Alcatraz (64 page)

The freckled Oculator adjusted his spectacles.
Fortunately, they weren’t red-tinted Oculator’s Lenses – which would have let him notice me – but were instead tinted with orange-and-blue stripes.
I didn’t recognize that type.

‘The scholars I interviewed said the place was messy, Shasta,’ he said in a kind of nasal voice, ‘but who knows what they consider clean or messy?
These stacks look like they were arranged and organized by a buffoon!’

Himalaya huffed in outrage, and Sing had to grab her by the arm to keep her from marching out to defend her cataloging abilities.

‘All right,’ Shasta said.
‘I don’t know how long it will be before someone notices what we’ve done.
I want to find that book and get out of here as soon as possible.’

I frowned.
That made it seem like they had gotten into the room by stealth.
It was a good plan; if a book disappeared from the Royal-Archives-Not-a-Library™, then it would probably be centuries before anyone realized it was gone.
If they even realized it at all.

But that meant my mother and a group of about thirty Librarians had managed to
sneak
past the archives’ defenses.
That seemed impossible.

Either way, we were in trouble.
I didn’t have any offensive Lenses, and Bastille’s severing had her on the brink of collapse.
That left us with Folsom.
I’d just seen him do some serious damage, but I hated trusting a Smedry Talent as unpredictable as his.

It seemed a far, far better idea to get out and grab our army, then come back for a fight.
I liked that idea a whole lot, particularly since we’d probably be able to send to the palace for Grandpa Smedry.
(And maybe the Free Kingdomer version of a Sherman tank or two.)

But how to get out?
The Librarians were beginning to move through the stacks.
We were near the middle of the room, our position shadowed by a lack of lamplight, but we obviously couldn’t remain hidden for long.

‘All right,’ I whispered to Sing and Himalaya, ‘we need to get out of here!
Any ideas?’

‘Maybe we could sneak around the outside of the room,’ Himalaya said, pointing at the mazelike corridors.

I didn’t like the idea of risking running into one of those thugs.
I shook my head.

‘We could hide in the back,’ Sing whispered.
‘Hope they get frustrated and leave .
.
.’

‘Sing, this is a whole
group
of Librarians,’ I said.
‘They’ll all be able to do what Himalaya did.
They’ll sort through this room in minutes!’

Himalaya snorted quietly.
‘I doubt it,’ she said.
‘I was one of the Wardens of the Standard – the best sorters in all the world.
Most of those are just basic acolytes.
They’ll barely be able to alphabetize, let alone sort based on the Sticky Hamstring methodology.’

‘Either way,’ I whispered, ‘I doubt they’re going to leave without
this
.’
I glanced down at the volume I still carried, then looked across the central aisle to Bastille.
She looked tense, poised.
She was getting ready to fight – which tended to be her solution to a lot of things.

Great
, I thought.
This is
not
going to end well
.

‘If only my sister were here,’ Sing said.
‘She could make herself look like one of those thugs and slip away.’

I froze.
Sing’s sister, Australia, would be back with the Mokian contingent trying to lobby the Council of Kings to make the right decision.
She had the Talent to go to sleep, then wake up looking really ugly.
That usually meant looking like someone else for a short time.
We didn’t have her but we did have the Disguiser’s Lenses.
I hurriedly pulled them out.
They could get me out – but what about the others?

I looked across the corridor.
Bastille met my eyes, then saw the Lenses in my hands.
I could tell she recognized them.
She met my eyes, then nodded.

Go
, the look said.
Take that book to safety.
Don’t worry about us
.

If you’ve read through my series this far, then you know that at that age I considered myself too noble to abandon my friends.
I was starting to change, however.
My nibble of fame – one I still secretly longed to taste again – had begun to work inside me.

I put on the Lenses and focused, imagining the image of a Librarian thug.
Himalaya gasped quietly as I changed, and Sing raised an eyebrow.
I glanced at them.

‘Be ready to run,’ I said.
I looked at Bastille and held up one finger to indicate that she should wait.
Then I pointed at the door.
She seemed to get my meaning.

I took a deep breath, then stepped out.
The center of the room was poorly lit, since we’d obscured a lot of the lamps with book walls.
Those lamps were hung back in their places on the walls, even the one I’d tried to use to burn the place down.

I walked forward, holding my breath, expecting the Librarians to raise an alarm against me, but they were too busy searching.
Nobody even turned.
I walked right up to my mother.
She glanced at me, the woman I’d always known as Ms.
Fletcher the woman who had spent years berating me as a child.

‘Well, what is it?’
she snapped, and I realized I’d just been standing there, staring.

I held up the book, the one she was searching for.
Her eyes opened wide with anticipation.

And so, I handed the book to her.

Is this a good place?
Can I stop here now?
Okay, finally.
About time.

