'It was my wife's idea. I never read them, I tell you! I never touched them until today! She - her family--' Nejem gulped air again. 'Her family is full of black market criminals. I can give you names, Scholar, I swear that I can, if you will show mercy ...'
It was, Jess hoped, a bluff and a lie, because if it wasn't, there could be consequences. The community engaging in black trade here in the very shadow of the Great Library was small and close-knit. It wouldn't take much for it to come apart ... and that would affect him, too.
It might even implicate him.
'How many in your household?' Wolfe asked. He was thumbing through the books that he'd taken from Nejem, and he sounded distracted. 'Besides your wife.'
'My two sons are grown men and live with their own families. It is only me, and two servants.'
'The servants may go. You did know of her activities. That makes you complicit in the ...' Wolfe stopped talking and concentrated on the book he'd just opened. He read for a moment, then looked up and gestured to Jess. 'Take these. All of them. Scrolls as well. Catalogue them and tag them for removal.'
Nejem paled still more. 'Please, Scholar, I beg you ...'
'It's not for me to decide your fate, Master Nejem. That will be up to the jurists. But if you want my advice, hire yourself an advocate, and don't attempt to leave the Library's precincts unless you want to try to outrun a sphinx.'
Jess took possession of the books. The man was openly weeping now, and the servant girl that they'd met before came in from the garden door to offer him a soft cloth to wipe his face. She glanced at Jess, then quickly down, and he realised that she was afraid of him.
He'd become the enemy, the terrifying spectre of authority.
Don't think about it. Just do what you're told.
'Sir,' Jess said. 'I need tags.'
Wolfe handed him a bag of them without comment. Jess paused to give him a look. 'Are you still grading me?'
'Of course,' Wolfe said. 'You disappoint me by asking.'
It was no different than it had been in training, except that he thought it would be better, given the urgency of the situation, to place all the tags on the books at once, and activate them all at the same time. The Obscurists had created the things, after all; he was only triggering the potential held within the seal. Sending them all together was more efficient. Wolfe said nothing to indicate he was making a mistake as he placed the tags, activated them all quickly, and stepped back as the glow brightened around the clips.
Even at the safe distance, Jess felt the tingle of energy sweep through him as the tags - all of them - activated at once. It felt vastly more powerful than in training, a jolt like being struck by lightning, and he smelt a peculiar, sharp odour of burning that vanished almost as quickly as it came.
He turned to see that Khalila and Danton were standing behind him, watching. They seemed riveted.
'How many did you send at once?' Khalila asked him. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes, I'm fine ...' That was an automatic response, but then he realised that he wasn't, not at all. He felt disoriented, exhausted, and suddenly violently sick. In fact, it was all he could do to control his nausea long enough to stumble out of the room to the peaceful garden, where he dropped to his knees to void his stomach. He remembered Wolfe's curious stare when he'd done so many, one after another, at the original training. That hadn't seemed to hurt him at all. He'd had no idea that it would drain him so much to activate twenty at the same moment.
Danton and Khalila had followed him, and as Jess knelt there shaking and chilled, Danton passed him a cup of clean water and an orange. 'Here,' he said. 'It should help.'
The food and water did do him good, and Jess regained his balance after a few moments. Khalila offered him a cloth with which to wipe the sweat from his face, and the two of them helped him to his feet. 'That was impressive,' Danton said. 'I've heard librarians sometimes pass out from managing five tags one after another, never mind twenty at the same time. I got sick from just one in Wolfe's training.'
Jess hadn't even considered it, really. Training hadn't made him feel much, just a brief dizziness that had passed in seconds. Since it had been an individual process, with only Wolfe in attendance to show him the steps, he hadn't even known the others felt sick.
'Next time, group them in fives and rest between,' Khalila said. 'It might avoid the discomfort.'
'Good advice,' Jess said. 'Thanks.'
He pulled free of them and stood on his own. Shaky, but manageable. As he stood there testing himself, their fellow student Portero sauntered through another door, looked around, and said, 'Nothing in the rest of the rooms. Nice place, isn't it? What did I miss?'
