Book Three of the Travelers Page 9

  “Get ’em!” Siry shouted. He and his friends charged toward the knot of Flighters, shouting at the tops of their lungs.

  As they charged, Siry spotted two green eyes surrounded by long red hair. Rena seemed to look right through him, almost as though she had never known him at all. He spotted the large iron key in her hand.

  One of the guards was bleeding heavily from a nasty cut on his scalp, and the other was barely managing to keep the attacking Flighters away from the door. These Flighters, Siry noted, looked stronger and better fed than most of the ones in the larger battle over by the village. And other than Rena, they were all older and bigger than Siry and his friends.

  Instinctively Siry knew that the only way to beat them would be to remain organized. “Shoulder to shoulder,” he said. “Keep tight! There are more of them than of us. But if we keep a tight formation, they can’t attack us two on one.”

  The five kids came to a halt near the door, lifted their clubs, and began marching forward. The knot of young Flighters turned to engage them.

  “Get in front of him,” Siry called, pointing at the wounded guard.

  The wounded guard fell back with relief. It was obvious he didn’t have much fight left in him. Siry and the others began striking at the larger group of Flighters. Though the Flighters were aggressive and angry, it was clear they had no training whatsoever. They flailed wildly. And their sticks were light, flimsy, made of poorly chosen wood.

  “Thanks for the help!” the remaining guard shouted.

  “It’s not over yet,” Siry said. “Don’t let Rena get to the door.”

  And in fact, she was already edging forward, trying to use the Flighters in front of her as cover so she could reach the door.

  “If they get inside, they can bar the door and then destroy everything!” Siry called. That was what was at stake, he realized. If the Flighters disabled or destroyed whatever was inside the mountain…Well, he felt sure it would just be a matter of time before Rayne was in nearly as bad shape as the Flighters. And then the more numerous Flighters would probably be able to overwhelm the village.

  Several of the Flighters seemed to be hanging back, not all that interested in risking their lives. But the ones in front were committed. They flailed away with abandon. Siry spotted their leader immediately. He was the biggest Flighter, a tall blond young man with a scar running down the side of his face.

  Right now the leader was still engaged with the remaining guard. Siry made up his mind to look for an opportunity to take him out.

  But in the meantime one of the Flighters leaped forward. His stick came down with a sickening crack on Twig’s shoulder. Twig screamed and fell to the ground clutching her arm.

  But Siry managed to use the Flighter’s leap to counterattack. By jumping away from his compatriots, the Flighter had exposed himself. Siry landed two swift blows to the Flighter’s neck, and the Flighter fell to the ground, gasping horribly.

  There was a brief break in the fighting. Siry saw that Rena had almost reached the door. “Stop her!” he shouted.

  The guard leaped to his right, trying to stop Rena from reaching the entrance. As he did, though, he opened himself to attack from the scarred young Flighter, who swept the guard’s feet out from under him, then hit him in the head. The guard went down like a puppet with its strings cut.

  But Siry saw his moment. The fighters had moved closer to the cliff edge as they struggled. If he could time it right…

  He charged forward, grabbing the scarred Flighter by the wrist and spinning. It was like a game his father used to play, where he held Siry by the wrist and spun him in a circle through the air. Siry used the bigger Flighter’s momentum to unbalance him and spin him around. The Flighter had to run to keep from being hurled to the ground. Unfortunately for the Flighter, he couldn’t stop in time. His foot went off the edge of the cliff. He fell, a horrified expression on his face, his other knee bouncing off the lip of the precipice. With a scream he disappeared.

  The remaining Flighters stared, shocked at the disappearance of their leader. Siry’s friend Loque took the opportunity to poleax one of them in the head. The Flighters looked at one another, then turned, and began to run.

  All of them except Rena. She had reached the door and was slipping the key into the lock.

  Siry charged her, slammed her into the door, then dragged her away.

  The key fell from her hands as he tripped her, knocking her to the ground.

  “Kill her!” shouted Twig, clutching her hurt arm.

  “Take her out!” the bloodied guard yelled.

  Siry fell onto Rena, his club pressed up against her throat. He could feel her body writhing under him as she struggled to escape.

  “You need help?” the guard said.

  “I’m fine,” Siry said, shoving her back to the ground.

  His face was just inches away from her. He jerked his head toward the retreating Flighters. “Follow those other guys and make sure they don’t come back!”

  The bloodied guard nodded. He appeared to have recovered somewhat. “He’s right. Let’s go.” He led Loque and the others in the direction of the fleeing Flighters.

  Suddenly Siry and Rena were all alone. He was lying on top of her, eyes only inches from hers.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he whispered. “I saved your life. I wanted to help you. And you betrayed me. You betrayed everybody in this town.”

  Rena laughed harshly. “Weak,” she said. “Think, think, think. Talk, talk, talk. Weak.”

  Siry shook his head. “After all I did for you—”

  “Talk?” she said. “Words? Books? No! Words nothing.”

  “But if you don’t think, you’ll never know what there is to look forward to, to plan for, to believe in.”

  “Eat. Sleep. Live.” She paused. “Fight!” And suddenly she had a knife in her hand.

