Smoke and Iron

by Rachel Caine

  No off switch. Not there, where it should be. Unless the Scholar had deliberately removed any chance of shutting the evil thing off. I'm dead, he thought. Time seemed to stretch. He saw the sharp claws extruding out of the lion paws; they were an instant away from gutting him, and if those teeth got a good hold, it would rip his throat out in a bloody spray.

  In that moment, he remembered something. It came in a sudden rush of light, color, sound, smell . . . as vivid as if he were there again, standing in Thomas's filthy cell beneath the streets of Rome. Drawings etched on the walls and on dirty scraps of paper.

  A beautifully detailed automaton.

  Thomas designed this thing. His plans.

  And a circled notation with two words.

  It might be nothing. It might be everything.

  Jess gasped in a breath and whispered, "Pax Romana."

  The sphinx blinked its red eyes, stopped, then pivoted and soared up to a perch at the highest point in the workshop, on a stout wooden scaffold. It perched and settled with a hissing ruffle of metal wings.

  The light went out in its eyes.

  "No!" the Scholar cried below, the one who'd set the thing in motion. He was only a few years older than Jess, but in that moment, terror made him sound like a child. "No! He has to die! Why--"

  He picked up a sharp knife from the bench beside him and ran, but it was a useless effort. Whether he was on the attack or running for his life, it didn't matter; he was shot dead in two steps and collapsed heavily to the floor. There was a hole the size of an apple in his head, and when Jess looked up, he saw one of the High Garda was lowering a rifle.

  The Archivist was pale and sweating, and as Jess turned toward him, the old man stumbled and caught himself against a wall, then slid down it. That was the face of a man who'd seen his own death, and clearly, and didn't care for the warning.

  Jess crouched beside him and tried to check his pulse, but the Archivist struck his hand away. "Don't touch me," he said. "What did you do?"

  "Nothing," Jess said. He hoped that the Archivist, in the press of the chaos and fear, hadn't heard the whispered words. From the wonder in his eyes, he hadn't. "I thought it was about to gut me like a fish. Thing must be broken."

  "Broken," the Archivist repeated, and looked past him at the now-still automaton. Its eyes were dark and empty. It might have been an inert statue, and perhaps now it was, after those words. Jess's heart felt like it was exploding in his chest with every fast beat, and he smelled the rank, burning stench of his own sweat now.

  "Yes, yes, of course, you're correct. It was malfunctioning." The old man gulped in several shallow breaths, and some color crept back into his face. "It couldn't defeat the safeguards I had put in place. There was no real danger. It could never have actually harmed me."

  Jess felt a bitter burn of a laugh deep in his throat, but he swallowed it. "Didn't know that," he said. "Thought I'd best look after my family's interests."

  "So you did, lad. So you did. Whether there was any risk or not, you showed extraordinary courage. I won't forget it." The old man held out his hand, which was trembling, though his voice had taken on its veneer of calm again. Jess grasped it and pulled him to his feet.

  If he expected more effusive thanks, he was disappointed; the Archivist turned and stalked to the High Garda soldier who'd put the bullet in the Scholar's head, snatched the rifle away, and flung it into the corner. "You. What were you thinking?"

  The soldier was a young, muscular woman who had the look of South Asia to her features, and she clearly didn't expect to be attacked for what she'd done. She took a half step back, shot a wide glance at her commander, then raised her chin and snapped to attention. "Sir, I acted to prevent the danger from reaching you."

  "The danger? That idiot was half a room away. How do you think we'll learn anything from a man with half his brain on the floor?"

  "Sir--," the High Garda captain began. It was a mistake. The old man hated having seen his mortality and his own fear. Would have been far wiser to keep out of his notice.

  "Quiet!" The Archivist's shout was full throated and vicious, and the captain froze. All the soldiers went to attention, instinctively. "Is that how you train your best soldiers? Because these are the best, are they not? Or are you trying to have me killed as well?"

