by Rachel Caine
The rush of anguish, horror, and fury mixed with the red taste of blood in the air, and she reached for power, any power, to use to strike back.
"No, no, no," Gregory said. "None of that." He touched her collar.
The agony that hit her was like nothing she had felt before. She screamed and collapsed next to the dying young man, and felt his warm blood on her skin as she writhed uncontrollably. She could feel his life seeping away, and she couldn't touch it. Couldn't manage more than a tortured gasp for breath.
She was barely conscious when Gregory leaned over her. His blood-flecked face was framed by black sparkles as she fought to stay conscious. "Consider this a lesson," the Obscurist Magnus said. "I know you're thinking of ways to undermine me. The first time you defy an order from me, any order, someone else will die. I told you. The rules have changed. You and your friends did that."
She gasped for air that seemed thick and liquid in her lungs. Gregory's voice seemed smeared and far away, his face receding down a long, dark tunnel.
You and your friends did that.
And then she tumbled away into the black.
EPHEMERA
Text of a letter from Brendan Brightwell to Jess Brightwell, sent via ship from England to Alexandria. Lost, along with the ship Valiant Isis, in a storm off the coast of Spain.
I'm as bored as bored could be, Brother. Being you is dead boring. I've been given stacks of books, and I'm forced to make some show of actually reading them, since I'm supposed to be you.
You are impossible. How do you ever live with yourself?
I'm sorry to have to tell you that no one misses you. Well, certainly not Da, who rubs his hands together in glee when he thinks about the vast amounts of geneih he's about to make from the Library, and the equally vast amounts of other currencies that are pouring into his banks from every corner of the earth. Your Thomas's press is something of a nine-day wonder. Every unpleasant character from Shanghai to the American colonies has sent emissaries to have a look, and he's gotten quite good at demonstrating the thing. God help us if it breaks, but Thomas left thorough instructions. I'm sure that--as you--I'd be forced into pretending to fix it.
Do overthrow your tyrant and finish this soon. Since you don't have half as much of a fondness for wine, or food, or casual ladies, I'm forced to do without most of the things that make life worthwhile.
Books, Jess. Really?
Release me from the hell soon, or I might just release myself.
PART FIVE
JESS
CHAPTER TWELVE
For a long few days, Jess waited for word. Any word would have been better than the frozen silence from the Serapeum; he'd expected to be summoned for more interrogation, threatened, or--most unlikely--delivered to the Great Archives to begin choosing books for the trade with his father. He waited for any further messages from Morgan, but none arrived. No word from Dario's cousin, either, though he could see from his front door that there were always men and women posted to watch him. Whether they were Library or Spanish spies, he had no way of telling.
Might as well get on with it, then, he thought that morning, as he watched the sunrise and drank sweet, black, thick coffee. He stood in his doorway and leaned there, marking the positions of each watcher. They were as bored as he was. He'd given them no reason at all to raise their alarms, after all. That was intentional.
Jess held one hand down at his side and, with deliberation, spelled out his message in sign: Send Quest now. Santiago had told him that he'd have someone watching for any such communications; Jess could only hope that the agents weren't asleep on the job at this early hour. At least the ambassador had seemed like a serious, competent man. Perhaps he inspired others to be just as alert.
He repeated the sequence of letters five times, just to be sure; it took the entire leisurely drunk cup of coffee, and the entire sunrise, to do it without making it seem obvious. He was praying that none of the High Garda spies could read sign, or at least, not the specific Spanish sign dialect that Dario had taught him.
After he'd thrown the dregs of the cup into the street, he turned and went back inside, shut the door, and waited on Elsinore Quest.
Quest never arrived.
The High Garda did.
His first warning was when the door smashed open and a flood of uniforms rushed through it; he was thrown against the wall with shouted warnings ringing in his ears, and while his face was pressed tight to the rough paint, he listened to them tear apart the house.
"What's this?"
