The Traveler Read online

  As he adjusted the lantern's glass chimney, he heard a harsh buzzing sound. Gabriel turned slightly to the left just as a rattlesnake rose up two feet away from his leg. Somehow the viper had entered the silo and had been drawn to Gabriel's warm body. The snake's tail vibrated quickly and he moved his head back, ready to strike.

  Without warning, an enormous king snake came out of the shadows like a straight black line and bit the rattlesnake just behind its head. The two snakes fell together onto the concrete floor as the king snake wrapped its body around its prey.

  Gabriel grabbed the lantern and stumbled from the room. The lights were out down the length of the main tunnel and it took him five minutes to find the emergency staircase that led back to the surface. His boots made a hollow thumping sound as he climbed up the stairs to the hatch cover. He reached the landing, pushed hard, and realized that he was locked in.

  "Sophia!" he shouted. "Sophia!" But no one answered. Gabriel returned to the main tunnel and stood beside the line of dead lightbulbs. He had failed at all his attempts to become a Traveler. It seemed pointless to continue. If Sophia was going to keep the hatch locked, then he would have to enter the launch silos and find another way out.

  Gabriel hurried north down the main tunnel and entered the maze of passageways. The silos were designed to deflect the explosion of flame when the missiles took off and he kept encountering ventilation shafts that went nowhere. Finally he stopped moving and stared at the lantern in his hand. Every few seconds the flame trembled as if touched by a slight breeze. He moved slowly in that direction until he felt cool air flowing down the tunnel. Slipping between a heavy steel door and a bent door frame, he found himself on a platform jutting out of the wall of the center launch silo.

  The silo was a massive vertical cave with concrete walls. Years ago, the government had removed the weapons aimed at the Soviet Union, but he could see the shadowy outline of a missile platform about three hundred feet below him. A stairway spiraled around the silo from the base to the opening. And yes, there it was—a shaft of sunlight pushing through a gap in the silo cover.

  Something splattered on his cheek. Groundwater was oozing through cracks in the concrete wall. Holding the lantern, Gabriel began climbing the staircase to the light. The stairs trembled each time he took a step. Fifty years of water had rusted the steel bolts that held the structure to the wall.

  Slow down, he told himself. Got to be careful. But the stairs began to shiver like a living creature. Suddenly a bolt was ripped out of the wall and fell through the air to the shadows below. Gabriel stopped and listened to the bolt ricochet off the platform. And then, sounding like bullets from a machine gun, a line of bolts snapped out of the concrete, and the stairs began to peel away from the wall.

  He let go of the lantern and held on to the railing with both hands as the upper part of the staircase fell toward him. The weight of the collapsing structure pulled out more bolts and then he was falling outward, only to slam back into the concrete, about twenty feet below the entrance ledge. Only one of the support brackets still held the railing.

  Gabriel hung from the railing for a moment, overcome by fear. The silo yawned below him like a portal into endless darkness. Slowly, he began to climb up the railing, and then he heard a roaring sound in his ears. Something was wrong with the right side of his body. It felt paralyzed. As he tried to hold on, he saw a shadow arm composed of small points of light emerge from his body while his right arm fell motionless to his side. He was holding on with one hand, but all he could do was stare at the light.

  "Hold on!" Sophia shouted. "I'm right above you!"

  The sound of the Pathfinder's voice made the shadow arm disappear. Gabriel couldn't see where Sophia was standing, but a length of knotted nylon rope fell down and slapped against the concrete wall. He was just able to reach out and grab the rope as the support bracket ripped away from the concrete. The railing fell past him, smashing onto the launchpad.

  Gabriel pulled himself up to the ledge, and then lay there for a while, gasping for breath. Sophia stood over him, holding her lantern.

  "You all right?"

  "No."

  "I was up on the surface when the generator shorted out. I got it going again and came down immediately."

  "You—you locked me in."

  "That's right. There was only one more day to go."

  He stood up and headed back down the passageway. Sophia followed him.

