The Merchant of Death

Journal #2

Denduron

Uncle Press is going to die tomorrow.

So much has happened since I wrote to you last, Mark. It’s been strange, scary, confusing and sometimes even sort of-dare I say it-fun. But the bottom line is, Uncle Press is going to die tomorrow.

Right now I’m sitting in a small cavern that must be two hundred feet underground. I’m writing this by the light of a candle because there’s no electricity. I’m looking around and all I see are rocks. Tons and tons of black rocks that look as if they might collapse on my head at any second. I better stop thinking about it because I’m freaking myself out. The cavern isn’t going to collapse. I’m safe here, at least for now. The guy who is in trouble is Uncle Press.

I’m telling you this because I need your help. I’m going to ask you to do something for me that is pretty dangerous. Under normal circumstances I’d never ask you to do something like this, but it’s the only thing I can think of that might help me save Uncle Press. I’d understand if you didn’t want to do it, but before you decide I want to tell you all that’s happened since the last time I wrote you. Once you know everything, then you can decide.

I ended my last letter right after Uncle Press was dragged off by Kagan’s knights, and I blacked out. Have you ever blacked out, or fainted? It’s not like falling asleep at all. When you fall asleep, you never know the exact moment it happens. You just kind of lie there, waiting, and the next thing you know, bang, it’s morning. But when you pass out, you can feel yourself slipping away. It’s not a good feeling. Waking up afterward isn’t much better. There’s a moment where you’re not really sure where you are and what’s going on, then suddenly everything rushes into focus and you’re snapped back to reality. It’s a pretty rude experience.

Of course, in this case, even after I snapped back to reality I still didn’t know where I was and what was going on. The first thing I saw was a face. A girl’s face. For a second I thought it was Courtney. But once my brain started to click I realized this girl didn’t look anything like Courtney. She was totally beautiful. (Whoa, that sounded bad. Not that Courtney isn’t totally beautiful, but this girl was, well, different.) I’d say she was my age, maybe a little older. She had dark skin and eyes that were so brown they looked black. Her hair was dark too. It was tied in a long, tight braid that reached halfway down her back. She wore the same kind of weird leather skins that Uncle Press had made me put on, but on her they looked pretty good because she had an amazing body. She had to be an athlete or something. Seriously, this girl was cut like an Olympic sprinter. No fat, all muscle, totally awesome. And she was tall. Maybe a few inches taller than me. If I saw her at home I’d guess she was of African descent. But this wasn’t home.

I lay flat on my back as she looked down at me with absolutely no expression. I couldn’t tell if she was glad I was alive, or getting ready to finish the job the quigs started and kill me once and for all. We stayed that way for a few seconds, with neither of us moving. Finally I swallowed to make sure my voice would work and croaked out, “Where am I?” No points for originality but hey, I wanted to know.

The girl didn’t answer. She stood up and walked to a table that had a couple of wooden bowls. She picked one up and held it out for me, but I didn’t take it. Who knows what she was trying to give me? It could have been poison. It could have been blood. It could have been some vile-tasting liquid that they consider a delicacy here, but would make me puke.

“It is water,” she said flatly.

Oh.

I took it. I was thirsty. The girl then walked over to the door and stood with her arms folded. I took a drink and looked around to get my bearings. I was inside what looked like some kind of hut. It wasn’t big, maybe the size of my living room at home. There was only one room with six walls. Is that a hexagon? The walls were built of stones that were held together by dried mud. There were a few holes which passed for windows and one big opening for a door. The ceiling rose to a center point and was made of interwoven tree branches. The floor was dirt, but it was so hard it might as well have been concrete. I was lying on a low bench-thingy that was made out of lashed-together logs. The top was woven out of straw or something. It was comfortable enough, but I wouldn’t want to spend a whole night there. There was a bunch more of these beds lined up in the hut, which made me think this might be some kind of hospital. It made sense. After what I’d been through, I belonged in a hospital.

It was like I had stepped into a time machine and been sent back a few thousand years to an age when people built their world out of anything they could get their hands on…and didn’t care much for personal hygiene. Oh, yes, did I mention the place smelled like a locker room for goats? It made me wonder if the mortar holding together the stone walls was really mud, or something disgusting that would make me retch if I knew what it was.

I looked over at this amazing girl. She stood there, staring back. Was she a friend? An enemy? A guard who was standing watch until one of those knight guys came in to drag me off like they did Uncle Press? A million thoughts ran through my head, but one thought stood out above all others.

I had to pee.

The last time I took a leak was before Courtney showed up at my house. When was that? A million years ago? Judging by how my bladder felt, it was at least that long. So rather than lie there and wet my leather pants, I started to get up.

“Hey,” I said. “I gotta-”

As soon as I moved, the girl flew into attack mode. She instantly crouched down and whipped out a wooden pole that must have been strapped to her back. It was about five feet long and well-worn from use. She held the weapon steady with both hands, and I saw that each end was stained shiny black from hitting things I didn’t even want to imagine. Scarier still were her eyes. They were dead-set focused on her target, which happened to be me.

I froze. No way I was going to stand up or she would have whacked me so fast my head would hit the ground before my feet did. I didn’t want to move at all for fear of setting her off. We both stayed that way, waiting for the other one to make the next move. One thing I knew for sure, it wasn’t going to be me. And if she took a step toward me, I’d be off that bench and out the window headfirst.

Then a voice called from outside, “Buzz obsess woos saga!” At least that’s what it sounded like; I’m not exactly sure of the spelling. Someone stepped in through the door. It was a woman dressed in the same crusty leather clothes that apparently were fashionable in this neighborhood. She actually looked like an older version of the girl who was about to brain me. But as powerful as this woman looked, there was something about her that made me feel as if she could possibly be my savior. I think it was her eyes. They were kind eyes. No anger there at all. When she looked at me, I knew it was going to be okay. She looked familiar, though I can’t imagine where I could have met her before. She gave the younger girl a stern look and the girl reluctantly responded by putting her weapon away. Whew. Disaster averted.

The woman then turned to me and said, “Forgive my daughter. She often takes herself too seriously.”

New info. This was a mother-daughter team. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. They looked alike. I wondered what Dad looked like. He must have been a linebacker. I still didn’t feel comfortable moving. This woman seemed cool, but after what I’d been through I wasn’t taking any chances. She walked up to me, knelt down by the bench and gave me a kind smile.

“My name is Osa,” she said softly. “My daughter’s name is Loor.”

“I…I’m Bobby and I’m not from here,” was all I could think of saying.

With a smile, Osa said, “Neither are we. And we know exactly who you are, Pendragon. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Whoa! She knew who I was! A million thoughts flashed through my brain, but one in particular jumped out. If they knew who I was, then why was amazon girl over there ready to beat my brains out? I figured I better not ask. I didn’t want to tick Loor off. She might decide to yank out her stick and start wailing on me anyway.

“How do you know me?” I asked.

“From Press, of course,” she answered. “He has been telling us about you for quite some time.”

That’s right! Now I remember where I’d seen her before. Uncle Press had brought her to our house. We had met before! I remember thinking how beautiful she was, and how odd it was that she didn’t speak. The mystery was over: She was a friend of Uncle Press’s. But that realization was quickly replaced with another. Man, I’d almost forgotten. Uncle Press was in trouble. At least I think he was in trouble. Those knight boys who lassoed him and pulled him off didn’t exactly look like his pals. A rush of adrenaline shot through my body and I sat up fast.

