No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
~Samuel Johnson
The Library stood across a barren parade ground, a decorative square used to facilitate a second agora for Alexandria. Of course at this early hour it was empty, and the moonlight giving way to the pre-dawn made ghosts of shadows that were cast from the Library.
The Saboteur's soft leather sandals whispered him across the vacant plaza, and he found himself and his resolve standing before the entry of the massive complex of the Library of Alexandria. He was a small man, and his lithe shadow mocked him, standing against the doors as if daring him to go on.
Erected by Ptolemy II of Egypt in 290 B.C., the Library had expanded to legendary proportions in the four-hundred years since then. Its various buildings and floors were connected by high level bridges, as well as underground hallways. The central building was massive, with many tiered floors, hundreds of statues and carvings, and beautifully painted walls. It was this building'called the Temple of the Muses'which housed at its core in a massive circular room the collection of scrolls. It was this building the Saboteur required access to.
He knelt before the doors. Since the last minor fire at the Library, renovations had been done to remove anything flammable'¦save the scrolls'¦ from the Library. Expensive rugs were taken up; majestic tapestries and curtains taken down; and every door in the Library had been changed from wood to the stone slabs that loomed before the Saboteur. These doors were braced on the inside with bronze stops at the base, and a bronze cross-piece that ran across the back.
The Saboteur reached into his pack, and brought out a hammer and a pair of iron wedges. Each wedge had several layers of thick leather at the flat end, to dampen noise. He needed to move swiftly and quietly'¦ he still had the cover of early morning darkness, but the rest of the Egyptian city would be waking soon.
The Saboteur placed the first of the wedges at the base of the door, and with several hammer blows, knocked away the wedge driven from the other side to hold the door closed. Standing, he placed the second wedge'the longer and sharper of the two'in the center of the crack between the two doors.
The renovators had used bronze for the cross-pieces, thinking that anyone trying to break down the doors would find that the bronze would merely bend, not snap as a harder metal, and would be harder to force open. Tapping the wedge into place, the Saboteur heard it make contact with the bronze bar. Redoubling his efforts, he slammed the wedge against the metal until it bit deeply into the softer bronze, and then suddenly cut through it. Putting his shoulder to the door, he slid it open, and pausing to collect his tools, slipped inside.
He was now standing in the outer gallery. The walls, floors, and even columns were decoratively painted, and commissioned statues of every deity and even public figurehead who championed literature, writing, or knowledge had a place here. This room had once been used as a museum, holding some of the greatest wonders of man'¦ machines and mechanisms never before seen; statues of such renown, that people traveled across the world to merely gaze upon them and be moved. These incredible things were tragically destroyed by an earlier fire, and the outer gallery felt strangely empty without them.
The pale glow of the early morning crept in the windows, reaching for the statues and giving them the sort of life they take only from its disfiguring light. The Saboteur slid across the hall quickly, keeping in the skirts of the shadows until he reached the next set of doors. Once again he put his wedges to use.
Opening the second set of doors, the Saboteur found himself in a windowless hallway. Pushing the door all the way open, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the low light.
This winding hall led through the entire building, ending at the doors to the central room, his destination. He could make out from where he stood shadowed doorways, which he knew to lead to different library divisions. He took off at a quick jog, running smoothly and passing many doorways without pausing'¦ he knew where he was, and where he was going. He ran past lecture halls, scribe stations, translation offices, and lastly the research center. Finally he came to the doorway he sought.
This door, as the others, was locked. The Saboteur took a breath. This was the focal point of his plan. He must move swiftly and un-erringly from here'¦ there would not be another chance like this. He sat down against the wall opposite the door.
The Head Librarian slept in the central room just beyond the doors. The room was set up like a spiral staircase, with scroll racks winding around the room to the ceiling, which had a glass dome to let natural light into the general collection'¦ torches were prohibited on Library grounds. The Head Librarian slept in the center of the chamber, the only person in the building at night, and the one responsible for the safekeeping of the collection. He would be awake by now, and at any moment be coming out to open the Library to the crowds of workers, librarians, and patrons, who will by now have seen the signs of his break-in, as they arrived early to be in the doors as soon as the Head Librarian opened them.
He heard the rasp of metal and knew it was time. As the door slid open, he shouldered it and stepped quickly inside.
