The Fire Opal Mechanism

by Fran Wilde

  Her soft leather boots crunched on the gravel from one of a dozen sunken buildings as she sped toward the library, taking the shortest way possible. Aside from the assistants, few people were out this early. Far Reaches hadn’t been a big university to begin with. It had merely been the last university.

  The archipelago had been cut off from much of the Six Kingdoms for a year once the Pressmen had joined with the forces from the Western Mountains and consolidated power along the border of Quadril. Thus strengthened, the movement focused its sights on the islands.

  Despite the blockade, many resources from other universities in the Six Kingdoms had made their way to free shores. So Jorit had done the same. She’d been safe for a while. Then, days ago, she’d watched Far Reaches professors and students concede their books to the Pressmen.

  The guards had taken piles of books and papers from every division. What came next, she didn’t want to be here to see.

  But Jorit moved too slowly.

  As she headed for the library, the first charges boomed, and the building slumped, then settled lower.

  She covered her eyes and nose. Waited for the cloud of dust to clear. Some of the building still stood. A charge must not have detonated.

  Jorit inched closer to the foundation. Saw several blue-clad Pressmen staring at a wall. She slipped back around the other way, toward the collapsed side. Best to stay back.

  “Metalsmith?” A whisper came from a half-buried window by her feet.

  Jorit jumped and then peered warily into the darkness. “Who is there?” She wasn’t a metalsmith anymore, but she still wore the colors. Fine. She’d be safer if someone remembered her clothes, which she could replace, rather than something she couldn’t: her hands.

  It wasn’t safe to be memorable now. She reached for one of her knives. A sharp one.

  “Name’s Xachar. I’m stuck.”

  Xachar—the name wasn’t that of a Far Reaches native. The voice was a young man’s. He’d recognized her cloak as being that of a metalsmith, so he might have been a student once. But on his one visible sleeve, he wore a Pressmen’s patch. Not a pin, a real patch. Roughly sewn, so newly vowed.

  Was he one of the Pressmen that had supposedly gone missing? Would his rescue give Jorit a reward? Or would it get her caught? “Why are you here, Pressman?”

  She’d learn as much as she could. But then, maybe, the knife.

  She was pretty sure she could use it. She’d come close.

  “I was getting a few things to help my brother buy passage. Faked loyalty to the Pressmen to do it.” He looked at his patch, then back to Jorit. “I was in the stacks, and I got stuck. When the doors were locked from the other side. I don’t like tight spaces. And then they set the charges.”

  So Xachar had had the same idea as Jorit, but worse luck. His reasons, though. He reminded her of her own brother, a little. Marton. Her heart still ached.

  “I’ll help you,” she said. She looked for a way inside.

  “I can see a light,” Xachar said, struggling. “It’s flickering, like there’s fire deep in the stacks. Other Pressmen have disappeared in here already. I don’t want to be among them. Please hurry.”

  Pressmen disappearing in the library. So it was true. Must be why they hadn’t sacked the stacks yet, just leveled it.

  Jorit sped up her search for an entrance, finally slipping under a door to one of the building’s former steam tunnels, hidden beneath a pile of broken masonry. The Pressmen hadn’t found this yet. But Jorit and Marton had been the Quadril mining school’s neediest students. They hadn’t always had the money to pay for classes, or books. So they’d learned the value of a good steam tunnel years ago for getting into libraries after hours.

  She laughed bitterly. Now everyone would have the same information, about everything. And soon I might be the only person left who doesn’t much want that anymore.

  But that was how she liked it now. Alone, you didn’t stand to lose as much.

  Hurry. Her knees and palms ground against the broken masonry. The dust from the other buildings’ falls had settled on everything. The building smelled like chalk and dirt. Her teeth felt gritty, and she kept sneezing.

  She tied a sturdy rope—her latest good find—to the nearest pole. Double hitched it. Then kept moving.

  Always keep moving. That’s the only safe way. Her brother’s advice, and she’d listened, every time but once. Don’t risk yourself for others. She knew that one too.

