The Pillars of Ponderay

  “Oh, perfect,” Leroy groaned, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. “Danger is just what I was hoping for at three o’clock in the morning.”

  The boys laughed, and Albert and Leroy had no choice but to follow them out into the darkness of night.

  The Library was dark and cold when they arrived. Albert could almost imagine the whispers of all the thousands of books around him, the stories just waiting to be read. Some of the torches on the walls were still flickering, but most had gone out. Lucinda’s Core Canteen was dark, with a chain-link barrier pulled down so sneaky Balance Keepers couldn’t go inside and steal things when she wasn’t looking.

  They made their way toward the back of the Library, filing inside the Tiles competition room.

  “If it’s a game of Tiles, then things are about to get interesting,” Leroy said.

  The room was already packed with Pure Balance Keepers when they arrived. Birdie sat with a cluster of girls in the corner, her feet covered in fuzzy pink bunny slippers. They even had floppy ears.

  “Nice footwear.” Albert nudged her with a wry grin as he came up next to her.

  “Hey, they’re not as goofy as that bed head you boys are sporting,” Birdie said with confidence, as Leroy helped her to her feet.

  The conversation fell silent as the Apprentices appeared. Trey was in the lead. Albert smiled and waved. Trey didn’t wave back. Instead, he appraised Hydra with a strange sort of stiffness in his posture. It was like he was uncomfortable to even be near them.

  “Seriously, what’s his problem?” Birdie hissed.

  Albert shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “What you’re about to enter into is extremely secret,” Trey said, and though he was talking to everyone, Albert felt like he was aiming the words right at Hydra. “Due to special circumstances, a few surface Balance Keepers will be joining us this year. If you feel like you can keep this secret, raise your Tile in the air.”

  Everyone did as he asked. Albert lifted his Master Tile high. Trey’s eyes fell onto it, and he glared, then looked back at everyone else. “All right. Now swear on it.”

  “I swear!” Albert, Birdie, and Leroy said together.

  Trey, Tussy, and Fox, the male Apprentice for Belltroll, all raised their own Tiles as well.

  “Good,” Trey said. “Now get ready for the best night of your lives. This is the Core Hunt.”

  The room filled with whispers. But when Trey held up a hand, everyone fell silent again.

  “Tussy, the box, please,” he said.

  Tussy held out a box wrapped in thick white cloth. When Trey unwrapped it, everyone was standing on tiptoe to get a better look. Albert gave himself a little advantage, using Flight Vision (which looked like a bird’s wings), to help him see over the crowd.

  The box was old and wooden, not much larger than a textbook. Trey opened the lid and dust filled the air, dancing like little fairies. “In this box,” he said, “are fifty Tiles. Special ones, with powers you have yet to experience.”

  He angled the box just a little, and now Albert could see inside. There were lots of Tiles, indeed, all different colors. He wanted so badly to get up and go to the box to see better. Albert didn’t have much use for the special Tiles, not with his Master Tile, but Birdie and Leroy could really benefit from them. Trey snapped the lid shut.

  Tussy stood a little taller. Her scratched and bruised face was proud, and Albert realized that even at three in the morning, she seemed ready for action. He wanted to be like Tussy, someone who looked, at all times, like a champion of the Core.

  Tussy raised her voice. “Whoever finds this box will own these Tiles for the remainder of this term. And believe me. You’ll want these Tiles on your side in the training Pit. I’m looking at you, Hydra and Argon.”

  Trey handed the box to Tussy, who handed it off to Fox. The tall Apprentice left the room with the box cradled in his arms like an infant. Everyone watched him leave with hungry eyes.

  When the door closed behind Fox, Trey called their attention back to the front of the room and nodded at Tussy.

  “There are no real rules,” Tussy said. “If you choose to play dirty, then so be it. Just please, don’t kill anyone. There’s already enough drama going on in the Core to add a death to the list.”

  Everyone exchanged nervous glances and anxious laughs.

  “You’ll stick to your Pit teams,” Tussy said. “Be creative and smart in your search. The box could be anywhere in the Core.”

