“So?”
“So where are we weak? Where are we strong? Are we…Are we good?”
“Huh,” said Clef. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it. I think the problem comes down to the difference between complicated and interesting. And…well, most of the stuff I’ve seen in Tevanne is more complicated than it is interesting.”
Orso stopped pacing. He looked crestfallen. “R-really?”
“It’s not your fault,” said Clef. “You’re like a tribe that’s just invented the paintbrush. Right now you’re just putting paint everywhere. One thing I do think is pretty innovative, though, is twinning.”
“Twinning?” said Berenice. “Really?”
“Yes! You’re essentially duplicating a physical piece of reality!” said Clef. “You could duplicate all kinds of things if you tried.”
“Like what?” said Orso.
“Well,” said Clef. “Like a lexicon.”
The scrivers’ jaws all went slack at that.
“You can’t twin a lexicon!” said Orso.
“Why not?” said Clef.
“It’s…it’s too complicated!” said Giovanni.
“Then why not try to twin a simpler lexicon?” said Clef. “Imagine a bunch of small lexicons, all twinned, all able to project scrivings…well. Anywh—”
Gregor coughed. “As interesting as all this scriving theory is…might we focus on the more lethal issues at hand? We are attempting to sabotage Tomas Ziani—but we still only half-understand what he’s even doing. Will stealing back the imperiat actually stop his efforts?”
“Right,” said Berenice, though she sounded a touch disappointed. “Let’s look back at Tribuno’s notes and see if Mr. Clef has anything to say on tha—”
Again, things faded out.
* * *
The world returned. Sancia was seated in front of a sarcophagus that was covered in Tribuno’s notes. The wax rubbings of the bas-reliefs were situated in front of her.
“…that is human sacrifice if I ever saw it,” said Gregor. He pointed to the engravings of the bodies on the altar, and the blades above. “And if Tomas Ziani is handling bodies, then it stands to reason he’s attempting human sacrifice.”
“But that’s not at all what Tribuno Candiano’s notes say,” said Berenice. She picked up a sheaf of paper, and read, “The hierophant Seleikos refers to a ‘collection of energies’ or a ‘focusing of minds’ and ‘thoughts all captured.’ That would suggest the ritual does not involve death, or killing, or murder, or sacrifice. Just…something being gathered or pooled. The hierophants were describing an act that we simply lack the context to understand. And it seems Mr. Clef here also lacks that necessary perspective.”
“Again—could you please not call me that?” said Clef.
“Then can we gain the proper context from the rest of the notes?” asked Orso. He pointed at one particular paragraph. “Here…‘The hierophant Pharnakes never called them tools, or devices, or rigs. He specifically called them ‘urns’ and ‘vessels’ and ‘urcerus’—which means ‘pitcher,’ like water.’ Surely that has some relation to why Tomas Ziani called his failed imperiat a shell, yes?”
“True,” said Berenice. “And Pharnakes goes on to directly describe the ritual here—he refers to a ‘transaction’ or ‘deliverance’ or ‘transference’ of sorts that must take place at ‘the lost moment, the world’s newest hour.’ Though I’ve no idea what that means.”
“I think that bit’s clear, actually,” said Orso. “The hierophants believed the world was a vast machine, made by God. At midnight, the world essentially changed over, like a big clock. They believed there was a ‘lost moment’ during which the normal rules were suspended. Apparently that’s when the forging of hierophantic tools must take place—when the universe has its back turned, in a way.”
“In that moment, something fills the pitcher,” said Giovanni. “The shell.”
“Meaning what?” said Clef, frustrated.
Silence.
“I’m not sure this is progress,” said Clef.
“What else is in these damned notes?” said Orso. He flipped through the pages rapidly.
“There’s this bit here,” said Berenice. “Also from Pharnakes—‘The lingai divina cannot be utilized by common mortals. By the nature of the Maker’s work’—I assume he means God there—‘it is inaccessible to those who have been born and shall die, to those who cannot, like the Maker, give and take life itself.’?”
