We couldn’t continue to run. It was time to confront it. I gulped, beginning to sweat. This is one of the reasons why I’m no hero – because even though I walked down that corridor toward the creature, I pulled Bastille along with me. I figured two targets were better than one.
As we moved forward, Kaz trailing behind, Bastille lost a bit of her frenzied look. She pulled her dagger from its sheath, the crystalline blade sparkling in the flickering lamplight.
At the end of the corridor was a small room, split in half by the large iron grate. The Scrivener’s Bone was on the other side of the bars. He smiled as I approached – one side of his face curling up, lips leering. The other side of his face mimicked the motion, though it was made of bits of metal that twisted and clicked, like a clock mechanism that had been compressed tenfold until all of the gears and pins were smushed together.
‘Smedry,’ the thing said, voice ragged, as if the sounds themselves had been flayed.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
The creature met my eyes. The entire left half of its body had been replaced by the bits of metal, held together by a force I didn’t understand. One of its eyes was human. The other was a pit of dark glass. Alivener’s Glass.
‘I am Kilimanjaro,’ the creature said. ‘I have been sent to retrieve something from you.’
I was still wearing the Lenses of Rashid. I raised my fingers to them, and Kiliman nodded.
‘Where did you get that sword?’ I asked, trying to hide my nervousness.
‘I have the woman,’ the creature said. ‘I took it from her.’
‘She’s here, Alcatraz,’ Bastille said. ‘I can feel her Fleshstone.’
Fleshstone? I thought. What in the name of the first sands is that?
‘You mean this?’ Kiliman asked, voice deep and crackling. He held up something before him. It looked like a crystal shard, about the size of two fingers put together. It was bloody. Bastille gasped. ‘No!’ she said, rushing toward the bars; I grabbed her arm and barely managed to hang on.
‘Bastille!’ I said. ‘He’s goading you!’
‘How could you?’ she screamed at the creature. ‘You’ll kill her!’
Kiliman lowered the crystal, placing it in a pouch at his belt. He still held the sword in front of him. ‘Death is immaterial, Crystin. I must retrieve what I seek. You have it, and I have the woman. We will trade.’
Bastille fell to her knees, and at first I thought she was weeping. Then I could see that she was simply shaking, white faced. I didn’t know it at the time, but pulling the Fleshstone from the body of a Crystin is an unspeakably vulgar and gruesome act. To Bastille, it was like Kiliman had shown her Draulin’s heart, still beating in his hand.
‘You think I’d bargain with you?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Kiliman said simply. He didn’t have the flair of evil that Blackburn had shown – no flaunted arrogance, no sharp clothing, or laughing voice. Yet, the quiet danger this creature expressed was somehow even more haunting.
I shivered.
‘Careful, Al,’ Kaz said quietly. ‘Those creatures are dangerous. Very dangerous.’
Kiliman smiled, then dropped the sword and flipped a hand forward. I cried out as I saw a Lens in his hand. It flashed, shooting out a beam of frosty light.
Bastille came up, her dagger held clawlike in her hand. She took the beam straight on the crystalline blade, then stumbled backward. She held it, but just barely.
I growled, throwing off the Translator’s Lenses and pulling out my Windstormer’s Lenses. He wanted to fight? Well, I’d show him.
I snapped the Lenses on, then focused on the Scrivener’s Bone, sending forth a wave of powerful wind. My ears popped, and Kaz cried out from the sudden increase in pressure. The blast of wind hit Kiliman, throwing him backward, spraying bits of metal from his body.
Kiliman growled, and his Frostbringer’s Lens turned off. To my side, Bastille fell to her knees again; I could see that her hand looked blue and was crusted with ice. Her little dagger’s blade was cracked in several places. Like the Crystin swords, it could deflect Oculatory powers, but it obviously wasn’t meant to handle much punishment.
Kiliman righted himself, and I could see the bits of metal that had fallen off of him spring up little spiderlike legs. The nuts, screws, and gears scuttled across the floor, climbing up his body and rejoining with the entire pulsing, undulating heap of metal scraps.
