Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

You, of course, don’t believe that. I mean, when is there not some grand conspiracy? This entire series is about a secret cult of evil Librarians who rule the world, for the Sands’ sake.

“Alcatraz?” a voice called. Sing wandered around the corner a moment later. “Himalaya found another book in the Forgotten Language. Figured you would want to look at it.”

I glanced at Bastille; she waved me away. “What, you think I need to be babied?” she snapped. “Go. I’ll be there in a moment.”

I hesitated, but followed Sing around a few walls of books to the center of the room. The prince sat, looking bored, on what appeared to be a throne made of books. (I’m still not sure who he got to make it for him.) Folsom was directing the moving of stacks; Himalaya was still sorting, with no sign of slowing down.

Sing handed me the book. Like all of the others in the Forgotten Language, the text on it looked like crazy scribbles. Before he had died, Alcatraz the First—my ultimate ancestor—had used the Talent to break the language of his people so that nobody could read it.

Nobody except for someone with a pair of Translator’s Lenses. I put mine on and flipped to the first page, hoping it wasn’t another cookbook.

Observations on the Talents of the Smedry people, the title page read, and an explanation of what led up to their fall. As written by Fenilious K. Wandersnag, scribe to His Majesty Alcatraz Smedry.

I blinked, then read the words again.

“Guys?” I said, turning. “Guys!”

The group of soldiers hesitated, and Himalaya glanced toward me. I held the book up.

“I think we just found what we’ve been looking for.”

Chapter 17

Things are about to go very wrong.

Oh, didn’t you know that already? I should think that it would be obvious. We’re almost to the end of the book, and we just had a very encouraging victory. Everything looks good. So of course it’s all going to go wrong. You should pay better attention to plot archetypes.

I’d like to promise you that everything will turn out all right, but I think there’s something you should understand. This is the middle book of the series. And as everyone knows, the heroes always lose in the middle book. It makes the series more tense.

Sorry. But hey, at least my books have awesome endings, right?

I dismissed the soldiers, ordering them to return to their posts. Sing and Folsom joined me, looking at the book, even though they couldn’t read it. I figured my mother must have an Oculator with her to read the book—to her alone, the Lenses would be useless.

“You’re sure this is what we’re after?” Sing asked, turning the book over in his fingers.

“It’s a history of the fall of Incarna,” I said, “told by Alcatraz the First’s personal scribe.”

Sing whistled. “Wow. What are the chances?”

“Pretty good, I’d say,” Bastille said, rounding the corner and joining us. She still looked quite the worse for wear, but at least she was standing. I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile.

“Nice leer,” she said to me. “Anyway, this is the Royal Archives—”

“Not a—” Folsom began to say.

“—don’t interrupt,” Bastille snapped. She appeared to be in rare form—but then, having a piece of your soul cut out tends to do that to people.

“This is the Royal Archives,” Bastille continued. “A lot of these books have passed down through the Nalhallan royal line for centuries—and the collection has been added to by the Smedrys, the Knights of Crystallia, and the other noble lines who have joined with us.”

“Yes indeed,” Prince Rikers said, taking the book from Sing, looking it over. “People don’t just throw away books in the Forgotten Language. A lot of these have been archived here for years and years. They’re copies of copies.”

“You can copy these scribbles?” I asked with surprise.

“Scribes can be quite meticulous,” Sing said. “They’re almost as bad as Librarians.”

“Excuse me?” Himalaya huffed, walking up to us. She’d finished giving orders to the last couple of soldiers, who were arranging the books she’d just organized. The room looked kind of strange, with the back half of it still dominated by gargantuan piles of books, the front half filled with neatly organized stacks.

“Oh,” Sing said. “Um, I didn’t mean you, Himalaya. I meant Librarians who aren’t recovering.”

“I’m not either,” she said, folding her arms, adopting a very deliberate stance as she stood in her Hushlander skirt and blouse. “I meant what I said earlier. I intend to prove that you can be a Librarian without being evil. There has to be a way.”

“If you say so…” Sing said.

I still kind of agreed with Sing. Librarians were … well, Librarians. They’d oppressed me since my childhood. They were trying to conquer Mokia.

“I think you did wonderfully,” Folsom said to Himalaya. “Ten out of ten on a scale of pure, majestic effectiveness.”