Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (9 page)

"
S
ilimatics?"

"
That's right; how'd you guess?”

"
J
ust lucky," I said.
"Have you ever heard of a theory
that says
O
culators can power technological types of glass
in addition to their Lenses?”

S
he harrumphed.
"Been speaking with your father,
I see."

"My father?"

"
I
'm well aware of that
paper he wrote," Aunt Patty con
tinued, "but I don't b
u
y it.
C
laiming that
O
culators were
somehow brightsand in human form.
Doesn't that seem
silly to you?
How can sand be human in form?”

“I –“

"I'll admit that there
are
s
o
me discrepancies,
” she con
tinued, ignoring my attempt to interject.
"However, your
father is jumping to conclusions.
This will require
far
more
research than he's put into it!
Research by people who are
more practiced at true silimatics than that scoundrel.
Oh,
looks like you're getting a zit on your nose, by the way.
Too
bad that man in the carri
age next to us just took a picture
of you."

I jumped, glancin
g to the side where another carr
iage
had pulled up.
The man there was holding up squares of
glass about a foot on each side, pointing them toward us,
then tapping them.
I was still new to all this, but I was pretty
sure he was doing something very similar to taking pictures
with a camera.
When he noticed my attention, he lowered
his panes of glass, tipped
his cap toward me, and his car
riage pulled away.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"We
ll
, hon, you
are
the heir of the Smedry line
–
not
to mention an Oculator raised inside the Hushlands.
That
kind of thing interests people."

"People
know
about me?" I asked, surprised.
I knew I'd
been born in Nalhalla, but I'd just assumed that the people
in the Free Kingdoms had forgotten.

"Of course they do! You're a celebrity, Alcatraz
–
the
Smedry who disappeared mysteriously as a child!
There
have been
hundreds
of books written on you.
When it came
out a few years back that you were being raised in the
Hushlands, that only made things more interesting.
Y
ou
think all those people over there are staring because of me?"

I'd never been in Nalhalla before (duh) so I hadn't
thought it strange that there were people standing along
the streets, watching the road.
Now, however I noticed how
many of them were pointing toward our carriage.

"
S
hattering Glass," I whispered. "I'm
Elvis
."

You Free Kingdomers may not know that name.
Elvis
was a powerful monarch from Hushlander past, known for
his impassioned speeches to inmates, for his odd footwear,
and for looking less like himself than the people who dress
like him. He vanished mysteriously as the result of a
Librarian cover-up.

"I don't know who that is, hon," Aunt
P
atty said.
"But
whoever he is, he's probably a lot less well known than
you are."

I sat back, stunned.
Grandpa Smedry and the others
had tried to explain how important our family was, but I'd
never really understood.
We had a castle as large as the
king's palace.
W
e controlled incredible wealth.
W
e had
magical powers that others envied.
There had been volumes
and volumes of books written about us.

That was the moment, riding in that carriage, when it
all finally hit me.
I understood.
I'm famous
, I thought, a
smile growing on my face.

This was a very important point in my life.
It's where I
started to realize just how much power I had.
I didn't find
fame intimidating.
I found it exciting.
Instead of hiding
from the people with their silimatic cameras, I started waving to them.
They began to point even more excitedly, and
the attention made me feel good.
Warm, like I'd suddenly
been bathed in sunlight.

Some say that fame is a fleeting thing.
Well, it has clung
to me tenaciously, like g
um stuck to the sidewalk, black
ened from being stepped on a thousand times.
I haven't
been able to shake it, no matter what.

Some also say fame is shallow.
That's easy to say when
you haven't spent your
childhood being passed from family
to family, scorned and discarded because of a curse that
made you break whatever you touched.

Fame is like a cheeseburger.
It might not be the best or
most healthy thing to have, but it will still fill you up.
You
don't really care how healthy something is when you've
been without for so long.
Like a cheeseburger, fame fills a
need, and it tastes so good going down.

It isn't until years later that you realize what it has done
to your heart.

"Here we are
!
" Aunt Patty said as the carriage slowed.
I
was surprised.
After hearing that my cousin Folsom was in
charge of guarding former Librarians, I'd expected to be
taken to some sort of police
station or secret service hide
out.
Instead, we'd come to a shopping district with little
stores set into the fronts of the castles.
Aunt Patty paid our
driver with some glass coins, then climbed down.

"I thought you said he was guarding a Librarian spy," I
said, getting out.

"He is, hon."

“
And where does one do that?"

Aunt Patty pointed t
oward a store that looked suspi
ciously like an ice cream parlor.
"Where else?"

