Book Three of the Travelers (7 page)

T
he chief minister found a family who was willing to take Rena in. But she didn't seem to be settling in very well. She rarely spoke to anyone. In fact, she made no attempts to make friends. She couldn't read or write, and showed no interest in school. Siry was the only person she spent any time with. And that was more because of his efforts.

Siry tried to take her aside and teach her the alphabet, teach her more words, but she just sighed and rolled her eyes. He wasn't completely sure why he felt so drawn to her. She was sort of pretty. But he didn't think about her the way he thought about other girls. It was more as if she were a puzzle, like something he needed to figure out. But the more time he spent with her, the more frustrated he became.

“Look,” he said finally one day after spending an hour unsuccessfully trying to teach her the alphabet. “If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to start trying to understand how we do things.”

“Why?” she said. She held up the book he'd been trying to teach her to read. “Can't eat book.”

“Come with me,” Siry said.

He led her silently down the path from Rayne, up to the base of Tribunal Mountain, which loomed over the village. As they skirted the top of a small cliff above the sea, they reached a large steel door set into the face of rock.

“I can't tell you everything that's back there,” he said. “Honestly, I don't even know. But I can tell you that the smartest people in Rayne all come up here every day and disappear into this mountain. They keep it locked up tight. I mean, let's face it, you don't lock up things that aren't valuable, do you?”

Rena stared blankly at the door into the mountain.

“They're not gathering fruit, Rena. They're not fishing. They're not doing anything like that. But those wires that come into our houses, the ones that make the light so we can see at night? It all comes out of here.”

She shrugged. He had tried to explain about the way lights worked. But she had just pointed at the lights and said, “Magic.” He tried to think of something that would make more sense to her. “Butter!” he said. “Cheese. All those good foods that you can't just shake off a tree? They all come from behind that door.”

She cocked her head. But still she said nothing, asked no questions. As long as he could remember, Siry had been fascinated by the mountain. Things happened in there that nobody talked about. But the girl just didn't seem to understand.

“Maybe it's because you haven't been here as long as I have,” he said. “Why do they not talk about what they do in there? Why do they pretend like it's nothing?”

A large tree stood next to the door, a wild grapevine twining up the trunk. Littered on the grass were hundreds of wild grapes. Many lay spoiling on the ground and a heavy, winy smell hung over the place. As the wind stirred the tree, a few grapes fell down onto the ground. Rena walked over, picked up a grape, sniffed it, popped it in her mouth. She chewed it with her eyes closed and smiled. “Mmmmm!” she said.

Siry pursued her. “You're really not interested?” he said. Sometimes he wasn't sure how much she actually understood of what he was saying.

“The door's locked. But I've been inside parts of it with my father. The tribunal meets in this huge room here. One time I saw a room that had thousands and thousands of books. I wasn't supposed to go in there, but I did. I looked in one of the books and it described machines. Amazing machines. I couldn't even figure out what they did. But they were like nothing I've ever seen here.”

Rena sat on the ground and started picking up wild grapes and popping them in her mouth.

“Don't you have even a
shred
of curiosity?” he asked. “Why are we different from you Flighters? The answer's behind that door.”

“No need answer. Already got.”

“Yeah?” Siry smiled. “So tell me. What's the difference between you and us?”

Rena's expression was matter-of-fact. “Food,” she said.

“Food?”

“Food,” she said. “You got food. Lots.”

“Yeah, but why? Because we grow crops, that's why. Because we raise animals that we can eat. Because we have tools that help us with the crops. Because we know how to fertilize the ground and—”

“Us? Flighters?” Rena slapped her chest. “All day. Look food. Look food. Look food. Always. Hungry. Always. Come far”—she swept her hand out toward the water—“find food.”

Siry's eyebrows raised.
“Come far?”
So was it true, then, that the flighters came from somewhere farther than the other side of the island?

He wanted to keep her talking, to learn more. Suddenly it felt as if all the questions he'd always had were more relevant than ever, and the answers even closer. “Yes! Right! That's what I'm saying! There's a reason.” He pointed at the door. “I don't know what's in there. But there's something. There's something that's hidden. There's something they're not telling us. Something that helps us make all the food we can possibly eat.”

Rena's eyes were scanning the ground, looking for more grapes.

“Don't you want to know more? Don't you feel angry that things are being hidden from you?”

Rena hunched over, plucked grapes off the ground, stuffed them in her pockets. The grapes left purple stains on her clothing. But Rena clearly didn't care.

