It had started drizzling when they left the terminal and was raining heavily by the time they reached the downtown area. Prague was built on both sides of a river, but the narrow streets and gray stone buildings made her feel as if she were trapped in a hedge maze. Cathedrals and castles dotted the city, and their pointed towers jabbed at the sky.
At the bus stop, Maya was presented with more choices. She could walk to her hotel or wave down a cruising taxi. The legendary Japanese Harlequin, Sparrow, once wrote that true warriors should “cultivate randomness.” In a few words, he had suggested an entire philosophy. A Harlequin rejected mindless routines and comfortable habits. You lived a life of discipline, but you weren’t afraid of disorder.
It was raining. She was getting wet. The most predictable choice was to take the taxi waiting by the curb. Maya hesitated for a few seconds and then decided to act like a normal citizen. Clutching her bags with one hand, she yanked open the door and got into the backseat. The driver was a squat little man with a beard who looked like a troll. She gave him the name of her hotel, but he didn’t react.
“It’s the Hotel Kampa,” she said in English. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” the driver answered and pulled out into the street.
The Hotel Kampa was a large four-story building, solid and respectable, with green window awnings. It was placed on a cobblestone side street near the Charles Bridge. Maya paid the driver, but when she tried to open the car door it was locked.
“Open the bloody door.”
“I’m sorry, madam.” The troll pushed a button and the lock clicked open. Smiling, he watched Maya get out of his cab.
She let the doorman carry her luggage into the hotel. Going to see her father, she had felt the need to carry the usual weapons; they were concealed in a camera tripod. Her appearance didn’t suggest a particular nationality and the doorman spoke to her in French and English. For the trip to Prague she had discarded her colorful London clothes and wore half boots, a black pullover, and loose gray pants. There was a Harlequin style of clothing that emphasized dark, expensive fabrics and custom tailoring. Nothing tight or flashy. Nothing that would slow you down in combat.
Club chairs and little tables were in the lobby. A faded tapestry hung on the wall. In a side dining area, a group of elderly women were drinking tea and cooing over a tray of pastries. At the front desk, the hotel clerk glanced at the tripod and the video camera case and appeared satisfied. It was a Harlequin rule that you must always have an explanation for who you are and why you’re at a particular location. The video equipment was a typical prop. The doorman and the clerk probably thought she was some kind of filmmaker.
Her hotel room was a suite on the third floor, dark and filled with fake Victorian lamps and overstuffed furniture. One window faced the street and another overlooked the hotel’s outdoor garden restaurant. It was still raining; the restaurant was closed. The striped table umbrellas were sodden with water and the restaurant chairs leaned like tired soldiers against the round tables. Maya glanced under the bed and found a little welcoming present from her father-a grappling hook and fifty meters of climbing rope. If the wrong sort of person knocked on the door, she could be out the window and away from the hotel in about ten seconds.
She took off her coat, splashed some water on her face, then placed the tripod on the bed. When she passed through the airport security checks, people always wasted a great deal of time inspecting the video camera and its various lenses. The real weapons were hidden in the tripod. There were two knives in one leg-a weighted throwing knife and a stiletto for stabbing. She placed them in their sheaths and slipped them beneath elastic bandages on her forearms. Carefully, she rolled down the sleeves of the sweater and checked herself in the mirror. The sweater was loose enough that both weapons were completely concealed. Maya crossed her wrists, moved her arms quickly, and a knife appeared in her right hand.
The sword blade was in the second leg of the tripod. The third leg concealed the sword’s hilt and guard piece. Maya attached them to the blade. The guard piece was on a pivot that could be pushed sideways. When she carried the sword on the street, the guard piece was parallel to the blade so that the entire weapon became one straight line. When it was necessary to fight, the guard snapped into its proper position.
Along with the tripod and the camera, she had brought a four-foot-long metal tube with a shoulder strap. The tube looked vaguely technical, like something that an artist would bring to her studio. It was used as a sword carrier when walking around the city. Maya could get the sword out of the tube in two seconds, and it took one more second to attack. Her father had taught her how to use the weapon when she was a teenager and she had developed her technique in a kendo class with a Japanese instructor.
Harlequins were also trained to use handguns and assault rifles. Maya’s favorite weapon was a combat shotgun, preferably a twelve gauge with a pistol grip and folding stock. The use of an old-fashioned sword along with modern weapons was accepted-and valued-as part of the Harlequin style. Guns were a necessary evil, but swords existed outside of the modern age, free of the control and compromise of the Vast Machine. Training with a sword taught balance, strategy, and ruthlessness. Like a Sikh’s kirpan, a Harlequin’s sword connected each fighter with both a spiritual obligation and a warrior tradition.
Thorn also believed there were practical reasons for swords. Concealed within equipment like the tripod, they could pass through airport security systems. A sword was silent and so unexpected that there was a shock value when using it on an unsuspecting enemy. Maya visualized an attack. Fake to the head of your opponent, then down low to the side of the knee. A little resistance. The crack of bone and cartilage. And you’ve cut off someone’s leg.
A brown envelope lay within the coils of the escape rope. Maya ripped it open and read the address and time for her meeting. Seven o’clock. The Betlémské námesti quarter in the Old Town. She placed the sword on her lap, turned off all the lights, and tried to meditate.
Images floated through her brain, memories of the only time she had fought alone as a Harlequin. She was seventeen then and her father had brought her over to Brussels to protect a Zen monk who was visiting Europe. The monk was a Pathfinder, one of the spiritual teachers who could show a potential Traveler how to cross over to another realm. Although the Harlequins weren’t sworn to protect Pathfinders, they helped them whenever possible. The monk was a great teacher-and he was on the Tabula death list.
That night in Brussels, Maya’s father and his French friend Linden were upstairs near the monk’s hotel suite. Maya was told to guard the entrance to the service elevator in the basement. When two Tabula mercenaries arrived, there was no one there to help her. She shot one man in the throat with an automatic and hacked the other merc to death with her sword. Blood splattered over her gray maid’s uniform, covering her arms and hands. Maya was crying hysterically when Linden found her.
Two years later, the monk died in a car accident. All that blood and pain were useless. Calm down, she told herself. Find some private mantra. Our Travelers who art in Heaven. Damn them all.
IT STOPPED RAINING around six and she decided to walk to Thorn’s apartment. Leaving the hotel, she found Mostecká Street and followed it to the Charles Bridge. The stone Gothic bridge was wide and lit with colored lights that illuminated a long line of statues. A backpacker played his guitar in front of a hat while a street artist used charcoal to draw a sketch of an elderly female tourist. A statue of a Czech martyr saint was placed halfway across the bridge, and she remembered hearing that it was a good luck charm. There was no such thing as luck, but she touched the bronze plaque below the statue and whispered to herself: “May someone love me and may I love him in return.”