Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (31 page)

The book was the volume of
Alcatraz
Smedry and the
Mechanic's Wrench
that Folsom had been
carrying earlier
and it fell open to the front page.
My theme music began to
play, and I tensed, hoping for Folsom to attack.

But, of course, he didn't.
He wore the Inhibitor
’
s Glass
on his arm.
The little melody continued to sound; it was
supposed to be brave and triumphant, but now it seemed a
cruel parody.

My theme music played while I failed.

"What are you doing to her?"
Folsom repeated, strug
gling uselessly as a Librarian stood with his boot on
Folsom's back.

The young Oculator Fitzroy approached; he still wore
my Disguiser's Lenses, which gave him an illusionary body
that made him look handsome and strong.
"We've had a
request," he said. "From She Who Cannot Be Named."

"You're in contact with
her
?" Sing demanded.

"Of course we are," Fitzroy said. "We Librarian sects get
along far better than you all would like to think.
Now, Ms.
Snorgan
.
.
. Sorgavag
.
.
. She
W
ho Cannot Be Named was
not
pleased to discover that Shasta's team had planned to
steal the Royal Archives
–
definitely
a library
–
on
the
very day of the treaty ratification.
However, when she heard
about a very special captive we'd obtained, she was a little
more forgiving."

"You shall never get away with this, foul monster!"
Pr
ince Rikers suddenly exclaimed.
"You may hurt me, but
you shall never wound me!"

We all stared at him.

"How was that?" he asked me. "I
think it was a good
line.
M
aybe
I should do it over.
You know, get more bari
tone into it.
W
hen the villain talks about me, I should
respond, right?"

"
I
wasn't talking about you," Fitzroy said, shaking
Himalaya.
"I'm talking about
S
he
W
ho
C
annot Be Named
’
s
former assistant.
I think it'
s time to show you all what happens
when someone betrays the Librarians."

I had sudden flashbacks to being tortured by Blackburn.
The Dark
O
culators seemed to delight in pain and
suffering.

It didn't seem that Fitzroy was even going to bother
with the torture part.
The thugs held Himalaya back, and
Fitzroy produced a knife.
He held it to her neck.
S
ing began
to cry out, requiring several guards to hold him down.
Folsom was bellowing in rage.
Librarian scientists just con
tinued monitoring their equipment in the background.

This is what it came down to.
Me, too weak to help.
I
was nothing without my Ta
lent or my Lenses.

"
Al
catraz
,”
Bastille whispered.
S
omehow I heard her
over all the other noise.
"I believe in you.”

It was virtually the same thing others had been telling
me since I'd arrived in Nalhalla.
But those things had all
been lies.
They hadn't known me.

But Bastille did.
And she believed in me.

From her, that
meant
something.

I turned with desperation, looking at Himalaya, who
was held captive, weeping.
Fitzroy seemed to be enjoying
the pain he was causing the rest of us by holding that
knife to her throat.
I knew, at that moment, that he really
intended to kill her.
He would murder her in front of the
man who loved her.

Who
loved
her.

My Lenses were gone.
My T
a
lent was gone.
I only had
one thing left.

I
was a
Smedry
.

"Folsom!" I screamed.
"Do you love her?"

"What?" he asked.

"Do you love Himalaya?"

"Of course I do!
Please, don't let him kill her!"

"Himalaya
,”
I demanded, "do you love him?"

She nodded as the knife began to cut.
It was enough.

"Then I pronounce you married
,”
I said.

Everyone froze for a moment. A short distance away, my
mother turned and looked at us, suddenly alarmed.
Fitzroy
raised an eyebrow, his knife slightly bloodied.
My theme
music played faintly from the little book on the floor.

"Well, that's touching
,”
Fitzroy said.
"Now you can die
as a married woman
! I –“

At that moment, Himalaya's fist took him in the face.

The ropes that bound her fell to the ground, snapped
and broken, as she leaped into the air and kicked the two
thugs beside her.
The men went down, unconscious, and
Himalaya spun like a dancer toward the group standing
behind.
S
he cleared them all with a s
weeping kick, deliv
ered precisely, despite the fact that she seemed to have no
idea what she was doing.

Her face was determined,
her eyes wide with rage; a lit
tle trickle of blood ran down her throat.
She twisted and
spun, fighting with a beautiful, uncoordinated rage, fully
under
the control of her brand-new Ta
lent.