O
n
ce
, when I was very young, I was being driven to the
public swimming pool by
m
y foster mother.
This was a long
time
ag
o, so far distant
in my memory I can barely remem
ber it.
I must have been three or four years old.

I recall an image: a group of strangely shaped buildings
beside the road.
I'd seen
them before, and I'd always won
dered what they were.
They looked like small white domes,
three or four of them, the size of houses.

As we passed, I turned to my foster mother.
"Mom, what
are those?"

"That is where the crazy people go," she said.

I hadn't realized there was a mental institution in my
town.
But it was nice to know
where it was.
For years after
that, when the topic of mental illness came up, I'd explain
where the hospital was.
I was proud, as a child, to know
where they took the crazy people when they went
. . . well,
crazy.

When I was twelve or so, I remember being driven past
that place again with a different foster family.
By then, I
could read.
(I was quite advanced for my age, you know.)
I noticed the sign hanging on the domelike buildings.

It didn't say the buildings were a mental institution.
It
said that they were a church.

Suddenly, I understood.
"That's where all the
crazy peo
ple go" meant something completely different to my foster
mother than it had to me.
I spent all those years proudly
telling people where the asylum was, all the while ignorant
of the fact that I'd been completely wrong.

This will all relate.

I stepped into the ice cream shop, trying to be ready for
anything. I had seen coolers
that turned out to hide ban
quet rooms.
I had seen libraries that hid a dark hideout for
cultists.
I figured that a place that looked like an ice cream
shop was probably something entirely different, like an
explosive crayon testing facility.
(Ha! That's what you get
for writing on the walls,
J
immy!)

If,
indeed, the ice cream parlor was fake, it was doing
a really good job of that fakery.
It looked exactly like
something from the fifties, including colorful pastels, stools
by the tables, and waitresses in striped red-and-white skirts.
Though said waitresses
were
serving banana splits and
chocolate shakes to a bunch of people dressed in medieval
clothing.

A sign on the wall proudly proclaimed the place to be
an
AUTHENTIC HUSHLANDER RESTAURANT
!
When Aunt
Patty and I entered, the place grew still.
Outside, others
were clustering around the windows, looking in at me.

"It's all right, folks," Aunt Patty proclaimed.
"He's really
not all that interesting.
Actually, he kind of smells, so you
probably want to keep your distance."

I blushed deeply.

"Notice how I keep them from fawning over you?" she
said, patting me on the shoulder.
"You can thank me later,
hon.
I'll go fetch Folsom!"
Aunt Patty pushed her way
through the busy room.
As soon as she was gone, Free
Kingdomers began to approach me, ignoring her warning.
They were hesitant, though; even the middle-aged men
seemed as timid as children.

“
Um . . . can I help you?" I asked as I was surrounded.

"You're him, aren't you?" one of them asked. "
Alc
atraz
the Lost."

"Well, I don't feel that l
ost," I said, growing uncomfort
able.
To have them so close and so in awe . . . well, I didn't
quite know how to react.
What was the proper protocol for
a long-lost celebrity when first revealing himself to the
world?

A young fan, maybe s
even years old, solved the prob
lem.
He stepped up, holding a square piece of glass five or
six inches across.
It was clear and flat, as if it had been cut
right out of a windowpane.
He offered the glass to me with
a shaking hand.

Okay,
I thought, that's weird.
I reached out and took the
glass.
As soon as I touched it, the glass began to glow.
The boy pulled it back eagerly, and I could see that my
thumb and fingers had left glowing prints.
Apparently, this
was the Free Kingdomer version of getting an autograph.

The others began to press forward.
Some had squares
of glass.
Others wanted
to shake my hand, get their pic
tures taken with me, or have me use my T
a
lent to break
something of theirs as a memento.
The bustle might
have annoyed someone else, but after a childhood of
being alternately mocked (for breaking things) and
feared (for breaking things), I was ready for a little bit
of adulation.

After all, didn't I deserve it?
I'd stopped the Librarians
from getting the Sands of Rashid.
I'd defeated Blackburn.
I'd saved my father from the horrors of the Library of
Alexandria.

Grandpa Smedry was right; it was time to relax and
enjoy myself.
I made thumbprints, posed for pictures, shook
hands, and answered questions.
By the time Aunt Patty
returned, I had launched into a dramatic telling of my first
infiltration with Grandpa Smedry.
That day in the ice cream
parlor was the day I real
i
zed that I might make a good
writer.
I seemed to have a flair
for storytelling.
I teased the
audience with information about what was coming, never
quite revealing the ending but hinting at it.

By the way, did you know that later that day, someone
was going to try to assassinate King Dartmoor?

