Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (18 page)

His attempt at mirth seemed forced.
I opened my mouth
to ask more, but the doors to the box opened.
Standing
directly outside was Folsom Smedry in his red robes,
Himalaya at his side.

"Lord Smedry!" Folsom said, looking relieved.
"Finally!"

"What?" Grand
pa Smedry said.

"You're late," Folsom said.

"Of course I am
,”
Grandpa said.
"Get on with it!"

"She's here."

"
W
ho?"

“
Her
,”
Folsom said.
"S
he
W
ho
C
annot Be Named.
S
he's
in the kee
p, and she wants to talk to you.
"

Right n
ow
, you should be asking yourself some
questions.
Questions like: "How is it possible that this
book can be so awesome?" and "
W
hy did the Librarian slip
and fall down?" and "
W
hat exactly was it that exploded and
made the Hawkwind crash in Chapter T
w
o?"

Did you think I'd forgotten that last one?
No, not at all.
(The crash nearly killed me, after all.)
I figured that the
Librarians might be behind it, as everyone else assumed.
But
why
had they done it?
And, more important,
how
?

There just hadn't been time to ask those questions,
important though they were.
Too much was going on.
We'll
get to it, though.

(Also, the answer to the second question in the first
paragraph is obvious.
She fell because she was looking
through the library's nonfriction section.)

We approached Keep Smedry's audience lounge, where
Sing
–
with
his hefty Mokian girth
–
stood
guard.
It
was time to confront She Who Cannot Be Named
–
the
most dangerous Librarian in all of the Order of the Wardens
of the Standard.
I'd fought Blackburn, Dark Oculator,
and felt the pain of his Torturer's Lens.
I'd fought
Kilimanjaro, of the Scrivener's Bones, with his blood-forged
Lenses and terrible half-metal smile.
Librarian hierarchs
were not to be trifled with.

I tensed, entering the medium-sized castle chamber
with Grandpa Smedry and Folsom
, ready for anything.
The
Librarian, however, wasn't there.
The only person in
the room was a little old grandmother wearing a shawl and
carry
i
ng an orange handb
a
g.
"It's a trap!" I said. "They sent a grandmother as a decoy!
Quickly, old lady.
You
’
re in great danger!
Run for safety
while we secure the area!"

The old lady met Grandpa Smedry's eyes.
“
Ah,
Leavenworth.
Your family is always such a delight!"

"Kangchenjunga Sarektj
a
kka," Grandpa Smedry said,
his voic
e uncharacteristically subdued.
Almost cold.

"You always
were
the
only one out here who could pro
nounce that correctly!" said Kagechech . . . Kachenjuaha . . .
She Who Cannot Be Named.
Her voice had a decidedly
kindly tone to it.
This?
This was She Who Cannot Be
Named?
The most dangerous Librarian of all?
I felt a little
bit let down.

"Such a dear you are, Leavenworth," she continued.

Grandpa Smedry raised an eyebrow.
"I can't say it's good
to see you, Kangchenjunga, so instead
–
perhaps
–
I
will
say that it's
interesting
to see you."

"Does it have to be that way?" she asked.
"Why, we're
old friends!"

"Hardly.
Why have you come here?"

The old grandmother sighed, then walked forward on
shaky l
egs, back bowed with a
ge, using a cane to walk.
The
room was carpeted with a l
arge maroon rug, the walls bear
ing similar tapestries, along with several formal-looking
couches for meeting with dignitaries.
She didn't sit in one
of these, however, she just walked up to my grandfather.

"You never
have
forgiven me for that little incident, have
you?" the Librarian asked, fiddling in her handbag.

"Incident?" Grandpa Smedry said.
"Kangchenjunga, I
believe you left me dangling from a frozen mountain cliff,
my foot tied to a slowly melting block of ice, my body
strapped with bacon and stuck with a sign that read 'Free
Wolf-chow."'

She smiled wistfully.
"Ah, now
that
was a trap.
Kids these
days don't know how to do it correctly."
She reached into
her handbag. I tensed, and then she pulled out what
appeared to be a plate of chocolate chip cookies, wrapped
in plastic wrap.
She handed these to me, then patted me on
the head.
"What a pleasant lad," she said, then turned to my
grandfather.

