Ash and Quill

by Rachel Caine

  "I hear your anger!" Beck shouted, and lifted his hands for quiet. Rain bedraggled him, like it did the rest of them, and gave him less of an imposing presence. He had mud on his shoes and trousers, and his glasses were beaded and blind with water. "My people! I hear it and I understand it! We knew better than to trust the Library, or any of their creatures, and that was my mistake! But it is a mistake we will rectify, now! Come with me and see for yourself!"

  That . . . didn't bode well at all. Jess flexed his fingers and eased one of the guns out and to his side. Beck pointed--bafflingly--off to the side, and his guards began hustling the prisoners in that direction.

  Khalila was still last in that line. Beck and his attendants were striding down the steps, leading the movement wherever they were heading, and Jess took the chance, as lightning struck again, to slam the butt of his pistol into the neck of the guard who held Khalila. He staggered and turned and started to draw his gun.

  Thunder shook the world and drowned out the sound of Jess shooting.

  The man went down, and Jess quickly rolled him to the side and off the steps behind a row of bushes. He grabbed hold of Khalila and held her as if he were hustling a prisoner, but at an angle to the others. "Make way!" he shouted, and the crowd surging off to follow Beck parted for him. Some cast filthy looks on Khalila. One tried to slap her, but Jess reached out and shoved the other woman away.

  He got Khalila down to the grass and moved her into the shelter of a shadowed corner, where they crouched together. He took the coat off and put it around her.

  "No! Jess, keep it!" She was trembling, but it was cold, not fear. "You'll need it to get the others!"

  "What is all this?" he asked her. "What happened?"

  "Food riot," she said. "We were getting the books. I gave everything to Dario and Glain and told them to go. The mob went to the prison and took Morgan, and Wolfe and Santi tried to stop them. I couldn't get them free. I tried. These people are frightened and angry, and they blame us for the crops rotting in the fields."

  "Crops rotting in the fields," Jess repeated. They'd cut the rations days ago. But he remembered something Morgan had said. And something Wolfe had said, too. Unintended consequences. The way that suddenly, everything had accelerated.

  "We have to go behind city hall, through the fields," he told Khalila. "If we get separated, find your way to the building at the far end, near the eastern wall. Thomas and the others should be there. I'll fetch Morgan, Wolfe, and Santi."

  She grabbed his collar as he started to rise. Her dark eyes were wide and worried. "Can you?" she asked him.

  "I have to try."

  She flung herself into his arms and kissed his cheek. "Allah guide and keep you, my brother. We'll wait for you."

  "Don't," he told her, and held on just a moment more. "Promise me you won't. I need to know you'll be safe."

  She shook her head as she stepped away, and gave him that beautiful smile he loved. "I will never promise to abandon you," she said, and turned and ran into the rain. It was still heavy enough to hide her in seconds.

  Jess looked up at the sky, the flickers of lightning, and rain stung cold against his skin. He let it wash him for a few brief heartbeats, and then he went up the steps to city hall, kicked the door open, and drew his guns.

  There was no one inside city hall, which didn't much surprise him; he ran straight across the marble entry hall, the crudely done Burner seal, and kicked open another set of doors just beyond. It led to what must have been offices, but these held only a few startled clerk types, who cried out and dived for cover as he ran past. Through the far glass windows, he could see the back stairs of the building, and a broad swath of grass . . . and the fields. It was the first time he'd set eyes on them, and even though they were obscured by the rain, it was clear that Philadelphia was in real trouble. The plants looked black. Wheat, corn, all of it.

  No wonder there were no rations. No wonder Beck was looking to place the blame. And no wonder the people were in a rage. Beck asked Morgan to increase their crop yields, Jess thought. And they'd seen her in the fields. It wouldn't have taken but one or two voices to start the outcry that Morgan was to blame for it.

  Jess skidded to a halt and looked for doors, but all he saw were windows, and he had no time to bother with niceties. He picked up a handy sculpture--a bust of one of the Burner leaders, he presumed--and hurled it through the nearest plate of glass, which shattered with a gratifying crash that sprayed sharp points out to be lost in the rain. He dived through and nearly slipped on the wet landing, but he gained his feet again, made sure the guns were in place, and jumped off the edge of the steps to take shelter. The mob, led by Beck, was coming around the corner now, marching toward him. He knew Beck. He knew he'd want to make a production of their justice.

