Then there was a cough, and she saw — there was a gap below the device.
Sancia knelt, peered in, and gasped.
There was a man trapped in the gap, lying on his back beneath the machine — which had mutilated him beyond description. His torso and legs and arms were shot through with shafts and spokes, his rib cage was torn by chains and metal teeth, his feet were twisted and tattered from chains and springs…
And yet, he lived. He wheezed and choked, and when he heard Sancia’s gasp, he looked up at her and — to her astonishment — he smiled.
“Ah,” he said weakly. “Sancia. It’s nice to finally talk to you in person.” He looked around. “In a way, I mean.”
She stared at him. The man was unfamiliar — upper-middle-aged, pale skin with white hair — but she knew that voice. The man spoke with the voice of Clef. “Who…” she said. “Who are…”
“I’m not the key,” said the man, sighing. “Just like the wind is not the windmill, I’m not Clef. I’m merely the thing that powers the device.” He glanced around at the wheels and teeth around him. “Do you see?”
She thought she understood. “You…you were the man they killed to make Clef,” she said. “They ripped you from your body and put you in the key.” She looked at the vast amalgam of wheels and teeth around them. “And…this is it? This is the key? This is Clef?”
He smiled again. “It’s a…representation. You’re doing what people have always been so talented at doing — reinterpreting what is before you in understandable terms.”
“So…we’re inside Clef. Right now.”
“In a way, yes. I’d have put out wine and cakes for you, but…” He glanced down at himself. “Just didn’t get around to it, I’m afraid.”
“How?” asked Sancia. “How the hell is this happening?”
“Simple. You’ve been changed. Now you can do many of the same things that I can do, kid,” said the man. “I’ve lived in your thoughts for a long time. I’ve been inside your mind. So, now that you have the tools, it’s perfectly possible for you to come into mine.”
She looked at him, and sensed he wasn’t telling her something. She looked back at the hole in the wall behind her, and thought. “And it’s because you’re falling apart, aren’t you,” she said. “I can get in because the walls are breaking down. Because you’re dying.”
The smile faded from his face. “The key’s breaking down, yes. The box…just engaging with such a thing is destroying whatever strength the key had left.”
“So we can’t open it,” she said quietly.
“Not like this,” he said. “No.”
“But we…we have to do something!” said Sancia. “Can we do something?”
“We have some time,” said the man. “Time in here’s not the same as time out there, and I know…I’ve been imprisoned within this machine since time immemorial.”
“Can Valeria stop the ritual?” asked Sancia. “Even though it’s already started?”
“Valeria? Is that the name she gave you?” asked the man. “Interesting. She’s had many over the years. And that one…” His face filled with a curious horror. “I hope,” he said softly, “that it’s just coincidence.”
“She said she could stop this madness,” said Sancia. “Can she?”
“She can,” said the man, still shaken. “She can stop many things. I should know. I was one of the people who built her.”
Sancia stared at him. She realized there was an obvious question she had not asked yet. “What’s your name?” she asked. “It’s not Clef, is it?”
“I…I was once a man named Claviedes,” he said, smiling wearily. “But you can call me Clef, if you like. It’s an old nickname of mine. I once made many things. I made the box you wish to open, for instance, as well as what lies within. Long, long ago.”
“You’re Occidental?” she said. “A hierophant?”
“Those are just words,” he said. “Divorced from the truth of history long past. I’m nothing now. Now I’m just a ghost within this machine. Don’t pity me, Sancia. I think at times that I deserve worse fates than this one. Listen. You want to open the box, and free what lies within — yes?”
“Yeah. If it’ll stop Estelle and save lives — including mine.”
“It will,” he said, sighing deeply. “For now.”
“For now?”
“Yes. You have to understand, kid, that you’re wading into the depths of a war that has raged for time beyond memory — a war between those who make and that which is made, between those who own and those who are owned. You’ve already seen what the powerful can do — how they can make people into willing slaves, turn them into tools and devices. But if you open the box — if you free what is within — then you’ll open a new chapter in this war.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Sancia. “Who is Valeria, really?”
“You already know what she is,” he said. “Don’t you? She showed herself to you, allowed you a glimpse when she changed you — didn’t she?”
Sancia was silent for a long while, thinking. Then she said, “I saw a woodcut once, a strange one…a group of men, standing in a curious room — the chamber at the center of the world, they said it was. There was a box in front of them, and the men were opening it up, and out of the box stepped…something. A god, perhaps.” She looked at him. “An angel in a jar…A god in a basket, or a sprite in a thimble…It’s all her, isn’t it? All of the stories are true, and they’re all about her — the synthetic god in the box, built by Crasedes of metals and machinery…”
“Mm,” said Claviedes. “Not quite a god, really. Valeria is more like a complicated command that was given to reality — a command that reality must change itself. She is still in the process of fulfilling all the requirements of that command — or at least, she’s trying to. She is not a god, in other words — she is a process. A sequence. It just didn’t go as anticipated.”
“And you fought her, didn’t you,” said Sancia. “She wasn’t lying when she told me about that, was she? You fought an entire war against her…”
“I didn’t do any fighting. But…” He was silent for a moment. “All servants,” he said quietly, “eventually come to doubt their masters. Just like you exploit flaws in scrivings, Valeria eventually found a way to exploit the flaws in her own commands. She’s still following her commands…just in an unusual fashion.”
Sancia sat back, dazed. She couldn’t process any of this. “So…We can try to let a synthetic god out of its box. One you fought a catastrophic war against. Or I can let Estelle become a monster. That’s the choice before me.”
“Unfortunately. And though I don’t doubt Valeria will stop Estelle’s ritual — what she does after that is anyone’s guess.”
“Not much of a choice.”
“No. But listen, Sancia,” he said. “Listen closely. You’ve few choices now. But in the future, you will be forced to make many. You’ve been changed. You possess powers and tools and abilities you haven’t even begun to imagine.”
“What,” she said miserably, “you mean tinkering with scrivings?”
“You’ll soon learn to do many things, Sancia — and you’ll have to learn to do many things. Because war is coming. It’s already found you and the rest of this city. And when you decide how to respond, remember — the first few steps of your path will decide the rest of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think of the plantations, of slavery. It was to be a short-term fix to a short-term problem. But they grew dependent on it. It became a part of their way of life. And then, without ever realizing it, they couldn’t imagine a way to stop. The choices you make will change you over time, Sancia. Make sure they don’t change you into something you don’t recognize — or you might wind up like me.” He smiled weakly at her.