  "I saw what happened, Gabriel."

  "Yeah. I almost got killed."

  "I'm not talking about that. Your right arm went limp for a few seconds. I couldn't see it, but I know that the Light came out of your body."

  "I'm not sure if it's day or night, if I'm dreaming or awake." "You're a Traveler like your father. Don't you realize that?" "Forget it. I don't like any of this. I just want to have a normal life."

  Without another word, Sophia took a quick step toward Gabriel. She reached out, grabbed the back of his belt, and jerked hard. Gabriel felt as if something was ripping, tearing inside him. And then he felt the Light break out of its cage and float upward while his body collapsed facedown onto the floor. He was terrified, desperately wanting to return to what was familiar.

  Gabriel looked at his hands and saw that they had been transformed into hundreds of points of light, each precise and glimmering like a star. As Sophia knelt beside the discarded body, the Traveler floated upward, passing through the concrete ceiling.

  The stars seemed to move closer together as he became a concentrated point of energy. He was an entire ocean contained within a drop of water, a mountain squeezed into a grain of sand. And then the particle that contained his energy, his true consciousness, entered into a sort of channel or passageway that propelled him forward.

  This moment could have lasted a thousand years or for only a single heartbeat; he had lost consciousness of time. All he knew was that he was moving very quickly, racing through darkness, following the curved edge of a contained space. And then the movement ended and a transformation occurred. A single breath, more fundamental and pervasive than lungs and oxygen, filled his being.

  Go now. Find the way.

  Chapter 44

  Gabriel opened his eyes and found himself falling through blue sky. He looked down and from side to side but saw nothing. There was no ground below him. No landing place or final destination. This was the barrier of air. He realized that he had always known of its existence. Attached to a parachute, he had tried to re-create this feeling in his own world.

  But now he was free of the jump plane and the inevitable descent back to earth. Gabriel closed his eyes for a while, then opened them again. He arched his back and spread his arms, controlling his movement through the air. Look for the passageway. That's what Sophia had told him. There was a passageway that led across all four barriers and into the other realms. Leaning to the right, he began to spiral downward like a hawk looking for prey.

  Time passed and then, in the distance, he saw a thin black line, like a shadow floating in space. Gabriel extended his arms, pulled out of the tight circle, and fell quickly to the left on a sharp diagonal. The shadow grew into an oval shape and he glided into its dark center.

  ***

  ONCE AGAIN, HE felt a compression of light, a movement forward and the life-giving breath. Opening his eyes, he found himself standing in the middle of a desert, the red dirt cracked open as if it were gasping for air. Gabriel turned on one heel, surveying this new environment. The sky above him was a sapphire blue. Although the sun had disappeared, light glowed on every part of the horizon. No rocks or plants. No valleys or mountains. He was captive in the earth barrier, the only thing vertical in a flatland world.

  Gabriel began walking. When he stopped and looked around, his perspective hadn't changed. Kneeling down, he touched the red dirt with his fingers. He needed a second point on the landscape, some other feature that would confirm his own existence. He kicked and clawed at the earth until he scraped together a pile of dir
t about ten inches high.

  Like a small child who had thrown down a cup and thereby changed the world, he circled the pile several times just to make sure it was still there. Once again, he started walking and counted his steps. Fifty. Eighty. One hundred. But when he looked over his shoulder, the pile had disappeared.

  Gabriel felt a surge of panic push through his heart. He sat down, closed his eyes and rested, then stood up again and resumed walking. As he looked for the passageway, he began to feel hopeless and lost. For a while, he kicked at the earth with the toe of his boot. Chips of dirt rose up into the air, fell down, and were instantly absorbed by this new reality.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw a patch of darkness be hind him. It was his own shadow, following him around on this aimless journey, but the image had an unusual depth and sharpness, as if someone had cut into the ground. Was this the way out? Had it always been there? Closing his eyes, he fell backward and was pulled down the passageway.

