The Rivers of Zadaa

JOURNAL #22
(CONTINUED)
ZADAA

Loorpowered down the dygo and cracked open the heavy hatch. The first thing I noticed was the sound. We had been in closed tunnels for the last couple of hours, where the echoes from our footsteps bounced back at us. Here on the far side of the wall I heard something that didn’t make sense at first because we were underground. But there was no mistaking it. I heard wind. Wherever we were, itsoundedbigger. Loor crawled out of the sphere. I followed and took a quick look back at the wall to see we had cut a perfectly round hole.

“Wow,” was all I could say. “That is just flat awesome.”

“Pendragon, look,” Loor said.

I glanced over to see she was staring up at a building. Yes, a building. It looked like one of those pueblo structures that you see built into the cliffs of the Southwest on Second Earth. The structure must have been four stories high, with window openings and doorways and even balconies. All I could do was stare and think how impossible it was that we were underground. Several yards across from it was a similar building that was also built into the rock. The two stood together, like sentries guarding an entrance. Beyond them the rocky walls formed a slot canyon that wound its way into parts unknown. Ifelt sure this was the entrance to Kidik. The two of us stood there for a moment, knowing that we were about to face a whole new danger.

“You said that the Rokador had no chance of defeating the Batu, unless they were cunning,”Isaid.

“Idid.”

“The tunnels were abandoned,”Icontinued. “The Rokador have retreated, but they have to be somewhere. Is it possible that the entire Rokador tribe is in Kidik, preparing for the attack?”

Loor glanced at the two buildings that guarded the entrance to the city. She had a dark look on her face. She didn’t have to answer. I knew she was thinking the same thing. The two of us might be stepping into a city that was preparing for war…against us. Loor pulled her stave from her harness. I did the same.

“Be careful,” Loor said.

“Is that possible?” I asked.

Loor ran quickly to the building on our left. She didn’t go in, but crept along the wall, headed toward the city. Smart move. We needed to be cautious. Walking down the center of the street might have been suicide. I hugged the wall behind her. I remembered back to what I learned during those long nights in the training compound when I got whacked around in the dark. My senses were on alert, tuned for anything that might foreshadow an attack. If a steel arrow came flying at us, I wanted to hear it hiss through the air. If a team of Tiggen guards charged, I wanted to smell their sweat. I had no clue if I was capable of that, but I had to try.

We quietly crept past the two buildings and along the rocky wall. The narrow canyon bent to the left. Loor slid ahead boldly, with me right behind. As we moved, I heard the same, strange sound that I heard when we first broke through the wall. It sounded like wind. It was spooky, actually, because it was more like a deep moan. I listened to this sound, trying to place it. It was then that I realized something was missing. There should have been another sound, but there wasn’t. We should have heard the sounds of a city, with people. We didn’t. All I could hear was that distant, spooky moan. I was beginning to think that Kidik was still a long way off, until we turned the corner.

I caught my breath. We had arrived.

We stood at the edge of an incredible city that was carved completely out of rock. The slot canyon we had come through opened up into an enormous cavern where the sides stretched high above us on either side. There was no sky, only a vast ceiling of rock. There were thousands of structures built on top of one another. The city didn’t cover all that much ground, but the buildings rose up on either side of us, all connected by roads and pathways that snaked up and around on hundreds of levels. None of the individual buildings was very big. The tallest of them was maybe four stories. But there were thousands of them, all seemingly piled on top of one another and crammed in together. Like the two buildings we had first seen, they reminded me of Southwest pueblos. There were windows, but no glass panes. The doorways were open as well. I saw carved staircases leading up from the road on both sides and into the honeycomb of buildings. The effect was so vast, so complex, so impossible, I forgot for a second that we were stepping into enemy territory.

“It is empty,” Loor declared.

I was so awed by the spectacle, it hadn’t hit me. She was right. Like the tunnels we had come through, there wasn’t a single, solitary Rokador to be seen. Anywhere.

“This is impossible,” I said. “They can’t abandon an entire city!”

“What do your eyes tell you?” Loor asked. I glanced around, listened, and said, “Okay, maybe they can.”

We continued to walk, still cautious. There were about eight million places for somebody to be hiding, waiting for the first arrival of the Batu. We stayed close to the walls on one side of the street, just in case.

“Where is everybody?” I asked. “Obviously they’re not all here getting ready to ambush the Batu.”

