The Dark River

As Gabriel opened his mouth to speak, a creaking sound came from the back of the auditorium. Four armed men had entered the room, and more followed a few seconds later. Six wolves faced her. Seven. Eight. Nine.

43

Gabriel got up from the wheelchair and took a few clumsy steps toward the men. “What about the food?” he asked. “Now that the commissioner is dead, you can have all the food that you want. The storage room is on the other side of the courtyard.”

The wolves glanced at one another. Maya thought they might attack, but then the man standing closest to the exit slipped out of the auditorium. Everyone lowered their weapons and hurried after him.

Gabriel reached out and touched Maya’s arm, then smiled as if they were back in the Chinatown loft. “Are you really here, Maya? Or maybe I’m just having another dream…”

“It’s not a dream. I’m here. I found you.”

Maya placed her sword back in its sheath and embraced him. She could tell that he had lost weight. His body was fragile and weak.

“We can’t stay here,” Gabriel said. “Once they divide up the food, they’ll come looking for us.”

“So they’re like human beings back in our world? They can get hungry and thirsty?”

“And they can die.”

Maya nodded. “I saw the execution in front of the building.”

“These people can’t remember their past,” Gabriel said. “They have no memories of love or hope or any other kind of happiness.”

Gabriel put his arm around her shoulder, and Maya helped him out of the auditorium. Out in the hallway, they stumbled past the two men she had killed.

“How did you get here? You’re not a Traveler.”

“I used an access point.”

“What does that mean?”

Maya told him about the sundial of the Emperor Augustus and her journey to Ethiopia with Simon Lumbroso. She decided not to mention that the Tabula had attacked Vine House and almost killed his Free Runner friends. There was a time for these revelations, but not now-when they had to escape.

Gabriel opened a door to a room filled with rows of green file cabinets. A musty smell reminded Maya of old books rotting in a cellar. The only light came from two gas flares burning from pipes that had been ripped out of the walls.

“This doesn’t look safe,” Maya said. “We should get out of the building.”

“There’s no place to hide on this island. We have to find the passageway back to our world.”

“But that could be anywhere.”

“The commissioner of patrols said that the legends about Travelers were always connected to this room. The passageway is here. I can feel it.”

Gabriel grabbed a metal table and pushed it against the door. He seemed to gain strength as he found boxes and chairs and piled them on the table. For weeks, Maya had fantasized about this moment-when she and Gabriel would be together in this strange world. But what would happen now? When Simon Lumbroso first told her about the access points he had stressed, You have to go back the way you came. Maya never considered the possibility that her only way back would be lost within the dark river. Could she leave with Gabriel, or would she be trapped in this place?

When Gabriel finished blocking the door, he hurried past the cabinets to a workstation in the middle of the room. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at a bookshelf pushed against the wall.

“See that black line? It might be something.”

He grabbed an armful of ledger books and tossed them onto the worktable. Then he pushed the bookshelf sideways, exposing a wall. The Traveler smiled at Maya like a math student who had just solved a difficult equation.

“Our way home…”

“What do you mean, Gabriel?”

“Right here. This is the passageway.” He outlined the shape with his index finger. “Can you see it?”

Maya leaned forward and saw nothing but cracked plaster. She knew at that moment-knew without words-that she was going to lose him. Quickly, she stepped back into the shadows so that he couldn’t read her face. “Yes,” she lied. “I see something.”

A thumping noise came from the entrance to the file room. The wolves had opened the door a few inches, and now they were throwing their bodies against it-forcing back the barricade.

The Traveler grabbed her hand and held it tightly. “Don’t be frightened, Maya. We’re going to cross over together.”

“Something could go wrong. We might lose each other.”

“We’ll always be connected,” Gabriel said. “I promise, no matter what happens, we will be together.”

He took a few steps forward, and then she watched his body pass through the plaster as if it were a waterfall with a cave hidden behind it. He pulled her along: Come with me, my love. But her hand struck the hard surface of the wall and Gabriel’s fingers slipped away.