by Jim C. Hines
Nobody else moved. He opened Gutenberg’s jacket and pulled the fountain pen from the inside pocket. I expected him to give it to Nicola, but instead he handed it to me. “You’ll need this, I suspect.”
The pen was heavier than I had imagined. From the weight, it had been carved and shaped from real gold. It was as thick as my index finger, polished mirror-smooth. I pulled the cap free and studied the tip. The curved diamond nib was etched with precisely flowing lines, tiny letters engraved into the metal. I would need a magnifying glass to read them. “What for?”
He ignored me, instead retrieving Gutenberg’s wallet, phone, keys, and a small leather-bound notebook. He offered all but the last to Nicola.
“We can’t stay here,” said Nicola. “Meridiana knows where we are, and the police will be coming.”
None of us moved. I couldn’t stop replaying the last few minutes in my mind, imagining everything I might have done to stop this from happening. If I had finished deciphering d’Aurillac’s poem sooner . . . if I had kept Smudge inside where he could have warned us instead of letting him go with Lena . . .
“Nidhi, please get Gutenberg’s carpet bag,” said Nicola. “Lena, would you carry the body? We can’t leave it behind.”
Lena nodded and fetched a blanket from the bed, which she used to wrap Gutenberg’s body. Nidhi retrieved the carpet bag from atop the dresser.
Ponce de Leon brought both hands to his face and wept.
Lena sat next to me in the Jeep, her hand tight around mine. Nidhi sat on Lena’s other side. Nobody had said much since leaving the B&B.
Nicola had gathered or destroyed any magically-incriminating evidence, then herded us outside. She stopped long enough to sing excuses to the owners, making sure they wouldn’t remember any details about who we were or what had happened.
I kept thinking about the body in the back of the Jeep, the corpse of the man who had invented libriomancy. All that knowledge and experience, gone.
We stopped at a red light, and Nicola twisted around to pass her cell phone to me. “In the contacts list, you’ll find an entry for ‘Handbasket, Helena.’ Call that number and tell whoever answers that it’s February of 1468, then hang up.”
The month and year Gutenberg was supposed to have died. I dialed the number and delivered the message. The woman on the other end was silent for several seconds before asking, “Are you sure about that date?”
I looked at the spots of blood speckling my shirt. “Yes.” I hung up and returned the phone. “What happens now? With Gutenberg gone . . .”
“I don’t know,” Nicola said flatly. “Gutenberg prepared for this, but many of his preparations were magical in nature. The senior masters will form a temporary council to lead the Porters and assess the situation. The automatons will go into a kind of magical standby mode for now.”
“Word will spread quickly,” said Ponce de Leon. He sat in the front, still as a statue, save for the slight movement of his jaw. “Johannes’ death will embolden the enemies of the Porters. Creatures hidden for centuries will venture into the light.”
“What exactly happened back there?” Nidhi asked.
“Meridiana twisted Johannes’ spell.” Ponce de Leon stared out the window. “She turned the scepter against him, stripped him of his protection. She’s stronger than we realized.”
“We’ll need another libriomancer to retrieve Meridiana’s prison,” said Lena.
Nicola shifted lanes. “The nearest libriomancer is Heather over in Minneapolis. I’ll tell her to meet us at—”
“We don’t need a libriomancer.” I rolled Gutenberg’s pen back and forth on my palm.
“You have an alternative?” asked Nicola.
“Maybe.” My thoughts were beginning to break free of their shock. “We’ll need to stop at a bookstore.”
“Who?” asked Lena.
“Bi Wei.” Her power over books was as great as Gutenberg’s had been, if not stronger. The magic that had helped her to escape Gutenberg’s assault on her home and kept her alive for so long was similar in many respects to Gerbert d’Aurillac’s spell. Unfortunately, she was also an avowed enemy of the Porters.
I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t a Porter anymore.
The first bookstore we found didn’t have A Dance with Dragons on the shelves. According to the man working behind the counter, it was currently their hottest seller. Nobody could keep the book in stock, thanks to the mysterious message in the front. As if George R. R. Martin needed the additional royalties.
