Kaz stood up, dusting off his hands. ‘And that’s why he came here, I guess.’
‘How do you know so much?’ I asked.
Kaz raised an eyebrow. ‘What? You think I spend all my time making up witty lists and getting lost on my way to the bathroom? I have a job, kid.’
‘Lord Kazan’s a scholar,’ Bastille said. ‘Focusing on arcane theory.’
‘Great,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Another professor.’ After Grandpa Smedry, Sing, and Quentin, I was half convinced that everyone who lived in the Free Kingdoms was one kind of academic or another.
Kaz shrugged. ‘It’s a Smedry trait, kid. We tend to be very interested in information. Either way, your father was the real genius – I’m just a humble philosopher. Bastille, how’s the pathway up ahead look?’
‘Clean,’ she said. ‘No trip wires that I found.’
‘Great,’ he said.
‘You actually seem a bit disappointed.’
Kaz shrugged. ‘Traps are interesting. They’re always a surprise, kind of like presents on your birthday.”
‘Except these presents might decapitate you,’ Bastille said flatly.
‘All part of the fun, Bastille.’
She sighed, shooting me a glance over her sunglasses. Smedries, it seemed to say. All the same.
I smiled at her, and nodded for us to get moving. Kaz took the lead. As we walked, I noticed that a couple of Curators were busy copying down Kaz’s drawing. I turned away, then jumped as I found a Curator hanging beside me.
‘The Incarna knew about Smedry Talents,’ the thing whispered. ‘We have a book here, one of theirs, written millennia ago. It explains exactly where the Talents first came from. We have one of only two copies that still exist.’
It hovered closer.
‘You can have it,’ the creature whispered. ‘Check it out, if you wish.’
I snorted. ‘I’m not that curious. I’d be a fool to give you my soul for information I could never use.’
‘Ah, but maybe you could use it,’ the Curator said. ‘What could you accomplish if you understood your Talent, young Smedry? Would you, perhaps, have enough skill to gain your freedom from us? Get your soul back? Break out of our prison . . .’
This gave me pause. It made a twisted, frightening sense. Maybe I could trade my soul away, then learn how to free myself using the book I gained. ‘It’s possible, then?’ I asked. ‘Someone could break free after having been turned into a Curator?’
‘Anything is possible,’ the creature whispered, focusing its burning sockets on me. ‘Why don’t you try? You could learn so much. Things people haven’t known for millennia . . .’
It is a testament to the subtle trickery of the Curators that I actually thought, for just a moment, about trading my soul for a book on arcane theory.
And then I came to my senses. I couldn’t even control my Talent as it was. What made me think that I, of all people, would be able to use it to outsmart a group as ancient and powerful as the Curators of Alexandria?
I chuckled and shook my head, causing the Curator to back away in obvious displeasure. I hurried my pace, catching up with the others. Kaz walked in front, leading us as he had before, letting his Talent lose us and carry us toward Australia. Theoretically.
Indeed, as I walked, I swore that I could see the stacks of scrolls changing around us. It wasn’t that they transformed or anything – yet, if I glanced at a stack, then turned away, then glanced back, I couldn’t tell if it was actually the same one or not. Kaz’s Talent was carrying us through the corridors without our being able to feel the change.
Something occurred to me. ‘Kaz?’
The short man looked back, raising an eyebrow.
‘So . . . your Talent has lost us, right?’
‘Yup,’ he said.
‘As we walk, we’re moving through the Library hopping to different points, even though we feel like we’re just walking down a corridor.’
‘You’ve got it, kid. I’ve got to tell you – you’re smarter than you look.’
I frowned. ‘So, what exactly was the purpose of having Bastille scout ahead? Didn’t we leave that corridor behind the moment you turned on your Talent?’
Kaz froze.
At that moment, I heard something click beneath me. I looked down with shock to see that I’d stepped directly onto a trip wire.
‘Ah, wing nuts,’ Kaz swore.
11
I must apologize for the beginning of that last chapter. My goal is to write a completely frivolous book, for if I actually say anything important, I run the risk of making people worship or respect me even more. Therefore, I should ask that you will do me a favor. Get out some scissors, and cut out the next few paragraphs in this chapter. Paste them over the beginning of the last chapter, hiding it away so that you never have to read its pretentious editorializing again.
Ready? Go.
Once there was a bunny. This bunny had a birthday party. It was the bestest birthday party ever. Because that was the day the bunny got a bazooka.
The bunny loved his bazooka. He blew up all sorts of things on the farm. He blew up the stable of Henrietta the Horse. He blew up the pen of Pugsly the Pig. He blew up the coop of Chuck the Chicken.
‘I have the bestest bazooka ever,’ the bunny said. Then the farm friends proceeded to beat him senseless and steal his bazooka. It was the happiest day of his life.
The end.
Epilogue: Pugsly the pig, now without a pen, was quite annoyed. When none of the others were looking, he stole the bazooka. He tied a bandana on his head and swore vengeance for what had been done to him.