He met my eyes and growled, bringing up his other hand. I focused again, blasting him with another wave of wind, but the creature stayed on his feet. Suddenly, I felt myself being pulled forward. His other hand held the Lens that Bastille had called a Voidstormer’s Lens, the one that sucked in air.
The Lens was pulling me toward the bars, even though I was pushing Kiliman away with my own Lenses. I slipped on the ground, stumbling, growing panicked.
Suddenly, hands grabbed me from behind, steadying me. ‘What did I tell you, kid?’ Kaz called over the sound of the wind. ‘That thing is part Alivened! You can’t kill him with regular means! And those are blood-forged Lenses he’s using. They’ll be more powerful than yours!’
He was right. Even with Kaz holding on to me, I could feel myself being pulled toward Kiliman. I turned my Windstormer’s Lenses away from him, then focused them on the wall, pushing myself back.
Kiliman turned his Lens off.
I was shaken by the force of the wind blowing from my face. I stumbled, knocking Kaz over, and I nearly lost my footing as I turned my Lenses off.
In that moment, Kiliman focused his Lens directly at the pair of Translator’s Lenses in my other hand. Apparently, the Voidstormer’s Lens – just like my Windstormer’s Lenses – could focus on a single object. The Translator’s Lenses were pried free from my fingers and sucked across the room.
I yelled, shocked, but Bastille snatched the Lenses from the air as they passed her. She stood up, dagger in one hand, Lenses in the other. I stepped up beside her, readying my Windstormer’s Lenses, trying not to look at the frosty wounds on Bastille’s hand.
Kiliman stood up, but did not raise his Lenses. ‘I still hold the knight,’ he whispered, picking up the fallen Crystin sword. ‘She will die, for you don’t know where to find her. Only I can replace her Fleshstone.’
The room fell silent. Suddenly, Kiliman’s face began to disintegrate, the tiny bits of metal all springing legs and crawling down his body. Half of his head, then his shoulder, and finally one arm all transformed to tiny, metal spiders, which crawled across the bars separating us, swarming like bees in a hive.
‘She will die,’ the Scrivener’s Bone said, somehow speaking despite the fact that half of his face was now missing. ‘I do not lie, Smedry. You know I do not lie.’
I stared him down, but felt an increasing sense of dread. Do you remember what I said about choices? It seems to me that no matter what you choose, you end up losing something. In this case, it was either the Lenses or Draulin’s life.
‘I will trade her to you for the Lenses,’ Kiliman said. ‘I was sent to hunt those, not you. Once I have them, I will leave.’
The metal spiders were crawling into the room, crossing the floor, but they stayed away from Bastille and me. Kaz groaned, finally getting to his feet from where I’d inadvertently pushed him.
I closed my eyes. Bastille’s mother, or the Lenses? I wished that I could do something to fight. But, the Windstormer’s Lenses couldn’t hurt this thing – even if they blew him back, he could simply flee and wait for Draulin to die. Australia was still lost somewhere in the Library. Would she be next?
‘I will trade,’ I said quietly.
Kiliman smiled – or, at least, the remaining half of his face smiled. Then, to the side, I saw several of his spiders climb up on something.
A trip wire in the room where I was standing.
The floor fell away beneath Bastille and me as the spiders tripped the wire. Bastille cried out, reaching for the edge of the floor, but she just barely missed grabbing it.
We plummeted some thirty feet and landed with a thud on a patch of too-soft ground. I hit on my stomach, but Bastille – who twisted herself to protect the Translator’s Lenses she still clutched – scraped against the wall, then hit the ground in a much more awkward position. She grunted in pain.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Then, I crawled over to Bastille. She groaned, looking even more dazed than I felt, but she seemed all right. Finally, I glanced up the dark shaft toward the light above. A concerned Kaz stuck his head out over the opening.
‘Alcatraz!’ he yelled. ‘You two all right?’
‘Yeah,’ I called up. ‘I think we are.’ I poked at the ground, trying to decide why it had broken our fall. It appeared to be made of some kind of cushioned cloth.