  The wind shifted and blew toward him, and Jess gagged on the unmistakable smell of decay. It was coming from the fields. This was far worse than he'd imagined. There was something dark and awful about seeing these crops corrupted in the soil, battered and broken by the rain. A stand of apple trees not far from him held nothing but balls of black rot, and the trees themselves looked pale and diseased.

  Morgan had done this without meaning to. And they were shoving her, Santi, and Wolfe up the steps just as he'd expected, while the mob filled in the space between the steps and the fields. The rain was starting to slow a little, but the fields were a stinking mass of rotten plants and mud, and no one seeing it could fail to understand that they were going to starve this winter.

  Beck needed a scapegoat, or it would be his head on the chopping block.

  The Burner leader took Morgan by the arm and marched her to the edge of the stairs, showing her to the crowd. It was easier to hear him now, and his voice seemed to have come back to full strength again. "This creature is the traitor who destroyed our crops--an Obscurist, sent by the Library to poison our food and force us to submit! We trusted her! We allowed her safety and shelter and our good welcome. I ask you, good people of Philadelphia: what punishment do you demand?"

  The answer roared back from a hundred throats: death. They were going to kill Morgan. They'd tear her apart.

  Jess tried to breathe against the weight of suffocating fear. Think. Find a way out. He didn't see one.

  Beck moved on to Wolfe. "This one is her master and her protector, a full Scholar of the Great Library! A Stormcrow, sent to us to destroy us! What punishment, good people?"

  Death. They took it up as a chant this time, and the power and fury of it chilled harder than the rain.

  Santi was next. Sworn enemy of our city. Captain of the High Garda. Murderer of our children.

  And the sentence was obvious.

  Beck turned to the three of them, and Jess saw him smile. It was a terrible, cynical thing, and it made him tighten his grip on the two pistols he'd drawn. "Make her bring back our crops," Beck told Wolfe, "And I'll let her live."

  "I will," Morgan cried out. "I'll fix this if you let them go!"

  "She can't fix it," Wolfe said with ruthless precision. "Nothing can bring back the dead. You believe in the Christian teachings, Master Beck? Well. You reap what you sow."

  Beck hit him. Backhand, a viciously fast blow that rocked Wolfe's head to one side and left him spitting blood. Santi snarled and tried to pull free, but he was too weak.

  "You reap what you sow, you filthy crow," Beck said. He swung around to glare at Morgan. "Last chance, girl. Save our crops, and save their lives." Beck pulled out a pistol and leveled it at Santi's head. The captain looked at the weapon, then past it to meet Beck's eyes.

  "I will not say it again, girl," Beck said. "Bring back our crops. Or I'll kill this man right now, and his blood will be on your hands. I'll save the Scholar to burn alive and screaming. Do you hear?"

  Santi said, in a deceptively calm and unbothered voice, "None of this is your fault, Morgan. No matter what happens. In bocca al lupo, Christopher."

  Wolfe took a sharp, sudden breath, and whispered, "Crepi il l
upo, dear Nic."

  It meant good-bye.

  Jess stood up, but he had no shot, no clear one; he could see a sliver of Beck, but not enough to aim for, not enough to do any good, but he had to shoot . . .

  And that was the moment when sirens began to wail beyond the walls.

  The tone was different. Louder, higher, more dissonant than before. And an amplified voice with an Alexandrian accent spoke first in English, and then repeated the same phrase in German, Spanish, more languages that Jess didn't even recognize.

  But the phrase would be the same in all of them.

  The Great Library declares no quarter will be given.

  Philadelphia was about to die.

  EPHEMERA

  Urgent directive from the Archivist Magister to commanders of all High Garda surrounding Philadelphia You are ordered to disregard previous instructions on the preservation of the city, its occupants, and the capture of the Burner leaders. For the safety and preservation of the Library, you must bombard the city immediately with all speed and all strength, with no regard for casualties or for damage.

  Let the city of the Burners be reduced to ashes. Let no living thing remain.

