by Rachel Caine
“Six prisoners, sir, the rest are dead.” She put her foot on the captain’s chest. “Permission to execute the traitor?”
“No, Wathen. I don’t think so. Take him to a Medica station and then put him behind bars.” Wolfe let out an angry huff of breath. “We’ve failed. The Archivist is probably halfway to Russia now.”
“Doubt it,” Dario said. He had a cut on his head that was flooding crimson over his shirt; Jess hadn’t seen it happen, and Dario hardly even seemed aware of it. “Glain. Step away.” Glain did. Dario moved forward and put the point of his dagger against the captain’s throat.
“Are we playing this game again?” The captain’s teeth were gritted, but he seemed more irritated than frightened. “I’ll tell you nothing.”
“You said that when you were up against a good man. Look into my eyes, my friend, and tell me what you see. Am I a good man?” Dario grinned. It was one of the most chilling things Jess had seen him do. “I am going to kill you for the damage you’ve already done to my friends. And the only thing that will stop me is if you give his location. The only thing. And you have three seconds before I start stabbing you. I intend to see how many holes I can make before you die.”
“You’re a liar—”
“That took three seconds,” Dario said, and moved his dagger. He plunged it into the man’s side, and even Jess flinched; he hadn’t expected it. Clearly, neither had the captain, who let out a choked cry. “It’s a pity you chose this. Well, actually, it’s not.” He withdrew the blade and moved to the man’s shoulder. He thrust expertly between bones, and the captain, pallid with shock, cried out this time. “Because I very much am going to enjoy—”
“Dario,” Wolfe said. “Stop.”
“No,” Dario said. “You don’t command me, Scholar. Not this time. I want this old man. I want this to be done, for all our sakes. He knows. He’ll talk.”
The captain, pale and silent, shook his head. Jess closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see it, but he knew Dario had stabbed again when he heard the breathless scream. “Stop!” The captain’s voice was raw with panic now.
“Talk,” Dario replied. “Three seconds.”
“He’s going to kill her,” the captain blurted. It was very nearly a snarl. Defiant to the end. “He’s in the Serapeum, after your false Archivist. And he’s going to make it hurt.”
Dario froze. His blade was still in the man’s body, and for a moment Jess wasn’t certain what he meant to do. Then he slowly pulled the dagger out and said, “He’s going after Khalila.” There was no emotion to the words at all.
But all of it was in the blade he buried in the captain’s heart.
Someone—Morgan, perhaps, still upstairs—gasped audibly, but no one else made a sound, not even Wolfe.
Jess felt an awful sort of emotion, something he could hardly understand that swept through him. Horror, yes, but also a kind of approval. He would have been executed, he thought. Maybe that was cleaner than he deserved.
Dario removed the blade, wiped it clean on the hem of his jacket, and said, “We need to go. Right now.”
Not even Wolfe argued the point. But he turned to Jess and said, “Can you make it?”
“I will,” Jess said.
But he knew his time was running out. And from the bleak look in the Scholar’s eyes, so did Wolfe.
EPHEMERA
Text of a letter from Lord Commander Niccolo Santi to his lover, Christopher Wolfe, put aside in case of his death
I suppose it seems foolish to tell you now that I’ve loved you since the moment I first set eyes on you, Chris; that was self-evident at the time, and though I’ve never said it I assume you noticed.
Then again, you’ve always had a terrible opinion of your own attractiveness, so maybe you didn’t. It doesn’t matter now. I only meant to tell you that although I know my duty to the Great Library, it is a great struggle right now to not hand over my title, quit this battle, and find you. I want you safe. I want you always.
But I know that you’d just shout at me to go back to what I do best, even though I’ve lost an Archivist to assassins, even though I have little chance of holding this city against enemies inside and out. We’ve always had the odds against us, and God knows this is not my first failure, only my greatest.
I’ll stay the course. And I know you will try to look after yourself, and those around you, because that’s who you are.
I love you. Even if I can’t be with you, I will never leave you.
I just wanted you to know that if you can’t hear it from me tomorrow.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THOMAS
The poisonous gas lapped around Thomas’s lower legs now, and he felt frozen in place. He’d come so far, solved so many riddles, and now . . . now this.
It wasn’t fair.
Thomas forced himself to think, not give in to the panic that stormed through him. This gas, was it the same that had so badly damaged Jess? Dragonfire, it was called?
If it was, then he had time. The smell was overwhelming, but it would take time to kill him. Minutes, perhaps hours or days. Certainly enough time to do what was necessary or there wouldn’t have been any point in Heron’s automaton warning him there was a puzzle to be solved.
His gaze raced around the room as he put the mask he’d been given back on. It wasn’t of much use now—he’d exhausted the supply of whatever alchemical gas had been placed within it—but at least it helped a bit. It would buy him a few moments more.
Not the recording device, he thought. There simply wasn’t enough there to exploit. What was left? Well, the automaton of Heron. The steam calliope that didn’t seem to work. Piles of treasure. He lifted his glow to reach to the far edges of the room, and froze.
