Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

  "Glowing, eh?" Bastille asked, walking up to me.

  I nodded.

  "That's strange," she said. "It takes time for an area to charge with Oculatory power. The Lens you sensed must have been here for a while if it has started making things around it glow."

  "What are you implying?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "I'm not sure. When you first spoke, I assumed we were close to Grandpa Smedry, since he's the only other Oculator we know to be down here. Except for, well, your father, and he . . ."

  I didn't want to think about that. "It's probably not Grandpa. He came down here only a little while before we did."

  "What, then?" Bastille asked.

  I took off my Oculator's Lenses, then put on my Discerner's Lenses again. I walked carefully along the wall full of books, inspecting the brickwork.

  I didn't have to look far before I discovered that one section of the wall was much older than all of the others. "Something is back there," I said. "I think there might be a secret passage or something."

  "How do we trigger it?" Bastille asked. "Pull one of the books?"

  "I guess."

  One of the ever-present Curators floated closer. “Yes,” it said. "Pull one of the books. Take it."

  I paused, hand halfway up to the shelf. "I'm not going to take it; I'll just shake it a bit.”

  "Try it," the curator whispered. "Whether you pick up a book, or whether it falls off accidentally, it does not matter. Move even one of the books a few inches off its shelf, and your soul is ours."

  I lowered my hand. The Curator seemed too eager to scare me away from trying to move one of the books. It seems like they don’t want me to find out what is behind there.

  I inspected the bookshelf. There was enough space to the side of it – between it and the next bookshelf over – that I could reach through and touch the back wall. I took a deep breath, leaning up against the bookcase, careful to keep from touching any of the books.

  “Alcatraz . . .," Bastille said with concern.

  I nodded, careful as I pressed my hand against the back wall. If I break this, and the bookshelf falls over, it will cost me my soul.

  My Discerner's Lenses told me that this portion of the brick wall behind the bookshelf was older than even the rest of the walls and floor. Whatever was behind that wall had been there even before the Curators moved into the area.

  I released my power.

  The wall crumbled, bricks breaking free of their mortar. I anxiously tried to hold the bookcase steady as the wall collapsed behind it. Kaz rushed forward, grabbing it on the other side, and Bastille pressed her hands against the books that were teetering slightly on their shelves. Apparently, none of this was enough to give the Curators leave to take our souls, because they watched with an air of petulance as not a single book slid out.

  I wiped my brow. The entire wall had fallen away, and there was some kind of room back there.

  "That was rash, Alcatraz," Bastille said, folding her arms.

  "He's a true Smedry!" Kaz said, laughing.

  I glanced at the two of them, suddenly embarrassed. "Someone had to break down that wall. It’s the only way we were going to get through."

  Bastille shrugged. "You complain about having to make decisions, then you make one like that without even asking. Do you want to be in charge or not?"

  "Uh . . . Well . . . I, that is . . .”

  "Brilliant," she said, peeking into the hole between the bookcases. "Very inspiring. Kaz, do you think we can get through?"

  Kaz was prying a lamp off the wall. "Sure we can. Though we may have to move that bookcase."

  Bastille eyed it and then, sighing, helped me ease the bookcase back from the wall just a few inches. We didn't, fortunately, lose any books - or any souls - in the process. Once finished, Kaz was able to slip through the opening.

  "Wow!" he said.

  Bastille, standing on that side of the bookcase, went next. I, therefore, had to go last – which I found rather unfair, considering that I'd been the one to discover the place. However, all feelings of annoyance vanished as I stepped into the chamber.

  It was a tomb.

  I'd seen enough movies about wisecracking archaeologists to know what an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb looked like. A massive sarcophagus sat in the center, and there were delicate golden pillars spaced around it. Mounds of wealth were heaped in the corners - coins, lamps, statues of animals. The floor itself seemed to be of pure gold.

