The Fire Opal Mechanism

by Fran Wilde

  She clung to Jorit and saw what Sima saw. All the places the fire opal had been. All the moments in times past and future. For a moment, she was both Ania and Sima. She knew, in that moment, that they’d seen Sima’s friend the Jewel Lin running from the palace. She knew all that had happened.

  “It will be all right,” Sima whispered, from Ania’s lips.

  “No! We must go back!” Ania countered, her eyes shut tight. The vein at her temple throbbed as she fought for the fire opal’s attention. “To rescue Lin, to rescue Sonoria. To save the Pressmen.”

  “You cannot fight time,” Sima said.

  “We must go forward.” Jorit tried to speak to the fire opal, to beg for help. But Ania needed to realize it too. “We cannot change the past. You saw what happened to the old Master. Do you want to be trapped in time like that?”

  Ania’s eyes opened, blazing. “That’s my friend,” she said. “I cannot leave her to die then.”

  “Sonoria? You can’t remove her from then, not now,” Jorit said. “She’s trapped there, the clock—Sima—can’t change that. Especially not after what happened. Sima fought back with everything she had. If you stay, you’ll be trapped too, and the books, and possibly many other things, will disappear forever.” Jorit waited. Then, when Ania didn’t respond: “We have to go. Forward.”

  Ania’s eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. “I know.”

  She and Jorit both grasped the broken clockwork. Ania heard the fire opal’s wild, half-constrained whispers; they both felt its heart beating against their hands. Slowly an image formed in Ania’s mind, of a far-flung future, with machines and masked guards. Of the library under siege, falling into its own basement.

  “No,” she whispered. “Sima, that’s too far!”

  It was too late. The clock ticks slowed and lengthened and, maddeningly, they echoed twice in Ania’s ears, once for the opal, once for her. She shook, and Jorit’s hand covered hers, steadying her. Then her free arm reached for Jorit’s shoulder, and Jorit’s free arm held her friend and the fire opal tight.

  Pale clouds swirled around them, holes tearing in the mist. The broken clock and the opal within it returned them to the library’s quiet.

  In the empty clockroom’s shadows, the sharp ticking of the big clock’s sweep hand echoed like a knife hitting a glass. The small clock’s broken, irreverent ticking bounced off the rhythm, and the close space filled with discordance.

  Ania whispered, “The clock still works.”

  The fire opal had taken them to a different time than it had meant to. Earlier—before the Pressmen came into the university. The timepiece’s repaired mechanisms weren’t perfect yet.

  Ania collapsed in her friend’s arms, and Jorit wrapped her shawl around her until she stopped shivering. Finally, Ania opened her eyes.

  “Brown again,” Jorit whispered. She tucked strands of Ania’s hair back into her braid.

  The library’s halls and stacks were dark except for the clock face’s glow.

  Ania looked at the glass. Unbroken. Numbers still there. The Master Archivist’s name—and her grandmother’s—clearly lettered on the clock face. Ania Dem.

  The breath Ania drew shuddered so loudly that Jorit turned, worried.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “You’re lying,” Jorit answered, almost tenderly. “We have no time for lies. Not anymore.”

  Ania met Jorit’s eyes. “We’ll find the truth together.” She calmed, and they moved toward the clock’s mechanism.

  The room was not yet filled with books. The Pressmen’s demands had not yet begun. Ania’s cot was there, but empty. She’d moved it that day, she remembered. The day the Master Archivist disappeared. Her name had been—

  “Ania,” Jorit whispered. “Focus.”

  They were still in the past, but not far in the past. Long enough back to travel to where the press was, and to arrive . . . in the present? The thought was confusing. Perhaps it would work.

  “We have to get to Quadril. Fast. To stop the other gem,” she said with more conviction than she felt.

  Jorit nodded again, but this time with grave concern. “How?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t have money for boat passage.” Prices had been sky-high for a boat from the Far Reaches long before the danger was readily apparent. And there was no way to walk to Quadril from here.