  Let it burn.

  Text of a letter from the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus to his son. Available in the Codex.

  My son, these are the ways of brothers: you must reach the outer limits of virtue before you die. You must trust the man at your back and to your side. You must joyously run to the fight, and never from it. Do these things, and you will be both a good man, and a brave man.

  And the brave never die. Mark this well: the brave never die, for we remember.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jess took his finger off the trigger, and thank God he did, because he knew he would have killed someone he didn't intend to hit, his hand was shaking so badly. The mob had gone from rabid to panicked in a breath, and now they were starting to scatter. Now to run, slipping on the slick grass and in the mud. Desperate to get to a shelter.

  Jess lunged forward, got Beck square in his sights, and very nearly killed him. Would have, if the guard Indira hadn't fired on Jess first. Her bullet hissed close enough that he felt the heat of its passage, and the shot intended to put Beck down went wide.

  Beck still had a gun of his own, and now he realized he was under attack. He turned and sighted on Jess.

  Santi hit the man with his uninjured shoulder, hard enough to lift Beck clear off his footing. Santi slammed him down on the steps. Beck landed with a bone-cracking thud, screaming.

  Now Indira had two enemies, Santi and Jess, and a hesitation of which to target cost her dear. Neither of them was quick enough to get her.

  Wolfe was.

  He turned, slipping out of his guard's hold with a grace that would have been unexpected to anyone who didn't know him, and just as easily plucked a knife from the man's belt. As he spun, he threw with an accuracy Jess knew he'd never equal, and the knife tumbled in a perfectly stable arc, end over end, to bury itself in Indira's chest.

  She shot anyway, but shock disrupted her aim, and the one directed at Santi went wide, to pock a hole in the marble wall. She looked down in disbelief and then took hold of the knife and started to pull it free. She didn't manage more than a fraction of it before she was folding at the knees, and then down.

  Beck was screaming where he lay on the stairs, one leg at a drastic angle, but he had no weapon and was no threat now, and Jess, Santi, and Wolfe all turned on the guard holding Morgan.

  He let go and ran. Morgan lurched forward, nearly falling, into Jess's arms.

  "What is this?" she shouted over the awful keening of the sirens. "What's happening?"

  He didn't have time to explain. Even thinking of it made him sick. Santi tried to reach for Wolfe, but the Scholar shook him off and rushed down the steps, past Beck, to kneel next to Indira.

  The woman was still alive, Jess saw. Wolfe bent and said something to her, and put his hand on her forehead. Her lips moved, and her eyes closed, and he jerked the knife free with one fast motion.

  She died quickly, then. Fast and clean, as she probably deserved. Indira wasn't their enemy. Beck was, perhaps. But most of these people . . . They were just frightened and desperate, and it had all gone so suddenly, devastatingly wrong.

  "What can we do?" Jess shouted to Santi. Santi shook his head without taking his gaze from Wolfe, who was wearily rising. "Sir!"

  "We go," Santi said. "There's nothing else to be done."

  Morgan wasn't strong enough to run, even with Jess's help; he picked her up and carried her as they moved through the muddy, stinking, dead fields toward the outbuilding near the wall. Halfway across, Jess had the feeling that someone was following, and looked behind them.

  It was the doctor. Askuwheteau. He was approaching at a slipping, stumbling run, and he was leading a small column of people, including the woman Jess had met at the doctor's home. His housekeeper. "Wait!" Askuwheteau called. A young child tripped and fell, and the doctor, without pausing, scooped him up and carried him. "Do you have a way out? Please!"

  Jess looked at them. People of Askuwheteau's native blood, he thought, and a number of others who must have put their faith in him. This is mad. It'll get us all caught. "Yes," he said. "Come with us. Hurry."

  Wolfe and Santi were ahead of them, and though Wolfe gave Jess a stern look when he saw the stragglers trailing in his wake, he didn't say anything. Santi opened the door of the building--a barn, made for the storage of grain--and gestured them all in. He clapped the door shut behind them.

