My destination was the abandoned underground mall where I spent time with the members of the small resistance that called themselves “revivers.” I knew the route well. I found the building that was built over the forgotten mall, descended through ancient stairways, walked through a twisting series of corridors, and finally came to the break in the cement wall that was the entrance the revivers had created.
I never saw a reviver. Or Elli, the Traveler. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t there to learn about Quillan. I came for weapons. I found them in a long-forgotten store deep within the mall. It hurts me to say that no revivers were there to guard them. It was another sign that the revival had failed. They no longer needed their weapons.
But I did. I found a stack of the six-foot-long, black metal rods. Dado killers. I didn’t know what they were made out of, or why they worked. All I knew was that when you impaled a dado with one of those rods, it neutralized its power source. The result? Dead dado.
I stood looking at the pile of weapons, wondering why I had bothered to come. We were about to fight a war against thousands of dados. If it came down to using those rods, the war would be lost. Still, using weapons like those was all I knew. Seeing Alder instructing Siry made me realize that. I guess you could say that having them was a confidence builder. I needed all the confidence I could get. I grabbed a dozen of the lightweight weapons and headed back for the flume.
I knew getting them back to the flume would be risky. If a security dado spotted me, I’d be done. I camouflaged the rods as best I could with a rotten old blanket that had been tossed aside by a reviver. With luck, people would think I was carrying lengths of wood. Or brooms. Or skis. (Yeah, right.) Or anything besides dado-killing weapons. When I got to the surface, I kept close to the buildings, trying to be invisible. At one point I saw two security dados marching toward me. My stomach fell. It suddenly felt like a very stupid idea to have gone to Quillan. I had risked the entire battle just to give myself an ounce of comfort. I held my breath.
The dados walked right past me.
My trip back to Denduron was uneventful. I changed back into my leather clothing at the gate and jumped into the flume. In the cave on Denduron I placed the pile of weapons at the side of the flume, got right back into the dygo, and made my way down the mountain. In all, I was gone for only a few hours. Nobody knew I had left. Not even Alder and Siry. I had taken a big risk going to Quillan, but I was glad I did it.
I didn’t know how to measure time exactly on Denduron. If I were to guess, I’d say we were on that territory for about three weeks. I was beginning to think it was going to be for nothing. If the tak was deeper than the shallow tunnels we had been digging, it meant we had to create a much more complex mining operation to get the miners down deep. It would also mean spending lots of time down there, and I didn’t want to risk poisoning these hard-working guys. After weeks of coming up empty, I started to face the possibility that we would have to battle the dados without tak…
When we saw the first telltale streak of red. The miners gathered to inspect the possible find. Rellin dug out a piece of the red dirt with his fingers and rolled it into a small ball. He walked back to the mouth of the tunnel, and with everyone watching, he flung it at a rock ledge. Boom! The rock disintegrated, creating a small avalanche of stones. It was so loud, my ears rang. When the air cleared, Rellin turned to me and smiled. I in turn looked to Siry.
“That,” I said, “is tak.”
Siry looked stunned. “Maybe we really do have a chance.”
The process of mining the mineral was even more dangerous. If hit the wrong way, it could explode. The miners took their time, which was fine with me. They only had the crude tools they hadn’t used since the days of mining glaze. The vein turned out to be the mother lode. They dug cautiously, filling rough bags with the mineral and hauling it out of the tunnel. It took several days, but every wooden crate was eventually filled. We could have filled more, but I wasn’t sure how much the dygo would be able to pull. The crates were then sealed with wax to make them watertight.
Finally the job was complete. The dygo was fitted with heavy ropes that were attached to the sled and the crates were loaded aboard.
“You sure this won’t blow up on the way up the mountain?” Siry asked.
“No” was my honest answer. “I don’t know what’ll happen when we go through the flume, either.”
“I didn’t need to hear that,” Siry said soberly.
