Doubting she could get in any more trouble than she was already going to be in once the lybrarians could focus, Dorrie sprinted down to the Archivist’s office. Fifteen minutes later, she arrived at the Tyre archway, panting, the chitons the Archivist had checked out for the occasion in her arms and the skipkey in her hand.
Marcus was there, pacing. “Where have you been?”
“Long story, but the Archivist can’t come.”
“What!”
Dorrie threw him one of the chitons. “I’ll take you.”
“But I haven’t even begged yet. I demand to know what’s going on!”
“I can’t explain right now!” cried Dorrie, ducking into a musty closet full of dictionaries to change.
“Hurry up,” said Marcus. “Jalileh must be above deck. If we go now, we won’t have to fight off another tray of hors d’oeuvres.”
On the other side of the archway, the boat was bobbing more briskly than it was during their last visit. Marcus lost his balance and overturned an urn full of scrolls. It rolled across the hold noisily, crashing into the boat’s hull. Dorrie glanced nervously at the closed hatch. Rain beat on it loudly. She hoped it had masked the sound of the urn smashing to pieces. Dorrie lifted the skipkey’s pin.
The Hura had slid away and the Lyceum’s library had materialized around them. Luck was with them as they crept from the room; the Lyceum was virtually deserted.
“Maybe Aristotle gave his students the day off to see the trial or something,” said Marcus as they scuttled out into the street. It was just as rainy in Athens as in Tyre. As they walked along the muddy road, Dorrie told Marcus all about what they’d discovered in Timbuktu.
By the time they got to the Courts District, the rain had diminished to faint, misty moisture in the air.
“Wish me luck,” said Marcus, digging in his leather pouch.
Dorrie showed him her crossed fingers. “I wish I could watch. I still can’t believe women aren’t allowed in there.”
“The oration,” cried Marcus as he dug more frantically. “I forgot it!”
A bell began to ring, signaling the start of the trial.
Marcus stared at Dorrie, his eyes wide.
Dorrie gave him what she hoped was a loving shove toward the entrance. “Meet me at Kalliope’s when you’re done.”
Marcus nodded, looking blank. Giving his hair a shake, he ducked inside.
Though less crowded than the first time she’d visited, the agora was still busy. Her mouth watered as she passed a stall where meat sizzled. A customer turned, and Dorrie found herself face to face with the Tyre Spoke Lybrarian.
Jalileh, her mouth full, looked as shocked as Dorrie felt.
“What are you doing here?” Dorrie asked, her confusion overriding her caution.
Jalileh hastily swallowed, looking shifty. “I am…well… I was…” She drew herself up defiantly. “Things got unbearably quiet on the Hura, and I just thought…why not nip over to Athens for a day or two.”
“You moved the Tyre Spoke Library to Athens!” Dorrie said.
Jalileh looked hurt. “Well, it’s nothing to get judgmental about. It’s still fully attached to Petrarch’s Library, and really, nothing of note is going on in Tyre.” She leaned in confidentially. “What happened is that when I sailed down to Athens a few weeks ago, I won tickets to a critically acclaimed production of Aristophanes’s The Wasps.”
“You’ve moved the Hura to Athens before?” said Dorrie, goggling at her.
“Well, just that one other quick time,” said Jalileh. “For the mental health. I had no idea I’d win the tickets.” She looked nervously around. “Which keyhand brought you?”
Now it was Dorrie’s turn to look shifty. “The…uh…Archivist.”
A look of profound relief crossed Jalileh’s face. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll understand. Not that there’s any need to bother him with details about running into me,” she added quickly. “As soon as the play is over, I’m going to simply fly down to the harbor and sail right back to Tyre.”
Dorrie saw her chance and began to back away. “I actually have to go meet the Archivist now, but…I-I won’t say anything.”
Jalileh beamed at her.
Dorrie turned, cursing her luck.
She found Kalliope bent over behind her table, picking up pieces of broken pottery.
“Well, hello!” she said, standing up when she caught sight of Dorrie. She brushed off her hands. “Oh, that’s right. Today’s the big day. Timotheus walked by earlier, looking pale as milk.”
