Ash and Quill

by Rachel Caine

  He could hear more bombs exploding, and the high, thin shrieking now wasn't the bombs falling; it was people with no way out, nowhere to run. Am I burning? It occurred to him only then, in a blind panic, that he might be, that if he looked down, he might see his skin crisping and curling off of muscle, and fear nearly sent him reeling until he got ahold of himself. I'm not. I'm not burning.

  A window at the far corner of the building suddenly exploded outward in a white shower of glass, and a large tufted chair crashed to the ground.

  Glain was the first through in a leap and a roll. Dario clambered out and made the jump, awkwardly.

  Thomas came last. He was holding a thick, crude weapon clutched in one hand, and he had a large, bulky sack over one shoulder. He jumped and landed to his ankles in the thick mud, and doubled over coughing. All three of them were stained with smoke, retching out thin drools of phlegm.

  Jess heard the whistling of incoming missiles--more of them now. The keening of angry ghosts, made even more chilling by the thick clouds of smoke already spreading across the sky. Philadelphia--a defiant, crumbling wreck of a town--was burning, and burning as it never had before.

  Jess stumbled to his friends and shouted, "Run!" He wanted to ask what had been so damned important that they'd risked everything, even the chance of life, but he had no breath to spare and neither did they. The air around them had grown hot, and every breath came painful and thick with smoke. He could taste the Greek fire now, as more and more containers shattered and the stuff spread into a fine, hazy mist. Flashover is coming. When Greek fire reached a dense enough fog in the air, it would ignite, and then there'd be nothing to breathe at all.

  They ran through the rotten, dead fields. The plants were still too wet to burn, but mist rose off the mud like phantoms as the heat increased. Thomas had the advantage of extra-long legs; Dario and Glain struggled to keep up with the two of them. Jess ran like his life depended on every step, because it did.

  He slowed as they approached the barn, and turned to look back. It was like looking back on hell. Philadelphia was a seething lake of flame, and still the ballistae keened, still the bombs exploded. The park where he'd kissed Morgan burned, every tree a candle. No building remained standing. None would.

  "Jess!" Thomas shouted, and tackled him into the mud, just as a ballista bomb shattered through the roof of the barn in front of them. We're dead. We're all bloody dead, Jess thought, because the explosion would catch them, catch those crouching near the wall . . .

  But nothing happened. Thomas rolled off, and Jess ran to the door of the barn. The glass container of Greek fire had fallen on a pile of hay, and it hadn't broken . . . but the fuse still burned, and when it ignited the contents . . .

  Jess didn't think. He moved. He hardly felt the shock of the burn on his fingers when he grabbed the fuse and pulled, because it didn't matter; all that mattered was that this bomb could not explode.

  He dropped the hissing fuse to the ground and crushed it into ash with his boot, then allowed himself to stagger back outside, lean against the wall, and scream. It came out raw with terror, fury, horror . . . a sound as agonized as all those sounds in the town, all those voices crying out.

  He couldn't do anything.

  "Jess," Thomas said, and Jess looked up at him. The German's face was smudged and filthy, but tears made clear tracks through the soot. "Come. Come now."

  They followed Glain and Dario to the other side of the barn, where the rest of their friends crouched with Askuwheteau's fragile group of survivors near the wall. Wolfe shot to his feet when he saw them, and the anguish and relief on his face made Jess want to weep himself. This was too much, too much for anyone.

  Thomas said, "Everyone, get away from the wall now," and they did, though they still crouched low, looking up at the swirling black clouds, the bombs shrieking through the air somewhere above, an unseen terror.

  Thomas had found the time to put the Ray of Apollo together from the components. It was bulky, crude, the ugliest thing Jess had ever seen Thomas craft; the long barrel flared out into a wide curve toward the end of it. We didn't test it, Jess thought with a horrible sense of fatality. We didn't test it, and now there's no time.

  But Thomas was right. Heron had built this device back in the dim mists of antiquity. He'd made something that wouldn't be seen again until Archimedes, with his giant array of mirrors built to burn ships at sea. As Thomas had said, Heron's tools had been little better than what they'd had in Beck's workshop.

