Dawnbreaker: Legends of the Duskwalker - Book 3 (25 page)

“No,” the old man said.

“Oh. I thought...” Wren trailed off, wondering if he’d misunderstood. “I thought you said you’d evaluate me this morning, if I came back.”

“Mm,” the old man said, making that same little noise. “Is that what I said?”

And now Wren really was confused. He looked over at Haiku, who was sitting silently across from him, but the man merely returned the gaze without any show of emotion. Wren thought back over the day before, replayed the moment in his mind. The old man telling him to come back in the morning. He was certain of that.

“Yes, sir. You said if I came back in the morning, you’d see if I had anything more than pluck.”

“Mm.”

The old man continued to watch him, and Wren got the distinct impression that he was missing something, that he wasn’t answering the question that was actually being asked. But he was sure of it, he remembered it clearly. The old man had said that if Wren completed one task to his satisfaction, then he’d evaluate him. Oh.
To his satisfaction.

“If I completed the task to your satisfaction,” Wren said.

“Ah, yes,” the old man said. “That sounds like something I’d say.”

“Does that mean...” Wren said, and his heart dropped into his stomach. He was almost afraid to say the rest. “I see.” He’d failed. All of that, for nothing. What had the old man been looking for?

“I said I would evaluate you if you performed a task to my satisfaction,” said the old man. “What was the task I set you to?”

“To survive the night on my own,” Wren answered. The man’s eyebrows went up at that; a subtle invitation to reconsider. “Or. Well, you said to leave and come back.”

“Too much, boy.”

The old man was still watching him intently, and Wren felt the frustration rising. There was some game here, some riddle or puzzle that he didn’t see. He tried to remember the exact words the old man had said. One simple task. And then it clicked.

“You said to leave. The task was for me to leave.”

The old man dipped his head in a subtle nod, in a manner almost identical to the one Three used to have.

“The evaluation began last night,” he said. “You must learn to hear what I say, not what you think I say.”

Wren’s emotions did a somersault. He hadn’t failed after all. Or had he? There was no telling what the old man had been looking for; Wren hadn’t had any idea that he was already under scrutiny out there in the open. What evaluation could the old man have possibly done?

“This is the final portion,” the old man said. “And it will require your full attention. If you feel that you’ll be distracted by thirst or hunger, we can tend to those needs first.”

“How about being tired?”

“That part is expected,” the old man said with a smile. “Are you ready?”

“I think so,” Wren answered.

“Don’t tell me what you
think
, boy.”

“Yes, sir,” Wren said. “I’m ready.”

“Very well,” the old man said. Haiku got up from the table then and without a word quietly left the room. The old man took a small black cylinder from a pocket and placed it on the table between them. “Sit up straight.”

Wren did as he was told, and the seriousness of the moment settled on him.

“Tell me,” the old man said. “What is this?”

Wren looked at it, there on the table in front of him. It was short, squat, black and seamless. There were no lights or displays. It could have been a solid chunk of metal or plastic, or it could have been filled with sand or ash. But Wren knew there was more to the question than mere guessing would provide. Or rather, a mere guess might tip things the wrong direction. He stretched out through the digital and tried to find a connection to the device. It was there, almost instantly he could see it, or feel it. He didn’t really have a word to describe what it was to connect this way because it was both sight and touch, in a way, and yet not really either. There was something to the device. And it
was
a device of some kind, though Wren couldn’t see its purpose.

“A device,” Wren said.

The old man’s facial expression didn’t change. Wren continued his interaction to see what more he could learn. The connection was there but it was difficult to latch on to. Evasive. Slippery. Like spots floating in vision, always fleeing when looked for. It was something like Underdown’s machine, though not as aggressive. Whereas the machine had actively resisted his attempts to connect remotely, this device seemed to passively avoid it; smoke curling around a grasping hand. Wren glanced back up at the old man who was still watching him intently.

“May I touch it?” Wren asked.

The old man nodded once.

