Traveler

by Arwen Elys Dayton

  “Edward was my grandfather,” Archie said thoughtfully. “Or, no, great-grandfather.”

  “On your mother’s side?”

  “Yes. The Harts are all from my mother’s side. It’s her name. My father changed his when they met, though he was a distant cousin of hers.”

  “What happened to Edward, your great-grandfather?”

  He studied the letter again. “I think he’s the one who died in a traffic accident before I was born. I have no idea what sort of arrangement his parents are talking about.”

  Catherine’s mind was putting pieces together. Seekers had been attacking Seekers, probably for a very long time, and yet this was not a letter written by a willing killer, but rather a reluctant participant…in what?

  She said, “It sounds as though they were forced into doing something they didn’t wish to do. Maybe something violent…and then they disappeared?” Is that what happened to Emile? she wondered.

  “You seem very knowledgeable about my distant ancestors, for a girl I just met.”

  He was taking this lightly, but Catherine was not. “Archie, I’m afraid our families might have certain things in common.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Disappearing relatives?”

  “Maybe,” she said soberly.

  “You sound so serious.” He glanced at her, then back to the helmet. “What is this thing?”

  “It’s called a focal,” she told him, “and as far as I can tell, no one’s seen one for about a hundred years.”

  “What do you mean ‘no one’s seen one’? Were people looking for this thing?”

  “Yes.”

  Archie started to pull the helmet onto his head. She caught his hands quickly.

  “Don’t,” she said. “It’s not…well, it’s not frivolous. We need instructions.”

  “Catherine, will you please explain what the hell you’re talking about?”

  “This helmet, this focal, is a tool for Seekers,” she told him. “But the focals have been missing. Like the ancestor who wrote this note perhaps went missing as well. Lots of things, and lots of people, have gone missing—maybe they’ve been killing each other, or maybe missing some other way.”

  “Am I supposed to know what a Seeker is?” he asked.

  “It’s why our parents want us married, I suspect. My parents must have known yours was a Seeker family that might still have…well, things like this helmet. Actually, I suppose it was my grandmother Maggie who thought this through. She seems to know everything about everyone.”

  This focal, Catherine now understood, was all that remained of a once great Seeker house, the house of the stag. Archie’s mother had been a Seeker, and his father had perhaps known something about it.

  Archie looked like he was running out of patience. “Catherine, are you going to tell me what a Seeker is—and how you know this—or do I have to beat it out of you with the shoes you’ve thrown all over the floor?”

  She drew herself into his lap.

  “I’m a Seeker,” she told him. She held both sides of his face and kissed him lightly. “And you, it seems, were supposed to be one too.”

  The Young Dread stood with John on the thoroughfare of the Transit Bridge in Hong Kong. He glanced at her, nodded to tell her he understood his assignment, and then turned and joined the foot traffic. Maud watched for a few minutes as he disappeared down the roadway, and then she herself turned and walked off the Bridge and into the streets of Kowloon.

  She’d brought him here to see Quin. The Young Dread did not much understand romantic love, but John obviously loved Quin—or at least couldn’t stop thinking of her. And because his wishes and Quin’s wishes were at odds, John lived in a state of deep distraction. He was distracted by many other sources besides Quin—particularly his mother and his grandmother—but Quin was different; she was alive in the world right now, capturing his attention by her very existence.

  He was welcome to his love, but it was not possible to train him further unless he could rule his own thoughts. The Young Dread had brought him to the Transit Bridge to find Quin and discover if he was capable of doing so.

  She moved through the side streets of Kowloon until she found a secluded spot at the end of a foul-smelling alley. There, with John’s athame, she brought herself to the top of a very high building. It was windy on the roof. Not far away, the bulk of the Transit Bridge was visible where it crossed the harbor, and beyond that were even higher buildings climbing up Hong Kong Island toward Victoria Peak.

  The sky was full of towering clouds, but the sun appeared in bursts from time to time, illuminating the ends of her hair and the nap of her old wool sweater, and changing the look of the world. She would not allow herself to worry about John while he was on the Bridge; his decisions were his own—no matter what she might wish for him. She turned her thoughts away, took a seat in the open air, and spread her thick, gray cloak out before her.

  This cloak had become as familiar to her as her own skin, but it was not originally hers. It had belonged to her dear master, the Old Dread. During the fight aboard Traveler, he had settled it onto her shoulders before stepping There and leaving her to be the Young, the Middle, and the Old Dread all by herself.

  The cloak had brushed the ground when she’d first worn it, too long for her. Now it hovered just above the ground when she stood—she’d grown in this month awake. She suspected she was growing more slowly, aging more slowly, than a typical fifteen-year-old, but she was growing and aging nonetheless.

  The cloak held a number of items that belonged to the Old Dread. As she had done once or twice in secret over the past weeks, she pulled objects from the cloak’s many pockets and set them before her. She’d gazed at her master’s cloak when she was a little girl and wondered at the mysteries it contained. Now some of those mysteries were in her own possession, yet they were as mysterious as ever.

