Alcatraz (77 page)

Okay.
Maybe I’m too hungry to be writing right now.
Either way, though, Angola was
gorgeous
.
Definitely one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

Bastille stepped on my foot.

‘Ow!’
I complained.
‘What was that for?’

‘Stop gawking at my sister,’ Bastille grumbled.

‘I wasn’t gawking!
I was
appreciating
!’

‘Well, appreciate her a little less, then.
And stop drooling.’

‘I’m not—’ I cut off as Angola breezed down the steps gracefully, coming up to us.
‘I’m not drooling,’ I hissed more softly, then bowed.
‘Your Majesty.’

‘Lord Smedry!’
she said.
‘I’ve heard so much about you!’

‘Er .
.
.
you have?’

She didn’t reply, instead laying her hands gracefully on her sister’s shoulders.
‘And Bastille.
After all these months of writing you and asking you to come visit, now you finally come?
During a siege?
I should have known that only danger would lure you.
Sometimes, I wonder if you’re not as attracted to it as those you protect!’

Bastille blushed.

‘Come,’ Angola said.
‘You are welcome to what comforts Mokia can provide you.
We will take morning repast and discuss the news you bring.
The Aumakua bless that it be of good report, as we have seen too little of that as of late.’

Now, as an aside, you might be shocked to hear such a distinct reference to religion from Angola.
After all, I haven’t talked much about religion in these books.

This is intentional, mostly from a self-preservation standpoint.
I’ve discovered that talking about religion has a lot in common with wearing a catcher’s mask: Both give people liberty to throw things at you.
(And in the case of religion, sometimes the ‘things’ are lightning bolts.)

Unfortunately, in the later years of my life I’ve developed a very rare affliction known as chronic smart-aleckiness.
(It’s kind of like dyslexia, only easier to spell.
Particularly if you don’t have dyslexia.) Because of this tragic, terminal disease, I’m unable to read or write about things without making stoopid wisecracks about them.

Due to my affliction, I’ve wisely left the topic of religion alone – because if I were to talk about it, I’d have to make fun of it.
And that might be offensive, as people take their religions very seriously.
Better not to talk about it at all.

Therefore, I will most certainly
not
tell you what religion has in common with explosive vomiting.
(Whew.
Glad I didn’t say anything like that.
It could have been
really
offensive.)

Angola nodded to Kaz and Aydee in welcome, giving each a smile, then glided back up the steps, expecting us to follow her in.

‘Wow,’ I said.
‘Is she always so .
.
.’

‘Nauseatingly regal?’
Bastille asked softly.
‘Yeah, even before she was married.’

‘Well, I can see why the king married her.
Too bad I won’t be able to meet him.’

Bastille’s eyes flickered toward Mallo.
It was only for a moment, but I caught it.
Frowning, I turned to study the general, trying to find out what had drawn Bastille’s attention.
Once again, he looked familiar to me.
In fact .
.
.

‘You’re the king!’
I exclaimed, pointing at him.

‘What?’
Mallo said, voice stiff.
‘No I’m not.
The king was taken to safety by the Knights of Crystallia weeks ago.’

He was a terrible liar.

‘Hey,’ Kaz said.
‘Yeah, I
thought
I recognized you.
Your Majesty!
We had dinner once a few years back.
Remember?
My father spilled cranberry juice on your tapa.’

The man looked embarrassed.
‘Perhaps we should go inside,’ he said.
‘I see there are some things I need to explain.’

(Also, if you’re wondering, it’s because both often make you fall to your knees.)

No!

I
try very hard to be deep, poignant, and meaningful at the beginning of each chapter.
Most of the content of these books is basically silliness.
(Granted, these events are real silliness that actually
happened
to me, but that doesn’t stop them from being silly.) In the introductions, therefore, I feel it’s important to explain meaningful and important concepts so that your time reading won’t be completely wasted.

I suggest you scrutinize these introductions, searching for their hidden meanings.
My thoughts will bring you enlightenment and wisdom.
If you are confused by something I say, rest assured that I’ll eventually explain myself.

For instance, in reading the introduction to the previous chapter, you might have understood my screams to be an expression of the existential angst felt by modern teens when thrust into a world they were ill-prepared to receive – a world that has changed so drastically from the one their parents knew (thanks for nothing, Heraclitus!).
Or you might have seen it as the scream of one realizing that nobody can offer him help or succor.

(Actually, I wrote
that
introduction to express the existential crisis I felt when an enormous spider crawled up my leg while I was typing.
But you get the idea.)