After many thank-yous and good-byes, we were ready to go. I told Rellin that he and his men had done an important thing that would hopefully ensure peace to Siry’s home for a long time to come.
“I do not doubt you, Pendragon,” Rellin said. “Tak helped bring peace to the Milago. I trust it will be as useful again.”
Alder, Siry, and I climbed into the dygo. It wasn’t built for three people, and we had to avoid one another’s elbows and knees. Siry was the smallest of the three, so he sat in the middle, wedged between the two seats. We were all happy that it wasn’t a very long trip…for a lot of reasons.
“Slowly,” Alder cautioned. “Avoid the bumps.”
Yeah, no kidding. I engaged the dygo. With only a slight strain from the weight of the tak, we moved forward. The trip was nerve-racking. We were hauling enough explosives to level the entire mountain. One rough jostle and we’d be vapor. I wondered how protected we were inside the steel sphere of the dygo. That thing was built to withstand some pretty intense pressure. I guess I don’t have to say that I hoped we wouldn’t find out.
I picked a path that seemed to be the one with the fewest bumps. Every time the dygo bounced, I slowed down even more, so the tak wouldn’t be knocked around. We were all sweating so much, it got pretty steamy and rank inside. We had to stop a couple of times to open the hatch and air the sphere out.
We all felt a little better when we reached the snow. Rolling across packed snow was much smoother than grass and rocks. Finally the terrain leveled out, and I saw the mouth of the gate. It had been a grueling journey, but we’d made it.
“How do we do this?” Alder asked. “Do we drive right into the flume and out the other side in Ibara?”
“No,” I answered. “We’ll have to make several trips. I’ll go with the dygo first and clear out the gate area. You guys stack the crates near the flume and wait for me.”
We unhooked the sled, and I drove the sphere into the cave. I rolled right into the flume and called out, “Ibara!”
Moments later I was swept up and away. I had to trust that the flume would continue to send me where I needed to be, when I needed to be there. If it started messing with me now, well, I didn’t want to think about that. There was nothing I could do about it, so I focused on the task ahead. It was a moving job, nothing more. Okay, a dangerous moving job, but still a moving job.
When the dygo reached Ibara, I engaged the drill. The moment the sphere bobbed to the water’s surface I started digging. I blasted up and out of the stone pool that was the mouth of the flume, destroying a section of the circle and spewing water all over the floor of the cavern. I didn’t stop to worry about it and kept moving across the wet sand. The next step was to bore a new tunnel through the rocky wall of the cavern. We needed to get thirty heavy containers of tak out of there. Dragging them through the winding labyrinth of tunnels would take weeks. We didn’t have weeks. The time for being secretive was over. I drilled straight through the rock, and didn’t stop until I saw sunlight on the beach of Ibara.
Spinning the dygo around, I saw that I had created a tunnel that led straight back to the flume. It was a hundred yards long. No twists, no turns, no subtlety. If anybody wandered by, they’d find the flume. I didn’t care. After the battle, there was no telling what this area was going to look like anyway. All bets were off. I rolled back through the tunnel to the shattered pool, got out of the dygo, and stepped up to the edge of the flume.
“Denduron!” I shouted, and dove in headfirst. As I traveled along, I closed my eyes. I d
idn’t want to see the images of Halla staring back at me. In no time I was back in Denduron, where Alder and Siry were waiting. I shouldn’t have worried. The flume did its job. The crates were stacked high, ready for transport.
Alder held one of the metal weapons I’d brought from Quillan. “What is this?”
I took it from him, spun it expertly, and jabbed at Siry. “Dado killers. From Quillan.”
“How did they get here?” Siry asked.
“I went there a few days ago. Is that a problem?”
Alder said, “Not if mixing the territories is no longer a concern.”
I dropped the weapon on the pile with the others. “It isn’t. Not anymore. We’re playing by Saint Dane’s rules now, remember? It wasn’t my choice.”
