John Twelve Hawks - The Traveler

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2024-12-04 0 0 1.14MB 314 页 5.9玖币
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Book Information:
Genre: Sci-Fi/ Thriller
Author: John Twelve Hawks
Name: The Traveler
Series:
The Fourth Realm
======================
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Random House, Inc.
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Twelve Hawks, John.
The traveler : a novel / by John Twelve Hawks.— 1st ed. p. cm.
1. Brothers—Fiction. 2. California--Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3620.W45T94 2005
813'.6—dc22
2004065507
ISBN 0-385-51428-X
Copyright © 2005 by John Twelve Hawks All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
July 2005 First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR MY PATHFINDERS
THE
TRAVELER
PRELUDE
KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL
Maya reached out and took her father's hand as they walked from the Underground
to the light. Thorn didn't push her away or tell Maya to concentrate on the position of her
body. Smiling, he guided her up a narrow staircase to a long, sloping tunnel with white tile
walls. The Underground authority had installed steel bars on one side of the tunnel and this
barrier made the ordinary passageway look like part of an enormous prison. If she had been
traveling alone, Maya might have felt trapped and uncomfortable, but there was nothing to
worry about because Father was with her.
It's the perfect day, she thought. Well, maybe it was the second most perfect day.
She still remembered two years ago when Father had missed her birthday and Christmas
only to show up on Boxing Day with a taxi full of presents for Maya and her mother. That
morning was bright and full of surprises, but this Saturday seemed to promise a more
durable happiness. Instead of the usual trip to the empty warehouse near Canary Wharf,
where her father taught her how to kick and punch and use weapons, they had spent the day
at the London Zoo, where he had told her different stories about each of the animals. Father
had traveled all over the world and could describe Paraguay or Egypt as if he were a tour
guide.
People had glanced at them as they strolled past the cages. Most Harlequins tried to
blend into the crowd, but her father stood out in a group of ordinary citizens. He was
German, with a strong nose, shoulder-length hair, and dark blue eyes. Thom dressed in
somber colors and wore a steel kara bracelet that looked like a broken shackle.
Maya had found a battered art history book in the closet of their rented flat in East
London. Near the front of the book was a picture by Albrecht Darer called Knight, Death,
and the Devil. She liked to stare at the picture even though it made her feel strange. The
armored knight was like her father, calm and brave, riding through the mountains as Death
held up an hourglass and the Devil followed, pretending to be a squire. Thom also carried a
sword, but his was concealed inside a metal tube with a leather shoulder strap.
Although she was proud of Thorn, he also made her feel embarrassed and self-
conscious. Sometimes she just wanted to be an ordinary girl with a pudgy father who
worked in an office—a happy man who bought ice-cream cones and told jokes about
kangaroos. The world around her, with its bright fashions and pop music and television
shows, was a constant temptation. She wanted to fall into that warm water and let the
current pull her away. It was exhausting to be Thorn's daughter, always avoiding the
surveillance of the Vast Machine, always watching for enemies, always aware of the angle
of attack.
Maya was twelve years old, but still wasn't strong enough to use a Harlequin sword.
As a substitute, Father had taken a walking stick from the closet and given it to her before
they left the flat that morning. Maya had Thorn's white skin and strong features and her
Sikh mother's thick black hair. Her eyes were such a pale blue that from a certain angle
they looked translucent. She hated it when well-meaning women approached her mother
and complimented Maya's appearance. In a few years, she'd be old enough to disguise
herself and look as ordinary as possible.
They left the zoo and strolled through Regent's Park. It was late April and young
men were kicking footballs across the muddy lawn while parents pushed bundled-up
babies, in perambulators. The whole city seemed to be out enjoying the sunshine after three
days of rain. Maya and her father took the Piccadilly line to the Arsenal station; it was
getting dark when they reached the street-level exit. There was an Indian restaurant in
Finsbury Park and Thorn had made reservations for an early supper. Maya heard noises—
blaring air horns and shouting in the distance—and wondered if there was some kind of
political demonstration. Then Father led her through the turnstile and out into a war.
