“There we go,” she said. She hit a switch on the pocket watch’s side.
Gregor tried to fire the bolt caster—but he found he couldn’t. His lorica was frozen: it was like he was wearing a statue rather than a suit of armor, and its penumbra of shadow had abruptly vanished.
Estelle let out a long, relieved sigh. “Well!” she said, standing. “That was close.” She looked him over. “Interesting rig you have here…Are you Orso’s man? He’d always thought about playing with light.”
Gregor kept trying to fire the bolt caster, flexing every muscle he had against his suit of armor, but it was useless. She seemed to have somehow turned the entire thing off.
She glanced at the big golden pocket watch, frowned, and raised it, running it alongside Gregor’s body like a dowsing rod searching for water. The pocket watch let out a loud, piercing shriek when it passed over Gregor’s helmet.
“My word,” said Estelle. “You aren’t Orso’s man—not if you’ve got an Occidental tool in your head.” She placed a hand on his cuirass, grunted, and shoved him backward onto the floor, his suit of armor clattering and clanking as he struck the stones.
She walked over to one of her dead soldiers, pulled out the man’s knife, and then straddled Gregor. “Now,” she said. “Let’s see who you are.”
She cut through the straps fastening on Gregor’s face plate, and pulled it away.
She stared at him. “What in hell?” she said. “What are you doing here?”
Gregor said nothing. His face was placid, blank, empty. He just strained and strained and strained against the armor, trying his hardest to strike the woman, to fill her with bolts, to rend her in two—but the lorica wouldn’t budge.
“Tell me,” she demanded. “Tell me how you got here. Tell me how you survived. Who are you working for?”
Still he said nothing.
She lifted the dagger and leaned over him. “Tell me,” she said softly. “I’ve got ten minutes until midnight. Ten minutes to find out.” She found a gap in his armor, and stabbed the blade deep up into his left bicep. He felt the pain, but his mind told him to disregard it. “Don’t worry, brave soldier—I’ll find a way to make you screa—”
Then she paused. Probably because it sounded like someone was already screaming—and the sound was coming from above.
Estelle looked up, through the round window in the ceiling.
There was a speck of black in front of the moon that seemed to be getting…bigger.
Estelle watched, bewildered, as a filthy, dusty, screaming girl in black came hurtling out of the sky to land on the skylight.
“…aaaaaAAAAAAH-OOF!” said the girl, landing on the window with a solid thud.
Estelle’s mouth fell open. She whispered, “What…”
The girl rose up, shook herself, and looked down through the window at them. And though Gregor’s mind was overtaken with his commands—kill the woman, take the key, take the box—he couldn’t help but recognize her.
I know this girl…But did she just fly? Out of the sky?
* * *
Sancia stared down at the surreal sight below her. Tribuno Candiano’s office appeared to be filled with mangled corpses—one of which seemed to be Gregor Dandolo, who lay bleeding on the floor with blank, empty eyes, clad in a suit of black armor. Estelle Candiano sat on his chest, holding a dagger, and she was staring up at Sancia in shock. Beside them was Tribuno’s desk, upon which sat Valeria’s box—and though she couldn’t see Clef or the imperiat, surely they were in there as well.
She wanted to leap in and save Clef—the person who, for so long, had been her closest friend, her most trusted ally. Her heart hurt to think of losing or hurting him, after all this pain. But she knew there were greater things at risk right now—and she knew that someone as powerless as she would only ever have one shot at taking out someone like Estelle.
One day I’ll live a life that doesn’t force me to make such cold-blooded decisions, she thought. But today is not that day.
She touched the dome of the Mountain with a finger.
<Oh, it’s you!> said the Mountain’s voice in her mind. <I am sorry, but…unable to permit entry. Your sample is not logged.>
<No, I get it,> said Sancia. <I just wanted to say I’m sorry.>
<Sorry? For…action?>
<Yeah. This one, specifically.>
She took her hand away, pulled off the gravity plates, and shut her eyes. <New directions for MASS.>
<Hooray!> said the plates. <What is new entry for MASS?>
<You.>
There was a pause.