  Jorit frowned. Pulled out a handful of ancient coins. Her eyebrows shot up, and she looked at Ania. “I’ve given up thieving.”

  “Don’t worry.” Ania clasped her hand reassuringly. “Those were fairly gotten. We’ll need money to repair the timepiece too.”

  “If we dare try to travel that way again.” Jorit’s eyes closed again. This time from exhaustion. She lay down on the cot beside Ania before she fell down.

  As her eyes closed, the timepiece ticked faster.

  “No,” Ania whispered. She felt the pull of time, the thread drawing out. She fought it, but she was tired. Very tired.

  “Wait—” Jorit cried out, reaching for the clock too, but late. And so slow.

  The fire opal, the clock, and Ania all disappeared, leaving the cot with a dent and a slowly collapsing blanket.

  * * *

  When Ania woke, she was still in the library, but there were few books, and the clock . . . was a series of cogs laid out on the floor.

  Ania gasped and hid in the stacks as Sonoria Vos strode past, dragging her young assistant with her.

  The younger librarian’s braid swung half loose, hairpins scattered behind her.

  “Do you hear something?” the librarian asked.

  “It’s a library,” the Master Archivist answered. “There are always whispers.”

  Ania knew she must not be seen. Too risky. She might accidentally change something big and be trapped forever, like her predecessor. And with the timepiece too.

  She looked again at the floor. The small clock and its case sat there, new and shiny.

  But she couldn’t steal the parts without breaking the other clock.

  She could copy them, though. Copies overcame time.

  But only with books. And with clocks. Not people.

  That she could travel back in time, but only to learn how to change the present, was a sharp, cold fact.

  That night, Ania began to fix the broken clock, using scraps of metal, pieces of wood from elsewhere in the library. Her previous work among books about clockworks, many days spent traveling with a thief, and learning to live on her wits guided her and served her well.

  During the day, she slept in the stacks, her robes turned out, like a student. Sometimes, she copied from memory one of the books she’d read while trapped in the future library. She hid these in the stacks. Sent some to other universities.

  And when she was ready, she whispered to the gem, “Sima, wake up. Take us back to Jorit.” She closed her eyes and thought of her friend alone in that library closer to the future than she was.

  Testimony of Librarian Ania DemBefore the Commission on Knowledge and LoyaltyInterim Report

  Repeatedly, the librarian parries the commission’s questions with her own. The tradition of academic discourse has its place, but in this, perhaps the Pressmen had it right. One story must emerge in order for there to be unity.

  Commissioner Andol: Librarian Dem, your questions regarding the commission’s authority in matters of history have distracted from your own baseless assertions about destroying a machine that endangered the Six Kingdoms, and your claims to have traveled in time. Without proof.

  Librarian Dem: What would you undo if you could, Commissioner?

  The librarian removes her dark glasses. Interrogates the commissioners with her eyes.

  Librarian Dem: What will the record show once this business is done? And how will time remember you?

  As a side note, for posterity, Commissioner Andol later mentioned that, despite speaking with her many times as her dean, he never noticed the peculiarity of Librarian Dem’s eyes before. They are t
he colors of opals.

  Librarian Dem: The past might be hidden or erased. Those who do the most to set things straight may not always be recalled. But they will have happened. They will have mattered. Time does not forget.

  (Another side note: I confess again that I sputter at her audacity.)

  Commissioner Andol: The record this commission crafts of events will be the standard for historians for the ages. It is important we get it right. Where are your loyalties?

  Librarian Dem (taking another sip of water): Commissioner Andol, they are where they’ve always been. In the library.

  Commissioner’s addendum: There remain too many open questions regarding the librarian’s testimony and her involvement in recent events. Until she and her companions can be compelled to provide more details of their activities for posterity, we will not include them in the official record.

  12.

  Jorit

  Jorit, sitting on the floor beside Ania’s empty cot, shook like a windblown page.

  A clock ticked fast, then slow.

