‘Still,’ Bastille said. ‘That’s pretty amazing. How did you do it?’
I shrugged. ‘I just shoved a little extra power into the glass.’
Bastille didn’t reply. She stared at the boot, then looked at me. ‘This is silimatic,’ she said. ‘Technology, not magic. You shouldn’t be able to push it like that. Technology has limits.’
‘I think your technology and your magic are more related than people believe, Bastille,’ I said.
She nodded slowly. Then, she moved quickly, putting the boot back into the pack and zipping it up. ‘You still have those Windstormer’s Lenses?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Why?’
She looked up, meeting my eyes. ‘I have an idea.’
‘Should I be frightened?’ I asked.
‘Probably,’ she said. ‘The idea’s a little bit strange. Like one you might have come up with, actually.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Get out those Lenses,’ she said, throwing her pack over her shoulder.
I did so.
‘Now, break the frames.’
I paused, eyeing her.
‘Just do it,’ she said.
I shrugged, then activated my Talent. The frames fell apart easily.
‘Double up the Lenses,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ I said, sliding one over the other.
‘Can you do to those Lenses what you did to the boots? Put extra power through them?’
‘I should be able to,’ I said. ‘But . . .’
I trailed off, suddenly coming to understand. If I blew a huge blast of air out of the Lenses, then I would be forced upward – like a fighter jet, with the Lenses being my engine. I looked up at Bastille. ‘Bastille! That’s absolutely insane.’
‘I know,’ she said, grimacing. ‘I’ve been spending way too much time with you Smedries. But my mother is probably only a few minutes away from death. Are you willing to give it a try?’
I smiled. ‘Of course I am! It sounds awesome!’
Inclined toward leadership or not, thoughtful or not, uncertain of myself or not, I was still a teenage boy. And, you have to admit, it really did sound awesome.
Bastille stepped up close to me, putting one arm around my waist, then holding on to my shoulder with the other. ‘Then I’m going with you,’ she said. ‘Hang on to my waist.’
I nodded, feeling a bit distracted having her so close. For the first time in my life, I realized something.
Girls smell weird.
I started to feel nervous. If I blew with the Lenses too softly we’d just fall back down into the pit. If I blasted too hard, we’d end up smashing into the ceiling. It seemed like a very fine balance.
I lowered my arm, pointing the Lenses down straight by my side, my other arm held tentatively around Bastille’s waist. I took a breath, preparing myself.
‘Smedry,’ Bastille said, her face just inches from mine.
I blinked. Having her right there was suddenly really, really distracting. Plus, she was hanging on rather tightly, with the grip of a person whose strength has been enhanced by a Crystin Fleshstone.
I fumbled for a response, my mind fuzzy. (Girls, you might have noticed, can do things like this to guys. It’s a result of their powerful pheromones. They evolved that way, gaining the ability to make us men fuzzy-headed, so that it would be easier for them to hit us on the heads with hardback fantasy novels and steal our cheese sticks.)
‘You okay?’ she asked.
‘Uh . . . yeah,’ I managed to get out. ‘What did you want?’
‘I just wanted to say thanks.’
‘For what?’
‘For provoking me,’ she said. ‘For making me think that someone had set me up to fail on purpose. It’s probably not true, but it’s what I needed. If there’s a chance that someone stuck me in that situation intentionally, then I want to figure out who it was and why they did it. It’s a challenge.’
I nodded. That’s Bastille for you. Tell her that she’s wonderful, and she’d just sit there and sulk. But, hint that she might have a hidden enemy somewhere, and she’d jump to her feet, full of energy.
‘You ready?’ I asked.
‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’
I focused on the Lenses – trying to ignore how close Bastille was – and built up Oculatory energy.
Then, holding my breath, I released the power.
We shot upward in a lurching burst of wind. Dust and chips of stone blew out beneath us, puffing up the sides of the shaft. We blasted upward, wind tussling my hair, the opening to the pit approaching far too quickly. I cried out, deactivating the Lenses, but we had too much momentum.
