by Rachel Caine
And then he realized the answer: he was making the mistake of thinking the last person was alive.
Thomas opened his eyes and said, “A tomb. Táfos.”
The sphinx paused for long enough that it made him question his logic, but he refused to make another guess. He was right. He had to be right.
The sphinx moved, but its eyes were still burning that unearthly blue.
Behind it was a terrifying scatter of bones. Many bones, enough to be piled knee-high. Skulls rolling like marbles. And one body that had only half rotted, white bones cutting through the flesh.
Yet another test. The one everyone else failed. Had it been the riddle that had killed them, or the wall beyond?
Thomas stared at the wall, but it seemed utterly blank and featureless. He reached out but pulled back; surely touching it had been the first impulse of all of these dead people who’d come here before him.
He had to solve this problem another way. And standing here surrounded by the dead, he had no idea how to proceed. Every other puzzle had been logic and observation, or a riddle requiring viewing something from a different perspective . . .
A different perspective.
He crouched down and lifted his glow higher. There was something there, but so faint he couldn’t read it.
As much as he hated the thought, he was going to have to go all the way down. Lie on the ground and look up.
Like a body in a tomb.
Thomas cleared bones away, stretched out, and looked straight up at the door.
There was writing on it that was visible only from this angle. Greek letters that spelled out, What is lighter than a feather, but even the strongest cannot hold for long?
This one wasn’t even difficult. “Breath,” Thomas said, and remembered to give the answer in Greek. “Anapnoí.”
The wall slid away.
He rolled up to his feet and walked into the Tomb of Heron.
Someone was waiting, and Thomas stopped as the wall slid shut again behind him. He couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes, because it seemed that someone was alive here.
No. Not alive. But lifelike in the extreme. A man wearing a Greek chiton and a draped robe. Older. Balding. With a kind face, a rounded belly, thin arms. Shorter than Thomas by a head.
Made of metal, but so cleverly done—even to the eyes—that it seemed more a work of divine hands than human. It had the texture of skin where skin should be, and metal that flowed like cloth. Even its eyes seemed real, and seemed to focus on Thomas as much as he did on the automaton.
“Welcome,” it said. The voice sounded odd—real and not quite real at the same time. A human voice, captured through time. It spoke the same archaic Greek as the sphinxes. “I am Heron of Alexandria. You have come far to find me, but all you see before you is a ghost in a metal cage. I have inscribed the rhythm and tone of my voice on a wax tablet. What you now hear is a man long ago turned to dust, yet still I greet you.” The voice shifted. Grew more stern. “If you have come for riches, know there may be a high price. If you have come for knowledge, perhaps you will find what you seek if you’re clever and quick. Farewell, stranger. Find me in Elysium when your time on this earth is done, and tell me what use you made of what I have left for you.”
The voice stopped. The statue went still.
Behind it a door opened, and gleamed on wonders. Wonders. Thomas caught his breath and, almost against his will, stepped forward. Was that . . . was that Heron’s steam calliope? His automated puppet show that had drawn visitors from around the known world? And that fantastic machine in the corner . . . was that a letterpress? Like the one he and Jess had made, that started all of this? But of course Heron would have thought of such a valuable, important invention first.
They have suppressed it for so long. Not even Heron could be trusted with this, though there was no inventor the Great Library trusted more.
He hardly noticed when the door shut behind him. The air through the mask smelled fresh, and when he lowered the device, the air still seemed fine. He put the mask away—it was near the end of its useful life in any case—and walked to the steam calliope, a gilded array of tubes that rose in a fantastic swirl. Surely the boiler was dry now, and he didn’t try the switch, but to hear it play would have been astonishing.
