Book Two of the Travelers Page 11

  “Down! Everybody down!” Olana commanded.

  Finally the stunner was aimed directly at them. Olana waited for the blast. But nothing happened. Nothing, that is, except for an odd little wisp of smoke that began to trail from the side of the chopper. The chopper kept wheeling and wheeling, the stunner aiming farther and farther from Olana and her group. Something is wrong with the chopper! Olana realized. Elli had done something to the chopper!

  Suddenly the chopper dipped, nosed over, and slammed into the mountain, obliterating itself.

  “She did it,” Olana whispered. Then she shouted it. “She did it! She took ’em out!”

  A ragged cheer rose from the excav team. They began to stream down the hill toward where Elli lay.

  As they grew closer, Olana’s heart began to sink. Elli wasn’t moving. She wasn’t moving at all.

  TWELVE

  Elli lay on her back. Every part of her body hurt as she stared up at the circle of faces. She felt confused.

  “What just happened?” she said.

  One of the young diggers grinned at her. “You were incredible! That’s what happened!”

  Olana picked up a long cylinder. “What is this?”

  Elli sat up, looked at the gleaming stick for a moment. It started coming back to her, her whole fight with the dados. It seemed almost like a dream, like something that had happened to someone else. Because Elli knew that she was not the fight-off-hordes-of-dados kind of person.

  Elli blinked, took a deep breath, then took the cylinder from Olana, put it back in the box, and slammed the lid. “We need to get back to the warehouse right now,” she said. “The chopper will have sent out some kind of distress signal. More dados will come.”

  She stood, tucked the box under her arm, and began trotting toward their vehicle.

  The trip home was silent. Several times dado choppers buzzed over, heading rapidly in the direction of the downed aircraft. But no one stopped them.

  They descended into the manhole and within fifteen minutes they were crawling through the air duct into Elli’s little broom closet.

  They emerged from the broom closet to find a ring of people standing outside the door. Their faces were hard and angry. Standing at the center of the group was Tylee.

  “You did an excav against my express orders!” she shouted. “What are you people thinking? Dados could be on the way here right this minute!”

  “Look,” Elli said, “it’s all my fault. You see, I—”

  Tylee cut her off. “If it was just some little cleaning lady, I’d be more understanding. But Olana? Bart? You two are supposed to be leaders. Responsible! Intelligent!”

  Bart and Olana were ashen faced. “I’m sorry, but—,” Olana began.

  “You’ve endangered everything. Everything we’ve worked for! Everything we’ve bled for! Everything we’ve—”

  This time it was Elli’s turn to cut Tylee off.

  “Dear,” Elli said. Her voice was soft. But it felt surprisingly firm coming out. “Dear, this was our final excav. We understand that it was a risk. But this was a risk worth taking.”

  “You are in no position to evaluate what is or is not a reasonable risk. There are matters at stake here that—”

  Elli smiled shyly. “I’m sorry, dear, but I think you’ll see that what’s in this box was worth the risk.” She set the long thin dirty box on a nearby table. “See for yourself.”

  Tylee opened the box grudgingly, pulled out the long gleaming cylinder. She frowned at it skeptically. “What is this—a shower-curtain rod? A piece of an old vehicle?” She tossed it back on the table.

  Bart stepped forward, picked up the cylinder. “It’s a weapon. Tylee, this little cleaning woman—as you call her—used this thing to destroy four dados and a security chopper. In about thirty seconds.”

  Tylee looked at the weapon, then at Elli, then at the weapon again.

  “Is this true?” she finally said to Elli.

  Elli nodded.

  “That ‘curtain rod,’” Olana said, “is our hope for the future.”

  There was a sudden hubbub as everyone started talking. Olana began excitedly giving a blow-by-blow description of Elli’s fight with the dados. And all of the revivers began grabbing for the cylinder, anxious to figure out what its secret was.

  Elli let them talk, feeling a pleased sensation moving through her entire body. During the excav, she had felt a nervous buzzing at the back of her skull. What if I fail? What if I take a wrong turn? What if the dados catch us? What if Blok tracks us back to the warehouse? What if… But now she knew that her faith had been repaid.

  Finally she interrupted the clamoring voices. “Excuse me,” she said. “Excuse me.”

  Everyone quieted, then turned to look at her.

  “Yes?” Tylee said.

  “When I said that what was in the box was worth the risk, I was actually talking about the other item in the box.”

  Tylee frowned curiously, then and reached into the box a second time.

  “What is it?” Bart said.

  Tylee pulled out a book—a very old leather-bound volume. Her eyes widened. Then she held up the book so everyone could see. On the cover were four words, set in faded gold type:

  The Analects of Kelln.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  Olana spoke first. “Wow.”

  “Oh, my,” said another voice.

  “You found it,” Tylee whispered. “I’d like you to give it to Dr. Pender in person.” Then she handed the book to Elli.

  The group turned away and started talking about the weapon again. Elli hugged the precious book to her chest. It smelled of ancient libraries.

