Traveler Read online

  Now in the blackness, he could almost hear Brian saying, “Where have you gone, Barracuda? I had to find my way back to Hong Kong on my own.”

  Blinking against the drugs, Shinobu wanted to answer, “I don’t know exactly where I am, Sea Bass.”

  But then he did know. In the blackness, he could see the outline of her face in the faint glow of the athame she held in her hand. This athame, the athame of the Dreads, glowed more brightly than the others he’d seen, and its vibration was much stronger, as though it held and directed more energy than any other.

  Say the chant! he told himself. Before it’s too late.

  “Knowledge of self,” he managed.

  “Knowledge of self,” Quin was whispering next to him, “knowledge of home, a clear picture of where I came from, where I will go, and the speed of things between will see me safely back. Knowledge of self…”

  Shinobu hoped those words would focus Quin’s mind on the time stream they’d left behind, so she wouldn’t lose herself There, where time did not really exist, so she might pull them both through—because Shinobu was going to be of no use at all this time.

  The air around him sounded wrong, as if he were, at once, in a tiny soundproof room and in an enormous cavern. Quin let go of him, and he’d already lost himself enough to worry that she was gone forever. Then he saw her fingers moving along the athame’s dials. She was right next to him.

  “Where will we go?” he asked. His voice was thin and stretched out. How long had they been here? Moments? Hours?

  “Hong Kong,” she whispered. “I hope I’m choosing Hong Kong.”

  I should breathe, he thought. Am I breathing? He inhaled raggedly. He could hear the faint clinks of the athame’s dials being moved into place, but the sharp little noises arrived at his ears as distant, slow thuds. Time was slowing down. There was another vibration, low and rumbling.

  Her hand was beneath his arm. Quin, you’re touching me, he thought. That was enough, at the moment, to keep any fear at bay. Her closeness was an anchor in the darkness, drawing him back to himself. Time speeded up as she carved another anomaly. The blackness drew apart, snakes of light and dark coiling into each other, forming the border of a new circular doorway, its energy flowing outward, from the darkness around them into the world beyond.

  There were trees and a morning sky out there. All at once, he could see Quin clearly, her dark hair and eyes, her lovely, fair face, and the lips that had kissed him just before he fell asleep.

  “Can you walk?” she asked, pulling him across the seething border.

  “Of course,” Shinobu answered, and he promptly fell down.

  They had swept some of the debris out of the castle courtyard, and now John stood at one end of the space, facing the Young Dread. She was in the middle of the yard, looking back at him, her body completely still.

  It was well past midnight. The moon was low in a partially clouded sky, casting long, dark shadows across the ground and outlining the crumbling remains of the castle.

  And it was cold. The temperature was not low enough for ice, but nearly so.

  The Young Dread, or Maud, as she now allowed him to call her, had ordered John to strip to his undergarments and remove his shoes. Whenever John began to feel slightly comfortable with his training regimen, Maud found a way to make him uncomfortable again. His breath came out in billowing clouds as he waited for her first command. Yet John didn’t shiver. In the past weeks, he’d learned to concentrate well enough that he could stop his body from shaking with the cold—for a while at least.

  Against all expectation, the Young Dread had sought him out after the fight on Traveler, and had told him she would complete his Seeker training. When Briac had refused to train him further, John had tried to force Quin to help, but he’d succeeded only in hurting her and others. He was prepared to hurt, or even to kill, if it was absolutely necessary. You mustn’t be scared to act, his mother had told him, all those years ago, as she was dying in front of him. Be willing to kill. And yet it was better, of course, if he didn’t have to go after Quin. The Young Dread had offered him an alternative.

  She’d asked, in return, for his full dedication to the training. He intended to give it and to prove himself an excellent student. He was eighteen, older than Seeker apprentices usually were. This was his chance, at last, to learn to use an athame and to become the man his mother and grandmother had expected him to be.

  The wound beneath his left shoulder, where Briac had shot him on board Traveler, throbbed painfully, but it was halfway healed already, thanks to the finest medical treatment his grandfather’s fortune could buy. This was good, because Maud didn’t accept pain as an excuse for poor performance.

  The Young Dread herself was dressed similarly to John, only a loose undershirt and simple short trousers on her slender, wiry frame. Whatever her demands upon John, she was no less demanding of herself. He could see her lean muscles outlined with shadow. She, of course, was not shivering either. She held her body in such tight control, John imagined she would freeze to death before she allowed herself to tremble. He’d come to understand that she preferred discomfort; it kept her sharp.

  Maud’s hair was tied up behind her head, and the youthful planes of her face looked both terrible and splendid in the moonlight, a statue of a vengeful goddess on the threshold of springing to life.

  At her feet was a pile of objects—rocks, rusted metal horseshoes, clods of dirt, broken pieces from old weapons. They had collected these items for days, scouring the estate when his training had begun. And now the Young Dread was using them against him, over and over and over again.

