‘It’s a fake,’ Bastille said.
We both looked at her sharply.
‘The royal family made it a thousand years back or so,’ she said, glancing away. ‘As a symbol of Nalhalla’s founding. It bothered the royals that they didn’t know where Alcatraz the First was buried, so they came up with a fake historical site to commemorate him.’
Kaz whistled softly. ‘I guess you’d know, Bastille. That’s some cover-up. But, why is he here, in the Library of Alexandria, of all places?’
‘This room is older than the parts around it,’ I said. ‘I’d say that the Curators moved their Library here on purpose. Weren’t you the one who told me that it changed locations in favor of a place with more room?’
‘True,’ Kaz said. ‘What’s that Lens?’
I held it up. ‘I’m not sure; I found it on the sarcophagus. Bastille, do you recognize it?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not tinted. It could do anything.’
‘Maybe I should just activate it.’
Bastille shrugged, and Kaz seemed to have no objections. So, hesitantly, I tried it. Nothing happened. I looked through the Lens, but couldn’t see anything different about the room.
‘Nothing?’ Bastille asked.
I shook my head, frowning. He called this his most powerful of Lenses. So, what does it do?
‘It makes sense, I guess,’ Kaz said. ‘It was active before – it’s what drew you here. Maybe all it does is send out a signal to other Oculators.’
‘Maybe’ I said, unconvinced. I slipped it into the single-Lens pocket in my jacket that had once held my Firebringer’s Lens.
‘We should probably just show it to my father,’ Kaz said. ‘He’ll be able to . . .’
He kept talking, but I stopped paying attention. Bastille was acting oddly. She’d suddenly perked up, growing tense. She glanced out the broken wall.
‘Bastille?’ I asked, cutting Kaz off.
‘Shattering Glass!’ she said, then took off in a dash out of the room.
Kaz and I stood, dumbfounded.
‘What do we do?’ Kaz asked.
‘Follow her!’ I said, slipping out of the room – careful not to tip over the bookcase outside. Kaz followed, grabbing Bastille’s pack and pulling out a pair of Warrior’s Lenses. As I took off at a dash down the hallway after Bastille, he managed to keep up by virtue of the enhancements the Lenses granted.
I quickly began to realize why characters in books tend to lose their gold before the end of the story. That stuff was heavy. Reluctantly, I tossed most of the gold to the side, keeping only a couple of bars in my pocket.
Even without the gold, however, neither of us was fast enough to follow a Crystin.
‘Bastille!’ I yelled, watching her disappear into the distance.
There was no response. Soon, Kaz and I reached an intersection and paused, puffing. We’d moved into yet another part of the Library. Here, instead of rows of scrolls or bookcases, we were in a section that looked like a dungeon. There were lots of intermixing hallways and small rooms, lamps flickering softly on the walls.
To make things more confusing, some of the doorways – even some of the hallways – had bars set across them, blocking the way forward. My suspicion is that this part of the Library was intended to be a maze – another means of frustrating people.
Bastille suddenly rushed back toward us, running out of a side corridor.
‘Bastille?’ I asked.
She cursed and passed us, going down another of the side hallways. I glanced at Kaz, who just shrugged. So, we took off after her again.
As we ran, I noticed something. A feeling. I froze, causing Kaz to pull up short beside me.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘He’s near,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘The hunter. The one chasing us.’
‘National Union of Teachers!’ Kaz swore. ‘You’re sure?’
I nodded. Ahead, I could hear Bastille yelling. We moved, passing a set of bars on our right. Through them, I could see another hallway. It would be very easy to get lost in this section of the Library.
But, then, we were already lost. So, it didn’t really seem to matter. Bastille came running back, and this time I managed to grab her arm as she ran by. She jerked to a halt, brow sweating, looking wild-eyed.
‘Bastille!’ I said. ‘What is going on?’
‘My mother,’ Bastille said. ‘She’s near, and she’s in pain. I can’t get to her because every one of these shattering passages is a dead end!’
Draulin? I thought. Here? I opened my mouth to ask how Bastille could possibly know that, and then I felt something. That dark, oppressive force. The twisted, unnatural feeling given off by a Lens that had been forged with Oculator blood. It was near. Very near.
I looked down a side hallway. Lamps flickered along its sides, and at the very end, I saw a massive iron grate covering the way forward.
Beyond the grate stood a shadowed figure, one arm unnaturally long, the face misshapen.
And it held Draulin’s Crystin sword in its hands.
15
It’s my fault.
I’ll admit the truth; I did it. You’ve undoubtedly noticed it by now, if you’ve been reading closely. I apologize. Of all the dirty tricks I’ve used, this is undoubtedly the nastiest of them all. I realize it might have ruined the book for you up until now but I couldn’t help myself.
You see, doing something like this consistently, over fourteen chapters, was quite challenging. And I’m always up for a challenge. When you noticed it, you probably realized how clever I was, even as you blushed. I know this is supposed to be a book for kids, and I thought it was well enough hidden that it wouldn’t come out. I guess I was too obvious.
