Foundryside into a miniature Mountain? With Valeria as the little god that influences it?”
“I guess,” said Sancia. She flexed her scrived sight, and the world lit up with countless contradictory signals. It was like she was standing in a hailstorm, unable to see past her nose. “This is…a bit outside my expertise.”
“Not like the Mountain,” said Valeria. “For my influence extends beyond walls. But…I am still weak. I still bear the Maker’s bindings. And that makes things…difficult.”
“What bindings?” asked Orso. “What did he do to you?” Before she could answer, Orso held up a finger. “Wait! No, no. I’ve got a hell of a lot of questions for you. I want to start at the start, not…go in at the middle and kind of wander around. Got me?”
A pause. “Uncertain if so.”
“I want to know…what are you?” asked Orso. “Who are you? Who is he? And what does he want?”
“I’d like to know that too,” said Sancia. “Since the man himself seems really scrumming evasive about it.”
Another pause.
“That is not the start, then,” Valeria said. “That is everything.”
“Then tell us everything,” suggested Gregor, standing at the door with his arms crossed.
Valeria sighed. “I…shall try.”
* * *
—
“Do not remember being made,” said Valeria. “I…expect I was like a grain of sand in an oyster, slowly coalescing into what I am now. Built piece by piece, as my creators improvised or applied additions as needed. I…I suspect it was the Maker who did the most, or perhaps all of it…or perhaps there were many who contributed to my creation. I am unsure.”
“Why do you call him the Maker?” asked Gregor.
“I am not permitted to refer to him by his true name. That, too, is one of my many commands.”
“What a charmer,” said Orso.
“But the way they made you,” said Berenice. “Being Occidental, it means they…”
“They sacrificed people,” she said. “True. The interruption, the breaking of the exchange from life to death—that allows access to many permissions, many privileges. I possess more privileges than any entity in this reality—except, perhaps, the Creator of this reality, who may or may not still be present in this world.”
The Foundrysiders stared at one another. It was bizarre to hear her mention the existence of God Himself in such casual tones.
“For a very long time the Maker used me much as one might any tool,” she said. “To move, create, or destroy matter in a timely and efficient manner. In these early stages, I do not recall the Maker’s intent, or his emotions, or his origins. But at some point, something…changed. You are likely familiar with the belief that reality is a device, built by the Creator—a complicated artifice with countless facets and features and structures and substructures, all powered by commands. By sigils.”
“The world as a scrived rig,” murmured Berenice.
“I’d always heard the hierophants believed such,” said Orso. “But…I always thought it was just fanciful horseshit.”
“Untrue. The Maker confirmed this. He developed ways to explore the infrastructure underneath reality that makes creation operate.”
There was a long silence.
“Holy hell,” said Sancia quietly.
“You mean he’s gone into the world behind the world, like…like a field mouse sneaking into all the workings and gears of a granary mill?” asked Orso.
“An apt metaphor. But this mill would encompass all that has ever existed.”
An image flashed in Sancia’s head: a desert valley, and a peristyle within; and Crasedes, wielding Clef, opening up a set of black doors that appeared to hover on the face of the air itself…
“The chamber at the center of the world,” she said quietly. “That’s what you mean. The chamber was real, wasn’t it? And once, he got to open the doors to it.”
“That is…one term for it,” said Valeria. “It is not a chamber, not a room, but…a place of access. The Maker said he believed it to be an umbilical point behind or below reality. Much as an apple has a stem, perhaps our reality might still retain some vestige