Alcatraz versus the Scrivener's Bones (16 page)

II) Put it i
n a backpack that then breaks at
a
climactic moment, dropping all of the
treasure
as
the heroes flee.

c)
U
se it to rescue their orphanage from foreclosure.

Stupid orphanages.

Anyway, it is very common for authors to do things
like this to the people in their
stories. Why? Well, we will
claim
it's because we want to teach the reader that the real
wealth is friendship, or caring, or something stupid like
that. In realit
y
we're j
ust mean people. We like to tor
ment our readers, and that translates to tormenting our
characters. After all, there
is only one thing more frustrat
ing than finding a pile of gold, then having it snatched
away from you.

And that's being told
that at least you learned some
thing from the experience.

I sighed, leaving the coins behind.

"Oh, don't mope,
A
lcatra
z," Bastille said, waving indif
ferently toward another corner of the room.
"J
ust take
some of those gold bars, instead. They don't seem to have
anything
w
ritten on them."

I turned and smacked my forehead, suddenly realizing
that I wasn't in a fictional story. This was an autobiography
and was completely real - which meant that the "lesson"
I could learn from it all is that grave robbing is way cool.

"Good idea!" I said. "Curators, do those bars count as
books?'

The ghosts floated sullenly, one shooting an angry
glare at Bastille. "No," it finally said.

I smiled, then proceeded to stuff a few bars in my
pocket, then a few more in Bastille's pack. In case you were
wondering, yes. Gold really is as heavy as they say. And it's
totally worth carrying
anyway
.

"Don't you guys want any of this?" I asked, putting
another bar in my jacket pocket.

Kaz shrugged. "
Y
ou and I are
S
medries, Alcatraz.
W
e
’
re
friends to kings, counselors to emperors, defenders of the
Free Kingdoms.
O
ur family is incredibly wealthy, and we
can pretty much have anything we want. I mean, that
silimatic dragon we crashed was probably worth more
money than most people would ever be able to spend
in a lifetime."

"Oh,
" I said.

“
And I kind of took a vow
of poverty,” Bastille said,
grimacing.

That was new. "Really?"

S
he nodded. "If I brought some of that gold, it would
just end up going to the Knights of
C
rystallia
–
and I
’
m a
littl
e annoyed with them right now.”

I stuffed a few bars in my pocket for her anyway.

“
Alcatraz, come look at this," Kaz said.

I reluctantly left the rest of the gold behind, clinking
my way over to the other two. They stood a distance away
from the sarcophagus, not approaching. "What's wrong?"

"Look closely," Kaz said, pointing.

I did, squinting in the light of the single lamp. With
effort, I saw what he was talking about.
Dust.
Hanging in
the air, motionless.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I don't know," Kaz said. "But, if you look, there's a
bubble of clean ground around the sarcophagus. No dust."

There was a large circle on the ground, running around
the casket, where either the dust had been cleaned away,
or it had never fallen.
Now t
hat I thought to notice, I real
ized that the rest of this room was far more dusty than
the Library. It hadn't been disturbed in some time.

"There's something odd about this place," Bastille
said, hands on hips.

"Yeah," I said, frowning. "Those hieroglyphics don't
quite look like any I've seen before."

"Seen a lot?" she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

I flushed. "I mean, they don't look the way Egyptian
ones should."

It was hard to explain. As one might expect, the walls
were covered with small pictures, drawn as if to be words.
Yet, instead of people with cattle or eagle heads, there were
pictures of dragons and serpents. Instead of scarabs, there
were odd geometric shapes, like
runes. Above the doo
rway
where we had come in, there was . . .

"Kaz!" I said, pointing.

He turned, then his eyes opened wide. There, inscribed
over the door, was a circle split into four sections, with
symbols written in each of the four pieces.
Just like the dia
gram Kaz had drawn for me on the ground, the one about
the different kinds of T
a
lents.
The Incarnate wheel.

This one also had a small circle in the center with its
own symbol, along with a ring around the outside, split
into two sections, each with another character in them.

"It could just be a coincidence," Kaz said slowly. "I
mean,
it's just a circle split into
four pieces. It isn't necessar
ily the same diagram."

"It is," I said. "It feels right."

"W
ell, maybe the
C
urators put it there," Kaz said. "They
saw me draw it on th
e ground, and copied it down. Ma
yb
e
they have placed it here
for us to find, so it would con
fuse us."

I shook my head. "I've still got my Discerner's Lenses
on. That inscription is as old as the rest of the tomb."

"What does it say?" Bastille asked. "Won't that tell us
what it is?"

Why didn't I think of that
? I thought, embarrassed again.
Bastille certainly was quick on her feet. Or maybe I was
slow. Let's not discuss that possibility any further. Forget I
mentioned it.

"Can I read that text without losing my soul?" I asked.
We looked at the Curators. One reluctantly spoke. "You
can," it said. "You lose your soul when you check out or
move a book.
A symbol on the wall can be read without
being checked out."

It made sense. If it were t
hat easy to get souls, the Cura
tors could just have posted
s
igns, then taken the souls of
any who read them.

