The Pilgrims of Rayne

IBARA

The two of us sailed side by side through the crystal tunnel across eternity. There wasn’t time to bring Siry along slowly and introduce him to the strange wonders of the flume. He was going to have to pick it up as we went along. I suppose I should have worried about how he’d react, but to be honest, that’s not where my head was. My focus was on Saint Dane and stopping his dado attack. Siry was along for the ride, and to help where he could. If he slowed me down, I would send him back to Ibara in a heartbeat.

Beyond the crystal walls were more ethereal images from the territories, floating in space. Every time I traveled, there were more. I could barely make out the stars, that’s how dense the images had become. Faces tumbled into animals that gave way to marching armies. It was like watching a multilayered movie, where everything was vaguely transparent. It was an ominous sight. A word came to mind that best described it. “Chaos.” Or maybe there was another word. “Convergence.” Seeing the images swirl around gave me more reason to believe I was doing the right thing. The chaos had to end before it consumed everything.

Siry watched wide-eyed. I didn’t know where to begin to explain what it all meant.

“I know” was all I said. “You’re going to see some incredible sights and have a thousand questions. I’ll answer them all, but not now. You’re going to have to trust me.”

Siry nodded with his mouth hanging open in awe. If there was anything good that came of this experience, it proved to Siry once and for all that the Travelers were real.

He only asked one question: “My father knew of all this?”

“He was a Traveler,” I answered. “This is what we do.”

I was afraid Siry might panic. Having your world turned inside out wasn’t an easy thing to deal with. Everything he’d seen up to this point may have been incredible, but it was explainable. This… wasn’t.

“I’m okay, Pendragon,” he assured me, as if reading my mind. “Just try to give me a little warning before showing me anything else that might make me go insane, all right?”

I almost chuckled. “Okay. I’ll start now. We’re traveling back in time to another territory. We’re going to Veelox before the final fall.”

Siry thought a moment, then said, “I guess I can handle that.”

“Good. Can you handle meeting Aja Killian?”

Siry shot me an incredulous look. I wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cry.

“You’re not going to go insane on me, are you?” I asked.

He didn’t have time to answer, because the musical notes that always accompanied a flume trip became louder and more frequent, signaling our arrival on Veelox. We landed. The light of the flume drew back. The music drifted away. We were in pitch dark.

“Where are we?” Siry asked.

“In the past. Your past.”

A thin sliver of light marked the door leading out of the gate. I pushed it open, and light from the tunnel beyond flooded the rocky cave that held the flume. I stepped out, followed by Siry, and pushed the gray door shut behind us.

“That star marks the gate to the flume/’ I said, pointing to the star that was etched into the gray wall. I took his hand and held it up. The stone in his Traveler ring was sparkling. I held my hand next to it, showing that my ring glowed as well. “This helps too. The closer you get to a gate, the brighter your ring will sparkle.”

“Magic,” he gasped.

“I wish it were that easy.”

We were in familiar surroundings. For me, anyway. It was a subway tunnel with broken tracks. No trains would be moving through. We started walking.

“How do you know we’re in the right time?” Siry asked.

“The flume always puts the Travelers where they need to be, when they need to be there. I don’t know if it reads our minds, or if somebody out there is controlling it all like some puppet master. All I know is that, unless I’m totally wrong, we will be on Veelox in the time of Aja Killian.”

We reached the metal ladder that led up and out of the tunnel and started to climb. Every time I saw something familiar, it gave me confidence that the flume had done its job. When I reached the top of the ladder, I pushed on the manhole cover. I had a brief thought that if we hadn’t landed in the right time, the collapsed skyscraper might already be covering the street. The cover pushed up easily. A few seconds later I was standing on a familiar city street.

Siry climbed up to join me and asked, “Do you know where we are?”

“Yeah. So do you. Rubic City.”

Siry looked around in wonder. “No, it isn’t. There are trees and signs, and it looks like people actually live here.” “They do. Or they did. This is the past, remember?” “Where are they?” he asked.

I knew the answer to that, unfortunately. It was time to introduce Siry to Lifelight. We jogged through the empty streets, heading for the pyramid. This was a city that was only beginning its slow spiral into decay. Paper blew along the sidewalks, shops were full of merchandise, and glass windows were still intact. There were smells, too. It made the place feel alive. It would be a long time before the city died completely.

Siry stopped suddenly when he got his first view of the Lifelight pyramid.

“It really is Rubic City,” he said softly.

The skin of the pyramid was once again shiny and black. We started jogging toward the entrance. As we got closer, we started seeing people. A few phaders and vedders were hanging around outside, getting a rare glimpse of daylight.

Siry froze in fear.

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “They’re not Flighters.”

The Lifelight workers gave us strange looks as we entered the pyramid. Once inside, we moved quickly along the corridor with the purple lights that killed any stray bacteria entering the pyramid. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise up. It was a comforting feeling. It meant that Lifelight was still functioning. I didn’t know for sure exactly when the flume had put us, but it was definitely at a time before the pyramid had failed. Further proof came when we entered the core. Every phader station was operational. All the Lifelight screens were lit. Multiple thousands of jumps were under way. The individual fantasies of every jumper played out on the screens before us. I stole a quick glance at Siry to see his reaction. I think his mind had locked. “You okay?” I asked.

