The Merchant of Death

Journal #3 (continued)

Denduron

Ididn’t want to leave you guys. When I took the flume back to that subway station, my thoughts were all about Uncle Press and the mission ahead. But once I got there and saw you both, I remembered how much I missed my real life. The small time I had spent on Denduron put my head in an entirely different place, but when I saw you two I suddenly felt like I had never left home. There was a moment where the idea of stepping into that flume and jumping back to Denduron was impossible. You were right, Courtney; it would have been easy. All I had to do was walk away.

But then I remembered Uncle Press and I knew what I had to do. I had to come back. Maybe it would have been better if I had stayed with you because I’ve made things worse than they were. Good intentions aren’t always enough. You have to be smart and sometimes I think that I’m not that smart. I’ll tell you what happened and you be the judge.

When I took the flume back to Denduron, I was greeted by Loor. The first thing she said was, “I was not sure if you would return.”

I got all indignant and said, “Hey, give me a little credit, would you?” Of course she was absolutely right. I almost stayed on Second Earth, but I didn’t want her to know that. I wanted her to think that I was confident in our mission.

She said, “We are both tired. We must get some sleep before we begin.”

“Do we have enough time?” I asked. I knew that Uncle Press was to be executed at “the equinox,” whatever that was. It could have been in ten minutes for all I knew.

“The equinox is at midday tomorrow,” she explained. “When the three suns are one in the sky. We have enough time for a short rest.”

Now I understood. The equinox was noon. Loor and I walked back to the small room in the mine. She didn’t ask me about what was in the backpack and I wasn’t about to start explaining. That would come later. But there was one item I wanted, so I took it out. It was my digital watch. I had no idea what time it was, but if we were going to sleep, I didn’t want to end up sacking out for ten hours and waking up too late. I set the alarm to go off in two hours. That’s just a long nap, and my tank was empty. Still, a few hours of sleep was better than nothing.

Loor watched me curiously as I set the watch alarm. She even jumped back with surprise when it beeped. I assumed they didn’t have watches where she came from. It made me feel like I had one up on her for a change. But more important, her surprise at the beep meant my guess was right. To the people of Denduron, the simple things I could pull out of this pack would seem like huge magic. Throwing someone off balance, even for a short time, might mean the difference between success and failure. Or between life and death.

When I dug the watch out of my pack, I also found the extra surprise you put in there, Mark. You are the best. You know how much I love Milky Ways and the one you stuck in that pack was the most delicious treat in the history of treats. Thanks. I even offered a piece to Loor. I thought that was pretty nice of me, since I didn’t have much hope of finding another Milky Way around these parts. She took the bite-sized piece, popped it cautiously into her mouth and instantly spit it out. What a waste! I guess they don’t have candy bars on her territory either.

“Next time you wish to feed me poison, warn me first,” she demanded.

“What are you talking about? Where I come from this is a major treat,” I said, still laughing.

“Then you come from a strange place, Pendragon,” she said while taking a swig of water to wash the taste out of her mouth. It was like I had given her a brussel sprout or something.

This was the first time Loor and I weren’t totally tense around each other. We were like two normal people doing normal things. Believe me, it wasn’t like we were suddenly buds or anything, but it gave me the courage to ask her a question.

“What else did your mother tell you about being a Traveler?” I asked. I figured the more information I had, the better chance I had of getting out of here alive.

Loor didn’t answer and busied herself arranging the animal pelts on her side of the cell floor. I knew she heard me, so I didn’t ask again. I had just about given up on her when she said, “You may not like what I have to say.”

Oh, great. More good news.

“If it’s important,” I said, “I should hear it whether I like it or not.”

Loor sat down on the pelts and leaned her back against the wall. In spite of what I had just said, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear this. But I had to.

“I have only known for a short time that I am a Traveler,” she began. “I do not know much more than you do. But there is something my mother told me that is important. Maybe more important than saving Press and helping the Milago.”

This sounded big. She had my full attention.

“I know you want to know why we are Travelers, but I do not know. That is the truth. My mother said that I would understand someday, but for now it was not important. What she did tell me though, is that we must understand our mission.”

“Mission? You mean there’s more to this than helping the Milago?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “My mother explained that there are many territories, and they are all about to reach an important time. A ‘turning point’ she called it. It is a time when the outcome will either send the territory toward peace and prosperity, or plunge its people into chaos and destruction.”

“So the battle between the Milago and the Bedoowan is some kind of turning point for all of Denduron?” I asked.

“That is what my mother said,” she continued. “If the Milago break free of the Bedoowan, then Denduron will continue to exist in peace. But if the Bedoowan triumph it could be a disaster that will destroy the entire territory.”

That was huge. This struggle wasn’t just about helping these poor miners, it was about saving the whole territory.

“How did she know all this?” I asked. “That’s like predicting the future!”

Loor shrugged and said, “It is part of being a Traveler. Someday we will understand this. But for now we must know that the Travelers’ mission is to go to the territories that are about to reach their turning point and do all we can to help guide events in the right direction. That is why my mother was here; that is why Press is here. That is why you and I are here.”

This was all a little cosmic for me. I thought I was finally getting my mind around how things worked, but I was only scratching the surface.

“Then who is Saint Dane?” I asked.

“Saint Dane is a Traveler like us,” she said. “But he has been working against us. He wants the territories to turn the wrong way and create pandemonium.”

“But…why?”

“When we find that answer, we will know all there is to know,” she said. “Right now, I do not have those answers. Now go to sleep.”