“Yeah, I just left Marcus at the Courts. I’m waiting to…to…see how it all turns out.”
“Keep me company if you’d like,” said Kalliope. She looked darkly at the broken crockery. “Though I have some more cleaning up to do.”
Dorrie slipped behind the table and bent down to help. “What happened?”
Kalliope swept up some smaller bits. “Dissatisfied lunatic vagrant. Showed up in town a couple weeks ago. Spends his days and nights in the ruins of Critius’s house, trying to move great blocks of stone around with his bare hands and a few ropes and boards, cursing and sweating and muttering to himself. People are afraid of him.” She jerked her chin toward a table. “He took one look at that little perfume bottle and went apoplectic.”
Dorrie let go of the pieces of pottery she’d gathered, and they fell in a noisy shower back onto the ground. Sitting in a bowl with a wooden spoon and some very ugly rings was the twin of Mr. Biggs’s vial.
Kalliope looked from Dorrie to the vial. “You look about like he did when he saw it. He called me a thief and demanded to know where I’d gotten it, which did not endear him to me. I told him I bought it fair and square from a garbage picker ages ago.”
Dorrie lifted the vial out of the bowl.
To prove his claim, the lunatic opened up that old sack he carries around with him, and it was full of the little bottles.
Dorrie felt the blood rush out of her face. She whirled to face Kalliope. “How many?”
“Hundreds. He demanded mine. I didn’t like his manner, so I refused.”
An outrageous possibility clutched at Dorrie. Jalileh had said she’d taken the Hura to Athens once before. “What did he do then?”
“He cursed me, knocked one of my best vases off the table, and left.”
Fear slithered through Dorrie. “What does he look like?”
“Big. And cruel if you ask me. And he wears a very strange chiton. I’d never seen anything like it. Flowers painted all over it, it looks like.”
“Mr. Biggs,” Dorrie murmured, remembering how he’d stolen Mistress Daraney’s sheet.
“Excuse me?” said Kalliope.
“Nothing,” said Dorrie, her thoughts whirring. The night Mr. Biggs had escaped, it had been Mistress Daraney who had reported that he’d disappeared through the Athens archway. Mistress Daraney, who could get lost going from the Celsus to the Sharpened Quill.
“You said the man had been spending a lot of time in the ruins of Critius’s house. Did he find the little bottles there?”
“It’s possible,” said Kalliope, looking puzzled at Dorrie’s interest. “But I don’t think so. He’s been carrying that sack around with him ever since he showed up in Athens. He never seems to put it down.”
“Oh!” Dorrie cried, unable to stay silent as the explanation for Mr. Biggs’s presence here fell into place.
“Is everything all right?” Kalliope asked.
“No!” Dorrie longed to scream. Mr. Biggs hadn’t escaped through the Athens, 399 BCE archway as Mistress Daraney had reported. Not at all. Mistress Daraney only thought he had. Dorrie’s mind spun dizzily. Mr. Biggs had escaped through the Tyre, 327 BCE archway while Jalileh was in Athens winning tickets to the play. Only he probably hadn’t realized his mistake!
Jalileh herself had explained why
he wouldn’t. When the apprentices were setting off for their field trip to Tyre, she’d told them the Hura’s anchor had once come loose and that this had caused confusion in Petrarch’s Library because as the boat had drifted past various towns, the word “Tyre” over the archway had been replaced by each of their names in succession.
When Mr. Biggs had escaped, the letters above the archway would have spelled out “Athens.” After getting bonked on the head, Mistress Daraney could be forgiven for not noticing the year after “Athens” was 327 BCE, not 399 BCE.
Dorrie felt feverish. Mr. Biggs had made the best of the situation. He’d managed to recover the empty Vox Mortis vials from wherever he’d hidden them seventy-two years earlier. But if Mr. Biggs already had the vials, why hadn’t he already “sent them” by placing them where they could be found by Lady Whitcomb and the Foundation’s other new allies? A new thought bucked through Dorrie.
