Indeed, Grandpa Smedry looked far less spry now than he had earlier in the day. The torture might not have broken him, but it had certainly produced an effect.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I can arrive at the pain in small, manageable amounts, once we’re free. Bastille, dear, any luck?”
I turned. Bastille had apparently done a quick search of the room’s tables and cabinets. She looked up from the last one and shook her head. “If he took your Lenses, he didn’t stash them in here, old man.”
“Ah, well,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Good work anyway, dear.”
“I only searched the room,” she said, slamming the door, “because I was so furious at you for getting yourself captured. I figured that if I walked over to help you, I’d end up punching you instead. That didn’t seem fair in your weakened state.”
Grandpa Smedry raised a hand, whispering to me, “This would probably be a bad time to remind her that she got captured too, eh?”
“My capture was a different Smedry’s fault,” Bastille snapped, flushing. “And that doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here before that Dark Oculator comes back.”
“Agreed,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Follow me—I know the way to a stairwell up.”
“Up?” Bastille asked incredulously.
“Of course,” Grandpa Smedry said. “We came for the Sands of Rashid—and we’re not leaving until we have them!”
“But they know we’re here,” Bastille said. “The entire library is on alert!”
“Yes,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But we know where the sands are.”
“We do?” I asked.
Grandpa Smedry nodded. “You don’t think Quentin and I got ourselves captured for nothing, do you? We got close to the sands, lad. Very close.”
“But?” Bastille asked, folding her arms.
Grandpa Smedry blushed slightly. “Snarer’s Glass. Blackburn has that room so well trapped that it’s a wonder he doesn’t catch himself every time he walks into it.”
“And how are we going to get past the traps now, then?” Bastille asked.
“Oh, we won’t have to,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Quentin and I couldn’t think of a way to get by the traps, so we simply fell into them! The room should be completely clear now. Each square of Snarer’s Glass can only go off once, you know!”
Bastille huffed at him. “You could have gotten yourself killed, old man!”
“Yes, well,” he said. “I didn’t! Now, let’s get moving! We’re going to be late.”
With that, he rushed out of the room. Bastille gave me a flat look. “Next time, let’s just leave him.”
I smiled wryly, moving to follow her out of the room. However, something caught my attention. I stopped beside it.
“Sing?” I asked as the large man walked past.
“Yes?”
I pointed at a lantern holder on the wall. “What does this lantern holder look like to you?”
Sing paused, scratching his chin. “A coconut?”
Coconut, I thought. “Do you remember what Quentin said downstairs, right after we entered the library?”
Sing shook his head. “What was it?”
“I can’t quite remember,” I said. “But it sounded like gibberish.”
“Ah,” Sing said. “Quentin speaks in gibberish sometimes. It’s a side effect of his Talent—like me tripping when I get startled.”
Or me breaking things I don’t want to, I thought. But this seemed different. Coconuts, Quentin had said. Coconuts … pain don’t hurt. That was what it was.
I glanced back at the broken table. The pain of torture hadn’t hurt Grandpa Smedry.
“Come on, Alcatraz,” Sing said urgently, pulling on my arm. “We have to keep moving.”
I allowed myself to be led from the room, but not before I took one last look at the wall bracket.
I had the feeling that I was missing something important.
Chapter
18
The book is almost done.
The ending of a book is, in my experience, both the best and the worst part to read. For the ending will often determine whether you love or hate the book.
Both emotions lead to disappointment. If the ending was good, and the book was worth your time, then you are left annoyed and depressed because there is no more book to read. However, if the ending was bad, then it’s too late to stop reading. You’re left annoyed and depressed because you wasted so much time on a book with a bad ending.
Therefore, reading is obviously worthless, and you should go spend your time on other, more valuable pursuits. I hear that algebra is good for you. Kind of like humility, plus factoring. Regardless, you will soon know whether to hate me for not writing more, or whether to hate me for writing too much. Please confine all assassination attempts to the school week, as I would rather not die on a Saturday.
