The Shards of Heaven (40 page)

“My dear Didymus,” Juba said, bowing cordially. “I am pleased at last to meet you.”

Didymus bowed low in response, feeling a chill against the back of his neck like the wind he imagined preceding an executioner's swing. “Is it to you that I owe thanks for the sparing of this building?”

“It is,” Juba said. He smiled diplomatically. “Though the men remain, as you might imagine, most anxious to burn it nevertheless.”

“I hope they can be dissuaded, prince of Rome and Numidia.”

Juba grinned. “Numidia and Rome,” he corrected.

Didymus nodded, though he couldn't imagine what difference it made.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Juba said. “All three of us.”

“Of course,” Didymus said. He motioned to the two chairs he'd placed in front of his desk, distantly remembering Caesarion and Jacob sitting in them as they learned the truth of the Shards. “Please, sit down. Thrasyllus, see that we are not disturbed.”

The young astrologer bowed, more deeply than Didymus had ever seen, before he closed the door. Juba held a chair for Selene before settling into his own. Didymus glanced once more out the window, confirming that the Roman army hadn't moved and wasn't yet bearing torches, before he, too, sat down. “Well,” he said, “I thank you for sparing the Library so far.”

“I wouldn't see it burned,” Juba said, the quickness of his response speaking to its honesty. “Though I would do so gladly if it got me what I want.”

When he knew Juba was on his way up, Didymus had pulled from its hiding place the letter from that horrible night, the night that brought them all to this place and to the truth of the Shards and a war greater than any battle between men. He lifted it now from the papers strewn atop his desk. Smears of red still stained its surface, marring its inks. Didymus held it gently in his fingers, turning it over twice before he set it down, faceup, on the wood. Amid the stains he could see the Numidian's mark. “I don't have what you're looking for,” Didymus said, his eyes still fixed on the letter. “I told the man you sent. The Scrolls of Thoth don't exist. They're not here. Burning this place will reveal nothing.”

“I know,” Juba said.

Didymus looked up. “You know?”

“It's not the Scrolls that I'm after. It's the Ark. The First Shard.”

Didymus felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. A wave of nausea washed over him and he had to swallow the urge to be sick. “Sh-shard?”

Juba smiled. “One of the Shards of Heaven. Like the Trident that my stepbrother Octavian has in his possession. The Ark of the Covenant. I want it. No, I need it. And you're going to get it for me.”

“How—?”

“How do I know of the Shards?” Juba looked over to Selene. “I've suspected some of it, but I know more today than I knew yesterday.”

“Selene?” Didymus looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time: young, strong, defiant. “How could you? To the Romans?”

“Not to the Romans,” she said quickly. Her cheeks were tinged with red, but her chin was raised. “To Juba. We have to tell him everything.”

“What?”

“He's on our side,” Selene said, her eyes pleading. “It's our only hope. You've got to tell him about the Serapeum.”

Didymus pushed back from his desk and stood, backing away from them and turning toward the window. His hands raised to his head as if he meant to cover his ears. His gaze fell on the surrounding army. The Romans looked anxious, hungry for destruction. “No. No…”

“You've got to tell him whatever you know about the Ark.”

Didymus felt his stomach lurch, as if he'd been kicked in the gut. “Oh, Selene,” he moaned.

“The lady Selene is right,” Juba said, his voice calm and confident. “I want the same things you want. The Library saved. The children of Antony and Cleopatra alive.”

Didymus blinked at the Romans and the tense city. He did want that, didn't he? The Library saved? He'd given up the chance to see the Ark to attempt just that, hadn't he? And of course he wanted the children alive. He'd given so much for them, felt like a father …

The precision of Juba's words suddenly struck him, widening his eyes. “But not Caesarion,” he whispered.

It wasn't a question, but Juba treated it as one. “Nothing can be done for that,” the Numidian said. “I'm sorry. I did try.”

Didymus leaned forward and placed a hand upon the window to keep from falling. Caesarion. He pictured the child, the boy, the man.
Not Caesarion.

“He did try,” Selene said. She sounded close to crying. “I heard him. Octavian wanted to kill us all. Juba talked him out of it.”

Didymus closed his eyes on the Roman soldiers, on the suddenly swirling room. He closed his eyes and tried to make dispassionate sense of it all. Of course they couldn't let Caesarion live. He was too much of a threat. He and Antony were destined to die. Cleopatra, too, maybe. It would be a miracle if they didn't kill the other children, too. But why would Juba care? Why would he try to save them? It made no sense. “I don't understand,” he finally said. “What are you after?”

“Vengeance,” Juba said, his voice cold. It wasn't the kind of reply Didymus expected and he spun away from the window to look at them again. Selene had her head down, but her face was wet. Her arm was outstretched, her hand in Juba's. The Numidian had been looking at her with pity in his eyes, but when he turned his head to Didymus his stare was filled with lethal anger, as if he were in thrall to another power. “I want vengeance. And the Ark can get it for me. Understand that I will stop at nothing. I feel it like a fire in my veins, like a flame in my heart. Vengeance, librarian. I will burn this Library to the ground to get it. I will kill if I need to. I will destroy Octavian—and any who stand in my way before him.”

 

26

T
HE
A
RK
OF
THE
C
OVENANT

ALEXANDRIA, 30 BCE

Caesarion had been beneath the city before. Alexandria was a city grown from its public works—from its elaborate watercourses underground to its great temples and palaces above—and it was the responsibility of any good ruler, he believed, both to understand these workings and to see to their upkeep. As a result, he'd often had cause to enter the dark canals beneath the streets, or the deep-cut labyrinths of tombs in the necropolis to the west, especially after his mother had gone north to Actium.

