Ash and Quill

by Rachel Caine

  "It looked like another of their damned Burner paintings," Glain said. "Mostly in orange. They like things the color of flames."

  "It's not detailed, but it clearly shows fields behind city hall, the walls, the streets. A primitive style, and not by any real mapmaker. But it gives a good idea," Khalila said. "Paper?"

  For answer, Dario plucked a sheet fastened to the inside of his cell--the paper wall--and handed it over. "I'll make ink." He walked over to the very small pile of coal near the furnace that sat by the door--designed, Jess thought, to barely keep them alive in colder weather--and took one piece. With efficient motions, he used his boot heel to pound it into bits, grinding it fine, then used another paper sheet stripped from his cell to wrap into a cone, and scraped the black powder in. Added some drops of water and stirred, measuring and adding carefully, until he had a little pool of black, watery ink in the cone. It wicked steadily into the paper, but he presented the cone to Khalila, and a small stick he found just at the door. She accepted both with a dimpled smile and an appreciative flash in her eyes, and set to work.

  "I don't have colors," she said as she carefully crosshatched lines across certain of the buildings, "so I am using patterns. This one, I believe, shows the location of shelters, like the ones they use for bomb attacks." She used diagonal lines for the next, fewer landmarks. "These, I don't know. We should take a look at them. Storehouses, perhaps? They might contain something useful."

  "Brilliant," Jess said. "Dario and I located a smugglers' tunnel marked here--" He hovered a finger over the part of the wall they'd strolled past earlier. "They've put more guards on it, which could mean that they're getting ready to receive goods through it." A thought suddenly struck him, and he tried to think how his father would have conducted such a business, if he'd sat in that city hall office instead of Willinger Beck. He'd be much, much cleverer than that. "Or they just want us to think that. If Beck is smart, he'd have increased the guards just to draw our attention to it. Make us commit to an attempt at using it. That gives him an excuse to draw us out."

  "Or it could be genuine," Dario said, "and Master Beck is just a provincial warlord who doesn't think like you do."

  "I've talked to him," Jess said. "I wouldn't trust anything he does."

  "And if we tried to use it--"

  "We'd end up captured, back in these cells without our comforts, and one or two of us roasted on a spit for our troubles," Glain broke in. "Jess is right. Take our time. Note the obvious. Look harder."

  Dario sighed. "I like the obvious. It's easier."

  Khalila was still drawing. She colored two last squares in solid black. Jess leaned forward. Both were close to the wall, one at the far eastern end, one at the far western. They mirrored each other. "And these?" he asked.

  "I don't know. But something. They were marked with red on his map."

  Glain said, "The western one is a barracks room. I haven't managed to scout the eastern one yet. It's at the end of the fields behind city hall. Too exposed. It looks like it could be a barn, though I've seen few enough farm animals. Possibly some kind of storage."

  "Don't risk it when they're too alert," Thomas said, and Glain glanced at him and gave him a smile that was only half-mocking.

  "Do you think I'm afraid of risk, Thomas? Have you met me?"

  "If you want the guards distracted, I can help with that," Morgan said. Jess didn't know what she meant until she brushed fingers over the back of his hand, and he felt a wave of weariness break over him. It didn't feel unnatural, just the accumulation of days and weeks of the terror and stress they'd been under, and before he could stop himself, he felt a yawn coming on. He clenched his jaw and suppressed it, and sent her a disbelieving look. She gave him a sweetly crooked smile. "We're all tired. Even the guards. Hardly takes more than a brush of fingers to make them less alert. Glain, let me know when you need the distraction." She brushed fingers over his skin again, and he felt the weariness lift like a cloud blowing away.

  He felt chilled by it, not heartened. Is she getting stronger? Askuwheteau's warning, Wolfe's predictions . . . none of it felt good. "Morgan," he said, and took her hand. Skin to skin. He didn't think she was using any of her quintessence on him now, but if she was, he wasn't certain he'd be able to tell. He bent his head closer to hers and whispered, "You need to be careful. Slow down."

