Her body moved into full battle speed. Her knives streaked through the air, orange arcs in the firelight. The Middle responded too slowly. He was not fully back to himself after his long stay There. She thrust forward. Then she saw her mistake.
He had maneuvered her onto uneven ground. She was losing her balance. In one swift motion, he yanked the knife from her hand and hit her ear with its pommel, sending her sprawling to the dirt.
Before she could recover, he stepped on her left wrist, pinning that hand and its knife to the ground. Then he leaned down and ripped the front of her shirt, tearing it carefully from her neck to her stomach and throwing the cloth aside. Her small breasts were exposed. She reached with her right arm to cover herself, but he stepped on that wrist as well. He was standing over her, staring down at her nakedness with a look of disgust. He bent over so his face was near hers and pinched one of her breasts hard. He smiled when an expression of pain moved across her face.
“Not a woman yet,” he said evenly. “You are a little girl. A Dread only because we lack someone better, because your master knows that you are not worth the time to kill.”
He stared down at her for several seconds, letting her know that she was at his mercy. Then he stepped away.
The Young Dread pulled her cloak around her, but she did not move from the cold earth. Anger and humiliation held her motionless for a long while.
Much later, the Young Dread still sat where the Middle had knocked her down, her cloak tight about her, covering the tatters of her clothing. She was rocking back and forth, but when she became aware of her motion, she stopped. She would control her hatred. She would be perfectly still.
Briac had fallen into a troubled sleep, his moans dying out, to be replaced with mumbled words in his dreams. The Middle Dread had wrapped himself in his cloak and lay near the fire, his eyes closed.
The Young’s eyes were transfixed by the Middle now, watching his chest rise and fall. His heart was somewhere inside that chest, beating away, keeping him alive. Until it stops beating, she thought.
And yet, her master had done nothing to help her kill the Middle Dread. Perhaps he had allowed her to fight him only to teach her a lesson—a lesson that the Middle would always beat her and that she should obey.
Gentle hands were probing the side of her head, touching the ear the Middle had damaged with the knife hilt. The skin was split, that much she could feel.
“This is not bad,” the Old Dread said as he examined the wound in the firelight. A moment later, she felt cool relief as he rubbed a poultice of herbs into the injury.
“Let me see the other,” he told her. “The wound he pretends he did not give you.”
The Young unwound her cloak and allowed him to examine the scar along the side of her abdomen, where the Middle had stabbed her. The tissue was thick and ropy under her skin, but the lines of the wound were fading. The medicine of this time had done strange things to her flesh, allowing it to heal almost perfectly. The Old Dread’s fingers traced the thin scar.
“He is cruel,” he said at last.
“He is cruel. And you have left me in his charge.”
“He is mine,” her master told her. “I have created him as he is. He fights well, for poor reasons. He kills unnecessarily and often. And he makes mistakes—such as traveling There with an injury serious enough to divert his attention. He might have been lost between forever.”
The Young kept her face neutral as she considered this possibility.
Her master continued, “But there are things I have promised—” He stopped. “I am sorry you must live in his presence.”
Let me kill him, then! she wanted to scream. Out loud, she whispered, “What happened to our noble purpose, Master?” It was the question Quin had asked, but it had been the Young Dread’s own question for hundreds of years.
The Old did not answer immediately. His thoughts seemed to fold in upon themselves.
“The athame was meant to allow a great mind, a skillful mind, to move beyond the boundaries of human life,” he said eventually, in a low and solemn voice. “Why should such a mind be bound to one location? If he could move freely, act freely, imagine what he could accomplish. A Seeker, using an athame, could appear anywhere—inside a guarded fortress, in the private chambers of a king, in a great university on the other side of the world. And so he could … help fate. He could seek the best way for mankind, could he not? It was my belief that great minds with the proper tools could change history.” His eyes turned to her. There was almost a pleading in them. “We saw some of those changes ourselves. Seekers have determined the course of great battles, toppled tyrants …”
“But that is not all they have done, Master.”
His eyes took in the campsite and the remains of the fire. “No,” he agreed. “Some have used the athame for greed and spite and revenge.”
“More than some.”
“We have laws.” They were words of protest, but his voice sounded hollow, as though it had been drained of life.
“You speak … as though we began with you,” she said. “As though the athame came from you. Is it so?”
The Young turned her head slightly to watch one side of the Old Dread’s mouth pull into a half smile.
“The athame … It’s origin is a tale for a future time, child. If I am the first, I am also the last. But which side of our history is the beginning? Which is the end? Between now and the end—or the beginning,” he went on, “I must spend much of my time asleep, stretched out, trying to remain alive in order to set things right. Our bodies are not intended for the things we Dreads make them do. There are seasons to our lives. When we defy them, we are not well. I have been woken too early again. It is always too early. I fear I would need a thousand years of sleep to catch up. But I do not have so long. We will set things right here, and I will stretch myself out again.”
Silence fell between them, until the Young Dread finally dared ask, “Were you a great mind, Master?”
A real smile crossed his face. “You don’t ask if I am a great mind, child? Because I speak gibberish now? Let me tell you—I once thought I was a great mind.”
