‘Have you never been threatened by a weapon before today?’ Grandpa Smedry asked.
‘Well, no.’
Grandpa Smedry nodded. ‘Panic instinct. Your Talent protects you – even at a distance – when threatened. It’s a good thing that he attacked with such a primitive weapon; Talents are much more powerful against them. Honestly, you’d think the Librarians would know not to send someone with a gun against a Smedry of the true line. They obviously underestimate you.’
‘What am I doing here?’ I whispered. ‘They’re going to kill me.’
‘Nonsense, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘You’re a Smedry. We’re made of tougher stuff than the Librarians give us credit for. Ruling the Hushlands for so long has made them sloppy.’
I stood quietly. Then I looked up. ‘We’re really going to go into the library? The place where these guys come from? Isn’t that kind of . . . stupid?’
‘Yes,’ Grandpa Smedry said, speaking – for once – with a quiet solemnity. ‘You can stay back, if you wish. I know how this must all seem to you. Overwhelming. Terrifying. Strange. But you must understand me when I say our task is vital. We’ve made a terrible mistake – I’ve made a terrible mistake – by letting those sands get into the wrong hands. I’m going to make it right, before thousands upon thousands of people suffer.’
‘But . . . isn’t there anyone else who could do this?’
Grandpa Smedry shook his head. ‘Those sands will be forged into Lenses before the day is out. Our only chance – the world’s only chance – is to get them before that happens.’
I nodded slowly. ‘Then I’m going,’ I said. ‘You can’t leave me behind.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Grandpa Smedry said. Then he glanced up at the wall where I had broken it. ‘You do that?’
I nodded again.
‘Nagging Nixes! You really do have quite the skill for breaking things,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Must have been hard for you when you were younger.’
I shrugged.
‘What kinds of things can you break?’ Grandpa Smedry asked.
‘All kinds of things,’ I said. ‘Doors, electronics, tables. Once I broke a chicken.’
‘A chicken?’
I nodded. ‘It was on a field trip. I got . . . kind of frustrated, and I picked up a chicken. When I put it down, it immediately lost all of its feathers, and from then on refused to eat anything but cat food.’
‘Breaking living things . . .’ Grandpa Smedry mumbled to himself. ‘Extraordinary. Untamed, yes, but extraordinary nonetheless . . .’
I pointed at the building, hoping to change the subject. ‘It’s a glass box.’
‘Yes,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Expander’s Glass – if you make space inside of it, you can push out the walls inside without pushing out the walls on the outside.’
‘That’s impossible. It disobeys the laws of physics.’ (We Hushlanders pay a lot of attention to physics.) ‘That’s just Librarian talk,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn, lad. Come on, we need to get moving. We’re late!’
I allowed myself to be led away, past the three bullet holes in the siding. ‘They missed,’ I said, almost to myself. ‘It’s a good thing that man had such bad aim.’
Grandpa Smedry laughed. ‘Bad aim! He didn’t have a chance of hitting me. I arrived late to every shot. Your Talent can do some great things, my boy, but it’s not the only powerful ability around! I’ve been arriving late to my own death since before you were born. In fact, once I was so late to an appointment that I got there before I left!’
I paused, trying to work through that last statement, but Grandpa Smedry waved me on. We rounded the building. Quentin and Sing stood with one of the station attendants, talking quietly. Sing had a good dozen different guns strapped to his body. He wore two holsters on each leg, one holster around each upper arm, and one underneath each arm. These were complemented by a couple of uzis tucked into his sash, and what looked like a shotgun tied to his back in a kind of swordlike fashion.
‘Oh, dear,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘He’s not supposed to show them off like that, is he?’
‘Um, no,’ I said.
Could we peace bond them, you think?’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ I said, ‘but I doubt it would help.’ Still, after getting shot at, the sight of Sing with all those weapons did make me feel a little more comfortable. Until I realized that, if we were going to be bringing an arsenal like that, what would our enemies have?
‘Ah, well,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘I already told him he could bring them. We can hide them in a bag or something. They’re really not that dangerous – it’s not like he’s got a sword or something. Anyway, we need to get moving, we’re—’
‘—late,’ I said. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘Good, then let’s—’
At this point, you should be very annoyed with people getting interrupted midsentence. I assure you that I feel the same way. In fact, I think—
A silver sports car screeched into the parking lot. Its windows were tinted the deepest black – even the windshield – and it had a sleek, ominous design, the make and model of which I couldn’t quite place. It was like every spy car I’d ever seen melded into one.
The door burst open, and a girl – about my age – jumped out. Her hair was silvery, matching the car’s paint, and she wore a fashionable black skirt and silver jacket, and carried a black handbag.
She appeared to be very, very angry.
‘Smedry!’ she snapped, swatting her purse at Sing as he moved too slowly to get out of her way.
‘What?’ I asked, jumping back slightly.
‘Not you, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said with a sigh. ‘She means me.’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing much,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘I just kind of left her behind. That’s Bastille, lad. She’s our team’s knight.’
