“How many territories are there?” she asked.
“Ten in all,” I said. “At least that’s what I’ve been told. They’re all part of Halla.”
“Explain to me what Halla is,” she said. It was an order more than a question. I didn’t know why she suddenly had this interest, but if she was willing to listen, I was ready to talk.
“The way it was told to me, Halla is everything. Every time, every place, every person and creature that ever existed. It all still exists.”
“And you understand that?” she asked.
“Well, not entirely,” I answered honestly.
“But you’re willing to risk your life and the lives of those around you to protect Halla from Saint Dane?”
Good question. I’d asked myself the same question more than once.
“I wasn’t at first,” I began. “Far from it. I didn’t want any part of Travelers or flumes and especially of Saint Dane. But since then I’ve been to a bunch of territories and seen the evil he’s capable of.”
Kasha scoffed and said, “Evil? You’re a fool, Pendragon. A tang is evil. What possible evil could a gar cause that’s worse than that?”
“I’ll tell you,” I said. “He’s killed more people than I want to count, all in the name of creating chaos. He fueled a war on Denduron and tried to poison all of Cloral. Then he nearly crushed three territories at once, my home territories of Earth. But each time the Travelers stopped him. Until Veelox. We failed on Veelox. An entire civilization is going to collapse, millions will die, all because we failed. And Saint Dane will be there to pick up the pieces. Or step on them.”
“It’s all mildly interesting,” she said calmly. “But like I said before, it has nothing to do with me. I don’t care.”
That’s when I snapped. Okay, I admit, maybe I should have been cool, but Kasha’s total lack of concern had finally gotten to me. I jumped to my feet and said, “Well you’d better start!”
“It’s all right, Pendragon,” Yorn said calmly. “Relax.”
“Relax?” I shouted, getting more amped up by the second. “Why? So I won’t upset Kasha? She should be upset. People have died fighting Saint Dane. People I’ve loved, people she’s loved.” I looked right at Kasha and said, “You don’t care? I’ll tell you what I don’t care about. I don’t care that your life is a mess. Sorry, it’s true. You’ve got way bigger problems coming, kitty cat. You want to pretend like none of this affects you? Fine. You’re wrong. If we fail, Eelong will crumble and everything you care about will crash along with it. And whether you like it or not, you’re a Traveler. So why don’t you just grow up and accept it!”
I glanced at Yorn to see his eyes were wide. He couldn’t believe I had just gone off on Kasha like that. But I couldn’t help myself. The time for pussyfooting around was over, no pun intended. I looked back to Kasha and saw that she was reaching into the pouch around her waist. Uh-oh, she was digging out one of those round, projectile weapons. I froze. She was going to kill me! Yorn saw it too, and lunged for her.
“Kasha, no!” he shouted.
He was too late. Kasha flicked the killer disk. I instinctively threw up my arms to protect my head and closed my eyes, ready to get hit. But the hit never came. Instead I heard a screeching sound of agony come from behind me. I whipped around quickly to see a tang lying on the ground, writhing in its last moments of life. The disk was lodged in its head. Kasha had just saved my life . . . again. I slowly turned back to see Yorn had his arms wrapped around her. He looked just as stunned as I felt.
“Oh,” was all he said.
“Nice shot,” I croaked.
Yorn dropped his arms and Kasha stood up. “Those mountains,” she said, pointing. “That’s where we’re headed. We need to get there before dark.”
We mounted up and continued the journey as if nothing had happened. Still, there was a strange tension in the air. I was embarrassed that I’d lost control, but since Kasha was still leading us along the map route, I guessed it didn’t matter. The real question was, had anything I said sunk in?
The closer we got to the mountains, the less vegetation there was. The ground went from soft brown earth to rocky scrabble. The trees were no longer lush and leafy, but now scraggly and dry. A few times my ears popped, which meant we were gaining altitude.
Yorn rode up beside me and said, “I don’t know anyone who’s ever come this far. It’s definitely not on any map, other than Seegen’s.”