‘The ground is padded,’ I called up to Kaz. ‘Probably to keep us from breaking our necks.’ It was another Curator trap, meant to frustrate us, but not kill us.
‘What was the point of that?’ I heard Kaz bellow at Kiliman. ‘They just agreed to trade with you!’
‘Yes, he did.’ I could faintly hear Kiliman’s voice. ‘But the Librarians of my order have a saying: Never trust a Smedry.’
‘Well, he’s not going to be able to trade with you while he’s trapped in a pit!’ Kaz yelled.
‘True,’ Kiliman said. ‘But you can trade. Have him pass you the Translator’s Lenses, then meet me at the center of the Library. You are the one who has the power to Travel places, are you not?’
Kaz fell silent.
This creature knows a lot about us, I thought with frustration.
‘You are a Smedry,’ Kiliman said to Kaz. ‘But not an Oculator. I will deal with you instead of the boy. Bring me the Lenses, and I will return the woman – with her Fleshstone – to you. Be quick. She will die within the hour.’
There was silence, broken only by Bastille’s groan as she sat up. She still had the Translator’s Lenses in her hand. Eventually, Kaz’s head popped out above the pit.
‘Alcatraz?’ he called. ‘You there?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Where else would we be?’ Bastille grumbled.
‘It’s too dark to see you,’ Kaz said. ‘Anyway, the Scrivener’s Bone has left, and I can’t get through the bars to follow him. What should we do? Do you want me to try to find some rope?’
I sat, trying – with all of my capacity – to think of a way out of the predicament. Bastille’s mother was dying because a piece of crystal had been ripped from her body. Kiliman had her and would trade her only for the Translator’s Lenses. I was trapped in a pit with Bastille, who had taken a much harder hit falling than I had, and we had no rope.
I was stuck, looking for a solution where there wasn’t one. Sometimes, there just isn’t a way out, and thinking won’t help, no matter how clever you are. In a way, that’s kind of like what I wrote at the beginning of this chapter. You remember, the secret ‘thing’ I claimed to have done in this book? The shameful, clever trick? Did you go looking for it? Well, whatever you found, that wasn’t what I was intending – because there is no trick. No hidden message. No clever twist I put into the first fourteen chapters.
I don’t know how hard you searched, but it couldn’t have been harder than I searched for a way to both save Draulin and keep my Lenses. I was quickly running out of time, and I knew it. I had to make a decision. Right then. Right there.
I chose to take the Lenses from Bastille and throw them up to Kaz. He caught them, just barely.
‘Can your Talent take you to the center of the Library?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I think so. Now that I have a location to search for.’
‘Go,’ I said. ‘Trade the Lenses for Draulin’s life. We’ll worry about getting them back later.’
Kaz nodded. ‘All right. You wait here – I’ll find a rope or something and come back for you once Bastille’s mother is safe.’
He disappeared for a moment, then returned, head sticking back out over the opening. ‘Before I go, do you want this?’ He held out Bastille’s pack.
The Grappler’s Glass boots were inside. I felt a stab of hope, but quickly dismissed it. The sides of the shaft were stone.
Besides, even if I did get free, I’d still have to trade the Lenses for Draulin. I’d just have to do it in person. Still, there was food in the pack. No telling how long we’d be in the pit. ‘Sure,’ I called up to him, ‘drop it.’
He did so, and I stepped to the side, letting it hit the soft ground. By now, Bastille was on her feet, though she leaned woozily against the side of the pit.
This was why I shouldn’t ever have been made a leader. This is why nobody should ever look to me. Even then, I made the wrong decisions. A leader has to be hard, capable of making the right choice.
You think I did make the right one? Well, then, you’d be as poor a leader as I was. You see, saving Draulin was the wrong choice. By trading the Translator’s Lenses, I may have saved one life, but at a terrible cost.
The Librarians would gain access to the knowledge of the Incarna people. Sure, Draulin would live – but how many would die as the war turned against the Free Kingdoms? With ancient technology at their disposal, the Librarians would become a force that could no longer be held back.
