The others looked at one another. That hadn’t been the response they’d been expecting.
Grandpa Smedry obviously wanted me to lead the group into the Library. But what if I gave the order to go down below, and something went wrong? What if someone got hurt or got captured? Wouldn’t that be my fault?
But, what if my father and Grandpa Smedry really needed help?
That’s the problem with being a leader. It’s all about choices – and choices are never very much fun. If someone gives you a candy bar, you’re excited. But, if someone offers you two different candy bars and tells you that you can have only one, what then? Whichever one you take, you’ll feel that you missed out on the other one.
And I like candy bars. What about when you have to choose between two terrible things? Did I wait, or lead my group down into danger? That was like having to choose to either eat a tarantula or a bunch of tacks. Neither option is very appealing – both make you sick to your stomach, and both are tough to choke down without catsup.
Personally, I like it much better when someone else does the decision making. That way you have legitimate grounds to whine and complain. I tend to find both whining and complaining quite interesting and amusing, though sometimes – unfortunately – it’s hard to choose which one of the two I want to do.
Sigh. Life can be so tough sometimes.
“I don’t want to make that decision,” I complained. “Why are you all looking at me?”
“You’re the lead Oculator, Lord Smedry,” Draulin said.
“Yeah, but I’ve only known about Oculators for three months!”
“Ah, but you’re a Smedry,” Kaz said.
“Yes, but…” I trailed off. Something was wrong. The others looked at me, but I ignored them, focusing on what I was feeling.
“What’s he doing?” Australia whispered. By now, she’d gone back to looking just like her old self, though her hair was a bit messy from sleep.
“I don’t know,” Kaz whispered back.
“Do you think that last comment was him swearing, do you?” She whispered “Hushlanders like to talk about our posteriors…”
He was coming.
I could feel it. Oculators can sense when other Oculators are using Lenses nearby. It’s something built in to us, just like our ability to activate Lenses.
The sense of wrongness I felt, it was like that of someone activating a Lens. But, it was twisted and dark. Frightening.
It meant someone was activating a Lens nearby that had been created in a terrible way. The hunter had found us. I spun, searching out the source of the feeling, causing the others to jump.
There he was. Standing atop a hill a short distance away, one arm too long for his body, staring down at us with his twisted face. All was silent for a moment.
Then he began to run.
Draulin cursed, whipping out her sword.
“No!” I said, running toward the hut. “We’re going in!”
Draulin didn’t question. She’d just nodded, waiting for the others to go first. We dashed across the ground, Kaz pulling out a pair of Warrior’s Lenses and slipping them on. His speed immediately increased, and he was able to keep up with us despite his short legs.
I reached the hut, waving Kaz and Australia inside. Bastille had taken a detour and was in the process of grabbing one of the packs.
“Bastille!” I yelled. “There isn’t time!”
Draulin was backing toward us; she glanced at Bastille, then at the Scrivener’s Bone. He had crossed half the distance to us, and I saw something flash in his hand. A line of whitish blue frost shot from it toward me.
I yelped, ducking into the hut. The structure shook as the burst of cold hit it, and one wall started to freeze.
Bastille skidded in a second later. “Alcatraz,” she said, puffing. “I don’t like this.”
“What?” I asked. “Leaving your mom out there?”
“No, she can care for herself. I mean going down into the Library in a rush, without planning.”
Something hit the frozen wall, and it shattered. Bastille cursed and I cried out, falling backward.
Through the opening I could see the hunter dashing toward me. After freezing the wall, He’d thrown a rock to break it.
Draulin burst in through the half-broken door. “Down!” she said, waving her sword toward the stairs, then bringing it back up to block a ray from the Frostbringer’s Lens.
I glanced at Bastille.
“I’ve heard terrible things about this place, Alcatraz,” she said.
“No time for that now,” I decided, scrambling to my feet, heart thumping. I gritted my teeth, then charged down the steps toward the darkness, Bastille and Draulin following close behind.
All went black. It was like I had passed through a gateway beyond which light could not penetrate. I felt a sudden dizziness, and I fell to my knees.
“Bastille?” I called into the darkness.
No response.
“Kaz! Australia! Draulin!”
My voice didn’t even echo back to me.
I’ll take one chocolate bar and a handful of tacks, please. Anyone got any catsup?
CHAPTER 9
I would like to try an experiment. Get out some paper and write a 0 on it. Then I want you to go down a line and put a 0 there. You see, the 0 is a magic number, as it – well – 0. You can’t get better than that! Now, on the next one, 0 isn’t enough. 7 is the number to put here. Why isn’t the 0 good enough here? 0 is not magical now. Once great, the 0 had been reduced to being nonsense. Now, take your paper and throw it away, then turn this book sideways.
Look closely at the paragraph above this one. (Or, uh, I guess since you turned the book sideways it’s the paragraph beside this one.) Regardless, you might be able to see a face in the numbers in the paragraph – 0s form the eyes, the 7 is a nose, and a line of 0s form the mouth. It’s smiling at you because you’re holding your book sideways, and – as everyone knows – that’s not the way to read books. In fact, how are you reading this paragraph, anyway? Turn the book around. You look silly.
There. That's better. Anyway, I believe I talked in my last book about how first impressions are often wrong. You may have had the impression that I was done talking about first impressions. You were wrong. Imagine that.
There's so much more to be learned here. It's not just people's first impressions that are often wrong. Many of the ideas we have thought and believed for a long time are, in fact, dead wrong. For instance, I believed for years that Librarians were my friends. Some people believe that asparagus tastes good. Others don't buy this book because they think it won't be interesting.
Wrong, wrong, and so wrong. In my experience, I've found it best not to judge what I think I'm seeing until I've had enough time to study and learn. Something that appears to make no sense may, actually, be brilliant. (Like my art in paragraph one.)
Remember that. It might be important somewhere else in this book.
I forced myself to my feet in the complete darkness. I looked about, but of course that did no good. I called out again. No response.
I shivered in the darkness. Now, it wasn't just dark down there. It was dark. Dark like I'd been swallowed by a whale, then that whale had been eaten by a bigger whale, then that
bigger whale had gotten lost in a deep cave, which had then been thrown into a black hole.
It was so dark I began to fear that I'd been struck blind. I was therefore overjoyed when I caught a glimmer of light. I turned toward it, relieved.
"Thank the first sands," I exclaimed. “It’s – “
I choked off. The light was coming from the flames burning in the sockets of a bloodred skull.
I cried out, stumbling away, and my back hit a rough, dusty wall. I moved along it, scrambling in the darkness, but ran forehead first into another wall at the corner. Trapped, I spun around, watching the skull grow closer. The fires in its eyes soon illuminated the creature's robe-like
cloak and thin skeleton arms. The whole body – skull, cloak, even the flames – seemed faintly translucent.
I had met my first Curator of Alexandria. I fumbled, reaching into my jacket, remembering for the first time that I was carrying Lenses. Unfortunately, in the darkness,
I couldn't tell which pocket was which, and I was too nervous to count properly.
I pulled out a random pair of spectacles, hoping I'd grabbed the Windstormer's Lenses. I shoved them on.
The Curator glowed with a whitish light. Great, I thought. I know how old it is. Maybe I can bake it a birthday cake.
The Curator said something to me, but it was in a strange, raspy language that I didn't understand.
"Uh . . . I missed that . . .," I said, fumbling for a different pair of Lenses. "Could you repeat yourself . . . ?"