The Traveller's Stone

by S J Howland

  The reception hall at the Council chamber was full this time, and Xander waited in the queue before the main desk, listening to the hum of voices coming from behind the closed doors at the back. When it was his turn, he looked up to see the crinkled face and gap-toothed smile of the white-haired old man in his green robe who had greeted them on their last visit. He beamed at Xander.

  ‘Ah, the young man standing for office,’ he said with a wink. ‘Never forget a face. Back again, eh? You picked a good day for it – lots happening. You’ll need a pass, young sir, since you’re not with your friends with the civics books today.’ He pressed a small rectangle of paper into Xander’s hand and pointed him off towards the door in the corner. ‘You remember the way up, eh?’

  Xander smiled weakly at him, rather thrown by the man’s prodigious memory for people who had visited the Council chamber, and then hurried over to the stairs up to the visitor’s gallery. This time, when he entered the gallery, every seat was taken, and he squeezed in at the edge of the balcony. The great chamber below was equally packed, with every one of the green benches full of Guild members. When he peered down, he was surprised to see the hulking figure of Perrin Thorne standing on the little podium, evidently in the middle of giving testimony. Barton Ferrars brought his gavel down several times.

  ‘If everyone keeps interrupting every five minutes, this chamber will never get any decisions made,’ he said crossly, and banged his gavel again for good measure.

  ‘Mr Larcius-Thorne,’ said Randall Hackett, leaning forward with a grave expression. ‘You have updated us on the impact of the Core collapse on the integrity of the critical services which the Nexus provides. We have heard also from the honourable representatives of the Guilds, who are present today and have given their testimony. I realise that you are a busy man, particularly today, but would you please give us your professional opinion? Should we remove the interfaces with what’s left of the hobs’ Core and direct all of our energy requirements to the Nexus? Is that your recommendation and are you in fact able to support such a thing at this time?’

  There was another burst of worried-sounding comments from the floor and Ferrars banged his gavel, glaring around.

  Thorne waited until silence had fallen again before answering. He gazed back at the Council members with his cold, black eyes, the light gleaming on his thick, slicked-back hair.

  ‘It is my professional opinion, and that of my engineers and technical staff, that the only way to guarantee the power supply on Haven at this point is by removing the now-defunct interfaces to make sure we have no further disruptions from the breakdown of the hobs’ Core,’ he said in a smooth and mellifluous voice. His tongue flickered out to moisten his lips as he shook his head in a show of regret. ‘We remain deeply indebted to our little friends who guided our first tentative steps in this technology. Indeed, we are hopeful that we can now extend the hand of assistance to them in our turn as they work through their difficulties. However, our view at the Nexus is that we have a responsibility to the citizens of Haven to ensure that their lives and important work can continue without constant interruption, and we are standing ready and willing to guarantee that happens.’

  The noise of many voices rose again in the chamber, but this time the general sound was approving. Xander saw Marcus Melville and Felix Larcius exchange smug-looking smiles, before Barton Ferrars banged his gavel again and called the councillors to consultation. While they whispered amongst themselves, Thorne tilted his head up to look idly at the portraits gazing down on them, his pale, corpulent face calm and confident. In a much shorter time than before, Ferrars was banging his gavel and everyone quieted to hear him speak.

  ‘Eight in favour of the proposition before the Council, three against and one undecided on final consideration,’ announced Ferrars, before bringing his gavel down again. ‘It is the Council’s decision that the immediate, full and final integration of the Nexus as sole provider of power to Haven is initiated.’

  There was a roar of voices from the floor of the chamber and scattered clapping, while Thorne nodded his head in acknowledgement to the Council, his gaze lingering on his brother-in-law with a twitch of his thick lips. Enid Ingram and Horace Peverell had immediately leaned in to speak with Ferrars, with urgent expressions on their faces, and he listened for a moment and then nodded.

  ‘Order, order,’ he boomed. ‘Given the unprecedented nature of this step, and to ensure its success, it is appropriate that the Council should establish an oversight committee to report on the progress made and any issues which need immediate action.’

  Melville nodded, his eyes glittering in triumph.

