‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m sure that’s it.’
Kaz slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t get down, Al. This is a time for rejoicing!’
I smiled, his enthusiasm contagious. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ We began to walk, my step growing a bit more springy. Kaz was right. True, everything wasn’t perfect, but we had managed to save my father. Coming down into the Library had proven to be the best choice, in the end.
I might have been a bit inexperienced, but I’d made the right decision. I found myself feeling rather good as we walked.
‘Thanks, Kaz,’ I said.
‘For what?’
‘For the encouragement.’
He shrugged. ‘We short people are like that. Remember what I said about being more compassionate.’
I laughed. ‘Perhaps. I do have to say, though – I’ve thought of at least one reason why it’s better to be a tall person.’
Kaz raised an eyebrow.
‘Lightbulbs,’ I said. ‘If everyone were short like you, Kaz, then who’d change them?’
He laughed. ‘You’re forgetting Reason number sixty-three, kid!’
‘Which is?’
‘If everyone were short, we could build lower ceilings! Think of how much we’d save on building costs!’
I laughed, shaking my head as we caught up to the others and made our way out of the Library.
EPILOGUE
There you go. Book two of my memoirs. It’s not the end, of course. You didn’t think it would be, did you? We haven’t even gotten to the part where I end up tied to that altar, about to be sacrificed! Besides, these things always come in trilogies, at least. Otherwise they’re not epic!
This volume contained an important section of my life. My first meeting – humble though it was – with the famous Attica Smedry. My first real taste of leadership. My first chance to use Windstormer’s lenses like a jet engine. (I never get tired of that one.)
Before we part, I owe you one more explanation. It has to do with a boat: the Ship of Theseus. do you remember? Every plank in it had been replaced, until it looked like the same ship, but wasn’t.
I told you that I was that ship. Perhaps now, after reading this book, you can see why.
You should now know the young me pretty well. You’ve read two books about him and have seen his progress as a person. You’ve even seen him do some heroic things, like climb on top of a glass dragon, face down a member of the Scrivener’s Bones, and save his father from the clutches of the Curators of Alexandria.
You may wonder why I’ve started my autobiography so far back, when I still showed hints that I might be a good person. Well, I’m the Ship of Theseus. I was once that boy, full of hope, full of potential. That’s not who I am anymore. I’m a copy. A fake.
I’m the person that young boy grew into, but I’m not him. I’m not the hero that everyone says – even though I look like I should be.
The purpose of this series is to show the changes I went through. To let you see the pieces of me slowly getting replaced until nothing is left of the original.
I’m a sad, pathetic person, writing his life story in the basement of a lavish castle he really doesn’t deserve. I’m not a hero. Heroes don’t let the people they love die.
I’m not proud of what I’ve become, but I intend to make certain that everyone knows the truth. It’s time for the lies to end; time for people to realize that their Ship of Theseus is just a copy.
If the real one ever existed in the first place.
was not my place to say so.
‘Bastille!’ I screamed, holding her bloody body in my arms. ‘Why?’
She didn’t respond. She just stared into the air, eyes glazed over, her spirit already gone. I shivered, pulling her close, but the body was growing cold.
‘You can’t die, you can’t!’ I said. ‘Please.’
It was no use. Bastille was dead. Really dead. Deader than a battery left all night with the high beams on. So dead, she was twice as dead as anyone I’d ever seen dead. She was that dead.
‘This is all my fault,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you in to fight Kiliman!’
I felt at her pulse, just in case. There was nothing. Because, you know, she was dead.
‘Oh, cruel world,’ I said, sobbing.
I put a mirror up to her face to see if she was breathing. Of course, there was no mist on the mirror. Seeing as how Bastille was totally and completely dead.
‘You were so young,’ I said. ‘Too young to be taken from us. Why did it have to happen to you, of all people, when you are so young? Too young to die, I mean.’
I pricked her finger to make sure she wasn’t just faking, but she didn’t even flinch. I pinched her, then slapped her face. Nothing worked.
