Sword and Pen

by Rachel Caine

  “You hope,” Dario murmured, and Jess echoed the sentiment silently. But he knew better than to stop Wolfe as he moved to the desk, looked it over without touching it, and then began to recite a nonsense string of words. Or, at least, it seemed to be nonsense. Jess kept his silence until Wolfe finished. It seemed like some superstitious incantation to him, and there was no sign that anything at all had changed from the recitation.

  “Careful,” Dario said. He’d come to the same conclusion. “Scholar. Whatever you’re doing—”

  Too late, because Wolfe was sliding a drawer open and pressing a button. At the first flash of light, Jess whirled, ready to start shooting, but there wasn’t any need. It was just ranks of glows turning on in the high ceiling, casting greenish arcs of light down the walls. “I disarmed his traps,” Wolfe said. “He never changed his security. I knew he wouldn’t. He never knew that I’d heard him recite it.”

  “When did you hear this?” Dario asked. Such a carefully neutral tone.

  “Six years ago. Before he broke faith with me and stripped me of my honors. Before the prison.”

  “Long time,” Dario murmured, for Jess’s ears. Louder, he said, “And you remembered it?”

  “I practiced it,” Wolfe said. “Carefully. Yes. It was accurate.”

  Wolfe sounded all too confident, in Jess’s opinion. Worrying. “Scholar . . .”

  That’s when an alarm tone sounded: a high, thin gonging sound that began to accelerate. They all instinctively looked up toward the lights.

  A green mist was descending, drifting with deceptive grace in lightly coiling curls. And Jess’s attention was caught by the door to the office.

  Because it was sliding closed.

  “Out!” Jess shouted. At the same time, Wolfe cursed and began yanking open more drawers, gathering handfuls of papers and stuffing them in the pockets of his robe. “Dario! Keep that door open! Scholar, there has to be an off switch! Find it!”

  “Get out,” Wolfe said flatly. He was opening another drawer, moving fast and with great assurance. “Don’t let the mist touch you. Go, boy!”

  “No,” Jess said. He gritted his teeth. “I’m responsible for your safety.”

  Wolfe glared at him for a flash of a second, then turned his attention back to the desk. Jess crouched down, increasing the distance the mist would have to travel. The Scholar continued to ransack the desk.

  Dario had placed his velvet-coated back against the sliding door, and now he said, “Uh, my friends? I can’t hold this long.” It was pushing him forward with relentless strength. He braced one foot on the opposite wall and pushed back. The forward motion slowed, but it didn’t stop. “Get out of there!”

  “Use your sword!” Jess shouted back.

  “Swords are flexible, idiot!”

  “To jam the track!”

  Dario tossed it to him without a word—and certainly not an acknowledgment—and Jess threw himself flat to shove the blade into the way lengthwise, jamming the forward progress of the door. It might not last, but it eased the strain on Dario, at least.

  “Do you know the history of that sword?” Dario said.

  “Do you want to live to have heirs to carry it, Your Highness?”

  Jess rolled back to a crouch. Wolfe was still at the desk. The mist was drifting just a handsbreadth above his curling, graying hair. “Scholar! Now!”

  “One moment!”

  “You don’t have it!”

  “Just one more drawer.”

  He was not going to explain to Captain Nic Santi how he happened to get Santi’s lover killed on his watch, especially not when it was purely Wolfe’s stubbornness putting them in danger.

  So Jess stopped arguing. He rose, grabbed Wolfe by the back of his robe, and shoved him toward the door. When Wolfe struggled, he kicked the back of the man’s knees and pushed him down under Dario’s outstretched bracing leg. “Crawl!” Jess shouted.

  Then he turned and ran back to the desk, because if Wolfe had been willing to die for whatever was in that last drawer, it was probably important.

  EPHEMERA

  Text of a letter from the Archivist in Exile to the head of the Burners within Alexandria. Delivered by hand in written form only. Available in the Codex only as a copy from later collection.

