Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

“I’m the best there’s ever been,” Archedis said. “You think you can fight me?”

Bastille looked up, and I saw something showing through her fatigue, her pain, and her sorrow. Strength.

She attacked. Crystal met crystal with a sound that was somehow more melodic than that of steel against steel. Archedis pushed Bastille back with his superior strength, laughing.

She came at him again.

Their swords met, pinging again and again. As before, Archedis rebuffed Bastille.

And she attacked again.

And again.

And again.

Each time her sword swung a little faster. Each time the ringing of blades was a little louder. Each time her posture was a little more firm. She fought, refusing to be beaten down.

Archedis stopped laughing. His face grew solemn, then angry. Bastille threw herself at him repeatedly, her sword becoming a flurry of motion, the crystalline blade flashing with iridescence as it shattered light from the windows, throwing out sparkling colors.

And then Bastille actually started to push Archedis back.

Few people outside of Crystallia have seen two Crystin fight in earnest. The fleeing crowd slowed, its members turning back. Librarian thugs stopped beating on Himalaya and Folsom. Even I hesitated. We all grew still, as if in reverence, and the once chaotic room became as quiet as a concert hall.

We were an audience watching a duet. A duet in which the violinists tried to ram their violins down each other’s throats.

The massive knight and the spindly girl circled, their swords beating against each other as if in a prescribed rhythm. The weapons seemed things of beauty, the way they reflected the light. Two people trying to kill each other with rainbows.

Bastille should have lost. She was smaller, weaker, and exhausted. Yet each time Archedis threw her down, she scrambled back to her feet and attacked with even more fury and determination. To the side her father, the king, watched in awe. To my surprise, I even saw her mother stir. The woman looked dazed and sick, but she seemed to have regained enough consciousness to open her eyes.

Archedis made a mistake. He tripped slightly against a fallen Librarian thug. It was the first error I’d seen him make, but that didn’t matter. Bastille was on him in a heartbeat, pounding her sword against his, forcing him backward from his precarious position.

Looking dumbfounded, Archedis tripped backward and fell onto his armored butt. Bastille’s sword froze at his neck, a hair’s width from slicing his head free.

“I … yield,” Archedis said, sounding utterly shocked.

I finally managed to shove my way through the crowd, which had been stunned by the beautiful fight. I skidded to a stop beside my grandfather. He was breathing, though unconscious. He appeared to be humming to himself in his sleep.

“Alcatraz,” Bastille said.

I looked over at her. She still had her sword at Archedis’s neck.

“I have something for you to do,” she said, nodding to Archedis.

I smiled, then walked over to the fallen knight.

“Look, hey,” he said, smiling. “I’m a double agent, really. I was just trying to infiltrate them. I … uh, is it true that you have a Truthfinder’s Lens?”

I nodded.

“Oh,” he said, knowing that I’d been able to see that he was lying.

“Do it,” Bastille said, nodding toward the ground.

“Gladly,” I said, reaching down to touch Archedis’s blade. With a magnificent crackling sound, it shattered beneath the power of my Talent.

Swcbn finally put down her knitting. “You,” she said, “are very bad children. No cookies for you.”

And with that, she vanished—replaced with an exact statue of herself, sitting in that very position.

Royal Epilogue (Not a Chapter)

There comes a time in every book when a single important question must be asked: “Where’s my lunch?”

That time isn’t right now. However, it is time to ask another question, almost as important: “So, what’s the point?”

It’s an excellent question. We should ask it about everything we read. The problem is, I have no idea how to answer it.

The point of this book is really up to you. My point in writing it was to look at my life, to expose it, to illuminate it. As Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

He died for teaching that to people. I feel I should have died years ago. Instead, I proved myself to be a coward. You’ll see what I mean eventually.

This book means whatever you make of it. For some it will be about the dangers of fame. For others it will be about turning your flaws into talents. For many it will simply be entertainment, which is quite all right. Yet for others it will be about learning to question everything, even that which you believe.

For, you see, the most important truths can always withstand a little examination.