Khalila patted him on the shoulder. 'Nothing,' she said. 'Absolutely nothing.'
EPHEMERA
Text of secured Library correspondence between the Obscurist Magnus and Scholar Tyler, stationed at the Oxford Serapeum.
Greetings to my fellow servant of the Library. I trust this message finds you well.
I regret troubling you at this time, given the unsettled state of affairs in England, but this is of the utmost importance.
Recently we detected unusual activity on the Codex, which indicates the possible existence of a budding Obscurist in Oxford. We are striving to trace this incident back to the young person - for, as I am sure you are aware, Obscurist talent begins to manifest before the age of twenty in every case - so that this individual may be properly secured and conveyed to us here at the Iron Tower. We believe this incident, which may well have been visible to another, occurred within the Oxford Serapeum in the past three days. I shall require from you a detailed listing of all persons under the age of twenty who visited the Serapeum during that time so that we may more closely investigate, and shall also require that you quickly and quietly interview all staff to find out if anyone was witness to an unusual incident.
I am sure you understand the urgency of this matter.
No reply to this message has been found.
Handwritten paper message from Scholar Tyler in Oxford to Morgan Hault:
As I feared, your efforts to remove the traces you left on the Codex were unsuccessful. You are no longer safe here. The Obscurists, when they send the High Garda, will be looking for you in Oxford, and so you must leave immediately. I can buy you passage out, but you must leave tonight. Go to London. It is possible at the London Serapeum you may have both more time and concealment to alter the records and hide yourself, but stay on your guard at all times.
If London does not serve, I fear you may have to go into the heart of the Library itself, in Alexandria. I have been told that the closer you can come to the Iron Tower, the easier access is to the formulae of the Codex, and the records. It may be the only place in the world where you can remove all traces of your talent from their sight, and secure your freedom.
I pray, for your sake, that you don't have to resort to this extreme. Try London first, and be safe.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jess expected the day to be over when they left Abdul Nejem's home; after all, as far as he could tell, they'd all passed the test. But instead, after a stop at Ptolemy House to allow the other three to exit, Wolfe ordered him back inside the carriage, and climbed in after him.
What did I do? Jess wondered, and felt new, sticky sweat crawl down the back of his neck. Did I give it away that I'd been there before? Does he know one scroll was missing?
And perhaps the biggest question of all: how had they known about Abdul Nejem? Because he didn't think it could have been luck that his father had urgently wanted him to steal a book, just in advance of a Library raid. His father must have known something was on the way.
'You did well,' Wolfe said. 'But I warn you that what you did today was a mistake.'
Jess froze. This is it, the end of it. He was being taken to a Library prison cell, and somehow, he'd betrayed not only himself, but his family, too. He imagined his father in chains, his mother, Brendan. No. I'll take the blame. I won't impl
icate them. If his older brother Liam had found the courage to go to the chop without selling out his family, then Jess could live up to that example.
If Wolfe was waiting for him to confess, he'd wait a long time.
Wolfe finally continued. 'It was my own fault. I failed to instruct you on the danger. Most students have little tolerance for the drain, so they only attempt one, perhaps two at a time. You tagged and sent twenty. At once. That is impressive, and quite stupid. You might have sustained real damage from the drain ... but you seem to have fully recovered.'
Jess drew in a sudden breath, because the weight that had been crushing him lifted. This wasn't about smuggling. It was about what he'd done with the tags.
He wasn't going to prison. Not yet, anyway. 'I didn't realise it would be any different,' Jess said. 'It didn't bother me in training.'
'No,' Wolfe said. 'And I was curious to see how you would approach the task today. I did not expect you to send them all at once, and I was frankly even more surprised that you handled it with so little trouble.'
'I'm - not an Obscurist, am I?'
'Not at all. Merely capable of withstanding the drawing of energy by the Obscurist's processes better than most.'
'Oh.' That seemed oddly disappointing. Then again, a lifetime locked up in the Iron Tower didn't seem attractive either.
