Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,3

in the back thought they were rolling uphill, which quickly tore the carriage apart, sending the wheels hurtling through the streets of Tevanne at phenomenal speeds, with much mayhem and destruction and death ensuing.

All of which meant that, despite their being highly advanced creations, hanging around a carriage’s wheels was not exactly the brightest of things to do with one’s evening.

Sancia crawled to one wheel. She cringed as the scrivings whispered in her ears, growing louder. This was perhaps the oddest aspect of her talents—she’d certainly never met anyone else who could hear scrivings—but it was tolerable. She ignored the sound and poked her index and middle finger through two slits in the glove on her right hand, baring her fingertips to the moist air. She touched the wheel of the carriage with her fingers, and asked it what it knew.

And, much like the wall in the passageway, the wheel answered.

The wheel told her of ash, of stone, of broiling flame, of sparks and iron.

Sancia thought, Nope. The carriage had probably come from a foundry—and she was not interested in foundries tonight.

She leaned around the back of the carriage, confirmed the guards hadn’t seen her, and slipped down the line to the next one.

She touched the carriage’s wheel with her fingertips, and asked it what it knew.

The wheel knew soft, loamy soil, the acrid smell of dung, the aroma of crushed greenery and vegetation.

A farm, probably. Nope. Not this one either.

She slipped down to the next carriage—this one your average, horse-drawn carriage—touched a wheel, and asked it what it knew.

The wheel knew of ash, and fire, and hot, and the hissing sparks of smelting ore…

This one came from another foundry, she thought. Same as the first. I hope Sark’s source was right. If all of these came from foundries or farmland, the whole plan’s over before it began.

She slipped down to the next carriage, the horse snuffling disapprovingly as she moved. This was the penultimate one in line, so she was running out of options.

She reached out, touched a wheel, and asked it what it knew.

This one spoke of gravel, of salt, of seaweed, of the tang of ocean spray, and wooden beams soaking above the waves…

Sancia nodded, relieved. That’s the one.

She reached into a pouch on her rig and pulled out a curious-looking object: a small bronze plate inscribed with many sigils. She took out a pot of tar, painted the back of the plate with it, and reached up into the carriage and stuck the little bronze plate to the bottom.

She paused, remembering what her black-market contacts had told her.

Stick the guiding plate to the thing you want to go to, and make sure it’s stuck hard. You don’t want it falling off.

So…what happens if it falls off in the street or something? Sancia had then asked.

Well. Then you’ll die. Pretty gruesomely, I expect.

Sancia pressed on the bronze plate harder. Don’t you scrumming get me killed, she thought, glaring at it. This job’s offering enough damned opportunities as it is. Then she slid out, slipped through the other carriages, and returned to the fairway and the foundry yards.

She was more careful this time, and made sure to stay upwind of any guards. She made it to the drainage tunnel quickly. Now she’d have to trudge back through those fetid waters and make straight for the waterfront.

Which was, of course, where the carriage she’d tampered with was also bound, since its wheels had spoken to her of sea spray and gravel and salty air—things a carriage would only encounter at the waterfront. Hopefully the carriage would help her get into that highly controlled site.

Because somewhere on the waterfront was a safe. And someone incomprehensibly wealthy had hired Sancia to steal one specific item inside it in exchange for a simply inconceivable amount of money.

Sancia liked stealing. She was good at it. But after tonight, she might never need to steal again.

“Twenty thousand,” she chanted softly. “Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand lovely, lovely duvots…”

She dropped down into the sewers.

2

Sancia did not truly understand her talents. She did not know how they worked, what their limits were, or even if they were all that dependable. She just knew what they did, and how they could help her.

When she touched an object with her bare skin, she understood it. She understood its nature, its makeup, its shape. If it had been somewhere or touched something recently, she could remember that sensation as if it had happened to her. And if she