Ash and Quill(32)

"Take it," she said. "Go."

"Everybody wants us gone," Dario said, and picked up the bag and thrust it toward Jess. "You get the glass splinters. I paid."

Dario was right. It wasn't fun, handling the broken glass, but Jess took the cuts and jabs in stride. He'd had worse, and would again. Once he was done, he lifted the heavy, crunching bag and tried to think how best to carry it without giving his back a scratching it would never forget.

The woman held out a second, thicker bag. "Free," she said, and smiled just a little. "It's easy to get hurt, you know."

Her arm was in the light from the door, and he saw the scars then, old and new layered into gnarled patterns. Her fingers looked raw. It was like looking at a map of pain, and he had to shake his head. "No," he said. "I can bear a few more scars. You keep that."

Once they were outside, he carefully put the bag over his shoulder and winced at the immediate sharp bites . . . but it was bearable. Dario said nothing, just shook his head. "You're an idiot," he said. "You should have taken it."

"You gave her all your money. She probably wouldn't have asked for half that much."

Dario shrugged, eloquently. "Philadelphian notes. Worthless. Let her have the use of it."

Truth was, Jess thought, that money could have bought Dario meat, bad liquor, all manner of indulgences. But Dario didn't like to be thought of as anything like kind.

So Jess just said, "Let's go find the rest of Thomas's shopping list."





EPHEMERA


Text of a work from the Black Archives, untitled, credited to Heron of Alexandria. Not indexed in the Codex.


I have written before on the curvature of metals, and the reflections of light that may be done with such. The simplest use is a mirror, which reflects light upon the viewer. But light may also be concentrated in a series of highly polished mirrors, sending it from one surface to another to another, until the light is so bright and it becomes a solid thing, like a beam of fire. I have achieved this effect upon three occasions. With one, I used mirrors the size of shields, and was able to set alight a distant tree, which burned as if Zeus himself had cast down lightning upon it. In the second case, I used a finely polished set of jewels loaned to me by the gracious hand of Pharaoh, and the result was much stronger, and much smaller in width. Upon the third attempt, I seated these highly polished gems within an array of holders, precisely set to amplify the light, and contained it within a tube of brass. This attempt, shown before Pharaoh, melted through seven feet of thick, hardened iron, to the awe and terror of his court.

It is the power of Apollo contained within mortal hands, and by the order of Pharaoh, I have been ordered not to continue these experiments, for the gods will not share such wonders without punishment.

The will of Pharaoh is ever wise.





CHAPTER FOUR





Working with Thomas was like being a student playing next to a master pianist. Not that Jess didn't have aptitude; he was good at whittling parts from spare scraps of wood to Thomas's specifications, and then transferring those models to a hot wax impression, ready for casting. Thomas measured and cut what little good, solid wood they'd been given, and spent his time at the forge, melting scrap metal and casting the gears.


      ///
       
         
       
        

When he wasn't sweating in front of the forge, Thomas had a strange way of staring at the empty space in the middle of the workroom, walking around and around it as if he were examining an actual machine that stood there.

Jess finally left off carving to stare at him. "You really can see it, can't you?" he asked.

"Yes, of course. It's right there." Thomas raised his eyebrows and pointed to the plans they'd sketched again, in charcoal, on the wall. Jess shook his head.

"Yes, I can see the plans. But you see the whole thing already built, don't you? All the way around?"

"Of course," Thomas said. "You don't? How else do you create something that doesn't exist?"

Jess tried creating that machine in his imagination, but the sketch-though he understood it-remained stubbornly as flat as the charcoal on the wall. "I don't think I'm meant for a gold band," he said, and grinned. "And I think you always were, Scholar Schreiber."

Thomas turned and looked at him. "I'm not really a Scholar."

"Didn't anyone tell you? Wolfe commissioned you. Lifetime appointment, gold band and all. When they told us you were dead, you were entered on the rolls as an honor. There was a ceremony. They put your name in hieroglyphs on the Scholar Steps." It had been, Jess thought, a somber and emotional afternoon; just six of them together on the vast Serapeum steps while an Egyptian priest intoned a prayer for the dead. Morgan had been gone in the Iron Tower, and Thomas . . . Thomas had been screaming in a cell underneath the streets of Rome.