Ash and Quill

by Rachel Caine

"So I'm learning," Dario said from across the way. "What good will that do?"

  "Lockpicks."

  "So? You unlock our cells. We're still trapped in Philadelphia."

  "Then I won't unlock yours."

  "I take it back, dear English!"

  Jess ignored him as he bent one of the halves into a tension wrench and the other into the beginnings of a pick. Thomas leaned forward to watch him work. "Do you need help?" he asked, and Jess shook his head. "Dario is right, you know. Opening a lock isn't escape."

  "It's one step toward it, and Dario's never right."

  "You know I can hear you," Dario said. "Because you're talking out loud."

  "Why do you think I said it?" Jess used the fulcrum of a cell bar to put a bend into the pick, then knelt at the door to try out the feel. It required adjustments, which he made patiently, bit by bit, testing the lock and learning its peculiarities.

  "Khalila, are you all right?" Dario asked. His voice had shifted, gone warm and quiet. "I'm sorry for what he did to you. That was vile."

  "I'm all right," she said. She couldn't see Dario from her side. Walls between them. "No damage done. You all stood with me. That matters more." Her voice was steady, but Jess could see her face. She was still shaken, and angry.

  "Well," he said, because he couldn't think of anything other than the obvious truth, "we're all family here, aren't we? It's what family does."

  She took in a quick breath and let it out slowly. "Yes," she said, "I suppose we are. And that means a great deal."

  Jess went back to work on the lock. "Mind you, if I claim you as family, that's a huge step up for me, and probably several ones down for you," he said. "I never said it, but . . . sorry about my father letting us down, everyone. He's always been rubbish as a parent. I just thought he was a better businessman than to let Burners get the better of him in a deal." And sell me out in the process, he thought, but didn't say. It still hurt.

  "That wasn't your fault," Morgan said. "My father tried to kill me, in case you've forgotten. Yours is the soul of family warmth next to him." She sat down on the bunk in her cell and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged. "Oh, all right, I suppose I'll claim the lot of you as my kin, too."

  "Try not to sound so enthusiastic about it," Glain said. "And, no offense, but I have a great father and mother and a lot of excellent brothers, so I'll be keeping them. Still, you make all right friends--I'll give you that."

  Khalila sighed and stretched. "Our time is going to pass very slowly if the only entertainment is listening to you all insult one another, and they won't give us books."

  "I can recite a few books," Thomas said. "If you're bored already." He began sonorously droning some desert-dry text about gear ratios he'd committed to memory while the others begged him to stop, and Jess muttered under his breath and felt the lock's stubborn, stiff mechanism and the unnerving fragility of his picks. Come on, he begged them. Work. He could feel the tension in the pick now and slipped the wrench in place for leverage. Hairpins weren't the ideal material for this, given the weight of the lock, and his fingertips told him the metal was bending under the strain. Needs better angles. He suppressed a groan and slipped the lockpicks free, studying the damage done, then began working carefully to put a sharper bend in the pick. Slipped them in place again, and suddenly, it felt as if the whole mechanism was laid out before him, brilliant white lines shining in his mind's eye. A subtle shift here, pressure there . . .

  With a sudden harsh click, the pick caught, held, and turned.

  Thomas sat up straight, breaking off his recitation, as Jess pushed on the door. It slowly swung open.

  "Mother of God," Dario breathed, and rushed to his own cell door to wrap his hands around the bars. "Well, come on, you beautiful criminal! Let us out!"

  "Changed your tune, didn't you?" Santi said. "Jess. That's enough."

  "Yes, sir." It was tempting to step out into the hall, very tempting to go try his luck on the outer door's lock, but he knew Santi was right. He grabbed the loose door and swung it closed, held it there with his boot jammed through the bars while he plied the pick again to refasten it. That was easier.

  "No, no, no!" Dario hammered the heel of his hand on the bars, a racket Jess could have well done without. "You fool, what are you doing?"

  "He's biding his time, which you'll also do, quietly," Santi said. "We need time to recover and regain our strength. We need to win their trust, scout the city, and make a decent plan of escape. That's going to take time, and some measure of trust from our captors. We earn none making a useless attempt now."

