There were a lot of differences between the Commons and the campos. The campos, for instance, had waste systems, fresh water, well-maintained roads, and their buildings tended to stay standing, which wasn’t always the case in the Commons. The campos also had a plethora of scrived devices to make their lives easier, which the Commons certainly did not. Walk into the Commons showing off a fancy scrived trinket, and you’d have your throat slit and your treasure snatched in an instant.
Because another thing that the campos had that the Commons did not was laws.
Each campo had its own rules and law enforcement, all of which fully applied within their rambling, crooked boundaries. But because each campo’s individuality was considered sacrosanct, this meant there was no defined set of citywide laws, nor was there any real citywide law enforcement, or judicial system, or even prisons — to establish such things, the Tevanni elite had decided, would be to suggest that the power of Tevanne superseded the powers of the campos.
So if you were part of a merchant house, and resided on a campo, you had such things.
If you didn’t, and you lived in the Commons, then you were just…there. And, considering all the disease and starvation and violence and whatnot, you probably weren’t there for long.
<Holy hell,> said Clef. <How do you live like that?>
<Same way everyone lives, I guess,> said Sancia, taking a left. <One day at a time.>
Finally they came to their destination. Up ahead, the wet, rambling rookeries of Foundryside came to a sharp stop at a tall, smooth white wall, about sixty feet high, clean and perfect and unblemished.
<We’re coming up on something big and scrived, aren’t we?> said Clef.
<How can you tell?>
<I just can.>
That disturbed her. She could tell if a rig was scrived if she got within a few feet of it — she’d start hearing that muttering in her head. But Clef seemed to be able to do it from dozens of feet away.
She walked along the wall until she found it. Set in the face of the wall was a huge, engraved bronze door, intricate and ornate, with a house loggotipo in the middle: the hammer and the chisel.
<That’s a hell of a big door,> said Clef. <What is this place?>
<This is the Candiano campo wall. That’s their loggotipo in the door.>
<Who are they?>
<Merchant house. Used to be the biggest one, but then their founder went mad, and I hear they had to lock him away in a tower somewhere.>
<Probably not good for business, that.>
<No.> She approached the door and heard a faint chanting in her head. <No one really knows what they use this door for. Some say it’s for secret business, when the Candianos want to snatch someone out of the Commons. Others say it’s just so they can sneak their whores in and out. I’ve never seen it open. It’s not guarded, because they think no one can break it — since it’s scrived, of course.> She stood before the door. It was tall, about ten feet high or so. <But you think you can, Clef?>
<Oh, I’d love to try,> he said with surprising relish.
<How are you going to do it?>
<I dunno yet. I’ll have to see. Come on! Even if I can’t, what’s the worst that can happen?>
The answer, Sancia knew, was “a lot.” Tampering with anything related to the merchant houses was a great way to lose a hand, or a head. She knew this wasn’t like her, to be walking around the Commons with stolen goods in broad daylight — especially considering this particular stolen good was the most advanced scrived rig she’d ever seen.
It was unprofessional. It was risky. It was stupid.
But that nonchalant comment of Sark’s—They used to own you, you know what they’re like—it echoed in her head. She was surprised to find how much she resented it, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d always known when she was doing work for the merchant houses, and it’d never inspired her to play the job wrong before.
But to have him just come out and say that — it burned her.
<What are you waiting for?> begged Clef.
She approached the door, eyeing the scrivings running along its frame. She heard the faint muttering in her head, as she did whenever she was close to anything altered…
Then she knelt and put Clef into the lock, and the muttering turned into a scream.
Screaming questions poured into her mind, all of them directed at Clef, asking him dozens if not hundreds of questions, trying to figure out what he was. Many of them went by too fast for her to understand, but she caught some of them:
<BE YOU THE BEJEWELED SPUR OF WHICH THE LADY WROUGHT ON THE FIFTH DAY?> bellowed the door at Clef.
<No, bu—>
<BE YOU THE TOOL OF THE MASTER, THE WAND FERROUS WITH THE WIDDERSHINS ETCHINGS, WHO SHALL HAVE ONLY ACCESS ONCE A FORTNIGHT?>
<Well, see, I—>
<BE YOU THE TREMBLING LIGHT, FORGED TO FIND THE FLAWS OTTONE?>
<Okay, hold on now, but…>
And on and on and on. It all went too fast for Sancia to really understand — and how she was even hearing it was stupefying to her — but she could still catch snatches of the conversation. It sounded like security questions, like the scrived door was expecting a specific key, and it was slowly figuring out that Clef was not that key.
<BE YOU AN ARMAMENT FERROUS, FORGED FOR THE BREAKING OF THE OATHS WHICH HAVE BEEN LAID UPON ME?>
<Partially,> Clef said.
A pause.
<PARTIALLY?>
<Yeah.>
<HOW ARE YOU PARTIALLY AN ARMAMENT FERROUS FORGED FOR THE BREAKING OF THE OATHS WHICH HAVE BEEN LAID UPON ME?>
<Well, it’s complicated. Let me explain.>
Information poured back and forth between Clef and the door. Sancia was still trying to catch her breath — it was like trying to swallow an ocean all at once. She suspected that, as long as she was touching Clef, she could hear whatever he heard as well.
But all she could think was: That’s what a scrived device is? That? It’s…like, a mind? They think?
She’d never have expected this. Certainly, she was used to hearing a faint muttering when she was close to scrived items — but she’d still assumed they were just things, just objects.
<Explain it to me again,> said Clef.
<WHEN THE SIGNALS ARE GIVEN,> said the door, now uncertain, <ALL SHAFTS ARE RETRACTED, AND OUTWARD PIVOT IS PERFORMED.>
<Okay, but at what speed do you pivot outward?> asked Clef.
<W…WHAT SPEED?>
<Yeah. How hard do you pivot outward?>
<WELL…>
More messages poured back and forth between the door and Clef. She began to understand: when the proper scrived key was inserted into the door, it would send a signal to the door, which would tell it to withdraw its bolts and pivot outward. But Clef was confusing it, somehow, asking it too many questions about which direction it was supposed to pivot, and how fast or hard.