  When she came through the rakish angles created by the stacks’ fall, she toggled her lantern’s switch. A small cloud of acrid carbide slowly faded into a glow. She saw holes in walls where doorways had split and shelving had toppled.

  The lantern swung a wild arc of light against the walls.

  Jorit was a spider. A thief. A monster.

  She swallowed hard. Whatever it took to survive.

  “Xachar?” she called softly. “I’m coming around to you. Make some noise so I know which way.” She could get him out before the Pressmen caught them. She knew it.

  Not like Marton. She hadn’t been able to do that.

  She thought could hear the boy whimpering somewhere very nearby.

  “Almost to you,” she said. But she thought, As fast as I can, before we’re both caught.

  She’d be caught as a thief. Made an example of, like the professors. Go missing. Like her brother.

  Jorit climbed over the thin bones of one of the library’s metal shelves, its contents tumbled beneath it. A wooden container slid from a corner as her feet made the shelves sway again, and dust rose.

  She held her breath, trying not to sneeze.

  Xachar crouched halfway out and halfway in the building a few stacks away. His long black hair spilled down his back, loosened from the clip he’d used to pin it; his student’s tunic was torn, the skin beneath scratched with angry red welts.

  When Jorit moved the shelving that had pinned him, he groaned in relief.

  “You all right?” she asked. In the lantern’s light, it was hard to distinguish the younger man’s expression: Stunned? Confused? He almost looked pleased to see her. It was hard to tell. Could be in shock, Jorit decided.

  Xachar looked behind him and down, so she couldn’t see his expression. “I cut my arm.” He held up his left forearm. Bandaged with a torn strip of Xachar’s robe, the wound was slowly blooming red through the off-white piece of cloth, staining the Pressmen’s badge.

  “I found an easier way out, if you think you can make it.” She held up the rope end. “You just need to follow this line.”

  He was so young. But serious. Like Marton had been, back in Eastern Shores. And hurt.

  Jorit waited as Xachar considered the rope. “I can manage. It’s just a scratch. Being trapped was harder.”

  The boy slid unsteadily to the library floor. He followed Jorit through the twists and turns, out of the tight space.

  Jorit didn’t see any fire as they walked. The boy must have been seeing things in his panic.

  “You’ll be all right.” Jorit put her hand on Xachar’s uninjured arm. “Get going. Before it’s too late.”

  Xachar’s already large brown eyes widened considerably. “You’re staying? But . . . if you’re caught . . .” He was staring at her hand.

  Jorit blinked. Had the boy seen the thief’s mark? She hadn’t been careful enough.

  “I cut myself once, but . . .” She began to try to explain away the mark, to claim it wasn’t the archaic symbol but something else, but realized he was staring at her books. “But nothing. Here. Take these.” She gave Xachar the last three sketchbooks she’d found in the arts building. “Get your brother and go.”

  “What about you?” the boy said, his voice less afraid, more distant. Probably thinking of his own brother, Jorit decided.

  “I can get more books, and I won’t get caught. I’ll be at the docks soon enough.” Marton had once said the same thing, and she’d believed him, right up until she’d seen the Pressmen carrying his limp
form away. But today, she’d done a good thing. Helped someone else escape. Jorit breathed a little easier. That counted for something.

  As Xachar’s footsteps receded, she turned back to search the stacks. From the corner of her eye, near what was once the main hallway, she spotted a glimmer of light. Perhaps the young man had been right about a fire after all.

  If it was fire, all remaining treasures here would be destroyed. Then it really would be too late for Jorit to get out. She’d given away part of her boat money. Stupid.

  There was time, perhaps, to see how bad the fire was, and whether it was easily extinguished. Let there be valuable books left, Jorit thought. Please let them be enough for passage.

  As she drew closer, dust curled up from the floor. She quickly covered her nose and mouth. She’d seen what the Pressmen’s dust could do, out in the square, and in many university squares before that.

