Chapter 16
If you are anything like me – clever, fond of goat cheese, and devilishly handsome – then you have undoubtedly read many books. And, while reading those books, you likely have thought that you are smarter than the characters in those books.
You’re just imagining things.
Now, I’ve already spoken about foreshadowing (a meddling literary convention of which Heisenberg would uncertainly be proud). However, there are other reasons why you only think that you’re smarter than the characters in this book. First off, you are likely sitting somewhere safe as you read the story. Whether it be a classroom, your bedroom, your aquarium, or even a library (but we won’t get into that right now…), you have no need to worry about Alivened monsters, armed soldiers, or straw-fearing Gaks. Therefore, you can examine the events with a calm, unbiased eye. In such a state of mind, it is easy to find faults.
Secondly, you have the convenience of holding this story in book form. It is a complete narrative, which you can look through at your leisure. You can go back and reread sections (which, because of the marvelous writing the book contains, you have undoubtedly done). You could even scan to the end and read the last page. Know that by doing so, however, you would violate every holy and honorable story-telling principle known to man, thereby throwing the universe into chaos and causing grief to untold millions.
Your choice.
Either way, since you can reread anytime you want, you could go back and find out exactly where I first heard cantaloupes mentioned. With such an advantage, it is very easy to find and point out things that my friends and I originally missed.
The third reason you think you are smarter that the characters is because you have me to explain things to you. Obviously, you don’t fully appreciate this advantage. Suffice it to say that without me, you would be far more confused about this story that you are. In fact, without me, you’d probably be very confused as you tried to read this book.
After all, it would be filled with blank pages.
Two soldiers stood in the hallway, chatting with each other, obviously guarding the door that sat between them. Sing, Bastille, and I crouched around a corner just a short distance away, unnoticed. We’d followed Grandpa Smedry’s footprints all the way here. His prints went through the door – and that, therefore, was the way we needed to go.
I nodded to Bastille, and she slipped quietly around the corner, moving with such grace that she resembled an ice-skater on the smooth stone floor. The guards looked over as she approached, but she was so quick that they didn’t have time to cry out. Bastille elbowed one in the teeth, then caught his companion in a grip around the neck, choking him and keeping him quiet. The first guard stumbled, holding his mouth, and Bastille kicked him in the chest.
The first guard fell to the ground, hitting his head and going unconscious. She dropped the second guard a moment later, after he’d passed out from being choked. She hadn’t even needed the dagger.
“You really are good at this,” I whispered as I approached.
Bastille shrugged modestly as I moved up to the door. Sing followed me, looking over his shoulder down the hallway, anxious.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before the entire library was on alert. We didn’t have much time. I didn’t care about the Sands of Rashid. I just wanted to get my grandfather back.
“His footprints go under the door,” I whispered.
“I know,” Bastille whispered as she peeked through a crack in the door. “He’s still in there.”
“What?” I said, kneeling beside her.
“Alcatraz!” Bastille hissed. “Blackburn’s in there too.”
I paused beside the door, peeking through an open-holed knot in the wood. That was one thing that old-style wooden doors had over the more refined American versions. In fact, Bastille would probably have called this door more ‘advanced,’ since it had the advantage of holes you could look through.
The view in the room was exactly what I had feared. Grandpa Smedry lay strapped to a large table, his shirt removed. Blackburn stood in his suit a short distance away, an angry expression on his face. I twisted a bit, looking to the side. Quentin was there too, tied to a chair. The short, dapper man looked like he’d been beaten a bit – his nose was bleeding, and he seemed dazed. I could hear him muttering.
“Bubble gum for the primate. Long live the Jacuzzi. Moon on the rocks, please.”
The walls of the room were covered with various nasty-looking torture implements – the kinds of things one might find in a dentist’s office. If that dentist were an insane torture-hungry Dark Oculator.
And there were also… “Books?” I whispered in confusion.
Bastille shuddered. “Papercuts,” she said. “The worst form of torture.”
Of course, I thought.
“Alcatraz,” Bastille said. “You have to leave. Blackburn will see your aura again!”
“No he won’t,” I said, smiling.
“Why not?”
“Because he made the same mistake I did before,” I said. “He’s not wearing his Oculator’s Lens.”
Indeed he wasn’t. In his single, monocle eye, Blackburn was not wearing his Oculator’s Lens. Instead, as I had anticipated, he was wearing a Torturer’s Lens – it was easy to distinguish, with its dark green and black tints.
Perhaps I wasn’t as stupid as you thought.
“Ah,” Bastille said.
