Think . . . enough . . . help . . . Grandpa said, his voice cutting in and out. They know . . . king still . . . save His Majesty . . . ‘I can’t understand you!’ I said. Another robot raised a rod into the air, preparing to place it.
I raised my hands to the side of the glasses, focusing everything I had into the Lenses. I strained, teeth gritted. Shockingly, the glass started to glow, forcing me to close my eyes as they blazed alight. My grandfather’s voice, once weak, surged back, audible again.
. . . Luring Lovecrafts, what a mess! I said I’ve nearly got them persuaded. I’ll bring them, lad, and anyone else I can get to come. We’ll be there. Hold out until morning! Can you hear me, Alcatraz? Morning’s first light. Er. Well, no, I’ll be late. And that’s been done before. But morning’s second light, for certain. By third light at the latest, I promise!
The robot planted the rod. My grandfather’s voice fuzzed again, and I tried another surge of power, but I’d pushed it too far. My Talent slipped through, mixing with my Oculatory power. I had trouble keeping the two separate; they were like two brightly different colors of paint, mixing and churning inside of me. Use one, and some of the other always wanted to come along.
The Talent surged through my hands before I realized what I was doing, and the frames of the Lenses shattered, dropping the bits of glass off my eyes. I caught them clumsily. Unfortunately, after feeling that resistance, I knew that they wouldn’t work again – not as long as those Librarian rods were interfering. I reluctantly slipped the Lenses back in my pocket.
‘What did he say?’ Aydee asked, anxious.
‘He’s coming,’ I replied. ‘With the Knights of Crystallia.’
‘When?’ Bastille asked.
‘Well . . . he wasn’t really that specific . . .’ I grimaced. ‘He said dawn. Probably.’
‘Probably?’ Mallo said. ‘Young Smedry, I’m not certain I can stake the lives of my people on a “probably.”’
‘My grandfather is reliable,’ I said. ‘He’s never let me down.’
‘Except when he arrived too late to get the Sands of Rashid before the Librarians,’ Bastille added. ‘Or . . . well, when he arrived too late to stop your mother from stealing the Translator’s Lenses from the Library of Alexandria. Or when he was too late to—’
‘Thanks, Bastille,’ I said flatly. ‘Real helpful.’
‘I think we’re all aware of my father’s Talent,’ Kaz said, stepping up beside me. ‘But I know Leavenworth Smedry better than anyone else, now that Mom’s dead. If my pop says he’ll be here with help, you can count on him. He might be a tad late, but he’ll make up for it with style.’
‘Style will not protect my people from Librarian weapons,’ Mallo said, shaking his head. ‘Your help is appreciated, but your promises are flimsy.’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Your Majesty, you’ve got to give us a chance. At least give it until morning. What do you have to lose by sleeping on it?’
‘There will be no sleeping,’ Mallo said nodding. ‘Look.’
I followed the gesture. Outside the walls, the large robots had finished planting the rods into the ground. Now they were walking over to a large pile of boulders that sat just outside of the camp.
‘Our period of rest has ended,’ Mallo said grimly. ‘They demanded our surrender, and since I’ve sent back no word, it seems they are going to resume their assaults. I had assumed they would wait until it was light to do so, but you know what they say about assumptions.’
‘If you’re going to make a donkey joke,’ I noted, ‘I did that already.’
Mallo frowned at me. ‘No, I was going to quote an ancient Mokian proverb, revered and honored by our people over six centuries of use.’
‘Oh,’ I said, embarrassed. ‘Um, sorry. How does it go?’
‘“Don’t make assumptions, idiot,”’ Mallo quoted with a reverent voice. ‘Nice proverb.’
‘Mokian philosophers like to get to the point,’ Mallo said.
‘Either way, if we are going to surrender, we need to do it now. Those terrible machines of theirs will be throwing rocks soon, and the Defender’s Glass will not last much longer against the assault.’
‘If you give up,’ Bastille said, ‘that is the end of Mokia.’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Give us more time. Wait just a little longer!’
‘Husband,’ Angola said, laying a hand on his arm, ‘most of our people would rather die than be taken by the Librarians.’
