Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (13 page)

"Really?" Himalaya said.
"Your mother is a recovering
Librarian?"

"Not so much on the
'recovering' part," I said.
The car
riage bearing the look-alike stopped and let her off at a
restaurant.
I ordered our driver to wait so we could watch,
but I knew we wouldn't learn anything new.

"She and his father broke up soon after he was born,"
Folsom said.
"
S
hasta went back to the Librarians."

"Which order is she part
of?
"

I shook my head.
"I don't know.
She . . . doesn't quite fit
with the others.
She's something different."
My grandfather
had once said that her motivations were confusing, even to
other Librarians.

She had the Len
ses of Rashid; if she found an O
culator
to help he
r
she could read the Forgotten Language.
That
made her very, very dangerous.
W
hy had she been at
that party?
Had she spoken with
m
y father?
Had she been
trying to do something to the prince?

"Let's get back to the castle," I said.
Perhaps Grandpa
Smedry would be able to help.

C
h
apte
r
b
r
eaks are very useful.
They let you
skip a lot of boring parts of stories.
For instance, after
tailing
–
then
losing
–
my
mother, we had a pleasant
drive back to Keep Smedry.
The most exciting thing that
happened was when we stopped so that Folsom could use
the restroom.

Characters in books, you may have noticed, rarely have
to go potty.
There are several reasons for this.
Many
books
–
unlike
this one
–
simply
aren't real, and every
one knows fictional characters can "hold it" as long as they
need to.
They just wait until the end of the book before
using the restroom.

In books like this one, which
are
r
e
al, w
e
have more
problems.
After all, we're not fictional characters, so we
have to wait until chap
ter breaks, when nobody is look
ing.
It can get hard for longer chapters, but we're quite
self-sacrificing.
(I really feel sorry for the people in Terry
Pratchett's novels, though.)

Our carriage pulled up to the dark, stone Keep Smedry,
and I was surprised to see a small crowd gathered in front.

"Not this again," Himalaya said with a sigh as some of
the people began to wave pieces of glass in my direction,
taking images of me in the strange Free Kingdoms way.

"Sorry," Folsom said with a grimace.
"We can send them
away, if you want."

"Why would we do that?
" I asked. After the disappoint
ment of losing Shasta, it felt good to see people eager to
praise me again.

Folsom and Himalaya exchanged a look.
"We'
ll
be inside,
then," Folsom said, helping Himalaya down.
I jumped
out, then went to meet with my adoring fans.

The first ones to rush up to me carried pads of paper
and quills. They all talked over one another, so I tried to
quiet them down by raising my hands.
That didn't work;
they all just kept talking, trying to get my attention.

So I broke the sound barrier.

I'd never done it before, but my Talent can do some
really wacky things.
I was standing there, frustrated, hands
in the air, wishing I could get them to be quiet.
Then my
Ta
lent engaged, and there were twin CRACK sounds in the
air, like a pair of whips snapping.

The people fell silent.
I started, surprised by the tiny
sonic booms I'd made.

"Er, yes," I said.
"What do you want?
And before you
start arguing, let's start with you on the end."

"Interview," the man said.
He wore a hat like Robin
Hood.
"I represent the Eastern Criers Guild.
We want to do
a piece on you."

"Oh," I said.
That sounded cool.
"Yeah, we can do that.
But not right now.
Ma
yb
e
later tonight?"

"Before or after the vote?" the man asked.

Vote
?
I thought.
Oh, right.
The vote about the treaty with
the Librarians
.
"Uh, after the vote."

The others began to talk
, so I raised my hands threaten
ingly and quieted them down.
All were reporters, wanting
interviews.
I made appointments with each one, and they
went on their way.

The next group of people approached.
These didn't
appear to be reporters of any sort, which was good.
Reporters, it might be noted, are a lot like little brothers.
They're talkative, annoying, and they tend to come in
groups.
Plus, if you yell at th
em, they get even in very unset
tling ways.

"Lord Smedry," a stout man said.
"I was wonder
i
n
g . . . My daughter is getting married this upcoming
weekend.
Would you perform the ceremony?"

"
U
h, sure," I said.
I'd been warned about this, but it was
still something of a surprise.

