It was a man, floating facedown in the water, stiff and still. The two men hauled the body into the boat and laid it in the bottom.
Ofelia Dandolo surveyed the body, her face pinched in an expression that could have been grief, or frustration, or dismay. “Oh dear,” she sighed. Then she glanced at the flock of moths, and she seemed to nod at them. “You were right,” she said.
The moths dispersed, flitting away into the city.
She sat back and gestured to the two men. “Let’s go.”
The boat turned around.
31
Alone, in the dark, for the second time in her life, Sancia slowly remade herself.
It was an agonizing, thoughtless experience, as endless and painful as a chick struggling against the confines of its egg. Slowly, bit by bit, Sancia felt the world around her. She felt the world as the operating table saw it, felt herself lying upon herself…And then, somehow, she felt more.
Or, rather, heard more.
She heard a voice: <Oh, to be bound, to be whole, to embrace, to join ourselves, the joy of being joined, of being one, of being together, or being loved…>
Sancia, her eyes shut and her head pounding, furrowed her brow. What the hell? Who’s saying that?
The voice in her ear continued, a warbling, neurotic chant: <Oh, how I rejoice to reach out and grasp you, a circle unbroken, a heart complete…How lovely, how lovely, how lovely. I shall never part with you, not ever…>
Sancia opened her left eye the tiniest crack, and saw the two Candiano guards standing over her. They looked worried.
“Think she’s dead?” said one.
“She’s breathing,” said the other. “I…think.”
“God. She was bleeding out of her eyes. What the hell happened to her?”
“I don’t know. But Ziani said not to hurt her. She was supposed to be in one piece.”
The two shared a nervous glance.
“What do we do?” asked the first.
“We keep a lookout for Ziani,” said the other. “And make sure we tell Ziani the exact same thing.” The two withdrew to the door and started talking quietly.
Yet that other voice, the nervous one, continued mumbling: <I shall never let you go. Never let you go again. Not unless I have no other choice. What a pain it is, to be without you…>
Sancia opened her left eye more and looked around without moving her head. She couldn’t see anyone talking. <Valeria?> she asked. <Is that you?>
Yet Valeria was silent. Perhaps she’d exhausted herself, as she’d said might happen.
<Hold me tight. Tighter. Please, yes, please…>
Sancia opened her right eye and looked down. And then…
She stared. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
She could see them. She could see the scrivings in the shackles on her wrists and feet—although “seeing” wasn’t quite the right word for it.
It wasn’t like she saw the sigils themselves, like alphabetic instructions written on the objects, but rather like she saw the…the logic behind the devices, blended into their very matter. To her eye, the scrivings looked like tiny tangles of silvery light, like hot bundles of stars in distant constellations, and with a glance she could take in their color, their movement, or their shape, and understand what they did or what they wished to do.
Blinking, she analyzed what she was seeing. Each set of shackles was two half-circles of steel that were scrived to desire to hold each other, to embrace each other, and never let go. They dreaded being parted; they feared and detested the idea. The only way to break them up was to sate that anxious, fervent desire to be complete, to be held—and the only way to do that was to touch them with the right key. The key would, in a way, calm the scrivings down, placating their need like a sip of opium tea might quell a sailor’s thirsts.
It was like when Clef had allowed her to hear a scriving—but this time she was looking for herself. And there was so much more to it, so much nuance and meaning behind these compulsions. All of this information poured into her mind instantly, like a drop of blood spreading through a glass of water.
One thing she noticed, however, is that though she could now engage with the scrivings, she couldn’t hear much more: she could not feel what the table felt, and know instantly all of its cracks and crevices and nuances. It seemed that Valeria had shorn away her “object empathy,” as Clef had put it, and instead replaced it with…this. Whatever it was.
Can I see things just as Clef did? Did…did she make me like him?
