“Oh,” I said. “Um, I’m not really sure.”
“Check back with us in an hour, if you don’t mind,” said the other knight—a stout woman with blonde hair.
“All right,” I said.
With that, the two knights pushed open the doors, letting me, Sing, and Bastille into the archives. “Wow,” I said. That just didn’t seem to cover it. “Wow,” I repeated, this time with emphasis.
You’re probably expecting a grand description here. Something impressive to depict the majestic collection of tomes that made up the archives.
That’s because you misinterpreted my “wow.” You see, like all alphabetically late palindromic exclamations, “wow” can be interpreted a lot of different ways. It’s what we call “versatile,” which is just another way of saying that it’s a dumb thing to say.
After all, “wow” could mean “That’s great!” Or it could mean “That’s disturbing.” It could also mean “Oh, hey, look, a dinosaur is about to eat me!” Or it could even mean “I just won the lottery, though I don’t know what I’ll do with all that money, seeing as how I’m in the stomach of a dinosaur.”
(As a side note to this side note: As we found in book one, it is true that most dinosaurs are fine folk and not at all man-eaters. However, there are some notable exceptions, such as the Quesadilla and the infamous Brontësister.)
In my case, “wow” didn’t mean any of these things. It meant something closer to: “This place is a total mess!”
“This place is a total mess!” I exclaimed.
“No need to repeat yourself,” Bastille grumbled. (Bastille speaks fluent wowese.)
Books were heaped like piles of scrap in an old, run-down junkyard. There were mountains of them, discarded, abused, and in total disarray. The cavern seemed to extend forever, and the piles of books formed mounds and hills, like sand dunes made from pages and letters and words. I glanced back at the knights guarding the doorway. “Is there some kind of organization to all of this?” I asked hopefully.
The knight paled in the face. “Organization? Like … a cataloging system?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know, so that we can find stuff easily?”
“That’s what Librarians do!” the blonde knight said.
“Great,” I said. “Just great. Thanks anyway.” I sighed, stepping away from the door, which the knights closed behind me. I grabbed a lamp off the wall. “Well, let’s go investigate,” I said to the others. “See if we can find anything suspicious.”
We wandered the room, and I tried not to let my annoyance get the better of me. The Librarians had done some horrible things to the Free Kingdoms; it made sense that the Nalhallans would have an irrational fear of Librarian ways. However, I found it amazing that a people who loved learning so much could treat books in such a horrible manner. From the way the tomes were strewn, it seemed to me that their method of “archiving” books was to toss them into the storage chamber and forget about them.
The piles grew larger and more mountainous near the back of the chamber, as if they’d been systematically pushed there by some infernal, literacy-hating bulldozer. I stopped, hands on my hips. I had expected a museum, or at least a den filled with bookshelves. Instead I’d gotten a teenage boy’s bedroom.
“How could they tell if anything was missing?” I asked.
“They can’t,” Sing said. “They figure if nobody can get in to steal books, then they don’t have to keep them counted or organized.”
“That’s stupid,” I said, holding up my light. The chamber was longer than it was wide, so I could see the walls on either side of me. The place wasn’t infinite like the Library of Alexandria had seemed. It was essentially just one very big room filled with thousands and thousands of books.
I walked back down the pathway between the mounds. How could you tell if anything was suspicious about a place you’d never visited before? I was about to give up when I heard it. A sound.
“I don’t know, Alcatraz,” Sing was saying. “Maybe we—”
I held up a hand, quieting him. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
I closed my eyes, listening. Had I imagined it?
“Over there,” Bastille said. I opened my eyes to find her pointing toward one of the walls. “Scraping sounds, like…”
“Like digging,” I said, scrambling over a stack of books. I climbed up the pile, slipping on what appeared to be several volumes of the royal tax code, until I reached the top and could touch the wall. It was, of course, made of glass. I pressed an ear against it.
“Yeah,” I said. “There are definitely digging sounds coming from the other side. My mother didn’t sneak in here, she snuck into a nearby building! They’re tunneling into the Royal Archives!”
“Not—” Sing began.
“Yes,” I said, “it’s not a library. I get it.”
“Actually,” he said, “I was going to say ‘Not to disagree, Alcatraz, but it’s impossible to break into this place.’”
“What?” I said, sliding back down the pile of books. “Why?”
“Because it’s built out of Reinforcer’s Glass,” Bastille said. She was looking better, but still somewhat dazed. “You can’t break that, not even with Smedry Talents.”
I looked back at the wall. “I’ve seen impossible things happen. My mother has Translator’s Lenses; there’s no telling what she’s learned from the Forgotten Language so far. Maybe they know a way to get through that glass.”
“Possible,” Sing said, scratching his chin. “Though to be honest, if I were them I’d just tunnel into the stairwell out there, then come through the door.”
I glanced at the wall. That did seem likely. “Come on,” I said, darting over and pulling open the door. The two knights outside glanced in.
“Yes, Lord Smedry?” one asked.
“Someone may be trying to dig into the stairwell,” I said. “Librarians. Get some more troops down here.”
The knights looked surprised, but they obeyed my orders, one rushing up the stairs to do as commanded.
I looked back at Bastille and Sing, who still stood in the room. Soldiers weren’t going to be enough—I wasn’t just going to sit and wait to see what plot the Librarians were going to be putting into effect. Mokia was in trouble, and I had to help. That meant blocking what my mother and the others were doing, perhaps even exposing their double-dealing to the monarchs.
“We need to figure out what it is in here that my mother wants,” I said, “then take it first.”
Bastille and Sing looked at each other, then glanced back at the ridiculous number of books. I could read their thoughts in their expressions.
Find the thing my mother wanted? Out of this mess? How could anyone find anything in here?
It was then that I said something I never thought I’d hear myself say, no matter how old I grew.
“We need a Librarian,” I declared. “Fast.”
Chapter
14
Yes, you heard that right. I—Alcatraz Smedry—needed a Librarian.
Now, you may have gotten the impression that there are absolutely no uses for Librarians. I’m sorry if I implied that. Librarians are very useful. For instance, they are useful if you are fishing for sharks and need some bait. They’re also useful for throwing out windows to test the effects of concrete impact on horn-rimmed glasses. If you have enough Librarians, you can build bridges out of them. (Just like witches.)
And unfortunately, they are also useful for organizing things.
I hurried up the stairs with Sing and Bastille. We had to push our way past the soldiers who now lined the steps; the men and women held their swords, looking concerned. I’d sent a soldier with a message for my grandfather and another for my father, warning them of what we’d discovered. I’d also ordered one of the knights to send a contingent to search nearby buildings—maybe they’d be able to find the Librarian base and the other end of the tunnel. I wasn’t counting on that happening though. My mother wouldn’t be caught so easily.