“Why do you think you're hungry all the time? Because of knowledge! We have knowledge! All the stuff that gives us here in Rayne better lives than you guys who live on the other side of the island.”

“Food?” She pointed at the door in the side of the mountain.

Siry shook his head. “Yeah. Maybe. But that's not the point. What's in there is bigger than food.”

Rena walked to the door, yanked on the handle. The steel door was locked and wouldn't budge. She kept yanking.

“Food,” she said. “Food.”

Siry sighed and shook his head.

“Food?” she said, grapes spilling out of her pockets.

“Yes!” Siry said, exasperated. He felt as if he were talking to a three-year-old. “Yes, I'm sure there's probably food in there! But there's all kinds of stuff, stuff that's a lot more interesting than food. Books. Machines. Tools.”

She continued to stuff grapes in her pockets.

“There's also magic in there!” Siry said desperately. “Magic things that fly through the air and control the weather and change rocks into fish. Magic that you can use to create endless supplies of food.”

Rena's eyes widened. Now she looked up from the grapes. “Magic?”

Siry sighed loudly. This was a total waste of time.

Rena's eyes took on a cunning look. She approached the door, touched it lightly with her fingertips. “Get in? How?”

“There's a key,” Siry said. “It's stored in the administration building in the village.”

Rena looked at the door for a while longer. Then she turned and started walking down the path back toward Rayne.

“There's no such thing as magic!” Siry shouted
after her. “There's only
knowledge
! Facts! Reason! Understanding!”

But Rena just kept walking, eating grapes out of her pockets.

 

The next day after school Siry found Rena sitting on the beach, staring out at the sea. He had brought his little bag of sea trash, thinking it might get her interested in reading.

He dumped a few of the items on the sand in front of her. “Look,” he said, picking up half a bottle made from clear blue material. There were raised letters visible on the surface. “See: a-s-p-i-r-i-n. It's a word. I don't know what it means. But it means
something
. Someday I'll find out.”

She shrugged.

“You can't live without dreams!” he said. “This can't be
it
!” He waved his arms around, taking in the little village, the little island, the strip of sand, the featureless horizon. “There's more. There's something bigger. Someday I'll find it. You'll see!”

She looked blankly at the little shard of clear material. After a minute she put it in her mouth. She chewed it for several seconds, then spit it out.

“Trash,” she said.

“But what if some trash isn't really trash?” he said. “What if it seems like trash, but actually it's a message? Some kind of information or secret. Some kind of knowledge.”

Rena looked out at the sea. Then she turned and pointed up at Tribunal Mountain. “Magic?” she said finally.

“Joke!” Siry said angrily. “There's no such thing as magic. That was a joke.”

“Give us magic,” she said. “Everybody happy. Make stones into fish.”

Siry put his face in his hands.

S
he's gone.”

“What?” Siry was just finishing his breakfast, a ripe mango, as his father walked into the house.

“She's gone,” Jen Remudi repeated.

Siry was confused. “Who? Who's gone?”

“Your sweet little friend Rena. She took off in the middle of the night.” It was rare that Jen Remudi carried a weapon. But today he was clutching a short, heavy club—the kind that was carried by Rayne's guards.

“She'll be back,” Siry said morosely. “After all, we have food.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” Jen said.

“What do you mean?”

“The key to the tunnels in the mountain. She took it with her.”

Siry had a bad feeling, like he'd been standing on a very high platform…and it had just given way. “There must be some mistake. Maybe they misplaced it.”

“The master key is kept in a locked box in the
tribunal administration house. The lock was smashed. The key is gone.”

Siry swallowed.

“Siry, why would she do that?”

Siry took a deep breath. “Look, there's something in that mountain, isn't there? Nobody will admit it, but there's something in there.”

“Siry, I asked you a question. Why would she have taken that key?”

“Tell me what's in there. I have a right to know!”

Jen Remudi's face hardened. “Son, you're fourteen years old. There are things you are not ready to know. Things you may
never
be ready to know.”

Siry felt a flash of anger. “What do you mean?”

“Tell me why she took that key.”

“No! Not till you tell me what's in the mountain.”

Siry's father grabbed his hand. He was a large, strong, imposing man. “Do you think I'm here to
bargain
with you?” Jen Remudi shouted. “Why did she take the key?”

“Tell me what's in the mountain and I'll tell you why.” Siry tried to snatch his hand away from his father's grip and get up out of his chair.

Jen Remudi slammed his son backward into the seat. Siry felt a burst of anger at his own powerlessness. He struggled and wriggled in his father's powerful grasp. Suddenly the chair gave way, and both Siry and Jen pitched over, slamming Siry's head on the floor.

