Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia Read online

  I should stop and note here that in the years since that day, I've grown rather fond of Aunt Pattywagon. This statement has nothing at all to do with the fact that she threatened to toss me out a window if I didn't include it.

  The mountainous woman pulled me from the room and down the hallway. Soon we were standing in the sunlight on the front steps outside as Patty sent one of the serving men to fetch transportation.

  "You know.” I said, "if you tell me where Folsom is, I could just go find him on my own. No need to –“

  "He's out and about on very important business," Patty said. “I'll have to lead you. I can't tell you. You see, as a Librarian expert, he's been put in charge of a recent defection."

  "Defection?"

  "Yes,” she said. "You know, a foreign agent who decides to join the other side? A Librarian fled her homeland and joined the Free Kingdoms. My son is in charge of helping her grow accustomed to life here. Ah, here's our ride!"

  I turned, half expecting another dragon, but apparently we two didn't warrant a full-size dragon this time. Instead, a coachman rode up with an open-topped carriage pulled by rather mundane horses.

  "Horses?" I said.

  "Of course," Patty said, climbing into the carriage. "What were you expecting? A . . . what is it you call them? A pottlemobile?"

  "Automobile," I said, joining her. "No, I wasn't expecting one of those. Horses just seem so . . . rustic."

  "Rustic?" she said as the coachman urged his beasts into motion. "Why, they're far more advanced than those bottlemobiles you Hushlanders use!"

  It's a common belief in the Free Kingdoms that everything they have is more advanced than what we backward Hushlanders use. For instance, they like to say that swords are more advanced than guns. This may sound ridiculous until you realize their swords are magical and are, indeed, more advanced than guns – the kinds of early guns the Free Kingdomers had before they switched to silimatic technology.

  Horses, though . . . I've never bought that one.

  "Okay, look," I said. "Horses are not more advanced than cars."

  "Sure they are," Patty said.

  "Why?"

  "Simple. Poop."

  I blinked. "Poop?"

  "Yup. What do those slobomobiles make? Foul-smelling gas. What do horses make?"

  "Poop?"

  "Poop," she said. "Fertilizer. You get to go somewhere, and you get a useful by-product."

  I sat back, feeling a little bit disturbed. Not because of what Patty said – I was used to Free Kingdomer rationalizations. No, I was disturbed because I'd somehow managed to talk about both excrement and flatulence in the course of two chapters.

  If I could somehow work in barfing, then I'd have a complete potty humor trifecta.

  Riding in the carriage allowed me a good look at the city's people, buildings, and shops. Oddly, I was just surprised by how . . . well, normal everyone seemed. Yes, there were castles. Yes, the people wore tunics and robes instead of slacks and blouses. But the expressions on their faces – the laughter, the frustration, even the boredom – were just like those back home.

  Actually, riding down that busy road – with the castle peaks rising like jagged mountains into the sky – felt an awful lot like riding in a taxi through New York City. People are people. Wherever they come from or whatever they look like, they're the same. As the philosopher Garnglegoot the Confused once said: "I'll have a banana and crayon sandwich, please." (Garnglegoot always did have trouble staying on topic.)

  "So where do all of these people live?" I asked, then cringed, expecting Bastille to shoot back something like "In their homes, stupid." It took me a second to remember that Bastille wasn't there to make fun of me. That made me sad, though I should have been happy to avoid the mockery.

  "Oh, most of them are from Nalhalla City here," Patty said. "Though a fair number of them probably traveled in today via Transporter's Glass."

  "Transporter's Glass? "

  Aunt Patty nodded her blond-haired head. "It's some very interesting technology, just developed by the Kuanalu Institute over in Halaiki using sands your father discovered a number of years ago. It lets people cross great distances in an instant, using a feasibly economic expenditure of brightsand. I've read some very exciting research on the subject."

  I blinked. I believe I've mentioned how unreasonably scholarly the Smedry clan is. A remarkable number of them are professors, researchers, or scientists. We’re like an unholy mix of the Brady Bunch and the UCLA honors department.

