“Shit,” said Sancia. “Why did you bring all this?”
Berenice touched the wand to another rivet. “I got shot at the other night. Rather a lot. I came prepared to prevent such a thing from happening again. A lot of components that can do a lot of different things—when combined the right way, that is.” The wand flared bright.
When Berenice was finished, Sancia hauled her back up. Berenice took out the anchor—a small bronze ball that was covered in shiny brass sigils, with a shiny latch on its side—and chained it to the top of the grate. She slid the latch aside, revealing a wooden button, and touched it. Suddenly the grate groaned and creaked, until it slowly fell open, like a drawbridge.
“Inside,” said Berenice. “Quick.”
They dropped down into the mouth of the pipe and ran into the darkness. Sancia was about to touch a hand to the wall to see, but there was a click, and Berenice’s wand glowed bright again—yet she’d apparently removed whatever component made it capable of burning through iron, and it now only gave out light. “Keep your eyes out for any stone,” she said. She adjusted the light, turning down the brightness.
“Where the hell are we, again?”
“We’re in the metallurgical outtake tunnel of the foundry. Processing so much metal—iron, brass, bronze, lead—it takes a lot of water, which gets tainted and rendered unusable after the forging’s done. So they dump it all out into the canals. It’s a big pipe that runs through a lot of the foundry—and if we see any brick, I should be able to get you in.”
“How?”
“I’ll tell you once we find it.”
They kept walking, and walking, until finally Sancia saw it. “There. On the side.” She pointed. The iron walls of the pipe stopped short about ten feet ahead, and from there on out the walls were stone and brick, like an old sewer.
Berenice reviewed the stone wall and glanced back at the mouth of the tunnel. “Hum. This could work. I think we’re next to the storage bays. But I’m not sure—and I would really prefer to be sure.”
“Why?”
“Well, we could be next to the water reservoirs—which means the tunnel would flood and we’d drown.”
“Crap. Hold on.” Sancia slid off a glove, placed her hand to the bricks, and shut her eyes.
The wall was thick, at least two to three feet. She kept letting it pour into her mind, telling her what it felt, or at least what was on the other side…
She opened her eyes. “It’s just wall,” she said. “Nothing on the other side.”
“Is it thick?”
“Yeah. At least two feet.”
Berenice grimaced. “Well. Maybe it will still work, then…”
“Maybe what will work?”
She didn’t answer. She reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like four small bronze spheres with sharp steel screws on their ends. She examined the wall, sucked her teeth, and started screwing the bronze spheres into the wall in the shape of a square, with one ball at each corner.
“Can you please just tell me what this is?” asked Sancia impatiently.
“You know about construction scrivings, right?” said Berenice, adjusting the bronze spheres.
“Yeah. They glue bricks together to make them think they’re all one thing instead of separate things.”
“Yes. But lots of foundries use the same kind of stone, or something close to it—which makes it a lot easier to twin.”
“Twin with…what?” asked Sancia.
“With a section of stone wall that’s back in my office,” said Berenice, standing up. “One that has a big hole in the middle.”
Sancia stared at the wall, then at Berenice. “What? Really?”
“Yes,” said Berenice. She scrunched her nose, reviewing her handiwork. “If it works, it should convince this section of wall that it’s the same as the one in my office. That’d then weaken all the Candiano construction scrivings in a circle, and basically carve a hole for you. But…I’ve really never tested this in the field before. Especially not on a wall this thick.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Frankly, I don’t have a damned clue what will happen if it goes wrong.” She glanced at Sancia. “Still feeling experimental?”
“I’ve done dumber shit in the past few days.”
Berenice took a breath, and twisted the tops of all four brass spheres, one after another. Then she stepped back and slowly moved away, like she was preparing to run.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the color of the brick changed, ever so slightly, growing just a tiny bit darker. Then came a creaking sound. The bricks shuddered and rippled—and then, suddenly, the wall fractured in the middle in a perfect circle, like someone had carved it with a saw.
“It works,” said Berenice. “It works!”
“Great,” said Sancia. “Now, how the hell do we get that big plug of stone out of the way?”
“Oh. Right.” Berenice pulled out yet another trinket from her pockets: this one appeared to be just a small iron handle with a button on the side. “Just a construction scriving. It’ll stick to the plug’s center.” She placed the handle in the center of the stone plug, confirmed it was stuck, and gave a mighty heave.
Nothing happened. She tugged again, her face turning pink, and stopped, gasping. “Well,” she said. “I didn’t quite anticipate this.”
“Here,” said Sancia. She knelt, gripped the handle, placed one foot against the wall, and pulled.
Slowly, with a low grinding noise, the short stone column slid a few inches out of the wall. Sancia took a breath and pulled again, and it finally fell to the tunnel floor with a plunk, leaving about a two-foot-wide hole in the wall.
“Good,” said Berenice, miffed. “Well done. Can you fit?”
“Keep your voice down. Yeah, I can fit.” She crouched and peered into the hole. The room on the other side was dark. “Do you know what that is over there?” she whispered.
Berenice turned up her scrived light and stuck it through the hole. They glimpsed a wide room with a steel walkway running around the edges, and a huge heap of twisted metals in the center. “It’s the waste bin, essentially—all the castoff bits of metals go here to be melted down and reused.”
“But I’ll really be inside the foundry—yes?”
“Yes?”
She shook her head. “Goddamn. I can’t believe we just broke into a foundry just with some random shit in your pockets.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. But we’re not there yet. This is the basement. The administrative offices are on the third floor. If you want to find out what’s going on here, that’s the place to look.”
“Any advice for how to get up there?”
“No. I’ve no idea what doors will be locked or what passages will be blocked or guarded. You’ll be on your own. I…assume you don’t want me to come with you?”
“Two house-breakers makes for a quick trip to the loop,” said Sancia. “It’d be better if you kept a lookout.”
“Fine with me. I can go back to the streets outside, and if I see something I’ll try to think of some way to warn you.”
Sancia slipped her feet into the hole. “You wouldn’t happen to have any more useful rigs, would you?”
“I do. But they are destructive, and foundries are delicate—meaning if you cut through or break the wrong thing, you would die and probably take a lot of people with you.”
“Great. I sure as shit hope we get something out of this,” said Sancia, sliding forward.
“Me too,” said Berenice. “Good luck.” Then she trotted back down the tunnel.
* * *
Sancia slipped through the hole in the wall, stood up, and tried to get her bearings. It was pitch-black in there now, and she was reluctant to use up her talents just to get around a room.
<Scrived lock on the door on your left,> said Clef. <Up the steps. I can sense it. All the pipes and walls are crawling with sigils. The entire place is a device that makes other devices…Wow.>
<And it’s a headache to be inside it,> said Sancia, stumbling over to the door. She fumbled for the lock, stuffed Clef inside, and opened it. She was relieved to see weak light filtering through the hallway on the other side,
Using Clef, Sancia unlocked door after door as she penetrated the depths of the foundry. She was astounded at the sheer density of the thing, all tiny passageways that led to huge, complicated processing bays, full of giant loomlike devices or cranes that perched over tables or lathes like spiders weaving cocoons about their prey. The heat within the foundry was immense, but there was a constant wind in every hall and passage, carrying the hot air out to—well, somewhere, she assumed. It was like being trapped in the innards of some kind of giant, mindless creature.
Most of it was deserted. Which made sense, since only a portion of it was being used now. But then…
<Three guards up ahead,> said Clef. <Heavily armed.>
Sancia looked ahead. The passageway ended in a closed wooden door. Presumably there was some kind of hallway being guarded beyond it.
<What floor are we on?> she asked.
<Still on the ground floor, I think.>