That made sense; we hadn’t been on a cut trail for hours. Kasha seemed confident in the route, though. She’d check Seegen’s map against the terrain and the sunbelt, making slight adjustments. The steep, gray mountains loomed high before us and stretched out far to either side. If Black Water was on the far side of these huge peaks, it would take days for us to go around. But I didn’t dare say that. I had to trust the map, and Kasha’s ability to read it.
“There!” Kasha finally announced, pointing.
I looked ahead to the steep, craggy rise of the mountains and saw . . . nothing.
“I see it!” Yorn exclaimed.
I was feeling a little handicapped. I didn’t have sharp cat eyes to see whatever they were pointing to.
“I don’t see anything,” I admitted, more curious than embarrassed.
“A trail,” Yorn answered. “Cut into the mountain.”
Kasha made a slight change in direction and headed for the invisible trail that apparently only cats could see. As far as I was concerned, we were marching straight for a steep, rocky dead end. But as we got closer, I began to make out a thin, zigzag line in the craggy face of the mountain. Sure enough, before I knew it, we were walking on a narrow path. It was the first sign of civilization we had seen in hours. My heart started to race. Could this be the trail to Black Water? The rocky trail took a sharp turn and got very steep. We climbed, single file, in one direction for a while, then hit a switchback that sent us around the other way. The whole time we kept climbing higher and higher, zigzagging our way up. The scary thing was that the trail was nothing more than a narrow ledge cut into the steep mountainside. In no time we were up so high that my palms started to sweat when I looked down. I found myself leaning into the mountain, just in case the zenzen stumbled.
We reached another switchback, and I expected to make the turn and continue climbing in the opposite direction, but the trail didn’t go that way. Instead it led to a narrow gap that looked like the mountain had been wrenched apart. The opening was so narrow that it blended in with the terrain and couldn’t be seen from below, even by sharp klee eyes. We were about to walk in to the mountain! Kasha didn’t hesitate and walked her zenzen right into the fissure. Yorn and I followed close behind. The gap was barely wide enough for the zenzen. I had to concentrate to keep my animal walking straight because my knees kept scraping against the rock walls to either side. I was glad to be off the ledge, but didn’t especially enjoy having my legs shredded.
A couple of times I heard the sound of falling stones coming from above. I quickly looked up and saw pebbles bouncing down toward me. I ducked, and the pebbles missed, but it gave me a bad feeling. What caused them to fall? Was it coincidence? Or did something up there kick them loose? If we were attacked by a pack of tangs, we’d be trapped and slaughtered. I tried not to think about it and went back to concentrating on protecting my poor knees.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for us to arrive on the far side of this gap. I was actually surprised that it was so quick, because there was no way we could have traveled all the way through to the far side of the mountain range. When I directed my zenzen out into the light, I saw the reason why.
We were still in the mountains. The three of us stood on a wide ledge, looking down into a beautiful, enclosed valley. It was like being on the inside of a volcano. Unlike the gray, rocky terrain we had been traveling through for the past few hours, the inside of this bowl was covered with lush plant life. I counted seven waterfalls that began near the rim of the bowl and cascaded down to a lar
ge, mountain lake that took up much of the bottom.
“Is this Black Water?” I asked.
“No,” she answered.
Kasha looked at her map, then looked to the sky.
“What are you doing?” Yorn asked.
“According to the map,” she answered, “this is the exact time we need to be here.”
“I don’t understand,” Yorn said.
“The sunbelt needs to be at a certain angle,” Kasha explained.
I looked around. I’m not sure why. I had no idea of what to look for. A few minutes passed. Still nothing. Kasha kept checking the sky. I kept looking around like an idiot. A few more minutes crept by. The sunbelt dropped lower. Soon it would be resting on the rim of this crater, and then it would be dark.
“You’re sure this is the right spot?” I finally asked.
Kasha scanned the inside of the bowl, then announced, “There!”
