“I’m guessing this ship doesn’t have any weapons on it,” I said with a sigh. “They never seem to—”
“Look at my ant farm!” Dif said, lifting up a glass-sided thin box and setting it on the dashboard between us.
“Uh…” I said.
Yes. An ant farm. Where had he been hiding the thing?
“It’s a metaphor,” Dif said, leaning down to look at the ants. “I gave them little machine guns.”
“What does it have to do with what we’re talking about now?” I asked.
“Nothing!” Dif said. “That’s the beauty of it. Interruptions are great attention-grabbers. The wackier and more bizarre, the better! ’Cuz we’re Smedrys! Awesowambasticly so! Right guys? Right?” He shook the ant farm to get the ants moving more quickly. Fortunately they seemed to be completely ignoring the little toy machine guns he’d dropped in.
I stared at Dif for an extended moment. Nearby, my mother seemed to be stifling laughter as she turned the next page in her book.
And suddenly I found myself hating Dif with a raw, insidious passion. It was completely unfair, completely uncharitable, and completely beneath me.* I felt it anyway.
I shoved down the emotion, ashamed. Why should I hate Dif? He was a little eccentric, but so were we all. We were … Smedrys … and …
Were the rest of us this bad?
Uncomfortable, I left him explaining the convoluted metaphor of his weaponized ant farm to Kaz.
Hopefully I was about to get weaponized myself.
Chapter
Mary
Now that we’re all annoyed at my annoying cousin, let me remind you that this is not a fable. Aesop didn’t write this story. Life did, and there isn’t always a point to life. Sometimes it simply is. My experiences aren’t a neat package with a pithy moral at the end.
That said, I’ve been pretty fixated on fables and fairy tales lately. The old ones are dark, dark, dark—yet the ones we tell ourselves these days always seem to need a happy ending. Go browse your bookstore. How many stories there end with the protagonist being eaten by a fox? None, I’d bet. Instead the endings involve marriages, parties, or kisses. Often all three.
Why are we different now? Is it because the Librarians are protecting us from stories with sad endings? Or is it something about who we are, who we have become as a society, that makes us need to see the good guys win?
We seem to crave proof that it can happen.
I trailed into my grandfather’s quarters in the ship. He’d marked the door with a bow tie. Kooky and individualistic, just like a Smedry should be, right?
Inside, Grandpa sat at a glass table, polishing his Lenses. He’d set them out before him in two double rows. “You met Cousin Dif?” he asked as I stepped up beside him.
“Yeah.”
He put the final Lenses down and tucked away his polishing cloth. “Don’t be too hard on the lad, Alcatraz,” Grandpa said. “He wants to fit in with us, and perhaps he tries a little too hard. He’s had a difficult life. It is good to show him kindness, and he really is quite knowledgeable.”
I didn’t reply, but to me Grandpa’s words seemed off. It wasn’t that Dif didn’t fit in. It was like … well, Dif seemed to fit in too well. Like a finger in a nostril.
Grandpa took a Lens with his finger and slid it across the table toward me. My Truthfinder’s Lens. The next one was of a purple and green tint; the single remaining Bestower’s Lens my grandfather had lent me. It had a big crack straight down the center. When I’d fallen unconscious at the end of the siege of Tuki Tuki, apparently I’d dropped the thing, ruining it.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Well, they are made of glass!” Grandpa said. “We can get this one melted down and remade. Don’t worry.” He debated for a moment, then slid a different Lens toward me. It was a deep maroon, and looked pretty cool—at the very least it wasn’t pink or baby blue or anything like that.
I took it and held it up. “Let me guess,” I said, “this shows me something important about the world, helping me gain a better appreciation for life and those around me.”
“Nope,” Grandpa said. “It blows stuff up.”
I started. “What, really?”
“Indeed.”
“But … I mean…” While I’d had offensive Lenses before, Grandpa usually didn’t think much of them. He preferred Lenses that were about information, as he claimed that knowledge was true power.