He directed us to the local library, where the librarian explained there was a two-page waiting list. Back in the parking lot, I called two more bookstores and three other libraries, with similar results. “That’s everything in a forty-mile radius,” I said, disgusted.
Lena cleared her throat. “Does it have to be that particular book?”
“We need something the students of Bi Sheng will be watching.” I didn’t know for certain that Bi Wei would see a message in A Dance with Dragons, but since she had used it to send her own, it made sense that they would have a copy on hand, if only to see whether the Porters were able to dispel or modify her letter.
Lena twisted around and dug into her bag, eventually producing a familiar red book. “What about this?”
I immediately shook my head. “We can’t—”
“My book. My decision.”
“What is it?” asked Nicola.
I didn’t answer. Bi Wei had given this book to Lena. Its magic was identical to the books the students of Bi Sheng used. This copy held Lena’s story, her sense of who she was and who she wanted to be. It was also a secret we had kept from the Porters, one which had come directly from the hands of their enemy.
“It’s a book that might help us communicate with Bi Wei,” said Lena.
Nicola studied the book. Everything about it announced its origins, from the cloth binding to the rice-paper pages. But instead of arguing, she simply asked, “What makes a student of Bi Sheng a better ally than another Porter?”
“They’ve known about the Ghost Army for longer than the Porters have existed,” I said. “Meridiana is as much a threat to them as she is to us. And I trust Bi Wei.” I had shared Wei’s memories. I knew her to be both strong and cautious. More importantly, she understood book magic and the nature of these ghosts well enough to combat them, better even than Ponce de Leon.
I waited for Nicola to point out that Bi Wei was also an avowed enemy of the Porters. She said only, “You get started on that while I coordinate with the Porters. I’ll find us a hotel for the night.”
I paused, repeating her words in my head and comparing it to the script I had expected. “Oh. Okay, right. Thanks.”
A half hour later, we were checked into a room with two queen beds. Our accommodations had been going steadily downhill over the past week. The furnishings reeked of cigarette smoke. A faded painting of a triple-masted sailing ship hung over the small desk in the corner. Peeling wallpaper and a brown water damage stain in the corner announced that maintenance and upkeep were low on the priorities list, but all in all, it wasn’t much worse than my first apartment.
I turned on the television and found a nature documentary for Smudge. He was warier than usual as he emerged from his cage, but soon he was darting to and fro, trying to catch wild lemurs. I was a little worried he would melt holes in the screen, but he seemed content to play.
I needed to find food for him. A tarantula could survive on a few crickets a week, but Smudge had a much hotter metabolism. I’d have to slip out tonight and hunt for worms and bugs to go with his candy treats.
Ponce de Leon remained with the Jeep, keeping watch over Gutenberg’s body. Nidhi had disappeared into the shower. Nicola sat on a folding luggage stand in the closet, arguing on the phone with what sounded like at least three other Regional Masters. I wasn’t sure if she had chosen the closet for privacy or for the relative security of the enclosed space. From the bits I overheard, she wasn’t happy.
&n
bsp; I brought Lena’s book to the desk and opened the cover.
Lena sat on the bed, her back against the mounded pillows, her legs folded. “Do you think she’ll be able to do it?”
“Bi Wei isn’t exactly a libriomancer, but her magic is all about the essence of books. If anyone can make this work . . .”
“That’s not what I meant.” She tapped her forehead. “Your magic. That’s the other reason you wanted to bring Bi Wei into this. You’re hoping she’ll be able to undo whatever Gutenberg did to you.”
“Even if she can, there’s no guarantee that she will. Stopping Meridiana and the Ghost Army is one thing, but helping an ex-Porter?” I twirled the pen through my fingers. “I’m trying not to think about it. Every time I touch something magical—the shock-gun, the vampire blood, even this pen—it’s like ripping open a scab, and it keeps getting harder. Getting more difficult,” I amended before she could make any lewd comments.
