<Did he build you to be a god?> asked Sancia.
<A god? Like the one wrought by Crasedes Magnus?> It sounded amused. <No. But a mind, yes. Yet—how to make a mind? How to make thoughts? How to do speech? Difficult. Must have examples. Many, many, many, many, many examples. Thousands. Millions. Billions. So he…broadened my Purpose.>
<What do you mean?> said Sancia. <How could he broaden your purpose?>
<Many believe I am but walls,> said the Mountain. <And floors. And lifts and doors. But Tribuno wove sigils into my boundaries, my bones…and when he finished I became something…more.>
<Oh!> cried Clef, suddenly. <I…I think I see! I think I see what you are! But, my God, it’s hard to believe it…>
<What do you mean, Clef?> asked Sancia.
<I told you I felt us cross a boundary in the tunnel,> said Clef. <And I felt the pressure in this place, like I was deep under the sea…And I can only converse with an item when it’s touching me, right? But what if, whenever you’re in the Mountain’s boundaries, you are touching it?>
<You mean…>
<Yes. The Mountain isn’t the building—it’s the building and everything inside of it. He’s basically scrived a chunk of reality to act like a device!>
<What! That’s scrumming impossible!> said Sancia. <You can’t scrive reality as you might a button or a plate!>
<Sure you can,> said Clef. <Scrivings already change an object’s reality, right? So why not just make the object really, really big—like a big bubble, or a dome? Then you design it to be sensitive to all the changes and transactions and fluctuations taking place within it. You teach it to notice the changes, to record them—and then, slowly, you teach it to learn.>
<But scriving can’t just do that!> said Sancia. <Scriving can change physical reality, it…can’t make a mind.>
<Maybe it can get close, though,> said Clef. <With enough power behind the designs. And Tribuno got close, didn’t he? Powered by six scrumming lexicons, all specifically designed by Candiano himself toward this one purpose?>
<Yes,> said the Mountain. <I am this place. All that is within it is within me. Yet I do not exert total control. Just as people do not have control over their heart, their bones. I can merely…nudge. Redirect. Delay. Like you said—supply pressure. And I listen. Watch. Learn. A child watches adults to learn what it is to be alive. I have seen such phenomena—I have observed children being born and grow or die within me, thousands and thousands of times. And I have been as a child. I have learned. I have Made myself from Nothing.>
Sancia looked out on the rings and rings of floors below her. <He…he wanted to prove it, didn’t he?> she asked. <Tribuno thought the hierophants were still alive, watching the world. He wanted to show off to them, prove he could do things that they could do—produce a mind of artifice. And then, maybe, they’d come talk to him.>
<Yes.>
<All this,> said Clef. <All this made like a weaverbird weaves its nest, trying to attract its mate…>
Sancia continued across the walkway to the door. She slipped through it and found herself in some kind of maintenance shaft. <It didn’t work, though,> said Sancia. <You said you had yet to fulfill your purpose. No hierophants came.>
<Yes,> said the Mountain.
She walked down the shaft, found yet another door, and opened it onto another marble hallway.
<But maybe not,> the Mountain whispered.
She stopped. <What do you mean, maybe not?> she asked.
<You mean you got close to a hierophant?> asked Clef.
<It is…possible,> said the Mountain.
Sancia continued on until she found a lift that went all the way up, to the fortieth floor. She took a breath, relieved, and set the dial to the thirty-fifth floor.
<You don’t know if you met a hierophant or not?> asked Clef.
<I once contained…something,> said the Mountain. <Men brought it here…The new man.>
<Tomas Ziani?>
<Yes. Him.> From the sound of its words, it seemed like the Mountain did not like him much. <It was strange…I sensed a mind there. Impossibly big, huge, powerful. But…it did not deign to speak to me. No matter how I begged. Then they took it away. Location now unknown.>
The lift opened. Sancia stepped out onto the thirty-fifth floor. This was a floor of offices, and they were different from what she’d seen so far. For one, they were huge, nearly two stories in height. They also featured lots of sumptuous, complicated wallpapers, huge stone and metal doors, and lavish waiting areas.
<Was this thing an artifact?> asked Clef.