He wandered past a machine with a pointed stylus that was set to a wax tablet. “What is this?” he wondered aloud, and watched as the stylus printed the words he’d said onto the tablet. He’d spoken in Greek, and it had understood. The same fascinating mechanism that must have recorded Heron’s voice before. A marvel that dated back to the very beginnings of the Great Library. He touched the delicate mechanism and thought, Heron’s hands made this. It was like touching genius. He blinked away tears, took in a sharp breath, and felt a twinge inside. I’m getting tired, he thought, but that wasn’t it. He coughed. Then kept coughing, a fit that racked him nearly double. He fumbled for the mask but couldn’t keep it on. His eyes burned, and his skin, and he realized now that there was a smell that had been building in the fresh air, something foul and chemical and almost sweet.
And a green mist rising from the floor to curl around his ankles.
Heron’s statue turned and said, “You have until the clock turns to find the answer and earn your discovery.”
Thomas gasped for air against the constriction in his lungs, and looked up to see that the statue now held a water clock.
And the water in the top container was rapidly dripping into the bottom container.
Time was running out.
EPHEMERA
Message from the Archivist in Exile to Obscurist Vanya Nikolin, discovered by Obscurists and destroyed before delivery
It’s all going wrong. This storm has driven off the ships. The surviving Welsh and British have turned tail and intend to crawl back to the warm embrace of the Great Library. The Spanish won’t answer my messages.
To make things worse, my assassins have killed the new Archivist at exactly the wrong moment. Santi’s men are hunting down my Elites. I need out of the city, and to do that, I need cover; the Russians have agreed to provide that distraction at the northeast city gate.
I will have to abandon the riches of Heron’s Tomb. As long as Schreiber’s been inside, he’s probably dead, anyway.
As the attack proceeds, dispatch the automata to find Santi’s friends, starting with Christopher Wolfe. I want all of them dead, including the new Archivist if you can manage it. If not I’ll settle for Wolfe, but that must be done. Save Santi for last. I might yet find a use for him.
If he resists, I’ll happily slit his throat.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GLAIN
She’d borne the visit to the Medica station with as much grace as she could, which was next to none. They’d cleaned and dressed the wounds left by the sphinx, and she’d been given leave to return to duty. The Medica’s stern warning that she’d almost lost her life didn’t much bother her. She was a soldier. Losing her life was an everyday risk.
Jess didn’t earn the same dismissal from his sickbed. He was livid, of course, and it scared her a little how adamant he was that he could function well enough to leave. The Medica—a big, burly woman who could have wrestled Thomas into submission—glared at him until he fell into a stubborn silence. “No,” she said flatly. “You’re not going anywhere. The damage to your lungs was bad enough before, I’m told; it’s worse now, and more effort will make it fatal in short order. Keep going, young man, and you will drown in your own juices. My orders are that you’re restricted from any duties whatsoever. No arguments or I’ll chain you to the bed.”
“You probably would,” Jess muttered. That earned another glare. “All right. I’ll stay.”
“And I’ll order more treatments,” she said, and turn to Wolfe, who lurked in the corner like a premonition. “Scholar? Can you stay with him and make sure he
does as I say?”
“Yes,” Wolfe replied, and crossed his arms. He looked severe, dour, and utterly remote. “I certainly will.”
At least Glain thought she was leaving Jess in safety—as much as anyone had at the moment. As she nodded her good-byes to him and to Wolfe, she wondered if she’d ever see them again. So the nods turned, impulsively, into words. “Stay safe,” she said, and was astonished that she’d said it. She felt her cheeks turn hot, and gods knew she hadn’t blushed more than a few times in her life. She hated that it had happened now, of all moments. “Don’t die on me. I need you.”
“You’re the one running out to fight,” Jess said. “The worst I risk is an uncomfortable pillow. And . . .” He hesitated, and smiled. In it, she saw the old, cocky Jess. The one he ought to be now. “And I love you, too.”
She felt a horrifying tightness in her throat. Tears? No. She wouldn’t. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would,” Wolfe said quietly. “May the gods look after you tonight. I want you back in the morning. You’re precious to more people than you know.”
