The Traveler

In the beginning, he had tried to concentrate on the event itself, staring at the drop as it formed, flexing his muscles, and gripping the sword like a baseball player waiting for a fastball. Unfortunately, there was nothing regular about what happened. Sometimes the drop wouldn’t fall for twenty minutes. Sometimes two drops would fall within ten seconds. Gabriel swung the sword and missed. He muttered a curse, and tried again. Anger filled his heart so intensely that he thought of fleeing the silo and walking back to San Lucas. He wasn’t the lost prince of his mother’s stories, just a foolish young man ordered around by a half-crazy old woman.

Gabriel felt as if today would bring only more failure. But standing alone with the sword for several hours, he gradually forgot about himself and his problems. Although the weapon was still in his hands, he didn’t feel like he was holding it in a conscious way. The sword was simply an extension of his mind.

The water drop fell, but this time it seemed to fall in slow motion. When he swung the sword, he was one step back from his own experience, watching the blade touch the water drop and cut it in two. Time stopped at that moment and he saw everything clearly-the sword, his hands, and the two halves of the water drop drifting off into opposite directions.

Then time began moving again and the sensation disappeared. Only a few seconds had gone by, but it felt like a glimpse of eternity. Gabriel turned and ran down the tunnel. “Sophia!” he shouted. “Sophia!” His voice echoed off the concrete walls.

She was still in the control room, writing in her leather notebook. “Is there a problem?”

Gabriel stammered as if his tongue didn’t work anymore. “I-I cut the drop with the jade sword.”

“Good. Very good.” She closed the notebook. “You’re making progress.”

“There was something else, but it’s hard to explain. It felt like time slowed down while it happened.”

“You saw this?”

Gabriel looked down at the floor. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“No one can stop time,” Sophia said. “But people can focus their senses far beyond the normal boundaries. It may feel like the world is slowing down, but it’s all going on inside your brain. Your perceptions have been accelerated. Occasionally, great athletes are able to do this. A ball is thrown or kicked through the air and they can see it precisely. Sometimes musicians can hear every instrument in a symphony orchestra at the same moment. It can even happen to ordinary people who meditate or pray.”

“Does it happen to Travelers?”

“Travelers are different from the rest of us because they can learn how to control this kind of intensified perception. It gives them the power to see the world with an immense clarity.” Sophia studied Gabriel’s face as if his eyes could give her an answer. “Can you do that, Gabriel? Can you push a switch in your mind and make the world seem to slow down and stop for a while?”

“No. The whole thing just happened.”

She nodded. “Then we have to keep working.” Sophia picked up her kerosene lantern and began to walk out of the room. “Let’s try the seventeenth path to help your sense of balance and movement. When a Traveler’s body is moving slightly, it helps the Light break free.”

A few minutes later they were standing on a ledge that was built halfway up the sixty-foot silo that had once contained the facility’s radio antenna. A steel girder about three inches wide crossed the length of the silo. Sophia raised her lantern and showed him that it was a thirty-foot drop to a pile of abandoned machinery.

“There’s a penny on the girder, about halfway across. Go pick it up.”

“If I fall, I’m going to break my legs.”

Sophia didn’t seem to be worried. “Yes, you could break your legs. But I think it’s more likely that you’d break both ankles. Of course, if you land on your head, you’ll probably die.” She lowered the lantern and nodded. “Get going.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and stepped sideways on the girder so that his weight was on the arches of his feet. Cautiously, he began to shuffle away from the ledge.

“That’s not right,” Sophia said. “Step with your toes pointed forward.”

“This is safer.”

“No, it isn’t. Your arms should be extended at a ninety-degree angle to the girder. Focus on your breathing, not on your fear.”

Gabriel turned his head to speak to Sophia and lost his balance. He swayed back and forth for a moment then crouched down and grabbed the girder with both hands. Once again, he started to fall until he threw his legs outward and straddled the girder. It took him two minutes to return to the ledge.

“That was pathetic, Gabriel. Try again.”

“No.”

“If you want to be a Traveler-”

“I don’t want to get killed! Stop asking me to do things that you can’t do yourself.”