There was still time.
Hannah’s eyes darted from side to side. As long as the glass cupola stood, she had a feeling she could risk going inside. She had to try.
The librarian squatting on the ground grabbed Hannah’s elbow, his eyes foreboding. “No,” he said.
“My daughter is in there,” Hannah wrested her arm free.
“Do not let the Parabolani see you,” he pleaded. “We have lost so many already.”
Hannah swallowed hard, her heart pounding audibly in her ears.
She looked back to the Great Hall, pulled the cloak tightly around her body, and pushed her way through the mass of bodies to the doors, calling Alaya’s name and checking every face that emerged for Synesius or her daughter.
As Julian’s skiff crossed the harbor, a floating piece of flaming debris from one of the ships blew into his sail and it caught flame. With no other choice, he dove over the side and swam in the direction of the library. He moved in slow motion as each stroke through the black seawater seemed to bring him no closer, the heavy sword weighing him down. Arm over arm he stroked toward the docks until finally he could pull himself up on the wharf.
Crouching, he paused for three breaths to regain his strength, then sprung to his feet dripping wet and raced across the crumbling wharf toward a window in the west wing of the Great Library.
It was open.
Julian hoisted himself up and landed on his feet inside, the smoke rushing into his lungs. He coughed and drew his robe across his face. This level of the library was still relatively intact, but elsewhere, waves of blue and orange flames climbed the walls and devoured the staircases. Papyrus scrolls like flaming birds swirled and plunged through the air. The fire spiraled around the stone doorways like hungry serpents encircling the trunks of massive trees.
The heat pushed Julian down to his knees as the blaze shook the building all around him, but the fire itself was not yet upon him. He stayed low and swiftly made his way through the narrow library passageways, presuming that anyone who was still in the structure had to either be here in the west wing or the basement. With the meeting of the council on Antirrhodus, Julian knew that the Nuapar who had been guarding the library had mostly been called to protect Orestes and the other magistrates who would be meeting there. He hoped Hypatia still had a few men with her. He knew the Nuapar would protect her.
Then the little hairs on the back of Julian’s neck prickled to attention and he instantly knew he was no longer alone. In keen awareness, Julian let his attackers approach and then swiftly drew his sword and turned.
Three Parabolans stood before him, their eyes wild with bloodshed, their strong hands brandishing freshly stained swords. With cries of battle they leapt on him, only to be disappointed that he slipped between their advances like water through open fingers.
They had not even a moment to realize what was happening as he spun upon them. The first priest fell with his throat slit, the second collapsed with Julian’s sword impaled in his gut. The third advanced on Julian with a war cry but he stepped aside, grabbed the priest’s wrist and turned his own sword upon him with an accuracy Achilles would have envied. The priest fell dead, his eyes wide open, unaware that life had even left him.
Then, without a backward glance, Julian pulled his sword free and ran on ahead. As he reached a staircase leading to levels both above and beneath him, he paused and shut his eyes, calling out to Alaya in his mind, though he knew he might not hear her reply.
He chose to descend the stairs and proceeded through the trembling halls, listening intently, but he heard nothing save the roar of the fire approaching.
Around a corner that led toward the lecture hall, a little cry reached his ears. He closed his eyes and paused to listen.
Then it came again. A child’s cry. His eyes flew open.
“Alaya!” Julian raced down the long stone hall, descended a flight of steps and then another, to a dead end.
He had to backtrack and try again, calling out as he ran.
He flew through another passage and met seven men at its end. These were no Parabolani; they were hardened priests Julian knew from the stories told to him by Master Savitur. The enormous, dark men were the priests of Nitria, from deep in the southern desert, a Christian monastery where the men trained as warriors. They stood seven feet tall, their chests wide as war horses.
The priests plunged ahead, determined to see Julian die. Armed with swords and short knives, they raised their weapons for blood.
Julian had trained all his life for a moment such as this one. He slowed his perception of time, and watched the men race toward him. With precision he ducked and spun to face them, impaling two priests, their bodies falling to the ground. The others spun and attacked.
These priests were the only men in Egypt trained to the level of the Nuapar. Cyril himself had lived with them in his youth. Julian knew that if Cyril had called them, by the hundreds they would have responded. The library was bound to be full of them. If he was too late, there had already been a massacre.
The priests raised their swords and attacked Julian. But in that instant, Master Junkar remembered his initiation, and the abilities that had come to him in the hour of his duel. He closed his eyes and as the swords of the priests plunged into his body, he disappeared. The priests looked around in confusion.
Julian found himself projected several passageways over, somewhere near Hypatia’s study. The narrow staircase before him led to an underground room that held the reference codices for the philosophy stacks. As he flew into the room, a little figure in the corner looked up.
It was Alaya, crouched in a ball clutching her knees, crying. When she saw her father, her eyes brightened, but she did not move. There was another figure beside her on the floor, collapsed.
“Master Junkar,” she said, her little voice quavering.
Julian raced toward her. “I heard you,” he said, sweeping her up in his arms.
“Synesius.” Alaya reached toward the figure on the ground. “The bad men hurt him.”
