Alcatraz versus the Scrivener's Bones (24 page)

I pulled it out ea
gerly. It wasn't, however, my Tr
anslator's
Lenses. It was just the Tracker's Lens that Kiliman had been
using to follow us.

W
e'll have to worry about
the Translator's Lenses later
, I
thought.
N
o time right now
.

Kiliman bellowed, finally get
t
ing one hand inside the
boot, then pulling it free by making as if he were taking a
step with the hand. The Grappler's Glass let go, and Kiliman
tossed the boot aside.

I gulped. He wasn't supposed to have figured that out
so quickly.

"Nice trick," he said, swinging the sword at me ag
ain
.
I
scrambled away, dashing ba
ck toward the exit. Kilima
n,
however, just raised his Fros
tbringer's Lens, getting ready
to fire it square into my back.

"H
e
y, Kiliman!" a voice suddenly yelled.
"I'm fre
e and
I'm making a face at you!"

Kiliman spun with sh
ock to find Kaz, standing free from
his bonds and smiling broadly.
A Curator hovered next to him
–
but
this Curator had grown legs and
w
a
s
starting to look more a
nd more like Australia as Talent wore off.
We'd sent her in
first, looking like one of the
ghosts, to untie the captives.

Kiliman had anoth
er moment of dumbfounded shock,
which Bastille took advantage of by tossing her moth
er
's
Fleshstone to Kaz. The short man caught it, then g
rabbed one of Draulin’s
ropes
–
she
was still tied up
–
w
hile
Australia grabbed the other one.
Together, they towed the
knight behind them, running away.

Kiliman screamed in rage. It
was a terrible, half-metallic
sound. He spun his
F
rostbringer's Lens around.
The glass
was already glowing, and a beam of bluish light sho
t out
.

But Kaz and the other two were already g
one
, los
t
b
y
Kaz's Talent, into the netherspaces of the Library.

"
S
medry!" Kiliman said, turning back toward me as I
reached the doorway.
"I will hunt you.
Even if you escape
me today, I will follow.
Y
ou will
never
be free of me!”

I paused. Bastille should have already run for freedom.

Yet, she still stood in the center of the room, from where
she'd tossed the Fleshstone to Kaz.
S
he was staring at Kiliman.
S
lowly, he became aware of
her presence, and he turned.

Run, Bastille
! I thought.

She did. Directly
at
Kiliman.

"No!" I yelled.

Late
r
when I had time to think about it, I would realize
why Bastille did what she did.
She knew that Kiliman
wasn't lying.
He intended to chase us, and he was an expert
hunter.
H
e'd probably find us again before we even got out
of the Library.

There was only one
to be rid of him. And that was
to face him.
Now.

I wasn't aware of
this reasoning at the time I just t
hought she was being
stupid.
Yet, I did something even more stupid.

I charged back into the room.

Li
f
e is not fair.

If you are the discriminating r
e
ad
e
r that I think you
are (you picked up this book, after all), then you should
have figured this out.
There are v
e
ry
fe
w aspects about
life that are, in any way, fair.

It isn't fair that some people are rich an
d
others are
poor.
It i
sn't fair that I'm rambling like this, instead of con
tinuing the climax of the story.
It isn't fair that I'm so
outrageously handsome, while
m
ost p
eo
ple are simply
ordinary. It isn't fair that diphthong g
e
ts to be such an
awesome-sounding word, yet has to
mean something rela
tively unawesome.

No, life is not fair. It is, however, funny.

The only thing you
can do is laugh at it. Some
d
ays, you
have to sit in
your boring chair sipping warm
cocoa. Other
days, you get to blast your way out of a pit in the ground,
and then run off to fight a
half-metal monster who is hold
ing your friend's mother captive.
Other days, you need to
dress like a green hamster and dance around in circles
while people throw pomegranates at you.

Don't ask.

There are two lessons I think one should learn from
this book. The second one I'll
blather on about in the next
chapter, but the first one
–
and
perhaps more interesting
one
–
is
this: Please remember to laugh. It's good for
you.
(Plus, while you're laughing, it's easier for me to hit you
with the pomegranate.)

Laugh when good things happen.
Laugh when bad
things happen.
Laugh when life is so plain boring that you
can't find anything amusing about it beyond the fact that
it's so utterly unamusi
n
g.

Laugh when books come to a close, even if the endings
aren't h
a
ppy.

This isn't
p
art of the plan
, I thought desperately as I
dashed back into the room.
What's the point of having a
plan if people don't follow it
?

Kiliman activated the Frostbringer's Lens, blasting it
toward Bastille. She
dropped her pack and whipped up
her dagger, slicing it directly through the icy beam. The
dagger shattered, and her hand turned blue.
But, she
blocked the ray long enough to get inside Kiliman's reach,
and she delivered a solid blow to his stomach with her
other hand.

Kiliman let out an
oof
of pain and stumbled backward.
Angered, he slammed his sword down toward Bastille.
Somehow, she got out of the way, and the sword hit the
ground with a harsh sound.

She's so quick
!
I thought.
She was already around to
Kiliman's side and delivered a powerful kick to his ribs.
Although he didn't look like he enjoyed the blow, he didn't
react as much as I would have thought a regular person
would.
He was part Alivened; regular weapons couldn't kill
this creature.
That was a job for an Oculator.

