I nodded. ‘I don’t suppose you have another pair of Firebringer’s Lenses you could loan me?’
He chuckled. ‘Didn’t do enough damage with the last pair, eh? I don’t have any more of those, but . . . here, let me see.’ He fished around inside his tuxedo jacket again. ‘Ah!’ he said, whipping out a pair of Lenses. They glowed with a modest light and had a violet tint.
That’s right, violet. I wondered if the people who forge Oculatory Lenses try to make us all look like pansies, or if that was just accidental.
‘What are they?’ I asked.
‘Disguiser’s Lenses,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Put them on, focus on the image of someone in your head, and the Lenses will disguise you to look like that person.’
It seemed pretty cool. I took the Lenses appreciatively. ‘Can they make me look like other things? Like, say, a rock?’
‘I guess,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Though that rock would have to be wearing glasses. The Lenses appear in any disguise you use.’
That made them less powerful, but I figured I’d come up with a way to use them. ‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘I might have some other offensive Lenses I can dig up later when I get back to the keep,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘I suspect that we’ll deliberate here for another two or three hours before adjourning until the vote this evening. It’s about ten right now; let’s meet back at Keep Smedry in three hours to share information, all right?’
‘All right.’
Grandpa Smedry winked at me. ‘See you this afternoon, then. If you break anything important, be sure to blame it on Draulin! It’ll be good for her.’
I nodded, and we parted ways.
5
It’s time for me to talk about someone other than myself. Please don’t be too heartbroken; once in a while, we need to discuss somebody who is not quite as charming, intelligent, or impressive as I am.
That’s right, it’s time to talk about you.
Occasionally, while infiltrating the Hushlands, I run across enterprising young people who want to resist Librarian control of their country. You ask me what you can do to fight. Well, I have three answers for you.
First, make sure you buy lots and lots and lots of copies of my books. There are plenty of uses for them (I’ll discuss this in a bit) and for every one you buy, we donate money to the Alcatraz Smedry Wildlife Fund for Buying Alcatraz Smedry Cool Stuff.
The second thing you can do isn’t quite as awesome, but it’s still good. You can read.
Librarians control their world via information. Grandpa Smedry says that information is a far better weapon than any sword or Oculatory Lens, and I’m beginning to think he might be right. (Though the kitten chain saw I discussed in book two is a close second.)
The best way to fight the Librarians is to read a lot of books. Everything you can get your hands on. Then do the third thing I’m going to tell you about.
Buy lots of copies of my books.
Oh, wait. Did I already mention that? Well, then, there are four things you can do. But this intro is already too long. I’ll tell you about the last one later. Know, however, that it involves popcorn.
‘Okay,’ I said, turning to Bastille. ‘How do I find this Folsom guy?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said flatly, pointing. ‘Maybe ask his mom, who is standing right there?’
Oh, right, I thought. Quentin’s brother, that makes Pattywagon his mother.
She was talking animatedly (which is how she always talks) with Sing. I waved to Bastille, but she hesitated.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘My mission is officially over,’ she said, grimacing and glancing toward Draulin. ‘I need to report at Crystallia.’ Draulin had made her way toward the exit of the room, and she was regarding Bastille in that way of hers that was somehow both insistent and patient.
‘What about your father?’ I said, glancing in the direction he and Grandpa Smedry had disappeared. ‘He barely got time to see you two.’
‘The kingdom takes precedence over everything else.’
That sounded like a rehearsed line to me. Probably something Bastille had heard a lot when growing up.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Well, uh, I’ll see you, then.’
‘Yeah.’
I braced myself for another hug (known in the industry as a ‘teenage boy forced reboot’) but she just stood there, then cursed under her breath and hurried out after her mother. I was left trying to figure out just when things between us had grown so awkward.