  Hail, friend. I regret not using your proper name, but as I do not know it, it is impossible. I hope you forgive this breach of protocol, as my prior correspondence was only with the former leader. Opposed as the Great Library and the Burners are, we have occasionally had common cause together. And now, we do again.

  I write to you now, in our most desperate hour, with an offer that only I can make to you: absolute victory. Victory for your cause. If you will join your forces with mine to retake the city and expel or eradicate these upstart rebels who seek to take control of the Great Library, against all tradition and sense . . . then I will personally guarantee a policy change that will allow for the collection and preservation of original works by individuals, unmonitored by the Great Library or its High Garda. I will repeal the ages-old prohibition. I will strike down the law that imposes a penalty of death for the hoarding of such originals, and the sale and trade of them. I will indemnify your Burners from any and all prosecution for the remainder of their lives for any acts committed before or after against the laws of the Great Library, including the murder of our Scholars and librarians. You say a life is worth more than a book.

  Now I ask you to prove it.

  Save our lives. Help us take this city back.

  Kill the falsely elected Archivist. Kill Scholar Christopher Wolfe, Khalila Seif, Dario Santiago, Jess Brightwell, Thomas Schreiber, Glain Wathen, and High Garda Captain Santi. Kill them and show me proof.

  Then I will discuss additional payment.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JESS

  Jess stayed low and attacked the last drawer with a strong pull. It didn’t open. Damn. The mist pressed down on him, and there was a smell that preceded it, like bitter flowers. It burned the back of his throat, a tingle that only grew stronger when he swallowed. Not the immolating stench of Greek fire, though that was what he’d feared. No, this was something else.

  Possibly worse. Much worse. He had no idea of the kinds of terrible plagues and weapons the Archivist had kept in his storehouses. Few would. But they would be lethal.

  Jess pulled his sidearm and fired it into the drawer’s lock, shattering it, and then shoved his finger into the ragged hole and pulled until it yielded with a sudden snap. By then he was on his knees, and he couldn’t remember dropping. The taste in his throat and the smell confused him. What was he doing? Why had he forced it open?

  Papers. Grab the papers.

  He folded clumsy fingers around the thick handful and tried to rise. Couldn’t. His eyes burned. His throat felt numb and seared. Breathing was an effort. Easier to stay here, easier to just . . . wait.

  Someone was shouting his name. You need to move, he told himself, but his body felt like an unfamiliar doll. He couldn’t remember how to move, but slowly, agonizingly, he folded over and pressed his face to the soft carpet. The air was clearer here, and he gasped it in little bursts, a landed and dying fish.

  The voices were coming from the doorway. He crawled in that direction. The mist pressed relentlessly down on him, heavy, so heavy he felt it like a steel wall against his back that weighed him down, and it was too hard to keep moving.

  He was choking on the mist. It filled his throat like cement.

  I’m dying, he thought. He felt some panic, but it was muted and at a distance. He pulled himself another scant few inches forward. It wasn’t enough.

  And then hands were pulling him forward with a sudden jerk, and it seemed like he was flying through the air and landing in a limp sprawl, gasping, spitting, a foul foam coming from his mouth. I’m a mad dog. It almost made him laugh, but then his stoma
ch rebelled and he curled in on himself and tried to breathe. Couldn’t without his throat closing up. Someone pried his mouth open and poured in something that burned; he spit it out. They tried again. This time, it scorched down his abraded throat and all the way to his stomach. He thought it was liquor until the fourth drink, and then he suddenly realized it was just water. Only water. The clear air bathed his brain in oxygen again, and now he could think, if clumsily.

  “You stupid fool!” That sounded like Dario, but the voice seemed oddly unsteady. When Jess rolled over on his back he saw Dario kneeling over him holding a pitcher of water, now almost empty. The young man’s hand was shaking, and so was the glass vessel. Dario set it down without comment. “Do you know how close you came? Do you?”

  Oh. The Archivist’s office. He’d gone back for the papers. Did he still have them? He raised his hands. No. He didn’t. He felt a vast chasm of despair, and a huge spasm of coughing racked through him, pumping rancid green foam from his mouth again. His head pounded. He ached in every muscle. He shivered all over in convulsive tremors.

