“Good morning, Ms. Strand. Sorry to keep you waiting. Any improvement in the leg?”
“No change.”
Maya had worn a skirt that afternoon so she could avoid the indignity of a hospital gown. Sitting on the edge of the examination table, she reached down and ripped off her bandage. The wound was still swollen and oozing blood, but she refused to show pain. It gave her some small satisfaction that Dr. Kamani looked concerned.
“I see. Yes. That’s somewhat disappointing.” The physician took some disinfectant and fresh bandages out of the cabinet. She pulled on latex gloves, sat down on a stool near the table and started to bandage the wound. “Any problems with the medicine?”
“It made me sick to my stomach.”
“Did you vomit?”
“A few times.”
“Any other problems? Dizziness? Fatigue?”
Maya shook her head. “I need some more antibiotics. That’s all.”
“You can pick up a refill on the way out. But we need to discuss certain issues.” Dr. Kamani applied one final length of medical tape and stood back up. Now that she was no longer sitting below Maya like a shoe-shine boy, she appeared to regain some confidence. “We still don’t know what’s wrong with your leg, but it’s clear that you should adopt a healthier lifestyle. You need to stop traveling and avoid stress.”
“That’s not possible. I have certain obligations.”
“We all have busy lives these days, but sometimes we have to listen to our bodies.” Dr. Kamani checked the folder. “What exactly is your profession?”
“That has nothing to do with my leg.”
“You need to talk to a specialist.”
“I’ve had enough of this.” Maya’s sword was hidden in the carrying case lying on the table. She picked it up and slung the strap over her shoulder. “You’re bloody useless.”
Dr. Kamani stood a little straighter. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared as if she were about to smash a tennis ball back across the net. “And you’re pregnant, Ms. Strand.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Well, it’s true. I ordered a full range of tests, and that was one of them. The pregnancy is probably why you feel sick to your stomach. “
Crazy thoughts pushed through her mind. Maya wanted to be surrounded by enemies at that moment so that she could draw the sword and slash her way out of the room.
“When did you last have sexual intercourse, Ms. Strand?”
Maya shook her head.
“Do you know who the father is?”
She felt paralyzed, frozen within that moment of revelation, but her mouth moved and sounds came out. “Yes. But he’s gone away.”
“Of course there are alternatives if you want to terminate the pregnancy. I usually ask patients to think it over for twenty-four hours before they make an appointment.”
Dr. Kamani reached into the door rack and pulled out a pamphlet with the words It’s Your Choice on the cover. “This pamphlet explains the various options. Are there any other questions I can answer?”
“No.” Maya checked the time on her mobile phone. “Right now, I’m late for an appointment.” She slid off the examination table, brushed past Dr. Kamani and hurried out of the clinic.
Alice Chen and one of the nuns from the island were arriving in London, and Linden had told Maya to meet them. She found an unregistered taxi parked across the street and climbed into the back..
“Euston Station,” she told the driver. “I’ve got to be there in ten minutes.”
As the car jerked forward and headed down Brick Lane, the moment in the examination room returned to her with all its power. She was pregnant with a Traveler’s child. At that moment, it felt like being in a plane crash-an instant of comprehension followed by confusion and pain. What should she do? Could she tell anyone? She was angry and sad, happy and defiant before the car reached Whitechapel Road.
If this had happened to Mother Blessing, the Irish Harlequin would have demanded an abortion that afternoon. She would have removed this accident growing inside her-destroyed it like a tumor. The Harlequins’ power came from the simplicity of their lives, the single-minded ferocity of their obligation. The body was a weapon that had to be maintained.
By now, Maya was late for the train, but she followed the rules she had learned from her father. For Thorn, a place like Euston Station was an “Argus trap”-a high-intensity surveillance area named after the guardian character in Greek myth that had a hundred eyes. Euston was a particularly dangerous location because it was on the northern boundary of the congestion tax zone, so cameras took continual images of car license plates. University College London and the bones of Jeremy Bentham were only a few hundred yards away from this central point. If the dead philosopher stepped out of his glass case and sauntered down the street, he would have been a prisoner of the electronic Panopticon.
