Disruptor

by Arwen Elys Dayton

  BOOKS BY ARWEN ELYS DAYTON

  Seeker

  Traveler

  Disruptor

  The Young Dread

  (an original e-novella)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Arwen Elys Dayton

  Cover art: background copyright © 2017 by Stuart Wade; swords copyright © 2017 by Bose Collins

  Scottish Estate map copyright © 2017 by Jeffrey L. Ward

  Fox, ram, and atom icons copyright © by Shutterstock

  Bear, boar, eagle, fanged cat, dragon, horse, and stag icons copyright © 2016 by John Tomaselli

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780385744119 (hc) — ebook ISBN 9780385378598

  ISBN 9781524719128 (intl. tr. pbk.)

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Arwen Elys Dayton

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Preface

  Chapter 1: Quin

  Chapter 2: Shinobu

  Chapter 3: Quin

  Chapter 4: Quin

  Chapter 5: John

  Chapter 6: John

  Chapter 7: Nott

  Chapter 8: Quin

  Chapter 9: Maud

  Chapter 10: John

  Chapter 11: Nott

  Chapter 12: Shinobu

  Chapter 13: Quin

  Chapter 14: Shinobu

  Chapter 15: John

  Chapter 16: John

  Chapter 17: Maud

  Chapter 18: Shinobu

  Chapter 19: Quin

  Chapter 20: John

  Chapter 21: Quin

  Chapter 22: Quin

  Chapter 23: Maud

  Chapter 24: Quin

  Chapter 25: Shinobu

  Chapter 26: Quin

  Chapter 27: Shinobu

  Chapter 28: Quin

  Chapter 29: John

  Chapter 30: Shinobu

  Chapter 31: John

  Chapter 32: Maud

  Chapter 33: Quin

  Chapter 34: Maud

  Chapter 35: John

  Chapter 36: Shinobu

  Chapter 37: Quin

  Chapter 38: Matheus and Desmond

  Chapter 39: Quin

  Chapter 40: Nott

  Chapter 41: John

  Chapter 42: Quin

  Chapter 43: Shinobu

  Chapter 44: Nott

  Chapter 45: Quin

  Chapter 46: John

  Chapter 47: Shinobu

  Chapter 48: John

  Chapter 49: Nott

  Chapter 50: Quin

  Chapter 51: Matheus and Desmond

  Chapter 52: Quin

  Chapter 53: Maud

  Chapter 54: Quin

  Chapter 55: Shinobu

  Chapter 56: Maud

  Chapter 57: Quin

  Chapter 58: Maud

  Chapter 59: John

  Chapter 60: Shinobu

  Chapter 61: Quin

  Chapter 62: Nott

  Chapter 63: Quin

  Chapter 64: Shinobu

  Chapter 65: Quin

  Chapter 66: Nott

  Chapter 67: Quin

  Chapter 68: Shinobu

  Chapter 69: John

  Chapter 70: Shinobu

  Chapter 71: Maud

  Chapter 72: Quin

  3 Years Later

  Chapter 73: Quin

  Chapter 74: Desmond and James

  Chapter 75: The Apprentice Dread

  Map

  Seeker Houses

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Alexandra, for making life funnier, messier, and much, much better from day one

  Detail left

  Detail right

  The blackness of no-space swallowed light. Any illumination here could reach only faintly before darkness closed upon it, extinguishing it as though these hidden dimensions were composed of black water.

  Dex was like a fish in that water, slicing steadily through the darkness, never stopping, but never moving fast. Like a fish, he glowed a faint silver, as though covered in shining scales. The glow came from the stone medallion around his neck, which gave off a light as weak as the first nearly invisible glimmers of dawn. Yet Dex’s eyes had learned to gather any illumination and use it sparingly, which meant the carved stone disc was bright enough for him to see by.

  After ages of quiet, the medallion trembled against his chest, startling him. There was only one reason it would shake of its own accord—another medallion was calling, and Dex’s was vibrating in response. He gently grasped the disc and changed his infinite course through no-space, to see who was coming and going.

  Dex was leading a horse by its reins, and with a gentle tug he pulled it along with him. He’d come upon the horse only moments ago, it seemed. The animal was neither awake nor asleep. No-space had its hold upon the creature, but it was not the same hold it had on humans. The horse existed in a half-life, patient and obedient.

  After a time, the medallion stopped shaking, but by then Dex could see where he had to go. There was a flash of light in the distance, so bright it blinded him. He was looking at a round doorway back into the world.

  The world. It’s still there, burning under the sun. It never stops.