Alder gave me a grave look. He touched one of the crates of tak. “I remember. But you should remember that we always have a choice.”
“And we made it,” I snapped at him. “We’ll take one crate each and travel to Ibara. Taking more would be too awkward, and we don’t want to go dropping these things. After we’ve moved them all, I’ll come back for the weapons.”
Alder nodded. Siry shrugged. I went first. I grabbed a heavy crate and backed into the flume. “Ibara!” I called, and was on my way.
The tricky part came on the other side. The crate floated, but it was difficult pushing it up and out of the break in the stone circle I’d made with the dygo. The crate was heavy, and it was hard getting enough leverage to lift it out while treading water. But I did it, and placed it a safe distance from the flume.
The others arrived shortly after. I helped them take their crates out of the water and placed them near the first. After that the three of us dove into the water with a shout of “Denduron!” and started back the other way.
It was a tiring, grueling, boring process. None of us let down our guard though. There was always the possibility of a slip and a drop and a boom. It took us a couple of hours, but all went well. When we were done, thirty crates of tak were stacked up on the territory of Ibara.
Alder, Siry, and I sat on the edge of the flume to get a much-needed rest. It wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last.
“We’re back on the clock,” I announced.
“What does that mean?” Siry asked.
“It means we’re on Ibara time again. There’s an invasion coming, remember?”
I’ll end this journal here, Courtney. I’m getting too antsy to write any more. I’ll tell you about our preparations in my next journal. Assuming there is a next journal. Alder is here with us, and I’m glad. He’s already proved to be an incredible help, and knowing he’ll be by my side during the battle gives me confidence that we actually have a chance. How good a chance? I don’t know. At least I can say that we’ve done all that we can.
I’m scared and I’m excited. Now that we can look back on all that’s happened, it’s pretty clear that Saint Dane’s plan has been leading to this all along. He thinks Ibara is going to be the first domino to fall in the toppling of Halla. I say he’s got a very big surprise coming. I wish I could see his face when we blow his army to oblivion. Even if we lose, I’m going to make sure we take as many of those dados with us as possible. I’m playing by his rules now. He’s mixed the territories to try and crush Halla. I’ve mixed the territories to try and stop him.
Only one of us will prove to be right.
And so we go.
END OF JOURNAL #31
FIRST EARTH
Courtney crumpled the pages of Bobby's journal and tossed them against the wall. She was frightened and angry. Angry at herself. She had let Bobby down. Because of her failure, the final boundaries between territories were about to come crashing down…on Bobby’s head.
Making it all the more dire was the fact that the more she learned about the situation with Mark, the less she understood. How could his parents be alive? She left Second Earth after history was altered. She knew how the changes that Mark made on First Earth would affect Second Earth. They did not include his parents being saved from dying in that plane crash.
Yet, they were alive and well.
Courtney thought that maybe one of the Dimonds might have been Saint Dane in disguise. Then who was the other person? Saint Dane could do a lot of things. He couldn’t split himself in two. Since Nevva Winter was with Mark’s parents, Courtney figured that unless another Traveler with shape-shifting abilities had suddenly entered the story, those people really were Mr. and Mrs. Dimond. She hated herself for being upset that Mark’s parents were alive, but it made no sense to her.
Worse. Courtney knew that Bobby and the Travelers often had to make horrible choices for the greater good. She couldn’t think of a single time when any of them had to make a choice as difficult as the one Mark had faced. He had to decide whether or not the people he loved the most should live or die. He chose to save them, and Nevva Winter delivered on her promise. By going to First Earth, Mark saved his parents. Courtney didn’t think there was any way to convince Mark that he had been tricked. He would introduce Forge to First Earth, starting a chain reaction that would lead to the creation of the dados, the fall of Ibara…and his own murder.
Courtney decided she didn’t like ocean voyages.
There was a knock on the door, followed quickly by the screech of the lock opening. Sixth Officer Hantin poked his head in.
