This I perceived last night. And an improvised solution is the simplest to untangle.”
Sancia leaned forward where she sat on the basement floor. “Are you talking about the wrappings?”
“True.”
“Wrappings?” said Gregor.
“The black cloth that binds up his body,” said Sancia. “It’s not just cloth, it’s…it’s inlaid with thousands of sigils. I’m guessing Ofelia and her scrivers have been assembling it for months, if not years. It’s a rig, in its own way. If we break that—if we eliminate the tool that tricks reality into thinking he’s still alive—then he essentially goes back to what he was. Which was, you know…pretty dead.” She looked back at the reflection of Valeria in the wall. “You really think we can dissolve the wrappings?”
“You?” said Valeria. “You cannot. That is beyond your capabilities. Yet we have a more direct solution—the key. You still possess him, yes?”
“Clef?” said Sancia. Her heart leapt at the idea.
“Possible. Part of the key’s domain is the dissolution of barriers. The wrappings that now house the essence of the Maker would thus be vulnerable to the key’s privileges.”
“We stab Clef into his heart like a magic dagger from the fairy stories,” mused Orso. “I find the proposal pretty satisfying, personally.”
“Not heart,” said Valeria. “Hand would be the target—that is where he has implanted the bone that allows his wrappings to trick reality into thinking he is alive.”
“But how would we get Clef working again?” asked Berenice. “He reset himself. He hasn’t spoken in three years.”
“The key was one of the Maker’s earliest creations—before he had mastered his art. As such, it is less durable than others, and that is why it decayed. As it decayed, its many bindings fell away, including the command that it could only be used by the hand of the Maker.”
“We know that’s why he could talk to me,” said Sancia. “He said he’d sat in the dark for so long—for hundreds if not thousands of years.”
“True. That being so, time is the best method of regaining control of the key.”
The Foundrysiders waited for more—but nothing came.
“I’m sorry…” said Gregor. “What do you mean?”
“How is apprehension…difficult?”
“You mean we need to put Clef through a thousand years, or something?” asked Orso.
“This is my intent,” said Valeria. “True.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Berenice. Then she realized. “Unless…you intend to scrive time?”
“True. This is possible.”
“No, it damned well isn’t,” said Sancia. “You said you didn’t know that technique. And we don’t either. I tried to steal the designs for scriving time aboard the galleon, but they turned to mush in my damned pocket.”
“True. But we have another sample available to study.”
“We do?” said Berenice.
“True.” Then she whispered: “What is name of…big one?”
They blinked. Then they looked back at Gregor, who stood there with his mouth open in shock. “Me?” he said.
“True. Of course,” said Valeria. “And that is why we must kill you.”
* * *
—
“When Gregor approaches death,” Valeria explained, “the bindings upon his person restore him to a previous instance in time in which he was unharmed, or at the very least not dying. Likely causes many problems with his memories—his experience of time is like a frayed quilt—but it is so. The Maker must have been desperate for help, to place such a powerful binding upon his person.”
Gregor slowly sat down on the floor. “Are you…are you sure this is what was done to me?”
“Nearly certain.”
They watched Gregor sitting on the ground, looking stunned and disturbed to hear his altered nature described in such cold, antiseptic terms.
“And why, exactly,” said Orso, “must we go about killing him?”
“Because it is the only way to glimpse the commands in action, and learn their nature,” said Valeria. “This is not a common scriving, a permission of the crude stuff of existence, like what you use throughout your city. This is a deep permission. It does not convince reality to be