  When he reached that doorway, he would discover which of the old family had called him—except the light was gone long before Dex got near it. That was no matter. He continued to follow its afterglow.

  Now he passed through the space where usually a circle of boys stood, silent sentinels in the blackness. He’d seen those boys many times, smelled the odor of death that hung about them like a fog. But they were gone.

  Only a lone figure was left near the collection of weapons the boys had once guarded. Dex stepped around a row of disruptors, feeling an involuntary shudder.

  The solitary figure was a girl. There were girls stuck in no-space, of course, and Dex had seen all of them, had come to know everything here in this place outside the world. But this girl was new. The horse made a sound, low and faint, a dream whicker, as though it had caught the scent of someone it knew. A velvet ear twitched.

  Dex couldn’t see the details of the girl’s face. He decided, after a long, anxious deliberation, to use more light. In the pocket of his robe, his fingers met the cool cylinder of his flare. How long had it sat there, unused? To him it was days, but to the flare it was a long spool of time that had been unwinding without measure.

  His thumb clicked the striker once, twice, three times. A white flame bloomed. In the first moment it was brighter than his memory of the sun. He turned his head away until his eyes adjusted. When he could look again, he examined the girl.

  He knew her. The first glimpse of her was like looking into his past. Or into his heart.

  But no. This girl was not that girl. How could she be?

  Her pale cheeks were flushed with some strong emotion, and her expression was worrie
d—angry, even. Her mouth looked as though it had fallen still in the middle of speech. Her hands reached to hold on to a companion who was no longer there.

  There was no medallion in her hand, so the disc that had called Dex belonged to someone else—someone who had left her here and escaped back into the world through the blinding doorway that had already closed.

  He touched the girl’s mind with his own, stirred the thoughts that lay like stones within her head. Very slowly, those stones shifted.

  Quin, her mind told him at last.

  The disappointment was overwhelming. Quin. He had hoped…Dex banished this thought, though it left him very reluctantly; she was a different girl and her name was not important. Only her clothes mattered; they were modern, with stitching that spoke of factories and machines.

  Something was wedged into a pocket of her trousers. Dex carefully drew out a crinkly packet with a picture of grains and berries on it. Food. The label was in English and Chinese. He couldn’t read Chinese very well, but modern English was easy.

  There was an expiration date, which he read several times.

  Here we are.

  “So,” he said aloud. He marveled at his voice after having been silent so long; the single word was like a foghorn, and it twisted his mouth into odd shapes. How much time had passed since he’d last spoken? A hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand? Surely not so long as that. He spoke again, testing the waters: “It’s time to go.”

  Gently he bent down and pushed his shoulder into Quin’s waist, slid an arm around her, and lifted her as he stood. She was entirely frozen, so he balanced her on his shoulder like a wooden beam. She knocked against Dex’s metal helmet, but it remained firmly on his head, just as it had since the dawn of…all this.

  He reached for the medallion hanging around his neck.

  He would have to get used to sunlight all over again.

  The thought was terrifying.

  Quin floated on a dark ocean, unconscious of anything. Then, by slow degrees, she became aware of herself. There was light coming from somewhere, blue-tinted and dim. She was lying down, and the surface beneath her was hard and uneven and cold.

  Someone was there. A warm touch on her lips, so soft and fast, she wondered if she’d imagined it. Noise surrounded her, a sound like a distant deluge of rain, but much too fast, as fast as the breeze across her face.

  She remembered. She and Shinobu had gone There, but she was losing herself, and he was begging her for help. She had to claw her way back to him. Right now!

  Quin sucked in a lungful of air and lunged to her feet.

  “Take me out, Shinobu!” she said. “Carve an anomaly!”

  Her voice was slow and rusty, and she was no longer There. A moment ago there had been the glow of a lantern, and Shinobu’s dark form in front of her, and beyond that the deepest blackness. They’d discovered that the Middle Dread had been turning Seekers against each other for hundreds of years, while keeping himself “blameless” in the eyes of the other Dreads by getting others to do the actual killing for him. Quin and Shinobu had gone There to find whatever the Middle had been using to sow discord. But where was she now?

  Somewhere new. A cave, rough surfaces colored by bluish illumination from an opening high up in one of the walls. The light was changing, as though it came from a sky with fast-shifting clouds. The noise was still there, far away and close, the sound of rushing water.

  She could see Shinobu’s silhouette. He was here with her, wedged into a corner of the space, as confused as she was.

  Quin stumbled toward him, discovered that her body wasn’t working properly. The walls lurched and teetered, but it was her own muscles that weren’t functioning. She recalled the Old and Middle Dreads closing in on her on the Scottish estate, months ago. Their movements had been uneven, out of sync with the world around them, because they’d been lost in the hidden dimensions for years. She was like that now, buffeted by the stream of time.

