Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,175

up and punched a fist into the air. “Yes. Yes! Yes! I did it, I did it, I did it!”

Sancia, groaning, stared up at the ceiling.

“This is what she’s going to do to stop Estelle?” said Gio. “She’s going to do that?”

“Let’s call this,” said Orso, “a qualified success.”

* * *

An hour later, and they reviewed their plan.

“So we have what we need,” said Orso. “But…we still need to get our empty box within a mile and a half of the Mountain. That’s the farthest the gravity rig will work.”

“So we still need a way through the walls?” said Claudia. “Into the campo?”

“Yes. But only a bit,” said Orso. “A quarter mile or so.”

Claudia sighed. “I don’t suppose Sancia could use the rig to jump over the walls and open the gates from the inside.”

“Not without getting shot to bits,” said Gio. “If the whole campo’s locked down, the guards at the gates will shoot anyone who gets close.”

Sancia held the gravity plates in her hand, whispering to them and listening to them respond. Then she sat up. “I can get us past the walls,” she said quietly. “Or through them, rather.”

“How?” said Berenice.

“A gate is just a door,” she said. “And Clef taught me a lot about doors. I just need to be able to get close.” She sat up and looked around the workshop. She spied something she’d seen the last time she’d been here, when she’d searched the workshop for the listening rig. “Those rows of black cubes over there, the ones that seem to suck up light—are those stable?”

Orso looked around, surprised. “Those? Yes. They’re loaded in one of the main Dandolo foundry lexicons, so you can take those almost anywhere.”

“Can you attach them to a cuirass, or something wearable?” she asked. “It’ll be damn handy if I’m a moving blot of shadow in the darkness.”

“Sure,” said Orso. “But…why?”

“I’ll need them to sneak up to the east Candiano walls,” said Sancia. “Then I’ll get things started. Berenice, Orso—I’ll need you to have your magic box loaded onto a carriage and ready at the southwest gates. All right?”

“You’re going to run along the entire Candiano walls?” said Claudia.

“Most of them,” said Sancia softly. “We’ll need a distraction. And I can give us a good one.”

Gio studied the black cubes. “What are those for, Orso? I’ve never seen someone scrive light like that before.”

“I made those for Ofelia Dandolo,” said Orso. “Some secret project of hers. Gregor mentioned she’d made some kind of assassin’s lorica out of the things…A killing machine you can’t see coming.”

Gio whistled lowly. “It’d be handy to have one of those tonight.”

Sancia sank down in her chair. “What I’d prefer more,” she said, “is to go to war with the one person who has the most experience in waging it. But he’s been taken from us.” She sighed sadly. “So we’ll just have to make do.”

35

Darkness whirled around him. There was the crunch of wood, the crackle of glass, and, somewhere, a cough and a whimper.

“Gregor.”

The scent of putrefaction, of pus, of punctured bowels and hot, wet earth.

“Gregor?”

The swirl of water, the sound of many footfalls, the sound of someone choking.

“Gregor…”

He felt something in his chest, something trembling, something squirming. There was something inside him, something alive, something trying to move.

At first he was horrified. But though he could not really think—how could he think, as he was lost in the darkness?—he started to understand.

The thing moving in his chest was his own heart. It was beginning to beat—first gently, anxiously, like a foal taking its first steps. Then its beats grew stronger, more assured.

His lungs begged for air. Gregor Dandolo breathed deep. Water burbled and frothed in countless passageways within him, and he coughed and gagged.

He rolled onto his side—he was lying on something, some kind of stone slab—and vomited. What came forth was canal water—that he could tell by the taste—and a lot of it.

Then he realized—his stomach. It had hurt so much, just a bit ago…yet now it didn’t hurt at all.

“There we are, dear,” said his mother’s voice from somewhere near him. “There we are…”

“M-Mother?” he slurred. He tried to see, but there was something wrong with his eyes—he could only make out streaks and shadows. “Wh-where are you?”

“I’m here.” Something in the shadows moved. He thought he saw a human figure, robed and carrying a candle—but it was hard to see. “I’m here right beside you, my love.”

“What…what happened to me?” he whispered. His voice was