I approached as quietly as possible, creeping up next to Bastille. There was a quiet clink as Sing huddled beside us, setting down his gym bag. Bastille shot him a harsh look, and he shrugged apologetically.
The room at the end of the corridor was actually a large, three-story entryway. It was circular, and our corridor opened up onto a second-story balcony overlooking the main floor down below. The footprints turned and wound around a set of stairs, leading down. We inched forward to the edge of the balcony and looked down upon the people I had tracked.
One of them was indeed a person I knew. It was I person I had known for my entire life: Ms. Fletcher.
It made sense. After all, Grandpa Smedry had said that she’d been the one to steal the sands from my room. The idea had seemed silly to me at the time, but then a lot of things had been confusing to me back then. I could now see that he must have been right.
And yet, it seemed so odd to see a person from my regular life in the middle of the library. Ms. Fletcher wasn’t a friend, but she was one of the few constants in my life. She had directed my moves from foster family to foster family, always checking in on my, looking after me….
Spying on me?
Ms. Fletcher still wore her unflattering black skirt, tight bun, and horn-rimmed glasses. She stood next to a hefty man in a dark business suit with a black shirt and a red power tie. As he turned, conversing with Ms. Fletcher, I could see that he wore a patch over one eye. The other eye held a red-tinted monocle.
Bastille breathed in sharply.
“What?” I asked quietly.
“He only has one eye,” she said. “I think that’s Radrian Blackburn. He’s a very power Oculator Alcatraz – they say he put out his own eye to increase the power focused through his single remaining one.”
I frowned. “Blackburn?” I whispered. “That’s an interesting name.”
“It’s a mountain,” Bastille said. “I think in the state you call Alaska. Librarians named mountains after themselves – just like they named prisons after us.”
I cocked my head. “I’m pretty sure that Alcatraz Island is older than I am, Bastille.”
“You were named after someone, Alcatraz,” Sing said, crawling up next to us. “A famous Oculator from long ago. Among people from our world – and among our opponents – names tend to get reused. We’re traditional that way.”
I leaned forward. Blackburn didn’t look all that threatening. True, he had an arrogant voice and seemed a bit imposing in his black-on-black suit. Still, I had expected something more dramatic. A cape, maybe?
I was, of course, missing something very important. You’ll see in a moment.
Beside me, Bastille looked very nervous. I could see her pulling her purse up, reaching one hand inside of it. An odd gesture, I thought, since I doubted there was anything inside that purse that could face down a Dark Oculator. Anyway, the voices from below quickly stole my attention. I could just barely hear what Blackburn was saying.
“…you hadn’t scared him off last night,” the Oculator said, “we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
Ms. Fletcher folded her arms. “I brought you the sands, Radrian. That’s what you wanted.”
Blackburn shook his head. Hands clasped behind his back, he began to stroll in a slow circle, his well-polished shoes clicking on the stones below.
“You were supposed to watch over the boy,” he said, “not just collect the sands. This was sloppy, Shasta. Very sloppy. What possessed you to send a regular thug to go collect the child?”
Ms. Fletcher sent the gunman, I thought with a stab of anger. She really was working for them, all this time.
“That’s what I’ve always done,” Ms. Fletcher snapped. “I send one of my men to move the boy to another foster home.”
Blackburn turned. “Your man drew a gun on a Smedry.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Ms. Fletcher said. “Someone must have bribed him – someone from one of the other factions, I’d guess. The Order of the Shattered Lens, perhaps? We won’t know for certain until the interrogation is complete, but I suspect that they were afraid that you’d manage to recruit the boy.”
Recruit me? That comment made me c*ck my head. However, there was something more pressing in that statement. It implied that Ms. Fletcher hadn’t wanted me killed. For some reason, that made me relieved, though I knew it was foolish.
Down below, Blackburn shook his head. “You should have gone yourself to collect him, Shasta.”
“I intended to go along,” Ms. Fletcher said. “But…”
“But what?”
She was silent for a moment. “I lost my keys,” she said.
I frowned. It seemed like an odd comment to make. Blackburn, however, simply laughed at this. “It still has the better of you, doesn’t it?”
I could see Ms. Fletcher flushing. “I don’t see what problem you have working with me. The man who tried to shoot the boy was working for someone else. We should be focusing on discovering what those sands do.”
“The problem is, Shasta,” Blackburn said, growing solemn again, “this operation was sloppy. When my people are sloppy, it makes me look incompetent. I’m not very fond of that.” He paused, then looked at her. “This is not a time we can spare mistakes. Old Smedry is in this town somewhere.”
Ms. Fletcher paused. “Him? You think it was him?”
“Who else?” Blackburn asked.