Even so, he'd never seen anything like this. Along with Pullo and Shushu, the Egyptian guard who'd remained with them after Khenti left with Vorenus, he had been following the other guardians of the Ark through a perfectly square underground passage that wound its way northwest from the famed Serapeum toward the Heptastadion like a meandering river: twisting, turning, now and again dropping down cascades of steps that appeared suddenly at the edge of the lantern light. Indeed, the more he thought of it, the more he wondered if it was meant to replicate the course of the Nile. Were those occasional abrupt steps downward meant to replicate the five tumbling cataracts of the Mother River? And the only other break in the smooth-walled passage had been the merging—quite some time after they had left the temple of Serapis—of an identical passageway from the east; though the Jews had said nothing, Caesarion decided that this must have been the other, shorter passageway that originated beneath Alexander's tomb, perhaps bending back against itself like the eastern branch of the Nile, if his hypothesis about its design was correct. Like the Mother River itself, the longer passage they followed had, from that point on, no branches or doors. There were only two ways in, and it seemed that there was only one way out: to keep moving northward, toward the sea.

His mouth would normally have been filled with questions about it all, but there was simply no opportunity to ask them. The keepers of the Ark were moving with a tense focus that silenced questions. More than once they would signal for a halt and one of their number would move ahead into the darkness for several minutes at a time. The passage was narrow—only two men could walk comfortably abreast—so Caesarion could not see what they did. But from the quiet sounds of their workings, he guessed that they were disabling traps set into the passageway, even if he never saw a sign of the disarmed traps in their wake.

By chance, he was walking beside Pullo, behind Hannah and Jacob, and Caesarion knew that, even if there had been time for questions, he would have had difficulty asking them. The girl had been captivating when they'd spoken back at the temple. She was confident and mysterious, intelligent and strong, so very unlike any of the servant girls he'd known in the confines of the palace. It was only the fact that he couldn't see her face, he supposed, that allowed him to think anything coherent at all as they walked—although, he noted to himself as he watched the back of her, not thinking about
her
was still difficult.

“The masonry work here is different,” Pullo whispered, momentarily pulling Caesarion's mind from Hannah's long hair.

“Is it?” Caesarion asked, looking around them at the stone walls and ceiling. They were, he noticed now, more roughly hewn than they had been earlier in the passage.

“A different set of workers,” Pullo said. “And the stone is different, too.”

“You're perceptive for a Roman,” Hannah said without turning.

Caesarion looked over to Pullo, saw even by the dim light of the lantern he was carrying that he was smiling. He clearly appreciated her quick wit and confidence—just as Caesarion did. “Pullo was a mason himself when he was my age, before the wars,” he said. He flashed the big man a smile. “That was many, many years ago, of course.”

“Is that so?” Hannah said. She glanced only quickly over her shoulder, without breaking stride. “You're quite full of surprises, my big friend. Yes, I believe these passages were built in many different stages, by different crews of workers, using stone cut from different quarries. That way no one could know of its full design or aim. That's also one of the reasons it cannot be straight.”

“It must also weave through the other foundations of the city,” Pullo said.

“That, too,” Hannah agreed.

Before Pullo could say anything more, the passageway abruptly widened out into a larger space. Ten paces more and Hannah signaled for a stop. Their single passage, which they had followed for so long, here divided into three more passages that continued on into the gloomy dark like three deep-throated maws. From somewhere—above, below, or to the side, he couldn't tell—Caesarion could hear a faint splashing. One of the underground canals, perhaps?

Hannah held her lantern forward into the dark and looked back at Caesarion and the others. “Stay close, as the right path can take us to the Ark, while the wrong path will most certainly take us to our deaths.”

“More traps?” Shushu asked. The Egyptian guard had been silent for most of their march, but the threat of death clearly focused his attention, and he, too, had apparently guessed the reason for their many time-consuming pauses along the way.

Hannah nodded, then began walking down the passageway on the left. Everyone hurried to catch up.

The passage they followed continued on for perhaps twenty paces, then bent right before turning left again. Ahead, a heavy wooden door loomed in the dark, crossed over with thick iron. For a few seconds they all stared at it, as if surprised to find such a structure in the old passageway. Caesarion could see even from a few paces away that the door was tightly sealed in the frame, with thick bulges of tar pressed into its gaps. He wondered if it was so well sealed that it cut off the air beyond it. Would they open it and enter the Ark chamber breathing the same air as those of its guardians who placed it there so long ago?

To his surprise, Hannah approached not the door, but the wall that he presumed was the western side of the corridor. Reaching out beneath her lantern, she began to run her fingers across the stone, gently rubbing it until, a few silent moments later, she appeared to find what she was looking for and leaned forward, pursing her lips to blow. A fan of dust puffed out of a hidden crack, and she alternatively brushed it back and blew at the seam.

After a minute, Jacob gasped. “There,” Hannah said. “I think this is it.”

Caesarion saw that she'd revealed a sliver of stone that pulled away. Beneath it was an indentation in the rock that appeared as if it could be used for a handle for a hidden door. “You've never been here before?”

Her gaze flicked up to meet his, excitement dancing in her eyes. “No. My mother was the last to enter. But she told me the secrets before she died. And this seems to be about the right place for Schedia, don't you think?” she asked.

Caesarion didn't know what she meant, but he nodded just the same. Hannah's dark eyes found his and her smile seemed to widen. Amused. Perhaps impressed. It was, he thought, the most remarkable thing he'd ever seen.