Sword and Pen

by Rachel Caine

  Blood dripped from columns, pooled on the floor, painted the walls in arterial sprays, and he shuddered involuntarily at the sight and smell of it. The stench of Greek fire coiled with the copper and set up a rolling nausea that he swallowed to contain.

  There were three sphinxes still active, and at least twenty soldiers fighting them. After the shock passed, Dario snatched the rifle from the spy who was frozen next to him and began to methodically shoot targets. They were wearing High Garda uniforms, but that didn’t stop him. He didn’t let it, even though every face seemed to blur into someone he knew. Captain Santi. Glain Wathen. Jess Brightwell.

  He killed as many as he could.

  Mondragon’s men were firing now, too, and in a murderous half minute, all the soldiers were down. The ones who hadn’t died from the gunfire ended at the claws and teeth of sphinxes, and Dario turned away, sickened, so as not to witness that. He met Mondragon’s shocked stare. “What is this?” Mondragon asked. “What just happened?”

  “You saved the Great Library,” Dario said. “And I’m certain you’ll be handsomely rewarded for that, too.”

  The last muffled screams stopped, and the silence felt intense. Dario looked around. The two surviving sphinxes—one had fallen while he wasn’t looking—settled into a waiting crouch, and their eyes dimmed from hell red to steady gold. The slaughterhouse was abruptly at peace.

  He went to the first intact body and unbuttoned the bloodstained High Garda uniform collar to reveal the tattoo. It was the emblem of the High Garda Elite, with the inscription nulla misericordia—no mercy. They’d given none, and been shown none. “The old Archivist’s High Garda Elite took over this place last night,” he said. “They planned to blow it up in the event the old man was killed or taken prisoner. The last contingency of the desperate.” He nodded to the back rooms. “You’ll find the real High Garda soldiers’ bodies back there.”

  “Why didn’t the sphinxes protect the High Garda, then? Why go for the Elites now?” That question was from the spy who’d used Greek fire on the doors. He seemed nearly as sharp as Mondragon.

  “The new Obscurist Magnus discovered this morning that the sphinxes here had been tampered with; the old man must have a captured Obscurist, or a rebel who’s working with them. The damage was already done, and he couldn’t guarantee that the sphinxes could kill all the High Garda Elite before the Elites decided to set fire to the Greek fire stores. Commander Santi needed a backup plan, and he was afraid asking his troops to fire on their own would be too much. So you were the perfect answer, Mondragon. Thank you.”

  Mondragon could have killed him in that moment; they were both well aware of it. Mondragon’s gun was in his hand, and just to be certain everyone was clear about his position, Dario held up his right hand and, with his left, gave the rifle back to the spy he’d taken it from. Silent surrender. “You used us,” Mondragon said tightly. “Lambs to the slaughter.”

  “Not a one of you is even injured,” Dario said. “And you are more wolves than sheep, if you’ll permit me to stretch the metaphor. But you can now safely go back to whatever your spymasters tell you to do next. Your role will never be mentioned. And the ambassador already knows of this brave action, and will reward you for it. It’s not in Spain’s interest to have this city in ruins.”

  “We occupy this place now. We can keep it for Spain,” Mondragon said. Which was exactly what Dario had been afraid might happen. “Turn off the automata.”

  “No,” Dario said quietly. “I will not. Shoot me and explain it to my cousin.”

  “No need for that,” Villareal said, and stepped forward. “He told me the secret. I’ll do it.”

  Dario pressed his lips together. He wanted to scream, to tell the man not to try it. He genuinely liked him.

  He still kept his silence.

  Villareal approached the first sphinx, and its eyes shifted from gold to warning to angry red. It came up out of its crouch.

  He lunged for its armpit, and Dario averted his gaze. Not fast enough to avoid seeing the horror on the man’s face as he realized he’d been tricked.

  He managed not to look at what was left of Villareal once the sphinx had finished with him.

