Alcatraz (69 page)
Authors: Brandon Sanderson
‘She stole it,’ I said.
‘The book you want, the one written by the scribe of Alcatraz the First.
She took it from the archives.
That’s what the entire mess last week was about!’
‘I thought that was an assassination attempt on the monarchs,’ he said.
‘That was only part of it.
I sent you a message in the middle of it, asking you to come help us protect the archives, but you completely ignored it!’
He waved an indifferent hand.
‘I was occupied with greater things.
You must be mistaken – I’ll look through the archives and—’
‘I looked already,’ I said.
‘I’ve looked at the title of every single book in there that was written in the Forgotten Language.
They’re all cookbooks or ledgers or things.
Except that one my mother took.’
‘And you let her steal it?’
my father demanded indignantly.
Let her.
I took a deep breath.
(And, next time you think
your
parents are frustrating, might I invite you to read this passage through one more time?)
‘I believe,’ a new voice said, ‘that young Alcatraz did everything he could to stop the aforementioned theft.’
My father turned to see King Dartmoor, wearing his crown and blue-gold robes, standing behind him.
The king nodded to me.
‘Prince Rikers has spoken at length of the event, Attica.
I believe there will be a novel forthcoming.’
Wonderful
, I thought.
‘Well,’ my father said, ‘I guess .
.
.
well, this changes everything .
.
.’
‘What is this about giving everyone Talents, Attica?’
the king asked.
‘Is that really wise?
From what I hear, Smedry Talents can be very unpredictable.’
‘We can control them,’ my father said, waving another indifferent hand.
‘You know how the people dream of having our powers.
Well, I will be the one to make those dreams become a reality.’
So that was what it was about.
My father, sealing his legacy.
Being the hero who made everyone capable of having a Talent.
But if everyone had a Smedry Talent .
.
.
Then, well, what would that mean for us?
We wouldn’t be the only ones with Talents anymore.
That made me feel a little sick.
Yes, I know it is selfish, but that’s how I felt.
I think this is – perhaps – the capstone of this book.
After all I’d been through, after all the fighting to help the Free Kingdoms, I was still selfish enough to want to keep the Talents for myself.
Because the Talents were what made us special, weren’t they?
‘I will have to think on this more,’ my father said.
‘It appears that we’ll have to search out that book.
Even if it means confronting .
.
.
her.’
He nodded to the kings, then walked away.
He put on a smiling face when he met with the press, but I could tell that he was bothered.
The disappearance of that book had fouled up his plans.
Well
, I thought,
he should have paid better attention!
I knew it was silly, but I couldn’t help feeling that I’d let him down.
That this was my fault.
I tried to shake myself out of it and walked back to my grandfather and the others.
Had my parents been like Folsom and Himalaya once?
Bright, loving, full of excitement?
If so, what had gone wrong?
Himalaya was a Librarian and Folsom was a Smedry.
Were they doomed to the same fate as my parents?
And Smedry Talents for everyone.
My mind drifted back to the words I’d read on the wall of the tomb of Alcatraz the First.
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
.
.
.
The Bane of Incarna.
That which twists, that which corrupts, and that which destroys
.
The Dark Talent
.
Wherever my father went on his quest to discover how to ‘make’ Smedry Talents, I determined that I would follow after him.
I would watch, and make certain he didn’t do anything
too
rash.
I had to be ready to stop him, if need be.
Alcatraz walks onto the stage.
He smiles at the audience, looking right into the camera.
‘Hello,’ he says.
‘And welcome to the after-book special.
I’m your host, Alcatraz Smedry.’
‘And I’m Bastille Dartmoor,’ Bastille says, joining Alcatraz on the stage.
Alcatraz nods.
‘We’re here to talk to you about a pernicious evil that is plaguing today’s youth.
A terrible, awful habit that is destroying them from the inside out.’
Bastille looks at the camera.
‘He’s talking, of course, about skipping to the ends of books and reading the last pages first.’
‘We call it “Last-Paging”’ Alcatraz says.
‘You may think it doesn’t involve you or your friends, but studies show that there has been a 4,000.024 percent increase in Last-Paging during the past seven minutes alone.’
‘That’s right, Alcatraz,’ Bastille says.
‘And did you know that Last-Paging is the largest cause of cancer in domesticated fruit bats?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes indeed.
Also, Last-Paging makes you lose sleep, grow hair in funny places, and can decrease your ability to play Halo by forty-five percent.’