Blackburn turned, focusing on Grandpa Smedry. Even though I wasn’t wearing my Oculator’s Lenses, I could feel a release of power – the Dark Oculator was activating the Torturer’s Lens. No! I thought, feeling helpless, remembering the awful pain.
Grandpa Smedry lay with a pleasant expression on his face. “I say,” he said. “I don’t suppose I could bother you for a cup of milk? I’m getting a bit thirsty.”
“Turtlenecks look good when the trees have no ears,” Quentin added.
“Bah!” Blackburn said. “Answer my questions, old man! How do I bypass the Sentinel’s Glass of Ryshadium? How can I grow the crystals of Crystallia?” He released another burst of torturing power into Grandpa Smedry.
“I really need to get going,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I’m late – I don’t suppose we could call it a day?”
Blackburn screamed in frustration, taking off his Torturer’s Lens and looking at it with an annoyed eye. “You!” he snapped to a guard that I couldn’t see.
“Uh… yes, my lord?” a voice asked.
“Stand right there,” Blackburn said, putting on the monocle. I sensed another wave of power.
The guard screamed. I couldn’t see him crumple, but I could hear it – and I could hear the pain, the utter agony, in the poor man’s voice. I cringed, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth against the awful sound as I remembered that brief moment when I had felt Blackburn’s fury.
I had to work hard to keep myself from fleeing right then. But I stayed. I’ll point out that now, looking back, I don’t consider this bravery – just stupidity.
The guard stopped screaming, then began to whimper.
“Hmm,” Blackburn said. “The Lens works perfectly. Your Talent is stronger than I had anticipated, old man. But it can’t protect forever! Soon you’ll know the pain!”
Bastille suddenly grabbed my arm – she was still watching through the crack beside me. “He’s arriving late for the pain!” she said in an excited whisper. “Such power… to put off an abstract sensation. It’s amazing.”
I noted the look of relief in Bastille’s face. She does care, I realized. Despite all the grumbling, despite all the complaints. She really was worried about him.
“What’s going on?” Sing whispered. He was too big to fit beside the door with the two of us.
“Old Smedry is handling the torture with poise,” Bastille said. “But Quentin looks like he’s had a hard time.”
“Is he babbling?” Sing asked.
Bastille nodded.
“Then he’s gone into anti-information mode,” Sing said. “He can engage his Talent so that it translates everything he says into gibberish. He can’t turn it off, even if he wants to – not until it wears off a day later.”
“That’s why he makes such a good spy,” I realized. “He can’t betray secrets – they can’t force him to talk, no matter how hard they try!”
Sing nodded.
Inside the room, Blackburn stomped around the table. He grabbed a knife from a rack of torturing implements, then rammed it toward Grandpa Smedry’s leg. It missed, sliding just to the side, and Blackburn swore in frustration. He held the knife up, steadied his hand, then carefully plunged it down again.
This time, it hit Grandpa’s leg and jabbed directly into the flesh.
“Shattered Glass,” Bastille cursed. “The knife is too advanced a weapon – it can get past old Smedry’s Talent.”
I stared in shock at the cut in my grandfather’s leg. No blood came out, however.
“It’s a good thing I don’t need to go to the bathroom,” Grandpa Smedry said in a cheerful voice. “That would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
“We have to do something,” Bastille said urgently. “He’s powerful, but he can’t hold back the pain – or the wounds – forever.”
“But we can’t fight a Dark Oculator,” Sing said. “Especially not without your sword, Bastille.”
I stood. “Then we’ll have to get him to leave Grandpa alone. Come on!” With that, I rushed down the hallway. Bastille and Sing followed in a dash.
“Alcatraz!” Bastille said as soon as we were a safe distance from the torture room. “What are you planning?”
“We need a distraction,” I said. “Something that will draw Blackburn away long enough for us to get in and rescue Grandpa Smedry. And I think I know of one.”
Bastille was about to object, but at that moment Sing tripped. Bastille and I ducked to the side just as a pair of bow-tied, sword-carrying Librarian soldiers came up out of the stairwell ahead. Bastille cursed, dashing toward them with a sudden burst of Crystin speed.
The stairs they had come up were the very same stairs that we ourselves had come up a few hours before. That meant the door I wanted was –
I threw my weight against it, pushing open the door and stepping into a room filled with caged dinosaurs.
“Good day!” said Charles. “I see that you have not ended up dead. What a pleasant surprise!”
“Did you bring us something to eat? The Tyrannosaurus asked hopefully.
“Better,” I said, then rushed into the room, touching the cage locks as I moved. Each one my fingers brushed against snapped open, the complicated gears inside breaking easily before my Talent.
“Why, what a good chap you are!” Charles said. The group of twenty dinosaurs agreed with eager, loud voices.
