by Rachel Caine
I have not been able to rewrite any of the automata likely to come into contact with the new Archivist. There is no possibility of assassination through that route, and as I’ve said before, I will not risk my life in the attempt. You have paid me to do quiet work, and this suits me. But hire assassins if you want someone to get their hands bloody. I will not.
I’ve recruited a few allies, carefully, and they have proven useful, but the more support I gather, the bigger the risk of discovery. We must be very, very aware of what is at stake, and not move too quickly.
I can’t spend your money if I’m dead.
CHAPTER SIX
KHALILA
Khalila woke in predawn darkness, gasping and cold with sweat, and as she curled in on herself and tried to regulate her breathing, she didn’t know what had made her wake in such distress. If it had been a dream, it was gone like morning mist.
But there was enough tension gathering to frighten anyone. She sat up and listened. She’d slept on a camp bed in a small storeroom in the Serapeum; she hadn’t wanted to make the trip back to the Iron Tower and risk not being at the Archivist’s side in an emergency. The Archivist’s accommodations hadn’t been much more luxurious than this, either.
Khalila rose, stretched, slid her feet into sandals, and realized that she’d have to leave the room and find a toilet soon. She brushed out her hair and coiled it beneath the same hijab she’d been wearing for the last few days. She desperately needed more changes of clothing, and a night in her own comfortable bed. And a bath, though she’d made do with basins and washcloths so far. She felt grubby, though once she’d found the toilet and availed herself, she checked herself in the mirror and found herself adequate, at least. She scrubbed down, then added eyeliner and a dash of color to her cheeks, took a deep breath, and told herself, “All will be well.” She had to believe that. What choice was there?
The sun would be up soon. She went back to the small room she’d slept in, folded up the bed, and unrolled her prayer rug. Her prayers this morning were heartfelt. She badly needed Allah’s protection today, with what the city faced. The peace would not hold. She felt that in her bones.
After prayers, she set about the business of the day. The fact that no one had summoned her during the night meant that the ambassadors had continued their talks. On finding one of the passing Scholars heading home for rest, she found that they’d requested, and been granted, sleeping quarters of their own, but that they’d risen early and were now gathered back in the large, spacious room where she’d had them settled.
Khalila knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter. It took a moment, and the High Garda soldiers stationed at the door exchanged looks with her. “They’ve been shouting,” one reported. “It isn’t good.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. When the permission came, she opened the doors and walked inside.
Conversation stopped. The gathered ambassadors and their staffs seemed exhausted and ill at ease, and as she bowed to them respectfully, they all looked to Alvaro Santiago. The expression on every face was the same: grim.
Ambassador Santiago returned her bow. He looked ages older than he had just a day before. “Scholar Seif,” he said. “I believe we are prepared to deliver our decision to the Archivist.”
“I will send word,” she said. “Is there anything you need, sir?”
“Nothing you can provide, unfortunately. Please, take a pastry from the lavish spread that’s been provided. We have little appetite today.”
She thanked him but didn’t have any wish to eat; the atmosphere in this room felt heavy as lead. She wrote to the Archivist in her Codex and got a swift reply in Murasaki’s fast, precise writing: Bring them to me.
She led the diplomats back to the Receiving Hall.
There were only a handful of people in attendance—the newly formed Curia made up of the Scholars Magni of Artifex Medica, Lingua, and Litterae, supported by a contingent of senior librarians. The Obscurist Magnus, Eskander, had already accepted his post and returned to the Iron Tower, so his place sat empty. Except for the Curia and the standing company of High Garda, the hall itself was cool and vacant. If anything, Khalila thought, it only made the space more intimidating.
The Archivist mounted the steps to her chair and nodded toward the diplomats. If she was tired or stressed, Khalila could see no sign of it. “Ambassadors,” she said, and the words carried to every corner of the hall. “I hope that you have had a productive evening.”
