Alcatraz

by Brandon Sanderson

  I squinted, looking closer. The whitish figures glowed slightly, giving off a dark haze. The apprentices and the white figures turned a corner, disappearing from view.

  ‘What were those?’ I whispered. ‘Those white things that were with them?’

  ‘Alivened,’ Bastille said, shivering. She glanced at me, standing up. ‘When Sing trips, Smedry, always duck.’

  ‘You trip whenever there’s danger?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Sing said. ‘I only trip when there’s danger and when tripping will be helpful. Or, at least, that’s usually the way it works.’

  ‘Better than your Talent, Oculator,’ Bastille said with a snort. ‘Do you want to tell me how you managed to break the carpet?’

  I glanced down. The carpet lay unraveled around me, separated into individual strands of yarn.

  ‘Come on,’ Bastille said. ‘We should keep moving.’

  I nodded, as did Sing, and we continued along the perimeter of the musty library chamber. We walked in silence; the sight of the apprentices had reminded us of the need for stealth. However, it quickly grew apparent to me that searching through that room wouldn’t lead us to the Sands of Rashid. Despite the room’s many alcoves (the thousands upon thousands of bookshelves made it feel like a cubicle-filled office for demonic bibliophiles) it didn’t seem like the kind of place where one kept objects of great power. I figured that the sands would be in a locked room, or perhaps a laboratory. Not a vast storage chamber.

  I spotted a stairwell to the right, and I waved to the others. ‘We should go up to the second floor.’

  Bastille raised an eyebrow. ‘We haven’t finished checking this room yet.’

  ‘We don’t have time,’ I said, glancing at the hourglass Grandpa Smedry had given me. ‘This room is too big. Besides, it doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘We’re going to let the fate of the world rest on your feelings?’ she asked flatly.

  ‘He is our Oculator, Bastille,’ Sing reminded her. ‘If he says we go up, then we go up. Besides, he’s probably right – the sands aren’t likely to be here in the stacks. Somewhere in this building should be a Lens forge. That’s where they’ve probably got the sands.’

  Bastille sighed, then shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said, pushing past me to lead the way toward the stairs.

  I was a little bit surprised that they’d listened to me. I followed Bastille, and Sing took the rear. The stairwell was made of stone, and it reminded me distinctly of something one might find in a medieval castle. It wound in circles around itself and was encased entirely in a massive stone pillar, lit by little frosted windows that let in marginal amounts of daylight.

  After several minutes of climbing the steep steps, I was puffing. ‘Shouldn’t we have reached the second floor by now?’

  ‘Space distortion,’ Bastille said from in front of me. ‘You didn’t honestly expect the Librarians to confine their entire base into a building as small as this one looks?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I saw the stretching aura outside. But, I mean, how far up can this stairwell go?’

  ‘As far as it needs to,’ Bastille said testily.

  I sighed but continued to climb. By that logic, that stairwell could go on forever. I didn’t however, want to contemplate that point. ‘For how “advanced” you people always claim to be,’ I noted, ‘you’d think that the Librarians would have elevators in their buildings.’

  Bastille snorted. ‘Elevators? How primitive.’

  ‘Well, they’re better than stairs.’

  ‘Of course they aren’t,’ Bastille said. ‘It took society centuries to develop from the elevator to the flight of stairs.’

  I frowned. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Stairs are far less advanced that elevators.’

  She glanced over her shoulder, looking at me over the top of her sunglasses. I was annoyed to note that she didn’t seem the least bit winded.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘Why would elevators be more advanced than stairs? Obviously, stairs take more effort to climb, are harder to construct, and are far more healthy to use. Therefore, they took longer to develop. Don’t you realize how stupid you sound when you claim otherwise?’

  ‘No,’ I said, annoyed. ‘The opposite is stupid to me. And does everything you say have to sound like an insult?’

  ‘Only when I intend to be insulting,’ she said, turning and resuming her climb.

  I sighed, looking back at Sing, who just shrugged and smiled, still carrying his gym bag of guns. We kept moving.

  Stairs are more advanced than elevators? I thought. Ridiculous.

  Caves. Caves, shadows, and cheesecake.