For a moment everything went black. Then, as Siry recovered his senses, he saw his father standing over him.

“Look what you made me do!” Jen Remudi said. “Do you think I want to do this to you?”

Siry sat up slowly. There was a sharp pain in the back of his head.

“Why did she take the key?” Jen Remudi demanded.

Momentarily stunned, Siry didn't have the strength to resist him. He touched the back of his head. It felt wet.

“I told her there was magic inside the mountain,” Siry said. “Magic that you could use to make food.”

He took his hand away from his head. It was smeared with blood.

Jen Remudi sighed loudly, a look of pain crossing his face. He dropped his club on the ground and picked Siry up like a baby. “Why would you tell her a thing like that?” he said softly.

Siry shrugged. “I was just trying to get her interested in something.”

Jen Remudi carried his son to the sink, washed off the back of his head with a cloth. It was an odd sensation lying there, cradled in his father's powerful arms. On one hand it was comforting. But on the other, it made him feel helpless. And when Siry felt helpless, he felt angry. He wasn't a little kid anymore.

Siry pushed his father's hand away. “I'm fine, Dad.”

“Let me just—”

Siry slipped from his father's grasp. “I'm
fine
!” he said.

Jen Remudi put his hand on Siry's shoulder. “Son, look, you meant well. Everything you did, you did from your heart. You tried to help somebody. I'm proud of you for that.”

Siry hated it when Jen said things like that. He shrugged off his father's hand, then stooped to the floor to pick up the mango he'd been eating. There was dirt on it now. He threw it angrily in the trash.

“Son,” his father continued, “she doesn't think like we do. I'm not saying she had some big plan to take advantage of you. But that's what's happened. She took advantage of your generosity. And now she's going to use it against us. Against all of us.”

“Why can't you just tell me what's in the mountain, Dad?” Siry shouted. “Why can't you people just be honest? Why do you have to lie? Why do you have to hide things?”

“All right, forget it.” Jen Remudi threw the bloody washrag in the sink. “I try and I try and I try. And you just refuse to listen to anything I say.”

“Lies!” Siry shouted. His head was throbbing. He felt halfway like crying and halfway like hurling himself at his father. “Lies, lies, lies!”

Jen Remudi stuck his finger in his son's face. “Son, you need to think really hard before you say another—”

Siry's father was interrupted by a shout. “Flighters!”

Siry and his father both looked up.

“Flighters!” came the shout again. “They're attacking!”

“Stay here!” Jen Remudi vaulted to his feet, grabbed the heavy club he'd been carrying.

“Flighters!” came another cry. “Help!”

The calls were coming from the edge of the jungle on the west side of Rayne. “Do not move!” Jen shouted. “If
they come, hide in the cellar!”

Siry's father turned and tore off down the street. Siry watched him go with a strange mix of pride and anger as the big man charged down the street with his smooth athletic gait. It seemed like no matter what Siry did, he would always fall short of the mark his father set.

Siry thought about everything that his father had just said. Had Rena really stolen the key that would give away the secret of whatever was in the mountain? Maybe in some little part of his brain, he'd known all along that this was what would happen. Maybe he had actually hoped she'd break in there and reveal whatever secret was hiding inside.

But another part of him didn't believe she'd betray him. After all that he'd done for her? He'd saved her life! Could she have wandered off into the jungle and betrayed what he told her to the Flighters?

But the fact that the Flighters were here, just a matter of hours after she'd left? The conclusion was pretty hard to escape. His father was probably right. She'd used him. And now everybody in Rayne was going to pay for his stupidity.

Siry's face burned with shame.

“Flighters!” another voice yelled—closer this time. “Help! They're everywhere!”

Siry ran to a cupboard. But not to hide. His father had been teaching him the rudiments of club fighting. And, being perfectly modest, he was getting pretty good.

Siry grabbed the club he'd been training with and ran out of the house. He could hear the sound of a
raging battle. Screaming, yelling, confusion—it was obvious from the sounds that this was a major attack.

He sprinted toward the noise. As he rounded the corner, he saw several of his friends standing in the middle of the road, looking wide eyed. “What are you standing there for?” he called. “Grab your clubs and follow me!”

The other kids looked at one another nervously.

Sensing that what his friends needed was firmness and leadership, Siry lifted his club and waved it in a circle. “Hurry!” Siry shouted. “We've got to help!”

