I snorted.
But Gibson cut through it all. “Sabine has spent a good deal of time offworld—not so much as you, of course—but she’s much younger than Crispin is now. And Alcuin believes she’ll do well on the throne. Says she’s the right temperament for it.”
“A cold, evil bitch, is she?” I asked, bitterness rank in my voice.
“Kwatz!” Gibson exclaimed, and raised a hand to mime striking me. “That is not worthy. Of you or her.”
Chastened, I bowed my head. “You’re right.” We sat, the three of us, in unsteady silence for some time, the light from the strange wall sconces shimmering across stone. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m never going back.” For all they had done in shaping me, Delos, Meidua, Devil’s Rest, and my family were as good to me then as the figures of a fairy story or half-remembered dream. In truth, figures from fairy stories, figures like Simeon the Red, like Kasia Soulier, like the Cid Arthur and even old Cassian Powers . . . like Kharn Sagara most of all . . . seemed somehow more real by the light of that gleaming algae than did my own flesh and blood.
“I am sorry to tell you like this,” Gibson said, and a wry, very unscholiast smile crept across his aged face. “Seem to be doing a lot of apologizing, don’t I?”
“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” I said.
The old man wrung his hands again. “I didn’t ask last night: how long do you intend to stay here? Not that it’s really my business.”
“ ’Tis!” Valka said. “And we’re not sure.”
“The Emperor more or less ordered me to stay out of the public eye indefinitely,” I said. “After Breathnach, Bourbon, and the rest.”
“And the Colosseum,” Valka added, as if I could forget.
“And the Colosseum.”
Gibson leaned forward and put a hand on my arm. His scholiast’s control had reasserted itself, and his face was grave and empty. “Then we should count ourselves fortunate. I have missed you, my boy.” He turned on Valka. “And you are someone I am very interested to meet. Hadrian tells me you’re a lay scholar?”
Valka beamed. “A doctor. I studied xenology and archaeology at Isana University on Edda, my home.”
“That’s in the Demarchy?” Gibson asked. “Wonderful. And you study these things? The Quiet?”
“The best I can,” she said, “as I’m sure Hadrian’s told you—the fossil record is . . . sparse.”
Gibson drank his tea. Leaning toward me, he said, “Hadrian, I don’t think you could have found someone more qualified to help answer your questions than this.”
“Don’t I know it?” I said, and smiled at Valka.
She smiled back. “For the past several decades, I’ve mostly studied the Cielcin, of course. They seem to worship the Quiet, did Hadrian say?”
“He did,” Gibson replied. “The Watchers, was it?”
“Yes,” I said, “but it may be the Quiet are only one god or set of gods among many to the Cielcin.”
“The Makers, do you mean?” Valka asked. “We know so little. Practically speaking, most of what I’ve done since I met this one is translate text and analyze artifacts collected from the battlefield. For Legion Intelligence.” She smiled, and I detected a trace of the old glass-cutting sharpness in that smile. Sharpness and the bitter taste of mockery—but whether mockery of me or of herself I could not say. “ ’Twas not how I expected to spend my life.”
The old man was nodding along in understanding quietude. “It never is,” he said. “If you had told me when I was a boy that I would be a scholiast and tutor the sons of a minor house for two generations . . . and that one of them would go on and be a Knight Victorian and battle xenobites, I would have laughed at you.” He held the clay teacup between his twisted, bony hands. I did not dare interrupt him. I could count on one hand the number of times Tor Gibson had made reference to his earlier life. “I told you once, Hadrian: we are all pawns.”
“Even the knights,” I said, and laughed.
“Even the Emperor,” Gibson cut in, “as I’m sure you noticed.”
I thought of William XXIII, a prisoner of his rituals and his court, subject to the will of his counselors and the winds of political necessity. Such a wind had made him send me away.
“A Servant of the Servants of Earth,” I said, reciting that last and seeming least of the Imperial titles. What had I told Alexander? “Noblesse oblige.”