  I did it! she thought. I found the Analects of Kelln! It occurred to her—as it had every now and then—that maybe there was something to what Press had told her. Maybe she really was…

  No. No, it was silly to even consider it. She was a cleaning lady. Maybe she had an odd gift for finding important old boxes. Maybe, with the help of the strange cylinder and about a ton of adrenaline, she had been able to fight off a couple of brainless robots. But that didn’t mean she was a Traveler. That didn’t mean she was special.

  She left the group and began walking toward Dr. Pender’s office. The excited voices faded.

  Elli found Dr. Pender standing in his office. He looked up, raised one eyebrow, and said, “You caused a bit of a fuss today. I must say, I really don’t understand why you would have done such a thing.”

  Wordlessly, she handed him the book. He smiled tightly as he took the volume. She could tell that, like Tylee, he was angry that anyone would engage in an unauthorized excav. He was understandably protective of the warehouse and its irreplaceable contents.

  But then Dr. Pender’s face changed. His mouth opened slightly as he stared at the cover of the volume. He opened it reverently and began to leaf through the pages. After a moment, tears began streaming down his face. Finally the librarian looked up at her with an odd smile on his face.

  “You did it….,” he whispered. “How did you know? How did you—” His voice faltered.

  She shrugged. I just knew, she thought. I just did.

  Solemnly he closed the book. Then he held it out to her. “You must be the first one to read it,” he said.

  “Oh, I couldn’t, dear,” she said. “Someone who understands these things better should—”

  He pressed his finger against her lip. “Shhh.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve heard you whispering while you work,” he said. “Quoting the books you’ve read.”

  Elli blushed. She felt embarrassed to think that anybody had noticed her. She had thought it was her little secret.

  “You’re memorizing them all.” Dr. Pender stared at her intently. “Aren’t you?”

  She looked at the floor. “I suppose I am.”

  He pushed the book into her hands. “One day the dados may come,” he said. “Perhaps even today. Who knows. So it’s important that you
put this in here.” He tapped the side of her head. “The sooner the better.”

  She nodded and began walking back toward her broom closet. She wanted to store the book on her special shelf.

  When she reached the broom closet, Tylee was there waiting for her. “Ah!” she said. “There you are.”

  “I know you’re mad,” Elli said. “I’m sorry. I should have—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Tylee said. “What’s done is done.”

  The leader of the revivers stood there awkwardly for a moment. “Do you mind if I speak with you privately?”

  Elli nodded. “Come in,” she said, opening the door to the tiny broom closet. “I’m afraid you’ll have to sit on the bed,” she added.

  Tylee looked around the tiny room. “You live in here?” She shook her head. “I never knew. I thought you had a real room. I’m sorry. We should have—”

  Elli smiled gently. “I like it here.”

  Tylee spotted the photographs cut from newspapers that covered the walls. Nevva winning prizes. Nevva holding up trophies. Nevva smiling at the camera. “Your daughter,” she said.

  Elli nodded.

  “You’ve never told anyone here your real name.”

  Elli nodded.

  “We had to find out of course. It was in the papers, a woman missing the day of the cave-in. We pulled up the records and identified you from the photographs. We had to be careful in case you were a Blok spy.”

  Elli sat on the bed with her hands between her knees. “Of course.”

  Tylee sighed, her face etched with worry. “We’re going to have to move Mr. Pop,” she said. “We’ve been thinking about it for a while. A site farther out in the country. After what happened on your excav…well, we suspect that Blok has a general idea of where we’re located. After what you did out there today, they’ll leave no stone unturned trying to find this place.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elli said. “I know that we attracted too much attention with this last excav.”

  “Don’t apologize. It was worth it.” Tylee hesitated, as though she were trying to find the right words. “In fact, today may well be the turning point in our movement. That cylinder, whatever it is—our scientists will try to figure out how it works. If we can reproduce it, make more, we can finally rise up and destroy Blok.”

  Elli nodded.

  “But something else happened today. Something I can tell only you. But first you must promise never to speak of this again.”

  “Okay.”

  “We recruited a new agent today. This person will be the most important, most highly placed agent our movement has ever recruited.”

  “Oh?”

  “With the new agent? And that weapon you found? We will triumph.”

  Elli didn’t speak. Why is Tylee speaking to me about this? she thought. A highly placed agent of the movement—that’s something that a person like Tylee wouldn’t talk about. The more people you told a thing like that, the more chance of the information leaking to Blok security.

  “The agent’s name…” Tylee paused. “Elli, it’s Nevva Winter. Our new agent is your daughter.”

  Elli took a deep breath.

  “I just thought you should know.”

  Tylee rose and left the broom closet.

  Elli sat on the bed for a long time. After the day she’d just had, she was exhausted. And the fight with the dados—the effect of it was just catching up with her. She began trembling.

  I should get to work, she thought. I should go clean something. But her legs were trembling so hard, she couldn’t even stand up.

  And then, as quickly as it had hit her, the feeling passed.

  You know what? she thought. I’ve cleaned every single day for the past five years. Who’s to say I can’t take a day off?

  She felt a strong glow spreading through her limbs. She was exhausted. But she was triumphant, too. In a funny sort of way, she felt better than she’d felt…well, before her husband had begun the long slide that led her to this tiny room.