His outburst shocked them into action. Within seconds he was at the head of a wedge of eight or nine boys and girls, all of them carrying clubs. As they sprinted over the small rise on the west side of Rayne, Siry saw an astonishing sight.

There must have been several dozen Flighters—dirty, ragged, hollow eyed. Individually they didn't look like much. But there were a lot of them. And more important, they had caught the people of Rayne flat footed. The villagers hadn't had time to form a decent defensive perimeter. A phalanx of guards was holding their own in the center. But flanking the guards were normal people—less well trained, less organized. They were falling back in panic.

People from the village were still arriving. But many of them hadn't had time to grab clubs. Some of them were armed with only kitchen knives or even just their bare hands.

The Flighters, on the other hand, clearly had a plan. Maybe not a complex plan. But a plan nevertheless. Their tallest, strongest-looking men were in the center. Siry
saw the biggest of them, a dark towering giant, locked in furious combat with Kemo. Siry's father was among the fighters too, swinging coolly and methodically with his club as he called out encouragement and instructions to the guards.

Siry looked frantically to see if Rena was among the attacking Flighters. She wasn't.
Maybe the attack is a coincidence,
he thought hopefully. Maybe she hadn't betrayed him. Maybe she was wandering around in the woods somewhere, oblivious to all of this.

But he wasn't sure that he really believed it.

“Over there!” Siry shouted, pointing his club toward the far side of the line of attacking Flighters. “We have to turn them back before that flank gives way!”

He led his friends toward the far flank. As the young people arrived, the villagers were wavering under the onslaught of the Flighters.

“Hold the line! Hold the line!” Siry shouted encouragement to the frightened villagers on the flank. “You can do it!”

“Join the line,” shouted Loque.

“No,” Siry shouted back. “We'll outflank them and roll them back.”

He didn't wait for assent; he just sprinted around the ragged line of combatants. His friends all followed his lead and charged, howling, into the ragged group of Flighters.

The Flighters were taken by surprise. Siry pounded one desperate-looking Flighter on the arm. The man screamed in pain, dropped his club and staggered backward. Siry engaged another man, tripped him, and hit
him twice in the face. The man sagged to the ground unconscious. Within moments the left flank of the Flighters was in disarray.

Siry felt a burst of excitement. His plan was working! He had never quite seen himself as a leader. But now he realized that some of the same qualities his father had, flowed in his own veins.

“Woooooo!” shouted Twig.

“Yaaaaahh!” shouted Loque.

Fighting was a heady mix of complete panic and complete focus and concentration. Siry bared his teeth and hammered away at an opponent. The man's stick grazed his face. But he barely even felt it. Another stroke of his club broke the man's stick. His eyes widened and he dodged backward.

The momentum of the battle had began to shift. The sudden arrival of ten aggressive and fearless kids, attacking in coordinated fashion, had thrown the entire Flighter plan off. There were still more Flighters on the field than there were people from Rayne. And the guards were being driven slowly backward. But the flanks of the Rayne line were no longer looking quite so flimsy, and more villagers were arriving every minute.

Siry kept scanning, looking for Rena. He wanted to believe that these people weren't here because of her. But it just didn't stand up to logic. Maybe she hadn't come here with the specific goal of spying on the town. But that's how it had worked out. The two weeks she'd spent here had given her a chance to see every vital target and every weak point in the village. And now the Flighters were attacking based on the information she
had brought back.

But where was she?

And that's when he realized what was going on. He turned to Twig. “This is just a diversion!” he shouted, dodging a rock thrown by a young Flighter woman. “We have to get to the mountain.”

“But they need us here!” Twig shouted back. Despite the apparent shift in momentum, the fight was still raging.

“If we leave, they'll—”

Siry shoved a Flighter backward. “Look, there are more of our people coming all the time. They're going to be okay here. We need to get over to the mountain. Now!”

“The what?” Twig was dodging and weaving as a larger Flighter tried to hit her with a tree branch.

“The
mountain
.”

Without another word Siry turned and started running toward the trail that led along the cliff and up to the mountain. His heart was pounding and adrenaline was still shooting through his veins.

Only four of Siry's friends had joined him. The others had apparently decided to stay.

“What are we doing?” shouted Loque as they ran up the path leading to the mountain.

“It's Rena!” he said. “She has the key to the mountain tunnels. I think she's leading a raid.”

They pounded wordlessly up the trail, through a stand of palm trees and out onto the small clearing in front of the entrance to the tunnels that ran through the mountain. The clearing stood at the top of a small cliff
that hung over the crashing surf.

In front of the door were two guards. And close to ten Flighters.

“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.