“I thought you were going to warn me before showing me something that would make me insane.” I heard a familiar, bold voice. “Tell me it’s time,” the voice said.

Aja Killian stood in the center of the core corridor, with her hands on her hips and her feet apart, wearing the dark blue coveralls of a phader. She looked every bit as confident as I remembered. Her blond hair was pulled back in a perfect pony tail. She wore the same yellow-tinted, wire-rimmed glasses. The only difference was her eyes. They were as blue and alive as I remembered, but they looked tired. Aja was older, but not just in years.

“Time for what?” I asked.

Aja walked right up to me. “You promised me another shot at that bastard Saint Dane. I want to know if it’s time. Nice clothes, by the way,” she added sarcastically, checking me out.

“Good to see you, too, Aja.”

Aja glanced at Siry. “Who’s that?”

Siry didn’t move. He must have been in shock. After all, he was in the presence of a legend.

“His name is Siry. He’s a Traveler.” “From where?” Aja asked, sizing him up. “From Ibara.”

Aja shot me a stunned look. “Did you say-” “Yeah. Ibara.”

For once the brilliant Aja Killian was speechless.

“There’s another turning point on Veelox, Aja,” I said. “It’s over three hundred years from now, and it’s on Ibara. Ever hear of it?”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that answer,” she said firmly.

“Here’s another answer for you. It’s time. You’ve got your second chance at Saint Dane.”

A few hours later the three of us sat in the central core control room of Lifelight. This was Aja’s domain. It was the master control area for this particular Lifelight pyramid. Aja had given us a delicious (not) helping of rainbow gloid, the gelatin-like food that was the staple on Veelox. It was exactly as I’d remembered it. Fruity, unfulfilling, but energizing. Siry was reluctant to try it until Aja looked him square in the eye and ordered, “Eat!”

He ate it all like a trained puppy. It was good to be a legend.

I filled Aja in on most of what had happened since I left Veelox. I didn’t go into great detail, but told her enough so she understood that the thing Saint Dane called the Convergence was about to happen, and the launching point was going to be Ibara.

I went into a lot more detail describing Ibara. Siry helped me there. He was getting more comfortable with Aja and actually seemed to enjoy sharing tales of his home. It was a home that Aja planned. He wanted her to know how she was (would be) considered a hero for having conceived of it.

Aja liked that.

The flume had brought us back to a time when Aja’s plans for Ibara were already formed. She knew that it was only a matter of time before Lifelight would fail. People had already started dying. She hadn’t yet chosen the forty colonists, but had selected Ibara as their destination. It was fun telling her how the plan was going to work beautifully. Ibara became an idyllic, flourishing society that didn’t rely on technology. The population was renewed. Veelox was on the verge of rebirth.

It wasn’t so much fun telling her of the Flighters, and the destruction of the pilgrim ships, and ultimately about the dados that were going to swarm the island. Her plan worked… up to a point.

“It’s the turning point for Ibara,” I concluded. “Saint Dane convinced the Flighters to attack and destroy the pilgrims. The dado invasion won’t be far behind. That’s why we’re here.”

Aja paced. She didn’t waste time fretting over past problems. She was already looking for solutions.

“It’s simple,” she declared with confidence. “I’ll change the equation. If the people are going to follow my plan, I’ll make a better plan. I’ll get them to build stronger ships. Or arm them with weapons. Or better, the pilgrimage should begin earlier.” She was getting excited. “This is incredible, Pendragon,” she said, her eyes wild with enthusiasm. “I know what’s going to happen, so I can counter it from the past! I can control the future. “

“No, you can’t,” I said flatly.

“Why not?” she argued. “We’ve got the tools; we should use them.”

“It won’t make a difference. That’s the whole point. Halla has become fluid. If we change one thing today, Saint Dane will counter by changing something else tomorrow. He has the overall vision of Halla. It’s how he found all the turning points. No matter what we do now, Saint Dane will counter it. If you tell the people to build stronger ships, the Flighters will get stronger weapons. If the pilgrimage begins earlier, the Flighter attack will come earlier. I tried to get Courtney to stop Mark from inventing the dados. It didn’t work. Uncle Press always told me things should play out the way they were meant to. That’s exactly what Saint Dane is trying to disrupt. He’s making sure nothing happens the way it’s supposed to, by tearing apart the natural order. Convergence. Chaos. When Halla implodes, he’ll rebuild it the way he sees fit.”

“So then, why did you come here?” Aja asked.

“I’m going to fight him, Aja.” I pointed to Siry and said, “We’re going to fight him with the people of Ibara. His rules. His war. He said the destruction of Ibara will kick off the Convergence. Fine. That means we have to stop it. Not by skirting it or trying to do something clever by changing history, but by meeting him dead on and beating him with his own tactics.”

Aja kept her eyes on me. I was ready for her to argue. “You’re not the same person, Pendragon.” “I’ve grown up.”