“There are a lot of elderly Oculators, Radrian,” she said.
Blackburn shook his head. “I should think that you, of all people, would recognize the Old One’s handiwork. He’s in the city, after the same thing that we were.”
“Well,” Ms. Fletcher said. “If Leavenworth was here, he’s gone now. He’ll have the boy out of Inner Libraria before we can track him down.”
“Perhaps,” Blackburn said quietly.
I squirmed. As I listened, I’d revised my earlier opinion of Blackburn. I didn’t like this man. Blackburn seemed too… thoughtful. Careful.
Dangerous.
“I’ve always been curious,” Blackburn said, as if to himself. “Why did they leave a Smedry of the pure line to be raised in Inner Libraria? Old Leavenworth must have known that we would find the boy. That we would watch him, control him. It seems like an odd move, wouldn’t you say?”
Ms. Fletcher shrugged. “Perhaps they just didn’t want him. Considering his… parentage.”
What? I thought. Say more on that!
But Blackburn didn’t. He just shook his head thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But then this child seems to have an inordinately powerful Talent. And there were always the sands. Old Smedry must have known, as we did, that the sands would arrive on the boy’s thirteenth birthday.”
“So, they used the boy as bait for the sands,” Ms. Fletcher said. “But we got to them first.”
“And old Smedry ended up with the child. Who gained the better half of the deal, I wonder?”
Tell me where the sands are! I thought. Say something useful!
“As for the sands,” Ms. Fletcher said. “There is the matter of payment….”
Blackburn turned, and I caught a flash of emotion on his face. Anger?
Ms. Fletcher raised a finger. “You don’t own me, Blackburn. Don’t presume to think that you do.”
“You’ll get paid, woman,” Blackburn said, smiling.
It was not the type of smile one wanted to see. It was dark. Dark as the footprints I had followed. Dark as the hatred in a man’s eyes the moment he does something terrible to another person. Dark as an unlit street on a silent night, when you know something is out there, watching you.
It was from this smile that I realized where Radrian Blackburn got the title “Dark” Oculator.
“You would sell the child too, wouldn’t you?” Blackburn said, still smiling as he removed his monocle, rubbed it clean, then placed it in his pocket. “You would pass him off for wealth, as you did with the sands. Sometimes you impress even me, Fletcher.”
Ms. Fletcher shrugged.
Blackburn placed a different monocle onto his eye.
Wait, I thought. What am I forgetting?
And then I realized what it was. Ms. Fletcher’s foot prints, along with Blackburn’s, shone below. I was still wearing the Tracker’s Lenses. Cursing quietly, I pulled them off, then switched them for my Oculator’s Lenses.
Blackburn glowed with a vibrant black cloud. He crackled with power, giving off an aura so strong that I had to blink against the terrible shining darkness.
If Blackburn gave off an aura like that… what did I give off?
Blackburn smiled, turning directly toward the place where I was hiding with the others. Then his monocle flashed with a burst of power.
I immediately fell unconscious.
Chapter 11
You probably assume you know what is going to happen next: me, tied to an altar, about to get sacrificed. Unfortunately, you’re wrong. The story hasn’t gotten to that part yet.
This revelation may annoy you. It may even frustrate you. If it does, then I’ve achieved my purpose. However, before you throw this book against the wall, you should understand something about storytelling.
Some people assume that authors write books because we have vivid imaginations and want to share our vision. Other people assume that authors write because we are bursting with stories, and therefore must scribble those stories down in moments of creative propondidty.
Both groups of people are completely wrong. Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.
Now, actual torture is frowned upon in civilized society. Fortunately, the authorial community has discovered in storytelling an even more powerful – and more fulfilling – means of causing agony in others. We write stories. And by doing so, we engage in a perfectly legal method of doing all kinds of mean and terrible things to our readers.
Take, for instance, the word I used above. Propondidty. There is no such word – I made it up. Why? Because it amused me to think of thousands of readers looking up a nonsense word in their dictionaries.
Authors also create lovable, friendly characters – then proceed to do terrible things to them (like throw them in unsightly, Librarian-controlled dungeons). This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren’t the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.
So, now you know the reason why I – one of the most wealthy and famous people in the Free Kingdoms – would bother writing a book. This is the only way I can prove to all of you that I’m not the heroic savior that you think I am. If you don’t believe what I’m telling you, then ask yourself this: would any decent, kindhearted individual become a writer? Of course not.
I know how this story ends. I know what really happened to my parents. I know the true secret of the Sands of Rashid. I know how I finally ended up suspended over a bubbling pit of acid magma, tied to a flaming altar, staring at my reflection in the twisted, cracked dagger of a Librarian executioner.