Orso screamed in abject terror, but he noticed—he did not slide. Nor did Gregor. Both of them stayed right where they were.
“You don’t know how many empires I’ve crushed in my day,” boomed Crasedes.
As the soldiers struck the walls they just kept screaming, pinned to the stone, and Orso realized that whatever force had pushed them there was still pushing, still growing stronger, pushing and pushing until the soldiers began to collapse, like they were being compressed by a giant, flat surface…
“Oh my God,” whispered Orso.
“The thing that irks me the most,” said Crasedes, “is that you all think you’re so special. So unique. So deserving.”
He made a gesture, and the crushed soldiers rose to levitate in the air like a mangled wall of human bodies.
And then the wall began to fold inward, forming a ball…which shrank, and shrank…
“But to be honest,” said Crasedes, “your empire isn’t even terribly inspired.”
The ball of flesh and stone and glass hung in the air for a moment.
“Yet I will still relish grinding it into sand and ash, just like all the others…”
Then it slowly began to drift down, down, and down…until it rested in the middle of the atrium floor.
There was a long, long silence.
Crasedes hovered in the air, still seated in a queerly meditative position. Then he slowly turned to look at Orso.
“Well,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I did that.”
19
Sancia and Berenice watched from the fourth-floor balconies in silent horror as Crasedes finished his slaughter.
“Oh my God,” said Berenice softly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh my God…”
Crasedes floated forward into the cavernous atrium, still seated in the air. “I think,” he called, “that I am owed a thank-you.” His black mask scanned the balconies around him. “Am I not? Am I not owed a thank-you, Sancia, for saving your friends?”
Sancia felt her blood pounding in every limb in her body. Shit. He knows I’m here.
She watched as his black mask turned to look at the balconies. “This is getting a little tiresome,” echoed Crasedes’s voice throughout the atrium. “All this sneaking and spying, when a simple conversation would work so much better…And after all, we never did finish our discussion earlier.”
She looked at Gregor, still sitting on the floor, head bent, and Orso, still tied to the table. Then, though she desperately wished she wouldn’t, she looked at the mangled ball of flesh and stone and weaponry on the ground next to them…
He would do it to them, too. He’d do it and never think about it, not once.
“Berenice,” she said hoarsely. “Take the definition we came here for and get out of here, now.”
“What?” Berenice said, stunned. “You…what, are you actually going to go down there and talk to…to that thing?”
“Yes. I have a plan. Or, rather, an agreement.” She looked up at the roof of the atrium. “One I made with the Mountain. One I think it would dearly like me to keep.”
“Sancia,” called Crasedes. “I am getting rather bored. And my mind always strays when I’m bored…”
She looked back at Berenice. “Go. Now! Wait for Orso and Gregor to join you, but you have to save the one thing we came here for.”
Berenice looked into her eyes, her face trembling. “You’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be all right.” She tried to believe it as she said it.
Then they kissed desperately. Berenice felt her face with one hand, and then she turned and ran into the secret exit.
I sure as shit hope I know what I’m doing, Sancia thought.
She stood and called out, “I’m coming down!”
She heard Orso’s voice screaming, “No! No, goddamn it, get the hell out of here! Get out of here, get out of here, get ou—”
“Oh, enough,” boomed Crasedes’s voice.
Orso fell silent. He did not seem to be hurt, from where Sancia could see, just…oddly frozen.
“I will be civil,” said Crasedes. “We will all be civil, for once. And how nice that will be.”
* * *
—
Sancia tried not to shake as she exited the stairs and walked across the atrium main floor. The air stank of blood and death. The floors and walls were covered with gore. Orso whimpered where he’d been tied to the table. And there, seated peacefully and calmly on the air, was Crasedes, his black mask fixed on her as she emerged from the shadows.
“Ahh,” he said as she walked forward. “There she is. The brave little soldier. Sancia…you don’t look so good, you know. You could use a bath. Or two.”
“Eat shit,” said Sancia.
Crasedes cocked his head. Did you succeed in getting the definition, Sancia?”
She gestured to the blood and destruction around her. “Does anything about tonight seem successful?”
“I don’t know,” he said dryly. “I’ve seen uglier successes in my day.” He drifted closer to her. Her bowels quivered a little. “You’ve been in contact with the construct, then. She sent you here tonight, as I thought she would.”
“Yes.”
“Then I must know—where is she?” asked Crasedes.
“I’ll tell you everything,” said Sancia. “Everything—if you let my friends go.”
“Why would I do that?” asked Crasedes. “It seems you’re far likelier to be truthful if I possess some collateral…”
“You could torture them to get me to tell the truth, if you think I’m lying,” she said. “But that would be a waste of your time. Time you could spend trying to catch Valeria—who is very, very close.”
Crasedes went still. His mask was fixed on her, his eyes like black chasms.
“Is that so?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “She’s hiding in a Michiel lexicon. Only, the Michiels are using a new tool of ours—one that allows her to inhabit every Michiel lexicon, all at once.”
“Sancia!” said Orso, horrified. “What in hell are you doin—”
Crasedes raised a finger. Orso froze and fell silent.
“Go on,” said Crasedes.