AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You don’t know?”
“Never got around to studying for the job,” Shasta said. “Honestly, you’d think they’d give us an instruction manuel* or something.”
Well, regardless, this plan hadn’t turned out. Not only had I lost my cool bloody sword, the Librarians had run away.
“Well, now what?” I asked as we stopped in the tunnel.
“Hmm?” Shasta asked.
“That Dark Oculator was going to lead us to the Forgotten Language texts.”
“Why would she do that?” Dif asked.
“She thought I was serving the Scrivener,” I explained. “I told her I’d been sent by him.”
Dif started. “What?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She wanted to test that I was as powerful as I claimed, so she sent me to kill the monster.”
“Dinosaurs,” Shasta said dismissively. “I can’t believe that nobody noticed. Hasn’t anyone in here heard a T. rex throw a tantrum before?”
Drat. I’d been hoping she’d think I’d done something incredible. “Well, the Dark Oculator is gone, so she can’t lead us to the Forgotten Language archive. Now we’ll have to start all over.”
“Yes,” Shasta said. “We could do that. Or we could use this.” She held up a small, mobile-phone-like device.
“Is that—”
“The Dark Oculator’s authenticator?” Shasta said. “Yes.”
“And you—”
“Picked her pocket,” Shasta said. “What? You thought I was just lounging out here composing an epic ballad or something? Thank you for the distraction, by the way.”
“Great. Let’s turn it on!”
Mother tucked it into her pocket.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
“Let’s go over those rules again,” she said, looking me in the eyes.
“They aren’t negotiable.”
“Really? That’s too bad.” She started to walk away.
I grabbed her by the arm. “You turn that thing on.”
“Or what, Alcatraz? Are you willing to hurt me to get what you want? Do you think you could actually manage it if you decided to try?”
I looked to Dif, who shrugged, seeming to say, “I told you we should have snuck away on our own.”
I looked back to my mother, grinding my teeth. “What do you want?”
“When we find your father,” she said. “You may talk to him. You may try to get him to see some sense. But if he doesn’t listen, I get to deal with him. In any way necessary.”
“No. We can’t—”
“What do you think we’re doing here, boy?” she snapped. “Are we playing games? Have you been with that fool of a grandfather of yours so long you’ve lost the ability to see the world as it has to be?”
I stepped back, shocked by her outburst.
“We,” she shouted, “are going to stop him. That’s what we came to do. Even if it rips us up inside, we are going to stop him. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
“I…”
Did I?
Why else had we come? What steps was I willing to take?
“As long as I get to talk to him first,” I said, reluctant. “You don’t take any … steps until I am done and give you the go-ahead.”
“Fine,” Mother said. “But I only concede because I hope, against my better judgment, that he’ll listen to you when he never listened to me.”
Mother clicked something on the authenticator, and a spray of light rose from it, projecting a three-dimensional set of glowing red gridlines into the air. It showed all of the passageways, archives, and chambers of the Highbrary. Projected like this, it looked a lot like an anthill with tons of tunnels and burrows.
I located where we’d entered—a place near the middle of the main chamber, easily recognized because of the tall, spindly tower topped by an altar.*
From there, I followed our trail on the map to locate the fan chamber. There were several of them marked on the map—were all the fans blowing this hard? Even standing a distance away from it, the air current was noticeably strong.
This place was enormous. I squinted, reading notation after notation in the air. How long would we be safe just standing here? What if—
“There,” Dif said, pointing at a notation. “Forgotten Language texts. Mauve-level authenticator required.”
“And … what do we have?” I asked.
“Gamboge,” Mother said.
“Which is…?”
“High enough to get us in,” she said.
I nodded in relief, memorizing the path between our location and the archive. We’d have to return to the main chamber, then head down a different set of tunnels. It was practically on top of another wind tunnel.
“Let’s go,” Mother said, moving to turn off the authenticator.
I stopped her, raising my hand, tracing the path again. I’d noticed something else on that map. It was practically on the way—
Suddenly the authenticator flashed brilliantly, the projected image growing much brighter. I backed away. Had I done that to it somehow? But I wasn’t even touching it.
Mother flipped it off, looking annoyed. “It’s hot to the touch,” she complained, stuffing it back in her pocket. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” I said. But there wasn’t time to protest my innocence—I had a plan. Much like the old plan.
But with a quick diversion.
I took off running. Shasta grumbled and fell in behind me, Dif at the back. We emerged into the main cavern, with its sweeping rock bridges and hundreds of archive huts. A gaping hole in the ceiling spilled light down in a golden column near the center. The sound of gunfire popped in the distance—Himalaya’s team was still fighting, thankfully.
We turned right. The Librarians in the main cavern were all abuzz, scurrying about, shouting. Something had sent them into a panic, it seemed. Most had suffered the exploding ceiling and the subsequent invasion with merely passing interest. Why would they suddenly be concerned?
Well, at least I didn’t feel out
of place breaking into a jog. Perhaps that would help us look busy, so nobody else would conscript us into a monster-slaying team.*
My mother pulled up alongside me as we jogged. “What’s going on?”
“I have no idea.” I fished in my robe pocket, bringing out the phone. It felt strange to be using something so ordinary, but there it was. It had only three numbers saved; I dialed the most recent one.
It rang, then Himalaya answered. “Yeah?” she said, sounding out of breath.
“Did you guys do something?” I asked.
“Other than get forced to the second floor of our building?” she said. I heard gunfire over her line. “This isn’t going well, Alcatraz. They’re going to overwhelm us soon.”
“Understood,” I said. “You guys should get out of there. I don’t think we need you as a distraction any longer.”
“Yeah,” Himalaya said. “About that…”
I felt a chill.
“They dropped a Librarian task force onto the roof of the building where we’re holed up,” Himalaya said. “And they set up sharpshooters on the next building over. There’s no way we’re going to be able to use the grappling lines to climb to the surface. I was hoping you’d have some kind of plan to get us out. We’re pinned down in here.”
Shattering Glass.
“That distraction with the wind was helpful though,” Himalaya added.
“The wind?” I said.
“Yeah,” Himalaya said. “The ventilation is blowing into the archive at a furious rate, enough to knock over some of the shelves near the air duct in our building. It’s scattering carefully catalogued piles of information in a completely casual, careless, and unorganized way.…”
I could hear her twitch over the line.
“You don’t need to reorganize it all right now, Himalaya,” I said, brushing past a group of anxious Librarians who were heading toward an archive where—inside—I could see a little mini vortex spinning sheets of paper in the air. Well, at least now I knew why they were acting so crazy.
“I know, I know,” she said. “But it’s so messy. Anyway, it’s distracting to my people, but just as bad for the Librarians outside. The one reason we’re still alive is because groups of enemies keep breaking off to go help clean one archive or another.”