  She pulled back in surprise, and her eyes found his. She didn't ask what he meant, and he supposed she already knew. "Would you?" she asked him. "If you knew you could help? I know you, Jess. You'd run until your heart burst in your chest if you felt it would save the rest of us. How can you ask me to do less?"

  "Because--" He wanted to say something, but this wasn't the time. Wasn't the place. "Because we'll need all your skill at some point. Don't waste it on small things. Promise me."

  Her jaw set in a way he was coming to know well, a look he was certain her tutors in the Iron Tower had learned to their regret.

  Khalila blew gently on the map to dry it, and then carefully rolled it up and looked around. "Jess," she said. "Where can I hide it . . . ?"

  He went into his cell and took a small piece of metal from his pocket. It was about the size of a coin, with filed protrusions on all sides; he'd spent half an hour crafting it in the workshop, between making wooden models of gears. It was the sort of concealable tool that all smugglers and thieves used, and he plied it to loosen the screws of his bed and slip one of the rails loose. It was hollow. He put the map inside and screwed it together again.

  "Why do you get to guard it, scrubber?" Dario asked, frowning. "Who made you Archivist?"

  "If it's discovered, he will be the one blamed," Thomas said. "He's protecting you. And all of us."

  "No," Jess said. "I'm just the one with the clever little screwdriver." But Thomas was, of course, correct. Jess was the one with the precious Brightwell immunity. Best any trouble fall on him, because Glain was right: Burners would be looking for an excuse to call them traitors, and make examples.

  At least he had a better chance of staying alive, in that case.

  "So what now?" Morgan asked.

  "You should rest," Jess said, but she shook her head.

  "I only wanted to see that you're all right. I'm going back to the doctor's house to stay with Wolfe and Santi."

  "I'll walk with you," Jess said. "The more they see us doing normal, unremarkable things, like visiting our sick comrade, the better our chances of doing something remarkable later. We should all go."

  He wanted to see Santi for himself, and he wanted to be sure Morgan arrived safely back at Askuwheteau's house.

  And a walk in the dark with her, however brief? Irresistible.

  There was a minor argument with the two guards who'd been left to secure the prison, and who didn't look too happy to have their guests leaving again. They'd only just got settled, and one was halfway through his cold, meager dinner. Diwell, Jess realized. "You're not going anywhere," Diwell said flatly. "Not until we're relieved."

  "Which will be when?" Khalila asked. She'd carefully washed the ink stains from her hands. She'd also made Dario mop up the drips from the cone, which might not have been fair, but it had been dead amusing. "Our friend needs to go back to the doctor's home to tend Captain Santi."

  "Don't care," Diwell said. He took a bite of stale bread and stared at them as he chewed. The look in his eyes said he personally blamed them for the quality of his meal. "You wait."

  "How long?"

  For answer, the other guard--older, calmer--simply drew his gun and rested it on his knee. He didn't even get up from his comfortable sitting position.

  Jess let out a frustrated sigh. "All right," he said. "We wait."

  They did, impatiently. Morgan was looking up, craning her head back, and Jess did the same. It was dizzying. The lights of Philadelphia were thin and weak, and the stars shone so brightly that they seemed to fill the sky. The night had a weight to it, and a pull.

  "Beautiful," Morgan said.

  Da
ngerous, he thought, but he didn't say it. She was right. He was just trained to look for the danger in everything. "Morgan, I meant what I said before. Please. Be careful."

  "I am," she said. "But there are things only I can do. You know that. Wolfe--"

  She broke off, as if she shouldn't have said his name, and Jess looked down at her sharply. She continued to stare at the stars, willfully ignoring the question in his eyes.

  "He's got you doing something other than healing Santi," he said.

  "That's my own business." She lowered her gaze to meet his, and why, why did she have to be so stubborn? But he knew the answer to that . . . because all her life, it had kept her alive. Kept her free.

  "I'm asking you to tell me."

  It was, he thought, because he asked that she finally said, "I offered Master Beck something to satisfy him when I couldn't reactivate the Translation Chamber. I told him I could increase the yield of their crops."

  "Can you do that?"