“He’s in trouble!” I shouted. Bad move. Not the shouting part, the sitting up fast part. My body was one big black-and-blue mark from our bobsled crash in the forest. A wave of pain hit me like, like, well, like that stick would have hit me if Loor were taking batting practice on me. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before, but I was really hurt. It felt like every one of my ribs was cracked. The pain was so intense it took my breath away. My legs went weak and I had to lie back down or I would have passed out again. Osa quickly grabbed my shoulders and gently lowered me back on the bench.

“It is all right,” she said in a soothing voice. “The pain will not last.”

How could she know that? Unless maybe she thought I was about to die. Nothing short of death was going to stop this burning pain anytime soon. But what happened next was nothing short of amazing. I lay there taking short quick breaths because deep breaths made the pain even worse. Osa then reached out and gently put her hand on my chest. She looked into my eyes and I swear, Mark, it was like I melted. The tension totally flew out of me.

“Relax,” she said softly. “Breathe slowly.”

I did. Soon my heart stopped pounding and I could take a deep breath. But most amazing of all, the pain went away. I swear. A second before I was hurting so bad I couldn’t even cry. Now it was gone. Completely.

Osa took her hand away and glanced over to Loor for a reaction. Loor turned away. She wasn’t impressed. But I sure was. It was some kind of miracle.

“How did you do that?” I asked while sitting up and feeling my ribs.

“Do what?” was Osa’s innocent reply.

“Are you kidding?” I shouted. “My ribs! I was like, dying. You touched me and poof, I’m off injured reserve.”

Osa stood up and said, “Perhaps you were not hurt as badly as you thought.”

“Yeah right,” I shot back. “I know what pain is, especially when it’s mine.”

That’s when Loor decided to join the party.

“We are wasting time,” she said in a peeved voice. “Press is being held by Kagan.”

I didn’t care much for Loor’s style, but she was right.

“Who is this Kagan dude?” I asked.

“There are many things you must learn,” said Osa. “Press was to begin teaching you, but until he returns the task will be mine. Come.”

She walked over to the hole in the wall that was a door and stood next to her daughter. They both looked at me, which I took as my cue to follow. I stood up, ready to feel the pain in my ribs shoot back. It didn’t. Amazing. I then looked at Loor to see if she would spring into attack mode again. She didn’t. So far so good.

“Shouldn’t we find Uncle Press?” I asked.

“We will,” responded Osa. “But first you must learn about Denduron.”

Denduron. Right. That’s where I was. There wasn’t much I liked about Denduron so far, and I couldn’t imagine finding out anything else that would make me like it any more. But I didn’t have a whole lot of options, so I followed the others toward the door. I took two steps and then stopped, remembering something very, very important.

“Uhhh, where do I go to, uh, you know, I’ve got to-”

“Relieve yourself in there,” Loor said coldly, pointing to a far corner of the room where there was a wooden screen separating a small space from the rest of the hut.

“Great, thanks,” I replied and hurried toward it. When I looked behind the screen I learned two things. One was that these people didn’t have indoor plumbing. The toilet was nothing more than a hole in the ground surrounded by a circle of stones. Not exactly comfy. The second thing was that the mystery of why this place smelled so bad was solved. I guess these people hadn’t figured out that an outhouse should definitely be “out” of the house. Man, it smelled like a sick elephant had been using this thing. But what the heck, it wasn’t my house and I had to go bad. So I held my breath against the stink and then took about five minutes to figure out how to undo the leather clothes. I guess these people hadn’t yet discovered zippers, either. It was during this that I realized the furs I had been wearing were gone. I guess somebody took them while I was unconscious. That was fine by me because if I’d had to get through another layer, I would have wet myself for sure.

After I finished, I hurried across the stone hut to catch up. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find outside, so I guess no matter what I saw it would have been a surprise. But when I stepped outside, I had to stop and catch my breath because I had just stepped into another world, and it was like nothing I had ever seen before. The hut I had just come from was in the middle of a village of stone huts. They all looked the same, more or less, with stone walls and roofs made of woven branches and straw. There were no decorations of any kind to distinguish one from the next. Some had smoke curling up from stone chimneys, which meant there were fires burning inside for cooking and for heat. The roads and pathways that snaked between the huts were dirt, well-worn and narrow. And why not? It’s not like they had to worry about cars or anything. All the huts were built around a big grassy area kind of like a town square, with a large, round platform about ten feet across at its center. The base of the platform was made of stones like the huts, and it was topped by a surface made of lashed-together logs. The setup reminded me of those towns that have a gazebo in the center of a park for concerts and stuff. But the stage was empty now. No shows today.

The village was busy with people doing whatever people do in a village like this. They were hurrying here and there, some carrying baskets of food, others moving a herd of goats. They all wore the same kind of leather clothes I was wearing, so even though I felt out of place, I probably didn’t look it. The people who looked out of place were Osa and Loor. As I described them to you, they were both tall, dark-skinned, and athletic looking. There were no other people of color in this village. Just the opposite. The people of Denduron were the palest people I had ever seen in my life. It was like they never saw a day of sun in their lives. That was strange because even though it happened to be overcast just then, I had seen three suns in the sky from on top of the mountain. Could it be that the suns here didn’t give you a tan? Or was it mostly always overcast, like Seattle or something? Whatever the reason, it was pretty obvious that Osa and Loor were not from Denduron, just as they had said.

The village had been cut out of a forest. Looking one way, beyond the huts, was vast farmland. I could see many people working out there, tending to crops. Looking off in the opposite direction I saw the mountain where Uncle Press and I had made our idiot bobsled run to escape the quigs. Any other direction showed nothing but forest. Not that I’m an expert anthropologist or anything, but this first brief look at the village made me think of books and movies I’d seen about Europe back in medieval days. The only thing missing was some huge castle that loomed over the village.

Osa and Loor let me stand there for a few minutes so I could take in the surroundings. I was about to join them, when suddenly I was grabbed from behind and spun around.

“Ogga ta vaan burr sa!”

It was a little guy with long scraggly hair, an eye patch over one eye, and a smile that showed more spaces than teeth. On each of his fingers was a different ring that looked to be braided out of rope. Ten fingers, ten rings. The guy was grubby, but he sure liked jewelry. I had no idea what he wanted until he shoved a furry-looking thing at me. I jumped back, but then realized it was some kind of woolly shirt, like a sweater.

“Ogga ta vaan,” he said again with a smile as he shoved the piece of clothing at me. I figured he was harmless and that he wanted me to take the thing. Hey, what the heck? Maybe it was a local “welcome” custom. It was kind of chilly and this leather shirt thing I was wearing wasn’t keeping me all that warm. So I smiled back at him and reached for it. But just as I was about to take it, the little guy pulled it back, held out his hand, and rubbed his fingers together. Yes, he was giving me the international sign, no, I guess it was more the intergalactic sign for “you want it, you pay for it.” This weird little guy was trying to strike a deal for the sweater.

“Figgis, leave him be!” said Osa as she stepped between us.