As I grew close, Kiliman spun, slamming his shoulder into Bastille's chest.
The blow threw her backward
to the ground, and Kiliman laughed, then raised the
Frostbringer's Lens, pointing it directly at her.

"No!" I yelled.
The only thing I had, however, was the
Grappler's Glass boot.
So, I threw it.

The Lens began to glow. For once in my life, however,
my aim was true
–
and
the boot hit the Lens square on
and locked into place. When the Lens went off, ice formed
in a large block around the
shoe, weighing it down, but
also filling the boot itself,
making it impossible to reach
inside and turn it off.

Kiliman cursed, shaking his hand.
As he did so, I real
ized that I still had ahold of the trip wire tied to the boot.
Thinking that I'd be able to pull the Frostbringer's Lens to
myself, I
y
anked on the wire.

I hadn't stopped to think that Kiliman might yank
back. And he was a
lot
stronger than I was.
His pull caused
the wire to bite into my hands as it yanked me off my feet.
I cried out, hitting
the ground, and my Talent proac
tively broke the wire before Kiliman could pull me any
farther toward him.
I looked up, dazed, ten feet of wire still
wrapped around
m
y hands.

Kiliman freed his han
d from the frozen Lens-boot com
bination, and he tossed both aside.
Bastille was climbing
to her feet.
Without her jacket
–
which
had broken when
the
Dragonaut
crashed
–
she
couldn't take much more
punishment than a regular person, and Kiliman had hit
her square on with a metal shoulder.
It was a wonder she
could even walk.

Kiliman hefted the Crystin blade in two hands, then
smiled at us.
He didn't seem to be at all threatened; that
attitude, however,
seemed to make Bastille even m
ore
determined.
Despite my yelled warning, she charged the
monster again.

And she calls us Smedries crazy
! I thought with frustra
tion, pushing myself to my feet.
As Kiliman rais
e
d his
weapon to swing at Bastille, I slammed my hand to the
ground and released the Breaking T
a
lent.

The floor cracked. There was an awesome,
d
eafening
sound as rocks shattered and sections of floor beca
me rub
ble.
Kiliman idly stepped
to the side, raising a metallic
eyebrow at the rift that appeared behind him.

"What, exactly, was that supposed to do?" it asked,
glancing at me.

"It was supposed to make you stumble," I said.
"But,
it'll work as a distraction too."

At that moment, Bastille tackled him.

Kiliman yelled, falling to the ground, the Crystin blade
sliding from his grip.
As he hit, something fell from one of
his pockets and skidded across the floor.

My Translator's Lenses.

I cried out, dashing toward them.
From behind, I could
hear Bastille grunting as she snatched the Crystin blade.
Kiliman, however, was just too strong.
He grabbed her foot
with a metal-bolt hand, then threw her to the side, causing
her to drop the sword.

She hit the wall with a terrible thud.
I spun in alarm.

Bastille slid to the ground.
S
he looked dazed.
Her fore
head was bleeding from a cut, and one of her hands was
still blue from the blast of frost.
She favored her side and
grimaced as she tried
–
then
failed
–
to
stand.
She
seemed to be in
really
bad shape.

Kiliman stood up, then recovered the Crystin blade.
He
shook his head, as if to clear it, and with his flesh hand
he pulled out another Lens.
The Voidstormer's Lens: the
one that sucked things toward him.

He pointed the Lens toward Bastille.
She groaned as she
began to slide across the floor toward him, unable to even
stand.
Kiliman raised the sword.

I dived for the T
r
anslator's Lenses, which had skidded
across the floor to rest beside one of the scroll-covered
walls.
I knelt beside the Lenses, hurriedly grabbing them.

"Ha!" Kiliman said.
"You'd fetch those Lenses even as I
kill your friend.
I thought that Smedries were supposed to
be bold and honorable.
We can see what happens to your
grand ideals once real danger is near!"

I knelt there for a moment, my back to Kiliman,
Translator's Lenses in my fingers.
I knew I couldn't let him
have them.
Not even to save my life or Bastille's . . .

I glanced over my shoulder. Bastille came to a rest in
front of Kiliman.
She had her eyes closed, and barely
seemed to be breathing.
He raised her mother's sword to
kill her.

This is the part I've been warning you about.
The part
I know you're not going to like.
I'm sorry.

I dashed away, making for the exit of the room.

Kiliman laughed even more loudly.
"I knew it!"

At that moment, in my haste, I tripped.
I stumbled on
the uneven
ground and fell facedown, the Tr
anslator's
Lenses sliding from my fingers and hitting the stone floor.
They tumbled away. "No!" I yelled.

“
Aha!" Kiliman said, then spun his Voidstormer's Lens
toward the fallen Translator's Lenses. They
whipped off the
floor and flew toward him.
I watched the Lenses go, meet
ing Kiliman's eyes
–
one
human, one glass
–
as
he exulted
in his victory.

Then I smiled.
I think it was about that moment
when he noticed the trip wire tied around the frame
of the T
r
anslator's Lenses, which flew through the air
toward him.