Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

Chapter 7

I am a fish.

No, really. I am. I have fins, a tail, scales. I swim about, doing fishy things. This isn’t a metaphor or a joke, but a real and honest fact. I am a fish.

More on this later.

“We came all this way for that?” I asked, looking at the hut. It stood on an open plain of sandy, scrubby ground. The roof looked like it was about to fall in.

“Yup, that’s it,” Kaz said, walking out of the jungle and down the slope toward the hut.

I glanced back at Bastille, who shrugged. “I’ve never been here before.”

“I have,” Bastille’s mother said. “Yes, that is the Library of Alexandria.” She clomped out of the jungle. I shrugged, then followed her, Australia and Bastille joining me. As we walked, I glanced back at the jungle.

It had vanished. I stopped, but then thought better of asking. After everything that I’d been through in the last few months, a disappearing jungle wasn’t really even all that odd.

I hurried to catch up to Kaz. “You’re sure this is the place? I kind of thought it would look … well, a little less like a hut.”

“You would have preferred a yurt?” Kaz asked, walking up to the doorway and peeking in. I followed.

Inside, a large set of stairs was cut into the ground. They led down into the depths of the earth. The dark opening seemed unnaturally black to me—like someone had cut a square in the floor and pulled away the fabric of existence with it.

“The library,” I said. “It’s underground?”

“Certainly,” Kaz said. “What did you expect? This is the Hushlands—things like the Library of Alexandria need to keep a low profile.”

Draulin walked up beside us, then pointed for Bastille to check the perimeter. She moved off. Draulin went the other way, scouting the area for danger.

“The Curators of Alexandria aren’t like Librarians you’ve seen before, Al,” Kaz said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re undead wraiths, for one thing,” he said, “though it’s not really nice to be prejudiced against people because of their race.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Just saying.” He shrugged. “Anyway, the Curators are older than the Librarians of Biblioden. Actually, the Curators are older than most things in this world. The Library of Alexandria was started back during the days of classical Greece. Alexandria was, after all, founded by Alexander the Great.”

“Wait,” I said. “He was a real person?”

“Sure he was,” Australia said, joining us. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I figured that all the things I’d learned in school were Librarian lies.”

“Not all of them,” Kaz said. “The Librarian teachings only really start to deviate from the truth about five hundred years back—about the time that Biblioden lived.” He paused, scratching his face. “Although, I guess they do lie about this place. I think they teach that it was destroyed.”

I nodded. “By the Romans or something.”

“Complete fabrication,” Kaz said. “The library outgrew its old location, so the Curators moved it here. Guess they wanted a place where they could hollow out as much ground as they wanted. It’s kind of tough to find room inside a big city to store every book ever written.”

“Every book?”

“Of course,” Kaz said. “That’s the point of this place. It’s a storage of all knowledge ever recorded.”

Suddenly, things started to make sense. “That’s why my father came here and why Grandpa Smedry followed! Don’t you see! My father can read texts in the Forgotten Language now; he has a set of Translator’s Lenses like mine, forged from the Sands of Rashid.”

“Yes,” Kaz said. “And?”

“And so he came here,” I said, looking at the stairway leading into the darkness. “He came for knowledge. Books in the Forgotten Language. He could study them here, learn what the ancient people—the Incarna—knew.”

Australia and Kaz shared a glance.

“That’s … not really all that likely, Alcatraz,” Australia said.

“Why not?”

“The Curators gather the knowledge,” Kaz said, “but they’re not that great at sharing. They’ll let you read a book, but they charge a terrible cost.”

I felt a chill. “What cost?”

“Your soul,” Australia said. “You can read one book, then you become one of them, to serve in the library for eternity.”

Great, I thought, glancing at Kaz. The shorter man looked troubled. “What?” I asked.

“I know your father, Al. We grew up together—he’s my brother.”

“And?”

“He’s a true Smedry. Just like your grandfather. We don’t tend to think things through. Things like charging into danger, like infiltrating libraries, or…”

“Like reading a book that will cost you your soul?”