Yeah, right. Sleep. She just revealed that we have the future of Denduron in our hands, not to mention other territories that might be headed for trouble, and I was supposed to nod off to dreamland? And to make things just a little bit more interesting, there was a killer out there trying to stop us. I saw what this Saint Dane dude was capable of. Sweet dreams, Bobby boy! I was on the verge of a major brain hemorrhage and had to try and calm down. I told myself that none of this had anything to do with me. I had one goal and one goal only: to rescue Uncle Press. After that, I was out of here. If Uncle Press wanted to stay and try to change the course of history, that was his choice. But for me, I was catching the next flume home.

This gave me a little comfort and I tried to get some sleep. But before I put my head down I asked, “Is that it? Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”

Loor didn’t even open her eyes. She was nearly asleep. But she managed to say, “That is all I know, Pendragon. Is that not enough?”

Oh, yeah. That was plenty. It was time for lights out. I thought I would have trouble knocking off, but the truth was I was so exhausted, I didn’t even remember my head hitting the fur. That was great, except that it felt like I had just closed my eyes when my watch alarm went off. Two hours felt more like two seconds. Man, did I go out hard! I had one of those weird waking-up moments and didn’t know where I was. It seemed like I was in my bed at home and my first thought was, “I gotta walk Marley.” But in no time, the reality of my situation came hurtling back. I sat up and tried to clear my head.

Loor wasn’t there. After a stretch and a yawn, I went to my pack to do inventory and saw that the clips were undone. Somebody had been going through my pack! I quickly threw it open and did a quick scan. It looked like everything was still there, though it was definitely rummaged through. I was pissed. I clipped the pack shut and went looking for Loor.

I walked back into the now familiar main cavern of the mine. It was business as usual out there. These poor guys never stopped. I briefly wondered what had happened with the latest Transfer ceremony and if they had mined enough glaze to balance with the woman Mallos had chosen. I hoped so, but there was nothing I could do about that. I needed to find Loor and get the rescue show on the road.

I scanned the cavern and something caught my eye. Walking out of a tunnel to my left was Rellin. He walked along quickly while speaking with another one of the miners. The weird thing was, these guys actually looked happy. Rellin slapped the guy on the back like they had just shared some joke and the guy took off running someplace. Now, these guys had nothing to be happy about. The last time I spoke with Rellin he had pretty much condemned his entire tribe to a slow death by refusing to stand up against Kagan. Why was he happy all of a sudden? When he got farther away, I went to take a look down the tunnel they had just come from.

I entered to find that it was another abandoned avenue. The ore-car railroad tracks were old and rotten. This must have been one the first tunnels they dug off the main cavern. I wondered how long ago that was. Years? Decades? Centuries? I also wondered why Rellin and the other miner were down here. I found my answer a few yards in. As with many of the other tunnels, there was a chamber dug out of the rock off to the side. But unlike the cell where I had just slept, this one had a wooden door to it. I took a quick look around to see if I was being watched, then opened the door and went inside.

It was a room about twice the size of the one I had just slept in, and this one was packed full of equipment. At first I thought this was where they kept their mining tools, but on closer inspection I saw the truth. This wasn’t digging equipment, this was an armory loaded with weapons! There were hundreds of spears like the ones Uncle Press had lashed to the side of the sled we rode from the top of the mountain. I was surprised to see their sharp metal tips gleaming in the light. The Milago weren’t allowed to use metal tools except in the mines, but I was sure they weren’t allowed to make weapons, either.

One side of the room was full of these spears. Below them were stacks and stacks of arrows. There must have been thousands. Across from them were the bows for the arrows. Probably a hundred in all. This looked to be a pretty formidable arsenal. Then I saw something that didn’t quite make sense. There were large baskets placed along the back wall. I recognized them as the baskets they used to bring the glaze to the surface. These baskets were full, but not with glaze. I walked over to them and picked up one of the items inside. It was a small, sturdy stick about six inches long. Attached to one end were two thin, leather straps about eighteen inches long. At the other end of the strap, a leather pouch the size of a baseball card was attached. I looked at the strange contraption trying to figure out what it could be. And then I got it. It was a slingshot! An old-fashioned slingshot! These guys didn’t have rubber, so it wasn’t the kind that you could stretch back and snap to propel stones. With this thing you had to hold the wooden stick and kind of fling the stone. There must have been a couple hundred of these babies in the baskets.

As I stood there holding the slingshot, I was struck with a sad thought. Rellin was right. The Milago were not prepared to do battle with Kagan’s knights. These slingshots were pitiful. Sure, we all knew the story about David slaying Goliath, but that was just a story. How did these guys think they could stand a chance against trained, killer knights in armor by using these toys? The spears looked a little more dangerous. The arrows did too, but did the Milago even know how to use them? Suddenly Rellin’s concern seemed very real to me. If they tried to fight the Bedoowan, they’d be slaughtered.

I was just about to drop the slingshot back in its basket, when somebody reached out and grabbed it from my hand!

I turned in surprise to see Figgis. He danced away from me, swinging the slingshot over his head.

“Changed your mind, have you?” he chirped. “Ready to make a trade?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” I said as strongly as I could.

“No? I have many things you may need,” he said with a toothless smile. “How about this?”

He took something from his waist pouch and held it up to me. It was a red Swiss Army knife.

“That’s mine!” I shouted and grabbed it away from him. “You went through my pack! What else did you take?” The mystery of why my pack was worked over had been solved. Figgis didn’t put up a fight for it. He just cackled out a wheezy laugh.

“I know what you really need,” he said slyly. “I know, I know.”

“What do I need?” I asked, losing patience.

“You need tak,” he announced. “I am the one, the only one who can get it for you.”

Tak. There was that word again.

“What is tak?” I asked.

