Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,148

looked around when she’d awoken and seen—she was sure of it—no one. Yet there she was.

What the hell, she thought. What else weird could happen tonight?

The woman was nude, but somehow every bit of her was made of gold, even her eyes, which sat blank and still like stones in her skull, watching her. Sancia would have normally thought the woman was not a person at all, but a statue; yet she could not help but feel a tremendous, powerful intelligence in those blank, golden eyes, a mind that watched her with a disturbing indifference, like Sancia were no more than a raindrop wriggling its way down a windowpane…

The woman stepped forward and looked down at her. The side of Sancia’s head grew warm.

The woman said, “When you awake, get him to leave. Then I will tell you how to save yourself.” Her manner of speech was powerfully odd, like she knew the words but had never heard anyone speak out loud before.

Sancia, still lying on the stone floor, stared up at the woman, confused. She tried to say, “But I am awake.”

Yet then, somehow, she realized she wasn’t.

* * *

Sancia awoke with a start, snorting and reaching out. She stared around herself.

She didn’t…seem to have moved at all. She was still alone, still in the dark cell—which looked the exact same—still lying on her back in the exact same position. Yet the woman of gold was gone.

Sancia peered into the shadowy corners, disturbed. Was it a dream? What is wrong with me? What’s wrong with my brain?

She rubbed the side of her head, which ached terribly. Maybe she was going mad. She shivered, thinking of what had happened in Ziani’s office. It seemed like the imperiat could not only shut down scrived devices, as it had in the Greens, but also control them. Which meant, circuitously enough, that since Sancia had a scrived device in her skull, that it could also control her.

Which Sancia found deeply horrifying. She’d grown up in a place where she’d had no say in her decisions. To have someone literally take her will away from her…

I need to get out of here. Now.

She stood, walked over to a wall, and felt the blank stone. Her abilities still worked, it seemed: the wall told her of itself, of the many rooms it adjoined, of spider webs and cinder and dust…

I’m in a foundry, she realized. But she’d never heard of a foundry that made so little noise before.

An old one, then. One fallen into disuse?

She took her hand away. I’m still on the Candiano campo, aren’t I? That’s the only campo where a scriving foundry would sit totally vacant. She wondered if she was in the Cattaneo, but she didn’t think so. The Cattaneo had felt more advanced than this.

Then the side of Sancia’s head grew hot again, so hot it felt like her flesh was sizzling. Before she could cry out, all thoughts fell away from her—and then, again, she lost control of her body.

She watched herself as she stood up, took three shuffling steps, and turned to wait in front of the iron door.

There were footsteps from outside, then a clinking and clanking. Then the door fell open to reveal Tomas Ziani standing there, imperiat in his hand, blinking in the darkness.

“Ah!” he said, seeing her. “Good. You look alive and well.” He wrinkled his nose. “You are an ugly little thing, aren’t you. But…” He adjusted a wheel on the imperiat, then held it up to her, slowly waving it through the air—until it finally drew close to the right side of her head. The imperiat began to whine softly.

“Interesting,” he said softly. “Amazing! All those scrivers who thought we’d never see a scrived human—yet I’m the one to find one! Let’s have a look at you, then. Come along.” He fiddled with the imperiat, waved a hand, and Sancia, helpless, followed him out of the cell.

* * *

He marched her through the foundry’s crumbling, dark passageways. It was a shadowy, gloomy place, silent except for an occasional distant drip of water. Finally they came to a large open room, lit by scrived lights placed on the floor. Standing at the far wall of the room were four Candiano guards, all of whom looked quite seasoned. There was a deadness to their eyes as they looked at Sancia that made her skin crawl.

Beside these thugs was a long, low table. On it were all sorts of books, papers, and stone