“And now?”
“Now it does not matter. Great minds are not what’s wanted. Only good hearts. Good hearts choose wisely.”
“How does one find a good heart?”
“It is luck, child. Always luck. With you, I have been very lucky.”
CHAPTER 50
SHINOBU
“What makes you think I would give you such a thing?” Master Tan asked Shinobu. He was standing at a table in his office, grinding up a bright green plant with a mortar and pestle, his hands moving with the sure motions of an expert, his eyes free to study his shamefaced visitor.
“Our lives are a choice,” Shinobu said. “I heard you say that to Quin.”
“When did I say that?” With two fingers he tested the consistency of the plant, then continued to work it with the pestle.
“You know.”
“Ah,” Master Tan said, remembering. “Perhaps I did say it then. It was an eventful evening. Of course, she chose life.”
The man was ancient, with gnarled hands that were both strong and soft, yet his face was almost unlined. He was staring at Shinobu with interest, as he might have studied a new herb for sale in the Kowloon market.
“You would have let her die if she wanted. You gave her the choice,” Shinobu insisted stubbornly. “I heard you.”
“Is that what you think? I am always letting people die?” the old man asked, as though fascinated with the idea. “Is that why so many come to see me in my shop? Because I am such an easy path to the undertaker?”
“You like to help people, old man,” Shinobu responded, his voice low and sullen. “You should help me and give me what I’m asking for. I have …” He was going to say, I have let good people down when it counted, and furthermore, I’m a killer. But he couldn’t make those particular words come out. They died somewhere in his throat before the
y were anywhere near the surface—just as his admission about Alistair in the disruptor field had died in his throat before he could tell his mother.
He had no wish to argue with the man. He had already decided what he needed to do, and he was experiencing a sense of peace at the dark inevitability of what was to come. I should have done this a year ago, he thought.
He stared at his feet, tried another tack. “I will not be missed, Master Tan, except by the owners of the drug bars—and they won’t miss me much. They ask me to bathe, and I almost never do.”
“What sorts of drugs, typically?” Master Tan asked with interest. “The ones you like to take—what sorts? Opium? Ivan3? Which drug bars will miss you the most?”
“What does it matter?” These questions were disturbing his even temper. He didn’t want to talk anymore.
“I don’t do this sort of thing every day. I have to have a reason to help you. Please explain how bad you’ve been. Which sorts of drugs?”
With a sigh, Shinobu came up with a long list. Master Tan patiently wrote everything down, all the while shaking his head and mumbling comments like “Terrible, terrible. Cigarettes as well? My, my. Vodka? Really, young man …”
Eventually, Shinobu felt they were getting off track. His hands shoved deep in his pockets, he said, “Look, I … My father …” He stopped, tried again: “My mother and brother and Fiona. I … want to protect them. This will protect them. Can you help me do one thing without failing?”
“Tell me. This one thing—killing yourself—it will fix the other things?”
Shinobu shrugged. “I can’t fix those things. They’re done. But I can stop everyone from relying on me. I can keep myself from wrecking things again. Because I will wreck them. Can you understand?”
Master Tan continued to study him in silence for some moments, as though weighing his decision.
“I’m afraid you do make a good argument,” he said at last. “I won’t try to stop you.”
Shinobu, who had been looking at his shoes, was a little disappointed by the sudden agreement. But it was, after all, what he had hoped for.
The old man set down the mixture he’d been working on and moved to the enormous cabinet that stretched all the way to the room’s vaulted ceiling. This cabinet was full of tiny drawers, more than a thousand of them, each labeled with Chinese characters. Master Tan accessed the drawers with a rolling ladder, which he pushed back and forth as he moved up and down, filling a large plastic bag. Every time Shinobu thought he was finished, Master Tan remembered something else and went back up. After nearly half an hour, the bag was almost overflowing. The healer was humming under his breath as he added the last ingredient and stepped off the ladder.
“I could have died of boredom faster,” Shinobu muttered. He was grateful for Master Tan’s help, but the man’s cheerfulness was really getting on his nerves. Was it too much to ask for the healer to be a bit upset about the situation?
Still humming faintly, Master Tan walked past Shinobu and began to brew a tea with the heap of herbs.
“It is my wish that you not kill yourself,” he told Shinobu, as though discussing the weather. “Actually, it doesn’t matter much to me. But the medical authorities of the Transit Bridge require me to say that I would prefer you didn’t kill yourself. It looks bad if healers are openly helping people commit suicide. I’m sure you can understand.”
Shinobu nodded.
Soon the tea was ready and Master Tan was pouring it into a large thermos.
“You must drink this all at once,” he said, “leaving no evidence for someone to find. I suggest you go somewhere quiet and safe, but near city waste disposal facilities. Perhaps a dumpster? Then your corpse will be easy to handle. And do it soon—the tea will not stay potent for long.”
Shinobu snatched the thermos from Master Tan, and a very short while later he had it clutched to his chest as he worked his way outward along the Bridge’s steel girders. He was near the Kowloon side and from his current position could see the lights of the city glowing through a deep fog off to his right. As he walked along a narrow beam, traveling away from the heart of the Bridge toward the edges of its structure, he began to see the water far below. It was inky dark tonight beneath the fog.
