The answer is the Library of Alexandria. The Librarians ship their excess books there in exchange for the promise that the Curators won’t go out into the Hushlands and seek the volumes themselves. It’s really a shame. After all, the Curators – being skeletons – could probably teach us a few things about dieting.
I continued to wander the musty halls of the Library, feeling rather small and insignificant compared with the massive pillars and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of books.
Occasionally, I passed other hallways that branched off the first. They looked identical to the one I was walking in, and I soon realized that I had no idea which way I was going. I glanced backward, and was disappointed to realize that the only place in the Library that seemed clean of dust was the floor. There would be no footprints to guide me back the way I had come, and I had no bread crumbs to leave as a trail. I considered using belly-button lint, but decided that would not only be gross, but wasteful as well. (Do you have any idea how much that stuff is worth?)
Besides, there wouldn’t be much point in leaving a trail in the first place. I didn’t know where I was going, true, but I also didn’t know where I’d been. I sighed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a map of this place anywhere?’ I asked, turning back to the Curator who followed a short distance behind.
‘Of course there is,’ he said in a phantom voice.
‘Really? Where is it?’
‘I can fetch it for you.’ The skull smiled. ‘You’ll have to check it out, though.’
‘Great,’ I said flatly. ‘I can give you my soul to discover the way out, then not be able to use the way out because you’d own my soul.’
‘Some have done so before,’ the ghost said. ‘Traveling the library stacks can be maddening. To many, it is worth the cost of their soul to finally see the solution.’
I turned away. The Curator, however, continued talking. ‘In fact, you’d be surprised the people who come here, searching for the solutions to simple puzzles.’ The creature’s voice grew louder as it spoke, and it floated closer to me. ‘Some old women grow very attached to a modern diversion known as the “Crossword Puzzle.” We’ve had several come here, looking for answers. We have their souls now.’
I frowned, eyeing the thing.
‘Many would rather give up what remains of their lives than live in ignorance,’ it said. ‘This is only one of the many ways that we gain souls. In truth, some do not care which book they get, for once they become one of us, they can read other books in the Library. By then, of course, their soul is bound here, and they can never leave or share that knowledge. However, the endless knowledge appeals to them.’
Why was it talking so loudly? It seemed to be pushing up against me a bit, its coldness prodding me on. As if it were trying to force me to walk faster.
In a moment I realized what was going on. The Curator was a fish. If that were the case, what were the shoes? (Metaphorically speaking, of course. Read back a few chapters if you’ve forgotten.)
I closed my eyes, focusing. There, I heard it. A quiet voice, calling for help. It sounded like Bastille.
I snapped my eyes open and ran down a side hallway. The ghost cursed in an obscure language – my Translator’s Lenses kindly let me know the meaning of the word, and I will be equally kind here in not repeating it, since it involved eggbeaters – and followed me.
I found her hanging from the ceiling between two pillars in the hallway, letting out a few curses of her own. She was tangled up in a strange network of ropes; some of them twisted around her legs, others held her arms. It seemed that her struggles were only making things worse.
‘Bastille?’ I asked.
She stopped struggling, silver hair hanging down around her face. ‘Smedry?’
‘How did you get up there?’ I asked, noticing a Curator hanging in the air upside down beside her. Its robe didn’t seem to respond to gravity – but, then, that’s rather common for ghosts, I would think.
‘Does it matter?’ Bastille snapped, flailing about, apparently trying to shake herself free.
‘Stop struggling. You’re only making it worse.’
She huffed, but stopped.
‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ I asked.
‘Trap,’ she said, twisting about a bit. ‘I triggered a trip wire, and the next moment I was hanging up here. If that wasn’t bad enough, the burning-eyed freak here keeps whispering to me that he can give me a book that will show me how to escape. It’ll just cost my soul!’
‘Where’s your dagger?’ I asked.
‘In my pack.’
