Stormcrow

There are moments in life when, if you have the slightest spark of intellect about you, you realize how little you know, and how big a fool you really have been. If you're lucky, no one has to die for that revelation.

I have never been that lucky.

My years in the ancient city of Alexandria—I'd been born in the Iron Tower there, raised in the Great Library's orphanage, educated at the University, trained in the Archives—gave me little reason to believe that I was an ignorant idiot. I had become a full Scholar of the Great Library of Alexandria at the tender age of fifteen, after all; three years on, I had published no less than ten highly valued technical works, gathered awards, been granted a fine position inside the Lighthouse as a researcher. I was secure in the unshakable knowledge that I understood the world in all its complexity.

That superiority lasted through all five days on the secured Library train that wound its way up from Alexandria into Iran, Damascus, up into wilder and mountainous terrain and across vast landscapes that took on dense, cold shades of winter. I paid little attention. I had been given my first direct assignment on behalf of the Archivist, to travel to Moscow and conduct a thorough investigation of the vast—and lately, troubled—Serapeum there. Word had reached the Archivist Magister, the head of the Great Library and very likely the most powerful man on earth, that someone within the walls of that daughter library was betraying our principles and breaking our laws, and he had dispatched me—and an entire company of crack High Garda troops—to investigate the problem. I was eighteen years old, arrogant, and utterly secure in my own importance.

In short, I was too much of a fool to live.

Our train arrived at the Kursk station on an uncharacteristically clear afternoon, and after so much time aboard, even in the luxury of the Library's best transportation, I was more than ready to be out in the fresh air. But as I moved for the compartment door, Captain Nghiem—head of the company, and responsible for my protection—smoothly stepped in front of me to bring me to a halt. She was a small woman, and I was anything but easy to intimidate, but I found myself giving way just the same.

"Sir," she said, and nodded. She wore a sand-colored High Garda coat, well padded for winter conditions, with the Horus eyes of a captain's rank emblazoned on the collars, and patches with the Library's sign stitched on both shoulders. And weapons, of course. Many weapons. "I need you to wait here while we secure the exit and the path to the transport. I'll send word when it's safe for you to disembark."

She didn't wait for my response, which stung a little; after all, I was technically her superior, though she'd not once acted like it on the trip. She'd been perfectly bland and pleasant, and then ignored anything I said that didn't agree with what she intended to do—a fact that I intended to bring up, loudly, once we'd arrived at the Serapeum and the real work began. Her constant explanations about the dangers of travel outside of Alexandria were overblown. I knew there were always a few discontented souls to protest the Library, but she took it all with far too much seriousness.

I paced the train car, steaming inside but trying to turn my energy to what I was in Moscow to accomplish, and it took what seemed like an hour (but was no doubt far less) before she reappeared to summon me out.

At last.

My boots touched the frozen ground of Russia, my first step on foreign soil in my life, and I took in my first deep breath of new air with great relish. I instantly regretted it more deeply than anything I'd ever done in my life. For an instant I thought I'd been poisoned, that I'd never breathe again, and as I struggled and choked and stared blankly at the snow-bound street beyond the tracks, the bland faces of High Garda soldiers carefully not paying me any mind, I began to realize that I might not, after all, know everything.