Fires of Alexandria

by Thomas Carpenter

  Chapter Ten

  Agog banged on the front door. Shadows had piled up in the entryway, hiding it from the morning sun.

  He sensed an ominous quiet from the workshop. It should be a place of metal clanging, fires crackling and hammers ringing. Joyful noise in the service of creation. Not the pit of silence it now was, surrounded by a city already awake.

  The door was unlocked, so he went in. Metal junk was piled around the entryway. Agog didn’t know if there’d been a struggle or Heron was unkempt. He recalled the work area before had been neater with metal rods kept in barrels.

  He crept through the lower level, until he entered the area he had spoken to her last. Dim light from a high window filtered in, exposing dust mote, and providing enough light for Agog to review the papyrus sketchings on the desk.

  The figures on the sheet appeared to be soldiers, or at least armored men. It was hard to tell since they were metal, except the base provided no mobility and they were wrapped with gears and bound with coiled ropes. They were not the war machines he’d hoped that Heron would make. It appeared the level of usefulness was only slightly above the toy that shot water from a sword in the square.

  Agog searched around for other documents, but found none except a box of papyrus sheets scrawled with the names of books. The stack was at least one hundred sheets high and had forty names on each. Agog searched through a few documents before throwing the papyrus back into the box, silently deriding scholars and their propensity for useless lists.

  His eyes had adjusted enough that he could view the workshop for signs of progress on his war machines. Nothing indicated the statues from the drawings, nor did there appear to be weapons of any kind amid the clutter. At least none that he could discern.

  Agog picked up the spinning toy and gave it a whirl, slowly clicking his tongue in thought as he watched it. Once it had stopped spinning, he set it back down on a wagon, punctuating it with a click of finality. The end of the wagon snapped closed, startling the northerner and spilling the toy across the stones. Water began to leak from its ends.

  Examining the wagon, he realized it was a box, but when he knocked on it, the wood echoed dully, despite the knowledge that he’d just closed it.

  The smooth wood revealed no latches or hidden compartments and crawling beneath it gave him no new clues to how to open it. He tried prying the end with his fingers, but nothing moved.

  He slammed his fist into the wood, considering for the first time since he’d entered Heron’s workshop, that the miracle maker had fled Alexandria ahead of his debts. The fires from the foundry had been quenched and no workers toiled in the great room.

  The loss of coin wasn’t the problem. The knowledge in Heron’s head was. He’d been in the city long enough to hear the whispers that Philo’s designs were regurgitations of Heron’s, so that made Philo redundant.

  The constant failures smacked of sabotage with Philo the most likely suspect. Heron was brilliant with machines, but absent when it came to good business sense. If the inventor came back, he would keep better watch on his investment.

  A high, soft voice awakened him from his thoughts. “The opening latch is on the hitch.”

  The boy stood at the edge of a beam of light cast down from above. The tunic hung loosely on his willowy frame. Agog had heard the boy approach, with soft shuffles, like a dainty dancer. Nothing in the sounds had suggested danger enough to interrupt his thoughts.

  “The hitch?” asked Agog.

  Stepping into the light, the boy cleared his throat and said, this time in a forced deeper voice: “The box opens from the outside by way of a piston hidden in the hitch.”

  Agog chuckled and said, “Show me.”

  The boy moved to the long beam jutting from the front of the wagon, grabbed the spike that attached to the harness and pushed it. The back of the box raised, clicked into a fixed position, and revealed a long steel pole attached to a swivel. The box had enough room for a smaller person: a child or perhaps a slight woman.

  “What’s your name?” asked Agog.

  The boy hesitated as if he’d forgotten it. “Sada,” he said finally.

  “Strange,” said Agog. “An Egyptian name on a Greek boy dressed in Roman styles.”

  Sada stammered, glancing back the way he’d come. The boy was hiding something, that was plain for even an idiot to see, but Agog was too concerned about his missing miracle worker and decided not to question the boy further on that subject. But on Heron, he had to know.

  “Where is Master Heron?” he asked.

  With the focus off Sada, the boy stepped forward.

  “Upstairs in his study room,” said Sada. “He goes there to think.”

  “Take me there,” commanded Agog.

  After ascending an iron spiral staircase, narrow enough that Agog had to turn sideways, he entered a darkened room. Sunlight had been banished from the room with thick curtains.

  Perched on an apparatus made of coiled springs and stuffed leather pillows, Heron rocked slow as the ocean. The ornate box was cradled in his hands, delicate silver spoon dipped into the powder.

  Agog couldn’t tell if the miracle worker was asleep, though he couldn’t imagine staying atop the apparatus very long if he was.

  The northerner crossed his arms and cleared his throat, taking a deep breath to fill up as much space as possible. Sada lurked at the top of the spiral staircase. Agog could feel the boy’s eyes bouncing between Heron and himself.

  “I need another twenty talents.” Heron opened his eyes. Despite the darkness and the sunkenness of them, they burned as an eclipse.

  The miracle worker’s request punched him right in the gut. “For what?” he answered. “Your designs are immobile and lack cunning. I’m wasting money on toys.”

  Heron’s eyes drifted to the boy Sada. Agog watched Heron's moment of confusion pass to recognition. Sada retreated from the room, rattling the metal stairs in escape.

  Agog noted the currents between the master and the boy. Sada had surprised Heron, and that in turn, surprised Agog. The northerner decided he would need to pay more attention.

  With a subtle nod, Heron appeared to accept that the boy had retreated beyond listening range.

  “Those designs on my workbench are not for your war machines,” said Heron.