  We eventually reached the top of the stairwell, and it opened out into a long hallway constructed of stone blocks. Along this hallway was a line of large, thick, wooden doors set into stone archways.

  ‘This is more like it,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet the sands are behind one of these doors.’

  ‘Well,’ Bastille said, ‘let’s try one, then.’

  I nodded, then walked up to the first door. I listened at it for a moment, but either there was no sound on the other side of the wood was so thick that I couldn’t hear anything.

  ‘See any darkness around the door?’ Bastille whispered.

  I shook my head.

  ‘The Dark Oculator probably isn’t in there, then,’ Bastille said quietly.

  ‘It could open into anything,’ Sing said.

  ‘Well, we’ll never find the sands if we keep to the hallways,’ Bastille said.

  I glanced at the other doors. None of them seemed to glow any more than the others. Bastille was right – we had to start trying them, and any one was as good as the next. So, I took a breath and pushed against the door in front of me. I’d intended to move it open slightly, so we could peek in, but the door swung far more easily than I’d expected. It flew open, exposing the large room beyond, and I stumbled into the doorway.

  The room was filled with dinosaurs. Real, live, moving dinosaurs. One of them waved at me.

  I paused for a moment. ‘Oh,’ I finally said, ‘is that all? I was worried that I might find something strange in here.’

  9

  I’d like you to realize two things at this point.

  First, I want you to know that when I uttered the words ‘Oh, is that all? I was worried I might find something strange in here,’ I wasn’t being sarcastic in the least. Actually, I was being quite serious. (Nearly as serious, even, as the moment when I would plead for my life while tied to an altar of outdated encyclopedias.)

  You see, after all I’d seen that day, I was growing desensitized to strangeness. The realization that the world contained three new continents still had me in shock. Compared to that revelation, a room full of dinosaurs just couldn’t compete.

  ‘Why, hello, good chap!’ cried a small green Peteridactyl. ‘You don’t look like a Librarian sort.’

  Talking rocks might have gotten a reaction out of me. A talking slice of cheese definitely would have. Talking dinosaurs . . . meh.

  The second thing I want you to realize is this: You were warned beforehand about the talking dinosaurs. (Kindly see page 40.) So no whining.

  I stepped into the room. It was some sort of storage chamber and was filled with battered cages. Many of those cages contained . . . well, dinosaurs. At least, that’s what they looked like to me.

  Of course, they were quite different from the dinosaurs I’d learned about in school. For one thing, they weren’t very big. (The largest one, an orange Tyrannosaurus Rex, was maybe five or six feet tall. The smallest looked to be only about three feet tall.) The vests, trousers, and British accents were unexpected as well.

  ‘I say,’ said a Triceratops. ‘Do you think he’s a mute? Does anybody by chance know sign language?’

  ‘Which sign language do you mean?’ asked the Pteridactle. ‘American primitive, New Elshamian, or Librarian standard?’

  ‘My hands aren’t articulated enough for sign language,’ noted the
Tyrannosaurus Rex. ‘That’s always been rather a bother for deaf members of my subspecies.

  ‘He can’t be mute!’ another said. ‘Didn’t he say something when he opened the door?’

  Bastille poked her head into the room. ‘Dinosaurs,’ she said, noticing the cages. ‘Useless. Let’s move on.’

  ‘I say!’ said the Triceratops. ‘Charles, did you hear that?’

  ‘I did indeed!’ replied the Pterydactle. ‘Quite rude, if I do say so myself.’

  I frowned. ‘Wait. Dinosaurs are British?

  ‘Of course not,’ Bastille said, stepping into the room with a sigh. ‘They’re Melerandian.’

  ‘But they’re speaking English with a British accent,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Bastille said, rolling her eyes. ‘They’re speaking Meleran – just like we are. Where do you think the British and the Americans got the language from?’

  ‘Uh . . . from Great Britain?’

  Sing chuckled, stepping into the room and quietly shutting the door. ‘You think a little island like that spawned a language used by most of the world?’

  I frowned again. ‘I say,’ said Charles the Pterrodactlye. ‘Do you suppose you could let us free? It’s terribly uncomfortable in here.’