  Dario must have known that was true, but his frustration was sharp enough to cut the air, and he hit the bars one last time and flung himself onto his bunk. No arguments, though. Not even Dario was foolish enough to rush out without a plan.

  Santi made it sound easy, Jess thought, but it wouldn't be. None of it. And he had the unpleasant thought that after escape, if they made it out of this city, then they were still in America, far from help.

  Still, having the small length of metal in his hand, and a bit of control, quieted the storm inside his head from a hurricane to a grumble of thunder. The thunder was muttering, It's useless; the metal won't last; the picks will break. What then?

  Out of nowhere, he remembered something his father had told him when he was just a child. When all the world is a lock, boy, you don't make a key. You become a key.

  Brightwell wisdom. Sharp, unsentimental, and right now, something that settled the last of his worry. For the time being.

  EPHEMERA

  Text from the volume Liber de Potentia, addressing the dangers of unregulated Obscurists. For full reading only by the Curia and Archivist Magister. Certain sections available to the Medica division.

  . . . the toxic effect of the overuse of Obscurist abilities. This is most clearly and dreadfully illustrated by the case of French Obscurist Gilles de Rais. While trained in the Iron Tower, he left of his own accord to return to his family lands (n.b., for this reason we recommend no further releases, even for compassionate reasons, be allowed from the Iron Tower). He then used his great talents not in the service of the Library, as he was sworn to do, but in raising up a French warrior to do battle against the English for purely partisan reasons.

  De Rais used his God-granted quintessence to reckless and extravagant excess in keeping Jeanne d'Arc alive and well protected; while there is no doubt the woman was a born fighter who would have done the High Garda great credit had she been drawn to its service, his constant use of power to strengthen her armor and heal her wounds took the inevitable toll upon them both.

  De Rais's power increased, as is typical for an Obscurist allowed to hone his skills without restriction, but as Aristotle himself observed, that which comes in contact with contaminants is never again clean. His healings began well enough, but as the rot inside him took hold, his touch brought madness, fevers, and, ultimately, the downfall of his own sworn champion.

  Retreating to his castle, he swore to resurrect the fallen Jeanne. Corrupted from within, and maddened with it, he enacted a resulting horror within those walls that is a thing of terrible legend. That he was eventually purged by fire by his own people can only be seen as justice.

  His case is, therefore, a stark warning to those who believe that Obscurists may be left on their own to manage their power and duties unchecked. Inside the Iron Tower, Obscurists use their powers in a careful and constructed way; the very metal of the Tower itself acts to limit their ability. To this end, and with the dark example of Gilles de Rais before us, we must recommend that all Obscurists be forever confined to the Iron Tower, save for specific missions that lead them beyond its protection, and on those rare occasions, that they be carefully watched. Should any signs of danger emerge, the Obscurist must be immediately and decisively prevented from any further use of power until natural healing, if possible, might occur.

  While contamination may be reversed in early stages, it nevertheless poses a grave threat n
ot only to the Obscurist who carries it but also to all those nearby.

  Power holds always the hidden edge of threat.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In the morning, well before sunrise, Jess woke and started a systematic inventory of the cell, down to the stones, mortar, and bars.

  Thomas overflowed his narrow bunk, hands folded on his chest, and his breathing seemed even and calm, but in the dim light seeping through the high window, Jess saw he wasn't asleep. Thomas's blue eyes were open, staring at the ceiling--but not a blank stare. His mind was all too active.

  "What are you thinking?" Jess asked quietly as he stood on his bunk and pulled at the iron bars on the cell window. He kept it to a neutral question, because it was likely that the other young man's thoughts were on the past. These cells were cleaner than the Library's, and thus far refreshingly free of torture devices, but the similarities still chilled. He couldn't imagine what being imprisoned dredged up for Thomas, who'd endured months in that hell.

  Thomas let two slow breaths pass in and out before he said, "I imagine they'll try to take Morgan first."

  That was far from what he'd been expecting, and Jess swung down to the floor with an almost noiseless hop. "Why do you say that?"