How many times do I have to explain that she was dead? I looked down at her body, her face turning blue from death, and I wept some more.
She was so dead that I didn’t even realize that this section is in the book for two reasons. First, so that I could have Bastille die somewhere, just like I promised. (See, I wasn’t lying about this! Ha!)
The second reason is, of course, so that if anyone skips forward to the end to read the last page – one of the most putrid and unholy things any reader can do – they will be shocked and annoyed to read that Bastille is dead.
The rest of you can ignore these pages. (Did I mention that Bastille is dead?)
The end.
ALCATRAZ
VERSUS THE
KNIGHTS
OF CRYSTALLIA
For Jane, who does her best to keep me looking fashionable, and does it in such an endearing way that I can’t even convince myself to wear mismatched socks anymore (except on Thursdays)
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD
I am awesome.
No, really. I’m the most amazing person you’ve ever read about. Or that you ever will read about. There’s nobody like me out there. I’m Alcatraz Smedry, the unbelievably incredible.
If you’ve read the previous two volumes of my autobiography (and I hope that you have, for if you haven’t, I will make fun of you later on), you might be surprised to hear me being so positive. I worked hard in the other books to make you hate me. I told you quite bluntly in the first book that I was not a nice person, then proceeded to show you that I was a liar in the second.
I was wrong. I’m an amazing, stupendous person. I might be a little selfish at times, but I’m still rather incredible. I just wanted you to know that.
You might remember from the other two books (assuming you weren’t too distracted by how awesome I am) that this series is being published simultaneously in the Free Kingdoms and in the Hushlands. Those in the Free Kingdoms – Mokia, Nalhalla, and the like – can read it for what it really is, an autobiographical work that explains the truth behind my rise to fame. In the Hushlands – places like the United States, Mexico, and Australia – this will be published as a fantasy novel to disguise it from Librarian Agents.
Both lands need this book. Both lands need to understand that I am no hero. The best way to explain this, I have now decided, is to talk repeatedly about how awesome, incredible, and amazing I am.
You’ll understand eventually.
1
So there I was, hanging upside down underneath a gigantic glass bird, speeding along at a hundred miles an hour above the ocean, in no danger whatsoever.
That’s right. I wasn’t in any danger. I was more safe at that moment than I’d ever been in my entire life, despite a plummet of several hundred feet looming below me. (Or, well, above me, since I was upside down.)
I took a few cautious steps. The oversized boots on my feet had a special type of glass on the bottom, called Grappler’s Glass, which let them stick to other things made of glass. That kept me from falling off. (At which point up would quickly become down as I fell to my death. Gravity is such a punk.)
If you’d seen me, with the wind howling around me and the sea churning below you may not have agreed that I
was safe. But these things – like which direction is up – are relative. You see, I’d grown up as a foster child in the Hushlands: lands controlled by the evil Librarians. They’d carefully watched over me during my childhood, anticipating the day when I’d receive a very special bag of sand from my father.
I’d received the bag. They’d stolen the bag. I’d gotten the bag back. Now I was stuck to the bottom of a giant glass bird. Simple, really. If it doesn’t make sense to you, then might I recommend picking up the first two books of a series before you try to read the third one?
Unfortunately, I know that some of you Hushlanders have trouble counting to three. (The Librarian-controlled schools don’t want you to be able to manage complex mathematics.) So I’ve prepared this helpful guide.
Definition of ‘book one’: The best place to start a series. You can identify ‘book one’ by the fact that it has a little ‘1’ on the spine. Smedrys do a happy dance when you read book one first. Entropy shakes its angry fist at you for being clever enough to organize the world.
Definition of ‘book two’: The book you read after book one. If you start with book two, I will make fun of you. (Okay, so I’ll make fun of you either way. But honestly, do you want to give me more ammunition?)
Definition of ‘book three’: The worst place, currently, to start a series. If you start here, I will throw things at you.