  For the first time since they’d met, maybe sparked by the servant boy, Agog realized how high and melodic the miracle maker’s voice lilted. It was strong and filled with the comfortable authority of a person that gave orders all day, and even had the volume to carry, despite its musical quality.

  Agog prized a voice that carried authority in his captains and Heron’s was imbued with that quality. Captains also had to understand tactics, but if they couldn’t get their men to follow orders, knowledge of tactics was useless.

  The two maintained eye contact in the dim light. It was a war of wills that Agog was comfortable letting fall as he casually wandered to the window and flung open the dark curtain.

  He admired the view of the Lighthouse from the window, shining white against the pale blue sky, while speaking over his shoulder. “Then where are the plans for my war machines?”

  Heron sighed reluctantly. “In my head.”

  “Then how can your workers build them?” asked Agog.

  Heron glanced at the box. “The designs aren’t finished.” Then added after a brief pause. “I haven’t determined the power source, nor how to mobilize them.”

  “Then why are you sulking in the dark?” said Agog, bellowing his voice. “Get up and get to work.”

  Heron moved like silk to the window and closed the curtains. “I am working.”

  Agog slapped his heavy hand against the wall. The madness of miracle workers enraged him. “You call this working? There should be men in the workshop, hammering. And fires burning in the foundry.”

  Heron ignored his outburst and returned to his perch
on the strange stool. With a practiced scoop, he lifted the silver spoon to his nose and snorted. Heron's whole body shuddered and the blissful expression was all Agog needed to know about the effects of the dust.

  Madness. It was madness to trust his revenge to a decidedly cursed and distracted drug addict.

  “I need another twenty talents,” said Heron.

  “Enough with the twenty talents. Your request for more grates on my nerve,” said Agog. “Without progress, or proof, I cannot dare give you another twenty talents.”

  Agog opened the curtains again. “I must be able to see progress. And then I might give you twenty talents.”

  “If you want to see men hammering and fires burning, I will need fifty talents,” said Heron.

  The northerner stared out the window at the Lighthouse of Pharos and how it stood against the sky as a monument of man’s mastery of the elements. In the room was such a man that could deliver miracles in the shape of floating statues and automata war machines. His was the mastery he sought and no other lay under the sun.

  While the coinage wasn’t an issue, the speed at which Heron devoured it concerned him. He couldn’t maintain the pace, given the secondary project he was funding. Given that one had similar issues of reliability, he might be building his plans on sand.

  Agog pulled his coin purse out, weighing it idly in his palm. He dumped out fifty talents worth onto the floor. “I need to see progress.”

  Heron ignored the coins. “You commanded hammering and fires. I cannot guarantee progress on your war machines beyond that.”

  Through gritted teeth, Agog said, “Give me something so I can know my coin is not wasted." He restrained the urge to shake Heron.

  Heron closed his eyes solemnly, resting his wrists on crossed legs.

  “Aurinia save me if I am wrong,” said Agog under his breath, then to Heron: “I will be coming by each day to confirm our agreement.”

  Agog hovered over the inventor, expecting a response, but when none came, he stormed from the study, clanging down the spiral staircase.

  “Dreadfully difficult miracle worker,” muttered Agog. “I’d swear I was dealing with a woman.”

  About to leave the workshop, Agog sensed the boy, Sada, lurking in the shadows.

  “Where is your home, Northmen?” asked Sada.

  “The lands of cold waters, warm women, and great beasts.” He grinned in the dim light.

  The boy, face full of curiosity, stepped forward. “What kind of beasts?”

  “The kinds full of darkness and death. All horns and claws and teeth,” said Agog. “Many a pelt have I harvested in the dark forests of the North.”

  Rather than show excitement and ask for more description, as most boys were prone to do when he told stories of his exploits, Sada surprised him with a narrow squinting of his eyes.

  “I’ve heard all Northman were liars.”

  “Bold words for an untested youth,” said Agog, right after.

  Sada visibly reacted as if he’d said too much. Curious happenings in the house of Heron.

  Quick to follow up on Sada’s unease, Agog followed with: “What more can you tell me about Master Heron? I wish to know more about where my money goes.”

  Sada shrunk into the shadows.

  Agog sighed. “Coin for your troubles.”

  Sada shrunk further into the shadows, nearly disappearing down the hall. The boy had loyalty for his master.

  “I don’t wish to know anything private about your master,” he said. “Just enough so I can help. I’m funding his debt.”

  Sada hesitated, and Agog saw opportunity.

  "Where did Master Heron learn to make such miracles?" And when Sada opened his mouth, halfway, "There's no harm in knowing this? Surely, that cannot be a dreadful secret?"

  "For a Northman you speak too well," said Sada, as the boy disappeared.

  Shaking his head, Agog left the workshop, pushing into the morning crowd now flowing through the streets.

  A closer watch on Heron's progress would serve his purposes, Agog decided, or his revenge might disappear into the desert sands along with all his former fortunes.

  A thick, bull of a man with a scruffy beard rammed his shoulder in Agog's chest as he passed. The man recoiled, wild eyes surveying him as an opponent, but quickly realizing Agog was an elephant to his bull.

  Such glances were common to the northerner, though the man's looks had lingered longer than most. Agog watched the man limp away, his left leg clearly damaged by a long ago wound.

  The man had once been a warrior, Agog detected in his movement, though not a good one. Probably rushed into battle relying on his strength and was felled by a savvier opponent, who dropped low and struck at his left leg.

  Agog resumed his progress, quickly forgetting about the man. While the man he'd bumped into clearly had thuggish intent on his brow, whatever business he had, was no business of his. But whoever was on the other end was not going to have a good day.