  ***

  BREATHE, HE TO L D himself. Breathe again. And he was kneeling in a dirt street that ran through the middle of a town. Gabriel stood up cautiously, expecting the ground to collapse and drop him into air, water, or the bare desert world. He stomped his feet on the street like a man having a tantrum, but this new reality sustained itself and refused to vanish.

  The town reminded him of a frontier outpost in an old-fashioned Western, the sort of place where you'd find cowboys, sheriffs, and dance-hall girls. The buildings were two and three stories high, built with flat boards and shingles. Wooden sidewalks ran on both sides of the street, as if the builders wanted to keep mud from splattering into the doorways. But there was no mud or rain or any water at all. The few trees on the street looked dead; their leaves were dry and brittle-brown.

  Gabriel drew the jade sword and held it tightly as he stepped onto the wooden sidewalk. He tried a doorknob—unlocked—and stepped into a one-room barbershop with three chairs. Mirrors hung from the walls and Gabriel stared at his own face and the sword in his hand. He looked frightened, like a man who expected to be attacked at any moment. Leave this place. Hurry. And then he was back on the sidewalk with the clear sky and the lifeless trees.

  All the doors were unlocked and he began to search each building. His shoes made a hollow sound on the wooden sidewalk. He discovered a fabric store filled with bolts of cloth. An apartment was upstairs. It had a sink with a hand pump and a cast-iron stove. Plates and cups had been set for three people, but the shelves and icebox were empty. In another building, he found a cooper's shop with wooden barrels in different states of completion.

  The town had only two streets and they intersected at a city square with park benches and a stone obelisk. There was no writing on this memorial, only a series of geometric symbols that included a circle, a triangle, and a pentagram. Gabriel kept following the street until the town disappeared and he reached a barrier of dead trees and thornbushes. He spent some time looking for a path, then gave up and returned to the square.

  "Hello!" he shouted. "Is anyone here?" But nobody answered him. Now the sword made him feel like a coward and he slid it back into the scabbard.

  A building near the square had a rounded cupola roof, and the front door was made of a dark, heavy wood with iron hinges. Gabriel passed through the doorway and found himself in a church with pews and stained-glass windows that displayed complex geometric patterns. A wooden altar was at the front of the room.

  The missing inhabitants of the town had decorated the altar with roses that were dead and faded, showing only a faint suggestion of their former color. A black candle burned at the center of this dry offering. The bright flame flickered back and forth. Other than himself, it was the only thing that was alive and moving in the entire town.

  He stepped toward the altar and breathed deeply, like a sigh. The black candle fell out of its brass holder and the flame touched the dry petals and leaves. A rose was set on fire and an orange flame ran down the stem to another flower. Gabriel began searching the room for a bottle of water or a bucket of sand, anything that would extinguish the flame. Nothing. When he turned back, the altar itself was on fire. Flames curved around the posts and touched the edges of the scrollwork.

  Gabriel ran outside and stood in the middle of the street. His mouth was open, but he stayed silent. Where could he hide? Was there any place of refuge? Trying to control his fear, he ran down the street that led past the barbershop and fabric store. When he reached the edge of the town, he stopped and looked out at the forest. All the trees were on fire and smoke rose up into the sky like a massive gray wall.

  A particle of ash touched his cheek and he brushed it away. Gabriel knew there was no way out, but he ran back to the church building. Smoke leaked out of the crack around the heavy door. The stained-glass windows glowed from within. As he watched, a crack appeared in the center window and grew larger, like a jagged wound on someone's skin. Air expanded inside the building and the window exploded, showering the street with broken glass. Flames reached out of the window frame and black smoke touched the side of the white cupola.

  He sprinted down the street to the other side of town and watched a burning pine tree explode into flames. Turn back, he thought. Run away. But all the buildings were burning now. The intense heat caused a wind that made bits of ash swirl around like leaves in an autumn storm.