Definition of ‘book four’: And . . . how’d you manage to start with that one? I haven’t even written it yet. (You sneaky time travelers.)
Anyway, if you haven’t read book two, you missed out on some very important events. Those include: a trip into the fabled Library of Alexandria, sludge that tastes faintly of bananas, ghostly Librarians that want to suck your soul, giant glass dragons, the tomb of Alcatraz the First, and – most important – a lengthy discussion about belly button lint. By not reading book two, you also just forced a large number of people to waste an entire minute reading that recap. I hope you’re satisfied.
I clomped along, making my way toward a solitary figure standing near the chest of the bird. Enormous glass wings beat on either side of me, and I passed thick glass bird legs that were curled up and tucked back. Wind howled and slammed against me. The bird – called the Hawkwind – wasn’t quite as majestic as our previous vehicle, a glass dragon called the Dragonaut. Still, it had a nice group of compartments inside where one could travel in luxury.
My grandfather, of course, couldn’t be bothered with something as normal as waiting inside a vehicle. No, he had to cling to the bottom and stare out over the ocean. I fought against the wind as I approached him – and then, suddenly, the wind vanished. I froze in shock, one of my boots locking into place on the bird’s glass underside.
Grandpa Smedry jumped, turning. ‘Rotating Rothfusses!’ he exclaimed. ‘You surprised me, lad!’
‘Sorry,’ I said, walking forward, my boots making a clinking sound each time I unlocked one, took a step, then locked back onto the glass. As always, my grandfather wore a sharp black tuxedo – he thought it made him blend in better in the Hushlands. He was bald except for a tuft of white hair that ran around the back of his head, and he sported an impressively bushy white mustache.
‘What happened to the wind?’ I asked.
‘Hum? Oh, that.’ My grandfather reached up, tapping the green-specked spectacles he wore. They were Oculatory Lenses, a type of magical glasses that – when activated by an Oculator like Grandpa Smedry or myself – could do some very interesting things. (Those things don’t, unfortunately, include forcing lazy readers to go and reread the first couple of books, thereby removing the need for me to explain all of this stuff over and over again.)
‘Windstormer’s Lenses?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t know you could use them like this.’ I’d had a pair of Windstormer’s Lenses, and I’d used them to shoot out jets of wind.
‘It takes quite a bit of practice, my boy,’ Grandpa Smedry said in his boisterous way. ‘I’m creating a bubble of wind that is shooting out from me in exactly the opposite direction of the wind that’s pushing against me, thereby negating it all.’
‘But . . . shouldn’t that blow me backward as well?’
‘What? No, of course not! What makes you think that it would?’
‘Uh . . . physics?’ I said. (Which you might agree is a rather strange thing to be mentioning while hanging upside down through the use of magical glass boots.)
Grandpa Smedry laughed. ‘Excellent joke, lad. Excellent.’ He clasped me on the shoulder. Free Kingdomers like my grandfather tend to be very amused by Librarian concepts like physics, which they find to be utter nonsense. I think that the Free Kingdomers don’t give the Librarians enough credit. Physics isn’t nonsense – it’s just incomplete.
Free Kingdomer magic and technology have their own kind of logic. Take the glass bird. It was driven by something called a silimatic engine, which used different types of sands and glass to propel it. Smedry Talents and Oculator powers were called ‘magic’ in the Free Kingdoms, since only special people could use them. Something that could be used by anyone – such as the silimatic engine or the boots on my feet – was called technology.
The longer I spent with people from the Free Kingdoms, the less I bought that distinction. ‘Grandfather,’ I said, ‘did I ever tell you that I managed to power a pair of Grappler’s Glass boots just by touching them?’
‘Hum?’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘What’s that?’
‘I gave a pair of these boots an extra boost of power,’ I said. ‘Just by touching them . . . as if I could act like some kind of battery or energy source.’
My grandfather was silent.