Standing on the sidewalk, she saw a mob of people marching up Highbury Hill
Road. There weren't any protest signs and banners, and Maya realized that she was
watching the end of a football match. The Arsenal Stadium was straight down the road and
a team with blue and white colors—that was Chelsea—had just played there. The Chelsea
supporters were coming out of the visitors' gate on the west end of the stadium and heading
down a narrow street lined with row houses. Normally it was a quick walk to the station
entrance, but now the North London street had turned into a gauntlet. The police were
protecting Chelsea from Arsenal football thugs who were trying to attack them and start
fights.
Policemen on the edges. Blue and white in the center. Red throwing bottles and
trying to break through the line. Citizens caught in front of the crowd scrambled between
parked cars and knocked over rubbish bins. Flowering hawthorns grew at the edge of the
curb and their pink blossoms trembled whenever someone was shoved against a tree. Petals
fluttered through the air and fell upon the surging mass.
The main crowd was approaching the Tube station, about one hundred meters
away. Thorn could have gone to the left and headed up Gillespie Road, but he remained on
the sidewalk and studied the people surrounding them. He smiled slightly, confident of his
own power and amused by the pointless violence of the drones. Along with the sword, he
was carrying at least one knife and a handgun obtained from contacts in America. If he
wished, he could kill a great many of these people, but this was a public confrontation and
the police were in the area. Maya glanced up at her father. We should run away, she
thought. These people are completely mad. But Thorn glared at his daughter as if he had
just sensed her fear and Maya stayed silent.
Everyone was shouting. The voices merged into one angry roar. Maya heard a high-
pitched whistle. The wail of a police siren. A beer bottle sailed through the air and
exploded into fragments a few feet away from where they were standing. Suddenly, a
flying wedge of red shirts and scarves plowed through the police lines, and she saw men
kicking and throwing punches. Blood streamed down a policeman's face, but he raised his
truncheon and fought back.
She squeezed Father's hand. "They're coming toward us," she said. "We need to get
out of the way."
Thorn turned around and pulled his daughter back into the entrance of the Tube
station as if to find refuge there. But now the police were driving the Chelsea supporters
forward like a herd of cattle and she was surrounded by men wearing blue. Caught in the
crowd, Maya and her father were pushed past the ticket booth where the elderly clerk
cowered behind the thick glass.
Father vaulted over the turnstile and Maya followed. Now they were back in the
long tunnel, heading down to the trains. It's all right, she thought. We're safe now. Then she
realized that men wearing red had forced their way into the tunnel and were running beside
them. One of the men was carrying a wool sock filled with something heavy—rocks, ball
bearings—and he swung it like a club at the old man just in front of her, knocking off the
man's glasses and breaking his nose. A gang of Arsenal thugs slammed a Chelsea supporter
against the steel bars on the left side of the tunnel. The man tried to get away as they
kicked and beat him. More blood. And no police anywhere.
Thorn grabbed the back of Maya's jacket and dragged her through the fighting. A
man tried to attack them and Father stopped him instantly with a quick, snapping punch to
the throat. Maya hurried down the tunnel, trying to reach the stairway. Before she could
react, something like a rope came over her right shoulder and across her chest. Maya
looked down and saw that Thorn had just tied a blue and white Chelsea scarf around her
body.
In an instant she realized that the day at the zoo, the amusing stories, and the trip to
the restaurant were all part of a plan. Father had known about the football game, had
probably been here before and timed their arrival. She glanced over her shoulder and saw
Thorn smile and nod as if he had just told her an amusing story. Then he turned and walked
away.
Maya spun around as three Arsenal supporters ran forward, yelling at her. Don't
think. React. She jabbed the walking stick like a javelin and the steel tip hit the tallest
man's forehead with a crack. Blood spurted from his head and he began to fall, but she was
already spinning around to trip the second man with the stick. As he stumbled backward,
she jumped high and kicked his face. He spun around and hit the floor. Down. He's down.
She ran forward and kicked him again.
As she regained her balance, the third man caught her from behind and lifted her off
the ground. He squeezed tightly, trying to break her ribs, but Maya dropped the stick,
reached back with both hands, and grabbed his ears. The man screamed as she flipped him
over her shoulder and onto the floor.
