Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

That was apparently because he was still down below. I could see that he was trying to pull Draulin to safety—unfortunately, she weighed like a bazillion pounds with all that armor on, not to mention the awkward sword strapped to her back. The king must have come to the same conclusion, as he pulled free her sword and tossed it aside, then began to work off the armor.

I moved to go help, but the crowds had seen my new exit and were swarming around me. I had to fight against them, and it really slowed me down.

“Grandpa!” I yelled, pointing.

Below, my grandfather turned toward the king, then cursed. Folsom and Himalaya were holding off the Librarians pretty well, so Grandpa Smedry rushed over to help the High King. I tried to do likewise, but it was slow going with the crowd in my way. Fortunately, it looked like I wouldn’t be needed.

People escaped out of the broken hole in the wall. Folsom and Himalaya handled the Librarians. My grandfather helped the High King pick up Draulin. Everything seemed good.

Swcbn continued to knit quietly.

Questions. They still itched at me.

How exactly, I wondered, did the Librarians get to the Crystin Mindstone? That thing must be freakishly well guarded.

Why was Swcbn acting so content? Who had blown up Hawkwind? It had to have been someone who would have been able to get Detonator’s Glass into Draulin’s pack. Hers was the room that had exploded.

I glanced at Himalaya, who fought beside her new husband, knocking down enemy after enemy as my grandfather sang opera. It occurred to me that perhaps we’d overlooked something. And at that moment, I asked the most important question of all.

If there could be such a thing as a good Librarian, might there also be such a thing as an evil Knight of Crystallia? A knight who could get to the Mindstone and corrupt it? A knight who could slip a bomb into Draulin’s pack? A knight who had been involved in sending Bastille out to fail?

A knight whom I had personally seen hanging around the Royal Archives within a few hours of the swap?

“Oh no…” I whispered.

At that moment, one of the “unconscious” knights near Grandpa Smedry began to move. He lifted his head, and I could see a deadly smile on it. Archedis, otherwise known as Mr. Big Chin, supposedly the most accomplished of all the Knights of Crystallia.

I should have listened more to Socrates.

“Grandfather!” I screamed, trying to fight the crowd and run forward, but they were so frightened that I barely got a few steps before being pushed back again.

Grandpa Smedry turned, still singing, looking up at me and smiling. In a flash Archedis rose, pulling free his crystalline sword. He slammed the pommel against Grandpa Smedry’s head.

The old man went cross-eyed—his Talent unable to protect him from the power of a Crystin blade—and he fell to the side. With his singing gone, Himalaya and Folsom immediately stopped fighting and froze in place.

The Librarians tackled them.

I struggled against the flow of people again, trying desperately to get down. The seats on the north side were now completely empty, save for Swcbn. The grandmotherly woman looked up at me, smiling. She held up the afghan she’d been knitting.

It depicted a bloody skull. Archedis turned toward King Dartmoor.

“No!” I screamed.

The corrupted knight raised his sword. Then he froze as a small, quiet figure stepped between him and the king.

Bastille. She hadn’t been affected by the fall of the Mindstone … because the knights themselves had cut her off from it.

Bastille raised her mother’s sword. I don’t know where she’d gotten it—I don’t even know how she’d gotten into the room. She had found a pair of Warrior’s Lenses, but I could see from her profile that she was still exhausted. She looked tiny before the figure of the enormous knight, with his silvery armor and heroic smile.

“Come now,” Archedis said. “You can’t stand against me.”

Bastille didn’t reply.

“I maneuvered you into obtaining knighthood,” Archedis said. “You never really deserved it. That was all a ploy to kill the old Smedry.”

Kill the old Smedry … Of course. Bastille and I had assumed that someone had been setting her up to fail so that she or her mother would be disgraced. We’d completely missed that Bastille had been acting as Grandpa Smedry’s bodyguard.

It hadn’t been a plot against her at all. It had been a plot against my grandfather. (And if you’re wondering, no—I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying down there. But someone repeated it to me later, so give me a break.) I continued to fight against the crowd, trying to get to Bastille. It was all happening so quickly—though pages have passed in this narrative, it had only been moments since Archedis had stood up.

I was forced to watch as Bastille raised her mother’s sword. She seemed so tired, her shoulders slumping, her stance uncertain.