  Among the items in the pockets were a few small metal tools. Only one of them was familiar—she’d seen her master use it in the secret chamber that lay far beneath the ruined castle on the Scottish estate. He had used that tool to tap a wall of rock in a hidden cavern, setting off a tremor so deep Maud had thought it might bring the roof down. The other implements, however, meant nothing to her.

  The cloak also contained items made of stone. One or two were carved from the same translucent white stone from which athames came, but others were different, darker and muddier. There were weapons also, mostly knives, but only a few that had come from her master; the rest were hers.

  A vibration drew her attention. A burst of sunlight was playing over one of the strangest items from the cloak, and it was shaking against the gravelly surface of the roof. Maud picked it up, making sure to keep it in the sun. It was made of stone but also of metal, and it had a face of glass set into it. The glass was dark and thick, as though many layers had been stacked on top of one another. It was no bigger than her outstretched hand, and it was now vibrating against her skin. A moment later, the sun went behind clouds and the stone object fell still. Yet it had come to life with the touch of sunlight, as disruptors and focals did. Perhaps many of these items would wake up if she left them in the sun long enough.

  Her master had worn two faces—one ancient and one almost modern. These objects were like him. Some looked as old as the natural rock beneath the ruined castle in Scotland, but others might belong to the strange world of the present day.

  Perhaps John, as a modern person, could identify these things, but she could never allow one who was not a sworn Dread to see the contents of her master’s cloak. And yet, she’d seen a change in John that had begun to alter her view of him. After his run across the desert in the focal, she’d seen him question, for a moment, his purpose in chasing after the other Seeker houses. She’d begun to turn him toward better things.

  John kept his gaze pointed straight ahead, examining the crowds on the Transit Bridge through his peripheral vision as the Young Dread had taught him, taking in the motions around him with
clear and steady eyes. He’d begun to see his old weaknesses plainly—his scattered mind, his temper—as he carefully shed each one. Maud was turning him into the Seeker he had always wanted to be. If he could learn to control his mind, perhaps his training would be almost complete.

  The Young Dread had brought them to Hong Kong and used the athame to get them onto the Bridge surreptitiously, but John was on his own now. She’d made it clear that this was his task to carry out by himself, and that if he succeeded, she would continue his training and also allow him to go to the next place in the journal.

  He’d thought it might be difficult to find Quin, but as he neared the middle of the Bridge, he saw her immediately. She was out in the open near her own front door, saying goodbye to a very old Chinese man in a healer’s smock. She looked the same, dark hair falling past her shoulders, dark eyes large against her fair skin. The ties of her blue healer’s smock pulled the material tight at her slender waist, calling to mind countless times he’d placed a hand there and drawn her closer.

  John’s breath came a little faster, and he could hear the thumping of his own heart. Of course she looked the same, he reminded himself, it had been only a few weeks since he’d last seen her on Traveler. She looked almost as worried now as she had then.

  The other people on the Bridge faded from John’s sight as he maneuvered through foot traffic. He moved the way Maud would move, and the focus of the steady stare came automatically. He was pleased to notice how much he was coming to be like her.

  Then his hands were on Quin’s arms, and he was pulling her into the narrow alley between her house and the next. Only when he had her cornered near her back stairs did he realize how fast he’d been going. He hadn’t wanted to give her time to tell him no, and so he’d come at her with a sudden, near-impossible burst of speed, like a Dread.

  Quin had her whipsword drawn before she had time to see his face clearly. John could see the change in her eyes when she realized it was him. She froze, for the space of a breath, when her gaze locked on his; then she jerked herself out of his grasp.

  “Quin, I only want to talk to you.” He had slowed himself down so he could speak properly, and he kept his voice calm. He had his own whipsword with him, but he had no intention of drawing it.

  “You say that a lot before we fight, John.” Her voice held anger and something else, a sense of exhaustion, as though being near him drained the life out of her.

  “Truly, I mean it.” And he did mean it; he wanted her attention for only a little while.

  “Weren’t you satisfied with the concussion you gave me last time we saw each other?” she asked sharply. “Did you want to try harder now?”

  Her whipsword was still coiled in her hand, yet her dark eyes flashed a warning at him. She would have no problem using it.

  “I’m sorry for what happened on Traveler. It didn’t go the way I’d planned. And I didn’t want to hit you.”

  “Your hands just moved on their own, did they?”

  He thought of Quin on Traveler, leaning over Shinobu, who’d been lying injured on the floor. The way she’d spoken to him, her tone of voice…John had been so jealous that he’d lost control completely. He’d hit Quin as hard, as viciously, as he could. Maud was right—he had no control over his heart and his thoughts when it came to Quin.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “I…I wanted to see you,” he said at last. The words sounded so childish, though they were the unfortunate truth; he looked away in embarrassment. I think about you so much it’s getting in the way of my training, is what he should have said.

  “Well, you’ve seen me,” she said coldly. “Now you can go.”

  She pushed him aside and headed out of the narrow alley toward the busy thoroughfare they’d just left. John caught her arm.

  “Wait, Quin, please.” He kept his voice soft and his grip on her wrist light. He didn’t want to seem rough.

