Brandon Sanderson - Alcatraz #2: Alcatraz Versus the Scriveners Bones

For Lauren, who somehow manages to be both the baby of the family and the most responsible one of us all

AUTHORS FOREWORD

I AM A LIAR.

I REALIZE THAT YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE THIS. IN FACT, I HOPE THAT YOU DONT. NOT ONLY WOULD THAT MAKE THE STATEMENT PARTICULARLY IRONIC, BUT IT MEANS YOU HAVE VERY FAR TO FALL.

YOU SEE, I KNOW THAT YOU FREE KINGDOMERS HAVE HEARD STORIES ABOUT ME. PERHAPS YOUVE SEEN A DOCUMENTARY OR TWO ABOUT MY LIFE THROUGH A SILIMATIC SCREEN. I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY YOU MIGHT NOT BELIEVE THAT IM A LIAR. YOU PROBABLY THINK THAT IM JUST BEING HUMBLE.

YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME. YOUVE LISTENED TO THE STORYTELLERS. YOUVE TALKED WITH YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT MY EXPLOITS. YOUVE READ HISTORY BOOKS AND HEARD THE CRIERS TELL OF MY HEROIC DEEDS. THE TROUBLE IS, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO ARE BIGGER LIARS THAN MYSELF ARE THE PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO TALK ABOUT ME.

YOU DONT KNOW ME. YOU DONT UNDERSTAND ME. AND YOU CERTAINLY SHOULDNT BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ ABOUT ME. EXCEPT OF COURSE WHAT YOU READ IN THIS BOOK, FOR IT WILL CONTAIN THE TRUTH.

NOW, LET ME SPEAK TO THE HUSHLANDERS. THAT MEANS THOSE OF YOU WHO LIVE IN PLACES LIKE CANADA, EUROPE, OR THE AMERICAS. DO NOT BE FOOLED BECAUSE THIS BOOK LOOKS LIKE A WORK OF FANTASY! LIKE THE PREVIOUS VOLUME, WE ARE PUBLISHING THIS BOOK AS FICTION IN THE HUSHLANDS TO HIDE IT FROM THE LIBRARIANS.

THIS IS NOT FICTION. IN THE FREE KINGDOMS LANDS LIKE MOKIA AND NALHALLA IT WILL BE PUBLISHED OPENLY AS AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. FOR THAT IS WHAT IT IS. MY OWN STORY TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME TO PROVE WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.

FOR ONCE, I INTENT TO CUT THROUGH THE FALSEHOODS. FOR ONCE, I INTEND TO SEE THE TRUTH IN PRINT. MY NAME IS ALCATRAZ SMEDRY, AND I WELCOME YOU TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF MY LIFE STORY.

MAY YOU FIND IT ENLIGHTENING.

CHAPTER 1

So, there I was, slumped in my chair, waiting in a drab airport terminal, munching absently on a bag of stale potato chips.

Not the beginning you expected, is it? You likely thought that I would start this book with something exciting. A scene involving evil Librarians, perhaps something with altars, Alivened, or at least some machine guns.

Im sorry to disappoint you. It wont be the first time I do that. However, its for your own good. You see, I have decided to reform. My last book was terribly unfair I started it with an intense, threatening scene of action. Then I cut away from it and left the reader hanging, wondering, and frustrated.

I promise to no longer be deceptive like that in my writing. I wont use cliff-hangers or other tricks to keep you reading. I will be calm, respectful, and completely straightforward.

Oh, by the way. Did I mention that while waiting in that airport I was probably in the most danger Id ever been in my entire life?

I ate another stale potato chip.

If youd passed by me sitting there, you would have thought that I looked like an average American boy. I was thirteen years old, and I had dark brown hair. I wore loose jeans, a green jacket, and white sneakers. Id started to grow a bit taller during the last few months, but I was well within the average for my age.

In fact, the only abnormal thing about me were the blue glasses I was wearing. Not truly sunglasses, they looked like an old mans reading glasses, only with a baby-blue tint.