‘From this day on,’ he whispered, raising the bazooka, ‘I shall be known as Hambo.’
There. I feel much better. Now we can return to the story, refreshed and confident that you’re reading the right kind of book.
I cringed, tense, looking down at my foot on the trip wire. ‘So,’ I said, glancing at Bastille, ‘is it going to do any—
‘Gak!’
At that moment, panels on the ceiling fell away dumping what seemed like a thousand buckets full of dark, sticky sludge on us. I tried to move out of the way, but I was far too slow. Even Bastille, with her enhanced Crystin speed, couldn’t dodge fast enough.
It hit, covering us in a tarlike substance. I tried to yell, but the sound came out in a gurgle as the thick, black material got into my mouth. It had a rather unpleasant flavor. Kind of like a cross between bananas and tar, heavy on the tar.
I struggled and was frustrated to feel the goop suddenly harden. I was frozen in place, one eye open, the other closed, my mouth filled with hard tar, my nose – fortunately – unplugged.
‘Great,’ Bastille said. I could just barely see her, covered in hardened sludge a short distance away, stuck in a running posture. She’d had the sense to shade her face, so her eyes and mouth were uncovered – but her arm was glued to her forehead. ‘Kaz, you stuck too?’
‘Yeah,’ said a muffled voice. ‘I tried to lose myself, but it didn’t work. We were already lost.’
‘Alcatraz?’ Bastille asked.
I made a grumbling noise through my nose.
‘He looks all right,’ Kaz said. ‘He isn’t going to be waxing eloquent anytime soon, though.’
‘As if he ever does,’ Bastille said, struggling.
Enough of this, I thought in annoyance, releasing my Talent into the goop. Nothing happened. There are, unfortunately, plenty of things that are resistant to Smedry Talents.
Several Curators glided across the floor to us, looking quite pleased with themselves. ‘We can provide a book for you that will explain how to get out,’ one said.
‘You will find it very interesting,’ said another.
‘Shatter yourselves,’ Bastille snapped, grunting again as she tried to get free. Nothing moved but her chin.
‘What kind of offer is that?’ Kaz demanded. ‘We wouldn’t be able to read the book like this!’
‘We’d be happy to read it to you,’ one of the others said. ‘So that you would understand how to escape in the moments before your soul was taken.’
‘Plus,’ another whispered, ‘you would have all of eternity to study. Surely that must appeal to you, a scholar. An eternity with the knowledge of the Library. All at your fingertips.’
‘Never able to leave,’ Kaz said. ‘Trapped forever in this pit, forced to entice others into the trap.’
‘Your brother thought the trade worthwhile,’ one of them whispered.
What! I thought. Father!
‘You lie,’ Kaz said. ‘Attica would never fall for one of your tricks!’
‘We didn’t have to trick him,’ another whispered, floating close to me. ‘He came quite willingly. All for a book. A single, special book.’
‘What book?’ Bastille asked.
The Curators fell silent, skull heads smiling. ‘Will you trade your soul for that knowledge?’
Bastille began to swear, struggling harder. The Curators moved around her, speaking in a language that my Lenses told me was classical Greek.
If I could just get to my Windstormer’s Lenses, I thought. Perhaps I could blow some of this goop away.
I couldn’t even wiggle my fingers, though, let alone reach into my jacket.
If only my Talent would work! I focused, drawing forth all of the power I could, and released it into the goop. Yet, it refused to break or yield.
Something occurred to me. The goop was resistant, but what about the floor beneath me? I gathered my Talent again, then released it downward.
I strained, feeling the pulsings of energy run through my body and out my feet. I felt my shoes unravel, the rubber slipping free, the canvas falling apart. I felt the rock beneath my heels crumble. But, that was ultimately useless, since my body was still held tightly by the goop. The ground fell away beneath me, but I didn’t fall with it.
The Curator closest to me turned. ‘Are you certain you don’t want that book on Talents, young Oculator? Perhaps it would help you free yourself.’
Focus, I thought as the rest of the Curators continued to torment BastiIle. They said that there’s a book on how to escape this goop. Well, that means there’s a way out.
I continued struggling, but that was obviously useless. If it was possible to break free with just muscles, then Bastille would manage to long before I did.
So, instead, I focused on the goop itself. What could I determine about it? The stuff in my mouth seemed slightly softer than the stuff around the outside of my body. Was there a reason for that? Spit, perhaps? Maybe the goop didn’t harden when it was wet.
I began to drool out some saliva, trying to get it on the goop. Spit began to seep out of the top of my mouth, and down the front of the glob of goop on my face.
‘Uh . . . Alcatraz?’ Bastille asked. ‘You all right?’
I tried to grunt in a reassuring way. But, then, I’ve found that it’s very hard to grunt eloquently when you’re spitting.
After several minutes, I came to the unpleasant conclusion that the goop didn’t dissolve in saliva. Unfortunately, now I was not only being held tightly by a sheet of hardened black tar, I’d also drooled all over the front of my shirt.