Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

Chapter 15

Humans are funny things. From what I’ve seen, the more we agree with someone, the more we like listening to them. I’ve come up with a theory. I call it the macaroni and cheese philosophy of discourse.

I love macaroni and cheese. It’s amazing. If they serve food in heaven, I’m certain mac and cheese graces each and every table. If someone wants to sit and talk to me about how good mac and cheese is, I’ll talk to them for hours. However, if they want to talk about fish sticks, I generally stuff them in a cannon and launch them in the direction of Norway.

That’s the wrong reaction. I know what mac and cheese tastes like. Wouldn’t it be more useful for me to talk to someone who likes something else? Maybe understanding what other people like about fish sticks could help me understand how they think.

A lot of the world doesn’t take this point of view. In fact, many people think that if they like mac and cheese rather than fish sticks, the best thing to do is ban fish sticks.

That would be a tragedy. If we let people do things like that, eventually we’d end up with only one thing to eat. And it probably wouldn’t be mac and cheese or fish sticks. It’d probably be something that none of us likes to eat.

You want to be a better person? Go listen to someone you disagree with. Don’t argue with them, just listen. It’s remarkable what interesting things people will say if you take the time to not be a jerk.

We dashed from the giant glass pig like deployed soldiers, then stormed up the steps to the Royal Archives. (Go ahead, say it with me. I know you want to.)

Not a library.

Bastille in her Warrior’s Lenses was the fastest of course, but Folsom and Himalaya kept up. Sing was in the rear, right beside …

“Prince Rikers?” I said, freezing in place. I’d assumed that the prince would remain with his vehicle.

“Yes, what?” the prince said, stopping beside me, turning and looking back.

“Why are you here?” I said.

“I finally have a chance to see the famous Alcatraz Smedry in action! I’m not going to miss it.”

“Your Highness,” I said, “this might be dangerous.”

“You really think so?” he asked excitedly.

“What’s going on?” Bastille said, rushing back down the steps. “I thought we were in a hurry.”

“He wants to come,” I said, gesturing.

She shrugged. “We can’t really stop him—he’s the crown prince. That kind of means he can do what he wants.”

“But what if he gets killed?” I asked.

“Then they’ll have to pick a new crown prince,” Bastille snapped. “Are we going or not?”

I sighed, glancing at the red-haired prince. He was smiling in self-satisfaction.

“Great,” I muttered, but continued up the stairs. The prince rushed beside me. “By the way,” I said. “Why a pig?”

“Why,” he said, surprised, “I heard that in the Hushlands, it is common for tough guys to ride hogs.”

I groaned. “Prince Rikers, ‘hog’ is another word for a motorcycle.”

“Motorcycles look like pigs?” he asked. “I never knew that!”

“You know what, never mind,” I said. We rushed into the room with the soldiers; it looked like the knights had sent for reinforcements. There were a lot of them on the stairs too. I felt good knowing they were there in case the Librarians did break into the Royal Archives.

“Not a library,” Sing added.

“What?” I asked.

“Just thought you might be thinking about it,” Sing said, “and figured I should remind you.”

We reached the bottom. The two knights had taken up guard positions inside the room, and they saluted the prince as we entered.

“Any Librarians?” I asked.

“No,” the blonde knight said, “but we can still hear the scraping noise. We have two platoons on command here, and two more searching nearby buildings. So far we’ve not discovered anything—but we’ll be ready for them if they break into the stairwell!”

“Excellent,” I said. “You should wait outside, just in case.” I didn’t want them to see what was about to happen. It was embarrassing.

They left and closed the door. I turned to Himalaya. “All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

She looked confused. “Do what?”

Oh right, I thought. We’d never actually explained why we needed her. “Somewhere in this room are some books the Librarians really want,” I said. “Your former friends are tunneling in here right now. I need you to…”

I could see Bastille, Folsom, and Sing cringe as I prepared to say it.

“… I need you to organize the books in here.”

Himalaya paled. “What?”

“You heard me right.”

She glanced at Folsom. He looked away.

“You’re testing me,” she said, forming fists. “Don’t worry, I can resist it. You don’t need to do this.”