  "Oh yes," she said. "I didn't, but it gave me an excuse to walk through the fields by the wall and find a protected spot in the wall where I could begin to weaken it. The Obscurist who put up the wall generations ago was strong. It takes time and concentration, but--"

  "Can you bring it down?" he asked her.

  "No. But I can remove the protections that keep it from melting under Greek fire and other kinds of attacks. If I succeed, I can make it vulnerable."

  "Enough for Thomas to finish the job." Jess sighed. He felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. He didn't like the moving parts of this plan, didn't like the ifs and maybes. "Morgan--how hard is this for you?"

  "Not bad," she said, and he was almost sure she was lying. That she'd lost weight since he'd seen her in the morning. That the shadows beneath her eyes--in her eyes, too--were darker than they should have been. "Jess. Wolfe's right. We need at least two ways out of here. Three, if we can manage it. But if I can help . . ."

  "We can find a way for you to help without destroying yourself."

  She reached up a hand, put it on his cheek, and looked into his eyes. A serious, steady regard. "We all take risks," she said. "This one's mine." The coolness of her skin shocked him, and he curled his fingers around her wrist. Her pulse beat fast under the skin, but it seemed to be providing her little warmth.

  So he wrapped his arms around her to share some of his own. She sighed, as if it was a major relief, and for just a few moments, there weren't greater issues, or worries, or plans.

  Just the two of them, under the stars.

  Then the guard change arrived, and Diwell and the older man gladly departed. In their place came Indira, and another man whose ancestry looked drawn from the same part of the world as Dario's. Spaniards had helped colonize the American colonies and still claimed Mexico and beyond. Made sense there'd be some here.

  Indira didn't look especially pleased to see them lingering outside. She directed that displeasure at Thomas. "What are you doing here?"

  "Taking the air?" Dario said.

  She ignored him. "I was talking to you, Schreiber."

  "Taking the air," Thomas said, without a flicker of a smile. Dario laughed. "Also wondering . . . what is that?" Thomas asked and jerked his chin toward the wall on their left. Beyond it lay a luminous glow, like sunset . . . but sunset had already passed. For the first time, Jess realized that there was a brighter glow outside the city than inside it.

  "High Garda camp," Indira said. "Their encampment has grown through the years. All the modern conveniences, including chemical lights. They never let us forget they're out there. Night or day."

  Thomas nodded. "We are walking to Dr. Askuwheteau's house, to see Captain Santi."

  She nodded back. "Very well. Proceed." She and her fellow guard fell in with them.

  Jess realized, as Thomas led them on a course that meandered closer to the wall, that he could actually hear the Library forces. A low, whispering buzz of activity, voices, movement. A sudden, bright spark of laughter. A faint brush of music. Vital, modern life going on just a few hundred feet away, while here, the Burners scrambled for day-to-day crusts of bread and rebuilt their ruined city after every attack. That, too, was an attack. A subtle kind, one that would eat at the spirits of those trapped inside.

  "They never shut up," Indira said. She sounded resigned, but there was a tense undercurrent of anger, too. The hatred for the Library that never quite receded, in any of the Burners. And Jess was starting to understand that all too well. "And they never give up."

  "Can I tell you a story?" Jess asked her. She said nothing, so he kept going. "Burners read books, so you should appreciate this one. You know of the Serapeum of Pergamum?" Indira nodded. Pergamum was one of the most famous of the original libraries--a Greek establishment, a rival to Alexandria in the early days. "Artemon of Pergamum was the Scholar in charge of that place after it was made a Serapeum, two thousand years ago. He stood in the doors of the building, in front of a crowd of invading Roman soldiers, and told them that his death would come before they touched a single volume. They killed him. When he fell, another librarian stepped into his place. When she was killed, another. And another. One by one, they died to keep the Romans from looting the shelves. The last was a newly christened Scholar, just arrived that day. Her name was Flavia, and she was from the kingdom of Carthage. She stood on top of the bodies of her friends and colleagues, armed with nothing but a knife. She knew she would die, but that didn't stop her."

  Indira said nothing. But she was listening.

