“Excuse me, son,” came a voice next to him. “No sparklers in the crowd.”
Mark saw a cop standing in front of him. He looked around, wondering who the cop was talking to, but nobody around him was playing with sparklers.
“Did you hear me?” asked the cop, a bit more gruff.
Mark realized the cop was staring right at him.
“Are you talking to me?” Mark asked, confused.
“Don’t be smart,” the cop snapped. “Kill the sparkler. There are little kids around.”
Mark truly didn’t know what the guy was talking about. That is, until he felt his ring twitch. He didn’t notice it at first because he had been so focused up at fireworks in the sky, but there was a small pyrotechnic display going on right in Mark’s hand.
His ring had activated.
It was already growing larger, with shimmering light spewing from the opening, very sparklerlike. The fireworks had been so loud he didn’t even hear the music. Mark instantly clamped his hand over the ring.
“S-Sorry, Officer,” he stammered. “I’ll—uh—I’ll get rid of it.”
Mark awkwardly got to his feet, but he was in the middle of a crowd on the tennis court. He tried to run off, but ended up either stepping on people, or tripping over their picnic baskets, or generally making a nuisance of himself.
“Excuse me, pardon me, sorry, I’m sorry, oops, sorry,” he kept saying as he fought his way through the crowd and off the court. After annoying pretty much everybody along the way, he jumped off the tennis court and ran into the woods. He didn’t have to run far. Nobody cared about him. They were all watching the sky. Mark ran behind a tree, dropped his ring to the ground and watched his own personal pyrotechnic display. Unlike the fireworks exploding in the sky, this one actually did have a touch of magic to it.
This display was there to deliver Bobby’s next journal.
JOURNAL #21
ZADAA
There’s been a tragedy.
There was no warning. No build up. No way we could have been prepared. With everything I’ve seen, you’d think I’d be used to horrible things happening. Not so. I’m as stunned as ever. Now we’ve got to pick up the pieces and move on. The only good thing I can say about this, is that it has made our next step pretty clear.
Mark, Courtney, I’m once again writing this journal from Loor’s home. We won’t be here much longer. Tomorrow we begin a journey. Hopefully, I’m ready for it. Or at least more ready than I was when I wrote to you last.
It’s weird. I’m beginning to feel like two different people. I’m still Bobby Pendragon, the guy you know and who wants more than anything to be home and get his real life back. But in many ways, I’ve changed. I’ve seen so many things, both horrible and wondrous, that I can’t help but think I’m not the same person. I don’t like that. I want to be me. But with all that’s been going on, the old me wouldn’t survive for long. That’s why I needed to force myself to change even more. It’s all about staying alive. The ironic part is that by forcing myself to be a new person, it feels like I’m killing off the old Bobby. I hate it, but I don’t have a choice. Not if I want to be around long enough to stop Saint Dane.
But right now I need to get my head back to a few weeks ago, so that I can get all that’s happened down here in my journal.
Three of us stood facing the flume, deep in Rokador territory beneath the city of Xhaxhu. The rocky tunnel into the territories was quiet now, but wouldn’t be for long.
“This is not necessary,” Saangi said, annoyed. “I am capable of the job. We do not need more help.”
“One day you will be a fine warrior,” Loor said to her patiently. “But we need help now. Today.”
Without warning, Saangi grabbed the wooden stave she had strapped to her back. She spun it like a baton, dropped to her knee, and expertly whacked me on the back of the legs.
“Ow!” I shouted. “What was that for?”
“My reflexes are far better than his,” Saangi said to Loor. “He can learn from me.”
I rubbed the back of my stinging legs, then quickly yanked the weapon out of her hands before she could react.
“Gimme that,” I scolded. “Sheesh.”
Loor gently took the weapon from me. I could see she was smiling slightly.
“You think this is funny?” I asked. “This is tough enough without getting smacked by the good guys. That hurt!”
Loor said, “If you do not wish to be hit, you do not wish to train. Do you wish to train?”
Ouch. Loaded question. To be honest, the idea of getting battered around while training didn’t appeal to me. I had finally recovered from most of my injuries. My strength was still low and I was stiff, but most of the injury pain was gone. The idea of voluntarily getting physically punished didn’t exactly appeal to me. I had gotten a lifetime worth of pain from Saint Dane. But you didn’t play football without getting knocked around in practice, or box without sparring and taking some punches. If I wanted to learn how to fight, part of that was getting used to being hit. I stopped rubbing my leg.
“I can handle it,” I said to Loor defiantly. I looked to Saangi. She had a smug look on her face.
“You will play a part in this, Saangi,” Loor said to her squire while giving her back the weapon. “Please be patient.”
Saangi took the stave and jammed it into its harness. She stood there with her arms folded, looking all sorts of pouty. Note to self: Watch out for the brat.
That’s when the flume came to life.