  "No, sir." The captain's face was rigid, his eyes glassy and narrowed. "I would give my life to--"

  "I only saw one life being thrown in the way of that thing, and that was a criminal's. You're demoted, Captain. Get out of my sight." The Archivist spun toward the woman who'd fired the shot. "You have an hour to depart the city, or I set a sphinx to hunt you down. Get out. I won't have you in that uniform. Go back to whatever backwater province the Library found you in."

  Whatever resentment they felt, whatever shock, the soldiers took it without expression now. Both nodded and left through the door Jess had entered.

  Another soldier took a solid step forward. He briskly opened his Codex and wrote inside it. "We will escort you out of here, sir."

  "You will not. Get another team in place to take me home. You're all sent back to the High Garda. If any of you had been fit to be Elites, you would have prevented this from happening at all."

  It was a breathtaking, petulant show of power. The Archivist had just destroyed the careers of a dozen people who had risen through the ranks and were accounted the cream of the High Garda Elites . . . for what? The worst of it was a failure to wound, when all their training had been instructing them to instantly kill anyone who raised a hand to him. The whole thing was petty and brutal.

  That, Jess thought, is how you destroy the loyalty of the High Garda. He knew how passionate these soldiers were about their duty, about their ideals . . . but here stood the man who personified those ideals, and he was as flawed and petty as any other. If he'd been a good leader--and he must have been, once--he'd long forgotten how to inspire.

  He could only punish in the hope of keeping his uncertain grip on the reins of power.

  "Sir," Jess said, and bowed when the old man's sharp gaze pierced him. "Do you want me to write a report to you about the Alexandrian smugglers?"

  "Yes. Go. You may requisition the appropriate supplies. Neksa will see you are given approval."

  "Then, I'll be on my way."

  "Yes. Jess?"

  It was a good job that Jess was looking away at that moment; the situation had rattled him, and Jess nearly answered to it.

  But the extra beat gave him a second to set himself before he looked up, innocent and grinning, to say, "Got me confused with my brother again, Archivist. But I won't hold it against you."

  "Yes." The Archivist's eyes were as cold as death. "Yes, of course. Brendan."

  Then he turned and walked out, waiting for a bullet to find him, or a sphinx's claws. The sound of his boot heels seemed very loud. Very final.

  Then he was down the hallway and up the ramp and in the clean outside air, and he gasped and took a moment to lean against an ancient stone column and thank whatever gods were looking after him these days.

  No. Not gods.

  In the moment when he knew he was about to die, it hadn't been a god who'd come to him. It had been a memory of Thomas.

  What made him finally move was not the frowning faces of the guards protecting the carrier, or the angle of the sun; it was the knowledge that Thomas depended on him. So did Wolfe, and Khalila, Glain, Dario, Captain Santi.

  And Morgan.

  He looked up and found the black spire of the Iron Tower. Birds circled it, though none landed; whether that was Obscurist power or the material the thing was made from, even they had the good sense to avoid it.

  He walked toward the gates and past the carrier, and though the guards surely would have shot him dead yesterday, today they let him pass. He owed consideration to the dead Scholar below, with his useless attempt at rebellion. And he couldn't waste the gift that man's blood had given him: the trust of the Archivist and the freedom to move without con
straints.

  It was time to start a war.

  EPHEMERA

  Text of a letter from Dario Santiago to Khalila Seif. Destroyed by Santiago without delivery prior to their departure from England.

  As you well know, lovely flower, I am rarely at a loss for words, but you have a way of turning my own flaws against me, and my own virtues, too. Though which of those my eloquence might be, I leave to you to decide.

  I'm setting this down on paper because I know that in the moment, when I am looking at you and I know that the course of my life rests on the words you will say . . . I don't know if I will have the courage to speak my mind. No--not my mind. My heart. You know I protect that particular organ with more care than any other; I hold everyone at a distance, partly because I genuinely find it hard to care for people, and partly because I was hurt often when I was young. Always by those closest to me.

