Thomas was on firm ground when speaking of the accomplishments of engineers, but less so now, and Jess saw him hesitate before he said, ‘You mean the Obscurists?’
‘The Obscurists would be a correct answer, if woefully inadequate,’ Wolfe agreed. ‘Expound.’
‘They … maintain the Library’s Codex system.’
‘How?’
‘Sir?’
‘Postulant Seif wishes to discuss the Obscurists, and so we shall discuss them. Can you explain to me exactly how they accomplish the mirroring of the Library’s information across so much distance? The exact mechanism they use to perform this miraculous feat?’
‘I—’ Thomas swallowed. ‘No, Scholar.’
‘Then what else do they provide to the Library?’
‘They … provide the spark to power the automata that guard the Serapeum?’
Wolfe let him dangle in silence for a moment, then crossed to stare out the window at the Iron Tower with his hands clasped behind his back.
‘The burning of the Serapeum at Rayy, as we discussed on the first day, changed everything,’ he said. ‘Prior to that loss, alchemists worked in secret; after, they began to work together. Their discoveries led to the Doctrine of Mirroring, but they also found something curious: alchemical successes were not a simple matter of chemicals and potions and the time at which they were combined, as everyone had thought. The formulae worked for some earnest masters and not others, because there was a spark in only some, a talent that could imbue formulae with real power.’
‘And those people became the Obscurists,’ Khalila said.
‘The most valuable resource in the world.’ Wolfe suddenly rounded on Khalila, stalked directly to her, and Jess saw the fine tremble that went through her that marked a desperate desire to retreat. It was a significant achievement that she held her ground; Jess wasn’t sure he could have done the same. ‘Do not ever bring up the Obscurists again, Postulant Seif. Your idle curiosity will not be so well rewarded.’
She was silent for a second, and then – remarkably, to Jess’s eyes – she drew herself up and held Wolfe’s gaze quite steadily. Then she said, with only a tiny hint of a tremor in her voice, ‘With the greatest respect, Scholar Wolfe, I do not ask from idle curiosity, but from a desire to more fully understand the duties of a librarian. Librarians instruct, assist, research, develop, create … and protect, do they not?’
‘Yes. Your point?’
‘You said they are our greatest resource. Does that not also make the Obscurists our greatest weakness?’
That sparked a sudden, common intake of breath, because it seemed more than daring, that question.
It seemed seditious.
Wolfe stepped back without blinking, and clasped his hands behind his back. Smiled. It was a strange expression on him, unnatural, almost brittle. ‘Explain,’ he said.
‘All of the other specialities of the Library – Medica, Artifex, Historia, Lingua – are positions to which we can aspire. But alchemy cannot be taught in the same way. None of us can become Obscurists, because they are born with a special gift. That makes them rare,’ Khalila continued. The tremor in her voice was more obvious now, and she stopped to swallow. ‘We must know if we are to help protect them.’
‘And when you rise to the rank of a Senior Scholar, you might be granted that knowledge,’ he told her. ‘Until then, the question is a waste of your time. Obscurists do their work in seclusion and protection within the Iron Tower. That is all you need know.’
‘But without them, documents can’t be added to the Archive, isn’t that true? Without them, the automata that guard our daughter libraries cannot have the spark of life. Without them—’
She seemed to run out of courage, suddenly, and her voice fell silent.
Jess finished the thought. ‘Without them, the Codex doesn’t work,’ he said. ‘And if the Codex doesn’t work, the Library falls.’
That got Wolfe’s attention. He instantly regretted opening his mouth. The room was hot and still, and when he gritted his teeth in order not to flinch under that stare, his jaw ached tightly in the corners.
But he didn’t look away.
‘Remember,’ Wolfe said. The word was silky soft, almost gentle. ‘Even here, you can ask the wrong questions and speak the wrong truths, postulants. Here ends today’s lesson. Tota est scientia.’
Their murmured response followed him as he turned and walked from the room, blending with the whisper of his black robes on stone. Finally, after the doors closed, Jess let out his breath in a rush.
‘Scheisse, Jess,’ Thomas said. ‘Did he just threaten you?’
Khalila was looking at him in concern, and her face was several shades too pale. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Never mind,’ Jess replied, and picked up his Codex from the desk. ‘It was a good question.’
Outside, Wolfe’s High Garda friend was waiting with the pot of tiles. Jess automatically reached for one.
The man pulled it back and gave him an unexpectedly friendly grin. ‘Not you,’ he said. ‘Pass.’
Somehow, Jess thought, that only made it seem more ominous.
The day’s lottery yielded no losers, by some miracle. By the time they made it back to Ptolemy House, the sun was down, they were all soaked with exhausted sweat, and Jess stood in the shower for well on an hour, wondering if he could survive this gruelling process, and more, if he should.
When he came out of the shower, his missing clothes were back in his trunk. Stained, muddy, and filthy, but returned, and fair point, he hadn’t told Dario they had to be in the same condition as they’d left. Jess silently scrubbed the worst of the mud out of a shirt and trousers, donned them, and then pondered taking revenge to the next level. His brother would have, until it came to knives and someone dead on the floor.
He wasn’t his brother. For that reason, he decided to just let it go. Dario had kept his end of the bargain … exacted some petty revenge, but a little mud didn’t bother Jess much. Benefits of an urchin childhood. Jess even wrote something that was almost civil about his roommate in his personal journal that night, simply because he believed they might have reached an understanding.
It was premature, as he found out the next morning when Dario roughly shook him awake.
‘Where is it?’ Dario growled. Jess blinked spots from his eyes and tried to sit up. Dario pushed him back down. ‘Now, scrubber!’
‘Where’s what?’
Dario lunged for him, and Jess on his side, delivered a quick elbow to Dario’s face, and was on his feet and balanced for a fight in seconds as the other boy staggered away. Dario, however, went down hard on his arse, and stayed there, breathing hard and holding his nose. It wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even bleeding.
‘I’ll kill you,’ Dario growled. It came up from the depths of him, and Jess believed he meant it.
‘For what?’ Jess asked. ‘Other than just on general principles? What do you think I did?’
‘My Codex,’ Dario said. ‘You took it, out of revenge. Give it back.’
That was serious. To steal someone’s Codex was to cut off access to the Library, and even under normal circumstances that would be a vile thing to do; now, with Wolfe’s class reaping a daily crop of failures, it was catastrophic.