She pointed to the far side of the bowl. I had been staring out there since we had stopped and didn’t expect to see anything different, but I was wrong. Something was different with the waterfalls. They were all about the same height. The water appeared white as it crested the top and fell all the way down to the lake. But now, with the sunbelt at just the right angle, the light must have been blocked by a rock formation or something. For now, the second waterfall from the right no longer appeared white. The water had gone dark. It totally stood out from the other six. There was only one way to describe it.
“Black Water,” Yorn whispered in awe.
JOURNAL #18
(CONTINUED)
EELONG
“That’s our destination,” Kasha confirmed.
The three of us sat on our zenzens, staring at the dark waterfall on the far side of the valley. It was our guidepost to the mysterious place called Black Water. Yorn reached over to Kasha and took Seegen’s map from her. He looked at it with a smile, shaking his head in wonder.
“There are times when I feel older than the ground I walk on,” Yorn said. “You’ll find that as you grow older, there is one gift you will cherish most dearly, because it doesn’t come often.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Surprise,” Yorn said with a big smile—the first smile I’d seen from him since we’d met. “Surprises keep you young, and right now, I feel like a child. Yahhh!” Yorn shouted with excitement and kicked his zenzen forward. He galloped down the grassy hill that led from the crevice we had entered through, charging toward the waterfall.
“He reminds me of my father,” Kasha said. “Even at his age he’s always looking for the next adventure.”
“And you’re not like your father?” I asked.
Kasha took a sad breath and answered, “Things were simple for him. He felt strongly about what was right, and wrong. What was fair and what wasn’t. He was a builder. But where others used gars for the more difficult or dangerous work, he always did the work himself.”
“Did he tell you why?” I asked.
“He always said that he didn’t think it was fair to force a gar to do something they wouldn’t benefit from. It was a simple sentiment, but said so much.”
“Maybe you’re more like him than you think,” I said.
Kasha didn’t reply to that.
“Is this where you leave us?” I asked.
“We haven’t gotten to the end of the map,” she said, and kicked her zenzen forward. Together we galloped down the steep, grassy slope to the bottom of the valley. I felt like a cowboy charging across some awesome, uncharted territory. The sunbelt cast a warm, late-afternoon glow over the valley that made the place look like a painting. For those few minutes, I can actually say I was having fun. We soon hit a dense stand of trees and had to slow down. Yorn had disappeared into these trees long before we reached them and was nowhere to be seen.
“I hope he went the right way,” I said.
“If he keeps his eye on the black waterfall, he’ll be fine,” Kasha answered.
It was getting dark. The sunbelt had dipped below the rim of the crater. We only had a few minutes of light left. I was really worried that if it got too dark, we’d be lost until daybreak. I hoped klees could see in the dark like the cats at home.
“Yorn?” Kasha called.
All we heard back was the roaring sound of the waterfalls. Not good. At best we were separated and would have to deal with finding each other. At worst, well, I didn’t want to think the worst.
“Look,” Kasha said.
A soft mist was rising off the ground, making it even more difficult to see anything. I was about to ask Kasha what she saw, when something appeared through the trees ahead of us. It was a large, dark shape moving slowly toward us. But it was too dark and the shadow was too far away to make out what it was.
“Oh no,” Kasha gasped.
At least one question was answered. The cat in Kasha had way better vision than the gar in me.
“Is it a tang?” I asked.
Kasha didn’t have to answer, because a second later I recognized it. Trotting toward us through the trees was Yorn’s zenzen . . . without Yorn. Kasha walked her zenzen up to the beast and retrieved the spears that were strapped to the saddle. She tossed one to me.
“Whatever happened, happened fast,” she said, all business. “Yorn never got to his weapons.”
Kasha held her spear to the side, low, and walked her zenzen forward slowly. “Stay beside me,” she ordered.
I did what I was told and brought my zenzen alongside her, also holding my spear ready. We walked together through the trees, headed in the direction that Yorn’s zenzen had come from. I was a raw nerve. Every little thing I heard sounded like a tang charging through the trees to attack us. A cracking twig, rustling branches, even the distant roar from the waterfalls. Everything made me jump. But nothing attacked us. Yet.
