Finally, I just shook my head and climbed out of the car. Grandpa Smedry went inside, the screen door slamming behind him. I walked up, pulled open the screen door—threw the door handle over my shoulder as it broke off—then stepped inside after Grandpa Smedry.
Another attendant—also with straw in his mouth and a large hat on his head—stood leaning against the counter. The small “store” consisted of a single stand of snacks and a wall-sized cooler. The cooler was stocked completely with cans of motor oil, though a sign said ENJOY A COOL REFRESHING DRINK!
“Okay,” I said, “where exactly are you people finding straw to chew on in the middle of the city? It can’t be all that easy to get.”
“Quickly now. Quickly!” Grandpa Smedry gestured frantically from the back of the store. Glancing to either side, he said in a louder voice, “I think I’ll have a cool refreshing drink!” Then he pulled open the cooler door.
I froze in place.
Now, it’s very important to me that you understand that I am not stupid. It’s perfectly all right if you end this book convinced that I’m not the hero that some reports claim me to be. However, I’d rather not everyone I meet presume me to be slow-witted. If that were the case, half of them would likely try to sell me insurance.
The truth is, however, that even clever people can be taken by surprise so soundly that they are at a loss for words. Or at least at a loss for words that make sense.
“Gak!” I said.
You see. Now, before you judge me, place yourself in my position. Let’s say that you had watched a crazy old man open up a cooler full of oilcans. You would have undoubtedly expected to see … well, a cooler full of oilcans on the other side.
You would not expect to see a room with a large hearth at the center, blazing with a cheery reddish-orange fire. You would not expect to see two men in full armor standing guard on either side of the door. Indeed, you would not expect to see a room—instead of a cooler full of oilcans—at all.
Perhaps you would have said “Gak” too.
“Gak!” I repeated.
“Would you stop that, boy?” Grandpa Smedry said. “There are absolutely no Gaks here. Why do you think we keep so much straw around? Now, come on!” He stepped through the doorway into the room beyond.
I approached slowly, then glanced at the other side of the open glass door—and saw oilcans cooling in their wall racks. I turned, looking through the doorway. It seemed as if I could see much more than I should have been able to. The two knights standing on either side of such a small doorway should have left no room to walk through, yet Grandpa Smedry had passed easily.
I reached out, rapping lightly on one of the knights’ breastplates.
“Please don’t do that,” a voice said from behind the faceplate.
“Oh,” I said. “Um, sorry.” Still frowning to myself, I stepped into the room.
It was a large chamber. Far larger, I decided, than could have possibly fit in the store. I could now see a rug set with thronelike chairs arranged to face the hearth in a homey manner. (If your home is a medieval castle.) To my left, there was a long, broad table, also set with chairs.
“Sing!” Grandpa Smedry yelled, his voice echoing down a hallway to the right. “Sing!”
If he breaks into song, I think I might have to strangle myself.… I thought, cringing.
“Lord Smedry?” a voice called from down the hallway, and a huge figure rushed into sight.
If you’ve never seen a large Mokian man in sunglasses, a tunic, and tights before—
Okay. I’m going to assume that you’ve never seen a large Mokian man in sunglasses, a tunic, and tights. I certainly hadn’t.
The man—apparently named Sing—was a good six and a half feet tall, and had dark hair and dark skin. He looked like he could be from Hawaii, or maybe Samoa or Tonga. He had the mass and girth of a linebacker and would have fit right in on the football field. Or at least he would have fit right in if he’d been wearing a football uniform, rather than a tunic—a type of garment that I still think looks silly. Bastille has pictures of me wearing one. If you ask her, she’ll probably show them to you gleefully.
Of course if you do that, I’ll probably have to hunt you down and kill you. Or dress you in a tunic and take pictures of you. I’m still not sure which is worse.
“Sing,” Grandpa Smedry said. “We need to do a full library infiltration. Now.”
“A library infiltration?” Sing said excitedly.