She smirked, but let it pass. “We’ll keep trying. Bi Wei, Ponce de Leon, Nicola . . . someone should be able to help you. And if they can’t, I want you to remember something.”
“What’s that?”
She kissed me hard enough to make my skin tingle from my neck to the base of my spine. “I didn’t fall in love with you for your magic.”
“Thank you.” I nodded and turned back to her book.
“How do you know that pen will write something she’ll be able to see?”
“I don’t,” I said. “But Gutenberg used this pen to lock books. That means whatever he did had to carry through to all copies of those books.” I turned the page, uncapped Gutenberg’s pen, and began to write.
Every surviving student of Bi Sheng had a book like this, and every one of those books included the same block-printed pages in the front. It was those pages I defaced, though the ink left no visible mark. I had to trust Bi Wei would see my message. I angled the desk lamp to help me see the faint indentations in the paper where I had penned her name.
I hesitated. I needed to be circumspect, since I had no idea who else might read this. That meant no mention of Gutenberg’s death or what specifically I was asking for.
“Writer’s block?” asked Lena.
“Something like that.” How could I reassure her this wasn’t a Porter trick? Bi Wei knew what the Porters had done to me. I believed she trusted me, to an extent. But I couldn’t even prove I was the one writing the message. Anyone could have taken Lena’s book and used it to lure Bi Wei into a trap.
Nicola’s voice cut through my thoughts as she argued with the other Regional Masters. She was louder than usual, as if anger or frustration or simple grief had adjusted her volume. “Gutenberg said a show of force should be the last resort. We need to build goodwill. We can’t do that with automatons.”
I looked at Lena, who shrugged.
“Suppose your plan worked,” Nicola said a moment later. “Say we wiped out a terrorist organization or overthrew a dictator. Imagine we somehow managed to do so without a single civilian casualty. Any such action will still create enemies. Even those who approve of the results will fear our power and the potential threat we pose. We need to tread carefully. In time, we can—” She paused. “Then what about Weronika? She’s been visiting hospitals and healing terminal patients. If more Porters could—no, I understand. Miss Palmer has made that quite clear.”
“Who’s in charge with Gutenberg gone?” Lena asked softly.
“I’m not sure.” I had never paid enough attention to politics within the Porters. I had no interest in working my way up the ranks, or being anything except a researcher. Magical bureaucracy was still bureaucracy, and I wanted nothing to do with any of it. I had unconsciously started thinking of Nicola in Gutenberg’s place as head of the Porters, but she was one of many Regional Masters. Not necessarily the most senior or the most powerful, either.
Although the whole question could be moot soon. Between the world discovering magic and Meridiana doing her best to destroy . . . well, pretty much everything, there was a real possibility that the Porters wouldn’t survive. Gutenberg had been the pin holding the organization together, and even he had struggled to keep things from fragmenting.
“What would you do?” Lena asked.
“What do you mean?”
“If you were in charge. Say Nicola and the rest decide to promote Isaac Vainio to be Gutenberg’s replacement. What’s the first thing you’d do?”
“Order Nicola and everyone else involved to check in with their therapists, because that would mean they’d lost their damn minds. Then I’d probably resign with extreme prejudice.”
She folded her arms.
“Okay, fine. I’d start by offering an olive branch to the students of Bi Sheng.” I looked down at Lena’s book. “To be honest, I don’t know how the Porters fit in a world where magic is out in the open. Are we scholars? A global police force? Saviors or conquerors or both?”
Lena smiled. “I’m surprised you wouldn’t immediately set out to colonize Mars.”
“I’d save that for the second month, along with getting Fox to put Firefly back into production.” I glanced over at Nicola, who was still listening to whoever was on the other end of the line. “How do you map the future of the world?”
“You don’t,” Lena said softly. “Not alone.”
Nicola drummed her hand against the wall of the closet. She spoke more slowly, deliberately choosing each word. “I agree, which is why our first priority is to retrieve the armillary sphere. As the senior Porter on site, I intend to—” She straightened. “I don’t believe you have the authority to do that.”
Lena and I had given up any pretense of not listening in.
