He moved off, stopping to check each of his squad members like any good commander. Jess didn’t know what to make of him. Or any of this.
He was still considering the ramifications of it when he realized sometime in the chaos of the Burner attack, his Codex had received a new message.
It was gibberish. He frowned at the text, and then a second later realized he knew this code. It was his own family’s highly secure emergency code, used only for the most urgent information. He’d memorized the keys to it when he’d been just a boy.
It read, Your friend lives in the city of seven hills. There was no signature, but one hieroglyphic bird sketched at the end of the code string. Not part of his family’s code at all, and it reminded him of the engraving on the ring that Anit, Red Ibrahim’s daughter, wore on a chain around her neck—the ring of one of her brothers.
The message was from her. His free gift of the information about the automata had done some good after all, because this was confirmation, at long last, that Thomas was alive.
And here, beneath Jess’s feet, in Rome.
EPHEMERA
From a speech by a masked Burner leader, given in the territory of America, 1789. Held strictly in the Black Archives.
You hesitate now to lift your hands and weapons against your oppressors? We have the eyes of nations upon us, all eager to see us break these chains and rise, stand firm, be free of this dire and smothering control that has, year by year, been laid upon us.
We have been told that paper in a binding, ink on a page, is worth more than the life of any man, woman, or child. We have been pressed into the service of this false idol we call Knowledge for far too long; we have forgotten how to be free of it, how to think for ourselves and believe we, in ourselves, are worth the breath we take, the land we walk.
I say it openly and plainly: the Library is a cruel and evil oppressor. For long have we pretended it is not so.
It is time, it is time, it is long past time to rise and take knowledge in our own hands, rather than have it dripped out in cautious doses by an institution long ago rendered moot and lame, cowering behind a wall of power.
We will prevail.
Rise! Though we die, though our stories are lost and never placed on the shelves of the Great Library, though we lose our lives and our very nation, we will never give up one great truth: a life is worth more than a book.
So be it, whatever may come.
CHAPTER NINE
Santi’s lieutenant reappeared and called in Jess’s squad just as darkness took hold, though the Forum continued a brisk trade under the light of lamps. He was a bit sorry. Rome was just as lovely at night, with the glow of illuminated marble and household lights glittering from windows.
Though leaving the lions behind was a relief.
For the first time, Jess entered the Basilica Julia. They came in on the private side of it, away from the public Serapeum, and as they were led to the area where they were to eat and rest, Jess tried to place the corridor that Wolfe had described during his Mesmer session. Has to be here, he thought. Wolfe could see the Forum from windows as he passed. But instead of windows, they were led along a hallway that held alcoves and Roman statues. The way had to be hidden, he realized. Somewhere, behind one of these statues, there would be an entrance to a concealed hallway. Go left, it would take you to the Translation Chamber. Right, and a sentry automaton and a prison door.
He was so preoccupied with imagining it that it came as a shock when they suddenly arrived in the Basilica Julia’s common hall.
It was teeming with people—Scholars, assistants, librarians. The addition of Santi’s advance guard packed the place to bursting, but as the lieutenant led them toward the back corner, he saw it had been cleared for them. Several long dining tables and a private alcove. He expected to see Santi and his officers inside, but it was occupied by an old, white-haired man with pale European skin, arrayed in the very finest of Scholar robes and a purple sash to show his importance.
The Artifex Magnus.
Jess went cold inside for an instant, seeing him; the last time he’d laid eyes on the man, he’d been hearing him talk about Thomas’s death. The red right hand of the Archivist. The old man, seated in a comfortable chair, conversed with two Scholars he kept standing, and, as Jess watched, one of them—a young Indian woman—bowed respect and moved away. She seemed thrilled to have been in his presence, and as she joined a table of others, he saw how they admired her.
As if she’d accomplished something noteworthy.
That made Jess want to vomit. It was all show. The Artifex was a cruel, power-hungry man who thought nothing of breaking and destroying anyone who threatened his power, but these poor innocents saw him as a mentor, a sponsor, a man of great scholarship.