“That’s not it,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m sensing, I don’t know, anger. Bitterness. Are you letting your emotions cloud your judgment?”

“It’s hard not to be angry after seeing what I’ve seen,” I answered honestly.

“I get that,” she said. “You know how badly I want to beat Saint Dane. But I haven’t lost my ability to operate logically.”

“I am being logical!” I snapped.

“Then I’ll ask you again, why are you here?”

“I need to know everything about Ibara. It was once a military base. I need weapon information. And maps. Anything you have. If we’re going to defend the place, I want every advantage there is.”

Aja nodded thoughtfully. “There are old plans of the island that describe miles of underground tunnels and give a complete listing of its defenses.”

“Perfect!” I shouted. Things were looking up.

“Is that all?”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to say what I needed to say. I counted on the fact that she was going to be as logical and unemotional as always, because what I had to tell her was going to hurt.

“I want you to come back with us. We need you. The people of Ibara need you. This is the last stand, Aja. You should be there. It’s your second shot at Saint Dane.”

I watched her, hoping she would give me a simple, “Sure!” She looked up at the master control panel of Lifelight, turning the idea over in her head.

“I can’t,” she finally declared. “What would we tell the people? That I’m a ghost from the past? A time traveler? Talk about mixing territories!”

“We won’t tell them who you are,” I countered. “We’ll say we found you in the ruins of Ibara. Yeah, that’s it! You’ll be a Flighter who changed her ways and wants to helps us beat the dados.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Aja scoffed.

“I know why he wants you to come,” Siry said softly.

“No, you don’t,” I barked at him.

“Talk to me, Siry,” Aja said.

Aja was right. As usual. The plan didn’t make sense. I should have known she would see through my flawed thinking. We had to tell her the whole truth. Siry gave me a sheepish look. I shrugged, giving him the okay to go on.

“You’re going to be assassinated, Aja,” Siry said. “Just before the forty colonists leave for Ibara, you’re going to be killed. You’ll never set foot on Ibara. I’m sorry.”

Aja stared at the wall. I had no idea what was going through her head. How could I? Imagine opening a fortune cookie that said: “You’re going to die soon. Enjoy your egg rolls.” Talk about a buzz killer. Nobody said anything for a long time. Aja needed to input this information and calculate her choices. That’s the way she worked.

Finally Aja looked at me and spoke softly and clearly. “You’re right, Pendragon. Saint Dane is all about disrupting the natural order of Halla. I agree that trying to change history would be a mistake. At best it would be futile, at worst a disaster. For that reason I’m having second thoughts about giving you the maps of Ibara. But I can justify it, because the maps exist in the past of Ibara. Who knows? Maybe the tribunal already has them. So I’ll give them to you, but I won’t go with you. If I’m supposed to die, I should die. Who knows what I’d mess up if I didn’t play out history the way it was meant to be.”

I fought back tears. I couldn’t imagine life without Aja Killian.

“We all have to die, Pendragon,” she added. “I want you to go back there and rally those people, the way I know you can, and destroy him. Destroy his robots. Destroy his evil. If you do that, this war might finally be over.”

We spent the night in the home of Evangeline, Aja’s acolyte. We needed the rest, and there was no rush to get back. I explained to Siry that it wouldn’t matter how long we were gone, the flume would put us back on Ibara when we needed to be there. That’s why I told Genj and Telleo that we would be gone for only a few hours. He understood, sort of. Heck, I didn’t understand myself. But I believed.

When we woke up the next morning, Aja was gone. She’d left a note saying how she didn’t want to say good-bye. The next time she heard from us, she wanted it to be all about the great victory on Ibara. In the letter she added a note of caution: “You have fought this war the right way, Pendragon. We all have. We may not always have had success, but we’ve fought for the right. It is our duty to insure that Halla continues to exist in peace, but we must do it in a way that was meant to be. I know you will make the right decisions. Good luck.”

The note was attached to a thick role of paper. The maps of Ibara.

The last line of her note stuck with me. She felt strongly about beating Saint Dane, but also in sticking with our principles and the principles of Halla. I trusted her judgment, but with all due respect, she hadn’t been through what I had. I knew that if we wanted to beat Saint Dane, we had to find a new way. Any way. In other words, we had to stop playing fair.

Siry and I went back to the flume feeling rested and full. It still seemed like the calm before the storm, but there was no pressure, because the storm wouldn’t arrive until we returned to Ibara. We found the manhole, climbed down, and found the star. In no time we entered the gate and stood inside the mouth of the flume, ready to go.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Like I was thrown into the middle of a game that everybody’s been playing for a long time, and I don’t even know the rules.”

I laughed. “That sounds about right.”

I held the maps. Siry touched them reverently and asked, “Do you really think there’s enough information here to help us stop the dados?”

I glanced into the flume, then back to Siry, debating about how to answer. I decided to tell the truth. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“But it’s okay, I never thought the maps would be enough.”

“So then why did we come to get them?” “We’re just getting started,” I said, and looked into the flume.

Siry stared at me. “We’re not going back to Ibara, are we.”

“Not yet.” I looked into the flume and called out, “Zadaal”

(CONTINUED)