Figgis laughed again and reached into his waist pouch.

“Tak is the answer,” he said reverently. “Tak is the hope.”

Whatever tak was, it couldn’t be very big because it fit in his pouch. He was just about to pull it out…when Rellin walked in.

“Figgis!” he shouted.

Figgis instantly pulled his hand out of the pouch, empty. He looked incredibly guilty.

“You should not have brought him here, old man,” Rellin chastised.

Figgis cowered and ran out of the room like a guilty puppy. Whatever tak was, it was clear he did not want Rellin to know that he was trying to sell me some.

“I am sorry you saw this room,” he said, sounding tired. “I do not want you to think we still have hope of fighting the Bedoowan. These weapons will soon be destroyed.”

Something wasn’t right. Rellin wasn’t telling me the whole truth. I figured since he wasn’t being totally up front with me, then I should be careful about what I said to him. So I didn’t mention the tak thing that Figgis was trying to sell me.

“I guess you gotta do what you gotta do,” was all I could think of saying.

I didn’t like being there, especially since there was something going on that I wasn’t clear on. The best thing for me to do then was leave. So I walked past Rellin and out the door. He didn’t say another word to me.

Once away from there, my thoughts went back to the problem at hand, which was Uncle Press. So I ran back to the cell where my gear was. When I stepped inside that room, I saw that Loor and Alder were there and they were going through my stuff! They had it spread out all over the floor. Wasn’t there any such thing as privacy around here?

“Hey!” I shouted.

Alder jumped back, embarrassed. But Loor kept right on rummaging.

“I am looking for the weapons you brought back,” she said without a hint of apology. “I see no weapons here.” She said this while shaking one of the yellow walkie-talkies you sent.

I grabbed it from her and said, “I didn’t get any weapons. I wouldn’t even know how to use a weapon.”

“Then this is all useless,” she spat out.

“That’s what you think,” I said and handed her back the walkie-talkie. I then found the other walkie-talkie and stepped to the far side of the room. I put it up to my mouth, hit the send button and said, “Boo!”

Both Loor and Alder jumped in surprise. Loor threw the walkie-talkie away like it was hot. Alder caught it and then he threw it too. Man, how excellent was that? It was the exact reaction I was hoping for.

“What is this magic?” asked Alder with wide eyes.

“It isn’t magic,” I said. “You gotta understand, my territory is way more advanced than here. Things like this are pretty common where I come from. It’s not magic, it’s science.”

I picked up the small CD boom box you sent and hit Play. Instantly the first track started to play. It was a head-banger rock song with thrashing guitars that sent Loor and Alder into a panic. They covered their ears and ran to the far side of the room like frightened rabbits. It was awesome. I didn’t want to prolong their agony so I turned the music off quickly. The two sat there staring at me with wide, frightened eyes.

“Still think we need weapons?” I asked with a sly smile.

Then I saw something that totally blew me away. Loor looked to me and, believe it or not, she smiled.

“I like this science,” she said.

“Me too,” added Alder.

So far so good. Their reactions gave me hope that my ideas might work. The trick was to use this stuff the right way and the time to do that was coming fast. I took a quick inventory and saw that you were able to get everything except for the flashlight. You guys are amazing. I was a little surprised to see that none of the stuff was mine though. I didn’t mean for you to go out and get new stuff, or to send your own, Mark. But after I thought about it, I realized that it would have been hard for you to go to my house and get my stuff. My parents would have asked questions and that would have been tricky. So as soon as I can, I’ll repay you for everything.

I gave one of the walkie-talkies to Loor and showed her how to use it. If we got split up, these would be crucial. The rest of the equipment I put back in the pack. Alder then added something that was a little surprising. He gave us each clothes that the Bedoowan wear inside the palace. They were simple pants and jackets with long sleeves. The pants had pockets and were tied with a drawstring. The jackets closed with buttonlike pieces of wood. They were light, almost pastel colors of green and blue. But the thing that really jumped out at me was that they were soft. The material was some kind of cotton and they were really comfortable. Even the leather shoes were comfortable. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that the Bedoowan did their shopping at The Gap. It really struck me how the Milago lived their lives wearing rough, smelly caveman skins while the Bedoowan wore these coolio, comfortable clothes that were like pajamas.

Loor didn’t want to wear them. She wanted Alder to get us armor from the knights. But Alder explained that the knights were not allowed to wear their armor in the palace. If we were seen inside wearing armor, the Bedoowan would instantly take notice and we’d be lost. Wearing the clothes he gave us was our best chance of blending in. Loor didn’t like it, but she couldn’t argue with the logic, so we quickly dressed in the Bedoowan outfits.

Alder also had something else of value-a map of the palace. It was crude and drawn roughly on some parchment paper, but it was good enough. It didn’t show everything, but it had the key areas we needed to worry about: the cell area where Uncle Press was being held and the guard quarters where the knights stayed. Everything seemed in place except for one small detail. Maybe the most important detail of all.

“This is all good,” I said. “But how are we going to get in?”

“There is a way,” Alder said. “The Bedoowan do not know of it and very few of the Milago are aware. My brother showed it to me the day before he died.”

Now there was some new information. Alder had a brother who died. I wanted to know what that was all about, but now was not the time for chitchat.

“Then let’s go,” I said.

I put on the pack and followed the others out of the cell. Rather than turn for the main mine shaft to climb to the surface, Alder led us to one of the ore cars.

“No sense in all of us walking,” said Alder. “Jump in.”

Wherever we were going, it was underground. Loor and I climbed into the ore car and Alder started to push. We headed down the track of yet another tunnel off the main cavern. As we passed some miners, they barely took notice of us. These poor guys were like the living dead.