  ‘An excellent suggestion, as always,’ he drawled. ‘May I suggest that, given his familiarity with the work at the Nexus and his conscientious attention to detail, Mr Lester Simm is appointed as head of the oversight committee?’

  Xander saw Horace Peverell and Enid Ingram exchange rueful looks but they did not object when it was put to a general vote, and Simm was duly appointed. Suddenly, Xander spotted him over on the far side of the chamber, wearing an eye-watering shade of violet, and repeatedly bowing with huge flourishes of his arm toward Larcius and Melville, who did not appear to have noticed his genuflections.

  Xander sighed. Despite Thorne’s claims that his engineers supported his earlier statements, Xander wondered about Reeve’s opinion on all of this. Up on the balcony, he overheard some comments from people as they prepared to leave.

  ‘Well, that’s it then,’ said one lady, pursing her lips. ‘The Nexus running everything and next thing you know, Thorne’s relatives running the Council as well. All a bit too cosy, if you ask me.’

  ‘Hmm,’ replied her neighbour. ‘As long as they don’t put the prices up or interfere with us, I don’t really care who runs it. Those hobs always did give me the shivers, anyway.’

  With a sinking feeling, Xander joined the queue of people now heading down the staircase and then went to hand in his pass at the desk, receiving another quick wave and wink from old Pritchard. Remembering his promise to Mrs Stanton, he headed across the square and back towards the South Gates but he could not resist a quick look down the little street to Hob’s Orb shop as he passed, wondering guiltily if he should apologise for his failure.

  To his surprise, the little wooden sign was no longer hanging above the doorway and he hesitated for a moment, before curiosity and a hint of worry, brought him over to the door. The first thing he noticed was that the window was boarded up and when he tried the door handle, it was locked. Clearly, the hobgoblins had not just chosen to withdraw from their wrecked Core but from everywhere else, and Xander felt that tightening of guilt in his chest again. As he trudged back to the gates, it was with an ominous conviction that things were likely to get worse and there was nothing he could do about it.

  *

  By the next morning, his gloomy prediction seemed to be well on the way to coming true. There had been more breaches on the border and they were becoming more unpredictable. The shades could not yet fully manifest but several people had been caught without adequate wards, and even a mild case of shade-strike was extremely unpleasant. In addition, and to his growing concern, he was struggling to use his orb with the same ease as before. Sometimes he could lift things and ward with his previous ease, but more often the orb barely responded and Xander’s anxiety grew every time that happened. He might have discussed it with Ari but evidently she was too busy to spare any time to teach him now. Even the brownies had been missing for the past couple of days, and the house seemed strangely empty without their little forms darting about and hiding behind chair legs and plant stands.

  On the third day after the hobs’ Core collapse, the announcement came out mid-morning that the Academy was being temporarily closed, pending the full integration of the Nexus and hopefully the resuming of border security. Jasper and Flint had gone to collect Ollie and Len from the city, and Xander was helping Mrs Stanton lay the table for lunch, while in the background the
sombre voice of the newscaster related the latest failure on the border and the hospitalisation of yet another person. Mrs Stanton paused a moment, listening with a worried face, and that bitter sense of responsibility flooded through Xander again.

  ‘Can’t they stop it?’ he asked her. ‘Travellers, I mean.’

  Mrs Stanton took one look at his tense face and crossed the kitchen to put an arm around him, hugging him reassuringly. ‘Of course they will,’ she said quickly. She gestured at the screen and it blanked, the dolorous voice replaced with soft music. ‘You know Flint. He’ll have it under control in no time, don’t you worry.’

  Xander tried to be encouraged, but he couldn’t help his voice shaking slightly as he asked the question he had been worrying over for days. ‘Do they think that the hobs’ Core going down is what caused all of these breaches?’ He stared hard at the handful of forks he was clutching as he waited for her answer.

  ‘Honestly, dear, I don’t know. Callan thinks their Core has been failing for a long time now, but you know how they are, so secretive, holding themselves apart. They just don’t trust us, so we really can’t help them, unfortunately.’