What if Critius’s house was important for a different reason than Dorrie had first thought? What if it was the place where Mr. Biggs was supposed to leave the vials so that hundreds of years later, the Foundation’s allies could find them? That would explain why Mr. Biggs had been working so hard to get down to whatever deep, dark, unsavory corner of Critius’s house was supposed to serve as the Foundation’s giant mail slot to the future.
Dorrie caught hold of Kalliope’s hand. “Do you know where Mr.… Where the man went?”
“Banged off down the road toward the harbor,” said Kalliope, looking concerned. “Been doing that three times a day since he showed up in Athens. Marches down close enough to get a view, then turns around and goes back to his ruins.”
Of course! Dorrie thought. He’d been checking to see if the Hura had returned. And if he saw it was anchored again in the harbor, he would try to get back on board—she was certain. He’d want to get back inside Petrarch’s Library and find the archway back into the earlier Athens he’d meant to get to, where he’d have easy access to Critius’s house before it had collapsed and where he could get back into the Stronghold.
Dorrie breathed raggedly, Millie’s face flashing before her eyes, then Torquemada’s. She couldn’t let Mr. Biggs succeed. She couldn’t!
For a moment, she considered running back to the Lyceum in the hopes of getting to Petrarch’s Library that way before Mr. Biggs had a chance to reenter it through the Hura, but she didn’t dare take the risk. He already had a head start, and from the maps she, Marcus, and Ebba had looked at, the Lyceum was just as far from the agora as the harbor.
“Which way to the harbor?” she asked Kalliope.
Chapter 25
The Organ Player
A few minutes later, Dorrie was racing down the street Kalliope had pointed out, having left a cryptic message with her for Marcus, telling him to look for Jalileh and the Hura down at the harbor.
Running as hard as she could for as long as she could and then walking until she could run again, Dorrie wondered how far ahead Mr. Biggs was and whether Marcus was going to be able to get to the harbor before the Hura sailed.
At last, the rocky hillside full of cottages and grape vineyards and goats gave way to a narrow bare beach, its edge tufted with grass. Panting, Dorrie surveyed the harbor. Far off to the right, smaller boats were moored to bustling docks that jutted out over the water. The larger boats, riding at anchor, were actually closer as the crow flew to where Dorrie stood.
She gulped for breath in the mist, eyes flitting from boat to boat, realizing she had never seen the Hura from the outside. The prow of one of the boats had been carved to look like a great beaked bird. Had Jalileh mentioned that detail?
Dorrie’s ears picked up the regular splashing sound of oars. She squinted. A small boat was being rowed across the water from the direction of the docks toward the bird-headed boat by someone large and powerful with hair as silver as the mist. It was Mr. Biggs.
“Oh no,” whispered Dorrie, cold fear catching her in its talons. There was no time to run down to the docks and try to find another boat. She’d never overtake him that way. Her only chance of getting to the Hura first was to swim there.
Not giving herself time to think, she forced herself to sprint across the beach and into the first little hissing gray-green waves, then on through the waist-high breakers. Staring at the next oncoming wave, she knew if she didn’t dive below it, it would break on top of her. Clumsily, she ducked, her toes clawing at the shifting rocks beneath her feet.
Heart banging high in her chest, she ducked another wave, feeling a spurt of panic as her toes lost contact with the pebbles.
A glance at Mr. Biggs told her he was making good time, skimming over the waves with stiff, efficient strokes of the oars.
Past the breakers now, Dorrie began to swim, trying to remember what it had felt like to be in the water before the night Mr. Biggs had left her adrift, back when she felt strong and fearless. But after only a few strokes, Fear began to speak again.
“You’ll never make it,” it said, each word it uttered further separating Dorrie’s will from her strength.
“Look how far away the Hura is,” said the voice.
Dorrie raised her eyes to where the Hura’s hull rose dark out of the sea.
“You’ll sink like a stone before you get halfway there.”
Dorrie began to flounder, arms and legs thrashing.
Savi’s face wavered before her, and she fought to remember what he’d read to her about Fear. About how to defeat it. Only it was hard to think with the voice as loud as a banshee, telling her to give up, to let the waves carry her back to shore before she died. She tried to shut her ears to the Fear, to fight against it, but she felt herself dropping down. Her head went under.
