Traveler

by Arwen Elys Dayton

  He looked up and down the tunnel. The weak light from the distant sky made it impossible to tell which direction was the way out. Wilkin and the others had brought him here blindfolded, and they’d dragged him along for quite a while. Eventually they’d turned him around and around, then shoved him against the wall and pelted him with pebbles as they ran off. The pebbles had ricocheted everywhere, creating echoes that obscured which way the other Watchers had gone.

  Nott chose a direction at random and stumbled into motion, his hands still tied behind his back. His fingers were numb—they’d gone numb even before the others had left. He’d have to cut through the ropes on his wrists soon to keep his hands from freezing altogether, but he hadn’t seen anything sharp enough yet.

  Something moved in the big pocket of his shirt. My rat, he thought. He’d caught this one near the deer carcasses at Dun Tarm. Knowing the animal was near made him feel a little better, and not quite so alone. If he managed to get his hands free before they froze, he’d have something to keep him occupied. It might take an hour to kill a healthy rat. The thought cheered him.

  Nott didn’t seem to be moving downhill, but even so, he began to wonder if he were headed deeper into the cave rather than toward its opening. He stopped and turned in a slow circle, but there were no clues pointing to the direction out.

  “Stupid Wilkin, stupid Watchers,” he said aloud as he forced himself into a jog. “Blaming me for losing the helm, blaming me for disrupting that baby Jacob.”

  It was good to hear his voice. It echoed slightly, coming back to him a fraction of a second later. It was almost like speaking to another person, or like speaking to the rat in his pocket.

  In the confusion after the fight on the Bridge canopy, all the Watchers had returned to Dun Tarm, exhausted and still badly injured, and they’d started yelling at each other. They’d been scared by the appearance of that tall redheaded fighter—Shinobu, he was called—on the canopy, with their master’s medallion clutched in his hand. The medallion would seem to be proof that their master was indeed dead, and it also might mean that Shinobu himself was their new master. All the Watchers were in a panic, wondering what would happen to them.

  Everyone had been angry with everyone else, but Geb had been particularly furious about Nott tripping the others on the Bridge canopy. And then Wilkin had stood up and blamed Nott for losing the helm in the first place and for jumping into that anomaly during the earlier fight with Quin and Shinobu, which had been bad for all of them.

  The other Watchers had all agreed that almost everything was Nott’s fault and they had best get rid of him while they figured out what to do about Shinobu and their master’s medallion.

  “So they put me in my cave,” Nott said aloud to the rat. “As if they’ve never done anything wrong.”

  The rat was still for a moment, and Nott imagined it had stopped fidgeting to listen. Like any prisoner, the rodent would be eager to keep his jailer talking.

  It’s not fair, he imagined the rat saying.

  “It’s not fair!” Nott agreed. “I jumped into the anomaly to get back the helm. Anyone would have done it. They followed me willingly.”

  You’re small, said the rat. They don’t like to think you’re equal to them.

  “I s’pose you know what that’s like, being small,” he observed.

  “Everyone looking down on you all the time,” the rat concurred, out loud this time. His voice sounded just like Nott’s, but Nott didn’t mind. Maybe he and the rat were from the same part of England.

  “I’m smarter than they are,” he told the rat. “I suppose I should be happy I won’t have to follow those fools. Do you know—”

  He stopped speaking and jogging. He’d come around a bend in the tunnel and was faced with a pile of rubble filling half the space. To pass it, he’d have to climb over. Since he hadn’t been forced to climb over anything when he’d been brought into the cave, Nott reasoned that he’d been heading in the wrong direction all this time. The light from outside was getting dimmer; the sun was setting and he’d be in darkness soon.

  “I chose the wrong way.”

  “Are you crying?” demanded the rat.

  “Course not,” Nott said, though his eyes had in fact started to fill with tears. “I’m not a baby.”

  At least some of the piled rocks had sharp edges. He stumbled over and went down heavily on his knees.

  “Ouch,” said the rat.