With that, I pulled off my Discerner's Lenses and put
on my Tr
anslator's Lenses. They immediately interpreted
the strange symbols.

"The inner squares
say the things you taught, Kaz,”
I
said. "Time, Space, Matter, Knowledge."

Kaz whistled. "Walnuts! That means whoever built this
place knew an awful lot about Smedry Talents and arcane
theory. What about that symbol in the middle of the circle?
What does it say?"

"It says Breaking," I said quietly.

My Talent
.

"Interesting," Kaz said. "They give it its own circle on
the diagram. What is that outer circle?"

The ring was split into two pieces. "One says Identity," I
said. "The other says Possibility."

Kaz looked thoughtful. "Classical philosophy," he said.
"Metaphysics. It appears that our dead friend there was a
philosopher of some kind. Makes sense, considering that
we're near Alexandria."

I wasn't paying much attention to that. Instead, I turned,
hesitant, to read the words on the walls. My Translator's
Lenses instantly changed them to English for me.

I immediately wished that I hadn't read them.

Time for a hist
ory
lesson.

Stop complaining
. This isn't an adventure story;
it's a
factual autobiography. The purpose isn't to entertain
y
ou,
but to teach you.
If you want to be entertained, go to school
and listen to the imaginary facts your teachers make up.

The Incarna. I talked about them in my last book, I
believe.
They're the ones who developed the Forgotten
Language.
In the Free Kingdoms, everyone is a little
annoyed at them.
After all, the Incarna supposedly had
this fantastic understanding of both technology and
magic. But, instead of sharing their wisdom with the rest
of the world, they developed the Forgotten Language and
then
–
somehow
–
managed
to change all of their texts
and writings so that they were written in this language.

No, the Forgotten Language wasn't
their original method
of writing.
Everybody knows that.
They
transformed
all of
their books into it.
Kind of like . . . applying an encrypting
program to a computer document.
Except, it affected all
forms of writing, whether on paper, in metal, or in stone.

Nobody knows how they managed this. They were a
race of mega-evolved, highly
i
ntelligent superbeings.
I
doubt it was all that tough for them.
They could probably
turn lead into gold, grant immortality, and make a mean
dish of cold fusion too.
Doesn't reall
y matter.
Nobody can
read what they left behind.

Except me. With
m
y Translator's Lenses.

Perhaps now you can see why the Librarians would
hire a twisted, half-human assassin to hunt me down and
retrieve them, eh?

“
Alcatraz?" Bastille said, apparently noticing how white
my face had become.
"What's wrong?"

I stared at the wall with its strange words, trying to sort
through what I was reading.
She shook my arm.

"Alcatraz?" she asked again, then glanced at the wall.
"What does it say?"

I read the words again.

Beware all ye who visit this place of rest.
Know that The
Dark Talent has been released upon the world.
We have failed
to keep it contained.

Our desires have brought us low.
We sought to touch the
powers of eternity, then
draw them down upon ourselves.
But
we brought with them something we did not intend.

Be careful of it.
Guard it well, and beware its use.
Do not
rely upon it. We have seen the possibilities of the future and
the ultimate end.
It could destroy so much, if given the chance.

The Bane of Incarna.
Th
at which twists, that which cor
rupts, and that which destroys.
The Dark Talent.

The Talent of Breaking.

"This place is important," I whispered.
"This place is
really,
really
important."

"Why?" Bastille said.
"
S
hattering Glass, Smed
r
y.
When
are you going to tell me what that says?"

"Get out your pen and paper," I said, kneeling.
"I need
to write this down."

Bastille sighed, but did as I asked, fetching a pen and
paper from her pack. Kaz wandered over, watching with
interest as I transcribed the writing on the wall.

"What language is that, anyway?" I asked. "It mentions
the Incarna, but it's not the Forgotten Language."

"That's old Nalhallan," Kaz said. "I can't read it, but we
have a few scholars back in the capital who can. When the
Incarna fell, its few survivors ended up in Nalhalla to live."

I finished the translation.
Then, immediately, the three
Curators surrounded me.

"You must give up all writings to the Library when you
enter," one hissed.
"A copy will be returned to you once we
have completed it.
If a copy cannot be made in one hour's
time, we will return the original instead."

I rolled my eyes.
"Oh, for heaven's sake!"
However, I let
them pull the sheet away and vanish with it.

Bastille was frowning - she'd read the translation
as I wrote it.
"That inscription makes it seem like your
Talent is dangerous."

"It is," I said. "Do you know how many times I've nearly
been beaten up for breaking something at the wrong time?"

"But
–
“
She cut off, however, obviously sensing that I
didn't want to talk about it further.

To be honest, I didn't know what to think.
It was strange
enough to find ancient
writings that dealt with Smedry
T
a
lents. To have them gi
ve a caution about mine specifi
cally . . . well, it was a little disturbing.

That was the first time I
really got any hint of the trou
bles that were coming. You Free Kingdomers call me a
savior. Can I really be considered a savior if I
caused
the
very problem I help
ed
fix?

"Wait a moment," Bastille said. "Didn't we get drawn
here by an Oculatory Lens?
W
hatever happened to that?"

