Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

Anyway, let’s talk about fantasy novels. First, you have to understand that when I say “fantasy novels,” I mean books about dieting or literature or people living during the Great Depression. Fantasy novels, then, are books that don’t include things like glass dragons, ghostly Curators, or magical Lenses.

I hate fantasy novels. Well, that’s not true. I don’t really hate them. I just get annoyed by what they’ve done to the Hushlands.

People don’t read anymore. And when they do, they don’t read books like this one, but instead read books that depress them, because those books are seen as important. Somehow, the Librarians have successfully managed to convince most people in the Hushlands that they shouldn’t read anything that isn’t boring.

It comes down to Biblioden the Scrivener’s great vision for the world—a vision in which people never do anything abnormal, never dream, and never experience anything strange. His minions teach people to stop reading fun books and instead focus on fantasy novels. That’s what I call them, because those books keep people trapped. Keep them inside the nice little fantasy that they consider to be the “real” world. A fantasy that tells them they don’t need to try something new.

After all, trying new things can be difficult.

“We need a plan,” Bastille said as we walked the corridors of the library. “We can’t just keep wandering around in here.”

“We need to find Grandpa Smedry,” I said, “or my father.”

“We also need to find Kaz and Australia, not to mention my mother.” She grimaced a bit at that last part.

And … that’s not everything either, I thought. My father came here for a reason. He came searching for something.

Something very important.

I’d found a communication from him several months back—it had come with the package that had contained the Sands of Rashid. My father had sounded tense in his letter. He’d been excited, but worried too.

He’d discovered something dangerous. The Sands of Rashid—the Translator’s Lenses—had been only the beginning. They were a step toward uncovering something much greater. Something that had frightened my father.

He’d spent thirteen years searching for whatever the something was. That trail had ended here, at the Library of Alexandria. Could he really have come because he’d grown frustrated? Had he traded his soul for the answers he sought, just so that he could finally stop searching?

I shivered, glancing at the Curators who floated behind us. “Bastille,” I said. “You said that one of them spoke to you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Kept trying to get me to borrow a book.”

“It spoke to you in English?”

“Well, Nalhallan,” she said. “But it’s pretty much the same thing. Why?”

“Mine spoke to me in a language I didn’t understand.”

“Mine did that at first too,” she said. “Several of them surrounded me and searched through my possessions. They grabbed the supply list and several of the labels off the foodstuffs. Then they left—all except for that one behind us. It continued to jabber at me in that infuriating language. It was only after I’d been caught that it started speaking Nalhallan.”

I glanced again at the Curators. They use traps, I thought. But not ones that kill—ones that keep people tangled up. They separate everyone who comes in, then they make each one wander the hallways, lost. They talk to us in a language they know we don’t understand when they could easily speak in English instead.

This whole place is all about annoying people. The Curators are trying to make us frustrated. All so that we’ll give up and take one of the books they’re offering.

“So,” Bastille said. “What’s our plan?”

I shrugged. “Why ask me?”

“Because you’re in charge, Alcatraz,” she said, sighing. “What’s your problem, anyway? Half the time you seem ready to give orders and rush about. The other half of the time, you complain that you don’t want to be the one who has to make the decisions.”

I didn’t answer. To be honest, I hadn’t really figured out my feelings either.

“Well?” she asked.

“First we find Kaz, Australia, and your mother.”

“Why would you need to find me?” Kaz asked. “I mean, I’m right here.”

We both jumped. And of course there he was. Wearing his bowler and rugged jacket, hands in his pockets, smiling at us impishly.

“Kaz!” I said. “You found us!”

“You were lost,” he said, shrugging. “If I’m lost, it’s easier for me to find someone else who is lost—since abstractly, we’re both in the same place.”