  Somewhere in this destruction was a way out, the dark passageway that would guide him back to the human world. But the fire destroyed all shadows and the rising smoke turned day into night. Too hot, he thought. Can't breathe. Returning to the square, he kneeled beside the stone obelisk. The park benches and the dry weeds were burning. Everything was touched by the flames. Gabriel covered his head with his arms and curled up in a tight ball. The fire surrounded him and pushed through his skin.

  ***

  AND THEN IT passed. When Gabriel opened his eyes, he saw that he was surrounded by the charred ruins of the town and the forest. Large pieces of wood were still burning and wisps of smoke rose toward a slate-gray sky.

  Gabriel left the square and walked slowly down the street. The church, the cooper's shop, and the fabric store with the upstairs apartment had been destroyed. A moment later, he reached the edge of the town and the remains of the forest. Some of the trees had fallen to the ground, but a few of them were still standing like black stick figures with twisted arms.

  He retraced his footsteps through the ash-covered streets and saw that a wooden awning post was still standing in the middle of the destruction. Gabriel touched the post, sliding his hand down its smooth surface. Was this possible? How did it survive? He lingered by the post, trying to understand its meaning, and saw a white plaster wall standing about twenty feet away from him. The wall hadn't existed a few minutes ago—or perhaps he was too dazed to notice it. He kept walking and found a barbershop chair in the middle of the ashes. This object was completely real. He could touch it, feel the green leather and the wooden armrests.

  He realized that the town was going to reappear in exactly the same form. It would become whole, only to burn again—the process repeating itself forever. This was the damnation of the fire barrier. If he couldn't find the passageway, he was trapped within this endless cycle of rebirth and destruction.

  Instead of searching for a shadow, he returned to the square and leaned against the obelisk. As he watched, a front door appeared, and then part of a wooden walkway. The town began to form and reassert itself, growing like a living creature. The smoke vanished and the sky was blue again. Everything was changed but the same, as ashes melted in the sunlight like flakes of dirty snow.

  Finally the process was complete. A town with empty rooms and dead trees surrounded him. Only then did a degree of clarity return to his mind. Forget the convolutions of philosophy. There were only two states of being: equilibrium and motion. The Tabula worshipped the ideal of political and social control, the illusion that everything should remain the same. But this was the cold emptiness of space, not the
energy of the Light.

  Gabriel left his refuge and began to look for a shadow. Like a detective searching for a clue, he entered each building and opened the closets and the empty cupboards. He peered beneath beds and tried to look at each object from a different angle. Perhaps he could see the passageway if he stood in the correct position.

  When he returned to the street, the air seemed a little warmer. The town was new and complete, but gaining power for the next explosion of flame. Gabriel began to get angry about the inevitability of the cycle. Why couldn't he stop what was going to happen? He began whistling a Christmas carol, enjoying the feeble noise in the silence. Returning to the church, he yanked open the door and marched toward the wooden altar.

  The candle had reappeared as if nothing had ever happened and burned bright in its brass holder. Gabriel licked his thumb and forefinger, then reached out to snuff the flame. The moment he touched the candle, the flame broke off from the wick and began to flutter around his head like a bright yellow butterfly. It came to rest on a rose stem and this dry tinder started to burn. Gabriel tried to crush the fire with the palm of his hand, but sparks escaped and settled on the rest of the altar.

  Instead of running from the fire, he sat down in a center pew and watched the destruction spread through the room. Could he die in this place? If his body was destroyed would he reappear again, like the altar and the barbershop chair? He began to feel an intense heat, but tried to deny the new reality. Perhaps all this was a dream, another construction of his mind.

  Smoke had risen to the ceiling and now it began to drift downward, pulled toward the half-open door. As Gabriel stood up and began to leave the church, the altar turned into a column of flame. Smoke entered his lungs. He started coughing, then glanced to the left and saw a shadow appear in one of the stained-glass windows. The shadow was black and deep; it floated back and forth like a wavering particle of night. Gabriel grabbed a pew and dragged it over to the wall. He stood on the pew and pulled himself onto the narrow ledge at the bottom of the window frame.