Alcatraz versus the Scrivener's Bones (11 page)

"What are you
doing
?
" Bastille asked.

"T
rying to walk up to you,” I said, sitting up and rub
bing my head.

"Grappler's Glass, Smedry. It only sticks to other pieces
of glass."

Ah, righ
t
, I thought.
Now this might have seemed like a
very stupid thing to forget, but you can't blame me. I was
suffering from having fallen to the ground and a hit to the
head, after all.

“
Well, how am I going to get up to you, then?"

"You could just throw me the dagger."

I looked up skeptically. The ropes seemed wound pretty
tightly around her. They, however, were connected to the
pillars.

"Hang on," I said, walking up to one of the pillars.

“
Alcatraz . . .," she said, sounding uncertain. "What are
you doing?"

I laid my hand against the pillar, then closed my eyes.
I'd destroyed the jet by just touching the smoke . . . could I
do something like that here too? Guide my T
a
lent up the
pillar to the ropes?

“
Alcatraz!" Bastille
said.
“
I
don't
want
to get squished
by
a
bunch of falling pillars. Don't . . ."

I released a burst of breaking power.

"Gak!"

She said this last part as her ropes
– which were con
nected to the pillars
– frayed
and fell to pieces. I opened
my eyes in time to see her grab the one remaining whole
piece of rope and swing down to the ground,
landing beside
me, puffing slightly.

She looked up. The pillar didn't fall on us. I removed
my hand.

She cocked her head, then regarded me. "Huh."

"Not bad, eh?"

She shrugged.
“
A real man would have climbed up and
cut me down with the dagger. Co
me on. We've got to find
the others."

I rolled my eyes, but took her thank-you for what it was
worth. I walked over as she stuffed the boots and dagger
back in her pack, t
hen threw it over her shoulder. W
e walked
down the hallway for a moment, then spun as we heard a
crashing sound.

The pillar had finally decided to topple over, throwing
up broken chips of stone as it hit the ground. The entire
hallway shook from the impact.

A wave of dust from the rubble puffed over us.
Bastille gave me a sufferi
ng look, then sighed and contin
ued walking.

You may wonder why I hate fantasy novels so much. Or, maybe you don't. That doesn't really matter, because I'm going to tell you anyway.

(Of course, if you want to know how the book ends, you could just skip to the last page – but I wouldn't recommend that. It will prove very disturbing to your psyche.)

Anyway, let's talk about fantasy novels. First, you have to understand that when I say "fantasy novels” I mean books about dieting or literature or people living during the Great Depression. Fantasy novels, then, are books that don't include things like glass dragons, ghostly Curators, or magical Lenses.

I hate fantasy novels. Well, that's not true. I don't actually really hate them. I just get annoyed by what they've done to the Hushlands.

People don't read anymore. And, when they do, they don't read books like this one, but instead read books that depress them, because those books are seen as important. Somehow, the Librarians have
successfully
managed to convince most people in the Hushlands that they shouldn't read anything that isn't boring.

It comes down to Biblioden the Scrivener's great vision for the world – a vision in which people never do anything abnormal, never dream, and never experience anything strange. His minions teach people to stop reading fun books, and instead focus on fantasy novels. That's what I call them, because those books keep people trapped. Keep them inside the nice little fantasy that they consider to be the "real" world. A fantasy that tells them they don't need to try something new.

After all, trying new things can be difficult.

"We need a plan," Bastille said as we walked the corridors of the Library. “We can't just keep wandering around in here."

"We need to find Grandpa Smedry,” I said, “or my father."

“We also need to find Kaz and Australia, not to mention my mother.” She grimaced a bit at that last part.

And… that’s not everything either
, I thought.
My father came in here for a reason. He came searching for some
thing.

Something very imp
ortant.

I'd found a communication from him several months
back – it
had come with the package that had contained
the Sands of Rashid. My father had sounded tense in his
letter.
He'd been excited, but worried too.

He'd discovered something dangerous. The Sands of
Rashid
–
the
T
ranslator's Lenses – had
only been the
beginning.
They were a step toward uncovering something
much greater. Something that had frightened my father.

He'd spent thirteen years searching for whatever the
something was. That trail had ended here, at the Library of
Alexandria. Could he really have come because he'd grown
frustrated? Had he traded his soul for the answers he
sought, just so that he could finally stop searching?

I shivered, glancing at the Curators, who floated
behind us. "Bastille," I said. "You said that one of them
spoke to you?"

"Yeah," she said. "Kept trying to get me to borrow
a book.”
"It spoke to you in English?"

"
W
ell, Nalhallan," she said. "But it's pretty much the
same thing. Why?"

"Mine spoke to me in a
language I didn't understand.”

"Mine did that at first too
," she said. "S
everal of them
surrounded me and searched through my possessions.
They grabbed the supply list and several of the labels off of
the foodstuffs. Then, they left
–
all
except for that one
behind us. It continued to jabber at me in that infuriating
language. It was only after I'd been caught that it started
speaking Nalhallan."

I glanced again at the
C
urator s.
They use traps
, I thought.
But not ones that kill - ones that keep people tangled up.
They separate everyone who comes in, then they make each
one wander the hallways, lost. They talk to us in a language
they know we don't understand when they could easily speak
in English instead.

