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“So,” Cousin Dif said. “Is this everyone we’re waiting for?”
“Should be,” I said.
“Excellent,” Dif replied.
Then, using my mother’s gun, he shot Grandpa Smedry in the head.
Chapter
19
I don’t
I just I Can’t
It
he
…
Okay. Yes. He shot Grandpa. Square in the face with a real gun. My grandfather collapsed backward without a sound.
I assume you think there is some trick here. I wish I could tell you something to make you happy.
Instead, let me make it clear: That bullet was real. After all his tricks and close calls, my grandfather—Leavenworth Smedry—finally found an end he could not escape.
Draulin was the first to react. She leaped for Dif, but a hail of glowing shots from right outside the room burst around him, and at least a dozen struck her. I recognized them as blasts from the coma guns used in the siege of Tuki Tuki.
That is to say, a piece of my mind recognized them. The rest of me just stood there stupidly, reeling from the sudden betrayal.
My father was far more alert. He ripped off his Translator’s Lenses and raised the others.
Dif casually shot the spectacles out of Father’s hand, causing the Concussor’s Lens to explode, spraying my father’s skin with shards of broken glass.
“Such brutal weapons, ordinary handguns,” Dif said, striding forward, pistol in hand. His voice had changed. It was more calm, more straightforward, more quiet. “But one uses the tools offered.”
He stopped beside me and placed the gun to my head. I found myself trembling, revealed as a coward once and for all. Draulin had tried to stop him; my father had tried to stop him. All I could do was stare.
Grandpa …
The barrel of the gun felt warm against my forehead.
“Stand down, Attica,” Dif said. “Unless you want to be childless as well as fatherless.”
“You monster,” my father said. He held his bloodied hand before him, but with the other hand had been reaching into his pocket—undoubtedly for another Lens. He stopped as Dif manually cocked the gun’s hammer.
Librarian soldiers flooded across the walkway outside and into the room. These weren’t the ‘bow tie and spectacles’ type I’d seen everywhere else. These were futuristic soldiers with helmets and black special forces gear, like you’d see in a movie.
“You’re one of them,” I whispered at Dif.
“I’ve learned a few things over the years fighting the Smedry clan,” Dif said, stepping away from me as several soldiers grabbed my father by the arms and frisked him, taking his Lenses. “One is the power of a great infiltration. You people are always wriggling in among my agents and teams. I finally realized, why not return the favor?” He looked to me and smiled.
And in his eyes I saw a vastness. Knowledge, danger, and depth beyond anything that had been there before.
“No,” I whispered. “You’re not a Librarian. You’re the Librarian.”
Biblioden the Scrivener had been among us the entire time.
One of the soldiers walked up to him and saluted. “Area secure, my lord.” He proffered a bag full of Lenses taken from my father.
“So you are him, I assume,” Attica said with a sneer. “Or you claim to be him, and these others believe you.”
“I fought your great-great-whatever-grandfather,” Biblioden said, tucking away the pouch of Lenses. “He was almost as much a pain as you are. I knew you were in here somewhere, Attica. But where? And how? I was going to let my people find you, as I was too busy with my work at the Worldspire. But then this chance fell right in my lap! I couldn’t resist.”
He looked to my father. “I find it amazing that you have grown worse while I was away, you Smedrys. Like breeding rats.”
“Your pretend Talent,” I said, realizing it. “You chose it specifically because you knew nobody would be able to prove you didn’t have one. And on the bridge, after we met the dinosaurs, the Dark Oculator fled not because she recognized me—but because she recognized you. I’d told her I worked for you, and she hadn’t believed me, so when you appeared she was terrified that she had offended you.”
Dif smiled.
“You broke my Truthfinder’s Lens,” I whispered. “But how … how did you convince us…?”
“I only had to convince your grandfather,” Dif said. “Years ago, you see. Kill a Smedry boy and his parents living in the Hushlands, years later convince old Leavenworth I was the child, who had survived in the wilds of the Hushlands on my own! It was mostly a way to get me close to the Worldspire. Who would turn away a known Smedry? And now … well, who could have guessed the fruit my work would bear!”