“We are heading into the Highbrary,” Grandpa said, uncharacteristically subdued. “You’ll need to be able to defend yourself. The Shamefiller’s Lens is crude, but sometimes crude solutions are most effective. A monocular Lens; I don’t have two of those. You are growing skilled enough to properly use Lenses for just one eye.”
I smiled, tucking the Lens into the pocket of my tuxedo jacket. “Why is it called a Shamefiller’s Lens?”
“Well, it makes the subject really embarrassed before they explode.”
I chuckled, then looked at my grandfather. He was serious.*
“So it only works on people,” I said.
“What?” Grandpa said. “Of course not. That’s very sapientist of you, Alcatraz. I expected better of my grandson, yes I did!”
“I…” I frowned, looking at him. “You made that word up, didn’t you?”
“Simply try the Lens on something and you’ll see. Something far away, mind you, and not too valuable unless it belongs to someone annoying.” He tapped the table. “I debated a long time whether to give this to you, as it is so dangerous.”
“I’ll be careful with it,” I said, patting my pocket.
“What? No, not that one. That one’s for fun. I mean the next Lens I’m going to give you, the truly dangerous one.” He selected a Lens off the table. It had a spray of silver-white flakes in it, like the stars of a galaxy. He held it up before him appraisingly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Shaper’s Lens,” Grandpa said. “It lets you see someone’s heart, soul, and innermost desires.”
I raised an eyebrow. That was more like the type of Lens I’d been expecting. “An odd name as well.”
“I suspect it was deliberate,” Grandpa said, his face reflecting in the Lens. “Though Shaper’s Lenses can be unpredictable, an Oculator who holds one has great power over others. We are to use its abilities to inspire, to build up, to create. Not to tear down.” Grandpa proffered it.
I took the Lens carefully, feeling a little of Grandpa’s reverence, although it (still) didn’t seem as strong to me as one that made nice explosions.
“This gives you an advantage over others,” Grandpa said, “that maybe you should never have. You gain access to the hearts and dreams of those around you, Alcatraz. Do not abuse that knowledge, even against Librarians.”
“I’ll try.”
“There is no Try.”
“Excuse me?”
“Try,” Grandpa said. “The city. Blasted Librarians captured the thing and renamed it Dumptopia. Anyway, I trust you, lad. That’s why I gave you the Lens, after all! Just … do be careful, all right? Actually, be careful with all Lenses.”
“I’m always careful,” I said, tucking the Lenses away.
“Be extra careful. Lenses are acting strange. I charged one a few minutes ago, and it released far more energy than I’d expected.”
“Really?” I said. “So it’s not only me. You charge glass more powerfully now too.”
“Yes,” he said, handing me a last set of Lenses—a pair of Courier’s Lenses that would let us chat over distances. “Whatever happened with you and the Talents in Mokia was more … far-reaching than we had assumed.”
I sat, thoughtful. (Well, technically I was more bloodful than anything else. But there were a few thoughts in there too, along with a Mokian breakfast burrito.) Shortly thereafter, I heard clinking outside. Draulin knocked politely—even though the door was open—and then entered as Grandpa called for her.
“Did you finish—” Grandpa began.
>
Draulin gestured wildly and put a hand to her lips. She was apparently worried there was a Librarian listening device of some sort in the room.
“—learning to belly dance?” Grandpa finished.
Belly dance? I mouthed at him.
Had to think fast, he mouthed back.
“I…” Draulin gave my grandfather a suffering look. “Did.”
“Excellent!” Grandpa said. “And you belly danced in every room of the ship so far?”
“All but this one,” Draulin said.
“Well, on with it then!” Grandpa said.
Draulin clinked around the room, searching in glass closets and under glass counters, checking for bugs. I leaned back in my chair as Grandpa picked up his remaining Lenses to stow them.
“I have to say,” Grandpa noted, “that’s some of the most awful belly dancing I’ve ever seen.”
