Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

“We came all this way for that?” I asked, looking at the hut. It stood on an open plain of sandy, scrubby ground. The roof looked like it was about to fall in.

“Yup, that’s it,” Kaz said, walking out of the jungle and down the slope toward the hut.

I glanced back at Bastille, who shrugged. “I’ve never been here before.”

“I have,” Bastille’s mother said. “Yes, that is the Library of Alexandria.” She clomped out of the jungle. I shrugged, then followed her, Australia and Bastille joining me. As we walked, I glanced back at the jungle.

It had vanished. I stopped, but then thought better of asking. After everything that I’d been through in the last few months, a disappearing jungle wasn’t really even all that odd.

I hurried to catch up to Kaz. “You’re sure this is the place? I kind of thought it would look … well, a little less like a hut.”

“You would have preferred a yurt?” Kaz asked, walking up to the doorway and peeking in. I followed.

Inside, a large set of stairs was cut into the ground. They led down into the depths of the earth. The dark opening seemed unnaturally black to me—like someone had cut a square in the floor and pulled away the fabric of existence with it.

“The library,” I said. “It’s underground?”

“Certainly,” Kaz said. “What did you expect? This is the Hushlands—things like the Library of Alexandria need to keep a low profile.”

Draulin walked up beside us, then pointed for Bastille to check the perimeter. She moved off. Draulin went the other way, scouting the area for danger.

“The Curators of Alexandria aren’t like Librarians you’ve seen before, Al,” Kaz said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re undead wraiths, for one thing,” he said, “though it’s not really nice to be prejudiced against people because of their race.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Just saying.” He shrugged. “Anyway, the Curators are older than the Librarians of Biblioden. Actually, the Curators are older than most things in this world. The Library of Alexandria was started back during the days of classical Greece. Alexandria was, after all, founded by Alexander the Great.”

“Wait,” I said. “He was a real person?”

“Sure he was,” Australia said, joining us. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I figured that all the things I’d learned in school were Librarian lies.”

“Not all of them,” Kaz said. “The Librarian teachings only really start to deviate from the truth about five hundred years back—about the time that Biblioden lived.” He paused, scratching his face. “Although, I guess they do lie about this place. I think they teach that it was destroyed.”

I nodded. “By the Romans or something.”

“Complete fabrication,” Kaz said. “The library outgrew its old location, so the Curators moved it here. Guess they wanted a place where they could hollow out as much ground as they wanted. It’s kind of tough to find room inside a big city to store every book ever written.”

“Every book?”

“Of course,” Kaz said. “That’s the point of this place. It’s a storage of all knowledge ever recorded.”

Suddenly, things started to make sense. “That’s why my father came here and why Grandpa Smedry followed! Don’t you see! My father can read texts in the Forgotten Language now; he has a set of Translator’s Lenses like mine, forged from the Sands of Rashid.”

“Yes,” Kaz said. “And?”

“And so he came here,” I said, looking at the stairway leading into the darkness. “He came for knowledge. Books in the Forgotten Language. He could study them here, learn what the ancient people—the Incarna—knew.”

Australia and Kaz shared a glance.

“That’s … not really all that likely, Alcatraz,” Australia said.

“Why not?”

“The Curators gather the knowledge,” Kaz said, “but they’re not that great at sharing. They’ll let you read a book, but they charge a terrible cost.”

I felt a chill. “What cost?”

“Your soul,” Australia said. “You can read one book, then you become one of them, to serve in the library for eternity.”

Great, I thought, glancing at Kaz. The shorter man looked troubled. “What?” I asked.

“I know your father, Al. We grew up together—he’s my brother.”

“And?”

“He’s a true Smedry. Just like your grandfather. We don’t tend to think things through. Things like charging into danger, like infiltrating libraries, or…”

“Like reading a book that will cost you your soul?”

Kaz looked away. “I don’t think he’d be that stupid. He’d get the knowledge he wanted, but he’d never be able to share it or use it. Even Attica wouldn’t get that hungry for answers.”

The comment raised another question. If he didn’t come for a book, then why visit?