<A piece of the Old Ones…perhaps,> said the Mountain.
<Another artifact…one that can talk, like me…> thought Clef. <God. How I’d like to see that.>
<Like you?> said the Mountain. <You are…also an artifact?>
<Yes,> said Clef. <And no. I’m different now. I think you and I are much the same…two instruments who have lost their creators, and now break down into different, unintended states.>
<Which way to Ziani’s office?> said Sancia.
<Ahead,> said the Mountain, though it now sounded distracted and impatient. <On your left. To confirm—you are instrument?>
<Yes,> said Clef.
<Of hierophants?>
<…Yes.>
<And…I think I sense you are a…key?>
<Yeah.>
Sancia walked ahead until she found it—a large, black door with a stone frame. And beside the frame was a nameplate reading:
TOMAS ZIANI
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OFFICER
She tried the door. It gave way easily—presumably because of the blood she carried. She slipped inside.
She stopped and stared. Ziani’s office was…unusual. Everything was built of huge dark, heavy stone, towering and forbidding and looming, even the desk. She saw none of the artful designs or colorful materials from the other rooms. Besides the side door leading to the balcony, there was nothing conventional about this place.
Yet it also looked familiar, she realized. Hadn’t she seen a place just like this before?
Yes, she had—the room beyond looked almost exactly like that chamber depicted in the engraving with Crasedes the Great, the one she’d glimpsed in Orso’s workshops, where the hierophants stood before the casket, and from it emerged the form of…something.
“The chamber at the center of the world,” she whispered. That could be the only explanation for the huge, strange stone plinths, and giant, arched windows…
Then she remembered. Because this used to be Tribuno’s office.
<Are you of Crasedes?> whispered the Mountain. <Are you his tool?>
<I…I guess I don’t know,> said Clef.
Sancia looked around, wondering where in the hell Ziani could have hidden the imperiat. There weren’t many shelves here—only the big stone desk in the middle. She walked over to it and started ripping through the drawers. All of them were full of conventional things, like papers and pens and inkwells. “Come on, come on,” she whispered.
<Are you his key?> whispered the Mountain. <Or—his wand?>
<His what?> asked Clef.
<The wand of Crasedes? You know of this?>
<Well, yeah,> said Clef. <I’ve heard some people mention it.>
<A mistranslation,> said the Mountain. <Common.>
<What the hell are you talking about?> asked Clef. <What mistranslation?>
<You have heard stories of Crasedes the Magician, using his wand to alter the world,> said the Mountain. <These are incorrect. Many errors persist, from old Gothian to new Gothian. For in the old language, the word for “wand” is only one letter different from “key.”>
Sancia stopped.
“What?” she shouted out loud.
<What?> said Clef faintly.
<Yes,> said the Mountain. <Tribuno did not believe Crasedes used a wand—but a key. A golden key. And he used it as a clockmaker uses his key, winding up and unscrewing the great machine of creation. So, I must ask—are you the key of Crasedes Magnus?>
* * *
Sancia stood in the office, dumbstruck. “Clef…” she whispered. “What’s he talking about?”
Clef was silent for a long, long time. <I don’t know,> he said quietly. <I don’t remember.>
<Crasedes said of his key that it could break any barrier, any lock,> said the Mountain, <and when he held it in his hand, it could unthread the whole of creation.>
Sancia felt dizzy. She slowly sat down on the ground. “Clef…are you…”
<I don’t know,> he said, frustrated.
“But you…You could be…”
<I said I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW, ALL RIGHT? I DON’T KNOW!>
She sat there, unnerved. She’d heard so many tales of how Crasedes the Great had tapped a stone with his wand, and made it dance, or tapped the seas with its tip, and parted the waters…to imagine this had not been some silly magic stick, but her friend, the person who’d saved her time and time again…
<That’s enough goddamn speculation!> said Clef. He sounded upset. <Where’s the imperiat?>
<Imperiat?> said the Mountain, sounding surprised. <You wished to find that? The other artifact?>
“Yes!” said Sancia.
<Imperiat is often stored in trapdoor behind desk,> said the Mountain.
“A trapdoor!” said Sancia. “Brilliant!” She sprang and ran over to the desk.