(I was tempted to think back on all the good times we had spent together. Bastille smacking me in the face with her handbag. Bastille kicking me in the chest. Bastille making fun of something dumb I’d said. I would probably have a good case for abuse if I hadn’t also (1) broken her sword, (2) kicked her first, and (3) been so awesome.)
Feeling strangely abandoned, I stepped up to my aunt Patty.
‘You done being affectionate with the young knight there?’ she asked me. ‘Cute thing, isn’t she?’
‘What’s this?’ Sing said. ‘Did I miss something?’
‘Urk!’ I said, blushing. ‘No, nothing!’
‘I’m sure,’ Patty said, winking at me.
‘Look, I need to find your son Folsom!’
‘Hum. Whatcha need him for?’
‘Important Smedry business.’
‘Well, it’s a good thing I’m an important Smedry, then, isn’t it!’
She had me there. ‘Grandpa wants me to ask about what the Librarians have been doing in town since he left.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ Patty said.
‘Because . . . well, I . . .’
‘Slowness of thought,’ Patty said consolingly. ‘It’s okay, hon. Your father isn’t all that bright either. Well, let’s go find Folsom, then! See ya, Sing!’
I reached for Sing, hoping he wouldn’t abandon me to this awful woman, but he had already turned to go with some other people, and Patty had me by the arm.
I should stop and note here that in the years since that day, I’ve grown rather fond of Aunt Pattywagon. This statement has nothing at all to do with the fact that she threatened to toss me out a window if I didn’t include it.
The mountainous woman pulled me from the room and down the hallway. Soon we were standing in the sunlight on the front steps outside as Patty sent one of the serving men to fetch transportation.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘if you tell me where Folsom is, I could just go find him on my own. No need to—’
‘He’s out and about on very important business,’ Patty said. ‘I’ll have to lead you. I can’t tell you. You see, as a Librarian expert, he’s been put in charge of a recent defection.’
‘Defection?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know, a foreign agent who decides to join the other side? A Librarian fled her homeland and joined the Free Kingdoms. My son is in charge of helping her grow accustomed to life here. Ah, here’s our ride!’
I turned, half expecting another dragon, but apparently we two didn’t warrant a full-size dragon this time. Instead, a coachman rode up with an open-topped carriage pulled by rather mundane horses.
‘Horses?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ Patty said, climbing into the carriage. ‘What were you expecting? A . . . what is it you call them? A pottlemobile?’
‘Automobile,’ I said, joining her. ‘No, I wasn’t expecting one of those. Horses just seem so . . . rustic.’
‘Rustic?’ she said as the coachman urged his beasts into motion. ‘Why, they’re far more advanced than those bottlemobiles you Hushlanders use!’
It’s a common belief in the Free Kingdoms that everything they have is more advanced than what we backward Hushlanders use. For instance, they like to say that swords are more advanced than guns. This may sound ridiculous until you realize their swords are magical and are, indeed, more advanced than guns – the kinds of early guns the Free Kingdomers had before they switched to silimatic technology.
H
orses, though . . . I’ve never bought that one.
‘Okay, look,’ I said. ‘Horses are not more advanced than cars.’
‘Sure they are,’ Patty said.
‘Why?’
‘Simple. Poop.’
I blinked. ‘Poop?’
‘Yup. What do those slobomobiles make? Foul-smelling gas. What do horses make?’
‘Poop?’
‘Poop,’ she said. ‘Fertilizer. You get to go somewhere, and you get a useful by-product.’
I sat back, feeling a little bit disturbed. Not because of what Patty said – I was used to Free Kingdomer rationalizations. No, I was disturbed because I’d somehow managed to talk about both excrement and flatulence in the course of two chapters.
If I could somehow work in barfing, then I’d have a complete potty humor trifecta.
Riding in the carriage allowed me a good look at the city’s people, buildings, and shops. Oddly, I was just surprised by how . . . well, normal everyone seemed. Yes, there were castles. Yes, the people wore tunics and robes instead of slacks and blouses. But the expressions on their faces – the laughter, the frustration, even the boredom – were just like those back home.