  “Sorry,” Nott told him. That word had come to him suddenly from distant memory. Sorry. His mother used to say it to him and Odger: Say you’re sorry. Sorry, are you? I’ll make the two of ye sorry! What did it mean exactly?

  He twisted around so the ropes were up against a sharp edge of stone. It was difficult to find the right place to rub since his fingers were numb, but eventually he managed it. The friction produced heat, which felt so good that Nott momentarily forgot everything else. When the rope suddenly ripped apart, he was completely surprised.

  “Look, hands,” he said, bringing them in front of him and wiggling his fingers. They felt twice their normal size.

  “I’d love some hands,” the rat told him. “All I’ve got is feet.”

  “But you’ve got four of them,” Nott pointed out. Then upon reflection he added, “Though maybe not for long.”

  He rubbed his hands together until they began to prickle and then burn as blood flowed into them. It felt like Wilkin and the others were poking hot needles into his flesh over and over and over.

  “He probably would stick you with needles, if he thought of it,” the rat mused.

  “I poked him with a needle once while he was sleeping,” Nott admitted. “All over his leg. I told him in the morning that a spider had bitten him.”

  “Did he believe that?” The creature sounded amused.

  “He did. That and lots of other stories. He’ll believe anything, Wilkin will.”

  When his fingers finally felt close to normal, Nott got stiffly to his feet. He turned back the way he’d come—and nearly jumped out of his skin.

  Someone was lying on the tunnel floor up against the opposite wall, only a few yards away.

  “Look,” he whispered to the rat.

  It was a dead someone, he saw on closer inspection, a teenaged boy, maybe Wilkin’s age. He was dressed in warm clothing and a thick cloak, but he was frozen solid. He had probably been lying there for a very long while. By his clothes and by his cleanliness and by the sparkling white teeth Nott discovered when he pried up the boy’s lip, Nott concluded he was not a Watcher.

  A flash of metal caught Nott’s eyes, and he drew a silver necklace out from beneath the boy’s shirt. In the fading light he could make out the shape of a small silver boar.

  There was blood on the necklace, and Nott soon found a fatal wound near the boy’s heart. Blood had soaked through his clothing and then frozen, leaving a stain of dark ice on his shirt. There were stains on the boy’s hands as well. In fact, it looked as if he’d dipped his right finger into his own life’s blood and, with it, written something in the palm of his left hand:

  EMILE

  “Em-i-ly. Emily?” Nott sounded out. The boy seemed to have written a name.

  “That’s a girl’s name,” said the rat.

  “So it is,” said Nott. He’d had a cousin named Emily, long ago. She’d known how to write her name. That was why Nott could read it. “What’s that?”

  Something had been carved into a flat area on the cave wall, just above where the body lay. In the dimness, Nott could make out a series of numbers, so smoothly etched they seemed to have been melted into the rock. There were letters also.

  He knew his numbers, mostly, but only some of his letters. He concentrated on the numbers, which he determined, after some scrutiny, to be 63, 48, 89.

  “What do they add up to?” he asked the rat. “And why are they on the wall?”

  The creature squirmed in his pocket but didn’t answer.

  “Course you don’t know,” Nott said.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. Must be hard to learn to count if you haven’t got hands. I think I might be able to sum them, though.”

  He stared at the numbers and tried to add them together. After several minutes he was forced to admit that the task was beyond him.

  Soon it grew so dark that he couldn’t see the ground properly and the carvings had all blurred into shadow. He’d been standing so long his legs felt like blocks of ice, but he couldn’t walk anymore to get the blood flowing—he wasn’t going to wander in pitch blackness.

  He lowered himself to his knees. With a great deal of effort, he stripped the cloak and clothes from the stiff body of the boy named Emily. He pulled the clothes over his own, then wrapped himself in his cloak and the boy’s. Huddled on the cave floor, he tugged his hood over his head as far as it would go, and compressed his body into a tight little ball to trap his own warmth around him. It helped a bit.

  Suddenly he had a thought.

  “I bet it sums to two hundreds!” Nott whispered.

