Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(26)

Wolfe sat back on his bunk and began to methodically catalogue every item in this bare, depressing cell for its usefulness.

Because soon, he’d need every possible asset to find a way out of this.





CHAPTER EIGHT




He woke in the dark, disoriented, and for a moment he reached out to touch Santi’s sleeping form, only to hit cold stone. Memory struck a second later, along with the stench of the place, and he groaned and tried to put himself back to sleep. He’d be better off unconscious.

“Oh, wake up, you waste of skin,” said a voice that did not sound like it came out of his nightmares . . . or did it? The lines had blurred considerably recently.

“You’re not real,” he mumbled, and turned over to face the cold stone wall.

“The woman in the cell next to you is named—what is her name, boy?”

“Ariane, sir. Ariane Daskalakis,” said a second voice. “Lately a lieutenant in the High Garda.”

“Tragic, the talent that is being wasted in these dark days. Very well, Wolfe, sit up and talk to me, or I’ll order Daskalakis here shot right now.”

He sat up. No denying that this was real now. He could see only a faint outline of the man standing beyond the bars, but he knew it was no spirit haunting him. The hiss of a glow igniting in the man’s hand threw a faintly greenish light over both of them, and Wolfe threw up a hand to block the glare as his eyes struggled to adjust. Getting old, he thought. I’d have blinked that away easily a few years ago. It was an idle observation. He was currently unlikely to get much older.

“Artifex Magnus,” he said. “I should have expected to see you, I suppose. You never could resist a chance to gloat.”

“Do you really imagine that’s why I’m here?”

“Well, I doubt you’re here to kill me quietly in the dark. You’ve never been that kindly disposed.”

The Artifex gave him a cynical grin. “I’ve never liked you; that’s true. You’re an arrogant, insufferable bully who believed he could do anything without penalties. As brilliant and driven as you are, you could have risen to sit in my chair, if only you’d kept your haughtiness under control. But still, this is a pity, the depths you’ve sunk to.”

“Can we dispense with the pleasantries and get to the point? What brings you out of your warm, and no doubt very comfortable, bed?” Wolfe looked beyond the old man, into the shadows. No guards, just a very nervous young Scholar who clearly looked frightened out of his wits and wouldn’t look directly at Wolfe at all. Odd. “And unescorted?”

“There will be no records that I came here,” the Artifex said. “The automata will have no memory of it. I came to ask you a question. It’s important.”

“You really could wait until visiting hours.”

“If you were ever allowed to see another friendly face, that might be clever. But since you’re going to rot in this cell until you die screaming, I’d think you’d settle for an old enemy.” There was something strange about the Artifex’s tone now. Wolfe couldn’t quite pin it down.

“I doubt I’ll ever be that desperate,” Wolfe said. But he was, of course. And the Artifex knew it.

“One question. Answer it honestly, and no one dies tonight.”

Wolfe didn’t answer directly, but he inclined his head just a touch. There was a very real danger that if he didn’t comply, Ariane might be killed. Or Saleh. It would be one of his neighbors, close enough that he could hear the damage done.

“I knew you were smarter than you seem. Do the Brightwells really have a working press?”

“Oh yes,” Wolfe said. “And it’s better and faster than anything I’ve seen before. Better by far than what I built. Better than the first attempts Thomas made, too. It certainly will do the job.”

“The job,” the Artifex repeated.

“The job of destroying the power of the Great Library to censor and withhold information. Which is what you’ve feared all along.”

The Artifex stepped closer and wrapped his free hand around a bar of the cell door. “Do you understand what you’ve done, Wolfe? What you’re so arrogantly destroying?”

“Yes,” Wolfe said. “We’ve finally opened a door you’ve kept padlocked for a thousand years. And there’s power in what we have. Power you can’t take away.”

“You’re worse than the Burners. If this machine spreads, it will tear the Library apart, piece by piece. Destroy something that has united the world for so many thousands of years.” There were tears—real tears—in the old man’s eyes now. “You think you’re fighting for freedom. Freedom is dangerous. Give humankind freedom, and they will inevitably fall into chaos and war, religious zealotry and senseless violence. We have kept the peace. And we’ve done it by giving the people what they need, when they need it. Not what they want. Want is nothing but blind and selfish greed.”

“Don’t wrap yourself in virtue,” Wolfe said. “You’ve killed tens of thousands in the consolidation of your power—and that’s what it is: raw power. The power to decide for hundreds of millions of people what is good for them and what isn’t. They don’t need your godlike guidance. They need to grow.”