  I say that not for sympathy--why would you have any for that? Everyone has been hurt--but because I need for you to see that I want the opposite with you. What began as flattery and, yes, a casual kind of lust, has become something entirely different. I treasure you. I honor you. I know that you are nothing I deserve, and everything I want in my life.

  And so, I intend to ask you to marry me. I will do it at the very worst moment, because I am hopeless and stupid in such things, and I fully expect you will tell me with all kindness that you would rather become a nun than marry me. (Does the religion of Islam have nuns? I apologize. I should know this by now.)

  But I will ask. And when I do, please know that I stand before you an honest man, with my heart for the first time wide-open. I know you can pierce it with a word.

  But better dead at your feet than never having tried.

  There, my eloquence is back.

  Perhaps this will go better than I expected.

  PART SIX

  KHALILA

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Khalila wrote letters to the families of dead men while sitting in a lush hotel waiting room in Cadiz, after begging sheets of paper and a good pen from the desk clerk. Outside of the hotel's windows, a storm still raged, but the force was slowly dying. The ship that had delivered them would be departing soon, seeking cover in the last of the gale.

  The captain had been paid very well to report that all of the prisoners had been killed during a rebellion and thrown into the sea . . . and Anit would make certain that he kept his promises. Whether the Library would believe the captain's report or not, the truth was unprovable at the moment, and that would sow confusion and buy time. But the clock should be moving quickly, and instead, here they were: waiting.

  "You shouldn't bother with that now," Dario said from where he watched her write. She was currently writing in Portuguese, to the family of a sailor from Lisbon. "There'll be a lot more men lost before this is done. And the sailors on that ship would have killed us, you know."

  "And I would hope they'd seek forgiveness for it," she replied. "But I am not responsible for their souls, only for mine."

  "Of course." He didn't understand that, she thought, but at least he respected it. And she respected him for it. "At least it keeps you occupied. I should have known his envoy would be late. Typical royal punctuality."

  "The weather is foul out there, and you're too impatient. Have some of . . . what is this again?"

  "Tortilla de patatas," he said, and cut himself a broad slice of the round egg dish. "Eggs and potatoes. Delicious."

  "And that?" She pointed at something that resembled a bread tube. He cut off a piece and handed it to her. She forced herself to chew and swallow. It was better than she'd expected. She'd eaten a bite or two of the tortilla, enough to keep hunger at bay but not enough to feel she was sated. She didn't want to be comfortable, not while writing the news of a person's death. It seemed wrong.

  "Bluefin tuna. You like it?"

  "It's good. But I'm not very hungry."

  "I'll be happy to finish it." His tone was light, but he was restlessly shifting and staring grimly at the lobby doors. "I hate wasting time. While you're scribbling and I'm nibbling, God only knows what's happening to the others."

  "Thomas and Glain? Captain Santi?"

  "You're deliberately misunderstanding me."

  "Apparently." She signed her name to the bottom of the letter, folded it, and put it into an envelope she'd already marked with the family's address in Lisbon. "You're usually less concerned about the fate of Jess Brightwell."

  "That's because my ultimate survival generally doesn't depend on him."

  "Dario."

  "Mi amor, it isn't that I don't care what happens. He's a good ally. A fine one to have at your side. I even count him as a friend. Is it wrong to say that in other circumstances, I doubt our paths would have crossed except when he steals me blind?"

  She shook her head. Dario was in a foul mood, scowling now at the doorway and toying with the pearl earring dangling from his left earlobe. He'd traded someone aboard the ship for it, or else won it at dice. She preferred not to know. It did suit him, though. So did the clean new clothes he was wearing--black shirt, black trousers in a particularly attractive cut that she really shouldn't have noticed. A flash of red lining in his coat. He looked accustomed to the best, and the only thing spoiling it was his unmistakable anxiety.

  Khalila said, "No, you aren't wrong. It only shows that Allah's given us a great gift in blessing us with such interesting people."

  "Allah hates a thief, I've heard."

  "So does God, I believe. And yet, here we are, in debt to one."