"You asked why I had come, Leavenworth
,”
she said.

"Well, we want the kings to know that we are serious about
this treaty, and so I have come to speak before the final
vote this evening."

I stared down at the cookies, expecting them to explode
or something.
Grandpa Smedry didn't seem worried
–
he
kept his eyes focused directly on the Librarian.

"We won't let this treaty happen," Grandpa said.

The Librarian tsked quietly, shaking her head as she
shuffled out of the room.
"So unforgiving, you Smedrys.
What can we do to show that we're sincere?
What possible
solution is there to all of this?"

She hesitated by the door, then turned and winked at
us.
"Oh, and don't get in my way.
If you do, I'
ll
have to rip
out your entrails, dice them into little bits, then feed them
to my goldfish.
Toodles!"

I stared in shock.
Every
thing about her screamed “kindly
grandmother."
S
he even smiled in a cute
o
l
d
-
lady sort of
way when she mentioned our entrails, as if discussing a
favored knitting project.
She exited, and a coupl
e of keep
guards followed her.

Grandpa
S
medry sat do
wn on one of the couches, exhal
ing deeply, Folsom sitting next to him.
S
ing still stood by
the door, looking disturbed.

"Well, then,
” Grandpa said. "My, my.”

"Grandfather
,”
I said, looking
down at the cookies? "What should we do with these?”

"We probably shouldn
’
t eat them,
”
he said.

"Poison?" I asked.

"No. They'll spoil our dinner.
”
He stopped, then
shrugged
.
"But that's the
S
medry way!" He slipped a cookie
out and took a bite.
“
Ah, yes.
As good as I remember.
One
of the nice things about facing off against Kangchenjunga
is the treats.
She's an excellent baker.
”

I noticed a motion to the side, and turned as Hima
l
aya
en
tered the room. "Is she gone?”
the dark-haired former
Librarian asked.

"Yes," Folsom said, standing up immediately.

"That woman is
dreadful
,
”
Himalaya
said, sitting down.

"Ten out of ten points for evilness," Folsom agreed.

I remained suspicious of Himalaya.
She had stayed out
side because she didn't want to face a former colleague.
But
that had left her unsupervised.
What had she been doing?
Planting a bomb, like the one that blew up the
Hawkwind
?
(See, I told you I hadn't forgotten about that.)

"We need a plan
,”
Grandpa Smedry said.
"We only have
a few hours until the treaty vote.
There
has
to be a way to
stop this!"

"Lord Smedry, I've been
talking to the other nobility,”
Sing said.
"It . . . doesn't look good.
They're all so tired of
war.
They want it to end."

"I'll agree the war is terrible," Grandpa Smedry said.
"But, Clustering Campbells, surrendering Mokia isn't the
answer!
We need to show them that."

Nobody responded.
The five of us sat in the room for a
time, thinking.
Grandpa Smedry, Sing, and Folsom enjoyed
the cookies, but I held off.
Himalaya wasn't eating them
either.
If they
were
poisoned, then she would know.

A short time later, a servant entered.
"Lord Smedry," the
young boy said, "Crystallia is requesting a Swap Time."

“
Approved," Grandpa Smedry said.

Himalaya took a cookie and finally ate one.
So much for
that theory
,
I thought with a sigh.
A short time later, Bastille
walked in.

I stood up, shocked.
"Bastille! you're here!”

She appeared dazed,
l
ike she'd just suffered a repeated
beating to the face.
She looked at me and seemed to have
trouble focusing.
“I
. . .
”
she said.
“Y
es,
I am.”

That gave me chills.
W
hatever they'd done to her in
C
ry
stallia must have been horrible
if it left her unab
l
e to
make sarcastic responses to my dumb comments.
S
ing
rushed to pull over a chair for her.
Bastille sat, hands in her
lap.
S
he was no longer wearing the uniform of a squire of
C
rystallia
–
she
had on
a generic brown tunic and trou
sers
,
like a lot of the people I'd seen in the city.

"Child," Grandpa Smedry said,
“how do you feel?”

"Cold," she whispered.

"
W
e're trying to think of a way to stop the Librarians
from conquering Mokia, Bastille,
”
I said.
“
Maybe . . . maybe
you can help."