Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (24 page)

"I finally have a chance to see the famous Alcatraz
Smedry in action!
I'm not going to miss it."

"Your Highness," I said, "this might be dangerous."

"You really think so?" he asked excitedly.

"What's going on?" Bastille said, rushing back down the
steps.
"I thought we were in a hurry."

"He wants to come," I said, gesturing.

She shrugged.
"We can't really s
top him – he
's the
crown prince.
That kind of means he can do what he
wants."

"But what if he gets killed?" I asked.

"Then they'll have to pick a new crown prince," Bastille
snapped.
“
Are we going or not?"

I sighed, glancing at the red-haired prince.
He was smil
ing in self-satisfaction.

"Great
,”
I muttered, but continued up the stairs.
The
prince rushed beside me.
"By the way'' I said.
"Why a pig?"

"Why," he said, surprised, "I heard that in the Hushlands,
it is common for tough guys to ride hogs."

I groaned.
"Prince Rikers, 'hog' is another word for a
motorcycle."

"Motorcycles look like pigs?" he asked.
"I never
knew that!"

"You know what, never mind," I said.
We rushed into
the room with the soldiers; it looked like the knights had
sent for reinforcements.
There were a lot of them on the
stairs too. I fe
l
t good knowing they were there in case
the Librarians
did
break into the Royal Archives.

"Not a library," Sing added.

"What?" I asked.

"Just thought you might be thinking about it
,”
Sing said,
"and figured I should remind you."

We reached the bottom.
The two knights had taken up
guard positions inside the room, and they saluted the prince
as we entered.

“
A
n
y Librarians?" I asked.

"No," the blond knight said, "but we can still hear the
scrapings.
We have two platoons on command here, and
two more searching nearby buildings.
So far, we've not dis
covered anything
–
but
we'll be ready for them if they
break into the stairwell!"

"Excellent," I said.
"You should wait outside, just in
case."
I didn't want them to see what was about to happen.
I
t was embarrassing.

They left and closed the door.
I turned to Himalaya.
"All
right," I said.
"Let's do it."

She looked confused. "Do what?"

Oh, rig
ht
, I thought.
We'd never actually explained why
we needed her.
"
S
omewhere in this room are some books
the Librarians really want," I said.
"Your former friends are
tunneling in here right now.
I need you to . . ."

I could see Bastille, F
olsom, and Sing cringe as I pre
pared to say it.

". . . I need you to
organize
the books in here."

Himalaya paled.
"What?"

"You heard me right."

She glanced at Folsom.
He looked away.

"You're testing me," she said, forming fists.
"Don't worry,
I can resist it.
You don't need to do this."

"No, really," I said, exasperated.
"I'm not testing you.
I
just need these books to have some kind of order."

She sat down on a pile.
"But . . . but I'm recovering!
I've
been clean for months now!
You can't ask me to go back,
you
c
a
n't
.”

"Himalaya," I said, kneeling beside her.
"We really, really
need you to do this."

She started trembling, which made me hesitate.

“I –“

She stood and fled the room, tears in her eyes.
Folsom
rushed after her
and I was left kneeling, feeling horrible.
Like I'd just told a little girl that her kitten was dead.
Because
I
'd run it over.
And that I'd also eaten it.

And that it had tasted really bad.

"Well, that's that, then," Bastille said.
She sat down on a
pile of books.
She was starting to look haggard again.
We'd
kept her distracted for a time, but the severing was still
weighing on her.

I could still hear the scraping sounds, and they were
getting louder.
“
All right, then," I said, taking a deep breath.
"We're going to have to destroy them."

"What?" Sing asked. "The books?"

I nodded. "We
c
a
n't
let my mother get what she wants.
Whatever it is, I'
ll
bet it involves Mokia.
This is the only
thing I can think of
–
I
doubt we can move these books
out in time."
I looked toward the mounds.
"We're going to
have to burn them."

"We don't have the authority for that," Bastille said
tiredly.

"Yes
,”
I said, turning toward Prince Rikers.
"But I'll bet
that he does."

The prince looked up
–
he'd been poking through a
pile of books, probably looking for fantasy novels.
"What's
this?" he asked.
"I have to say, this adventure hasn't been
very exciting.
W
here are the explosions, the rampaging
wombats, the space stations?"

"This is what a real adventure is like,
P
rince Rikers,"
I said.
"
W
e need to burn these books so the Librarians don't
get them.
Can you authorize that?"

