She felt her mind flooding into the shaft, the teeth, the notches, the tip. She became the key, became this thing, this apparatus. Yet she now understood that she was to be much, much more than a key.
A compendium, a compilation. A device filled with so, so much knowledge of scrivings, of sigils, of the language and makeup of the world. A tool, bright and terrible. Just like a blade is meant to part wood or flesh, she was meant to part…
Sancia gasped and the memory released her. It was too much, too much. She was back in the bedroom, yet she was so stunned she nearly collapsed.
<Did you see?> Clef asked.
She tried to catch her breath. <That was you? That…That happened to you?>
<This is a memory I have. I’m not sure if it’s mine or someone else’s…because I’m not totally sure it happened to me. It’s all I know.>
<But…But if that’s how you were made, Clef…it seems like you weren’t always a key. It seemed like, for a second there, you used to be a person.>
More silence. Then: <Yeah. Weird, right? I’m not sure what to think of that. Perhaps that’s why I remember the taste of wine, and what it feels like to sleep, and the smell of the desert at night…> He laughed sadly. <I don’t think I was supposed to know.>
<Know what?>
<To know myself. I’m a device, Sancia. They took me and they put me inside this thing, and rigs aren’t supposed to be self-aware. It’s like you said when we first met. I sat in the dark for so long. I wasn’t supposed to wait that long.> A pause. <You know what that means, don’t you? I’m a machine that’s falling apart. And eventually, I won’t work. I’m…I think I’m dying. Do you see?>
She sat there for a moment, stunned. <What? Clef…Are you…Are you sure?>
<I can feel it happening. Me, being sentient…I’m like a tumor inside the key. I grow and I grow, but I’m not what was intended. I’m an error. And it’s breaking the rest of me apart. And the people who could fix me…they’re all dead. They died hundreds if not thousands of years ago.>
Sancia swallowed. She’d imagined many horrors when it came to Clef — mostly that he might fall into the wrong hands, or she might lose him — but the idea of him dying had never occurred to her. <How long do you have?>
<I’m not sure. It’s a…process. The more I do, the more I break down. So it could be months. Or it could be weeks.>
<So I can’t…I can’t use y—>
<No,> he said firmly. <I want you to use me, Sancia. I want to…to do things with you. To be alive with you, to help you. You’re the only person I can remember ever truly knowing. I’m not even sure if I want to be fixed, to be honest, even if someone could fix me — because then I’d go back to my original state. A device with no mind at all.>
She sat there, trying to process this. <I don’t know what to think about this.>
<Then don’t. I think you need rest. I also think you need a bath.>
<People keep telling me that.>
<That’s because you do.>
<I can’t bathe. I can’t sit in water. That’s too much contact — it’ll kill me.>
<Well. Try something at least. It’ll make you feel better.>
She hesitated, then walked into the bathing room. It was all marble and metal with a huge porcelain tub, and it had mirrors — something she’d seen only rarely in her life. She looked around for a place to hide Clef in case someone walked in, and settled on a cabinet.
<Don’t hate Captain Dandolo,> said Clef as she set him down. <I think he’s broken, just like you and me. He’s just trying to fix the world because it’s the only way he knows to fix himself.>
Sancia shut the cabinet.
Alone in the bathing room, Sancia stripped down. Then she looked at herself in the mirrors.
Her arms and thighs and shoulders, strong and rippling and wiry. Her belly and breasts, covered in rashes and bites and filth.
She turned around, and saw her back. She took a sharp breath in.
She’d thought they’d have gone away by now, or shrunk, but they seemed just as huge as ever, the bright, shiny strips of scars that ran from her shoulders down to her buttocks. She stared at them, transfixed. It had been so long since she’d last seen them, for mirrors were rare in the Commons.
They’d told stories of slaves that had bravely borne countless whippings, stoically taking lash after lash. But the instant she’d been whipped, Sancia had realized it’d all been a lie. The second the lash had touched her, all her pride and fury and hope had been dashed away. It was surprising, how fragile your idea of yourself was.
Sancia stood in the tub, soaked a cloth in hot water, and scrubbed herself clean. As she did, she told herself she was not a slave anymore. She told herself she was free, and strong, that she’d been alone for years, and she’d be alone again one day, and she would, as always, survive. Because surviving was what Sancia did best. And as she scrubbed at her filthy, scarred skin, she tried to tell herself that the drops on her cheeks were just water from the spigots, and nothing more.
II CAMPO
And so great Crasedes came to the city of Apamea, on the edge of the Sea of Ephios, and though no text survives of what he said to the kings of this city, it is clear from secondhand sources that he brought his usual message: of co-option, of integration into their empire, and urgings of surrender. By now word had spread of the hierophants’ arrival in the region, and many were fearful — but the kings and wealthy landowners of Apamea refused him, and rudely rebuffed great Crasedes.
Crasedes did not respond with any wrath, as some had feared. Instead he simply walked to the city square, where he sat in the dust and began to build a cairn out of gray stones.
The legend goes that Crasedes built the cairn from noon to sunset, and the height of the construct grew to be extraordinary. Exact accounts differ regarding the height — some say a hundred feet tall, others hundreds of feet. However, every version of the story omits two critical parts: if the cairn of stones was extraordinarily tall, how did Crasedes, an average man in height, manage to keep stacking the stones on the top? It was said Crasedes could make many things float, and could fly himself — but this is not noted in this story. So — how?
And secondly, where did all these stones come from?
Some sources suggest that Crasedes had assistance in the construction of the cairn. These renditions claim that before he began, Crasedes took out a small metal box, and opened it — though the box appeared to be empty to onlookers. However, the stories say that the people of Apamea then saw footprints forming in the dust around the cairn, footprints far larger than a person’s. These versions would suggest that Crasedes had held some kind of invisible sprite or entity within the box, which he released to aid him. Yet such tales hew close to some of the more fantastical stories regarding the hierophants — fables of Crasedes making the stars dance with his magic wand, and so on — and thus must be treated with skepticism.