Khalila felt the mood shifting in the room like shadows, though there was no visible change on the Archivist’s face. Her expression remained neutral. Waiting.
Ambassador Santiago stepped forward and bowed. The bow lingered until the Archivist gestured for him to straighten. “Honored Archivist, I have the privilege of having been once again chosen to speak for the group. We have spent many hours in debate and conversation regarding your proposals, and we are now prepared to render to you our combined answer.” The pause felt torturous. “I must inform you that the assembled nations you see before you will not withdraw. You must face facts. You are new to power; you have enemies inside your city, and you must rely on allies to help you secure your position and protect the incalculable value of the Great Library to the world. There is simply no other choice. If you would preserve this great institution, you must allow us to help.”
The Archivist let the boldness of that reply fall into a deep, waiting silence, and once it had taken hold, she said, “Allies do not force themselves on those unwilling. I believe that you come not as allies of the Great Library, but as shadow conquerors.”
“Honored Archivist—”
“No,” she said, and stood up with a rustle of glistening robes. “I have been patient. I allowed you time to deliberate. The Great Library has provided you with shelter and hospitality. But now you must go. Within the hour, you must be out of this city. Turn your fleets, Ambassadors. Turn them home. Or we will bring power to bear you cannot imagine.”
Santiago didn’t look at the others, which told Khalila how confident he was of the consolidation of opinion. “You’re choosing a war that will cost us all dearly, Archivist. Better to make a peace you don’t like than see your city burn.”
“The moment the Great Library relies on foreign armies to defend it is the day it dies. I do not intend to serve as the last Archivist of this great city.”
He held the stare of the Archivist and then slowly inclined his head. “Then let it be so,” he said. “We will withdraw. The next time we speak, I hope that it will be to discuss peace.”
“I hope that you survive to discuss it at all,” she said. “Go. The High Garda will see you back to your ships.”
It seemed too fast to Khalila; surely war could not be declared so quickly, with so few words. But the Ambassadors bowed, and then they were leaving, and she advanced to the foot of the throne to look up at the Archivist.
“May the ancient gods help us today,” Murasaki said. “All of us.” She caught herself and looked at Khalila. “Scholar Seif, I need you to find Scholar Thomas Schreiber and tell him to set things in motion. Immediately.”
“At once, Archivist.”
* * *
—
Finding Thomas proved complicated; she traced him to the Iron Tower, then to the Lighthouse, but he wasn’t there, either. She continued to send him messages on the Codex but got nothing back, and she knew that time was running out. Out of sheer desperation, she finally went out to the terrace on the twelfth floor of the Lighthouse and looked out, as if she could possibly pick him out at this distance.
And impossible as it was, she did. That golden shock of hair, the way he stood a head taller than anyone else out on the street . . . it had to be him. She marked which direction he was going and ran down the stairs as fast as she dared, then held up her skirts to race around the point and to the harbor road where she’d seen him.
By the time she arrived where she’d spotted him, she was panting and sweating in the storm-heavy air, and as she paused to take stock she felt another surge of despair. No sign of Thomas anywhere.
And the streets were awash with people staring out into the bay. Khalila realized that the last of the merchants who’d been waiting had pulled anchor and was sailing away; it was a mass exodus, leaving the docks ominously empty. More than thirty ships all heading away from trouble, as fast as possible.
The crowd thinned as people drifted away. Khalila shook herself and remembered her business.
A sailor in a Phrygian cap sat on the stoop of a closed business, whittling, and she went to him and tried to regain her calm. He squinted up at her. “Scholar,” he said. “What do you want with the likes of me?”
“Have you seen a very tall young man pass this way? Blond hair?”
“The giant? Yes.” He pointed down the road. It curved out of sight. “He seemed to be heading somewhere important. You might have to run to catch him.”