  But Siry was stronger and faster than she was. He grabbed her wrist, twisted it, stripped the knife from her.

  She showed no sign of surrender, though, writhing and squirming and scratching and biting. He sat up on top of her chest. He could feel the ground shaking beneath him as the heavy waves slammed the bottom of the cliff. Siry hadn’t noticed until he sat up, but they were just inches from the edge now.

  And then suddenly, she stopped moving. Her face went blank. She stared up at his face, her eyes empty.

  “Sea trash?” she said softly. She waved her free arm carelessly over the edge of the cliff. “Trash only trash.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “It means something.”

  She waved her finger at the blue horizon. “Nothing. Out there,” she said. “Nothing. Sea…only empty water.”

  She lay limp as a rag under him. His club was still pressing into her neck.

  “Go,” she said. “Press hard. Soon no breathe.”

  He stared into her green eyes. She didn’t seem to be afraid at all.

  “See?” she said. “Weak. Too much words.”

  Siry leaned a little harder on the wood, felt her neck yield. It made him feel sick. All of it. Everything that had happened today. He felt as if he could hear every crunch of bone, every split skull, every scream of pain. When he was in the middle of the fighting, it had been just about the most exciting thing he’d ever done. But now that it was over?

  His entire body started to tremble. He stood up. His legs were so weak he could barely stand.

  “Go,” he said.

  Rena didn’t speak, didn’t look at him, didn’t thank him. She just leaped to her feet and sprinted away. In seconds she had disappeared into the jungle.

  Siry’s legs gave out, and he fell to his knees. Even that seemed to take enormous effort. He stopped, hung his head down over the side of the cliff.

  Below him the waves boiled and thundered on the black tangle of rocks. There was no trace of the Flighter who’d fallen into them.

  After a while Siry got his strength back. He stood and looked around. Noticing the key lying on the ground,
he stooped over, picked it up, stared at it.

  There was writing on the side of the key, letters stamped into it that he couldn’t quite make out. What did it mean?

  He held the key in his hand. Then he turned toward the door. Now was his chance! He could do it. He could finally do it. He walked to the door.

  Then he paused and stood in front of the large metal door without moving. This was something he had imagined for a long time. But now that he was finally here, he found himself hesitating. What if there were nothing in there? What if Rena were right? What if it were just a bunch of dark tunnels full of spiderwebs and rats and dust?

  Finally, though, he extended the key, slid it into the lock.

  Before he could turn it, a voice spoke from behind him.

  “No.”

  He turned. It was his father, shaking his head.

  “No, Son. Not yet. Someday, maybe. But not yet.”

  Siry took a breath, then another, then another. This was clearly a battle he couldn’t win. Not right now. He left the key in the lock, turned and began walking back toward the village.

  He could hear his father slide the key from the lock. Then they walked side by side in silence, following the path back to town. When they reached Rayne, the Flighters were all gone.

  After a minute or two a guard, his shirt torn and his arms bruised, spotted Siry. He pointed. Heads turned to look. Siry wondered if he were about to get blamed for the Flighter attack.

  Instead, the people on the street began to cheer.

  EIGHT

  The next day everything in Rayne seemed to have gone back to normal. No one had been killed in the Flighter attack. There were bruises and concussions and a broken bone or two, but nothing more serious. And the Flighters too had melted back into the woods, dragging away their casualties.

  Siry went to school, just like normal. At school no one mentioned the attack. But there was a look on people’s faces. Everyone knew that Siry’s leadership and quick thinking had saved the day for the villagers. But he had also caused the attack. Everyone knew both these things. And nobody knew quite what to make of it.

  As Siry walked back home after school, he felt the eyes of the town on him. But no one spoke. Not a word.

  And with every step he took, Siry felt as if some kind of distance were opening up between him and the town of Rayne. It was as if he were standing on a cliff, and everyone else was standing on the other side of the chasm. Everyone, maybe, except Loque and Twig and a few of his other friends.

  He felt a knot of anger building in the pit of his stomach.

  When he reached home, Siry walked straight into his room, picked up his precious bag of clues that he’d found on the beach, and dumped the contents onto the floor. For the first time he saw these things as everybody else he knew must have seen them. Not clues at all. Junk. Debris. Scrap. Flotsam. Bits and pieces of unconnected, worthless, meaningless sea trash.

  He gathered up his treasures, put them back in the bag, and walked slowly up the path that led to the mountain. When he reached the top of the cliff, he stood and looked out at the ocean. As far as he could see, there was nothing but the limitless blue ocean. Maybe Rena was right. Maybe life was nothing but eating and sleeping and fighting.

  He opened the bag, held it up over the side of the precipice, and dumped out all his precious clues. They whirled and spun for a moment, then disappeared noiselessly into the surf.

  He felt yesterday he’d come up here as a kid, and left…Well, not quite a man. But close. All his little childish dreams of discovering lost worlds—it was just a child’s fantasy. Rena was right. The world was a harder, emptier place than he’d imagined.

  After he was done, he stood there for a while. Suddenly he had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching him. He whirled around.

  There, standing about twenty feet away, was his father. Jen Remudi had a strange, sad look on his face.

