kill him?”
There was silence from behind her.
“Ah,” said Crasedes softly. “I think I was…a little forward in sharing that information with you. It is not for you to know.”
She stopped before the mural and turned to face him. “Who was he? Who were you?”
“You are inquiring about an estimated one percent of my existence,” said Crasedes, “and Clef’s. Those days were long ago. It would be like me asking you of the first ninety days of your life—not terribly informative.”
“He was my friend. I deserve to know.”
“You deserve nothing,” said Crasedes. “What you experienced of him was most likely a mind speaking from within a decaying tool. I am sure he must have gibbered on in incoherent madness.”
“Is that what you believe?” asked Sancia. “Or is it what you’d prefer?”
Crasedes gazed down at her, unmoving.
“If I had done something horrible to my friend,” said Sancia, “I’d want to believe they were gone too. I wouldn’t want to know that they were suffering—that they had been suffering in silence, all alon—”
“You speak of suffering, and sacrifice,” he said, “but you don’t even know what it looks like. You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone, and know their life meant absolutely nothing in the face of some greater conflict. You don’t even know what the construct is doing to you now. She’s sacrificing you, at this very moment. Just very, very slowly.”
Sancia paused. She’d been terrified so far, certainly—but that comment struck a deeper fear in her, one she’d suspected for so long but had never been able to articulate.
“Show me this device,” demanded Crasedes. “Show me the construct. Show me where she is, and I will be done with you.”
She turned to the mural. Without a sound, it split in half and opened before her. She gave the Mountain a silent wish of support—they could not communicate, she figured, for Clef had been capable of overhearing her conversations with the structure, so surely Crasedes himself could do the same.
It was very dark in here—but Sancia could see what had been installed there with her scrived sight.
She stared at the room around her.
Tribuno, she thought. Even in death, you manage to surprise me.
Crasedes slowly drifted inside. “This…This is your device? This room is…Wait.”
Then all the lights came on, and the music started.
Crasedes stared at the ornate, intricate, and frankly ridiculous display around him. A huge, painted banner hung from the ceiling, reading: WELCOME, MAKERS OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF SIGILS! In the center of the room was a giant statue of all the great hierophants—Pharnakes, Aerothos, Seleikos, Agathoklies—and it rotated very, very slightly. On one wall was a massive bronze engraving of Crasedes Magnus himself—the bearded, wizardly version, of course—breaking open the doors of the chamber at the center of the world, a large key in his hand. On the other wall was a second bronze engraving depicting a group of wizened, robust men quite literally poking their heads through the walls of the cosmos, and glimpsing a colossal hammer, and chisel, and a mold, and multiple crucibles, all arrayed against the stars.
The music was by far the worst part: two scrived harps and a scrived set of pipes rose up out of the tile floor and began playing a song that might have been in tune when Tribuno Candiano had made this place however many decades ago—but it certainly didn’t sound much like music now.
“What?” said Crasedes, bewildered.
Sancia darted forward through the room. The blank wall on the far side gave way, allowing her a route out of this blaring, shrieking chamber.
The Mountain’s voice roared to life in Sancia’s mind:
“What!” said Crasedes, much louder.
Then two enormous steel walls fell from the ceilings at the side of the room, locking him in.
screamed the Mountain to him, overcome with joy.