'What'?' the Head Librarian stumbled. He was a big man, clothed simply in a brown robe, with very attentive eyes. His gaze falling upon the Saboteur, he took in the situation immediately.
'I am here,' the Saboteur said, 'to burn this collection. And I need your help.'
The Head Librarian took a defensive step back, placing himself in the entry way between the Saboteur and the collection of scrolls. 'Why in the names of the gods did you think I would even consider that?! I think you had better leave. Now.'
'We haven't much time!' the Saboteur insisted, 'Listen: several decades ago, an inventor by the name of Hero of Alexandria created a machine, an Aeolipile, that spun with greater speed and force than anything ever created by the hands of men.'
'Hero's steam engine was kept here,' the Head Librarian interjected, 'but it was destroyed in a fire years ago, along with many other marvels.'
'Yes,' the Saboteur said, 'but all the plans, blueprints, and continuing research, was not; Hero donated all his writings to the Library upon his death, and because it was a donation, no copies were ever made'¦ only the originals remain, here, in this Library.'
''¦and Hero created many other wonderful things and has many amazing concepts in his writings!' the Librarian exclaimed. 'These facts hardly make me want to fire the scrolls'¦ quite the opposite, in fact.'
The Saboteur took a deep breath; the crowd must be inside the Library by now, and the Guard will have been summoned.
'As a historian, you must see what I am trying to say. People turn things'¦good things, things could have endless benefits for mankind'¦ into horrible means of destruction. We created the wheel to travel better; it is now made for the chariot and supply lines to spread out armies farther. The bow was designed for hunting, and the Easterners turned it into a weapon to end lives. Even the medical knowledge of the human body we have gained'to save lives'is turned to find quicker ways of ending them!'
'I fail to see how''
'Can you imagine,' the Saboteur continued in a low, deadly voice, 'what these same people would do, with the power of the gods granted to them by Hero's Aeolipile? Or his other, even more volatile creations? The possibilities are as endless as they are deadly.'
The Librarian's mind reeled as his morals battled. 'But this is the knowledge of the entire world'¦'
''¦a world that can be destroyed by that knowledge. The records must be destroyed'¦ the survival of the race, at the cost of advancement. Some things, were not meant to be known by men'¦ some things, perhaps, we are not yet ready to learn.'
'How can you judge what we should and should not know? This collection represents the whole of the world's culture; it is the combined wisdom of the ages'¦ destroying this would be a setback we might never recover from!' the Librarian said, looking troubled, his resolve shaken.
'Only if we are lucky,' the Saboteur said, 'The risk is just too great to do nothing! The desire for knowledge without the ethical background to use that knowledge to the benefit of mankind is perhaps worse than ignorance.'
'The price is just too high,' The Librarian argued, 'To erase in seconds what took us hundreds of years to discover, build, and understand'¦ in an attempt to stave off what? Military advancement? People will always find new ways of killing other people. Is trying to stop this worth the cost of what you are attempting? What Hero discovered will be rediscovered again, if not this lifetime, then in another.'
'And may the gods forbid that when that happens the world has no one with courage enough to do what needs to be done to save hundreds of lives, at the relatively small cost of a rack of scrolls.'
This Librarian stood with his arms at his side, tears coming to his eyes. He was quiet for a long time. The seconds crawled by as the Saboteur stood quietly praying. 'This could have been a great library.' The Librarian said finally. 'This building could have served all the people of the world through all times.'
'The Library will. That which it holds, in this lifetime, simply cannot.' the Saboteur said.
There were voices in the hallway drawing closer'¦ the clattering of armored greaves across stone floor spurred the Saboteur into action. Pushing the door shut, he replaced the metal bar, and was roughly pulled aside by the Librarian. The Saboteur looked at him in disbelief. 'You can't''
'I'll see to the door,' he said, 'You go.'
Flying across the room, the Saboteur knelt in the center and brought out fire-making tools from his bag, along with a pair of oil-cloth torches. Striking fire to them both, he stood as the Librarian joined him.
'May we someday be forgiven for this highest crime.' The Librarian said.
'I pray we are not the last to ask forgiveness for it,' the Saboteur said.
Two torches arched across the room, and the world slipped into the darkness of black smoke and lost knowledge, never to be regained.