We stepped into the palace.
It smelled of reeds and thatch, and the wide, open windows let in a cool breeze.
The rug was made of long, woven leaves, and the furniture constructed of tied bundles of reeds.
Quite cozy, assuming you weren’t enraged, confused, and feeling betrayed like I was.

‘You knew,’ I said, pointing at Bastille.

‘I recognized His Majesty immediately,’ she admitted.
‘But he seemed to want to keep his identity secret.
So I played along.’

‘I did too,’ Aydee said.
‘I .
.
.
er, just didn’t do a very good job of it.
Sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Mallo, also known as King Talakimallo of Mokia.
His wife stepped up beside him, and the guards watched the doorway into the palace.

‘But why hide from me?’
I asked.

‘And me!’
Kaz said, folding his arms, stepping up beside me.

‘It wasn’t just from you,’ the king said.
‘It was from all outsiders.
You see, we sort of .
.
.
well, tricked the knights.’
Bastille raised an eyebrow.
‘They insisted that I be protected,’ Mallo said, voice fervent.

‘They
would not
stop pestering me.
I worried they’d kidnap me and take me from the city for my own good.’

‘The city is close to falling, Your Majesty,’ Bastille said.
‘Mokia can’t afford for the entire royal family to be taken by the Librarians.
What of the rest of the kingdom?
It will need leadership.’

‘There
is
no “rest of the kingdom,” child,’ Mallo said.
‘Mokia stands here.
We’ve been beaten down by Librarian forces for decades now; if Tuki Tuki falls, it will spell the end for my people.
We will become just another Librarian province, slowly assimilated into the Hushlands, our people brainwashed until we forget our past.’

The queen laid a hand on her husband’s arm.
‘We are not ignorant of the importance of preserving the royal lineage, fair sister – if only so that a proper resistance can be mounted to reclaim Mokia, should that become our fate.’

Before you ask,
yes
, she actually talks like that.
I once asked her to pass the butter and she said, ‘It pleases me to bequeath this condiment unto you, young Alcatraz.’
Really.
No kidding.

‘But wait,’ I said, scratching my head.
Being stoopid, I do that a lot.
‘You’re here, but the knights think that you’re safe somewhere else?’

‘Our daughter imitated me,’ Mallo said.
‘She is an Oculator and has a pair of Disguiser’s Lenses.
The knights shepherded her away to a hidden location while she used her Lenses to appear as if she were me.’

‘The lineage is safe,’ Angola said.

‘And I can stay to fight with my people, as is right.’
Mallo looked grim.
‘Rather, I can fall with my people.
I’m afraid that several Smedrys and a single knight will not be enough to win this siege.
Our Defender’s Glass is nearly broken, and most of my warriors have fallen to comas in battle.
Those who remain have taken many wounds.
My silimatic scientists think that one more day of fighting will shatter the dome.
We are faced by superior numbers and superior firepower.
In the moments before you arrived, I had made the difficult decision to surrender.
I was on my way to the wall to announce it to the Librarians.’

The words hung in the air like a foul stench – the kind that everyone notices but doesn’t want to point out, for fear of being named the one who caused it.

Well, guess we came here for nothing
, I thought.
We should probably turn around and get out of here
.

‘I’m here to help, Your Majesty,’ I said instead.
‘And I can bring others.
If you will resist a little longer, I will not let Mokia fall.’

I’m not sure where the brave words came from.
Perhaps a smarter man would have known not to say them.
Even as they came out of my mouth, I was shocked by my stoopidity.
Remember what I said about bravery?

Ridiculous though the proclamation was, the king did not laugh.
‘I have found that the word of a Smedry is like gold, young Alcatraz,’ King Mallo said appraisingly.
‘Of great value, but sometimes easy to bend.
Are you certain you can bring aid to my people?’

No
.

‘Yes,’ I said.

The king studied me, then glanced at his wife.

‘If we surrender, our people retain their lives,’ Angola said, ‘but lose their
selves
.
If there remains but a slim chance .
.
.’

He nodded in agreement.
‘You said you needed to use our Communicator’s Glass, Alcatraz.
Let us see what you can do with it, and then I will judge.’

‘Are you certain this is the right thing to do?’
Bastille hissed to me.

We sat on a wicker bench, waiting as the king and his wife fetched the Communicator’s Glass.
Aydee was talking to one of the soldiers, getting news about her family.
(Sing, Australia, and their parents had been sent to provide leadership at the other main battlefront in the Mokian war – though I suspect that the king really sent them away to prevent them from being captured when the city fell.) Kaz stood nearby, arms folded as he leaned against the wall, wearing his brown leather jacket and aviator sunglasses.