"That's right," I said, standing. I could still sense it
working, though I'd been distracted by everything else in
the tomb.

I swapped my Translator's Lenses for my Oculator's
Lenses, then had to turn down their power because of
how blinding the room was. Once I'd done so, I could see
the Lens that had drawn me here. It was set into the lid
of the sarcophagus.

"It's there," I said, p
ointing. "O
n
the top of the sar
cophagus."

"I don't trust that thing," Kaz said. "That circle around
it is strange.
We should leave, gather a research team, then
come back and study this place in detail."

I nodded absently
. Then, I walked toward the sar
cophagus.

“
Alcatraz!" Bastille said.
“
Are you
going to do some
thing stupid and brash again?"

I turned. "Yeah."

She blinked. "Oh. Well, then, you probably shouldn't.
Consider me opposed to it.
Whatever it is."

"Objection noted," I said.

“
I
–“
Bastille said.
S
he stopped as I stepped into the
circle of clean ground around the sarcophagus.

Everything immediately changed.
Dust began to fall
around me, sparkling like very fine powdered metal.
Lamps
burned with bright flames set to the top of the pillars
around the sarcophagus.
It w
as like I'd entered a small col
umn of golden light.
Somehow
I'd moved from a long-dead
tomb to someplace alive with motion.

There was still a sense of reverence to the area.
I turned,
noticing Bastille and Kaz standing outside the ring of
light.
They seemed frozen in place, mouths open as if to
speak.

I turned back to the sarcophagus, the dust falling very
faintly in the air, sprinkling over everything.
I held up a
hand.
It was indeed metallic, and it glittered with a yellow
sheen.
Gold dust.

W
hy had I stepped blindly into the circle like that?

It's hard to explain.
Imagine you have the hiccups.
In
fact, you not only have the hiccups, you have
The
Hiccups.
These are the hiccups to end all hiccups.
Y
ou've hiccupped
all of your life, without a moment of freedom.
You've hic
cupped so much that you've lost friends, made everyone
annoyed at you, and grown pretty down on yourself.

And then, amazingly, you discover a group of people
who have similar problems.
Some of them burp all the
time, others sniffle all the time, and still others have really
bad gas.
They all make annoying noises, but they come
from a land where that's really cool.
They're all
i
mpressed
with your hiccuppi
n
g.

You hang out with these people for a time, and start to
grow proud of your hiccups. Then, you pass a billboard
that mentions
–
for the first time
–
that your hiccups
will probably end up destroying the world.

You might, then, feel a little like I did.
Confused,
betrayed, unsettled.
Willing to step into a strange ring of
power to confront, hopefully, the person who made the
billboard.

Even if he did happen to be dead.

I pushed aside the top of the sarcophagus.
It was heavier
than I'd expected, and I had to heave.
It clattered to the
floor, scattering gold dust.

There was a man's body inside, and he wasn't even a bit
decomposed.
In fact, he looked so lifelike that I jumped
backward.

The man in the sarcophagus didn't move.
I edged
closer, eyeing him. He looked to be in his fifties, and was
wearing an ancient set of clothi
n
g
– a
kind of skirtlike
wrap around the lower legs, then a flowing cloaklike
shirt on his back that left his bare chest exposed.
He had
a golden headband around his forehead.

I hesitantly poked his face.
(Don't pretend you wouldn't
have done the same.)

The man didn't move.
So, carefully, cringing, I checked
for a pulse.
Nothing.

I stepped back.
Now, perhaps you've seen a dead
body before.
I sincerely hope that you haven't, but let's be
realistic.
People die sometimes.
They have to
–
if
they
didn't, funeral homes and graveyards would go out of
business.

Dead bodies don't look like they were ever alive.
Corpses
tend to look like they're made from wax
–
they
don't seem
like people at all, but mannequins.

This body didn't look that way.
The cheeks were still
flush, the face surreal in the way it seemed ready to take a
breath at any moment.

I glanced back at Bastille and Kaz
. They were still fro
zen, as if time weren't moving for them.
I looked back at
the body, and suddenly began to catch a hint of what might
be going on.

I put on my Translator's Lenses, then walked over to the
discarde
d lid of the
sarcophagus.
There, printed in ornate
letters, was a name:

Allekatrase the Lens-wielder, first Bearer of the Dark Talent.

Intrinsically, my Translator's Lenses let me know that
the word
Lens-wielder
when
s
poken in ancient Nalhallan
would sound different
to my ears. The ancient Nalhal
lan word for
“
Lens" was
smaed
and their word for "person
who uses" was
dary
.

Allekatrase the Lens-wielder.
Allekatrase Smaed-dary.

Alcatraz Smedr
y
the First
.

Golden dust fell around me, sprinkling my hair
.
"You
broke time, didn't you?" I
asked.
"Kaz
mentioned that there
were legends of you having done so.
You created for your
self a tomb where time would not pass, where you could
rest without decomp
osing."

It was the ultimate method of embalming.
I personally
suspect that the Egyptian
c
ustom of making mummies of
their kings came from the story of Alcatraz Smedry the
First.