“Mab abba kan forbay,” said the little guy innocently. At least I think it was innocently. His language made no sense to me.

Osa looked at Figgis and said, “He has only just arrived. Go sell your wares somewhere else.”

The guy was a salesman. He seemed to deflate in disappointment and started to walk away, but then he turned back and gave me a sly, toothless smile. From out of his grungy shirt he held up a shiny red apple, trying to tempt me. It looked good.

“Go!” commanded Osa.

Figgis snarled at her and ran away.

“Figgis would sell you his breath if he could,” she explained. “They say he wears that patch because he sold his eye to a blind man.”

Nice. That’s a fairly disgusting image.

“Osa,” I asked. “Are you from Earth?”

Osa laughed and looked to Loor to share the joke that I didn’t get. Loor didn’t laugh back. Big surprise.

“Why do you think that?” she asked.

“You know English,” I said.

“You are wrong, Pendragon,” she said. “I do not understand a word of English. Come.” She left me there and continued walking with Loor.

Huh? I could be mistaken, but I thought sure we were speaking English. I should know. Aside from a little classroom Spanish, it’s the only language I know. This was getting frustrating. Every time I thought I was starting to get a handle on things, something would come along and pull the rug out from under me. I figured I better get used to it.

Osa and Loor were already way ahead of me, so I had to run to catch up. I had to jog to keep pace with their long strides while making sure to keep Osa between me and Loor. I liked the mom, but I didn’t trust the daughter. I kept catching her throwing me these “you aren’t worthy to breathe air that could go to someone more deserving” looks. She was giving off a major cold vibe. I figured it would be best to stay out of her way.

“I don’t understand,” I said to Osa. “How can you say you don’t know English if you’re speaking it?”

“I am not speaking English,” she answered. “You are speaking English. I am speaking the language from Zadaa, which is our home territory.”

“Sounds like English to me,” I said.

“Of course it does. That is because you are a Traveler.”

This was getting more confusing by the second.

“So, you’re saying that Travelers understand all languages?” Logical question, right?

“No,” came the illogical reply. “Travelers hear all languages as their own. And when they speak, others will understand them no matter what their native language.”

Cool. If this were true, maybe I’d have a shot at getting better than my usual lousy C in Spanish class. Still, something didn’t fit.

“Okay, so how come when that Figgis guy spoke it sounded like blah, blah, blah to me?”

Suddenly Loor jumped in front of me. I had to put on the brakes or walk into her. That would have hurt.

“Because maybe you are not a Traveler!” she said with a challenging snarl.

Ahhh! Suddenly it all came clear. Loor didn’t think I was who I was. That’s why she was acting all strange and aggressive. Of course, I wasn’t even sure myself who I was supposed to be, so there wasn’t anything I could say to convince her that I was me. Or I was who I was. Or…you get the idea.

Again Osa came to my rescue saying, “The reason you did not understand Figgis is that you have not yet learned to hear. You understand us because we are Travelers, but Figgis is not. You must learn to hear, without trying to listen.”

Say what? Hear without listening? That sounded like fortune cookie logic.

“How can he be a Traveler? He is just a boy!” Loor said to her mother vehemently. “He is soft and frightened. He will do more harm than good.”

Wow. How’s that for an ego pounding? Ouch. Unfortunately though, she was right. Iwas soft and frightened. Maybe I wasn’t a Traveler after all. Frankly, it wouldn’t kill me to find out I wasn’t, no matter how much it would have helped my Spanish grades. I was beginning to think that maybe this was all some big mistake and they would send me home.

Osa looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes, but spoke to Loor saying, “No, Pendragon is a Traveler. But he has much to learn.” Then she looked at her daughter and said, “And you seem to forget that you are but a child yourself.”

Loor stormed off in a huff. I got the feeling she didn’t like being told she was wrong. Osa turned to me and said, “You will find that she is not always so angry.”

“Hey, no big deal,” I shot back. “Just so long as she isn’t angry at me!”

Osa smiled and walked on. I followed, and she began to tell me about Denduron.

“The people who live in this village are a tribe called the Milago,” she began. “As you can see they live a simple life. They grow all of their own food and live peacefully with the other tribes of Denduron.”

Milago. Uncle Press had used that word just before those knights showed up. He said they’d find me, so I guess they are the good guys.

“What about those knight-looking guys who attacked Uncle Press?” I asked. “Are they Milago too?”

“No,” answered Osa. “That is what I want to show you.”

We continued walking out of the village and along a path in the woods for about a quarter of a mile. (I judge all distances by the track at Stony Brook High. It’s a quarter of a mile around, and it felt like we walked about the distance of that track.) We broke out of the woods into a clearing and I was yet again hit with an amazing sight. Remember how I said the only thing missing from this medieval village was a big old castle looming over it? Well, as it turns out there was a big old castle, it just wasn’t doing any looming.

Here’s what I saw: When we emerged from the path through the trees, we came upon a huge, open field of grass. We walked across this rolling field until we came to a cliff on the far side. Down below the cliff was water. Yes, we were at the edge of an ocean as vast and as blue as the Atlantic. The sea was to my right, and I turned to look down the coast-an uneven, craggy shoreline with big, rocky cliffs. I saw that the cliff we were on was actually one side of an inlet. Looking down over the edge, I saw wave after wave of seawater crashing on the rocks below. Far below. We were so high above the water I started getting sweaty palms. I’m not good with heights. I looked up and straight ahead to the cliff on the far side of the inlet to see that the land on top was covered with more lush sea grass that waved in the ocean breeze. Then what I sawbelow that grass took my breath away.

Built right into the face of the cliff was a monster fortress. It looked as if it were literally carved out of the rock that made up the bluff. I could see several levels of stone balconies where knights like the ones who attacked Uncle Press were keeping guard. They marched back and forth with lethal-looking spears over their shoulders. I’m not exactly sure what they were guarding against. Marauding fish, I suppose.

I counted five levels of balconies, so this fortress was big. Osa must have read my mind because she said, “You are only seeing the outside wall of the palace. It is built far into the cliff. It is a village in itself.”

From what I saw so far, these people didn’t have any heavy-duty construction equipment, so this place was chiseled out of the rock by hand. It must have taken centuries to dig such a huge building out of hard rock using simple tools.

“There have always been two tribes here,” she continued. “The Milago work the land, the Bedoowan are the soldiers and rulers. At one time many of the tribes of Denduron were at war. The Bedoowan protected the Milago from marauders, and in return the Milago provided food. Each tribe relied upon the other, while they remained very much apart. It lasted that way for centuries, with both tribes living in relative harmony. But the Bedoowan were powerful and power can lead to arrogance. It was forbidden for a Milago to marry a Bedoowan, or even to become friends. As so often happens in situations like this, the Bedoowan began to look upon the Milago as their slaves.”

“But still, they protect the Milago, right?” I asked.

“There have not been invaders here for many years. The need for protection no longer exists,” said Osa.

“So the Milago guys still do all the work and the Bedoowan guys do…what?”

“That is a good question. The Bedoowan are ruled by a royal family, with the role of monarch passed down to the eldest child. There was a time, not too long ago, that the Bedoowan monarch wanted to break down the barriers between the two tribes and allow them to become one. But he died and left the monarchy to his firstborn. There are some who believe that the father was murdered by those who did not want the Bedoowan to give up their superior position.”

