Disruptor

by Arwen Elys Dayton

  Quin examined the other emblems and saw that each was set in such a recess; the medallion could be placed over any of them, just as the diamond-shaped slots meant that an athame could be inserted next to each emblem.

  “Their father liked redundancy, as you can see,” he explained, apparently following her thoughts. “Extra tools in case the first set broke, extra weapons, even an extra son, in a way. Here you can use your medallion, or if you find yourself without it, an athame will do instead. Their father preferred an athame most of the time, like a native.”

  He tapped the metal rod against the cavern wall several times, and as he did, the wall began to shake with a deep resonance far beyond the surface effects of the metal rod’s impact. Dex stopped and leaned his head against the stone.

  “Desmond and Quilla had a child called Adelaide,” he whispered. “Quilla and Adelaide.” With his head still on the wall, as if he wanted to absorb the last of the vibrations as they died out, he said, “I’m not trying to find them. I know. They won’t be found.”

  He was slipping between speaking of Desmond as another person and speaking of Desmond as himself. Quin mentally set aside the personal story of Quilla and Adelaide, because there was no way to know the truth of it. But this cavern and this wall were solid things, here and now—real, whether they were part of a legend or part of Dex’s own life. Was Dex telling her that he could locate Seekers by making the wall shake? Did where he placed the medallion—over one particular house’s emblem—determine whom he would find?

  “Dex, does the wall reach out to other medallions?” she asked—cautiously, because she was pressing him for an answer about the real world, and those often set him off.

  He yanked himself away from the stone as though it had bitten him. The gaze he turned on her was full of the same fear and distaste that he wore when he had to walk through sunlight. “No, I’m not finding other medallions yet, am I?” He closed his eyes tightly. “No, no. It’s here, though, somewhere here. I can’t remember, Quilla, because I die.”

  “Dex,” she said gently.

  She took one of his hands, which had clenched into a fist, and she smoothed it open and pressed it against the wall. Dex opened his eyes, stared at his hand on the cool rock surface. It was just stone; it could not hurt him.

  “What does this wall find?” she asked.

  “Athames. I told you I would help you find him—what’s his name?”

  For a moment she had no idea who he meant; then…“Shinobu?”

  Dex nodded like a boy readying himself to swallow a dose of bitter medicine. “Which athame does he carry?”

  Quin was entirely surprised. Dex had become so incoherent, and she’d also assumed that he would avoid helping her until forced. She pointed to the emblem at the apex of the circle. “He carries the athame of the Dreads.”

  Dex gazed at that symbol for too long. “It was the first one he made, you know,” he said at last, just as Quin was preparing to touch him again. “The Seekers chose emblems for themselves—Adelaide chose the fox—and he made all of their athames. But that one was the original, the most delicate and complicated.”

  She wanted to ask how—how a man wandering through medieval England could make athames, how any of this story could be true—but she allowed herself no more questions. He’d said he would find Shinobu.

  He pulled the medallion from its place over the carving of the fox and slipped it neatly into the recess over the three interlocking ovals.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “About which athame he has? Yes.”

  “No. Are you sure you want to find him? Are you sure you choose to be back with him?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” whispered Quin.

  “And will you leave me then?” He didn’t look at her as he asked it. His handsome face was obscured by his hair, but she sensed the anxiety in the line of his jaw.

  She paused. “I told you I would help you.”

  “But did you mean it?”

  Quin understood the deal to which she was committing herself. “I meant it.”

  “All right.”

  He tapped the wall with the metal rod, and this time when the wall began to shake, he didn’t stop. Soon the vibration spread to the floor and up to the cavern roof. In the space of a few breaths, it felt as though the planet itself had taken up the tremor. When it had become so overwhelming that Quin feared the cavern might collapse, he stopped tapping.

  The walls continued to hum and shake, but the intensity died out quickly. Dex was gazing down at the L-shaped rod in his hand, which looked far too small and ordinary to have caused such an effect.