She nodded. Not able to speak. She escaped before she could betray what that meant to her, but once she was outside in the furiously pounding rain, she had to stop and let it sluice cold over her. There. No tears possible now. They were invisible.
She allowed herself the luxury of only a moment to let the emotion have its way, and then she caught a passing transport rumbling toward the northern districts. If an attack was still coming tonight, it would be there, from the massed infantry forces that had been sitting so quietly and waiting for the naval invasion that had never landed. The Russians had marched a long way to get here. She didn’t think they’d leave without a fight.
The High Garda presence was thick as the carrier approached the outer districts, and she jumped down and ran toward the northeastern gate, the one most likely to be attacked. That was where she’d find Captain Botha, she assumed, and her squad as well.
Botha, she was told when she encountered the first member of his company, was up on the ramparts. The walls of Alexandria were built in layers; the top was massively thick, but it was supported by inner rings that rose to various levels and provided ramps from one level to another. Botha, it seemed, had stationed his company on the top; they’d be in charge of firing down on any attackers rushing the gates.
And the Russians would be trying their mettle. She had no doubt. What she worried about was what else might happen in the confusion of the fight. She’d been in battles before; she knew how effective diversions could be.
Diversions. There was something in that, but she didn’t have time to follow the thought. She joined the line of soldiers moving up to take their spots. Tonight, the ramps she climbed were slick with rain, narrow and ancient, and she held tight to the railing. A single misstep could send her crashing backward into the soldiers massed behind her, and that wouldn’t do at all.
She was almost cheerful, which felt strange; it was cold and storming, there was an army at the city’s gates that outnumbered the High Garda almost two to one . . . and she was happy. No getting around it: she was born for this. Her father would be scandalized. Her brothers would be jealous.
Her mother would be so proud.
Something whistled in the air far above her head, and she jerked her chin up to track its progress. Couldn’t see the missile, but it must have been fired from the Russian army’s positions. Greek fire? She couldn’t see any fuse burning. And that sound . . . it seemed wrong. She’d grown accustomed to how ballista-fired bombs sounded. Those kind of missiles made an eerie whistling sound, too, but at an entirely different pitch; the whistle was attached to the bomb to create an unnerving effect on troops below. This seemed fainter, more as if the sound was a mere by-product of its flight.
“Move!” someone yelled behind her, and she quickly advanced up the ramp. She’d only made it half a dozen steps when the world exploded behind her. Not the awful gleam of Greek fire, but a hot orange like a forest set ablaze, and when she paused and turned, she saw devastation. Half a neighborhood blown apart, walls flung down, roofs shattered. Bodies running, falling. Burning.
That is not Greek fire.
She didn’t know what it was, but it had a tremendous force to it, as bad as or worse than what they were used to seeing. This wasn’t something the fire crews had prepared to handle. They needed water, and a lot of it. And no one had prepared to fight whatever this madness was.
More whistles overhead. The Russians were firing their strange weapons blind, trying to strike sheer terror, and it was working. She watched a temple crumble, a warehouse explode. What if it hits a Medica facility? Homes? Schools? She felt physically sick with rage, and her muscles ached with holding it inside. She didn’t know if the Iron Tower or the Serapeum or the Great Archives could stand against this unknown bombardment. Whatever this awful stuff was, it held a horrible power, and it was entirely new to them.
“Squads to the wall!” Captain Botha shouted, and his voice carried even over the chaos. Glain ran to claim her spot, with her High Garda companions elbow to elbow. “Ready!” Beyond them other captains were positioning their own companies. Down on behind them, more soldiers fortified the gates. Others were readying ballistas to fire into the enemy forces. It was a massing of High Garda force that had rarely been seen, and never here in Alexandria. “Hold!”