'It's a curious talent you have, postulant. It could well be valuable.' Wolfe seemed to be weighing something, as he looked into the middle distance, and then Jess sensed a decision being made. 'Given what you did today, I expect you will also find it easier than usual to use other Library tools. That is why I asked you to come with me. I want to test a theory.'
'So ... it's another test.'
'In a way.' Wolfe's lips curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. 'And I warn you, it will most certainly hurt.'
When the carriage hissed to a stop, they were somewhere familiar ... a low, small building that Jess vividly remembered near the harbour. Santi joined them as Jess stepped down from the carriage.
'What are we doing here?' Jess asked.
Wolfe walked ahead of him, down the stained narrow hallway. Lights flickered on dimly, triggered by his motion. Jess swallowed and wondered if it would be possible to run ... but he knew, as Abdul Nejem had known, that there was nowhere safe he could go. Wolfe held Jess's fragile future in the palm of his hand, and it would take little effort to crush it.
The last time he'd been in this place, Wolfe had threatened to drop Greek Fire on their heads.
Santi gave him a little tap from behind. 'Go on, boy,' he said. 'He doesn't bite. I do, though. It's a benefit of the job.'
The inside of the domed room looked exactly the same, and it still stank of that peculiar chemical reek. Jess couldn't tell if the dark swirls on the walls were from new burns, or old, but when he looked up, he was relieved to see that nothing dangled from the top.
Santi was blocking the only exit, behind him. Wolfe stood in the centre of the room, holding a golden double loop of thin rope with a flat Library seal in the middle. 'Do you know what these are?'
Oh, Jess knew. He felt a sick twist in his stomach at the sight of them, and swallowed before he said, 'Restraints for criminals. You didn't use them on the couple back at the house, though.'
'I didn't see the need,' Wolfe said. 'They weren't capable of outrunning us. We use these for more dangerous sorts. However, they do take skill. Santi?'
Jess's breath turned solid in his lungs as Santi walked forward, took the restraints, and turned to him. This is it, he thought. I'm done.
Santi slipped the loose binders over his own wrists and held them out to Jess, who was too puzzled to move. He looked over at Wolfe.
'Use your Library identification band,' Wolfe said. 'Touch it to the restraints.'
'And do what?'
'Let's see what happens.'
What happened was that as soon as Jess touched his wristband to the restraints, they snapped together, binding Santi's hands so tightly the soldier winced. The seal on them shimmered in a strange, hot orange. 'Sorry,' Jess said. 'Did that hurt?'
'Did it hurt you?' Wolfe asked.
'No.'
'Did you feel it at all?'
'A little.' It had been just a tingle of numbness, as if his hands had fallen asleep. Gone in seconds.
'Interesting,' Wolfe said, and tapped a finger on the cover of his Codex.
'Not the word I'd use for it,' Santi said. 'This isn't how I'd planned to spend my day, Christopher.'
Christopher? Wolfe had a first name, Jess remembered, but he couldn't imagine anyone using it. Especially not so ... casually.
'I appreciate your help, Captain,' Wolfe said. 'Time for a run.'
'One day, we'll have to trade spots. You could do with a run.'
'Not today.' Wolfe made a gentle shooing motion, and Santi turned and jogged down the hallway, out of sight.
'Where is he going?' Jess asked.
'No idea. Now you're going to find him,' Wolfe said. 'But I'm going to give him a head start. Seems only fair.' He consulted his book. 'Take out your Codex.'
Jess pulled it from his pocket and held it closed in his hand until an annoyed look from the Scholar prompted him to open it to a blank page.
'Touch your band to the page,' Wolfe said. 'Normally, you would do this immediately after securing the bindings.'
Jess pressed his wrist to the paper, and it quickly drew him a map ... a street map, highly detailed, with one thick splash of ink in red on it. He didn't know how it worked, but he assumed it was something like the Codex - mirrored in real time, only instead of showing a simple list of books available for duplication, it showed an item. And how to find it. 'The restraints are showing where he is,' Jess said. 'Isn't that right?' Activating the map, and the restraints, had made him feel weak and unsteady. Jess stared at the map, trying to focus on the crawling dot that must surely be Santi, on the run, and felt a sudden stab of pain behind his eyes. He shut his eyes a moment, and it went away. He opened them again and focused on the map, where the ink-splash steadily crawled on. The headache returned.