‘Yes,’ Mallo said, ‘but sometimes you need to protect people even when they do not wish it. Our warriors think only of honor. But I must consider the future, and what is best for all of our people.’
King Mallo’s face adopted a thoughtful expression. He folded a pair of beefy arms, one of his soldiers holding his spear for him. He stared out over the top of the wooden wall, looking at the Librarian forces.
Now, perhaps some of you reading might be thinking of Mallo as a coward for even considering surrender. That’s great. Next time you’re in charge of the lives of thousands of people, you can make decisions quickly if you want. But Mallo wanted to think.
It all comes back to change. Nothing stays the same, not even kingdoms. Sometimes you have to accept that.
Sometimes, though, things change too quickly for you to even think about it. What happened next is still a blur in my mind. We were standing on the wall, waiting for Mallo to make his decision. And then Librarians were there.
Apparently, they came up through a tunnel they dug that opened just inside the wall. I didn’t see that. I just saw a group of bow-tied figures, charging at us along the wall, wielding guns that shot balls of light.
Kaz vanished, his Talent making him get lost.
In the blink of an eye, three Mokian soldiers were standing in front of Aydee where there had been only two, her Talent instantly bringing a man from across the wall forward to defend her.
My Talent broke a few guns, though several of the Librarians had bows, and they fired those. Bastille, moving in a blur, had her sword out in a heartbeat and was cutting arrows from the air.
Seriously. She cut them out of the air. Never play baseball against a Crystin.
The Mokian soldiers began to fight, leveling their spears, which also shot out glowing bursts of light.
It was all over in a few seconds. I was the only one who didn’t move. I had no training with real combat or war – I was just a stoopid kid who had gotten himself in over his head. By the time I thought to yelp in fear and duck, the skirmish was over, the assassins defeated.
Smoke rose in the air. Men fell still.
I glanced down, checking to make certain all of my important limbs were still attached. ‘Wow,’ I said.
Bastille stood in front of me, sword out, eyes narrow. She’d probably just saved my life. ‘You see, Your Majesty,’ I said.
‘You can’t trust the Librarians! If you give up, they will just . . .’
I trailed off, only then noticing something. Mallo wasn’t standing beside me, where he had been before. I searched around desperately, and found the king lying on the wall, his body covering that of his wife, whom he’d jumped to protect. Neither of them was moving.
Warriors called out in shock, moving their king and queen. Others called for help. In a daze, I turned, seeing the bodies of the Librarian assassins.
This was actually war. People were actually dying. Suddenly all of this didn’t seem very funny any longer. Unfortunately, fate had a pretty good joke waiting for me in the very near future.
‘They’re alive,’ Bastille said, kneeling with the soldiers beside the king and queen. ‘They’re still breathing. They don’t look to have been hurt, even.’
‘The Librarian weapons,’ one of the Mokians said, ‘will often knock people unconscious. They’re trying to conquer Mokia but don’t want to exterminate us. They want to rule over us. So they use guns that put us into comas.’
Another of the men nodded. ‘We know of no cure – our stunner blasts work diff
erently and have their own antidote. Those wounded can only be awakened by the Librarians, once the war is over. They’ll wake us up in small, controllable batches, and brainwash us to forget our freedom.’
‘I’ve heard of this,’ Kaz said, kneeling down beside the king. When had Kaz come back? ‘They did it when conquering other kingdoms too. Brutally effective tactic – if they knock us into comas, we still have to feed and care for those wounded, which drains our resources. Makes it easier to crack us. Far more effective than just killing.’
One of the soldiers nodded. ‘We have thousands of wounded who are sleeping like this. Of course, many of the Librarians lie comatose from our stun-spears as well. The antidote for one does not work on victims of the other.’
We stood back as a Mokian doctor approached. Surprisingly, he was dressed in a white lab coat and spectacles. He carried a large piece of glass, which he held up, using it to inspect the king and queen. ‘No internal wounds. Just Librarian Sleep.’
‘I would have expected a witch doctor,’ I said quietly to Kaz.
‘Why?’ Kaz said. ‘The king’s not a witch, and neither’s the queen.’
