Alcatraz

by Brandon Sanderson

  ‘Don’t they teach you anything in those schools of yours?’ Bastille said, not for the first time.

  I gave her a flat look. ‘Librarian schools? What do you expect?’

  She shrugged, glancing away.

  Sing glanced at me. ‘It’s taken us three thousand years to get back even a fraction of the knowledge we had before the Incarna stole it from us. But, there are still lots of things we’ve never discovered. And nobody has been able to crack the code of the Forgotten Language despite three thousand years of work.’

  The room fell silent. Finally, Bastille glanced at me. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’ I asked.

  She glanced at me over the top of her sunglasses, giving me a suffering look. ‘The Sands of Rashid. Are they in here?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I don’t see anything glowing.’

  ‘Good enough. You would be able to see them glowing even if they were encased in Rebuilder’s Glass.’

  ‘I did notice something odd, though,’ I said, glancing back at the bookshelves. ‘The scribbles on the spines of those books started to wiggle the first time I looked at them.’

  Bastille nodded. ‘That’s just an attention aura – the glasses were trying to get you to notice the text.’

  ‘The glasses wanted me to notice something?’ I asked.

  ‘Well,’ Bastille said. ‘More like your subconscious wanted you to notice something. The glasses aren’t alive, they just help you focus. I’d guess that because you’ve seen the Forgotten Language before, your subconscious recognized it on those spines. So, the glasses gave you an attention aura to make you notice.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Sing said.

  I nodded slowly – then, curiously, Bastille’s entire shape fuzzed just slightly. Another attention aura? If so, what as it I was supposed to notice about her?

  How do you know so much about Oculator auras, Bastille? I thought, realizing what was bothering me. There was more to this girl than she liked to let people see.

  Some things just weren’t making sense to me. Why was Bastille chosen to protect Grandpa Smedry? Certainly, she seemed like a force to be reckoned with – but she was still just a kid. And for her to know so much about Oculating, when Sing – a professor, and a Smedry to boot – didn’t seem to know much . . .

  Well, it was odd.

  You may think those above paragraphs are some kind of foreshadowing. You’re right. Of course those thoughts weren’t foreshadowing when they occurred to me. I couldn’t know that they’d be important.

  I tend to have a lot of ridiculous thoughts. I’m having some right now. Most of these certainly aren’t important. And so, I usually only mention the ones that matter. For instance, I could have told you that many of the lanterns in the library looked like types of fruits and vegetables. But that has no real relevance to the plot, so I left it out. Likewise, I could have included the scene where I noticed the roots of Bastille’s hair and wondered why she dyed it silver, rather than letting it grow its natural red. But since that part isn’t relevant to the—

  Oh. Wait. Actually, that is relevant. Never mind.

  ‘Ready to go, then?’ Bastille asked.

  ‘I’m taking these,’ Sing said. He unzipped his duffel bag, tossed aside a spare uzi, then stuffed in the translator’s notes. ‘Quentin would kill me if I left them behind.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, tossing a Forgotten Language book into the bag. ‘Might as well take one of these for him too.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Sing said, zipping up his duffel.

  ‘There’s just one thing I don’t get,’ I said.

  ‘One thing?’ Bastille asked with a snort.

  ‘Why do the Librarians work so hard to keep everything quiet?’ I asked. ‘Why go to all that trouble? What’s the point?’

  ‘Do you have to have a point if you’re an evil sect of Librarians?’ Bastille asked with annoyance.

  I fell silent.

  ‘They do have a point, Bastille,’ Sing said. ‘Everyone has a reason to do what they do. The Librarians, they were founded by a man named Biblioden. Most people just call him The Scrivener. He taught that the world is too strange a place – that it needs to be ordered, organized, and controlled. One of Biblioden’s teachings is the Fire Metaphor. He pointed out that if you let fire burn free, it destroys everything around it. If you contain it, however, it can be very useful. Well, the Librarians think that other things – Oculatory powers, technology, Smedry Talents – need to be contained too. Controlled.’