'Exactly.' Wolfe was studying him closely now. 'How bad is it? The pain?'
'Not so bad,' Jess lied. He looked away from the map, and the headache faded almost instantly. 'It's only when I look at it. Is that all?'
'No. I want you to find him,' Wolfe said. 'And you'd better be quick about it. Santi's very fast.'
Jess took in a deep breath of the tainted air and walked down the hallway, out into the bright Alexandrian sun. He risked a quick glance at the map. The dot was three streets away, and still moving towards the edge of the page. He didn't know what would happen when it got there - would it just vanish? Or would the map adjust to follow? He decided it wouldn't be wise to find out, and set off at a run. The headache didn't go away quite so quickly this time when he looked up from the map; it throbbed in time with his pulse, and sat like a thick, hot stone behind his eyes. It came with a twist of nausea deep inside, but for the first time in a long time, Jess felt on strangely familiar ground.
After all, he knew how to run. He was good at it, and as he ran through the streets of a hot foreign city, dodging between carriages and past startled, swearing pedestrians, he felt at home. His body was in its element, and the pump of blood and wind whipping his hair made him remember what it had been like back home, running alone and testing his wits against the London Garda and all comers.
Even the headache couldn't spoil the thrill of it, though it sank claws deeper with each necessary glance at the map on his Codex. It was changing, he saw, moving with him. The dot of ink that was his fleeing prisoner didn't have as much of a head start any more, and as Jess rounded one of Alexandria's sharp, clean corners, he saw the enormous, ominous stretch of the Iron Tower looming ahead on his left, surrounded by tall fences, gates, and guards. His fugitive wasn't making for that. He'd swerved right, towards university grounds. The Alexandrian Serapeum's gigantic pyramid rose up in clean angles beyond that
, blurred by distance, and Jess slowed his run just a step or two to check the map.
Santi's course seemed to be taking him towards the Serapeum.
Jess knew the university grounds by now; he'd walked them daily, to and from Wolfe's classroom, and he knew the broken path that Santi would have to run between the buildings. I can cut the corner, Jess thought. If I'm right. If he's making for the pyramid.
He checked the map and watched the progress, just to be certain. The headache suddenly pounded harder, and the flare of it blinded him with black flashes. He tore his gaze away from the map, but the pain didn't subside this time. Not at all.
Jess slammed his Codex shut and shoved it in his pocket. Headache or not, all he had to do was run - run flat out, the old London way, for the pyramid. He'd either be spectacularly wrong, or absolutely right. It felt good, letting go, letting his legs warm and his stride lengthen, flashing past shops and blurred faces, down a market lane full of exotic silks and spices, through a cloud of steam exhaling from a building's pipes ... and ahead, he saw a flash of black that was moving faster than everything around it.
He'd spotted Santi, and he knew Santi hadn't spotted him. Right-handed people didn't generally look to the left when they were trying to avoid pursuit; they looked forward and back and towards their dominant side, unless something drew their eye.
He was going to catch him.
He did catch him, coming at a wide angle from just behind Santi's left shoulder, and knocking the still-bound man off balance to roll several feet off the path of buildings and onto a shaded patch of rocky dirt. Santi let out a frustrated yell, which Jess only half-heard, because there was something wrong with his ears. And his eyes, because the black flashes that had been constantly crowding his vision were worse now, and the nausea had taken full hold. He couldn't feel his feet, and the overwhelming, thudding agony of his headache took away the last of his strength.
Jess didn't feel himself collapse, but when his vision cleared from black to a thin, grey, ghostly mist, he saw the world had tilted on its side, and his prisoner was free, looking down on him and scratching a message into a Codex with a stylus. Jess shut his eyes. He heard a buzz of sound, and felt something that might have been a hand on his shoulder, but all he really felt was the pain.