“She will die,” the Scrivener’s Bone said, somehow speaking despite the fact that half of his face was now missing. “I do not lie, Smedry. You know I do not lie.”
I stared him down, but felt an increasing sense of dread. Do you remember what I said about choices? It seems to me that no matter what you choose, you end up losing something. In this case, it was either the Lenses or Draulin’s life.
“I will trade her to you for the Lenses,” Kiliman said. “I was sent to hunt those, not you. Once I have them, I will leave.”
The metal spiders were crawling into the room, crossing the floor, but they stayed away from Bastille and me. Kaz groaned, finally getting to his feet from where I’d inadvertently pushed him.
I closed my eyes. Bastille’s mother, or the Lenses? I wished that I could do something to fight. But the Windstormer’s Lenses couldn’t hurt this thing—even if they blew him back, he could simply flee and wait for Draulin to die. Australia was still lost somewhere in the library. Would she be next?
“I will trade,” I said quietly.
Kiliman smiled—or at least the remaining half of his face smiled. Then, to the side, I saw several of his spiders climb up on something.
A tripwire in the room where I was standing.
The floor fell away beneath Bastille and me as the spiders tripped the wire. Bastille cried out, reaching for the edge of the floor, but she barely missed grabbing it.
“Rocky Mountain oysters!” Kaz swore in shock, though the pit opened a few feet away from him. I caught one last glimpse of his panicked face as I tumbled into the hole.
We plummeted some thirty feet and landed with a thud on a patch of too-soft ground. I landed on my stomach, but Bastille—who twisted herself to protect the Translator’s Lenses she still clutched—scraped against the wall, then hit the ground in a much more awkward position. She grunted in pain.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Then I crawled over to Bastille. She groaned, looking even more dazed than I felt, but she seemed all right. Finally, I glanced up the dark shaft toward the light above. A concerned Kaz stuck his head out over the opening.
“Alcatraz!” he yelled. “You two okay?”
“Yeah,” I called up. “I think we are.” I poked at the ground, trying to decide why it had broken our fall. It appeared to be made of some kind of cushioned cloth.
“The ground is padded,” I called up to Kaz. “Probably to keep us from breaking our necks.” It was another Curator trap, meant to frustrate us but not kill us.
“What was the point of that?” I heard Kaz bellow at Kiliman. “They just agreed to trade with you!”
“Yes, he did.” I could faintly hear Kiliman’s voice. “But the Librarians of my order have a saying: Never trust a Smedry.”
“Well, he’s not going to be able to trade with you while he’s trapped in a pit!” Kaz yelled.
“True,” Kiliman said. “But you can trade. Have him pass you the Translator’s Lenses, then meet me at the center of the library. You are the one who has the power to Travel places, are you not?”
Kaz fell silent.
This creature knows a lot about us, I thought with frustration.
“You are a Smedry,” Kiliman said to Kaz. “But not an Oculator. I will deal with you instead of the boy. Bring me the Lenses, and I will return the woman—with her Fleshstone—to you. Be quick. She will die within the hour.”
There was silence, broken only by Bastille’s groan as she sat up. She still had the Translator’s Lenses in her hand. Eventually, Kaz’s head popped out above the pit.
“Alcatraz?” he called. “You there?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Where else would we be?” Bastille grumbled.
“It’s too dark to see you,” Kaz said. “Anyway, the Scrivener’s Bone has left, and I can’t get through the bars to follow him. What should we do? Do you want me to try to find some rope?”
I sat, trying—with all of my capacity—to think of a way out of the predicament. Bastille’s mother was dying because a piece of crystal had been ripped from her body. Kiliman had her and would trade her only for the Translator’s Lenses. I was trapped in a pit with Bastille, who had taken a much harder hit falling than I had, and we had no rope.
I was stuck, looking for a solution where there wasn’t one. Sometimes there isn’t a way out, and thinking won’t help, no matter how clever you are. In a way, that’s kind of like what I wrote at the beginning of this chapter. You remember the secret “thing” I claimed to have done in this book? The shameful, clever trick? Did you go looking for it? Well, whatever you found, that wasn’t what I was intending—because there is no trick. No hidden message. No clever twist I put into the first fourteen chapters.
I don’t know how hard you searched, but it couldn’t have been harder than I searched for a way to both save Draulin and keep my Lenses. I was quickly running out of time, and I knew it. I had to make a decision. Right then. Right there.
I chose to take the Lenses from Bastille and throw them up to Kaz. He caught them, just barely.
“Can your Talent take you to the center of the library?” I asked.
He nodded. “I think so. Now that I have a location to search for.”
“Go,” I said. “Trade the Lenses for Draulin’s life. We’ll worry about getting them back later.”
Kaz nodded. “All right. You wait here—I’ll find a rope or something and come back for you once Bastille’s mother is safe.”
He disappeared for a moment, then returned, head sticking back out over the opening. “Before I go, do you want this?” He held out Bastille’s pack.
The Grappler’s Glass boots were inside. I felt a stab of hope, but quickly dismissed it. The sides of the shaft were stone.
Besides, even if I did get free, I’d still have to trade the Lenses for Draulin. I’d just have to do it in person. Still, there was food in the pack. No telling how long we’d be in the pit. “Sure,” I called up to him, “drop it.”
He did so, and I stepped to the side, letting it hit the soft ground. By now Bastille was on her feet, though she leaned woozily against the side of the pit.
This was why I shouldn’t ever have been made a leader. This is why nobody should ever look to me. Even then, I made the wrong decisions. A leader has to be hard, capable of making the right choice.
You think I did make the right one? Well then, you’d be as poor a leader as I was. You see, saving Draulin was the wrong choice. By trading the Translator’s Lenses, I may have saved one life, but at a terrible cost.
The Librarians would gain access to the knowledge of the Incarna people. Sure, Draulin would live—but how many would die as the war turned against the Free Kingdoms? With ancient technology at their disposal, the Librarians would become a force that could no longer be held back.
I’d saved one life, but doomed so many more. That’s not the sort of weakness a leader can afford. I suspect Kaz knew the truth of that. He hesitated, then asked, “You sure you want to do this, kid?”
“Yes,” I said. At the time, I didn’t think about things such as protecting the future of the Free Kingdoms or the like. I only knew one thing: I couldn’t be the one responsible for Draulin’s death.
“All right,” Kaz said. “I’ll be back for you. Don’t worry.”
“Good luck, Kaz.”
And he was gone.
Chapter
16
Writers—particularly storytellers like myself—write about people. That is ironic, since we actually know nothing about them.