No need to spoil a good weekend.
“This is it,” Grandpa Smedry said, leading us through another hallway. “That door at the end.”
The third floor was a little more lavish than the second floor: Instead of stark, unpleasant stones and blank walls, the third floor was lined with stark, unpleasant rugs and blank tapestries. The door had a large glass disc set into it, and at first I thought the disc had a lightbulb in the middle. It certainly glowed sharply enough. Then I remembered my Oculator’s Lenses and realized that the disc was glowing only to my eyes.
There had to be Lenses beyond that door—powerful ones.
Bastille caught Grandpa Smedry by the shoulder as he reached the door, then shook her head sharply. She pulled him back, moved up to the door, and tried to get a good look through the glass disc. Then she raised her crystal dagger to the ready and pushed open the door.
Light burst from the room, as if that door were the gate to heaven. I cried out, closing my eyes.
“Focus on your Lenses, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “You can dim the effect if you concentrate.”
I did so, squinting. I managed, with some effort, to make the light dim down until it was a low glow. No longer blinded, I was awed by what I saw.
What I felt at this point is a bit hard to describe. To Bastille and my cousins, the room would have been simply a medium-sized, circular chamber with little shelves built into the walls. The shelves held Lenses—hundreds of them—and each one had its own little stand, holding it up to sparkle in the light. It must have been a pretty sight, but nothing spectacular.
To me, the room looked different.
Perhaps you’ve owned something in your life to which you ascribed particular pleasure. A treasured toy, perhaps. Some photographs. The steel skull of your archnemesis.
Now, imagine that you’d never before realized how important that item was to you. Imagine that your understanding of it—your feelings of love, pride, and satisfaction—suddenly hit you all at once.
This was how I felt. There was something right about all of those Lenses. I’d never been in the room before, but to me it felt like home. And to a boy who had lived with dozens of different foster families, home was not a word to be used lightly.
Sing, Grandpa Smedry, Bastille, and Quentin moved into the room. I walked up to the doorway, where I stood for a few moments, basking in the beauty of the Lenses. There was a majesty to the room. A warmth.
This is what I was meant to be, I thought. This was what I was always meant to be.
“Hurry, lad!” Grandpa Smedry said. “You have to find the sands. I don’t have my Oculator’s Lenses! I’ll try to find a pair in here, but you need to start looking while I do!”
I shocked myself into motion. We were still being chased. This wasn’t my home—this was the stronghold of my enemies. I shook my head, forcing myself to be more realistic. Yet I would always retain a memory of that moment—the first moment when I knew for certain that I wanted to be an Oculator. And I would treasure it.
“Grandfather, everything in here is glowing,” I protested. “How can I find the sands i
n all of this?”
“They’re here,” Grandpa Smedry said, furiously looking through the room. “I swear they are!”
“Golf the spasm of penguins!” Quentin said, pointing to a table at the back of the circular room.
“He’s right!” Grandpa Smedry said. “That’s where the sands were before. Aspiring Asimovs! Where did they go?”
“Typically,” a new voice said, “one uses sands to make Lenses.”
I spun. Blackburn stood in the hallway behind us. For some reason, the man’s aura of darkness was far less visible than it had been before.
My Oculator’s Lenses, I realized. I turned them down.
Blackburn smiled. He was accompanied by a large group of Librarians—not the skinny, robe-wearing kind but the bulky, overmuscled kind in the bow ties and sunglasses, as well as a couple of sword-wielding women wearing skirts, their hair in buns.
Blackburn had something in his hand. A pair of spectacles. Even with my Oculator’s Lenses turned down, these spectacles glowed powerfully with a brilliant white light.
“Back away, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said quietly.
I did so, slowly backing into the room. There are no other exits, I thought. We’re trapped!