‘I don’t know if this is right,’ I admitted to Bastille.
‘But we can’t just let them give up.’

‘If they fight, people will get hurt,’ Bastille said, leaning in close to me.
‘Can we really offer them enough hope to justify that?
Now that I’ve seen how bad it is, I don’t even know if the full force of the Knights of Crystallia would be enough to turn this war around.’

‘I .
.
.’
I trailed off, growing befuddled.
I did that frequently when Bastille sat really close to me, particularly when I could smell the scent of the shampoo in her hair.
Shouldn’t girls smell like flowers or something like that?
Bastille just smelled like soap.

It was strangely intoxicating anyway.
Obviously she gives off some kind of brain-clouding radiation.
That’s the only explanation.

‘Shattering Glass, what am I saying?’
she said, pulling back.
‘Of
course
it’s better for them to fight!
I’m sorry.
I’ve just grown so used to contradicting you on principle that I’m shocked when you do something smart.’

‘Duurrr .
.
.’
I said.

She narrowed her eyes at me.
‘You aren’t still mooning over my sister, are you?’
Her voice was quite threatening.

I shook out of my stupor.
‘What?
No.
Don’t be stoopid.’

‘Did you just call me stoopid?’

‘No, I told you not to be stoopid.
What is it with you and your sister anyway?’

‘Nothing!
I love my sister.
We’re like two shattering flowers in a field of shattering daisies.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘I don’t know!
It was supposed to sound sisterly or something.’

I snorted in derision.

‘So what’s
that
supposed to mean?’
Bastille demanded.
‘I’m
very
affectionate with my sister!’

‘So much so that you’ve never visited her in Mokia?’

‘It’s a long way away, and I was busy training to become a knight.
So that I could keep idiots like
you
out of trouble!’

‘Wait.
You get mad when I
imply
that you might be stoopid, but it’s all right for you to call me an idiot?’

‘Because you’re a Smedry!’

‘That’s always your excuse,’ I said.
‘I don’t buy it.
Besides, this time you said you agreed with what I was doing!’

‘So!’

‘So!’

‘So?’

‘So maybe we should, like, go catch a movie together or something,’ I said, standing up.
‘Sometime when we’re not being chased by Librarians or being eaten by dragons or things like that!’

Bastille paused, cocking her head, frowning.
‘Wait.
What?’

I found myself blushing.
Why had I said
that
?
I mean, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but .
.
.

Brain-clouding radiation.
Obviously.

‘It was nothing,’ I said, panicking.
‘I just, uh, got confused, and—’

‘What’s a “movie”?’
she asked.
‘And why would we need to catch it?
Did one escape?’

‘Er, yes.
They’re these big, monstrous creatures that the Librarians let loose in the Hushlands.
To terrorize people .
.
.
and, you know, and steal their time, and make them cringe at bad acting, and then make them sit through long boring award shows that give statues of little gold men to people you’ve never heard of.’

She frowned even further.
‘You’re an idiot sometimes, Smedry,’ she said, then glanced at Kaz, as if asking for an explanation from him.

‘I’m not
touching
this one,’ he said, smiling.
‘In fact, I’m staying so far away from it, I might as well be in the next kingdom over!’

‘Whatever,’ Bastille said, turning her narrowed eyes back on me – as if she suspected that I was making fun of her in some way she couldn’t figure out.
I just continued to blush, right up until the point where Mallo and Angola returned.
The queen carried a small hand mirror.
She crossed the woven rug and handed it to me.

I hesitated, looking down at the mirror.
Half of the glass was missing.
‘This is it?’

‘Communicator’s Glass is best if portable,’ Mallo said.
‘We broke this piece in half and sent it to Nalhalla; it will allow us to communicate for some weeks through the two pieces, until the power fades.
Then the glass must be reforged and broken again.
It’s not the easiest way to talk across a distance, but we were desperate, particularly after sending away our last Oculator to maintain my disguise.’

‘Librarian agents destroyed our other means of communication,’ one of the soldiers added.
‘The Transporter’s Glass station, the soundrunners, even the city’s stockpile of Messenger’s Glass.’

I frowned.
‘How’d they do that?’

‘They continue to dig tunnels into the city,’ Mallo said with a sigh.
‘And send strike teams up to harry us.
We just caught one earlier today.
We captured them before they could do any permanent damage, then collapsed the tunnel.
There will be more, however.’