  ‘Controlled by those who supposedly know better,’ Bastille said. ‘Librarians.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘all of this cover-up . . .’

  ‘It’s to create the world The Scrivener envisioned,’ Sing said. ‘To create a place where information is carefully controlled by a few select people, and where power is in the hands of his followers. A world where nothing strange or abnormal exists. Where magic is derided, and everything can be blissfully ordinary.’

  And that’s what we fight, I thought, coming to understand for the first time. That’s what this is all about.

  Sing threw his duffel over his shoulder, adjusting his glasses as Bastille went back to the door, cracking it open to make certain nobody was in the hallway. As she did, I noticed the discarded uzi, lying ignored on the floor. Trying to look nonchalant, I wandered over to it, absently reaching down and picking it up.

  This is, I would like to note, precisely the same thing any thirteen-year-old boy would do in that situation. A boy who wouldn’t do such a thing probably hasn’t been reading enough books about killer Librarians.

  Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t like most thirteen-year-old boys. I was special. And, in this case, my specialness manifested itself by making the gun break the moment I touched it. The weapon made a noise almost like a sigh, then busted into a hundred different pieces. Bullets rolled away like marbles, leaving me sullenly holding a piece of the gun’s grip.

  ‘Oh,’ Sing said. ‘I meant to leave that there, Alcatraz.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ I said, dropping scrap of metal. ‘I thought I should . . . uh, take care of the gun, just in case. We wouldn’t want anyone to find such a primitive weapon and hurt themselves by accident.’

  ‘Ah, good idea,’ Sing said. Bastille held open the door, then we all moved into the hallway.

  ‘Next door,’ Bastille said.

  I nodded, switching glasses. As soon as the Tracker’s Lenses were on, I noticed something: bright black footprints, burning on the ground.

  They were still fresh – I could see the trail disappearing as I watched. And there was a certain . . . power to the footprints. I instantly knew to whom they belonged.

  The footprints passed through the hallway, beside a yellowish-black set, disappearing into the distance. They burned, foreboding and dark, like gasoline dropped to the floor and lit with black fire.

  As Bastille crept toward the next door in the hallway, I made a decision. ‘Forget the room,’ I said, growing tense. ‘Follow me!’

  10

  Are you annoyed with me yet? Good. I’ve worked very hard – perhaps I will explain why later – to frustrate you. One of the ways I do this is by leaving cliff-hangers at the ends of chapters. These sorts of things force you, the reader, to keep on plunging through my story.

  This time, at least, I plan to make good on the cliff-hanger. The one at the end of the previous chapter is entirely different from the hook I used at the beginning of the book. You remember that one, don’t you? Just in case you’ve forgotten, I believe it said:

  ‘So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians.’

  This sort of behavior – using hooks to start books – is inexcusable. In fact, when you read a sentence like that one at the beginning of a book, you should know not to continue reading. I have it on good authority that when an author gives a hook like this, he isn’t ever likely to explain why the poor hero is tied to an
altar – and, if the explanation does come, it won’t arrive until the end of the story. You’ll have to sit through long, laborious essays, wandering narratives, and endless ponderings before you reach the small bit of the story that you wanted to read in the first place.

  Hooks and cliff-hangers belong only at the ends of chapters. That way, the reader moves on directly to the next page – where, thankfully, they can read more of the story without having to suffer some sort of mindless interruption.

  Honestly, authors can be so self-indulgent.

  ‘Alcatraz?’ Bastille asked as I took off down the hallway following the footprints.

  I waved for her to follow. The black footprints were fading quickly. True, if the black ones disappeared, we could just follow the yellow ones, since they appeared more stable. But if I didn’t keep up with the black ones, I wouldn’t know if the two sets diverged.

