Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(71)

The ring said nothing. But as the burned man lay dying on the floor of the Iron Tower, the ring began to gather the quintessential fluid rising from his body.

“Bomb,” she managed to tell Mwangi. “In the bag. Be careful, it’s deadly. I can make it safer, but I need time.”

Mwangi looked doubtful, but she nodded. “What do you need?”

I need the Obscurist Magnus, she wanted to say, but Eskander had already saved her once today. He needed to rest.

She took a deep breath and said, “Time.”

Then she set to work unraveling and erasing the work of madmen.



* * *



—

It took the better part of an hour before she was certain all of the tricks the Obscurists had built into the bomb were disabled, and she was covered in sweat and exhausted when she finished . . . but the bag was safely removed, and the Iron Tower secured under heavy guard.

“They intended to kill as many as they could,” she told Mwangi as they took the lifting chamber back up to the office where they’d left her assistants. “Maybe even destroy the entire Iron Tower; I’m not sure even this structure could hold up under that kind of Greek fire attack from inside.”

“But why would they?” Mwangi asked. She was very shaken, underneath that professional calm. “Surely not even the old Archivist would want to destroy the very foundations of the Great Library!”

“I think he wants to destroy as much as he can, and build from the ruins,” Morgan said. “Wars have casualties. And he knows we sided against him.”

“He took an oath!”

“And as he probably sees it, he’s keeping it,” she said. She was so tired she wanted to weep. “I hope this is the worst he tries.”

But somehow, she didn’t think it was.

When Mwangi unlocked the door, both Chowdry and Salk were crowding at the threshold, talking at once. Mwangi pushed them back with a frown. “It’s all right,” she said. “The crisis is—”

“Morgan, there’s a pattern,” Chowdry shouted over her. “We know who was behind the ring of traitors here. It was Vanya! Vanya Nikolin!”

She frantically tried to remember the faces of the Obscurists who’d been caught or killed. Vanya hadn’t been among them; she would have remembered. Eskander had given him important tasks. I trusted him, too, she thought with a sinking heart. I should have been more careful. He always did favors for Gregory. Leopards hardly ever change spots.

“Is he still inside?” Even as she asked that, she checked her Codex. “The record says he is, but—”

“He’s not,” Salk confirmed. “Chowdry saw him leave in a hurry earlier, and while you were gone we noticed that he had altered the records. He’s also removed his collar, so we can’t track him with any accuracy. But that doesn’t matter. We know where he’s going, we think.”

“It was the Spartans and the gods that tipped us off,” Chowdry added. “Those are the ones that he’s positioned to guard a particular path.”

“What kind of path? To where?”

The two men looked at each other and said at the same time, “We think he’s found the Tomb of Heron.”





EPHEMERA



Text of a letter from prior Archivist Alfred Nobel to his Curia, interdicted from the Codex Scholars Magni,

Since the French rebellion that cost so many lives and precious volumes, I have given much consideration to the preservation and protection of the Great Archives themselves. The Archives structure, while unquestionably secure and almost impossible to breach, still represents the single greatest attraction for potential enemies and would-be conquerors in the city—perhaps even the world. As long as our enemies believe it is possible to seize our wealth of books and control it for themselves, the Great Library exists in constant peril.

I would much prefer to install within the Great Archives a fail-safe, one that will make even the most audacious and power-mad ruler pause.

We would never use this system, of course, but it would act as a great and terrible deterrent. The secret of the system should be kept rigorously, and a threat to use it issued only in the event of an upstart kingdom or country vowing to take the Great Archives by force.

I believe that the threat of wholesale destruction, of worldwide intellectual suicide, will cause any would-be intruders to retreat and leave us in peace.

Obviously, this secret must stay in the hands of the Archivist; no other, not even the Lord Commander of the High Garda, should be entrusted with its activation key. It is a responsibility so great, and so terrible, that I would never put the burden on another.

The only option is to make any attack on us so costly to the entirety of humanity that war itself becomes unthinkable.

Should you concur, we may start construction of this system within the month.





CHAPTER TWELVE





KHALILA

“Hello, my desert rose.”

Khalila straightened but she didn’t turn; she had just put down her Codex on the small table that she was using for a desk. “Dario.” Her tone was carefully neutral. “Are you all right?”

“You heard.” His hands touched her shoulders, but he didn’t try to turn her around. Good. She was still angry with him, and perhaps he could sense it. “No well done or you were so brave? You break my heart, beauty.”