Alder was a pretty strong guy and he pushed us along with ease. Luckily the tunnel was flat, so maybe it wasn’t all that hard anyway. We traveled for a long time and went pretty deep into the mine. After a while it got totally dark, but it wasn’t like we had to make a turn or anything, so Alder kept on pushing. As the tunnel started to grow brighter, I looked ahead and saw a small spot of light way in the distance. Before I could ask what it was, Alder said, “The tunnel leads to the sea. The end is not far from here. You cannot enter from the outside because the opening is high in the bluffs. It is to bring fresh air into the mines.”

Fresh air, yeah, right. Not fresh enough to get rid of the poisonous gas that was killing all the miners. I then noticed something else weird. Throughout all the tunnels, the walls looked the same. They were made of solid, craggy rock that had been chiseled out by hand. But here it was different. Along one side of the tunnel were round, stone columns. They were wide too, maybe three feet in diameter, and looked to me like big ancient columns from Greek ruins.

“The miners uncovered these by accident many years ago,” Alder said. “They are the foundation of the Bedoowan palace.”

Whoa! That meant we were directly under the fortress!

“The Bedoowan do not know that the Milago have tunneled under their palace,” Alder added. “If they did, they would have closed this tunnel off and killed some miners in punishment.”

There must have been about twenty of these pillars and they were roughly ten yards apart. I saw off to the side, between two of the stone pillars, another tunnel. Actually it was more like a small recess, because just inside it was a ladder. Obviously this ladder led up into the palace. Gulp.

“No one knows why this secret entrance was created,” said Alder as we climbed out of the ore car. “It is older than any of the miners who are alive today.”

I stood at the bottom of the ladder and looked up. I then looked back at the others. It was show time.

“Let’s make sure we’re all on the same page,” I said. “Our plan is to get to the cell where they’re keeping Uncle Press as quietly as possible. If this becomes a fight, we’ll lose.” I said this while looking straight at Loor. She looked away from me. I knew she agreed, but it was killing her.

“Alder,” I said. “Can you get us to the cell area?”

“Yes, I think so,” was his answer.

“You think or you know?” I didn’t want anything left to chance.

“I know,” came his more confident reply.

“Good,” I said.

“But it is not going to be as easy to get back unnoticed,” he added.

“And that is when we fight,” said Loor.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said, and turned for the ladder. Jeez, she had a one-track mind. It wasn’t until I got halfway up the ladder that I realized I didn’t want to be the first one up. What was I thinking? I had no idea what might be waiting for me on top. But it was too late now; we weren’t about to change places while dangling in the air. So I continued to climb and ended up on a dark shelf of stone. The ceiling was also stone and it was so low that I couldn’t stand up straight. The others quickly joined me.

“Now what?” I asked.

Alder knew exactly where to go. He walked a few feet along the stone ledge and then raised his hands. I looked to see that above him was a wooden door. A trapdoor! Alder pushed it up easily, then hoisted himself through it. Loor was next. She easily pulled herself up. It wasn’t as easy for me. Not only was I shorter, but I had the pack on. I stood below the open trapdoor looking up and said, “Uh, excuse me? Little help, please?”

Loor and Alder both reached down, grabbed my outstretched hands and hoisted me up as easily as if I were a child. We were now in another dark room.

“This leads to a storage room off the kitchen,” Alder whispered. I figured that since he was whispering, we were getting close to where we might come across some Bedoowan.

Alder led us across the small room and then felt along one of the walls. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he found it. There was a small notch carved into the stone. Alder stuck his fingers in and pulled. Suddenly, the wall opened up as if it were a door! We quickly went through and Alder closed the secret door behind us. When I looked back, I saw that once it was closed, you could barely see the seam where the door was. The wall was smooth, as if it were made out of plaster. That seemed weird. Everything I had seen so far on Denduron was crude and rough. This wall seemed almost modern.

I looked around to see that we were in a storage room. There were baskets of food and rough, burlap bags full of stuff. There were also stacks and stacks of earthen pots. I was hit with a bunch of new smells. For the last several hours I had been smelling that nasty, sweet smell in the mines. But now I got the definite aroma of cooking food. I had no idea what it was, but it was making my mouth water. All I could think of was how my house smelled at Thanksgiving. My stomach rumbled. So did Loor’s, I’m glad to say.

On the far wall was a wooden door. Alder crept quietly to it and gently eased it open. Instantly, the sounds of banging pots and sizzling food filled the room, like a busy restaurant kitchen. Again my stomach rumbled. I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible because this was torture. Alder waved for us to come and look. Loor and I joined him at the door and peered out. What I saw gave me a total shock.

This was a busy kitchen. Several cooks scurried around carrying large, succulent roast turkeys cooked to a golden brown. Other cooks were peeling vegetables and cutting potatoes on large wooden tables. Others were stirring pots of fragrant soups that bubbled on fiery stoves. But that wasn’t the shocking thing. What surprised me was how modern this kitchen was. Believe me, by our standards it was still pretty ancient looking, but not compared to what I’d seen so far on Denduron. The pots were crudely shaped and hammered out of black metal; the ovens were made of stone with fires burning inside. The chefs slid the turkeys and other roasts in and out of these ovens with long paddles. Their other utensils didn’t exactly look as if they came from the mall. They were crudely made and very simple but still, this setup was light years ahead of anything the Milago had.

I saw a device that looked like a dumbwaiter. The chefs placed platters of sumptuous, steaming food into a hole in the wall, then pulled on a rope that raised the small elevator and its cargo up into the palace. They even had running water! I saw iron sinks with hand pumps that produced clean, fresh water. Unbelievable. The Bedoowan had running water while the Milago had disgusting sewerholes in their crude huts!