‘Wow,’ Alcatraz says.
‘Why would anyone do it?’
‘We’re not certain.
We only know that it happens, and that this terrible disease isn’t fully understood.
Fortunately, we’ve taken actions to combat it.’
‘Such as putting terrible after-book specials at the backs of books to make people feel sick?’
Alcatraz asks helpfully.
‘That’s right,’ Bastille says.
‘Stay away from Last-Paging, kids!
Remember, the more you know .
.
.’
‘.
.
.
The more you can forget tomorrow!’
Alcatraz says.
‘Good night, folks.
And be sure to join us for next week’s after-book special, where we expose the dangers of gerbil snorting!’
No, we’re not done yet.
Be patient.
We’ve only had three endings so far; we can stand another one.
Both of my other books had afterwords, so this one will too.
(And if we need to send someone to Valinor to justify this last ending, let me know.
I’m not going to marry Rosie, though.)
Anyway, there you have it.
My first visit to Nalhalla, my first experience with fame.
You’ve seen the actions of a hero and the actions of a fool – and you know that both hero and fool are the same person.
I know I said that this was the book where you’d see me fail – and, in a way, I did fail.
I let my mother escape with the Incarna text.
However, I realize this wasn’t as big a failure as you might have been expecting.
You should have known.
I won’t warn you when my big failure is about to arrive.
It will hurt far more when it’s a surprise.
You’ll see.
I want to thank my awesome agent, Joshua Bilmes, for being, well, awesome.
Thanks also to my editor at Scholastic, Jennifer Rees, whose pleasant personality and editorial know-how make the process of publishing a book so much easier.
Peter and Karen Ahlstrom were kind enough to read the manuscript and give me excellent suggestions.
Janci Patterson also gave me feedback that was very valuable, even though her comments were written in glaring pink ink!
I’d like to thank my lovely wife, Emily Sanderson, who helped with this book in ways too numerous to list here.
Finally, a special thank-you goes to Mrs.
Bushman’s sixth-grade students (you know who you are!) who have been so enthusiastic about my books.
– Brandon Sanderson
For Peter Ahlstrom
Who is not only a good friend and great man
,
But one who has been reading my books since the days when they were terrible
,
And who strives very hard to keep them from being that way again
.
Insoluble, Incalculable, Indefinable
.
Indispensible
.
I am an idiot.
You should know this already, if you’ve read the previous three volumes of my autobiography.
If, by chance, you haven’t read them, then don’t worry.
you’ll get the idea.
After all, nothing in this book will make any kind of sense to you.
You’ll be confused at the difference between the Free Kingdoms and the Hushlands.
You’ll wonder why I keep pretending that my glasses are magical.
You’ll be baffled by all these insane characters.
(Actually, you’ll probably wonder all of those same things if you start from the beginning too.
These books don’t really make a lot of sense, you see.
Try living through one of them sometime.
Then you’ll know what it
really
means to be confused.)
Anyway, as I was saying, if you haven’t read the other three books, then don’t bother.
That will make this book even more confusing to you, and that’s exactly what I want.
By way of introduction, just let me say this.
My name is Alcatraz Smedry, my talent is breaking things, and I’m stoopid.
Really, really stoopid.
So stoopid, I don’t know how to spell the word stupid.
This is my story.
Or, well, part four of it.
Otherwise known as ‘The part where everything goes wrong, and then Alcatraz has a cheese sandwich.’
Enjoy.
S
o there I was, holding a pink teddy bear in my hand.
It had a red bow and an inviting, cute, bearlike smile.
Also, it was ticking.
‘Now what?’
I asked.
‘Now you throw it, idiot!’
Bastille said urgently.
I frowned, then tossed the bear to the side, through the open window, into the small room filled with sand.
A second later, an explosion blasted back through the window and tossed me into the air.
I was propelled backward, then slammed into the far wall.
With an
urk
of pain, I slid down and fell onto my back.
I blinked, my vision fuzzy.
Little flakes of plaster – the kind they put on ceilings just so they can break off and fall to the ground dramatically in an explosion – broke off the ceiling and fell dramatically to the ground.
One hit me on the forehead.
‘Ow,’ I said.
I lay there, staring upward, breathing in and out.
‘Bastille, did that teddy bear just explode?’
‘Yes,’ she said, walking over and looking down at me.