18

I
’d like to apologize.
Way back in my first book of this series, near the end, I made fun of the fact that readers sometimes stay up
way
too late reading books.
I know how it is.
You get involved in a story and you don’t want to stop.
Then the author does very unfair things, like confront his mother face-to-face at the end of the chapter, forcing you to turn to the next page and read what happens next.

This sort of thing is terribly unfair, and I shouldn’t be engaging in such activities.
After all, there is one thing that every good book should have in it: That, of course, is a potty break.

Sure, we characters can go between chapters, but what about you?
You have to wait until there’s a portion of the book that is slow and boring.
And since those don’t
exist
in my books, I force you to wait until the story is done.
That’s just not fair.
And so, get ready, here’s your chance.
It’s time for the slow, boring part.

The furry panda is a noble creature, known for its excellent chess-playing skills.
Pandas often play chess in exchange for lederhosen, which make up a large chunk of their preferred diet.
They also make a fortune off their licensing deals, in which they shrink and stuff members of their clan and sell them as plush toys for young children.
It is often theorized that one day all of these plush pandas will decide to rise up and rule the world.
And that will be fun, because pandas rock.

Okay, done doing your business?
Great.
Now maybe we can finally get on with this story.
(It’s really annoying to have to wait for you like that, so you should thank me for my patience.)

My mother took the book from me and waved eagerly to the freckled Dark Oculator.
‘Fitzroy, get over here.’

‘Yes, yes, Shasta,’ he said a little too eagerly.
He regarded her adoringly.
‘What is it?’

‘Read this,’ she said, handing him the book and the Translator’s Lenses.

The young man grabbed the book and the Lenses; it disgusted me how eager he was to please my mother.
I inched away, raising my hand toward the nearby wall.

‘Hum, yes .
.
.’
Fitzroy said.
‘Shasta, this is it!
The very book we wanted!’

‘Excellent,’ my mother said, reaching for the book.

At that moment, I touched the glass wall and released a powerful blast of breaking power into it.
Now, I knew I couldn’t break the glass – I was counting on that.
In previous circumstances, I’d been able to use things like walls, tables, even smoke trails as a conduit.
Like a wire carried electricity, an object could carry my breaking power within it, shattering something on the other end.

It was a risk, but I wasn’t going to leave my allies alone in a room full of Librarians.
Particularly not when one of those allies was the official Alcatraz Smedry novelist.
I had my legacy to think about.

Fortunately, it worked.
The breaking power moved through the wall like ripples on a lake.
The lamps on the walls shattered.

And everything plunged into darkness.

I leaped forward and snatched the book, which was being passed between Shasta and Fitzroy.
Voices called out in shock and surprise, and I distinctly heard my mother curse.
I rushed for the doorway, bursting out into the lit hallway beyond and quickly taking off my Disguiser’s lenses.

There was a sudden crash from inside the room.
Then a face appeared from the darkness.
It was a Librarian thug.
I cringed, preparing for a fight, but the man suddenly grimaced in pain and fell to the ground.
Bastille jumped over him as he groaned and grabbed his leg; her brother, the prince, ran along behind her.

I ushered Rikers through the door, relieved that Bastille had understood my hand gestures.
(Though I used the universal signal for ‘Wait here for a sec, then run for the door,’ that signal also happens to be the universal hand sign for ‘I need a milk shake; I think I’ll find one in that direction.’)

‘Where’s Folsom—’ I began, but the critic soon appeared, carrying Rikers’s novel in his hand, prepared to open the cover and start dancing at a moment’s notice.
He puffed, coming through the door as Bastille knocked aside another thug who was clever enough to make for the light.
Only a few seconds had passed, but I began to worry.
Where were Sing and Himalaya?

‘I give this escape a three and a half out of seven and six-eighths, Alcatraz,’ Folsom said nervously.
‘Clever in concept, but rather nerve-wracking in execution.’

‘Noted,’ I said tensely, glancing about.
Where
were
those soldiers of ours?
They were supposed to be out in the stairwell here, but it was empty.
In fact, something seemed odd about the stairwell.

‘Guys?’
Rikers said.
‘I think—’

‘There!’
Bastille said, pointing as Sing and Himalaya appeared from the shadows of the room.
The two rushed through the door, and I slammed it closed, using my breaking power to jam the lock.
‘What was that crash?’
I asked.

‘I tripped into a couple rows of books,’ Sing said, ‘throwing them down on the Librarians to keep them distracted.’

‘Smart,’ I said.
‘Let’s get out of here.’

We began to rush up the stairwell, the wooden steps creaking beneath our feet.
‘That was risky, Smedry,’ Bastille said.

‘You expected less of me?’

‘Of course not,’ she snapped.
‘But why hand the book over to the Librarian?’

‘I got it back,’ I said, holding it up.
‘Plus, now we know for sure that
this
is the volume they wanted.’

Bastille cocked her head.
‘Huh.
You
are
clever sometimes.’

I smiled.
Unfortunately, the truth is,
none
of us was being very clever at that moment.
None of us but Rikers, of course – and we’d chosen to ignore him.
That’s usually a safe move.