A soldier yanked him back by the collar, slammed him into the chair at the kitchen table, and held up two tightly wrapped packets in thin metallic foil, each about the size of his hand. Jess shrugged. The soldier carefully slit one open and peered at the brown sludge inside, then sniffed it.
"Smoke bomb," he reported to his commander, who stood watching. She nodded sharply. "Expertly made."
"Of course it is. We gave him access to a Codex. He likely has dozens of toys made by now. Tear it apart. Find everything." She turned her gaze to Jess. "I don't blame you. I'd do the same. But others might not be so forgiving."
"I was bored," Jess said. "What else was there to do? Couldn't go out for a stroll, could I?" He finished it with Brendan's best, most charming smile, the one his brother deployed to great effect, and watched it have no impact at all.
"Pity you didn't show a little good faith and patience, Brightwell. You might have lived through this." She shook her head. "Odds are, I won't be seeing you again."
The urge to just run felt dirty and overwhelming, and for a few seconds he allowed himself the fantasy. He could fight. He might even make it to the safety of the Spanish embassy; from there, he could be out of Alexandria on a friendly ship. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the cool salt spray on his face.
And where could he go to escape the guilt?
Running meant leaving Scholar Wolfe to die screaming in the Feast of Greater Burning. It meant leaving Morgan locked in the Iron Tower, forced into a life she never wanted--and that she'd gone back to voluntarily, out of sheer faith in his ability to pull this off.
Run, and you're the worst kind of coward, he told himself. The part of him that was so very good at impersonating his twin, Brendan, argued back, Run, and I'm a pragmatist. It was always a risky plan. It isn't going to work if I'm locked up here, without access, without influence. I can make another plan.
Jess closed his eyes and, in a moment, opened them again. If running was the intelligent thing to do, then he would have to be a fool.
It took the High Garda less than five minutes to strip his little prison down to bare floor and bare walls; they were well trained indeed. They found almost all the things he'd hidden: the carefully sharpened knives, the concoctions he'd brewed from spices and oils to create stinging, blinding fogs; the small, crude still he'd made to brew pure alcohol. The captain set it on the table with raised eyebrows. "That's for personal consumption," Jess said. "I told you I was bored." It wasn't, of course. Alcohol was an excellent base for many things, including firebombs. Hardly as effective as Greek fire, but then, he couldn't make Greek fire out of fruit, sugar, and yeast, all of which they'd provided him as part of his kitchen supplies.
"Clever little criminal," she said. "The worst kind. Get up. Let's go."
He shrugged. They didn't shackle him, which he found interesting, but they closed around him in a cordon and took him out of the house to the street.
They parted to reveal not a High Garda carrier, but a large, formal carriage with the seal of the Great Library on the side and glimmering gold on the brightwork.
"Archivist wants you," the captain said. "Inside."
Quest, you bastard, Jess thought. It was too late now. If the Spanish spies had gotten the message, if they'd passed it on, then Quest had been slow to respond, and there was no longer any use wishing. He knew that this meeting with the Archivist would be something far less cordial than the last.
This would be the r
eal interrogation.
And he would have to survive it without help.
"Coming?" he asked the captain, as he climbed into the carriage. She shook her head. He held out his hand. "You've been fair. Thank you."
For the first time, she let a tiny smile crack her hard surface. "I'm not fool enough to shake the hand of a skilled pickpocket," she said. "Good luck, Brightwell."
She slammed the door, and he heard the locks engage.
Trapped. Doesn't matter, Jess told himself, though he felt the coil of wire in his guts pull tighter. Whatever comes next, you can outwit it.
He had to believe that. If he didn't, this would be over quickly.
The interior of the carriage reminded him, quite darkly, of a carriage he'd entered at ten years old, when he'd first watched a vile man rip apart and eat a book he'd have given his life to save. Ink-lickers. Jess shuddered when the memory crawled up his spine; he hadn't encountered that particular book vice in years, since the Library had been intent on stamping it out. It seemed a uniquely English obsession, so far, and by far the most disturbing one he could imagine. At least as it related to the written word.