I saw it on the floor a short distance away. I walked over, watching out for trip wires. Inside, I found her crystalline dagger, along with some foodstuffs and – I was surprised to remember – the boots with Grappler’s Glass on the bottoms. I smiled.
‘I’ll be right there,’ I said, putting the boots on and activating the glass. Then, I proceeded to try walking up the side of the wall.
If you’ve never attempted this, I heartily recommend it. There’s a very nice rush of wind, accompanied by an inviting feeling of vertigo, as you fall backward and hit the ground. You also look something like an idiot – but for most of us, that’s nothing new.
‘What are you doing?’ Bastille asked.
‘Trying to walk up to you,’ I said, sitting up and rubbing my head.
‘Grappler’s Glass, Smedry. It only sticks to other pieces of glass.’
Ah, right, I thought. Now this might have seemed like a very stupid thing to forget, but you can’t blame me. I was suffering from having fallen to the ground and a hit to the head, after all.
‘Well, how am I going to get up to you, then?’
‘You could just throw me the dagger.’
I looked up skeptically. The ropes seemed wound pretty tightly around her. They, however, were connected to the pillars.
‘Hang on,’ I said, walking up to one of the pillars.
‘Alcatraz . . .,’ she said, sounding uncertain. ‘What are you doing?’
I laid my hand against the pillar, then closed my eyes. I’d destroyed the jet by just touching the smoke . . . could I do something like that here too? Guide my Talent up the pillar to the ropes?
‘Alcatraz!’ Bastille said. ‘I don’t want to get squished by a bunch of falling pillars. Don’t . . .’
I released a burst of breaking power.
‘Gak!’
She said this last part as her ropes – which were connected to the pillars – frayed and fell to pieces. I opened my eyes in time to see her grab the one remaining whole piece of rope and swing down to the ground, landing beside me, puffing slightly.
She looked up. The pillar didn’t fall on us. I removed my hand.
She cocked her head, then regarded me. ‘Huh.’
‘Not bad, eh?’
She shrugged. ‘A real man would have climbed up and cut me down with the dagger. Come on. We’ve got to find the others.’
I rolled my eyes, but took her thank-you for what it was worth. I walked over as she stuffed the boots and dagger back in her pack, then threw it over her shoulder. We walked down the hallway for a moment, then spun as we heard a crashing sound.
The pillar had finally decided to topple over, throwing up broken chips of stone as it hit the ground. The entire hallway shook from the impact.
A wave of dust from the rubble puffed over us. Bastille gave me a suffering look, then sighed and continued walking.
10
You may wonder why I hate fantasy novels so much. Or, maybe you don’t. That doesn’t really matter, because I’m going to tell you anyway.
(Of course, if you want to know how the book ends, you could just skip to the last page – but I wouldn’t recommend that. It will prove very disturbing to your psyche.)
Anyway, let’s talk about fantasy novels. First, you have to understand that when I say ‘fantasy novels’ I mean books about dieting or litera
ture or people living during the Great Depression. Fantasy novels, then, are books that don’t include things like glass dragons, ghostly Curators, or magical Lenses.
I hate fantasy novels. Well, that’s not true. I don’t actually really hate them. I just get annoyed by what they’ve done to the Hushlands.
People don’t read anymore. And, when they do, they don’t read books like this one, but instead read books that depress them, because those books are seen as important. Somehow, the Librarians have successfully managed to convince most people in the Hushlands that they shouldn’t read anything that isn’t boring.
It comes down to Biblioden the Scrivener’s great vision for the world – a vision in which people never do anything abnormal, never dream, and never experience anything strange. His minions teach people to stop reading fun books, and instead focus on fantasy novels. That’s what I call them, because those books keep people trapped. Keep them inside the nice little fantasy that they consider to be the ‘real’ world. A fantasy that tells them they don’t need to try something new.
After all, trying new things can be difficult.
‘We need a plan,’ Bastille said as we walked the corridors of the Library. ‘We can’t just keep wandering around in here.’