I’d saved one life, but doomed so many more. That’s not the sort of weakness a leader can afford. I suspect that Kaz knew the truth of that. He hesitated, then asked, ‘You sure you want to do this, kid?’
‘Yes,’ I said. At the time, I didn’t think about things like protecting the future of the Free Kingdoms or the like. I just knew one thing: I couldn’t be the one responsible for Draulin’s death.
‘All right,’ Kaz said. ‘I’ll be back for you. Don’t worry.’
‘Good luck, Kaz.’
And he was gone.
16
Writers – particularly storytellers like myself – write about people. That is ironic, since we actually know nothing about them.
Think about it. Why does someone become a writer? Is it because they like people? Of course not. Why else would we seek out a job where we get to spend all day, every day, cooped up in our basement with no company besides paper, a pencil, and our imaginary friends?
Writers hate people. If you’ve ever met a writer, you know that they’re generally awkward, slovenly individuals who live beneath stairwells, hiss at those who pass, and forget to bathe for weeklong periods. And those are the socially competent ones.
I looked up at the sides of our pit.
Bastille sat on the floor, obviously trying to pretend she was a patient person. It worked about as well as a watermelon trying to pretend it was a golf ball. (Though not as messy and half as much fun.)
‘Come on, Bastille,’ I said, glancing at her. ‘I know you’re as frustrated as I am. What are you thinking? Could I break these walls somehow? Make a slope we can climb up?’
‘And risk the sides of the wall toppling down on us?’ she asked flatly.
She had a point. ‘What if we tried to climb up without using the Talent?’
‘These walls are slick and polished, Smedry,’ she snapped. ‘Not even a Crystin can climb that.’
‘But if we shimmied up, feet on one wall, back against the other one . . .’
‘The hole is way too wide for that.’
I fell silent.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘No other brilliant ideas? What about jumping up? You should try that a few times.’ She turned away from me, looking at the side of our pit, then sighed.
I frowned. ‘Bastille, this isn’t like you.’
‘Oh?’ she asked. ‘How do you know what’s “like me” and what isn’t? You’ve known me for what, a couple of months? During which time we’ve spent all of three or four days together?’
‘Yes, but . . . well, I mean . . .’
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nbsp; ‘It’s over, Smedry,’ she said. ‘We’re beaten. Kaz has probably already arrived at the center of the Library and given up those Lenses. Chances are, Kiliman will just take him captive and let my mother die.’
‘Maybe we can still find a way out. And go help.’
Bastille didn’t seem to be listening. She simply sat down, arms folded across her knees, staring at the wall. ‘They really are right about me,’ she whispered. ‘I never deserved to be a knight.’
‘What?’ I asked, squatting down beside her. ‘Bastille, that’s nonsense.’
‘I’ve only done two real operations. This one and the infiltration back in your hometown. Both times I ended up trapped, unable to do anything. I’m useless.’
‘We all got trapped,’ I said. ‘Your mother didn’t fare much better.’
She ignored this, still shaking her head. ‘Useless. You had to save me from those ropes, and then you had to save me again when we were covered in tar. That’s not even counting the time you saved me from falling out the side of the Dragonaut.’
‘You saved me too,’ I said. ‘Remember the coins? If it wasn’t for you, I’d be floating around with burning eyes, offering illicit books to people as if I were a drug dealer looking for a new victim.’
(Hey, kids? Want a taste of Dickens? It’s awesome, man. Come on. First chapters of Hard Times are free. I know you’ll be back for Tale of Two Cities later.)
‘That was different,’ Bastille said.
‘No, it wasn’t. Look, you saved my life – not only that, but without you, I wouldn’t know what half these Lenses are supposed to do.’
She looked up at me, brow furled. ‘You’re doing it again.’
‘What?’
‘Encouraging people. Like you did with Australia, like you’ve done with all of us this entire trip. What is it about you, Smedry? You don’t want to make any decisions, but you take it upon yourself to encourage us all anyway?’
I fell silent. How had that happened? This conversation had been about her, and suddenly she’d thrown it back in my face. (I’ve found that throwing things in people’s faces – words, conversations, knives – is one of Bastille’s specialties.)
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