“I see,” she said thoughtfully. “Tomas must have snatched her up. But no matter. That is why one ought to prepare for every possible eventuality.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ziani.”
Gregor stopped crawling away. He swallowed and looked over his shoulder. Mrs. Ziani? Does he mean…Estelle? Is that Orso’s Estelle?
“What do we do with this one, ma’am?” asked the man.
She surveyed Gregor coolly, then nodded at the canal.
“Yes, ma’am.” The man walked forward and grabbed Gregor by the back of the coat. Gregor tried to struggle, but found he didn’t have the strength—his arms and feet felt so cold, so distant, so numb. He couldn’t even cry out as he was flung down toward the water, and then he knew only dark swirls and twists of bubbles, and the world left him.
28
Sancia awoke and regretted it.
Her mind was full of nails and thorns and brambles, and her mouth was so dry it hurt. She cracked open an eye, and even though the room she was in was fairly dark, even the slightest hint of light hurt her mind.
Dolorspina venom, she thought, groaning. So that’s what that feels like…
She patted herself down. She appeared to be uninjured, though all of her gear was gone. She was in a cell of some kind. Four blank stone walls, with an iron door at the far end. There was a tiny slit of a window at the top of one wall, allowing in a faint dribbling of pale light. Besides that, there was nothing.
She started to sit up, cursing and moaning. This wasn’t the first time she’d been held captive in her life, and she was well accustomed to getting into and out of secure places, even ones as hostile as this. Hopefully she could figure a way out and get to Orso fast enough.
Then she saw she was not alone.
There was a woman in the room with her. A woman made of gold.
Sancia stared at her. The woman stood in the corner of the dark cell, tall and queerly motionless. Sancia had no idea where the woman had come from, since she’d looked around when she’d awoken and seen—she was sure of it—no one. Yet there she was.
What the hell, she thought. What else weird could happen tonight?
The woman was nude, but somehow every bit of her was made of gold, even her eyes, which sat blank and still like stones in her skull, watching her. Sancia would have normally thought the woman was not a person at all, but a statue; yet she could not help but feel a tremendous, powerful intelligence in those blank, golden eyes, a mind that watched her with a disturbing indifference, like Sancia were no more than a raindrop wriggling its way down a windowpane…
The woman stepped forward and looked down at her. The side of Sancia’s head grew warm.
The woman said, “When you awake, get him to leave. Then I will tell you how to save yourself.” Her manner of speech was powerfully odd, like she knew the words but had never heard anyone speak out loud before.
Sancia, still lying on the stone floor, stared up at the woman, confused. She tried to say, “But I am awake.”
Yet then, somehow, she realized she wasn’t.
* * *
Sancia awoke with a start, snorting and reaching out. She stared around herself.
She didn’t…seem to have moved at all. She was still alone, still in the dark cell—which looked the exact same—still lying on her back in the exact same position. Yet the woman of gold was gone.
Sancia peered into the shadowy corners, disturbed. Was it a dream? What is wrong with me? What’s wrong with my brain?
She rubbed the side of her head, which ached terribly. Maybe she was going mad. She shivered, thinking of what had happened in Ziani’s office. It seemed like the imperiat could not only shut down scrived devices, as it had in the Greens, but also control them. Which meant, circuitously enough, that since Sancia had a scrived device in her skull, that it could also control her.
Which Sancia found deeply horrifying. She’d grown up in a place where she’d had no say in her decisions. To have someone literally take her will away from her…
I need to get out of here. Now.
She stood, walked over to a wall, and felt the blank stone. Her abilities still worked, it seemed: the wall told her of itself, of the many rooms it adjoined, of spider webs and cinder and dust…
I’m in a foundry, she realized. But she’d never heard of a foundry that made so little noise before.
An old one, then. One fallen into disuse?
She took her hand away. I’m still on the Candiano campo, aren’t I? That’s the only campo where a scriving foundry would sit totally vacant. She wondered if she was in the Cattaneo, but she didn’t think so. The Cattaneo had felt more advanced than this.