  “What do we do when we find it?” Birdie asked.

  Trey laughed. “You run like the wind, and hope no one tackles you for it. Whoever gets the box back to this room first wins. Oh, and don’t get caught by any Professors. Detention, for anyone out past dark, as always.”

  The Balance Keepers sat around waiting for at least twenty minutes, while Fox hid the box of Tiles somewhere inside the Core. Someone tried to start up a game of Tiles, but nerves were high, and the game fizzled out. Plus, no one wanted to compete against Leroy. It was a losing battle from the start.

  “I can’t believe they’ve been doing this game all along, and we never knew,” Birdie said to the boys.

  Leroy shrugged. “It makes sense, though, that full-time Core people would have their own special traditions.”

  “He’s right,” Albert said. “It’s pretty cool of them to let us join in. Finally, we’ll get to have some real fun.”

  Fox came back. There was a glow of mischief in his eyes. “It’s time.”

  Trey nodded, then surveyed the room. “Balance Keepers, are you ready?”

  “Ready!” Albert, Birdie, Leroy, and the rest of the room called out.

  Even without the regular amount of students, their voices were still as loud as the roar of an army, and suddenly it hit Albert: the Core was an army, with soldiers training to defend their homes both here and on the surface. Whoever had set the Imbalance was going to have a difficult time winning in the end.

  While everyone else ran off to search the Core, Albert, Birdie, and Leroy stayed in the small room strategizing.

  “We could go check the Pit,” Birdie offered. “I bet they’d place the box in some sort of extreme Balance Keeper challenge.”

  “We could,” Albert said. “But don’t you think that’s where everyone else might go?”

  Leroy nodded, leaning back onto his elbows. “It’s where everyone will look.”

  “So then we should look in the last place they’d expect us to.” Albert chewed on his bottom lip. Leroy was grinning like a maniac. Albert sensed that Leroy already had the answer; he was just waiting for Albert to catch on. He tried to think like someone with a Synapse Tile would.

  “The Library!”

  Birdie nodded. “Of course! They’d put it right here. While everyone else is out scouring the entire Core, it’s probably just sitting on a bookshelf somewhere close by, waiting for us to grab it.”

  Leroy laughed. “Maybe my smartness is rubbing off on you guys.” Farnsworth growled and tugged at Leroy’s bootlace. “But of course you’ve always been the smartest one, little guy.”

  They set off through the Library with Farnsworth’s eyes guiding their way. The rows of shelves towered as tall as the pillars in the Pit, old oak and metal somehow melded together. There had to be at least thirty rows, and as they walked past them, Albert couldn’t help but picture ghosts or ghouls hiding in the shadows.

  “Maybe we should check somewhere besides the shelves,” he said.

  “Like the tallest part of the Library?” Birdie asked.

  That highest place in the Library wasn’t a bookshelf at all. It was the rock-climbing wall with the zip line that Albert loved so much.

  The three of them headed that way. Albert didn’t need his Tile powers for climbing the familiar rock wall, and Birdie was right on his heels. Leroy, having gotten braver at this kind of thing since last term, was even laughing as he scaled the jagged surface.

  Albert reached the top first. It was just a few feet across, room fo
r a couple of kids to sit on top and dangle their legs over the side. The box wasn’t here.

  “Dang,” Albert said. “Well, it was worth a try.”

  Birdie came up behind him and sat down, breathing hard. “You know what we have to do now, right?”

  Albert grinned. “If you say zip line back down, I’ll be your best friend.”

  Leroy came up behind them. “She already is our best friend, bonehead.”

  Birdie grabbed the T-shaped handle of the zip line and held on tight. “See you on the other side, boys!” With a giggle and a bend of her knees, she leaped from the top of the wall.

  The zip line made a zing! noise as it carried Birdie away. When she reached the bottom, she turned a crank that sent the handle all the way back up.

  “Go on then, Leroy.” Albert nudged him.

  Leroy swallowed, hard. “If I die, return my glasses and hat to my mother. And make sure there’s cake at my funeral.”

