Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (29 page)

"Where's
Folsom –“
I began, but the critic soon
appeared, carrying Rikers's novel in his hand, prepared to
open the cover and start dancing at a moment
’
s notice.
He
puffed, coming through the door as Bastille knocked aside
another thug who was clever enough to make for the
l
ight.
O
nly a few seconds had passed, but I began to worry.
W
here
were Sing and Himalaya?

"I give this escape a three and a half out of seven and
six-eighths, Alcatraz
,”
Folsom said nervously.
"Clever in
concept, but rather nerve-wracking in execution."

"Noted," I said tensely, glancing about.
Where were those
soldiers of ours?
They were
supposed to be out in the stair
well here, but it was empty.
In fact, something seemed odd
about the stairwell.

"G
uys?" Rikers said. "I think –“

"There!" Bastille said, pointing as Sing and Himalaya
appeared from the shadows of the room.
The two rushed
through the door, and I sl
ammed it closed, using my break
ing power to j
am
the lock.
"What was that crash?" I asked.

"I tripped into a couple rows of books," Sing said,
"throwing them down on the Librarians to keep them
distracted."

"Smart," I said. "Let's get out of here."

We began to rush up the stairwell, the wooden
steps creaking beneath our feet.
"That was risky, Smedry,"
Bastille said.

"You expected less of me?"

"Of course not," she snapped.
"But why hand the book
over to the Librarian?"

"I got it back," I said, holding it up.
"Plus, now we know
for sure that
this
is the volume they wanted."

Bastille cocked her head.
"Huh.
You
are
clever some
times."

I smiled.
U
nfortunately, the truth is,
none
of us was
being very clever at that moment. None of us but Rikers, of
course
–
and
we'd chosen to ignore him.
That's usually a
safe move.

Except, of course, when you're rushing up the wrong
stairwell.
It finally dawned on me, and
I
froze in place
, caus
ing the others to stumble to a halt.

"What is it,
Al
catraz?" Sing asked.

"The stairs," I said. "They're wooden."

“
So?"

"They were stone before."

"That's what I've been trying to say!"
P
rince Rikers
exclaimed.
"I wonder how th
ey turned the steps to a differ
ent material."

I suddenly felt a sense of horror.
The door was just above
us.
I walked up nervously and pushed on it.

It opened into a medi
eval-looking castle chamber com
pletely different from the one that had held our soldiers.

This room had red carpeting, library stacks in the distance,
and was filled with a good
two hundred
Librarian soldiers.

"
S
hattering Glass!" Bastille cursed, slamming the door
in front of me.
"What's going on?"

I ignored her for the moment, rushing back down the
steps.
The Librarians locked inside the archives room were
pounding on the door, trying to break it down.
Now that I
paused to consider, the landing right in front of the door
looked very different from the way it had before.
It was far
larger, and it had a door at the left side.

As the others piled down the steps after me, I threw
open the door to my left.
I stepped into an enormous cham
ber filled with wires, panes of glass, and scientists in
white lab coats. There were large containers on the sides of
the room.
Containers that I'm sure were filled with
brightsand.

"What in the
Sands
is going on?" Folsom demanded,
peeking in behind me.

I stood, stunned.
"We'
re not in the same building any
more, Folsom."

"What?"

"They swapped us!
The archive filled with books
–
the
entire g
l
ass room
–
they
swapped it for another room using
Transporter's Glass!
They weren't digging a tunnel to get in,
they were digging to the corners so they could affix glass
there and teleport the room away!"

It was brilliant.
The glass was unbreakable, the stairwell
guarded.
But what if you could take the whole room away
and replace it with another one?
Y
ou could search out the
book you needed, then swap the rooms back, and nobody
would be the wiser.

The door behind us broke open, and I turned to see
a group of muscular Librarians force their way into the
stairwell.
I could just barely make out Bastille tensing for
combat, and Folsom moved to open the novel with the
music.

"No," I said to them.
"
W
e're beaten.
Don't waste your
energy fighting."