  Bastille and Sing hurried along behind me. As we moved, however, the thought of what I was doing finally hit me: I was chasing down the Dark Oculator. I didn’t even really know what a Dark Oculator was, but I was pretty certain that I didn’t want to meet one. This was, after all, probably the person who had sent a gunman to kill me.

  Yet I was also pretty certain that this Dark Oculator was the leader of the library. The most important person around. That made him the person most likely to know where the Sands of Rashid were. And I intended to get those sands back. They were my link to my parents, perhaps the only clue I would ever get to help me know what had happened to them. So, I kept moving.

  Now some of you reading this may assume that I was being brave. In truth, my insides were growing sick at the thought of what I was doing. My only excuse can be that I didn’t really understand how much danger I was in. Knowledge of the Free Kingdoms and Oculators was still new to me, and the threat didn’t quite seem real.

  If I’d understood the risk – the death and pain that pursuing this course would lead to – I would have turned back right then. And it would have been the right decision, despite what my biographers say. You’ll see.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Bastille hissed, walking quickly beside me.

  ‘Footprints,’ I whispered. ‘Someone passed this way a short time ago.’

  ‘So?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re black.’

  Bastille stopped short, falling behind. She hurriedly caught up, though. ‘How black?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Blackish black.’

  ‘But I mean . . .’

  ‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘The footprints seem like they’re burning. Like they were seared into the stones and are slowly melting away the floor. That’s how black they are.’

  ‘That’s the Dark Oculator, then,’ Bastille said. ‘We don’t want to follow them.’

  ‘Of course we do. We have to find the sands!’

  Bastille grabbed my arm, yanking me to a halt. Sing puffed up behind us. ‘Goodness!’ he said. ‘Ancient weapons certainly are heavy!’

  ‘Bastille,’ I said, ‘we’re going to lose the trail!’

  ‘Smedry, listen to me,’ she said, still gripping my arm. ‘Your grandfather might be able to face a high-level Dark Oculator. Might. And he’s one of the Free Kingdoms’ most powerful living Oculators, with an entire repertoire of Lenses. What do you have? Two pairs?’

  Three, I thought, reaching into my jacket pocket. Those Firebringer’s Lenses. If I could turn them on the Dark Oculator . . .

  ‘I know that look,’ Bastille said. ‘Your grandfather gets it too. Shattering Glass, Smedry! Is everyone in your family an idiot? Do your Talent genes replace the ones that give most people common sense? How am I supposed to protect you if you insist on being so foolish?’

  I hesitated. Down the hallway, the last of the dark footprints burned away, leaving only the yellowish set. I looked down at them, frowning to myself.

  I’m missing something, I thought.

  Grandpa Smedry had explained about the Tracker’s Lenses. He’d said . . . that the footprints would remain longer for people that I knew well. I glanced back down the way we had come. My own footprints, glowing a weak white, showed no signs of fading. Bastille and Sing’s sets, however, were already beginning to disappear.

  That yellow set of footprints, I realized, turning back toward the ways the Dark Oculator had gone. They must belong to someone I know . . .

  That was too big a mystery for me to ignore.

  I reached into my pocket, pulling out the small hourglass Grandpa Smedry had given me. ‘Look, Bastille,’ I said, holding it up before her. ‘We only have a half hour until this place gets filled with Librarians back from patrolling. If that happens, we’ll get caught, and those sands will fall permanently into Librarian hands. We don’t have time to go poking around, looking in random doors. This place is way too big. There’s only one way to find what we need.’

  ‘The Dark Oculator might not even have the sands with him,’ Bastille said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But he might know where to find them – or he might lead us to them. We at least have to try to follow him. It’s our best lead.’

  Bastille nodded reluctantly. ‘Don’t try to fight him, though.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry – it’ll be all right.’

  And if you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you . . . on the moon.