Bastille growled softly, raising her crystal dagger, stepping between Grandpa Smedry and the smiling Blackburn. Librarian thugs fanned into the room, moving to surround us. Sing watched warily, cocking a pair of handguns.
“Nice collection you have here, Blackburn,” Grandpa Smedry said, walking around the perimeter of the room. “Frostbringer’s Lenses, Courier’s Lenses, Harrier’s Lenses … Yes, impressive indeed.” I noticed that my grandfather’s hand was glowing slightly.
“I have a weakness for power, I’m afraid,” Blackburn said.
Grandpa Smedry nodded, as if to himself. “Those Lenses in your hand. They come from the Sands of Rashid?”
Blackburn smiled.
“Why a pair? Why not only a monocle?” Grandpa Smedry asked.
“In case I choose to share these Lenses with others. Not everyone has realized the value of focusing power as I have.”
“The torture, the chasing us,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I was worried that we were taking too long—that you were just trying to distract us long enough for your lackeys to forge those Lenses.”
“Not just,” Blackburn said. “I was sincerely hoping that I’d be able to break you with the torture, old man, and find the secret to the Smedry Talents that way. But you do have a point. I assumed that when I had these Lenses, I could beat you for certain.”
Grandpa Smedry smiled. “They don’t do what you thought they would, do they?”
Blackburn shrugged.
Grandpa Smedry finally stopped strolling. He reached up and selected a Lens from a shelf, then slipped it into his hand with several others he’d pilfered. He turned to look directly at Blackburn. “Shall we, then?”
Blackburn’s smile broadened. “I’d like nothing better.”
Grandpa Smedry whipped his hand up, raising something to his eye—an Oculator’s Lens. Blackburn raised his own hand, placing a monocle over the one he already wore.
Sing, of course, tripped.
“Shattering Glass!” Bastille swore, grabbing me by the arm and towing me to the side. The Librarian thugs all stooped down, bracing themselves.
And the air suddenly began to crackle with energy. My hair rose up on its ends, and each footstep zapped me slightly with a static charge.
“What’s going on?” I cried to Bastille.
“Oculators’ Duel!” she said.
I noticed Grandpa Smedry raise another Lens to his eye. He kept his left eye closed, placing both lenses together over his right eye. The first Lens he had placed—the reddish-pink Oculator’s Lens—remained in place, hovering in front of his eye.
Blackburn raised a third Lens to his eye. The room surged with power, and Lenses on the walls started to rattle. I recognized this one—it was a Torturer’s Lens. I could feel that it had been activated, yet it seemed to have no effect on Grandpa Smedry.
“Those Oculator’s Lenses you wear,” Bastille said over the noise. “They’re the most basic Lenses for a good reason. A well-trained Oculator can use them to negate his enemy’s attacks.”
Grandpa Smedry slowly raised a third Lens to his eye. All three remained hovering in the air in front of him. The new one made a screeching sound that hurt my ears, though most of the noise seemed directed at Blackburn.
“Why are they using multiple Lenses at once?” I said as Blackburn added a fourth Lens. The room grew colder, and a line of frosty ice shot forward toward Grandpa Smedry.
Bastille crouched down farther. Wind began to churn in the room, ruffling my hair, whipping at my jacket.
“They’re countering each other’s attacks,” Bastille said. “Adding Lens after Lens. However, it gets increasingly hard to focus your power through all those Lenses at once. The first one who loses control of his Lenses—or who fails to block an attack—will lose the duel.”
Grandpa Smedry, arm beginning to shake, raised a fourth Lens to his eye. The hovering line of Lenses trembled in the wind. Grandpa Smedry was no longer smiling—in fact he had one arm up, steadying himself against the wall.
Blackburn added a fifth Lens—one that I recognized. It didn’t have a little monocle frame like the others, and it had a red dot at the center.
My Firebringer’s Lens! I thought. He did recover it.