  "The Burners may hate the Library, but they're not stupid--at least, not this nest of them. They've resisted for more than a hundred years, and turned the American colonies into boiling pots of trouble on all fronts for the Library. Beck will fully understand the advantages of having a pet Obscurist. She could help them in their terrorist operations, repair their Translation Chamber, create their own Codex . . . They could build their own splinter version of the Great Library here in Philadelphia, but under their own control. They have original books, I imagine. What they need is an Obscurist. The rest of us . . ." Thomas shrugged. "We're only a bonus."

  A new voice said, "We must use skills to our advantage." That was Khalila, who perched on the edge of her cot near her cell's door. "Our knowledge is our value. We have to make them see that."

  "Did you not hear the part where they're likely to take Morgan by force?"

  "Morgan is right here, and quite tired of being talked about as if she's some delicate treasure," Morgan said. "I'm in the least danger of all of you; Thomas just eloquently pointed that out."

  "Is nobody asleep?" Jess asked in exasperation.

  It drew a dry laugh from Dario's cell, though the Spaniard didn't bother to rise at all. "Have you tried finding a comfortable position on these devil's excuses for beds? Khalila's right. Work with the Burners, or escape. Those are our choices."

  "There is no working with them," Scholar Wolfe said. Jess couldn't see him; he was on the other side of the stone wall to Jess's left. "There is appearing to work with them, and that is a means to a greater end than just survival. We need to have a goal of escaping not the cells, not the building, but the city. Even after, we must have a plan for what comes next. Make no move without knowing at least three ahead."

  "I have a plan. Build my mechanical printer," Thomas said. "Use it to break the Library's hold on knowledge. That is a good plan."

  "That isn't a plan, my poor engineer. That is a goal," Dario said. "A plan is steps we take to achieve the goal. You know, the boring part of being clever."

  "I know how to build my part," Thomas replied. "Which is more than I can say of you, Dario."

  "Gentlemen, didn't we agree we are family?" Khalila said.

  "I argue with my family," Dario said. "But yes, desert flower. I will do better."

  "Agreed," Thomas said. "I apologize. I'm sure Dario has some skill I'm not aware of."

  Khalila almost laughed. "Then let's proceed. Beck isn't stupid, or overly fanatical, or he wouldn't have survived as their leader this long. So . . ."

  "So we offer him something he won't find in the books he confiscated from us," Jess said. "As Thomas said. The press."

  Dario made a rude noise. "Stupid idea. Once he has the plans, he has no need of us."

  "You forget, he's got no need of us now," Wolfe said. His tone was as heavy and sharp as a guillotine blade. "The only one of us he actually needs is Morgan. The rest of us are--as Thomas so correctly put it--bonuses. He has to want us alive."

  Thomas still hadn't moved from his deathlike stillness on the bunk. His gaze hadn't varied from the shadowed ceiling. "Then I don't give him the plans. I build the press first and prove to him it works," he said. "And Jess builds it with me. Along with Morgan, that gives us three Beck can't kill, and it buys us time."

  "He'll accept that for you. Jess is just another pair of hands."

  "I hate to say it, but Beck does need me," Jess said. "Not for my brilliant mind so much as his own survival. Have you looked around this so-called town? It isn't staying alive on its own merits; the buildings are half ruins, the people all but starved."

  "A hundred years of unrelenting siege will do that," Santi said.

  "And they don't survive on whatever meager crops they raise in here. At least, not completely."

  Santi's voice turned contemplative. "I see your point. This town survives on smugglers getting them extra food and supplies."

  "Exactly. And those smugglers will have ties that lead back to my family, one way or another. I'm more valuable for what I represent, once Beck knows who I am. I'm worth better terms and more supplies. Or the reverse, because if he kills me, he loses his flow of supplies."

  "Nice for you," Dario said. "That last bit is particularly good. I mean, better chance of us escaping in the chaos, of course, if you want to volunteer as sacrificial goat."

  Jess replied silently. With a gesture.