It was then that I noticed the kitchen workers. As they went busily about their chores, they had a different look than anyone else I had seen on Denduron. Their features were all very small and delicate, like perfect dolls. Everything about them was small. Their hands, their feet, and even their height. Their eyes were different too. They slanted down, which gave them kind of an Asian feel. They all wore outfits like we had on, but theirs were white. But the thing that jumped out the most about them was their skin. It, too, was pure white. I don’t mean pale-skinned like the Milago, I mean white. Believe it or not, it wasn’t creepy. In some strange way, they were beautiful people. They just happened to look like porcelain dolls.

Alder must have been reading my mind because he whispered, “The workers in the palace are not Bedoowan. They are brought from a place across the ocean called ‘Nova.’”

“Why don’t they use the Milago to do their work?” I asked. “They make them do everything else.”

“Because they do not want the Milago to see how well they live,” answered Alder with a trace of venom. “They are afraid it would cause unrest.”

That was an understatement. If I were a Milago and saw this I’d be downright pissed. Heck, I was getting pissed anyway. And hungry. Those turkeys smelled good.

“Look,” said Loor as she pointed across the kitchen.

Standing in the doorway was a guy who was definitely not from Nova. He was so big that he filled the opening. He wore the same kind of clothes we had on and stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the kitchen. Around his waist was a leather belt from which dangled a nasty-looking club. I could feel Alder tense up.

“It is a Bedoowan knight,” he whispered. “I do not like this. The knights never come to the kitchens. He must be looking for something.”

“You think they know we’re here?” I asked nervously.

“I do not know,” answered Alder. “But if he catches us, we are finished before we even begin.”

The knight stepped into the kitchen and slowly walked around to survey things. The Novans paid no attention to him and he didn’t acknowledge them either. His eyes slowly scanned the room, taking everything in. We were trapped. In a few moments he would certainly enter this closet and find us.

Alder said nervously, “We should go back to the mines. We can wait until he’s gone and then return.”

“There isn’t time,” snapped Loor. “When he enters the door, we will overpower him and throw him into the mine.”

That wasn’t a good idea either. We weren’t about to kill the guy; at least I wasn’t about to. And he’d be sure to wake up and sound some kind of alarm. And who knew what the Novans would do if a knight entered their pantry and never came out? No, beating up on the guy wasn’t the answer. I quickly pulled off my pack and dug into one of the side pouches, looking for a better solution.

“What are you doing?” demanded Loor.

“I’ve got an idea,” I answered. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll do it your way.”

I found what I was looking for and quickly moved back to the door. The knight was only a few yards away. There wasn’t much time. He looked into a large pot of soup and reached in to take a taste, the slob. That’s when I took my shot.

The thing I pulled out was the laser pointer you sent. I clicked it on and aimed the red beam at the pot of soup. From where we were it was easy to see the red laser dot against the black pot. I could only hope that the knight saw it too. He pulled his hand out of the pot and started to suck on his finger to taste the soup, but still he didn’t see the laser. Alder and Loor watched the scene over my shoulder. Of course, they had no idea what this laser thing was, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

I jiggled the beam a little so that the red dot danced on the pot. The knight stood there sucking on his tasty finger. He was just about to reach back into the pot for a double dip…when he saw it. He looked at the jumping dot curiously, without even taking his finger out of his mouth. The idiot. Then I slowly moved the dot off of the pot and let it travel across the stove. The knight, with his finger still in his mouth, followed it. This was like the game I play with Marley and a flashlight. I’d shine the beam on the floor and Marley would jump at it. The poor dog never got the idea that the spot of light wasn’t something she could get her paws on. But that didn’t stop her from trying.

That’s exactly what happened with the knight. I slowly moved the red laser dot over loaves of bread, past bubbling pots, across wooden tables, down along the floor and back up on the wall. The curious knight never took his eye off of it. He followed the magical red light like, well, like a dog following a flashlight beam. What he didn’t realize, is that I was moving him farther and farther away from us.

Once his back was to us, I silently motioned to the others to get moving. They slowly but silently opened the pantry door and crept out into the kitchen. I was right on their tails, while still concentrating on holding the beam steady to keep the dumbfounded knight entertained. We quickly moved across the kitchen to the exit. The Novans didn’t even give us a second look. I was the last one out. My body was already out of the door, but I leaned back in, directing the beam. Then, I turned the laser off and couldn’t resist waiting one last second to see the befuddled knight’s reaction. It was perfect. He stood still for a moment, then started looking around frantically. Sheesh, even Marley wasn’t stupid enough to do that. I wanted to laugh out loud, but I couldn’t stay to enjoy the show. We had to get moving, so I followed the other two into the palace.

We had made it. We were in. The next step was to make our way to the cell where Uncle Press was being kept. Alder was already checking the map. All Loor and I could do was follow him and try to blend in. As it turned out, it wasn’t all that difficult. The palace was busy with Bedoowan people who all more or less looked and dressed like us. Yes, Loor’s skin was a bit darker than most, but not so much that she stood out. If no one recognized us for who we really were, we might just make it. As we made our way through the corridors, what I saw was not only surprising, it made an anger grow inside of me that I never thought possible.

The fortress was nothing like I expected. From the outside it looked like an ancient stone castle like they had in medieval times. I had seen pictures of those castles that still stood in England and the interiors were just as crudely simple as the exteriors. Here I expected to see corridors of stone and tiny cell-like rooms. I expected the floors to be of dirt and the light to come from windows or torches. You know, your basic Robin Hood-style castle. But this is not at all what we found inside the Bedoowan fortress.

