I stepped toward the now powerless Dark Oculator. “When I grabbed the Firebringer’s Lens, Blackburn, I wasn’t trying to use it on you,” I said. “You see, I only needed to touch it for a moment – just long enough to break it.
“It shoots backward now.”
Chapter 19
I apologize for that last chapter. It was far too deep and ponderous. At this rate, it won’t be long before this story departs speaking of evil Librarians, and instead turns into a terribly boring tale about a lawyer who defends unjustly accused field hands.
What do mockingbirds have to do with that, anyway?
I scooped up the Firebringer’s Lens, spinning toward the thugs who still held my grandfather. The Librarians looked down at the fallen Oculator, then back up at me. I raised the Lens.
The two men dashed away. In the fury of the moment, I didn’t even realize that I’d finally been able to pick up the Lens without it going off.
Grandpa Smedry slumped back against the wall in exhaustion. However, he smiled at me. “Well done, lad. Well done. You’re a Smedry for certain!”
The other thugs in the room backed away, towing their hostages. “There are two of us now,” Grandpa Smedry said, righting himself, staring down at the Librarians. “And your Oculator has fallen. Do you really want to make us mad?”
There was a moment of hesitance, and Bastille seized it. She swung up and slammed her feet into the back of the Librarian in front of her. Then she pulled herself free from her surprised captors.
The other thugs dropped Quentin and Sing, then dashed away. Bastille chased after them, cursing and kicking at one as he rushed out the door. But she let him go, grumbling quietly as she turned to make certain Sing and Quentin were all right. Both seemed well enough.
Blackburn groaned. Grandpa Smedry shook his head, looking down at the Dark Oculator.
“Should we… do something with him?” I asked.
“He’s no threat now, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “An Oculator without eyes is about as dangerous as a little girl.”
“Excuse me?” Bastille huffed, rolling over one of the Librarian thugs that she’d knocked out before. She pulled off his sword belt and tied it around her waist.
“I apologize, dear,” Grandpa Smedry said in his tired voice. “It was just a figure of speech. Sing, would you do me a favor…?”
Sing rushed over, steadying Grandpa Smedry. “Ah, very nice,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Quentin, gather up any unbroken Lenses you can find. Bastille, be a dear and watch for danger at the door – there are others in this library who won’t be as easily intimidated as those thugs.”
“And me?” I asked.
Grandpa Smedry smiled. “You, lad, should recover your inheritance.”
I turned, noticing the glasses that still lay on the ground. I walked over, picking them up. “Blackburn seemed disappointed in these.”
“Blackburn was a man who focused only on one kind of power,” Grandpa Smedry said. “For a man whose abilities depended on seeing, he was remarkable shortsighted.”
“So… what do these do?” I asked.
“Try them on,” Grandpa Smedry suggested.
I took off my Oculator’s Lenses and put on the Rashid Lenses instead. I couldn’t see any difference – no release of power, no amazing revelations.
“What am I looking for?” I asked.
“Quentin,” Grandpa Smedry said, turning toward the small grad student. “What do you think?”
“I really wouldn’t know,” Quentin said. “The legends are all so contradictory.”
I started. “Hey! I understood him!”
“That’s impossible,” Quentin said, still gathering Lenses off the ground. “I have my Talent on. I’m gibberish for the whole day.”
“Actually, you’re not,” I said. “And you weren’t truly gibberish those other times either. Did you know that your Talent can predict the future?”
Quentin’s jaw dropped. “You can understand me?”
“That’s what I just said. Thanks for the hint about the rutabaga, by the way.”
Quentin turned toward Grandpa Smedry, who was smiling. “No, Quentin,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I still can’t understand you.”
I stood, shocked. What in the world…?
Then I turned, rushing over to Sing’s gym bag, which lay on the side of the room. I unzipped it, digging through the ammunition to find a particular object: the book I’d swiped from the Forgotten Language room.
I opened it up to the first page. The mechanics of forging a Truefinder’s Lens is complex, it read, but can be understood by one who takes the proper time to study.
I looked up, staring over at Grandpa Smedry. The old man smiled. “There are a lot of different theories about what the Sands of Rashid do, lad. Your father, however, believed in a specific theory. Translator's Lenses, they were once called – they gave the power to read, or understand, any language, tongue, or code.”
I looked back at the book.
“Yes,” Grandpa Smedry said tiredly. Just wait until we show these to your father – if we can ever find him.”
I spun. “So you do think he’s alive?”
“Perhaps, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Perhaps. Now that we have those Lenses, perhaps we can find out for sure. I wish I’d had a way to discover sooner. If I’d known for certain whether he was dead or not, do you think I’d have let you get raised by foster parents?”
I paused. Well, I guess the Lenses won’t help me when he makes no sense.
I opened my mouth to demand more, but Bastille cut me off. “Trouble coming! Librarian – the blond one.”