  ‘Failing for a long time now.’ Xander tried to hold on to that thought, to believe that he wasn’t responsible for the disaster unfolding on Haven. He kept his eyes down, carefully laying out the cutlery but Mrs Stanton, with her warm heart and sharp eyes, was not fooled.

  ‘Xander?’ she said gently. ‘Is everything okay with you?’

  Xander swallowed, but before he could decide whether or not he was going to answer that, the front door banged and the sound of many voices flooded down the hallway into the kitchen, followed a moment later by all the family, with several additions in the form of Ari, Flint and Callan Reeve, who looked absolutely shattered.

  ‘Hey, Gran,’ Ollie burst through the door and beamed at them both. ‘That smells good. I’m starving.’

  ‘When are you not?’ retorted Mrs Stanton. She gave Xander’s arm a squeeze and murmured, ‘We can continue this later, if you like?’

  Xander swallowed and then looked up at her with a bright smile. ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ he said hastily. Mrs Stanton looked unconvinced, but he hurried to put out the rest of the cutlery, avoiding her eyes.

  Lunch was as delicious as ever, the good food and friendly faces around the table holding the worrying news from outside at bay, at least for a little while, but as the meal went on the atmosphere became quieter and more serious. Flint, Rafe and Jasper were talking with a couple of other Travellers, whose names Xander didn’t know but who he recognised from Flint’s circle. The tall dark Warden, Kirrin Ledger, turned up late and slipped in near Reeve, his face sober and concerned; and even Ari appeared more subdued than usual, as she sat next to Jasper with her usual twinkle entirely absent.

  Xander listened intently to the conversation at the end of the table which had grown louder as people finished eating.

  ‘So apparently Simm told the Oversight Committee earlier that there will have to be significant changes to secure the power supply again,’ Jasper said.

  ‘Yes, overriding every safety protocol we have ever established,’ replied Reeve, his voice sharp with annoyance and frustration. ‘There’s a reason we’ve always implemented advancements cautiously and with careful risk assessments. To be honest, we still know far too little about this technology, and Thorne is over-confident about how well we understand the linkages to the underlying power sources in the deep earth. Of course, Simm is refusing to acknowledge any of this – the man’s a complete idiot.’

  ‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ interjected Ledger with an ironic lift of his eyebrow.

  ‘I know, but now he’s behaving really oddly,’ said Reeve. ‘His team is shutting us engineers out of whole areas of the Nexus where it physically interfaces with the hobs’ Core. We’ve tried to speak to him, but he’s just not listening. He’s got Latchet running around threatening people, although that’s hardly a change.’

  ‘What are they trying to do at the interface?’ asked Flint.

  ‘I told you, I can’t tell because we’re not allowed anywhere near it,’ replied Reeve, frustrated. ‘From what we saw before they shut us out, they’ve forced their way into part of the Core. As you know, the damage is extensive there and the hobs seem to have completely abandoned it now. There’s no sign of any of them.’

  ‘What in Haven is Simm doing in there, then?’ demanded Ledger.

  Reeve shrugged and shook his head.

  ‘I think he’s looking for something but whatever it is, his team don’t seem to be finding it. Simm just marches up and down talking to himself ten to the dozen. I swear, the man has cracked up.’

  As Reeve stared at the table, his exasperation evident, Xander could not help but wonder whether Simm was talking to himself as Reeve assumed, or whether he was actually talking to the strange and disturbing man who had the knack of being overlooked.

  ‘Can you try to reason with him?’ asked Ari.

  Reeve made an aggravated sound.

  ‘How?’ he asked with a roll of his eyes. ‘It’s like talking to an over-dressed brick wall, even if it’s possible to get past Latchet. Simm doesn’t listen to anyone.’

  Xander suddenly had a vivid recollection of the nondescript man, his lips moving as he talked to Simm in the Council chamber. Without thinking, he blurted out, ‘He listens to Gage.’

  The adults around the table all turned around to stare at him, and he flinched. Clearly, most of them had forgotten that Xander, Ollie and Len were still at the table, and both Flint and Ledger frowned.