  Thomas pressed the button, and a thick red light erupted from the barrel of the thing, spreading out but staying somehow solid in the air. The mirror, Jess thought, and remembered all those painful hours of grinding and polishing. It's working. The light hit the metal of the wall, and the wall began to hiss and glow and melt off in liquid layers. Concentrated light, burning its way through the surface of a wall softened by Morgan's efforts.

  It was why she was so weak. She'd created this chance at life.

  It took a long, torturous minute to burn completely through, and when Thomas switched off the gun, there was a hole in the wall just large enough to crawl through. The edges glowed sullenly, but they were already cooling.

  Thomas groaned, dropped the weapon, and staggered backward--and Jess realized, in the next instant, that his friend's palms were burned bright red. "I didn't have time to put in shielding," Thomas said when Jess came toward him. "I didn't think-- No, no, I'm fine. Go, Jess, get them out! We don't have long!"

  "He's right," Santi said. He was already pushing Wolfe toward the escape. "It's going to flash over soon. Move!"

  "The books!" Dario shouted, and grabbed packs. They all grabbed for them, and the rest Jess shoved quickly through the hole and let Wolfe, on the other side now, drag away. Librarians to the end, Jess thought, and it should have been funny. Nothing was funny now.

  Santi went next, then Morgan. Khalila pushed Askuwheteau and his refugees ahead of her when her turn came, and no one argued, though Jess kept a nervous watch on the gathering mist. It had begun as a reeking, pale thing, but now it had taken on a definite tinge of green. The flames burning at city hall and in the town hadn't died at all. They'd grown into twisting, green, violent furies. He could feel the heat from here. Anyone closer would be dead from it.

  The last of the Philadelphians went through, and then Khalila. Dario. Glain.

  It was just Thomas, and Jess.

  "Go," Jess said, and Thomas gave him a strange little smile.

  "No," he said. "You go first."

  That was the moment when Jess, to his shock, realized that the hole just wasn't big enough. Thomas had dropped the weapon before he'd burned a hole big enough to accommodate his broad shoulders.

  That smile meant that he knew he was about to die. That he'd worked it out and accepted it.

  "No," Jess said. He meant it to the bottom of his soul.

  He bent and picked up the still-hot gun, flipped the switch, and began to widen the hole.

  It was hard to know how Thomas had managed to hold the weapon at all; Jess's hands began to sting and scream in the first few seconds of use, and he felt his whole body tense against the rising red pain. It won't take much. Thirty seconds. Maybe a little more. You can do this. He counted it off under his breath. Started strongly, then ran out of air. Couldn't even gasp against the agony. Hold on. Somehow, he did, even though the pain had built to an exquisite, vile pressure like nothing he'd ever felt. It felt like being boiled alive. He was dimly aware that Thomas was shouting at him to stop. But he couldn't. The hole wasn't big enough for Thomas yet.

  And then he felt something shudder inside the weapon, and the Ray of Apollo went dead. He tried the switch. Nothing. His hands were clumsy, and the metal slick, and he dropped it into the mud as he tried to get it working again; it had to work, had to.

  But it would never work again. Pieces of it had melted. More of it glowed a dull red. The mirrors inside had shattered.

  "You have to go," Thomas said to him
.

  Jess took a deep breath and said, "Not until you do."

  Don't look at your hands, he told himself. He knew how badly they were burned, but he thrust his right into his pocket anyway. It felt like plunging it into molten glass, and he nearly screamed, but he managed not to, somehow, and when he pulled his hand out again, he was holding the small glass vial of the leftover Greek fire. He uncorked it and threw the liquid in a green, hissing arc to splash against the edge of the hole they'd burned.

  It wasn't much, and it widened it by only an inch or so.

  But it was enough.

  Thomas picked Jess up and bodily threw him into the hole, and a pair of strong hands grabbed hold of him and pulled him to the other side. He hardly cared, but a glance up told him it was Dario Santiago who'd just saved his life.

  Jess dragged in a sickly cool breath of air and bent over to retch out the poisonous stuff he'd been choking on. He didn't bother to see if they were under attack. He didn't care. He just crawled away to the side, gasping and shaking with pain.