  “What!” Siry said.

  “I saw what you did yesterday. With the girl? Letting her go?”

  Siry flushed, then shrugged.

  Jen Remudi approached his son, stood next to him, and looked out at the blank, featureless horizon. “You’re not wrong, Son,” he said. “There is more out there.”

  Siry said nothing. For reasons he couldn’t quite understand, he felt mad at his father.

  “You wouldn’t have let her go if you didn’t believe there was something more, Son. Something beyond this.” He pointed at the surf smashing fruitlessly at the black rocks.

  “What are you talking about?” Siry said angrily.

  “There is a great struggle going on. It takes in everything as far as the eye can see. And farther.”

  Siry stared mutely out at the sea.

  “Come take a walk with me, Siry,” his father said. “I have some things I need to tell you.”

  NINE

  After the long conversation with his father, Siry felt his head was spinning. Travelers. Flumes. Time travel. Saint Dane. The whole thing was completely, utterly unbelievable. For fourteen years he’d been told nothing. And now all of a sudden, this. It seemed like just another fairy story designed to obscure the truth.

  Then, at the end of the whole conversation, Jen Remudi had said to Siry that he was going to be “called away” soon. What did that even mean?

  “If even half of this is true,” Siry said, when his father had finally wound up his monologue, “then everybody’s been lying to me for my entire life. Why?”

  “No.” His father shook his head. “Almost nobody here knows the big picture.”

  “I don’t believe any of it!” Siry shouted. “It’s all lies. You’re just making this up to make me feel like there’s more to life than this boring little village and this tiny little island.”

  “Son, listen, please, I’m going to be leaving soon, and I don’t want to leave things between us like this. Someday another traveler might arrive, needing your help. It is your destiny to help him. You have to believe me—”

  “I don’t believe anything you say,” Siry said. Then he turned and ran away.

  That afternoon, Siry went for a walk on the beach. As he skirted the surf, muttering to himself, he saw something glittering in the water.

  Out of habit he bent to pick it up. It was a green tube, hourglass shaped, with words formed right in the clear material that it was made from. They had become so worn and pitted that it was impossible to read them. There were a lot of things he’d found over the years that could have somehow been natural objects. But not this. This was clearly made by humans. And it wasn’t something that could have been made in Rayne. He’d never seen anything like it before.

  The top was sealed with a soft, flexible stopper of some sort. And there was something inside, something barely visible through the scarred greenish material.

  He pulled the stopper open and pulled out a piece of paper. It was folded into a tight square. He carefully opened it, trying not to tear the fragile paper.

  His eyes widened. It was a map. Of Rayne…and much more.

  Siry’s hands began to tremble. He looked out to the horizon. There was nothing out there. Nothing at all…was there?

  He looked back at the map, read the word at the bottom of the piece of paper. “JAKILL.”

  As he stared at the word, a plan began to form in his mind. He couldn’t wait to tell Loque and Twig and the others. But as he thought about it, he realized that Rena was right about one thing. Ideas and books and words weren’t enough. This time he wasn’t just going to talk. This time he was going to do something.

  This time, things would be different!

  PATRICK MAC

  ONE

  Curiosity. Orderliness. A passion for understanding.” Patrick Mac looked around at his students. “To become a great librarian, you must have passion and a sense of mission. Because you will have to confront extraordinary challenges, challenges which—”

  Jay Oh, one of his top students—but also one of his most disruptive kids—in
terrupted. “Yeah, like trying not to be bored to death!”

  Patrick frowned. “Now, come on, Jay. I’m making a serious point here,” he said. He tried to look as stern as he could.

  But the truth was, he sometimes wondered if Jay wasn’t right. Patrick loved teaching, loved working as a researcher in the world’s most important library. And yet sometimes he wondered—was this it? Was this all he’d been put on earth to do? He was good at his job. Very good. But sometimes it seemed like poking around in computers full of ancient facts and figures—or teaching young people how to poke around in computers—just wasn’t all that important.

  It wasn’t like the fate of the universe depended on whether you could dig up some old piece of information. He was talking to the class about having a sense of mission. But did he really feel that way himself? He used to think he did. But now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he was saying all this to convince himself.

  As Patrick tried to refocus on the point he’d been making, there was a knock on the door of his classroom. The door opened a crack. Patrick could see one bright green eye looking through the door. There was only one person in the building who had eyes quite that color. It was the director of the New York Public Library herself.

  “Mr. Mac?” The director’s voice came through the door. “A word, if I may?”

  Patrick took a deep breath. The air in the office of the director of the New York Public Library had a special smell to it—the smell of ancient books, of history, of human achievement. For five thousand years the building in which Patrick sat had been devoted to recording and keeping all the knowledge of humankind. And to sit in the office of the director herself! Well, it was a great feeling.

  The director was a small, wizened woman with long white hair. She gave Patrick a wincing smile. “We have a problem.”

  Patrick Mac sat up straighter. Had he done something wrong? He had been a teacher at the School of the New York Public Library for several years now and was still one of the junior members of the library staff. Despite having a natural talent for the work, he was frequently made to feel his inexperience by the older members of the organization. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What did I do?”