Ash and Quill(38)

"Taking the air?" Dario said.

She ignored him. "I was talking to you, Schreiber."

"Taking the air," Thomas said, without a flicker of a smile. Dario laughed. "Also wondering . . . what is that?" Thomas asked and jerked his chin toward the wall on their left. Beyond it lay a luminous glow, like sunset . . . but sunset had already passed. For the first time, Jess realized that there was a brighter glow outside the city than inside it.

"High Garda camp," Indira said. "Their encampment has grown through the years. All the modern conveniences, including chemical lights. They never let us forget they're out there. Night or day."

Thomas nodded. "We are walking to Dr. Askuwheteau's house, to see Captain Santi."

She nodded back. "Very well. Proceed." She and her fellow guard fell in with them.

Jess realized, as Thomas led them on a course that meandered closer to the wall, that he could actually hear the Library forces. A low, whispering buzz of activity, voices, movement. A sudden, bright spark of laughter. A faint brush of music. Vital, modern life going on just a few hundred feet away, while here, the Burners scrambled for day-to-day crusts of bread and rebuilt their ruined city after every attack. That, too, was an attack. A subtle kind, one that would eat at the spirits of those trapped inside.

"They never shut up," Indira said. She sounded resigned, but there was a tense undercurrent of anger, too. The hatred for the Library that never quite receded, in any of the Burners. And Jess was starting to understand that all too well. "And they never give up."

"Can I tell you a story?" Jess asked her. She said nothing, so he kept going. "Burners read books, so you should appreciate this one. You know of the Serapeum of Pergamum?" Indira nodded. Pergamum was one of the most famous of the original libraries-a Greek establishment, a rival to Alexandria in the early days. "Artemon of Pergamum was the Scholar in charge of that place after it was made a Serapeum, two thousand years ago. He stood in the doors of the building, in front of a crowd of invading Roman soldiers, and told them that his death would come before they touched a single volume. They killed him. When he fell, another librarian stepped into his place. When she was killed, another. And another. One by one, they died to keep the Romans from looting the shelves. The last was a newly christened Scholar, just arrived that day. Her name was Flavia, and she was from the kingdom of Carthage. She stood on top of the bodies of her friends and colleagues, armed with nothing but a knife. She knew she would die, but that didn't stop her." 

Indira said nothing. But she was listening.

"The Roman commander himself stepped up to that bloody doorway and commanded her to save herself. She said, ‘Better I die than a single book is lost.' Flavia was just fourteen years old. She'd been a full Scholar for less than a week. Her statue stands over the entrance to the Serapeum at Pergamum, because she saved it. The Roman commander said, ‘If your love of these books is so great, then they must be worth saving.' And he set his men to guard the building, while the rest of Pergamum was looted and destroyed. It was the beginning of the Library's neutrality."

"You must have a point to this story," Indira said.

"Flavia is the spirit of the Library," Thomas said. "Not the Archivist. Not the Curia. You call us booklovers, and it's true. We are. And so are you, at heart. You believe in the power of them to change the world."

"It's a nice story. I don't believe in fairy tales. It's the Archivist and the Curia who run the Library, not your martyred saint."

"No," Jess said. "They're just running it now. If you want to change the world, you don't destroy the entire Library. You put Flavia back in charge."

"As I said, a nice story," Indira said. "We don't tell each other stories. We fight. We take action."

"You huddle behind your walls here and fight a losing battle," Morgan said. "And you're going to lose. What good are you really doing here?"

Indira's lip curled, and her tone was softly mocking when she said, "Being a symbol. Like your Flavia. Are you children really intending to teach us the proper way to rebel?"

"No. We're doing it with you or without you," Thomas said. He sounded certain of himself. No bluster, no pride. Just fact. "I don't see a future here, Indira. I don't see many children, and those I see are starving and frightened. You might be surviving, but I do not think you are winning. Do you?"

Only Thomas, Jess thought, could say that with so much understanding and compassion.

Indira's lips went thin, her gaze flat, and she took a faster pace, striding forward. "The doctor's house is this way."