  The silence in the room was profound. Dario shifted his gaze back to Mondragon, who looked pale with fury. Every gun in the room was pointed at him, and every trigger halfway squeezed.

  “Conniving little princeling,” one of the spies spat. Not Mondragon, who was unnaturally still.

  “Yes, I am,” Dario said. “Which is why you followed me in the first place. You’re just angry that I connived for someone else instead.”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” Mondragon said.

  “Because I’ll be of use to Spain in the future. My cousin certainly thinks so.”

  “The ambassador would forgive me.”

  Dario didn’t smile.

  “I was referring to my other cousin,” he said. “The one wearing the crown. Do you really believe he didn’t know of this? And authorize what I’ve done?” Dario shrugged. “You may message him directly if you wish. If you have that access. And if I’m lying, I’m certain he’ll order my execution.”

  This was, of course, a throw of the dice. He didn’t know Mondragon; he didn’t know if the young man actually had personal access to King Ramón Alfonse, or would dare to use it. He also, to be honest, wasn’t entirely certain his royal cousin would back him up on it, either.

  Mondragon finally lowered his weapon. He still looked murderous, and would likely make a very bad enemy in the future. But today, he nodded and glanced around at the others, who silently obeyed his lead.

  Dario walked to the nearest dead man, crouched, and closed his staring eyes. “Rest now,” he said. “Your duty is done.” He stood and said, “Collect their Codexes and personal journals if they carried them. They stayed loyal to their master to the end, and that deserves some recognition, at least. Their families should know they died bravely.”

  Mondragon didn’t speak, but after a moment he nodded, and his spies began to circulate around the room. Once they were about their tasks, the head spy said, “I should add you to the pile. In this charnel house, who’d notice?”

  “No one,” Dario said. “But I wasn’t lying when I said I will be of future value to Spain, and I can only do that if I’m still breathing. Are we understood?”

  Mondragon nodded sharply. The tense muscle jumping in his jaw told Dario he was chewing on the facts, and not much caring for the taste. “What now, then?”

  “I will do whatever the Great Library requires me to do.”

  “But not Spain.”

  Dario shrugged. “Well, not today. I told you my loyalty was clear. You only heard what you wished to hear.”

  Mondragon’s men worked quickly, and within five minutes, Dario had a cloth bag filled with books. It was heavy, but manageable; as he heaved it over his shoulder he had a strange sense-memory and couldn’t place it for a moment.

  Then he could. The chemical reek of Greek fire, and the weight of books. The Black Archives. Not a memory he cared to relive, on the whole.

  When he looked up, Mondragon was staring at him. The young man was still considering killing him, he could see that. Feel it hanging like a shroud in the tense, dark air. There was no getting around the fact that if the spies held this place and threatened destruction, they might very well win the day for Spain.

  “You won’t be able to,” Dario said. “Even if you were willing to bear the consequences. This was Lord Commander Santi’s plan all along. He had watchers posted. The moment the shooting stopped, High Garda began to infiltrate the whole building; they’ll have every suppression door closed and guarded by now. You’re caught.”

  Mondragon’s smile was more of a snarl. “You’re a clever bastard, I’ll give you that. I assume you’re offering us safe passage out of here?”

&nbs
p; “Absolutely. Go with God. As far as the High Garda are concerned, you broke no laws.”

  Mondragon didn’t thank him, but Dario hardly expected that. He just turned and led his men out of the warehouse. The doors opened before he got to them: High Garda soldiers, visible evidence that this part, at least, hadn’t been a bluff.

  He sat with the dead, and the sphinxes, until Captain Liu approached him. “The facility is secured,” he said. “Lord Commander Santi sends his thanks for a job well done.”

  “Nothing about this was well done,” Dario said. He felt tired, and sick at heart. “It’s a slaughterhouse, and I helped double the body count.”

  “Someone had to,” Captain Liu said. “I’ll call you a carriage to take you back to the Lighthouse.”