I heard it before seeing anything. The rock walls shifted every so slightly, groaning like an old man’s joints as he worked out stiff kinks. Kind of like how I felt lately. I looked into the tunnel to see a pinpoint of light far in the distance. Someone was headed toward us. The light quickly grew larger as it came closer. I heard the faint jumble of sweet musical notes that always announced a voyage through the flume. A moment later the rocky walls of the round tunnel melted into crystal. Before the incoming light grew so bright that I had to shield my eyes, I could see the star field beyond the clear walls. Though traveling through the flumes had become a common thing, I still had no clue as to how they worked, or who created them. I trusted that one day I would find out, but I usually tried not to think about it too much. There was usually too much going on to stress over the grand cosmic issues I had no control over.
Loor, Saangi, and I stood together, shielding our eyes from the brilliant light show. The music grew loud. The passenger had arrived. A second later the light disappeared, the crystal walls returned to solid rock, and the flume was once again quiet.
Standing before us was a tall, dangerous-looking guy with a sword on his hip. He was wearing heavy leather armor that was much beefier than Loor’s. No skin showed on this guy because the territory he had come from wasn’t burning hot like Zadaa. I knew, because I had been there. For him to have gotten to the gate, he had to climb a craggy mountain and traverse a vast snowfield to find the hidden cave that held the flume. He was around my age, but much taller than me. He looked every bit like the professional knight that he was.
He also happened to be the Traveler from Denduron.
“Hello, Alder,” I said. “Welcome to Zadaa.”
“The flume was not at all what I expected,” Alder said, sounding a bit shaken. He took a step forward, tripped, and stumbled. Luckily we caught him before he fell at our feet.
“Sorry,” Alder said, embarrassed. “I am still shaky from the journey.”
“This is the fierce knight you want to help train Pendragon?” Saangi asked with dismay. “He is an oaf.”
“He is a Traveler,” Loor said sharply. “And you will treat him with respect.”
“She is correct, I am an oaf,” Alder said sheepishly. “But I am an oaf who can fight.” He looked at me and broke out in a warm grin. “Hello, Pendragon. You have changed.”
We hugged. It was like getting a bear hug from a, well, from a bear. He was a strong guy. His hair was longish and brown.
He wasn’t a handsome guy, his features were too…big. Big nose, big mouth. Wide-spaced eyes. No, he wasn’t a looker. What you saw when you looked into Alder’s eyes was sincerity. And honesty. There wasn’t a devious bone in his body. What he said, he meant. He was actually more like a big kid than a trained Bedoowan knight. I would trust this guy with my life. Come to think of it, I had trusted this guy with my life. I was about to do it again.
“We’ve both grown up a little,” I said.
Alder let go of me and held his arms out for Loor, ready to give her a hug. “Hello, Loor!”
Loor stood stock-still with her arms at her sides. She wasn’t the huggy type.
“I am happy to see you, Alder,” she said with no emotion.
Alder stood there with his arms out, hugless, looking dumb. “Ummm, right,” he said, dropping his arms. “And who is this?” he asked, looking at Saangi.
“My name is Saangi. I am Loor’s acolyte. I wrote the note to your acolyte to request that you come here.”
“Who is your acolyte?” I asked Alder.
“A Milago,” Alder answered. “Her husband was killed by Saint Dane during a Transfer ceremony.”
I knew exactly who Alder was talking about. On Denduron the Milago farmers were forced to slave in the mines, digging up a precious, blue mineral called glaze for the ruling class. The Bedoowan. When Saint Dane went to Denduron, he started a brutal practice of choosing a Milago and forcing the miners to dig up his weight in glaze. The Transfer ceremony was where they weighed the poor miner against that day’s haul. If they didn’t dig up enough, the miner would be killed. I saw a Transfer ceremony where they didn’t make quota. The miner was killed. His wife had to watch. I am happy to say that Loor and Alder and I put the mines out of business. We had beaten Saint Dane on Denduron. We were now together again, ready to stop him on Zadaa.
“I hear you have been busy, Pendragon,” Alder said. “It seems as if our adventure on Denduron was only the beginning.”
“Pretty much,” I answered. “I want to hear about what’s happening on your territory. I could use some good news.”
“You will be pleased,” Alder assured me. “The Bedoowan are working with the Milago to rebuild their village that was destroyed when the tak mine exploded.”
“Where do the Bedoowan live now that their castle is destroyed?” Loor asked.
Alder laughed and said, “They live in the Milago village! You would not recognize the place, it has grown so!”
“So it’s all one big happy family?” I asked.
“It is not perfect,” Alder answered. “But it is peaceful. And the Milago are no longer in the mines. The future is bright.”
Hearing all this couldn’t have made me happier. Denduron had reached its turning point, and we pushed it the right way. But it also made me a little sad, because it reminded me of Uncle Press. I can still picture him standing up on the back of that crude, medieval sled, flying over the snow, heaving spears at the charging quig-bears.
I said, “I want to hear about Rellin, and Queen Kagan and—”
Alder suddenly took a step backward and reached for his leg. With one quick move he grabbed a vicious-looking knife that was strapped to his calf and threw it between Loor and me. We both ducked out of the way in surprise. I spun around to see what he was throwing at and saw something that made my legs go weak.
