<Tomas Ziani?>
<Yes. Him.> From the sound of its words, it seemed like the Mountain did not like him much. <It was strange…I sensed a mind there. Impossibly big, huge, powerful. But…it did not deign to speak to me. No matter how I begged. Then they took it away. Location now unknown.>
The lift opened. Sancia stepped out onto the thirty-fifth floor. This was a floor of offices, and they were different from what she’d seen so far. For one, they were huge, nearly two stories in height. They also featured lots of sumptuous, complicated wallpapers, huge stone and metal doors, and lavish waiting areas.
<Was this thing an artifact?> asked Clef.
<A piece of the Old Ones…perhaps,> said the Mountain.
<Another artifact…one that can talk, like me…> thought Clef. <God. How I’d like to see that.>
<Like you?> said the Mountain. <You are…also an artifact?>
<Yes,> said Clef. <And no. I’m different now. I think you and I are much the same…two instruments who have lost their creators, and now break down into different, unintended states.>
<Which way to Ziani’s office?> said Sancia.
<Ahead,> said the Mountain, though it now sounded distracted and impatient. <On your left. To confirm — you are instrument?>
<Yes,> said Clef.
<Of hierophants?>
<…Yes.>
<And…I think I sense you are a…key?>
<Yeah.>
Sancia walked ahead until she found it — a large, black door with a stone frame. And beside the frame was a nameplate reading:
TOMAS ZIANI
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OFFICER
She tried the door. It gave way easily — presumably because of the blood she carried. She slipped inside.
She stopped and stared. Ziani’s office was…unusual. Everything was built of huge dark, heavy stone, towering and forbidding and looming, even the desk. She saw none of the artful designs or colorful materials from the other rooms. Besides the side door leading to the balcony, there was nothing conventional about this place.
Yet it also looked familiar, she realized. Hadn’t she seen a place just like this before?
Yes, she had — the room beyond looked almost exactly like that chamber depicted in the engraving with Crasedes the Great, the one she’d glimpsed in Orso’s workshops, where the hierophants stood before the casket, and from it emerged the form of…something.
“The chamber at the center of the world,” she whispered. That could be the only explanation for the huge, strange stone plinths, and giant, arched windows…
Then she remembered. Because this used to be Tribuno’s office.
<Are you of Crasedes?> whispered the Mountain. <Are you his tool?>
<I…I guess I don’t know,> said Clef.
Sancia looked around, wondering where in the hell Ziani could have hidden the imperiat. There weren’t many shelves here — only the big stone desk in the middle. She walked over to it and started ripping through the drawers. All of them were full of conventional things, like papers and pens and inkwells. “Come on, come on,” she whispered.
<Are you his key?> whispered the Mountain. <Or — his wand?>
<His what?> asked Clef.
<The wand of Crasedes? You know of this?>
<Well, yeah,> said Clef. <I’ve heard some people mention it.>
<A mistranslation,> said the Mountain. <Common.>
<What the hell are you talking about?> asked Clef. <What mistranslation?>
<You have heard stories of Crasedes the Magician, using his wand to alter the world,> said the Mountain. <These are incorrect. Many errors persist, from old Gothian to new Gothian. For in the old language, the word for “wand” is only one letter different from “key.”>
Sancia stopped.
“What?” she shouted out loud.
<What?> said Clef faintly.
<Yes,> said the Mountain. <Tribuno did not believe Crasedes used a wand — but a key. A golden key. And he used it as a clockmaker uses his key, winding up and unscrewing the great machine of creation. So, I must ask — are you the key of Crasedes Magnus?>
Sancia stood in the office, dumbstruck. “Clef…” she whispered. “What’s he talking about?”
Clef was silent for a long, long time. <I don’t know,> he said quietly. <I don’t remember.>
<Crasedes said of his key that it could break any barrier, any lock,> said the Mountain, <and when he held it in his hand, it could unthread the whole of creation.>
Sancia felt dizzy. She slowly sat down on the ground. “Clef…are you…”
<I don’t know,> he said, frustrated.
“But you…You could be…”
<I said I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW, ALL RIGHT? I DON’T KNOW!>
She sat there, unnerved. She’d heard so many tales of how Crasedes the Great had tapped a stone with his wand, and made it dance, or tapped the seas with its tip, and parted the waters…to imagine this had not been some silly magic stick, but her friend, the person who’d saved her time and time again…
<That’s enough goddamn speculation!> said Clef. He sounded upset. <Where’s the imperiat?>
<Imperiat?> said the Mountain, sounding surprised. <You wished to find that? The other artifact?>
“Yes!” said Sancia.
<Imperiat is often stored in trapdoor behind desk,> said the Mountain.
“A trapdoor!” said Sancia. “Brilliant!” She sprang and ran over to the desk.
<But imperiat — not there now,> said the Mountain.
She stopped. “What? Where is it?>
<Ziani has taken it,> said the Mountain.
Her heart plummeted. “He…he took it out into the campo? It’s gone? We did all this for nothing?”
<No, imperiat is not in the campo,> said the Mountain. <Ziani holds it here, within my depths.>
<Where is he?> demanded Clef.
<Originally,> said the Mountain, <Ziani held it in an office two floors below this one. But when you walked into this office, I…sense he took it up to this floor.>
Sancia stood completely still as she listened to this.
“He what?” she whispered.
<Tomas Ziani is now holding the imperiat on this floor,> said the Mountain. <Eleven offices down the hallway from you.>