  To my credit, I didn’t really want to face down a Dark Oculator. I was half hoping that Bastille would talk me out of the decision. Usually when I tried to do reckless things, there had been adults around to stop me. But things were different now. By some act of fortune – perhaps even more strange than the appearance of talking dinosaurs and evil Librarians – I was in charge. And people listened to me. I was realizing that if I chose poorly, I would not only get myself into trouble but I might end up getting Bastille and Sing hurt as well.

  It was a sobering thought. My life was changing, and so my view of myself had to change as well. You might think I was turning into a hero – however, the truth is that I was just setting myself up for an even greater fall.

  ‘We’ll stay out of sight,’ I said. ‘Eavesdrop and hope the Dark Oculator mentions where the sands are. Our goal is not to fight him. At the first sign of trouble – or, in Sing’s case, tripping – we’ll back out. All right?’

  Bastille and Sing nodded. Then I turned. The yellowish footprints were still there. A little more cautious, I followed them down the hallway. We passed a couple more archways, set with solid wooden doors, but the footprints didn’t lead into any of them. The hallway led deeper and deeper into the library.

  Why build a library that looks like a castle inside? I thought, passing an ornate lantern bracket shaped like a cantaloupe. The lantern atop it burned a large flame, and – despite the tense situation – something occurred to me.

  ‘Fire,’ I said as we walked.

  ‘What?’ Bastille asked.

  ‘You can’t tell me that those lanterns are more “advanced” than electric lights.’

  ‘You’re still worried about that?’

  I shrugged as we paused at an intersection, and Bastille peeked around it, then waved the all clear.

  ‘They just don’t seem very practical to me,’ I whispered as we started again. ‘You can turn electric lights on and off with a switch.’

  ‘You can do that with these too,’ Bastille said. ‘Except without the switch.’

  I frowned. ‘Uh . . . okay.’

  ‘Besides,’ Bastille whispered. ‘You can light things on fire with these lamps. Can you do that with electric ones?’

  ‘Well, not most of them,’ I said, pointing as the footprints turned down a side corridor. ‘But that’s sort of the idea. Open flames like that can burn things down.’

  I couldn’t see because of the sunglasses, but I had the distinct impression that Bastille was rolling her eyes at me. ‘They only burn things if you want them to, Smedry.’

  ‘How does that work?’ I whispered, frowning.


  ‘Look, do we have time for this?’ Bastille asked.

  ‘Actually, no,’ I said. ‘Look up there.’

  I pointed ahead, toward a place where the hallway opened into a large room. This diversion was actually quite fortunate for Bastille, for it meant that she didn’t have to explain how silimatic lanterns work – something I now know that she couldn’t have done anyway. Not that I’d point out her ignorance to her directly. She tends to start swinging handbags whenever I do things like that.

  Bastille went up the hallway first. Despite myself, I was impressed by her stealth as she crept forward, close to the wall. The room ahead was far better lit than the hallway, and her movements threw shadows back along the walls. After reaching the place where the hallway opened into the room, she waved Sing and me forward. I realized that I could hear voices up ahead.

  I approached as quietly as possible, creeping up next to Bastille. There was a quiet clink as Sing huddled beside us, setting down his gym bag. Bastille shot him a harsh look, and he shrugged apologetically.

  The room at the end of the corridor was actually a large, three-story entryway. It was circular, and our corridor opened up onto a second-story balcony overlooking the main floor down below. The footprints turned and wound around a set of stairs, leading down. We inched forward to the edge of the balcony and looked down upon the people I had tracked.

  One of them was indeed a person I knew. It was a person I had known for my entire life: Ms. Fletcher.

  It made sense. After all, Grandpa Smedry had said that she’d been the one to steal the sands from my room. The idea had seemed silly to me at the time, but then a lot of things had been confusing to me back then. I could now see that he must have been right.

  And yet, it seemed so odd to see a person from my regular life in the middle of the library. Ms. Fletcher wasn’t a friend, but she was one of the few constants in my life. She had directed my moves from foster family to foster family, always checking in on me, looking after me . . .