Part of me found it strange that they listened to
me.
Even Bastille obeyed my command.
I would have
expected the prince to preempt me and take charge, but
he seemed perfectly content to stand and watch.
He even
seemed excited.

"
W
onderful!" he whispered to me.
"
W
e've been
captured!"

Great
, I thought as my mother pushed her way out
through the broken door.
She saw me and smiled
– a
rare
expression for her.
It was the smile of a cat who'd just found
a mouse to play with.

"Alcatraz
,”
she said.

"Mother
,”
I replied coldly.

She raised an eyebrow. "Tie them up," she said to her
thugs.
“
And fetch that book for
m
e."

The thugs pulled out swords and herded us into the
room with the scientists.

"Why'd you stop me?" Bastille hissed.

"Because it wouldn't have done any good," I whispered
back.
"We don't even know where we are
–
we
could
be back in the Hushlands, for all we know.
We have to get
back to the Royal Archives."

I waited for it, but nobody said the inevitable "not a
library."
I r
ealize
d that nobody else could hear us
–
which,
indeed, is kind of the point of whispering in the first place.
(That, and sounding more mysterious.)

"How do we get back, then?" Bastille asked.

I glanced at the equi
pment around us. We had to acti
vate the silimatic machines and swap the rooms again.
But how?

Before I could ask Bastille about this, the thugs pulled
us all apart and bound us with ropes.
This wasn't too big a
deal
–
my
T
a
lent could snap ropes in a heartbeat, and if
the thugs assumed that we were tied up, then maybe they'd
get lax and give us a better chance for escaping.

The Librarians began to rifle through our pockets,
depositing our possessions
–
including
all of my Lenses
–
on
a low table.
Then they forced us to the ground, which
was sterile and white.
The room itself bustled with activity
as Librarians and scientists checked monitors, wires, and
panes of glass.

My mother flipped
through the book on Smedry his
tory, though
–
of
course
–
she
couldn't read it.
Her lackey,
Fitzroy, was more interested in my Lenses.
"The other pair
of Translator's Lenses," he said, picking them up.
"These
will be very nice to have."

He slid them into his pocket, continuing on to the others.
"
O
culator's Lenses," he said, "boring."
He set those aside.
“
A
single, untinted Lens
,”
he said,
looking over the T
r
uthfinder's
Lens.
"It's probably worthless."
He handed the Lens to a sci
entist, who snapped it into a spectacle frame.

"Ah!
”
Fitzroy continued.
“Are
those Disguiser's Lenses?
Now
these
are valuable!"

The scientist returned the spectacles with the single
Truthfinder's Lens in them, but Fitzroy set this aside, picking
up the violet Disguiser's Lenses and putting them on.
He
immediately shifted shapes, melding to look like a much
more muscular and handsome version of himself.
"Hum,
very nice," he said, inspecting his arms.

Why didn't I think of that
? I thought.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Shasta said, pulling something
out of her purse.
She tossed a few glass rings to her Librarian
thugs.
"Put those on that one, that one, and that one."
She
pointed at me, Folsom, and Sing.
The three Smedrys.
That seemed ominous.
Perhaps it
was time to try an escape.
But . . . we were surrounded and
we still didn't know how to use the machines to get us back.

Before I could make up my mind, one of the thugs snapped
a ring on my arm and locked it.

I didn't feel any different.

"What you aren't feeling,"
my mother said offhandedly,
"is the loss of your T
a
lent. That's Inhibitor's Glass."

"Inhibitor's Glass is a myth!" Sing said, aghast.

"Not according to the Incarna people,"
m
y mother said,
smiling.
"You'd be amazed what we're learning from these
Forgotten Language books."
She snapped the book in her
hands closed.
I could see a smug satisfaction in her smile as
she pulled open a drawer beneath the table and dropped
the book in it.
She closed the drawer, then
–
oddly
–
she
picked up one of the rings of Inhibitor's Glass and snapped
it onto her own arm.

"Handy things, these rings," she said.
"
S
medry Talents
are far more useful when you can determine exactly when
they are to activate."
My mother had my father
’
s same
T
a
lent
–
losing
things
–
which
she'd gained by marriage.