Everybody wins!
‘O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!’ Kaz cried as the alarm went off.
‘Why,’ Aydee said. ‘What should be thy fear?’
‘More matter,’ Bastille said, pointing at the glass dome of the city, then pulling out her sword. ‘With less art.’
‘Bid the players make haste!’ I cried, dashing away from the fallen gun. We took off at a run toward Tuki Tuki.
All around us, the camp was coming alert. Fortunately, they didn’t know what the disturbance was or what had caused it. Many of the Librarians seemed to assume that the shot had come from the besieged city, and they were forming up battle lines facing the dome. Others were running toward the place where the shot I’d fired had entered the jungle.
‘If there be any good thing to be done . . .’ Bastille said, looking about, worried.
The scrambling soldiers gave me an idea. Up ahead, I saw a gun rack where a bunch of rifles leaned, waiting to be picked up by Librarians for battle. I waved to the others, racing toward the rack. I ran past it, fingers brushing the weapons and engaging my Talent. They all fired, shooting glowing shots up into the air, arcing over the camp and furthering the chaos.
‘What a piece of work is a man!’ Kaz called, giving me a thumbs-up.
Librarian soldiers ran this way and that, confused. Amid them were men and women dressed in all black – stark black uniforms for the men, with black shirts and ties, and black skirts with black blouses for the women. Some of these noticed my group running through camp and began to cry out, pointing at us.
Aydee yelped suddenly, pointing ahead of us. ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!’
Indeed, a group of soldiers had noticed us and – spurred by the Librarians in black – was sprinting for us.
There wasn’t much time to think. Bastille charged them at the head, of course. She wouldn’t be able to take them all, though. There were too many.
Kaz raised his sling, whipping a rock at a Librarian. The man dropped like Polonius in Act III, Scene iv, but there were still a good ten Librarians to fight. Kaz kept slinging rocks as Bastille surged into the middle of them, sword out and raised before her. Aydee hid behind some barrels at a command from Kaz.
And me. What could I do? I stood there in the chaotic night, trying to decide. I was the leader of this expedition. I needed to help somehow!
A Librarian soldier came rushing at me, crying, ‘Let me be cruel, not unnatural!’ He carried a sword; obviously, these men were ready to deal with Smedrys, just in case. A gun would have been useless against my Talent.
I stepped back nervously. What could I do? Break the ground beneath him? That might as easily toss me into the hole, as well as the others. I couldn’t hurt myself in order to . . .
Something occurred to me.
Without bothering to think if it were a good idea, I focused on the men, activating my Lenses. Then, I punched myself in the head.
Now, under normal circumstances, this kind of activity should be frowned upon. In fact, punching yourself in the head is most definitely what we call stoopiderific (defined as ‘the level of stoopidity required to go slip-’n’-sliding at the Grand Canyon’). However, in this case, it was slightly less stoopiderific.
The Bestower’s Lenses transferred the punch from me to the Librarian. He was suddenly knocked sideways, looking more shocked than hurt.
He stumbled to his feet. ‘O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.’
‘There is nothing either good or bad,’ I noted, smiling. ‘But thinking makes it so.’ I punched myself in the stomach as hard as I could.
The Librarian grunted, stumbling again. I went at it over and over, until he was groaning and in no shape to get back up. I looked up, scanning the chaotic grounds of the fight. People were running everywhere. Kaz was standing atop the barrels that Aydee was hiding behind, and she’d pulled out a few of the teddy bear grenades. I just managed to dodge to the side as she pulled the tag on a blue one and tossed it at some nearby Librarians, causing them to reverse explode toward each other in a lump.
I picked another Librarian running by and began to pound on him by pounding on myself. However, I wasn’t avoiding damage entirely. In fact, when I stopped focusing on Librarians I’d pummeled, the pains started to come back to me. I needed a different method.
‘Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!’ a Librarian cried, dashing toward me.
I spun, focusing on him, and did the first thing I could think of. I pretended that I was crazy. I’m insane, I’m insane, I’m insane! I thought.
The man hesitated, lowering his sword. He cocked his head, then wandered away. ‘Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?’ he asked, glancing at the sky.
Bastille was in the center of a furious battle. She tried not to hurt people too much, but there was no helping it here. She’d had to stab several of the Librarians, and they lay on the ground holding leg wounds or arm wounds. One man, shockingly, had been stabbed in the mouth. He clutched something in his hand, and as I ran past him, he mumbled, ‘But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue . . .’
‘O, woe is me,’ I said, squeezing my eyes shut, ‘to have seen what I have seen, see what I see!’