“Time for a little supper, miss,” he said warmly.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Now, now,” the ship’s officer cajoled. “Don’t want you to become a patient in this hospital ward, do we?”
He was followed quickly by a steward wearing a white coat, pushing a rolling table that was draped with a white tablecloth. Silver domes covered plates of food that Courtney had no intention of eating. She rolled over in her bunk.
The steward cleared his throat and said, “Come now, miss. Me thinks you’re gonna be liking this, I do!”
Courtney had heard that strange accent before. She looked up in time to see the steward stand straight up, wink at her, then spin and swing a punch at Sixth Officer Hantin. He landed a haymaker that was so unexpected, it sent Hantin sprawling back against the bulkhead. Hantin tried to push off, but the steward nailed him with another punch that straightened him up. He hung there for a second, then crashed down onto the rolling table, unconscious, sending food and plates flying everywhere.
“Now I know I’m going to be sacked from the hotel,” Dodger said as he shook his aching hand.
Courtney stared at the little guy with her mouth open in shock.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said, insulted. “I was a Golden Gloves champ three years running.”
Courtney jumped off the bunk and threw her arms around him. “I can’t believe you found me!”
“I told you, this is nothing more than a floating hotel.” He pushed away from Courtney and went to work. First he cleaned up the overturned cart. “Word of a stowaway travels fast. I know how to listen. Alls I did was pinch this outfit from the linens, grab a tray like I owned the place, and brought it right here. Easy-peasy.”
“Yeah, right. You are awesome.”
“Agreed. Now, we’ve got to be crafty. Once they figure out you’re gone they’ll be looking for a scruffy tomboy, not a beautiful young society lady.”
“Know any?”
Dodger reached under the cart and pulled out a sparkling white evening gown and matching shoes.
“I do now,” he said with a smile.
Courtney’s eyes lit up as she grabbed the dress. “Where did you get this?”
“Went shopping on Regent Street,” Dodger answered casually.
“You stole it.”
“Nah.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “This was charged to a Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Galvao, suite twelve-twelve, cabin class. They won’t see their bill until we dock. That should be interesting.”
Courtney laughed, jumped behind the bunks, and started pulling off her clothes. As she changed, Dodger went through Han
tin’s pockets. He pulled out keys, a pair of handcuffs, and finally his pistol. He dragged Hantin to one of the bunks and hoisted him in. He handcuffed him to the rail, and pulled the blanket up to cover his face.
“Anybody peeks in, this is you, sleeping like a baby.”
“What happens when he wakes up?”
“He could scream his head off and nobody’ll hear. We’re fine until somebody comes to relieve him.”
Courtney stepped from behind the bunk. The dress fit perfectly. It was slim and silky, with short sleeves that showed off her muscular arms. Dodger whistled.
“Wowee. I knew there was a girl hiding in there somewhere.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Courtney said with a scowl, though she liked the compliment. “What about you? I don’t think the stewards hang out with the passengers.”
“Right you are,” Dodger exclaimed.
He unbuttoned his white steward jacket and pulled it off to reveal he was wearing a tuxedo. It was perfect, right down to the shiny black shoes and slick tie. Dodger brushed his hair back and held his hands out for Courtney to appreciate him. “Not too shabby, huh?”
“Courtesy of the Galvaos?”
“They’re a very generous pair,” Dodger replied. “Let’s get out of here. I found out what suite Mark is in and—”
“He was here, Dodger.”
Dodger froze. “Uh…what?”
“He came here, to this cell. With Nevva Winter. I know her, Dodger. She’s a Traveler. And she’s a traitor. She helped Saint Dane win Quillan. It was Nevva Winter that got to Mark on Second Earth and told him that if he changed history he could save his parents from dying in that plane crash.”
Dodger blinked and scowled, taking a second to let the wave of information sink in.
“Wow,” he gasped. “It was simple as that? She flat-out lied and he bought it?”
“Not so simple. Mark’s parents were here too. They’re alive.”