  “Chocolate or vanilla?”

  “Both,” Leroy said. “And strawberry, for good measure.”

  Leroy bent his knees and leaped. “Yeehaw!” He was so long and lanky that his feet touched the ground way before Birdie’s had, and from up so high, Albert was pleased to hear that Leroy was actually laughing.

  He had gotten braver, that was for sure. Last term he never would’ve done that.

  Albert waited for the crank to bring the zip line handle back. Up so high, he felt like he was on Calderon Peak, back in the Realm. He looked around the darkened Library like he was a king and all the books were the people of his kingdom.

  The handle made it up to him. Albert had turned, grabbed ahold, and prepared to jump, when a shadow caught his eye.

  It was someone ducking into the rows of bookshelves far below. It looked like a man, the figure tall and strong. But the figure was alone. It couldn’t be someone competing in the Core Hunt. They’d be with a team.

  Albert shivered. For days now, he’d felt like he was being followed or spied on. Could the shadow be the same person?

  There was only one way to find out. He turned, clutching tight to the handle, and leaped from the rock wall.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Book of Bad Tiles

  “I know I saw someone go back here, guys,” Albert said, as he and his friends walked down the final row of bookshelves. They had all been empty so far, and Albert was starting to feel like a fool for ninja-rolling around the darkened corners with Leroy.

  “There isn’t anyone in here except for us,” Birdie said, reaching out to catch Leroy as he tripped over his own feet.

  Leroy brushed himself off and straightened his shoulders and hat like nothing had happened. “Dudes, if there was anyone here but us, Farnsworth would’ve barked. Right, buddy?”

  Farnsworth yipped, his little tail wagging as he walked in front of them, a fearless leader.

  “You’re probably right,” Albert said. “But I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s been spying on us. And what’s up with Trey lately? He seems like he hates us now.”

  “He helped you the other day, by telling you about Professor Asante’s office,” Birdie replied.

  Albert thought on that. “Yeah, but he also didn’t think to warn us that she might be in there waiting to catch us!”

  Leroy nodded. “Statistically speaking, we should have thought of that ourselves.”

  They reached the end of the last row of shelves. And that was when Albert smelled it.

  Mint and cloves.

  He’d smelled the minty scent before, in the hallway outside of Professor Asante’s office. And the first night he’d come back to the Core. And again, just now. Albert shelved that into his mental library for further investigation.

  “If I were a box of Tiles,” Birdie said, plucking a book from the shelf, “where would I hide?”

  Albert yawned and stretched his arms and his neck, staring up at the tops of the shelves. Just then, Farnsworth decided to mimic Albert, stretching his little furry back so that his eyes shone into the rafters of the room.

  A glint of something silver caught Albert’s eye.

  “Look!” Albert pointed. “There’s something up there! On the top shelf, in between those two big books!”

  “No way,” Birdie gasped, scooting in closer to Albert so she could see where he was pointing. She squinted hard. “I think there is something!”

  Leroy yawned. “I’d love to help out and all, but if it requires climbing up a super-old, super-rickety bookshelf that’s 57.07 feet high, then no way. You two go ahead. I’ll stay here with Farnsworth and stand guard.”

  Birdie tapped the bill of Leroy’s hat. “You’re coming, Memory Boy, and that’s final.”

  Seven minutes later, Albert, Birdie, and Leroy reached the top of the bookshelf. They had all almost fallen not once, but twice, catching their boots on the corners of old books. Leroy was whining like a toddler, but Albert loved it. The climb made him feel alive, and he lived for the thrill of the chase. He stopped climbing when he reached the shelf on which he’d seen the flash of silver.

  Dust filled his nostrils as he reached up, stretching to try and grab what was hidden there.

  “Can you get it?” Birdie asked.

  “I’m not tall enough. I could maybe use the Stretch symbol—” Albert suggested, but Leroy stopped him.

  “It’s time to be a man and use what my mama gave me.” He nodded down at his long arms as he clutched the shelf. “These babies were made for this moment.”