“And let me guess: The new monarch likes having slaves and wants to keep the two tribes apart,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “The Milago are afraid to even say the name…Kagan.”

There was that name again. I was beginning to get the picture, and I didn’t like it.

“The knights who attacked Uncle Press thought he was spying on Kagan,” I said. “But Uncle Press pretended that he was a miner. Are there mines here?”

“Yes,” she said with a sad breath. “That is the worst part of the story.”

Oh great, it gets worse. Just what I wanted to hear. But before Osa could continue, I heard the sound of a far-off drum. It was a steady, booming sound that came from the direction of the Milago village.

Loor ran up to us and said breathlessly, “It is the Transfer. Hurry.” She took off, running back the way we came.

Osa looked at me and said with concern, “Stay close to me. Do not let them see you.” With that she took off after Loor.

As I told you, these two were athletes. But I didn’t care how fast they were, I was going to keep up with them. I caught up and kept right on Osa’s tail as we beat feet along the path back to the Milago village. Good thing it was only about a half mile away, or I would have bonked for sure.

As we approached the village, I saw that everyone was gathering toward the central area with the stage in the middle. I guessed there was going to be a show after all. People came in from the fields, emptied from their huts, and generally left whatever they were doing to crowd around the platform.

I was all set to join the crowd when Osa grabbed my hand and pulled me in another direction. The three of us climbed on top of one of the stone huts and positioned ourselves on the roof so we could get a good view of the show.

“They must not see us,” cautioned Osa. “We are not a part of this.”

Whatever. No biggie. We had the best view in the house anyway. So I settled in and wondered what the performance was going to be. Maybe some Milago musicians, or some school play thing.

I looked out on the meeting ground, and saw the Milago villagers gathered in a wide circle around the central platform, which wasn’t empty anymore. On top of it was some kind of contraption that looked like a seesaw. On one end was a seat, on the other was a big, wide-mouthed basket. Standing on the platform next to the gizmo was one of Kagan’s knights, beating on a drum. I hoped the purpose of this guy was to signal for everyone to gather, because if this was the whole show, I wasn’t impressed. The deep booming sound echoed across the village. His rhythm was pretty lousy too. Standing next to the platform were six more knights. They stood at attention, each holding a nasty-looking spear in front of them. The Milago villagers gave these guys a wide berth. I would have too. They didn’t look friendly.

It started to dawn on me that none of these people looked as if they were getting ready for a good time. There wasn’t an excited air of anticipation that comes before a fun event. No one spoke, or laughed or joked. Except for the booming drum, it was deathly quiet. These people all had a look of dread on their faces.

Osa then tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the far side of the clearing. I looked to see a group of four Milago villagers walking slowly toward the assembly. They were all men who were covered with dirt from head to toe. Not that any of these Milago people were all that clean to begin with, but these guys were pretty gnarly. The black dirt really stood out boldly against their pasty-white skin. The four men were carrying a large basket filled with craggy rocks of all sizes. Some were as large as bowling balls, others were much smaller. But the thing that really stood out about them was that they were blue. And I mean bright blue, like dazzling sapphires. I had never seen anything so stunning.

“The stones are called ‘glaze,’” whispered Osa. “There are mines throughout this area. The Milago mine for glaze day and night.”

“I guess it’s valuable,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Very,” she answered. “Glaze is the foremost reason why Kagan wants to keep control over the Milago. Glaze has made the Bedoowan wealthy. They trade with merchants from all of Denduron. So long as the Milago mine for glaze, Kagan remains a powerful monarch.”

So Kagan and the Bedoowan weren’t only lazy bullies, they were greedy bullies who forced the Milago to do their dirty work. Nice guys. I wanted to ask more questions, but suddenly the drummer stopped pounding and an ominous silence fell over the village. The four miners brought the basket of glaze to the platform and carefully placed it down. The whole thing was starting to take on the air of a ceremony. The Transfer is what Loor called it.

That’s when I heard the sound of a galloping horse. Someone was coming straight down the path where we had walked out to the ocean, and he was coming fast. The weird thing was, nobody turned to look. Nobody but me, that is.

As the horse came charging out of the forest, I saw that riding it was a guy who looked like he knew what he was doing. He was a big guy, with long dark hair, wearing some kind of leather armor similar to what the knights had on, but his armor didn’t look like it had seen many battles. It was clean and unscarred, unlike the knights’ armor, which looked pretty beaten up. As he galloped up to the circle of villagers, they parted to give him access to the platform. Good thing too, because he didn’t slow down. I think if the people hadn’t moved, he would have plowed over them. Already I didn’t like this guy.

“Is that Kagan?” I whispered.

Osa and Loor exchanged secret looks, like there was something going on that they didn’t want to tell me about. I caught the look and I didn’t like it.

“His name is Mallos,” answered Osa. “He is Kagan’s chief advisor.”

Mallos, Kagan, Osa, Loor, Figgis…was I the only guy around here who had a first and a last name? This Mallos guy rode his horse right up to the platform and stopped. My guess was the show was about to begin. He sat there on his horse and surveyed the assembled crowd like he owned them. None of the Milago returned his look. They all stood with their heads down, avoiding his gaze. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were afraid of him. Mallos then turned in his saddle and looked right up to where we were hiding on the roof.

“Stay down!” ordered Loor with a strong whisper.

We all ducked down further, trying to press ourselves into the roof to make ourselves smaller. But I could still see Mallos. As his horse kicked at the dirt, he sat there stock still, looking toward us. It was like he knew we were there. But that was impossible. There was no way he could have seen us.

That’s when it happened. As I looked back at him, I was hit with a realization so shocking that it made me gasp in surprise. I think the thing that tipped it were his eyes. As far away as he was, I knew those cold blue eyes. How could I forget?

Osa and Loor both sensed my surprise and looked at me questioningly.

“Saint Dane,” I said softly.

“You know him?” whispered Loor with total shock.

“Yeah, he tried to kill me back on Earth just before I got flumed here,” I said. I couldn’t believe those words had just come out of my mouth. There was a lot going on in that one little sentence. It would have sounded like fantasy about twenty-four hours ago, but right now it made all too much sense. Osa and Loor exchanged concerned looks again.

Then Loor whispered to me, “He followed you to Second Earth?” She said this as if it were an amazing thing to have happened. I shrugged and nodded a silent “yes.” It was the first time she looked at me with something other than total disdain. Up until now, she acted as if I were less important than the dirt on her boots. But now her look was one of, well, curiosity. Maybe the fact that I survived an encounter with Saint Dane proved that I wasn’t so soft after all. Of course I wasn’t about to tell her that all I did was run for my life. I wasn’t an idiot.

Looking down at Saint Dane, or Mallos, or whatever he called himself, I got hit with a strong wave of “I want to go home.” But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. I was stuck here looking at a guy who had tried to kill me. Could he see me? Was he going to kick that horse into gear and come charging toward the hut? We’d be trapped up here on the roof. All I could do was hold my breath.

It felt like a lifetime, but Saint Dane finally turned away. I could breathe again. With a wave of his hand he said sharply, “Begin!”