The kitchen had been my first hint that all was not going to be what I thought. I’m telling you, Mark and Courtney, this place was beautiful! The walls were smooth and painted with light colors. Near the ceilings were elaborate decorative paintings done right on the walls. Some corridors had paintings of vines and flowers that stretched the whole length of the wall. Other corridors had paintings of people who were probably famous Bedoowans from the past. The ceilings were decorated with colorful chips of glass that were sculpted into beautiful patterns. The floors were all tiled with intricate marble work. And the place was totally clean. Every so often we’d pass one of the Novan servants on his hands and knees scrubbing the floors, or dusting the statues that stood on tables like this was some kind of museum.

Loor and I exchanged glances. We were both thinking the same thing. How could these people live in such elegance at the expense of the Milago people? I saw that Loor’s jaw was clenching. She was angry too.

We heard music coming from a room we were about to pass. As we went by I glanced in to see a small concert going on. Three musicians sat on chairs playing oddball instruments like I had never seen before. They were string instruments, but they were shaped like human forms. It was really bizarro. The music they played was sweet and soothing. Several Bedoowans lounged around listening on big, cushy pillows. Pillows! These people had pillows! And to top it all off, they had Novan servants scrambling around serving them fruit from large platters.

The more of the Bedoowan people I saw, the more I realized that they were a pretty soft bunch…except for the knights, of course. All the others had this kind of baby fat thing going on. The men, the women, even the kids…all looked as if they needed to hit the gym. I guess that’s what happens when you have nothing to do except lie around, eat stuff, and listen to lame music.

And here is the wildest thing. In every corridor along the walls there were thin glass tubes about the diameter of a nickel.

These tubes stretched the whole length of every corridor, and they gave off light! Light! They didn’t have electricity here, but they figured out some way to make artificial light! The bottom line is that these guys were incredibly advanced. By our standards they were still back in the dark ages, but compared to the Milago they were the Jetsons!

I was amazed at first, but my amazement was replaced by anger. The Milago were dying and living in squalor so that these people could get fat and live in such luxury. It was just flat wrong. The more I saw of how these people lived, the more determined I grew to get Uncle Press out of there so he could help the Milago even things out a little.

All the while I was taking in the rich surroundings, Alder had been leading us through the maze of corridors. The kitchen was on the lowest level of the palace. We had climbed one set of wide, circular stairs to the next level. According to the map, this was the level where the prisoners were kept. Finally we came to an area that was a little less fancy than the rest of the fortress. The walls didn’t have paintings on them and the floors and ceilings were bare. I guessed this was where they kept their prisoners, though it was still a lot nicer than where the Milago lived. At a turn in the corridor Alder motioned for us to stop. He took a cautious peek around the corner, then turned back to us.

“There is good news and bad news,” he said. “The cell where Press is being held is being guarded. That means he is still there.”

“Okay,” I said. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that there are six knights keeping guard.”

Uh-oh. I took a peek around the corner to see for myself. Alder was right. There were six guards there. And these weren’t fat and sassy Bedoowans, either. These were solid-looking knights. Each was dressed the same as we were and had the same club-weapons hanging from their belts as the knight in the kitchen. This was bad. There was no way we were getting past those guys. I snuck back to the other two, looked right at Loor and said, “Don’t even think about taking those guys on.”

“We must do something,” countered Loor. “Or this was all for nothing.”

Alder added, “And the equinox is fast approaching.”

“We gotta get the knights away from the door,” I said. “You know how this place works, Alder. What can we do that would make them leave their post?”

Alder thought and then said, “It would take some sort of emergency. Something they had to respond to quickly.”

“Keep going,” I said. “Think.”

Alder looked around. He had no clue. But then his eye caught something near the ceiling. He stared at it for a moment, and smiled. Loor and I both looked up to where his gaze was fixed. What we saw was something that looked like a pipe. It was about six inches in diameter and ran along the wall right by the ceiling.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You have something in your bag,” said Alder. “It has a handle, with a jagged metal blade.”

I knew exactly what he meant. I dug into my pack and pulled out the camp saw. This one was even better than the one I asked you for, Mark. All I wanted was the small saw from my dad’s workshop. But you gave me this coolio thing that folded in half to fit in the pack. Alder opened it up, locked the saw blade and felt the sharpness of the teeth.

“This is for cutting?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “What are you thinking?”

Alder looked back up at the pipe in the ceiling and said, “That carries water throughout the fortress,” he answered. He then looked at us with a devilish smile. It took me a second, but I figured out what his plan was and smiled back.

“You can cut through that thing?” I asked.

“Like soft fruit,” was his confident answer.

Loor still didn’t get it. “Why would you do that?” she asked angrily. She was ticked that we were a few steps ahead of her.

Alder answered, “I will go a few corridors over and cut out a section of the water carrier.”

“It’ll make a mess,” I said, enjoying the thought.

“Yes, it will,” he said, enjoying the idea as much as I was. “And of course the missing piece will not be found anywhere.”

“That’s perfect, dude. Go!” I said. Alder took off running in the opposite direction, away from the prison corridor. Loor and I hid ourselves in a small room around the corner, waiting for the excitement to begin.

“I did not think we would get this far,” she said.

“Neither did I,” I replied.

We waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. I was getting nervous. Loor seemed calm. She had her game face on. Maybe she was used to this prebattle moment, but my stomach was a knot of tension. I couldn’t take it anymore and jumped up.

“I gotta see how he’s doing,” I said.