Santi was up on the wall, Glain realized; she saw him standing with his captains as they spotted the Russian deployments. He shouldn’t be here. He should be safe in the Serapeum. But that wasn’t Santi; he, like her, needed to be in the thick of it. She looked around at the squad she’d inherited from Tom Rolleson, now their lieutenant; she saw Troll farther down the row, watching the company’s formations. “Blue Dogs!” she yelled. “Get ready!”
They gave back the sharp bark of agreement. She watched Rolleson, not the enemy. What the enemy might do didn’t concern her now.
More bombs came flying overhead. What happens when they get our range? she thought suddenly, and imagined one of those landing here on the terrace. It would be sheer carnage.
Whatever Santi was waiting for, it wasn’t anything the Russians were planning. And she almost missed it, except for the whisper of wings above her in the darkness, and a sudden stop to the rain on her head as an automaton flew over their position.
The mechanical dragon that Thomas had designed floated down, almost invisible in the darkness. And then it breathed a horrifyingly huge stream of Greek fire down on the army below. The light glazed on the huge metallic wings as the dragon hovered, its snakelike head bent forward. It was a nightmare come to life, and for the first time Glain was glad to see it.
It was not targeting the soldiers, she realized, but some odd-looking devices farther back, tubular and on wheels. The Greek fire hit those structures and the metal melted in on itself with shocking speed. A series of violent explosions ripped the night apart, casting sharp fragments through the opposing army in a bloody swath.
Glain couldn’t help the cheer that tore out of her throat; she shouldn’t have been glad of their deaths, but she was. They’d have cheered for hers.
The Russians turned their gunfire on the dragon, but it wasn’t alone. The smaller winged forms of automata sphinxes plunged out of the rain and began to tear through whole columns of soldiers like paper.
It was sudden, total war.
“Free fire!” Rolleson shouted, echoing a command she couldn’t hear, and Glain repeated it for her squad as she aimed her rifle down at the running troops below. They were coming steadily, and she respected them for that; it wasn’t a panicked stampede but a measured assault. One of them threw something metallic at the gates. She heard the explosion. Felt it through her boots. Had they breached the barrier? It was hard to tell. She picked targets and fired, rocking the recoil with her shoulder and repositioning precisely for the next shot, and the next, and
the next. Shadow targets, illuminated only by the light of the burning things—some new sort of ballistas?—that the dragon had torched. The darkness lit again with more explosions as ammunition ignited. Spectacular and awful. She averted her eyes briefly from the glare, then picked off three more attackers.
“Hold and away!” Rolleson shouted, and Glain roared it, too; she and the squad stepped back from the wall. “Cover!”
They all crouched, backs to the wall, as the ballistas fired and the shrieking Greek fire containers arced over their heads. If one of those went amiss, Glain thought, they’d all roast right here. But all the shots cleared their positions and shattered on the other side of the wall. Santi had aimed them precisely, she realized as she took her position again; he’d targeted four spots to divide the attacking forces and confuse their strategy. The ones down at the gate were now pinned in place; their explosives hadn’t opened the way for them, and the High Garda, Glain’s squad included, poured lethal fire down on top of them.
They were, of course, shooting back. She felt the impact of bullets on either side of her head where she was protected by the crenellations, and once a stunning impact to her helmet that made her see stars and blink in confusion for a solid few seconds. One of her squad—Sarven—fell and didn’t move. She yelled for a Medica without pausing in her target selection and saw from the corner of her eye that he was dragged off for treatment. Men and women of the High Garda were falling, but not nearly as many as were being slaughtered beyond those gates. The Russians had come in force, but with their explosive weapons shattered, would they keep at it? Battering against an impenetrable wall, fighting mud, a dragon, bullets, Greek fire, sphinxes? Why wouldn’t they retreat?
She found out.
A massive carrier rolled relentlessly out of the midst of the Russian forces and headed for the gates. It was covered in spikes and metal plating, rolling on linked spinning tracks that churned through the mud at a shocking rate of speed. It was the size of small warship, and as the Russian troops retreated out of its way, it went straight for the gates.