Kaz looked away. “I don’t think he’d be that stupid. He’d get the knowledge he wanted, but he’d never be able to share it or use it. Even Attica wouldn’t get that hungry for answers.”

The comment raised another question. If he didn’t come for a book, then why visit?

Draulin and Bastille arrived a few moments later. Now, you might have noticed something important. Look up the name Draulin on your favorite search engine. You won’t get many results, and the ones you do get will probably be typos, not prisons. (Though, the two are related in that they are both things I tend to be affiliated with far too often.) Either way, there’s no prison named Draulin, though there is one named Bastille.

(That last bit about the names—that is foreshadowing. So don’t say I never give you anything.)

“Perimeter is secure,” Draulin said. “No guards.”

“There never are,” Kaz said, glancing back at the stairs. “I’ve been here half a dozen times—mostly due to getting lost—though I’ve never gone in. The Curators don’t guard the place. They don’t need to—anyone who tries to steal even a single book will automatically lose their soul, whether they know about the rules or not.”

I shivered.

“We should camp here,” Draulin said, glancing over at the rising sun. “Most of us didn’t get any sleep last night, and we shouldn’t go down into the library without our wits about us.”

“Probably a good idea,” Kaz said, yawning. “Plus, we don’t really know if we need to go in. Al, you said my father visited this place. Did he go in?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t tell for certain.”

“Try the Lenses again,” Australia said, nodding encouragingly—something that appeared to be one of her favorite gestures.

I was still wearing the Courier’s Lenses; as before, I tried to contact my grandfather. All I received was a low buzz and a kind of wavering fuzz in my vision. “I’m trying,” I said. “All I get is a blurry fuzz. Anyone know what that means?”

I glanced at Australia. She shrugged—for an Oculator, she sure didn’t seem to know much. Though I was one too and I knew even less, so it was a little hard to judge.

“Don’t ask me,” Kaz said. “That ability skipped me, fortunately.”

I looked over at Bastille.

“Don’t look at her,” Draulin said. “Bastille is a squire of Crystallia, not an Oculator.”

I caught Bastille’s eyes. She glanced at her mother.

“I command her to speak,” I said.

“It means there’s interference of some sort,” Bastille said quickly. “Courier’s Lenses are temperamental, and certain kinds of glass can block them. I’ll bet the library down there has precautions to stop people from grabbing a book, then—before their soul is taken—reading its contents off to someone listening via Lenses.”

“Thanks, Bastille,” I said. “You know, you’re kind of useful to have around sometimes.”

She smiled but then caught sight of Draulin looking at her with displeasure, and stiffened.

“So, do we camp?” Kaz asked.

I realized everyone was looking at me. “Uh, sure.”

Draulin nodded, then moved over to some kind of fern-type plant and began to cut off fronds to make some shelter. It was already getting warm, but I guess that was to be expected, what with us being in Egypt and all.

I went to help Australia rifle through the packs, getting out some foodstuffs. My stomach growled as we worked; I hadn’t eaten since the stale chips in the airport. “So,” I said. “You’re an Oculator?”

Australia flushed. “Well, not a very good one, you know. I can never really figure out how the Lenses are supposed to work.”

I chuckled. “I can’t either.”

That only seemed to make her more embarrassed.

“What?” I asked.

She smiled in her perky way. “Nothing. I just, well. You’re a natural, Alcatraz. I’ve tried to use Courier’s Lenses a dozen times before, and you saw how poorly I managed when contacting you at the airport.”

“I think you did all right,” I said. “Saved my skin.”

“I suppose,” she said, looking down.

“Don’t you have any Oculator’s Lenses?” I asked, noticing for the first time that she wasn’t wearing any Lenses. I had put back on my Oculator’s Lenses after trying to contact Grandpa Smedry.

She flushed, then rummaged in her pocket, eventually pulling out a pair with far more stylish frames than mine. She slid them on. “I … don’t really like how they look.”