  A lamp came alive with a soft hiss of flame, and it cast a smooth golden light over Khalila Seif's face. She took in a deep breath of relief at the sight of them. "How did you get free? I thought--"

  "Doesn't matter now," Wolfe said. "Go. Go. Once the sirens stop--"

  And as if he'd commanded it, the wailing came to an abrupt end. Echoes shattered back from distant walls, and then it was ominously silent. Not even thunder broke the stillness. They looked up, though all they could see was the dark roof overhead.

  The paralysis broke when Jess heard the first thin, high whistle of a ballista bomb. He remembered that hellish sound all too well. He'd heard it in Oxford, in England, and he'd seen what a no-quarter bombardment by the High Garda really meant. "Go!" Jess shouted, and they were all moving for the back of the building, where Khalila slid aside a door wide enough for a hay cart. They were only a short distance from the wall.

  And the wall was unbroken.

  Thomas wasn't there.

  "Where are they?"

  Jess turned on Khalila.

  "They aren't with you?" she demanded in turn. "Thomas and Glain never arrived! Dario went to fetch them, I thought--" She pulled in a sudden, agonized breath. "Does Beck have them?"

  "No," Jess said. "He'd have shoved them in our faces if he did." Thomas, you fool, what are you doing? "Glain and Dario went to get the books?"

  "Yes! They're here!" She pointed to a stack of bags and packs near the door. Familiar ones. They'd carried them from Alexandria to London to here. "Glain went to get something else, and Dario went after her. I never saw Thomas!"

  But Thomas, Jess thought, had seen the others and decided they needed help. Without Thomas, without that device to melt a hole in this wall . . .

  "I've got to go find them," he said, and ignored the protests that burst out of Morgan, Santi, Wolfe. Khalila said nothing, and he kept his gaze on her. "If the building goes, stay near the wall. Ballista bombs don't drop straight down; you should be safe there."

  She nodded, though they both knew that if the Library had declared no quarter in the battle, the volume of Greek fire that would shortly be descending on this city would leave nothing alive. Nothing safe.

  "Which way did they go?" he asked her, and she pointed back to city hall.

  "Jess!" Wolfe shouted, but he wasn't listening.

  He was running.

  Jess felt the waves of the explosion shudder through his body, and he nearly lost hi
s footing; he watched one of the buildings in the street across from the fields shatter apart, wood and metal spinning in strangely beautiful arcs into the air, glittering end over end . . . and then the Greek fire contained inside the projectile caught fire. It was an awful, beautiful fountain of raw green liquid that breathed and spread, falling on other buildings, coating the street.

  Everything, burning.

  He ran faster, heart pounding as he heard more high, keening screams overhead. More bombs coming, from every direction now. This is suicide! But he didn't know what else to do. He couldn't leave them. Better to die honest.

  He'd just reached the strip of mud and grass where the mob had been when two bombs hit city hall. One shattered right through the tower, like a rock through an eggshell.

  The other descended on the broad, white landing where Beck had threatened the prisoners. Right in front of him. He had just enough time to see Willinger Beck, with his badly broken leg, roll over and put his hands over his head in a futile attempt at protection, and thought, I'm sorry, and then the bomb went off.

  He didn't realize he was falling. It was like a black stutter in the world, and with no transition at all he was lying on his back. A strange, hissing whine buzzed his ears, and he batted at it like a wasp, but it was in his ears, inside his head, and as he rolled slowly onto his side he remembered the ballista, the explosion. The thin, screaming sound of death approaching from the sky.

  Then he saw the fire.

  It lived, breathed, roared like a beast, greenish at the edges, raw, bleeding red at the center as it melted the stone steps. The building itself was burning, the tower collapsing in on itself. He saw Benjamin Franklin's golden statue tumbling down in an arc, melting into golden streamers as it fell.

  The grass around him exploded in poison green patches, spreading, crisping the soil beneath into brittle glass. A tree near the corner became a burning matchstick weeping lacy, lazy curls of flame.

  The air swirled with ashes and bitter smoke so thick he could bite it, chew it, swallow it whole. The acrid taste made him retch uncontrollably. He wiped thick, colorless spit away from his lips and levered himself up on shaking legs. The burning tree began to hiss and screech like a human strapped to a pyre; it was only the sap boiling and cracking through the bark with thick pops, but it sounded so alive.