“Pendragon, no!” she hissed and tried to grab me. But there was no way I could wait there any longer. I moved quickly in the direction that Alder had gone, peeking down the corridors at each junction, expecting to see him. Finally I rounded a corner and there he was. Alder was standing on a table, sawing away at the pipe. He had already sawed all the way through once and water was leaking down on him. There was a pool of water growing on the floor. But the best was yet to come. With a few final pulls on the saw, he sliced through a second time and pulled down a chunk of pipe about two feet long. The second he pulled it down, water starting gushing out like a berserk fire hydrant. Alder got doused and was nearly knocked over by the force. I sure hoped this was fresh water and not sewage. That would have been nasty. Effective, but nasty. Alder got his bearings, caught sight of me and held up the hunk of pipe triumphantly.

Then suddenly, “Ahhhhhh!” A Bedoowan woman had rounded the corner on the far end and saw the waterworks. The alarm had been officially sounded. Alder tucked the pipe away like a football and ran in the opposite direction from me. I was now in the wrong spot and started back to Loor. I had to force myself to walk. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was running away from the scene of the crime…which is exactly what I was doing. It was a good thing too, because no sooner did I slow down, than I saw the team of knights that had been guarding Uncle Press come running toward me. Or should I say, toward the screaming woman. They ran past me as if I wasn’t even there. I really wanted to stay and watch the madness as they tried to stop the water. But that’s not why I was here. It was time to spring Uncle Press.

When I got back to Loor, she was up and peering around the corridor toward the cell. She sensed I was near and turned to face me.

“There is only one guard left,” she said. “It is my turn.” She reached behind her back and from underneath her jacket she pulled a smaller version of her wooden stick weapon. I had no idea she had it. Sneaky. She was all set to charge, but I stopped her.

“No,” I said as strongly as possible. “They don’t know we’re here yet. The longer we can be secret, the better chance we have of getting out.”

“There is no other way, Pendragon,” she said seething. She wanted to fight.

I took a quick glance around the corridor to see the guard standing there. Further down, the corridor ended at a balcony. My guess was that this balcony overlooked the ocean.

I had an idea.

“Can you get to that balcony without him knowing?” I asked.

Loor took a quick look, turned to see that there was a parallel corridor behind us, and said, “Yes.”

“Then go. I’ll send him to you.”

Loor wanted to ask how, but I pushed her to go before she had the chance. I figured if the laser pointer trick worked once, it would work again. So I waited a few minutes to make sure Loor was in position, then took the pointer out of my pocket. When I clicked it on, the beam didn’t work! I clicked it a few more times, I banged it, I took out the battery to clean it, but nothing worked. It was dead and so was I. I didn’t know how much longer the other knights would be occupied with the water geyser, and Loor was waiting for me to do something.

I dug back in my pack, looking for an answer…and I found it. It was the radio-controlled stunt cycle. If the batteries failed on this baby, then we were out of luck. I wasn’t as good with the stunt cycle as with my four-wheel humvee, but I understand why you guys couldn’t go to my house to get it. It was going to be the stunt cycle or nothing. I still remember the day you got this for your birthday, Mark. We both picked up on the radio controls pretty quick and had that cycle taking air off ramps in no time. The plastic helmet on the driver still had the scars from all the times he landed on his head. But I wasn’t planning any tricks with him today. All I wanted him to do was drive straight and smooth. If I could pull that off, then we might have a chance.

So I took the little motorcycle out of my pack, reached around the corner of the corridor, and put him on the floor. My plan was to send it slowly past the guard, but I didn’t want him to see me standing there with the radio controls. I had to do this blind. I took a breath, then pushed the forward stick. The motorcycle hummed to life with that familiar whine. I wasn’t sure how fast it was going, but I couldn’t take the chance of looking too soon. If I sent it off course, I was dead. If I sent it too slowly, the guard might just bend over and pick it up. So I forced myself to count to ten, then I peeked an eye around the corner.

I saw exactly what I wanted to see. The guard was standing at the door, dumbfounded, staring at the little man on the motorcycle. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. I couldn’t tell if he was curious or scared. Probably a little bit of both. I had the motorcycle moving on a perfectly straight line, headed for the far end of the corridor. So far so good. But just as the cycle was about to roll past him, the guard took a step forward and reached down to pick it up.

I quickly hit the throttle and the cycle shot ahead, just barely out of his grasp. Maybe I was better at this than I thought. This seemed to get the guard’s curiosity up even further, and he walked after the cycle. Perfect. This was like playing a fish on a line. I teased him by slowing up. When he would bend down to pick it up, I shot it forward. The whole time he kept moving closer and closer to the balcony on the far end of the corridor where Loor was lying in wait.

With one final push on the throttle, I accelerated the motorcycle forward and it shot out onto the balcony. The guard walked out behind it. He looked down, then hesitated because he expected it to move again. But it didn’t. He stared at it for a second, then suddenly bent over and snatched it up with one quick move. But his victory was short-lived because he never stood up again. Loor jumped out and whacked him with her ministick. With two quick moves she slammed the guy, pivoted, and sent him sailing over the rail into the ocean. Mission accomplished and we hadn’t given ourselves away.

I quickly reached into my pocket and pulled out my walkie-talkie. “Get Alder,” I commanded into the yellow walkie. Loor definitely heard me, because she took off running along the balcony and out of sight. I put my walkie-talkie away and looked to the cell door. There was nothing left between me and Uncle Press but that door. So I quickly grabbed my pack and ran for it.

