Alcatraz (42 page)

There was silence, broken only by Bastille’s groan as she sat up.
She still had the Translator’s Lenses in her hand.
Eventually, Kaz’s head popped out above the pit.

‘Alcatraz?’
he called.
‘You there?’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘Where else would we be?’
Bastille grumbled.

‘It’s too dark to see you,’ Kaz said.
‘Anyway, the Scrivener’s Bone has left, and I can’t get through the bars to follow him.
What should we do?
Do you want me to try to find some rope?’

I sat, trying – with all of my capacity – to think of a way out of the predicament.
Bastille’s mother was dying because a piece of crystal had been ripped from her body.
Kiliman had her and would trade her only for the Translator’s Lenses.
I was trapped in a pit with Bastille, who had taken a much harder hit falling than I had, and we had no rope.

I was stuck, looking for a solution where there wasn’t one.
Sometimes, there just isn’t a way out, and thinking won’t help, no matter how clever you are.
In a way, that’s kind of like what I wrote at the beginning of this chapter.
You remember, the secret ‘thing’ I claimed to have done in this book?
The shameful, clever trick?
Did you go looking for it?
Well, whatever you found, that wasn’t what I was intending – because there is no trick.
No hidden message.
No clever twist I put into the first fourteen chapters.

I don’t know how hard you searched, but it couldn’t have been harder than I searched for a way to both save Draulin and keep my Lenses.
I was quickly running out of time, and I knew it.
I had to make a decision.
Right then.
Right there.

I chose to take the Lenses from Bastille and throw them up to Kaz.
He caught them, just barely.

‘Can your Talent take you to the center of the Library?’
I asked.

He nodded.
‘I think so.
Now that I have a location to search for.’

‘Go,’ I said.
‘Trade the Lenses for Draulin’s life.
We’ll worry about getting them back later.’

Kaz nodded.
‘All right.
You wait here – I’ll find a rope or something and come back for you once Bastille’s mother is safe.’

He disappeared for a moment, then returned, head sticking back out over the opening.
‘Before I go, do you want this?’
He held out Bastille’s pack.

The Grappler’s Glass boots were inside.
I felt a stab of hope, but quickly dismissed it.
The sides of the shaft were stone.

Besides, even if I did get free, I’d still have to trade the Lenses for Draulin.
I’d just have to do it in person.
Still, there was food in the pack.
No telling how long we’d be in the pit.
‘Sure,’ I called up to him, ‘drop it.’

He did so, and I stepped to the side, letting it hit the soft ground.
By now, Bastille was on her feet, though she leaned woozily against the side of the pit.

This was why I shouldn’t ever have been made a leader.
This is why nobody should ever look to me.
Even then, I made the wrong decisions.
A leader has to be hard, capable of making the right choice.

You think I
did
make the right one?
Well, then, you’d be as poor a leader as I was.
You see, saving Draulin was the
wrong
choice.
By trading the Translator’s Lenses, I may have saved one life, but at a terrible cost.

The Librarians would gain access to the knowledge of the Incarna people.
Sure, Draulin would live – but how many would die as the war turned against the Free Kingdoms?
With ancient technology at their disposal, the Librarians would become a force that could no longer be held back.

I’d saved one life, but doomed so many more.
That’s not the sort of weakness a leader can afford.
I suspect that Kaz knew the truth of that.
He hesitated, then asked, ‘You sure you want to do this, kid?’

‘Yes,’ I said.
At the time, I didn’t think about things like protecting the future of the Free Kingdoms or the like.
I just knew one thing: I couldn’t be the one responsible for Draulin’s death.

‘All right,’ Kaz said.
‘I’ll be back for you.
Don’t worry.’

‘Good luck, Kaz.’

And he was gone.

16

W
riters – particularly storytellers like myself – write about people.
That is ironic, since we actually know nothing about them.

Think about it.
Why does someone become a writer?
Is it because they
like
people?
Of course not.
Why else would we seek out a job where we get to spend all day, every day, cooped up in our basement with no company besides paper, a pencil, and our imaginary friends?

Writers hate people.
If you’ve ever met a writer, you know that they’re generally awkward, slovenly individuals who live beneath stairwells, hiss at those who pass, and forget to bathe for weeklong periods.
And those are the socially competent ones.

I looked up at the sides of our pit.