Julian looked down to see his brother, lying on the floor, blood soaking his robes. He quickly bent down and touched Sy’s throat. It was warm. His pulse was weak, but he was still alive.
Alaya whimpered, her tiny arms clinging to Julian’s neck.
Mother of Zeus, how could he take both of them?
He sheathed his sword.
“Alaya, hold on. Do not let go,” Julian said as he shifted her so that she could ride on his back. Then he bent down, took his brother in his arms, and stood.
“That way!” said Alaya, pointing through an open doorway.
They ran awkwardly through a long passageway until it came out beside a stairway leading up.
They were beneath the Great Hall.
Julian could hear the roar of the fire behind the walls, and his ears became uncomfortably hot. He ran up the stairs and froze, the thick metallic scent of blood reaching his nostrils. There before them lay the tragic battle scene.
“Alaya, shut your eyes,” he demanded as Alaya screamed and buried her head in his shoulder. Hundreds of bodies lay scattered in pieces all around the room, dismembered, unrecognizable, the carnage of the Parabolani and the priests of Nitria. Blood soaked the floor in pools of entrails, brains, and shards of tile and glass. There were ordinary tunicas here as well, mostly men. So the Christian mob had joined them. The wine-red robes of the librarians lay scattered about the room like fallen spirits, among them, the robes of several Nuapar monks. Those in the library had been clearly outnumbered by the Christians. Through a window beyond the corpses, Julian could see the shimmering pools of the Caesarium gardens.
They were almost outside.
He raced across the floor, slipping in a pool of blood and then righting himself. Alaya opened her eyes and she began to cry.
“You are dreaming, Alaya,” commanded Juli
an, his breath short. “You are going to wake up in your mother’s arms and all of this will be gone. Shut your eyes tightly and keep them shut.”
She obeyed.
Julian picked his way through the bodies and burning scrolls. As he came around another corner, his foot broke through the floor and he fell to his elbows, dropping Synesius as Alaya shrieked. A searing pain flashed through Julian’s leg and he clenched his teeth, bearing down on it. As swiftly as he could, he freed his ankle and scrambled to his feet. He tried to walk forward, but his ankle wobbled beneath him, unable to take the extra weight.
“Dear brother, I will return for you,” Julian said as he laid Synesius against a wall just outside the Great Hall. He would have to get Alaya to safety first.
Limping, Julian swept Alaya into his arms and rushed through the Great Hall as the flames consumed the eastern wall.
As he stepped through the doors they were met by the crush of warm bodies and the cool air from outside that flooded their stinging lungs. Julian hobbled as fast as his legs could carry him toward one of Cleopatra’s Needles, the stone obelisk rising above him into the night like a promise that something would survive this night.
“Stay here, Alaya,” he said, setting her down gently.
“I want Mama,” Alaya cried. “Do not leave me!”
“I have to go back for Synesius,” Julian said, stroking Alaya’s hair back from her cheek, but as the words left his lips, there was a deafening crash as the glass cupola above the Great Hall came down, shattering into a million pieces.
There was no way to go back.
Julian dropped to his knees and swept Alaya into his arms, tears sliding down his cheeks.
His brother was gone.
Hannah wound her way through the west wing of the library, calling for Alaya, for Synesius. When the glass cupola fell, the ground beneath Hannah’s feet trembled with the force of an earthquake. She grabbed the nearest wall to steady herself, and suddenly, a rush of hot wind blew in from behind her.
The library had become an open furnace.
Hungry flames spread through the structure in search of fuel. There was no way for Hannah to go back the way she came.
Hannah pressed the hem of her himation to her nose as she ran through the empty passage before her toward the lower stacks. As she ran, the bones of the building around her trembled. The heat was becoming far too great, even on this side of the library. Her body was quaking with fear, but it did not matter. She would not leave the library without her daughter.
Hannah looked down to see the shard of the Emerald Tablet glowing. She touched it and remembered the meaning of the inscription: Soul immortal, no fire can burn thee, no fate can change thy eternal truth. “God be with me,” she whispered, reciting the inscription as she drew on strength deeper than she had ever known, and turned and faced the flames.
Hannah reached with her mind into the heart of the fire, concentrating on her daughter. All around the room where she was standing, the blue flames soared across the walls like vertical ocean waves.
Hannah’s eyes flew open, knowing what she must do. Her father had long ago told her the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three Jews who had been thrown to the fiery furnace to die. But the angel of the Lord had been with them. They had danced through the flames. Hannah centered herself, and closed her eyes, clutching the emerald shard around her neck. And she walked through the wall of fire. Around her the flames leapt at her, but she moved through them unharmed, only her hair and clothing singed. When she opened her eyes, the fire was behind her. She ran down a flight of steps as one of the stacks collapsed around her, and came out in a passage with a door at one end that led to the zoological park. Behind it was a tunnel that Alaya loved to play in. At the other end it opened into the butterfly enclosure.
Of course!
Alaya would have gone to her favorite sanctuary. Hannah tried the door, but as she did, she heard a clashing of swords in the passage behind her.
Then Peter, Cyril’s reader, emerged from the passage, wiping his bloodied sword on his robes. He saw Hannah, and a wicked grin spread across his jaws. He lifted his sword, the thirst for bloodshed in his eyes.