  So, I did what anyone would do if he'd discovered an ancient Egyptian tomb. I yelped for joy, then rushed directly over to the nearest pile of gold and reached for a handful.

  "Alcatraz, wait!" Bastille said, grabbing my arm with a burst of Crystin speed.

  "What?" I asked in annoyance. "You're not going to give me some kind of nonsense about grave robbing or curses, are you?"

  "Shattering Glass, no,” Bastille said. "But look – those coins have words on them."

  I glanced to the side and noticed that she was right. Each coin was stamped with a foreign kind of character that wasn't Egyptian, as far as I could tell. "So?" I asked. "What does it matter if . . ."

  I trailed off, then glanced at the three Curators, who floated in through the wall in a fittingly ghostly manner.

  "Curators," I said. "Do these coins count as books?”

  "They are written," one said. "Paper, cloth, or metal, it matters not."

  "You can check one out, if you wish," another whispered, floating up to me.

  I shivered, then glanced at Bastille. "You just saved my life," I said, feeling numb.

  She shrugged. "I'm a Crystin. That's what we do.” However, she did seem to walk a little bit more confidently as she joined Kaz, who was inspecting the sarcophagus.

  You should have realized that I wouldn't be able to have any of the coins. That's what happens in stories like this. Characters in books find heaps of gold or hidden treasure all over the place – but then, of course, they never get to spend a penny of it. Instead, they either

  1) Lose it in an earthquake or natural disaster.

  II) Put it in a backpack that then breaks at a climactic moment, dropping all of the treasure as the heroes flee.

  c) Use it to rescue their orphanage from foreclosure.

  Stupid orphanages.

  Anyway, it is very common for authors to do things like this to the people in their stories. Why? Well, we will claim it's because we want to teach the reader that the real wealth is friendship, or caring, or something stupid like that. In reality we're just mean people. We like to torment our readers, and that translates to tormenting our characters. After all, there is only one thing more frustrating than finding a pile of gold, then having it snatched away from you.

  And that's being told that at least you learned something from the experience.

  I sighed, leaving the coins behind.

  "Oh, don't mope, Alcatraz," Bastille said, waving indifferently toward another corner of the room. "Just take some of those gold bars, instead. They don't seem to have anything written on them."

  I turned and smacked my forehead, suddenly realizing that I wasn't in a fictional story. This was an autobiography and was completely real - which meant that the "lesson" I could learn from it all is that grave robbing is way cool.

  "Good idea!" I said. "Curators, do those bars count as books?'

  The ghosts floated sullenly, one shooting an angry glare at Bastille. "No," it finally said.

  I smiled, then proceeded to stuff a few bars in my pocket, then a few more in Bastille's pack. In case you were wondering, yes. Gold really is as heavy as they say. And it's totally worth carrying anyway.

  "Don't you guys want any of this?" I asked, putting another bar in my jacket pocket.

  Kaz shrugged. "You and I are Smedries, Alcatraz. We’re friends to kings, counselors to emperors, defenders of the Free Kingdoms. Our family is incredibly wealthy, and we can pretty much have anything we want. I mean, that silimatic dragon we crashed was probably worth mo
re money than most people would ever be able to spend in a lifetime."

  "Oh," I said.

  “And I kind of took a vow of poverty,” Bastille said, grimacing.

  That was new. "Really?"

  She nodded. "If I brought some of that gold, it would just end up going to the Knights of Crystallia – and I’m a little annoyed with them right now.”

  I stuffed a few bars in my pocket for her anyway.

  “Alcatraz, come look at this," Kaz said.

  I reluctantly left the rest of the gold behind, clinking my way over to the other two. They stood a distance away from the sarcophagus, not approaching. "What's wrong?"

  "Look closely," Kaz said, pointing.

  I did, squinting in the light of the single lamp. With effort, I saw what he was talking about. Dust. Hanging in the air, motionless.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Kaz said. "But, if you look, there's a bubble of clean ground around the sarcophagus. No dust."

