Finally I regretfully pushed back from the table, afraid I would burst if I ate another bite.
“Master B has certainly outdone himself,” I said, waving at the meal. “May he send many more such educational experiences!”
“Oh, that is not all that I brought you here to show you!” he said.
He rose from the table and hustled over to a desk facing a window, his speed and grace defying his size. In front of the desk was a leather-bound trunk that had definitely seen better days, if the water stains along the sides were anything to go by.
“Master Bacillus has been traveling to the West on theDawntreaderand has only recently returned to civilized lands,” Master Tarek said. “For years my dear friend has been following some ancient maps that indicate there were lands far to the West with which we have lost contact. Heclaimsto have finally reached them.”
I rolled my eyes at this, because Master B had also claimed to have found fairies, gnomes, and numerous wonders and oddities, few of which he had been able to show evidence of. Master Tarek opened the trunk and carefully removed several cloth-wrapped items and laid them on the table. There were three boxes of different sizes and one long tube.
The first box was the smallest and it held multiple small envelopes. When I picked one of them up the unmistakable dull clatter of seeds pattered within. Each envelope was neatly letteredand held a small drawing. I assumed it was supposed to represent whatever the seeds would grow into. Honeysuckle. Black-eyed Susan. False Indigo. Squash. Maize. Climbing beans. I had never heard of these before today.
“Something new for my garden,” Master Tarek acknowledged when I raised an eyebrow at him. In addition to being a cook of some skill he liked to keep a small garden where he grew plants from distant lands.
The second box held a series of photographs of Master Bacillus and members of his “family”. In some they were standing in front of buildings with foreign writing on them. Some they were meeting people who were dressed strangely in what looked like thick cotton pants and shirts of varying colors. Some photos were of cities that seemed to dwarf even Alexandria in size.
I looked closely at the writing on the buildings in the photos. The words seemed to have roots in either Greek or Latin, or a strange combination of the two.
“This one…” Master Tarek began, laying a hand on the largest box as I went to open it. “—requires you to guarantee me your discretion, young prince.”
“Of course,” I answered. “I would never say anything that could endanger either you or Master Bacillus.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then gave me a single nod before stepping back and opening the largest box.
Within the box were books. Dozens of books. I picked one up and opened it, astonished at how light it was. As I flipped through the pages I gasped. My eyes sought Master Tarek’s.
“You see it then, eh?” he asked, smiling.
“These weren’t made by hand,” I said in wonder, examining the lettering of the books. Some of the ancient books I had seen in the Great Library were similarly lettered.
Knowledge in Alexandria was strictly controlled. There were guilds that had passed information down from master to apprentice for centuries. Very little was documented in writing and each guild guarded their knowledge jealously. The Scribe guild was the only one permitted to create new copies of books.
All books and written materials in Alexandria had to be recreated by hand and were considered precious items because of the time and effort it took to create them. One of the reasons the Great Library was considered almost holy ground was because it contained the largest collection of knowledge in the known world, much of it irreplaceable. The current efforts to scan and digitize the information contained in each book were slow and laborious, particularly because the King restricted the number of people who could learn how to use the technology. The Scribes who were responsible for the project were trained from a young age to use the technology, and had their tongues removed as part of their initiation.
Most citizens, and even slaves, knew how to read, write, and do basic arithmetic thanks to the country’s public education programs, but books were a rarity. Slates were used by children to learn. Particularly favored nobles or high-ranking merchants might be granted access to computers and printers through a scribe, but those were strictly monitored and unauthorized use was punished severely.
As a child of the King, I had enjoyed the luxury of access to the Great Library as part of my education. That library contained the work of the minds of some of our greatest thinkers: Archimedes, Galileo, da Vinci and more. It also contained all the historical records we had from before the breaking of the world.
The rulers of Alexandria had kept a firm grip on the distribution of knowledge, and all scribes were responsible to the King and required to provide regular reports of their work for their masters.
The videos that were shared across the country were created by the King’s ministers. As a prince I had access to videos that existed in the Great Library that I didn’t think anyone had watched in a hundred years, but that made me an exception rather than the rule.
I remembered hearing about a rural noble who had been fomenting rebellion by forcing his scribe to create copy after copy of his Lord’s allegations and posting them throughout his region. When the King had inevitably brought his army to put them down, he hadbrutally tortured and executed both Lord and Scribe, even though the Scribe had been forced to accede to his Master’s demands.
“Let this be a lesson,” the King had said as he had addressed the nation, the bloody corpses of both behind him. “This Scribe feared his Master more than he feared me. He shouldn’t have.”
“You—you need to hide these,” I hissed, glancing around anxiously, even though I knew we were alone.
He nodded soberly. “Sometimes I think Master Bacillus delights in putting me in positions that might make me lose my head.”
He quickly closed the box of books up and set them aside.
“If those might make me lose my head, this might guarantee my damnation,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.
He opened the end of the long tube and slid the papers inside of it onto the table. One of the papers was a long, densely printed document. On the other side was a diagram of a machine of some kind. I studied them for a minute before swallowing hard and raising my eyes to Master Tarek’s.
The diagram was for a rudimentary printing press. One that didn’t need power or a connection to the King’s network. The thought of mass-producing literature for distribution sent my mind spinning.