  And then he thought, Thomas.

  His friend made it just in time. He only just squeezed through, even with the widening of the hole, and as he emerged, Jess saw his clothes were giving off wisps of smoke and flickers of Greek fire. Someone shouted, and a fire blanket was thrown on him to smother the flames.

  Scholar Wolfe grabbed Thomas's reaching hand and pulled him--and the sack that Thomas wouldn't leave behind--well away from the hole.

  Jess had only just begun to realize they'd made it, actually made it, when someone cried, "Watch out!" and the wall beside them boomed with a sudden pressure. It creaked and groaned, and an explosion of brilliant green light boiled upward within it. Curls of fire lashed the low black clouds. A tongue of green flame blasted through the hole in the wall, burned for long seconds, and then vanished in a reeking, rotten puff of smoke.

  The aerosolized Greek fire mist had just burned off and cooked everything inside the walls. If they'd still been in there . . .

  Jess froze, thinking of what they'd just escaped. He was shocked to be alive. He wanted to be glad his friends were with him. But all he could think was, This is our fault.

  "Jess." He looked up. For a second, nothing made sense to him, not even the face of his own twin . . . and then he flung himself up and embraced Brendan with trembling strength. Which Brendan returned. "You gave me a fright, idiot!"

  Jess managed to say, "What else am I for, then?" and tried to wipe at his eyes. His hands felt clumsy, and Brendan drew in a sharp breath when he saw the damage and yelled for a Medica.

  "What did they do to you?" Brendan demanded, and his voice shook a little.

  "I did it to myself."

  "Shoveled burning coals with your hands?"

  "I'm all right."

  "You're not!" Brendan half snarled. "Medica! Damn you, get your arse over here!"

  Medica, not doctor. Back to civilization through the small span of a metal wall. It seemed impossible. He'd started to see Philadelphia as a world in itself. And now it was gone. The Library had ordered it gone, and it was like it had never been there at all.

  "Jess?" Brendan was in front of him now, eye level. Frowning in real worry. "Jess! Are you with me?"

  "Yes," he said, though he wasn't sure. But things were starting to make some sense again. The tents arrayed around them in a protective huddle seemed familiar. The Library sigil fluttered in gold embroidery on the flags. The company symbol--a cobra coiled around a book--flew just below it to identify whom the tents belonged to. Santi's company. So Jess and the rest had managed to come out among friends--or, more accurately, the friends had managed to position themselves to meet the escape. He should thank Brendan for that. And for many other things. He just couldn't find the energy.

  Jess caught sight of a tall woman striding toward them in her crisp uniform, with a shining black cap of hair hugging her face. Startling eyes. He knew the look she threw at Captain Santi, at Wolfe, and at each of them in turn. Not friendly, exactly. Assessing.

  "Zara," Santi said, and struggled up to his feet. "Thank you."

  She ignored that and focused on the knot of refugees who were still huddled together, Askuwheteau in the center of them. "You asked me to rescue Library personnel," she said. "And you bring them with you? Burners?"

  "Innocents," Santi said. "You know they didn't deserve that!"

  "All I know is Burners have spat on us and tried to kill us my entire life." Zara's dark eyes were utterly unreadable as she glanced at him, and then she said, "But we can save that particular discussion for later. I thank the gods you're still with us, Captain. And still causing trouble."

  "I'm still the captain?"

  "Until you say you're not, sir."

  He nodded. "Then I'm grateful, Lieutenant. For many things."

  Zara transferred her stare back to the refugees. "And what are we supposed to do with them?"

  "Can't leave them," he said. "Find them uniforms. I assume you have something appropriate for the rest of us."

  "Scholar robes and uniforms," she said. "Though finding anything in the German giant's size will be a challenge."

  "He'll make do. He always does."

  Jess was watching the exchange for any hint that Zara was about to turn on them, shoot Santi where he stood and announce that the rest of them were facing Library trial. He didn't trust her. Never had, really. But Santi did, and she seemed to be completely loyal again. However improbably.

  When he looked away, there was a Medica next to him, an older woman with a strong, walnut brown face and easy smile who said, "I understand you've been-- Oh, son. That must sting."