“You’ve learned much since I left you,” Gibson said, nodding approvingly. “You’d have made a good lord.”
“Now I never will,” I said.
Gibson raised a finger. “The lessons I taught you are as salient for a knight as they are for a lord. You’ve not wasted anything.”
“It’s not that,” I said, looking to Valka. “It’s . . . when I left home, I wanted to be like you. I wanted to be a scholiast. I wanted to see the galaxy and learn and teach, maybe do good. I thought I could make peace with the Cielcin, but I failed.”
“With two princes,” Gibson said. “How many are there?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it won’t matter. They don’t want peace.”
“We don’t know that,” Valka said. “ ’Tis much we don’t know.”
I could only shake my head. “I’m not so sure.”
But Gibson was smiling. “Whatever happens, Hadrian my boy, I have faith in you. Beneath all this finery and those scars you are still the young man I knew. You will find a way. And you will find the answers you are looking for.” He stood suddenly, moving with a swiftness I’d not guessed was in him—forgetting as I often did that he was palatine beneath those wrinkles and that weight of years. “And I’m going to help you.”
“You are?” Valka sounded delighted.
“Yes, dear lady,” Gibson said, taking up his cane. “Four years is hardly time to familiarize myself with the Library—but I am an Archivist all the same. And I’ll not have my star pupil stumbling through these shelves alone. The minute Arrian approves this extraneous paperwork of his, I’ll help you with Gabriel’s Archive. I’ll have a word with the primate.”
I stood too, in part from surprised joy, in part concerned for the old scholiast, afraid he might fall over. “You must come meet the prince,” I said. “I was hoping to get him some instruction while he’s here.”
Owlish eyes blinked at me. “I’ll speak to Arrian first and be along.”
“May I have a word with you, sir? Gibson?” Valka asked, standing herself. “Before we climb up?”
Gibson swiveled to regard her. “Of course.”
I threw Valka a curious look, but she waved me down. “I’ll wait outside.”
* * *
They joined me beneath Imore’s statue, and we went together back along the scroll hall and up through the silo to the main building. Gibson took his leave of us outside, tottering off toward the hierarchs’ offices toward the north wall.
I watched him go, bent but still tall, leaning on his cane all the while.
“I still can’t believe it’s really him,” I said.
Valka’s hand squeezed mine. “I like him. I can see where you get those old-fashioned manners of yours.”
“Courtesy is timeless,” I said, and for once Valka neither argued nor laughed.
“Are you all right?” she asked me.
“I’m happy,” I said, and truly meant it. “What did you ask him about?”
She disentangled her hand from mine and wrapped the arm about my waist. “I didn’t ask him anything,” she said, looking up at me, bright eyes wide in her pale and lovely face. How had I ever thought her severe and unpleasant? She reached up and kissed my cheek. “I just wanted to thank him.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
CHAPTER 57
GABRIEL’S ARCHIVE
“I AM SORRY FOR the delay,” Tor Arrian said, standing behin
d his desk while his daughter scribbled in her ledger. “The forms must be obeyed. William knows this, and should have sent this letter . . .” here he touched a sheaf of telegraph vellum printed with the official seals and fractal codes in the vermillion tradition required of such documents, red as blood, “. . . with you. This delay might have been avoided.”
We had a full month for the paperwork to clear. The letter was straightforward enough, but the security codes were so data-dense that the telegraph—which could only transmit and receive data one bit at a time—had taken days to send and receive. The rest of the delay had no doubt been due to delays on Forum. The Emperor’s time was limited and subject to demands that even I can scarcely imagine, and even the direct line he’d given me—shared only with his personal staff, men and homunculi trusted above all others—was not sufficient to extract a swift response from Honorable Caesar.
“No matter,” I said.
“ ’Tis given us time to explore your wonderful institution,” Valka added, shifting in the seat beside me. “Truth be told, I could have waited another month.”