  Between one moment and the next, the cot’s frame creaked as Ania settled once again onto her side of the mattress.

  “So tired.” The voice was Ania’s, but the accent was that of a long-ago lapidary.

  Jorit, sitting beside her friend, smiled and smoothed the librarian’s blanket, then her hair. “Sleep, then.”

  Ania closed her eyes, and soon her breathing slowed.

  Meantime, Jorit’s mind raced. She’d seen the clock break. She’d seen the Master Archivist disappear. She’d seen her friend’s eyes change—now, sometimes, they were the color of the fire opal.

  She’d seen Ania disappear, leaving Jorit more alone than she’d felt since Marton had been carried away.

  And the clock now? She lifted it in her hands. Almost as good as new. The fire opal was still cracked, but the rest of the gears and bindings worked.

  Jorit chewed her cheek.

  A woman with the eyes of a gem would be of great interest to the Pressmen. The gem’s time manipulation and insight, even more so. The old Jorit might have said that was worth the price of safety. The Jorit who had lived through the past didn’t agree.

  She sat up straighter, to better guard the clock while her friend slept.

  She knew more things now.

  She’d heard the gem speak. She’d heard Ania argue with it.

  Ania knew she could fight using time. Jorit was starting to understand this. And if time, then perhaps knowledge too.

  She’d heard something joyous and desperate behind the gem’s words when it fought with Ania. Gems could control things, but they liked being argued with . . . at least this one did.

  “Sima,” Jorit whispered. Silence was the only reply.

  The former thief slumped to the floor. It had been worth a try.

  The cot creaked again.

  “Time,” Ania whispered, and it was her voice, her accent now. She roused herself from the cot.

  “To what?” Jorit replied.

  “To leave,” Ania said. She gathered books from the pile and several more from the stacks, then split these between her pack and Jorit’s.

  * * *

  That night, the two women walked through Far Reaches University’s gates, past the sleeping guards, and through town. The shell-pocked cobblestones crunched beneath their feet. The wind smelled of salt and waves.

  As they headed toward the water, seagrass lined the road, scrub bushes dark against the deep blues of evening. A steamer’s chimney billowed white smoke across the hued seascape. A bird clacked its beak. Jorit caught herself slowing down, enjoying the scenery, the moment.

  “My brother used to say that the shared memories bound in the libraries of the Six Kingdoms could be used for a greater good, beyond university walls. He would have liked the original Pressmen, I think.” She blinked in the sharp salt air.

  Ania tugged at her hand. “We can’t slow now, Jorit. If we sail in the morning, we’ll arrive a few weeks after we disappeared. I hope that’s enough to avoid changing the past. Then we can catch the printing press and the gem inside.”

  Jorit shook her head. “You have a better sense of this than I do now.” But she left her hand in Ania’s for a moment. Then squeezed and let go as they approached the harbor.

  At the main dock, several long wooden boats rode high in the water, their goods unloaded and carted away. Jorit tasted pepper in the air, smelled a husk of spices. She followed her nose to the ship that had come from a trading hub. “That one’s from Quadril.”

  The captain of the Farlook took their money and gave them two canvas hammocks in the hold. The hammocks swayed with the tide and the wind, and Jorit and Ania slept for much of the journey. When they woke, they copied out versions of the books that Ania had memorized to the sound of sails flapping in the wind.

  More than once, the rocking of the boat threw them together. They would lean on each other, steadying themselves. But not for too long.

  Slowly the boat made its way down the coast. Slowly they sailed past Pressmen on the march on the shoreline. They tucked some of their books in with packages going ashore, kept others with them.

  By the time they reached Quadril, they’d copied and scattered more volumes of The Travelers’ Guide throughout the land, and while Jorit slept, Ania even managed to send two copies back in time with the gem’s help.

  As they approached the outskirts of Quadril, they saw smoke rising above blue and white flags near the docks. The Pressmen’s barracks. Tents fanned out from several buildings at the center. Carts darted in and out, bearing books and people.

