Information poured back and forth between Clef and the door. Sancia was still trying to catch her breath—it was like trying to swallow an ocean all at once. She suspected that, as long as she was touching Clef, she could hear whatever he heard as well.
But all she could think was: That’s what a scrived device is? That? It’s…like, a mind? They think?
She’d never have expected this. Certainly, she was used to hearing a faint muttering when she was close to scrived items—but she’d still assumed they were just things, just objects.
<Explain it to me again,> said Clef.
<WHEN THE SIGNALS ARE GIVEN,> said the door, now uncertain, <ALL SHAFTS ARE RETRACTED, AND OUTWARD PIVOT IS PERFORMED.>
<Okay, but at what speed do you pivot outward?> asked Clef.
<W…WHAT SPEED?>
<Yeah. How hard do you pivot outward?>
<WELL…>
More messages poured back and forth between the door and Clef. She began to understand: when the proper scrived key was inserted into the door, it would send a signal to the door, which would tell it to withdraw its bolts and pivot outward. But Clef was confusing it, somehow, asking it too many questions about which direction it was supposed to pivot, and how fast or hard.
<Well, obviously I’ve gotten past the second rung,> Clef said to the door.
<THIS IS TRUE.>
<And the frame triggers are still in place.>
<ONE SECOND…THIS IS VERIFIED.>
<So what I’m saying here is…>
A massive amount of information coursed through the two entities. Sancia couldn’t understand a bit of it.
<ALL RIGHT. I THINK I SEE. SO. BE YOU CERTAIN THAT THIS DOES NOT COUNT AS OPENING?>
<Positive.>
<AND BE YOU CERTAIN THAT THE SECURITY DIRECTIVES ARE MAINTAINED?>
<They look maintained to me. Don’t they look that way to you?>
<I…SUPPOSE.>
<Listen, there’s no rule against any of this, is there?>
<WELL, I GUESS NOT.>
<So let’s give it a shot, eh?>
<I…ALL RIGHT.>
Silence.
Then the door started quivering. And then…
There was a loud crack, and the door opened. But it opened inward, and astonishingly hard—so hard that, since she was still holding Clef, and Clef was still in the lock, she was almost jerked off her feet.
Clef popped out as the door fell backward, its bronze face falling away…and then she saw the streets of the Candiano campo within.
Sancia stared down an empty Candiano street, alarmed, terrified, and bewildered. It was a totally different world on the other side of the wall: clean cobblestone streets, tall buildings with sculpted facades of white moss clay, colorful banners and flags hanging from cords running over the paths, and…
Water. Fountains with just water in them, real, clear, running water. She could see three of them, even from here.
Even though she was stunned and terrified, she couldn’t help but think: They use water—clean water—as decoration? Clean water was impossibly rare in the Commons, and most people drank weak cane wine instead. To just have it bubbling away in the streets for no reason was incomprehensible.
She came to her wits. She stared at the door, and saw a ragged hole in the wall beside it. She realized the door had never retracted its bolts—it had just swung backward so hard that the shafts had torn right through the wall.
“Holy…Holy shit!” whispered Sancia.
She turned and ran. Fast.
<Ta-daa!> said Clef in her head. <See! I told you I could do it.>
<What the hell, what the hell!> she thought, running. <You broke the door! You broke the goddamn door to a goddamn campo wall!>
<Well. Yeah? I told you I’d get in.>
<What the hell did you do, Clef? What the hell did you do!>
<Uh, I convinced him that opening inward didn’t really count as opening?> said Clef. <So it wouldn’t trigger a whole host of his warding questions about me breaking it open. It’s not breaking open the door if the door doesn’t actually think it’s opening, right? And then I just had to convince him to open inward hard enough that we didn’t have to bother with any of his bolts, which were the most protected.> He sounded relaxed, even drunk. She got the mad idea that cracking a scrived device gave Clef something akin to a powerful sexual release.
