But Scholar Wolfe wasn't so predictable.
At dawn the next morning, shrill bells rang throughout the dormitory, throwing Jess groaning from his bed, still sore and stupid with exhaustion. He hadn't unpacked, and struggled with the suitcase locks for far too long before he remembered how to work them properly. Inside, his clothes smelt of damp, of London, and he felt a strange pang of homesickness for a moment, though not for his family so much as familiarity.
He grabbed a clean pair of trousers, shirt, underwear and a vest, and hurried for the bathroom.
Too late. Dario was already inside, with the door firmly locked. Jess cooled his heels and seethed as Dario took his sweet, leisurely time. He was still waiting when Thomas banged on the outer door, cracked it, and said, 'Coming, English? You're late!'
'I'm still waiting for the shower! He's slower than my mother.'
'You'd better come anyway. Scholar Wolfe is not a man to keep waiting.'
That was certainly true, just from the first acquaintance at the train station. Jess cursed softly and stripped down as Thomas politely turned his broad back. He was pulling on his boots when Dario finally unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out, wreathed in a herb-scented cloud of steam. He looked fresh, perfect, and every inch a gentleman.
Jess felt like an unwashed, grainy-eyed lout, but he yanked his boots in place and followed. Thomas stood aside to let Dario pass, and raised his pale eyebrows at Jess. 'Is there a problem?'
'Don't ask,' Jess said.
'The key must be to get up before him,' Thomas said.
'Thank you for spotting the obvious.'
Thomas just grinned and held the door open. He was big enough that Jess hardly had to stoop to walk under his outstretched arm.
The common room on the ground floor was already filled, and Jess felt even worse, seeing that everyone else had managed freshly washed faces and neatly arranged hair. He tried to finger-comb his into some semblance of order, but from Thomas's mournful head shake, it wasn't a success.
Scholar Wolfe didn't come for them. Instead, he sent a tall man dressed in the intimidating black of the Library's High Garda elite, with a gold band on his wrist. The weapons he kept on his belt looked well cared for, and perhaps more significantly, well used.
Thomas nudged him with an unsubtle elbow and leant close to whisper, 'He is a Library soldier!'
'I know that,' Jess whispered back. 'What's he doing here?'
Thomas shrugged. 'Perhaps frightening us?'
Accurate observation, because the man swept them with an indifferent, middle-distance stare that was more intimidating than a glare. He took a swift count and said just two words: 'With me.' Then walked down the hall, leaving them all to scramble along in his wake.
Outside, there were no waiting carriages, and the High Garda soldier led them down the boulevard at a quick-march pace. The sun was just rising, but it was already unreasonably hot and damp, and clothing that had seemed comfortable in London quickly felt smothering in Alexandria. Jess thought that it was an advantage to have skipped the shower, in all, because while he was sweating through his clothes, so were the others, even Dario, and by the time they finally came to a halt in front of a nondescript low building, Jess seemed no worse off than his fellows.
They'd walked all the way to the harbour, Jess realised; he could see the steamships bobbing beyond the low roofs, and the large passenger ships moving in to the docks, ready to disembark their travellers. He longed to see all that; he'd always loved being on the docks in London, with all the noise and activity. The half-reeking, half-fresh smell of the sea seemed like home.
But instead, their guide led them to a silent, darkened building with a single entrance. No windows. Going inside it felt like walking into a tomb ... and the floor slanted down.
'Where are we?' he asked Thomas, but the bigger young man just shook his head. The ceiling was low enough that Thomas had to stoop. The walls were plain, but they seemed to have dirty smudges on them, and the whole place reeked of an acrid, chemical smell. Not that he had time to ponder it, because their High Garda guide was still walking at a brisk, martial pace.
Then, suddenly, they emerged into a much wider, taller room. Jess took three steps inside and stopped, craning his head upward to admire the vaulting height of it. Someone shoved him from behind, and he moved out of the way to a spot on the side of the room. It was rounded, and like the hallway, bare of decoration. Their small group of thirty didn't take up much room in the relatively vast space.
