Naim 1, 4633 AIA

This time, I tell myself it's not there. Legs itch to clamber off the bed and follow, wherever it's trying to lead me. But I'm not going to fall for it, not like last time.

It's not there. It's not there.

I lie on my side in the dark with my eyes squeezed shut and listen. Air hums in my ears. Beyond the soft susurration of the muslin curtains, the sounds of the city unfold below and all around. We have apartments all around us but the walls, ceiling, and floor are all too thick to admit sound.

We're a long way up from the canyon floor, but I can make out children's voices clattering together in some game. People talking, deciding, living, working. The distant, constant white noise of the waterfall under it all.

Who'd think that the place where the world ended could be so peaceful and full of life.

Another sound, a subtle scratching, that's not Naraik on her slate but something higher. On the ceiling.

Keep my eyes closed. I'm not falling for this. I say each word in my head, as if I were thinking a message to somebody on the Amnet.

You're not getting me.

This is just for me.

I know what you did to the others. I'm not letting you do that to me.

Fluttering, overhead.

Tallis—Tallat—whatever they called her, she was the reason the world ended. She might never have reached the place that became Amin Duum, but the machines and the monsters she made, but I can feel her close.

Sacred Isha, save me from whatever this is.

I sit up, clench the side of the bed, clawing at it as the fluttering surrounds me and I'm pulled up and up and then I'm on my feet and we're going downstairs. We need to see the codex.

We have to see the codex.

On my feet, I rock. I was expecting a vision, another horror at the end of the world but the bedroom is empty. I scan the wide space. Bed, set unusually high so I can get in and out with ease, light sheets of soft cotton. We have little furniture, just a desk to one side for Ajaë to work at when xe needs to.

And Naraik's chair, in one corner, currently empty.

I might still be in another hallucination, but if I am, I'm going to work with it this time. And yes, I'm sure I sound crazy, even as I think it, but this could be important.

There might be something to learn.

Naraik can find me if xe wants me. I'm not going far. Only down to the museum stores. I pluck my slate from the desk and pad out into the living room. I pause at the entrance—just checking for hallucinatory fires, and maybe Naraik too—but the living room is just as empty as everywhere else.

Probably all down on the canyon floor, enjoying time spent outside.

I've got other things to do.

Everything's just as normal as any other day—except Naraik's not here, of course—and no sign of Ishkrit in the stores office when I shuffle through there.

Phew. This would've been hard to explain.

The codex is where I packed it away before we went upstairs to see Ajaë. I stop at the entrance to store room six, pump my fists a few times. I shouldn't be doing this, should I?

No, this is important. Really important. I've only ever studied a small portion of the codex. I didn't mention that to Naraik, or Shinika, or even the Guardian. But we have more than just these few pages, and I've never taken the time to look at them until now.

Only what's going to happen to me if I look at them too?

I take a deep breath, pushing against an invisible wall blocking me from getting into store room six. I can see the drawer from here, with its decorative handle and neatly positioned labels.

This is stupid. There's nothing to be scared of. If the codex was dangerous, it would've made me ill back when I first spent months and months at the magnification desk, studying the pages I did work on. And if the danger was on any of the other pages...

Well, I haven't looked at them yet.

No Warrior hesitates on their way down to the Line.

I take a step into the store room, pressing into that solid, invisible wall. Stop again, acid at the corners of my jaw. Another step, this one even tougher than the previous. My bones tingle and prickle.

It's just the Gap opening. Another day, another fight.

If Warriors can go down onto the Line and fight, then so can I.

Well, my version. Straining against the pressure packing the store room, I push foot after foot over to the drawer. Reach out a hand, touch the handle, thousand-ton weights pulling at my fingers. I grit my teeth, gasp, crunch, and then

A fingertip touches the metal drawer handle and suddenly all the pressure is gone. I stumble into the chest and catch myself, huffing as I lean over the wood. I see the ancient grain under varnish, shut my eyes and straighten up.

"Ah, you're here!"

The voice is so unexpected I let out a sharp squeak. I turn, and there's the Guardian, right there in the store room entrance. What felt like a hundred-mile journey across the stone was only a matter of feet, and now Anarya crosses it in a few strides.

"I hope you don't mind. I couldn't resist."

I can't speak. The Guardian smiles, smells of incense and outside, the world I rarely ever visit. What is xe doing down here? Did xe know I was here? What does xe want?

"I read through your paper. It was fascinating. I had no idea we were working on anything like this." The Guardian takes the handle and pulls. The drawer emits a soft hiss as it opens, revealing the manila folders within. "I wanted to see for myself. You mentioned that there were other pages, ones you hadn't managed to study in the time you had available. I thought it would be worthwhile coming down and seeing if I could lend a hand."

"Um. Of course."

I don't know what to think, or what to do.

Anarya gazes down at the drawer in front of us, at the folders, and then back at me. "So, you say in the paper that you'd found three pages from the codex, but speculated there might be more. Are they all in here?"