Bastille sat on the floor, obviously trying to pretend she was a patient person.
It worked about as well as a watermelon trying to pretend it was a golf ball.
(Though not as messy and half as much fun.)

‘Come on, Bastille,’ I said, glancing at her.
‘I know you’re as frustrated as I am.
What are you thinking?
Could I break these walls somehow?
Make a slope we can climb up?’

‘And risk the sides of the wall toppling down on us?’
she asked flatly.

She had a point.
‘What if we tried to climb up without using the Talent?’

‘These walls are slick and polished, Smedry,’ she snapped.
‘Not even a Crystin can climb that.’

‘But if we shimmied up, feet on one wall, back against the other one .
.
.’

‘The hole is
way
too wide for that.’

I fell silent.

‘What?’
she asked.
‘No other brilliant ideas?
What about
jumping up
?
You should try that a few times.’
She turned away from me, looking at the side of our pit, then sighed.

I frowned.
‘Bastille, this isn’t like you.’

‘Oh?’
she asked.
‘How do you know what’s “like me” and what isn’t?
You’ve known me for what, a couple of months?
During which time we’ve spent all of three or four days together?’

‘Yes, but .
.
.
well, I mean .
.
.’

‘It’s over, Smedry,’ she said.
‘We’re beaten.
Kaz has probably already arrived at the center of the Library and given up those Lenses.
Chances are, Kiliman will just take him captive and let my mother die.’

‘Maybe we can still find a way out.
And go help.’

Bastille didn’t seem to be listening.
She simply sat down, arms folded across her knees, staring at the wall.
‘They really are right about me,’ she whispered.
‘I never deserved to be a knight.’

‘What?’
I asked, squatting down beside her.
‘Bastille, that’s nonsense.’

‘I’ve only done two real operations.
This one and the infiltration back in your hometown.
Both times I ended up trapped, unable to do anything.
I’m useless.’

‘We
all
got trapped,’ I said.
‘Your mother didn’t fare much better.’

She ignored this, still shaking her head.
‘Useless.
You had to save me from those ropes, and then you had to save me
again
when we were covered in tar.
That’s not even counting the time you saved me from falling out the side of the
Dragonaut
.’

‘You saved me too,’ I said.
‘Remember the coins?
If it wasn’t for you, I’d be floating around with burning eyes, offering illicit books to people as if I were a drug dealer looking for a new victim.’

(Hey, kids?
Want a taste of Dickens?
It’s awesome, man.
Come on.
First chapters of
Hard Times
are free.
I know you’ll be back for
Tale of Two Cities
later.)

‘That was different,’ Bastille said.

‘No, it wasn’t.
Look, you saved my life – not only that, but without you, I wouldn’t know what half these Lenses are supposed to do.’

She looked up at me, brow furled.
‘You’re doing it again.’

‘What?’

‘Encouraging people.
Like you did with Australia, like you’ve done with all of us this entire trip.
What is it about you, Smedry?
You don’t want to make any decisions, but you take it upon yourself to encourage us all anyway?’

I fell silent.
How had that happened?
This conversation had been about her, and suddenly she’d thrown it back in my face.
(I’ve found that throwing things in people’s faces – words, conversations, knives – is one of Bastille’s specialties.)

I looked toward the light flickering faintly in the room above.
It seemed haunting and inviting, and as I watched it, I realized something about myself.
While I hated being trapped because I worried about what might happen to Kaz and Draulin, there was a larger cause of my frustration.

I
wanted to be helping.
I didn’t want to be left out.
I wanted to be in charge.
Leaving things to others was tough for me.

‘I
do
want to be a leader, Bastille,’ I whispered.

She rustled, turning to look at me.

‘I think all people, in their hearts, want to be heroes,’ I continued.
‘But, the ones who want it most are the outcasts.
The boys who sit in the backs of rooms, always laughed at because they’re different, because they stand out, because .
.
.
they break things.’

I wondered if Kaz understood that there were more ways than one to be abnormal.
Everyone was strange in some way – everyone had weaknesses that could be mocked.
I
did
know how he felt.
I’d felt it too.

I didn’t want to go back.

‘Yes, I want to be a hero,’ I said.
‘Yes, I want to be the one leader.
I used to sit and dream of being the one that people looked to.
Of being the one who could
fix
things, rather than break them.’

‘Well, you have it,’ she said.
‘You’re the heir to the Smedry line.
You’re in charge.’

‘I know.
And that terrifies me.’

