Sancia walked toward it. Then she saw what lay beyond, and gasped.
The Mountain, she realized, was a giant shell. And being inside of it was like being inside a hollowed-out…
Well. Mountain.
She stared at the rings and rings of floors beyond, all gold and green and shimmering, all lined with windows as the people within them lived and worked and toiled. She was four floors above the main level of the space, which was indescribably vast, lit by massive, brilliant floating lanterns carved of glass and crystal. Huge brass columns ran in staggered formations across the marble floor—and some of the columns appeared to be moving, sliding up or down. It took her a moment to realize the columns were actually hollow, and had tiny rooms in them that rose or fell, ferrying people up to dangling stations above. Those must be the lifts Orso mentioned, she thought. Huge banners hung in between the stations, the giant, bright-gold Candiano loggotipo glimmering in the glow of the scrived lights below. All of it formed an endless, circling wall of light and color and movement.
It was like another world, just like Orso had said. And all of it was enabled by…
The side of her head grew bright hot and her eyes watered. She gritted her teeth as the sound of so many scrivings hit her, drilling into her, biting into her mind.
<Okay, hold on,> said Clef.
<It’s…it’s too much, Clef!> she cried. <It’s too much, it’s too much! I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it!>
<Hold on, hold on!> said Clef. <Your talents are a two-way connection—I can share your mind just as my thoughts can barge into yours. Let’s see if I can bear the load for you…>
The eruption of murmurs warbled, then diminished rapidly, until it was a bearable level—though it did not vanish.
She gasped, relieved. <What did you do, Clef?>
<It’s sort of like the canals,> said Clef. <When one gets too full, it dumps water into another. Now all that noise is going into me. God…I knew it was bad for you, kid, but not this bad.>
<Are you all right? Can you bear it?>
<I can for now.>
<And…is it damaging you more?>
<Everything’s damaging me more. Come on. Let’s stop wasting time and go.>
Sancia rose, took a breath, and started off into the Mountain.
* * *
Gregor carefully navigated through the outer paths of the Candiano campo. He stuck to the edges of the streets, moving through the shadows. It was an odd experience—he’d never really spent much time on other campos before.
He saw the cross-streets Orso had described ahead. He started across a small square toward it—but then he paused ever so slightly.
Gregor abruptly turned right, away from the cross-streets. He walked to a small alley, stepped into a doorway, and stopped and watched the square and the streets around him.
There was no one. Yet he’d suddenly had an overpowering feeling that someone had been following him—there’d been a movement somewhere, out of the corner of his eye.
He waited, not moving. Perhaps I imagined it, he thought. He waited a bit longer. I need to hurry, he thought. Or else Sancia will try to jump off the Mountain with nowhere to fly to. He walked to the cross-streets, knelt, and started installing the anchor in the cobblestone.
* * *
What struck Sancia most about the Mountain was not just the size of the thing, but also the emptiness of it. She roved through huge banquet halls with vaulted ceilings, indoor gardens with pink, circling floating lanterns, immense counting offices filled with rows and rows of desks—and most were almost empty, occupied by only one or two people. She’d heard rumors that the Mountain was haunted, but maybe it just felt haunted because it seemed so abandoned.
<Candiano really is on the decline,> said Clef.
<No kidding.>
She knew she needed to find a lift, and she needed to use it without attracting attention. She finally found a more populated segment of the Mountain, full of residents and employees. They sped past her or ambled this way and that as they went about their daily lives, ignoring her; but then, they would—Orso had supplied her with clothing that made her look like a mid-level functionary.
She spied a few important-looking young men and followed them until they finally came to a lift. They stood around, waiting on the little room to arrive, and chatted in bored tones. Finally the round brass doors opened for them—presumably the rig checked their blood to make sure they could use it—and they walked inside, chatting and gesturing. Then the doors shut, and the lift rose.
<I’ll catch the next one,> she thought.