Whoa. He spoke English. Did that mean he knew English, or that he too was a Traveler and that’s why I could understand him? That question would have to wait, for the main event finally began. One of the miners who had carried in the basket of glaze stepped forward. He was a big guy and something about the way he carried himself told me he was in charge. Whatever was about to happen, this guy didn’t seem too happy about it. Every move he made was stiff and forced, as if the pressure of doing what he had to do was physically painful.

“That is Rellin,” whispered Osa. “He is the chief miner.”

Guess I nailed that one. Of course, he was another one-name guy.

Rellin stepped up onto the platform and turned to the crowd. He then held out his hand and gestured to someone. The crowd parted and a man stepped forward to join him on the platform. He was a tall skinny guy, which I point out only because of what happened next. The skinny guy walked over to the seesaw thing and sat down on the end with the seat. Since there was no weight on the other side, he tipped his end down to the floor of the platform. Rellin gestured to the other miners and the three guys lugged the basket of glaze up onto the platform, placing it near the opposite end of the seesaw. What were they going to do? Measure the guy’s weight in glaze?

“They make a Transfer every day,” explained Osa. “Mallos chooses one of the Milago, and that determines how much glaze they must mine for Kagan the next day.”

I was right. Measuring the guy’s weight in glaze was exactly what they were going to do. The big seesaw was a scale. The miners reached into the basket of glaze and were about to pick up the first few stones to begin the process when Saint Dane barked, “No!”

The miners stopped. Everyone held their breath, waiting for Saint Dane’s next move. Saint Dane surveyed the crowd, then pointed.

“Him,” he said with no emotion.

There was a general rumbling of discontent within the crowd. Two of the knights pushed roughly past a few of the villagers and grabbed the man Saint Dane had pointed to. He was a much bigger man than the first guy. The rules had just changed, and Rellin didn’t like it.

“Mallos ca!” he shouted. He was ticked and started yelling angrily at Saint Dane. I won’t write the words as I heard them because, as you know, his language made no sense to me. I’ll just tell you the translation that Osa gave me.

“Mallos has chosen a different subject for the Transfer and Rellin is telling him that it is not fair,” Osa explained, though I pretty much figured that out on my own. “He is pleading with Mallos to use the choice he made yesterday.”

I could see why. This new guy was much heavier than the original guy. If they had mined enough of the glaze to balance with the first guy, there was no way they’d have enough to balance with the second guy. Rellin begged Saint Dane for fairness. Saint Dane didn’t flinch. He looked at Rellin like he was a bug. Then one of the knights stepped up to Rellin and slapped him on the side of the face with his spear. Rellin spun around and I could see the fiery anger in his eyes. He was already bleeding from the smack on his cheek. I could tell he was a breath away from leaping at the knight’s throat. But he didn’t. That was smart because the other knights were standing right there, ready with their weapons. He would have been hammered.

“Look at me, Rellin,” commanded Saint Dane.

Rellin looked up at his enemy on the horse.

“Being a loyal subject, you should want to do more for Kagan than is expected of you,” Saint Dane said with an arrogance that even mademy blood boil. “Are you telling me that you are doing the least amount of work that is necessary?”

Rellin answered with a seething yet controlled tirade that Osa translated for me.

“He is arguing that mining glaze is difficult and dangerous. Every ounce they pull from the mines comes at a huge cost. He says they mine as much as they possibly can.”

Saint Dane snickered and said, “We will see.”

He then gestured to the knights. One of them jumped up onto the platform, grabbed the skinny guy who was sitting on the end of the seesaw and pushed him off the platform. Then the other two knights dragged the heavyset guy up onto the platform and jammed him down into the seat. This guy was scared. He looked to Rellin with pleading eyes, but there was nothing Rellin could do.

“Now,” said Saint Dane. “You may begin.”

The miners looked to Rellin, who gave them a slight nod. They had no choice, so they went to work taking the glaze from their basket and putting the stones on the opposite end of the seesaw.

“What happens if they don’t make the weight?” I asked Osa.

“Let us hope you do not have to find out,” came her ominous answer.

The miners quickly placed the glaze stones on the scale, starting with the larger ones and working their way down to marble-sized ones. The villagers’ eyes were all focused on the scale. My guess is that no one was breathing. I know I wasn’t. When the miners were about halfway through, the seesaw began to move. Ever so slowly, the heavy man on the opposite end of the scale began to rise. As soon as he felt himself move, a look of relief came over his face. Maybe there would be enough glaze stones to balance him after all. With renewed hope the miners continued to pile the stones on the scale. Slowly the scale moved and the heavyset man rose into the air.

I could feel the mood of the crowd beginning to turn. They were going to do it. They had mined more than enough glaze that day, just as Saint Dane had demanded. With the last few small stones, the scale rose until it was perfectly level. It took every last one they had, but they made it. If this had been a World Series game, the crowd would have erupted into a cheer. But this was no game. Even though I could sense their joy and relief, no one made a peep. I saw them secretly exchanging little smiles of joy. There were even a few quick, secret hugs. It was a good moment. Even Rellin looked relieved, though he tried not to show it. Throwing victory back in Saint Dane’s face would not have been a smart thing to do.

Saint Dane didn’t react. I couldn’t tell if he was happy they had mined so much extra glaze, or ticked that the Milago had met his unfair challenge. He swung his leg over and jumped down from his horse. He climbed up onto the platform and looked at the level scale with a slight smile. Suddenly the mood of the crowd grew tense again. What was Saint Dane doing? He looked to the heavyset man who was swaying on the end of the scale. The man looked down, afraid to make eye contact. Saint Dane then walked to the end of the scale where the glaze stones were piled into the basket.

“Well done, Rellin,” he said. “You have mined quite a large amount of-” He suddenly stopped talking, and leaned in closer to the basket of glaze stones. Throughout the crowd people started holding one another’s hands for strength.

Saint Dane gazed into the basket of stones and said, “Rellin! I am surprised at you. There is a stone in here that is not pure glaze!”

Uh-oh. Rellin made a move to run to the basket, but two of the knights held him back. Rellin yelled something at Saint Dane, but it didn’t matter what he said. Saint Dane reached into the basket, grabbed the largest glaze stone, and picked it up. Instantly, the scale tipped and the heavyset man slammed down onto the platform, hard. Saint Dane carried the stone over to Rellin and held it up to his face.

“You know that Kagan only accepts stones of pure glaze,” he said through smug, clenched teeth.

Not that I’m a geology expert or anything, but that stone looked just like every other stone in the batch. Saint Dane was changing the rules again.

“You know what must happen now,” he said with mock sadness.

Apparently the heavyset men knew it too. He scrambled to his feet and jumped down off the platform. He wanted out of there, fast. But the knights grabbed him and held him tight.

“What’s happening?” I asked Osa.

Osa didn’t answer. She kept staring at the scene with sad eyes. I figured I was going to find the answer soon anyway and turned back to watch the last act of this drama.

One of the other knights quickly grabbed a heavy chain that was attached to one end of the wooden platform. He pulled on it and half of the platform top lifted up like a trap-door. Underneath there looked like…nothing. The platform was built over a huge hole.

“It is the first mine shaft that was dug here in the Milago village,” Osa said without taking her sad eyes off the scene. “It is a pit that reaches down farther than the eye can see. I am afraid there are many lonely bones resting on the bottom.”