  Albert shrugged, then scooted aside so Leroy could do his thing. It took a few tries. There was a book in the way, a heavy old one that tumbled over the edge of the shelf, narrowly missing Farnsworth as it crashed onto the ground far below.

  “Sorry!” Albert, Birdie, and Leroy called down.

  Farnsworth growled and immediately started to gnaw on the book.

  Finally, Leroy yelped. “Got something!”

  His legs were shaking, and he was only holding on to the shelf with one hand, but Albert was filled with pride, watching his friend do something so dangerous. Slowly, Leroy removed an old, wooden box from the topmost shelf.

  “Careful!” Birdie warned. “Don’t drop it.”

  Leroy winced. “Someone take it, or I’m totally gonna!”

  Albert reached out, snagging the box just in time. It was covered in dust, and he sneezed, but refused to drop it.

  They headed back to the ground slowly. It was dangerous work, but Albert gave himself a little help with a Balance symbol and his Master Tile.

  His feet touched the ground. Birdie and Leroy landed beside him, and Albert set the box on the floor between them.

  “A little light, Farnsworth?” Albert asked. He couldn’t wait to see what Tiles were inside. Birdie and Leroy were going to have a blast using them in the Pit.

  The dog shone his high beams onto it. When they all looked down, their eyes widened.

  It wasn’t the box they were expecting it to be.

  This box was old oak with silver accents, something that was probably beautiful once. But half of it was blackened, almost as if a part of it had been burned in a fire.

  “What the heck is that?” Leroy gulped.

  “It’s definitely not the box Trey was holding,” Birdie added.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Albert said, as he reached down, slowly. “Let’s open it.”

  His fingers shook as he lifted the tiny locking mechanism on the box. It popped open, and the lid rose without a sound.

  A small leather journal sat inside. It was soft, supple leather, black as oil. Albert lifted it out carefully. The box was old, covered in dust when they’d found it. But the journal looked fresh, almost as if someone had opened it recently.

  “Should we read it?” Albert asked. His voice was a whisper, and he didn’t quite know why.

  “Of course we should,” Birdie said, nodding. “There’s loads of secrets in journals. One time, I read my mom’s journal. It was hidden in her nightstand, an
d I found out that . . .”

  “Birdie.” Leroy cut her off. “This isn’t social hour.”

  Albert couldn’t explain why. But he felt a strange sense of darkness blooming in his chest as he held the journal. He flipped open to the first page.

  It was full of Tile symbols, much like the Black Book.

  But these symbols were very, very strange indeed.

  “This one shows you how to silence a person, even if they’re screaming at the top of their lungs,” Leroy pointed out. The symbol was a hand covering a mouth.

  “And this one,” Birdie said, tapping a symbol that looked like a handheld mirror, “will fool someone into thinking you look like their most trusted friend.”

  Albert pointed at another symbol, one that gave its user the ability to lie with perfect ease. Suddenly his stomach lurched.

  These weren’t normal Core powers. These were useful things, very useful, but only to someone with a certain type of wickedness in their heart.

  He dropped the journal back into the box and slammed the lid shut.

  “These are bad symbols,” Albert whispered. “Can’t you feel it?”

  It was like the air around them had grown cold, like they were sitting in the bottom of the training Pit.

  Birdie shivered, then pointed at the box. “Who does it belong to?”

  No one answered, because no one knew.

  “We should destroy it,” Leroy said. “I don’t want that journal falling into the wrong hands. Could you imagine if someone like Hoyt found it?”

  “That’s true,” Albert said. “But most Balance Keepers can only do what their Tile allows them to do.”

  Birdie gasped. “Unless they have one like yours, Albert. Just imagine the possibilities. That could be really, really bad.” Her eyes were wide with fear.

  Albert knew it was possible, and suddenly a memory resurfaced in his mind. Last term, when they’d found the Black Book, there had been a page torn out of the back. Did it have something to do with this journal? Could the person who ripped out the page in the Black Book also be the person who owned this journal? And could that person actually have a second Master Tile?