The room seemed very sparse. Impressive, but empty; the walls had the same dark smudges, and the air still carried that sharp, chemical tang. It reminded Jess of something, but he couldn't think what.
In silence, they waited. Their High Garda guide had disappeared, leaving the rest of them staring at each other. Jess had met most of the postulants, though the names escaped his tired brain at present; he most vividly knew Dario, of course, and Thomas. He spotted Khalila standing off on her own, looking fresh and calm in her headdress and loose robes, while the Welsh girl Glain towered over the other females by several inches.
None of them spoke. A few shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other in discomfort from the long walk, but by common consent, they understood this was not a place for conversation.
And then Wolfe emerged from the single entrance, and walked into the centre of the room. He looked just as he had at the train station: dark, dangerous, and impatient. He took a moment to look around the room at each of them, and then said, 'Here begins your first lesson. You stand in the first daughter library of Alexandria, the first Serapeum. In this room, copies of works from the stores of the Great Library were first made available to anyone who cared to come and read them ... even women, though that was not common practice at the time. Alexandria was the first place in the world to encourage common people to read and learn. The first to educate without regard to status, creed, sex or religion. You stand in the birthplace of our history.'
He let that sit for a moment, and in truth, Jess could feel the weight of it bearing down on him. The walls had been renovated, obviously, but the floor had not. It was ancient stone, worn smooth by millions of steps taken across it. Aristotle might have walked here, he thought. Might have scratched out that first copy of On Sphere Making, sitting at a table right over there.
It gave him a chill, as if he was surrounded by ghosts.
'The reason I am here as your proctor is to teach you who we are. What we do. And we begin here in this place where the Great Library took the first steps towards what it has become.' He paused, studying them. 'Do you understand what the job of a librarian is?'
It seemed like a stupid question, and hands shot up. Wolfe sighed. 'You are not children,' he said, 'and I will not favour the shy. Speak out if you have an answer.'
A riot of voices. Wolfe scanned the crowd and pointed a finger. 'You,' he said. 'Step forward, give your name, speak your mind.'
A pretty young girl with glossy red hair and a confident smile moved forward with perfect grace. 'Anna Brygstrom, sir, from Denmark. Librarians run the daughter libraries, the Serapeum.'
'Postulant Brygstrom, I did not ask for your nationality. You have no homeland here, because once you enter Library service, it is your nation. We are your countrymen.' He paused, and there was a cruel glitter in his eyes. 'If you've come all the way here to learn the mundane details of how to create a work schedule and properly fill a patron's request, then you are in the wrong place. A properly trained marmoset could run a daughter library, since it is merely a mirror of what is concentrated here, in Alexandria. Step back.'
She no longer had a smile, confident or otherwise, as she disappeared back into the circle.
Someone else stepped forward to take her place, and Jess recognised in the next second that it was the Arab girl, Khalila.
'Postulant Khalila Seif, sir. We are not here to learn how to run a daughter library. We are here to learn how the Great Library itself runs.'
Wolf
e stared at her for a long few seconds, then nodded sharply. 'Correct. Step back, Postulant Seif. On the highest possible level, the Library exists because each nation of the world benefits from it, and because the Library favours none, relies on none. It took time to free ourselves from the tyranny of politics, kings and priests; it took time to assemble the wealth and the force to defend what we have. But most of all, it took a miracle. And what was that miracle?'
Jess took a chance and stepped forward. 'Jess - Postulant Jess Brightwell, sir. The discovery of mirroring.' He kept it short and to the point; it was Scholar Wolfe's job to lecture, and if he tried, he could tell it would only lead to a bloody scar on him. At Wolfe's precise nod, he moved back again.
'In 1029, the Serapeum of Rayy in Persia was utterly destroyed, with the devastating loss of more than fifty thousand original works. It was an orgy of looting and fire that destroyed thousands of years of knowledge. We credit the four hundred and second leader of the Great Library, Archivist Magister Akkadevi, with the discovery of mirroring, by which the contents of any book, any scroll, any document may be written into a similarly treated Library blank. The benefit of mirroring? You.' Wolfe didn't wait for volunteers. He picked someone out of the circle.