I have to scrabble back into my memory, hunting for details I haven't had to recall for a good twenty years. "I searched this drawer, the rest of the chest, but I couldn't find any more beyond the three I identified as belonging to Tallat's hand. Other than that, I'm not sure."

"But there could be?" Anarya frowns around the storeroom, at the chests sitting silent with their hidden treasures. Treasures to me, anyway. "That's the implication I got from your paper, and the notes you put up on the Amnapedia."

"None of that is confirmed, it's just speculation." I should behave like a proper, cautious academic, but I can see how curious the Guardian is, and now it's a struggle to hold myself back. "But I was sure, if we had three pages, there was a good chance we might find the rest."

"Right. We'd better get searching, then. How far did you get?" Anarya doesn't wait for me to reply, but strides over to the chest standing next to ours. "You'd only done that chest, right?" Xe opens the top drawer in front of xem. "And all the papyri are stored in here?" Xe clicks xir tongue and shakes xir head. "I've sent a message up to Locaru. We could do with some more eyes."

I hesitate, leaning against the chest beside me. Anarya takes out a folder, then another, and lays them out in front of xem.

"You can just check the manifest on the top to see what the catalogue says for each drawer." I hold up my slate. "It's all kept in the Amnet."

"I did that." Anarya opens one of the folders in front of xem. "But one of the points you made in your paper is that not all of this material has been properly identified. If we're going to be thorough, we should go through all of this again and work outward, once we know we've covered everything."

I stare at the Guardian in wonder. I must be living in some kind of a dream.

"There's a reason why the Taija said they'd be record-keepers at the Foundation," Anarya says, studying the delicate, tattered fragments of papyri in front of xem. "It's no good having a great big alliance protecting the world if you don't have administrators to keep the wheels oiled."

What's xe hinting at? I start to pull out folders from the drawer in front of me. I should know these papyri well, but it's been a long time, and some of them are little more than shreds. Anarya sets up xir slate so xe can see the model page I'd originally published in my paper, comparing the handwriting on each new papyrus xe finds.

"We really ought to put more time into going through these." Xe works fast, already onto the next drawer down. I fumble around with my own, taking longer and gazing closer. In the corner of my eye, I can monitor the Guardian and see them set any suspicious papyri to one side, while the others are returned to their folder and placed back into storage.

A thought scratches at the back of my head. I ought not to say anything, I know, but I can't help it. Curiosity gets the better of me. "You know, this is a lot of effort to put in over one amulet. Ajaë wasn't sure xe could prove it would be dangerous at all."

Anarya straightens up—xe's already three drawers down—and gives me a long look. "You know what started the Five Empires' last war?"

Is this a test? "The Empires realised the power held by the Keshwari and were fighting over it," I give the same answer as a twelve-year-old might, as if this were the first stage of my Dura and the Guardian my examiner. "Isha had the God Machine. The Basati especially wanted to control the rest of the—"

Anarya cuts me off. "The God Machine, exactly. All of this started because of ancient technology they didn't understand but wanted to use. Thought they could control. Unleashed a nightmare we're still nowhere closer to clearing up nearly five thousand years later. Tallat especially was dangerous and I don't want anything she might have constructed or worked on falling into the wrong hands."

I blink, mind blank. How do I answer this? I'm too slow.

"Exactly. This is what I was explaining to some people upstairs just now." Anarya adds emphasis, and I wonder if xe means one. of the other Guardians. If so, which one? "Imagine if the God Machine got to the Basati and—Isha forbid it—that monster Mukhadori got his hands on it instead of Isha? Would any of us be here now? I think not."

Insight into life among the Guardians spilling out, it's a struggle to focus on what I'm supposed to be doing.

"Some people don't believe anybody outside the Exclusion Zones would be able to use these devices. But that's precisely the kind of thinking that led to the—" Anarya stops, and points to a fragment of papyri resting in its folder. I'm still amazed xe can search papyri, read them so easily. But then xe's had a few thousand more years of life than me to practice. Might even have used papyrus xirself when xe was younger. "What's this? What does this look like to you?"

I shuffle over and peer down at it. This folder, marked as "untranslated fragments" and undated, contains a set like a jigsaw puzzle. Some pieces are held together by the tiniest filaments, and others have come apart altogether. Letters, lines, the corners of a diagram.

Anarya steps back and indicates I should take over. I use the lightest touch of my finger to push the pieces around, to see how they might fit together. "The handwriting looks right, I think. But I'm not sure..."

"Sir?" Shinika stands in the middle of the storeroom. I didn't even hear xem come in. "I don't want to interrupt, but this is important. There's been another attack at the Nas Ashcan dig site. We're just getting reports in now from the survivors and—"

"Survivors?" Anarya echoes. "What d'you mean survivors?"

"It was violent. We're still trying to figure out what happened, but the whole place was attacked. Six people dead, and ten injured. Nothing like any of the others. Ashad Amin wants to send us out there immediately."