Written in the Ashes (60 page)

Do not hesitate, he told himself. Just go. But he did hesitate. He looked back at the disappointment in Master Savitur’s eyes and his spirit shrank like a shadow in the sunlight. There must be another way, he reasoned.
This is not interference, Savitur. We are bound by the Great Book to protect the child.

Savitur exhaled, opening his eyes. “The Great Book binds us to protect only a boy. A girl child born to the priestess of the Sacred Marriage is of no consequence to us. The child is entirely within the charge of her mother and the High Priestess of Isis. Go to them and let them decide what to do.”

Junkar shook his head. There was no time.

Then, out of habit, his hand brushed the pocket fold in his robes where Hannah’s hairpin rested. This was not a choice he wanted to make.

Savitur could see the two men inside of the one, battling. He knew that in the end, one of them would have to integrate the other. He knew this would bring great enlightenment to Junkar.

Taking the hairpin in his fingers, Julian thought of Hannah, and how over the years his memory of her had never dimmed. He had made a promise to her child.
Their
child. In that instant, his love for his daughter held more honor than any name he might be called. Silently he apologized to his master, both the one before him and the one whose ashes he had scattered in the mountains of a faraway land.

His heart was still too impure, too human to be a great one such as these.

Julian swept out of the room, unable to bear looking back.

He slipped down the hall toward the workshops and snatched a plain brown robe from a hook by the door. Then he burst into the weapons closet and pulled down a fourth sword after testing the edges of another three, and dashed down to the beach toward a lateen-rigged skiff. He had to hurry. The smoke was rising into the night. He could see the hungry orange flames licking at the buildings along the wharf and the fire had already spread to the sails of the tallest ships. He could hear the sound of the Nuapar priests high on the hill chanting into the night, their prayers ascending and mingling with the smoke. No one saw him go.

Hannah dashed through Alizar’s courtyard in her bare feet; there was no time to look for her shoes. She rushed into the stable and threw open one of the stall doors. Behind it, Alizar’s prize dappled grey stallion stood in a shaft of moonlight. The enormous creature lowered his head in greeting. Hannah lifted the bridle from the wall and touched the stallion’s soft muzzle, whispering to him as she pulled the leather bridle over his ears. “I need you to be brave,” she said. “I need you to be fast and fearless. I have to get my daughter, do you understand?” The stallion rubbed his face against Hannah’s shoulder. She grabbed his mane and in one swift kick threw a leg over his back, righted herself, and took up the reins.

They galloped straight out of the stall and leapt clear of the gate that lead out to the street. The stallion landed easily and spun on his hocks to enter the sea of frightened people all racing toward the beach.

The fire moved quickly. Just one hour before, the city of Alexandria slept peacefully beneath the stars. Now a frantic chaos swept the streets. Mothers clutching children to their breasts rushed to safety. Camels, goats, chickens and donkeys were freed and left to find their own way through the chaos. Hannah could see the orange flames rising high over the city in the direction of the harbor, and hear the roaring in her ears above the screams of the people.

She plunged her bare heels into the stallion’s warm body and they soared toward the west end of Canopic Way. Once at the beach they could run all the way to the harbor.

The stallion, the waves at his knees, gave Hannah the magnificence of all his strength, surging through the surf. At the edge of the sea, the dancing flames were reflected in the water. Every time a wave rose, the mirrored surface presented the picture of the burning city. Hannah leaned forward and let the reins fall slack as the stallion’s ears flattened to his neck. There was only the sound of his breath, the movement of his massive warm shoulders, the feeling of the cold seawater licking at her toes, and the powerful roar of the fire growing nearer as the waves crashed around them.

Once they reached the harbor, the wind shifted and began to blow the fire in the direction of the desert, into the city. Many of the ships were already burning, their masts collapsing, their fiery sails snapping in the wind, the beautiful passion of destruction.

Hannah found the harbor already consumed by fire as she neared, the heat of the flames impenetrable. She brought the stallion to a halt, and as she looked up at the library, her heart seized. Though the glass cupola was, miraculously, still standing and the Great Hall looked intact, the entire east wing that housed the librarians was completely consumed in flames. Her little room, all her possessions, lost. She could only pray Alaya and Synesius had gotten out. The people at the water’s edge looked up in fascination and horror, holding one another, sobbing.

There was no time to think. Hannah turned the stallion around and urged him on. They would have to go in through the zoological park. The gates there would probably be let open for the animals.

Sure enough, Hannah was right. In the fish market she passed a number of zebra and ostrich on the street nearing the rear entrance to the library. A man at the gate waved her to turn back, and even began to shut the gate to stop the crazy woman riding bareback toward the fire, but the stallion leapt the gate fearlessly and cantered into the Caesarium garden where the librarians were gathering.

Hannah reined the stallion through the masses of people, calling for her daughter. She spotted several friends, but Synesius was not among them.

“Where is Alaya?” she pleaded. “My daughter. Alaya. Where is Alaya? Synesius? Have you seen them?”

One of the men looked up at her, the side of his head bloody. “The Parabolani and the mob have destroyed everything,” he said.

“Where is Alaya?” Hannah screamed at him. “Where is my daughter?”

