I glanced down, checking to make certain all of my important limbs were still attached. "Wow," I said.
Bastille stood in front of me, sword out, eyes narrow. She'd probably just saved my life.
"You see, Your Majesty," I said. “You can't trust the Librarians! If you give up, they will just . . .”
I trailed off only then noticing something. Mallo wasn’t standing beside me, where he had been before. I searched around desperately, and found the king lying on the wall, his body covering that of his wife, whom he'd jumped to protect. Neither of them was moving.
Warriors called out in shock, moving to their king and queen. Others called for help. In a daze, I turned, seeing the bodies of the Librarian assassins.
This was actually war. People were actually dying. Suddenly all of this didn't seem very funny any longer. Unfortunately, fate had a pretty good joke waiting for me in the very near future.
"They're alive," Bastille said, kneeling with the soldiers beside the king and queen. "They're still breathing. They don't look to have been hurt, even.”
"The Librarian weapons," one of the Mokians said, “will often knock people unconscious. They're trying to conquer Mokia but don't want to exterminate us. They want to rule over us. So they use guns that put us into comas."
Another of the men nodded. “We know of no cure - our stunner blasts work differently and have their own antidote. Those wounded can only be awakened by the Librarians, once the war is over. They'll wake us up in small, controllable batches, and brainwash us to forget our freedom."
"I've heard of this," Kaz said, kneeling down beside the king. When had Kaz come back? "They did it when conquering other kingdoms too. Brutally effective tactic – if they knock us into comas, we still have to feed and care for those wounded, which drains our resources. Makes it easier to crack us. Far more effective than just killing."
One of the soldiers nodded. “We have thousands of wounded who are sleeping like this. Of course, many of the Librarians lie comatose from our stun-spears as well. The antidote for one does not work on victims of the other."
We stood back as a Mokian doctor approached. Surprisingly, he was dressed in a white lab coat and spectacles. He carried a large piece of glass, which he held up, using it to inspect the king and queen. "No internal wounds. Just Librarian Sleep."
"I would have expected a witch doctor," I said quietly to Kaz.
"Why?” Kaz said. "The king's not a witch, and neither's the queen."
"Take them to their chambers," the doctor said, standing. “And place double guards on them! If the Librarians know they're down, they'll want to kidnap them."
Several soldiers nodded. Others, however, stood up, looking around with confusion. Outside, the Librarian robots began to hurl their boulders. One smashed against the glass covering, making the entire city seem to shake.
"Who is in charge now?" I asked, looking around.
"The captain of the watch fell earlier today,” one of the soldiers said. “And the last remaining field general before him."
"The princess rules," another said.
"But she's outside the city."
"The council of Kings will need to ratify a succession,” another said. "There's no official king until then. Acting king would be the highest person of peerage in the city.”
The group fell silent.
"Which means?" I asked.
"By the spire itself,” Bastille whispered, eyes opening wide. "It can't be. No . . ."
All eyes turned toward me.
"Wait," I said, nervous. "What?”
"The Smedry Clan is peerage," Bastille said, "accepted as lords and ladies in all nations belonging to the Council of Kings. Your family gained that right when they abdicated; all recognized that the Smedry Talents could have led you to conquer the Free Kingdoms. But because of that, a direct heir to the Smedry line ranks equal with a duke in most kingdoms. Including Nalhalla and Mokia."
“And a duke is . . . ?" I asked.
"Just under a prince," Aydee said.
The warriors all fell to one knee before me. "What are your wishes, Your Majesty?" one of them said.
“Aw, pelicans,” Kaz swore.
CHAPTER 24601
Many of you in the Free Kingdoms have heard about the day I was crowned king of Mokia. It’s become quite the legend. And legends have a habit of being exaggerated.
In a waft a legend is like an organism - a virus or a bacteria. It begins as a fledgling story, incubating in just a couple of people. It grows as it is passed to others, and they give it strength. Mutating it. Enlarging it. It grows grander and grander, infecting more and more of the population, until it becomes an epidemic.