  ‘No,’ Bastille said curtly. ‘We have to keep a low profile. If you escaped, you could give us away.’ Then, under her breath, she muttered, ‘Come on. We don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Maybe they could help us.’

  Bastille shook her head. ‘Dinosaurs are never useful.’

  ‘She certainly is a rude one, isn’t she?’ asked the Triceratops.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I replied, ignoring the dark look Bastille shot me. ‘Why are you dinosaurs here anyway?’

  ‘Oh, we’re to be executed, I’m afraid,’ Charles said.

  The other dinosaurs nodded.

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked. ‘Eat somebody important?’

  Charles gasped. ‘No, no. That’s a Librarian myth, good sir. We don’t eat people. Not only would that be barbaric of us, but I’m sure you would taste terrible! Why, all we did was come to your continent for a visit!’

  ‘Stupid creatures,’ Bastille said, leaning against the door. ‘Why would you visit the Hushlands? You know that the Librarians have built you up as mythological monsters.’

  ‘Actually,’ Sing noted, ‘I believe the Librarians claim that dinosaurs are extinct.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Charles said. ‘Quite true. That’s why they’re going to execute us! Something about enlarging our bones, then putting them inside of rock formations, so that they can be dug out by human archaeologists.’

  ‘Terribly undignified!’ the T. Rex said.

  ‘Why did you even come here?’ Sing asked. ‘The Hushlands aren’t the type of place one comes on vacation.’

  The dinosaurs exchanged ashamed glances.

  ‘We . . . wanted to write a paper,’ Charles admitted. ‘About life in the Hushlands.’

  ‘Oh, for the love of . . .’ I said. ‘Is everybody from your continent a professor?’

  ‘We’re not professors,’ the T. Rex huffed.

  ‘We’re field researchers,’ Charles said. ‘Completely different.’

  ‘We wanted to study primitives in their own environment,’ the Triceratops said. Then he squinted, looking up at Sing. ‘I say, don’t I recognize you?’

  Sing smiled modestly. ‘Sing Smedry.’

  ‘Why, it is you!’ the Triceratops said. ‘I absolutely loved your paper on Hushlander bartering techniques. Do they really trade little books in exchange for goods?’

  ‘They call the books “dollar bills”,’ Sing said. ‘They’re each only one page long – and yes, they do use them as currency. What else would you expect from a society constructed by Librarians?’

  ‘Can we go?’ Bastille asked, looking tersely at me.

  ‘What about freeing us?’ the Triceratops asked. ‘It would be terribly kind of you. We’ll be quiet. We know how to sneak.’

  ‘We’re quite good at blending in,’ Charles agreed.

  ‘Oh?’ Bastille asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘And how long did you last on this continent before being captured?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ Charles began.

  ‘Well,’ the T. Rex said. ‘We did get spotted rather quickly.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have landed on such a popular beach,’ the Triceratops agreed.

  ‘We pretended to be dead fish that washed up with the tide,’ Charles said. ‘That didn’t work very well.’

  ‘I kept sneezing,’ said the T. Rex. ‘Blasted seaweed always makes me sneeze.’

  I glanced at Bastille, then back at the dinosaurs. ‘We’ll come back for you,’ I told them. ‘She’s right – we can’t risk exposing ourselves right now.’

  ‘Ah, very well, then,’ said Charles the Pterradactyl. ‘We’ll just sit here.’

  ‘In our cages,’ said the T. Rex.

  ‘Contemplating our impending doom,’ said the Triceratops.

  The reader may wonder why one of the dinosaurs was consistently referred to by his first name, while the others were not. There is a very simple and understandable reason for this.

  Have you ever tried to spell Pterodactyl?

  We slipped out of the dinosaur room. ‘Talking dinosaurs,’ I mumbled.

  Bastille nodded. ‘I can only think of one group more annoying.’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Talking rocks,’ she said. ‘Where do we go next?’

  ‘Next door.’ I pointed down the hallway.

  ‘Any auras?’ Bastille asked.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean the sands won’t be in there,’ Bastille said. ‘It would take some time for the sands to charge the area with a glow. I think we should check them.’