The back wall was full of scrolls.
For a moment he forgot that this room was trying to kill him, because the wonder of it overwhelmed him. These were Heron’s writings, the secret works that he’d never shared with the Great Library. Things no one had seen. Discoveries that might well be greater than Poseidon rising from the sea. Valuable beyond anything else in this room.
Books were Heron’s real treasure.
He had to force himself back to the practical work of survival. You’ll never know what’s in them if you don’t live. That much was certain.
He said to the automaton, “Can you give me a clue?” It was worth a try.
The automaton was silent for a moment, and then it said, “What disappears when you say its name?”
Another riddle. Thomas barely checked a shout of frustration. The green mist was coiling up his legs now, nearly at his waist. If he was immersed in it, what would happen? How long would it take him to choke to death?
Fear, it seemed, was a wonderful focus lens, because the answer came to him almost immediately. “Silence,” he said. “Silence disappears when you say its name. But is silence the answer or . . .” He stopped, because now it was obvious. “No. Sound is the answer. But what sound? The calliope? It doesn’t work! I don’t have time to—” He broke into ragged, tearing coughs. This gas would disable him before it ever reached his face, he thought. He had to think.
He looked at the water clock to see how much time was actually left. By the amount of water that had drained into the reservoir, and the space left to fill, he could only have a few moments to—
It’s a water clock.
He lunged forward and took the mechanism from the automaton’s grasp. It released it easily—as if it expected him to make that motion. He looked at it from all angles and found an opening at the top that was fully sealed, which was why the water within it hadn’t evaporated over the ages.
He grabbed a tool from a rack nearby and dug into the seal until it broke, and revealed a hole the size of the tip of a finger.
Thomas grabbed a funnel from the array of tools and raced to the calliope. It took precio
us seconds to find the opening; he jammed in the funnel and had to stop for another bout of horrible, painful coughs. His mouth felt too wet, and he tasted bitter foam he couldn’t seem to swallow. The mist had risen to his chest now, a greenish sea of nightmares. His eyes burned and bled tears.
He had to have a steady hand to do this. He forced himself to be still and focus, and slowly poured the water from the clock into the funnel.
As soon as the clock was empty, he dropped it and slammed the lid shut. Now for the button, and then it would be done. A burner would ignite, heat the boiler; valves would release the steam in patterns and intensity to play the organ, and . . .
He couldn’t see the button. The calliope’s lower half was completely hidden in the mist, and it seemed to be rising faster now. His lungs hurt like they were filling with fire, and foam built in his mouth and nose, choking him. He could hear his strangled gasps, and his whole body was drenched in sweat.
His knees buckled. He grabbed for the steam calliope’s frame and felt the whole thing rock unsteadily on metal wheels. No, no, I can’t go down. If I do I’ll be dead. Once his head went below that mist, he wouldn’t survive.
Tears dripped down his face as he shut his eyes and once again summoned up focus. He’d seen this machine. He knew where the button was. Panic was blinding him, but he forced his mind to be still and show him what he needed to do.
The calliope drew itself in glittering lines in the pulsing darkness of his closed eyes, and there it was: the switch to flip the machine on. It was just a foot below the level of the mist.
He didn’t open his eyes as he reached out.
His fingers closed on it, and he flipped it from down to up.
He heard the boiler begin to heat. It would take some seconds for the chemicals around it to heat it to boiling. He tried holding his breath, but it hurt too much, almost as much as breathing. I am in a lake of fire, he thought, and burning from the inside out.
Heron’s automaton said, “Well done,” and Thomas heard the hiss of steam engaging. The calliope was starting.
He opened his eyes as the notes sounded. The same notes as in the crystal cavern, but played in a beautiful, lyrical dance.
The mist continued to rise. It was at his chin. He wasn’t going to make it out of this place.
And then there was a sudden, violent blast of cool air from somewhere above, driving down the mist, drying the tears on his cheeks. He turned his face up to it like it was the sun coming out from clouds, and tried to breathe. Even standing was too difficult now, and his knees failed him as the last of the gas was driven down into cleverly concealed metal vents that snapped closed.
He was on the floor. He didn’t remember falling.
The automaton looked down on him with an expression almost of sadness. “You have done well,” it said. “But your trial is not over. The gas will be fatal if you don’t retrieve the antidote.”
He coughed out a bitter mouthful of foam and rolled on his side to gasp, “Where?”
Heron’s automaton pointed to the far wall, the one with the scrolls. A section of the shelves slid open like a drawer. Thomas stared at it in despair. It was too far away, and he was too weak. The idea of standing again, walking again, seemed as remote as the moon.
The automaton stretched out a hand.
He gritted his teeth and reached up for the help. Getting to his knees was agony. Getting to his feet made him spit blood. How did Jess live through this? he wondered, and he remembered the skull-like pallor of his friend’s face. Maybe he hasn’t.
Thomas made it to his feet, somehow, and caught himself against the worktable loaded with Heron’s own tools. Pushed himself from there to the recording device. Then to the sphinx in the corner. Then, with a sob of pain, from there to the drawer.