  “I’d stay clear of that,” the Farlook’s captain said. She waved another load of spices aboard as she spoke to Ania and Jorit. “Strange happenings. Heard some people have disappeared near there.”

  Jorit nodded. “We’ll stay well clear.” And they disembarked as the sun set behind the town.

  Once it was dark, Ania and Jorit bribed their way onto a cart that was headed for the barracks. When they neared an area cordoned off with sawhorses and crate barricades, they saw a low building emitting glowing green smoke. The pair crouched down and slid out of the cart.

  “That’s it,” the lapidary said. She started walking with Jorit toward the building.

  Wait! Jorit bit back the word. She flexed her hand against the clock instead. She patted Ania’s arm, pulled on her hand. Her friend had started charging ahead since the fire opal began seeing with her eyes. “How will we get inside?”

  “We have to figure out what it wants.”

  It . . . not them. The gem. The emerald. Jorit pulled Ania behind a tent. “We know what it wants. It wants books. Knowledge that doesn’t belong to it.” Her hand was gentle on Ania’s wrist, but she wanted to pull the librarian far away, to safety. “It wants one unified voice that it can control.”

  Crouching low, Ania drew out the last three books they had. She looked at them intently, then at Jorit. Her eyes filled with concern. “I don’t want these to be lost.”

  “Perhaps we can find more,” Jorit said. But her face told a different story. There likely weren’t any other books, not in all of Quadril.

  “It had to be those books, my favorites, my treasures,” Ania whispered. “Of course it did.” She smiled sadly. She handed The Book of Gems to Jorit. Looked at her friend and touched her cheek. “I don’t want anything to be lost.”

  Jorit shivered, then ran her fingers across the glittering cover. Opened the book, placed her palm against the old paper, the ink. “We’ll find a way,” she said, feeling the loss already. This was history; they’d discovered it, and now? Even she didn’t want to give them up now.

  Ania rose and walked straight up to the building with the odd glow, her shoulders set. She knocked on the door, looking around. A few guards stared at her from the shadows. They did not try to stop her.

  “They’re afraid,” she muttered. “They have reason to be.”

  After a very long pause, one in which Jorit began loo
king for something to break the door, a lock turned. Hinges creaked. A sallow-faced young man answered.

  Then Jorit knew they had no other option. The last books had to be bait. “You,” she whispered. “From the library.” You betrayed us.

  The young man sucked his teeth. “You can’t come in here.” But his voice was soft, as if he very much did want Ania and Jorit to enter the pressroom.

  “We can come in, Xachar,” Ania said. Her eyes shone. “And we very much must.”

  The young man braced against the door. Ania pushed harder and Jorit pulled out The Book of Gems. She held it where the young man could see it. “I heard you were looking—”

  The young man nearly salivated over the book. His fingers grazed the cover. “Where did you find this? We’ve been desperate. Gone to desperate measures.”

  When Ania pulled the book from his reach, Xachar lunged for it.

  “You don’t understand. This could save a life. Many lives if there are more.”

  “There are more, Xachar.” Ania lifted the blank books into the light.

  This time, Xachar grabbed Ania’s arm and Jorit’s robe, not the books. In a very different, stronger voice, he said, “I will show you why. I’ll show you wonders.”

  Xachar pulled them down a hallway strewn with empty chairs and open doors to empty rooms. Ania thought the building had been abandoned until Xachar slowed near two figures wearing Pressmen blue, slumped on wooden chairs by a final closed door. Ania saw their hands and ankles had been tied to the wooden frames.

  From beyond the door came a repetitive thunking. Despite the noise, Ania bit her lip to keep from making any sound.

  Xachar didn’t notice. He pushed the door open, then pulled the books from Ania’s hands. Although the room was warm, the Pressman shivered. Without looking at the books’ contents, Xachar fed The Visitors’ Guide to the press first, pushing it beneath the rollers and sighing audibly as the second-to-last gem of the Six Kingdoms hungrily drained the ink from the pages.