Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,72

them—but then both of them gracefully tumbled through the upstairs windows of the Zorzi Building.

Gregor lowered the espringal. “Oh hell,” he sighed.

* * *

Sancia saw them coming. She pointed the big espringal at one of the attackers just as they passed through the windows, and fired. But the shot went wide, and the density cords tangled around a rafter—which was, of course, already at rest, so that didn’t do much.

“Shit!” she cried. She leapt forward as a scrived bolt hurtled toward her. As she fell she reached into her pocket, grabbed a stun bomb, pressed its plate, and tossed it into the rafters.

She knew, of course, that in this terribly dark place it would blind her as well, along with whichever vagrants were still in there with her. But Sancia was pretty good at getting around without seeing.

The flash of the bomb was tremendous, as was the pop from its charge. For a moment she just lay there on the walkway, her head ringing and her eyes aching. Clef’s voice cut through all her sensory overload.

he said.

Sancia was keenly aware that wouldn’t last forever—though the effects might likely last unusually long, given the dark environment. Yet she found she could hear her attackers, or at least their rigs—there was a faint chanting in the blistering, flashing darkness, from their gravity rigs. I guess I don’t hear scrivings with my ears, she thought, which was a curious revelation. She also realized that these rigs must be terribly powerful for her to be able to hear them from so far away.

That gave her an idea. She slipped out her bamboo pipe, which was loaded with a single dolorspina dart.

Clef seemed to not understand this was disturbing, since it suggested his method of seeing things was different from human eyes. She lifted the pipe to her lips.

Sancia took a deep breath in through her nose and blew as hard as she could.

She had no idea what happened—she still couldn’t see or hear much. It was like firing the dart into the blackest of nights in here. But then Clef said,

She could see blurs in the darkness—her vision was coming back, but only slightly. she said.

She touched her bare hand to the wall beside her, then the rafter above her, and she listened to both of them. She let all the rafters and the supports and the beams overhead pour into her.

It was too much, far, far, too much. Her head felt like it was going to break open. I’m going to pay for this later, she thought. But she kept going until every inch of the ceiling had made an impression in her thoughts, every beam of wood and every brick fixed in her mind.

Then, still mostly blind and deaf, Sancia leapt up, grabbed a rafter, lifted herself up, and started crawling through the rafters of the Zorzi Building with her eyes closed.

She couldn’t see any of the dangers underneath her, but Clef could. he said.

she said as she blindly leapt from one rafter to another,

She kept going, hopping from rafter to rafter, beam to beam, until she felt like she was getting close. she asked.

She did so, and found he was right. And as she touched the wall,