<This place is…strange,> said Clef.
<Yeah, no shit.>
<No, I mean I feel this pressure, like we’re in a room with too much air. It’s hard to explain—and I’m not even sure I understand it.>
The lift doors opened again, and she stepped inside. There was a brass panel by the door, with a round dial set in the middle. The dial was labeled with numbers running from 1 to 15, and it was currently pointed at 3. <It doesn’t go all the way up,> she thought.
She set the dial to 15, and the doors shut and the lift began to rise.
<So we just keep taking lifts until we get to thirty-five,> Clef said. <Easy. Hopefully.>
They rode in silence.
Then Sancia heard a voice. It was just like when she heard Clef’s voice—but this voice was not Clef’s. It was the voice of an imperious old man, and his words echoed loudly in her head as he said, <A Presence felt. But…unknown.>
Sancia nearly fell over with shock. She stared around herself, and confirmed they were alone in the lift.
<Clef?> she asked. <What the hell was that, what the hell was that!>
<You heard it too?> he said. He sounded just as shocked as she was. <The voice?>
<Yeah! Has…Has that ever happened befo—>
<Words…Words, I hear,> boomed the old man’s voice. <A Presence is found…and located. A lift. Escalation?>
<Uh-oh,> said Clef.
The doors of the lift opened. Sancia walked out onto the fifteenth floor, which appeared to be more industrial than residential. Everything here was blank gray stone and iron doors and pipes. A sign above read SCRIVING BAY 13.
Sancia barely had any mind for this, though. Someone was talking, to her and to Clef. Someone could apparently overhear them, like two people gossiping at a taverna. The idea was simply mad.
<Destination?> asked the old man’s voice. He spoke in clipped, harsh tones, like a parrot that had learned to imitate speech. <Purpose? Why are you within my boundaries?>
<How is this possible, Clef?> she asked.
<I don’t know,> said Clef. <Usually I have to touch scrived devices to hear them speak…>
<And is that what you think this is? A scrived device?>
<Well, I—>
<You are…not Tribuno Candiano,> said the old man’s voice. <Words he could not put into me directly. Spoken only…yes. Not like this.>
<Shit,> she said. <Shit!> She turned a corner and followed a group of scrivers toward yet another lift. She glanced inside and saw this one only went down. She kept walking.
<But Presence carries Tribuno’s mark,> said the old man’s voice. <His signal. How is this?>
She walked down a long hallway, opened a door—it unlocked instantly for her—and found herself moving through what seemed to be some kind of party, with scrivers quaffing bubble rum out of glass tankards while a band of women—most scantily dressed—played flutes and brass instruments.
<Confirmation,> said the old man’s voice. <A secondary presence located in chambers of Tribuno Candiano. Who is other Presence?>
The scrivers ignored Sancia, who was dressed as a functionary. She passed through and walked out the door on the other side, desperately searching fo
r another lift.
She was in a short hallway, with an open door at the end.
<No,> boomed the old man’s voice. The door at the end slammed shut. She stared at it, then turned and tried the one she’d just walked through, only to find it was locked.
<Must provide identity,> demanded the old man’s voice. <And nature.> And then, though the voice’s previous statements had a queer, crude syntax to them, his next question sounded strangely genuine. Even passionate. He whispered, <Are…are you one of them?>
<Use me on the door at the end,> said Clef. <Now!>
She ran to the closed door and touched Clef to the knob—since the door, like so many in the Mountain, had no need of the lock.
<It’s…weird,> said Clef. <I don’t need to break any bindings, because the door can’t really resist you. It thinks you’re Tribuno, it’s just been put on a delay. Wait ten seconds, then try the knob.>
She did so. The door opened for her, and beyond was a set of stairs up. She sprinted up them, taking three steps at a time.
<Curious,> said the old man’s voice. <Anomalous.>
She kept running up the stairs.
