Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(46)

“And sold you out there, as well. Landed you in Philadelphia, at the mercy of the Burners.”

“He had very little choice,” Santi said. “But yes. Brightwell also connived with your predecessor because he realized an opportunity presented itself. He’d certainly be interested in profits, if there’s some arrangement the Great Library finds beneficial. Times are changing, Archivist. There might be accommodations to be made.”

“With book smugglers?” She sounded not so much horrified as disgusted.

“I know it goes against the grain,” he admitted. “But consult with Thomas Schreiber. I believe he has an invention that will be vital to this discussion.”

“The young man who just raised Poseidon in the harbor?” She nodded thoughtfully. “I will. Thank you, Lord Commander. I know you have a—I do not want to call it a war, but perhaps a campaign—to conduct.”

He bowed. “My thanks for the gift of your trust, Archivist.”

She nodded, and he left. Tom Rolleson was waiting for him in the hall; his younger aide seemed as if he’d aged years in the last few days. He was reading his Codex, and kept reading as he fell in step. “Sir,” he said. “The fleet has moved back. They haven’t departed completely, but they’re putting some water between us.”

“More likely, between that deadly cannon of Thomas’s and their highly vulnerable ships,” Santi said. “The Spanish ambassador’s no fool. He saw Thomas make one of those weapons, and he’ll know what they’re capable of doing. But he’s not one to give up, either. I imagine he’ll test it periodically and see how long it can keep up its beam. How long can it, by the way?”

“No more than thirty-six seconds, sir. Then it needs to recharge for at least a few minutes.”

“And they will quickly discover that. I need to talk to the Artifex Magnus and see what can be done.”

Rolleson glanced up. “I’ll arrange it, sir. What else?”

“There will be spies inside the city, likely part of the Spanish ambassador’s ring that existed long before this.”

“I’m told the Obscurists are looking for any suspicious writings in either Codex messages or private journals.” Rolleson nearly missed a step. “Wait . . . how can they possibly read a private journal?” Santi recognized the scandalized worry in that question. He’d felt it himself when he’d first realized that personal journals weren’t just for their intended purpose of adding to the history of the Great Library, but for surveillance by increasingly anxious Archivists. By slow, seemingly logical steps, they’d gone from pure motives to bitterly authoritarian outcomes.

“Let’s just say that you probably shouldn’t put anything in your journal you wouldn’t want the Archivist to read over tea.”

“Oh. But I thought . . . I thought they were to be locked until after our deaths.” That wasn’t scandalized; that was purely horrified. “Too late to burn it, I suppose?”

“Far too late,” Santi said. “I’ve been making mine incredibly boring for many, many years. You might want to do the same.”

“Yes, sir.” Rolleson gulped and tried to regain his composure. “Sorry, sir, you were saying?”

“Orders. Post Captain Botha’s company at the Lighthouse. I want his best defending the Ray of Apollo, but soldiers at all strategic levels and approaches, from the ground up. Some uniformed, some plainclothes. Spies will almost certainly come as Scholars. Check every band. Ask the Obscurist Magnus to divert two sphinxes to guard the door access to the Ray, and make damn sure we don’t rely on them completely. Tell Botha to try not to kill any spies they find; I’d like them as trading chips.”

“Yes, sir. What else?”

“Send a message to Scholar Wolfe. Ask if he has any word on the old Archivist. I need to know where the old man is and what he’s doing.”

And tell him to be careful, he thought, but didn’t say. Sentiment would make Rolleson uncomfortable. And Wolfe wouldn’t welcome his mothering right now.

But as they passed a statue of Isis, Santi sent up a silent prayer for his lover’s safety, anyway. He wasn’t a believer in the old Egyptian gods; he remained a staunch Catholic. But that really didn’t matter so much at the moment; Isis was one of Wolfe’s gods.

Surely, she’d look after him.





EPHEMERA



Excerpt from the text “Of the Imperishable” by Archivist Gargi Vachaknavi


The ancient scholars, honored though they must be for their accomplishments, should not be deified with the belief that they were all knowing. As wise a person as the great Greek physician Galen subscribed to the notion that a woman’s womb was not a natural organ, but instead a living thing within the body that wandered from point to point. Aristotle mistakenly believed in many things, not the least of which are that a vacuum cannot exist and that memory exists in a fluid. So we must acknowledge that knowledge is ever expanding, ever changing, and so we must also change with it.

This is my theory of the Imperishable, which the Greeks also named apeiron: a force that is potential in all things, that exists and does not, that underlies even the quintessence of force that makes up the basis of all matter. The Imperishable exists beyond our understanding, and always shall; it transmutes the impossible to the possible, and we can witness the results but only rarely influence them.