The Young Dread Read Online Free Page A

herself and the Young Dread, she turned and ran as fast as her short legs would carry her.
    Maud turned back to her own course and startled a young Seeker standing guard at the edge of a small glade. He ducked his head respectfully as she stepped past him.
    A group of older apprentices was huddled around a white-haired woman, who spoke to them in a low murmur. These students were older than Maud—physically, at least—perhaps fourteen. Their instructor had an athame laid out across both of her hands, the ancient dagger of pale stone glinting dully in the early-morning light. The woman’s eyes flicked up to watch the Young Dread approach, but she didn’t pause in her stream of quiet words, and because of this, her students didn’t notice Maud’s presence.
    “When you’ve learned the coordinates of athames, I will let you handle this precious device,” she was telling them softly, “but not until then. Note the number of dials.”
    With one hand, she indicated the stacked series of movable rings that made up the athame’s hilt. Each ring had a dozen small faces, and on each face a symbol was carved.
    “We line up symbols to create the coordinates of where we will go. A good Seeker can determine these almost without thinking….”
    The Young Dread passed on, giving the students and their instructor privacy as they stepped into the mysteries of the athame, an implement at the heart of Seekers’ training and special knowledge. They would learn, soon enough, that the athame, when used properly, could carve a hole in the fabric of the world, to bring its user
There.
And they would learn all one
could
learn about that strange darkness
There
—between the dimensions of the real world and outside the flow of time. From
There,
they could use the athame again, to carve a hole back to somewhere else in the world. It was a tool to get anywhere one wished. Each Seeker would be expected to use the ancient implement for noble deeds, to bring honor to his or her Seeker house. And Maud, as a Dread, was there to ensure Seekers used their athames honorably. She would spend hundreds of years in the blackness
There,
apart from the world, returning for brief visits such as this one, to be a judge.
    The Young Dread looked back for a moment, to find the students all bent over the athame, fully attentive. Their instructor—Lilias, that was her name; Maud had seen her on her last waking, when the woman had looked much younger—regarded the Young Dread briefly, then turned back to her apprentices.
    Maud passed out the other side of the glade. She had wanted to see the people on the estate, and she had. In fact, she’d seen, in brief glimpses, almost the whole progression of Seeker training and most of the apprentices preparing to take the oath. And now she wished she’d walked a different way and remained in solitude. Her emptiness had only grown stronger.
    The little girl’s gaze had been the most honest. The Young Dread was not a human to these Seekers and apprentices. She was a ghost.

Chapter 4
A Fight
    When she finally neared the cottages of the Dreads, Maud heard the clash of whipswords again—but this was nothing like the childish fights of the apprentices. This was the rapid, ferocious strike and counterstrike of a Dread doing battle.
    And there were voices:
    “…and how have you been occupying yourself in the years since last I saw you?” asked the first voice.
    “Only in good deeds, of course,” said the second.
    The Young Dread shifted gears and took off through the trees, a strange emotion coming over her. She knew who was fighting: one combatant was the Middle Dread, and the other was…
    …the Old Dread.
    The first voice was his. Her master was awake. After years sleeping
There,
he’d come back to them.
    “Good deeds were not how you occupied yourself the last time we met,” the Old Dread said.
    His voice was like a chant, rhythmic, almost singsong, just as they all sounded when they’d woken from a long