Fires of Alexandria Read online

  Chapter Four

  Heron hoped to speak to Plutarch and assess the progress on the miracle before the temple hierarchy knew she had arrived. She stepped through the umber curtain, glancing down the curved hallway.

  "We aren't paying you to sleep," said Ghet, the temple high priest, surprising her from the opposite direction.

  He squinted at her through his mass of black ringlets, tilting his head back in obvious disdain, tapping his long fingernails against his chin. The fingernails were long claws that scraped and clicked as he moved his hand across his violet robes.

  "The miracle will be ready on time," said Heron, cursing that she'd run out of lotus powder. Doubly so, since the Temple of Nekhbet reeked of burnt cinnamon.

  "We have no patience for failure, even from Michanikos himself," said Ghet, evoking the nickname she was called by the poor of the city. It meant Machine Man.

  "Do you have some purpose other than to obstruct me from mine?" she said, carefully treading the line between outrage and insolence.

  "As the high priest, I am in charge of its finances, and currently its finances are invested in an obscenely verbose Grecian with ill manners," said Ghet, pawing her shoulder with his long fingernails.

  Heron pushed past. The high priest followed her with his hands entwined at his midsection, the nails forming a pale fan.

  "It's fortunate you are not a farmer or your oxen would be dead from the rod," she said, leading him into the acolyte's chamber, only to stop in frustration.

  The room was stuffed full of pulleys and ropes like a web spun haphazardly from a drunken spider. Her foreman, Plutarch, was arguing with a lesser priest over an ornate table spilled onto its side.

  When Plutarch saw her, his hands took flight like a pair of doves. "Heron! I cannot work like this. They keep making demands that cannot be met!"

  Plutarch's hands settled around his mouth, fluttering like baby birds. He was a slight, reed-like man, with delicate features and a subtle air in his words.

  The lesser priest indicated the fallen table with ink stained hands. "We must have a place for the sacramental ointments."

  Heron thought it odd that a priest used ink. She knew from her dealing with the temples that most were illiterate. Especially the lesser ones.

  Plutarch, clearly tired of the priest's arguments, turned on him. "You don't need a place for the sacramental ointments. At least not here. I was given this room in its entirety, and I have already made four adjustments to the design based on previous requests."

  He waved his hand at a section of tangled pulleys next to a wooden cabinet painted with ceremonial designs. Heron could see that Plutarch had tried to satisfy their placement of the cabinet by constructing a counterpulley system, but the table had clearly upset the whole thing and it had unraveled into a tangle.

  Heron spun on Ghet. "My instructions with the temple were very clear. We were to have our own room to setup your miracle. If you cannot abide by our agreement then this miracle will not work and if it cannot work, we shall take our equipment back to the workshop this very day."

  Ghet spat into his hand and slapped them together, setting the nails to quiver obscenely. "For Nekhbet! You cannot! The crowd already gathers and if you take you wares back during the daylight, they will see the implements of your miracle."

  "Then remove these...," she shook her hand at the cabinet and table, "pieces out of this room so we can do our job."

  Ghet pointed a long fingernail at her. It hung limply between them. "I've heard rumors of the debts you owe Lysimachus. You would not dare. You need our coin or he will put you to the rack in the market square."

  Heron squared her shoulders at him. "Rumors are like rats in this city. Kill one and five more take its place, so the only way to deal is to ignore them."

  Ghet slanted his eyes at her, splaying his fingers. "What I hear is more than rumor. The Temple of Nekhbet is an ancient order with well placed friends throughout the city, even in the Alabarch's house."

  The Temple of Nekhbet was ancient, going far back into the histories of Egypt, and Heron knew they had friends. But the temple was also stiff with tradition, and run through with cracks and rot, and Heron knew this.

  "Even the collector of customs, this city's dear Alexander Lysimachus cannot know all," she said, treading carefully since anything she said could make it back to him. "Otherwise he would not need his network of spies and thugs to ferret out coin from its residents."

  She paused, and Ghet attempted to speak, but Heron cut off the high priest. It was clear that Ghet was an informer for Lys, and she had a message for him.