  Sitting on the ground near the heap of objects was John’s disruptor. Maud had left it in sunlight all day to gather energy. Now its iridescent metal shimmered in the glow of the moon, making it look almost pretty, when in truth it was a weapon designed specifically to instill horror. It resembled a small, wide cannon with a barrel ten inches across that was covered with hundreds of tiny openings. When it was strapped across the user’s chest and fired, swarms of electrical sparks rushed from those holes to encircle the head of its victim. And if those sparks caught you, if you failed to get out of their way, they twisted your thoughts and destroyed your mind. You became disrupted.

  John knew the Young Dread would not fire the disruptor at him tonight. She’d told him that would come only later in his training. Still, she’d brought it here to the castle ward and set it near her where he could see it easily. Terror of the disruptor had been his downfall when training under Briac Kincaid, and so Maud wanted him to become used to its presence. He tried not to look, but his heart beat more quickly whenever his eyes happened upon it. He thought of his mother’s words: Do what has to be done. Somehow he would overcome this fear.

  “Begin!” the Young Dread called.

  John kicked his muscles into motion and started running around the perimeter of the courtyard, which was littered with stones, dead branches, and chunks of the ruined castle. He stared ahead, taking in everything before him and everything in his peripheral vision without moving his eyes. Maud had taught him the focus of the steady stare, which he used now. He could see her at the corner of his right eye, her body turning to follow his progress, turning so slowly and smoothly that her feet did not appear to be shifting at all.

  “Now!” she said, giving him a warning.

  And then she began to throw things. Her arms moved—so fast that he saw only a blur—and a dark object was hurtling toward him.

  John pivoted to his left, using his speed to turn full circle, as a rock whistled by his head and crashed into a boulder at the edge of the yard.

  “Now!” she said, another warning, and a new black shape flashed toward him.

  John leapt atop a piece of rubble and pushed off, carrying himself high into the air. Whatever she’d thrown—a horseshoe maybe?—winged his calf. He landed hard, feeling the shock of the object’s impact only when his feet touched the ground. Pain seared up his leg. But still he ra
n.

  Pain is nothing, he told himself, keeping his eyes ahead and his vision still. Pain is nothing. My mother went through much worse. My grandmother showed me much worse…

  Maud wouldn’t call out to him again; the following object would come without warning. He was turning the corner at the south end of the yard when he saw the next flash of motion. He threw himself down and rolled, as a large rock soared through the air. Before he was back on his feet, another came. He leapt up, barely pulling his legs out of the way in time. And then another object, and another.

  “Very good!” Maud called. “Much improved!”

  John knew better than to slow down or look at her. Already a new barrage was coming his way.

  “If you’d done this well in your training with Briac,” she pointed out, “you wouldn’t have had to betray Quin.”

  The words were said as she said everything—evenly, steadily—and yet they stung as though she’d slapped him. She was trying to distract him, and it was working. I didn’t want to betray her. I loved her. But she wouldn’t help me.

  An object caught him in the ribs. It was only a small stone, but Maud had thrown it so hard, it felt for a moment as though he’d been shot. He stumbled to the side but somehow managed to keep moving forward.

  “Focus!” called the Young Dread. “Do not look at me.”

  She was throwing again, using both arms. In his peripheral vision, he thought he saw her bend toward the disruptor as though she would pick it up and aim it at him.

  She won’t do that.

  “Your mother wanted to raise a traitor,” she said as he ducked one of her missiles. “She wanted you to be ruthless.”

  “I’m not a traitor—” John yelled, taking the bait and turning toward her.

  A series of rocks hit him in the chest, immediately knocking him from his feet. He landed hard on the gravelly surface. I’m not a traitor, he thought angrily. And she only wanted what was best for me. He pulled himself up to standing and rubbed his chest, which felt like it had been pounded by a hammer.

  The Young Dread was staring at him from the center of the courtyard.

  “You let me distract you,” she said quietly as she approached him. “My words threw you off. And thoughts of the disruptor?”

  John nodded, recovering his composure with difficulty. Why had he reacted to her taunting? “I’m sorry. Let me try again.”

  “It’s enough for tonight. Are you hurt?”

  He dropped his hand from his bruised chest. “Pain means little,” he told her, echoing the words she always used with him.

  She nodded agreement. “It is only pain.”

  Even so, she examined him carefully from head to foot. She took a moment to inspect the healing bullet wound beneath his shoulder, which was visible through the loose neck hole of his undershirt. Up close, he could see the girlishness in her body and features, attributes that had become obvious as they began training in minimal clothing. Yet as Maud looked him over, he didn’t feel as though a girl were studying him, but rather as if he were being x-rayed by a hospital scanner. He looked away.

  “You’re a good fighter, John,” she told him. “When you don’t get distracted.”

  “That’s what everyone says—Briac, Alistair, Quin,” he muttered, his voice full of the frustration that had hounded him for years during his training on the estate. He was breathing hard from his run, and he worked to calm his lungs. He had been doing so well.

  “It’s easy to throw you off. A few words, a gesture toward the disruptor, and you’re lost.”

  She was still scrutinizing him, prodding gently at the places where his ribs had been bruised by rocks. It was unnerving when she stood so close.

  Abruptly she finished and stepped back. “Pick up the disruptor,” she ordered.

