I should stop and note here that in the years since that day, I've grown rather fond of Aunt Pattywagon. This statement has nothing at all to do with the fact that she threatened to toss me out a window if I didn't include it.
The mountainous woman pulled me from the room and down the hallway. Soon we were standing in the sunlight on the front steps outside as Patty sent one of the serving men to fetch transportation.
"You know.” I said, "if you tell me where Folsom is, I could just go find him on my own. No need to –“
"He's out and about on very important business," Patty said. “I'll have to lead you. I can't tell you. You see, as a Librarian expert, he's been put in charge of a recent defection."
"Defection?"
"Yes,” she said. "You know, a foreign agent who decides to join the other side? A Librarian fled her homeland and joined the Free Kingdoms. My son is in charge of helping her grow accustomed to life here. Ah, here's our ride!"
I turned, half expecting another dragon, but apparently we two didn't warrant a full-size dragon this time. Instead, a coachman rode up with an open-topped carriage pulled by rather mundane horses.
"Horses?" I said.
"Of course," Patty said, climbing into the carriage. "What were you expecting? A . . . what is it you call them? A pottlemobile?"
"Automobile," I said, joining her. "No, I wasn't expecting one of those. Horses just seem so . . . rustic."
"Rustic?" she said as the coachman urged his beasts into motion. "Why, they're far more advanced than those bottlemobiles you Hushlanders use!"
It's a common belief in the Free Kingdoms that everything they have is more advanced than what we backward Hushlanders use. For instance, they like to say that swords are more advanced than guns. This may sound ridiculous until you realize their swords are magical and are, indeed, more advanced than guns – the kinds of early guns the Free Kingdomers had before they switched to silimatic technology.
Horses, though . . . I've never bought that one.
"Okay, look," I said. "Horses are not more advanced than cars."
"Sure they are," Patty said.
"Why?"
"Simple. Poop."
I blinked. "Poop?"
"Yup. What do those slobomobiles make? Foul-smelling gas. What do horses make?"
"Poop?"
"Poop," she said. "Fertilizer. You get to go somewhere, and you get a useful by-product."
I sat back, feeling a little bit disturbed. Not because of what Patty said – I was used to Free Kingdomer rationalizations. No, I was disturbed because I'd somehow managed to talk about both excrement and flatulence in the course of two chapters.
If I could somehow work in barfing, then I'd have a complete potty humor trifecta.
Riding in the carriage allowed me a good look at the city's people, buildings, and shops. Oddly, I was just surprised by how . . . well, normal everyone seemed. Yes, there were castles. Yes, the people wore tunics and robes instead of slacks and blouses. But the expressions on their faces – the laughter, the frustration, even the boredom – were just like those back home.
Actually, riding down that busy road – with the castle peaks rising like jagged mountains into the sky – felt an awful lot like riding in a taxi through New York City. People are people. Wherever they come from or whatever they look like, they're the same. As the philosopher Garnglegoot the Confused once said: "I'll have a banana and crayon sandwich, please." (Garnglegoot always did have trouble staying on topic.)
"So where do all of these people live?" I asked, then cringed, expecting Bastille to shoot back something like "In their homes, stupid." It took me a second to remember that Bastille wasn't there to make fun of me. That made me sad, though I should have been happy to avoid the mockery.
"Oh, most of them are from Nalhalla City here," Patty said. "Though a fair number of them probably traveled in today via Transporter's Glass."
"Transporter's Glass? "
Aunt Patty nodded her blond-haired head. "It's some very interesting technology, just developed by the Kuanalu Institute over in Halaiki using sands your father discovered a number of years ago. It lets people cross great distances in an instant, using a feasibly economic expenditure of brightsand. I've read some very exciting research on the subject."
I blinked. I believe I've mentioned how unreasonably scholarly the Smedry clan is. A remarkable number of them are professors, researchers, or scientists. We’re like an unholy mix of the Brady Bunch and the UCLA honors department.
"You're a professor, aren't you?” I accused.
"Why, yes, dear!" Aunt patty said.
"Silimatics?"
"That's right; how'd you guess?”
"Just lucky," I said. "Have you ever heard of a theory that says Oculators can power technological types of glass in addition to their Lenses?”
She harrumphed. "Been speaking with your father, I see."
"My father?"
"I'm well aware of that paper he wrote," Aunt Patty continued, "but I don't buy it. Claiming that Oculators were somehow brightsand in human form. Doesn't that seem silly to you? How can sand be human in form?”
“I –“
"I'll admit that there are some discrepancies,” she continued, ignoring my attempt to interject. "However, your father is jumping to conclusions. This will require far more research than he's put into it! Research by people who are more practiced at true silimatics than that scoundrel. Oh, looks like you're getting a zit on your nose, by the way. Too bad that man in the carriage next to us just took a picture of you."
I jumped, glancing to the side where another carriage had pulled up. The man there was holding up squares of glass about a foot on each side, pointing them toward us, then tapping them. I was still new to all this, but I was pretty sure he was doing something very similar to taking pictures with a camera. When he noticed my attention, he lowered his panes of glass, tipped his cap toward me, and his carriage pulled away.
"What was that all about?" I asked.
"Well, hon, you are the heir of the Smedry line – not to mention an Oculator raised inside the Hushlands. That kind of thing interests people."
"People know about me?" I asked, surprised. I knew I'd been born in Nalhalla, but I'd just assumed that the people in the Free Kingdoms had forgotten.
"Of course they do! You're a celebrity, Alcatraz – the Smedry who disappeared mysteriously as a child! There have been hundreds of books written on you. When it came out a few years back that you were being raised in the Hushlands, that only made things more interesting. You think all those people over there are staring because of me?"
I'd never been in Nalhalla before (duh) so I hadn't thought it strange that there were people standing along the streets, watching the road. Now, however I noticed how many of them were pointing toward our carriage.
"Shattering Glass," I whispered. "I'm Elvis."
You Free Kingdomers may not know that name. Elvis was a powerful monarch from Hushlander past, known for his impassioned speeches to inmates, for his odd footwear, and for looking less like himself than the people who dress like him. He vanished mysteriously as the result of a Librarian cover-up.
"I don't know who that is, hon," Aunt Patty said. "But whoever he is, he's probably a lot less well known than you are."
I sat back, stunned. Grandpa Smedry and the others had tried to explain how important our family was, but I'd never really understood. We had a castle as large as the king's palace. We controlled incredible wealth. We had magical powers that others envied. There had been volumes and volumes of books written about us.
That was the moment, riding in that carriage, when it all finally hit me. I understood. I'm famous, I thought, a smile growing on my face.
This was a very important point in my life. It's where I started to realize just how much power I had. I didn't find fame intimidating. I found it exciting. Instead of hiding from the people with their silimatic cameras, I started waving to them. They began to point even mor
e excitedly, and the attention made me feel good. Warm, like I'd suddenly been bathed in sunlight.
Some say that fame is a fleeting thing. Well, it has clung to me tenaciously, like gum stuck to the sidewalk, blackened from being stepped on a thousand times. I haven't been able to shake it, no matter what.
Some also say fame is shallow. That's easy to say when you haven't spent your childhood being passed from family to family, scorned and discarded because of a curse that made you break whatever you touched.
Fame is like a cheeseburger. It might not be the best or most healthy thing to have, but it will still fill you up. You don't really care how healthy something is when you've been without for so long. Like a cheeseburger, fame fills a need, and it tastes so good going down.