My mind was racing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They were going to toss this guy down the mine shaft!

“Why don’t the Milago do something?” I said. “There are hundreds of them! Why don’t they stop it?”

The knights dragged the heavyset man closer to the open pit.

“Bagga! Bagga va por da pey!” he cried. It was horrible.

No one in the crowd moved. No one tried to help the poor guy. Even Rellin. It was like they knew it was futile. I noticed that next to me, Loor reached to her back and grabbed hold of her wooden weapon. But Osa put her hand over her daughter’s.

“You know it is not the time,” she said softly.

Loor didn’t release her weapon at first. I could feel her tension. One push, and she would be down there, swinging away. But today was not that day. She kept her eyes on the scene and released her grip on the weapon.

The knights dragged the screaming heavy man up to Saint Dane, who looked at the poor guy without a trace of sympathy and said, “If you weren’t such a glutton, you may have lived to see another day.” Saint Dane then nodded at the knights, and they dragged the poor, screaming man toward the open pit.

“Ca…ca!” he pleaded. “Maga con dada pey! Maga con dada! Moy fol wife, and two children! Please! I must take care of them! They will be alone!”

The scene was so horrifying that it wasn’t until later that it hit me…I could understand him. It sure sounded like English, but it didn’t make sense that he suddenly would have switched languages. Osa said that the Travelers had the ability to understand all languages, and since I was suddenly able to understand this man, maybe I was a Traveler after all.

But I didn’t think about that until later. Right now I was witnessing the most gut-wrenching moment I could imagine. The two knights dragged the heavy man closer to the open pit. Suddenly a woman jumped out of the crowd and tried to pull him away from his executioners. She was in tears and begging for mercy. She must have been the man’s wife, but her brave effort didn’t help. She was quickly grabbed by another knight and thrown to the ground. She lay there in the grass, sobbing.

The knights finally got the man to the edge of the pit and were about to push him in, when the man suddenly stopped wailing. Up until this point he had been crying and begging for his life. But now he stopped fighting and stood up straight. I swear, there was a look on his face that was almost calm. The knights didn’t know how to react. They weren’t used to someone being calm during the worst moment of their life.

The heavy man turned and faced Saint Dane, and in a distinct, strong voice he said, “My only regret is that I will not live long enough to see Kagan suffer the way we have all suffered.”

Saint Dane chuckled and said, “None of you will live that long, for that day will never come.” He then gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod and the two knights pushed the doomed man backward into the pit. His wife screamed, but the guy didn’t let out a sound. One second he was there, the next he was just…gone. Hopefully his death would be quick and he’d now be in a better place than this horrible village.

The knight holding the chain let it go and the wooden platform fell down with a boom. Saint Dane walked up to Rellin, who looked him right in the eye. Saint Dane then pointed to the man’s sobbing wife.

“We will use her for tomorrow’s Transfer,” he said with pleasure. “She seems quite light. It should make for an easy day. Please thank me for being so considerate.”

Rellin looked at Saint Dane and for a second I thought he was going to spit in his face. But he didn’t. Instead, he gritted his teeth and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Saint Dane said with a smile. With that he strode to his horse, jumped into the saddle and was just about to ride off when he once again looked back toward us. Actually, it was more like he was looking right at me. I could feel it. He knew I was there. Was all of this a show for me? Saint Dane laughed, kicked his horse and rode off through the stunned crowd back toward the Bedoowan palace.

The knights pushed a few of the miners toward the basket of glaze with their spears. The valuable stones had to be delivered to Kagan and it was clear that they weren’t the ones who were going to carry them. That was a job for their slaves. The miners picked up the basket from the seesaw and started the long walk toward the palace. The rest of the villagers slowly started to disperse. Not a word was spoken. A few people went up to console the poor woman who had just lost her husband, but most simply headed back toward their homes. They had been through this horror before, and they probably would go through it again.

But I hadn’t. I was frantic. I had just witnessed a man murdered in cold blood. It was even more horrible than the poor homeless guy who Saint Dane hypnotized into running into the subway train back in New York. That was awful, but it didn’t seem real. This was very, very real and I didn’t understand it. My emotions were all over the place. And yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I was crying. They were tears of anger, and fear, and sadness for a man I didn’t even know. And for his family. I didn’t care that I was crying in front of Loor or anybody else. I was out of control.

“Why didn’t they do something?” I shouted at Osa. “They could have ganged up on the knights. They could have pulled the guy away. Why didn’t they stop it?”

Osa was as calm as I was upset. She said, “If they had done anything, Kagan would have sent an army to punish them. They had no choice.”

I looked to Loor and was surprised to see that she too looked upset. She may not have been ranting the way I was, but her icy calm was cracked. I even thought I could see a tear in her eye. Maybe there was a heart beneath that tough exterior after all.

Still, I didn’t buy what Osa was saying. “So what? They should have done something,” I cried. “If they don’t do something, it’ll never stop.”

Osa put a hand on my shoulder, and I could feel myself starting to calm down. But what she said next was the last thing I wanted to hear.

“They are going to do something, Pendragon. They are going to take destiny into their own hands and rise up against Kagan. That is why we are here. We are going to help them.You are going to help them.”

These words hit me like a bolt from the blue. Uncle Press had told me there were people who needed our help, but I had no idea he was talking about an entire village of people who were at the mercy of a vicious army that didn’t think twice about killing people in cold blood. This was crazy. I felt bad for these people, but there was nothing I could do to help them. I didn’t care how tough this Loor person was, those knights were killers. And there were only three of us…four if you counted Uncle Press. What good could we do against an army? No, this was crazy. I made up my mind right there that the first chance I got, I’d get away from these nutburgers and get back to that flume thing. If it brought me here, then there had to be a way for it to get me back home. Yes, that was the answer. I was going to get myself out of here and kiss this place good-bye-with or without Uncle Press.

Second Earth

“Hey, you kids!”

Mark and Courtney looked up from their reading to see Sergeant D’Angelo calling to them from the front of the building. The two had been sitting there the whole time, reading the pages from Bobby.

“Run!” yelled Mark. He started to get up, but Courtney grabbed him by the seat of the pants and pulled him back down.

“Why?” she asked him calmly. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Mark had to think about that for a second. She was right, all they were doing was sitting in the alley, reading. Nothing illegal about that. So then why was this policeman yelling at them? Courtney looked to the cop, but didn’t budge.

“What do you want?” she yelled.

“I want to talk to you,” came the reply.

“Then you come to us,” Courtney yelled.

Ouch. Mark winced. Courtney was being pretty disrespectful. Okay, so maybe the guy dissed them before, but he was still a cop. Mark was sure he was going to arrest them.

D’Angelo took a few steps toward them with his hands on his hips, and said in a downright civil tone, “I want to talk to you about the Pendragons.”

“Why?” asked Courtney, oozing skepticism.

“Because I believe you,” answered D’Angelo.

Mark and Courtney shot each other a look. Victory! He must have found Mr. and Mrs. Pendragon. They both jumped up to go to the cop. Mark made sure that Bobby’s half-read journal was tucked securely in his pack, and the two followed D’Angelo back into the station house.