Maya got out of the taxi, walked down Euston Road and entered Friends House, the Quaker religious center. Standing in the ground floor reading room, she could make an initial evaluation of the station. The front entrance had over a dozen cameras pointed at the bus area and the war memorial to the “The Glorious Dead.” In an emergency, she would have simply run the gauntlet and hoped that the Tabula mercenaries would be delayed in traffic. But there was usually a safe way in-even Argus had been defeated.
She went back outside and hurried up Barnaby Street on the east side of the station. The trash-covered sidewalk led her past King Arthur’s Pub, a betting parlor and a shop called Transformation that sold clothes to cross dressers. Two identical male mannequins were in the window, one with a suit and bowler hat and the other with a blond wig and a red silk cocktail dress. THIS COULD BE YOU, proclaimed a sign. Not bloody likely, Maya thought. An image flashed through her mind of different display: A pregnant young woman standing next to fierce looking twin with a flat belly.
Barnaby Street merged into a traffic ramp, and she followed it up to an enclosed delivery area on the top of the station building. There were only a few cameras in this area-all of them searching for car license plates-and she followed the concrete ramp that led down to the central concourse. The concourse was lined with shops, including two Burger Kings, two W.H. Smith bookstores, and two Marks and Spenser’s. Perhaps that was a clue to the future-hundreds of stores that were basically the same.
An announcement board told her that the train from the ferry port at Holyhead had just arrived on track six. Maya passed between two shops to tracks seven and eight, and then peered down through a thick glass window that overlooked track six. Passengers from the Holyhead train were hurrying toward the main concourse: an East Asian family with strollers, three teenage girls with braided hair and backpacks, and a middle-aged couple maneuvering a large wheeled suitcase.
It didn’t look like Alice Chen was on the train. When Maya changed her position, she saw a police officer entering the station, followed by two paramedics pushing a stretcher on a gurney. This way, the officer gestured. Track six. Follow me.
She checked her knives and shifted the sword carrier so that she could draw the weapon easily. Pretending to search for a passenger, she strolled down the platform for track six. The police officer was there, standing on the steps of the fourth train car. As she passed by the windows of the car, she saw that the paramedics and two train conductors were crowded into the third compartment.
Maya reached the end of the platform as the paramedics reappeared with one of the Poor Claires strapped to a stretcher. The nun was unconscious, but alive. So where was Alice Chen? She waited for someone to escort the little girl off the train, but the two conductors and the police officer followed the gurney out to the concourse. It was clear that that no one was searching for a lost child.
Maya took out a mobile phone registered to a homeless man in Brixton and called Linden. “I’m at the station,” she said. “I was supposed to collect the package, but the situation is not as expected.”
“Is there a problem?”
> “The person in charge of delivery was unconscious and taken away by paramedics.”
“And the package?”
“Not on the train.”
“What is your current situation?”
“Our business competitors are not in the area.”
“Don’t put yourself at risk. This is not our obligation.”
“I realize that, but-”
“Leave the area immediately and return to the office.”
The called ended, but she didn’t leave the platform. This is not our obligation. Yes, her father would have said the same thing-and a year ago she would have followed his example. But Gabriel had made her aware of another level of responsibility. It felt like Linden was imitating the Brethren at that moment. He wanted her to be part of the cause and ignore the individual, follow the rules and betray the deeper knowledge within her own heart.
Her mobile phone rang again, but she didn’t answer it. A stiletto appeared in her left hand as she boarded the train and hurried down the corridor to the fourth car. The third compartment was empty-no sign of a struggle-but she noticed something on the scuffed floor.
