Kate sighed. “Yeah, well…I’m going to keep practicing blurring, anyway. If I do it enough times, maybe I can figure out how to unhook the elastic band, and then bye-bye 1763.”
“Do you think I could blur?”
“Gideon said you did.”
“Well, I can’t remember.”
“Try! Lie on the bed and relax and think of home. Imagine your mum’s face and try to let go.”
“All right,” said Peter, unconvinced, “I’ll give it a try.”
He stretched out and made an effort to let his muscles go slack. He tried to picture his mother bringing him up a glass of milk at bedtime, sitting on the edge of his bed, and talking to him while he drank it. He clenched his fists as he forced himself to conjure up her image, but no picture would come into his head. His throat constricted and he grew tense and anxious. Why couldn’t he see her?
“I can’t even remember what she looks like now!” Peter burst out.
Kate looked at him, concerned; he seemed upset. “Okay, okay…think about your bedroom, then,” she suggested. “I think it’s really important not to feel stressed.”
Peter took in a deep breath and released it slowly. He thought of lying on a beach as Margrit had once taught him. He imagined the roar of the surf as his shoulders and neck, then his arms and legs, started to feel heavy and sink into the firm sand. Now he was calm. It was the memory of his stripy duvet that popped into his head first. He held the picture as steady as he could, and before long his mind was full of stripes, dark blue on white. They were curiously soothing, and soon, ever so gently, the stripes started to ripple and vibrate, as though some great engine were being started up a long way away. After a while the stripes turned into spirals, and gradually they became more luminous. Peter had the sensation that they were passing right through his body and that he was leaving this world behind. Then, unbidden, his mother’s pretty face appeared in front of him, smiling and sweet; she was brushing the hair out of his eyes. He felt a surge of happiness when he saw her face. How much he had missed her and how long it had been since he had allowed himself to give in to that feeling. All the sadness of wanting his mother to come home burst out of him in one big sob of pain. He sat up with a start.
“You started to fade for a moment there,” said Kate. “I think you can do it, Peter. You can blur too.”
The morning of departure had arrived, and the whole Byng family and most of their servants had been milling about on the gravel forecourt since breakfast. The July sun was already beating down mercilessly. Kate and Peter longed to set off, and all this waiting seemed interminable. Sweat trickled down Peter’s back, but he did not dare remove his jacket. Kate, too, was suffering under the weight of her complicated attire, and was fanning herself madly with the painted fan Mrs. Byng had given to her. Mrs. Byng had explained about the language of fans—if you held it in this way, it meant “I like you,” and in another it meant “go away.” Whatever else Kate’s frantic fanning signified, it principally said, “I am suffocating. Please let me undo these awful stays.”
Four sturdy chestnut horses were harnessed to a gleaming black carriage. The horses stood patiently, chewing on the iron bits in their mouths while footmen clambered onto the roof of the carriage, fastening down trunks. One of them lost his grip on a heavy crate and nearly sent it crashing to the ground. There was the sound of clinking glass as he dived down and grabbed it just in time.
“Well caught, Andrew,” called out Mrs. Byng. “That would have been unfortunate, indeed,” she observed to the older children. “That chest contains Parson Ledbury’s supply of port. He is convinced that every tavern keeper between here and London will water down his wine.”
Peter watched a stable boy arrive with two horses. Gideon, who had been helping organize the trunks, now came forward. He walked slowly around the stable horses, stroking their heads and talking quietly to them. He examined their eyes and their hooves and pulled up their gums so he could see their teeth. Then he got the stable lad to run around the forecourt with them on a long lead so he could watch them canter.
“I will take the black stallion,” Gideon said to the stable boy. “What is his name?”
“Midnight, sir. He’s fast and strong, sure enough,” replied the boy, “but there’s not one of us stable lads he hasn’t kicked.”
“Good!” said Gideon. “I like an animal with some fight in him.”
Poor Jack Byng was clearly not keen on the idea of traveling to London. Despite all his sisters’ efforts to cheer him up, he was clinging to his mother’s skirts like a sailor to a mast in rough seas.