'Postulant Glain Wathen, sir. It freed the Library from risking original books and scrolls. It doesn't matter if a blank is damaged or lost, it can always be requested again.'
'Correct. The destruction of Rayy taught us that calculated politics and unthinking rage - make no mistake, the two are sometimes hand in hand - are the greatest threats knowledge can face. The Doctrine of Mirroring was the first great advance of the Library, the foundation on which all others were built. It ensures protection of knowledge while also giving free access to all, and this was an unquestioned good. But what followed?'
No one stepped forward this time for a moment, and Wolfe didn't point. He waited. Finally, Thomas stepped forward from his spot beside Jess and cleared his throat. 'Postulant Thomas Schreiber, sir. The next doctrine issued was the Doctrine of Ownership.'
'The Doctrine of Ownership states that the Great Library must, for the protection and preservation of knowledge in trust for the world, own all such knowledge. Which means what, Postulant Schreiber?'
'It's illegal to own an original,' he said. 'Sir.'
'Illegal,' Wolfe repeated. 'And do you agree with this doctrine, Postulant Brightwell?'
Jess flinched, because he hadn't expected that, not at all. He stepped forward. Thomas didn't seem to know whether or not he should move back, so it left both of them together, side by side. That made it a little easier.
'Sir?'
'I asked your opinion of the doctrine. Do you agree it should be wrong to own original works?'
Of course, Jess knew he ought to say; it was the standard answer. The Library was never wrong. But something made him say, 'I'm not sure.'
That woke a glint in Wolfe's eyes. 'Why not?'
'I'd like to hold one,' Jess said, quite honestly. 'To feel the weight and history of it in my hands. A blank can't be the same, sir.'
'No,' Wolfe agreed. 'A blank is a poor, pale imitation, though the words are arranged in precisely the same order; it is the difference between an idea and a physical thing. And some crave the physical thing, legal or not. Which is why there are such things as shadow markets, and the black trade, and ink-lickers.'
Jess went cold inside, because he felt - perhaps wrongly - that it was a very personal message to him, from Wolfe, that there was no hiding who he was, or where he'd come from.
Wolfe motioned for the two of them to step back, which was a deep relief. He paced around the circle, meeting the eyes of every student.
'While the Doctrine of Ownership is logical, it led to our current age of unrest. At first, it was merely sentimentality that led people to conceal books in their homes; perhaps it had been an ancestor's gift, or a favourite and well-loved volume. But then profit entered into it; in the early days, whole caravans of books were stolen. Even today, when new discoveries of original documents come to light, it becomes a race between criminals and the Library to own them. Once something enters the black trade, it may disappear for ever - damaged, lost, greedily hoarded. And that robs all mankind of something precious.'
'What about the Burners?' said a soft voice.
'Step forward, postulant.'
A slender young woman with sleek black hair and the delicate features of Japan moved out from the group and bowed her head slightly to Scholar Wolfe. 'Izumi Himura. Do not the Burners present a greater threat than the smugglers, sir?'
'Explain your reasoning.'
'Smugglers would wish to preserve originals; it is their trade. To Burners, it is a political statement, because they wish to break the Library's hold on originals.'
'Inadequate analysis, Himura. You must go deeper to understand the real source of the Burner movement. But I will not ask any of you to probe that wound today. Congratulations, postulants. Not a terrible showing for your first lesson.'
Jess heard a collective sigh of relief. He felt one rush out of him as well; being fixed by Wolfe's dagger eyes felt like being pinned up for dissection.
The class began to shuffle towards the single exit, but that exodus quickly halted, because the High Garda soldier was blocking the way, arms folded.
Wolfe's voice had a dark amusement in it when he said, 'Did I tell you to leave? Never assume you are dismissed until I tell you that you are. You'll remain here until you work out the problem I have left for you. I warn you, there is a time limit. You'd do well to spot the danger quickly. Try to work together.'
Wolfe cut through them like a knife, and he and the High Garda soldier walked down the hall and out.
'What are we supposed to do?' The redhead, Anna, sounded annoyed. 'He didn't tell us what to do!'