If I’d had any sense, I’d have run away right then.
5
At this point, perhaps you Hushlanders are beginning to doubt the truth of this narrative. You have seen several odd and inexplicable things happen. (Though, just as a warning, the story so far has actually been quite tame. Just wait until we get to the part with the talking dinosaurs.) Some readers might even think that I’m just making this story up. You might think that everything in this book is dreamy silliness.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This book is serious. Terribly serious. Your skepticism results from a lifetime of training in the Librarians’ school system, where you were taught all kinds of lies. Indeed, you’d probably never even heard of the Smedrys, despite the fact that they are the most famous family of Oculators in the entire world. In most parts of the Free Kingdoms, being a Smedry is considered equivalent to being nobility.
(If you wish to perform a fun test, next time you are in history class, ask your teacher about the Smedrys. If your teacher is a Librarian spy, he or she will get red-faced and give you a detention. If, on the other hand, your teacher is innocent, he or she will simply be confused, then likely give you a detention.)
Remember, despite the fact that this book is being sold as a ‘fantasy’ novel, you must take all of the things it says extremely seriously, as they are quite important, are in no way silly, and always make sense.
Rutabaga.
‘That is a knight?’ I asked, pointed at the silver-haired girl.
‘Unfortunately,’ Grandpa Smedry said.
‘But she’s a girl!’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘and a very dangerous one, I might add. She was sent to protect me.’
‘Sent?’ I said. ‘Who sent her, then?’ And is she supposed to protect you from Librarians, or from yourself?
Bastille stalked right up to Grandpa Smedry, placed her hands on her hips, and glared at him. ‘I’d stab you with something if I didn’t know that you’d arrive too late to get hurt.’
‘Bastille, my dear,’ G
randpa Smedry said. ‘How pleasant. Of course I didn’t mean to leave you behind. You see, I was running late, and I needed to go—’
Bastille held up a hand to silence Grandpa, then glared at me. ‘Who is he?’
‘My grandson,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Alcatraz.’
‘Another Smedry?’ she asked. ‘I have to try to protect four of you now?’
‘Bastille, dear,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘No need to get upset. He won’t be much trouble. Will you, Alcatraz?’
‘Uh . . . no,’ I said. That was, of course, an absolute lie. But would you have said anything different?
Bastille narrowed her eyes. ‘Somehow I doubt that. What are you planning, old man?’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Just a little infiltration.’
‘Of?’ Bastille asked.
‘The downtown library,’ Grandpa Smedry said, then smiled innocently.
‘What?’ Bastille said. ‘Honestly, can’t I even leave you alone for half a day? Shattering Glass! What would make you want to infiltrate that place?’
‘They have the Sands of Rashid,’ Grandpa Smedry said.
‘So? We’ve got plenty of sand.’
‘These sands are very important,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘It’s an Oculator sort of thing.’
Bastille’s expression darkened a bit at that comment. She threw her hands into the air. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘I assume we’re late.’
‘Very,’ Grandpa Smedry said.
‘Fine.’ She stabbed a finger at me; I barely suppressed a tense jump. ‘You, get in my car. You can fill me in on the mission. We’ll meet you there, old man.’
‘Lovely,’ Grandpa Smedry said, looking relieved.
‘I—’ I began.
‘Must I remind you, Alcatraz,’ Grandpa Smedry said, ‘that you shouldn’t swear? Now, we’re late! Get moving!’
I paused. ‘Swear?’ I said. However, my confusion gave Grandpa Smedry a perfect chance to escape, and I caught sight of the man’s eyes twinkling as he jumped into his car, Quentin and Sing joining him.
‘For an old man who arrives late to everything,’ I noted, ‘he certainly is spry.’
‘Come on, Smedry!’ Bastille growled, climbing back into her sleek car.
I sighed, then rounded the vehicle and pulled open the passenger side door. I tossed the handle to the side as it broke off, then climbed in. Bastille rapped her knuckles on the dashboard, and the car started. Then she reached for the gear shift, throwing it into reverse.
‘Uh, doesn’t the car drive itself?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Bastille said. ‘It can do both – it’s a hybrid. We’re trying to get closer to things that look like real Hushlander vehicles.’
With that, the car burst into motion.
Now, I had been very frightened on several different occasions in my life. The most frightening of these involved an elevator and a mime. Perhaps the second most frightening involved a caseworker and a gun.
Bastille’s driving, however, quickly threatened to become number three.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of bodyguard?’ I asked, furiously working to find a seat belt. There didn’t appear to be one.
‘Yeah,’ Bastille said. ‘So?’
‘So, shouldn’t you avoid killing me in a car wreck?’
Bastille frowned, spinning the wheel and taking a corner at a ridiculous speed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I sighed, settling into my seat, telling myself that the car probably had some sort of mystical device to protect its occupants. (I was wrong, of course. Both Oculator powers and silimatic technology have to do with glass, and I seriously doubt that an air bag made of – or filled with – glass would be all that effective. Amusing, perhaps, but not effective.)