She felt herself bumped. She imagined Mr. Biggs’s boat running her over, holding her under. Flailing, she fought for the surface and for a moment found air. Mr. Biggs’s boat was still distant, but a few feet ahead, a sleek, dark-whiskered head had also broken the surface of the water.
“Spinoza!” gasped Dorrie. In the refuge of her pure delight at seeing the seal, Dorrie remembered how the young warrior had defeated Fear.
Trying to banish it or slay it or shut it up wouldn’t work. The way to defeat Fear was to let it speak, but choose not to do as it bid. Dorrie felt a surge of energy. She had to decide to swim despite Fear’s talk. Slowly, she began to kick and stroke, her arms and legs taking up their old recalled rhythms. Kick. Stroke. Kick. Stroke.
With Spinoza shooting in and out of the water ahead of her, Dorrie focused on the ladder dangling against the hull of the Hura. She risked another glance back. Mr. Biggs was now only fifty yards from the boat. Dorrie almost sank again as his face registered furious recognition. Asking every tired muscle to work harder, she swam on until with one last tremendous reach, her hand caught hold of the ladder’s bottommost slimy rung.
Arms trembling, she hauled herself up to the next rung and the one after that until she was halfway up the side of the boat. Below, she heard the sound of Mr. Biggs’s boat crashing into the Hura. A glance down showed Mr. Biggs making his way quickly upward, a sack tied to his waist.
Dorrie tried to climb faster, her breath ragged. Below her, she could hear Mr. Biggs closing the distance between them. At the top of the ladder, she toppled over the gunwale and staggered forward, scanning for something to use to fight him off, but it was too late. Mr. Biggs landed on the deck like a great heavy panther. He knocked her backward, and she fell hard on the deck. Before she could get up again, he was standing over her, pressing the point of a flat sword against her chest.
He glared at her, his teeth bared. “How considerate of you to volunteer your services as guide and safe passage ticket.”
The painful prick of the sword point infuriated as much as frightened Dorrie. She longed to send him reeling back with a kick, to hurl the vials into the sea, but he had all the power.
“I wouldn�
�t think heroic thoughts if I were you,” said Mr. Biggs. “Or I shall find it necessary to swear a solemn oath to use someone you love to make my next bottle or ten of Vox Mortis. Maybe that brother of yours? Or that charming little sister?”
Dorrie felt the surge of the outright terror she’d felt when he’d collected Vox Mortis from her in the sailboat. The feeling of a bit of her soul crumbling.
“Get up,” said Mr. Biggs, drawing back the sword just enough to let her roll out from under it.
Knees shaking, Dorrie pushed herself to her feet. Mr. Biggs forced her to walk to the hatch and open it. She hesitated for a flicker of a second, and he instantly prodded her in the back in a way that Dorrie knew had drawn blood. Taking hold of her arm, he dragged her down the ladder.
He stopped for a moment at the archway. “You are now going to take me to the Athens, 399 BCE archway. You will choose a low-traffic route, and should we see anyone, you will remain quiet as a tongueless corpse. Do you understand?”
The thought of doing his bidding revolted Dorrie, but when he shook her roughly, she nodded her assent.
He dragged her into Petrarch’s Library, and they set off. Dorrie pointed out turn after turn, standing obediently silent when a passing pair of lybrarians made it necessary to hide behind a wardrobe.
As they drew ever closer to his desired destination, ideas flashed and fizzled in Dorrie’s head. If she could only find a way to break away from him and grab the sack of vials. If she could only alert someone without Mr. Biggs knowing. She’d never wanted to see Master Francesco more in her life. As they approached the Biblioteca Marciana, a marvelous, desperate possibility occurred to her. If there was any place where she might have a fighting chance to lose Mr. Biggs, it was in the Scooby-Doo Library. She just needed to get Mr. Biggs there.
She stopped.
“Keep moving,” he growled.
“It gets crowded ahead,” said Dorrie.
He pressed the point of the blade meaningfully into her back again. “Choose an alternative route, please.”
She called on the spirit of Marcus for a felicitous lie. “I know a way,” she whimpered, “but you have to walk along a cliff, and I’m afraid of heights.”
The Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks Page 24