Authors: Joshua P. Simon
The Cult of Sutek (38 page)
By the time they reached the first floor, the city’s watch had arrived.
“Stop!” one of the men shouted, drawn sword in hand.
Andrasta ignored him, practically diving off the steps, rolling behind an ancient stone statue of some minor god on display. Rondel followed, though not half as elegantly. Andrasta had her back against the block of stone, peeking out of one side. He did the same on the other. The guards wore looks of confusion while turning toward them.
The man who had shouted for them to stop, gestured for the others, some fourteen men, to circle around either side of the statue. They barely moved a step when a heavy crash sounded from the second floor. The guards paused and looked up as the five headed cobra appeared at the top of the stairs. It looked confused with so many warm bodies to choose from.
The guards began cursing, backing away slowly.
We’re no longer the priority.
The cobra flared each of its hoods and sped down the stairs. Within moments it was striking and spitting at anything nearby.
Guilt washed over Rondel as he watched the first few men die by the serpent’s venom. Even if the trap had been triggered by Kamal and Wabu, he couldn’t help but feel partially responsible.
A hand wrapped around his arm. He jumped.
“Stick around and we’ll be next,” said Andrasta. “C’mon.”
He nodded, shaking away his guilt and leading them to the basement and out of the library.
Several blocks away, after doubling back their trail for the third time through narrow, trash filled alleys, Rondel called, “Wait.”
Andrasta slowed. “What?”
“Where are you going?”
“Our apartment.”
“We can’t. More of the watch could be waiting for us.”
“How would they know where we live?”
“Kamal and Wabu. If they figured out we were hitting the museum tonight, it’s possible they figured out where we were staying as well.”
Andrasta halted and cursed so colorfully in Juntarkan that Rondel didn’t understand half of it. He had been picking up the rarely spoken language so they could speak it around others without anyone understanding.
“We still have to go. All our things are there,” she said finally.
“A few weapons and armor. Some clothes. . . . Nothing that can’t be replaced.”
“More than that. All our money and everything you’ve compiled about the Jewel of Bashan while we’ve been in this blasted city. Trap or not, we can’t walk away from months of work.”
“I’ve got copies of all the research hidden at the library. More than half of our money too.”
Andrasta raised an eyebrow. He thought she might be upset since Rondel hadn’t mentioned his splitting of the money. “How do we know that hasn’t been compromised as well?”
“We don’t. But I always went to the library by myself and dressed like an old man. Alone, people see me as just another cripple.” He paused. “In fact, I can’t think of a safer place right now than the library. We should hole up there for the night.”
A line of white slashed across the lower third of her face. It was a rare thing for her to smile. He wished she would do it more.
“What’s that about?”
“When you talk with such confidence, it’s hard to even remember the coward from prison.”
“Yeah, it’s getting harder for me to remember him either. You run point?”
“Of course. I’d like to get there alive.” She grinned.
Wow. Twice in one night? I wonder how often it snows in the desert
.
* * *
Scholars who enjoyed needlessly ranking such things as libraries, placed Zafar’s as fourth in the world. Given its collections on ancient texts from the eastern nations of Untan, Rondel thought the scholars had gotten it wrong once again.
Definitely a solid number two.
Following Andrasta’s lead, he jumped down to the library’s roof from an adjacent apartment building.
He landed a foot from the rooftop’s ledge, rolling to reduce the impact on his knees and ankles. Rising, he glanced back at the distance he had cleared. Bile crept into his throat. He had never made a jump like that before.
Calm down. You’re fine. Still, that had to be twenty feet across!
A flat surface dominated most of the library’s roof except for its center which consisted of a large dome painted in gold. It glowed brightly in the moonlight just as it blinded passersby during the day. Rondel eased in front of his partner and approached it, looking for the opening.
Hidden among several ventilation tubes, a four-foot by four-foot hatch had been crafted at the bottom of the dome. Thinking it best to find a means of escape should the need arise, he had discovered the hatch on one of his first visits to the library.
However, Rondel had not considered the need to enter the library from the roof. Andrasta examined the joins of the panel, running her fingers up, down, and across each of the seals. She pressed in various locations, but the hatch didn’t give.
“No screws. Not even a handle,” she muttered.
“There’s one on the inside. Not that it does us any good. We’ll need to find another way in.”
“Any other way inside is going to draw too much attention, even at this time of night.”
Rondel nodded. All doors resided on the first level and no windows rose above the third. The librarians believed natural sunlight would harm the older texts housed on the upper levels. Patrons perusing those volumes had to squint by the light of dim oil lamps secured on wall sconces and encased with glass strengthened by sorcery so they would not break.
“So what do we do?”
Andrasta whipped out her dagger. She jammed the long, thin blade into the narrow groove separating the hatch and the dome. She worked it down, shifted her grip, and pried. The point of any other dagger would have snapped off under the pressure, but Relian steel never dulled, and it never broke. Because of that, even a small dagger like the one Andrasta carried often cost more than many men could earn in a lifetime.
Andrasta grunted, her scarred face twisting in the shadowed night. Her wide nostrils flared as the hatch began to open. “A little help,” she muttered.
Rondel quickly drew one of his daggers and jammed it into the wider space she had made.
She repositioned her blade and took a breath. “On three.”
She nodded off the count and they pulled. The hatch popped off loudly. They quickly slipped inside onto a ledge before anyone in a nearby building could place the origin of the noise. Andrasta pulled the hatch back into place.
Rondel threw his broken blade aside, “Where did you say you got that dagger?”
“I didn’t.”
“Is that a hint I shouldn’t ask?”
“More than a hint.”
He scowled. Andrasta had opened up to him only a couple of times in the last year. For the most part, she still guarded her past.
“All right. This way.”
Rondel led Andrasta down a level to where he spent his time researching. They passed bookcases and shelves filled with ancient tomes and scrolls. Dust sat on many of them.
“They do a poor job of keeping this place in order,” said Andrasta while ducking under an intricate spider web spanning the distance between two bookcases.
“Actually, they do a pretty admirable job considering they’re understaffed. The librarians just spend the bulk of their time on the areas most frequented by patrons. That’s worked out well for me as I’ve been able to work in peace.”
Rondel squatted down in the middle of an aisle. He pried loose a kick guard at the bottom and retrieved his notes. He gestured to the case behind them. “Our money is in that one.”
“This is all worthless if we don’t have the flute though, right?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out. There may be another way to get the Jewel of Bashan. I’ll need to sort through my notes once more to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Might have to also go through and consult a few of the original texts again.”
“What can I do?”
“Go downstairs and look for some water. I’m thirsty.”
“Now I’m your servant?”
“Well, you can’t read Erban or any of the other languages these texts are in. And considering we don’t have much time until the library opens, I thought you might be considerate and get me something to drink. But if you’d rather, I’ll go look myself and waste copious amounts of time we don’t have. In the meantime, you can take a nap since there’s nothing else for you to do.”
Her fists opened and closed.
Rondel swallowed. “Too much?”
Andrasta glared.
“Sorry?”
She turned and left without a word.
To read the rest of
The City of Pillars: The Epic Andrasta and Rondel, Vol. 2
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Excerpt of The City of Pillars: The Epic of Andrasta and Rondel, Vol. 2