  He murmured, “The next time he uses that athame, we will find him.”

  He plucked the medallion out of the wall, and before he had even lifted it to the straps around his neck, it vibrated in his hands.

  “Is that him already?” Quin asked.

  Dex stared at the medallion, shook his head. “Too soon. It must be a residual—”

  The medallion shook again, more strongly.

  Hope bloomed in Quin’s chest. “Is it Shinobu?”

  The Young Dread and John stepped from the anomaly directly into John’s apartment on the airship. Traveler was still at dock but ready to fly as soon as they had fetched every Seeker who was trapped There. That could happen almost immediately; they’d visited the caves of the final Seeker houses and now had instructions from all of them.

  Maud, with her cloak and her long, unkempt hair, was struck, as she was each time they returned to the ship, by the contrast between herself and the sumptuousness of Traveler. The furnishings were simple but finely made, and as she stepped across the threshold and into John’s living room, she felt like a cheetah loosed into a royal audience chamber. This awareness of her appearance was a new sensibility, one that had snuck up on her during her time awake in the world.

  From the apartment, they walked downstairs. John went to speak with the ship’s medical personnel, and the Young Dread walked into Traveler’s great room. It was the same room she and the Old Dread and the Middle Dread had come to on the night when they’d boarded Traveler as it flew over London.

  There had been a fight in this room, between Quin and John and the Dreads, and it was here that Maud had killed the Middle. Her eyes instinctively sought out the exact spot where she’d stabbed him through the heart with her whipsword, and where he’d fallen, instantly dead. Such a great burden had been lifted from her in that moment, and yet the Middle Dread plagued them still. Only after his death did she and John discover the extent of the havoc he’d caused to Seekers.

  She didn’t linger over the place where he’d died. In truth, the great room was entirely changed. Beneath a high canopy of glass, the room had been left open. A soft mat covered the floor, and exercise equipment and training weapons lined the walls.

  There were three occupants already making use of the weapons. The first two were the children of the boar Seekers, an eleven-year-old girl called Liv, and a four-year-old boy called Kaspar, and the third was Nott. He had found the Young Dread and John on their last visit to the Scottish estate and had begged John to take him back and train him. Tonight Nott, one of his arms in a splint, was teaching the two children to fight with wooden practice swords. As the Young Dread observed, Kaspar let loose a Norwegian battle cry and threw himself at Nott. On reflex, the older boy jabbed the hilt of his wooden sword into Kaspar’s belly and sent him onto the mat.

  Kaspar burst into tears and threw his sword down. Catching sight of the Young Dread, he ran across the room and grabbed her legs. Between sobs, he poured out a stream of angry Norwegian, which he embellished with gestures toward Nott. The Young Dread, uncertain of what one was supposed to do with such a small child, patted Kaspar’s head tentatively.

  Across the room, Liv hit Nott with doubled ferocity. Her Norwegian invective was punctuated with occasional English words, particularly “Bad boy! You a bad boy!”

  Nott knocked Liv down easily and raised his
training sword—

  “Nott!”

  The sharp voice was John’s. He’d come into the great room from the doors on the other side.

  “You want them to learn to fight, don’t you?” Nott demanded, stepping away from the girl. He reluctantly let his wooden sword fall to his side.

  “He’s four,” John pointed out.

  “She’s not four,” Nott said, sticking his chin out at Liv. The girl, back on her feet, slapped Nott across the face. Under John’s watchful eye, Nott didn’t retaliate. Instead he rubbed his cheek and glared.

  The Young Dread felt a laugh escape her throat. When John turned toward her in surprise, Maud wondered how long it had been since she had laughed. Years?

  She knelt down to be eye to eye with Kaspar and gently held his shoulders. “I will teach you to move faster, so that his sword has no chance to hit you.”

  As the little boy considered this, he smiled delightedly. “Yes?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  In hesitant English, Liv asked, “More children vill come to be vis us?”