She had on a gray-blue militaristic uniform, and wore her straight, silver hair long.
On her belt was a small sheath that had a large hilt sticking out of it.
That hid her Crystin blade; though the sheath was only about a foot long, if she drew the weapon out it would be the length of a regular sword.
‘Okay.
Right.
Why
did that teddy bear just explode?’
‘Because you pulled out the pin, stupid.
What else did you expect it to do?’
I groaned, sitting up.
The room around us – inside the Nalhallan Royal Weapons Testing Facility – was white and featureless.
The wall where we’d been standing had an open window looking into the blast range, which was filled with sand.
There were no other windows or furniture, save for a set of cabinets on our right.
‘What did I expect it to do?’
I said.
‘Maybe play some music?
Say “mama”?
Where I come from, exploding is not a normal bear habit.’
‘Where you come from, a lot of things are backward,’ Bastille said.
‘I’ll bet your poodles don’t explode either.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘Pity.’
‘Actually, exploding poodles
would
be awesome.
But exploding teddy bears?
That’s dangerous!’
‘Duh.’
‘But Bastille, they’re for
children
!’
‘Exactly.
So that they can defend themselves, obviously.’
She rolled her eyes and walked back over to the window that looked into the sand-filled room.
She didn’t ask if I was hurt.
She could see that I was still breathing, and that was generally good enough for her.
Also, you may have noticed that this is Chapter Two.
You may be wondering where Chapter One went.
It turns out that I – being stoopid – lost it.
Don’t worry, it was kind of boring anyway.
Well, except for the talking llamas.
I climbed to my feet.
‘In case you were wondering—’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘—I’m fine.’
‘Great.’
I frowned, walking up to Bastille.
‘Is something bothering you, Bastille?’
‘Other than you?’
‘I
always
bother you,’ I said.
‘And you’re always a little grouchy.
But today you’ve been downright
mean
.’
She glanced at me, arms folded.
Then I saw her expression soften faintly.
‘Yeah.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘I just don’t like losing.’
‘Losing?’
I said.
‘Bastille, you recovered your place in the knights, exposed – and defeated – a traitor to your order, and stopped the Librarians from kidnapping or killing the Council of Kings.
If that’s “losing,” you’ve got a really funny definition of the word.’
‘Funnier than your face?’
‘Bastille,’ I said firmly.
She sighed, leaning down, crossing her arms on the windowsill.
‘She Who Cannot Be Named got away, your mother escaped with a pair of Translator’s Lenses, and – now that they’re not hiding behind the ruse of a treaty – the Librarians are throwing everything they’ve got at Mokia.’
‘You’ve done what you could.
I’ve
done what I could.
It’s time to let others handle things.’
She didn’t look happy about that.
‘Fine.
Let’s get back to your explosives training.’
She wanted me well prepared in case the war came to Nalhalla.
It wasn’t likely to happen, but my ignorance of proper things – like exploding teddy bears – has always been a point of frustration to Bastille.
Now, I realize that many of you are just as ignorant as I am.
That’s why I prepared a handy guide that explains everything you need to know and remember about my autobiography in order to not be confused by this book.
I put the guide back in Chapter One.
If you ever have trouble, you can reference it.
I’m such a nice guy.
Dumb, but nice.
Bastille opened one of the cabinets on the side wall and pulled out another small, pink teddy bear.
She handed it to me as I walked up to her.
It had a little tag on the side that said
Pull me!
in adorable lettering.
I took it nervously.
‘Tell me honestly.
Why do you build grenades that look like teddy bears?
It’s not about protecting children.’
‘Well, how do you feel when you look at that?’
I shrugged.
‘It’s cute.
In a deadly, destructive way.’
Kind of like Bastille, actually
, I thought.
‘It makes me want to smile.
Then it makes me want to run away screaming, since I know it’s really
a grenade
.’
‘Exactly,’ Bastille said, taking the bear from me and pulling the tag – the pin – out.
She tossed it out the window.
‘If you build weapons that
look
like weapons, then everyone will know to run away from them!
This way, the Librarians are confused.’
‘That’s sick,’ I said.
‘Shouldn’t I be ducking or something?’
‘You’ll be fine,’ she said.
Ah
, I thought.
This one must be some kind of dud or fake
.
At that second, the grenade outside the window exploded.
Another blast threw me backward.
I hit the wall with a grunt, and another piece of plaster fell on my head.