  “I think you’re right,” the rat whispered back.

  “So…this is a different two hundred than the one we Watchers use. But why is it here in my cave?” Nott ran his tongue across his teeth, feeling the grooves that had been carved there and the oily soot that was packed into them. “The two hundred I know is how we find the other sleeping Watchers in the dark place,” he explained to the rat. “Our master had us all learn it by heart. We use the athame to go There—to our special spot—then fifty-three steps forward, fifty-nine to the right, fifty-four to the left, thirty-four to the right. That’s how we found Geb and Balil and the babies.”

  “Waking them up might have been a mistake,” the rat pointed out.

  “True,” said Nott. “Do you think these carvings, this other two hundred, are instructions for this dead boy?”

  The dead boy had a boar around his neck, and Wilkin and Nott’s athame had a boar on its pommel. Perhaps this cave was connected to boars in general.

  “I don’t know half the words you’re using,” the rat said.

  “You’re just a rat,” Nott whispered. Then, with a flash of understanding, he said, “I think I’m supposed to freeze to death here, right here. Maybe that’s why we get left in our caves—so my head and the numbers on the wall are kept together. Wonder what I’d find if I could follow what’s on the wall.”

  The rat was struggling in his pocket. Nott’s new position was pulling his shirt too tight for the creature’s comfort. He slipped the rat out and held it in his hand. It didn’t try to bite him. It was still too dazed for that.

  He thought about setting it on the ground and hacking its feet off one after the other with pieces of stone. Rats really screamed when you did that. And they always tried to run away, even though they didn’t have feet anymore.

  But there wasn’t enough light to see the rat or the stones. And there was something nice about holding the creature. Even the small amount of warmth it was generating made Nott feel like he had company.

  He tucked the rat under his cloak and against his chest, and he let his eyes close as he clasped the creature to him in the dark.

  Quin had expected Shinobu to take her back to her house on the Bridge. Instead they emerged onto the Scottish estate, not far from the small stone barn that was perched on a cliff above the river. Behind them, the anomaly Shinobu had cut lost its rhythm, began to vibrate more harshly, and then collapsed.

  When it had disappeared, they were alone in the quiet of the forest. The only sounds were from the river far below and the birds in the trees behind them.

  “You brought us…to our real home,” she said.

  Her muscles were still shaking from the fight on the Bridge canopy. She felt as though she might collapse at any moment. Shinobu didn’t look much better, but he gently took hold of her and steered her toward the cliff barn.

  “It seemed safer than going back to your house,” he explained, his breath warm in her hair as she leaned against him. “The Bridge was in chaos, and now those boys know how to find you there.”

  “Are you wearing my father’s cloak?” she asked. There was something about the look of it that reminded her of Briac.

  He nodded against her head. “I saw your father when I was away from you. That’s where I went. I made him answer my questions.”

  “He talked to you?”

  “I used the focal to force him to talk to me. But here—you’re shaking. I want to let you sit down. And I need to sit down too.” He was guiding her toward the open doorway into the barn.

  “You brought us right to the barn. How did you know these coordinates?”

  “Honestly? The time I’ve spent in the focal helps with that. Wearing it’s a bad thing, mostly, but it has its uses, and we’re going to need it.”

  They stepped into the barn. Quin breathed in the smells of old straw, damp, and dust. The last time she’d been here was with John. They’d talked and they’d fought each other on the barn’s roof, and she had finally seen John for what he was—a boy who’d been hopelessly twisted by his mother. Not a Seeker after all, not really, because he wasn’t seeking the better way, the proper path. For a moment, back on the Bridge, she’d experienced a twinge of what she used to feel for him. But she’d chased that treacherous feeling away. The John she’d once loved had never truly existed. He’d played a role to get what he wanted.

  They walked past empty stalls that had once held animals, then came to the base of the ladder leading up into the barn’s loft.

  “Can you climb?” he asked softly. “I want us to be up where we can see outside. In case anyone comes.”

  “Do you think those boys will come here?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not,” he said. “I ordered them to go back to their fortress.”