  "The Roman commander himself stepped up to that bloody doorway and commanded her to save herself. She said, 'Better I die than a single book is lost.' Flavia was just fourteen years old. She'd been a full Scholar for less than a week. Her statue stands over the entrance to the Serapeum at Pergamum, because she saved it. The Roman commander said, 'If your love of these books is so great, then they must be worth saving.' And he set his men to guard the building, while the rest of Pergamum was looted and destroyed. It was the beginning of the Library's neutrality."

  "You must have a point to this story," Indira said.

  "Flavia is the spirit of the Library," Thomas said. "Not the Archivist. Not the Curia. You call us booklovers, and it's true. We are. And so are you, at heart. You believe in the power of them to change the world."

  "It's a nice story. I don't believe in fairy tales. It's the Archivist and the Curia who run the Library, not your martyred saint."

  "No," Jess said. "They're just running it now. If you want to change the world, you don't destroy the entire Library. You put Flavia back in charge."

  "As I said, a nice story," Indira said. "We don't tell each other stories. We fight. We take action."

  "You huddle behind your walls here and fight a losing battle," Morgan said. "And you're going to lose. What good are you really doing here?"

  Indira's lip curled, and her tone was softly mocking when she said, "Being a symbol. Like your Flavia. Are you children really intending to teach us the proper way to rebel?"

  "No. We're doing it with you or without you," Thomas said. He sounded certain of himself. No bluster, no pride. Just fact. "I don't see a future here, Indira. I don't see many children, and those I see are starving and frightened. You might be surviving, but I do not think you are winning. Do you?"

  Only Thomas, Jess thought, could say that with so much understanding and compassion.

  Indira's lips went thin, her gaze flat, and she took a faster pace, striding forward. "The doctor's house is this way."

  They silently followed her. Jess had been hoping to drift closer to the wall, see the substance of it and more smugglers' marks, but she was going nowhere near it. Best not to push their luck.

  He looked over at Morgan. The descending shadows gave her face smooth, strong lines and hollows. Like the sky, she was fragile and beautiful. Like this city, she could be lost, either in a firestorm or by slow, deliberate ruin, and it hurt him to know that he couldn't stop her. That he had no right to try. He si
lently offered her his arm, and she slipped hers into it. It felt good. It felt seductively normal, two people walking together in the beautiful, fleeting night with the stars burning overhead.

  He said nothing at all during the rest of their brisk walk, and neither did she; the parklike grounds in front of city hall were largely deserted, except for a couple in the shadows locked in a passionate kiss--two girls, he realized. He waited for Indira to react to that, but she simply avoided them and moved on with a businesslike stride. The Burners, for all their passionate fanaticism against the Library, had very little prejudice to spare for anything else. He was seized by a desire to pull Morgan into those leafy shadows, to kiss her in just that way, with no thought for tomorrow, no cares for plans and future troubles. He wanted to lose himself in her, while he still could.

  He was a little startled when he felt Morgan pull him in that direction, into the shadows. When it was his back against the rough bark. When it was her sweet, urgent lips on his, her hands cool against his cheeks, her body pressing his.

  But he didn't question it, and for a moment, nothing else mattered, until he heard Indira say sharply, "You two! Here! Now!"

  Morgan pulled back, regretfully, and Jess realized they were both trembling a little. He felt on fire, everywhere she'd touched him, especially his mouth, and he tasted her on his tongue and desperately wanted more, like a starving man given a single drop of honey.

  "Morgan," he said. "Please don't let Wolfe push you into doing more than you safely can."

  "I could say the same to you," she told him, and smiled. "We both learned Flavia's lesson."

  Then she slipped away.

  He had no choice but to follow.

  The doctor's housekeeper--a tall, strict-looking woman--managed to convey both disapproval and welcome at the same time as she let them in. Thomas had to duck to fit under the low doorway, and his head came perilously close to the ceiling once he was inside the small house. With all of them crowding in--except Indira and the other guard, who took up positions outside--the room felt crushingly tiny.

  "Quiet!" the woman whispered at them as they shifted around. "The doctor is exhausted. He needs his rest. I'll take you to your friend."