  He’d failed.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “Papers. Lost.”

  “Not lost,” Wolfe said. “You held on to them. Somehow.”

  Jess looked up once his muscles unlocked again. The Scholar was fanning the documents out on the desk that once belonged to Neksa, studying them with great intensity. He looked pale. Beads of sweat ran down his face, but there was no mistaking the intensity on his face. Or the relief. “You found it,” he said, and glanced over at the two of them. “Thank you. Both of you.”

  “Just tell me it was worth what it nearly cost,” Dario snapped. “Because you almost had a second dead Brightwell to explain!”

  Wolfe went still, and his expression blanked. Jess remembered a second later—only a second this time, a delay and then a deadly, detonating flash of knowledge—that his brother was dead.

  He barely heard Wolfe say, “I’m aware of that, Santiago.”

  “What if he’d died getting those and it had turned out to be the Archivist’s grocery list? Think, Scholar. Your stubbornness is likely to get us killed if you don’t!”

  Dario is . . . on my side? Jess didn’t know what to make of that. Then he was a bit ashamed of his surprise. But only a bit.

  “We should go,” Wolfe said, and gathered up the papers. “Schreiber will need these.”

  Jess coughed out another mouthful of foul, green-tinted foam. Couldn’t seem to take a breath without producing more. It hurt. “What are they?” he managed to ask. “The papers?”

  That got both of their attention. He wiped his mouth and sat up. That brought on more coughing, but less foam. His lungs felt stuffed with cotton, but at least he was able to breathe now.

  “They’re records of the harbor defenses,” Wolfe said. “And the process for activating them. It’s a secret held by the Archivists for thousands of years, and we need it desperately now.” After a short pause, he said, “This is to your credit, Jess.”

  “Thanks.” Jess held out a hand, and Dario shook his head.

  “Stay down there,” he said. “Until you can get up on your own. You almost drowned in your own juices, fool.”

  “Who dragged me out?” Jess asked. Paused for another spate of coughing. “You?”

  Dario shook his head and nodded toward Wolfe, who was rolling the papers into a tight scroll that he put into an inner pocket of his robe. “I was holding the damned door,” Dario said.

  “Don’t forget your sword,” Jess said. Four whole words without coughing, though he felt the threatening flutter deep in his lungs.

  That got him a glare. “That reminds me. You owe me for a new sword. Though where you’ll get enough geneih to pay for it . . .”

  Jess shook his head. Didn’t try to reply. He saved his breath for the effort to come, and with grim determination he grabbed hold of Neksa’s desk and pulled himself up to his knees. Then his feet. He clung to the support for a long few seconds and felt dizzy with relief that he was capable of staying upright on his own. Running was a distant dream, but if he could stand, he could walk.

  And he had the feeling that they needed to be on the move, without delay. He’d come very, very close to not leaving the Archivist’s office alive, and he thought there was a more than good chance that there were more dangers to come before they were out of this place. “We should be on our way,” he said. Six words in a row. He suppressed the cough.

  Wolfe had been watching him with concern, but in the next instant he was back to the sour, dour man who had once greeted his class at the Alexandria train station. A black crow in a black robe, distant and dismissive.

  “Very well,” he said. “Keep up, Brightwell. We need to find Nic. He should be close by.”

  * * *

  —

  Finding Niccolo Santi was an easy task. He was at the Serapeum, standing near the base while a crowd of runners took orders from him and left. His lieutenants—Jess’s friend Glain among them—waited patiently for their own instructions. There was a sense of calm, even in the chaos of people jockeying for position. Part of that was Santi himself, standing solid in the center of the storm and addressing himself to each person in turn with complete focus. He caught sight of Wolfe, Jess, and Dario as they emerged from the side garden and hesitated for only an instant before listening with full attention to the veiled lieutenant standing before him. He gave her a response, handed her a Codex, and saluted her with a fist over his heart combined with a bow. She returned the gesture and was off at a run.

  Santi called a pause and pushed through the crowd to get to Wolfe. A quick embrace and he stepped back to study each of them. One second for each of them, and he said, “Jess? You look unwell. What happened?”