He shook his head.

Then another librarian, squatting on the ground beside a dead peacock, looked up. He recognized Hannah from when she sang at Hypatia’s lectures. “Hypatia,” he stammered. “Synesius went back to help her. They pulled her from her chariot. There were too many of them.” He dropped his head. “The horsemen came from deep in the desert. So many of them we were far outnumbered.”

“Where was Hypatia?” Hannah asked desperately.

The man looked up. “The mathematics stacks,” he said.

Hannah dismounted swiftly and pulled the bridle from the stallion’s head, smacking his shoulder to send him off. Freed, the stallion rushed toward the gate and out into the street.

Hannah looked up at the scene before her. The sound of the fire was deafening. It shook the ground and filled the sky. Occasionally a loud crash was followed by a crackle as a wall collapsed. Directly in front of her, the door into the Great Hall was still clear. The fire was not yet upon it.

There was still time.

Hannah’s eyes darted from side to side. As long as the glass cupola stood, she had a feeling she could risk going inside. She had to try.

The librarian squatting on the ground grabbed Hannah’s elbow, his eyes foreboding. “No,” he said.

“My daughter is in there,” Hannah wrested her arm free.

“Do not let the Parabolani see you,” he pleaded. “We have lost so many already.”

Hannah swallowed hard, her heart pounding audibly in her ears.

She looked back to the Great Hall, pulled the cloak tightly around her body, and pushed her way through the mass of bodies to the doors, calling Alaya’s name and checking every face that emerged for Synesius or her daughter.

As Julian’s skiff crossed the harbor, a floating piece of flaming debris from one of the ships blew into his sail and it caught flame. With no other choice, he dove over the side and swam in the direction of the library. He moved in slow motion as each stroke through the black seawater seemed to bring him no closer, the heavy sword weighing him down. Arm over arm he stroked toward the docks until finally he could pull himself up on the wharf.

Crouching, he paused for three breaths to regain his strength, then sprung to his feet dripping wet and raced across the crumbling wharf toward a window in the west wing of the Great Library.

It was open.

Julian hoisted himself up and landed on his feet inside, the smoke rushing into his lungs. He coughed and drew his robe across his face. This level of the library was still relatively intact, but elsewhere, waves of blue and orange flames climbed the walls and devoured the staircases. Papyrus scrolls like flaming birds swirled and plunged through the air. The fire spiraled around the stone doorways like hungry serpents encircling the trunks of massive trees.

The heat pushed Julian down to his knees as the blaze shook the building all around him, but the fire itself was not yet upon him. He stayed low and swiftly made his way through the narrow library passageways, presuming that anyone who was still in the structure had to either be here in the west wing or the basement. With the meeting of the council on Antirrhodus, Julian knew that the Nuapar who had been guarding the library had mostly been called to protect Orestes and the other magistrates who would be meeting there. He hoped Hypatia still had a few men with her. He knew the Nuapar would protect her.

Then the little hairs on the back of Julian’s neck prickled to attention and he instantly knew he was no longer alone. In keen awareness, Julian let his attackers approach and then swiftly drew his sword and turned.

Three Parabolans stood before him, their eyes wild with bloodshed, their strong hands brandishing freshly stained swords. With cries of battle they leapt on him, only to be disappointed that he slipped between their advances like water through open fingers.

They had not even a moment to realize what was happening as he spun upon them. The first priest fell with his throat slit, the second collapsed with Julian’s sword impaled in his gut. The third advanced on Julian with a war cry but he stepped aside, grabbed the priest’s wrist and turned his own sword upon him with an accuracy Achilles would have envied. The priest fell dead, his eyes wide open, unaware that life had even left him.

Then, without a backward glance, Julian pulled his sword free and ran on ahead. As he reached a staircase leading to levels both above and beneath him, he paused and shut his eyes, calling out to Alaya in his mind, though he knew he might not hear her reply.

He chose to descend the stairs and proceeded through the trembling halls, listening intently, but he heard nothing save the roar of the fire approaching.

Around a corner that led toward the lecture hall, a little cry reached his ears. He closed his eyes and paused to listen.

Then it came again. A child’s cry. His eyes flew open.

“Alaya!” Julian raced down the long stone hall, descended a flight of steps and then another, to a dead end.

He had to backtrack and try again, calling out as he ran.

He flew through another passage and met seven men at its end. These were no Parabolani; they were hardened priests Julian knew from the stories told to him by Master Savitur. The enormous, dark men were the priests of Nitria, from deep in the southern desert, a Christian monastery where the men trained as warriors. They stood seven feet tall, their chests wide as war horses.

The priests plunged ahead, determined to see Julian die. Armed with swords and short knives, they raised their weapons for blood.

Julian had trained all his life for a moment such as this one. He slowed his perception of time, and watched the men race toward him. With precision he ducked and spun to face them, impaling two priests, their bodies falling to the ground. The others spun and attacked.

These priests were the only men in Egypt trained to the level of the Nuapar. Cyril himself had lived with them in his youth. Julian knew that if Cyril had called them, by the hundreds they would have responded. The library was bound to be full of them. If he was too late, there had already been a massacre.