“They’re great,” I said. “Look, Grandpa Smedry told me that I have to wear mine a lot to get used to them. Maybe you need more practice.”

“I’ve had, like, ten years.”

“And how much of that did you spend wearing the Lenses?”

She thought for a moment. “Not much, I guess. Anyway, since you’re here, my being an Oculator isn’t all that important.” She smiled, but I could sense something else. She seemed good at hiding things beneath her bubbly exterior.

“I don’t know about that,” I said, cutting slices of bread. “I’m certainly glad there’s another Oculator with us—especially if we have to go down into that library.”

“Why?” she said. “You’re far better with Lenses than I am.”

“And if we get separated?” I asked. “You could use the Courier’s Lenses to contact me. Having two Oculators is never a bad thing, I’ve found.”

“But … the Courier’s Lenses won’t work down there,” she said. “That’s what we just discovered.”

She’s right, I realized, flushing. Then, something occurred to me. I reached into one of my pockets, pulling out a pair of Lenses. “Here, try these,” I said. They were yellow tinted.

She took them hesitantly, then tried them on. She blinked. “Hey!” she said. “I can see footprints.”

“Tracker’s Lenses,” I said. “Grandpa Smedry lent them to me. With these, you can retrace your steps back to the entrance if you get lost—or even find me by following my footprints.”

Australia smiled broadly. “I’ve never tried a pair of these before. I can’t believe they work so well!”

I didn’t mention that Grandpa Smedry had said they were among the most simple of Lenses to use. “That’s great,” I said. “Maybe you’ve always tried the wrong types of Lenses. Best to begin with the ones that work. You can borrow those.”

“Thanks!” She gave me an unexpected hug, then hopped to her feet to go fetch the other pack. Smiling, I watched her go.

“You’re good at that,” a voice said.

I turned to find Bastille standing a short distance away. She’d cut down several long branches and was in the process of dragging them over to her mother.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re good,” she said. “With people, I mean.”

I shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

“No,” Bastille said. “You really made her feel better. Something had been bothering her since you arrived, but now she seems back to her old self. You kind of have a leader’s flair about you, Smedry.”

It makes sense, if you think about it. I had spent my entire childhood learning how to shove people away from me. I’d learned just the right buttons to push, the right things to break to make them hate me. Now, those same skills were coming in handy helping people feel good, rather than making them hate me.

I should have realized the trouble I was getting myself into. There’s nothing worse than having people look up to you—because the more they expect, the worse you feel when you fail them. Take my advice. You don’t want to be the one in charge. Becoming a leader is, in a way, like falling off a cliff. It feels like a lot of fun at first.

Then it stops being fun. Really, really fast.

Bastille hauled the branches over to her mother, who was making a lean-to. Then Bastille sat down beside me and took out one of our water bottles to get a drink. The water level in it didn’t seem to go down at all as she gulped.

Neat, I thought.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said.

She wiped her brow. “What?”

“That jet that was chasing us,” I said. “It fired a Frostbringer’s Lens. I thought only Oculators could activate things like that.”

She shrugged.

“Bastille,” I said, eyeing her.

“You saw my mother,” she grumbled. “I’m not supposed to talk about things like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not an Oculator.”

“I’m not a pigeon either,” I said. “But I can talk about feathers if I want.”

She eyed me. “That’s a really bad metaphor, Smedry.”

“I’m good at those kind.”

Feathers. Much less comfortable than scales. Glad I’m a fish instead of a bird. (You haven’t forgotten about that, have you?)

“Look,” I said. “What you know could be important. I … I think the thing that flew the jet is still alive.”

“It fell from the sky!” she said.

“So did we.”

“It didn’t have a dragon to glide on.”

“No. But it did have a face half-made from metal screws and springs.”

She froze, bottle halfway to her lips.

“Ha!” I said. “You do know something.”

“Metal face,” she said. “Was it wearing a mask?”

I shook my head. “The face was made out of bits of metal. I saw the creature before, on the airfield. When I ran away, I felt … pulled backward. It was hard to move.”