Maya reached the stairway, took the stairs two at a time, and saw Father standing
on the platform next to the open doors of a train. He grabbed her with his right hand and
used his left to force their way into the car. The doors moved back and forth and finally
closed. Arsenal supporters ran up to the train, pounding on the glass with their fists, but the
train lurched forward and headed down the tunnel.
People were packed together. She heard a woman weeping as the boy in front of her
pressed a handkerchief against his mouth and nose. The car went around a curve and she
fell against her father, burying her face in his wool overcoat. She hated him and loved him,
wanted to attack him and embrace him all at the same time. Don't cry, she thought. He's
watching you. Harlequins don't cry. And she bit her lower lip so hard that she broke the
skin and tasted her own blood.
1
Maya flew into Ruzyne Airport late in the afternoon and took the shuttle bus into
Prague. Her choice of transportation was a minor act of rebellion. A Harlequin would have
rented a car or found a taxicab. In a taxi, you could always cut the driver's throat and take
control. Airplanes and buses were dangerous choices, little traps with only a few ways to
get out. No one is going to kill me, she thought. No one cares. Travelers inherited their
powers and so the Tabula tried to exterminate everyone in the same family. The Harlequins
defended the Travelers and their Pathfinder teachers, but this was a voluntary decision. A
Harlequin child could renounce the way of the sword, accept a citizen name, and find a
place in the Vast Machine. If he stayed out of trouble, the Tabula would leave him alone.
A few years ago, Maya had visited John Mitchell Kramer, the only son of
Greenman, a British Harlequin who was killed by a Tabula car bomb in Athens. Kramer
had become a pig farmer in Yorkshire, and Maya watched him trudge through the muck
with buckets of feed for his squealing animals. "As far as they know, you haven't stepped
over the line," he told her. "It's your choice, Maya. You can still walk away and have a
normal life."
Maya decided to become Judith Strand, a young woman who had taken a few
courses in product design at the University of Salford in Manchester. She moved to
London, started working as an assistant at a design firm, and was eventually offered a full-
time job. Her three years in the city had been a series of private challenges and small
victories. Maya still remembered the first time she left her flat without carrying weapons.
There was no protection from the Tabula and she felt weak and exposed. Every person on
the street was watching her; everyone who approached was a possible assassin. She waited
for the bullet or the knife, but nothing happened.
Gradually, she stayed out for longer periods of time and tested her new attitude
toward the world. Maya didn't glance at windows to see if she was being followed. When
she ate in a restaurant with her new friends, she didn't hide a gun in the alleyway and sit
with her back to the wall.
In April, she violated a major Harlequin rule and started to see a psychiatrist. For
five expensive sessions she sat in a book-lined room in Bloomsbury. She wanted to talk
about her childhood and that first betrayal at the Arsenal Tube station, but it just wasn't
possible. Dr. Bennett was a tidy little man who knew a great deal about wine and antique
porcelain. Maya still remembered his confusion when she called him a citizen.
"Well, of course I'm a citizen," he said. "I was born and raised in Britain."
"It's just a label that my father uses. Ninety-nine percent of the population, are
either citizens or drones."
Dr. Bennett took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished the lenses with a
green flannel cloth. "Would you mind explaining this?"
"Citizens are people who think they understand what's going on in the world."
"I don't understand everything, Judith. I never said that. But I'mwell informed about
current events. I watch the news every morning while I'm on my treadmill."
Maya hesitated, and then decided to tell him the truth. "The facts you know are
mostly an illusion. The real struggle of history is going on beneath the surface."
Dr. Bennett gave her a condescending smile. "Tell me about the drones."
"Drones are people who are so overwhelmed by the challenge of surviving that
they're unaware of anything outside of their day-to-day lives."
"You mean poor people?"
"They can be poor or trapped in the Third World, but they're still capable of
transforming themselves. Father used to say, 'Citizens ignore the truth. Drones are just too
tired.' "
Dr. Bennett slipped his glasses back on and picked up his notepad. "Perhaps we
should talk about your parents."
Therapy ended with that question. What could she say about Thom? Her father was
a Harlequin who had survived five Tabula assassination attempts. He was proud and cruel
and very brave. Maya's mother was from a Sikh family that had been allies with the
Harlequins for several generations. In honor of her mother, she wore a steel kara bracelet
on her right wrist.