“Thank you,” she said, and bowed a little. He touched his cap with a grin. He was whittling a clever little sculpture of a dolphin jumping from a wave, she realized. Odd, she’d thought him a drunk who was just wasting time, but here he was, creating beauty. People were so unpredictably wonderful. “I like the dolphin!” She shouted that over her shoulder as she ran for the curve in the road, and heard him laugh, and then it was just the damp sea wind on her face and the feel of her feet on the cobblestones. She jumped a puddle and kept running, and finally spotted a blond shock of hair in the distance. He’s so fast! Her lungs were burning, her legs trembling, and she thought with chagrin that she’d allowed herself to get soft. A turn or two around the High Garda training track wouldn’t go amiss.
Finally, she was close enough to shout for Thomas to stop . . . but she couldn’t gather enough breath to do it. She skidded to a halt, gasping and nearly sick to her stomach, and picked up a loose rock from the gutter. She threw it, half expecting to miss him, but it landed squarely in the center of his back. Not hard, of course, she had no real strength left, but it brought him to a stop, and he turned to look for who’d thrown it.
She waved, then braced herself with her hands on her thighs as she tried to slow her breathing. Thomas strode back to her. “Khalila? Are you all right?”
“Chased you,” she gasped out. “Sorry. Catching my breath.”
“Yes, so I see. Do you need to sit?”
She managed to shake her head and pull herself upright again. “We’re out of time,” she said, and managed to keep her voice more or less steady this time. “War’s about to be declared, if it hasn’t been already. Those enemy ships out there will be trying to enter the harbor any minute now, and we need to stop them. Can you do it?”
Thomas considered that, and his face settled into an expression she was all too familiar with: determination. “Yes,” he said. “I can do it. But not alone. I need Morgan to bind me to an automaton as we agreed.”
“I don’t know where Morgan is!” Khalila said. “Is she at the Iron Tower?”
“I don’t know. She was summoned away by Scholar Wolfe. You’d better send a message to him. He’ll tell us where she is.”
Khalila had already taken out her Codex. She unsnapped the attached stylus and wrote as quickly as she could, underlining the urgency. It would appear in Wolfe’s Codex within seconds, and hopefully he would not ignore it. “Why didn’t you answer my messages?” she asked Thomas as she closed the book and put it back in the case on her hip.
“What messages?” He looked startled, then chagrined, and clapped a hand to the pocket of his brown coat. Unlike her, he wasn’t prone to wearing his Scholar’s robes, though he was fully entitled to them; he simply found them annoying. His plain worker’s clothing was better suited, she supposed, to the physical work he often did at forges and worktables. “I left it behind in the Iron Tower. I’m sorry, Khalila. That was careless.”
Before she could ask him what he’d been doing in the Iron Tower, her Codex shivered to alert her to a reply, and she opened it to see Scholar Wolfe’s neat, precise calligraphy. “She’s not there,” she said. “She left an hour ago, and he doesn’t know where she’s gone . . .” Her voice faded, because Thomas was looking beyond her with a warm smile. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Morgan said, and when Khalila turned she saw the young woman walking toward them. She was dressed in a plain outfit, like Thomas; she’d put away the Obscurist’s robes, and now that she’d gotten rid of the collar that Obscurists had previously had to wear, there was no sign of her affiliation at all. That’s something for us to consider, she thought. Obscurists needed to be offered the same structure as all others inside the Great Library: the choice to join for a contracted period of time as a copper or silver band, or to join for a lifetime as a gold band. Each came with benefits, of course. But Obscurists had been virtual hostages within that tower for so long that no one had even thought what would happen when they were free to come and go as they liked.
Khalila hugged her. It was impulsive, but it felt right. There was a sadness in Morgan’s eyes, and in the shaking breath she took. “Are you all right?” Khalila asked quietly.
“Yes. I’m fine. Glain was badly injured by a sniper. Scholar Wolfe summoned me to care for her.”
“How is Glain?” Thomas asked it before Khalila could, with a sharp edge to his voice, and moved to stand closer.