She was now Himalaya Smedry.
And, as everyone knows
(and I believe I've pointed out to you), when you marry a
Smedry, you get their T
a
lent.

I rolled to where Fitzroy had fallen.
More important,
where his knife had fallen.
I kicked it across the floor to
Bastille, who
–
being
Bastille
–
caught
it even though her
hands (literally) were tied behind her back.
In a second,
she'd cut herself free.
In another second, both Sing and I
were free.

Fitzroy sat up, holding his cheek, dazed.
I grabbed the
Disguiser's Lenses off his face, and he immediately shrank
back to being spindly and freckled.
"Sing, grab him and
make for the archives room!"

The hefty Mokian didn't need to hear that again.
He
easily tucked the squirming Fitzroy under his arm while
Bastille attacked the thugs who were holding Folsom down,
defeating them both.
But then she wavered nauseously.

"Get to the room, everyone!" I yelled as Himalaya
kept the thugs at bay.
Bastille nodded, wobbling as she
helped the prince to his feet.
Shasta watched from the side,
yelling for the thugs to attack
–
but
they were wary of
engaging a Smedry Ta
lent.

After struggling for a second to get that band of glass
off my arm
–
it
wouldn't budge
–
I
pulled open the
drawer of the table and snatched the book my mother had
stowed there.

That left us with one major problem.
We were right
back where we'd been when I'd made us surrender.
Retreating into the archives room wouldn't help if we
remained surrounded by Librarians.
We had to activate the
swap.
Unfortunately, there was no
way
I'd be able to reach
those terminals.
I figured I only had one chance.

Folsom rushed past, grabbing the still-playing music
book off the ground and snapping it closed so Himalaya
could come out of her super-kung-fu-Librarian-chick
trance. She
froze midkick, looking dazed.
She had dropped
all the thugs around her.
Folsom grabbed her by the shoul
der and spun her into a kiss.
Then he pulled her after the
others.

That only left me.
I looked across the room at my
mother, who met my eyes.
She seemed rather self-confident, considering what had happened, and I figured
that
she
figured that I couldn't escape.
Go figure.

I grabbed the pile of electrical cords off the ground
and
–
pulling
as hard as I could
–
yanked
them out of
their sockets in the machinery.
Then I raced after my
friends.

Bastille waited at the door that led into the archives
room.
"What's that?" she said, pointing at the cords.

"Our only chance," I replied, ducki
n
g into the room.
She followed, then slammed the door
–
or, at least, what
was left of it.
It was pitch dark inside.
I'd broken the lamps.

I heard the breathing of my little group, shallow worried.

"What now?" Sing whispered.

I held the cords in my hands. I touched the tips with
m
y
fingers, then closed my eyes. This was a big gamble.
Sure,
I'd been able to make the music box work, but this was
something completely different.

I didn't have time to doubt myself.
The Librarians would
be upon us in a few moments.
I held those cords, held my
breath, and activated them like I would a pair of Oculator's
Lenses.

Immediately, something drained from me.
My strength
was sapped away, and I felt a shock of exhaustion
–
as
if
my body had decided to run a marathon when I wasn't
looking.
I dropped the cords, wobbling, and reached out to
steady myself against Sing.

"You're all dead,
y
ou know," Fitzroy sputtered in the
darkness; he was still held
–
I
assumed
–
under
Sing's
arm.
"They'll burst in here in a second and then you're
dead.
What did you think?
You're trapped!
Sandless
idiots!"

I took a deep breath, righting myself. Then I pushed the
door open.

The blond Knight of
C
rystallia standing guard was still
outside.
"You all right?" she asked, peeking in.
"
What hap
pened?"
Behind her, I could see the stone stairwell of the
Royal Archives, still packed with soldiers.

"We're back!" Sing said. "How . . . ?"

"You powered the glass," Bastille said, looking at me.
"Like you did with Rikers's silimatic music box.
You initi
ated a swap!"

I nodded.
At my feet, th
e cords to the Librarian machin
ery lay cut at the ends.
O
ur swap had severed them where
they'd poked through the door.

"
S
hattering Glass,
S
medry!" Bastille said.
"How in the
name of th
e first Sands did you do that?”

"I don't know," I said, rushing out the doorway.
“
We can
worry about it later.
Right
now, we've got to save Mokia.”