The only cure for a legend is pure, antiseptic truth. That's partially why I began writing these books. How did I end up leading Mokia? Well, I was never really king – just "acting monarch" as they put it. I was the highest-ranked person in the town, but only because most everyone else had either fallen or been sent away.
So no, I didn't heroically take up the king's sword in the middle of battle, as the legend says. My ascent to the throne was not announced by angelic voices. Very little heroism was involved.
But there was a whole lot of confusion.
"What?" I demanded. "I can't be king! I'm only thirteen years old!"
"You're not our king, my lord," one of the Mokians said. "Just our acting monarch."
Another rock boomed against the city's dome. Spiderweb cracks formed up the side of the glass.
“Well, what do I do?" I asked, glancing at Kaz, Aydee, and Bastille for support.
"Someone has to make the decision for us, my lord,” said one of the Mokian soldiers. "The king was about to surrender. Do we go through with it, or do we fight?"
"You're going to make me decide?"
They just kept kneeling around me, waiting.
I looked over my shoulder, toward the Librarian camp. The sky was black, but the area around the city was lit as if by floodlights. I could see several places where the Librarians were digging tunnels, using some kind of strange, rodlike devices that appeared to vibrate the dirt and make it move away. The robots kept throwing rocks against the dome.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Just moments before, I'd been incredulous that the king would even consider surrender. But now the same question fell on me, and it terrified me. I had just seen people die. Librarian soldiers who had come to kill - or at least incapacitate - the king. Could I send the Mokian warriors to perhaps suffer the same fate?
Talk of bravery and freedom was one thing. But it felt different to actually be the one who made the decision. If I gave the order, the men and women who got hurt, killed, or knocked out would be my responsibility. That was a lot to heap on the shoulders of a thirteen-year-old kid who hadn’t even known about Mokia six months ago. And people wonder why I'm so screwed up.
"We fight," I said quietly.
This seemed to be the answer the soldiers were waiting for. They yelped in excitement, raising their spears - which, as I'd just learned, doubled as flamethrowers and could also shoot a stunning blast like the Librarian guns.
"You," I said, picking the Mokian who’d been doing the talking. He was a lanky fellow with a lot of war paint and his black hair in a buzz cut. "What's your name?"
"Aluki," he said proudly. "Sergeant of the wall guard."
"Well, you're now acting as my second in command." I glanced at the sky, cringing as another rock hit the dome. Above, the moon shone full and bright. The same moon that shone on the Hushlands. "What time is it? How long until dawn?"
"It's not even eleven yet,” Kaz said, checking his pocket watch. "Seven hours, maybe?"
"Spread the word," I said to the soldiers on the wall around me. "We have to survive for only seven hours. Help will come after that."
They nodded, running off to pass the word. Aluki stayed with me. I turned to the side; Bastille was regarding me with folded arms. I cringed, waiting for her to scour me with condemn
ations for being so arrogant as to let the Mokians make me king.
"We'll need to do something about those tunnels," she said. "We won't hold out for long if teams keep slipping into the city like that."
"Huh?" I asked.
"Don't forget the robots," Kaz said as a rock hit above. "Woodpeckers! That glass is close to cracking. If the dome falls, the tunnels will be our last concern."
"True,” Bastille said. "Maybe we could do something about the fallen troops, the ones in comas. If we could get them to wake up somehow. . ."
"Wait!" I said, looking back and forth between the two.
"Aren't you going to state the obvious?"
"What?" Bastille said. "That the Shattered Lens has far better technology than we thought?" She narrowed her eyes in a very Bastille-like way, glancing at the enormous machines that were tossing rocks toward the city. She seemed to have a particular dislike for them, along the lines of her hatred of walls. (Read book one.)
"No," I said, exasperated. "That I have no business being king! I can barely lead myself to the bathroom in the morning, let alone command an entire army."
