Alcatraz versus the Scrivener's Bones (17 page)

"I have your Talent,"
I said, stepping up beside the sarcophagus, looking at the man inside. “What am I
supposed to do with it?
C
an I control it?
O
r will it always
control me?"

The body was silent.
They're like that.
Completely lack
ing in social graces, those
c
orpses.

"Did it destroy you?" I asked.
"Is that what the warning
is for?"

The body was so serene.
Gold dust was beginning to
gather on its face.
Finally, I just sighed, kneeling down to
look at the Lens in the lid
of the sarcophagus. It was com
pletely clear, with no c
ol
or to indicate what it did.
Y
et, I
knew it was powerful because it had drawn me here.

I reached out and tried to pry it free.
It was stuck on the
lid very soundly, but I wasn't about to leave a Lens that
powerful sitting in a forgotten tomb.

I touched the lid and released my T
a
lent into it.
Immediately, the Lens popped free, flipping up into the air.
I was caught so off guard that I barely managed to grab it
before it fell and shattered.

As soon as I touched the Lens, it stopped giving off
power.
The bubble of strange time-shift continued to be in
force, however, so the Lens hadn't been behind that.

I moved to stand up, but then noticed something.
In
the place where the Lens had been affixed, there was
an inscription.
It would have been hidden beneath the
glass of the Lens, whi
ch had a small black paper back
ing to keep the text from being seen until the Lens was
removed.

It was in ancient Nalhallan.
With my Translator's Lenses,
I could read it with ease.

To
my descendant
, the tiny inscription read.

If you have released this Lens, then I know you have the Dark Talent. Part of me rejoices, for this means it is still being protected and borne by our family, as is the curse.

Yet, I am also worried, for it means you haven’t found a way to banish it
. As long as the corrupting Talent remains, it is a danger.

This Lens is the most precious of my collection. I have given others to my son. His lesser Talent, though corrupted, is not to be feared. Only when the Talent can Break is it dangerous. In all others, i
t
simply taints what they have done.

Use the Lens. Pass on this Knowledge, if it has been forgotten.

And care well for the burden, blessing and curse you have been given.

I sat back, trying to decide what I thought of the words.
I wished that I had something I could write with, but then
decided that it was better that I didn't copy the text.
The
Curators would take what I wrote, and if they didn't already
know of the inscription, I didn't want them to.

I stood up.
W
ith some effort, I managed to get the lid
of the sarcophagus back on.
Then, I lay my hand on the
inscription and somehow Broke it. The text of the letters
scrambled, becoming gibberish
, even to my Tr
anslator's
Lenses.

I pulled my hand back
, surprised. I'd never done any
thing like that before. I stood silently, then solemnly bowed
my head to the sarcophagus, which had been carved to
match the face of the man who rested inside.

“
I'll do my best," I said.
Then I stepped from the circle.

The light faded.
The room became musty and old again,
and Bastille and Kaz began movin
g.

"—don’t
think this is a good idea," Bastille said.

"Objection noted again
," I said, dusting the gold pow
der from my shoulders, where it had gathered like King
Midas's dandruff.

"Alcatraz?" Kaz asked. "What just happened?"

"Time moves differently in there," I said, looking back
at the sarcophagus.
It
seemed unchanged, the dust hang
ing in the air, the lamps extinguished.
The Lens on the
lid, however, was gone.
I still had it in my hand.

"I think stepping into that circle takes you back in time
to the moment he died," I said.
“Something
like that
.
I'm
not exactly sure."

"That's . . . very odd," Kaz said. "Did you find out who
he was?"

I nodde
d, looking down at the Lens. "A
lcatraz the
First."

The other two were silent.

"That's impossible, Al," Kaz said.
"I've seen the tomb of
Alcatraz the First.
It's d
own in the Nalhallan royal cata
combs.
It's one of the city's greatest tourist attractions."

"It's a fake," Bastille said.

We both looked at her sharply.

"The royal family made it a thousand years back or so,"
she said, glancing away.
“As a symbol of Nalhalla's found
i
n
g.
It bothered the royals that they didn't know where
Alcatraz the First was buried, so they came up with a fake
historical site to commemorate him."

Kaz whistled softly.
"I guess you'd know, Bastille.
That's
some cover-up.
But, why is he here, in the Library of
Alexandria, of all places?"