Hannah looked around herself for a weapon, and without thinking, yanked the shard of the Emerald Tablet from her neck and, using the leather strap as a sling, flung it with a shepherd’s practiced ease.
The shard struck Peter at the base of the throat, piercing him straight through. Gurgling, unable to breathe, Peter staggered from side to side clutching his neck, then toppled sideways to the floor, his blood pooling as his eyes turned to stone. He was dead.
Hannah tugged the shard from his flesh, and thought to take Peter’s sword with her for protection. The relief of seeing Peter dead was something she did not have time to indulge.
When she came out beneath the Great Hall, she paused and looked toward the mathematics stacks, where she saw a body lying against the wall, surrounded by flaming codices toppled from the shelves in the dark hall behind it.
Hannah dashed over to the figure on the ground.
Synesius.
He opened his eyes and looked up at her, smiling weakly and then shutting them again.
“Sy!” Hannah screamed for joy and threw her arms around him.
He groaned in pain.
“Alaya, where is Alaya?” she asked, but he was too weak to reply.
Suddenly, Hannah looked at her hands, her arms, covered in blood. Then she looked down at Synesius’s body and saw the laceration over his chest, the edge of one stark white rib jutting from beneath his bloody robe.
Hannah clenched her eyes shut, her hands shaking. “We must go,” she said as a wall behind them gave way and a surge of heat from the flames burst into the room.
Hannah helped Synesius to his feet and they shuffled through the passageway, the heat of the fire on their heels.
When they reached the door at the other end, Hannah pushed but it was locked.
“Oh, please open,” she whispered, inhaling sharply as her fingers fumbled until they found the key.
With a click, the door opened.
They emerged into the cold, smoky darkness to find that the nets had already been thrown off of the butterfly enclosure to free them.
“Alaya!” Hannah coughed desperately, awkwardly supporting the weight of Synesius’s body with her own. “Alaya!”
Panic seized her heart. There was no reply.
“Alaya!” Hannah screamed. “Where is my baby? Alaya! Alaya!”
The entire library and harbor were aflame. Ashes fluttered through the air like grey butterflies. Most of the people had already fled to the beach. A few brave souls remained behind to help rescue the wounded. Anyone else left in the library at that point was surely gone.
Out of the darkness, a haggard old man with a long grey beard rushed headlong down the path toward Hannah and Synesius, his sword drawn. As he pushed past, Hannah looked into his eyes, barely recognizing him. “Alizar?”
He stopped instantly. “Hannah, praise Zeus, you are all right!” He threw his arms around her.
Hannah sighed. “Are we dead then?”
“No,” said Alizar. “Gideon freed me from the tower.”
“Did he get the tablet?”
Alizar nodded. “It is concealed now within the crypt of Cleopatra.”
“But what of the fire?”
“It will stand.”
Hannah’s eyes glazed. “Have you seen Alaya, Alizar? Have you seen her?”
“No, she must be at the beach with the others. Come.” Hannah nearly collapsed as Alizar took the weight of Synesius’s body and put one of his arms around her. She let him guide them to the beach, where together they searched the sea of people for her daughter, but Alaya was nowhere to be found.
Hannah lifted her eyes to look at the roaring inferno that had j
ust that day been the Great Library of Alexandria. Friends and strangers all around her did the same, watching their entire lives go up in flames. She could not speak. A pain seized her that was so enormous her body could not even contain it.
Gideon found them on the beach, his head low. Hannah collapsed in tears as he held her, his arms wrapped around her to keep her from breaking free. Though she struggled and screamed at him hysterically to let her go, he held tight. He was not going to let her go now, not for anything.
There was no feeling of time passing for any of them that night, as if eternity cloaked the city in one endless, inescapable moment. Hannah could feel the cool moist sand beneath her body, Gideon’s strong, warm arms holding her, the tight constricting pain in her chest as she coughed. She could hear the sound of people talking, wailing all around her. It hardly seemed real. Philemon came to look at Synesius. She could see his lips moving as he inspected the gash and bound a cloth around Synesius’s chest after sewing him shut. He shook his head from side to side and clucked his tongue.
Shadows and silhouettes mingled on the sand. Someone said that half the city was on fire. People stood around in shock, unsure of what to do. Bodies of loved ones were being dragged to the beach and piled in front of the surf so that corpses could be recognized by their families.
Alaya, oh, Alaya.
Tears poured down Hannah’s cheeks as she sobbed helplessly, screaming at Gideon to do something, but what could he do? He was as helpless as she.
Pages and pages of the world’s irreplaceable knowledge fluttered through the sky over their heads. Severed scrolls rained down upon the people on the beach. Sentences trailed off at charred edges. Meaning burned to ash.
Hannah could not breathe. Sobs choked her throat. Rage burned in her blood. Her lungs ached terribly. She pressed her eyes closed against the pain, against the atrocity, the impossibility. Had she not dreamed this moment? A million birds, their wings on fire, flailing on the wind. The night before the slave traders came to Sinai, she had seen it all with no way of knowing what she had seen.
People came to see who was alive.
Written in the Ashes Page 42