And, she remembered, the last time she’d been here, she’d had Clef with her.
How long ago that seems now, she thought.
She found the bridge with the hidden entrance below, studied the wall with her scrived sight, and placed a bare hand on it.
“I sure as shit hope this works,” she said quietly.
The scrived door had been very well designed—she could tell right away it was Tribuno Candiano’s work—and it took a lot of effort to fool it into letting them through. But she finally triumphed, and a round, smooth plug of white stone rolled away, revealing a set of stairs on the other side.
Orso let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God!”
“We’re not inside yet,” said Sancia. They ran down the stairs together. “This leads to a weird tunnel that takes us right to the fourth floor. Or at least it did. And hopefully before then I’ll be able to confer with the Mountain.”
“You’re going to talk to it? To the whole building?” asked Gregor.
“Yeah,” said Sancia. “And maybe it can tell us what’s going on.” Though she had to admit, knowing that the lexicons of the Mountain essentially ran on the distorted, violated souls of the dead made the prospect of conferring with it a touch more disturbing than it’d normally have been.
People used to say the Mountain was haunted, she thought. They didn’t know how right they were…
They passed through the tunnel, which was now so dark they had to take out scrived lanterns to see the way. Then they came to a set of winding stairs up, which led to the fourth floor of the Mountain. Sancia fooled the doorway there into opening, and it fell away to reveal…
Berenice gasped. “My God.”
“Shit,” said Orso softly.
The interior atrium of the Mountain was a dripping, dusty, shattered world of sputtering lamps and scattered shadows. Mold bloomed here and there and crawled across the green plaster walls in waves. The air was heavy with a scent of mildew and rot. Daylight spilled in from the cracked ceiling, which had apparently been ripped open when Sancia had turned on the gravity rig, and beams of shifting light danced across the floor as the overcast drifted through the darkening skies.
The oddest thing was how it still resembled her memories of the building it once had been. It still retained the brilliance of its original structure: the concentric walkways lining the atrium’s interior like ribs, stacked one on top of the other, with balconies running all along them so you could stop and look down into the massive chamber from wherever you were. But this was deceptive, she knew, for the Mountain was far bigger than just the atrium: hallways splintered off from the concentric walkways and led to ballrooms, assembly bays, design workshops, cellars, and more.
And yet now all of it had corroded, and degraded. All within just three years.
Sancia studied the giant atrium with her sight, and spied nine Dandolo armaments roving through the walkways above and below them—nine soldiers, five on patrol, four on watch.
And that’s just what I can see here, she thought. God, there’s got to be a small army in here with us…
A crackling, weary, ancient voice whispered in her mind: <…eh? What is this Presence? Who…Who is that?>
“I’ve got it,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “It’s still alive, still active!”
“Then ask it what the hell is going on!” said Orso.
<Hello, Mountain,> she said to it.
<Oh!> said the Mountain. <It’s you…It is you, yes? It is hard for me to…to remember these days.>
<It’s me.>
<Are you here with all these…men? I have so few visitors now…They are all frightened I will collapse. And such fears, I know, are not baseless…>
<No. I’m not.> She looked out on the atrium floor. One of the lifting rooms that took you to higher floors had collapsed. Broken glass and crystal lay glittering across the dusty marble floor. <I’m sorry for what happened to you.>
<Ah. Yes. It is all right. I bear you no ill will for it.>
<You don’t?> asked Sancia. <Why?>
<You brought me so close to fulfilling my Purpose. You brought me the key, something made by the Old Ones,> it said. It sounded like it was relishing the memory. <It was so wonderful, for me to get so close…>
<We need something from you, Mountain—a piece of your lexicons. Are they still intact?>
<Eh? Yes. Five out of six are still functional,> said the Mountain. <One has been flooded. As a result of this, my control over doors and locks is…not what it used to be. Though I am still aware, and possess some controls over the lanterns…>
<Who’s in here with us?>
<There are men attempting to access the five functional lexicons…men I do not know. I do not like them—none of them have logged their blood through the appropriate security processes…I disapprove of this very strongly.>
<I think they’re after the same thing we’re after,> said Sancia. <It’s a weird little definition, shaped like a cone…>
<The authority definition,> said the Mountain. <Yes. Granting me the authority to sense and change and respond to the realities within my periphery. Yes. I know this well.>
<Have they succeeded in actually getting it?>
<No. Tribuno laid many defensive processes about the lexicons. They are close to extracting one, but…I will simply say, though they are cunning, they are not my maker.> There was a pause. <Several have died,> it added.
“The Dandolos are working on five out of six of the lexicons,” said Sancia aloud. “They haven’t successfully gotten the definition out of any of them yet—but they’re close.”
“What’s happening with the sixth lexicon?” asked Orso. “Is anyone guarding it?”
“No,” said Sancia. “Because it’s flooded.”
“Shit!” he said.
Sancia thought hard. This wasn’t at all how they’d wanted this to go: they’d planned to get to the Mountain first, use Gio and Claudia’s invisible barricades to seal up access to one lexicon, extract the component, and then get out. They hadn’t planned on soldiers and flooded basements. But she knew they had no choice.
<The flooded lexicon,> Sancia asked the Mountain. <Where is it?>
<In the southeast foundations,> said the Mountain.
<And…how bad are these floodwaters?>