Does that mouth open? Would Thomas have put a switch inside? Not if there was a risk the jaws might close, Jess thought. The idea was efficiency and safety.
He just didn’t know, and he thought, with a tired shudder, that Anit’s brothers had likely done this same mental exercise and gotten it wrong. When it had come to their final test, they’d lost their lives. No wonder Red Ibrahim didn’t use this information. He’d sacrificed enough to it. And Anit gave it to me to let me try, at a considerable profit. Clever girl. No risk to her family, and if Jess managed where her own brothers had failed, she’d probably buy that information back from him.
Jess tucked the book and translation back into his smuggling harness, curled up, and fell asleep for a blissfully quiet night. His dreams, though, were not so restful, full of blood, fire, death, Thomas’s screams as Jess ran down an endless tunnel toward him, never quite arriving.
He woke up with the bitter taste of ashes coating his tongue, and realized it was well before dawn. Good, he thought. He’d told Glain, Wolfe, and Santi what he knew about Thomas. There were others who needed to know, too.
And he needed the feeling of motion, even if it was only an illusion of progress.
Breakfast came from a sleepy street vendor with a tray full of warm almond pastries, and he ate one on the long walk down gently sloping streets to the harbor. Alexandria was a breathtakingly beautiful city, and no matter how long he’d been here, it never failed to grab his attention. This morning, ships floated in shadow, while the tallest point of the pyramid of the Serapeum flared with the brilliant glow of sunrise. It was promising to be a clear morning, and the sea looked as calm as milk.
A long, straight road ran to the far end across the bay to the island of Pharos, and there, covering a huge part of that island, stretched the massive Lighthouse of Alexandria. It was shaped like a graduated stack of three square buildings, one atop another, tapering to a graceful tower in the upper third of its height. It sparked golden at the tallest point, where a statue of Hathor lifted her hands to the sun, and the dawn’s color shaded down the tower from soft orange into twilight blue at the base. Even at this early hour, figures moved in the large, open courtyard in flowing robes: no doubt they were Scholars and attendants, heading to their work. There were four main entrances, one on each side of the square—open, but with automaton sphinxes standing guard.
He had no particular reason to think the sphinxes would attack, but he also didn’t want a record of his visit here, in case someone was watching his movements. No one doubted he was High Garda, after all; he wore the bracelet of service, prominently visible on one wrist, and a crisp, official uniform. He wasn’t actually sneaking in or evading security. Merely . . . blending.
All it really took was a stack of five pastry boxes high enough to conceal his face, and to wait for a group of uniformed High Garda soldiers to arrive for duty. He fell in with them and kept his walk and posture as relaxed as he could.
The sphinxes turned their heads to track him, but with his face blocked by the boxes, they quickly lost interest and began scanning the rest of the incoming rush of Scholars, guards, and assistants. The automata were trained to detect Greek fire and the delicate scent of original books, but the pastries would have more than covered any hint that escaped the smuggling harness’s pouch.
The pastries smelled delicious enough to make his stomach rumble again.
Jess paused in the courtyard to get his bearings. It was still night-shaded inside the thirty-foot walls that served as defense both from sea and enemies, though some glowing lamps hung in alcoves. The outer edges were furnished with long marble benches and expertly maintained little contemplation gardens, each overseen by a god statue with some connection to scholarship. There, in the far corner, Athena lifted her spear with her familiar owl on her shoulder. Saraswati had her own quiet garden, where her statue sat with lute in hand by a little fountain. Nabu of Babylon and Thoth of Egypt presided over their own groves, each a patron of the written arts. The Lighthouse courtyard had the feel of something incredibly ancient, and, at the same time, something vital and alive, walked and enjoyed by thousands every day. Antique and modern together.