The coins left him no room to get out from under the bookcase, so he lifted it, tipping it over. He ran across the shifting coin floor to the window. Perhaps if he went up to the roof and down the drainpipe . . . His first glance told him that this was a futile hope. It was bright daylight, and people were rushing toward the building. His second, more intent look, made him nearly freeze with horror. Most of the crowd were surging toward the doors of the library. Behind him he could hear the screaming and fighting on the stairs. But what had frightened him was the tableau at the far window.
It was Kemp. A dead lamp-oil seller sprawled on his cart, a sluggish stream of blood still oozing from his back. The Guard-Captain was pouring yet another amphora of glistening yellow lamp oil in through the broken window. Keilin stepped back. He could perhaps mingle with the money-crazed hoard on the stair and escape. At the moment he doubted if they'd notice him if he were green, ten feet tall, with horns on his head. He had to get out before Kemp set fire to the place.
Then his eye was caught by something among the coins and scattered jewels. It was enough to halt him, midflight. For a moment Keilin thought it was his own, and clutched at the jewel around his neck. His pendant was still there . . . was this jewel the same? No, not quite. It was the same oily black, with the myriad of shifting colors seemingly within it, but it was smaller, and set on a broad golden ring instead. He hastily stooped and picked it up. And suddenly he heard the high-pitched whine again. It came from the roof. A section of masonry fell in a shower of purple sparks, and a platelike craft dropped through after it. Keilin did not wait to see the hooded passengers. He dived for the shelter of the chimney, a moment before the searing purple blast.
He was falling face-first down the chimney, the newly found jewel still crushed tight in his fist, as cold as his neck amulet had ever been. He didn't see the suddenly materialized marble tombstone that felled the hooded assassins. From their oddly crumpled bodies seeped a puddle of greenish ichor, disappearing into the coins. But he did hear the terrified scream of "FIRE!"
Keilin's scraping, bruising fall was stopped by the first bend in the flue. Disoriented, shaking and frightened, he simply lay still for a few moments. Even surrounded by bricks he could hear the hungry crackling roar of the flames as they ate at the dry paper of thousands upon thousands of books. And above the fire sound there was the thin screaming of humans.
If he went down . . . could he hide under the floor? He could wait until it burnt out, until nightfall. They'd surely think he was dead, and then he could escape. Keilin managed to turn himself the right way up, and began to descend. He reached the small open area underneath the lowest fireplace and curled there miserably, beginning to feel the pain of his rough passage. The fire roared above, and it was growing hotter, harder to breathe. The only relief was the stream of cold, fetid air that poured in on one side of him.
Panic started to rise in him, as the sweat began to prickle at his grazes and cuts. He couldn't stay here. He might as well go up. If it wasn't for the cold air streaming in, he'd have cooked already. Cold air . . . Logic struggled with the fear. It must be coming from somewhere, drawn in to feed the inferno above. If he could follow it, it might lead him out. The rubble lay in the way. If the truth be told, he'd never tried too hard to move it. He had always felt, well, crushed, down here in the blackness. But now he had the need, a dire and desperate need. He put the newfound ring into the thieves' pouch on his ankle, and began pulling at broken blocks and scraps of concrete, shoving them aside with frantic strength, pushing them into the small hollow he'd occupied.
Now that he'd got going he found it wasn't so bad. He could wriggle along quite effectively. In fact the space was growing bigger. Why, he'd almost be able to crawl soon. He followed the airflow. It was cool, damp, and it stank. The city's ancient sewage system was largely unused now. Most of it had long since blocked up, and been abandoned. Instead, folk emptied their stinking buckets into the storm drains. The occasional terrible sea storm would flush these, but it was often a long while between storms. Sometimes the drains became clogged, and well-bribed heroes had to go down and shovel them clear.
Keilin shuddered. When he'd been just eight years old, his mother had "volunteered" him. They'd wanted a small one to get through the remaining space. The price had kept her cloudy-headed for a week. The memory of it gave him nightmares still. Rats he could deal with, but the sea of roaches down in that enclosed place had terrified him. Determinedly he stifled the recall flood and concentrated on the task ahead.
He came to the point where the air rushed in from the big concrete pipe. A thin pipe from the roof above had once joined it here, but corrosion had long ago eaten away the pipe juncture. It was almost certain that the long-dead builders shouldn't have used that handy storm-drainage pipe for disposing of the library's waste water, but, well, there it had been, temptingly close to the foundations. Surely a hand basin's worth of water wasn't going to make that much difference?