15
It’s my fault.
I’ll admit the truth; I did it. You’ve undoubtedly noticed it by now, if you’ve been reading closely. I apologize. Of all the dirty tricks I’ve used, this is undeniably the nastiest of them all. I realize it might have ruined the book for you up until now, but I couldn’t help myself.
You see, doing something like this consistently, over fourteen chapters, was quite challenging. And I’m always up for a challenge. When you noticed it, you probably realized how clever I was, even as you blushed. I know this is supposed to be a book for kids, and I thought it was well enough hidden that it wouldn’t be discovered. I guess I was too obvious.
I’d have taken it out, but it’s just so clever. Most people won’t be able to find it, even though it’s there in every chapter, on every page. The most brilliant literary joke I’ve ever made.
My apologies.
I stood, facing down the silhouetted creature, still holding on to Bastille’s arm. I slowly came to understand something.
I had been wrong to run from the creature—that had caused my group to get split up. Now the hunter could take us one at a time, grabbing us from the catacombs as we ran about in confusion.
We couldn’t continue to run. It was time to confront it. I gulped, beginning to sweat. This is one of the reasons why I’m no hero—because even though I walked down that corridor toward the creature, I pulled Bastille along with me. I figured two targets were better than one.
As we moved forward, Kaz trailing behind, Bastille lost a bit of her frenzied look. She pulled her dagger from its sheath, the crystalline blade sparkling in the flickering lamplight.
At the end of the corridor was a small room, split in half by the large iron grate. The Scrivener’s Bone was on the other side of the bars. He smiled as I approached—one side of his face curling up, lips leering. The other side of his face mimicked the motion, though it was made of bits of metal that twisted and clicked, like a clock mechanism that had been compressed tenfold until all of the gears and pins were smushed together.
“Smedry,” the thing said, voice ragged, as if the sounds themselves had been flayed.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The creature met my eyes. The entire left half of its body had been replaced by the bits of metal, held together by a force I didn’t understand. One of its eyes was human. The other was a pit of dark glass. Alivener’s Glass.
“I am Kilimanjaro,” the creature said. “I have been sent to retrieve something from you.”
I was still wearing the Lenses of Rashid. I raised my fingers to them, and Kiliman nodded.
“Where did you get that sword?” I asked, trying to hide my nervousness.
“I have the woman,” the creature said. “I took it from her.”
“She’s here, Alcatraz,” Bastille said. “I can feel her Fleshstone.”
Fleshstone? I thought. What in the name of the first sands is that?
“You mean this?” Kiliman asked, voice deep and crackling. He held up something before him. It looked like a crystal shard, about the size of two fingers put together. It was bloody.
Bastille gasped. “No!” she said, rushing toward the bars; I grabbed her arm and barely managed to hang on.
“Bastille!” I said. “He’s goading you!”
“How could you?” she screamed at the creature. “You’ll kill her!”
Kiliman lowered the crystal, placing it in a pouch at his belt. He still held the sword in front of him. “Death is immaterial, Crystin. I must retrieve what I seek. You have it, and I have the woman. We will trade.”
Bastille fell to her knees, and at first I thought she was weeping. Then I could see that she was simply shaking, white-faced. I didn’t know it at the time, but pulling the Fleshstone from the body of a Crystin is an unspeakably vulgar and gruesome act. To Bastille, it was like Kiliman had shown her Draulin’s heart, still beating in his hand.
“You think I’d bargain with you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Kiliman said simply. He didn’t have the flair of evil that Blackburn had shown—no flaunted arrogance, no sharp clothing or laughing voice. Yet the quiet danger this creature expressed was somehow even more haunting. I shivered.
“Careful, Al,” Kaz said quietly. “Those creatures are dangerous. Very dangerous.”
Kiliman smiled, then dropped the sword and flipped a hand forward. I cried out as I saw a Lens brandished there. It flashed, shooting out a beam of frosty light.
Bastille came up, her dagger held clawlike in her hand. She took the beam straight on the crystalline blade, then stumbled backward. She held it, but barely.
I growled, throwing off the Translator’s Lenses and pulling out my Windstormer’s Lenses. He wanted to fight? Well, I’d show him.
I snapped the Lenses on, then focused on the Scrivener’s Bone, sending forth a wave of powerful wind. My ears popped, and Kaz cried out from the sudden increase in pressure. The blast of wind hit Kiliman, throwing him backward, spraying bits of metal from his body.
Kiliman growled, and his Frostbringer’s Lens turned off. To my side, Bastille fell to her knees again; I could see that her hand looked blue and was crusted with ice. Her little dagger’s blade was cracked in several places. Like the Crystin swords, it could deflect Oculatory powers, but it obviously wasn’t meant to handle much punishment.
Kiliman righted himself, and I could see the bits of metal that had fallen off him spring up on little spiderlike legs. The nuts, screws, and gears scuttled across the floor, climbing up his body and rejoining with the entire pulsing, undulating heap of metal scraps.
He met my eyes and growled, bringing up his other hand. I focused again, blasting him with another wave of wind, but the creature stayed on his feet. Then I felt myself being pulled forward. His other hand held the Lens that Bastille had called a Voidstormer’s Lens, the one that sucked in air.
The Lens was pulling me toward the bars, even though I was pushing Kiliman away with my own Lenses. I slipped on the ground, stumbling, growing panicked.
Suddenly, hands grabbed me from behind, steadying me. “What did I tell you, kid?” Kaz called over the sound of the wind. “That thing is part Alivened! You can’t kill him with regular means. And those are bloodforged Lenses he’s using. They’ll be more powerful than yours!”
He was right. Even with Kaz holding on to me, I could feel myself being pulled toward Kiliman. I turned my Windstormer’s Lenses away from him, then focused them on the wall, pushing myself back.
Kiliman turned his Lens off.
I was shaken by the force of the wind blowing from my face. I stumbled, knocking Kaz over, and I nearly lost my footing as I turned my Lenses off.
In that moment, Kiliman focused his Lens directly at the pair of Translator’s Lenses in my other hand. Apparently the Voidstormer’s Lens—like my Windstormer’s Lenses—could focus on a single object. The Translator’s Lenses were pried free from my fingers and sucked across the room.
I yelled, shocked, but Bastille snatched the Lenses from the air as they passed her. She stood, dagger in one hand, Lenses in the other. I stepped up beside her, readying my Windstormer’s Lenses, trying not to look at the frosty wounds on Bastille’s hand.
Kiliman stood up, but did not raise his Lenses. “I still hold the knight,” he whispered, picking up the fallen Crystin sword. “She will die, for you don’t know where to find her. Only I can replace her Fleshstone.”
The room fell silent. Suddenly Kiliman’s face began to disintegrate, the tiny bits of metal all springing legs and crawling down his body. Half of his head, then his shoulder, and finally one arm all transformed to tiny metal spiders, which crawled across the bars separating us, swarming like bees in a hive.