“ ‘It is my wish that you not kill yourself,’ he says as he scoops out the poisonous herbs,” Shinobu said to himself. “He couldn’t wait to get rid of me. You’ve sunk as low as you can go when a healer wants you gone.”
The harbor was not as deep here as it was in the center of the Bridge. Shallower water would be better, he thought. They would find his body quickly, and his mother would not be left wondering what had happened to him. True, a dumpster would allow Mariko to be notified sooner, but jumping was insurance—two simultaneous methods of death were better than one. And he preferred not to die in a dumpster, no matter how charming Master Tan seemed to find the idea.
When Shinobu reached the end of the girder, he took a seat and let his feet dangle over the edge. Carefully unscrewing the top of the thermos, he sniffed the tea and gagged. It gave off an awful aroma and was nearly as thick as molasses. It was too bad this would be the last thing he ever tasted. He should have bought an ice cream cone to eat after drinking it. I’ll have to plan better the next time I kill myself, he thought. Ha ha.
He looked down below his feet to ensure he had a clear path to the water—he didn’t fancy bouncing off steel beams on his way down. The girder upon which he sat stuck out farther than its neighbors; below him were a hundred and fifty feet of empty air. Perfect.
There was no point in delaying. If he hesitated, he would change his mind, and he would end up betraying someone else—probably Quin this time. He refused to do that. Now that I’ve found you, Quin, I can’t trust myself to stay away.
Shinobu plugged his nose and gulped down the contents of the thermos without stopping for a breath.
The effects were immediate. His stomach cramped so suddenly and so intensely, he doubled over and had to grab for the edge of the beam to avoid pitching off.
When the first round of cramps eased up, he crawled to his feet. He was beginning to shake. Violently. Another fit of cramping hit him, and it was all he could do to stay upright.
Propping himself up against another girder, he stripped down to his underwear. Then he threw away the empty thermos and his clothes, and several moments later heard a splash distantly below him.
His body was shaking and cramping so fiercely by now that he was forced to move his feet just an inch at a time, worried that he would lose his balance before he was ready. Finally he reached the farthest point of the beam and his toes were hanging off the edge. He took a deep breath, ready for the end.
And he jumped.
His stomach leapt up into his throat; adrenaline rushed into his veins. He was falling! He was going to die!
It was a long way down. Long enough for him to watch the steel skeleton of the Bridge flying by. Long enough to watch the dark water racing up to meet him through the fog. He had intended to hit the harbor in a flat belly flop, which would have killed him instantly. Instead, as he plummeted to the water, instinct took over. He had, in fact, jumped off bridges before—for fun. Unintentionally, he hit the water in a perfectly vertical stance, feetfirst, and he sliced down through the surface like a cliff jumper showing off for tourists.
His backup plan was to hit bottom so violently that he was killed by the second impact. Unfortunately, he was mistaken about the water under this portion of the Bridge. It might have been shallower here than it was at the center, but by the time he stopped plunging through its depths, he still hadn’t reached the bottom. A few moments after jumping, Shinobu found himself alive, deep beneath the surface, with all limbs intact. The cold was a shock, but it was also making his stomach feel better.
His diving experience told him his body would soon force him to inhale, but right now, because he’d taken a breath before impact, he had half a minute of air left in his lungs, maybe more. So instea
d of surfacing, he dove deeper, swimming blindly down.
Stroke after powerful stroke, Shinobu pulled himself forward, and something strange was happening, something more than the terror and adrenaline of the jump. His stomach was twisting itself into knots and his muscles were shivering, but a more powerful sensation than either of these was taking over. His body was humming.
That was an odd word, yet it seemed to fit. He kept swimming toward the bottom, and as he did, it felt as though every cell were vibrating of its own accord, and in doing so they were shaking loose all sorts of things, some physical, some not.
First, the drug haze that had lain upon him for the last year and a half was rattled out of his head. As his arms pulled him through the dark water, he experienced a mental sharpness he hadn’t felt in ages. Next his heart was shaken into furious motion, and it began to pump blood wildly, like a guerrilla warrior firing a machine gun on New Year’s Eve. Shinobu’s lungs began to complain, but he was still moving deeper.
Finally, memories started to shake loose:
He was on the estate, by the barn above the cliff. He had looked everywhere for Quin, had finally realized she must be here. They had done their first assignment as Seekers the night before. His new brand, the athame burned into his wrist, was throbbing beneath its bandage. He’d been sick to his stomach for nearly twenty-four hours.
He was going to find Quin and take her away with him. He would convince her to leave the estate today, with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. They could cross the river at the base of the cliff, and make their way down the opposite shore to the nearest village.
Quin probably still loved John, but Shinobu would make her see. John was leaving. Briac was getting rid of him. She and Shinobu were the two who should be together. They could put last night behind them, put the estate behind them, go somewhere where they would never look at their parents again. And one day, when they were safely away and alone together, she would turn to him and see him differently. And he would kiss her …
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