Unburning Alexandria Read Online Free

was lurking outside. "Are you ok?" She looked back with concern at Appleton.
    The Victorian publisher nodded. "It is possible he may really want to help you now."
    Sierra rolled her eyes. She spoke to Appleton not about Heron but her meeting with Benjamin. "But now Heron is here? I don't know how much more of this I can bear." She breathed deeply, shakily.
    "Come with me, then," Appleton said. He put his hand over hers. "We can leave tomorrow. You'll be safe. Forget Alexandria. Forget Heron."
    "Forget about Alcibiades, too? And the cure for Socrates?"
    "Listen to me," Appleton said, sternly. "Rome was sacked by the Vandals just three years ago this very month. This world is crumbling around us! You have but to open your eyes to know it!"
    "I know about Rome," Sierra said, quietly. "But Alexandria will remain intact a while longer. So will this Library. Hypatia has two more years before she's attacked."
    "History is not that precise, not at all, and you should know that by now, too," Appleton muttered darkly and excused himself.
    Sierra followed him. "Someone spoke to my father – to Theon – about illnesses of the brain. About a possible cure. Heron was not making that up."
    "Heron told me the same," Appleton replied. "Let us then assume that, contrary to his usual habit, he is telling the truth. But that does not mean that there is a cure."
    * * *
    Sierra promised she would leave Alexandria "soon" with Appleton, without committing to whether that meant weeks or months.
    Appleton agreed, because he had no other choice. "Heron did not specify where he was staying, but we should assume he is everywhere. He can interrupt your efforts at any time. He can interrupt your privacy. That alone should make you reconsider–"
    But Sierra brushed away his arguments and redoubled her efforts to find the cure. She scrutinized every writing of Theon's she could locate from the time of the charred scroll. Appleton helped. To no avail. If only all of these words on all of these scrolls could be on a computer somewhere, she thought, she could do a proper search. It was a miracle these ancients accomplished anything at all, hamstrung as they were by these words so wedded to paper.
    One morning she heard footsteps, when she was reading in her room and Appleton was taking a break by the sea.
    "Heron!"
    He looked at her through the open doorway and then smiled, sadly.
    "When . . . is it, for you?" Sierra asked. "You look older."
    "About fifteen years in real time for me, after our encounter in the prison of Socrates," he replied.
    "How long has it been for you since you talked with Mr. Appleton, right here?" she asked.
    "About two years."
    "My God. "
    Heron smiled again. "You are supposed to be pagan, take care what you say . . . but, yes, these goals we pursue take time."
    Sierra considered Heron's meaning.
    "I did not come here empty-handed," Heron said. "I have a plan. May I enter?"
    "Yes." It wouldn't hurt to hear it. In fact, the more she knew about Heron – including his lies – the better prepared she would–
    "I can get a clone for you," Heron said. "Not really alive. Just like with Socrates. But drugged and walking. To be torn apart at the crucial moment in your stead."
    "God almighty!"
    "No, you're not convincing as a pagan mathematician at all. Maybe I can get word out to those Nitrians, and that will save you."
    "What do you know about the Nitrians?"
    "I know the future. And I have met with Synesius," Heron replied.
    "How did you–"
    "I know just about everything, sooner or later, as you already must know."
    "I don't want to leave yet." Not without Alcibiades, who I know will come here in search of the cure, in search of me. But where is he?
    "Your words remind me of Socrates," Heron said. "You are reading from the very script he wrote."
    Sierra was silent.
    "Your search for a cure for the illness of Socrates is a waste of time."
    Sierra objected–
    "I know about the entry in Theon's diary," Heron said. "I heard the same from his