  There was a large circle on the ground, running around the casket, where either the dust had been cleaned away, or it had never fallen. Now that I thought to notice, I realized that the rest of this room was far more dusty than the Library. It hadn't been disturbed in some time.

  "There's something odd about this place," Bastille said, hands on hips.

  "Yeah," I said, frowning. "Those hieroglyphics don't quite look like any I've seen before."

  "Seen a lot?" she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  I flushed. "I mean, they don't look the way Egyptian ones should."

  It was hard to explain. As one might expect, the walls were covered with small pictures, drawn as if to be words. Yet, instead of people with cattle or eagle heads, there were pictures of dragons and serpents. Instead of scarabs, there were odd geometric shapes, like runes. Above the doorway where we had come in, there was . . .

  "Kaz!" I said, pointing.

  He turned, then his eyes opened wide. There, inscribed over the door, was a circle split into four sections, with symbols written in each of the four pieces. Just like the diagram Kaz had drawn for me on the ground, the one about the different kinds of Talents. The Incarnate wheel.

  This one also had a small circle in the center with its own symbol, along with a ring around the outside, split into two sections, each with another character in them.

  "It could just be a coincidence," Kaz said slowly. "I mean, it's just a circle split into four pieces. It isn't necessarily the same diagram."

  "It is," I said. "It feels right."

  "Well, maybe the Curators put it there," Kaz said. "They saw me draw it on the ground, and copied it down. Maybe they have placed it here for us to find, so it would confuse us."

  I shook my head. "I've still got my Discerner's Lenses on. That inscription is as old as the rest of the tomb."

  "What does it say?" Bastille asked. "Won't that tell us what it is?"

  Why didn't I think of that? I thought, embarrassed again. Bastille certainly was quick on her feet. Or maybe I was slow. Let's not discuss that possibility any further. Forget I mentioned it.

  "Can I read that text without losing my soul?" I asked. We looked at the Curators. One reluctantly spoke. "You can," it said. "You lose your soul when you check out or move a book. A symbol on the wall can be read without being checked out."

  It made sense. If it were that easy to get souls, the Curators could just have posted signs, then taken the souls of any who read them.

  With that, I pulled off my Discerner's Lenses and put on my Translator's Lenses. They immediately interpreted the strange symbols.

  "The inner squares say the things you taught, Kaz,” I said. "Time, Space, Matter, Knowledge."

  Kaz whistled. "Walnuts! That means whoever built this place knew an awful lot about Smedry Talents and arcane theory. What about that symbol in the middle of the circle? What does it say?"

  "It says Breaking," I said quietly.

  My Talent.

  "Interesting," Kaz said. "They give it its own circle on the diagram. What is that outer circle?"

  The ring was split into two pieces. "One says Identity," I said. "The other says Possibility."

  Kaz looked thoughtful. "Classical philosophy," he said. "Metaphysics. It appears that our dead friend there was a philosopher of some kind. Makes sense, considering that we're near Alexandria."

  I wasn't paying much attention to that. Instead, I turned, hesitant, to read the words on the walls. My Translator's Lenses instantly changed them to English for me.

  I immediately wished that I hadn't read them.

  CHAPTER 14

  Time for a history lesson.

  Stop complaining. This isn't an adventure story; it's a factual autobiography. The purpose isn't to entertain you, but to teach you. If you want to be entertained, go to school and listen to the imaginary facts your teachers make up.

  The Incarna. I talked about them in my last book, I believe. They're the ones who developed the Forgotten Language. In the Free Kingdoms, everyone is a little annoyed at them. After all, the Incarna supposedly had this fantastic understanding of both technology and magic. But, instead of sharing their wisdom with the rest of the world, they developed the Forgotten Language and then – somehow – managed to change all of their texts and writings so that they were written in this language.

  No, the Forgotten Language wasn't their original method of writing. Everybody knows that. They transformed all of their books into it. Kind of like . . . applying an encrypting program to a computer document. Except, it affected all forms of writing, whether on paper, in metal, or in stone.

