They’d all been well trained in how to suss out hidden alcoves, floor tiles, concealed safes and shelves. Common practice among those who possessed book contraband to hide it from view. Scholars and soldiers learned how to pry those secrets out early in their training.
But Jess had experience at hiding things, not just finding them. The Brightwell family expertise lent itself to a search like this, and instead of doing what the others were, he stood very still, looking around the large round room. Those who built this place weren’t trying to hide something completely. They’d want it accessible. No Obscurist is going to want to grub around in flower beds, looking for a switch or a panel.
He let his eyes unfocus and wander, and suddenly, he was looking at a statue. The largest statue, in fact, in the room: an image of hawk-headed Horus, from whose bowl flowed a continuous stream of water that snaked among the flowers and plants.
Horus, God of Scribes. Patron of the Great Library.
Jess grabbed Thomas as he passed and pulled him over to the statue. “Look for any kind of switch,” he said. They both began running hands over the cool marble, and then Jess felt a scarab ornament on the arm of the statue give to his touch. “Here! It’s here!”
He pressed it, and above them something hissed. What had seemed like just another part of the ceiling proved to be a plate—the bottom of a black iron staircase that screwed down from the ceiling, turning so smoothly that it must have been powered by steam or hydraulics. The whole thing was silent enough that it seemed as eerie as a dream.
“Incredible,” Thomas murmured, and ran his hand over the smooth black railing. “We go up?”
“We go up,” Santi said. “But I go first.”
Jess hung back to take rear guard. The staircase turned in a tight spiral around a central iron core, and above him Thomas said, reverently, “Look at this. It’s the same as the Iron Tower! No one remembers how this metal was created; it has the same properties as the Iron Pillar of Delhi, but—”
“You must be feeling better,” Glain said from just below him. “Since you’re lecturing again.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be. I’m happy to hear it.”
At the top of the steps, Santi paused and said, “There’s a door. No lock and no handle, so I assume it takes an Obscurist. Morgan?”
She squeezed her way past the others to the top. Jess craned his neck, wishing he’d put himself farther ahead, so he could see what was going on. Someone has to bring up the rear, scrubber. He could almost hear Dario’s mocking voice. When had he started missing Dario, of all people?
It seemed to take forever, and Jess faced outward, toward the garden room. How long before someone—Gregory, perhaps—came looking for them? How long before he realized they’d gone missing and began to search? Not long, surely. He wasn’t the trusting sort. I should be up there, he thought. I’m the one who’s good with closed doors.
But Santi did know best, after all. Above there was a hollow clunk, and Santi said, “We’re moving!” Khalila, just ahead of Jess, glanced over her shoulder at him and gave him an encouraging smile.
“Come on,” she said. “At least we can brag to Dario later that we saw something he didn’t.”
Jess backed his way up the winding stairs, training his weapon on the room below until the last twist hid it all from view. Then he turned and hurried up after Khalila, across a shallow landing, and toward a black iron door that stood open.
Behind him he heard another hiss, and looked back to see the staircase moving again, this time spiraling back into the ceiling. Counterweights. It had been only their weight on the staircase that had kept it down after the initial descent. The design reminded him of Heron of Alexandria and all the marvelous bellows and gears that had driven the wonders of the temples in the early days of the Library.
Khalila had stopped in the doorway, and Jess stepped up beside her and stopped as well. He couldn’t help it.
A vast, circular Serapeum spread out in front of them, but not like any he’d ever seen before. The Library’s daughter facilities were always, always orderly, clean, well maintained.
This was like the ghostly wreck of one.
The Black Archives rose in a hollowed-out tower within the tower, ring after ring of shelves and cabinets crowding every available level, with an ancient, dusty flat lift on a track that must have been designed to spiral up from one level to another. The number of books, scrolls, tablets . . . it was staggering and chaotic. The smell of the place overwhelmed him—old paper, mold, neglect. A thick, choking patina of dust.