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirteen,’ Bastille replied.
‘Should you be driving, then?’ I asked.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘You’re too young,’ I said.
‘Says who?’
‘Says the law.’
I could see Bastille narrow her eyes, and her hands gripped the wheel even tighter. ‘Maybe Librarian law,’ she muttered.
This, I thought, is probably not a topic to pursue further. ‘So,’ I said, trying something different. ‘What is your Talent?’
Bastille gritted her teeth, glaring out through the windshield.
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘You don’t have to rub it in, Smedry.’
Great. ‘You . . . don’t have a Talent, then?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I’m a Crystin.’
‘A what?’ I asked.
Bastille turned – an action that made me rather uncomfortable, as I thought she should have kept watching the road – and gave me the kind of look that implied that I had just said something very, very stupid. (And, indeed, I had said something very stupid. Fortunately, I made up for it by doing something rather clever – as you will see shortly.)
Bastille turned her eyes back on the road just in time to avoid running over a man dressed like a large slice of pizza. ‘So you’re really him, then? The one old Smedry keeps talking about?’
This intrigued me. ‘He’s mentioned me to you?’
Bastille nodded. ‘Twice a year or so we have to come back to this area and see where you’ve moved. Old Smedry always manages to lose me before he actually gets to your house – he claims I’ll stand out or something. Tell me, did you really knock down one of your foster parents’ houses?’
I shifted uncomfortably. ‘That rumor is exaggerated,’ I said. ‘It was just a storage shed.’
Bastille nodded, eyes narrowing, as if for some reason she had a grudge against sheds to go along with her apparent psychopathic dislike of Librarians.
‘So . . .’ I said slowly. ‘How does a thirteen-year-old girl become a knight anyway?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Bastille asked, taking a screeching corner.
And here’s where I proved my cleverness: I remained silent.
Bastille seemed to relax a bit. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not very good with people. They annoy me. That’s probably why I ended up in a job that lets me beat them up.’
Is that supposed to be comforting? I wondered.
‘Plus,’ she said, ‘you’re a Smedry – and Smedrys are trouble. They’re reckless, and they don’t like to think about the consequences of their actions. That means trouble for me. See, my job is to keep you alive. It’s like . . . sometimes you Smedrys try to get yourselves killed just so I’ll get in trouble.’
‘I’ll try my best to avoid something like that,’ I said honestly. Though her comment did spark a thought in my head. Now that I had begun to accept the things happening around me, I was actually beginning to think of Grandpa Smedry as – well – my grandfather. And that meant . . . My parents, I thought. They might actually be involved in this. They might actually have sent me that bag of sands.
They would have been Smedrys too, of course. So, were they some of the ones that ‘got themselves killed,’ as Bastille so nicely put it? Or, like all these other relatives I was suddenly learning I had, were my parents still around somewhere?
That was a depressing thought. A lot of us foster children don’t like to consider ourselves orphans. It’s an outdated term, in my opinion. It brings to mind images of scrawny, dirty-faced thieves living on the street and getting meals from good-hearted nuns. I wasn’t an orphan – I had lots of parents. I just never stayed with any of them all that long.
I’d rarely bothered to consider my real parents, since Ms. Fletcher had never been willing to answer questions about them. Somehow, I found the prospect of their survival to be even more depressing than the thought of them being dead.
Why did you burn down your foster parents’ kitchen, lad? Grandpa Smedry had asked. I quickly turned away from that line of thinking, focusing again on Bastille.
‘Now he wants to infiltrate a library. And not just any library but the regional headquarters – the biggest library in three states.’ She paused, glancing at me. ‘You think I have good reason to be annoyed?’
‘Definitely,’ I said, again proving my cleverness.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Bastille said. Then she slammed on the brakes.
I smashed against the dash, nearly losing my glasses. I groaned, sitting back. ‘What?’ I asked, holding my head.
‘What what?’ Bastille said, pushing open the door. ‘We’re here.’
‘Oh.’ I opened my door, dropping the inside handle to the street as it came off in my hand. (This kind of thing becomes second nature to you after you break off your first hundred or so door handles.)
Bastille had parked on the side of the street, directly across from the downtown library – a wide, single-story building set on a street corner. The area around us was familiar to me. The downtown wasn’t extremely huge – not like that of a city like Chicago or L.A. – but it did have a smattering of large office buildings and hotels. These towered behind us; we were only a few blocks away from the city center.
Bastille rapped the hood of her car. ‘Go find a place to park,’ she told it. It immediately started up, then backed away.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Handy, that,’ I noted. Like Grandpa Smedry’s car, this one had no visible gas cap. I wonder what powers it.
The answer to that, of course, was sand. Silimatic sand, to be precise – sometimes called steamsand. But I really don’t have room to go into that now – even if its discovery was what eventually led to the break between silimatic technology and regular Hushlander technology. And that was kind of the foundation for the Librarians breaking off of the Free Kingdoms and creating the Hushlands.
Alcatraz Page 5