"Too late to change that now, Al," Kaz said with a shrug.
"I think you'll do a great job," Aydee added. "Being king isn't that tough, from what I hear. Use a lot of phrases like 'you please the crown' or 'we are not amused' and occasionally make up a holiday.”
"Yeah," I said flatly. "Sounds as easy as one plus one."
"Seven?" Aydee asked, cocking her head.
I looked at Bastille. She still had her arms folded. "Kaz, Aydee,” she said, “why don't you go get a count and see how many troops we have? Also, Alcatraz will need to know what kind of shape the command structure is in.”
The two Smedrys nodded, hurrying off to do as requested.
"Wait!" Bastille said, turning with a sudden shock. "Kaz, you do the counting. Aydee, you stay away from anything of the sort."
"Good call," Kaz said.
“Right!" Aydee called. "I'll give moral support."
And they left. That, unfortunately, left me alone on the wall with Bastille. I gulped, backing away as she walked toward me. My back eventually hit the wall behind; if I backed up any farther, I'd topple over and fall to my death on the ground outside the city.
I considered it anyway.
Bastille reached me, placing a finger against my chest. “You,” she said, "are not going to fail these people."
“But –”
"I'm tired of you wavering back and forth, Alcatraz,” she said. "Shattering Glass! Half the time, you act like you’re panicked by the idea of being in charge, then the other half the time you just take control!”
"I . . . er . . . well . . .”
"And the other half the time you babble incoherently!”
“I like babbling!" I exclaimed. (I'm not sure why.)
"Besides, that sounds like some Aydee math. Three halves?"
She eyed me.
"Yes, you're right about me," I said. “Sometimes, this all feels like a game. It twists my head in knots to think of the things I've been through, the things that have become part of my life. I get carried away with it all, with what everyone expects of me just because of my name.
"But I've already decided I want to lead. I decided it months ago. I want to be a hero; I want to be a leader. But that doesn't mean I want to be a king! When I actually stop to think about it, I realize how insane it is."
"Then don't stop to think," Bastille said. “I don’t see why it should be so hard. Not thinking seems to be one of your specialties."
I grimaced. "The things you say to me don’t help either, Bastille. Every time I think that I'm starting to do well, I get a faceful of insults from you. And I can never tell if I deserve them or not!"
She narrowed her eyes further, finger pressed my sternum. I cringed, preparing for the storm.
"I like you," she said.
I blinked, righting myself. "What?"
"I. Like. You. So I insult you."
I scratched at my head. ".drawkcab ecnetnes a epyt ot dluow ti sa esnes hcum sa tuoba sekam taht ,ellitsaB"
She scowled at me, lowering her hand. "If you don't understand, I'm not going to explain it to you."
Boys, welcome to the wonderful world of talking to women about their feelings. As a handy primer, here are a few things you should know:
1) Women have feelings.
2) You will spend the next seventy years or so trying to guess what they're feeling and why.
3) You will be wrong most of the time.
4) I like French fries.
That's about all the help I can give you, I'm afraid. If it's any consolation, at least the women in your life don't have anger-management issues and a tendency to carry around five-foot-long magical swords.
"Look," Bastille said. "It's not important. What's important is saving Mokia. If you didn't notice, that was my sister who just got towed away unconscious. I’m not going to let the kingdom fall while she’s out."
"But shouldn't a Mokian be king?”
"You are Mokian," Bastille said. “And Nalhallan, and Fracois, and Unkulu. You're a Smedry - you're considered a citizen of all kingdoms. Besides, you do have Mokian blood in you. The Smedry line and the Mokian royal line has often intermixed. It wasn't odd for your uncle Millhaven to marry a Mokian. His wife is a third cousin of Mallo’s, and your great-great-grandfather was the son of a Mokian prince."