This whole place is all about annoying people. The
C
urators are trying to mak
e us frustrated. All so that we’
ll
give up
and take one of the books they’
re offering
.

"So," Bastille said. "What's our plan?
”

I shrugged. "Why ask me?"

"Because you're in charge, Alcatraz," she said, sighing.
"
W
hat's your problem, anyway? Half the time you seem
ready to give orders and charge about. The
other half of t
he time, you complain that you don't want to
be the one
who has to make the decisions."

I didn't answer. To be honest,
I hadn't really figured out my feelings either.

"Well?" she asked.

"First, we find Kaz,
Australia, and your mother."

"Why would you need to find me?" Kaz asked. "l
mean,
I'm right here."

We both jumped. And, of course, there he was.
Wearing
his bowler and rugged jacket,
hands in his pockets, smiling
at us impishly.

"Kaz!" I said. "You found us!"

"You were lost," he said, shrugging. "If I'm l
ost, it
's
easier for me to find so
meone else who is lost – since
abstractly, we're both in the same place."

I frowned, trying to m
ake sense of that. Kaz looked
around, eyeing the pillars an
d their archways. "Not at all
like I imagined it."

"Really?" Bastille asked. "It looks pretty much lik
e
I
f
igured it would."

"I expected them to take be
tter care of their scrolls and
books," Kaz said.

"Kaz
,”
I said.
"You found us, right?"

"
U
h, what did I just say, kid?"

"Can you find Australia too?"

He shrugged. "I can try. But, we'll have to be careful.
Quite nearly got myself caught in a trap a little ways back.
I tripped a wire, and a large hoop swung out of the wall
and tried to grab me."

"What happened?" Bastille said.

He laughed. "It went right over my head. Reason number fifteen, Bastille: Short people make smaller targets!"

I just shook my head.

“
I'll scout ahead," Bastille said. "Looking for trip wires.
Then the two of you ca
n follow. Kaz will engage his Ta
lent
at each intersection and pick the next way to go. Hopefully,
his T
a
lent will lead us to Australia."

"
S
ounds like a good enough plan for now," I said.

Bastille put on her
W
arrior's Lenses, then took off,
moving very carefully down the hallway. Kaz and I were
left standing there with nothing to do.

Something occurred to me. "Kaz
,”
I said.
"How long did
it take you to learn to use your T
a
lent?"

"Ha!" he said. "You make it sound like I
have
learned to
use it, kid."

"But, you're better with yours than I am with mine." I
glanced back at the rubbled pillar, which was still visible
in the distance behind us.

"Talents are tough, I'll admit," he said, following my
gaze. "You do that?"

I nodded.

"You know, it was the sound of that pillar falling that
let me know I was close to you. Sometimes, what looks like
a mistake turns out to be kind of useful."

"I know that, but I still have trouble. Every time I think
I've got my Talent figured out, I break something I didn't
intend to."

The shorter man leaned against a pillar on the side of the
hallway. "I know what you mean, A
l
.
I spent most of my youth
getting lost. I couldn't be trusted to go to the bathroom on
my own because I'd end up in Mexico. Once, I stranded your
father and myself on an island alone for two weeks because
I couldn't figure out how to make the blasted Talent work."

He shook his head. "The thing is, the more powerful a
Talent is, the harder it
is to control. You and I – like
your
father and grandfather
–
have prime Talents. Right on the
Incarnate Wheel, fairly pure. They're bound to give us lots
of trouble."

I cocked my head. "Incarnate Wheel?"

He seemed surprised. "Nobody's explained it to you?"

"The only one I've really talked to about T
a
lents is my
grandfather."

"Yeah, but what about in school?"

“
Ah . . . no," I said. "I went to Librarian school, Kaz. I
did hear a lot about the Great Depression, though."

Kaz snorted. "Fantasy books. Those Librarians . . ."

He sighed, squatting down by t
he floor and pulling out
a stick. He grabbed a handful of dust from the corner,
threw it out on the floor, then drew a circle in it.

"There have been a lot of
S
medries over the centuries,"
he said, "and a lot of T
a
lents. Many of them tend to be
similar, in the long run. There are four kinds: T
a
lents that
affect space, time, know
ledge, and the physical world.”
He
drew a circle in the dust, then split it into four pieces.

"Take my Talent, for instance," he continued. "I change
things in space. I can get lost, then get found again."

"What about Grandpa Smedry?"

"Time," Kaz said. "He arrives late to things. Australia,
however, has a T
a
lent that can change the physical world
–
in
this case, her own shape." He wrote her n
ame in the dust
on the wheel. "Her Talent is fairly specific, and not as broad
as your grandfather's. For instance
,
there was a Smedry a
couple of centuries back who could look ugly
any
time he
wanted, not just when he woke up in the morning. Others
have been able to change anyone's appearance, not just
their own. Understand?"

I shrugged. "I guess so."

"The closer the Talent gets to its purest form, the more
powerful it is,"
Kaz said. "Your grandfather's Ta
lent is very
pure
–
he
can manipulate time in
a lot of different cir
cumstances. Your father and I have very similar T
alents – I
can get lo
st and Attica can lose things –
and both are
flexible. Siblings often have similar powers."

"What about Sing?" I asked.