  ‘Who did you say, Xander?’ Reeve asked kindly, but his face looked tired and worried.

  Xander flushed.

  ‘Gage,’ he repeated. ‘You know, the guy who’s always following Simm around with a clipboard. Brown hair, kind of,’ he groped in his memory for a description, ‘average-looking.’ Xander was rather surprised at how difficult it was to recall an accurate image of the man; he was just so ordinary.

  Reeve looked blank. ‘Sorry, Xander,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I can’t think of anyone like that. The only person who’s always hanging around Simm is Latchet.’

  Xander gaped at him. He had never seen Simm without the silent figure of Gage walking behind him, and it was very odd that Reeve claimed never to have heard of him. Flint abruptly cleared his throat and Xander looked up to see him sending a meaningful look at Mrs Stanton. Immediately, she stood up from the table and the next moment the three of them were being ushered firmly out of the kitchen. She shooed them up the stairs.

  ‘Go find something useful to do,’ she said, before turning back to the kitchen.

  At the top of the stairs, Ollie gestured towards the bathroom with a raised eyebrow. Xander just shook his head and went to lie on his bed, throwing an arm over his face. He felt thoroughly confused.

  *

  The next day the situation had deteriorated further, and in the early evening Flint came to request Mrs Stanton’s help at the Lodge for a Traveller injured with shade-strike. She packed up her medical supplies with a worried face and then insisted that Ollie, Len and Xander should accompany them.

  ‘James is out and Jenna has enough to do, and I’m not leaving them to get up to who knows what.’ Her gaze rested most sharply on Len, who looked wounded at the implication.

  Flint appeared thoroughly distracted and for once did not even put up an argument, simply jumping them straight to the guide-stone and then hurrying them along the path to the Lodge. It was quieter than it had been before, when they had come for the Gathering, with only a few hearths and one bonfire burning, but there were quite a few people milling around there, most of them looking tired and some clearly injured. After indicating that her two grandchildren and Xander should sit outside the Lodge, Mrs Stanton went inside.

  Flint ignored them, also heading inside, and Len heaved a gusty sigh.

  ‘Well, this is just perfect,’ she muttered. ‘What a way to spend an eve
ning.’

  Xander rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the ground and privately agreeing with her. He had caught several wary looks directed at him from a few of the Travellers moving about the glade, and he hung his head, letting his hair conceal his face. A moment later however, he looked up involuntarily as voices drifted out of the open window behind them.

  ‘There is absolutely no reason to over-react.’ It was Atherton’s voice, sharp and precise, and sounding exasperated. ‘We are assured that the Nexus will come fully online within the next few days and surely all of this disruption will calm down at that point.’

  ‘I disagree.’ Wooten’s quavering tones were just as distinctive, and he snorted sceptically. ‘We have no guarantee whatsoever that this new-fangled technology will adequately replace the Core. How do we know that our security is not linked to the original source of energy on Haven, eh?’

  Another person chimed in and Xander recognised the calm, authoritative voice of Kirrin Ledger.

  ‘Border security is not our only concern. There are reports that the Stones are unresponsive and, as it stands, we cannot cross the border. It appears likely that it’s linked to the failures on the border generally and may suggest a deeper problem here.’

  Wooten started to respond but Atherton cut straight across him.

  ‘I hardly think our temporary inability to Travel over the border is a major concern at the moment. Until it’s clear that this is anything more than an inconvenience, which will be alleviated in a couple of days, I refuse to flap around or make rash decisions.’

  ‘Reeve is concerned that Thorne may be under-estimating the difficulty of fully replacing the Core with Nexus functionality.’ Flint’s resonant voice was equally recognisable. ‘We should at least have contingency plans if things deteriorate further than they have in the last couple of weeks.’

  ‘Oh, for Haven’s sake –’

  Atherton sounded thoroughly irritated, but Wooten now cut him off in turn. ‘Speaking of which, where is that troublesome outlander boy you picked up, eh? He doesn’t belong here, that’s certain, and his arrival seems to have coincided with all of this chaos and disorder. Is that happenstance or should we be looking more closely at him?’