  “Don’t bother,” Dario said. “I’ll walk.” He needed to find a tavern, and a great and damaging number of drinks.

  But he knew even that wouldn’t erase the scar today had left. The slaughter, yes. But also the knowledge that Santi saw him for who he was, who he’d always been.

  A deceiver.

  EPHEMERA

  Message from Obscurist Vanya Nikolin to the Archivist in Exile, hidden from observation

  It may be of some interest to you that the search you had me conduct through the Archives has turned up a possible reference to the location you seek. It is not where we expected, at the very least; it’s nowhere near the Necropolis, or even at the Serapeum, which is where I would have guessed. The good news is that it is easily accessible, and if you can find the right person to undertake entry through the trials, you may come up with assets like nothing we can imagine. The things that he left us are astonishing enough. Surely what he took with him to the grave must be worth more than all the power hidden in the Black Archives put together.

  Here is the map to the location. I suggest you arrange for a distraction to draw High Garda and automata to the other side of the city. Perhaps there’s finally a use for those Russians camped outside the walls.

  I would attempt this myself, but if I leave the Iron Tower there will be no one left to cover for you and warn you of any actions. They already suspect, after discovering the rewriting of the sphinxes at the Greek fire armory.

  I’m of more use here, for now. Until things change.

  Reply from the Archivist in Exile, hidden from observation

  We both know why you haven’t left the Iron Tower. You’re a coward, Vanya. But that makes you valuable to me. As to a candidate to undertake the trials . . . I think I know exactly who to get.

  There is only one person alive in this city who understands Heron’s work as deeply as Heron himself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THOMAS

  “No, not like that,” Thomas said, and elbowed the Artifex Magnus aside. He was sweating, stripped of his jacket, and he hardly recognized that he’d just shoved a member of the Great Library’s Curia out of the way until it was far too late. “Sorry,” he mumbled, but not with any real regret. “We have little time.”

  “Yes, I know that, son,” Artifex Greta Jones said. She was American, which was a curiosity in and of itself—a round, pleasant woman with more than enough talent at engineering for nearly any task set before her. A rich, slow accent like melting butter. “Easy, now. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”

  There was no time to be polite, or easy. Thomas knew she was wrong. That wasn’t modest, but it was true. He quickly unscrewed the bolts holding the gigantic crystal in place and gently lowered it to the worktable nearby. Everything looked fine, but he could read from the power consumption curve that it was not fine at all. “It’s not performing as expected,” he said as he unbolted the platinum casing that held the crystal. “The power cycle should have been longer, and recovery shorter. There’s something—”

  As soon as the casing was off, he saw it, and his heart sank. Something had been off in the measurements, just the tiniest bit, and the distribution of stress must have thrown the calculations off and caused vibration. Vibration had caused a flaw.

  The crystal was useless. The crack within it was tiny, a speck that would have been meaningless for any other purpose . . . but not this one. It could be recut and the flaw eliminated, but he’d custom built the casing for this stone to exacting specifications. That had been shortsighted.

  The Artifex looked at the crystal, and he could tell she saw what he did. “It’ll crack straight through the next time we use it,” she said. “You were right. I’m sorry I doubted you. We could recut it, but that will reduce power . . .”

  “It will,” he confirmed. “I’ll have the jewelers cut more crystals while I make a different kind of casing. One that can adjust to different crystal dimensions, in case we must change them more frequently. Put this one back, reduce the power output, and pray that they don’t force us to use it again more than once before the replacement is ready.” The Lighthouse Ray was, in effect, a giant bluff, a gamble that he and the Artifex had decided was worth the risk when they embarked on it. Now it had become more threat than reality.