‘What if that’s what we do with the Lenses?’ I said, tapping the spectacles on my face. ‘What if being an Oculator isn’t as limited as we think it is? What if we can affect all kinds of glass?’
‘You sound like your father, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘He has a theory relating to exactly what you’re talking about.’
My father. I glanced upward. Then, eventually, I turned back to Grandpa Smedry. He wore his pair of Windstormer’s Lenses, keeping the wind at bay.
‘Windstormer’s Lenses,’ I said. ‘I . . . broke the other pair you gave me.’
‘Ha!’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘That’s not surprising at all, lad. Your Talent is quite powerful.’
My Talent – my Smedry Talent – was the magical ability to break things. Every Smedry has a Talent, even those who are only Smedrys by marriage. My grandfather’s Talent was the ability to arrive late to appointments.
The Talents were both blessings and curses. My grandfather’s Talent, for instance, was quite useful when he arrived late to things like bullets or tax day. But he’d also arrived too late to stop the Librarians from stealing my inheritance.
Grandpa Smedry fell uncharacteristically silent as he stared out over the ocean, which seemed to hang above us. West. Toward Nalhalla, my homeland, though I’d never once set foot upon its soil.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Hum? Wrong? Nothing’s wrong! Why, we rescued your father from the Curators of Alexandria themselves! You showed a very Smedry-like keenness of mind, I must say. Very well done! We’ve been victorious!’
‘Except for the fact that my mother now has a pair of Translator’s Lenses,’ I said.
‘Ah, yes. There is that.’
The Sands of Rashid, which had started this entire mess, had been forged into Lenses that could translate any language. My father had somehow collected the Sands of Rashid, then he’d split them and sent half to me, enough to forge a single pair of spectacles. He’d kept the other pair for himself. After the fiasco at the Library of Alexandria, my mother had managed to steal his pair. (I still had mine, fortunately.)
Her theft meant that, if she had access to an Oculator she could read the Forgotten Language and understand the secrets of the ancient Incarna people. She could read about their technological and magical marvels, discovering advanced weapons. This was a problem
. You see, my mother was a Librarian.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘But I intend to speak with the Council of Kings. They should have something to say on this, yes indeed.’ He perked up. ‘Anyway, there’s no use worrying about it at the moment! Surely you didn’t come all the way down here just because you wanted to hear doom and gloom from your favorite grandfather!’
I almost replied that he was my only grandfather. Then I thought for a moment about what having only one grandfather would imply. Ew.
‘Actually,’ I said, looking up toward the Hawkwind, ‘I wanted to ask you about my father.’
‘What about him, lad?’
‘Has he always been so . . .’
‘Distracted?’
I nodded.
Grandpa Smedry sighed. ‘Your father is a very driven man, Alatraz. You know that I disapprove of the way he left you to be raised in the Hushlands . . . but, well, he has accomplished some great things in his life. Scholars have been trying to crack the Forgotten Language for millennia! I was convinced that it couldn’t be done. Beyond that, I don’t think any Smedry has mastered their Talent as well as he has.’
Through the glass above, I could see shadows and shapes – our companions. My father was there, a man I’d spent my entire childhood wondering about. I’d expected him to be a little more . . . well, excited to see me.
Even if he had abandoned me in the first place.
Grandpa Smedry rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘Ah, don’t look so glum. Amazing Abrahams, lad! You’re about to visit Nalhalla for the first time! We’ll work this all out eventually. Sit back and rest for a bit. You’ve had a busy few months.’
‘How close are we anyway?’ I asked. We’d been flying for the better part of the morning. That was after we’d spent two weeks camped outside the Library of Alexandria, waiting for my uncle Kaz to make his way to Nalhalla and send a ship back to pick us up. (He and Grandpa Smedry had agreed that it would be faster for Kaz to go by himself. Like the rest of us, Kaz’s Talent – which is the ability to get lost in very spectacular ways – can be unpredictable.)
Alcatraz Page 39