As I’ve described before, the huge underground cavern that held the flume was dug from the same light brown sandstone that all of the buildings of Xhaxhu were made from. The way in and out was by climbing up using small holes that were dug into one craggy wall. These handholds led up through a dark cleft in the rock that was barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through. It was a treacherous climb that ended at a trapdoor leading to a storage room used by the Rokador. Alder had thrown his knife toward the wall with the handholds.
His throw was dead solid perfect. Now skewered into the soft sandstone was a snake. A big snake. It must have dropped down, head first, from the cleft in the rock that led to the trapdoor. Alder’s knife had drilled through its head. I turned in time to see the rest of its body falling down from above. Dead. It must have been six feet long. Its head stayed in place, pegged to the soft sandstone by Alder’s knife.
“Wha—?” Saangi said in stunned awe. She looked to Alder with new respect. “I apologize for doubting you, sir.”
Alder shrugged modestly. “I may be a clumsy oaf, but I am also a knight.”
I don’t like snakes. There’s nothing good about snakes. They’re quiet, they’re sneaky, and they can kill you. Not a whole lot to like there. But this snake was especially nasty. I had run into one on a previous visit to Zadaa.
“Quigs,” I said.
“Quigs?” Alder echoed.
“That’s what they are on Zadaa,” I answered. “On Denduron they’re bears. Second Earth, dogs. On Cloral they’re sharks. Here they’re snakes. Big, nasty snakes.”
“Why would they appear now?” Saangi asked, stunned. Gone was the cocky young warrior. She suddenly seemed like a nervous little girl.
“Quigs only show up when Saint Dane doesn’t want us using the flumes,” I said. “You know what that tells me?”
“What?” Alder asked.
“It means we’re doing the right thing,” I answered. “Saint Dane is beginning to feel the heat. It’s time to get started.”
JOURNAL #21
(CONTINUED)
ZADAA
We didn’t run into any more quig-snakes on the way up and out of the flume cavern, I’m happy to report. Alder led the way, but without his sword or knife. He had to abandon his Denduron armor and weapons at the flume. Mixing items between territories wasn’t allowed. But I guess I don’t have to point that out anymore. Saangi fixed him up with a white Rokador tunic since he looked a heck of a lot more like a Rokador than a dark-skinned Batu. She also gave him a silver-rod weapon like the Tiggen guards had carried at the farm above. It was about three feet long with a leather handle on one end that had a loop to go around your wrist.
“What do I do with this?” Alder asked. “It has no blade.”
“It is an effective weapon,” Loor assured him. “You will see.”
We climbed up the footholds, through the trapdoor and stood together in the rock-walled room that the Rokador used to store machine parts. Loor slammed the trapdoor shut that bore the star symbol marking it as a gate to the flume. She covered it with sand, hiding it completely.
“Where to now?” I asked Loor.
“To a place where we will not be disturbed by Batu or Rokador,” she answered.
We left the room, following Loor through the twisting tunnel that I had walked through several times before on visits to Zadaa. Shortly we left the smaller tunnel to enter the huge cavern that once held an underground river. When Spader and I were first here, there was a four-story waterfall on one side of the immense cavern that fed a deep, raging river. Now there was only a dribble of water that fell from a rocky mouth into a pathetic trickle of a stream at the bottom of the mostly dry riverbed.
“What happened here?” Alder asked.
“There is a lot to tell,” Loor answered. “Later.”
Alder accepted that. He was an easy guy.
Loor led us to the opening that was once hidden behind the waterfall, but was now in plain sight. We climbed a few stone stairs, stepped through the portal, and entered a room that held the water-control device I have described to you before. To remind you guys, this thing looked like one of those giant pipe-organs that you see in church. But these pipes ran horizontally, disappearing into the rock wall on either side of the room. There was a platform in front of it that held an amazing array of switches and valves. When I first came here, there was a Rokador engineer on that platform, feverishly working the controls like an expert. I had no idea what the device did, other than knowing it had something to do with controlling the flow of water from the rivers. The guy had maps and diagrams that he referred to while he quickly m
ade adjustments and toggled switches.
Now the platform was empty. A thin layer of sand and dust covered the control board.
“This is one of the many switching stations that the Rokador engineers use to control the rivers of Zadaa,” Loor explained.
“I guess there isn’t much to do here anymore,” I said sadly.
I heard a booming voice behind me say: “At least for now.”
We all turned quickly to see Bokka, the Tiggen guard striding toward us. He was followed by Teek and the other two goons from the farm. At least I assumed they were the same two guys. They didn’t drop their hoods last time so I suppose they could be different characters. But it was definitely Bokka. Handsome, confidant Bokka. He didn’t wear his goggles down here, so this time I got to see his eyes. They were a unique shade of light green. I had never seen eyes like his before. A quick glance at Teek and the other Tiggen guards revealed that they all had light green eyes. I figured it had something to do with living underground.
Bokka scanned us all in a way that told me he was sizing us up in case there was trouble. His eyes fell on Alder. “And who is this new guest who dresses like a Rokador and carries our weapon?” Bokka asked.
Loor took the lead, saying: “He is from Pendragon’s tribe. He, too, has come to help.”
“The Yankees tribe?” Bokka asked.
At first I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. I guarantee Alder didn’t have a clue either. But he knew enough not to say anything.