  Dario's scowl deepened, and he sighed. "Don't remind me, flower." He paused for a moment, then burst out, "If the fool's gone and gotten himself killed--"

  "Then we will have to make it our mission to rescue Morgan and Scholar Wolfe," she finished for him. "And bury our dead friend with honor. Yes. I'm sure that is what you were about to say, since you are an honorable man at heart, Dario."

  He sent her a quick, apologetic glance. "Am I?"

  "For the most part, you aspire to it, and that is all anyone can ask. Now, would you do me a service and take these letters to be mailed?"

  "Anything to keep me occupied," he said, and took the handful of envelopes. "You wrote for all of us? To all the families?"

  She felt a hard pull of guilt inside and blinked. "As you said, those men would have killed us all or sold us into the hands of the Archivist without a second thought. But that doesn't make it right. And the families deserve to know."

  "I'll never understand you," he said. "I doubt Santi writes letters to the families of soldiers he kills in battle. Only those he loses from his own side."

  "You're right--I don't," Captain Santi said. Khalila had glimpsed him coming down the stairs from the third floor, where they'd taken rooms; no doubt Glain was still on duty there to guard their space. "But she's not a soldier, and it's a good habit, remembering that every life we take breaks dozens more. It keeps us from killing when there are other options."

  "Fine, then, I'm outvoted and half a monster . . ." Dario's voice trailed off, and the silence made Khalila look up and follow the direction of his stare. "Dios mio, he hasn't just sent someone; he's actually come himself. That's why we've been cooling our heels so long."

  "Who's come?" Santi asked, and she could see him changing his stance subtly, bracing for a fight if one was brewing.

  "The king," Khalila said softly. She could see the cordon of sharply dressed soldiers who surrounded the golden carriage and who now peeled away to form an armed wall on either side of the hotel doorway leading between the carriage door and the entrance. She stood up and belatedly rubbed ink from her fingers against her dark dress, thanking Allah she hadn't chosen the sky blue fabric today. The deep purple hid all sins. "Did you expect this?"

  "Well." Dario didn't seem to quite know how to feel. "We were close when we were children, but I didn't expect him to stir out of Madrid. Still, the King's Train to Cadiz, coach to here . . . he's only put himself out a couple of
hours at most. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on it."

  The hotel front doors burst open, held back by two soldiers who, despite their shimmering, perfect livery, looked well capable of killing everyone in seconds, and then the king of Spain swept in.

  He was nothing like Dario. For one thing, he was a plain young man, very nearly ugly, with narrow, close-set eyes and a nose that flattened too broadly . . . and yet, the smile he aimed at them was wide and warm and erased all such shallow thoughts. As he strode toward them, she realized he was a short man, shorter than she was in her flat boots, and he wore gold shoes with significant heels to raise him above his natural height.

  But he strode like a giant and dazzled like a gem, and when his gaze flashed to her, she felt like the sun had burned through clouds.

  "You must be Scholar Seif," he said, and came straight toward her, ignoring Dario. "It is my delight and honor to meet you."

  She bowed--just a little, enough to show her thanks, not enough to show subservience--and it must have been correct, because the king's smile grew even wider and warmer. "Sire, I'm not certain I'm at all worthy of your time, but I do appreciate your words."

  "Not worthy? Nonsense. You and your friends are moving the balance of the world. Did you not realize how significant that is?"

  He was, she realized, not simply flattering. There was real intent in those sharply intelligent eyes, and a message despite his warmth. She felt some of the dazzle lift, just as Dario said, "Honestly, Cousin, could you please not sweep the love of my life away on your glittering golden wings?"

  Without breaking his smile, but somehow markedly shifting it, the king turned on one heel to face Dario. "You have never shown any weakness in the area of the ladies. But I do congratulate you on finally choosing one who is so considerably better than you deserve. She's having a good effect, I hear."

  "It's not my business to rehabilitate him," Khalila said. "Nor the business of any woman. Should he improve himself, then it is his own doing, and not mine. Respectfully. Your Highness." She added that quickly, in case the king of the country in which she stood might take offense.