(I still consider this aspect of my life to be terribly unfair. For some reason, the more powerful a pair of Oculator Lenses is, the less cool they tend to look. Im developing a theory about it the Law of Disproportional Lameness.)

I munched on another chip. Come on, I thought. Where are you?

My grandfather, as usual, was late. Now, he couldnt completely be blamed for it. Leavenworth Smedry, after all, is a Smedry. (The last names a dead giveaway.) Like all Smedries, he has a magic Talent. His is the ability to magically arrive late to appointments.

While most people would have considered this to be a large inconvenience, its the Smedry way to use our Talents for our benefit. Grandpa Smedry, for instance, tends to arrive late to things like bullet wounds and disasters. His Talent had saved his life on numerous occasions.

Unfortunately, he also tends to be late the rest of the time too. I think he uses his Talent as an excuse even when it isnt to blame; Ive tried to challenge him on this several times, but always failed. Hed just arrive late to the scolding, and so the sound would never reach him. (Besides, in Grandpa Smedrys opinion, a scolding is a disaster.)

I hunched down a little bit more in the chair, trying to look inconspicuous. The problem was, anyone who knew what to look for could see I was wearing Oculatory Lenses. In this case, my baby-blue spectacles were Couriers Lenses, a common type of Lens that lets two Oculators communicate over a short distance. My grandfather and I had put them to good use during the last few months, running and hiding from Librarian agents.

Few people in the Hushlands understand the power of Oculatory Lenses. Most of those who walked through the airport were completely unaware of things like Oculators, silimatic technology, and the sect of evil Librarians who secretly ruled the world.

Yes. You read that right. Evil Librarians control the world. They keep everyone in ignorance, teaching them falsehoods in place of history, geography, and politics. Its kind of joke to them. Why else do you think the Librarians named themselves what they did?

Librarians. LIE-brarians.

Sounds obvious now, doesnt it? If you wish to smack yourself in the forehead and curse loudly, you may proceed to do so. I can wait.

I ate another chip. Grandpa Smedry was supposed to have contacted me via the Couriers Lenses more than two hours before. It was getting late, even for him. I looked about, trying to determine if there were any Librarian agents in the airport crowd.

I couldnt spot any, but that didnt mean anything. I knew enough to realize that you cant always tell a Librarian by looking at one. While some dress the part horn-rimmed glasses for the women, bow ties and vests for the men others looked completely normal, blending in with the regular Hushlanders. Dangerous, but unseen. (Kind of like those troublemakers who read fantasy novels.)

I had a tough decision to make. I could continue wearing the Couriers Lenses, which would mark me as an Oculator to Librarian agents. Or, I could take them off, and thereby miss Grandpa Smedrys message when he got close enough to contact me.

If he got close enough to contact me.

A group of people walked over to where I was sitting, draping their luggage across several rows of chairs and chatting about the fog delays. I tensed, wondering if they were Librarian agents. Three months on the run had left me feeling anxious.

But that running was over. I would soon escape the Hushlands and finally get to visit my homeland. Nalhalla, one of the Free Kingdoms. A place that Hushlanders didnt even know existed, though it was a large continent that sat in the Pacific Ocean between North America and Asia.

Id never seen it before, but Id heard stories, and Id seen some Free Kingdom technology. Cars that could drive themselves, hourglasses that could keep time no matter which direction you turned them. I longed to get to Nalhalla though, even more desperately, I wanted to get out of Librarian-controlled lands.

Grandpa Smedry hadnt explained exactly how he planned to get me out, or even why we were meeting at the airport. It seemed unlikely that there would be any flights to the Free Kingdoms. However, no matter what the method, I knew our escape probably wouldnt be easy.

Fortunately, I had a few things on my side. First, I was an Oculator, and I had access to some fairly powerful Lenses. Second, I had my grandfather, who was an expert at avoiding Librarian agents. Third, I knew that the Librarians liked to keep a low profile, even while they secretly ruled most of the world. I probably didnt have to worry about police or airport security the Librarians wouldnt want to involve them, for that would risk revealing the conspiracy to people who were too low ranked.