"This room is older than the parts around it,
”
I said.
"I'd say that the
C
urators moved
their Library here on pur
pose.
W
eren't you the one who told me that it changed
locations in favor of a place with more room?"

"True,
" Kaz said. "What's that Lens?”

I held it up.
"I'm not s
ure; I found it on the sarcopha
gus.
Bastille, do you recogni
ze it?
”

She shook her head.
"It's not tinted. It could do
anything."

"Ma
ybe I should just activate it.”

Bastille shrugged,
and Kaz seemed to have no objec
tions.
S
o, hesi
tantly, I tried it.
Nothing happened.
I looked
through the Lens, but couldn't see anything different about
the room.

"Nothing?" Bastille asked.

I shook my head, frowning.
He called this his most pow
erful of Lenses.
So, what does it do?

"It makes sense, I guess," Kaz said.
"It was active
before
–
it
's what drew you here. Maybe
all it does is send
out a signal to other Oculators."

"Maybe
”
I said, unconvinced.
I slipped it into the
single-Lens pocket in my jacket that had once held my
Firebringer's Lens.

"We should probably just show it to my father
,”
Kaz
said.
"He'll be able to . . ."

He kept talking, but I stopped paying attention.
Bastille
was acting oddly.
She'd suddenly perked up, growing tense.
She glanced out the broken wall.

"Bastille?" I asked, cutting
Kaz off.

"S
hattering Glass!" she said, then took off in a dash out
of the room.

Kaz and I stood, dumbfounded.

"What do we do?" Kaz asked.

"Follow her!" I said,
slipping out of the room – care
ful not to tip over the bookcase outside.
Kaz followed,
grabbing Bastille's pack and pulling out a pair of Warrior's
Lenses.
As I took off at a dash down the hallway after
Bastille, he managed to k
eep up by virtue of the enhance
ments the Lenses granted.

I quickly began to realize why characters in books tend
to lose their gold before the end of the story.
That stuff was
heavy
.
Reluctantly, I tossed most of the gold to the side,
keeping only a couple of bars in my pocket.

Even without the gold, however, neither of us was fast
enough to follow a Crystin.

"Bastille!" I yelled, watching her disappear into the
distance
.

There was no response.
S
oon, Kaz and I reached an
in
tersection and paused, puffing. W
e'd moved into yet
another part of the Library.
Here, instead of rows of scrolls
or bookcases, we were in a
section that looked like a dun
geon.
There were lots of intermixing hallways and small
rooms, lamps flickering softly on the walls.

To make things m
ore confusing, some of the door
ways
–
even some of the hallway
s –
had
bars set across
them, blocking the way forward.
My suspicion is that this
pa
r
t of the Library was intended to be a maze
–
another
means of frustrating people.

Bastille suddenly rushed back toward us, running out
of a side corridor.

"Bastille?" I asked.

She cursed and passed us, going down another of the
side hallways.
I glanced at Kaz,
who just shrugged.
So, we
took off after her again.

As we ran, I noticed something.
A feeling.
I froze, caus
ing Kaz to pull up short beside me.

"What?" he asked.

"He's near" I said.

"Who?"

"The hunter.
The one chasing us."

"National Union of Teachers!" Kaz swore.
"You're sure?"

I nodded.
Ahead, I could hear Bastille yelling.
We
moved, passing a set of bars on our right. Through them, I
could see another hallway.
It would be very easy to get lost
in this section of the Library.

But, then, we were already lost.
So, it didn't really seem
to matter.
Bastille
came
running back, and this time I
managed to grab her arm as she ran by.
She jerked to a
halt, brow sweating, looking wild-eyed.

"Bastille!" I said.
"What is going on?"

“
My mother," Bastille said.
"She's near
,
and she's in pain.
I can't get to her because ev
ery one of these shattering pas
sages is a dead end!"

Draulin
? I thought.
Here
?
I opened
m
y mouth to ask
how Bastille could possibly know that, and
then I felt some
thing.
That dark, oppressive force.
The twisted, unnatural
feeling given off by a Lens that had been forged with
Oculator blood.
It was near.
Very near.

I looked down a side hallway.
Lamps flickered along its
sides, and at the very end, I
saw a massive iron grate cover
ing the way forward.

Beyond the grate stood a shadowed figure, one arm
unnaturally long, the face
m
isshapen.

And it held Draulin's
C
rystin sword in its hands.