“Recovering,” Morgan replied. “But it makes this thing we’re about to do . . . harder. And possibly more dangerous for you. You understand this?”
“Yes,” he said, and shrugged. “Dangerous not to do it. The navies outside of the harbor are determined to sail in.”
“Then we have to raise the defenses.”
“Now,” he agreed. “Immediately. There is no time to prepare. Can you do it?”
“I have to get the Anubis statue here first to inspect the mechanism—”
“There is no time. We must trust the mechanism will work.” He pointed at the harbor. At the rippling water. “You can bind me directly to it, can’t you?”
“Thomas. No. And we don’t even know if it’s in working order after all this time! If I bind you to that and it doesn’t work . . . I’m not certain I can sever that connection so easily. You could experience . . . terrible things. I don’t know how this will affect you; it hasn’t even been attempted since the time of Heron, as far as I know.”
“Heron built these defenses,” Thomas said. “If he managed it, then it can be done. Shall we proceed?”
“Give me a moment.” Morgan looked worried, and Khalila didn’t like it. At all. She started to say so, but Thomas looked at her and shook his head.
“No, Khalila, you won’t talk me out of this, as eloquent as you are. Save your energy.”
“What about the Lighthouse? I thought you’d want to be there,” Khalila said. “You were installing the Ray of Apollo, weren’t you?”
“The Artifex Magnus fully understands the mechanism. There’s no need for me to meddle in her efforts. If you could send her word that we are about to attempt to raise the harbor defenses . . . ?”
“Yes. Of course.” She didn’t know exactly what Morgan and Thomas were planning, but to her it sounded ominously risky. So, exactly what we usually do, she told herself, and felt a little better for it. They’d been in many dire situations and come through. Surely this would be another exciting story to tell their friends afterward.
Surely.
But if Glain had been so badly wounded, Morgan must have worked a miracle to save her. A very dangerous and difficult miracle. Did she have enough left to do . . . this?
“I have a question,” Khalila said. Both of them looked to her now. “Whatever it is you are attempting to do . . . Morgan, if you fail or collapse, does that sever the link between Thomas and these defenses?”
/> “I think so.”
“But . . . you’re not sure?”
“What we’re doing hasn’t been attempted in thousands of years,” Morgan said. “It may not work at all. It may work for a moment. Or it may work too well. I just don’t know until we do it.”
“Thomas? Are you certain you want to—”
“Yes,” he said. “We must. Right now.”
They walked to the end of the docks. The harbor itself was starting to come to life, with workers arriving at stores and restaurants, bars and brothels. A city carrying on, despite the threats. As people did. And now it’s our responsibility to make them safe in doing so. Now, as never before, that struck Khalila hard. Power was a nebulous, light thing until it lay heavy in the hand. Once it did, only the weak and corrupt found it easy to wield.
She turned to Thomas, hugged him impulsively, and said, “In bocca al lupo, Thomas.” The mouth of the wolf. Always.
“Crepi il lupo,” he replied. He would, as always, face the wolf and defeat it. It was the call and response for the miracle and terror of the Translation Chamber, but it worked equally well here. He was going into danger, and going alone.
She couldn’t help him.
* * *
—
The preparations seemed simple enough. They all three sat down on the edge of the dock, feet dangling several feet above the water that lapped at the pier’s concrete supports, and Morgan took several deep, slow breaths. Then she held up both hands palms up. For the first time, Khalila noticed her friend was wearing a ring, a large amber one inset with the seal of the Great Library. A flawed amber, with a spot of something dark inside. And was it moving? No. A trick of her eyes, or the light.
But Morgan wasn’t much prone to jewelry, and the sight of that ring unsettled Khalila for reasons she couldn’t begin to name.
“What do I do if you appear in distress?” Khalila asked. She meant it for Thomas, but it applied equally to Morgan. The two of them exchanged glances, and then Morgan shrugged.