He tried not to think about what was coming as the carriage rolled smoothly on. There was no point in trying the locks; they were clearly alchemical, and he was no Obscurist. With time, he might find a way to force them.
He didn't have time.
The carriage had gone for a few minutes when the trap slid back on top of the coach with a bang that made him jump and look up; silhouetted by the sunlight, the driver was just another uniformed Library servant. Jess hadn't looked at him twice before climbing in; he'd been utterly unremarkable.
More remarkable now that he said, "Right, let's go on with it, boy. We don't have much time."
Jess blocked the light with his hand, and the features came into shadowy focus. "Who are you?"
The man sighed. "Truly, I have the curse of a forgettable face. Or the benefit, in my line of work."
"Quest?" Jess felt a jolt of astonishment, with a healthy dose of chagrin; he'd completely missed the obvious. Then again, so had the High Garda, even the commander. Quest had a gift for blending in . . . and a rare nerve, to do it so boldly.
"Well, you did quite generously hire me for a small fortune, young man. Or have me hired, at any rate. I trust I can do as fine a job for you as I did for your Scholar Wolfe in the past, but without quite as much trauma, perhaps. What is it you require?" Elsinore Quest was a skilled Mesmer, capable of convincing almost anyone of almost anything; he'd helped Scholar Wolfe unearth the buried and agonizing memories of his time under Library captivity, in order to pinpoint where Thomas Schreiber had been taken. An ugly task at the time, but a very necessary one.
"Can you mesmerize me on the move? While driving?"
"It's not ideal, but it will have to do. I only have this very special position for a few more blocks, mind you, and then I'll have to exit the box and the regular driver will be restored quite peacefully and won't remember a thing of leaving his post. Don't worry. You won't remember it, either."
Jess opened his mouth to ask details of that particular feat, but Quest continued. "Your very fine Spanish friend relayed me quite a huge pile of Alexandrian geneih, or I promise you, I'd not be wearing this rotten livery and taking such a ridiculous risk, so you must trust me that I know my business. What is it you wish me to do for you?"
Jess told him. Quest was quiet for a long moment, and Jess had the sharp premonition that payment or no, Quest was about to disappear from his post atop the box without another word. Not even no.
Then the man sighed. "I suppose it's possible. Very well. How long do you want it to last?"
"At least the rest of the day. How long will it take to achieve the proper--"
"Shhh," Quest said, and there was something soothing about his voice now. Quiet and still. He was tapping a finger lightly against the roof of the carriage, and Jess's attention was drawn by the rhythm. "Just a little further, Mr. Brightwell. Just listen to the sound of my voice. Listen and relax. Listen and relax, and we will have a chat about all of this, a wonderful and calming chat about your brother."
Jess found himself collapsing back against the seats.
And then he didn't remember anything else.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It couldn't have been more than a few moments before he opened his eyes, but he felt as if he'd slept a full night. All the dull aches drilled into his bones by the stress and worry were gone.
He looked up through the open trap of the door and saw a silent driver in livery. Something about the driver. He'd forgotten what he'd observed, and it no longer seemed important. He yawned and stretched and thought, Well, if I'm going to my gruesome death, at least I'm doing it in a damn cheerful mood.
The carriage rolled swiftly on through the streets; lesser conveyances moved out of the way, pedestrians stepped back, and even the larger, lumbering steam wagons that moved goods through the city made respectful space for their passage. Well, this is posh, he thought. And when did the Archivist become an emperor? Ages ago, most likely, a bit of grandeur and arrogance at a time. Power formed like pearls, in accretion layers over time. Pharaoh's reign had passed, though a ceremonial Ptolemy still acted as a figurehead and kept Egypt's rich history alive. Gradually, inevitably, all of the devotion that the old god-king demanded had landed on the Library.
And now it formed a crown on the head of the most corrupt man ever to hold the office of Archivist.
