Smoke and Iron
Rachel Caine
ALSO BY RACHEL CAINE
THE GREAT LIBRARY
Ink and Bone
Paper and Fire
Ash and Quill
Prince of Shadows
THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES NOVELS
Glass Houses
The Dead Girls' Dance Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule Carpe Corpus
Fade Out
Kiss of Death
Ghost Town
Bite Club
Last Breath
Black Dawn
Bitter Blood
Fall of Night
Daylighters
Midnight Bites
(short story collection)
BERKLEY
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Copyright (c) 2018 by Rachel Caine LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Caine, Rachel, author.
Title: Smoke and iron / Rachel Caine.
Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2018. | Series: The Great Library; 4
Identifiers: LCCN 2018010844 | ISBN 9780451489210 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9780451489227 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Alexandrian Library--Fiction. | Libraries--Fiction. | GSAFD: Alternative histories (Fiction). | Dystopias. | Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3603.O557 S66 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010844
First Edition: July 2018
Jacket photograph of book spines by Brent Winebrenner Jacket art and design by Katie Anderson This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
To Tez, who cheers me on even when I'm too tired to run
CONTENTS
Also by Rachel Caine
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Ephemera
Part One: Jess Chapter One
Chapter Two
Ephemera
Part Two: Khalila Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Ephemera
Part Three: Wolfe Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Ephemera
Part Four: Morgan Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Ephemera
Part Five: Jess Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Ephemera
Part Six: Khalila Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Ephemera
Part Seven: Wolfe Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Ephemera
Part Eight: Morgan Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Ephemera
Part Nine: Jess Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Part Ten: Khalila Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Part Eleven: Wolfe Chapter Thirty-one
Part Twelve: Morgan Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Part Thirteen: Jess Chapter Thirty-four
Part Fourteen: The Feast of Greater Burning Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Ephemera
Sound Track
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Zaheerah Khalik, Fauzia Ali, and Zahdia Anwer for their invaluable assistance.
To librarians and teachers everywhere who operate without funds, without support, without even basic acknowledgment much of the time: You inspire me, and so many other people. You touch lives and create hope. You connect our past to our future. Don't forget how important you really are.
EPHEMERA
Text of a letter from Red Ibrahim in Alexandria to Callum Brightwell in England, delivered via secure messenger
My most honored cousin in trade,
I am advised by my daughter, Anit, that you have engaged in a dangerous game with the Archivist Magister of the Great Library.
I do not think, given your history and your legendary cunning, that I need to remind you of the danger this brings, not just to you but to all of us. While we sometimes use the Library in the pursuit of our trade, we must never allow ourselves to be used in turn. An ant cannot direct a giant.
You have placed your son in the gravest of danger.
As one loving father to another, I beg you: call off this plan. Bring your son home. Withdraw from any further engagement with the Archivist. I will likewise have Anit deliver her captives back into your custody, and you may do as you like with them, but pray do not continue to involve my family in this foolhardy venture.
The Archivist may talk most pleasantly with you. A viper may learn to talk, but it is still full of poison.
Blessings of the gods to you, old friend.
Reply from Callum Brightwell to Red Ibrahim, delivered via secure messenger
My son Brendan can well care for himself, but I thank you for your concern. Should the worst occur, I still have his twin, Jess. He's not presently pleased with me for sending his brother in his place, but I expect that will pass.
If you plan to lecture me, you might have taken greater care with your own sons--both lost to you now, advancing the cause of your own business. Don't lecture me on how to protect my own. As to your daughter, she entered into this arrangement on your behalf, and with your full authority; you may take up any misgivings you have with her, not me.
I expect you to uphold the agreement as she has made it. Anit and I are of like minds in this, and as she is the heir to your vast empire of commerce, you should listen to her. She's clever, and as ruthless as you, in many ways.
And you wouldn't like to make enemies of our families.
I think upon calm reflection you will see the wisdom of gathering the Library's favour as chaos gathers around us. The world is more unsafe now than it ever has been in living memory. Being allies with the Archivist means that their guard will be lower when we decide to turn these tables to our advantage, as we might at any time.
Peace be upon you, my friend. Let's see how this plays out.
PART ONE
JESS
CHAPTER ONE
It had all started as an exercise to fight the unending boredom of being locked in this Alexandrian prison cell.
When Jess Brightwell woke up, he realized that he'd lost track of time. Days blurred here, and he knew it was important to remember h
ow long he'd been trapped, waiting for the axe to fall--or not. So he diligently scratched out a record on the wall using a button from his shirt.