  I nodded. ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Let me open this one,’ Bastille said. ‘If there is something dangerous in there, it would be better if you didn’t just stumble in and stare at it with a dumb look.’

  I flushed as Bastille waved Sing and me back. Then she crept up to the door, placing her ear against the wood.

  I turned to Sing. ‘So . . . do you really have talking rocks in your world?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a nod.

  ‘That must be odd,’ I said contemplatively. ‘Talking rocks . . .’

  ‘They’re really not all that exciting,’ Sing said.

  I looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Can you honestly imagine anything interesting that a rock might have to say?’ Sing asked.

  Bastille shot an annoyed look back at us, and we quieted. Finally, she shook her head. ‘Can’t hear anything,’ she whispered, moving to push open the door.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, an idea occurring to me. I pulled out the yellow-tinted Tracker’s Lenses and slipped them on. After focusing, I could see Bastille’s footprints on the stone – they glowed a faint red. Other than that, the hallway was empty of footprints, except for mine and Sing’s.

  ‘Nobody’s gone in the room recently,’ I said. ‘Should be safe.’

  Bastille cocked her head, a strange expression on her face. As if she were surprised to see me do something useful. Then she quietly cracked the door open, peeking through the slit. After a moment she pushed it open the rest of the way, waving Sing and me forward.

  Instead of dinosaur cages, this room held bookshelves. They weren’t the towering, closely packed bookshelves of the first floor, however. These were built into the walls and made the room look like a comfortable den. There were three desks in the room, all unoccupied, though all of them had books open on top of them.

  Bastille shut the door behind us. I glanced around the small den – it was well furnished and, despite the books, didn’t feel cluttered. This is more like it, I thought. This is the kind of place I might stash something important.

  ‘Quickly,’ Bastille said. ‘See what you can find.’

  Sing immediately w
alked to one of the desks. Bastille began poking around, peeking behind paintings, probably looking for a hidden safe. I stood for a moment, then walked over to the bookshelves.

  ‘Smedry,’ Bastille hissed from across the room.

  I glanced over at her.

  She tapped her dark sunglasses. Only then did I realize that I was still wearing the Tracker’s Lenses. I quickly swapped them for my Oculator’s Lenses, then stepped back, trying to get a good view of the room.

  Nothing glowed distinctly. The books, however . . . the text on the spines seemed to wiggle slightly. I frowned, walking over to a shelf and pulling off one of the volumes. The text had stopped wiggling, but I couldn’t read it anyway.

  It was just like the book in Grandpa Smedry’s glass safe. The pages were filled with scribbles, like a child had taken a fountain pen to a sheet of paper and attacked it in a bout of infantile artistic wrath. There was no specific direction, or reason, to the lines.

  ‘These books,’ I said. ‘Grandpa Smedry has one like them in the gas station.’

  ‘The Forgotten Language,’ Sing said from the other side of the room. ‘It doesn’t look like the Librarians are having any luck deciphering it either. Look.’

  Bastille and I walked over to the place where Sing was sitting. There, set out on the table, were pages and pages of scratches and scribbles. Beside them were different combinations of English letters, obviously written by someone trying to make sense of the scribbles.

  ‘What would happen if they did translate it?’ I asked.

  Sing snorted. ‘I wish them good luck. Scholars have been trying to do that for centuries.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked.

  ‘Because,’ Sing said. ‘Isn’t it obvious? There are important things hidden in those Forgotten Languages texts. If that weren’t the case, the language wouldn’t have been forgotten.’

  I frowned. Something about that didn’t make sense. ‘It seems the opposite to me,’ I said. ‘If the language were all that important, then we wouldn’t have forgotten it, would we?’

  Both of them looked at me as if I were crazy.

  ‘Alcatraz,’ Sing said. ‘The Forgotten Language wasn’t just accidentally forgotten. We were made to forget it. The entire world somehow lost the ability to read it some three thousand years back. Nobody knows how it happened, but the Incarna – the people who wrote all of these texts – decided that the world wasn’t worthy of their knowledge. We forgot all of it, as well as the method of reading their language.’