<Me?> said the plates. <I am entry for MASS?>
<Yeah. And the STRENGTH of FLOW is maximum.>
<Maximum STRENGTH of FLOW?>
<Yes.>
<Are you SURE?>
<Yes.>
<Ohhh,> said the plates. <Well…All right!>
<Good.> She opened her eyes as the plates began softly vibrating. Then she slammed the plates down on the window.
She locked eyes with Estelle Candiano, grinned, and waved good-bye. Then she pulled out her thin cord of rope, looped it around the neck of a gargoyle, and started rappelling down the side of the Mountain.
* * *
Estelle stared up at the device sitting just above her on the opposite side of the window. She recognized it immediately, of course. She had coaxed Tomas into designing the damned thing over years, after all.
She watched as the gravity plates started vibrating faster and faster, like a cymbal being struck again and again…and then it began to glow a soft, blue light.
The building around her began to groan. Clouds of dust floated down as the vaulted ceiling shuddered and moaned.
“Shit,” said Estelle. She staggered off the armored man’s chest and dove for the imperiat. She’d not exactly had a lot of time to acquaint herself with the device—but she’d have to make do now.
* * *
On the streets outside the Candiano campo wall, Orso and Berenice took turns peering through a spyglass at the Mountain. It looked like someone had turned on a new light, shining on its surface—a blue one, glowing with a queerly fluttering light.
Orso peered at it. “What the hell is tha—”
He stopped—because then, with a pop that they could hear even from where they stood, huge cracks shot across the dome of the Candianos…and then they started spreading. Fast.
The cracks flowed in a curious pattern, she noticed: it was like a spiraled spider web, with all the cracks and lines rotating around the blue star.
Then the splinters and fragments of the dome began to retract inward, toward the star.
“Oh my God,” said Berenice.
The skin of the building popped, quaked, shuddered, and then…
Orso expected it to start collapsing; but no, that didn’t quite describe what occurred then—the exterior of the dome was actually falling in, imploding slowly and steadily, nearly a fifth of the huge stone structure rippling and collapsing toward the bright-blue star situated on its side.
“Oh hell,” said Orso, astonished.
They jumped as there was another tremendous crack, and the side of the dome around the blue star began to cave in more, and more.
He swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “Well. I didn’t know she was going to do that.”
* * *
Sancia screamed as she let the rope slide through her hands, speeding down the side of the Mountain as the giant structure fell apart above her. She noticed that her descent was slowing, bit by bit, which was deeply upsetting to her.
I’m not out of range of the rig, she thought. It’s going to suck me in and collapse us into an ugly little brick just like what it’s doing to the dome!
She slowed further, and further, and she felt herself slipping back up—up toward the crumbling dome above.
“Scrum this!” she bellowed. She let go of the rope, gripped the side of the dome, and began springing and sprinting away from the maelstrom of gravity above, running sideways along the building’s face. It was, perhaps, the most absurd moment of the night so far, if not her life—but she had no mind to reflect upon it, since rocks and other debris were hurtling up past her to join the crackling dome.
But at some point, she finally went past the range of the gravity rig—and then she stopped running, and instead started falling down the side of the building.
She screamed, terrified, and watched as quoins and other architectural features flew by her.
She saw a stone balcony hurtling up at her, and flicked her hands out…
Her shoulders and back lit up with pain as her fingers made contact with the railing and gripped it tight. Then she swung down and her torso crashed into the bottom of the balcony, knocking the wind from her.
Breathing hard, she looked up and saw the destruction she had wrought above her. “Oh crap,” she said.
A significant portion of the top of the giant dome was now gone, imploding toward the gravity plates, forming what appeared to be a ball of pure blackness, as if folding in all these materials—stone, wood, and probably people—robbed them of their colors. It was hard to see how much of the dome was gone by now, as the gravity plates had created a giant spinning sphere of dust and debris, all circling that ball of blackness.