We passed the lip of the hole and continued on. I threw up my hands in front of my face as we approached the ceiling. With the Lenses no longer jetting, gravity slowed us. We crested the blast a few inches from the ceiling, then began to plummet downward again.
‘Now, kick!’ Bastille said, twisting and putting both of her feet against my chest.
‘Wha—’ I began, but Bastille kicked, throwing me to the side and pushing herself the other direction.
We hit the ground on either side of the pit. I rolled, then came to a rest, staring upward. The room spun around me.
We were free. I sat up, holding my head. Across the pit, Bastille was smiling as she jumped to her feet. ‘I can’t believe that actually worked!’
‘You kicked me!’ I said with a groan.
‘Well, I owed it to you,’ she said. ‘Remember, you kicked me back in the Dragonaut. I didn’t want you to feel like I didn’t return the feeling.’
I grimaced. This, by the way, is a pretty good metaphor for my entire relationship with Bastille. I’m thinking of writing a book on the concept. Kicking Your Friends for Fun and Profit.
Suddenly, something occurred to me. ‘My Lenses!’ They lay in shattered pieces on the ground beside the pit. I’d dropped them as I hit. I stood up and rushed over, but it was no use. There wasn’t enough of them left to use.
‘Gather up the pieces,’ Bastille said. ‘They can be reforged.’
I sighed. ‘Yeah, I suppose. This means we’re going to have to face Kiliman without them.’
Bastille fell silent.
I don’t have any offensive Lenses, and Bastille’s only got a close-to-broken dagger. How are we going to fight that creature?
I brushed the pieces of glass into a pouch, then put it into one of my Lens pockets.
‘We’re free,’ Bastille said, ‘but we still don’t really know what to do. In fact, we don’t even know how to get to Kiliman.’
‘We’ll find a way,’ I said, standing up.
She looked at me, then – surprisingly – nodded. ‘All right, then, what do we do?’
‘We—’
Suddenly, Australia rushed back into the room. She was puffing from exertion. ‘All right, I found your rope!’
She held up an empty hand.
‘Uh, thanks,’ I said. ‘Is the rope imaginary, then?’
‘No, silly,’ she said, laughing. She picked something up between two fingers. ‘Look!’
‘Trip wire,’ Bastille said.
‘Is that what it is?’ Australia said. ‘I just found it on the ground over there.’
‘And how exactly were you going to use that to get us out of the pit?’ I asked. ‘I doubt it’s long enough, and even if it is, it would never have held our weight.’
Australia cocked her head. ‘That’s why you wanted rope?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘So that we could climb out of the pit.’
‘But, you’re already out of the pit.’
‘We are now,’ I said with exasperation. ‘But we weren’t at the time. I wanted you to find rope so that we could climb it.’
‘Oh!’ Australia said. ‘Well, you should have said so, then!’
I stood, stupefied. ‘You know what, never mind,’ I said, taking the length of trip wire. I was about to stuff it in my pocket, then paused, looking at it.
I smiled.
‘You have an idea?’
I nodded.
‘What is it?’
‘Tell you in a minute,’ I said. ‘First, we have to figure out how to get to the center of the Library.’
We all looked at one another.
‘I’ve been wandering through the hallways all day,’ Australia said. ‘With those ghost things offering me books at every turn. I keep explaining that I hate reading, but they don’t listen. If I hadn’t run across your footprints, Alcatraz, I’d still be lost!’
‘Footprints!’ I said. ‘Australia, can you see Kaz’s footprints?’
‘Of course.’ She tapped the yellow Lenses, my Tracker’s Lenses, which she was still wearing.
‘Follow them!’
She nodded, then led us from the room. Only a few feet down the hallway, however, she stopped.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘They end here.’
His Talent, I realized. It’s jumping him about the Library, Ieading him to the center. We’ll never be able to track him.