Five days. Five days since he'd arrived back in Alexandria, bringing with him Scholar Wolfe and Morgan Hault as his prisoners. They'd been taken off in different directions, and he'd been dumped here to--as they'd said--await the Archivist's pleasure.
The Archivist, it seemed, was a very busy man.
Once Jess had the days logged, he did the mental exercise of calculating the date, from pure boredom. It took him long, uneasy moments to realize why that date--today--seemed important.
And then he remembered and was ashamed it had taken him so long.
Today was the anniversary of his brother Liam's death. His elder brother.
And today meant that Jess was now older than Liam had ever lived to be.
He couldn't remember exactly how Liam had died. Could hardly remember his brother at all these days, other than a vague impression of a sharp nose and shaggy blondish hair. He must have watched Liam walk up the stairs of the scaffold and stand as the rope was fixed around his neck.
But he couldn't remember that, or watching the drop. Just Liam, hanging. It seemed like a painting viewed at a distance, not a memory.
Wish I could remember, he thought. If Liam had held his head high on the way to his death, if he'd gone up the steps firmly and stood without fear, then maybe Jess would be able to do it, too. Because that was likely to be in his future.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture it: the cell door opening. Soldiers in High Garda uniforms, the army of the Great Library, waiting stone-faced in the hall. A Scholar to read the text of his choice to him on the way to execution. Perhaps a priest, if he asked for one.
But there, his mind went blank. He didn't know how the Archivist would end his life. Would it be a quiet death? Private? A shot in the back? Burial without a marker? Maybe nobody would ever know what had become of him.
Or maybe he'd end up facing the noose after all, and the steps up to it. If he could picture himself walking without flinching to his execution, perhaps he could actually do it.
He knew he ought to be focusing on what he would be saying to the Archivist if he was called, but at this moment, death seemed so close he could touch it, and besides, it was easier to accept failure than to dare to predict success. He'd never been especially superstitious, but imagining triumph now seemed like drawing a target on his back. No reason to offend the Egyptian gods. Not so early.
He stood up and walked the cell. Cold, barren, with bars and a flat stone shelf that pretended at being a bed. A bare toilet that needed cleaning, and the sharp smell of it was starting to squirm against his skin.
If I had something to read . . . The thought crept in without warning, and he felt it like a personal loss. Not having a book at hand was a worse punishment than most. He was trying not to think about his death, and he was too afraid to think about the fate of Morgan or Scholar Wolfe or anything else . . . except that he could almost hear Scholar Wolfe's dry, acerbic voice telling him, If only you had a brain up to the task, Brightwell, you'd never lack for something to read.
Jess settled on the stone ledge, closed his eyes, and tried to clearly imagine the first page of one of his favorite books. Nothing came at his command. Just words, jumbled and frantic, that wouldn't sort themselves in order. Better if he imagined writing a letter.
Dear Morgan, he thought. I'm trapped in a holding cell inside the Serapeum, and all I can think of is that I should have done better by you, and all of us. I'm afraid all this is for nothing. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being stupid enough to think I could outwit the Archivist. I love you. Please don't hate me.
That was selfish. She should hate him. He'd sent her back into the Iron Tower, a life sentence of servitude and an unbreakable collar fastened tight around her neck. He'd deceived Scholar Wolfe into a prison far worse than this one, and an inevitable death sentence. He'd betrayed everyone who'd ever trusted him, and for what?
For cleverness and a probably foolish idea that he could somehow, somehow, pull off a miracle. What gave him the right to even think it?
Clank.
That was the sound of a key turning in a heavy lock.
Jess stood, the chill on his back left by the ledge still lingering like a ghost, and then he came to the bars as the door at the end of the hall opened. He could see the hinges move and the iron door swinging in. It wasn't locked again when it closed. Careless.
He listened to the decisive thud of footsteps against the floor, growing louder, and then three High Garda soldiers in black with golden emblems were in front of his cell. They stopped and faced him. The oldest--his close-cut hair a stiff silver brush around his head--barked in common Greek, "Step back from the bars and turn around."
Jess's skin felt flushed, then cold; he swallowed back a rush of fear and felt his pulse race in a futile attempt to outrun the inevitable. He followed the instructions. They didn't lock the outer door. That's a chance, if I can get by them. He could. He could sweep the legs out from under the first, use that off-balance body to knock back the other two, pull a sidearm free from one of them, shoot at least one, maybe two of them. Luck would dictate whether he'd die in the attempt, but at least he'd die fighting.