We reached the end of the stand of trees and walked into the open to discover we were on the shore of the lake. That meant we were at the very bottom of the crater. The waterfalls loomed over us. We were so close I could feel their cool mist. Stars were starting to appear in the sky. Their light reflected in the smooth, clear lake. I would have thought it was beautiful, if I weren’t so freakin’ nervous.
“That way,” Kasha pointed.
I looked to see a break in the trees farther along the lake that must have led to the dark waterfall. Black Water. If Yorn made it this far, that’s the way he would have gone. We walked our zenzens along the shore, toward the opening. We took a few steps, then I heard something that nearly made my heart stop. I shot a quick look to Kasha. She had heard it too. After all, she was a cat. The two of us whipped around to look out on the lake and saw . . .
The once still water was churning. Something down below was rising up. It looked like several things, actually. There must have been twenty dark shadows that broke the surface of the water and moved quickly toward shore, headed for us. Attacking.
“Go!” Kasha commanded.
We kicked our zenzens and bolted forward toward the opening in the trees. I charged into the woods first, not sure of where I was headed. All I knew was I wanted to get away from whatever monsters had been lurking underwater, waiting for us. The woods were totally dark. All I could do was follow the sound of the waterfall. I thought for sure I’d hit something. A few seconds later, I did. One second I was galloping on my zenzen, the next second I was falling through the air. My first thought was that I had hit a branch sticking out onto the trail. I slammed into the ground hard, still clutching the spear in a death grip. The shaft dug into my side. Ouch. I thought for sure I’d broken a rib, but that was the least of my problems. I stayed focused and looked up at what I had run into. It wasn’t a branch.
Dangling over me, hanging from a tree, was a net. Or should I say, it was a trap, and it had been sprung. Caught in the swaying net was Yorn.
“Stop Kasha!” he yelled. “It’s a trap!”
Kasha came charging up from the lake. I couldn’t think fast enough to stop he
r as she pushed her zenzen on. A second later another trap was sprung. A net came flying down from the trees, catching Kasha. Her zenzen kept running, but Kasha was now caught and dangling, only a few feet from Yorn.
“Pendragon,” Yorn cried. “Run!”
I looked back to the lake to see dozens of the dark shadows running toward us. The lake monsters were on the attack. “Go!” Kasha screamed.
I went. There was nothing else to do, not that I was thinking clearly anyway. I staggered to my feet and ran toward the waterfall. I had some strange idea that if I made it to the waterfall, I’d be safe. The gars called Black Water “home.” Maybe this was like playing tag. When you were home, you were safe. I know, dumb thought, but I wasn’t exactly in my right mind. It was so dark I could only go by the sound of the waterfall. I took a few steps, expecting to run into a tree, when my feet suddenly got pulled out from under me. Something had grabbed me and swept me up into the air, feet first. I quickly realized that my last-ditch escape attempt landed me right in another trap. I hung there, upside down, swinging in the air, helpless. Now the three of us were caught, powerless against the marauding beasts.
I watched, upside down, as the dark forms ran toward me. They didn’t look like tangs. They were more like formless shadows. Dark ghosts. They ran right past Yorn and Kasha, headed for me. Lucky me. They stopped about five feet away, making a circle around me. They didn’t attack, they just stood there. It gave me hope that maybe they weren’t mindless beasts looking for their evening meal. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I figured maybe if I played dead, they’d go away. Yeah, right.
The circle opened up and a much larger shadow stepped in. It was bigger than the others at least a foot. It was hard to make out exactly what it looked like because it was so dark and, well, I was upside down. The shadow walked up and stood there, looking at me. At least I thought it was looking at me. I couldn’t see its eyes. The others crowded behind it. As they got closer, I saw that the reason they looked shapeless was because they were all wearing long, dark cloaks from head to toe. These weren’t wild animals. They weren’t ghostly shadows, either. They were wearing clothes. But what were they? Or who were they?