The Traveler

32

Gabriel woke up in the motel room and saw that Maya was gone. Without making a sound, she had left her bed and gotten dressed. He found it strange that she had neatly tucked in the blanket and folded the two pillows into the frayed cotton bedspread. It was as if she wanted to erase all signs of her presence, the fact that the two of them had spent the night in the same space.

He sat up in bed and leaned against the creaky headboard. Ever since they had left Los Angeles, he had thought about what it meant to be a Traveler. Was everyone just a biological machine? Or was there something eternal within each living thing, a spark of energy that Maya called the Light? Even if that was true, it didn’t mean that he had the power.

Gabriel tried to think about another world, but he found himself overcome by random thoughts. He couldn’t control his mind. It jumped around like a chattering monkey in a cage, throwing up images of old girlfriends, motorcycle races down a mountain, and lyrics from a song. He heard a buzzing sound and opened his eyes. A fly was bashing itself against the windowpane.

Angry with himself, he walked into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. Maya, Hollis, and Vicki had risked their lives for him, but they were going to be disappointed. Gabriel felt like a gate crasher at a party who was pretending to be someone important. The Pathfinder-if he existed-would laugh at his pretensions.

When he returned to the main room, he saw that Maya’s travel bag and laptop computer were sitting beside the door. That meant that she was somewhere nearby. Had she taken the van and gone to buy food? Not possible. There were no restaurants or grocery stores in the area.

Gabriel got dressed and stepped out into the courtyard parking area. The old lady who ran the motel had switched off the neon sign and her office was dark. The dawn sky was a lavender color with thin silvery clouds. He walked around the south wing of the motel and saw Maya standing on a concrete slab in the middle of some sagebrush. The concrete looked like the foundation for a house that had been abandoned to the desert.

Maya must have found a steel rod at the construction site. Holding it like a sword, she ran through a series of ritual forms and combinations, similar to the ones he had seen in his kendo school. Parry. Thrust. Defend. Each motion glided gracefully into another.

From a distance, he could observe Maya and stay detached from her single-minded intensity. Gabriel had never met anyone like this Harlequin. He knew she was a warrior who would kill without hesitation, but there was also something pure and honest in the way she faced the world. Watching her practice, Gabriel wondered if she cared about anything other than this ancient obligation, the violence that had claimed her life.

A discarded broom was lying beside the motel’s dumpster. He broke off the broom section and carried the stick over to the concrete slab. When Maya saw him, she stopped moving and lowered her improvised weapon.

“I’ve taken a few kendo lessons, but you look like an expert,” he said. “Do you want to practice sparring?”

“Harlequins must never fight Travelers.”

“I might not be a Traveler, okay? We should accept that possibility.” Gabriel waved the broomstick around. “And this isn’t exactly a sword.”

He gripped the stick with both hands, and then attacked her at half speed. Maya parried gently and swung her weapon around to his left side. The soles of his motorcycle boots made a faint scraping sound as they moved across the concrete rectangle. For the first time, he felt like Maya was looking at him, treating him as an equal. She even smiled a few times when he blocked her attack and tried to surprise her with an unexpected move. Fighting with grace and precision, they moved beneath the enormous sky.