Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (5 page)

"Well, not all of it," Grandpa Smedry said.
"Just the borin
g parts!
We retained a seat on the Council of Kings so
tha
t we could still have a hand in politics, and as you can
s
ee
, w
e
have a nice castle and a large fortune to keep us
b
usy.
Plus, we're still nobility."

"So what does that get us?"

"Oh, a number of perks," Grandpa Smedry said.
"Call-a
h
e
ad seating at restaurants, access to the royal stables and
th
e
royal silimatic carrier fleet
–
I
believe we've managed
t
o
wreck two of those in
the last month. We're also peerage
–
which
is a fancy way of saying we can speak in civil
d
isputes, perform marriage ceremonies, arrest criminals,
that sort of thing."

"Wait," I said. "I can
marry
people?"

"Sure," Grandpa Smedry said.

"But I'm only thirteen!"

"Well
, you couldn't marry
yourself
to anyone. But if
somebody else asked
y
ou, you could perform the ceremony.
It wouldn't do for the king to have to do all of that himself,
you know!
Ah, here we are.”

I glanced to the side,
then jumped as I saw an enor
mous reptile crawling along the sides of the buildings
toward us.
Like a spider crawling across the front of a
fence.

"Dragon!" I yelled, pointing.

"Brilliant observation, Smedry
,”
Bastille noted from
beside me.

I was too alarmed to make an amazing comeback.

Fortunately, I'm the author of this book, so I can rewrite
history as I feel necessary.
Let's try that again.

Ahem.

I glanced to the side, whereupon I noticed a dangerous
scaly lizard slithering its way
along
the sides of t
he build
ings, obviously bent on devouring us all.

"Behold!" I bellowed. "
'Tis a foul beast of the nether
hells. Stand behind me and I shall slay it!"

"Oh, Al
catraz," Bastille breathed.
"Thou art awesomish
and manlyish."

"Lo, let it be such," I said.

"
D
on't be alarmed, lad," Grandpa Smedry said, glancing
at the
r
e
ptile.
"That's our ride."

I could see that the wing
less, horned creature had a contraption
on its back, a little like a gondola.
The massive
beast defied
gravity, clinging to the
stone faces of the building
s,
ki
nd of like
li
zard clinging to a cliff
–
only
this lizard
was large
enough to swallow a bus. The dragon reached Keep
Smedry,
then climbed up to our balcony, its claws gripping
the
stones.
I took an involuntary step backward as its enor
mo
us serpentine head crested the balcony and looked at us.

"
S
medry
,”
it said in a deep voice.

"Hello, Tzoctinatin
,”
Grandpa Smedry said.
“
We need a
ride
to the palace, quickly."

"So I have been told. Climb in."

"Wait," I said.
"We use dragons as taxis?"

The dragon eyed me, and in that eye I saw a vastness.
A
deep
, swirling depth, colors upon colors, folds upon folds.
It
m
ade me feel small and meaningless.

"I do not do this of my own will, young Smedry," the
b
e
ast rumbled.

"How long left on your sentence?" Grandpa Smedry
a
sked.

"Three hundred years," the creature said, turning away.
"Three hundred years before they will return my wings so
that I may fly again."
With that, the creature climbed up the
side of the wall a little farther, bringing the gondola basket
into view.
A walkway unfolded from it, and the others began
to climb in.

"What'd he do?" I whispered to Grandpa Smedry.

"Hum?
Oh, first-degree maiden munching, I believe.
It
happened some four centuries back.
Tr
agic story.
Watch
that first step."

I followed the others into the gondola.
There was a
well-furnished room inside, complete with comfortable-looking couches.
Draulin was the last one in, and she
closed the door.
Immediately, the dragon began to move
–
I
could tell by looking out the window.
H
owever, I
couldn't feel the motion.
It appeared that no matter
which direction the dragon turned or which way was "up,"
the gondola occupants always had gravity point the
same way.

(I was later to learn that this, like many things in the
Free Kingdoms, was due to a type of glass
–
Orientation
Glass
–
that
allows one to set a direction that is "down"
when your forge it into a bo
x
. Therefore, anything inside the box is
pulled in that direction, no matter which way the
b
ox turns.)