  She yanked her arm from his grasp but stood there looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

  “I—I try to keep you from my mind,” he stammered. “But I can’t quite—”

  “We’re not friends, John,” Quin interrupted. “You don’t have to confess anything to me.”

  She was turning again, not even giving him a chance to explain, when he was desperate for her to listen. He tugged her back gently and was relieved when she didn’t pull her arm away this time.

  “I don’t think of you as a friend,” he said, in little more than a whisper. “I think about us in the woods together. I think about the plans we made.”

  She said nothing for a moment, as though words had failed her. Then her eyes softened, and John thought, perhaps, he’d actually reached her. The softness was gone as soon as it came, however. She told him, “It’s just habit.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Thinking about me. It’s just habit.” She didn’t meet his eyes. She bit her bottom lip, and her voice dropped to a whisper as she said, “Eventually you’ll stop thinking about me. And I’ll stop thinking about you.”

  John’s chest constricted. Was it a habit she had too? “Do you—”

  “I was going to marry you, John. Of course I think about you.” Her voice was so low he could hardly hear her as she added, “I see you in my dreams sometimes, running and fighting. I feel you there, nearby, like you used to be when we were together, training on the estate. And I wish I didn’t.”

  It took a moment for John to connect Quin’s words with similar words he’d heard from the Young Dread, but as soon as he did, a deep sense of disappointment engulfed him. He tried not to let it show on his face. She hasn’t been thinking of me at all. Not at all.

  “Those aren’t your thoughts,” he muttered, the words feeling poisonous in his throat. Her eyes turned up to meet his, and he forced himself to explain, “You’re seeing into the Young Dread’s mind. She…she agreed to finish my training, since Briac wouldn’t. You’re seeing what she sees, feeling what she feels. She feels your thoughts too sometimes.”

  He watched understanding slowly dawn on her face, and the look that came over her nearly crushed him. She was relieved—no, grateful—that the thoughts weren’t hers.

  “We’re not enemies, Quin,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to think of me that way. You gave me everything I needed when you helped me on Traveler.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. The momentary truce between them was shattered, and he watched her face fill with anger.

  “I didn’t help you, John. You kidnapped my mother, you tried to kill me. Have you forgotten? Don’t you remember the things you’ve done?”

  “I never tried to kill you,” John swore. “Think back. I never did.”

  “Just beatings, then?” she asked, acid in her voice. “The last time you were here on the Bridge, you brought five men and had them beat me! And you struck me yourself.”

  Her face had closed off from him entirely, like they were strangers. She took a step back and cracked out her whipsword into a long, sharp blade.

  “Quin…”

  “Please go, John.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you in my life.”

  She raised her whipsword so the point was at his chest. She held the weapon perfectly steady, ready to thrust forward and kill him. John wrapped his hand around the end of the sword, holding it to his breastbone and staring into Quin’s eyes.

  “Do you love him?” he asked. “Do you love him like you loved me?”

  “I love Shinobu differently. He’s pure. He is what he says he is.” Slowly she shook her head. “I didn’t know you, John. I loved something that wasn’t real.”

  The sword was still in his hand, barely touching his shirt, and yet John felt as though she’d stabbed him through.

  “It was real,” he whispered.

  “My father was raising me to be a killer. And you want to be a killer, so you can chase someone else’s revenge.”

  “It’s not someone else’s revenge!�
�� he cried, losing his temper at last. Urging his muscles to Dread-like speed, he batted her whipsword away and grabbed her wrists. “It was my mother’s life. All of their lives. Why don’t you care about that, Quin?”

  She didn’t bother to push him away. In fact, she pulled her wrists toward her chest, bringing him closer. Her face was twisted in hate. “Why did you come here? Did you think I’d tell you it was all a mistake, and I still wanted to be with you?”

  He shook his head. The Young Dread had brought him to Hong Kong to face her. Maud had told him that he must choose what occupied his thoughts. That was why he was here. So now he must choose.

  And he did.

  “No,” he told her. “I know you’ll never be with me.” He felt the weight and the truth of the words. “I think I came to apol—”

  Midsentence John lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders, and with all the force he could muster, he pulled Quin to the ground behind the rubbish bins lined up in the alley. With a vicious twang, a knife planted itself in the wall and stood quivering with the force of its impact—exactly where Quin had been standing a moment before.

  Three teenaged boys stood at the alley’s entrance, more knives in their hands, ready to throw.

  “Oh God, not now,” breathed Quin. And then, almost like a prayer, she whispered, “Shinobu, where are you?”

  Quin rolled out from beneath John and was back on her feet in a moment, crouched behind the bins, her whipsword in one hand, a knife in the other. She ripped off her smock, which was getting in the way.

  “I don’t have anything you want!” she called at the boys—the Middle Dread’s boys. Trained by him, kept by him for…what? To chase after his athame, after he was dead?

  Of course, Quin realized. They don’t know he’s dead. All this time, they’ve been talking about him as though he’s still alive.

  “Liar!” said the smallest one, Nott. He and the other two were moving down the long, narrow alley.