"All right, all right," Aunt Patty said, shoving aside some
of my fans.
"Give the boy some room."
She grabbed me by
the arm.
"Don't worry, hon, I'll rescue you."

"B
ut –“

"No need to thank me," Aunt Patty said.
Then, in a
louder voice, she proclaimed, "Everyone, stay back!
Alcatraz
has been in the Hushlands!
You won't want to catch any of
his crazy-strange Librarian diseases!"

I saw numerous people's faces pale, and the crowd
backed away.
Aunt Patty then led me to a table occupied by
two people.
One, a young man in his twenties with black
hair and a hawkish face, looked vaguely familiar.
I realized
this must be Folsom Smedry; he looked a lot like his brother,
Quentin.
The young woman seated across from him wore a
maroon skirt and white blouse.
She had dark skin and her
spectacles had a chain.

To be honest, I hadn't expected the Librarian to be so
pretty, or so young.
Certainly, none of the ones I'd met
so far had been pretty.
Granted, most of those had been
trying to kill me at the time, so perhaps I was a little biased.

Folsom stood up. "
Al
catraz!" he said, holding out a
hand.
"I'm Folsom, your cousin."

"Nice to meet you," I said.
"What's your Talent?"
(I'd
learned by now to ask Smedrys that as soon as I met them.
Sitting down to eat with a Smedry without knowing their
T
a
lent was a little like accepting a grenade without knowing
if the pin had been pulled or not.)

Folsom smiled modestly as we shook hands.
"It's not
really all that important a Talent.
You see, I can dance really
poorly."

“
Ah," I said. "How impressive."

I tried to sound sincere.
I had trouble.
It's just so hard to
compliment someone for being a bad dancer.

Folsom smiled happil
y, releasing my hand and gestur
ing for me to sit.
"Great to finally meet you," he said.
"Oh,
and I'd give that handshake a four out of six."

I sat down. "Excuse me?"

"Four out of six," he said, sitting.
"Reasonable firmness
with good eye contact, but you held on a little bit long.
Anyway, may I present Himalaya Rockies, formerly of the
Hushlands?"

I glanced over at the Librarian, then hesitantly held
out my hand.
I half expected her to pull out a gun and
shoot me.
(Or at least to chastise me for my overdue
books.)

"Pleased to meet you," she said, taking my hand without
even trying to stab me.
"I hear you grew up in America
like I did."

I nodded.
She had a Boston accent.
I'd only been away
from the United States for a couple of weeks, and I had
been very eager to escape, but
it still felt good to hear some
one from my homeland.

"So, er, you're a Librarian?" I asked.

"A
reco
v
ering
Librarian," she said quickly.

"Himalaya defected six months ago," Folsom said.
"She
brought lots of great information for us."

Six months, eh
?
I thought, eyeing Folsom.
He didn't give
any indication, but if it had been six months, I found it odd
that we were still keeping track of Himalaya.
Folsom and
the king, I figured, must still worry that she was secretly a
spy for the Librarians.

The booths around us filled quickly, and the parlor
enjoyed quite a boost in business from my patronage.
The
owner must have noticed this, for he soon visited our table.
"The famous A
l
catraz
Smedry, in my humble establish
ment!" he said.
The pudgy man wore a pair of bright
red-and-white-striped pants.
He waved to one of his wait
resses, who rushed over with a bowl filled with whipped
cream. "Please have a band
ana split on the house!"

"
Bandana
?" I asked, cocking my head.

"They get a few things wrong here
,” Himalaya whis
pered, "but it's still the closest you'll get to American food
while in Nalhalla."

I nodded thankfully to the owner, who smiled with
pleasure.
He left a handful of mints on the table, though I
don't quite know why, t
hen went back to serving custom
ers.
I glanced at the dessert he'd provided.
It was
,
indeed, a
large bandana filled with ice cream.
I tasted it hesitantly
but it actually was kind of good, in an odd way.
I couldn't
quite place the flavor.

That probably should have worried me.

"Alcatraz Smedry," Folsom said, as if taking the name
for a test drive.
"I have to ad
mit, your latest book was a dis
appointment.
One and a half stars out of five."

I had a moment of panic, thinking he referred to the
second book of my auto
biography. However, I soon reali
zed that was silly, since it not only hadn't been written yet
but I didn't even know that I would write it.
I promptly
stopped that line of thinking before I caused a temporal rift
and ended up doing something silly, like killing a butterfly
or interfering
with mankind's first warp jump.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, taking
another bite of ice cream.

"Oh, I have it here somewhere," Folsom said, rifling in
his shoulder b
a
g.

"I didn't think it was so
bad," Himalaya said. "Of course,
my tastes are tainted by ten years as a Librarian."