I rushed over to the corridor and saw Ms. Fletcher striding toward the room, a troop of at least fifty soldiers marching behind her. These men and women were armored with shiny breastplates. A few Alivened lumbered in the background.
“Time to go, I think,” I said, pushing Bastille back. Then I slammed my hand into the ground.
The floor just in front of me fell away, blocks tumbling down to the story below us. I backed away from the hole with Bastille.
“Oh, very clever Alcatraz,” Ms. Fletcher said, stopping at the pit’s edge. “Now you’ve trapped yourself.”
I smiled, raised an eyebrow, then pressed my hand against the back wall of the room. The bricks separated, mortar cracking. Sing came over and gave the wall a hefty push, topping the bricks into the next room.
I winked at Ms. Fletcher, then reached down to slide a sword from the sheath of a fallen soldier. Ms. Fletcher stood with arms crossed, regarding Blackburn with a sour expression as I ducked out the broken wall after Sing, who was carrying Grandpa Smedry.
“Quickly, now!” Grandpa Smedry said. “We’re late!”
“For what?” I asked, running beside Sing and Quentin. Bastille, of course, ran ahead of us, watching for danger.
“Why, for our dramatic exit, of course!” Grandpa Smedry said, sounding a bit tired. “Ms. Surly back there will try and cut us off at the front doors of the library.”
“Well, I’ll just make us another door,” I said. “We’ll bust out the back wall.”
“Ah, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Haven’t you realized? This entire building is inside a box of Expander’s Glass – just like the gas station. Expander’s Glass is very hard to break, even with a Talent. Besides, if you did, we’d be crushed as the entire library tried to burst out of the hole you’d made.”
“Oh,” I said as we reached a stairwell. “Well, then, I have another idea.”
“What?” Grandpa Smedry asked.
I smiled, then reached into my pocket. I pulled out a small white rectangle: the library card we had taken off of the dungeon guard.
The main lobby of the library was unusually busy for a weekday evening. People milled about, perusing stacks of books, completely unaware – of course – that everything they saw was filled with Librarian fabrications.
They knew nothing of Alivened, of Librarian cults, of Smedrys, or of Lenses. They just wanted a good book to read. (None of them were, unfortunately, able to check out this volume. Not because it was banned – which it is – but because it simply hadn’t been written yet. Those poor people may never know the joy they missed out on.)
Small children looked through the fantasy section. Parents checked out the latest thrillers. The rebellious, trouble-making types looked through the fantasy section. A few unfortunate kids ended up with meaningful books about dysfunctional families.
Few of the people noticed the large number of Librarians gathering behind the front desk. Fewer still noticed that these Librarians were oddly muscular. What nobody noticed, however, were the weapons carefully stashed behind the counter. Ms. Fletcher stood at the front of the group. She wished to avoid making an incident – but when incidents were necessary, they could be contained. Smedrys were far more difficult.
Despite buildup of Librarian troops, most of the people in the room went about their libraryish activities. All in all, there was a sense of peace about the room. It was the joy and simple contentment that comes from being around books, Librarian sanctioned or not.
That peace ended abruptly as a door at the back of the room burst open, and a group of dinosaurs rushed in.
It didn’t matter that the dinosaurs carried books. It didn’t matter that they were smaller than one might expect. It didn’t matter that most of them wore clothing. They were dinosaurs – and they were very, very realistic.
The screaming started a second later.
Mothers grabbed children. Men cursed, demanding to know if this was “some kind of a joke!” Librarians stood, shocked. Their hesitation cost them greatly, for within seconds there was an air of general chaos in the room.
That was when I burst through the door, carrying a sword (something I still figured I should have had all along). I was followed by Bastille Crystin, dressed in her stylish silver clothing. Quentin followed in his tuxedo, carrying Sing’s gym bag, now filled with Oculator’s Lenses. Sing came last, wearing his blue kimono and carrying Grandpa Smedry.
The dinosaurs dashed ahead of us, inadvertently crowding the people against the checkout counters. A few librarian thugs broke through, but the others got trapped behind the desk, blocked by a horde of frightened people and excited dinosaurs.
Bastille met the first Librarian thug. She ducked his sword swing, then shoved him aside. He fell as she hopped over him, waving her sword toward the crowd. The people shied back in confused fear.
A Librarian behind the counter raised a crossbow.
That’s new, I thought, moving between the man and Bastille. I stared down the crossbow bolt, thinking about just how dangerous it was. This last bit was, of course, to convince myself. I was beginning to get the hang of my Talent. It only worked at a distance when –
The crossbow’s bowstring snapped free, flipping the crossbow bolt uselessly into the air. The Librarian watched it, dumbfounded, and I smiled, leaving Bastille to intimidate the people – and therefore keep the Librarians trapped. I rushed over to pull open the front library door.