She dashed around a corner, then leaned up against the wall, panting. <But…But…I didn’t think you’d scrumming break the door in!>
<Scrumming? What? What’s that mean?>
Sancia then quickly attempted to explain that a scrum hole on a ship referred to the vents that allowed waves to wash out the fecal matter in the latrines. But some matter inevitably built up in the scrum hole, so crewmen would have to shove poles down into the holes to clear it out, which, sailors being somewhat filthy-minded people, inevitably became slang for the sexual practice of…
<Okay, crap, I get it!> said Clef. <Stop!>
<You…you can do that to scrived devices?> she asked.
<Sure,> said Clef. <Scrived rigs, as you call them, are filled with commands, and the commands convince the object to be something it’s not. It’s like a debate—the debate has to be clear and make sense for you to be persuaded. But you can argue with the commands. Confuse them. Dupe them. It’s easy!>
<But…how did you know to do that? How do you know any of that? You’d only just heard of scrived devices last night.>
<Oh. Ah. Right.> There was a long pause. <I…don’t know,> he said, and he sounded somewhat unsettled.
<You don’t know.>
<N-No.>
<Do you remember any more, Clef? Or is it still just the dark for you?>
Another long silence. <Can we talk about something else, please?> asked Clef quietly.
Sancia took that as a no. <Can you do that to any scrived device?>
<Ahh, well. My specialty is stuff that wants to stay closed. Apertures. Doors. Barriers. Connection points. For example,> he said, <I can’t do anything about the plate in your head.>
Sancia froze. <What?>
<Uhh,> said Clef. <Did I say something wrong?>
<How…How’d you know about the plate in my head?> she demanded.
<Because it’s scrived. It’s talking. It’s convincing itself it’s something it isn’t. I can sense it. Just like you can hear other scrived things.>
<How can you sense it?>
<I just…do. It’s what I do.>
<You’re saying…feeling out and tricking scrived items is what you do? Even though you didn’t know what it was you did, just five minutes ago?>
<I…I guess?> Clef said, now sounding confused again. <I can’t…I can’t quite remember…>
Sancia slowly leaned back against the wall. The world felt wobbly and distant to her as she tried to process all of this.
To begin with, it now seemed abundantly clear that Clef was suffering from some kind of memory loss. It felt odd to diagnose a key with a mental affliction, given that Sancia still didn’t understand how or even if he possessed something resembling a mind. But if he did have a mind, that long time spent trapped in the dark—decades, if not centuries—would have been more than enough to break it.
Perhaps Clef was damaged. Either way, it seemed Clef did not know his own potential—and that was troubling, since Clef already seemed stupefyingly powerful.
Because though few understood how scriving worked, everyone in the world understood that it was both powerful and reliable. When merchant house ships—scrived to part the waters with incredible ease, and sporting altered sails that always billowed with the perfect breeze at the perfect angle—pulled up in front of your city and pointed their vast, scrived weaponry at you, you understood that all those weapons would work perfectly well, and you’d promptly surrender.
The alternative—the idea that those ships might malfunction, or fail—was inconceivable.
But it wasn’t anymore. Not to Sancia, clutching Clef in her hand.
Scriving formed the foundation of the Tevanni empire. It had won countless cities, built up an army of slaves, and sent them to work in the plantation isles. But now, in Sancia’s mind, that foundation was beginning to shift, and crack…
Then her skin went cold. If I were a merchant house, she thought to herself, I’d do everything in my power to destroy Clef, and make sure no one ever, ever knew he’d existed.
<So,> said Clef cheerily. <What now?>
She was wondering that herself. <I need to make sure all this means what I think it means.>
<And…what do you think this means?>
<Well. I think it means that you and I and probably Sark are in a shitload of mortal peril, Clef.>
<Ahh—oh. And…uh, how can we confirm that?>
She rubbed her mouth. Then she stood up, hung Clef back around her neck, and started off. <I’m taking you to see some friends of mine. Ones who know a lot scrumming more about scriving than I do.>
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