  “You ordered them?”

  “I’ll explain, but I have to get off my feet. I’ve been awake since I left you.”

  She was shaking so much that it was difficult to move up the ladder, but he kept a hand at her waist to steady her.

  They emerged out of shadow when they reached the loft. There were large, glassless circular windows at each end of the barn, one above the loft and the other on the opposite wall of the building. It had been midafternoon in Hong Kong when they left. It was early morning here in Scotland, the pale disc of the rising sun visible through a layer of clouds. It painted the loft and the rafters beneath the slate roof with a ghostly light.

  The windows gave a view up and down the river and to the hills beyond the estate. Shinobu leaned out to look back toward the forest.

  “We’re still alone,” he murmured. He let out his breath in relief, as though only now would he allow himself to relax.

  A wooden platform was wedged up against one wall, with a bedding of straw atop it. Quin had slept here once, after her first assignment—when she had, against her will, helped her father commit murder. She’d brought the straw to the barn herself and had slept here alone while dreaming of getting away. Now Shinobu settled her onto the makeshift bed, and she was grateful to be still. He lay next to her and pulled her into his arms, keeping her warm. Eventually she stopped shaking.

  “I have so much to tell you,” he whispered. “I think I understand the focal now…but it still makes me strange. Don’t let me wear it again unless you’re with me, all right? You have to tell me if I’m behaving oddly. I put a rat in my pocket…”

  “A rat?” She tried to imagine why in the world he might do that.

  He laughed, sounding exhausted. “I let it go.”

  She felt Shinobu sit up and opened her eyes just enough to see him removing his cloak. He spread it out over both of them, then lay back down and pulled her to him.

  Her heart was steadying. The intensity of the fight and the terror she’d felt when those disruptors had fired, over and over, were gradually releasing their grip on her. Shinobu’s arms were around her, his hands warm across her center. They were safe for the moment, in a quiet place, out of danger. />
  Feeling Shinobu’s heartbeat against her back, Quin drifted off.

  They must have slept for a long time. When Quin was next aware of herself, the light in the barn was different. Darker clouds had moved in, and rain was falling in heavy drops against the roof. She didn’t want to open her eyes all the way. Instead she turned and tucked her head into Shinobu’s warm neck, pulled his arms back around her.

  The rain fell steadily, drowning out the noise of the river and the forest, isolating them from the world. Quin moved just enough to find Shinobu’s lips and kiss him. He stirred and kissed her back. And then they were both awake enough. Somehow he was pulling her clothes off as if they were nothing more than gauze he was brushing away, and he was kissing her lips, her neck, the soft hollow at the base of her neck, and she was whispering to him, “I’m…I’ve never…” And he stopped for a moment and looked down at her, a slow smile spreading across his handsome, sleepy face, and he whispered back, “I’m so glad you’ve never.”

  And then they were warm and together, at last, and neither one of them fell unconscious, not for a long while.

  18 Years Earlier

  Though the china cup in Catherine’s hand was so delicate that sunlight shone through it, its fragile body was decorated with a savage pig, drops of painted blood dripping from its tusks and casting spots of red across the murky tea within. The tea itself was good—rich, creamy, and just the right temperature. Catherine took another sip as she watched Monsieur Pernet’s back.

  The man stood at the kitchen sink, refusing to look at her. He was staring out the window instead, a teacup clutched in his large hand, and Catherine guessed he was keeping a close eye on Archie, whom she’d last seen kicking pebbles around by the front door. Archie hadn’t wanted her to come to this secluded French village, and he hadn’t been happy about the long uphill walk to the Pernets’ hidden cottage, which stood nearly concealed among the ruins of a fifteenth-century monastery.

  Catherine had gained entrance only by showing the Pernets the athame-shaped scar on the inside of her left wrist. They’d responded by, somewhat unwillingly, showing her their own identical scars. Archie didn’t have such a mark yet—though Catherine would finish his training soon enough, and one day she’d get the Young Dread to make him official—and so he was waiting outside.