  He glanced down at the swollen mess of his hands and said, "Some." Better to sound tough than to give way to the emotion boiling inside him. He didn't even know what it was, only that the pressure of it made his eyes water and his breath come short. The relief as the Medica sprayed an anesthetic foam on the skin made him go a little weak, and he felt his brother gripping his shoulder from behind him. Holding him upright, it seemed, and Jess wasn't quite sure when he'd lost balance. "Is everyone all right? Everyone else?"

  "No," Brendan said. "Your big friend over there's having his hands treated, too. Santi's moving like he's wounded--"

  "He is."

  "And your girlfriend isn't in the best shape I've ever seen. Not a one of you looks healthy, by the way." Brendan paused. His voice went quieter. "I've never seen you this thin."

  "You try finding a solid meal in a city that's been under siege for a hundred years." Jess cut his brother a look. "Worried about me?"

  Brendan snorted. "Hell freezes and the devil skates before that happens. You can survive anything." But despite the tone, the words, his hand was tight on Jess's shoulder, and there was a dark shadow in his eyes. Not for Jess's sake, purely. None of them could remain unaffected by what had just happened. There was no screaming from Philadelphia now. It was a city of dead bones and ash, and they all knew it. For the first time, Jess was glad the smell of Greek fire was so overpowering.

  He didn't want to think about what that hot, searing wind would bring otherwise.

  "I don't know why they did it," Jess said. He felt dull now that the pain was passing away. The Medica hadn't spoken again; she was covering his hands in a thick salve, and he expected the next step would be bandages. "A hundred years, the Library let Philadelphia stand. Why would they declare no quarter now? Why--"

  "Doesn't matter," Brendan said, and this time, Jess heard the false note in his voice. Saw the telltale hitch. His brother was lying to him. "Lucky they did, though. They were about to kill you, I understand. Without that distraction, you'd never have made it out."

  Jess's stomach turned cold. "We had a plan."

  "Yeah. How'd your plan go, then?"

  "We made it out!"

  "Would you have, if the bombs hadn't started falling?" Brendan's face was fixed now. Masklike, and reflecting green from the flames beyond the wall. "Serves them right. Beck thought he
could take on everyone. The Library. Their own allies. Us."

  Us. It was hard to know if us meant the brothers, the Brightwells, the smugglers. Jess turned and stared at him, and Brendan looked away, into the middle distance--but not in the direction of the dead town. For no reason at all, Jess remembered the woman in the glass shop, worn and tired and poor, desperately living as best she could.

  "What did you do, Brendan?" he asked quietly. His brother shook his head. "Brendan."

  His brother squeezed his shoulder, painfully tight, and then said, "Look after him for me," to the Medica, who nodded without looking up. She was fully fixed on her work. Jess watched his brother walk away with a disconnected, drifting sense of horror and loss, and closed his eyes when it all swept over him again. Flames. Screams. Beck, lying helpless as the bomb exploded. Indira, falling with the knife in her chest. What happened to sour Diwell? The woman in the glass shop? The counselors who'd been so captivated by the press?

  What did our survival just cost?

  He sat, unmoving, locked inside that private hell, until the Medica finished and said, with a gentleness not usual for her type, "Rest if you can."

  Jess shook his head. He didn't know if he'd ever rest again. But he was thinking one thing now, over and over: There's no going back. We have to make this mean something.

  No matter the cost to him.

  He did rest, because the Medica gave him some kind of injection to knock him out. At least it kept him from nightmares . . . from any he remembered, anyway.

  Jess woke to a rush of nausea so intense it made his whole body burn with it, and immediately turned on his side and threw up thick black bile. Then he coughed up more.

  Someone, he vaguely realized, was holding a bucket for him, and as he finished and collapsed back to the ground--no, to a cot, a real one--he realized that the person holding the bucket was Scholar Wolfe.

  He was truly a Scholar again, washed clean, wearing a black robe and a severe expression of distaste as he set the bucket on the ground beside Jess's bed. "Don't do that again," he said, and gave Jess a clinical stare. "Can you breathe?"