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"Well?" she asked.
"First, we find Kaz, Australia, and your mother."
"Why would you need to find me?" Kaz asked. "l 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."
I frowned, trying to make sense of that. Kaz looked around, eyeing the pillars and their archways. "Not at all like I imagined it."
"Really?" Bastille asked. "It looks pretty much like I figured it would."
"I expected them to take better care of their scrolls and books," Kaz said.
"Kaz,” I said. "You found us, right?"
"Uh, what did I just say, kid?"
"Can you find Australia too?"
He shrugged. "I can try. But, we'll have to be careful. Quite nearly got myself caught in a trap a little ways back. I tripped a wire, and a large hoop swung out of the wall and tried to grab me."
"What happened?" Bastille said.
He laughed. "It went right over my head. Reason number fifteen, Bastille: Short people make smaller targets!"
I just shook my head.
“I'll scout ahead," Bastille said. "Looking for trip wires. Then the two of you can follow. Kaz will engage his Talent at each intersection and pick the next way to go. Hopefully, his Talent will lead us to Australia."
"Sounds like a good enough plan for now," I said.
Bastille put on her Warrior's Lenses, then took off, moving very carefully down the hallway. Kaz and I were left standing there with nothing to do.
Something occurred to me. "Kaz,” I said. "How long did it take you to learn to use your Talent?"
"Ha!" he said. "You make it sound like I have learned to use it, kid."
"But, you're better with yours than I am with mine." I glanced back at the rubbled pillar, which was still visible in the distance behind us.
"Talents are tough, I'll admit," he said, following my gaze. "You do that?"
I nodded.
"You know, it was the sound of that pillar falling that let me know I was close to you. Sometimes, what looks like a mistake turns out to be kind of useful."
"I know that, but I still have trouble. Every time I think I've got my Talent figured out, I break something I didn't intend to."
The shorter man leaned against a pillar on the side of the hallway. "I know what you mean, Al. I spent most of my youth getting lost. I couldn't be trusted to go to the bathroom on my own because I'd end up in Mexico. Once, I stranded your father and myself on an island alone for two weeks because I couldn't figure out how to make the blasted Talent work."
He shook his head. "The thing is, the more powerful a Talent is, the harder it is to control. You and I – like your father and grandfather – have prime Talents. Right on the Incarnate Wheel, fairly pure. They're bound to give us lots of trouble."
I cocked my head. "Incarnate Wheel?"
He seemed surprised. "Nobody's explained it to you?"
"The only one I've really talked to about Talents is my grandfather."
"Yeah, but what about in school?"
“Ah . . . no," I said. "I went to Librarian school, Kaz. I did hear a lot about the Great Depression, though."
Kaz snorted. "Fantasy books. Those Librarians . . ."
He sighed, squatting down by the floor and pulling out a stick. He grabbed a handful of dust from the corner, threw it out on the floor, then drew a circle in it.
"There have been a lot of Smedries over the centuries," he said, "and a lot of Talents. Many of them tend to be similar, in the long run. There are four kinds: Talents that affect space, time, knowledge, and the physical world.” He drew a circle in the dust, then split it into four pieces.
"Take my Talent, for instance," he continued. "I change things in space. I can get lost, then get found again."
"What about Grandpa Smedry?"
"Time," Kaz said. "He arrives late to things. Australia, however, has a Talent that can change the physical world – in this case, her own shape." He wrote her name in the dust on the wheel. "Her Talent is fairly specific, and not as broad as your grandfather's. For instance, there was a Smedry a couple of centuries back who could look ugly any time he wanted, not just when he woke up in the morning. Others have been able to change anyone's appearance, not just their own. Understand?"
I shrugged. "I guess so."
"The closer the Talent gets to its purest form, the more powerful it is," Kaz said. "Your grandfather's Talent is very pure – he can manipulate time in a lot of different circumstances. Your father and I have very similar Talents – I can get lost and Attica can lose things – and both are flexible. Siblings often have similar powers."
"What about Sing?" I asked.
"Tripping. That's what we call a knowledge Talent – he knows how to do something normal with extraordinary ability. Like Australia, though, his power isn't very flexible. In that case, we put them at the edge of the wheel near the rim. Talents like my father's, which are more powerful, we place closer to the center."
I nodded slowly. "So . . . what does this have to do with me?"
Bastille had returned, and was watching with interest.
"Well, it's hard to say," Kaz said. "You're getting into some deep philosophy now, kid. There are those who argue that the Breaking Talent is simply a physical-world Talent, but one that is very versatile and very powerful."
He met my eyes, then poked his stick into the very center of the circle. "There are others who argue that the Breaking Talent is much more. It seems to be able to do things that affect all four areas. Legends say that one of your ancestors – one of only two others to have this Talent – broke time and space together forming a little bubble where nothing aged.
"Other records speak of breakings equally marvelous. Breakings that change people's memory or their abilities. What is it to 'break' something? What can you change? How far can the Talent go?"
He raised his stick, pointing at me. "Either way, kid, that's why it's so hard for you to control. To be honest, even after centuries of studying them, we really don't understand the Talents. I don't know that we ever will, though your father was very keen on trying."
Kaz stood up, dusting off his hands. “And that's why he came here, I guess."
"How do you know so much?" I asked.
Kaz ra
ised an eyebrow. "What? You think I spend all my time making up witty lists and getting lost on my way to the bathroom? I have a job, kid."
"Lord Kazan's a scholar," Bastille said. "Focusing on arcane theory."
"Great," I said, rolling my eyes. Another professor." After Grandpa Smedry, Sing, and Quentin, I was half convinced that everyone who lived in the Free Kingdoms was one kind of academic or another.
Kaz shrugged. "It's a Smedry trait, kid. We tend to be very interested in information. Either way, your father was the real genius – I'm just a humble philosopher. Bastille, how's the pathway up ahead look?"
"Clean," she said. "No trip wires that I found."
"Great," he said.
"You actually seem a bit disappointed."
Kaz shrugged. "Traps are interesting. They're always a surprise, kind of like presents on your birthday.''
"Except these presents might decapitate you," Bastille said flatly.
“All part of the fun, Bastille."
She sighed, shooting me a glance over her sunglasses. Smedries, it seemed to say. All the same.
I smiled at her, and nodded for us to get moving. Kaz took the lead. As we walked, I noticed that a couple of Curators were busy copying down Kaz's drawing. I turned away, then jumped as I found a Curator hanging beside me.
"The Incarna knew about Smedry Talents,” the thing whispered. "We have a book here, one of theirs, written millennia ago. It explains exactly where the Talents first came from. We have one of only two copies that still exist."
It hovered closer.
"You can have it,” the creature whispered. "Check it out, if you wish."