‘We need to find Grandpa Smedry,’ I said, ‘or my father.’
‘We also need to find Kaz and Australia, not to mention my mother.’ She grimaced a bit at that last part.
And . . . that’s not everything either, I thought. My father came in here for a reason. He came searching for something.
Something very important.
I’d found a communication from him several months back – it had come with the package that had contained the Sands of Rashid. My father had sounded tense in his letter. He’d been excited, but worried too.
He’d discovered something dangerous. The Sands of Rashid – the Translator’s Lenses – had only been the beginning. They were a step toward uncovering something much greater. Something that had frightened my father.
He’d spent thirteen years searching for whatever the something was. That trail had ended here, at the Library of Alexandria. Could he really have come because he’d grown frustrated? Had he traded his soul for the answers he sought, just so that he could finally stop searching?
I shivered, glancing at the Curators, who floated behind us. ‘Bastille,’ I said. ‘You said that one of them spoke to you?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Kept trying to get me to borrow a book.’
‘It spoke to you in English?’
‘Well, Nalhallan,’ she said. ‘But it’s pretty much the same thing. Why?’
‘Mine spoke to me in a language I didn’t understand.’
‘Mine did that at first too,’ she said. ‘Several of them surrounded me and searched through my possessions. They grabbed the supply list and several of the labels off of the foodstuffs. Then, they left – all except for that one behind us. It continued to jabber at me in that infuriating language. It was only after I’d been caught that it started speaking Nalhallan.’
I glanced again at the Curators. They use traps, I thought. But not ones that kill – ones that keep people tangled up. They separate everyone who comes in, then they make each one wander the hallways, lost. They talk to us in a language they know we don’t understand when they could easily speak in English instead.
This whole place is all about annoying people. The Curators are trying to make us frustrated. All so that we’ll give up and take one of the books they’re offering.
‘So,’ Bastille said. ‘What’s our plan?’
I shrugged. ‘Why ask me?’
‘Because you’re in charge, Alcatraz,’ she said, sighing. ‘What’s your problem, anyway? Half the time you seem ready to give orders and charge about. The other half of the time, you complain that you don’t want to be the one who has to make the decisions.’
I didn’t answer. To be honest, I hadn’t really figured out my feelings either.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘First, we find Kaz, Australia, and your mother.’
‘Why would you need to find me?’ Kaz asked. ‘l mean, I’m right here.’
We both jumped. And, of course, there he was. Wearing his bowler and rugged jacket, hands in his pockets, smiling at us impishly.
‘Kaz!’ I said. ‘You found us!’
‘You were lost,’ he said, shrugging. ‘If I’m lost, it’s easier for me to find someone else who is lost – since abstractly, we’re both in the same place.’
I frowned, trying to make sense of that. Kaz looked around, eyeing the pillars and their archways. ‘Not at all like I imagined it.’
‘Really?’ Bastille asked. ‘It looks pretty much like I figured it would.’
‘I expected them to take better care of their scrolls and books,’ Kaz said.
‘Kaz,’ I said. ‘You found us, right?’
‘Uh, what did I just say, kid?’
‘Can you find Australia too?’
He shrugged. ‘I can try. But, we’ll have to be careful. Quite nearly got myself caught in a trap a little ways back. I tripped a wire, and a large hoop swung out of the wall and tried to grab me.’
‘What happened?’ Bastille said.
He laughed. ‘It went right over my head. Reason number fifteen, Bastille: Short people make smaller targets!’
I just shook my head.
‘I’ll scout ahead,’ Bastille said. ‘Looking for trip wires. Then the two of you can follow. Kaz will engage his Talent at each intersection and pick the next way to go. Hopefully, his Talent will lead us to Australia.’
‘Sounds like a good enough plan for now,’ I said.
Bastille put on her Warrior’s Lenses, then took off, moving very carefully down the hallway. Kaz and I were left standing there with nothing to do.