Once inside the sergeant led them past the lobby and continued on through the back offices. Mark thought this was kind of cool. He had never been behind the scenes at a real police station. The experience wasn’t exactly what he had expected. On TV, police stations had a lot of activity. There were always cops leading handcuffed perps toward interrogation rooms, and detectives taking statements and SWAT teams hurrying to some mission and generally a ton of cop-type hubbub. But not here in Stony Brook. Here a guy was making a phone call to Domino’s for pizza, and another guy looked bored while playing FreeCell on an old computer. Not exactly a beehive of electrifying police activity. Very disappointing.

“I gotta be honest,” said D’Angelo as he led them through the station. “I thought you two were pulling a number on me until I spoke with Captain Hirsch.”

“What did he say?” Mark asked.

“Ask him yourself,” said the sergeant as he opened a door and motioned for Mark and Courtney to enter. The two walked into a conference room with a large metal table surrounded by eight chairs. It was a plain room with a huge mirror that covered most of one wall. Sitting at the head of the table was a pleasant-looking man wearing a suit. When the kids entered he stood up and smiled, but both kids sensed that he was troubled. Good. He should be. There were troubling things going down.

“Hi, guys. I’m Captain Hirsch,” the man said. “Thanks for coming back.”

Courtney went right up to the mirror and stuck her nose to the glass while cupping her eyes to block out the light.

“This a two-way mirror?” she asked. “Who’s back there? You interrogating us?”

Hirsch looked to D’Angelo and the two chuckled. “Yes, it’s a two-way mirror,” said Hirsch. “But nobody’s back there and we’re not interrogating you.”

Courtney kept trying to look through the mirror. She didn’t believe him.

“Why don’t you two sit down and relax,” said the sergeant.

Mark and Courtney took seats next to each other at the table. D’Angelo stood by the door. Hirsch sat down and looked at the kids. The kids looked back at Hirsch. Hirsch nervously pulled at his eyebrow. It seemed as if he didn’t know where to begin, so Courtney being Courtney, decided to kick things off herself.

“So how come you suddenly believe us about the Pendragons?” she asked Hirsch.

“Mr. and Mrs. Pendragon are good friends of mine,” he said.

“My son Jimmy plays basketball with Bobby.”

“Jimmy Hirsch!” shouted Mark. “I know him. Strong forward.”

Captain Hirsch nodded. This was good. Now they had an adult on their side. And he was a cop. A captain, no less. Now things were going to start happening.

“When was the last time you saw Bobby?” he asked them.

Mark knew the answer, but it was up to Courtney to give it.

“Last night at his house,” she answered. “About an hour before the game.”

“Did he say anything that would make you think he was going away?” came the next question.

Courtney and Mark looked at each other. They knew exactly where Bobby had gone. If the story on the parchment were true, then they knew how Uncle Press had taken him on the back of his motorcycle and left for a place on the far side of the universe called Denduron. But neither of them were sure if the outlandish story was really true, and they didn’t want to sound totally insane. Besides, the pages didn’t explain what had happened to the Pendragons’ house. Mark and Courtney had decided before going to the police that they’d stick to the facts that could be proved. And it was pretty easy to prove that the house was gone. So without discussing it again, they both decided to stick with the original plan.

“I was talking to Bobby at his house,” answered Courtney. “His uncle Press came in and I left. That’s the last I saw him.”

Captain Hirsch looked down at a piece of paper where he had written some notes.

“Right. Uncle Press,” he said out loud, though it seemed like he was thinking it more than saying it. Hirsch looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not. He looked to Sergeant D’Angelo for guidance.

“I think you should tell them, Captain,” said the sergeant.

“T-Tell us what?” asked Mark.

Obviously these policemen had some disturbing information. Captain Hirsch stood up and paced nervously.

“After you spoke with Sergeant D’Angelo, he told me about your visit,” began Hirsch. “Frankly, he didn’t believe you because he couldn’t find any information on the Pendragons.”

“But you know them,” interjected Courtney.

“Yes, I know them,” said Hirsch. “I’ve been to their house many times.”

“And the house is gone!” added Mark.

Hirsch didn’t continue right away. He looked at the two kids, then to Sergeant D’Angelo. Finally he said, “Yeah. The house is gone. This may be a small police department in a small town, but we have access to pretty much any piece of information that’s part of the public record,” he said. “After you came in here, we did a computer search for the Pendragons…and found nothing.”

“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” asked Courtney. “No police record?”

“No, I mean absolutely nothing,” said Hirsch. A hint of frustration was creeping into his voice. “No birth certificates, no driver’s licenses, no social security numbers, no bank accounts, no deeds, no electric bills, no school records, no credit cards, no nothing! The Pendragons didn’t just disappear-it’s like they never even existed!”

Hirsch paced faster. He was getting upset because what he was saying didn’t make sense, yet it was true.

Finally Mark said, “B-But they do exist, don’t they? I mean, we know them.”

“I know!” snapped Hirsch. “I’ve had dinner at their house. I’ve driven Bobby to Boy Scouts. Here’s another one for you: We scanned back copies of the newspaper where Mr. Pendragon works and couldn’t find a single article he had written. But I remember reading them. I’ve discussed some of those articles with him.”

This was getting stranger by the second. Disappearing is one thing. But having someone’s whole history vanish seemed downright impossible.

“W-What about Uncle Press?” asked Mark nervously.

“Again, nothing,” answered Hirsch. “There is nothing we can find to prove that any of these people ever existed….”

“Except in our memories,” added Courtney.

That was a chilling thought. If what the captain said were true, the only thing left of Bobby and his family were the memories they all held…and the parchment papers in Mark’s bag. Captain Hirsch sat back down at the table and looked to the kids with pleading eyes. This had turned his orderly policeman’s mind inside out.

“Kids,” he said with a touch of desperation. “Help me out here. If there is anything you can add, anything that might help us figure out what happened to the Pendragons, please tell us.”

Mark and Courtney had plenty to add. It was all sitting in Mark’s backpack on the table in front of them. All they had to do was slide it over to Captain Hirsch. He would read the pages and take over. That’s what adults did. They took over and fixed things. It wasn’t Courtney’s call-the letters were to Mark. If they were going to tell the police about the pages, it would have to be Mark’s decision.

Courtney saw that he was staring at the pack. She knew exactly what was going through his mind. He was debating whether or not to give over the pages. He then looked to her and they made eye contact. Courtney wished that she had some way of helping him make the decision, but she honestly didn’t know the right thing to do. So she gave him a slight, helpless shrug that said, “You’re on your own.”

“Well?” asked Hirsch. “Can you guys think of anything else?”

Mark took a deep breath, turned to Hirsch and said, “No. We’re just as confused as you are.”

Decision made. Courtney picked up on Mark’s lead and added, “Yeah. We’re pretty freaked out.”

Hirsch took a deep, tired sigh and stood up saying, “Okay, we’re going to start an investigation. Tell your parents, tell your friends, tell anybody who’ll listen. If they hear anything about the Pendragons, have them call me. Okay?”

Courtney and Mark nodded. Hirsch then gave each of them a business card with his phone number on it. Mark grabbed his pack and they headed out.