He strolled to my father’s desk and held out his palm, and one of the soldiers scrambled to pick up the notebooks and hand them to him.
“Thank you,” Dif said, “for gathering the Sands of Rashid for me. The codes of the Incarna, such a frustrating puzzle. I … appreciate the work you have done here, little rats. Very, very helpful.”
Biblioden raised Father’s first notebook and riffled through it at high speed. A quick zip. “Ah. I see.”
He offered to join us, I thought, remembering Grandpa explaining that Dif had contacted him. He kept trying to separate me from my mother. He’s been playing us this entire mission.
Dif zipped through a second book just as rapidly, then moved on to the next one. “Yes…”
He can’t possibly be reading them so quickly, can he?
Zip. Another book done.
I needed to do something. They hadn’t searched me, though several soldiers stood with guns trained on me. What did I have? My Shaper’s Lens? Could I use that? I often found that the odd, information-based Lenses my grandfather gave me were surprisingly useful in times of tension.
Grandpa …
Don’t think about that, I told myself forcefully. He might still be alive. People who got shot in the head survived sometimes, didn’t they?
Squeezing my eyes shut as Biblioden continued his super-speed-read of my father’s notes, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Shaper’s Lens. Shattering Glass! It was almost too hot to touch!
I carefully brought it up, then engaged it, looking through it at Biblioden the Scrivener, to see his deepest desires.
I saw this:
Darkness.
A deep, compelling darkness. Like an ocean at midnight. Or the vast emptiness of space, if all the stars had gone out. There was something alien, empty, and terrible about it that I cannot describe, and won’t try.
I gasped and dropped the Lens.
“Yes,” Biblioden said, setting aside the final notebook, “I was hoping you’d try that.” He smiled.
That smile seemed to be lacking even the faintest shred of humanity. I stumbled back but ran into a soldier, who pressed his weapon between my shoulder blades.
“Thank you,” Biblioden said, “for explaining that the Talents were broken.” He nodded to the soldier behind me, and that man dug in my pocket. He took out the Courier’s Lenses and flung them aside, then pulled out the mobile phone and tossed it to Biblioden.
The Scrivener dialed. “Hello, Cousin Kaz? It’s Dif here!”
His voice had changed back to how it was before, all perky and energetic. I felt sick. I had taken him for a Smedry who was trying too hard, but now I saw what was really going on. This was how Biblioden viewed us, and his exaggerated caricature was his way of trying to imitate us.
I could barely hear Kaz’s voice on the other end of the line. “Dif?” he asked. “What’s going on? I have Himalaya’s team.”
“We’re done in here!” Biblioden exclaimed. “It was awesome. Alcatraz used a lightbulb and two pieces of yak hair to solve the puzzle!”
“Sounds like him,” Kaz said. “You have my brother?”
“Sure do, and a whole pile of Forgotten Language texts. Would you be willing to wait
for us before taking off?”
“It’s going to be hard.…”
“But that’s the Smedry way!” Biblioden exclaimed.
“All right. We’ll do it. I—” An explosion sounded over the line. “Shattering Glass! Penguinator just took a hit! Dif, get here soon.”
“Kaz?” Biblioden asked. “You okay?”
“Blasted thing can’t take off now,” Kaz’s voice said over the line. “We’re taking refuge in the archive room again! Bring Pop here quick. We’ll need another plan.”
“Sure. I can do that,” Biblioden said, then smiled, hanging up. “Guess I needn’t have bothered. The rocket crews did their job.” He tossed the phone to one of his soldiers, who in turn lobbed it out the door and over the edge of the walkway. It plummeted down toward the overworked fans below.
I didn’t even hear it crunch.
“Now, let’s be off,” Biblioden the Scrivener said. “There is much to do yet today.”
“What are you planning, you tyrant?” my father demanded, struggling against his bonds.