<I have never held a Presence such as this,> said the voice. <Two minds in one? How is this?>
<Clef?> said Sancia.
<Yeah?>
<Am I insane, or is this voice the goddamn Mountain?>
Clef sighed as she came to the top of the stairs. <Yeah. Yeah, I think it is.>
* * *
Sancia looked around for her next move. <What do we do?>
<I don’t know. But I think it’s a lot, lot more than a building,> said Clef.
<Can it hurt me?>
<I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But I’m also not sure it would want to.>
<What is Presence’s nature?> asked the voice—the Mountain, she supposed. <No one has ever spoken to me directly…Is Presence a…a hierophant? Must provide verity.>
<Hierophant?> thought Sancia. <What the hell is going on?>
Sancia picked a corridor at random and started walking. Berenice and Orso had said that the Mountain might sniff her out before long, but she didn’t think it would be this fast.
<At least provide destination,> said the Mountain, somewhat resigned.
<We want to go up,> said Clef.
<Clef!> she said, shocked.
<What? He can hear us, and he can track you. He’ll figure it out eventually!>
<If location is up,> said the Mountain, <proceed to third right. This will take Presence up.>
Sancia walked to the third right, then looked down its long hallway and saw it ended in a lift.
<Proceed,> said the Mountain.
<How do I know you won’t trap me in there?> asked Sancia.
<I cannot,> said the Mountain. <You carry Tribuno Candiano’s signal. This engages many rules constricting behavior. Cannot alert anyone to Tribuno’s location. And I am required to protect Candiano at all costs. These were his commands, when I was formed.>
Sancia started walking toward the lift. <Tribuno made you? Made your…your mind?>
<Made, no. Initiated, yes.>
The lift opened for her. She didn’t even get the chance to tell it which floor she wanted before it started up.
<Is your nature one of the Old Ones?> whispered the Mountain. <You must tell me. You must…It is one of my rules. Location of such is my Purpose.>
They ignored him as they continued up.
<Isn’t fair,> said the Mountain softly. <Not fair that I keep nearing fulfillment of Purpose. Yet it eludes me…>
The doors of the lift opened—but not on a hallway or a room or a balcony. Before Sancia was a wide, sandy plain, with a black sky above dotted with tiny white stars. Standing in the center of this plain was a tall black stone obelisk, covered with strange engravings.
“What the hell?” whispered Sancia.
<It’s not real,> said Clef. <It’s like a stage background. It’s a black-painted ceiling with scrived lights set in it, really small ones. I suspect the sand is imported too. Like a garden.>
<True,> said the Mountain. <But Obelisk is real. Taken from the Gothian deserts, where the Old Ones once remade the world.>
Sancia anxiously looked around the sandy plain, then started off, the sigh of her footprints intensely loud in the empty room.
<There’s a door at the far end,> whispered Clef. <I’ll help you find it.>
<He used to reside here,> said the Mountain. <Long ago. Was Presence aware?>
She shook her head, bewildered, as they crossed the weird sandy plain. She was getting the impression that the Mountain was not really hostile to them at all. Rather, it was like the thing was lonely, hungry for someone to talk to, and she suspected it’d brought her to this strange, fake place for a reason. Much like a party host might show a guest a painting, the Mountain had wanted to discuss this.
<Tribuno?> she asked. <He came here?>
<Yes. Made this place. He would come and be situated before Obelisk, to…reflect,> said the Mountain. <Think. And speak. I listened. I listened to all he said. And learned to mimic his words.>
<Why did Tribuno Candiano make you?> asked Sancia.
<To attract a hierophant,> said the Mountain.
<What!> said Clef. <That’s insane! The hierophants are all dead!>
<Untrue,> said the Mountain. <Death cannot be the state of hierophants. This was determined, per Tribuno’s research. Look upon Obelisk. Do so.>
She did as the Mountain asked. Nothing about the obelisk looked familiar at first, but…
On one side was a carven visage. An old man’s face, stern and high-cheekboned, and below it, a single hand, grasping a short shaft—a wand, perhaps. Below that was a familiar symbol to Sancia—the butterfly, or the moth. She’d seen it on Clef’s head, and in the engraving of the hierophants in Orso’s workshop.
