The ball grew and grew, a perfect sphere of impossible density…
There was a soft boom from somewhere out in the campo.
Sounds like Orso’s magic empty box just gave up, thought Sancia.
Then, abruptly, the air went still.
The dome stopped collapsing.
The huge ball of black hung in the air, and then…
The ball plummeted down, and struck the ground with a dense, bone-shaking thump—and it just kept falling, penetrating down, down, down into the earth.
Finally the crumbling and cracking ended—either the black ball had stopped falling, or it had fallen so far that it was now beyond earshot.
Sancia let out a gasp and hauled herself up over the balcony. She breathed there for a moment, then looked up at the ruins of the Mountain.
She froze. “No,” she whispered.
A decent chunk of the dome was simply gone, like someone had taken a vast spoon and carved out a bite from the top, much like one might a bowl of pudding—but not all of it.
Hanging in the air, suspended by a handful of pillars and supports in the exact place that damned well should have gotten collapsed into the gravity well first, and thus been totally annihilated, was a tiny island of tile and stone…
And standing in its middle, holding aloft something that looked like a complicated golden pocket watch, was Estelle Candiano.
“Shit!” screamed Sancia. She started to climb.
* * *
Every part of Estelle Candiano trembled. She had never been to war, never seen someone die, never witnessed any kind of genuine catastrophe or disaster in all of her life—so she had been somewhat unprepared for the maelstrom of cracking and crashing and dust that had unfolded mere feet above her head.
But not totally unprepared. Estelle had always been a quick thinker.
She hadn’t been sure it would work. She’d done her research, and had known that the hierophants’ imperiat could single out a specific scrived effect and control or kill it within any given space—and while she’d managed to kill the scrivings in that assassin’s lorica, acting as a breaker against a full-scale gravity-rig collapse was something else entirely.
And yet, as she cracked an eye and saw the wall beyond her had been totally obliterated, and saw that she and her gasping father and all these brutalized corpses were now situated upon a tiny blot of building floating in almost nothing, she realized her gambit had been phenomenally successful.
She stared around in disbelief. Dusty winds battered her face, and she could see straight across into one of the Candiano towers beyond—there were even people standing on the balconies, staring at her openmouthed.
She took a breath. “I-I knew I could do it,” she said coolly. She looked at her father. “I always told you—I could do anything. Anything. If you only gave me the chance.”
She could see the pink face of the Michiel clock tower. Four minutes left.
She stooped, picked up the golden dagger from the bloody office floor, and surveyed Tevanne before her.
“Broken,” she pronounced. “Smoking. Unintended. Corrupt!” she said to the city. “I will not forgive what you’ve done to me. I shall wash you all away with a dash of my hand. And though you’ll drown in pain and agony, on the whole, really, the world will thank m—”
There was a sharp tap sound. Estelle jumped as if someone had bustled into her. Then she staggered slightly to the side, and looked down.
The side of her stomach was a ragged hole, just above her left hip. Blood poured out of her belly and down her leg.
Bewildered, she tottered around, and saw the armored man lying on the floor, aiming his bolt caster at her.
Her face twisted in outrage. “You…you stupid son of a bitch!” She fell to her knees, grimacing in pain, and fruitlessly pressed a hand to the wound. “You…you stupid, stupid man!”
* * *
<I am really not sure I should be helping you,> said the Mountain dolefully.
<What, because I almost blew you up?> said Sancia as she ran through the Mountain’s halls.
<Well. Yes,> said the Mountain. <You peeled away nearly a fifth of my skin. But also—you are still not logged.>
She leapt into a lift. <Don’t you have some directive to save Tribuno Candiano’s life?>
<Yes?>
<Well, that’s what I’m trying to do. His daughter’s trying to kill him with a golden dagger. Get me up to his office—now.>
The lift lurched to life, and suddenly she was speeding up, up, up. Then the doors sprang open, and the Mountain said, <If this is true—then hurry.>
She ran down the hallway—which, she noted, was covered with ravaged corpses—and sprinted into Tribuno’s office, completely unsure what she’d find.
