Crasedes the Great,” said Sancia.

said the Mountain.

She found the door and opened it. She started to walk out—but then screamed and fell back.

The door opened on a short, railed balcony, almost at the top of the huge hollow space she’d originally seen—she was hundreds of feet above the ground. If she’d run forward, she could have stumbled over the railing and fallen to her death.

“You could have told me that was there!” she said aloud.

said the Mountain, somewhat apologetically.

She returned to the balcony, and saw there was a short walkway that clung to the curving wall around the top of the giant hollow hall. A door was at the far end, and she started to walk to it.

she said.

said the Mountain.

asked Sancia.

It sounded amused.

said Sancia.

said the Mountain.

cried Clef, suddenly.

asked Sancia.

said Clef.

said Sancia.

said Clef.