I’d have taken it out, but it’s just so clever. Most people won’t be able to find it, even though it’s there in every chapter, on every page.
The most brilliant literary joke I’ve ever made.
My apologies.
I stood, facing down the silhouetted creature, still holding on to Bastille’s arm. I slowly came to understand something.
I had been wrong to run from the creature – that had caused my group to get split up. Now the hunter could take us one at a time, grabbing us from the catacombs as we ran about in confusion.
We couldn’t continue to run. It was time to confront it. I gulped, beginning to sweat. This is one of the reasons why I’m no hero – because even though I walked down that corridor toward the creature, I pulled Bastille along with me. I figured two targets were better than one.
As we moved forward, Kaz trailing behind, Bastille lost a bit of her frenzied look. She pulled her dagger from its sheath, the crystalline blade sparkling in the flickering lamplight.
At the end of the corridor was a small room, split in half by the large iron grate. The Scrivener’s Bone was on the other side of the bars. He smiled as I approached – one side of his face curling up, lips leering. The other side of his face mimicked the motion, though it was made of bits of metal that twisted and clicked, like a clock mechanism that had been compressed tenfold until all of the gears and pins were smushed together.
‘Smedry,’ the thing said, voice ragged, as if the sounds themselves had been flayed.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
The creature met my eyes. The entire left half of its body had been replaced by the bits of metal, held together by a force I didn’t understand. One of its eyes was human. The other was a pit of dark glass. Alivener’s Glass.
‘I am Kilimanjaro,’ the creature said. ‘I have been sent to retrieve something from you.’
I was still wearing the Lenses of Rashid. I raised my fingers to them, and Kiliman nodded.
‘Where did you get that sword?’ I asked, trying to hide my nervousness.
‘I have the woman,’ the creature said. ‘I took it from her.’
‘She’s here, Alcatraz,’ Bastille said. ‘I can feel her Fleshstone.’
Fleshstone? I thought. What in the name of the first sands is that?
‘You mean this?’ Kiliman asked, voice deep and crackling. He held up something before him. It looked like a crystal shard, about the size of two fingers put together. It was bloody. Bastille gasped. ‘No!’ she said, rushing toward the bars; I grabbed her arm and barely managed to hang on.
‘Bastille!’ I said. ‘He’s goading you!’
‘How could you?’ she screamed at the creature. ‘You’ll kill her!’
Kiliman lowered the crystal, placing it in a pouch at his belt. He still held the sword in front of him. ‘Death is immaterial, Crystin. I must retrieve what I seek. You have it, and I have the woman. We will trade.’
Bastille fell to her knees, and at first I thought she was weeping. Then I could see that she was simply shaking, white faced. I didn’t know it at the time, but pulling the Fleshstone from the body of a Crystin is an unspeakably vulgar and gruesome act. To Bastille, it was like Kiliman had shown her Draulin’s heart, still beating in his hand.
‘You think I’d bargain with you?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Kiliman said simply. He didn’t have the flair of evil that Blackburn had shown – no flaunted arrogance, no sharp clothing, or laughing voice. Yet, the quiet danger this creature expressed was somehow even more haunting.
I shivered.
‘Careful, Al,’ Kaz said quietly. ‘Those creatures are dangerous. Very dangerous.’
Kiliman smiled, then dropped the sword and flipped a hand forward. I cried out as I saw a Lens in his hand. It flashed, shooting out a beam of frosty light.
Bastille came up, her dagger held clawlike in her hand. She took the beam straight on the crystalline blade, then stumbled backward. She held it, but just barely.
I growled, throwing off the Translator’s Lenses and pulling out my Windstormer’s Lenses. He wanted to fight? Well, I’d show him.
I snapped the Lenses on, then focused on the Scrivener’s Bone, sending forth a wave of powerful wind. My ears popped, and Kaz cried out from the sudden increase in pressure. The blast of wind hit Kiliman, throwing him backward, spraying bits of metal from his body.
Kiliman growled, and his Frostbringer’s Lens turned off. To my side, Bastille fell to her knees again; I could see that her hand looked blue and was crusted with ice. Her little dagger’s blade was cracked in several places. Like the Crystin swords, it could deflect Oculatory powers, but it obviously wasn’t meant to handle much punishment.
Kiliman righted himself, and I could see the bits of metal that had fallen off of him spring up little spiderlike legs. The nuts, screws, and gears scuttled across the floor, climbing up his body and rejoining with the entire pulsing, undulating heap of metal scraps.
He met my eyes and growled, bringing up his other hand. I focused again, blasting him with another wave of wind, but the creature stayed on his feet. Suddenly, I felt myself being pulled forward. His other hand held the Lens that Bastille had called a Voidstormer’s Lens, the one that sucked in air.
The Lens was pulling me toward the bars, even though I was pushing Kiliman away with my own Lenses. I slipped on the ground, stumbling, growing panicked.