Wren took the device in his hand, rolled it over in his palm. It was heavy, and cool to the touch. And now that he held it, the signal grew stronger in his mind. The connection became easier to hold in focus, though still it escaped his attempts to interface. An odd sensation accompanied it that he couldn’t quite place.

“It’s a device of some kind,” Wren said. “But I can’t connect to it.”

“Can’t?” the old man said, and his tone suggested Wren reconsider his words.

“Well, it’s difficult,” Wren said. And then a thought occurred to him. He wasn’t certain, but the hunch was there, and it came out of his mouth before he had a chance to talk himself out of saying it. “I might be able to get it if you’d quit moving it around.”

The old man’s face shifted into the barest trace of a smile.

In that moment, Wren realized the mysterious device itself was no longer important. It might not have even been important to begin with. The real test was in finding the old man’s signal, to figure out what he was doing, how he was manipulating the device’s connection protocols to prevent Wren from locking on to it. An invisible battle.

Wren had never tried this before, not really. With almost everything else he had ever done through the digital, he hadn’t been actively resisted. And that most likely explained the sensation he hadn’t been able to place before. The old man was there too, manipulating the device at the same time. Wren had no training for this sort of thing, no experience to draw from.

Except for the Machine. He had fought Asher there, somehow, more out of reflex than with any understanding. He tried to remember what that had felt like. Wren groped his way through the electromagnetic swirl looking not for a way to connect to the device, but for the hidden hand behind the signal. The old man was in there, somewhere. Wren knew it. But no matter where he looked or what he tried, he just couldn’t find any trace of him. Five minutes. Ten minutes.

Wren’s mind was already fogged with weariness, and now frustration piled on and threatened to give way to panic. This was his moment, his big test, and he was losing. And if he lost, he would fail. And if he failed, he would never forgive himself. But the more he tried to focus, the harder it all became. After twenty minutes, with no warning, the signal vanished.

“Enough,” the old man said.

“Wait,” Wren said. “I’m not done.”

“Yes you are.”

“No, please, I can keep going.”

“Perhaps you can, boy,” the old man said, “but I have learned what I needed to.”

“Sir, please–” Wren began, but the old man held up his hand and cut him off. It wasn’t the gesture that stopped the words, it was the hard, piercing stare of the man’s dark eyes. But Wren was desperate. This was his best chance, his only chance, and it was slipping away. The old man’s signal was there, it had to have been. The device was off. Haiku wasn’t connected. The only other signal nearby would have to be the old man’s.

Wren stretched out again, rode the wave of fear and frustration as it built inside. Invited it. And there, he found the old man’s signal, now unguarded. Without plan or purpose, Wren attached to it.

The old man’s eyebrows went up, surprised by Wren’s connection or maybe by his audacity.

“And what, boy, do you think you’re going to do with that?”

Wren didn’t know but he didn’t care. He had to show this old man what he was capable of, somehow. Attached to the signal, Wren started crawling his way up the chain, looking for something, anything he could grab hold of, or disrupt, or lash out at. It was like the time when Mama had been unconscious, after Painter had killed Connor, and Wren had been so scared and all he knew was that he needed Mama to wake up. Except Mama’s signal had been quiet and flat then, an easy, meandering stream. The old man’s was like a lightning bolt.

Before Wren could figure out what he was doing, pressure came against him. The old man resisting him, gradually pulling free. Wren had to do something. And he did the first thing he could think of. He broadcast. The way Lil had taught him or, rather, the way he’d figured out how to do it after Lil had taught him. He turned his signal outward, amplified it as much he could, the way he had against the Weir. And with it, the pressure that had threatened to force him out vanished, as if he had broken through it.

“Mm,” the old man said.

Wren was doing it. Whatever
it
was, he had broken through the old man’s initial defenses. And then, without warning, everything went terribly, terribly wrong. Pain blossomed in the middle of his brain, white hot. His ears rang. Was the old man attacking him back? Wren resisted, pushed harder, bent all his will and effort to boosting his own signal. But the harder he pushed, the greater the pain grew. The old man sat placidly in front of him, as if completely unaware of, or unmoved by, Wren’s distress. Wren opened his mouth to scream against the searing of his senses, but nothing came out. His entire body was seized.

