Free Written in the Ashes by K. Hollan Van Zandt Page A

his hands with a cloth, wiping down the windowsill.
    “Oh, I see.” Tarek rolled his eyes. Every servant in the house knew about Jemir’s affections for Hypatia. Years earlier, when Tarek was a boy spying on the servants, he had seen Jemir writing pages of poetry that he tucked away behind the spice jars whenever anyone came in. Tarek showed the poetry triumphantly to everyone he could think of. After that, Jemir’s fondness for Hypatia was no longer a secret. When Jemir had confronted him about the missing pages, Tarek insisted he had no idea they belonged to him. Jemir snatched the pages out of his hand and said, “Who else spices your food?” He wielded the words the way he drew a sharp knife up the belly of a small fish.
    Tarek took Hannah’s elbow and lead her down the hall toward the cistern stairs. She stopped to tie her sandal to get out of his grip. “Why are we going this way?”
    “I am taking you the secret way. The Parabolani are out.”
    Hannah cocked her head. “The what?” This city was full of a thousand new things to learn.
    “The Parabolani, the bishop’s henchmen. He originally recruited them under the auspices of feeding the poor and planting city gardens. Now he uses them to dispose of anyone who threatens his way to power.” Tarek slid a large iron key into a lock on a tall wooden door and popped it open. The door swung open easily for its size, as if it were in constant use.
    Hannah thought immediately of the men she had seen the first day she entered Alexandria, the ones who cut the man’s arms from his body and lit him on fire. “They wear black robes,” she said.
    “Yes,” said Tarek. “They wear their hair shorn to the scalp, dress in black robes, and walk together in threes. If you see them, hide and hide well.”
    So.
    Hannah followed Tarek down the carved limestone steps and through a chthonic passageway lit by flickering torches. Soon she could hear running water and the squeal of rats in the walls.
    A slow river loomed before her, the brackish water dank and deep.
    Tarek strode over to a plank barge tethered to a stone post. Beside him a footbridge arched over the water leading to a stairway on the other side. Taking a torch from the wall, Tarek unleashed the barge, sweeping the long pole up in his free hand. Then he leapt onto the barge, which rocked precariously in the dark water. “Jump,” he said.
    Hannah just stared at the tenebrous tunnel.
    “I suppose you expect to float upstream?” asked Tarek.
    Hannah eyed the barge. Then she took a deep breath and walked to the water’s edge.
    “Come on.” Tarek leaned the pole on the barge and extended a hand.
    Hannah glanced at him. Then she leapt, light as an antelope, without touching the hand floating in her direction, and settled herself on the front of the barge with her legs tucked beneath her.
    Once underway, Hannah tugged the hem of her himation up over her nose in disgust at the miasma of rotting city refuse dumped in the tunnels. Tarek steered the barge around corner after corner, until beside a wall lit by sunlight pouring from a grate in the street above, the hairs on the back of Hannah’s neck began to tingle and she sat up, uncertain as to why.
    “This is where the poor secretly buried their dead a hundred years ago when the cost of purchasing tombs in the necropolis was raised. Quite illegal.” Tarek made the enthusiastic announcement as though he were commenting on a fine frieze decorating a palace wall.
    “Ick.” Hannah wrinkled her nose, glowering at the honeycomb walls where all sizes of skeletal feet stuck out the ends. Some still had bits of rotted cloth clinging to the twisted toes.
    Not soon enough, they floated past the stacks of tombs and turned several more corners before coming to an area in the underground river where seven wide slats of light streamed in from grates overhead.
    “We are beneath the theatre district now. Sometimes valuables fall into the catacombs here. I have found coins