  “There might be more children,” John told her. “But there will certainly be people who need our help.”

  The Young Dread saw John try to hide his mixed feelings about this, but she could read them plainly. Saving Seekers was treacherous ground in his mind.

  “He von’t help,” the girl announced gravely, pointing her wooden sword at Nott, who had retreated from what looked to him like an overly friendly gathering. Nott was biting his fingernail, but he paused long enough to throw Liv a black look.

  The Young Dread would have laughed a second time, but she saw John’s face become alarmed. His hand went to his waist, where his athame was concealed. Without a word, they both stepped away from the children.

  “It’s shaking,” John said. He pulled out the athame, and they both touched the stone blade, but it was still. “I felt it for a moment. It vibrated against my skin.”

  They waited, but it didn’t shake again.

  Maud thought of a cavern beneath the castle ruins on the Scottish estate, and a visit she’d paid, in the company of the Old and Middle Dreads. The Old Dread had shaken the whole cavern in order to feel the vibration of someone else’s athame. Was someone else searching for John’s athame now?

  “How much could Maggie know about Seekers?” she asked him. “Could she know far more than she ever told you?”

  John thought about this, but eventually shook his head. “I have no way to be sure.”

  The Young Dread considered. If, somehow, that woman had made a connection with John’s athame, what did it mean?

  “Is everything ready?” she asked, indicating the medical suite that ringed the great room.

  “Everything’s ready.”

  “And you?” she asked.

  There was only a small pause before he said, “I’m ready.”

  “Then let’s not wait.”

  Quin pulled Dex along through the anomaly tunnel. She didn’t know if that made them move faster or not, but she couldn’t stand to go slowly. In the cavern below the castle ruins, Dex’s medallion had begun to vibrate in sympathy with the athame of the Dreads, and by following that vibration, he was bringing them to that very athame—which Quin hoped she would find clutched in Shinobu’s hand.

  The pale gray shapes of the outside world—the castle ruins, the forests on the estate—were dancing sedately along the edges of the tunnel, and the landscape continued to move at an excruciating pace, no matter how fast Quin ran. At last she stopped and held Dex’s shoulders, forcing him to look at her. “Dex, faster. Please!”

  He peered down at the medallion, and then up at her. Reluctantly he nodded. As he began to adjust the stone disc, the colorless traces of the world at the edge of Quin’s vision changed, became streaks of light. Quin had the sensation of motion, as if her bones were traveling at a different rate than her skin and clothing. She and Dex continued to walk through the tunnel, but now they were racing through the world.

  In only moments, the streaks slowed and took on new shapes. Quin saw a lake and a muddy shore, colorless and dim. The view was dominated by a familiar set of ruins.

  “It’s Dun Tarm,” she said. “This is where Shinobu is? So close?”

  A group of people stood by the lake, their figures watery and gray through the shifting curtain of the anomaly. She wondered if Dex could move her right through those people, if the tunnel would let them walk through their bodies like ghosts passing through the living. But Dex did nothing so strange. He opened the anomaly up behind the fortress, where they would be hidden from the group on the shore. Quin leapt across the threshold and came out into the solid world, into tall grass and piles of fallen masonry, which were golden in the sunlight.

  She crept close to the fortress’s back wall, peered around it, and from there could see the gathering by the lake. They were all Watchers. Half of them sat in the grass, looking disappointed to be left out, and the other half stood in a line nearby. All of the standing boys wore focals. When the anomaly fell shut behind Quin and its intense humming died out, she heard a woman’s voice, slow and elderly, speaking to the boys, and she heard something else as well.

  “Dex, look. They’ve carved an anomaly.”

  Quin was aware of the faint vibration even at this distance, and she could see the small circular opening—an anomaly carved by an athame—that hovered in the air at the head of the line of boys. As she searched the group for Shinobu, the anomaly grew soft and collapsed. Almost immediately, someone she couldn’t see—someone behind the boys—carved a new opening in its place, and the woman’s voice began again, audible but unintelligible at this distance. She must be giving instructions, preparing those boys to go There.