Though he made no expression, I sensed the primate approved of this statement as he moved from behind his desk toward the fire. “No materials may be carried out of Gabriel’s Archive, you understand. No recordings made. No copies.” He fixed his Imperial green eyes on Valka. “I understand, Doctor Onderra, that you have Tavrosi implants that allow you to record what you see. I cannot take these from you, and as His Radiance’s instructions make reference to your being granted permission to the Archive as well, I cannot bar you access. But understand that the information contained within it subject not only to our Strictures, but has been proscribed by the Writ of the Chantry as forbidden. Sharing that information is a capital offense, one which the Chantry would mount an invasion of the Demarchy to avenge. I trust you appreciate the gravity of this fact.” It was not a question.
Valka nodded.
“The Mericanii nearly destroyed humanity with their machines. Their evil cannot be allowed back into the universe. We preserve the knowledge and the artifacts the God Emperor and His servants collected after the Foundation War because it is our duty. But we have a duty to mankind as well, to preserve her against the dangers represented by that same knowledge. Lord Marlowe, if you or the doctor or any of your people violate that trust, I will have no choice but to recommend to the Chantry that you be handed over to the Inquisition. Am I clear?”
Still seated, I bowed my head. “Yes, primate.”
“Good,” Arrian said. “You have His Radiance’s blessing, and that counts for much. But we are playing with fire here. I have spoken with your Tor Gibson. He says you were a student of the Classics?”
“I still am.”
“Then permit me to offer you a word of advice.” The primate clasped his hands behind his back in an uncanny impersonation of the Emperor. “Not even Prometheus could play with fire without being burned.”
I could sense Valka’s amusement beside me, but for myself I shared the primate’s absolute gravity. I may not be a devotee of Chantry religious thought—few palatines truly are, I think, preferring some watery agnosticism with a few frozen bergs of devoted language over top—but I shared the Imperial horror of the Mericanii the way a child who fears the Dark looks askance at shadows even as an old man.
“I understand,” I said.
* * *
The scholiast ahead of us carried a glowsphere aloft in his hand. The device did not float as so many others did—for even the simple mechanisms of a Royse field were forbidden inside the walls of the athenaeum. Valka followed close behind with Tor Varro while Pallino and Doran followed with two others of my guard. We moved slowly down the spiral stair, feet rattling the old iron beneath us. Gibson kept us slow, one hand on the smooth rail, the other wrapped round my arm to steady him.
The light swayed, and its holder said, “Gabriel’s Archive is some of the oldest construction in the entire complex.” The speaker was Tor Imlarros, an old man himself, and the Curator tasked with the keeping of Gabriel’s Archive and the keeping of the keys. “Never thought in all my days I’d see the doors opened. Not been open since Aramini’s day—that was when Gabriel II ordered it built and sealed.”
“Aramini?” Valka asked.
“Tor Aramini was the architect. Designed this place. He was Gabriel’s own brother—the primates are usually frustrated princes, you know?” The light bounced and swayed as we descended. Similar lights—like lonely stars—drifted among the stacks on the iron levels as we descended, the mark of some lonely scholiast at his labors. “It was Aramini that designed the locks.”
“On the archive, you mean?”
“Those too,” Imlarros said. “But I mean the ones that hold the sea back. We’re below sea level here. You won’t have seen them, but there are great channels that run ten miles from the coast to here. We keep a reservoir filled. The novices go fishing, but that’s not what they’re for.”
He said this last bit with an ominous quality that all but forced Pallino to shout down from his higher step. “The hell does that mean?”
“The reservoir sits on top of Gabriel’s Archive. They’re meant to flood the chambers if anything ever tries to . . . you know . . . get out.”
“You couldn’t!” Valka sounded horrified, and stopped on the steps a few beneath Gibson and myself.
Imlarros did not break stride. His thickly accented voice drifted upward. “Those were Gabriel’s orders.”