  But she smelled no fire yet, heard no roaring crackle, sensed no great heat. And they still grumbled above over the charges. She had time.

  Water dripped from a cracked pipe to her left, softly repetitive splashing sounds on the strewn floor.

  Water. Bad for books and artifacts. Good for putting out fires.

  The dust-saturated air thickened as Jorit walked. Light flickered in the hallway, wavering on the ceiling. At first she thought it was fire too.

  The clock, cracked and its numbers nearly gone, reflected wavering sunlight onto the library’s slate floor across its broken face. Jorit relaxed. The boy had been wrong.

  “You said it was safe here.”

  Jorit jumped as a muffled voice broke the silence. Not Xachar’s voice.

  She moved toward the light, balancing silently on the balls of her feet.

  Used to be, a person walked like that so as not to scare the mice in the halls after dark. Not to get caught reading in locked libraries.

  Now she was still trying to not get caught.

  Jorit touched her fingers to the haft of her own blade. It wasn’t much. But it was hers.

  The soles of her shoes whispered against the dust and torn paper on the floor. Ledge, said one shred. Know, said another.

  Behind the clock’s face, light flickered. Not sunlight. Reflected shadows licked at a corner from outside. Now she smelled flint. She heard a triumphant yell.

  They’d finally fixed the errant charge. It was too late.

  She’d known better. She ducked into a small room beneath the clock as more charges went off. The rest of the library shook and fell deeper into its foundations.

  3.

  Ania

  The day after she’d locked the library, the floor rattled beneath Ania’s feet. Doors banged against their frames, and the windows clattered. Then the ground under the library shook, and heavy shelves toppled over in the stacks. The last of Ania’s hairpins chimed against the floor, her braid once again undone and swinging free.

  Her “to-save” books rustled and slid, a few tumbling open on the clockwork room floor. She hustled to restack them, to preserve their spines, their bindings.

  The clock kept a steady beat, smoothing her calm, even as more blue and white uniforms moved back and forth near the windows, more Pressmen set up camp in the university square. They served the remaining students meals, gave speeches about Knowledge. Occasionally a Pressman would lift a piece of greenish glass out of a bag and set it on the ground. When they picked it up again later, the sunlight would strike it, but the glass wouldn’t reflect the light. It had turned dark as ink.

  The students, too, had changed. They’d become willing assistants, taking in the Pressmen’s philosophy. Ania couldn’t judge them for that. In return for food, they’d packed books in crates without complaint. They hadn’t looked at the fallen buildings, only at the Pressmen who set the charges, who carried the crates away.

  Ania, peeking out through the library windows, watched for more professors, but didn’t see any.

  With Pressmen everywhere, she sequestered herself once again in the clockroom. The clock’s beat surrounded her, comforted her. As the buildings disappeared one by one, she passed more time there each day, trying to memorize books, to bear their words away in her head if she had to.

  “The valley gems numbered eighty-five at their peak, including the Immaculate Stone, the Steadfast Diamond, the Star Cabochon . . . ,” she whispered. She traced the drawings of each gem’s setting with her fingers. “No unset gem should be trusted,” she read. “No setting should be soldered without careful thought to pressure and use.”

  The clock sometimes stuttered like a laugh, and she’d oil the workings. Ania laughed with the clock. She been going a little crazy, memorizing. But she felt safe here.

  She was fairly sure Pressmen had come into the clockroom once already, and even more sure that the clockroom had kept her safe.

  Truth was, Ania was still trying to get her head around what had happened. She’d heard footsteps. Shouts. Someone had tried to break into the clockroom, and then—

  No. She couldn’t—she hadn’t been hurt, but she still couldn’t—it was as if a fog had passed over her memories.

  Think, Ania. If she was going mad, she needed to know. Being trapped in the library for even a few days without all her faculties was dangerous. Think. What do you remember?

  Pressmen had entered the library. She’d hidden in the clockroom, shored up the door with a barricade of books, then climbed into the gears, up a small spiral staircase made of brass, and perched there, waiting.