I blinked. Bastille, it should be noted, rarely shows her princessly nature. She has a tendency to rip up anything pink, her singing sounds remarkably like the sound produced when you drop a rock on the tail of a wildebeest, and the last time a sweet flock of forest animals showed up and tried to help her clean, she chased them for the better part of an hour swinging her sword and cursing like a sailor.
But she does think like a king's daughter sometimes. And she was force-fed all kinds of princessly information as a child, including long, boring lists of royal family trees. She knows which prince married which hypercountess and which superduke is cousins with which earl.
Yes. In the Free Kingdoms, we have royal titles like superdukes and hypercountesses. It's complicated.
"So . . . I really am in the royal line," I said, shocked.
"Of course you are. You're a Smedry - you're related to three quarters of the kings and queens out there."
"But not you, right?"
"What? No. Not in any important way. We might be fourteenth, upside-down übercousins or something."
I eyed her, trying to figure out what the gak an "upside-down übercousin" was. Sounded like the kind of drink a kid my age wasn't allowed to order.
It should be stressed that Bastille and I are certainly not directly related. At least, we weren't at that point.
"All right," I said. "But I don't know anything about running a war."
"Fortunately, I do. Troop morale and logistics were part of my training as a princess, and I have practice with battlefield tactics as part of my Crystin training."
"Great! You can take over for me, then!”
She shook her head, eyes going wide, face getting a little white. "Don't be stoopid.”
"Er, why not?"
As I think about it, that was kind of a stoopid answer, which was fitting, if you think about it. Me, I try not to think about anything. Oooh . . . shiny . . .
Bastille grimaced. "You need to ask? I’m not what this people need. I'm not inspiring. You are. You’re a king. I’m a general. They're different, different sets of skills.” She nodded toward the Mokian soldiers standing atop the walls. A lot of them didn't look much like warriors. Oh, they had war paint and spears. But not many of them were muscular.
"Mokia is a kingdom of scholars and craftspeople, Alcatraz,” Bastille said softly. "Why do you think the Librarians attacked here first? They've been besieged for months now, their country at war for years. Many of the trained soldiers have already been knocked unconscious or killed. Do you have any idea what the loss of both the king
and queen could mean? They're demoralized, wounded, and beaten down."
She lifted her finger, tapping me in the chest again. "They need someone to lead them. They need someone spectacular, someone miraculous. Someone who can keep them fighting for just a little longer, until your grandfather arrives with help."
“And, uh, that someone is me?"
"Yes," she said, almost grudgingly. "I told you a few months back that I believed in you. Well, I do. I believe in what you can be when you're confident. Not when you're arrogant, but when you're confident. When you decide to do something, really decide, you do amazing things. I wish you could be that person a little more often."
I scratched my head. "I think that person is a lie, Bastille. I'm not confident. I just get lucky."
"You get lucky a lot. Particularly when we really need it. You saved your father, you got the Sands back, you rescued the kings."
"That last one was mostly you," I said with a grimace.
"The idea that got us free was yours,” she said, "and you spotted Archedis."
I shrugged. "It seems that when I get desperate, my mind works better. I'm not sure if that's something to be proud of or not."
"Well, it's what we've got,” Bastille said, "so we're going to work with it. I'll organize the troops. You be confident, give the Mokians the sense that someone’s in charge. Together, we'll hold this city together until the old Smedry gets here."
"He'll probably be late, you know.”
"Oh, I'm certain he will be," Bastille said...The question isn't, 'Will he be late?' The question is, 'How late is he going to be?’"
I nodded grimly.
"You ready to be a king?” she asked.
I hesitated just briefly. “Yes.”
"Good," she said, spinning as screams erupted from the center of the city. "Because I think another group of Librarians just tunneled in.”
CHAPTER 070706
Don’t yawn.
I shouldn’t have agreed to be king. If you’ve been following these books, you know that my early experiences set me up to fail. Being a celebrity made me think that I was much more important than I really was, and success led me to take more responsibility than I should have. That all meant I fell really far when I did fall.