She skidded to a halt, and saw.
Gregor Dandolo lay on the ground, bleeding from one arm and trying to sit up, but his armor seemed too heavy for him. Estelle knelt a few feet beyond him, next to her father, a golden dagger in her hand. She had an enormous wound on her side, and blood was pouring out of her stomach to pool on the floor.
Sancia walked in slowly. Neither Gregor nor Estelle moved, and she stared at Gregor in disbelief. “God,” she said. “Gregor…How the hell are you alive? I heard you wer—”
At the sound of her voice, Gregor snapped up like a spring trap, and pointed the half-shield, half-bolt caster on his arm at her.
Sancia held her arms up. “Whoa! God, man, what are you doing?”
Gregor’s eyes were cold and distant. She saw he had Clef clutched in his other hand.
“Gregor?” she said. “What’s going on? What are you doing with Clef?”
He said nothing. He kept the bolt caster trained on her.
Sancia flexed the muscle inside her mind, and looked at him. It looked like the imperiat had done something to his suit—the arms and legs didn’t appear to be calibrated right anymore. But far more startling, she saw a bright, gruesome red star glowing inside Gregor’s head—the same dusky, red glow as Clef and the imperiat.
“Oh my God,” she said, horrified. “What is that? Did they do that to you?”
He said nothing to her.
She realized it must not be new—when they’d implanted a plate in her head, it had been major surgery. “Gregor—has…has that always been there? All this time?”
Blood dripped down Gregor’s arm, but the bolt caster didn’t waver.
“Then I-I wasn’t the first scrived human at all, was I?” she asked.
He said nothing. His face was inhumanly still.
She swallowed. “Who sent you here? Who did this to you? What’s it making you do?” She looked around. “God, did…did you kill all these men?”
Something in his eyes flickered at that—but still the bolt caster didn’t move.
“Gregor…Give me Clef, please,” she whispered. She held a hand out. “Please give him to me. Please.”
He raised the bolt caster higher, pointing it directly at her head.
“You’re…you’re not really going to do it, are you?” she asked. “Are you? This isn’t you—is it?”
Still he said nothing.
Something inside her curdled. “All right. Scrum it. I’m…I’m going to walk over to you right now,” she said quietly. “And if you want to shoot me, Gregor, then goddamn it, you go ahead and you shoot me. Because I guess you went and made me a dumbass just like you the other day in the Gulf,” she said, louder. “When you went on and on and on about your little bit of revolution, and…and how you never wanted what was done to us to be done to anyone ever again. You were stupid enough to say it, and I was stupid enough to believe it. So I’m going to come over there, right now, and help my friend, and get you the hell out of here. And if you put me in my just grave, then fine. But unlike you, I’m going to stay there. And that’ll be on you.”
Before her will failed, she took four quick steps over to Gregor, arms raised, until the bolt caster was inches away from her.
He did not shoot. He looked at her, and his eyes were wide and wary and frightened.
“Gregor,” she said. “Put it down.”
His face trembled like he was having a seizure, and he choked out the words, “I…I didn’t want to be this anymore, Sancia.”
“I know,” she whispered. She placed a hand on his bolt caster, but kept looking him in the eye.
“They…they m-made me,” he stammered. “They said I was one thing. But…I had changed my mind.”
“I know, I know,” she said. She pushed the bolt caster away. His arm seemed to give up, and the weapon clanked to the floor.
He struggled for a moment. “I’m so sorry,” he whimpered. “I’m so, so sorry.” Then he lifted his other arm and held out Clef to her. “T-tell everyone…that I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to. I…I really didn’t want to.”
“I will,” she said. She reached out to Clef, very slowly, just in case Gregor changed again. “I’ll tell everyone.”
She kept reaching toward Clef’s head, still meeting Gregor’s gaze. She was keenly aware that this man could kill her in an instant, and she didn’t dare breathe.
Finally she touched a bare finger to Clef’s head.