Da had always said that the corrupt were easier to do business with than the honest, at least; if that held true, today would end in huge profits. And if it went badly, he could always sacrifice himself to remove the old man from the board. Better a bloody, costly victory than a slow defeat for the family. He didn't have a weapon, but he'd make do. His father had taught him early on in life that anything, even a tightly rolled piece of paper, could be effective enough as a weapon. Speed and ruthlessness were the key components of any attack, and he'd need to have both of those if he intended to kill the Archivist; the High Garda and automata would be on him in a second, maybe two, and he had to make it count. If that was what the day required.
No sense in raising his pulse now. He couldn't control what was to come, so he closed his eyes until the steady hiss of the steam engine changed pitch. The carriage was slowing, and the drive was over.
Pity. It was a perfect day outside.
The carriage didn't pause at the checkpoints, which parted without question; the prowling sphinxes there glared in at him with reddened eyes, their eerie human faces reminding him of someone and no one at all. The sphinxes used at the checkpoints were larger than their more common counterparts, and the wings folded at their sides were not at all ornamental. They could fly for short distances, the wings were sharp as knives, and he'd heard rumors that their bites were poisonous. He believed it. The aura of menace coming off these things was especially intense.
There was, he noticed, also a large number of High Garda Elite manning the checkpoint--twenty, by his guess. If there were as many stationed at every side of the Serapeum's pyramid, the Archivist was uneasy.
Good. An uneasy negotiator was an easier mark.
The carriage deposited him in a secured courtyard--more automata prowling--and the driver ushered him out with icy politeness.
Neksa was waiting for him. He felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach, seeing her again. Sweet, lovely Neksa.
"At least if I'm going to die today, I get a last look at true beauty." He didn't even think about the words before he said them, but they sounded right. Felt right. He paired them with an extravagant bow.
As he straightened, Neksa slapped him. Hard enough to rock his head back and inscribe a hand-shaped burn on his cheek, and he blinked back his surprise and somehow managed to hold on to the slipping grin. "Suppose I deserved that."
"Suppose you deserve a great deal more," Neksa snapped. "You are here for the Archivist, not for me. If it were up to me, I'd put
you on a boat back home and drill holes in the hull as a going-away present."
Well, you do care after all, love. He followed her stiff back and swaying hips through a small door at the back of a water garden thick with lotus and found himself in one of the many claustrophobic passages within the pyramid itself. He'd never been inside it, and he marked it for later, though he hadn't seen how she'd managed to open it. Likely it was keyed to the band around her wrist, which would clearly list her privileges and restrictions. Wouldn't work without her being alive and wearing it, of course; the Library wasn't stupid.
If he wanted to use this way again, he'd have to make Neksa an ally . . . or a prisoner. Though he didn't relish that last, but he didn't rule it out.
The looming, arching walls were inscribed with hieroglyphs nearly as fresh as the day they were chiseled, millennia ago, and he resisted the urge to trail his fingers over those sharp edges. History was everywhere in Alexandria. It was in the air he breathed, the stones he walked on. The Great Library had survived the march of time. It gave him some hope that he might survive his day inside it.
Neksa reached the distant end of the corridor--which, he noted, had no branches and he strongly suspected could be locked off at either end with either the airflows blocked or lethal gas introduced. Stepping through to the next room was disorienting, since the next chamber was a huge vaulted gallery filled with twenty-foot-high gilded statues of gods, all marking a path that led to the other side. Horus guarded the end of the row, facing toward them; the giant hawk-headed god stood staring straight ahead with a flail clasped in his right hand. All the gods had been decorated with gold and silver, but Horus's body had been crafted of pure black stone, and the craftsman had taken a Roman approach to showing the perfect musculature . . . an odd effect, and more than a little unsettling.
He was unsurprised when the god's eyes lit red as they approached and the golden hawk's head tilted down to regard them. The flail in its hand was razor edged. It would cut them both in half with a single swing, and Jess watched for any twitch of movement that would signal that was about to happen. Dive for the floor, roll, hope for the best. At least you won't suffer long if you're slow.