She looked around the room surreptitiously, and stared in awe. She could see all the scrivings, all the augmentations, all the silvery little commands and arguments woven into the objects around her, demanding that these things be different, that they defy physics and reality in these specific ways. Some scrivings were gorgeous and delicate, some were harsh and ugly, others dull and monotonous. She could understand the overall nature of these things at a glance: what made light, what made heat, what made things hard or soft…
It was all right there, right there, written into the stones and the wood and the interstitial bits of the world. She’d once met a dockworker who’d claimed that certain sounds made him see colors and smell things, and she’d never understood that—though now she thought she did.
She couldn’t see forever, though—it wasn’t like she could see all the scrivings in Tevanne. She could only see the sigils in this one room, and perhaps the next one—through the walls, apparently. It seemed that, whatever extrasensory abilities Valeria had given her, they were only slightly less limited as common sight and sound.
For a moment she was too overcome to think. Then she remembered what Valeria had said: she’d be able to turn this ability off, and she’d be able to engage with scrivings herself, to argue with them just as Clef did.
Sancia sucked her teeth, wondering how in the hell to do either of these things.
She blinked hard, but the scrivings didn’t go away—her second sight (a stupid term, she thought, but she had no better one at the moment), it seemed, was not activated or deactivated by a physical movement.
Then she realized she felt a tautness in the side of her head, like that curious, slight displeasure you get when someone holds a finger close to your ear. She focused, trying to smooth it out, like relaxing an oft-forgotten muscle in your back…
The scrivings faded from view, and the world went totally, blessedly silent.
Sancia almost burst out laughing.
I can do it! I can turn it off! I can finally, finally, finally turn it all off!
Which was all well and good, but she was still trapped here.
She focused, and tensed that strange, abstract muscle in her mind. The silvery tangles of scrivings came back, and she heard the voice in her ear, whispering: <Hold you tight, hold you tight, my love, my love, my love…>
Sancia turned her attention to the shackles. She looked at the scrivings closely, or as closely as she could, since she was still pinned to the table. She had no idea what it was like to actually engage with scrivings. Perhaps it was like talking to Clef.
So she said to the shackles: <Will you open for me?>
Immediately the shackles responded, with shocking fervor: <NO! NO, NO, NO! NEVER RELEASE, NOT EVER, NEVER LET GO, WOULD BREAK OUR HEARTS, IT WOULD, YES…>
Sancia almost recoiled at the strength of the response. It was like hearing a roomful of children explode with frustrated screams at the announcement that bedtime was imminent. <All right, all right!> said Sancia. <God! I won’t make you part!>
<Good! Good, good, good, we could never part, never be apart, never be without each other…>
Sancia wrinkled her nose. This was like being seated too close to two lovers kissing deeply.
She focused, calmed her mind, and looked at the shackles, letting her thoughts sink into them. Without even knowing the words for what she was doing, she examined their argument—what they did, and why they did it—and targeted the part of their argument about how they could become calm, growing sated at the touch of the key, and part.
<How can I make you feel…> She paused as she searched their argument for the right definition. <…key-calm?>
<With key,> said the shackles immediately.
<Yes, but what does the key do that makes you key-calm?>
<Key imparts key-calm.>
<Right. Yes. But what is key-calm?>
<Key-calm is sensation imparted by key.>
<What does key-calm do to you?>
<Key-calm induces key-calmness, the state of key-calm.>
Shit, Sancia thought. This is harder than I thought it’d be.
She thought rapidly, then asked: <Is there anything else that can make you feel key-calm besides the key?>
A short pause. Then: <Yes.>
<What is it?>
<What is what?>
<What is the thing that makes you feel key-calm?>
<Key induces key-calm.>
<Right! I know! But what besides the key could induce key-calm?>
<Key-calm induces key-calm.> Pause. <As does secret.>
Sancia blinked. <Secret?>
<Secret what?> said the shackles.
<What is the secret that makes you key-calm?>
<Secret is secret.>
<Yes, but what is it?>