‘That’s it, then,’ Bastille said, beginning to sound depressed again. ‘We’ll never get there in time.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘If I’m in charge, then we’re not going to give up.’
She looked taken aback. Then, she nodded. ‘All right. What do we do?’
I stood for a moment, thinking. There had to be a way. Information, lad, Grandpa Smedry’s voice seemed to return to me. More powerful than any sword or gun . . .
I looked up sharply. ‘Australia, can you follow my footprints back the way I originally came, before I entered that room with the pit?’
‘Sure,’ she said.
‘Do it, then.’
She led us through cagelike chambers and corridors. In a few minutes, we left the dungeon section of the Library and entered the section with the bookshelves. The gold bars I’d discarded on the ground proved that we were back where we’d started. I, of course, piled the bars into Bastille’s pack.
No, not because of some great plan to use them. I just figured that if I survived all this, I’d want some gold. (I don’t know if you realize this, but you can totally buy stuff with it.)
‘Great,’ Bastille said. ‘We’re back here. I don’t mean to question you, O Great Leader, but we were lost when we were here too. We still don’t know which way to go.’
I reached into a pocket, then pulled out the Discerner’s Lenses. I put them on, then looked at the bookshelves. I smiled.
‘What?’ Bastille asked.
‘They hold every book ever written, right?’
‘That’s what the Curators claim.’
‘So, they would have gathered them chronologically. When a new book comes out, the Curators get a copy, then put it on their shelves.’
‘So?’
‘That means,’ I said, ‘that the newer books are going to be at the outer edges of the Library. The older the books get, the closer we’ll get to the center. That’s the place where they would have put their first books.’
Bastille opened her mouth slightly, then her eyes widened as she understood. ‘Alcatraz, that’s brilliant!’
‘Must have been that bump to the head,’ I said, then pointed down the hallway. ‘That way. The books get older as they move down the row that direction.’
Bastille and Australia nodded, and we were off.
18
We’re almost at the end of the second book. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed the ride. I’m certain you know more about the world now than you did when you began.
In fact, you’ve probably learned all you need to. You know about the Librarian conspiracy, and you know that I’m a liar. Everything I wanted to do has been accomplished. I suppose I can just end the book right here.
Thanks for reading.
The end.
Oh, so that’s not good enough for you, eh? Demanding today, are we?
All right, fine. I’ll finish it for you. But, not because I’m a nice guy. I’ll do it because I can’t wait to see the look on your face when Bastille dies. (You didn’t forget about that part, did you? I’ll bet you think I’m lying. However, I promise you that I’m not. She really dies. You’ll see.)
Bastille, Australia, and I raced through the Library hallways. We’d passed through the rooms with books and were up to the ones with scrolls. These too were arranged by age. We were close. I could feel it.
That worried me. Bastille’s mother was dying, and Kaz was likely in serious danger. We had little hope in fighting Kiliman. We were outmatched and outmaneuvered, and we were charging right into the enemy’s hands.
However, I figured that it wasn’t a good idea to explain to the others how bad things seemed. I was determined to keep a ‘stiff upper lip’, even if I didn’t really understand what that meant. (Though it does sound vaguely uncomfortable.)
‘All right,’ I said. ‘We have to beat this guy. What are our resources?’ That sounded like the kind of thing a leader would say.
‘One cracked dagger,’ Bastille said. ‘Probably won’t survive another hit from those Frostbringer’s Lenses.’
‘We’ve got that string,’ Australia added, poking through Bastille’s pack as we ran. ‘And . . . it looks like a couple of muffins. Oh, and one pair of boots.’
Great, I thought. ‘Well, I’m down to three pairs of Lenses. We’ve got my Oculator’s Lenses – which won’t be much good, since Grandpa Smedry still hasn’t bothered to teach me how to use them defensively. We’ve got the Discerner’s Lenses, which will get us to the center. And we’ve got Australia’s Tracker’s Lenses.’
‘Plus that Lens you found in the tomb,’ Bastille noted.
