Smoke and Iron

by Rachel Caine

  No, until the Library saw the error of its ways and chose a new course of its own will, until the Curia and the Archivist were replaced with leaders who understood the damage their repression had done . . . until then, assassination accomplished nothing, except to force the Library to crush down with more force.

  She hoped Jess knew that.

  Dario shrugged a little. "He'll do whatever he thinks best, as he usually does. It's aggravating, especially since the little scrubber usually turns out to be right."

  "Stop calling him that. You love him, too."

  Dario sighed and closed his eyes. "You mentioned water, didn't you? I could do with that, my love. I don't want you to see me in this state."

  "Nonsense," she said, and smiled. "I love seeing you in this state. It means that for once, you're human and have given up your delusions of grandeur."

  "I do not have delusions of grandeur. I am, in fact, grand."

  She laughed, but once that bright moment faded--and she let it fade--she said, "Once you're better, we will have a talk about how much I despise dishonesty. You may consider that a warning. I will not be lied to, Dario. Not even for what you believe is my own good."

  "If I survive the night, I will look forward to your lecture," he said. "And I know. If the stakes of this hadn't been so high, the choices so few . . . but I should have known you would figure out our plan eventually. There is no one like you, Khalila. No one on God's earth."

  She wanted to kiss him in that moment but settled for a quick, gentle stroke of fingers across his forehead. "And no one quite like you," she said. "Allah be praised for that."

  He caught her hand as she tried to draw away. "Wait. Back in England you said . . . Well, I was hoping that you'd changed your mind and . . ."

  "Decided to marry you?" She asked it in a brisk way and managed to keep her voice steady. It was what he'd asked her in England, just before the soldiers had broken in on them and everything had fallen apart. Of course, she thought. He asked because he was afraid we would lose each other then. That one of us might be lost forever. "What did I say, Dario?"

  "You said you might," he said. "I was hoping for a more definite answer. Given that we might still be facing our deaths. Or at least I might be, if I keep vomiting my stomach inside out."

  "Consider I'm giving you reason to survive."

  "Is that a yes?"

  "That," she said, "is a very definite might."

  He let go. He didn't want to, she could see it, but she appreciated that he knew when to back off. And besides, she could see the nausea twisting in him again. She quickly rose and headed for the door as he groaned and wrapped his arms around the bucket.

  Khalila found washcloths and soap, and once he'd emptied whatever small amount he had left to surrender in his stomach, she stripped off his shirt and helped him scrub off the sweat. A fresh shirt came out of a supply laid in for the crew--not Dario's usual quality, but he could hardly complain--and she brought him water and made him drink until he finally collapsed to the pillow again. His color was better, and though his hair needed a thorough washing, he seemed more himself.

  "I love you." He sighed. "God help me."

  "If you love me, tell me what you were planning to accomplish by getting us captured and loaded on this ship," she said. "Because you're in no shape to carry it off now, and someone must."

  "Why do you think I had anything planned?"

  "Because I'm not an idiot, and neither are you. Jess had his plan. Morgan had hers. What was yours?"

  Dario swallowed, closed his eyes, and said, "Slight . . . problem with my plan. It was a bargain with Anit, and I've since determined that she's gone back on it. She wasn't supposed to deliver us to Alexandria, but it seems now she's intent on doing just that."

  "Where were you planning for us to go, then?"

  "Cadiz. Where we'd be met by envoys of my cousins."

  "Your . . . cousins?"

  "The king and queen of Spain," he said. "Well, I did tell you I was grand, didn't I? The plan was that they would pay a wonderfully great ransom for all of us, Anit appeases her father, and we'd have royal support to continue on our journey. Spain and Portugal have broken with the Library, as have Wales and a few others. I think they will gladly give us everything we need."

  Khalila realized her eyebrows were raised--probably at the casual mention of Dario's cousins--and left them that way. "And do you have an answer for how to put us back on that original plan?"

  "Not presently," he admitted. He put an arm over his eyes. "If only I could think instead of spewing . . ."