"Yes, I suppose," he said.
“
A bonfire might be exciting."

I walked over and grabbed one of the lamps off the
walls.
Bastille and Sing joined me, looking at the books as I
prepared to begin the fire.

"This feels wrong
,”
Sing said.

"I know," I said. "But what does anyone care about these
books?
They just stuffed them in here.
I'
ll
bet people rarely
even come look at them."

"I did," Sing said.
"Years back.
I can't be the only one.
Besides, they're
books
.
Knowledg
e
.
W
ho knows what we
might lose?
There are books in here that are so old,
they might be the only copies in existence outside of the
ones at the Library of Alexandria."

I stood with the fire in my hand.
Now, I hadn't meant
this to be a metaphor for anything
–
I'm simply relating
what happened.
It
did
seem like the right thing to do.
And
yet, it also felt like the
wrong
thing too.
Was it better to burn
the books and let nobody have the knowledge, or take the
chance that the Librarians would get them?

I knelt and put the lamp toward a stack of books, its
flame flickering.

"Wait," Bastille said, kneeling beside me.
"You have to
turn it to 'burn."'

"But it's already burning," I said, confused.

"Not that argument again
,”
she said, sighing.
(Go read
book one.)
"Here."
She touched the glass of the lamp, and
the flame seemed to pulse.
"It's ready now."

I took a deep breath, then
–
hand
trembling
–
lit
the
first book on fire.

"Wait!" a voice called.
"Don't do it!"
I spun to see Himalaya standing in the doorway, Folsom
at her side.
I looked back at the books desperately; the flame
was already spreading.

Then, fortunately, Sing tripped.
His enormous Mokian
bulk smashed onto the pile of books, his gut completely
extinguishing the flames.
A little trickle of smoke curled
out from underneath him.

"Whoops," he said.

"No," Himalaya said, striding forward.
"You did the
right thing, Sing.
I'll do it.
I'
ll
organ
i
ze them.
J
ust . . . just
don't hurt them.
Please."

I stepped back as Folsom helped Sing to his feet.
Himalaya knelt by the pile that had almost gone up in
flames.
She touched one of the books lovingly, picking it up
with her delicate fingers.

"So . . . uh," she said, "W
hat order do you want?
Reverse
timeshare, where the books are
organized by the minute
when they were published?
Marksman elite, where we orga
n
i
ze them by the number of times the word 'the' is used in
the first fifty pages?"

"I think a simple organ
i
zation by topic will do," I said.
"We need to find the ones about Oculators or Smedrys or
anything suspicious like that."

Himalaya caressed the book, feeling its cover, reading
the spine.
She carefully placed it next to her, then picked up
another.
She placed that one in another pile.

This is going to take forever
,
I thought with despair.

Himalaya grabbed another book.
This time, she barely
glanced at the spine before setting it aside.
She grabbed
another, then another, then another, moving more quickly
with each volume.

She stopped, taking a deep breath.
Then she burst into
motion, her hands moving more quickly than I could track.
She seemed to be able to identi
fy a
book s
imply by touch
ing it, and knew exactly where to place it.
In mere seconds,
a small wall of books was rising around her.

“
A little help, please!" she called.
"Start moving the
stacks over, but don't let them get out of order!"

Sing, Folsom, Bastille, and I hurried forward to help.
Even the prince went to work.
We rushed back and forth,
moving books where Himalaya told us, struggling to keep
up with the Librarian.

She was almost superhuman in her ability to
organize
–
a
machine of identification and order.
Dirty,
unkempt piles disappeared beneath her touch, transformed
into neat stacks, the dust and grime cleaned from them in a
single motion of her hand.

Soon Folsom got the idea to recruit some of the soldiers
to help.
Himalaya sat in the center of the room like some
multiarmed Hindu goddess, her hands a blur.
We brought
her stacks of books and she organized them in the blink of
an eye, leaving them grouped by subject. She had a serene
smile on her face.
It was the smile my grandfather had when
he spoke of an exciting infiltration, or the way Sing looked
when he spoke of his cherished antique weapons collection.
It was the look of someone doing work they perfectly and
truly enjoyed.

I rushed forward with another stack of books.
Himalaya
snatched them without looking at me, then threw them
into piles like a dealer dealing cards.

Impressive
! I thought.

"All right, I have to say it," Himalaya said as she
worked.
Soldiers clinked in their armor, rushing back and
forth, delivering stacks of unorgan
i
zed books to her feet,
then taking away the neatly organized ones she placed
behind her.