  “I’ll get him to a Medica. Here,” Wolfe said, and handed over the sheaf of papers. “I’ll go through the rest of what I gathered for strategic use, but this is the key to the harbor defense. Fetch Schreiber; he’ll be most useful in this. It’s unlikely to function as intended immediately; it’s been so long since it was even rumored to be used.”

  “My God, I never thought we’d find this,” Santi said. “I’ll keep Brightwell with me, if you don’t mind. I’ll have a Medica look him over.” He gave Wolfe a long, searching look. “And you? You’re pale.”

  “I’m fine,” Wolfe said. “I only got a mild dose of the poison. Jess breathed it deep. If you could see to his safety, I would be . . . relieved.” He paused and looked around. Something seemed to dawn on him. “Isn’t this the job of the new High Garda commander?”

  “It is. The old High Commander stepped down. Don’t look at me that way. Someone needed to make order out of this mess. It’s temporary.”

  “Command looks good on you,” Dario observed. “Perhaps you should keep the job.”

  Santi gave him a quelling look. “Have you considered that not everything needs your commentary, Scholar?”

  “Ouch,” Dario said, amused. “Let me think about it. Wait, I have. I disagree.” He was bright-eyed and smiling and chattering, but there was something fragile beneath it. Jess was too tired to wonder at it. He wanted to sit and close his eyes and forget that feeling of suffocation. Of surrender. “Perhaps Scholar Wolfe intends to put his hand up for the position of Archivist later today.”

  “Me? Hardly,” Wolfe said. “I have rather a lot of enemies even on my own side.”

  Santi’s grin came suddenly. “No one’s forgotten that. But you also have one of the best minds in this city.”

  “Debatable. And you’re hardly impartial. I’m not meant to lead, Nic. Don’t be ridiculous.” He turned to Jess. “I’ll leave you in your commander’s capable hands. Rest. You’ve done well. And, Nic? Try not to get knifed in the back. You realize we have enemies masquerading as allies, don’t you?”

  “I do. That’s why I’m here, to show that we are efficient, effectiv
e, and in control. I have troops moving to protect every critical security point in the city, and more roving squads to keep order in residential streets, and a special elite squad paired with automata to watch all approaches to the walls; the Russians have set up camp at the northeastern gate, and there’s no sign they intend to move on. I’ve got High Garda ships dispatched to the mouth of the harbor as a temporary blockade. Thomas is, I believe, finishing with his fitting out of the Lighthouse beam. I’ll send for him and have him tackle this information you’ve brought. It’s well beyond me.” Santi paused again and looked straight at Wolfe. “Let’s survive this day, love. And raise a glass at home.”

  “At home,” Wolfe said. “Until then, keep yourself safe.”

  “And you.”

  This, Jess thought, was the love he wanted in his life: a love of equals. Loyal and kind. He wasn’t sure he had that yet. But it was something to aspire to.

  That sent his thoughts spinning in Morgan’s direction, and he said, “Captain?” That drew Santi’s gaze back. “The Obscurists could help you distribute information more effectively.”

  “Yes, Jess, we’ve already worked that out. The Scribe there is relaying every order to the records, and from there it is disbursed out to the officer in charge.”

  That was when Jess realized that the statue sitting cross-legged on a plinth nearby wasn’t merely decorative. It was, in fact, an automaton, one with a metal tablet in one hand and a metal stylus in the other, and as it inscribed words on the tablet’s blank surface, they vanished into—he presumed—the Archives, where the Codex would then retrieve and distribute them as needed. All the orders would be coded with Santi’s personal seal . . . or, Jess supposed, the High Garda Commander’s seal, which was a role Santi now filled. The Scribe must have been tuned to Santi’s voice, because it seemed to be transcribing all his conversations . . . including this one.

  “Oh,” he said, and felt more than a little stupid. Of course Santi would have thought of it. How much of that mist did you breathe in, idiot? The last thing he wanted to do was seem impaired in front of the captain. “Apologies. Where do you want me, sir?”