“I’ve freed you,” I said. “But I need something in return. Can you cause a disturbance downstairs for me?”
“Of course, my good fellow!” Charles said. “We’re excellent at creating disturbances, aren’t we George?”
“Indeed, indeed!” said the Stegosaurus.
With that, I stepped aside, waving eagerly, trying to begin a stampede of undersized dinosaurs. They, of course, filed out of the room in a very gentlemanly manner – for, as everyone knows, all British are refined, calm, and well-mannered. Even if they are a bunch of dinosaurs.
I followed the group out of the room, trying to whip them into a frenzy – or at least a mild agitation.
“That’s your plan?” Bastille asked flatly, standing above two unconscious Librarians.
“They’ll make a disturbance,” I said. “I mean, they’re dinosaurs.”
Bastille and Sing shared a look.
“What?” I said. “Don’t you think it’ll work?”
“You know very little about dinosaurs, Alcatraz,” Bastille said as the dinosaurs went down the stairs to the first floor.
We waited. We waited for painful minutes, hiding in the Forgotten Language room. We heard no cried of panic. No yells for help. No sounds of people being chewed up by rampaging bloodthirsty reptiles.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” I said, rushing from the room and running over to the hallway with the broken floor. I got on my hands and knees and peered through the opening, hoping to catch a glimpse of chaos below.
Instead, I saw the dinosaurs sitting in a group, several stacks of books settled around them. One of them – the Stegosaurus – appeared to be reading to the others.
“Dinosaurs,” Bastille said. “Useless.”
“They are easily distracted by books, Alcatraz,” Sing said. “I don’t think they’re going to help much.”
“Hey!” I called with an annoyed voice. “Charles.”
The little Pterodactyl looked up. “Ah, my good friend!”
“What about the chaos?” I demanded.
“Done!” Charles said.
“We each moved six books out of their proper places,” called George the Stegosaurus. “It will take them days to find them all and put them back.”
“Though we did put them into place backward,” Charles said. “You know, so they could be seen more easily. We wouldn’t want it to be too hard.”
“Too hard?” I asked, stupefied. “Charles, these are the people who were going to kill you and bury your bones in an archaeological dig!”
“Well, that’s no reason to be uncivilized!” Charles said.
“Indeed!” called a duck-billed dinosaur.
I knelt, blinking.
“Dinosaurs,” Bastille said again. “Useless.”
“Don’t worry, my Oculator friend!” Charles called. “We gave them a little extra kick! We had Douglas eat the entire science fiction section!”
“Well,” admitted Douglas the T. Rex, “I only ate the ‘C’ section. Honestly – claiming that Velociraptors were the smartest dinosaurs? I knew a Velociraptor in college, and he failed chemistry. Plus, resurrecting a character just because he didn’t die in the movie? Poppycock, I say!”
I sat back. Bastille had the dignity not to say, “I told you so.” Or, at least, she had the dignity not to say it a third time.
We need another plan. Another plan. Can’t stop to think about the failure. We need to draw the Dark Oculator away. Need to…
I stood, steeling my nerves.
“Another idea?” Sing asked, clearly a little apprehensive.
I took off again. Sing and Bastille followed reluctantly. But they hadn’t come up with anything better. My failure with the dinosaurs had come from relying on misinformation. In most books, two dozen rampaging dinosaurs would have been a distraction worth of even a Dark Oculator’s attention.
That’s why most books aren’t true. Sorry, kids.
I dashed back toward the torturing room. The guards still lay unconscious in the hallway where Bastille had left them. I checked the knothole – Blackburn was still there inside, and he had apparently decided to rough up Grandpa Smedry with slaps to the face.
“I think I’ll go for a walk…” Grandpa Smedry said cheerfully.
“Wasing not of wasing is,” Quentin added.
I gritted my teeth. Then I pulled the velvet pouch out of my pocket and looked inside.
“Alcatraz…” Bastille said carefully. “You can’t defeat him. You might have a powerful Lens, but that’s not everything. Blackburn will be able to deflect that Firebringer’s Lens with his Oculator’s Lens.”
“I know,” I said. “Sing, take these two unconscious men and hide them – with yourself – in the Forgotten Language room.”
My cousin opened his mouth as if to object, but then paused. Finally, he nodded. He easily lifted the two unconscious men, then left down the hallway.
“Alcatraz,” Bastille said. “I know you want to protect your grandfather. But this is suicide.”
I waited a few moments for Sing to complete his task. Then I knelt down beside the door and looked through the knothole. Blackburn was raising a mallet, as if to break Grandpa Smedry’s arm.
“You can’t resist forever, old man,” Blackburn said.
I activated the Firebringer’s Lens.