“Uncle Richard writes he will take you in a rowboat to Eel Pie Island and that you will ride on a donkey at Vauxhall Gardens, where you will see all the fine ladies and gentlemen,” said one sister. “We girls are all jealous because we simply long to go.”
“And King George will touch you and cure you of the scrofula,” said another.
“I am better already,” protested little Jack through several layers of fabric.
He steadfastly refused to leave his mother, and Mrs. Byng was forced to drag him around like a third leg. Only when Peter offered to have a game of footie with him did he peep out from the folds of her dress. Mesmerized by his fancy footwork, Jack followed Peter as he dribbled the ball onto the lawn. Mrs. Byng mouthed her thank you to Peter and suggested to Sidney that he join in. Sidney merely looked on in a very condescending fashion, striking a pose with one foot forward, a hand on one hip, and his chin thrust into the air. What a plonker, thought Peter, booting the ball right at him so that he had to catch it.
“Gadzooks, sir!” Sidney exclaimed. “You might have dirtied my waistcoat!”
Jack immediately struck the same imperious pose as his elder brother and repeated in his own high voice, “‘Gadzooks, sir. You might have dirtied my waistcoat!’”
All his sisters laughed so hard and for so long that the servants had to bite their lips in order not to join in, and Sidney, furious, stomped off into the house.
Peter suddenly felt Kate’s hand on his arm.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she whispered into his ear.
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to leave a clue for my friend Megan,” Kate replied.
“What do you mean?” asked Peter.
“Never mind. It probably won’t work anyway.”
Kate made her way to the back of the house and found the stairs that led to the coal cellar. She crept slowly down them, touching the rough brick walls and marveling at how new and clean they looked. She was used to seeing them black with centuries of coal dust and glistening with damp. Kate remembered when she had first come here. It was after a gang of Year 8 girls were mean to her during her first ever week at the school. They said they could smell that she lived on a farm and that her lace-up shoes were so uncool even grannies wouldn’t wear them…. Megan had eventually found her here. They both ended up skipping science and got detentions. This became their special place. Kate crouched down in the exact spot where she and Megan always sat on their backpacks when they wanted to be alone.
A long strand of red hair tumbled down as Kate removed an iron hairpin. She started to scratch at the soft brick with it, biting her lip in concentration. Every so often she would blow the dust away to inspect her handiwork. Oh, Megan, she thought, what would you say if you saw me in this stupid dress? I wish you were here too—No, I don’t. Then you’d be stuck in 1763 as well. Kate finished her message and wiped the red dust off her hands.
“I’m counting on you, Megan!” she said out loud. “Tell my dad!”
Pendragon,
Book Seven:
The Quillan Games
By D. J. MacHale
On Quillan, Bobby finds himself in a Territory on the verge of destruction. It’s a society that revolves around games—dangerous games. To triumph in the games is to live the life of a king. To lose is to die. Bobby quickly realizes that the only way to save this troubled T
erritory is to compete in the games himself—and win.
The Quillan Games is the seventh book in this New York Times–bestselling series that has sold over one million copies.
D. J. MACHALE is the author of all the Pendragon books. When he’s not writing for children, he works in television, producing and writing such shows as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Flight 29 Down. He lives in southern California.
Visit www.simonsayskids.com or
www.thependragonadventure.com
to discover more about the Pendragon series.
ON SALE 5/16/2006
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
New York London Toronto Sydney
Journal #24
Quillan
I like to play games.
Always have. It doesn’t matter if it’s a simple game of checkers or something more brainy, like chess. I like board games like Stratego or Risk, and pretty much every team sport that exists. I like playing computer games and card games and charades and Scrabble, and when I was a kid, I was known to play a killer game of red rover. I like to win, too. Doesn’t everybody? But I’m not one of those guys who has to win constantly or I get all cranky. Why bother? When I lose, I’ll be upset for about half a second, then move on. For me, playing a game is all about the fun of the contest and seeing the best player win, whoever that may be.
At least that’s the way I used to think.