  She wished she’d thought to get a weapon. She’d sworn to protect the books. But she was a teacher, not a fighter. She’d sparred a little in primary school, but that was it. All she had now were hairpins.

  And the Pressmen saw the barricade’s edge beyond the broken door— A pile of books! Treasure! She’d been so stupid. They decided to investigate. When they pushed through the door, the helmeted fighters didn’t spot Ania, kneeling high in the clockwork. Not at first.

  Ania’s muscles tensed with the strain of keeping still, of not crying out in anger as a Pressman pocketed one book, then another.

  She must have made some sound, because the Pressman turned toward where she cowered. Their gloved hand rested for a moment on the clockwork as they bent close, peering up.

  That was where things got strange. She found it hard to remember what happened next.

  Ania’s heart pounded loud, or the clock did. The small, dark room drew close around her and then everything went black. She dreamed of strange places with terrible drums beating.

  When she came to, clutching the railing of the spiral stair and cursing her own fear and weakness, the Pressmen were gone, but many of her books remained.

  There was a small bit of blood on the floor beside the clockwork. But no body. Had she done something?

  Ania couldn’t remember. “I should get out,” she whispered. No one answered. The clock ticked steadily.

  But she hesitated, thinking of the damp walls along the steam tunnels, the prospect of emptiness, or Pressmen, on the other side. What if everyone has already given up?

  Her colleague’s face as he knelt on the floor of Gladulous Hall. She couldn’t turn away from her memory of that.

  When the floor rattled again, another loud boom followed. This one much closer. The sound drove air hard against the library’s windows, against Ania’s ears. The air pushed grit and dust through the clockwork, under the door, everywhere. It knocked Ania to the ground. Her teeth rang from the impact. She heard shelves begin to fall in the stacks.

  She righted herself, slowly, for her vision swam. Her carefully stacked, hidden books had toppled. She reached for the nearest book, her ears still clanging. The cover torn, the title—a catalog of propriety from the Western Mountains—half missing. She held a sleeve over her mouth against the dust as she carefully smoothed the pages with her free hand, then placed the book back on the pile.

  Another cloud of dust puffed between the clock’s seals.

  Light tilted and shone
through the clock wall at a slightly different angle. Ania coughed at the dust and went out to investigate.

  “Time preserve us,” she whispered as she looked through the library’s shuttered windows. Where Gladulous Hall had been, beyond the Pressmen’s feast, only a roof showed above the ground.

  “You no longer need these buildings,” a Pressman shouted on the square.

  A few students—former students now—and all the Pressmen cheered.

  When Ania rested her head against the clockwork’s metal gears, she could hear noise in the steam tunnels, rustling outside. She pressed her ear close.

  “There are still books inside the library, and at least one thief!” a familiar voice said. Xachar. Her first-year student.

  Mutters of disgust echoed through the metal. “We should make them carry the books out,” someone said. “Whoever’s still inside. That’s safer than losing more of our people.”

  “Nah. The gems will do the work now,” another voice near the door replied. “Once the words are gone, and their buildings are collapsed, the academics will give up and come stand with the rest of us.”

  Ania pressed her face against the clock glass, looking out between the letters O and N of Sonoria Vos. Gems? The word tickled her memory. A spark glowed across the square in the dim evening light. Moments later, another boom. A wall of dust went up around the arts building, and the ground rippled again. No.

  When the air cleared, that building, too, was nearly gone—only its roof showed beside the smooth expanse of the square.

  The Pressmen were using charges to sink the university into the ground, one building at a time, and gems to destroy the books somehow. Erasing the school and its books. Including the library.

  Perhaps the clockroom would be buried deep within the earth. And—unless the ocean came for it—someday discovered again. A trove of books saved by time. Her bones left to guard it.

  She didn’t want to die here. She began to pack her satchel to head for the steam tunnels. But too late, more rustling. Shadows moved across the shuttered windows beyond the cracked clock face. The Pressmen’s assistants called to one another as they set charges. Student cloaks flickered past among the blue and white.