This time, though, I managed to land on my knees.
Oddly, I felt remarkably unharmed, considering I’d just been blown backward by the explosion.
In fact, neither explosion seemed to have hurt me very badly at all.
‘The pink ones,’ Bastille said, ‘are blast-wave grenades.
They throw people and things away from them, but they don’t actually hurt anyone.’
‘Really?’
I said, walking up to her.
‘How does
that
work?’
‘Do I look like an explosives expert?’
I hesitated.
With those fiery eyes and dangerous expression .
.
.
‘The answer is no, Smedry,’ she said flatly, folding her arms.
‘I don’t know how these things work.
I’m just a soldier.’
She picked up a blue teddy bear and pulled the tag off, then tossed it out the window.
I braced myself, grabbing the windowsill, preparing for a blast.
This time, however, the bear grenade made a muted thumping sound.
The sand in the next room began to pile up in a strange way, and I was suddenly yanked
through
the window into the next room.
I yelped, tumbling through the air, then hit the mound of sand face-first.
‘That,’ Bastille said from behind, ‘is a
suction-wave
grenade.
It explodes in reverse, pulling everything toward it instead of pushing it away.’
‘Mur murr mur mur murrr,’ I said, since my head was buried in the sand.
Sand, it should be noted, does
not
taste very good.
Even with ketchup.
I pulled my head free, leaning back against the pile of sand, straightening my Oculator’s Lenses and looking back at the window, where Bastille was leaning with arms crossed, smiling faintly.
There’s nothing like seeing a Smedry get sucked through a window to improve her mood.
‘That should be impossible!’
I protested.
‘A grenade that explodes
backward
?’
She rolled her eyes again.
‘You’ve been in Nalhalla for months now, Smedry.
Isn’t it time to stop pretending that everything shocks or confuses you?’
‘I .
.
.
er .
.
.’
I wasn’t pretending.
I’d been raised in the Hushlands, trained by Librarians to reject things that seemed too .
.
.
well, too strange.
But Nalhalla – city of castles – was nothing
but
strangeness.
It was hard not to get overwhelmed by it all.
‘I still think a grenade shouldn’t be able to explode
inward
,’ I said, shaking sand off my clothing as I walked up to the window.
‘I mean, how would you even make that work?’
‘Maybe you take the same stuff you put in a regular grenade, then put it in backward?’
‘I .
.
.
don’t think it works that way, Bastille.’
She shrugged, getting out another bear.
This one was purple.
She moved to pull the tag.
‘Wait!’
I said, scrambling through the window.
I took the bear grenade from her.
‘This time you’re going to tell me what it does first.’
‘That’s no fun.’
I raised a sceptical eyebrow at her.
‘This one is harmless,’ she said.
‘A stuff-eater grenade.
It vaporizes everything nearby that
isn’t
alive.
Rocks, dead wood, fibers, glass, metal.
All gone.
But living plants, animals, people – perfectly safe.
Works wonders against Alivened.’
I looked down at the little purple bear.
Alivened were objects brought to life through Dark Oculatory magic.
I’d once fought some created from romance novels.
‘This could be useful.’
‘Yeah,’ she said.
‘Works well against Librarians too.
If a group is charging at you with those guns of theirs, you can vaporize the weapons but leave the Librarians unharmed.’
‘And their clothing?’
I asked.
‘Gone.’
I hefted the bear, contemplating a little payback for being sucked through the window.
‘So you’re saying that if I threw this at you, and it went off, you’d be left—’
‘Kicking you in the face?’
Bastille asked coolly.
‘Yes.
Then I’d staple you to the outside to a tall castle and paint “dragon food” over your head.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘Er .
.
.
why don’t we just put this one away?’
‘Yeah, good idea.’
She took it from me and stuffed it back into the cabinet.
‘So .
.
.
I noticed that none of those grenades are, well, actually
deadly
.’
‘Of course they aren’t,’ Bastille said.
‘What do you take us for?
Barbarians?’
‘Of course not.
But you
are
at war.’
‘War’s no excuse for
hurting
people.’
I scratched my head.
‘I thought war was all
about
hurting people.’
‘That’s Librarian thinking,’ Bastille said, folding her arms and narrowing her eyes.
‘Uncivilized.’
She hesitated.
‘Well, actually, even the
Librarians
use many nonlethal weapons in war these days.
You’ll see, if the war ever comes here.’