Inside lay seven vials. He almost picked up the first one, and his blurry vision caught the colors of the glass.
The last trial.
He turned back to the automaton. “Is there more?”
“No. This is all.”
“Can it cure two people?”
No answer. Perhaps Heron had never written that answer into the machine.
Thomas lunged away to the worktable, found a glass beaker, and poured the contents of the vials into it, in the correct order. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
The mixture turned cloudy white.
I may kill us both, he thought, but better that than watching his friend die. He split the solution, pouring half into another vial and sealing it before he lifted the beaker to his lips.
He drank, and the taste of it was foul, but not as bad as the awful clinging horror of the Dragonfire gas. He felt it begin to work almost immediately, clearing the foam from his mouth and nose, opening up his throat. His lungs would take time, he thought; they seemed to be swollen and tender, stuffed with fluid.
But for the first time, he thought he would survive.
He took the vial and wrapped it carefully in fabric he tore from his ruined jacket. The pockets were still intact, so he stored the antidote there for Jess. I have to hurry.
Then he looked at the wonders around him and despaired, because they were exposed now, vulnerable, and he could not stay here. He’d opened the way for predators. For the evil old man to take everything.
He couldn’t just leave it like this.
He found a scroll case among Heron’s things and began to wrap as many scrolls as he could together to fit into the small, round openings inside. He managed to gather about half before the case was full. Then he found another empty chest hidden behind the sphinx and put the rest inside that.
He passed Heron’s statue.
It said, “You are worthy of my legacy. Use my treasure well,” and the gleam in its eyes went out. It was dead.
Its purpose had been served.
He went past the unmoving sphinx. Past the crystals, which stayed dormant. Past the next sphinx, too.
The anteroom beyond had bodies lying on the flagstone floor. Men and women in red uniforms. He sent his people in after me. That was foolish. He checked each of them but found them all dead—some, of wounds that could only have been made by the spears in the ceiling. Others, of wounds that looked like they’d been earned in battle.
He picked his way carefully on the safe path through the room, made the stairs, and realized that something was very, very wrong.
At the top of the staircase Thomas saw a flash of lightning split the sky.
The sky. He shouldn’t have been able to see the sky.
But the temple that had covered this place was gone. Just . . . gone.
He emerged into a smoky pile of rubble, a broken god in pieces on the ground, and steadily falling rain. Fires were burning. Walls had been shattered.
The Archivist was gone. He wasn’t among the dead; Thomas checked every body, no matter how torn and bloody. These were his soldiers, and two dead automata sphinxes who’d evidently attacked them.
No one to help here, and no one to stop, either. He was free. Free to go, with Heron’s treasures.
“Stop,” a voice said. He couldn’t see anyone. Then lightning flared, and he saw Zara Cole crouched just ahead of him, aiming a rifle at his chest. Rain flattened her hair against her head, darkened her uniform almost to black. She must have been cold and miserable, but her aim was steady, her eyes calm.
Then she put her rifle down, raised her hands above her head, and said, “I surrender to you, Scholar Schreiber.”
“Why?” Thomas asked. He didn’t trust her, of course. He was looking for a trap, but the night didn’t seem to hold any other soldiers, any other secrets. “Why would you give up now?”
She took in a deep breath and said, “I was wrong, Thomas. He never intended to save the Great Library. He intends to destroy it.” She staggered and fell to her knees, and even though he didn’t trust
her, he carefully set down the boxes he carried and went to her.
Up close, he saw the holes in her uniform, and the blood that was pouring out of her wounds. She’d been shot. Several times.
“Lie down,” he told her. “I’ll find a Medica.”
“No. No time,” she said. “The Archivist shot me. He shot me, after everything—” She sounded more amazed than angry, and shook her head to dismiss it. “He thought you’d failed. He knew he was finished. He intends to take it all with him.”
Thomas felt a surge of real fear at that. “What do you mean, all?”
“The Great Archives,” she said. “He’s set them to burn. Stop him. You have to . . .” She fell slowly, tipping on her side and then rolling on her back, staring up at him as he crouched beside her. She didn’t seem to see him for a moment, but then she smiled. Smiled. “I knew you weren’t dead,” she said. “You’re too hard to get rid of. So I waited for you.”
“Yes, I see that,” Thomas said. “Zara—”
“Go,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I thought . . . I thought he was the rightful leader of this city. But I was wrong. I was so wrong—”
“I have to leave you here.”
“I know.” In the next muttering thread of lightning from the clouds overhead, he saw her skin had gone chalky, her eyes almost luminous. “Tell Nic I’m sorry.”
She died before the next lightning bolt split the sky overhead, and Thomas slowly rose to stare down at her.
Then he picked up the precious cargo of Heron’s treasure, and ran.
EPHEMERA
Text of a letter from the Russian ambassador to the tsar of Russia. Available in the Codex after a twenty-year interdiction.
They’ve killed so many of us tonight. So many. And the old man has never come as he agreed with his magical inventions of Heron of Alexandria. You gave me the authority to prosecute this war.