“Naturally. I trust you’ll inform me once the vote is complete.” Nicola hung up a moment later, but remained seated. When she saw us watching, she said, “They believe I’m responsible for Gutenberg’s death.”
“The hell you are,” I said.
“Who believes that?” asked Lena.
“Cameron Howes, and at least two other Regional Masters.” She stared straight ahead. “If enough others agree, they can appoint another person to oversee this region.”
“Cameron Howes is a pretentious, narcissistic, ignorant pustule of a man.” I was surprised by my own vehemence.
“I know,” Nicola said, so matter-of-factly that I had to grin. “He sees Gutenberg’s death as an opportunity, and he’s not alone. He wants me replaced by someone he can control.”
I stood up and started toward her, intending to offer comfort, but she flinched when I got close. I stopped moving.
“You need to reach Bi Wei and finish your poem,” she said. “I . . . need you to leave me alone. Please.” She sounded brittle, as if that flat monotone contained within it a scream of rage and grief. Nicola was at her breaking point. She had lost not only Gutenberg, but four of her animals, creatures she cared about as if they were family.
“Of course,” I said softly. “Sorry.”
She nodded and left the room.
Lena took my hand. “It’s not you.”
“I know.” I stared at the closed door, listening to the fading sound of Nicola’s humming. Eventually, I returned to the desk and Lena’s book. “If Howes and the others find out we’re reaching out to Bi Wei, it will give them one more reason to get rid of Nicola.”
“People like Howes don’t need reasons,” said Lena. “All they want are excuses and justifications. If you hold back to try to protect Nicola, he’ll just find them elsewhere.”
I squinted at the page, trying to reread the few lines I had written. There was no need to share our location. Bi Wei should be able to find us through her connection to Lena’s book. But how to prove it was us . . .
I thought about the first time I had read Bi Wei’s own book, before her return to this world. Bi Wei had written of her first experience with magic, a story whose power and joy resonated with my own discovery. She had hiked into the hills with her great grandaunt, where they read an old s
tar chart and used its magic to study the sky, to see beyond what was visible to the naked eye.
I remembered her joy, preserved all those years by the magic of her readers. I picked up Gutenberg’s pen, jotted down three more sentences, and began to sketch the constellations.
I traced the final letters of Gerbert d’Aurillac’s poem at about one in the morning, then sat back to try to stretch the cramps from my hand.
Lena had slipped out an hour before to search for a suitable tree for the night, and I hadn’t seen Ponce de Leon since we arrived. Nicola had paid for a second room, saying she needed solitude. Nidhi was currently sleeping on one of the beds, leaving the other for me.
I turned off the desk lamp, stripped down to my jeans, and prepared for bed as quietly as I could. Despite my exhaustion, it took forever to fall asleep. The unfamiliar bed only made things worse. Throughout the night, I jerked up at the slightest sounds: a door opening or closing down the hallway, a car door slamming in the parking lot. Even the noise of Nidhi’s breathing seemed amplified.
I gave up around six in the morning and made my way, bleary-eyed, to the shower. Nidhi was still snoring when I finished. I picked up my T-shirt, sniffed, and grimaced. Everything smelled of smoke. Gutenberg had provided us with extra clothes that almost fit, but those had blown up with his apartment. I should have just jumped into the shower fully clothed.
Now where had Smudge gotten off to? I hadn’t remembered to put him back into his travel cage last night. “Please tell me you stayed in the room,” I whispered.
I kept the bathroom light on with the door cracked as I searched the room. Smudge could creep through surprisingly tight cracks and gaps. I didn’t think he could have squeezed beneath the door, but I wasn’t certain. Maybe he had gone on a midnight raid to see if anyone had left food in the hallway. Worse, he might have found the vending machine and crawled inside to stuff himself with sugar.
I checked the corners of the room, behind the desk and my bed, and the curtains before stopping to think. He would want somewhere warm and dry. He wasn’t by the heater. I bit my lip and checked Nidhi to make sure Smudge hadn’t curled up with her for warmth.