I don't want to die, something in him that sounded like a child whispered. Not like Liam. Not on the same day.
And suddenly, he remembered.
The London sky, iron gray. Light rain had been falling on his child's face. He'd been too short to see his brother ascend anything but the top two steps of the scaffold. Liam had stumbled on the last one, and a guard had steadied him. His brother had been shivering and slow, and he hadn't been brave after all. He'd looked out into the crowd of those gathered, and Jess remembered the searing second of eye contact with his brother before Liam transferred that stare to their father.
Jess had looked, too. Callum Brightwell had stared back without a flicker of change in his expression, as if his eldest son were a stranger.
They'd tied Liam's hands. And put a hood over his head.
A voice in the here and now snapped him out of the memory. "Against the wall. Hands behind your back."
Jess slowly moved to comply, trying to assess where the other man was . . . and froze when the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his neck. "I know what you're thinking, son. Don't try it. I'd rather not shoot you for stupidity."
The guard had a familiar accent--raised near Manchester, most likely. His time in Alexandria had covered his English roots a bit, but it was odd, Jess thought, that he might be killed by one of his countrymen, so far from home. Killed by the English, just like Liam.
Once a set of Library restraints settled around his wrists and tightened, he felt strangely less shaken. Opportunity was gone now. All his choices had been narrowed to one course. All he had to do now was play it out.
Jess turned to look at the High Garda soldier. A man with roots from another garden, maybe one closer to Alexandria; the man had a darker complexion, dark eyes, a neat beard, and a compassionate but firm expression on his face. "Am I coming back?" he asked, and wished he hadn't.
"Likely not," the soldier said. "Wherever you go next, you won't be back here."
Jess nodded. He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them. Liam had faltered on the stairs. Had trembled. But at the end his elder brother had stood firm in his bonds and hood and waited for death without showing any fear.
He could do the same.
"Then, let's go," he said, and forced a grin he hoped looked careless. "I could do with a change of scenery."
* * *
They didn't take him to the gallows. Not immediately, anyway. And though he half feared he'd never see the shot that would kill him from behind, they reached the end of the hall and the unlocked door without incident. Lucky that Captain Santi isn't here to see that breach of security, he thought. Santi would have had someone's head for it. Metaphorically speaking.
> And now he wished he hadn't thought of that, because it added another possible execution method to his imagined deaths.
It was a long march through quite a number of checkpoints, each strongly manned with soldiers and automata; the sphinxes watched him with suspicious red eyes and flexed their lion claws. Of all the automata he'd faced before--lions, Spartans, once a hawk-headed Egyptian god--these were the ones that most unnerved him. Something about the human pharaoh's face made them especially inhuman. They'd have no trouble tearing him apart in these close quarters, coming as they would from either side.
Jess added it to his preferred ways not to die and was grateful when the route took them through an iron gate and into dazzling sunlight. Dying in the sun was always better than dying in the dark, wasn't it? He sucked down thick Alexandrian sea air in convulsive breaths and turned his face up to the warmth; as his eyes adjusted, he realized he was being marched through the small ornamental garden that led around to the side of the giant Alexandrian pyramid that held the Scholar Steps. Too brief a walk, one he didn't have much time to savor, before they passed into the darkness of another doorway near the base of the vast, looming structure.
Then he knew exactly where he was. He'd been here before.
The guards marched him through a long lobby guarded by gods and monsters in their niches and down a hall inscribed with hieroglyphs to a final door. Another, larger sphinx sat in an alcove, and a warning growl sounded until the soldier in charge held up his wrist to show the gold bracelet there. The sphinx subsided, and the door opened.
Jess stepped into the outer office of the single most powerful person in the world.
His guards didn't follow him in. When he looked back, they'd already turned to walk away, and the door was swinging shut.
There were guards, of course; these wore the distinctive red-slashed uniforms of the High Garda Elite, sworn to the personal protection of the Archivist, and they took custody of him without a word. Jess almost missed his old escort. He'd trained as a High Garda himself, had worn the uniform, had eaten in the same dining hall as those men. The Elites were more akin to fanatics than to soldiers. They had separate quarters. Separate training. And they were dedicated to one man, not to the protection of the Great Library.