“Crasedes the Great,” said Sancia.
<Yes,> said the Mountain. <Changed himself. Altered by his practices to become deathless. The Magnus cannot die. He and his kin cannot enter into a death state. They persist in some other fashion, wandering the world. Tribuno built me to attract them, like a moth to flame…>
She found the door and opened it. She started to walk out—but then screamed and fell back.
The door opened on a short, railed balcony, almost at the top of the huge hollow space she’d originally seen—she was hundreds of feet above the ground. If she’d run forward, she could have stumbled over the railing and fallen to her death.
“You could have told me that was there!” she said aloud.
<I would not have permitted death,> said the Mountain, somewhat apologetically.
She returned to the balcony, and saw there was a short walkway that clung to the curving wall around the top of the giant hollow hall. A door was at the far end, and she started to walk to it.
<God,> she said. <This place is huge.>
<Yes,> said the Mountain. <I am vast. He built me to be such. I needed to be, to achieve my Purpose.>
<Did he build you to be a god?> asked Sancia.
<A god? Like the one wrought by Crasedes Magnus?> It sounded amused. <No. But a mind, yes. Yet—how to make a mind? How to make thoughts? How to do speech? Difficult. Must have examples. Many, many, many, many, many examples. Thousands. Millions. Billions. So he…broadened my Purpose.>
<What do you mean?> said Sancia. <How could he broaden your purpose?>
<Many believe I am but walls,> said the Mountain. <And floors. And lifts and doors. But Tribuno wove sigils into my boundaries, my bones…and when he finished I became something…more.>
<Oh!> cried Clef, suddenly. <I…I think I see! I think I see what you are! But, my God, it’s hard to believe it…>
<What do you mean, Clef?> asked Sancia.
<I told you I felt us cros
s a boundary in the tunnel,> said Clef. <And I felt the pressure in this place, like I was deep under the sea…And I can only converse with an item when it’s touching me, right? But what if, whenever you’re in the Mountain’s boundaries, you are touching it?>
<You mean…>
<Yes. The Mountain isn’t the building—it’s the building and everything inside of it. He’s basically scrived a chunk of reality to act like a device!>
<What! That’s scrumming impossible!> said Sancia. <You can’t scrive reality as you might a button or a plate!>
<Sure you can,> said Clef. <Scrivings already change an object’s reality, right? So why not just make the object really, really big—like a big bubble, or a dome? Then you design it to be sensitive to all the changes and transactions and fluctuations taking place within it. You teach it to notice the changes, to record them—and then, slowly, you teach it to learn.>
<But scriving can’t just do that!> said Sancia. <Scriving can change physical reality, it…can’t make a mind.>
<Maybe it can get close, though,> said Clef. <With enough power behind the designs. And Tribuno got close, didn’t he? Powered by six scrumming lexicons, all specifically designed by Candiano himself toward this one purpose?>
<Yes,> said the Mountain. <I am this place. All that is within it is within me. Yet I do not exert total control. Just as people do not have control over their heart, their bones. I can merely…nudge. Redirect. Delay. Like you said—supply pressure. And I listen. Watch. Learn. A child watches adults to learn what it is to be alive. I have seen such phenomena—I have observed children being born and grow or die within me, thousands and thousands of times. And I have been as a child. I have learned. I have Made myself from Nothing.>
Sancia looked out on the rings and rings of floors below her. <He…he wanted to prove it, didn’t he?> she asked. <Tribuno thought the hierophants were still alive, watching the world. He wanted to show off to them, prove he could do things that they could do—produce a mind of artifice. And then, maybe, they’d come talk to him.>