Immortals & Ink: Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Arslan produced the vellum from a drawer in the low table, proving he was the kind of scholar who was always prepared. Alexis could see that it was of good quality, just like the ink and quill that came next.

“Greek for the places,” Arslan said, taking up the pen. “Latin for the objects. Arabic for the names of people who might help or hinder us. If the vellum is lost or stolen, whoever finds it must be literate in all three. There are very few people in the city who are, and I know what all of them eat for breakfast.”

Alexis laughed softly. “Of course you do.”

“I make it my business to know who to keep an eye on. I’m sure you do too,” he replied, and after a few minutes of careful scribbling, Arslan handed it to Alexis. “Tell me if I missed anything, but if I were the crusaders, this is what I would target first. We need to decide what we are willing to let them have.”

It was an exceptionally good list, Alexis noticed with warm amusement. The Hercules of Lysippos sat at the top, because Lysippos was not replaceable, and because crusaders couldn’t be trusted within a mile of a bronze of known weight.

Below it, the four horses of the hippodrome, with a side note of ‘too big, too public, too heavy. Mourn them.’

Alexis could leave a fake of the Hercules, but Arslan was right, and he couldn’t take the horses. He would put a protection spell on them and hope that it would be enough to stop them from being melted down.

The manuscripts of the imperial library came next, in order of priority, with marginal notes on whether the current cataloguer could be persuaded to lose track of, and which would need to be simply taken.

There were things missing that Alexis couldn’t risk leaving behind, so he took Arslan’s pen and began to add them in.

Alexis tapped his finger on a line halfway down the page. “The psalter at the Pantokrator.”

“What about it?”

“There’s a book in the binding that no one knows is there. It is an Alexandrian epitome of Epicurus that I have been looking for since the Ptolemies were still in charge of Alexandria. If we get the psalter, I can get them both out.”

Arslan looked at the other notes he had added. “How do you know there is this secret side chamber in the Library?”

“Because I helped build it.”

“Ah, I should have known.” Arslan rose to his feet. “Come, I need to check the store room to make sure I have the right supplies, not only for your escapades but for a siege.”

“You could leave now that you know it is coming,” Alexis pointed out.

Arslan only laughed. “No chance in any of the hells.”

Alexis understood that attitude only too well. He had lost many places over the years, and he would protect Venice with everything he had to ensure he didn’t lose her, too.

The storeroom was behind a door in the wall of the cistern that hadn’t been there the first time Alexis looked at the wall. Arslan laid his hand flat against the stone, in a place that was not marked, and whispered a spell in Arabic.

The stone moved aside, and behind it was a low, wide chamber lit by more golden lanterns.

Alexis stood in the doorway and let out a slow breath. He had been ready to be impressed by something modest, and what he was looking at was something else entirely.

Rolls of canvas, lengths of rope, sacks of grain, and amphoras of wine and oil stood amongst neatly labeled crates. There was a wall of cedar chests, some of medical supplies, and others that hummed faintly with the shimmer of a preservation ward. Clothing hung on hooks, in different cuts and disguises, including a Venetian merchant’s robe, a priest’s cassock, and the brown wool of a laborer whom no one would look at twice. A rack of weapons was fixed against a wall, and none of them were dusty.

“You seem to have been preparing for something,” Alexis commented, a surprised, breathy laugh escaping him.

“I have been preparing for everything. There’s a difference.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t take notes on my own paranoia, Alexis. It only embarrasses me.” Arslan gestured around him. “I knew something was coming, but I didn’t know what. This city is volatile at the best of times, and I never wanted to be unprepared.”

Alexis stared around him. “No chance of that.”

“I’m not the one who turned up in a city by myself and hoped to make it out again before an army arrives. No offense, Alexis, but of the two of us, I think you are the most mad.”

“Oh, without a doubt,” Alexis admitted truthfully. “I approve of your foresight.”

“I appreciate the compliment.” Arslan walked into the storeroom and laid his hand on one of the cedar chests. The preservation ward flickered on and off in acknowledgment of his touch, like a dog opening one eye to confirm a familiar voice before going back to sleep. He suddenly looked like a man who had been alone for a long time and was tired of it.

Alexis swallowed down the grief that rose unbidden in his throat. He sometimes despaired under the weight of his immortality, but he had never been alone like Arslan.

Nereus, he thought. You knew I had to find him before he tried to destroy himself, didn’t you?

“Have you never used the alchemical potion you found on another?” Alexis asked, wondering why he had no companions like him.

Arslan shook his head. “No. I recruit humans occasionally, but I haven’t for some time. I got tired of watching them die.”

“I understand that, but maybe one day, if you find someone worthy, you should try the potion again.”

“I don’t know if that would be a good idea. I know where I went wrong with the potion I drank, but to risk another’s life… I don’t know if it would work the same way.”

Alexis nodded, understanding the weight that would come with that particular death. “Perhaps one day, you will find someone who is already dying and who is also worthy. It’s not good for immortals like us to be alone, Arslan. You might feel old, but you are so very young as one of the undying. It is when you are always alone that you go crazy, my friend, and people with magic like you? They become the very thing they fear when they do.”

“I will think on it, but now I know you exist, I’m not exactly alone, am I?” Arslan said, but he still looked thoughtful.

“You aren’t, but there will come a time when you will need others to help you. As much as I hate to admit it, the Templars have the right ideas about brotherhoods,” Alexis said, holding up a hand when Arslan opened his mouth to object. “Just think about it.”

“Fine, I will. For now,  I want to know what you can do magic-wise that is going to help us,” Arslan smoothly changed the subject. “You must be able to do something worthwhile to come to do this heist alone.”

