Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (25 page)

"What is wrong with you Free Kingdomers?" she
demanded, ranting as if to nobody in particular. "I mean, I
left the Hushlands because I disagreed with the way the
Librarians were keeping information from the people.

"But why is it bad to organize?
W
hy do you have to treat
books like this?
W
hat's wrong with having a little order?
You Free Kingdomers claim to like things loose and free,
but if there are never any rules, there is chaos.
O
rganization
is
important
.”

I set down my stack of books, then rushed back.

"Who knows what treasures you could have lost here?"
she snapped, arms flying.
"Mold can destroy books.
Mice
can chew them to bits.
They need to be cared fo
r,
treasured
.
Somebody needs to keep track of what you have so that you
can appreciate your own collection!"

Folsom stepped up beside me, his brow dripping with
sweat.
He watched Himalaya with adoring eyes, smiling
broadly.

"Why did I have to give up who I was?" the Librarian
ranted.
“
Why can't I be me, but also be on your side?
I don't
want to stifle information, but I do want to organize it!
I
don't want to rule the world, but I do want to bring it order!
I don't want everything to be the same, but I
do
want to
understand!"

She stopped for a moment. "I am a good Librarian!" she
declared in a triumphant voice, grabbing a huge stack of
unorganized
books.
She shook them once, like one might a
pepper shaker, and somehow the books all aligned in order
by subject, size, and author.

"Wow," Folsom breathed.

"You really
do
love her," I said.

Folsom blushed, looking at me. "Is it that obvious?"

It hadn't been to me.
But I smiled anyway.
"These last six months have been amazing," he said,
getting that dreamy, disgust
ing tone to his voice that love
sick people often use.
"I started out just watching to see if
she was a spy, but after I determined that she was safe . . .
well, I wanted to keep spending time with her.
So I offered
to coach her on Nalhallan customs."

"Have you told her?" I asked, soldiers bustling around
me, carrying stacks of books.

"Oh, I couldn't do that," Folsom said. "I mean, look at
her.
She's amazing!
I'm just a regular guy."

“
A regular guy?" I asked. "Folsom, you're a Smedry.
You're nobility!"

"Yeah," he said, looking down.
"But I mean, that's just a
name. I'm a boring person, when you get down to it.
Who
thinks a critic is interesting?"

I resisted pointing out that Librarians weren't exactly
known for being the most exciting people either.

"Look
,”
I said.
"I don't know a lot about things like
this, but it seems to me that if you love her, you should
say so. I –“

At that moment, Prince Rikers walked up. "Hey, look!"
he said, proffering a book.
"They have one
of my novels in
here!
Preserved for all of posterity
.
The
music even still
works. See!"

He opened the cover.

And so, of course, Folsom punched me in the face.

Now,
I would like to make it clear that violence is
rarely the best solution to problems.

For instance, the next time you get attacked by a group
of angry ninjas, one solution would be to kick the lead
ninja, steal his katana, and proceed to slay the rest of the
group in an awesome display of authorial fury.
W
hile this
might be fulfilling
–
and
a little bit fun
–
it
would also be
rather messy, and would earn you the ire of an entire ninja
clan.
They'd send assassins after you for the rest of your life.
(Having to fight off a ninja in the middle of a date can be
quite embarrassing.)

So instead of fighting,
y
ou could bribe the ninjas with
soy sauce) and then send them to attack your siblings
instead.
That wa
y,
you can get rid of some unwanted soy
sauce.
See how easy it is to avoid violence?

Now, there
are
some occasions when violence is
appropriate.
Usually, those are occasions when you want to
beat the tar out of somebody.
Unfortunately, "somebody"
at this moment happened to be me.
Folsom's punch was
completely unexpected, and it hit me full in the face.

Right then, I realized something quite interesting: That
was the first time I'd ever been punched.
It was a special
moment for me.
I'd say it was a little like being kicked, only
with more knuckles and a hint of lemon.

Ma
yb
e
the lemon part was just my brain short-circuiting
as I was tossed backward onto the chamber's glass floor.
The blow left me dazed, and by the time I finally shook
myself out of it, the scene in front of me was one of total
chaos.