Actually, riding down that busy road – with the castle peaks rising like jagged mountains into the sky – felt an awful lot like riding in a taxi through New York City. People are people. Wherever they come from or whatever they look like, they’re the same. As the philosopher Garnglegoot the Confused once said: ‘I’ll have a banana and crayon sandwich, please.’ (Garnglegoot always did have trouble staying on topic.)
‘So where do all of these people live?’ I asked, then cringed, expecting Bastille to shoot back something like ‘In their homes, stupid.’ It took me a second to remember that Bastille wasn’t there to make fun of me. That made me sad, though I should have been happy to avoid the mockery.
‘Oh, most of them are from Nalhalla City here,’ Patty said. ‘Though a fair number of them probably traveled in today via Transporter’s Glass.’
‘Transporter’s Glass?‘
Aunt Patty nodded her blond-haired head. ‘It’s some very interesting technology, just developed by the Kuanalu Institute over in Halaiki using sands your father discovered a number of years ago. It lets people cross great distances in an instant, using a feasibly economic expenditure of brightsand. I’ve read some very exciting research on the subject.’
I blinked. I believe I’ve mentioned how unreasonably scholarly the Smedry clan is. A remarkable number of them are professors, researchers, or scientists. We’re like an unholy mix of the Brady Bunch and the UCLA honors department.
‘You’re a professor, aren’t you?’ I accused.
‘Why, yes, dear!’ Aunt Patty said.
‘Silimatics?’
‘That’s right; how’d you guess?’
‘Just lucky,’ I said. ‘Have you ever heard of a theory that says Oculators can power technological types of glass in addition to their Lenses?’
She harrumphed. ‘Been speaking with your father, I see.’
‘My father?’
‘I’m well aware of that paper he wrote,’ Aunt Patty continued, ‘but I don’t buy it. Claiming that Oculators were somehow brightsand in human form. Doesn’t that seem silly to you? How can sand be human in form?’
‘I—’
‘I’ll admit that there are some discrepancies,’ she continued, ignoring my attempt to interject. ‘However, your father is jumping to conclusions. This will require far more research than he’s put into it! Research by people who are more practiced at true silimatics than that scoundrel. Oh, looks like you’re getting a zit on your nose, by the way. Too bad that man in the carriage next to us just took a picture of you.’
I jumped, glancing to the side where another carriage had pulled up. The man there was holding up squares of glass about a foot on each side, pointing them toward us, then tapping them. I was still new to all this, but I was pretty sure he was doing something very similar to taking pictures with a camera. When he noticed my attention, he lowered his panes of glass, tipped his cap toward me, and his carriage pulled away.
‘What was that all about?’ I asked.
‘Well, hon, you are the heir of the Smedry line – not to mention an Oculator raised inside the Hushlands. That kind of thing interests people.’
‘People know about me?’ I asked, surprised. I knew I’d been born in Nalhalla, but I’d just assumed that the people in the Free Kingdoms had forgotten.
‘Of course they do! You’re a celebrity, Alcatraz – the Smedry who disappeared mysteriously as a child! There have been hundreds of books written on you. When it came out a few years back that you were being raised in the Hushlands, that only made things more interesting. You think all those people over there are staring because of me?’
I’d never been in Nalhalla before (duh) so I hadn’t thought it strange that there were people standing along the streets, watching the road. Now, however I noticed how many of them were pointing toward our carriage.
‘Shattering Glass,’ I whispered. ‘I’m Elvis.’
You Free Kingdomers may not know that name. Elvis was a powerful monarch from Hushlander past, known for his impassioned speeches to inmates, for his odd footwear, and for looking less like himself than the people who dress like him. He vanished mysteriously as the result of a Librarian cover-up.
‘I don’t know who that is, hon,’ Aunt Patty said. ‘But whoever he is, he’s probably a lot less well known than you are.’