Except, of course, when you’re rushing up the wrong stairwell.
It finally dawned on me, and I froze in place, causing the others to stumble to a halt.

‘What is it, Alcatraz?’
Sing asked.

‘The stairs,’ I said.
‘They’re wooden.’

‘So?’

‘They were stone before.’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to say!’
Prince Rikers exclaimed.
‘I wonder how they turned the steps to a different material.’

I suddenly felt a sense of horror.
The door was just above us.
I walked up nervously and pushed on it.

It opened into a medieval-looking castle chamber completely different from the one that had held our soldiers.
This room had red carpeting, library stacks in the distance, and was filled with a good
two hundred
Librarian soldiers.

‘Shattering Glass!’
Bastille cursed, slamming the door in front of me.
‘What’s going on?’

I ignored her for the moment, rushing back down the steps.
The Librarians locked inside the archives room were pounding on the door, trying to break it down.
Now that I paused to consider, the landing right in front of the door looked very different from the way it had before.
It was far larger, and it had a door at the left side.

As the others piled down the steps after me, I threw open the door to my left.
I stepped into an enormous chamber filled with wires, panes of glass, and scientists in white lab coats.
There were large containers on the sides of the room.
Containers that I’m sure were filled with brightsand.

‘What in the
Sands
is going on?’
Folsom demanded, peeking in behind me.

I stood, stunned.
‘We’re not in the same building anymore, Folsom.’

‘What?’

‘They swapped us!
The archive filled with books – the
entire glass room
– they swapped it for another room using Transporter’s Glass!
They weren’t digging a tunnel to get in, they were digging to the corners so they could affix glass there and teleport the room away!’

It was brilliant.
The glass was unbreakable, the stairwell guarded.
But what if you could take the whole room away and replace it with another one?
You could search out the book you needed, then swap the rooms back, and nobody would be the wiser.

The door behind us broke open, and I turned to see a group of muscular Librarians force their way into the stairwell.
I could just barely make out Bastille tensing for combat, and Folsom moved to open the novel with the music.

‘No,’ I said to them.
‘We’re beaten.
Don’t waste your energy fighting.’

Part of me found it strange that they listened to me.
Even Bastille obeyed my command.
I would have expected the prince to preempt me and take charge, but he seemed perfectly content to stand and watch.
He even seemed excited.

‘Wonderful!’
he whispered to me.
‘We’ve been captured!’

Great
, I thought as my mother pushed her way out through the broken door.
She saw me and smiled – a rare expression for her.
It was the smile of a cat who’d just found a mouse to play with.

‘Alcatraz,’ she said.

‘Mother,’ I replied coldly.

She raised an eyebrow.
‘Tie them up,’ she said to her thugs.
‘And fetch that book for me.’

The thugs pulled out swords and herded us into the room with the scientists.

‘Why’d you stop me?’
Bastille hissed.

‘Because it wouldn’t have done any good,’ I whispered back.
‘We don’t even know where we are – we could be back in the Hushlands, for all we know.
We have to get back to the Royal Archives.’

I waited for it, but nobody said the inevitable ‘not a library.’
I realized that nobody else could hear us – which, indeed, is kind of the point of whispering in the first place.
(That, and sounding more mysterious.)

‘How do we get back, then?’
Bastille asked.

I glanced at the equipment around us.
We had to activate the silimatic machines and swap the rooms again.
But how?

Before I could ask Bastille about this, the thugs pulled us all apart and bound us with ropes.
This wasn’t too big a deal – my Talent could snap ropes in a heartbeat, and if the thugs assumed that we were tied up, then maybe they’d get lax and give us a better chance for escaping.

The Librarians began to rifle through our pockets, depositing our possessions – including all of my Lenses – on a low table.
Then they forced us to the ground, which was sterile and white.
The room itself bustled with activity as Librarians and scientists checked monitors, wires, and panes of glass.

My mother flipped through the book on Smedry history, though – of course – she couldn’t read it.
Her lackey, Fitzroy, was more interested in my Lenses.
‘The other pair of Translator’s Lenses,’ he said, picking them up.
‘These will be very nice to have.’

He slid them into his pocket, continuing on to the others.
‘Oculator’s Lenses,’ he said, ‘boring.’
He set those aside.
‘A single, untinted Lens,’ he said, looking over the Truthfinder’s Lens.
‘It’s probably worthless.’
He handed the Lens to a scientist, who snapped it into a spectacle frame.

‘Ah!’
Fitzroy continued.
‘Are those Disguiser’s Lenses?
Now
these
are valuable!’

The scientist returned the spectacles with the single Truthfinder’s Lens in them, but Fitzroy set this aside, picking up the violet Disguiser’s Lenses and putting them on.
He immediately shifted shapes, melding to look like a much more muscular and handsome version of himself.
‘Hum, very nice,’ he said, inspecting his arms.

Why didn’t I think of that
?
I thought.