“And destroy the archives?” Valka objected. “What do you mean get out?”
“You have to ask?” Imlarros replied. “Possibly there is some artifact of the Mericanii sealed in Gabriel’s Archive.”
Valka’s brows knit together. “You think there’s functional Mericanii technology in the sealed archives?” she asked. “And your Tor Aramini’s plan was to drown it?”
“Who said anything about drowning?” Imlarros asked. “The reservoir is meant to shield the rest of the compound from the radiation.”
“The what?” Valka almost screamed.
“Chantry’s orders. There are atomics planted between Gabriel’s Archive and the rest of the compound. The water is meant as insulation. To protect the Library above.”
Valka’s words came back tighter, more controlled. “That’s totally barbaric.”
Imlarros shrugged again. “There is no cause for alarm, doctor. We do not think there is any danger, not after so many years.”
“Famous last words,” Pallino remarked from the rear.
“The Chantry is thorough. They tolerate our operations, but the scholiasts have always made them uncomfortable. Religion and science are old enemies,” Imlarros said.
Gibson cleared his throat, and in a thin voice strained by the descent, said, “They’re not, brother. Only fools think so.”
For a third time, Imlarros shrugged. “You are a philosopher, are you not, brother?”
“And you’re an engineer,” Gibson replied, apatheia cracking with the strain of the climb. “Stay in your house.”
We came at last to the lowest level of the silo. It ran deeper than I’d thought, deeper than the tower above was tall, with halls opening far into the rock of the mesa all around, tunnels honeycombing the living rock, connecting to natural caves like those the Archivists made their home in. The floor was strange, not tiled or planked but a single piece of fused, glassy stone that flowed into the walls at the extreme edges. To one side, a space stretched high-ceilinged and wide as the silo itself, half a mile across. The omnipresent shelves fat with books and scrolls and other documents that lined the levels above were here too, pressed against the walls and into simple rows running straight across the flat floor, bolted to the glossy stone.
“The doors are up ahead,” Imlarros said, leading the way with his bobbing lantern. He led us along the opening, shadows retreating from the orb in his hand. “This tun
nel extends for about half a mile beneath the reservoir.”
“ ’Tis the archive at the far end?” Valka inquired.
“Yes,” Imlarros answered her, “But it stretches all the way back to the core shaft and wraps around it in a big circle At least . . . according to Tor Aramini’s blueprints. I have never seen them with my own eyes.”
The doors ahead were like the doors of a hangar, huge and metallic, shining dully in the light of our glowspheres—for as we walked Varro and Valka alike shook lights of their own to life.
“Marvelous!” Valka exclaimed. “Simply marvelous!”
They must have stood fifty feet high, and nearly three times as broad. Massive gearworks studded their face and ran to either side. Somewhere along the passage’s half-mile expanse, the walls had narrowed, funneling down until they stood nearly the width of the door.
Tor Imlarros approached these doors, keys jangling from a chain on his belt. Presently he produced three huge iron keys—more medieval they seemed to my eye than any artifact of the Fifth Millennium and Gabriel’s day. He inserted each into a lock in turn, each twenty paces apart. By the rightmost one he stopped and pulled a series of levers in the door’s face.
“Brother Varro, Brother Gibson, we must turn these at the same time. Would you oblige me?”
“I can do it!” Valka practically leaped forward.
Imlarros raised a hand. “I would prefer it if my brother scholiasts assisted me, doctor. Stricture.” He said this last word as if it explained everything, which I supposed it did.
I helped Gibson forward, and the old man placed one knobby hand on the key.
“Are you all right?” I asked. His hand was trembling.
He glanced at me. “Fear is a poison,” he said, and to my astonishment, spat on the stone at our feet.
Perhaps I had not gotten my sense for the dramatic from my mother at all.
“On three, brothers!” Imlarros’s voice came from our left. “One. Two. Three!”
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