  She patted him on the shoulder. "Lucky for you, you're not the only one with a brain. Rest. Leave it to me."

  That got her an uncovered pair of brown eyes and an unexpected hint of vulnerability from him. For all his confidence--or arrogance, less charitably described--Dario knew the risks of this game they were playing. And the penalties. "Please be careful, madonna," he told her. "For the love of Allah, be careful."

  "For the love of God, rest," she said, and smiled to soothe his pride, then went to see the one person she least wanted to face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When she tapped lightly on Captain Niccolo Santi's door, she was told immediately to enter. Not asleep as had been assumed, then. He was fully dressed, and clearly not as bad a sailor as Dario . . . not that she could imagine Santi being bad at very much. He had a drawn look and a shadow in his eyes, but he nodded briskly and indicated that she should take a seat on the single bed in the room. She refused politely and put her back to the wall; it helped to steady her. Santi rode the waves without a sign that he even thought about it.

  "I've been waiting," he said. "I should have guessed it'd be you. Were you elected, or did you volunteer?"

  This wasn't the Santi she knew, the one easy in his skin, who treated them all with a kind of paternal exasperation, at worst. Santi was the kind one, the one who wore his responsibilities with ease, while Wolfe snapped and barked at the best of times.

  This Santi was sharp, aggressive, and she didn't like it. Khalila ignored the question and said, "I'm surprised they haven't locked you in."

  "I'm clearly not that dangerous. After all, I let them take me back at the Brightwell castle," he said. "I let them take Chris." She felt the self-directed anger behind that. Searing.

  "Captain--"

  He pushed that away with a slash of his hand. "What do you want?"

  She ached for him, but there was no healing his toxic guilt. He knew what waited for Wolfe in Alexandria at the hands of the Archivist Magister. Santi would sooner have died than see that happen. "Forgive me," she said. "I have something to tell you." She took in a breath. "It's about Jess."

  That sharpened his focus. He was a fiercely smart man; she watched him assess all the possibilities before he said, "My God. What did that fool do?" But he was already far ahead of that. He answered his own question. "He realized the Brightwells would sell us out before it happened. But instead of involving all of us, he made his own dice throw. Not alone, though. Dario, at a guess. Not Glain; she'd have come to me. Thomas would have had none of it. You--well, I think you would have known better, too."

  He knew them so well. Khalila let out a slow breath, took in another, and said, "Dario and Jess, at a start. They involved Morgan, as I understand it. For practical reasons . . ."

  "Your next words had better assure me that Wolfe knew what they were doing. That they didn't drag him off as a prisoner without telling him."

  She swallowed and tried to think of some neutral answer, but that took too long. She saw the bitter ignition of rage in his eyes . . . and then he was moving.

  "Captain? Captain, wait! Where are you going?" Because Santi was stalking toward the cabin door.

  He didn't answer.

  She managed to glide into his path and put her back to the door. For a heart-stopping second, she was afraid he might just thrust her out of the way, but he came to a halt, glared at her with brutal intensity. "Please don't go af
ter Dario. He's very ill. Please."

  "I don't care."

  "Captain," she said. "Imagine for a moment that Scholar Wolfe knew the Brightwells would most certainly betray us, and there was no possible way out of that trap. Don't you think he would have advised us to use that as an opportunity? To turn a defeat to a chance? That is all that Dario and Jess did. They overturned the table, because there were no winning moves. As a military man, you know that sometimes it's the only option!"

  He didn't like it. She watched the blind fury struggle against his good sense, and finally he slammed the heel of his hand hard into the steel bulkhead beside her and wheeled away to put his back to her. When he finally faced her again, he was more composed. "Jess is in Alexandria? Posing as his brother?"

  "Yes," she said. "I believe so."

  "He'd better have a care when I see him again," he said. "But that can wait. Why tell me this now?"