Kneeling down, she picked up two fragments of a sea-smooth piece of driftwood. A policeman would have never understood what the fragments meant, but Maya knew instantly. She had made pretend weapons like this when she was a growing up-measuring sticks that were supposed to be swords and pencils held beneath her sleeves with rubber bands. When she fitted the pieces together, the driftwood looked like a dagger.
27
Gabriel had always returned to the familiar reality of the Fourth Realm before he gathered the courage to cross over again. But this time he continued his journey. After the confrontation with Michael, he returned to the beach, and then followed the passageway through darkness to light.
The Traveler sat on a flat rock and studied this new world. He had crossed over to an arid highlands dotted with low-lying bushes that had black roots growing out of them like spider legs. Immense mountain ranges topped with snow rose up in each direction. It felt as if they contained the universe within their boundaries.
But the most striking aspect of this realm was the sky; it was a turquoise-blue that reminded him of old jewelry. The distinctive color could be caused by the high altitude. Gabriel was breathing quickly and felt a burning sensation in his lungs. There was a harshness here-an austere purity that did not permit compromise.
Gabriel decided that he had reached the Sixth Realm of the gods. The few Travelers from antiquity that had visited this place had left vague accounts of tall mountains and a magical city. Perhaps the city no longer existed; nothing was permanent in the universe. According to his Pathfinder, Sophia Brigs, the different realms were much like the human world; they evolved in new directions and changed over time.
He had no idea how long he’d been sitting on the rock, no sense of time other than the sun’s changing position. When he first emerged from the passageway, the sun was low on the horizon. It slowly burned its way across the sky. The day appeared to be two or three times longer than the twenty-four hours of his world. Anyone who lived here would have to adjust to a night that would seem to last forever. Each new sunrise would feel like a miracle.
When the sun reached the highest point in the sky, Gabriel shifted his position and saw a distant flash-like a reflection from a mirror. Perhaps someone was trying to contact him. Standing on the rock, he examined the mountain range. Two of the tallest peaks had a “V” space between them and there was a glittering point of light at the bottom of this gap.
Before he could go anywhere, he needed to make sure that he could return to the passageway. Rocks were scattered around the landscape. He picked up the smaller ones and began to build a cairn. When this pile was about six feet high, Gabriel studied the surrounding landscape and tried to memorize every detail.
It felt like his beating heart was the center of this world-a clock ticking in an empty room. Turning his back on the hills, he walked directly toward the light. It took less than a mile of hiking to realize that flash floods had cut steep-sided ravines and several large canyons into the rocky ground. If he wanted to travel in a straight line, he would have to climb down to the bottom of each ravine and then scramble his way back up again.
It took a great deal of effort to get past the first two ravines, and Gabriel stopped to rest. At this pace, it would be dark before he reached the mountains. When he resumed the journey, he tried a new strategy-following the top ridge of each ravine until the gap disappeared or a rock bridge allowed him to cross over to the other side.
As time passed, the sun descended slowly toward the horizon. Although the glittering point of light disappeared, Gabriel kept his eyes on the gap between the two mountains. When his throat was so dry that he found it difficult to swallow, he reached a long, narrow canyon with a thin line of water at the bottom. Gabriel built another cairn at the top, and then climbed down the rock wall, forcing his hands into cracks while his feet searched for a ledge that would support his weight. Tough little plants that reminded him of evergreen trees appeared as he got closer to the floor of the canyon. He grabbed onto their branches and lowered himself down.
The water was cold and had a sharp iron taste. Kneeling in the gravel, he drank again and again, and then splashed water on his face. He was in the shadows now, looking at the turquoise sky. It would have been difficult to climb back up, so he followed the canyon, walking against the trickling flow of the creek. Every time Gabriel came around a bend, he expected to find a tributary or a series of ledges that would provide a way out. Instead, the canyon became even deeper, and the sky above him was like a twisting line of ink. The mounds of sand and pebbles on the canyon floor showed that a powerful river had once flowed here.
