Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(37)

The carriage rolled swiftly on through the streets; lesser conveyances moved out of the way, pedestrians stepped back, and even the larger, lumbering steam wagons that moved goods through the city made respectful space for their passage. Well, this is posh, he thought. And when did the Archivist become an emperor? Ages ago, most likely, a bit of grandeur and arrogance at a time. Power formed like pearls, in accretion layers over time. Pharaoh’s reign had passed, though a ceremonial Ptolemy still acted as a figurehead and kept Egypt’s rich history alive. Gradually, inevitably, all of the devotion that the old god-king demanded had landed on the Library.

And now it formed a crown on the head of the most corrupt man ever to hold the office of Archivist.

Da had always said that the corrupt were easier to do business with than the honest, at least; if that held true, today would end in huge profits. And if it went badly, he could always sacrifice himself to remove the old man from the board. Better a bloody, costly victory than a slow defeat for the family. He didn’t have a weapon, but he’d make do. His father had taught him early on in life that anything, even a tightly rolled piece of paper, could be effective enough as a weapon. Speed and ruthlessness were the key components of any attack, and he’d need to have both of those if he intended to kill the Archivist; the High Garda and automata would be on him in a second, maybe two, and he had to make it count. If that was what the day required.

No sense in raising his pulse now. He couldn’t control what was to come, so he closed his eyes until the steady hiss of the steam engine changed pitch. The carriage was slowing, and the drive was over.

Pity. It was a perfect day outside.

The carriage didn’t pause at the checkpoints, which parted without question; the prowling sphinxes there glared in at him with reddened eyes, their eerie human faces reminding him of someone and no one at all. The sphinxes used at the checkpoints were larger than their more common counterparts, and the wings folded at their sides were not at all ornamental. They could fly for short distances, the wings were sharp as knives, and he’d heard rumors that their bites were poisonous. He believed it. The aura of menace coming off these things was especially intense.

There was, he noticed, also a large number of High Garda Elite manning the checkpoint—twenty, by his guess. If there were as many stationed at every side of the Serapeum’s pyramid, the Archivist was uneasy.

Good. An uneasy negotiator was an easier mark.

The carriage deposited him in a secured courtyard—more automata prowling—and the driver ushered him out with icy politeness.

Neksa was waiting for him. He felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach, seeing her again. Sweet, lovely Neksa.

“At least if I’m going to die today, I get a last look at true beauty.” He didn’t even think about the words before he said them, but they sounded right. Felt right. He paired them with an extravagant bow.

As he straightened, Neksa slapped him. Hard enough to rock his head back and inscribe a hand-shaped burn on his cheek, and he blinked back his surprise and somehow managed to hold on to the slipping grin. “Suppose I deserved that.”

“Suppose you deserve a great deal more,” Neksa snapped. “You are here for the Archivist, not for me. If it were up to me, I’d put you on a boat back home and drill holes in the hull as a going-away present.”

Well, you do care after all, love. He followed her stiff back and swaying hips through a small door at the back of a water garden thick with lotus and found himself in one of the many claustrophobic passages within the pyramid itself. He’d never been inside it, and he marked it for later, though he hadn’t seen how she’d managed to open it. Likely it was keyed to the band around her wrist, which would clearly list her privileges and restrictions. Wouldn’t work without her being alive and wearing it, of course; the Library wasn’t stupid.

If he wanted to use this way again, he’d have to make Neksa an ally . . . or a prisoner. Though he didn’t relish that last, but he didn’t rule it out.

The looming, arching walls were inscribed with hieroglyphs nearly as fresh as the day they were chiseled, millennia ago, and he resisted the urge to trail his fingers over those sharp edges. History was everywhere in Alexandria. It was in the air he breathed, the stones he walked on. The Great Library had survived the march of time. It gave him some hope that he might survive his day inside it.

Neksa reached the distant end of the corridor—which, he noted, had no branches and he strongly suspected could be locked off at either end with either the airflows blocked or lethal gas introduced. Stepping through to the next room was disorienting, since the next chamber was a huge vaulted gallery filled with twenty-foot-high gilded statues of gods, all marking a path that led to the other side. Horus guarded the end of the row, facing toward them; the giant hawk-headed god stood staring straight ahead with a flail clasped in his right hand. All the gods had been decorated with gold and silver, but Horus’s body had been crafted of pure black stone, and the craftsman had taken a Roman approach to showing the perfect musculature . . . an odd effect, and more than a little unsettling.

He was unsurprised when the god’s eyes lit red as they approached and the golden hawk’s head tilted down to regard them. The flail in its hand was razor edged. It would cut them both in half with a single swing, and Jess watched for any twitch of movement that would signal that was about to happen. Dive for the floor, roll, hope for the best. At least you won’t suffer long if you’re slow.