He beamed, then told me where the wedding was.
The
next woman in line wanted me to represent her son in a
trial and speak on his behalf.
I wasn't sure what to do about
that one) so I said I'd get back to her.
The next man wanted
me to seek
out
–
then
punish
–
a
miscreant who had sto
len some galfalgos from his garden.
I made a mental note to
ask someone what the heck galfalgos were, and told him I'd
look into it.

There were some two dozen people with questions or
requests like those.
The more that was asked of me, the
more uncomfortable I grew.
What did I really know about
any of this stuff
?
I finally
cleared through that group, mak
ing vague promises to most of them.

There was one more group of people waiting for me.
They were well-dressed younger men and women, in their
late teens or early twenties.
I recognized them from the
party.

"Rodrayo?" I asked, to the guy at their lead.

"Hey
,
" he said.

“
And . . . what is it you want of me?" I asked.

A couple of them shrugged.

"
Ju
st thought being around you would be fun," Rodrayo
said.
"Mind if we party with you a little bit?"

“
Oh," I said.
"Well, sure, I guess."

I led the group through some hallways in Keep Smedry,
getting lost, and trying to act like I knew where everything
was.
The hallways of Keep Smedry were appropriately
medieval, though the castle was far more warm and homey
than one might have expected.
There were hundreds of
rooms
–
the
building was of mansion-sized proportions
–
and
I really didn't know where I was going.

Eventually, I found some servants and had them take us
to a denlike room, which had couches and a hearth.
I wasn't
certain what "partying with me" meant to Rodrayo and the
others.
Fortunately, they
took the lead, sending the ser
vants to get some food, then lounging around on the
couches and chairs, chatting.
I wasn't sure why they needed
me there, or even who most of them were, but they'd read
my books and thought my adventures
were very impres
sive.
That made them model citizens in my opinion.

I had just finished telling them about my fight with the
paper monsters when I realized that I'd never checked in
with Grandpa Smedry.
It had been about five hours since
we'd split up, and I was tempted to just let it slide until he
came looking for me.
But we needed more hooberstackers,
and the servants had vanished, so I decided to leave my new
friends and go looking for
the servants to ask for a resup
ply.
Maybe they'd know where my grandfather was.

However, finding servants proved more difficult than
I'd assumed.
I felt unchara
cteristically fatigued as I wan
dered the hallways, even though I hadn't really done that
much during the last couple of hours.
J
ust sit around and
be adored.

Eventually, I spotted
a crack of light down one brick
walled corridor.
It turned out to be coming from a half-open
door, so I peeked inside.
There, I found my father sitting at
a desk, scribbling on a piece of parchment.
An ancient-looking lamp gave off a flickering light, only faintly
illuminating the room.
I could see rich-looking furniture
and sparkling bits of glass
–
Lenses
and other Oculatory
wonders, which seemed to have a glow about them because
of my
O
culator's Lenses.
O
n his desk was a half-empty
wineglass, and he still wore the antiquated suit he'd had on
at the party,
though he'd undone the ruffled tie.
His shoulder-length hair was wavy and disheveled.
He looked a lot like a
Hushlands rock star after an evening performance.

As a child, I'd often dreamed about what my father
would be like.
The only facts I'd had to go on were that he'd
named me after a prison and that he'd abandoned me.
O
ne
would think that I would have imagined a terrible person.
And yet, I'd secretly wished for there to be more.
A good
reason why he'd given me up.
Something impressive and
mysterious.
I had wondered if, perhaps, he'd been involved
in some dangerous line of work, and had sent me away to
protect me.

Grandpa Smedry's arrival, and the discovery that
my father was both alive and working to save the Free
Kingdoms, fulfilled a lot of these secret wishes.
Finally, I
gained a picture of who my father might be.
A dashing,
heroic figure who hadn't wanted to get rid of me, but had
been betrayed by his wife, then forced to give me up for the
greater good.

That father in my dreams would have been excited to
reunite with his son.
I'd been hoping for enthusiasm, not
indifference.
I'd imagined someone a little more like Indiana
J
ones, and a little less like Mick
J
agger.

"Mother was there," I said, stepping into the doorway
more fully.

My father didn't look up from his document.
"Where?"
he asked, not even jumping or looking surprised at the
intrusion.

"At the party this afternoon.
Did you see her?"

"Can't say that I did
,”
my father said.

"I was surprised to see you there."