  "You're a professor, aren't you?” I accused.

  "Why, yes, dear!" Aunt patty said.

  "Silimatics?"

  "That's right; how'd you guess?”

  "Just lucky," I said. "Have you ever heard of a theory that says Oculators can power technological types of glass in addition to their Lenses?”

  She harrumphed. "Been speaking with your father, I see."

  "My father?"

  "I'm well aware of that paper he wrote," Aunt Patty continued, "but I don't buy it. Claiming that Oculators were somehow brightsand in human form. Doesn't that seem silly to you? How can sand be human in form?”

  “I –“

  "I'll admit that there are some discrepancies,” she continued, ignoring my attempt to interject. "However, your father is jumping to conclusions. This will require far more research than he's put into it! Research by people who are more practiced at true silimatics than that scoundrel. Oh, looks like you're getting a zit on your nose, by the way. Too bad that man in the carriage next to us just took a picture of you."

  I jumped, glancing to the side where another carriage had pulled up. The man there was holding up squares of glass about a foot on each side, pointing them toward us, then tapping them. I was still new to all this, but I was pretty sure he was doing something very similar to taking pictures with a camera. When he noticed my attention, he lowered his panes of glass, tipped his cap toward me, and his carriage pulled away.

  "What was that all about?" I asked.

  "Well, hon, you are the heir of the Smedry line – not to mention an Oculator raised inside the Hushlands. That kind of thing interests people."

  "People know about me?" I asked, surprised. I knew I'd been born in Nalhalla, but I'd just assumed that the people in the Free Kingdoms had forgotten.

  "Of course they do! You're a celebrity, Alcatraz – the Smedry who disappeared mysteriously as a child! There have been hundreds of books written on you. When it came out a few years back that you were being raised in the Hushlands, that only made things more interesting. You think all those people over there are staring because of me?"

  I'd never been in Nalhalla before (duh) so I hadn't thought it strange that there were people standing along the streets, watching the road. Now, however I noticed how many of them were pointing toward our carriage.

  "Shattering Glass," I whispered. "I'm Elvis."

  You Free Kingdomers may not know that name. Elvis was a powerful monarch from Hushlander past, known for his impassioned speeches to inmates, for his odd footwear, and for looking less like himself than the people who dress like him. He vanished mysteriously as the result of a Librarian cover-up.

  "I don't know who that is, hon," Aunt Patty said. "But whoever he is, he's probably a lot less well known than you are."

  I sat back, stunned. Grandpa Smedry and the others had tried to explain how important our family was, but I'd never really understood. We had a castle as large as the king's palace. We controlled incredible wealth. We had magical powers that others envied. There had been volumes and volumes of books written about us.

  That was the moment, riding in that carriage, when it all finally hit me. I understood. I'm famous, I thought, a smile growing on my face.

  This was a very important point in my life. It's where I started to realize just how much power I had. I didn't find fame intimidating. I found it exciting. Instead of hiding from the people with their silimatic cameras, I started waving to them. They began to point even mor
e excitedly, and the attention made me feel good. Warm, like I'd suddenly been bathed in sunlight.

  Some say that fame is a fleeting thing. Well, it has clung to me tenaciously, like gum stuck to the sidewalk, blackened from being stepped on a thousand times. I haven't been able to shake it, no matter what.

  Some also say fame is shallow. That's easy to say when you haven't spent your childhood being passed from family to family, scorned and discarded because of a curse that made you break whatever you touched.

  Fame is like a cheeseburger. It might not be the best or most healthy thing to have, but it will still fill you up. You don't really care how healthy something is when you've been without for so long. Like a cheeseburger, fame fills a need, and it tastes so good going down.

  It isn't until years later that you realize what it has done to your heart.

  "Here we are!" Aunt Patty said as the carriage slowed. I was surprised. After hearing that my cousin Folsom was in charge of guarding former Librarians, I'd expected to be taken to some sort of police station or secret service hideout. Instead, we'd come to a shopping district with little stores set into the fronts of the castles. Aunt Patty paid our driver with some glass coins, then climbed down.

