Chapter 17
Immediately, the Dark Oculator looked up.
I smiled, watching Blackburn turn with a confused expression on his face. At that moment, he was sensing a very powerful Oculatory Lens coming in from the hallway outside. He took a step toward the door.
“Now,” I hissed. “Run!”
Bastille didn’t need further command. She took off down the hallway, as did I. However, she obviously held back so that she didn’t outstrip me.
I held the Firebringer’s Lens before me, and it spewed forth it’s powerful line of light. I ran on, aiming it at the side of the corridor.
“You’re leading him away!” Bastille said. “You’re using us as bait.”
“Hopefully, bait that escapes,” I said, ducking around a corner, then pausing to wait. The Firebringer’s Lens continued to blast. A door slammed in the distance. “Smedry!” a voice bellowed. “You can’t run from me! Don’t you realize that I can sense your power?”
“Go!” I said, taking off at a dash. Within seconds, we were at the section of the corridor with the broken floor.
“Charles!” I yelled down through the hole. “Trouble is coming your way! I’d run if I were you!”
And then I took the Firebringer’s Lens and tossed it through the hole. It bounced against a few books, then came to rest on the floor, still shooting a piercing-hot laser of heat up into the air, burning the ceiling, threatening to start several of the bookshelves on fire.
I grabbed Bastille by the arm, tugging her around the corner and into the Forgotten Language room. Sing jumped as we entered. He had – for some reason that he never explained – propped both of the unconscious men in chairs at the desks.
Anthropologists are funny that way.
Now, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I didn’t take the opportunity to point out anything at the beginning of this chapter. Never fear; my editorial comments were simply delayed for a few moments.
You see, that last chapter ended with a terribly unfair hook. By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer’s greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry.
Regardless, because of how exciting things were, I didn’t feel comfortable interjecting my normal comments at the beginning of this chapter. So, I shall put them here instead. Prepare yourself.
Blah, blah, sacrifice, altars, daggers, sharks. Blah, blah, something pretentious. Blah, blah, rutabaga. Blah, blah, something that makes no sense whatsoever.
Now back to the story.
(And whoever put in that cliff-hanger at the end of the last chapter needs to be reprimanded. It’s growing quite late here, and I really should be getting to bed, rather than writing this book.)
I crouched inside the Forgotten Language room with Bastille and Sing. I kept my Oculator’ Lenses off, hoping that without them I wouldn’t have as strong an aura. Sure enough, watching under the door, we saw a dark shadow pass by, and I felt a slight surge of power as an activated Oculatory Lens passed by. (Fortunately, Blackburn didn’t appear to have a Tracker’s Lens of his own.) His shadow didn’t stop to check the Forgotten Language room, but instead continued on toward the stairwell.
“We have very little time,” I said, looking back at the other two.
We burst from the room and ran back toward the torture chamber. By the time we arrived, I was feeling a little out of breath. Having never had to rescue anyone from torture before, I wasn’t accustomed to so much running. Fortunately, Sing wasn’t exactly in shape either, and so I didn’t feel too bad lagging behind Bastille.
Once I reached the guard chamber, I noticed Bastille standing beside the door with the peephole. She gave the handle a good rattle. “Locked,” she said.
“Move aside,” I said, walking up to the door. I rested a hand on the lock, jolting it with a bit of Breaking Talent. Nothing happened.
“Glass lock,” I said. I moved my hand up to the door’s hinges, but they resisted too.
Bastille cursed. “The whole door will be warded against your Talent. We’ll have to try to break it down manually.”
I eyed the thick wooden door with a skeptical eye. Then, from behind me, there was a click. I turned to see Sing leveling one of the biggest, baddest handguns I’d ever seen. It was the kind of gun that took most men two hands to hold – the type of gun that used bullets so big that they could have doubled as paperweights.
Sing pulled out another gun, identical to the first, in his other hand. Then he took aim at the door handle – which sat directly between Bastille and me.
“Oh, put those antiques away,” Bastille said testily. “This isn’t the time for – Gak!”
This last part came as I grabbed her by the shoulder, yanking her with me as I took cover behind a table.
Sing pulled the triggers.
Wood chips sprayed across the room, mixing with shards of dark black glass. The booming sound of gunshots echoed in the small chamber – or, at least, the booming sound of three gunshots echoed in the small chamber. By the time Sing fired the fourth shot, I’d been deafened and couldn’t tell whether or not the rest of the shots made any noise.
I couldn’t hear any trees fall either.
When it was over, I peeked out from behind my table. Bastille remained stunned on the floor beside me. The door stood shattered and splintered, the remnants of its handle and lock hanging pitifully, surrounded by bullet holes. As I watched, the broken, bullet-shattered lock finally dropped to the floor, and the door quietly swung open – as if in surrender.
Now, after all our discussions of “advanced” weapons and the like, you probably weren’t expecting the guns to do much good. I certainly wasn’t. One thing to remember is this: Primitive doesn’t always mean useless. An old flintlock pistol may not be as advanced as a handgun, but both could kill you. Sitting there, I realized why Sing was insistent upon bringing the guns along, and why Grandpa Smedry had let him do so.
It seems to me that some people underestimate good, old-fashioned Hushlander technology a little too much. It was good to see something from my world prove so effective. Locks made from Oculator’s Glass might be resistant to physical damage, but they certainly aren’t completely indestructible.
“Nice shooting,” I said.
Sing shrugged, then said something.
“What?” I asked, still feeling a bit deaf.
“I said,” Sing said, speaking louder, “even antiques have their uses every once in a while. Come on!” He waddled over to the door, pushing it open the rest of the way.
Bastille stumbled to her feet. “I feel like a thunderstorm went off inside my head. Your people really use those things on the battlefield?”