I sat back, stunned. Grandpa Smedry and the others had tried to explain how important our family was, but I’d never really understood. We had a castle as large as the king’s palace. We controlled incredible wealth. We had magical powers that others envied. There had been volumes and volumes of books written about us.
That was the moment, riding in that carriage, when it all finally hit me. I understood. I’m famous, I thought, a smile growing on my face.
This was a very important point in my life. It’s where I started to realize just how much power I had. I didn’t find fame intimidating. I found it exciting. Instead of hiding from the people with their silimatic cameras, I started waving to them. They began to point even more excitedly, and the attention made me feel good. Warm, like I’d suddenly been bathed in sunlight.
Some say that fame is a fleeting thing. Well, it has clung to me tenaciously, like gum stuck to the sidewalk, blackened from being stepped on a thousand times. I haven’t been able to shake it, no matter what.
Some also say fame is shallow. That’s easy to say when you haven’t spent your childhood being passed from family to family, scorned and discarded because of a curse that made you break whatever you touched.
Fame is like a cheeseburger. It might not be the best or most healthy thing to have, but it will still fill you up. You don’t really care how healthy something is when you’ve been without for so long. Like a cheeseburger, fame fills a need, and it tastes so good going down.
It isn’t until years later that you realize what it has done to your heart.
‘Here we are!’ Aunt Patty said as the carriage slowed. I was surprised. After hearing that my cousin Folsom was in charge of guarding former Librarians, I’d expected to be taken to some sort of police station or secret service hideout. Instead, we’d come to a shopping district with little stores set into the fronts of the castles. Aunt Patty paid our driver with some glass coins, then climbed down.
‘I thought you said he was guarding a Librarian spy,’ I said, getting out.
‘He is, hon.’
‘And where does one do that?’
Aunt Patty pointed toward a store that looked suspiciously like an ice cream parlor. ‘Where else?’
6
Once, when I was very young, I was being driven to the public swimming pool by my foster mother. This was a long time ago, so far distant in my memory I can barely remember it. I must have been three or four years old.
I recall an image: a group of strangel
y shaped buildings beside the road. I’d seen them before, and I’d always wondered what they were. They looked like small white domes, three or four of them, the size of houses.
As we passed, I turned to my foster mother. ‘Mom, what are those?’
‘That is where the crazy people go,’ she said.
I hadn’t realized there was a mental institution in my town. But it was nice to know where it was. For years after that, when the topic of mental illness came up, I’d explain where the hospital was. I was proud, as a child, to know where they took the crazy people when they went . . . well, crazy.
When I was twelve or so, I remember being driven past that place again with a different foster family. By then, I could read. (I was quite advanced for my age, you know.) I noticed the sign hanging on the domelike buildings.
It didn’t say the buildings were a mental institution. It said that they were a church.
Suddenly, I understood. ‘That’s where all the crazy people go’ meant something completely different to my foster mother than it had to me. I spent all those years proudly telling people where the asylum was, all the while ignorant of the fact that I’d been completely wrong.
This will all relate.
I stepped into the ice cream shop, trying to be ready for anything. I had seen coolers that turned out to hide banquet rooms. I had seen libraries that hid a dark hideout for cultists. I figured that a place that looked like an ice cream shop was probably something entirely different, like an explosive crayon testing facility. (Ha! That’s what you get for writing on the walls, Jimmy!)
If, indeed, the ice cream parlor was fake, it was doing a really good job of that fakery. It looked exactly like something from the fifties, including colorful pastels, stools by the tables, and waitresses in striped red-and-white skirts. Though said waitresses were serving banana splits and chocolate shakes to a bunch of people dressed in medieval clothing.
A sign on the wall proudly proclaimed the place to be an AUTHENTIC HUSHLANDER RESTAURANT! When Aunt Patty and I entered, the place grew still. Outside, others were clustering around the windows, looking in at me.
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