It was too much to expect that the door would be unlocked, and it wasn’t. There was an old-fashioned keyhole, but of course I had no key. So I dug into my pack to look for something that might help me open the door. All I could come up with was the Swiss Army knife that I had nabbed back from Figgis. I opened up the awl blade and stuck it into the keyhole, figuring I might be able to turn the lock somehow. But it didn’t work. I jammed the awl up and down desperately. If I couldn’t open the lock then maybe I could break it. I think that’s exactly what happened, because with one final twist, the latch moved and the door opened. I was in! Or should I say, Uncle Press was out.

“Uncle Press!” I shouted as I ran in. “It’s me! We gotta get-”

The small cell was empty. Uncle Press wasn’t there! I didn’t understand why it would be guarded if there was no one to guard. The answer came quickly.

“Ahhhhh!” Somebody jumped me from behind. He leaped up on my back, wrapped his legs around my waist, and tried to wrestle me to the ground.

“Let me outta here, ya filthy Bedoowan pig!” he shouted. The guy wasn’t very heavy, or very strong for that matter. All I had to do was spin once and he went flying off. He landed on the hard floor with a loud thud that must have knocked the wind out of him. I looked down and saw that this definitely wasn’t Uncle Press. It was a grimy little guy dressed in Milago skins. His hair and beard were incredibly long, which meant he’d been here for a long time.

“Where’s my uncle?” I shouted.

The strange little man looked up at me with confusion in his eyes. “You…you are not Bedoowan?” he asked.

“No! I’m here to get my uncle. Where is he?”

The guy took a while to answer. I guess he wasn’t used to this much excitement. Join the club, neither was I.

“You must be…Pendragon,” he said.

“Yes! And I’m looking for my uncle. Do you know where he is?”

“They took him,” answered the Milago prisoner. “Early, before the suns came up. He is to be executed today.”

Yeah, I knew that. This guy wasn’t helping much. I didn’t know where to turn. Uncle Press could be anywhere. My mind raced but I didn’t come up with a single answer. I was in total brain lock when my walkie-talkie came to life.

“Pendragon,” came Alder’s voice. “I found Press. He is not in his cell.”

I grabbed my walkie and said to him, “Yeah, I know. Where is he?”

“I am with him now,” he came back. “I will direct you to us. Hurry.”

We were back in the game. I glanced at the Milago prisoner and said, “Now’s your chance. Get out!” Then I turned and ran out of the cell. I quickly ran back toward the mayhem that Alder had caused. The water was still gushing out of the pipes and the corridor was totally flooded. Knights and Novans worked together trying to stop the flow, but they were doing a lousy job. Good. It kept them busy.

Alder then came through the walkie-talkie saying, “Go back to the stairs and climb two more levels.”

Got it. I did what I was told. But when I entered the stairwell I saw something down below that nearly made my heart stop. Coming up fast from the lower level were a dozen knights. And these guys were in full battle gear, carrying spears. I think some kind of alarm must have finally sounded. They knew we were here.

One of them looked up and saw me. “There he is!” shouted the knight.

Yep, they knew we were here. The knights began to run. There was no way I could outrace these guys, so I played my final card. I pulled the CD boom box out of the pack, held it in front of me, cranked the volume and hit “Play.” Instantly the thrashing rock guitar blasted out of the speakers.

It was like I had thrown a bomb at these guys. They froze in their tracks with a look of total shock on each and every face. They had never heard anything like this before and probably never would again. They turned and fled back down the stairs in total panic. Under other circumstances I would have thought this was pretty funny. Right now it just felt like victory. I left the boom box on the stairs, figuring this would be as good as putting up a gate to keep them down there.

“Pendragon, hurry!” came Alder’s voice through the walkie.

As I started to run back up the stairs, I grabbed my walkie and called to him, “I’m almost on the fourth level.”

“Turn left at the top and go to the end of the corridor,” he instructed. “We’re hiding in the last room to the left, before the balcony.”

I tucked the walkie away and ran to where he told me. My mind was working ahead to the next few moves. We had to find Loor and get out. But we couldn’t get back out through the kitchen because I had the knights trapped down there. There had to be another way out. Hopefully Alder had one, because I sure didn’t.

I got to the top of the stairs, made the turn and ran down the corridor. I realized briefly that this corridor was more ornate than any we had seen so far. There were huge sculptures and giant paintings on the walls. It would have been pretty cool, if I weren’t so scared out of my mind. But I had reached my destination. The last room on the left was where Alder and Uncle Press were waiting for me. Hopefully Loor was there too. I ran into the room and skidded to a sudden stop.

It took all of a half second for me to realize that this had gone terribly wrong. I turned to run back out, but two Bedoowan knights jumped in front of me, blocking the door. I was trapped. Slowly I turned back to see Alder standing there holding the walkie-talkie. A knight had a spear to his throat. Alder looked as if he were about to cry.

“I…I am sorry, Pendragon,” he cried. “They were going to kill her.”

Two other knights were holding Loor. One had her arms, the other held a knife to her throat.

“You should have let them,” she spat out in defiance. There were a few other people in the room too. Seeing them is why I knew all was lost. One of them was Saint Dane. Or Mallos, as he calls himself here. He stood with his arms folded and a smug smile on his face. But it was the final person in the room who gave me the biggest surprise of all. This person was seated on a large, ornate throne that was decorated with cut pieces of glaze. I didn’t need to be told who it was. This was the heir to the throne of the Bedoowan. This was the monarch who had their father killed so they could begin their tyrannical rule over the Milago. This was the person who ordered the deaths of Milago as easily as ordering more glaze. This was Kagan’s throne room, and seated on the throne was Kagan.

The thing that surprised me though, is that Kagan was a woman.

“Hello, Pendragon,” said Saint Dane. “Lovely day for an execution, don’t you think?”

The one person missing from the room was Uncle Press.