“Only when they have to,” I said.
“How can you hear what your commanders are saying?” she asked.
“Uh… helmets?” I said. The answer, of course, didn’t make any sense. But I didn’t care at the moment. I rose to my feet, rushing after Sing into the room. Inside, we found one guard on the ground, unconscious from Blackburn’s use of the Torture’s Lens. Grandpa Smedry still lay tied to the table, Quentin in his chair.
“Alcatraz, lad!” Grandpa Smedry said. “You’re late!”
I smiled, rushing to the table. Bastille saw to Quentin, cutting the ropes that tied him to the chair.
“The manacles on my wrists are made of Enforcer’s Glass, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “You’ll never break it. Quickly, you have to leave! The Dark Oculator sensed you using the Firebringer’s Lens!”
I know,” I said. “That was intentional. We distracted him with the Lens, then came in to get you.”
“You did?” Grandpa Smedry said. “Whooping Williams, lad, that’s brilliant!”
“Thank you,” I said, placing two hands against the wood of the table. Then I closed my eyes and channeled a blast of Talent into it. Fortunately, it wasn’t warded as well as the door had been, even if the manacles were. Nails sprang free, boards separated, and legs fell off. Grandpa Smedry collapsed in the middle of it, crying out in surprise. Sing quickly rushed over to help him to his feet.
“Muttering Modesitts,” Grandpa Smedry said quietly, looking at the remnants of the table. The manacles and their chains now hung freely from his wrists and ankles, for the other ends had been affixed to the now-defunct table. Grandpa Smedry looked up at me. “That’s some Talent, lad. Some Talent indeed…”
Quentin walked over, rubbing his wrists. He had a few budding bruises on his face, but otherwise looked unharmed. “Churches,” he said. “Lead, very small rocks, and ducks.”
I frowned.
“Oh, he won’t be able to say anything normal for the rest of the day,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Sing, my boy, would you help me with…” He nodded downward, toward his leg – which, I now noticed, was still impaled by the torturing knife.
“Grandpa!” I said with concern as Sing reached down gingerly and pulled the knife free.
There was no blood.
“Don’t worry, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I’ll arrive late to that wound.”
I frowned. “How long can you keep that up?”
“It depends,” Grandpa Smedry said, accepting his tuxedo shirt from Sing. He put it on, then began doing up the front. “Arriving late to wounds requires a bit of effort – holding this one back, along with all the pains Blackburn gave me with his Torture’s Lenses, is already fatiguing. I can hold on for a little while longer, but I’ll have to start letting the pain through eventually.”
Indeed, Grandpa Smedry looked far less spry now that he had earlier in the day. The torture might not have broken him, but it had certainly produced an effect.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I can arrive at the pain in small, manageable amounts, once we’re free. Bastille, dear, any luck?”
I turned. Bastille had apparently done a quick search of the room’s tables and cabinets. She looked up from the last one and shook her head. “If he took you Lenses, he didn’t stash them in here, old man.”
“Ah, well,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Good work anyway, dear.”
“I only searched the room,” she said, slamming the door, “because I was so furious at you for getting yourself captured. I figured that if I walked over to help you, I’d end up punching you instead. That didn’t seem fair in your weakened state.”
Grandpa Smedry raised a hand, whispering to me, “This would probably be a bad time to remind her that she got captured too, eh?”
“My capture was a different Smedry’s fault,” Bastille snapped, flushing. “And that doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here before that Dark Oculator comes back.”
“Agreed,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Follow me – I know the way to a stairwell up.”
“Up?” Bastille asked incredulously.
“Of course,” Grandpa Smedry said. “We came for the Sands of Rashid – and we’re not leaving until we have them!”
“But they know we’re here,” Bastille said. “The entire library is on alert!”
“Yes,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But we know where the sands are.”
“We do?” I asked.
Grandpa Smedry nodded. “You don’t think Quentin and I got ourselves captured for nothing, do you? We got close to the sands, lad. Very close.”
“But?” Bastille asked, folding her arms.
Grandpa Smedry blushed slightly. “Snarer’s Glass. Blackburn has that room so well trapped that it’s a wonder he doesn’t catch himself every time he walks into it.”
“And how are we going to get past the traps now, then?” Bastille asked.
“Oh, we won’t have to,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Quentin and I couldn’t think of a way to get by the traps, so we just fell into them! The room should be completely free now. Each square of Snarer’s Glass can only go off once, you know!”
Bastille huffed at him. “You could have gotten yourself killed, old man!”
“Yes, well,” he said. “I didn’t! Now, let’s get moving! We’re going to be late.”
With that, he rushed out of the room. Bastille gave me a flat look. “Next time, let’s just leave him.”
I smiled wryly, moving to follow her out of the room. However, something caught my attention. I stopped beside it.
“Sing?” I asked as the large man walked past.
“Yes?”
I pointed at a lantern holder on the wall. “What does this lantern holder look like to you?”
Sing paused, scratching his chin. “A coconut?”
Coconut, I thought. “Do you remember what Quentin said downstairs, just after we entered the library?”
Sing shook his head. “What was it?”
“I can’t quite remember,” I said. “But it sounded like gibberish.”
“Ah,” Sing said. “Quentin speaks in gibberish sometimes. It’s a side effect of his Talent – like me tripping when I get startled.”
Or me breaking things I don’t want to, I thought. But this seemed different. Coconuts… pain don’t hurt. That’s what it was.
I glanced back at the broken table. The pain of torture hadn’t hurt Grandpa Smedry.
“Come on Alcatraz,” Sing said urgently, pulling on my arm. “We have to keep moving.”
I allowed myself to be led from the room, but not before I took one last look at the wall bracket.
I had the feeling I was missing something important.