  With that, she picked up the book and began to read The Analects of Kelln. As she read the first sentence, a strange smile spread across her face. And like Dr. Pender, tears of joy began to run down her face.

  Even at the end of the road, read the first sentence, there is a road. Even at the end of the road, a new road stretches out, limitless and open, a road that may lead anywhere. To him who will find it, there is always a road.

  ALDER

  ONE

  There was nothing in the world that Alder had wanted more than to become a full-fledged Bedoowan knight. A Bedoowan knight was strong. A Bedoowan knight was just. A Bedoowan knight was brave. A Bedoowan knight was a hero to all people, respected by all.

  And now Alder was a knight. In fact, he was generally known as the finest of all knights. When Alder’s name was spoken, it summoned up everything that was virtuous in a Bedoowan knight.

  On this particular day he was riding through the dark, forbidding forest of Arlberg on his powerful black warhorse. As he rode, he heard a sudden scream of anguish pierce the gloom. He wheeled the horse around and spurred it toward the cry.

  In seconds he had reached the source of the sound. A beautiful young villager, obviously caught in the middle of doing her washing, was surrounded by highwaymen—the unscrupulous robbers who lived deep in the forest, preying on travelers.

  “Please!” she cried. “Someone help me!”

  “Unhand her, you cowards!” Alder shouted. The highwaymen whirled fearfully.

  Alder drew his sword, brandishing it high, as his horse reared up in the middle of the stream. Then he charged. Seeing him, the highwaymen scattered like leaves in the wind.

  All of them, that is, except for their leader—a tall, muscular man with a scar running down his face. He grabbed the beautiful young villager, putting a thin, rusted blade to her neck. “Come and get me, knight,” the man shouted.

  Alder swung his sword and—

  “Alder!”

  Alder swung his sword and galloped toward—

  “Alder!”

  Alder swung his sword and galloped toward the—toward—galloped toward the—

  “Hey, Alder! Snap out of the daydream, you nitwit!” Master Horto, the head of the Imperial Training Academy, was yelling at Alder. As usual. “I’m not telling you again! Get me some water. And while you’re at it, a couple of those pastries. The ones with the jelly inside.”

  It took a moment for Alder’s mind to adjust. He was standing in the rear of the academy’s training hall, while Master Horto led the sword class. The students—knights in training—were all lined up and repeating their sword drills. All except Alder.

  Alder wasn’t permitted to train with the others. He had other duties.

  Alder ran into the other room, came back with some water and the tray of pastries. Master Horto was a huge man—even taller than Alder, and weighing about as much as two ordinary men.

  “Here you are, Master.” Alder bowed and held out the water and the tray of pastries.

  Horto grabbed one of the pastries, stuffed the entire thing in his mouth. As he chewed, a disgusted expression ran across his face. He spit the entire pastry on the training floor. “That one’s old! Did you just give me yesterday’s pastries?”

  “Well, I just—”

  Master Horto cuffed him across the head so hard his ears rang. “Clean that up.” He pointed at the floor.

  The other trainees tittered and pointed as Alder knelt and began cleaning the floor with a rag. Alder sighed and smiled, trying to pretend it didn’t bother him to be laughed at. But it did bother him. It always did. He had been the butt of jokes every single day since he joined the academy three years ago.

  Joined? Well, officially he was a trainee. But he never trained with the other students. Master Horto had him so busy cleaning and fetching and doing other menial jobs around the school that he never had time to train.

  “As soon as you get your chores done, you can train,” Mast
er Horto would always say.

  Only…the chores never got done. No matter how hard Alder worked. Now he was sixteen years old, and he still knew next to nothing about fighting.

  Alder’s problem was that he was an orphan. He had no parents, no friends, no supporters, no patrons, no money. And since he couldn’t pay fees to the academy, Master Horto required him to work. And work. And work.

  Most of the boys at the academy would have their knighthoods within a year. But Alder? Knighthood seemed very far away. In fact, if he didn’t get on with his training soon, he was going to be in serious trouble.

  There were actually a few Bedoowans who never became knights. Usually they were people who had physical or mental problems that kept them from completing their training. Poor, pathetic wretches who shambled around the castle with long faces, avoiding people’s eyes, constantly abused by everyone. They were called every horrible name in the book—“cripples,” “weaklings,” “half-wits.” They were laughed at and despised even by the Novans, the people who worked as servants to the Bedoowans, and by the Milago, the people who worked the glaze mines in the village below the castle.

  The thought that Alder might end up wandering around the castle without any respect, without any status at all—the very thought of it made him sick to his stomach. But what could he do? If Master Horto wouldn’t let him train…

  The thing was, if you didn’t make your knighthood by age eighteen, you were out of the running. Alder only had two years. And two years was a very short time to learn all the skills a knight was supposed to know.

  You had to be a decent horseman, a passable archer, proficient with pike and glaive and short spear. And of course, most of all, you had to be an excellent swordsman. If you couldn’t show real skill with a sword, you were sunk.

  Alder practiced secretly in his tiny room, memorizing moves from the academy curriculum and then practicing them until late into the night. But that wasn’t the same as practicing at school.