  “Come,” Quin whispered. “Let’s get closer. I don’t see him.”

  She took Dex’s hand and moved, in a crouch, around the corner of the fortress. There were large pieces of Dun Tarm’s former turret lying in front of them, providing concealment from the boys in the meadow. It was as close as she could get without being seen.

  “He’s there!” She gripped Dex’s shoulder.

  Shinobu appeared from behind the line of Watchers. He was examining each of them as the woman’s voice droned on. He walked strangely—not limping exactly, but his gait gave the impression that his legs were not quite even.

  He’s been injured again, she thought.

  Quin drew her breath with a hiss when he turned toward her. His face was livid with bruises. His shirt was torn, and she could see a dirty bandage beneath it. He was wearing a focal, and he appeared profoundly miserable.

  “What have they done to him?” she whispered. “He looks half-dead.”

  An old woman came into view as the anomaly collapsed again. She wore a camouflage hunting outfit and heavy boots, which were strikingly at odds with her slender frame, erect posture, and infirm gait. After she had adjusted the focal on her head, she placed a proprietary hand on Shinobu’s shoulder. It was the gesture of a queen toward one of her subjects, or a master toward a slave. Shinobu looked terrified. It was as if the old woman’s very touch were poisonous.

  “They’re going There,” she whispered to Dex. “That’s why your medallion shook. He keeps striking the athame and caving an anomaly over and over. Can you bring me over to him before they go? If you get me close, I can pull him into the tunnel with us—”

  With a backward glance, she discovered that Dex was no longer beside her. He’d wedged himself—all six and a half feet of him—into a nook below one of the blocks of fallen masonry. His eyes were closed, his fingers dug into the earth to keep himself from flying off into the sky. He looked like a very large version of a small, frightened boy.

  “Dex!” she hissed.

  “I can’t, I can’t,” he mumbled.

  Quin knelt, grabbed his robe, pulled him toward her. “Dex, don’t do this now! Not now.”

  “She’s there, Quilla. What if they’re both there?”

  There was a sh
udder in the air, and Quin raised her head. Shinobu stood before the line of boys, carving another anomaly to replace the one that had fallen shut. He and the Watchers could be leaving at any moment.

  Quin squeezed Dex’s shoulders and leaned close. His eyes were firmly shut. “It’s just a few yards. Dex. Make a tunnel and I can grab him and take him with us!” She looked up again to see the Watchers already disappearing into the anomaly. Just like that, they were going.

  “She is there,” Dex said again.

  “The old woman? You’re scared of one frail, old woman? Dex, take me!”

  Her words were an order, as strong as a slap across his face. But they had no effect on Dex. He had opened his eyes, but he’d stopped speaking and was staring at Quin with mute fear.

  When she glanced above the stones again, Shinobu, the line of Watchers, and the old woman had all disappeared, leaving the remaining Watchers sitting on the shore, looking bereft. She yanked Dex’s robe, anger boiling up. She wanted to shake him, hit him, wake him up—

  “I hear your medallion,” she said suddenly. “It’s vibrating. It’s vibrating with his athame still, isn’t it? You know where he’s going!”

  She pulled the medallion from around Dex’s neck, put it into his hands.

  “Take me!”

  “I can’t, Quilla!”

  “You promised me!” She grabbed his hands, pushed them firmly around the medallion as it shook. “You may not go crazy right now.”

  She glanced up. The last threads of black and white from the anomaly’s border mended themselves. Every trace of it was gone, and with it, Shinobu was gone.

  “You’re not here, Quilla. I’m not here. It can’t be real.” His eyes were wild and unseeing. He was a feral animal cornered.

  Quin closed her eyes a moment, regrouped. “Dex, I am here. And so are you. We’re real.”