‘Take them to their chambers,’ the doctor said, standing. ‘And place double guards on them! If the Librarians know they’re down, they’ll want to kidnap them.’
Several soldiers nodded. Others, however, stood up, looking around with confusion. Outside, the Librarian robots began to hurl their boulders. One smashed against the glass covering, making the entire city seem to shake.
‘Who is in charge now?’ I asked, looking around.
‘The captain of the watch fell earlier today,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘And the last remaining field general before him.’
‘The princess rules,’ another said. ‘But she’s outside the city.’
‘The Council of Kings will need to ratify a succession,’ another said. ‘There’s no official king until then. Acting king would be the highest person of peerage in the city.’
The group fell silent.
‘Which means?’ I asked.
‘By the Spire itself,’ Bastille whispered, eyes opening wide. ‘It can’t be. No . . .’
All eyes turned toward me.
‘Wait,’ I said, nervous. ‘What?’
‘The Smedry Clan is peerage,’ Bastille said, ‘accepted as lords and ladies in all nations belonging to the Council of Kings. Your family gained that right when they abdicated; all recognized that the Smedry Talents could have led you to conquer the Free Kingdoms. But because of that, a direct heir to the Smedry line ranks equal with a duke in most kingdoms. Including Nalhalla and Mokia.’
‘And a duke is . . .?’ I asked.
‘Just under a prince,’ Aydee said.
The warriors all fell to one knee before me. ‘What are your wishes, Your Majesty?’ one of them said.
‘Aw, pelicans,’ Kaz swore.
24601
Many of you in the Free Kingdoms have heard about the day I was crowned king of Mokia. It’s become quite the legend. And legends have a habit of being exaggerated.
In a way, a legend is like an organism – a virus or a bacteria. It begins as a fledgling story, incubating in just a couple of people. It grows as it is passed to others, and they give it strength. Mutating it. Enlarging it. It grows grander and grander, infecting more and more of the population, until it becomes an epidemic.
The only cure for a legend is pure, antiseptic truth. That’s partially why I began writing these books. How did I end up leading Mokia? Well, I was never really king – just ‘acting monarch’ as they put it. I was the highest-ranked person in the town, but only because most everyone else had either fallen or been sent away.
So no, I didn’t heroically take up the king’s sword in the middle of battle, as the legend says. My ascent to the throne was not announced by angelic voices. Very little heroism was involved.
But there was a whole lot of confusion.
‘What?’ I demanded. ‘I can’t be king! I’m only thirteen years old!’
‘You’re not our king, my lord,’ one of the Mokians said. ‘Just our acting monarch.’
Another rock boomed against the city’s dome. Spiderweb cracks formed up the side of the glass.
‘Well, what do I do?’ I asked, glancing at Kaz, Aydee, and Bastille for support.
‘Someone has to make the decision for us, my lord,’ said one of the Mokian soldiers. ‘The king was about to surrender. Do we go through with it, or do we fight?’
‘You’re going to make me decide?’
They just kept kneeling around me, waiting.
I looked over my shoulder, toward the Librarian camp. The sky was black, but the area around the city was lit as if by floodlights. I could see several places where the Librarians were digging tunnels, using some kind of strange, rodlike devices that appeared to vibrate the dirt and make it move away. The robots kept throwing rocks against the dome.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Just moments before, I’d been incredulous that the king would even consider surrender. But now the same question fell on me, and it terrified me. I had just seen people die. Librarian soldiers who had come to kill – or at least incapacitate – the king. Could I send the Mokian warriors to perhaps suffer the same fate?
Talk of bravery and freedom was one thing. But it felt different to actually be the one who made the decision. If I gave the order, the men and women who got hurt, killed, or knocked out would be my responsibility. That was a lot to heap on the shoulders of a thirteen-year-old kid who hadn’t even known about Mokia six months ago. And people wonder why I’m so screwed up.
‘We fight,’ I said quietly.
This seemed to be the answer the soldiers were waiting for. They yelped in excitement, raising their spears – which, as I’d just learned, doubled as flamethrowers and could also shoot a stunning blast like the Librarian guns.