  "Because the plan that Jess and Dario concocted was for Anit to betray her father and convey us to Spain, where Dario has allies who will help us. But she's lost her courage, it seems. We're headed straight for Alexandria. I think you know that if we're handed over in chains . . ."

  He nodded sharply. "If we reach Alexandria, we're dead," he finished. "Most of us, in any case. They'll execute me and Glain out of hand. And you, along with your relatives they already have, to keep your country in line. Dario . . . he might escape. Thomas, they'll keep. He's valuable to them." It was a quick, concise analysis, and deadly accurate. It matched precisely her own.

  "We need to take this ship," Khalila said. "And we need all of us to do it. Including you, Captain."

  "Just the five of us against the entire crew?"

  "Four," she said. "Considering Dario's condition. We are outnumbered. Yet Anit has left us free, and I find myself wondering why on earth she would do that, knowing how dangerous we can be. I think she can't disobey her father--no doubt the captain and his men would report her in an instant if she tried--but, at the same time, I think she wouldn't be disappointed if we are able to force the issue."

  Unlike Wolfe, who would have snarled at her and called her a fool, Santi gave that serious thought. She knew he was doing what she'd already done: analyzing each of the points of vulnerability, and the fortifications and arms that protected them. "Obviously, if we take the bridge, we can steer the ship," he said. "But we can't take the bridge."

  "We can take Anit."

  "She's a child."

  "Old enough to run her father's operations and command the hundred or so sailors who crew this vessel," Khalila replied. "Which is, to me, old enough to be taken hostage. I'm not saying we hurt her, but since she conspired in the first place with Jess and Dario, and changed her mind . . ."

  "Fine. We take the girl hostage and force the ship to Cadiz. What does that get us, precisely, besides a safe haven? I'm High Garda. I'm telling you that Alexandria has never been taken."

  "In the last thousand years, who's tried? The last serious threat was the Mongols, and they were defeated by the Ottomans before they ever came close. Tell me, Captain: have the real, physical defenses of the Library ever been tested? Truly tested?"

  "There are always four full companies inside the city, with the Elite unit stationed at the Serapeum. That's not even counting the automata. No one is taking that city without tremendous losses on both sides. Which I would have told you if you had consulted me before embarking on this plan!"

  "Morgan's job is to take care of the automata," Khalila said. "Why do you think Jess included her? From inside the Iron Tower, she can take down a great many of the defenses the Obscurists have always maintained . . . And you, Captain, you know the other captains. Three out of four commanders around Philadelphia agreed with you. There's a very real possibility of a High Garda rebellion, isn't there? If the opportunity for reform seems real?"

  "The difference is that those three commanders stood aside for us in the field. They would never do that in what we consider home. They'll defend it. No matter whether they like me or agree with me, they will fight for the Library."

  "The battle is coming to Alexandria. Whether we do it, or the massed armies of the kingdoms already denying treaties do, or it happens in twenty years when Thomas's press has eroded the power of the Library beyond repair . . . the Library will fall. We are talking about how to protect what is true and good about it before that happens. If you love the Library as I do, we must gain control of it and begin to make it what it truly should be: not a tyrant kingdom, but a spiritual and intellectual leader. That is its truest purpose."

  She needed him to believe it. Captain Santi was their best hope to achieve military victory in Alexandria; with any luck, it could be done with a minimum loss of life. But to save Alexandria, they first had to take it. She had to make Santi believe it was at least possible, or his heart would break before they ever made landfall. Captain Santi was the strong, quiet center of their group. If he broke now, they would all shatter. This was a thing, she believed, that Jess and Dario did not understand.

  But she did. And so it fell to her.

  She watched him think through it, step by step. He knew the risks. The points of failure. The slim odds they could ever be successful.

  But he also had to know that if they wanted the Great Library of Alexandria to survive and uphold its beautiful ideals . . . then those who truly loved it would have to take these risks.

  We are not destroying the Library, she wanted to say to him. We are saving it.