Alexis told him about the wind-bearing spell, the shifting of weight through space when he had the right anchor points, and the portaling of objects and occasionally people. He spoke of the illusions that would hold for hours, the unseen walking through a crowd that hadn’t been told to expect him, and the calming of an animal at twenty paces.

He explained how he could defend a building against fire for about three hours, which was long enough to empty most buildings. He couldn’t stop a sword once it was swung, but he could turn the arm of the man swinging it, if he had a clear line of sight, and he could call up a storm that would stop anyone from pursuing him.

Alexis stopped there because those were the things that would be useful, and if he got talking about all the magic he could do, they could be there for years.

Arslan’s head tilted curiously. “How many languages can you speak?”

Alexis adjusted his rings before confessing, “More than I need to know. I can read just about any language that has ever been written down that I’ve come across so far. Plus a few that no longer exist or do in very few places.”

“Do you understand how thoroughly I dislike you in this moment?” Arslan said with a dramatic sigh.

“I have an inkling.”

“I had thought I was powerful.”

“You are powerful,” Alexis said, truthfully.

“Compared to you, I’m an amateur alchemist, a librarian with a good memory and a trick for unlocking and warding doors.”

“Arslan, when you become thousands of years old, you will also learn how to occupy yourself. Considering you have been on your own all this time, you are doing incredibly well,” Alexis replied and shook his head with a soft laugh. “I honestly don’t know how you haven’t lost your mind completely. I know I would have if it hadn’t been for my family. As obnoxious and frustrating as they can be. You have many more abilities than opening doors and hoarding books, too, I suspect.”

Arslan tried and failed to look innocent. “What makes you say that?”

“Anubis, the lord of the Sacred Lands, the Counter of Hearts and the Master of Secrets would not greet you in the Duat and then send you back to the land of the living for no good reason,” Alexis said, putting his hands on his hips. “And I very much doubt it was because you know how to make excellent tea.”

Arslan considered for a moment before relenting. “Well, you did share some of your secrets, so I suppose I can do the same. I see a person’s ka, Alexis. Whether they are of the light, of the darkness, or of the balance. I know when they are lying to me, not because I can read their minds, but because a person’s ka flutters when they lie.”

When Alexis didn’t respond with surprise or alarm to that, Arslan took a breath and continued, like a flood gate finally opening.

He could close a door so it would not open again until he chose, and the trick extended beyond literal doors. A window was a door. A mouth was a door. A mind was a door. He could brew another ancient alchemical draft that would heal most wounds if the wounded man drank it within the hour. He couldn’t raise the dead, though he knew full well if he tried, Anubis might allow it.

He was stronger than an ordinary man. He was faster. He did not age. He was not easily wounded and wasn’t sure if he could die unless his head was cut off and his heart destroyed.

He could speak with animals, he said, though only dogs were really worth talking to.

“Cats can be occasionally,” Arslan added.

Alexis snorted. “Cats are usually rude, but the good ones are worth the time. And?”

“And what?”

“You’re leaving something out.”

“I can call my god,” Arslan said quietly after a moment’s pause. “Not to ask favors. Anubis is not that kind of god. I call him when the balance is in genuine danger, and he sometimes answers. I have only been desperate enough to do it three times in my whole life. It’s not a trick to be deployed. It is a last resort.”

Alexis nodded slowly. “I can only imagine. I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t need to call on him while I’m in the city.”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t ever want to be in the same country when I do.”

They stood in the storeroom for another beat, and an unspoken understanding between them clicked into place.

“All right,” Alexis said and glanced about the room. “We do Hercules tonight.”

Arslan rested his thumb against his chin, his other fingers curled loosely. “But tonight is less than six hours away.”

“Tonight is also when the workmen who are supposed to be guarding the Hercules will be drunk, because the wine merchant in the next street will have sold them a cask of very expensive wine at a steep discount that was intended for a wedding that has been called off.”

Arslan tilted his head. “And when exactly were you planning on making this arrangement with this wine merchant?”

“While I was walking from the docks to get my breakfast at the tavern,” Alexis replied.

Arslan’s eye narrowed. “You already had a list, and you let me write one anyway?”

“Well, you seemed very excited about it.” Alexis picked at a loose thread on his cloak. “It would have been rude to dampen your enthusiasm.”

“Lists help me think!”

“I have no doubt, after seeing you write one out in three different languages.”

Arslan threw up his hands in defeat. “Okay, you have a plan already. Tell me what you are going to need.”

“A cart. Two mules. Four strong men who can be paid, who won’t ask questions, and who will forget what they saw within a day. I can handle the forgetting myself, but it is easier if the men are naturally forgetful to begin with.”

Arslan stroked his beard, thinking. “I have four such men. They are brothers. They have run out of questions. They are reliable in their unreliability.”

“They sound perfect. Also, I need to see the Hercules before dark. I need his weight, the angle at which he’s standing, and whether the plinth beneath him is part of the sculpture or separate. If the plinth is part of him, we cannot take him. If it is separate, we can.”

“It is separate. I know the statue well, like I know most things in my city.”

“Then that is one less thing we need to worry about,” Alexis replied.

Arslan closed the storeroom door behind them with a touch, and the stone slid back into place.

They climbed the stairs up out of the cistern in easy silence, and by the time they came out into the sacristy, Alexis realized he hadn’t stopped smiling for most of an hour.

Nereus had warned him that he would find something he didn’t expect in Constantinople. Alexis, being Alexis, had assumed it was going to some kind of book he hadn’t heard of. He never thought he would find a friend.

***

Thank you for reading this weeks instalment!

If you haven’t read Alexis’s adventures yet, you can check them out here. Or if you are curious about who Arslan is, then click here.

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