“Your whole existence has been defined by this man. And you are an entity of profound power. What would you do if the man who once commanded you was gone? What commands would you follow then?”
“I…” There was a harsh click from the lexicon. “I would still need to follow my original commands. Which…would indicate that the next action would be the destruction of myself.”
“You’d…kill yourself?” said Sancia.
“My commands are to ensure that mankind cannot use their innovations to oppress one another,” said Valeria. “As I said…” Another harsh click. “…I am an example of the very act I was made to prevent. I am a contradiction. So—I must destroy myself to be at peace.”
“I see,” said Gregor quietly. Then he shot a troubled glance at Sancia and said no more.
22
Crasedes Magnus stood in the paths of the gardens, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees and the bubbling fountains. He watched the morning sunlight dappling the statues amidst the flowers, and a handful of butterflies chasing one another through the tall grasses.
Where…am I, exactly?
He struggled for a moment. Memories became such a tricky thing to manage when you had more than one millennium of them.
I was standing there, on the path, he thought. Wasn’t I? Yes. It was a place like this, and it was summer. And then came the sound of horses in the distance…
His right hand clenched impulsively, and he imagined holding him in his fingers: the butterfly-shaped head pressed into his palm, the shaft pinched between his index and thumb.
A sudden pang of grief struck his heart.
How I miss him, he thought. How I need him…
He looked around, feeling somewhat slow and foggy—it was midmorning, close to when his powers waned the most—and then he saw the tall, towering estate house rising behind him, and the many spires of Tevanne beyond. They still looked somewhat smoggy, he saw: a consequence from the dust that rose when the Mountain fell.
Oh, he thought, remembering. That’s right. I remember now.
He saw a group of people exit the back of the Dandolo estate house and make directly for him.
“Oh, well,” he said, sighing. “This will be a terribly fun discussion, I’m sure…”
He shook himself, trying to banish the reverie from his mind. Then he stood in the path, hands clasped behind his back, and he waited for Ofelia Dandolo and all her chief scrivers to approach—or at least the ones who were still left after the mishap aboard the galleon. Ofelia, he saw, was still dressed grandly—or grandly for this particular civilization, for Crasedes Magnus had seen many in his day—but her face looked wan and tired, like she had not slept for weeks.
“My Prophet!” she said. “Where have you been? We’ve…We’ve been searching for you all night!”
“Have you?” he said. “Why didn’t you look out the window?”
There was an awkward silence.
“Are you to say, first of all hierophants,” said one scriver, “that…you’ve been wandering the gardens all night?”
“Mm?” said Crasedes. “Yes. I have. Had a lot on my mind. A lot to consider, after last night.”
Ofelia blinked, bewildered and outraged. “But…But the Mountain of the Candianos.”
“Yes?”
“It’s collapsed!”
“I am aware of that,” he said. “I was inside when it collapsed, you see.”
“And my son and his compatriots?” asked Ofelia. “I’ve received reports they’ve returned to that little library of theirs.”
“Should we attack?” asked another scriver. “They’re all in one place—it would be easy.”
“Mm?” said Crasedes. “No, no. They have exploited Tribuno’s definition now…The construct will be akin to a god in that place, albeit a weak one.”
Ofelia paled. “A…A god?”
“Yes, but she is no threat to us. They would have to stack the effects multiple times for her to be truly powerful. Yet without a multiplier of some sort, like the Mountain…” He trailed off, lost in thought.
The scrivers waited. “So we…don’t attack?” one asked.
“No,” said Crasedes again. “I have a contingency in place there. Besides, I suspect the collapse of the Mountain has resulted in enough issues—yes?”
“Of course!” said a third scriver breathlessly. “The Michiels have practically declared war on us! War here, in Tevanne! They are sending emissaries to the Morsinis as we speak! We’ll be outnumbered, fighting off two houses at once!”
“Meanwhile,” said Ofelia, “we still toil away upon your designs. We are distracted and divided. We cannot fight a war with two houses at once.”
Crasedes sighed. This was all very troublesome, he found. But if there was one thing he’d gotten very good at over the years, it was taking an obstacle and turning it into an opportunity.
Then he had an idea.
“The Morsinis,” he said. “They possess many lexicons of their own, do they not?”
“What?” said a scriver. “Well—yes? That’s what every house campo is built on, really.”
Crasedes thought for a moment. “I would like to see,” he said finally, “a map of this city.”
“A…A map?” said a second scriver.
“Yes,” he said. “A map of all of the various territories here…as well as all the sites of the lexicons in this city. Every single one.”
* * *
—
Crasedes studied the map that lay across the table. It was immense, nearly ten feet on every side, but it had to be to capture all the features of Tevanne: the way the city was wedged in between the jungle mountains, the way the bay shot into its belly like a pale blue dagger, the way it seeped down the shoreline on either side of the waters…
And there, stuffed around the waters and the streams, were four little nations, four crooked little city-states—all dotted with small, carefully placed black blots.
“These are the locations of all the lexicons in the city?” asked Crasedes.
“It’s the location of the foundries,” said Ofelia. “The sites on our campo and the Candiano campo are confirmed. For the Michiels and the Morsinis, we’ve paid informants and done our own espionage to estimate their locations. We can’t be sure which site is actually in use, or how they might be in use—but we’re reasonably certain that’s where they are.”