The soldiers were trying to subdue Folsom.
They didn't
want to hurt him, as he was a nobleman; they were forced
to try to grab him and hold him down.
It wasn't working
very well. Folsom fought with a strange mixture of terrified
lack of control and calculated precision.
He was like a pup
pet being controlled by
a
kung fu master.
Or maybe vice
versa.
A trite melody played in the background
–
my
theme music, apparently.

Folsom moved among the soldiers in a blur of awkward
(yet somehow well-placed) kicks, punches, and head-butts.
He'd a
l
ready knocked down a good ten soldiers, and the
other ten weren't doing much better.

"It's so exciting!" the prince said.
"I hope somebody is
taking notes!
Why didn't I bring any of my scribes?
I should
send for some!"
Rikers stoo
d a short distance from the cen
ter of the fight.

Please punch him
, I thought, standing up on shaky
knees.
J
ust a little bit
.

But it wasn't to be
–
Folsom
was focused on the sol
diers.
Himalaya was calling for the soldiers to try to get
their hands over Folsom's ears.
W
here was Bastille?
She
should have come running at the sounds of the fight.

"The
Al
catraz Smedry Theme" continued to play its
peppy little melody, coming from somewhere near the
prince.
"Prince Rikers!" I yelled.
"The book!
W
here is it?
W
e
have to close it!"

"Oh, what?"
He turned.
"Um, I think I dropped it when
the fight started."

He was standing near a pile of unsorted books.
I cursed,
scrambling toward the pile.
If we could stop the music,
Folsom would stop dancing.

At that moment the battle shifted in my direction.
Folsom
–
his
eyes wide with worry and displaying a
distinct lack of control
–
spun
through a group of soldiers,
throwing four of them into the air.

I stood facing him. I didn't
think
he'd do me any serious
harm.
I mean, Smedry T
a
lents are unpredictable, but they
rarely hurt people too badly.

Exce
pt . . . hadn't I used my own Ta
lent to break some
arms and cause monsters to topple to their deaths?

Crud
,
I thought.
Folsom raised his fist and prepared to
punch directly at my face.

And my Talent engaged.

One o
f the odd things about Smedry Ta
lents, mine in
particular, is how they sometimes act proactively.
Mine
breaks weapons at a distance if someone tries to kill me.

In this case, something dark and wild seemed to rip
from me.
I couldn't see it, but I could feel it snapping toward
Folsom.
His eyes opened wide, and he tripped, his graceful
martial-arts power failing him for a brief moment.
It was as
if he'd suddenly
lost
his T
a
lent.

He toppled to the ground before me.
At that moment, a
book in the pile beside me exploded, throwing up scraps of
paper and glass.
The music stopped.

Folsom groaned.
The trip left him kneeling right in
front of me, confettilike scraps of paper falling around us.

The beast within me quieted, pulling back inside, and all
fell still.

When I'd
been young, I'd thought of my Ta
lent as a
curse.
Now I'd begun thinkin
g of it as a kind of wild super-
power.
This was the first time, however, that I thought of it
as something foreign inside of me.

Something alive.

"That was incredible!" said one of the soldiers.
I looked
up and saw the soldiers regarding me with awe.
Himalaya
seemed stunned.
The prince stood with his arms folded,
smiling in contentment at finally getting to witness a
battle.

"I saw it," one of the soldiers whispered, "like a wave of
power, pulsing out of
y
ou, Lord Smedry.
It stopped even
another Ta
lent."

It felt
good
to be admired.
It made me feel like a leader.
Like a hero.
"See to your friends," I said, pointing to the
fallen soldiers.
"Give me a report on the wounded."
I reached
down, helping Folsom to his feet.

He looked down in shame, as Himalaya walked over to
comfort him.
“
Well, I give myself nine out of ten points for
being an idiot," he said.
"I can't believe I let that happen.
I
should be able to
control
it!"

"I know how hard it is
,”
I said.
"T
r
ust me.
It wasn't your
fault."

Prince Rikers walked over to join us, his blue robes
swishing.
"That was wonderful," he said.
"Though it's kind
of sad how the book turned out."

"I'm heartbroken," I said flatly, glancing about for
Bastille.
Where was she?