Once they were out of the building, they walked silently for a long while. The police station was right near Stony Brook Avenue, which was the main business street in town. Most of the shops and restaurants were there. Since there was no mall in Stony Brook, the “Ave” as they called it was where everybody hung out. But Courtney and Mark weren’t interested in any of the temptations that the Ave held that day. They walked by the CD Silo without even a glance into the window; they weren’t tempted by the smell of the best french fries in the world coming from Garden Poultry Deli; they had no interest in ice cream from The Scoop; and they didn’t even think of going to the library. The front steps of the library was where everyone stopped first on a trip to the Ave because you were sure to find someone you knew there.

But not today. Not for Courtney and Mark. Somehow these familiar haunts didn’t seem so familiar anymore. Everything looked the same, but the last few hours had opened their eyes to the possibility that the world didn’t work exactly the way they thought it did. Between Bobby’s adventure and the strange disappearance of the Pendragons, everything they’d ever believed was thrown into question. With thoughts like this running through their heads, somehow grabbing a box of fries at Garden Poultry Deli didn’t seem all that appetizing. So the two walked past the usual places where their friends hung out and went into a small, quiet pocket park that was sandwiched between two buildings. They sat down on a park bench and stared at the ground.

Finally Mark looked to Courtney and asked softly, “Should I have told them about Bobby’s letter?”

“I don’t know,” was Courtney’s reply. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Mark tried to put his feelings into words. “I have a feeling,” he began, “that there’s an important reason Bobby is sending me his story.”

“Why? We haven’t even read what he wants yet,” said Courtney.

“Yeah, I know. But I think it’s more than that. I’ve got a feeling that something big is going on and Bobby’s only one part of it. There’s some serious stuff going on here. I mean like, cosmic stuff. Am I being weird?”

“Weird?” chuckled Courtney. “How could anything sound weird now?”

“Exactly! The idea of Travelers who understand languages, and territories, and flumes that send you across space and time…that stuff changes everything we know about how things work.”

This made Courtney fall silent. Mark was right. Up until now she was only thinking about Bobby and the Pendragons. But the implications of what they were reading were totally huge. Too huge to comprehend.

Mark continued, “As we were sitting with the police, I thought about what might happen if I gave them Bobby’s story. I came up with two possibilities. One was that they’d announce it to the world, there’d be a huge furor and we’d be smack in the center of it. Remember, I might still get more pages. I don’t think Bobby would want that kind of uproar, especially if he wants me to help him. If he did, he would have started right off by telling me to take his story to the newspapers.”

“What’s the other possibility?” asked Courtney.

“The exact opposite might happen. The stuff Bobby wrote about might be so disturbing to the world that they’d bury the whole thing and pretend it never happened…kind of like the aliens from Roswell, or the Kennedy assassination. People don’t like to hear that their nice, orderly world isn’t what they thought it was. I wouldn’t blame them; I’m not so thrilled about it myself.”

“There’s a third possibility,” added Courtney. “People may think we’re responsible. Everyone always wants easy answers and the easiest answer is that we made the whole thing up. It would be easier for people to think it’s all a hoax than to believe there are people who jump through wormholes and travel through the universe.”

It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago their biggest concern was that Bobby Pendragon had missed a basketball game.

Courtney looked to Mark and asked, “What do you think we should do?”

Before he could answer, someone reached in from behind, grabbed his backpack and yanked it out of his hands! Courtney and Mark looked up in surprise.

“What’cha got, Dimond? More magazines?” It was Andy Mitchell, the kid who caught Mark in the boys’ room reading Bobby’s first journal. He fumbled with the clasps on Mark’s pack, trying to open it.

Mark jumped to his feet, shouting, “M-Mitchell. G-give it back!”

Mark lunged at him, but Mitchell danced away.

“Aw, c’mon,” laughed Mitchell. “Don’t you want to share?”

He held the pack out toward Mark. Mark swiped at it, but Mitchell pulled it away and laughed.

“How bad you want it back?” Mitchell taunted. “Bad enough to swim with the rats for it?” He backed toward a storm drain in the curb. It was plenty big enough for the pack to fit through.

“Don’t!” Mark shouted desperately.

Mitchell dangled the pack over the drain. “What’ll you give me for it?”

“What do you want?” asked Mark nervously.

Mitchell thought for a moment, then spotted something on Mark’s hand. “I’ll trade the pack…for that big old ring”

Mark couldn’t give up the ring, no way. But he didn’t want to lose the pages, either. He hadn’t read what Bobby wanted him to do yet.

“Think fast, Dimond,” snickered Mitchell as he dangled the pack over the storm drain. “The pack or the ring…pack or the ring.”

Mark didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, a steely-strong hand clamped down on Mitchell’s wrist. He looked up and came face to face with Courtney. She had been calmly watching the scene from the bench. She might not have known how to deal with the mysterious disappearance of Bobby and the Pendragons, or the fact that the world had just turned upside down, but the one thing she knew how to handle was a bully like Andy Mitchell. She squeezed his wrist and stuck her nose in his face.

“Drop that in the sewer,” she said through clenched teeth, “and you’re going in after it…headfirst.”

They stood that way for a long moment. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Mitchell smiled.

“Jeez. I was just kidding around,” he said.

Courtney reached over with her other hand and grabbed the pack. Once she had it, she let Mitchell go. He pulled away quickly, while rubbing his wrist to get the circulation flowing again.

“It was just a goof,” he said, trying to save face. “Where’d you get that butt-ugly ring anyway?”

Mark and Courtney stared at the guy until he felt so uncomfortable that the only thing he could do was leave.

“Jeez, lighten up,” he said as he turned and jogged away. Courtney tossed the pack to Mark.

“Thanks,” said Mark with a bit of embarrassment. Now that the crisis was over, he knew he hadn’t handled it well.

“I hate that weenie,” she said.

“We’ve got to go somewhere and finish reading this,” Mark said seriously. “I’m nervous about having these out in public. Let’s go back to my house.”

“Uh-uh,” Courtney said uncomfortably. “No offense, but your room is like…rank.”

Mark looked down, embarrassed.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” she said with a smile. “All guys’ rooms are rank. It’s just the way it is. Let’s go to my house.”

It was a short walk to Courtney’s house, and neither of them said much along the way. Both had their minds on the pages. There were a lot of questions to be answered, but one stood out above all others: What was the dangerous favor that Bobby wanted Mark to do for him? Courtney was dying to know. So was Mark, but he wasn’t all that sure he liked the idea of having to do something dangerous, no matter how important it was. Up until now, Mark’s idea of doing something dangerous was to ring somebody’s doorbell on Mischief Night and run away. Given what Bobby was going through, the stakes here were a wee bit higher than that.

They arrived at Courtney’s house, which was very much like Mark’s. They both lived in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. But rather than go to Courtney’s room, Courtney took Mark down to the basement where her father had a workshop. Mark had a fleeting moment of disappointment that he wouldn’t get to see the inner sanctum of the glorious Courtney Chetwynde, but there were larger problems to deal with.

The two sat down on an old, dusty couch and Mark opened his pack. He laid the precious pages out on a coffee table in front of them. The two hesitated a moment. As much as they were dying with curiosity about what happened next to Bobby, they were also a little bit frightened about what the pages contained and what new and disturbing wonders they would reveal. They each took a breath.

Then Courtney looked to Mark and said, “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

They looked down at the pages and picked up where they had left off.

I was going to get myself out of here and kiss this place good-bye-with or without Uncle Press.