He lay down on a patch of sand and fell asleep, waking up when a drop of water struck his face. The sky was gray with clouds, and it had started to rain. Drops fell through the canyon opening and then the storm gained power. Drops splattered on the boulders and more water flowed down the rock walls.
There was no shelter, so Gabriel closed his eyes and felt the rain strike his shoulders and trickle down his face. The storm seemed to go on forever, with new surges of intensity until all at once the clouds disappeared from the sky.
Gabriel assumed that most of the rainfall would wash across the rocky soil and drain into the canyon. But nothing had changed. The creek was still about three inches deep, flowing across smooth red stones. He splashed through the water for a few minutes, and then stopped when he felt a sudden gust of wind from higher up in the canyon. Air was being pushed forward by a surge of water coming toward him. There was no way out. The flood would sweep him along and smash his body against the boulders.
He heard a dull roar in the distance. A few seconds later, a two-foot high wave came around a bend in the canyon and almost knocked him over. Water flowed through his legs as he trudged over to the canyon wall. He looked up, searching for a ledge or foothold. Nothing.
Dead leaves drifted through the air like birds trying to escape a storm. The roar transformed itself into a deep, echoing sound like a train coming out of a tunnel. The water grew higher-up to his waist-as he looked up and saw a dark line on the opposite wall. Planting each foot carefully, he crossed the canyon and touched the rock. A jagged crack, several inches deep, cut across the wall.
Gabriel extended his right arm, forced his fist into the rock, and then followed with his left hand while his feet dangled in the air. An evergreen bush was growing from the side of the cliff about twenty feet up, and he decided to head toward it. Already his arms and shoulders were aching, and blood trickled from his scraped knuckles to his wrists.
The roaring sound had grown louder-so powerful that it seemed to fill the canyon. Keep moving, he told himself. Just keep moving. But when he glanced right, he saw a massive wall of water flowing toward him. With one convulsive movement, Gabriel reached up and grabbed the evergreen bush. And then the flood was there. His chest, his neck
and now his head were underwater. He heard a moan and a grumbling noise. It felt as if monsters hidden within this dark surge had grabbed his legs and were trying to pull him under.
28
Gabriel waited for that final moment when he would be forced to take water into his lungs. How much longer would he live? His heart beat once, twice-and then the massive wave passed him by and continued down the canyon. Still clinging to the evergreen bush, he opened his eyes and gasped for air.
Once again, the river appeared harmless, a thin line of water flowing over a bed of smooth stones. Gabriel lowered himself down to a patch of gravel and lay there for a long time, gazing up at the turquoise sky. His first thought was to climb out of the canyon and find the passageway home before nightfall. He would return to his own world and its familiar reality.
And then what? Eventually, he would have to leave the secret apartment and speak to the Resistance. Although he opposed the Brethren’s philosophy of power and control, he didn’t know how to express his vision in a way that would make sense to other people. Perhaps some higher power could help him. He needed to stay here and learn the secrets of this place.
Gabriel stepped into the shallow stream and sloshed his way up the canyon. At each new curve in the rock wall, he would pause and listen for the sound of another flood. Eventually, he reached an area where a section of the rock wall had peeled away and collapsed into the stream. He climbed up the rubble and jumped onto a narrow ledge. His back was pressed against the wall, his knees were bent and his feet splayed out like a ballet dancer making an awkward plié. The ledge widened as it led him upward, and a few minutes later he was out of the canyon. Once again, he turned toward the mountains and saw towers outlined against the sky. It was a city-a golden city-built in the middle of this desolation.
His body felt slow and cumbersome as he trudged up a steep path that threaded its way around massive boulders. It looked as if the mountains themselves had exploded, and the debris still littered the ground. He would take a hundred steps, stop to catch his breath in the thin air, and then start climbing again. At one point he had to force his way through the narrow gap between two boulders. When he emerged, he saw that his destination was only a few miles away.
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