‘Which, unfortunately, we can’t seem to use.’
Bastille nodded. ‘Though, we’ve also got two Smedries – and two Talents.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Australia, do you have to fall asleep for yours to work?’
‘Of course I do, silly,’ she said. ‘I can’t wake up looking ugly if I don’t fall asleep!’
I sighed.
‘I’m really good at falling asleep,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s something at least,’ I grumbled. Then, I cursed myself. ‘I mean, bravely onward we must go, troops!’
Bastille shot me a grimace.
‘Little too much?’
‘Just a smidge,’ she said drily, ‘I—’
She cut off as I held up a hand. We skidded to a halt in the musty hallway. To the sides, ancient lamps flickered, and a trio of Curators floated around us, ever present, watching for an opportunity to offer us books.
‘What?’ Bastille asked.
‘I can feel the creature,’ I said. ‘At least, his Lenses.’
‘Then he can feel us?’
I shook my head. ‘Scrivener’s Bones aren’t Oculators. Those blood-forged Lenses might make him tough, but we hold the edge in information. We . . .’
I trailed off as I noticed something.
‘Alcatraz?’ Bastille asked, but I wasn’t paying attention.
There, on the wall directly above the archway leading onward, was a set of scribbles. Like those made by a child too young to even draw pictures. To my eyes, they seemed to glow with a pure white color.
That aura came from the Discerner’s Lenses. The scribbles were fairly fresh – no older than a couple of days. Compared with the ancient stones and scrolls in the hallway, the scribbles seemed a pure white.
‘Alcatraz,’ Bastille hissed. ‘What’s going on?’
‘That’s the Forgotten Language,’ I said, pointing to the scribbles.
‘What?’
To her eyes, the scribbles would be almost invisible – only the Discerner’s Lenses had let me see them so starkly.
‘Look closer,’ I said.
Eventually, she nodded. ‘Okay, so I think I see some lines up there. What of it?’
‘They’re new,’ I said. ‘Written within the last few days. So, i
f that really is the Forgotten Language, then only someone wearing Translator’s Lenses could have written it.’
Finally, she seemed to understand. ‘And that means . . .’
‘My father was here.’ I looked back up at the marks. ‘And I can’t read the message he left for me because I gave my Lenses away.’
Our group fell silent.
My father has Lenses that let him glimpse the future. Could he have left me a message to help me fight Kiliman?
I felt frustrated. There was no way to read the inscription. If my father had seen into the future, wouldn’t he have realized I wouldn’t have my Lenses?
No – Grandpa Smedry had said that Oracle’s Lenses were very unreliable and gave inconsistent information. My father very well could have seen that I’d be fighting Kiliman, but not known that I’d be without my Translator’s Lenses.
Just to be certain, I tried the Lens I’d found in the tomb of Alcatraz the First. But, it wasn’t a Translator’s Lens, so it didn’t let me read the inscription. Sighing, I put it away.
Information. I didn’t have it. Finally, I began to grasp what Grandpa Smedry kept saying. The person who won the battle wasn’t necessarily the one with the biggest army or the best weapons – it was the one who understood the most about the situation.
‘Alcatraz,’ Bastille said. ‘Please. My mother . . .’
I glanced at her. Bastille is strong. Her toughness isn’t just an act, like it is with some people. Yet, I’ve seen her really, truly worried on a number of occasions. It’s always when someone she loves is in danger.
I wasn’t sure if Draulin deserved that loyalty, but I wasn’t going to question a girl’s love for her mother.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Sorry. We’ll come back for this later.’
Bastille nodded. ‘You want me to go scout?’
‘Yeah. Be careful. I can feel Kiliman just ahead.’
She needed no further warning. I turned toward Australia. ‘How quickly can you fall asleep?’
‘Oh, in about five minutes.’
‘Get to it, then,’ I said.
‘Who should I think about?’ she asked. ‘That’ll be the person I look like when I wake up.’ She grimaced at that concept.
Alcatraz Page 36