“Yes, yes,” Grandpa Smedry said hurriedly. “Go get your cousin, and both of you get into your disguises. I need to gather my Lenses.”
Sing rushed back the way he had come. Grandpa Smedry walked over to the wall on the other side of the hearth. Not sure what else to do, I followed, watching as Grandpa Smedry knelt beside what appeared to be a large box made entirely of black glass. Grandpa Smedry put his hand on it and closed his eyes, and the front of the box suddenly shattered.
I jumped back, but Grandpa Smedry ignored the broken shards of black glass. He reached into the chest and pulled out a tray wrapped in red velvet. He set this on top of the box, unwrapping the cloth and revealing a small book and about a dozen pairs of spectacles, each with a slightly different tint of glass.
Grandpa Smedry pulled open the front of his tuxedo jacket, then began to slip the spectacles into little pouches sewn into the lining of the garment. They hung like the watches on the inside of an illegal street peddler’s coat.
“Something very strange is going on, isn’t it?” I finally asked.
“Yes, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said, still arranging the spectacles.
“We’re really going to go sneak into a library?”
Grandpa Smedry nodded.
“Only, it’s not really a library. But someplace more dangerous.”
“Oh, it’s really a library,” Grandpa Smedry said. “What you haven’t realized before is that all libraries are far more dangerous than you’ve always assumed.”
“And we’re going to break into this one,” I repeated. “A place filled with people who want to kill me.”
“Most likely,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But what else can we do? We either infiltrate, or we let them make those sands into Lenses.”
This isn’t a joke, I began to realize. This man isn’t actually crazy. Or at least the craziness includes much more than just him. I stood there for a moment, feeling overwhelmed, thinking about what I had seen.
“Well, all right then,” I finally said.
Now, you Hushlanders may think that I took all of these strange experiences quite well. After all, it isn’t every day that you get threatened with a gun, then discover a medieval dining room hiding inside the beverage cooler at a local gas station. However, maybe if you’d grown up with the magical ability to break almost anything you touched, then you would have been just as quick to accept unusual circumstances.
“Here, lad,
” Grandpa Smedry said, standing and picking up the final pair of spectacles. They were reddish tinted, like the pair Grandpa Smedry was currently wearing. “These are yours. I’ve been saving them for you.”
I paused. “I don’t need glasses.”
“You’re an Oculator, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “You’ll always need glasses.”
“Can’t I wear sunglasses, like Sing?”
Grandpa Smedry chuckled. “You don’t need Warrior’s Lenses, lad. You can access abilities far more potent. Here, take these. They’re Oculator’s Lenses.”
“What are Oculators?” I asked.
“We are, my boy. Put them on.”
I frowned but took the glasses. I put them on, then glanced around. “Nothing looks different,” I said, feeling disappointed. “The room doesn’t even look … redder.”
“Of course not,” Grandpa Smedry said. “The tints come from the sands they’re made of and help us keep the Lenses straight. They’re not intended to make things look different.”
“I just … thought the glasses would do something.”
“They do,” Grandpa Smedry said. “They show you things that you need to see. It’s merely subtle, lad. Wear them for a while—let your eyes get used to them.”
“All right.…” I glanced over as Grandpa Smedry knelt to put the tray back inside the broken box. “What’s that book?”
Grandpa Smedry looked up. “Hmm? This?” He picked up the small book, handing it to me. I opened to the first page. It was filled with scribbles, as if made by a child.
“The Forgotten Language,” Grandpa Smedry said. “We’ve been trying to decipher it for centuries—your father worked on that book for a while, before you were born. He thought its secrets might lead him to the Sands of Rashid.”
“This isn’t a language,” I said. “It’s just a bunch of scribbles.”
“Well, any language you don’t understand would look like scribbles, lad!”
I flipped through the pages of the book. It was filled with completely random circles, zigzags, loop-de-loops, and the like. There were no patterns. Some of the pages only had a couple marks on them; others were so black with ink that they looked like a child’s rendition of a tornado.