Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

The sentiment brought him no comfort.

As he reached the city gate, the vast destruction became almost too much to bear. He wrapped his turban tightly around his nose and ears, a futile attempt to keep out the stench of death and muffle the screams of the dying. The streets were slick with blood, and the marketplaces that lined them were filled with what looked like heaping mounds of meat, swarming with black flies. In the distance, bands of infantrymen were methodically searching houses, a process which seemed to involve tearing them down to their foundations.

Al-Tusi felt a growing apprehension. The Khan had assigned an arav—ten horsemen—to serve as his escort, but in the mayhem and in the grip of bloodlust, it might be difficult for the marauders to distinguish friend from foe. After more than an hour of negotiating the ruins and circumventing the larger concentrations of victorious invaders, al-Tusi reached his destination.

Even from a distance, he could see that the House had not escaped harm. Pillars of smoke ascended from its courtyards. Soldiers stood on its open terraces, pitching manuscripts into the river, competing with each other to see who could throw them the furthest. Fighting an urge to shout at them, al-Tusi rode right up to the main entrance, where he was confronted by a group of Turkish soldiers.

“Let me pass,” he ordered. His voice was weak, barely audible through the cloth he’d bound over his face. “The Khan commands that this place be spared.”

“We don’t take orders from you, Persian,” the leader of the group sneered at him. Then the man cocked his head sideways as if contemplating something humorous. “But General Guo is waiting for you inside.”

Guo Kan is waiting for me?

The Chinese general was aware that Hulagu had ordered al-Tusi to preserve the House of Wisdom, so why was he there, in the House, personally overseeing its destruction?

The Turk led him inside, following a route that seemed purposefully designed to make al-Tusi bear witness to the cruelty of the victorious army. Everywhere he looked, there was blood and ruin. Scores of scholars and scientists, the most learned men in the Islamic world, had been pinned with lances to the walls of the enormous reading rooms. The tables, where these men had read, translated and copied the scrolls in the House’s collection, had been hacked apart to make a path for mounted archers, who were taking turns riding up and down the halls using the impaled men, some of whom were still alive, for target practice.

At last, he was brought to the highest tower of the House. He recognized this place, one of the many observatories where astronomers studied the heavens and mapped the stars. Although the din of the city’s destruction was still audible, the observatory was, for the moment at least, still untouched. Shelves of scrolls and books lined the walls, all arranged according to the orderly filing system employed by the House’s librarians. Tables, with every manner of machine and scientific apparatus, had been arranged in a ring around the center of the circular room. Guo Kan waited there, casually inspecting the devices as if they were wares in the marketplace.

“Ah, Persian. Come to pick the bones of the dead?”

Al-Tusi bit back a retort. He could ill afford to offend Guo Kan. The Chinese general was highly regarded by the Khan, and if Guo Kan decided to simply execute al-Tusi on the spot, Hulagu would probably not even take notice. Instead, al-Tusi simply inclined his head in a gesture of deference. “The Khan has ordered me to preserve as much of the library as is possible.”

“The Khan is very wise.” Guo offered a cryptic smile and gestured to the tables. “The treasures in this place are greater than anything in the Caliph’s vaults.”

Al-Tusi chose his reply carefully. “Unfortunately, ink and parchment is not so durable as gold. I fear much has already been lost.”

The general seemed not to have heard. “With enough gold, one man can buy an army of ten thousand, but with knowledge…ah, with knowledge, one man can destroy an army. You are a man of learning, Persian. Tell me, what do you see here?”

“These are scientific instruments for taking the measure of the heavens.” Though his answer had been immediate, reflexive, al-Tusi now scrutinized the machines and devices arrayed on the tables. Some were quite familiar—astrolabes, clocks and planetary models—but many of the others had nothing at all to do with astronomy.

“Are they indeed?” Guo watched him carefully for some hint of duplicity. “There is a scroll here that purports to hold the secret of Greek Fire. Over there—”