“But what exactly happens?” demanded Clef. “This is all really fun, reading these cryptic bits of quotes—but what is this goddamn transaction supposed to be? What does the dagger have to do with the urn, the shell, with the language of this Maker? It looks like someone is being executed, yeah, but what does that have to do with scrived tools, or this lost minute?”
“Shouldn’t you know?” said Orso, exasperated. “I mean, you are one!”
“Do you remember your birth?” said Clef. “I sure as hell expect not.”
And then Sancia understood everything.
She understood how the ritual worked, how the hierophants had made their tools, why their tools needed no lexicon to function—and why they never actually called them “tools.”
<But Clef,> she said to him. <You do remember your birth. Don’t you?>
<Huh?>
<That memory, of when you were made. You shared it with me. You were lying on your back, on a stone surface, looking up…>
Clef was silent.
Orso glanced at Berenice. “Why isn’t he saying anything? What’s going on?”
“That’s…that’s right,” said Clef quietly. “I do remember how I was made.”
“You do?” said Berenice.
“Yes,” said Clef. “I was lying on my back…and then I felt pain, shooting through me…and then…I…I became the key. I filled it. I moved within it. I filled its cracks and crevices…and…” He trailed off.
“And?” said Orso.
A cold horror filled Sancia’s body—and she suspected that it was Clef’s horror, not her own.
<A shell,> she said. <An urn. The dagger. And a deliverance…>
“What are you saying here?” asked Claudia.
“I’m saying it wasn’t human sacrifice,” said Clef softly. “Not entirely.”
“What?” said Orso. “Then what was it?”
“I…I remember the taste of wine,” whispered Clef. “I remember the feeling of wind on my back, the sound of breeze in the wheat, and a woman’s touch. I remember all these sensations—but how could I, if I was always a key?”
They stared at him. Then Berenice’s mouth opened in horror. “Unless…unless you weren’t always a key.”
“Yes,” said Clef.
“What do you mean?” asked Gregor.
“I think that…once, I was a person,” said Clef. “Once I was alive just as you all are…but then, during the lost minute, they took me out of me…and they put me in…in here. Inside this…contraption.” Sancia’s fingers curled around the golden key, gripping it so hard her knuckles turned white. “The histories don’t record the hierophants killing anyone—because they didn’t. They stripped a mind from raw flesh and bone, and during that lost moment in the depths of the night…they placed it inside a shell. A vessel.”
“All thoughts collected,” said Berenice.
Orso put his face in his hands. “Oh my God…It’s a loophole, isn’t it! A stupid, scrumming loophole!”
“A loophole?” said Claudia.
“Yes!” said Orso. “Occidental sigils—the sigillums of God Himself—can’t be used by anything that has been born or shall die. So what do you do? You take a person and turn them into something deathless—something that is not really born, and never will truly die. You do it during the world’s lost hour, when the rules aren’t enforced. That gives you access to untold permissions and privileges! Reality will happily follow the instructions of the tool you’ve created—because, in a way, it genuinely believes the tool is God Himself!”
“I’ve been trapped in here for…for forever,” said Clef faintly. “I’ve outlived the people who made me. I spent so long in the dark…all because they needed a tool to do a job. It’s not human sacrifice—it’s worse.”
And then, to everyone’s surprise, Clef burst into tears.
* * *
Berenice tried to comfort him as the rest looked on, hugging Sancia’s body close as Clef wept.
“To imagine it,” said Orso. “To imagine that the discovery you’ve sought for so long is…is this ghastly mutilation of the human body and soul…”
“And to imagine what the other houses would do,” said Gregor quietly, “if they were to make the same discovery. In many ways, Tevanne already runs on the fuels of human suffering. But if we were to switch to this method…imagine the sheer human cost.” He shook his head. “The hierophants were not angels at all. They were devils.”