Sure enough, this Lens began to spit out a line of fire. The beam shot forward, moving alongside the line of ice. But, like the ice line, the Firebringer’s line puffed into nonexistence near Grandpa Smedry, as if hitting an invisible shield. Grandpa Smedry grunted quietly at the impact.
I could see Sing a short distance away, struggling to his knees. The large man raised a gun, then fired at Blackburn. I could barely hear the gunshots over the sound of wind.
Flashes of lightning shot from Blackburn’s body, moving more quickly than I could track. I’m still not certain what happened to those bullets, but they obviously never reached their mark. I glanced at Sing, who sat cradling a burned hand, his gun smoking slightly on the floor.
Grandpa Smedry finally managed to place his fifth Lens. My ears popped, and it felt like the air was growing more pressurized—as if some force were pushing out from Grandpa Smedry, most of it slamming into Blackburn.
The Dark Oculator grunted, stumbling. However, I could see a glistening spot appear near the knife hole on Grandpa Smedry’s tuxedo pants, and a small pool of blood began forming at his feet.
The wound from the torture chamber, I thought. He’s too tired to hold it back any longer. “We have to do something!” I yelled over the wind. Lenses were toppling from their pedestals, some shattering to the ground, and scraps of paper were churning inside a vortex of wind in the room.
Bastille shook her head. “We can’t interfere!”
“What?” I asked. “Some stupid code of honor?”
“No! If we get too close to either of them, the power will vaporize us!”
Oh, I thought. Blackburn, whose arm had begun to tremble with strain, raised a sixth Lens to his eye. In his hand, he still held the spectacles he’d had forged from the Sands of Rashid. Why doesn’t he use those? I wondered. Is he saving the best for last?
Sing managed to pull himself over to Bastille and me. “Lord Leavenworth can’t win this fight, Bastille! He’s only using single-eye Lenses. Blackburn’s trained on those—he put his eye out to increase his power with them. But Leavenworth is accustomed to two eyes. He can’t—”
Grandpa Smedry suddenly let out a defiant yell. He raised his hand, gripping his sixth Lens in rigid fingers. He wavered for a moment.
Then dropped the Lens.
There was a flash of light and a blast of power. I cried out in shock as I was thrown backward.
And the winds stopped.
I opened my eyes to the sound of laughter. I rolled over, desperately looking for Grandpa Smedry. The old
man lay on the ground, barely moving. Blackburn had been thrown backward as well, but he picked himself up without much trouble.
“Is that it?” Blackburn asked, brushing off his suit. He smiled, looking down at Grandpa Smedry through his single eye, an eye that now bore no Lenses. They had all dropped to the ground at his feet. “You barely gave a fight, old man.”
Sing reached for another gun. Two beefy Librarians tackled him from behind. Bastille jumped the first one. Six more soldiers rushed at her.
Blackburn continued to chuckle. He walked slowly across the room, his feet crunching on shattered glass. He shook his head. “Do you realize how much trouble it’s going to be to gather up all these broken Lenses, have the shards sorted, then have them all reforged? My Librarians will spend months remaking my collection!”
I have to do something, I thought. Bastille continued to fight, but more and more Librarian thugs were surrounding her. They already had Quentin and Sing pinned. Nobody, however, seemed to notice me. Perhaps they thought me unthreatening because I had been knocked down.
I scanned the room. There, a short distance away, I saw them—the Lenses of Rashid, lying temptingly in the middle of a pile of discarded monocles. They had fallen to the ground during the blast along with the other Lenses Blackburn had held during the fight.
I gritted my teeth.
I have to use the Lenses of Rashid, I thought, crawling forward slowly. I have to—
Wait. I want you to do something for me. Try to recall the very first part of my story. It was way back in Chapter One, before I even told you about my name. Back then, I spoke about life-and-death situations, and how they make people think about some very odd subjects. The prospect of dying—or in this case, watching someone dear to you die—does strange things to the mind. Makes it think along tangents.