What I found here on the territory of Quillan is that games are a very big part of the culture. All kinds of games. So given the fact that I like games so much, you’d think hanging out here would be pretty cool, right?
Wrong. Really, really wrong. Games are about being challenged and plotting and developing skills and finding strategy and having fun. That’s all true on Quillan…except for the fun part. There’s nothing fun about what goes on here. On this territory games are deadly serious. When you play on Quillan, you had better win, because the price of defeat is too high. I’ve seen what happens when people lose. It’s not pretty. Or fun. I’m only beginning to learn about this new and strange territory, but there’s one thing that’s already been seared into my brain: Whatever happens, don’t lose. It’s as simple as that. Do not lose. Better advice would be to not play at all, but that doesn’t seem to be an option here on Quillan. When you live here, you play.
You win, or you pay.
As ominous as that sounds, I’ve got to accept it because I know these games will somehow factor into the battle against Saint Dane. He’s here. This is the next territory he’s after. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. He sent me a big-old invitation. I already told you about that in my last journal. But there’s more—something I didn’t write last time. You see, another Traveler was here before me. I’m not talking about the Traveler from Quillan. I mean someone from another territory. I don’t want to tell you much more about it until I reach that point in this journal. My story should play out on these pages as it happened. The way I saw it. But I will say this much: I’m angry. Angrier than I’ve ever been since becoming a Traveler. If Saint Dane thinks challenging me to playing games is the best way to bring down Quillan, he’s in for a big surprise. He picked the wrong battleground, because I like to play games. I’m good. And I’m mad. Bring it on.
Mark, Courtney, the last time I wrote to you guys was from a fairytale-like castle here on Quillan. There was way more I wanted to write in that journal, but I didn’t think I had the time to get it all down. Besides, the information I gave you in my last journal was pretty intense all by itself. I needed to write all of that down while it was still fresh in my memory. I’m not sure why I was so worried. There’s no chance I could ever forget what happened during my last few minutes on Zadaa. No matter how many different ways I look at it, or try to understand it, or search for a reasonable explanation for what happened, I keep coming back to the same undeniable fact:
Loor was killed, and she came back from the dead.
No, let me rephrase that: I think I helped Loor come back from the dead. If I live to be a hundred, I can’t imagine a single day going by without reliving what happened in that cave deep below the sands of Xhaxhu. I know I already wrote about this, but I can’t get it out of my head. Those few minutes keep coming back to me like a movie that only gets so far before it automatically rewinds and plays again. Of course, the outcome never changes. Saint Dane murdered Loor. I saw it. He blasted out of the flume and drove a sword straight through her heart. She didn’t have time to react, let alone defend herself. He killed her in cold blood. Though she was gone, I didn’t get the chance to grieve, because I wanted revenge. What followed was a fight to the death between me and the demon Traveler. Or so I thought. The thing is, I beat him. I fought him like a crazed madman because, well, I was a crazed madman. I guess seeing someone you love murdered in cold blood would send anybody off the deep end.
Saint Dane and I fought as if we both knew only one of us was getting out of that tunnel alive. It was a vicious, violent battle that could have gone either way. But in the end he made a fatal mistake. He thought he had won, and charged in for the kill. I grabbed the very sword that he had used to kill Loor and swept it into place. My aim was perfect. Instead of finishing me off, he drove himself into the weapon. To the hilt, just as he had driven the sword into Loor moments before. I won. Saint Dane was dead. The nightmare was over. But my victory didn’t last long. His body transformed into a black mist that floated away from the sword and re-formed at the mouth of the flume. I looked up to see the demon standing there calmly, not looking any worse for wear. He stood there in his original form, standing well over six feet tall, wearing that dark Asian-looking suit. The lightning-bolt red scars on his bald head seemed to pulse with blood. It was the only sign that he had exerted himself at all. But what I couldn’t stop looking at, as usual, were his blue-white eyes. They locked on me and held me tight, taking away what little breath I had left. We stayed that way for a long moment, staring, waiting for the other to make a move. But the fight was over. He gave me a cold, knowing smile as if to say everything had happened exactly as he had planned.