“Hard to do in full armor,” Draulin said, kneeling by our table. She looked up at us and pointed at the bottom of the table.
Sure enough, as I peeked down I found a small Librarian device stuck there. Draulin took a paper from the counter and wrote on it.
Shall I destroy it as I did the others?
Feels like a waste, Grandpa wrote back. Shouldn’t we be able to use it?
What type of technology is it? I wrote. Is there glass involved?
Grandpa looked at Draulin.
The others had a bit of glass in them, she wrote. Probably Communicator’s Glass, set to transmit only one way.
Grandpa looked at me, raising an eyebrow.* I’d used the glass in the palace to look at the monarchs when they hadn’t wanted me to. Could I do the same thing here?
I shrugged. Maybe?
“My, Draulin,” Grandpa said loudly—and in a rather fake way. “That’s quite a vigorous dance. You should be more careful, otherwise you might faint.”*
She gave him a glare that could have steamed some broccoli to go with my toast. Then she started jumping up and down to make her armor clank before finally dropping to the ground with a clatter.
“Oh my!” Grandpa said. “I warned her.”
“You sure did.”
“Here, let us get down and see if we can make her more comfortable.”
The point of all this was, it seemed, to give us an excuse to climb down under the table and make noise there. The Librarians were, after all, probably listening in. Grandpa rubbed his chin, looking at the little device on the bottom of the table.
Draulin took out a knife, then used it to carefully pry the metal casing off the bug. Inside we found a small tangle of wires and a very conspicuous piece of glass. Another Librarian device mixing Hushlander technology with glass.
The other two looked at me, so I reached up and touched the glass. For what happened next, I’ll refer you to the description a few chapters ago, with emotion-whales and whatnot. I’m not sure I can top that—though this time I did feel an emotion not unlike how a piece of cheddar feels as it turns into a cheese sandwich.
I blinked, holding my finger in place and opening my eyes as voices came through the device. They were very soft, but audible.
“How should I know why they are so intent on making the poor woman dance?” a voice said. “Nothing those people do makes any sense to me!”
“It seems to be some kind of punishment,” another said. “They’re always complaining about their bodyguards; this must be a type of petty revenge.”
“Keep records of everything they do, in detail,” another voice said, female. “The Scrivener will be able to read more into their motives than you will.”
I recognized that voice. She Who Cannot Be Named,* a high-up Librarian we’d faced in Nalhalla.
Recognizing the voice was a big enough shock. But that second part stopped me dead.
The Scrivener?
I grew cold immediately. The Scrivener was Biblioden, right? The guy who had come up with the whole “Evil Librarian” thing in the first place? He was dead.
Wasn’t he?
“They’ve grown silent,” a Librarian said. “Why is the glass glowing like that? I—”
The glass on our side started to steam, and I yelped, pulling my hand back swiftly as it melted in a glob that dropped and splatted to the floor.
“That’s inconvenient,” Draulin said, as if I’d melted it on purpose or something.
“Did they say … the Scrivener?” I asked.
“Yes,” Grandpa said, rubbing his chin.
“I have a question,” Draulin said.
“So, maybe they picked a new leader?” I said quickly, cutting her off. “And that Librarian is using the title of Scrivener now.”
“No other Librarian has ever dared use the title,” Grandpa said, “though centuries have passed since Biblioden vanished. The closest is the order of the Scrivener’s Bones, who claim to follow his teachings the most vigilantly.”
“My question remains,” Draulin said.
“When you say … vanished,” I said to Grandpa, “you mean died, right?”
“Sure, yes,” Grandpa said. “Died.” He laughed.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Nobody knows where he was buried.”
“No.”
“Great.”
“Question…”
“Yes, yes, Draulin.”
“Can we get off the floor?”
“If you want to be boring, I suppose.”
“I personally would like to know how to spit well.”
The other two looked at me as we stood up—because yes, we’d had that entire conversation under the table and so what?—and Grandpa frowned at me. “What did you say?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to make a sentence that was a little bit longer than what you’d said, so the conversation will look cool on the page when I write it down.”