  "I thought you said he was guarding a Librarian spy," I said, getting out.

  "He is, hon."

  “And where does one do that?"

  Aunt Patty pointed toward a store that looked suspiciously like an ice cream parlor. "Where else?"

  CHAPTER 6

  Once, when I was very young, I was being driven to the public swimming pool by my foster mother. This was a long time ago, so far distant in my memory I can barely remember it. I must have been three or four years old.

  I recall an image: a group of strangely shaped buildings beside the road. I'd seen them before, and I'd always wondered what they were. They looked like small white domes, three or four of them, the size of houses.

  As we passed, I turned to my foster mother. "Mom, what are those?"

  "That is where the crazy people go," she said.

  I hadn't realized there was a mental institution in my town. But it was nice to know where it was. For years after that, when the topic of mental illness came up, I'd explain where the hospital was. I was proud, as a child, to know where they took the crazy people when they went . . . well, crazy.

  When I was twelve or so, I remember being driven past that place again with a different foster family. By then, I could read. (I was quite advanced for my age, you know.) I noticed the sign hanging on the domelike buildings.

  It didn't say the buildings were a mental institution. It said that they were a church.

  Suddenly, I understood. "That's where all the crazy people go" meant something completely different to my foster mother than it had to me. I spent all those years proudly telling people where the asylum was, all the while ignorant of the fact that I'd been completely wrong.

  This will all relate.

  I stepped into the ice cream shop, trying to be ready for anything. I had seen coolers that turned out to hide banquet rooms. I had seen libraries that hid a dark hideout for cultists. I figured that a place that looked like an ice cream shop was probably something entirely different, like an explosive crayon testing facility. (Ha! That's what you get for writing on the walls, Jimmy!)

  If, indeed, the ice cream parlor was fake, it was doing a really good job of that fakery. It looked exactly like something from the fifties, including colorful pastels, stools by the tables, and waitresses in striped red-and-white skirts. Though said waitresses were serving banana splits and chocolate shakes to a bunch of people dressed in medieval clothing.

  A sign on the wall proudly proclaimed the place to be an AUTHENTIC HUSHLANDER RESTAURANT! When Aunt Patty and I entered, the place grew still. Outside, others were clustering around the windows, looking in at me.

  "It's all right, folks," Aunt Patty proclaimed. "He's really not all that interesting. Actually, he kind of smells, so you probably want to keep your distance."

  I blushed deeply.

  "Notice how I keep them from fawning over you?" she said, patting me on the shoulder. "You can thank me later, hon. I'll go fetch Folsom!" Aunt Patty pushed her way through the busy room. As soon as she was gone, Free Kingdomers began to approach me, ignoring her warning. They were hesitant, though; even the middle-aged men seemed as timid as children.

  “Um . . . can I help you?" I asked as I was surrounded.

  "You're him, aren't you?" one of them asked. "Alcatraz the Lost."

  "Well, I don't feel that lost," I said, growing uncomfortable. To have them so close and so in awe . . . well, I didn't quite know how to react. What was the proper protocol for a long-lost celebrity when first revealing himself to the world?

  A young fan, maybe seven years old, solved the problem. He stepped up, holding a square piece of glass five or six inches across. It was clear and flat, as if it had been cut right out of a windowpane. He offered the glass to me with a shaking hand.

  Okay, I thought, that's weird. I reached out and took the glass. As soon as I touched it, the glass began to glow. The boy pulled it back eagerly, and I could see that my thumb and fingers had left glowing prints. Apparently, this was the Free Kingdomer version of getting an autograph.

  The others began to press forward. Some had squares of glass. Others wanted to shake my hand, get their pictures taken with me, or have me use my Talent to break something of theirs as a memento. The bustle might have annoyed someone else, but after a childhood of being alternately mocked (for breaking things) and feared (for breaking things), I was ready for a little bit of adulation.