“No, really,” I said, exasperated. “I’m not testing you. I just need these books to have some kind of order.”

She sat down on a pile. “But … but I’m recovering! I’ve been clean for months now! You can’t ask me to go back, you can’t.”

“Himalaya,” I said, kneeling beside her. “We really, really need you to do this.”

She started trembling, which made me hesitate.

“I—”

She stood and fled the room, tears in her eyes. Folsom rushed after her, and I was left kneeling, feeling horrible. Like I’d just told a little girl that her kitten was dead. Because I’d run it over. And that I’d also eaten it.

And that it had tasted really bad.

“Well, that’s that, then,” Bastille said. She sat down on a pile of books. She was starting to look haggard again. We’d kept her distracted for a time, but the severing was still weighing on her.

I could still hear the scraping sounds, and they were getting louder. “All right then,” I said, taking a deep breath. “We’re going to have to destroy them.”

“What?” Sing asked. “The books?”

I nodded. “We can’t let my mother get what she wants. Whatever it is, I’ll bet it involves Mokia. This is the only thing I can think of—I doubt we can move these books out in time.” I looked toward the mounds. “We’re going to have to burn them.”

“We don’t have the authority to do that,” Bastille said tiredly.

“Yes,” I said, turning toward Prince Rikers. “But I’ll bet that he does.”

The prince looked up—he’d been poking through a pile of books, probably looking for fantasy novels. “What’s this?” he asked. “I have to say, this adventure hasn’t been very exciting. Where are the explosions, the rampaging wombats, the space stations?”

“This is what a real adventure is like, Prince Rikers,” I said. “We need to burn these books so the Librarians don’t get them. Can you authorize that?”

“Yes, I suppose,” he said. “A bonfire might be exciting.”

I walked over and grabbed one of the lamps off the walls. Bastille and Sing joined me, looking at the books as I prepared to begin the fire.

“This feels wrong,” Sing said.

“I know,” I said. “But what does anyone care about these books? They just stuffed them in here. I’ll bet people rarely even come look at them.”

“I did,” Sing said. “Years back. I can’t be the only one. Besides, they’re books. Knowledge. Who knows what we might lose? There are books in here that are so old, they might be the only copies in existence outside the Library of Alexandria.”

I stood with the fire in my hand. Now, I hadn’t meant this to be a metaphor for anything—I’m simply relating what happened. It did seem like the right thing to do. And yet it also felt like the wrong thing too. Was it better to burn the books and let nobody have the knowledge, or take the chance that the Librarians would get them?

I knelt and put the lamp toward a stack of books, its flame flickering.

“Wait,” Bastille said, kneeling beside me. “You have to turn it to ‘burn.’”

“But it’s already burning,” I said, confused.

“Not that argument again,” she said, sighing. (Go read book one.) “Here.” She touched the glass of the lamp, and the flame seemed to pulse. “It’s ready now.”

I took a deep breath, then—hand trembling—lit the first book on fire.

“Wait!” a voice called. “Don’t do it!”

I spun to see Himalaya standing in the doorway, Folsom at her side. I looked back at the books desperately; the flame was already spreading.

Then, fortunately, Sing tripped. His enormous Mokian bulk smashed onto the pile of books, his gut completely extinguishing the flames. A little trickle of smoke curled out from underneath him.

“Whoops,” he said.

“No,” Himalaya said, striding forward. “You did the right thing, Sing. I’ll do it. I’ll organize them. Just … just don’t hurt them. Please.”

I stepped back as Folsom helped Sing to his feet. Himalaya knelt by the pile that had almost gone up in flames. She touched one of the books lovingly, picking it up with her delicate fingers.

“So … uh,” she said, “what order do you want? Reverse timeshare, where the books are organized by the minute when they were published? Marksman elite, where we organize them by the number of times the word ‘the’ is used in the first fifty pages?”

“I think a simple organization by topic will do,” I said. “We need to find the ones about Oculators or Smedrys or anything suspicious like that.”

Himalaya caressed the book, feeling its cover, reading the spine. She carefully placed it next to her, then picked up another. She placed that one in another pile.

