for not only us, but everyone who lives within about a mile of the Hypatus Building. So let’s be conservative and say you only have ten seconds to drop the cube in.
Sancia stared at the pipes in the floor.
Ten seconds. Great.
“Son of a bitch!” cried the guards in the smoking room. “What in hell did he put in this pot?”
She started unscrewing the valve, very, very slowly.
If I get this wrong…Well. At least Orso won’t be able to scream at me.
She kept unscrewing it until it had only a few threads left. Then she placed a bare hand to the side of the pipe, and listened.
shouted the pipes.
She winced. She wasn’t surprised to find that the arguments within the pipe were unusually powerful—this was a critical part of the lexicon, after all—but this meant it’d take time to convince them…and then, worse, more time to restore them to their original arguments, and allow the water to resume flowing.
She took a breath. Scrivings have trouble with distance, direction, and time, she told herself. These are always the doors. These are always the way you can unlock them.
she asked it.
said the pipes.
she told it,
It responded. Sancia listened, and then began applying her arguments, one after the other, as fast as she could.
“Ugh,” said one of the guards. “It’s smoked up the ceiling…Should we get a mop?”
said the pipes after they’d listened.
Sancia swallowed as she watched the pipes begin to force water away from the valve…which meant that, as of right now, the lexicon far below her would start to unravel.
She started counting.
One.
She fumbled with the valve, unscrewing it as fast as she could.
Two.
The valve came loose, and she almost dropped it—which would have alerted the guards to her presence. She snatched it, and carefully laid it on the floor, one bare hand still applied to the pipe.
Three.
She fumbled for the little metal cube in her pocket, and pulled it out.
“Just put the pot out!” cried one of the guards. “You know we’re not allowed in here anyway!”
Four.
She flexed her scrived sight. The lexicon below her was beginning to burn a strangely bright, unsettling shade of white…
She stuffed the little cube into the pipe and delicately picked the valve top back up.
Five.
She started screwing it in, one turn, then another, then another—just far enough.
Six.
she cried to the pipes.
The lexicon below her was now a disturbing pink.
“The damned thing’s still burning hot!” screamed one of the guards.
She forced her arguments upon the pipes, one after the other.
Seven.
said the pipes.
“Shit, shit, shit,” whispered Sancia. She focused as hard as she could, telling the pipes what water was, how it worked, how it felt, how to recognize it, activating its bindings one after another.
Eight…
“No, no, no!” shouted a guard. “Don’t drop the pot on his damned bed!”
said the pipes.
she asked desperately.
She heard the slosh of water within the pipes, and a loud, oddly pleasing gurgling. She looked down at the lexicon far below her.
For a moment it did nothing—the pink just intensified unpleasantly, and she felt her belly blossom with utter terror…