Late that summer she celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday and one of the women at
the design firm took her on a tour of the boutiques in West London. Maya bought some
stylish, brightly colored clothes. She began to watch television and tried to believe the
news. At times she felt happy—almost happy—and welcomed the endless distractions of
the Vast Machine. There was always some new fear to worry about or a new product that
everyone wanted to buy.
Although Maya was no longer carrying weapons, she occasionally dropped by a
kickboxing school in South London and sparred with the instructor. On Tuesdays and
Thursdays, she attended an advanced class at a kendo academy and fought with a bamboo
shinai sword. Maya tried to pretend that she was just staying in shape, like the other people
in her office who jogged or played tennis, but she knew that it was more than that. When
you were fighting you were completely in the moment, focused on defending yourself and
destroying your opponent. Nothing she did in civilian life could match that intensity.
Now she was in Prague to see her father, and all the familiar Harlequin paranoia
came back with its full power. After buying the ticket at the airport kiosk, she got on the
shuttle bus and sat near the back. This was a bad defensive position, but it wasn't going to
bother her. Maya watched an elderly couple and a group of German tourists climb onto the
bus and arrange their luggage. She tried to distract herself by thinking about Thorn, but her
body took control and forced her to choose another seat near the emergency exit. Defeated
by her training and filled with rage, she clenched her hands and stared out the window.
It had started drizzling when they left the terminal and was raining heavily by the
time they reached the downtown area. Prague was built on both sides of a river, but the
narrow streets and gray stone buildings made her feel as if she were trapped in a hedge
maze. Cathedrals and castles dotted the city, and their pointed towers jabbed at the sky.
At the bus stop, Maya was presented with more choices. She could walk to her
hotel or wave down a cruising taxi. The legendary Japanese Harlequin, Sparrow, once
wrote that true warriors should "cultivate randomness." In a few words, he had suggested
an entire philosophy. A Harlequin rejected mindless routines and comfortable habits. You
lived a life of discipline, but you weren't afraid of disorder.
It was raining. She was getting wet. The most predictable choice was to take the
taxi waiting by the curb. Maya hesitated for a few seconds and then decided to act like a
normal citizen. Clutching her bags with one hand, she yanked open the door and got into
the backseat. The driver was a squat little man with a beard who looked like a troll. She
gave him the name of her hotel, but he didn't react.
"It's the Hotel Kampa," she said in English. "Is there a problem?" "No problem,"
the driver answered and pulled out into the street.
The Hotel Kampa was a large four-story building, solid and respectable, with green
window awnings. It was placed on a cobblestone side street near the Charles Bridge. Maya
paid the driver, but when she tried to open the car door it was locked.
"Open the bloody door."
"I'm sorry, madam." The troll pushed a button and the lock clicked open. Smiling,
he watched Maya get out of his cab.
She let the doorman carry her luggage into the hotel. Going to see her father, she
had felt the need to carry the usual weapons; they were concealed in a camera tripod. Her
appearance didn't suggest a particular nationality and the doorman spoke to her in French
and English. For the trip to Prague she had discarded her colorful London clothes and wore
half boots, a black pullover, and loose gray pants. There was a Harlequin style of clothing
that emphasized dark, expensive fabrics and custom tailoring. Nothing tight or flashy.
Nothing that would slow you down in combat.
Club chairs and little tables were in the lobby. A faded tapestry hung on the wall. In
a side dining area, a group of elderly women were drinking tea and cooing over a tray of
pastries. At the front desk, the hotel clerk glanced at the tripod and the video camera case
and appeared satisfied. It was a Harlequin rule that you must always have an explanation
for who you are and why you're at a particular location. The video equipment was a typical
prop. The doorman and the clerk probably thought she was some kind of filmmaker.
Her hotel room was a suite on the third floor, dark and filled with fake Victorian
lamps and overstuffed furniture. One window faced the street and another overlooked the
hotel's outdoor garden restaurant. It was still raining; the restaurant was closed. The striped
table umbrellas were sodden with water and the restaurant chairs leaned like tired soldiers
against the round tables. Maya glanced under the bed and found a little welcoming present
from her father—a grappling hook and fifty meters of climbing rope. If the wrong sort of
person knocked on the door, she could be out the window and away from the hotel in about
ten seconds.