“Ah, well, that makes sense.”
“Uh … guys?” Kaz’s face appeared on Grandpa’s wall. “You’re going to want to come up here. Because we’ve arrived, and a shockingly large number of people are about to try to kill us.”
Chapter
Trillian
I need you to do something for me. Is that all right? Are you willing to do a favor for your favorite author?
Okay, go to your fridge. Dig around inside until you find some lunch meat, cheese, pickles, lettuce, more lunch meat, and some mayonnaise. (And honestly, who chose how to spell that word?* Must be a Librarian ploy to keep me reliant on spellcheck.)
Now, slather some mayo onto two pieces of bread from your pantry. Get it on real good. Are you slathering? I don’t think you’re slathering. These pages should be mayoized from you trying to read these instructions while you make the food. Now, choose slices of pickle that maximize the outer skin—they’re the most crunchy. You can toss the centers. Now, make sure that you salt the cheese.*
You got that? I’ll wait. Done? Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Now go back in time, teleport to my house in the Free Kingdoms, and give me the sandwich while I’m writing this. I’m kind of hungry.
“Wow,” I said softly, staring out Penguinator’s cockpit windows.
“You can say that again,” Grandpa said. “Mostly because I couldn’t hear you the first time. Speak more loudly this time.”
“Wow!”
“Much better.”
I’d been to Washington, DC, on a school trip once, but it had looked nothing like this. Penguinator had just come in across Chesapeake Bay, flying right beneath the dense cloud cover. From this high up, I got a good view of the enormous purple dome covering the city in its entirety. It glowed with a violet light, like steam from a hot pan. I lifted off my Oculator’s Lenses. Sure enough, without them the dome vanished—save for a warping of the air.
“That warping?” I asked, pointing.
“Caused by the glass eyes of Penguinator,” Kaz said. “Normal people can’t see the shield; the glass windows here are designed to give pilots warning of Librarian illusions.”
I nodded
, lowering my Lenses back on. Kaz and my mother sat at the dashboard—though she was reading nonchalantly—while Grandpa, Draulin, and I had walked up behind their seats to stare out over the landscape. Cousin Dif shoved his way between Grandpa and me, then draped an arm over our shoulders. I saw no sign of his ant farm.
As we drew closer to Washington, I saw a much different city from the one presented to the world. While the outer parts were mostly the same, the center of the downtown—the stuff on all the postcards—was way different. The Lincoln Memorial had a turret on top of it, with wicked-looking antiaircraft guns stretching toward the sky, and the long green of the Mall running down from it looked more like a landing strip than a park. The White House had a sharp, red fence rising high around it, and many of the museum buildings had a stretched look to them, rising toward the air, becoming more peaked, more devilish. Only the Washington Monument seemed unchanged: a lone obelisk rising straight into the air, surrounded by darkness.
I easily made out the Highbrary. What appeared in the Hushlands as an innocent, if regal, stone building—the Library of Congress—here manifested as a pitch-black fortress of a structure, stretching six stories high, with wicked stone spires and dark monstrous things flying around it. Say what you will of Librarians, they certainly have style.
I couldn’t focus long on the Highbrary, unfortunately, because a fleet of jet planes were scrambling toward us. There had to be a hundred of them, sleek black jets that looked nothing like the planes I’d seen at aircraft museums.
“That must be the entire Librarian Air Force,” Kaz said. “Not US military planes—the actual Librarian defense force. I’ve never seen them call out so many before.”
“We have them scared,” Grandpa said, eager.
“This is incredible!” Dif exclaimed, squeezing my shoulder.
“How silly of me,” my mother said, having finally put down her book to join us, “to assume that with you I’d be able to sneak into the Highbrary.”
“Sneaking is fun,” Grandpa said, “but this is way more exciting.” He paused. “You can dodge them, can’t you, Son?”
The Dark Talent Page 5