  “I’m concerned that should the crystal shatter, the power released could destroy this chamber and even the top few floors of the Lighthouse,” Artifex Jones said. “Look.” She took out a tablet and quickly scratched out equations, a dense forest of variables and calculations that were impressive even by Thomas’s standards. She finished and held it out, and as he took it and mentally recalculated, he nodded. She was right. There was a significant risk that if the crystal failed under use, the resulting explosion would create a deadly hail of fragments and shatter the Lighthouse’s magnificent focusing mirror. It would destroy this chamber, possibly even cause damage down the central airflow chamber. The Lighthouse itself was built to withstand huge forces—floods, storms, earthquakes—but a single catastrophic explosion might even topple part of it into the sea. It was an enormous responsibility, and Thomas felt himself recoil. I don’t want to be the person who destroys the Pharos Lighthouse.

  But neither did he want to be the person who lost the Great Library because he couldn’t mitigate the risk.

  “It will hold for one more shot,” he told her. “But only one, and then you must shut it down. I’ll go immediately to the workshops.”

  “Requisition what you need. I’m giving you blanket authority.” She’d already unsnapped her Codex and was writing the message by the time she finished the words. He refastened the casing to the flawed crystal, carried it back to the frame, and bolted it back in place. He adjusted the angle of it to be sure the alignment was perfect and then turned to the Artifex.

  “Thank you for trusting me,” he said. Her dark eyebrows rose at the same time she smiled.

  “Why wouldn’t I trust you?” she asked. “You’re a brilliant engineer, maybe the best we’ve seen since Heron. Our business is one of careful steps, development, and revision until a thing is perfect. You can’t predict that. Never forget: even geniuses make mistakes. It’s not a moral failing. It’s inevitable.”

  “We can’t afford mistakes,” he told her. “Not here, not now. We have to be perfect. And fast.”

  She nodded, but he could see the worry in her expression. He knew how he looked: tired, shadows under his eyes and lurking in them, most likely. He knew this had to be done. He just wished it was anyone else’s responsibility.

  “Go,” she told him. “I’ll arrange for the crystal cutting. Good luck, Scholar Schreiber.”

  He thanked her and left. Instead of using the lifting chamber that ran on cables from the lens chamber to the ground, he took the long, winding stairs. Physical activity helped him think and rid himself of the dark storm of anxiety that was still blowing inside him. By the time he reached the bottom he felt almost normal.

  He’d managed to avoid thinking about the damage done to the city until he left the walls that surrounded the Lighthouse, but there was no missing it then. Still a dull smudge of smoke
hung over the city, though the growing breeze blowing in from the sea was carrying that away. Mass warships still bobbed on the horizon. Poseidon still stood firm in its protective stance, trident poised to spear any ship that ventured too close.

  The dark storm clouds looked like a wall, and the distant brilliant threads of lightning stitched through them. It was going to be a very dark night, and the ships out there would want—no, would need—to enter the harbor or risk being utterly destroyed.

  The city of Alexandria had to survive that threat. It was up to him, the Artifex, and the entire array of Scholars working on the problems to ensure that happened. And the job of the High Garda to defend them while they worked.

  He had a guard now, he realized; two uniformed High Garda soldiers followed him at a distance. He supposed Lord Commander Santi had decided he was important enough to assign protection, but it still made him feel uncomfortable. He decided to ignore them and continue on his business. Nothing else to be done. He concentrated on what was his to do: go to the workshop at the Colosseum. Work with his team of specialists to design and craft the reconfigured casing. If they worked at top, careful speed, they could have it ready within hours—plenty of time, surely.

  “Sir,” one of the High Garda said as they caught up with him at a jog. “We’d prefer it if you took a carriage. We’ll fetch you one.”

  “Hurry up,” he said, and didn’t stop walking. Waiting was a thing he couldn’t bear, not now.

  It was just seconds before a carriage pulled up beside him, and he stepped aboard without waiting for it to glide to a stop. “The Artifex Magnus’s forge,” he said. “You know where it is?”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said. She had on a traditional niqab, covered except for a slit that exposed her dark eyes. “I’ll get you there quickly.”