  “Shinobu! How long were we There?”

  She laid her hands on the dark form in the corner. It turned toward her. Too fast. Everything was too fast.

  A face she didn’t know, a young man, towering over her. Unruly hair and eyes that were dark in the cave’s dim light. He was wearing a focal; his expression was wild. This person wasn’t Shinobu at all, and he was reaching for Quin.

  “It’s good you’re awake.” He spoke so rapidly, Quin nearly missed the words.

  She’d lost herself There when she was supposed to be keeping an eye on Shinobu. Had they run into this man? Had he taken Shinobu’s focal and spirited Quin away? She lurched backward, trying to pull herself properly into the world. Her hand found the knife at her waist.

  “Shinobu? Shinobu?” Maybe he was nearby.

  The strange young man came for her, moving so much faster than she could move.

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  It was not all right. What had he done to them? How much time had passed? Quin felt his hand grip her elbow. She wrenched free, drew her knife—slowly, too slowly. The walls moved by in fits and starts as she pushed herself away.

  “Shinobu, are you here? Answer me!”

  The cave was small, more a widened channel through rock than an actual chamber. She blundered down the only route available.

  “Stop, stop!” the stranger called, sounding both angry and afraid.

  The channel narrowed dramatically after only a few steps, but it then opened up again. Quin squeezed through the tightest spot, moving as if in a dream, and found herself in another chamber. She heard him behind her at the narrow neck, too big to follow her easily.

  The noise was louder here, a thundering of water in the rocks, so rapid it was like hearing a recording on fast-forward. There was less light. Quin felt her way along the darkened channel for several yards, and the air around her changed, became moist as the noise drummed harder into her ears.

  “I can’t follow you!” he called. “Please!” There was something awful, desperate, in the way he said it.

  “Shinobu, are you here?” Her voice was still slow and heavy.

  The channel narrowed again, and now the floor beneath her was dark with water and the air full of mist. Quin stepped around a sharp bend and found herself abruptly washed in early dawn light and staring directly down the face of a cliff. The channel had ended in open air, and her front foot hung several inches out over the ledge. Droplets festooned the atmosphere, dazzling her with rainbows. She was behind a waterfall, at the edge of a sheer drop, the cascade thrumming and reverberating as it launched itself over the craggy headland above her and out into the sky, where it plummeted down and down and down.

  With a nauseating jolt Quin felt herself rejoin the flow of time. For one moment, she was whole; she then lost her balance in a rush of dizziness. The height…the height…She dropped her knife, grabbed for the walls of the crevice in which she stood. The stone was solid beneath her fingers, but her foot, hanging over the edge, gave her the sensation that she was falling. Her knees buckled. She clutched her meager handholds as hard as she could, overcome by vertigo, pleading desperately with herself not to let go.

  Hands were on her arms, drawing her away from the ledge. “I’ve got you,” the stranger said, his voice no longer fast but natural. “You’re all right.”

  Her companion held her up, and together they staggered back the way she’d come. When they reached the narrow spot, Quin slid through, and with difficulty he squeezed himself through after her.

  She collapsed where she’d woken up, head against the wall as she hugged her knees. “Oh, God,” she muttered, pressing herself into the rock hard enough to ward off the memory of her foot hanging out over that edge.

  It took her some time to recover her wits. She focused on her breath, following it in and out until she returned to herself. When she opened her eyes and the cave came into focus, she discovered the mysterious young man crouching a few feet away, watching her anxiously.

  “There you are,” he s
aid. “I’d hoped you would wake up all right, but that didn’t go so well.”

  Quin’s eyes shut again. She found her knife on the ground by her leg. He must have retrieved it for her. Why would he do that? She gripped the hilt and drew strength from it; Shinobu had given her this blade.

  Quin opened her eyes to discover that the light in the cave was growing brighter, showing her new details. Her companion was young, but older than she was, perhaps in his midtwenties. He wore something like a monk’s habit, made of a coarse brown material. His curly hair was brown as well, as were his eyes. He would have been handsome except for those eyes, which were large and distorted by some power that had him in its grip. They made his face dangerous.

  “Should I take it personally that you prefer to plunge to your death rather than sit in a room with me?” he asked. It was a joke, though he didn’t look amused or relaxed.

  “Did you take me from There?” she asked him, coming back to herself more with each moment that passed.

  “You were stranded in no-space.”

  She’d never heard that term before, but she knew immediately it must be another word for the hidden dimensions.