Then the side of Sancia’s head grew hot again, so hot it felt like her flesh was sizzling. Before she could cry out, all thoughts fell away from her—and then, again, she lost control of her body.
She watched herself as she stood up, took three shuffling steps, and turned to wait in front of the iron door.
There were footsteps from outside, then a clinking and clanking. Then the door fell open to reveal Tomas Ziani standing there, imperiat in his hand, blinking in the darkness.
“Ah!” he said, seeing her. “Good. You look alive and well.” He wrinkled his nose. “You are an ugly little thing, aren’t you. But…” He adjusted a wheel on the imperiat, then held it up to her, slowly waving it through the air—until it finally drew close to the right side of her head. The imperiat began to whine softly.
“Interesting,” he said softly. “Amazing! All those scrivers who thought we’d never see a scrived human—yet I’m the one to find one! Let’s have a look at you, then. Come along.” He fiddled with the imperiat, waved a hand, and Sancia, helpless, followed him out of the cell.
* * *
He marched her through the foundry’s crumbling, dark passageways. It was a shadowy, gloomy place, silent except for an occasional distant drip of water. Finally they came to a large open room, lit by scrived lights placed on the floor. Standing at the far wall of the room were four Candiano guards, all of whom looked quite seasoned. There was a deadness to their eyes as they looked at Sancia that made her skin crawl.
Beside these thugs was a long, low table. On it were all sorts of books, papers, and stone carvings—along with a huge rusty, cracked old metal box that looked, she thought, like the test lexicon back in Orso’s workshop.
Sancia tried to look harder at the items on the table, but since she didn’t have control over her own eyes she got no more than a fleeting glance. Still, she managed to think—This is Tribuno’s collection, isn’t it? The trove of Occidental treasures that Ziani mentioned…
Then she saw what waited in the middle of the room. And though she couldn’t move, the urge to scream flooded her mind.
It was an operating table, complete with restraints for the patient’s wrists and ankles.
Tomas Ziani did something to the imperiat, and she stopped moving. Then she watched in horror as two Candiano guards picked her up, laid her flat on the table, and strapped her in.
No, no, no, she thought, panicked. Anything but that…
They did something to her restraints, turning a small, metal key on the sides. A whispering and chattering filled her ears.
They’re scrived, she thought. The restraints are scrived.
The guards departed.
I’m not getting out of here, am I?
Tomas walked to stand over her, still holding the imperiat. “Now, let’s see,” he muttered. “If what Enrico said is correct, this should…” He adjusted something on it.
Sancia felt her will return—her body was her own again.
She flew forward and snapped her teeth, trying her hardest to take a bite out of Tomas. She nearly did, but he stumbled backward, surprised. “Son of a bitch!” he cried.
Sancia snarled at him, bucking and arching her back and heaving at her restraints—but since they were augmented, they didn’t budge an inch.
“Filthy little…” growled Tomas. He made a move to strike her, but when she didn’t flinch, he backed down, probably concerned she might try to bite his hand.
“You want us to put her down?” said a guard.
“Did I say anything to you?” said Tomas.
The guard looked away. Tomas walked around to the edge of the table and turned a crank. The scrived restraints on her wrists and ankles slowly slid out along the surface of the table, stretching her out until she was spread-eagle, unable to move. Then he walked back around, raised a fist high, and slammed it down on Sancia’s stomach, driving the air out of her.
Sancia flexed and coughed, gasping for breath. “There,” he said savagely. “That’s how it is, yes? You do as I say, or else I get to do what I want. See?”
She blinked tears from her eyes and glared at him. His gaze had a sadistic gleam to it.
“I’m going to ask you some questions now,” he said.
“Why did you kill Sark?” Sancia gasped.
“I said I’d ask the questions.”
“He wasn’t anything to you. He had no one to betray you to. He didn’t even know who you were.”
“Shut up,” snapped Tomas.