Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

“What?” I asked. “Leaving your mom out there?”

“No, she can care for herself. I mean going down into the library in a rush, without planning.”

Something hit the frozen wall, and it shattered. Bastille cursed and I cried out, falling backward.

Through the opening I could see the hunter dashing toward me. After freezing the wall, he’d thrown a rock to break it.

Draulin burst in through the half-broken door. “Down!” she said, waving her sword toward the stairs, then bringing it back up to block a ray from the Frostbringer’s Lens.

I glanced at Bastille.

“I’ve heard terrible things about this place, Alcatraz,” she said.

“No time for that now,” I decided, scrambling to my feet, heart thumping. I gritted my teeth, then charged down the steps toward the darkness, Bastille and Draulin following close behind.

All went black. It was like I had passed through a gateway beyond which light could not penetrate. I felt a sudden dizziness, and I fell to my knees.

“Bastille?” I called into the darkness.

No response.

“Kaz! Australia! Draulin!”

My voice didn’t even echo back to me.

I’ll take one chocolate bar and a handful of tacks, please. Anyone got any catsup?

Chapter 9

I would like to try an experiment. Get out some paper and write a 0 on it. Then I want you to go down a line and put a 0 there. You see, the 0 is a magic number, as it is—well—0. You can’t get better than that! Now, on the next one, 0 isn’t enough. 7 is the number to put here. Why isn’t the 0 good enough here? 0 is not magical now. Once great, the 0 has been reduced to being nonsense. Now, take your paper and throw it away, then turn this book sideways.

Look closely at the paragraph above this one. (Or, uh, I guess since you turned the book sideways it’s the paragraph beside this one.) Regardless, you might be able to see a face in the numbers in the paragraph—0s form the eyes, the 7 is a nose, and a line of 0s form the mouth. It’s smiling at you because you’re holding your book sideways, and—as everyone knows—that’s not the way to read books. In fact, how are you reading this paragraph anyway? Turn the book around. You look silly.

(For those of you reading the electronic version, please lock your device rotation and adjust your font size up or down until the spacing in the first paragraph of this chapter looks correct on your screen. This is a vital part of the reading experience. I swear.)

There. That’s better. Anyway, I believe I talked in my last book about how first impressions are often wrong. You may have had the impression that I was done talking about first impressions. You were wrong. Imagine that.

There’s so much more to be learned here. It’s not only people’s first impressions that are often wrong. Many of the ideas we have thought and believed for a long time are, in fact, dead wrong. For instance, I believed for years that Librarians were my friends. Some people believe that asparagus tastes good. Others don’t buy this book because they think it won’t be interesting.

Wrong, wrong, and so wrong. In my experience, I’ve found it best not to judge what I think I’m seeing until I’ve had enough time to study and learn. Something that appears to make no sense may actually be brilliant. (Like my art in paragraph one.)

Remember that. It might be important somewhere else in this book.

I forced myself to my feet in the complete darkness. I looked about, but of course that did no good. I called out again. No response.

I shivered in the darkness. Now, it wasn’t just dark down there. It was dark. Dark like I’d been swallowed by a whale, then that whale had been eaten by a bigger whale, then that bigger whale had gotten lost in a deep cave, which had then been thrown into a black hole.

It was so dark I began to fear that I’d been struck blind. I was therefore overjoyed when I caught a glimmer of light. I turned toward it, relieved.

“Thank the first sands,” I exclaimed. “It’s—”

I choked off. The light was coming from the flames burning in the sockets of a bloodred skull.

I cried out, stumbling away, and my back hit a rough, dusty wall. I moved along it, scrambling in the darkness, but ran forehead first into another wall at the corner. Trapped, I spun around, watching the skull grow closer. The fires in its eyes soon illuminated the creature’s robelike cloak and thin skeleton arms. The whole body—skull, cloak, even the flames—seemed faintly translucent.

I had met my first Curator of Alexandria. I fumbled, reaching into my jacket, remembering for the first time that I was carrying Lenses. Unfortunately, in the darkness, I couldn’t tell which pocket was which, and I was too nervous to count properly.

I pulled out a random pair of spectacles, hoping I’d grabbed the Windstormer’s Lenses. I shoved them on.

The Curator glowed with a whitish light. Great, I thought. I know how old it is. Maybe I can bake it a birthday cake.