  "Ghet, high priest of the Temple of Nekhbet. Know that I, Heron of Alexandria, respect your ancient temple and wish it to continue as a member of this region's honored pantheon."

  She wandered over to the fallen table and ran her finger across the molding.

  "But as you know, your coffers are growing empty and you need a miracle to bring back your followers. There are," she said, raising an eyebrow, "more exciting temples in the City and new ones being formed every day."

  Stroking the tangled ropes, she glanced over her shoulder at the high priest.

  "So if you do not get these hunks of wood out from our pulley system, we will not be able to perform your miracle. Therefore, it would be better to just pack up and take our things back to my workshop, before they are ruined by catastrophe."

  She gripped the leg of the ornate table and gave it a tug.

  "And if we do that, you will cease to be a temple in the City of Miracles, and we will sell our wonders to a more worthy temple."

  Heron finished by ripping the leg from the table and handing it to the high priest.

  "So remove this table before I remove it myself, and stay out of our way until the miracle is complete," she finished.

  Ghet contained his fury, barely, nodding tersely to his acolyte before storming from the room. After the lesser priest removed the table and cabinet, both Plutarch and Heron sighed.

  "You're playing a dangerous game," whispered Plutarch, "and though in dire need of new finances, the temple is still a dangerous foe."

  "Did I have a choice? Fools wonder why they can't draw coin when they interfere with the very people they hired to help them," she said.

  Plutarch nodded and began restringing the pulleys to their original formation.

  Heron shook her head. "The old temples are the worst. History has given them an arrogance that they are right no matter what they do. I long for a day when I'm not a slave to their miracles."

  The pulleys, tangled as they were, would not free themselves with simple tugging. Plutarch placed his hands behind his back and surveyed the mess.

  "Then why do you labor for them?" asked Plutarch. "Your inventions have made you modest coin. The self-trimming oil lamp is a wonder to behold."

  "But modest coin does not pay the heavy debts I am burdened with," she said, making sure no one was lurking nearby. "Only the miracles can do that."

  Heron tapped her foreman on the shoulder and pointed to a knot in the web. When he shrugged, she reached out and pulled a seemingly unimportant rope and the whole web sprung into its original formation, a structured cross with pulleys at each end. Now the system seemed orderly and purposeful, rather than one strung up by a child.

  Plutarch shook his head in wonder. "And that is why you are the Michanikos, and I am just your foreman."

  "And the best foreman in the city," she said, patting him on the shoulder.

  They continued their work, tightening the pulleys and fitting the ropes snugly.

  "Couldn't you invent more of your amazing devices and sell them, rather than perform these miracles?" Plutarch asked again.

  "My inventions are novelties when it is cheaper to purchase a slave to keep your house running efficiently," she lamented. "And without slaves, the nobles cannot feel their power, as a domicile stuffed full with gadgets does not make them
thrum with arrogance."

  Plutarch nodded, knowing the truth of her words.

  Once the pulley system had been fixed, Plutarch went in search of the other workers. Heron wandered into the basement of the temple where the automation door mechanism was housed, raising a lantern to see.

  The doors were still closed and the water bucket was suspended against the ceiling. The frequent splashing of water left mold and sludge growing against the stone surfaces. Heron held her tunic to her nose to block the fumes. Holding the lantern high, she thought she saw a rat's tail shuffle out of sight.

  Content that the door mechanism would work when the time came, she returned to the chamber. Plutarch directed two workers in cleaning up.

  "Are we ready?" she asked.

  Plutarch nodded. "The priests are going to light the brazier now."

  "What about the priest in charge of the ceremony?" she asked.

  "He's ready," said Plutarch. "Nervous and a little drunk, but he's waiting in the hidden chamber beneath the statue."

  "Drunk?" Heron shook her head. "I don't like this already."

  Plutarch squeezed her shoulder. "Our string of bad luck can't continue."

  Heron ignored him and asked. "Are the mirrors ready? The illusion of levitation doesn't work if they're not properly set."

  Plutarch nodded again. "Everything is ready. We just have to manage the lifting mechanism and we'll get through it."