  After all, didn't I deserve it? I'd stopped the Librarians from getting the Sands of Rashid. I'd defeated Blackburn. I'd saved my father from the horrors of the Library of Alexandria.

  Grandpa Smedry was right; it was time to relax and enjoy myself. I made thumbprints, posed for pictures, shook hands, and answered questions. By the time Aunt Patty returned, I had launched into a dramatic telling of my first infiltration with Grandpa Smedry. That day in the ice cream parlor was the day I realized that I might make a good writer. I seemed to have a flair for storytelling. I teased the audience with information about what was coming, never quite revealing the ending but hinting at it.

  By the way, did you know that later that day, someone was going to try to assassinate King Dartmoor?

  "All right, all right," Aunt Patty said, shoving aside some of my fans. "Give the boy some room." She grabbed me by the arm. "Don't worry, hon, I'll rescue you."

  "But –“

  "No need to thank me," Aunt Patty said. Then, in a louder voice, she proclaimed, "Everyone, stay back! Alcatraz has been in the Hushlands! You won't want to catch any of his crazy-strange Librarian diseases!"

  I saw numerous people's faces pale, and the crowd backed away. Aunt Patty then led me to a table occupied by two people. One, a young man in his twenties with black hair and a hawkish face, looked vaguely familiar. I realized this must be Folsom Smedry; he looked a lot like his brother, Quentin. The young woman seated across from him wore a maroon skirt and white blouse. She had dark skin and her spectacles had a chain.

  To be honest, I hadn't expected the Librarian to be so pretty, or so young. Certainly, none of the ones I'd met so far had been pretty. Granted, most of those had been trying to kill me at the time, so perhaps I was a little biased.

  Folsom stood up. "Alcatraz!" he said, holding out a hand. "I'm Folsom, your cousin."

  "Nice to meet you," I said. "What's your Talent?" (I'd learned by now to ask Smedrys that as soon as I met them. Sitting down to eat with a Smedry without knowing their Talent was a little like accepting a grenade without knowing if the pin had been pulled or not.)

  Folsom smiled modestly as we shook hands. "It's not really all that important a Talent. You see, I can dance really poorly."

  “Ah," I said. "How impressive."

  I tried to sound sincere. I had trouble. It's just so hard to compliment some
one for being a bad dancer.

  Folsom smiled happily, releasing my hand and gesturing for me to sit. "Great to finally meet you," he said. "Oh, and I'd give that handshake a four out of six."

  I sat down. "Excuse me?"

  "Four out of six," he said, sitting. "Reasonable firmness with good eye contact, but you held on a little bit long. Anyway, may I present Himalaya Rockies, formerly of the Hushlands?"

  I glanced over at the Librarian, then hesitantly held out my hand. I half expected her to pull out a gun and shoot me. (Or at least to chastise me for my overdue books.)

  "Pleased to meet you," she said, taking my hand without even trying to stab me. "I hear you grew up in America like I did."

  I nodded. She had a Boston accent. I'd only been away from the United States for a couple of weeks, and I had been very eager to escape, but it still felt good to hear someone from my homeland.

  "So, er, you're a Librarian?" I asked.

  "A recovering Librarian," she said quickly.

  "Himalaya defected six months ago," Folsom said. "She brought lots of great information for us."

  Six months, eh? I thought, eyeing Folsom. He didn't give any indication, but if it had been six months, I found it odd that we were still keeping track of Himalaya. Folsom and the king, I figured, must still worry that she was secretly a spy for the Librarians.

  The booths around us filled quickly, and the parlor enjoyed quite a boost in business from my patronage. The owner must have noticed this, for he soon visited our table. "The famous Alcatraz Smedry, in my humble establishment!" he said. The pudgy man wore a pair of bright red-and-white-striped pants. He waved to one of his waitresses, who rushed over with a bowl filled with whipped cream. "Please have a bandana split on the house!"

  "Bandana?" I asked, cocking my head.