  John hid his unwillingness. He walked to the center of the courtyard and lifted the weapon from the ground. It was heavy, nearly solid metal, with a thick leather harness that added to its weight.

  “Put it on,” the Young Dread said. She was still near the edge of the yard and was watching him, her face impassive but her voice commanding.

  He slipped the harness over his shoulders, settled the disruptor to his body. Its base covered nearly his whole chest. The holes across the barrel were irregularly spaced and of different sizes, as though they’d been gouged out randomly and viciously by someone disturbed.

  When the sparks surround your head, they form a disruptor field. The field distorts your thoughts. You form an idea, but the disruptor field changes it, sends it back to you altered. It had been years since he’d heard those words from Shinobu’s father, Alistair MacBain, when Alistair had first explained the disruptor to the apprentices on the estate, but John recalled the words perfectly: Your mind will tie itself into a knot, fold up, collapse. You will want to kill yourself, but how can you? Even that thought spins out of your control.

  John had last worn the disruptor during the fight on Traveler, when he’d fired it at Briac Kincaid. He’d experienced a rush of cruel delight in that moment, but now when he recalled firing the weapon, the memory came with a surge of dread. Before Briac, there had been others John had seen disrupted—Alistair MacBain, and John’s own man Fletcher. Those had been accidents, but that didn’t take away from the guilt. And before them he’d seen his own mother disrupted, then kept alive for years as a tortured half corpse by Briac. John’s experience with the weapon made him more terrified of it, not less; with the weight of the disruptor on his chest, John knew he was cradling another’s sanity in his hands.

  “Bring it to life,” Maud ordered.

  “Why?” he asked, coming back to himself.

  She kept her unwavering gaze pinned on him and said nothing else; she’d given him a command and expected him to obey.

  He slid his hand down the side of the weapon. From within the disruptor came a high-pitched whine, growing in volume. A crackle of static sprang up all around the weapon, and John watched a red fork of electricity climb up his hand, then disappear.

  The Young Dread approached him, but stopped halfway across the ward.

  “Fire it at me,” she said.

  “Why?” Nausea was creeping into his stomach. He didn’t want to shoot at her.

  “Fire it at me.”

  Her face looked both young and ancient, and it wore an expression of finality: he would do what she asked, or he would not be her student.

  John slid his hand farther down the weapon, and the whine spun higher and became more intense. He aimed at her and fired.

  A thousand multicolored sparks launched from the disruptor. They came out buzzing angrily and tore across the distance toward the Young Dread. If they reached her, they would swarm her head, and she would never be free of them.

  “Move!” he yelled to Maud, panic rising in his throat.

  But she’d already whirled to the side, easily removing herself from the path of the sparks before they hit her. They continued on and collided with a large chunk of rock at the edge of the yard. Finding no human target, they disappeared against the stone in bursts of rainbow-colored light.

  The Young Dread closed the distance between them, her demeanor as calm as it ever was. “The disruptor scares you, even when you control it.”

  “Yes,” he whispered, ashamed of how true her words were.

  “It was meant to do so,” she told him. “But it is a weapon like any other. With practice, it can be faced. Anything can be faced.”

  He nodded, wanting to believe this.

  “If we had a focal,” she told him thoughtfully, “it would take the terror and distractions away.”

  “What’s a—” he began, but Maud lifted a hand, cutting him off.

  She was listening to something, though John could hear nothing but the faint, cold breeze through the trees surrounding the castle ruins.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Something is happening,” she said. “Come.”

  Shinobu collapsed against Quin the moment they
stepped through the anomaly back into the ordinary world. She grabbed hold of his arms to keep him from falling.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think so, I think so,” he mumbled as he tried to stand.

  Quin had set the athame’s symbols as closely as she could to the Hong Kong coordinates she’d memorized years ago, but the difference in this particular athame’s dials meant they’d arrived at another location. It was still Hong Kong, though. From the smells in the air and the quality of the light, she knew they were on Hong Kong Island, somewhere near Victoria Peak. The fox athame—the athame with which Quin had trained—had always brought her closer to the Peak itself. Now she and Shinobu stood on spongy soil among thick trees, somewhere farther down the mountain slope.

  Over her shoulder, she watched the anomaly lose its shape, the threads of black and white separating from the humming border of the circle and growing across the opening, mending the hole she’d torn in the world. In a moment it had collapsed and disappeared.

  “Stop moving, please,” Shinobu whispered into her shoulder. “You’re making the ground shake.”

  “I’m standing still, I promise.”

  “Are you sure?” His eyes were fluttering shut.

  “I’m sure. Hold on to me.”

  His painkiller implants were clearly working in overdrive. She didn’t think they would be strong enough to overdose him, but she had to get him to a doctor quickly. His sword wound was barely healed, and he’d twisted his torso like a madman during the fight in the hospital. The bigger question—who were the boys who’d attacked them?—would have to wait until she’d assured his safety.

  She felt a trickle at her wrist and saw that she was bleeding onto him from the cut along her right forearm, where the younger attacker had gotten her with his bizarre, chopped-off whipsword. She twisted around so Shinobu was propped against her back and both of her hands were free. Then she ripped a strip of fabric from her shirt and tied up her arm.