  The sounds of laughing and cheering erupted in the main chamber of the temple. Heron and Plutarch shared nervous glances and then went their separate ways.

  Heron climbed up the stairs to the observation room. Peering through a modest hole in the ceiling, she could watch the miracle unfold.

  The incense smoke was thick near the hole and made her eyes water, but it was necessary to hide the ropes the vulture would fly upon.

  After the priest appeared from his hidden spot, he made a hash of his part, but Plutarch adjusted accordingly. The temple's patrons were rowdy and drunk, which helped the illusion work. When the ropes lifted the statue, the crowd cheered.

  Heron sighed, knowing the most difficult part was over. As long as the priest moved at a moderate pace, they would float the statue across the temple floor, safely and without incident. She could almost feel the crushing debts ease from her back.

  As she watched the priest lead the statue down the aisle, and the temple followers reveled in its wonder, Heron noticed a strange man in the pews.

  His black hair was flecked with gray and had been cinched into a knot on his head. Even from her angle, she could see he stood at least a head taller than the others. He wore ratty furs that marked him as a barbarian of the northern Germanic tribes and despite the wine skin in his hands, he seemed infinitely more alert than the temple followers surrounding him. But she couldn't figure out why he would be in the Temple of Nekhbet in Alexandria.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed the statue wobbling slightly. The priest was leading the statue too quickly. He had a thin metal cord attached to a girdle around his waist that linked him to the bottom of the statue.

  While the pulley system kept the statue suspended, and rollers helped it move across the floor, hidden by the mirrors; the priest's forward movement was required to get it to the other side of the temple.

  Heron yelled, "Slow down you imbecile!"

  The priest did not slow, and in fact, sped up—buoyed by the cheering of the crowd. Even before the statue began to tip, Heron knew what was going to happen.

  She sprinted down the stairs to the acolyte chamber, summoning the configuration of the pulleys into her mind, so she could cut the right one when she arrived.

  The pulley system was not in the formation she expected as she slid to a stop. The cross was lopsided with one pulley pulled out of place, but she quickly made adjustments to her plan. She also briefly considered that the ropes had been tampered with, but she had no time to investigate.

  The ropes strained and the pulleys groaned against the load of the statue. When the statue fell, it would tear the room and anyone in it apart.

  She hoped Plutarch recognized the danger at the lifting mechanism. The stone blocks would likely be thrown from the tower.

  Heron pulled a hidden knife from her tunic and sliced a slack rope decisively. She grabbed the end and ran down the stairs to the basement.

  She'd forgotten to grab a lantern but didn't have time to go back and get one. The screaming from the temple above her goaded her to hurry.

  Heron splashed through the muck, using the faint light from the stairs to guide her way. She stepped on what she thought was a rat as she reached the bucket, which was now full of water from opening the door.

  Hitching a quick knot, she sawed through the thick rope as she heard the screams reach a crescendo. Without the bucket to hold it down, the counterweight pulled her rope, falling into a deep well beneath the basement.

  As the counterweight fell, pulling against the statue's pulley, the whole building shook and muck and water fell from the ceiling, dousing her. Heron was knocked to her knees from the impact. As she struggled to her feet, she tested the rope with her hand, finding it pulled taut, indicating that it now held the weight of the statue.

  Heron ran back up to survey the damage. Peering around a hidden alcove, she could see the statue had fallen into, but hadn't broken through, the temple wall, thanks to her counterweight.

  However, the interior of the temple was ruined and small fires had broken out when candles and braziers had been scattered. She doubted that Ghet would complete the payment to her, no matter how much she argued that it was the temple's fault. The image of the tampered pulley stayed firmly pressed into her mind.

  Heron slipped from the temple, avoiding the crowds streaming towards the partial destruction. It wouldn't be long before Lys heard about the disaster and would come calling for her debts, knowing she couldn't pay.

  Fire brigades and city guards blocked her way. She would have to go around the Museum to reach her workshop. It would take longer but she would make sure she didn't get pressed into service putting out the fires.

  She pushed through the crowd, going the opposite way, already planning the supplies they would need for their journey. She wasn't sure if they would head south or east, but either way, they would have to flee Alexandria.