“Voidstormer’s Lenses,” she said absently. “The opposite of those Windstormer’s Lenses you have.”

I patted the Windstormer’s Lenses in my pocket. I’d almost forgotten about those. With my last Firebringer’s Lens now broken, the Windstormer’s Lenses were my only real offensive Lenses. Besides them, I only had my Oculator’s Lenses, my Courier’s Lenses, and—of course—my Translator’s Lenses.

“So, what has a metal face, flies jets, and can use Lenses?” I asked. “Sounds like a riddle.”

“An easy one,” Bastille said, kneeling down, speaking quietly. “Look, don’t tell my mother you got this from me, but I think we’re in serious trouble.”

“When are we not?”

“More so now,” she said. “You remember that Oculator you fought in the library?”

“Blackburn? Sure.”

“Well,” she said, “he belonged to a sect of Librarians known as the Dark Oculators. There are other sects, though—four, I think—and they don’t get along very well. Each sect wants to be in charge of the whole organization.”

“And this guy chasing me…?”

“One of the Scrivener’s Bones,” she said. “It’s the smallest sect. Other Librarians tend to avoid the Scrivener’s Bones except when they need them, because they have … odd habits.”

“Like?”

“Like ripping off parts of their bodies, then replacing them with Alivened materials.”

I stared at her for a moment. We fish do that sometimes. We can’t blink, after all. “They do what?”

“Just what I said,” Bastille whispered. “They’re part Alivened. Twisted half human, half monster.”

I shivered. We’d fought a couple of Alivened in the downtown library. Those were made of wadded-up pieces of paper, but they’d been far more dangerous than that could possibly sound. It was fighting them that lost Bastille her sword.

Alivening things—bringing inanimate objects to life with Oculatory power—is a very evil art. It requires the Oculator to give up some of his or her own humanity.

“The Scrivener’s Bones usually work on commission,” Bastille said. “So that means another Librarian hired it.”

My mother, was my immediate thought. She’s the one who hired him. I avoided thinking about her, since doing so tended to make me sick, and there’s no use being sick unless you can get out of school for it.

“He used Lenses,” I said. “So this Scrivener’s Bone is an Oculator?”

“Not likely,” Bastille said.

“Then how?”

“There’s a way to make a Lens that anyone can use,” she whispered very quietly.

“There is?” I asked. “Well, why in the world don’t we have more of those?”

Bastille glanced to the side. “Because, idiot,” she hissed. “You have to sacrifice an Oculator and use his blood to forge one.”

“Oh,” I said.

“He was probably using a bloodforged Lens,” she said, “hooked somehow into the cockpit glass so that it could fire out at us. That sounds like something the Scrivener’s Bones would do. They like mixing Oculatory powers with Hushlander technology.”

This talk of bloodforged Lenses should mean something to you. You may finally understand why I ended up finding my way to an altar, about to get sacrificed. What Bastille neglected to mention was that the power of the Oculator who was killed had a direct effect on how powerful the bloodforged Lens was. The more powerful the Oculator, the more awesome the Lens.

And I, as you might have realized, was very, very powerful.

Bastille left to cut down more branches. I sat quietly. It was probably only in my head, but I thought I could feel something off in the distance. That same dark sense I’d felt while escaping from the airfield and fighting the jet.

That’s silly, I told myself, shivering. We’ve traveled hundreds of miles using Kaz’s Talent. Even if that Scrivener’s Bone did survive, it would take him days to get here.

So I assumed.

A short time later I lay beneath a canopy of fronds, my black sneakers off and wrapped in my jacket to form a pillow. The others dozed, and I tried to do likewise. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d been told.

It seemed like it all must be related somehow. The way the Lenses worked. Smedry Talents. The fact that the blood of an Oculator could make a Lens that worked for anyone. The connection between silimatic energy and Oculatory energy.

All connected. But it was too much for me to figure out, considering the fact that I was just a fish. So I went to sleep.

Which is pretty hard to do when you don’t have eyelids.