Something occurred to me. ‘Kaz,’ I said. ‘How long did it take you to learn to use your Talent?’
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘You make it sound like I have learned to use it, kid.’
‘But, you’re better with yours than I am with mine.’ I glanced back at the rubbled pillar, which was still visible in the distance behind us.
‘Talents are tough, I’ll admit,’ he said, following my gaze. ‘You do that?’
I nodded.
‘You know, it was the sound of that pillar falling that let me know I was close to you. Sometimes, what looks like a mistake turns out to be kind of useful.’
‘I know that, but I still have trouble. Every time I think I’ve got my Talent figured out, I break something I didn’t intend to.’
The shorter man leaned against a pillar on the side of the hallway. ‘I know what you mean, Al. I spent most of my youth getting lost. I couldn’t be trusted to go to the bathroom on my own because I’d end up in Mexico. Once, I stranded your father and myself on an island alone for two weeks because I couldn’t figure out how to make the blasted Talent work.’
He shook his head. ‘The thing is, the more powerful a Talent is, the harder it is to control. You and I – like your father and grandfather – have prime Talents. Right on the Incarnate Wheel, fairly pure. They’re bound to give us lots of trouble.’
I cocked my head. ‘Incarnate Wheel?’
He seemed surprised. ‘Nobody’s explained it to you?’
‘The only one I’ve really talked to about Talents is my grandfather.’
‘Yeah, but what about in school?’
‘Ah . . . no,’ I said. ‘I went to Librarian school, Kaz. I did hear a lot about the Great Depression, though.’
Kaz snorted. ‘Fantasy books. Those Librarians . . .’
He sighed, squatting down by the floor and pulling out a stick. He grabbed a handful of dust from the corner, threw it out on the floor, then drew a circle in it.
‘There have been a lot of Smedries over the centuries,’ he said, ‘and a lot of Talents. Many of them tend to be similar, in the long run. There are four kinds: Talents that affect space, time, knowledge, and
the physical world.’ He drew a circle in the dust, then split it into four pieces.
‘Take my Talent, for instance,’ he continued. ‘I change things in space. I can get lost, then get found again.’
‘What about Grandpa Smedry?’
‘Time,’ Kaz said. ‘He arrives late to things. Australia, however, has a Talent that can change the physical world – in this case, her own shape.’ He wrote her name in the dust on the wheel. ‘Her Talent is fairly specific, and not as broad as your grandfather’s. For instance, there was a Smedry a couple of centuries back who could look ugly any time he wanted, not just when he woke up in the morning. Others have been able to change anyone’s appearance, not just their own. Understand?’
I shrugged. ‘I guess so.’
‘The closer the Talent gets to its purest form, the more powerful it is,’ Kaz said. ‘Your grandfather’s Talent is very pure – he can manipulate time in a lot of different circumstances. Your father and I have very similar Talents – I can get lost and Attica can lose things – and both are flexible. Siblings often have similar powers.’
‘What about Sing?’ I asked.
‘Tripping. That’s what we call a knowledge Talent – he knows how to do something normal with extraordinary ability. Like Australia, though, his power isn’t very flexible. In that case, we put them at the edge of the wheel near the rim. Talents like my father’s, which are more powerful, we place closer to the center.’
I nodded slowly. ‘So . . . what does this have to do with me?’
Bastille had returned, and was watching with interest.
‘Well, it’s hard to say,’ Kaz said. ‘You’re getting into some deep philosophy now, kid. There are those who argue that the Breaking Talent is simply a physical-world Talent, but one that is very versatile and very powerful.’
He met my eyes, then poked his stick into the very center of the circle. ‘There are others who argue that the Breaking Talent is much more. It seems to be able to do things that affect all four areas. Legends say that one of your ancestors – one of only two others to have this Talent – broke time and space together forming a little bubble where nothing aged.
Alcatraz Page 29