This is going to take forever, I thought with despair.

Himalaya grabbed another book. This time she barely glanced at the spine before setting it aside. She grabbed another, then another, then another, moving more quickly with each volume.

She stopped, taking a deep breath. Then she burst into motion, her hands moving more quickly than I could track. She seemed to be able to identify a book simply by touching it, and knew exactly where to place it. In mere seconds a small wall of books was rising around her.

“A little help, please!” she called. “Start moving the stacks over, but don’t let them get out of order!”

Sing, Folsom, Bastille, and I hurried forward to help. Even the prince went to work. We rushed back and forth, moving books where Himalaya told us, struggling to keep up with the Librarian.

She was almost superhuman in her ability to organize—a machine of identification and order. Dirty, unkempt piles disappeared beneath her touch, transformed into neat stacks, the dust and grime cleaned from them in a single motion of her hand.

Soon Folsom got the idea to recruit some of the soldiers to help. Himalaya sat in the center of the room like a multiarmed Hindu goddess, her hands a blur. We brought her stacks of books and she organized them in the blink of an eye, leaving them grouped by subject. She had a serene smile on her face. It was the smile my grandfather had when he spoke of an exciting infiltration, or the way Sing looked when he spoke of his cherished antique weapons collection. It was the expression of someone doing work they perfectly and truly enjoyed.

I rushed forward with another stack of books. Himalaya snatched them without looking at me, then threw them into piles like a dealer dealing cards.

Impressive! I thought.

“All right, I have to say it,” Himalaya said as she worked. Soldiers clinked in their armor, rushing back and forth, delivering stacks of unorganized books to her feet, then taking away the neatly organized ones she placed behind her.

“What is wrong with you Free Kingdomers?” she demanded, ranting as if to nobody in particular. “I mean, I left the Hushlands because I disagreed with the way the Librarians were keeping information from the people.

“But why is it bad to organize? Why do you have to treat books like this? What’s wrong with having a little order? You Free Kingdomers claim to like things loose and free, but if there are never any rules, there is chaos. Organization is important.”

I set down my stack of books, then rushed back.

“Who knows what treasures you could have lost here?” she snapped, arms flying. “Mold can destroy books. Mice can chew them to bits. They need to be cared for, treasured. Somebody needs to keep track of what you have so that you can appreciate your own collection!”

Folsom stepped up beside me, his brow dripping with sweat. He watched Himalaya with adoring eyes, smiling broadly.

“Why did I have to give up who I was?” the Librarian ranted. “Why can’t I be me, but also be on your side? I don’t want to stifle information, but I do want to organize it! I don’t want to rule the world, but I do want to bring it order! I don’t want everything to be the same, but I do want to understand!”

She stopped for a moment. “I am a good Librarian!” she declared in a triumphant voice, grabbing a huge stack of unorganized books. She shook them once, like one might a pepper shaker, and somehow the books all aligned in order by subject, size, and author.

“Wow,” Folsom breathed.

“You really do love her,” I said.

Folsom blushed, looking at me. “Is it that obvious?”

It hadn’t been to me. But I smiled anyway.

“These last six months have been amazing,” he said, getting that dreamy, disgusting tone to his voice that lovesick people often use. “I started out just watching to see if she was a spy, but after I determined that she was safe … well, I wanted to keep spending time with her. So I offered to coach her on Nalhallan customs.”

“Have you told her?” I asked, soldiers bustling around me, carrying stacks of books.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Folsom said. “I mean, look at her. She’s amazing! I’m just a regular guy.”

“A regular guy?” I asked. “Folsom, you’re a Smedry. You’re nobility!”

“Yeah,” he said, looking down. “But I mean, that’s just a name. I’m a boring person when you get down to it. Who thinks a critic is interesting?”

I resisted pointing out that Librarians weren’t exactly known for being the most exciting people either.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t know a lot about things like this, but it seems to me that if you love her, you should say so. I—”

At that moment, Prince Rikers walked up. “Hey, look!” he said, proffering a book. “They have one of my novels in here! Preserved for all of posterity. The music even still works. See!”

He opened the cover.

And so, of course, Folsom punched me in the face.