“I see you are capable of rage,” he said cockily. “I will remember that.”
“How could you…?” I gasped in shock.
“Didn’t Press tell you how futile it would be to try to kill me?” he said with a smirk. He kept his eyes on me and shouted into the flume, “Quillan!”
The flume came to life. I didn’t have the strength, or the will, to stop him. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have known how.
“Zadaa has been such an amusing diversion,” the demon said. “In spite of what you may think, Pendragon, this isn’t over. I can lick my wounds and move on.” He glanced down at Loor’s lifeless body and added, “The question is, can you?”
The light from the flume enveloped the monster. He took a step back and was gone. As the light disappeared, I could hear his maniacal laugh fading away.
Have I told you how much I hate that guy?
When I turned to Loor, I saw that I was too late. She was dead. I’m no doctor, but it didn’t take one to know that she was gone. Blood was everywhere. She wasn’t breathing. She had no heartbeat. I stared down at her, not believing that it was true.
It was only the night before that I had told her I loved her by trying to give her a kiss. But she turned away. I was crushed. It had taken every bit of courage I had to admit I had such strong feelings for her, but with that one small gesture she let me know that it was not meant to be.
She told me, though, that she had deep feelings for me too. She said, “We are on a mission, Pendragon. No group of people have ever been given such a monumental responsibility. We must prevail. We must stop Saint Dane. That is our quest. We are warriors. We will fight together again. We cannot allow emotions to cloud our judgment in any way. That is why I cannot be with you.”
It hurt to hear that, but she was right. We would fight together again. Letting our emotions get in the way of that, even in a small way,
would be a mistake. Whatever feelings we had for each other would have to be put aside until the time was right. Or so I thought at the time. The next day I watched as Saint Dane killed her. As I sat there in that cavern, with my hand over her mortal wound, a million thoughts and feelings rushed through me. None were good. I had lost my friend. She was not only someone I loved, but my best ally in the battle against Saint Dane. The gut-wrenching realization began to settle in that the time for us would never be right, because she was gone. I found myself wishing with every ounce of my being that it wasn’t true.
And she woke up. Simple as that, she opened her eyes. Her wound was gone too. Like it had never been there. But it had been there. I swear. The drying blood on her black leather armor was proof of that. It was un-freaking-believable. Since that moment I’ve tried to make sense of what happened. But how can you make sense of the impossible?
Sorry for repeating all of that, but as hard as it is for me to understand what actually happened in that cave, it’s almost as troubling to wonder what it might mean for the future. My future. Up until then a few things had happened with the Travelers that made me think we aren’t exactly, oh, how should I put it? Normal. I had been injured pretty badly on Zadaa, and healed faster than seemed possible. The same happened with Alder from Denduron. He was hit in the chest with a steel arrow that should have killed him. But his wound healed quickly, and he recovered so fast it was like it had never happened. But healing quickly and coming back from the dead are two different things. Still, it’s not like we Travelers can’t die. We can. If we were invincible, then Uncle Press, Seegen, Spader’s dad, Osa, and Kasha would still be around. It’s not like we can’t be hurt, either. I’ve taken the lumps and felt the pain to prove it.
But I’ve seen three Travelers take mortal wounds…and live to tell the tale. Loor, Alder, and Saint Dane. I hate to put my friends in the same category as that monster, but after all, he is a Traveler too. On the other hand, Saint Dane is capable of doing some things that the rest of us can’t. I can’t transform myself into other people. Believe me, I tried. Once. I felt pretty stupid afterward too. How do you “will” yourself to become somebody else? I closed my eyes, concentrated my thoughts, and said to myself: Become Johnny Depp. Nothing happened. Maybe I should have been more specific and thought: Become Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as opposed to Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. It all seemed so silly. Especially since nothing happened. I didn’t even bother trying to think: I want to become black smoke and drift across the room. If I couldn’t become Johnny Depp, no way was I turning to smoke. Bottom line is, Saint Dane may be a Traveler, but he’s operating on a whole nother level than we are.