‘You,’ I said, picking the Mokian who’d been doing the talking. He was a lanky fellow with a lot of war paint and his black hair in a buzz cut. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Aluki,’ he said proudly. ‘Sergeant of the wall guard.’
‘Well, you’re now acting as my second in command.’ I glanced at the sky, cringing as another rock hit the dome. Above, the moon shone full and bright. The same moon that shone on the Hushlands. ‘What time is it? How long until dawn?’
‘It’s not even eleven yet,’ Kaz said, checking his pocket watch. ‘Seven hours, maybe?’
‘Spread the word,’ I said to the soldiers on the wall around me. ‘We have to survive for only seven hours. Help will come after that.’
They nodded, running off to pass the word. Aluki stayed with me. I turned to the side; Bastille was regarding me with folded arms. I cringed, waiting for her to scour me with condemnations for being so arrogant as to let the Mokians make me king.
‘We’ll need to do something about those tunnels,’ she said. ‘We won’t hold out for long if teams keep slipping into the city like that.’
‘Huh?’ I asked.
‘Don’t forget the robots,’ Kaz said as a rock hit above. ‘Woodpeckers! That glass is close to cracking. If the dome falls, the tunnels will be our last concern.’
‘True,’ Bastille said. ‘Maybe we could do something about the fallen troops, the ones in comas. If we could get them to wake up somehow . . .’
‘Wait!’ I said, looking back and forth between the two. ‘Aren’t you going to state the obvious?’
‘What?’ Bastille said. ‘That the Shattered Lens has far better technology than we thought?’ She narrowed her eyes in a very Bastille-like way, glancing at the enormous machines that were tossing rocks toward the city. She seemed to have a particular dislike for them, along the lines of her hatred of walls. (Read book one.)
‘No,’ I said, exasperated. ‘That I have no business being king! I can barely lead myself to the bathroom in the morning, let alone command an entire army.’
‘Too late to change that now, Al,’ Kaz sa
id with a shrug.
‘I think you’ll do a great job,’ Aydee added. ‘Being king isn’t that tough, from what I hear. Use a lot of phrases like “you please the crown” or “we are not amused” and occasionally make up a holiday.’
‘Yeah,’ I said flatly. ‘Sounds as easy as one plus one.’
‘Seven?’ Aydee asked, cocking her head.
I looked at Bastille. She still had her arms folded. ‘Kaz, Aydee,’ she said, ‘why don’t you go get a count and see how many troops we have? Also, Alcatraz will need to know what kind of shape the command structure is in.’
The two Smedrys nodded, hurrying off to do as requested.
‘Wait!’ Bastille said, turning with a sudden shock. ‘Kaz, you do the counting, Aydee, you stay away from anything of the sort.’
‘Good call,’ Kaz said.
‘Right!’ Aydee called. ‘I’ll give moral support.’
And they left. That, unfortunately, left me alone on the wall with Bastille. I gulped, backing away as she walked toward me. My back eventually hit the wall behind; if I backed up any farther, I’d topple over and fall to my death on the ground outside the city.
I considered it anyway.
Bastille reached me, placing a finger against my chest. ‘You,’ she said, ‘are not going to fail these people.’
‘But—’
‘I’m tired of you wavering back and forth Alcatraz,’ she said. ‘Shattering Glass! Half the time, you act like you’re panicked by the idea of being in charge, then the other half the time you just take control!’
‘I . . . er . . . . well . . .’
‘And the other half the time you babble incoherently!’
‘I like babbling!’ I exclaimed. (I’m not sure why.) ‘Besides, that sounds like some Aydee math. Three halves?’
She eyed me.
‘Yes, you’re right about me,’ I said. ‘Sometimes, this all feels like a game. It twists my head in knots to think of the things I’ve been through, the things that have become part of my life. I get carried away with it all, with what everyone expects of me just because of my name.
‘But I’ve already decided I want to lead. I decided it months ago. I want to be a hero; I want to be a leader. But that doesn’t mean I want to be a king! When I actually stop to think about it, I realize how insane it is.’
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