Jess looked around, and found it was still the same featureless, unremarkable room as before. No other exits, besides the one. No windows.
'What does he mean, danger?' Dario asked. 'There's nothing here. It's an empty room.'
Jess hated to admit it, but it seemed that Dario was right. The class spread out, pushing on walls; Glain touched the stained surface and frowned as she rubbed her fingertips together. She sniffed them. 'There's something odd here,' she said. 'Oily. Chemical.'
'The whole place reeks of it,' Dario agreed. He came to look at the spot she was examining. 'You would think if this was sacred space they would keep it in better order. But what kind of danger does that put us in? Ruining our shirts?'
It was a clue, Jess realised. This was the first place he'd been in Alexandria that hadn't been kept utterly spotless. Why leave it in disrepair? It was, as Wolfe said, sacred space.
The smell was familiar.
'These stains could be torch smoke. Maybe they have ancient ceremonies here,' said another student. It was a decent guess, but Jess thought it was very, very wrong. A growing tension was gathering in his chest, and his heart was pounding faster. His body understood something that his mind was still trying to work out.
What had been the point of Wolfe's lecture today? Original books. Original books being destroyed in the looting of the Serapeum of Rayy. The development of the Codex and blanks. Original books.
The dangers of owning books. Smuggling.
Burners.
Jess looked up, because everyone else seemed to be looking down ... and saw that a panel had silently opened at the top of the dome, and now, a bulbous glass bottle dangled there, spinning slowly in place. It was hard to see it, but Jess spotted a telltale green liquid inside.
He went cold.
'Out,' he said, and shoved at Thomas, standing baffled beside him. 'Get out now! Go!'
Thomas stared at him. 'But the Scholar said--'
'Just get out! Go!'
He made Thomas move by force of shoving as hard as he could, and he grabbed others along the way and pushed them to the exit, all protesting. Dario shook free of him and bared his perfect white teeth. 'I'm not going an
ywhere, fool. You may voluntarily fail yourself if you like, but I'm staying. There's a puzzle, and I'm solving it.'
Jess met his eyes and said, flatly, 'I already did.' He pointed up and lowered his voice. 'That is a bottle of Greek Fire, used by Burners. It could drop any time, and by the smell and state of this place, they've dropped it here before to prove a point. Now, help me get them out!'
Dario moved faster than Jess would have given him credit for, and helped chivvy the class on, down the narrow little hall, amid a constant drone of complaints. Jess hurried after him. He could vividly imagine that bottle dropping, tumbling, shattering on the smooth worn floor, and bursting into toxic flame.
But there was no fire.
Instead, when he emerged from the long hallway into the glaring Alexandrian morning, he found the class clustered in the shade of a taller building, while Wolfe and the High Garda soldier consulted a timepiece.
'All out,' the soldier said. 'Not bad.'
'Not good, either,' Wolfe said. 'But I suppose we will call it acceptable.'
Jess stared at Wolfe so hard he thought his eyeballs would burst. 'You could have killed all of us!'
'Only the ones too slow to move,' Wolfe said. 'I do give you marks for first noticing the bottle, Postulant Brightwell.'
'How do you know? You weren't there to see it!' That, of course, was Dario.
Wolfe gave him a long, silencing look and said, 'Because I have a report from Santi's man who was watching from the top of the dome, and don't try to convince me that you should earn that honour, Santiago. Brightwell. One question: why not shout a general warning to the class to clear them out?'
'If I had yelled about Greek Fire, with that small exit, it would have been a crush. None of us might have made it out.'
'True,' Wolfe said. 'But then, life is risk.'
Khalila's face was set and pale, and she stepped forward to ask, 'Would you have dropped the bottle? If we'd missed it completely?'
'Not on the first day,' Wolfe said, in a deceptively pleasant tone. 'Here ends the lesson: smugglers bite away at the Library a little at a time, like termites on wood, but you must be constantly vigilant for Burners. Some of you come from countries rotten with the heresy; some come from lands untouched by it. It doesn't matter. The first purpose of a librarian is to preserve and defend our books. Sometimes, that means dying for them - or making someone else die for them. Tota est scientia.'