  Nobody knows how they managed this. They were a race of mega-evolved, highly intelligent superbeings. I doubt it was all that tough for them. They could probably turn lead into gold, grant immortality, and make a mean dish of cold fusion too. Doesn't really matter. Nobody can read what they left behind.

  Except me. With my Translator's Lenses.

  Perhaps now you can see why the Librarians would hire a twisted, half-human assassin to hunt me down and retrieve them, eh?

  “Alcatraz?" Bastille said, apparently noticing how white my face had become. "What's wrong?"

  I stared at the wall with its strange words, trying to sort through what I was reading. She shook my arm.

  "Alcatraz?" she asked again, then glanced at the wall. "What does it say?"

  I read the words again.

  Beware all ye who visit this place of rest. Know that The Dark Talent has been released upon the world. We have failed to keep it contained.

  Our desires have brought us low. We sought to touch the powers of eternity, then draw them down upon ourselves. But we brought with them something we did not intend.

  Be careful of it. Guard it well, and beware its use. Do not rely upon it. We have seen the possibilities of the future and the ultimate end. It could destroy so much, if given the chance.

  The Bane of Incarna. That which twists, that which corrupts, and that which destroys. The Dark Talent.

  The Talent of Breaking.

  "This place is important," I whispered. "This place is really, really important."

  "Why?" Bastille said. "Shattering Glass, Smedry. When are you going to tell me what that says?"

  "Get out your pen and paper," I said, kneeling. "I need to write this down."

  Bastille sighed, but did as I asked, fetching a pen and paper from her pack. Kaz wandered over, watching with interest as I transcribed the writing on the wall.

  "What language is that, anyway?" I asked. "It mentions the Incarna, but it's not the Forgotten Language."

  "That's old Nalhallan," Kaz said. "I can't read it, but we have a few scholars back in the capital who can. When the Incarna fell, its few survivors ended up in Nalhalla to live."

  I finished the translation. Then, immediately, the three Curators surrounded me.

  "You must give up all writings to the Library when you enter," one hissed. "A copy will be returned to you once we have complet
ed it. If a copy cannot be made in one hour's time, we will return the original instead."

  I rolled my eyes. "Oh, for heaven's sake!" However, I let them pull the sheet away and vanish with it.

  Bastille was frowning - she'd read the translation as I wrote it. "That inscription makes it seem like your Talent is dangerous."

  "It is," I said. "Do you know how many times I've nearly been beaten up for breaking something at the wrong time?"

  "But –“ She cut off, however, obviously sensing that I didn't want to talk about it further.

  To be honest, I didn't know what to think. It was strange enough to find ancient writings that dealt with Smedry Talents. To have them give a caution about mine specifically . . . well, it was a little disturbing.

  That was the first time I really got any hint of the troubles that were coming. You Free Kingdomers call me a savior. Can I really be considered a savior if I caused the very problem I helped fix?

  "Wait a moment," Bastille said. "Didn't we get drawn here by an Oculatory Lens? Whatever happened to that?"

  "That's right," I said, standing. I could still sense it working, though I'd been distracted by everything else in the tomb.

  I swapped my Translator's Lenses for my Oculator's Lenses, then had to turn down their power because of how blinding the room was. Once I'd done so, I could see the Lens that had drawn me here. It was set into the lid of the sarcophagus.

  "It's there," I said, pointing. "On the top of the sarcophagus."

  "I don't trust that thing," Kaz said. "That circle around it is strange. We should leave, gather a research team, then come back and study this place in detail."

  I nodded absently. Then, I walked toward the sarcophagus.

  “Alcatraz!" Bastille said. “Are you going to do something stupid and brash again?"

  I turned. "Yeah."

  She blinked. "Oh. Well, then, you probably shouldn't. Consider me opposed to it. Whatever it is."