  "Getting beyond these walls will be a much greater challenge," said Santi. "The walls have been standing for a hundred years--treated by an Obscurist, most likely, to withstand Greek fire and other, more conventional bombardment. Plus, there are no fewer than four full High Garda companies stationed around the walls of Philadelphia, and they're constantly on watch. My own company--" His voice broke a bit, as if he'd only just remembered that they'd abandoned everything to save Thomas, including his position as a High Garda captain, and so, his soldiers. "My own company spent a year here some time ago."

  "About that," Dario said. "I'd have thought the impressive armed High Garda could defeat a few hundred Burners inside a half-ruined city in less than a week, never mind a hundred years."

  "Standing orders from two Archivists back," Santi answered. "The American colonies have always been a powder keg of dissent. Burning Philadelphia could set the whole continent ablaze. Containment is the policy, with occasional bombardments."

  "And I assume you had run-ins with smugglers."

  "Of course. We caught hundreds of amateurs. Most were fanatics caught trying to fling supplies over the walls."

  "Any of them ever use one of your ballistae?" Jess asked.

  "What?"

  "To throw supplies. I would have. Could get a lot over in a couple of quick tosses."

  "Thank God you were not advising them." Santi sounded amused at that one. "Jess--I'm all for using your family's reputation, but don't push Beck too far. He might kill you just to make the point that he doesn't need your father's goodwill. He has an ego."

  "You sound as if you know him," Jess said.

  "I should--we study him. He's survived here, head of a desperate group trapped like rats, and he's kept order by being equal parts clever and ruthless. His math is very cold: he doesn't keep anyone alive, wasting resources, who doesn't gain him something."

  Khalila said, "Scholar Wolfe, Dario and I can interpret the books we brought from the Black Archives; I know Master Beck was quite excited about those. Most of the books are in dead and obscure languages I doubt anyone else in Philadelphia can decipher. That might give us some protection, at least for a time."

  "That still leaves Glain and Santi," Wolfe said. "And I'm not giving them up."

  Glain groaned sleepily and said, "Would you all just shut up and let me rest? We're High Garda. We'll survive. Ch
atter when the sun's up, you wretches."

  "Do you want us to sing to you?" Dario asked.

  "I swear to my gods and yours, Dario. Shut. Up."

  After that, it went quiet again. Some of them, Jess sensed, did go back to sleep. Not him. Not Thomas. Jess went back to a fingertip search of the cell, mind as white as a snowfield. His father had taught him how to look for hidden panels and triggers doing this, but the same principle served for anything you were looking to discover. It just took patience and focus.

  From time to time, he glanced up at Thomas. The other young man hadn't closed his eyes. He looked . . . dead. But Jess had no doubt that the mind inside that skull was whirring at top speed.

  Jess finally paused his search. He'd covered most of the cell, and his back was on fire, his fingertips raw from scraping them over stone. He sat down on the floor to lean against his friend's cot. "You all right?" He whispered it softly enough that it wouldn't wake Thomas if he were asleep.

  But he wasn't at all surprised to get a reply.

  "To be truthful, I'm glad you're here, Jess." He didn't say the rest, but Jess could guess. Being trapped in a cell again, even surrounded by friends, wasn't good for him. Thomas had endured torment in that dark hell underneath Rome; he'd survived unimaginable things, and it had taken a toll. Jess wanted to ask, but he knew better; there was a gulf between what they could say and what they would say. Best to keep things simple. Thomas was fragile, raw inside and out, and the ugly truth of it was they needed him strong if they were going to survive Philadelphia.

  Thomas said, "Would you stay there while I sleep a little?"

  Jess looked over his shoulder and saw that Thomas's gaze had shifted to him. Neither of them looked away, and Jess finally said, "I'll stand watch."

  It was, he thought, exactly what Thomas needed, and with a sigh, the big German closed his eyes and let himself finally drift away.

  Jess fell asleep, too, despite the hard stones under his behind, and the chill. He dreamed he was a guard at a gate, and the gate was on fire, and he knew, he knew, that what waited beyond it was something terrible and monstrous and impossible to defeat. But that he'd have to fight it anyway. The hopelessness of it overwhelmed him.