She regarded me.
She’d taken off her Warrior’s Lenses, and I could see the light from above reflecting in her solemn eyes.

I sat down, shaking my head.
‘I don’t know what to do, Bastille.
Being the kid who’s always in trouble didn’t exactly prepare me for this.
How do I decide whether or not to trade my most powerful weapon to save someone’s life?
I feel like .
.
.
like I’m drowning.
Like I’m swimming in water over my head and can’t ever reach the top.

‘I guess that’s why I keep saying I don’t want to lead.
Because I know if people pay
too
much attention to me, they’ll realize that I’m doing a terrible job.’
I grimaced.
‘Just like I am now.
You and I captured, your mother dying, Kaz walking into danger, and Australia – who
knows
where she is.’

I fell silent, feeling even more foolish now that I’d explained it.
Yet, oddly, Bastille didn’t laugh at me.

‘I don’t think you’re doing a terrible job, Alcatraz,’ she said.
‘Being in charge is hard.
If everything goes well, then nobody pays attention.
Yet, if something goes wrong, you’re always to blame.
I think you’ve done fine.
You just need to be a little bit more sure of yourself.’

I shrugged.
‘Maybe.
What do you know of it, anyway?’

‘I .
.
.’

I glanced at her, the tone in her voice making me curious.
Some things about Bastille had never added up, in my estimation.
She seemed to
know
too much.
True, she’d said that she’d wanted to be an Oculator, but that didn’t give me enough of an explanation.
There was more.

‘You
do
know about it,’ I said.

Now it was her turn to shrug.
‘A little bit.’

I cocked my head.

‘Haven’t you noticed?’
she asked, looking at me.
‘My mother doesn’t have a prison name.’

‘So?’

‘So, I do.’

I scratched my head.

‘You really
don’t
know anything, do you?’
she asked.

I snorted.
‘Well, excuse me for being raised on a completely different continent from you people.
What are you talking about?’

‘You are named Alcatraz after Alcatraz the First,’ Bastille said.
‘The Smedries use names like that a lot, names from their heritage.
The Librarians, then, have tried to discredit those names by using them for prisons.’

‘You’re not a Smedry,’ I said, ‘but you have a prison name too.’

‘Yes, but my family is also .
.
.
traditional.
They tend to use famous names over and over again, just like your family does.
That’s not something that common people do.’

I blinked.

Bastille rolled her eyes.
‘My father’s a nobleman, Smedry,’ she said.
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.
I have a traditional name because I’m his daughter.
My full name is Bastille Vianitelle the Ninth.’

‘Ah, right.’
It’s sort of like what rich people, kings, and popes do in the Hushlands – they reuse old names, then just add a number.

‘I grew up with everyone expecting me to be a leader,’ she said.
‘Only, I’m not very well suited to it.
Not like you.’

‘I’m not well suited to it!’

She snorted.
‘You are good with people, Smedry.
Me, I don’t
want
to lead people.
They kind of annoy me.’

‘You should have become a novelist.’

‘Don’t like the hours,’ she said.
‘Anyway, I can tell you that growing up learning how to lead doesn’t make any difference.
A lifetime of training only makes you understand just how inadequate you are.’

We fell silent.

‘So .
.
.
what happened?’
I asked.
‘How did you end up as a Crystin?’

‘My mother,’ Bastille said.
‘She’s not noble, but she
is
a Crystin.
She always pushed me to become a Knight of Crystallia, saying that my father didn’t need another useless daughter hanging about.
I tried to prove her wrong, but I’m too well-bred to do something simple, like become a baker or a carpenter.’

‘So you tried to become an Oculator.’

She nodded.
‘I didn’t tell anyone.
I’d heard that Oculatory power was genetic, of course, but I intended to prove everyone wrong.
I’d be the first Oculator in my line, then my mother and father would be impressed.

‘Well, you know how that turned out.
So, I just joined the Crystin, like my mother had always said I should.
I had to give up my title and my money.
Now I’m realizing just how foolish that decision was.
I make an even worse Crystin than I did an Oculator.’

She sighed, folding her arms again.
‘The thing is, I thought – for a while – that I
would
be good at it.
I made knight faster than anyone ever had.
Then, I was immediately sent out to protect the Old Smedry – which was one of the most dangerous, difficult assignments the knights had.
I
still
don’t know why they picked that as my first job.
It’s never made sense.’