  But he would have to reach that conclusion himself. Without Santi, they would not find the strength. Without Jess, no inspiration. Without Thomas, there was no real future. Without Glain, no protection. Without Morgan, no audacity. Without Wolfe, no challenge to do better, be better.

  Without Dario, no subtlety.

  Without her . . . but she didn't see her role. It would have been prideful to imagine she could not be spared, but she knew she could not spare even one of these others.

  Santi said, "You have the gift, you know."

  "What gift?"

  "Silence," he said. "You let people think. And yet, you also lead from silence. I've met a few like you."

  She felt a slight heat in her cheeks and raised her chin against the urge to deny what he'd said. "Were they worthy of your trust?" she asked.

  "Oh yes," Santi told her. "Every one of them." He sighed. "The path to Alexandria leads through allies, connections, and communications with those I can trust. I make no guarantees that we'll ever see the city, or survive it if we do. But you're right. We need to land in Cadiz and build allies."

  "Then we take the ship?"

  "We take the ship," he said. "God help us." He nodded at the small bunk. "Sit down. It's too suspicious if we gather in numbers, so I'll need you to memorize plans, timing, all of it. You'll set everyone in the right place and time."

  She sat, smoothing her skirt with restless fingers. She was aware that by coming here, and staying for long, she'd be inviting gossip. But let them talk, if they intended to. Better the crew assume she and Santi were lovers than that they suspect they were conspirators. "One thing," she said. "Give me a chance to talk to Anit first."

  He stared at her for a long moment, then said, "If you insist on doing that, you have to be prepared to fail. Are you? Prepared to fail?"

  "You mean, am I prepared to take action? Take her prisoner? Slip a knife in her ribs?"

  He nodded.

  "Anit made her choice," Khalila said. "And, yes. I am prepared."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Anit was no kind of fool. She'd been hardened in the same fires that Jess Brightwell had been; she understood full well how brutal the world was, and what place she had in it. She was quiet and thoughtful and noticed everything.

  Anit was also wary of her own captain and crew. Khalila understood that very well. Women watched their allies as much as their enemies, if they wished to prevent trouble and keep their power. Especially if all of their subordinates and peers were men. Unfair,
perhaps, but practical.

  If this was to work at all, Khalila thought, she needed to play upon the fact that Anit had grown up guarded, alone, and under constant pressure from the men around her.

  The fact that Anit would unwillingly, perhaps unconsciously, feel kinship with another young woman.

  It didn't take long for Khalila to come up with the correct approach. She waited until midmorning, then changed to a black dress and moved with deliberate speed toward the metal stairs that led up to the bridge, where Anit stood. She was, of course, instantly intercepted by two stout men--sun weathered, hair bleached nearly blond, covered in blurred tattoos. "No access," one of them said. "Go away."

  "I need to speak with Anit," Khalila said. "Please."

  "No access."

  "Tell her it's a private matter."

  "Don't care," the first sailor said, and shoved her back. "Move on. Now. Before I feed you to the fish."

  "Not without my express permission you don't." Anit's voice came from the door to the bridge, and when Khalila looked up, she saw the girl watching them. Assessing. "What kind of private matter?"

  "The kind I don't prefer to talk about with them listening," Khalila said. "Please."

  Anit came down the steps, waved the sailors a few steps away, and waited with her arms folded. She was in no danger; there were at least ten men only feet away who, though intent on their own business on deck, would certainly come running at her call.

  And, of course, Anit could very likely defend herself.

  "You have something to ask?" Anit prompted.

  "I assume you have a woman's monthly supplies," Khalila said. "There are none in my cabin. I'm afraid I've already stained a dress." She pitched her voice loud enough that the sailors could hear and smiled as she saw them draw back. She could never fathom how men failed to come to grips with the workings of a woman's body.

  "No one provided you with--" Anit let out a frustrated sigh. "Of course they didn't. They didn't even consider it. Glain must need some as well. Please come with me. I'll give you what I can from my own stores." She glanced at the sailors and rolled her eyes. "No need to accompany me," she told them. "I'll be fine."