She took off her coat, splashed some water on her face, then placed the tripod on
the bed. When she passed through the airport security checks, people always wasted a great
deal of time inspecting the video camera and its various lenses. The real weapons were
hidden in the tripod. There were two knives in one leg—a weighted throwing knife and a
stiletto for stabbing. She placed them in their sheaths and slipped them beneath elastic
bandages on her fore-arms. Carefully, she rolled down the sleeves of the sweater and
checked herself in the mirror. The sweater was loose enough that both weapons were
completely concealed. Maya crossed her wrists, moved her arms quickly, and a knife
appeared in her right hand.
The sword blade was in the second leg of the tripod. The third leg concealed the
sword's hilt and guard piece. Maya attached them to the blade. The guard piece was on a
pivot that could be pushed sideways. When she carried the sword on the street, the guard
piece was parallel to the blade so that the entire weapon became one straight line. When it
was necessary to fight, the guard snapped into its proper position.
Along with the tripod and the camera, she had brought a four-foot-long metal tube
with a shoulder strap. The tube looked vaguely technical, like something that an artist
would bring to her studio. It was used as a sword carrier when walking around the city.
Maya could get the sword out of the tube in two seconds, and it took one more second to
attack. Her father had taught her how to use the weapon when she was a teenager and she
had developed her technique in a kendo class with a Japanese instructor.
Harlequins were also trained to use handguns and assault rifles. Maya's favorite
weapon was a combat shotgun, preferably a twelve gauge with a pistol grip and folding
stock. The use of an old-fashioned sword along with modern weapons was accepted—
and valued—as part of the Harlequin style. Guns were a necessary evil, but swords existed
outside of the modern age, free of the control and compromise of the Vast Machine.
Training with a sword taught balance, strategy, and ruthlessness. Like a Sikh's kirpan, a
Harlequin's sword connected each fighter with both a spiritual obligation and a warrior
tradition.
Thorn also believed there were practical reasons for swords. Concealed within
equipment like the tripod, they could pass through airport security systems. A sword was
silent and so unexpected that there was a shock value when using it on an unsuspecting
enemy. Maya visualized an attack. Fake to the head of your opponent, then down low to
the side of the knee. A little resistance. The crack of bone and cartilage. And you've cut off
someone's leg.
A brown envelope lay within the coils of the escape rope. Maya ripped it open and
read the address and time for her meeting. Seven o'clock. The Betlémské námésti quarter in
the Old Town. She placed the sword on her lap, turned off all the lights, and tried to
meditate.
Images floated through her brain, memories of the only time she had fought alone
as a Harlequin. She was seventeen then and her father had brought her over to Brussels to
protect a Zen monk who was visiting Europe. The monk was a Pathfinder, one of the
spiritual teachers who could show a potential Traveler how to cross over to another realm.
Although the Harlequins weren't sworn to protect Pathfinders, they helped them whenever
possible. The monk was a great teacher—and he was on the Tabula death list.
That night in Brussels, Maya's father and his French friend Linden were upstairs
near the monk's hotel suite. Maya was told to guard the entrance to the service elevator in
the basement. When two Tabula mercenaries arrived, there was no one there to help her.
She shot one man in the throat with an automatic and hacked the other merc to death with
her sword. Blood splattered over her gray maid's uniform, covering her arms and hands.
Maya was crying hysterically when Linden found her.
Two years later, the monk died in a car accident. All that blood and pain were
useless. Calm down, she told herself. Find some private mantra. Our Travelers who art in
Heaven. Damn them all.
***###
IT STOPPED RAINING around six and she decided to walk to Thorn's apartment.
Leaving the hotel, she found Mostecká Street and followed it to the Charles Bridge. The
stone Gothic bridge was wide and lit with colored lights that illuminated a long line of
摘要：

--------------------------------------------BookInformation:Genre:Sci-Fi/ThrillerAuthor:JohnTwelveHawksName:TheTravelerSeries:TheFourthRealm======================PUBLISHEDBYDOUBLEDAYadivisionofRandomHouse,Inc.DOUBLEDAYandtheportrayalofananchorwithadolphinareregisteredtrademarksofRandomHouse,Inc.Allo...

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