And the next moment, it all ceased. Wren slumped forward with a choking exhale. But almost immediately he began to recover, the pain fading quickly to memory, to something imagined. Whatever had just happened to him didn’t seem to have any lasting physical effect. The psychological impact was far worse.

“Haiku!” the old man called, his voice sharp. Haiku reappeared and stood at the entry. The old man motioned to a seat at the table, which Haiku walked over to and took.

The old man looked at Haiku for a span, and then at Wren for longer. Wren felt himself wilting under the gaze. It reminded him of the time he’d snuck out of the compound at Morningside one night. The night he’d found Painter. And when he’d come back with his shirt torn and bloodied, Mama had been so furious that, after she’d held him tight and checked his wounds, she’d sat him in a chair and stared at him something like that. Eyes smoldering while she tried to find her way through the emotion to get to the words underneath. The difference here was that while the old man’s eyes were just as intense, they were completely unreadable; no anger, no disappointment, no emotion whatsoever. And somehow that was even worse.

“Your problem, boy,” the old man said, “is that you’ve been told you are special.” He paused and scratched the tip of his nose with a finger, smoothed his wispy mustache and beard. “That you have a
gift
. A
gift
you said. Your words. And worse, you believe it, don’t you?”

Wren couldn’t withstand the man’s gaze or his hard words. Tears started to form, and he didn’t want the old man to see it. He looked down at his hands in his lap and started picking at the red spot next to his thumbnail.

“Look at me, boy.”

Wren couldn’t do it. Not yet. Get it under control.

“Look at me!” the old man said and his voice was so sharp and powerful that Wren obeyed even against his will. And when his eyes met the old man’s, he found he couldn’t look away. Tears dripped onto his cheeks.

“You are here, boy, because you believe it,” the old man continued, his voice returning to its normal crackly tone and volume. “Because you believe you are
special
. Because you believe you alone can change the course of events. Perhaps you even believe you’ve been destined for something great. Chosen.”

The old man leaned towards him across the table. “Is that what you believe, boy? That you are a Chosen One?”

No. Wren didn’t believe that. Did he? He’d never thought of himself as any of this, and yet the man’s words were sinking deep into his soul and making him doubt. Making him wonder. And the fact that Wren couldn’t be certain shook him.

The old man leaned back in his chair.

“You are many things. Small, frightened, fragile. Weak. But boy, you are most assuredly
not
special.”

Wren didn’t know what to say. It was clear he’d not only failed, but that he’d failed in some catastrophic way. He wondered if Haiku was going to face the old man’s wrath just for having brought Wren to him.

“I have raised many children. This test,” he said, holding up the dark cylinder, “was something my children could solve before their sixth birthday. You did not even reach the part meant to be a challenge.”

Wren glanced at Haiku, but Haiku was looking down at the table. Maybe he was feeling some of Wren’s shame.

“You’re too old. It would take months to correct much of the nonsense you’ve no doubt been filled with, the habits and patterns of thought that you’ve developed under careless eyes. And some of them you will never unlearn.”

That was all Wren could bear. It was bad enough that he’d wasted so much time and effort already. There was no need for him to accept this berating, no matter who the old man was. Wren wiped the stupid tears off his face.

“You can just say no,” Wren said. “There’s no reason to be so nasty about it.”

The old man didn’t reply. Haiku had looked up at Wren, and now his eyes were shifting back and forth between him and the old man. After a moment, Wren stood up.

“I’ll get my things,” he said. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”

“Sit,” the old man said. Wren remained standing by his chair, hesitating. But the old man inclined his head towards Wren’s chair, and Wren felt compelled by the motion to retake his seat.

“These words are hard for you to hear,” the old man said, “because they are new to you. But you must hear them if you are to be my student. I am not a man who tolerates illusions. My House deals in realities only, and they are perplexing enough without the confusion of dreams and wishes.”