I stood for a long time, watching out the window, which
glowed
faintly to my eyes because of my Oculator's Lenses.
After
the chaos of the explosion and my near death, I hadn't
rea
lly had a chance to contemplate the city.
It was amazing.
A
s I'
d
seen, the entire city was filled with castles.
Not just
simple
brick and stone buildings, but actual
castles
, with
h
igh walls and towers, each one different.

Some had a fairy-tale feel, with archways and slender
pea
ks.
Others were brutish and no-nonsense, the type of
ca
stles you might imagine were ruled over by evil, blood-
th
irsty warlords.
(It should be noted that the Honorable
Gu
ild of Evil Warlords has worked very hard to counter the
n
e
gative stereotype of its members.
After several dozen
ba
ke sales and charity auctions, someone suggested that
th
e
y remove the word evil
from the title of their organi
zation.
The suggestion was eventually rejected on account
of
Gurstak the Ruthless having just ordered a full box of
e
mbossed business cards.)

The castles lined the streets like skyscrapers might in a
large Hushlander city.
I could see people moving on the
road below
–
some
in horse-drawn carriages
–
but
our
drag
on continued to crawl lizardlike across the sides of
buildings.
The castles were close enough that when he came
to a gap between buildings, he could simply stretch across.

“
Amazing, isn't it?" Bastille asked.
I turned, not having
realized that she'd joined me at the window.

"It is," I said.

"It always feels good to get back," Bastille said.
"I love
how clean everything is.
The sparkling glass, the stonework
and the carvings."

"I would have thought that coming back would be
rough this time," I said.
"I mean, y
ou left as a knight, but
have to come back as a squire."

She grimaced. "You really have a way with women,
Smedry.
Anyone ever told you that?"

I blushed.
"I just . . . uh . . ."
Dang.
You know, when I
write my memoirs, I'm
totally
going to put a better line
right there.

(Too bad I forgot to do that. I really need to pay better
attention to my notes.)

"Yeah, whatever," Bastill
e said, leaning against the win
dow and looking down.
"
I
guess I'm resigned to my
punishment."

Not this again
, I thought,
worried. After losing her sword
and
being reprimanded by her mother, Bastille had gone
through
a serious funk.
The worst part was that it was my
fau
lt.
She'd lost her sword because
I'd
broken it while tryin
g to fight off some sentient romance novels.
Her mother
seem
ed determined to prove that one mistake made Bastille
com
pletely unworthy to be a knight.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Bastille snapped.
"
S
hattering Glass!
Just be
cause I'm resigned to my punishme
nt doesn't mean I'm giving up completely.
I still intend
to find out who set me up like this."

"You're sure someone did?"

She nodded, eyes narrowing as she grew decidedly
v
e
ngeful.
I was h
a
ppy that, for once, her wrath didn't seem
d
irected at me.

"The more I've thought about it," she said, "the more
the things you said the other week make sense.
Why did
they assign a freshly knighted girl
–
on
such a dan
gerous mission?
S
omebody in Crystallia wanted me to
f
ail
–
someone
was jealous
of how fast I'd achieved knight
hood, or wanted to embarrass my mother, or simply wanted
to prove that I couldn't succeed."

"That doesn't sound very honorable," I noted.
“
A Knight
of Crystallia wouldn't do something like that, would they?"

"I . . . don't know," Bastille said, glancing toward her
mother.

"I find it hard to believ
e," I said, though I didn't com
pletely believe that.
You see, jealousy is an awful lot
like farting.
Neither is something you like to imagine a
brave knight being involved in, but the truth is, knights
are just people.
They get jealous, they make mistakes,
and
–
yes
–
they
break wind.
(Though, of course, knights
never use the term "break wind."
They prefer the term "bang
the cymbals."
Guess that's what they get for wearing so
much armor.)

Draulin stood at the back of the room, and
–
for
once
–
wasn’t
standing in a stiff "parade rest" stance.
Instead, she was polishing her enormous crystal sword.
Bastille suspected her mother had been the one to set her
up, as Draulin was one of
the knights who gave out assign
ments.
But why would she send her own daughter on a
mission that was obviously too hard for her?

"
S
omething is wrong
,”
Bastille said.

"You mean, aside from the fact that our flying hawk
mysteriously exploded?
"

She waved an indifferent hand.
"The Librarians
did that."