Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,81

trying again. There are all kinds of stories about the hierophants using scrived tools to navigate the barriers of reality—barriers we ourselves barely understand!”

“So you just wanted to make more powerful tools,” said Gregor.

“No,” said Orso. “Not just. Listen—when we inscribe an item with sigillums, we alter its reality, as anyone knows. But if you wipe the sigillums away or move beyond a lexicon, then those alterations vanish. The Occidentals not only developed tools that didn’t need lexicons—when the Occidentals altered reality, it was permanent.”

“Permanent?” said Sancia.

“Yes. So, say you have a scrived hierophantic tool that, oh, can make a stream burble up from the ground. Sure, you’d need sigillums to make the tool—but if you use the tool on the ground, then that water is there forever. It will have edited reality in a direct, instantaneous, and everlasting fashion. Supposedly the wand of Crasedes could unthread reality and tie it all back together again, if the stories are to be believed.”

“Whoa,” said Sancia quietly.

“Whoa is right,” said Orso.

“How is that possible?” asked Gregor.

“That’s one of the giant goddamn mysteries I was trying to solve!” said Orso. “There are some theories. A few hierophantic texts call the basic sigils we use the lingai terrora—the language of the earth, of creation. But the Occidental sigils were the lingai divina—the language of God.”

“Meaning?” said Sancia.

“Meaning our sigils are the language of reality, of trees and grass and, hell, I don’t know, fish. But Occidental sigils are the language God used to fashion that reality. So—use God’s coded commands, and reality is your plaything. Still, just a theory. The key would have helped me figure out how true all that was.”

said Sancia. But Clef remained silent, stuffed down the side of her boot. She wondered if his efforts had broken him, just as her own had almost broken her tonight.

“But the key was stolen as well…” said Gregor.

“Well, originally I thought the damned thing had gotten burned to bits in the waterfront fire.” He scowled at Sancia. “But the fire was you as well?”

Sancia shrugged. “Shit got out of hand.”

“I’ll say,” said Orso. “But what happened next? What did you do with it?”

Sancia then reiterated the story she’d told Gregor—bringing it to the fishery, Sark’s death, the fight, the escape.

“So you gave it over,” said Orso.

“I did,” she said.

“And your Sark said he suspected founder lineage behind this.”

“It’s what he said.”

Orso looked at Gregor.

“I might be founder lineage,” said Gregor, “but I think we can count me out, yes?”

“That’s not what I was looking at you for, idiot!” snapped Orso. “Do you believe her or not?”

Gregor thought about it. “No,” he said. “I don’t. Not entirely. I think there’s something she’s not telling us.”

Shit, thought Sancia.

“Have you searched her?” said Orso.

Sancia’s heart leapt in her chest. Shit!

“I’ve not had the time,” said Gregor. “Nor am I, ah, willing to submit a woman to my touch without her conse—”

Orso rolled his eyes. “Oh, for the love of God…Berenice! Would you please search Miss Sancia here for us?”

Berenice hesitated. “Uh. Really, sir?”

“You’ve already been shot at,” said Orso, “so you know this won’t be the worst thing to have happened to you tonight. Just wash your hands well afterwards.” He nodded at Sancia. “Go on. Stand up.”

Sighing, Sancia stood and raised her arms above her head. Berenice quickly patted her down. She was about a head taller than Sancia, so she had to stoop to do it. She paused at Sancia’s hips, and pulled out the last remaining stun bomb, a handful of old lockpicks, and nothing else.

Sancia tried to suppress the relief in her face. Thank God she didn’t make me take my scrumming boots off.

“That’s it,” said Berenice as she stood. The girl turned away quickly, but oddly enough, she was blushing.

Gregor looked at Sancia hard. “Really,” he said.

“Really,” said Sancia with as much defiance as she could muster.

“Terrific,” said Orso. “So we have a thief with a dull story, and no treasure. Is there anything else? Anything else?”

Sancia thought rapidly. She knew there was quite a lot more. The problem was what to keep, and what to give up.

Her current problem was that despite saving Orso’s life, her own still offered no value to these men. One bore the authorities assigned to him by the city, the other carried with him all the privileges of the merchant houses—and she was just a Commons thief who, as far as they were aware, no longer possessed the