“I believe when we find that answer, we will have the truth that Bokka spoke of,” Loor said.

“He said that the truth was on the far side of the city, to the center,” I said.

“He also said that it was a nightmare,” Loor added.

“Yeah, swell,” I said. “Let’s keep moving. Can’t wait to see the nightmare.”

As we walked I couldn’t help but wonder, again, what the Rokador were all about. They were definitely advanced technologically. Still, they not only chose to live underground, they carved primitive buildings out of stone that were barely more advanced than caves. It was a weird balance. They had no glass in their windows, yet they had streetlights on every level of the city. They built incredible machines that could drill through rock, but you had to climb old fashioned stairs to get from one level to the next. They figured out how to generate power, but didn’t use it to create any kind of modern convenience beyond what was absolutely necessary. It seemed like they could have so much more, but chose not to. What a weird, freakin’ bunch.

I tried to put myself in Saint Dane’s place. What could I tempt these people with? What could I tell them they would gain by fighting the Batu? Bokka said their population was growing and they were running out of space. You sure couldn’t prove that by what we had seen on our journey, because we saw nobody. No-body. The more I learned about the Rokador, the more of a mystery they became. Nothing was more mysterious than this complex, deserted city.

Loor and I kept sharp, watching everything, expecting an attack. The only sound we heard besides our own footsteps was the haunting, groaning sound that grew louder as we moved through the city. It was beginning to feel as if the place were haunted. The moaning sound grew louder by the second. We were approaching what looked like a dead end. We had been walking for ten minutes, so I’d say the city was about a half mile across. Looking ahead, all I saw was rock. It seemed as if the main street of Kidik was going to end at a blank wall that stretched up to the vast ceiling above.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The roadway rose slightly. When we reached the crest of the hill and looked down the other side, we saw that there was definitely a wall at the end of the street. Now that we were looking down on it, we could see that at the base there was an entrance to a wide tunnel. As we got closer we saw this opening was at the top of a flight of stone stairs that led down. Both the opening and the stairs were wide-I’d say about fifty yards across. The moaning sound was pretty loud now. Whatever was making it was at the bottom of those stairs.

“We’ve got to keep going,” I said.

We started down. The stairs were steep and long. Looking to either side, I saw that every thirty feet or so a flat ramp was carved into the stairs that was about ten feet wide. I figured this is where the dygos went up and down so they wouldn’t chew up the stairs.

“What is that sound?” I asked. “It’s making me crazy.”

Loor shrugged. She didn’t have any more of a clue than I did. As we descended the steps it got cooler. Soon we were hit with a stiff breeze. Whatever was making this breeze had to be causing the howl, too. But what was it?

Loor saw it first. She was several steps farther down than I was, nearing the bottom of the stairs. The ceiling of the tunnel was dropping down on the same angle as the stairs, preventing us from seeing directly ahead until we were almost at the bottom. When Loor dropped below the ceiling, she was able to see what lay ahead. It was a large, empty cavern with a stone floor. Nothing all that out of the ordinary, at least for the underground world of the Rokador, anyway. She stepped down onto the stone floor, and looked to her right. What happened then was something that I never thought possible. On an adventure full of surprises, this one ranked right up there near the top.

Loor froze…and dropped her stave.

Uh-oh. Whatever she was looking at had shocked her so badly that she dropped her weapon. Let me write that again. Loor was so shocked, she dropped her weapon. Loor. I don’t have to tell you how wrong that was. I hesitated a second. If something out there was so incredible that it could make Loor drop her weapon in shock, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see it. Of course, I had to. I grasped my stave tighter, in case I had the same reaction. Slowly I continued down. To be honest, I kind of squinted. I could still see, but somehow squinting made it easier to take, like I was in control. I used to do that in horror movies. I wouldn’t fully close my eyes, I’d just squint. That way, if something icky jumped out, I could close them quick.

But no amount of squinting helped prepare me for what I saw when I hit the bottom of the stairs and turned to my right. I discovered what was making the moaning sound. It was wind. The mystery was solved, though a much bigger mystery had taken its place. What we saw was impossible, yet real-as real as the desert sand on the surface, miles above. Stretched out before us, as far as could be seen, was an ocean. An honest-to-god, underground ocean. The moaning wind slashed across the surface, kicking up whitecaps. I could feel moist air hitting me in the face. The sight was so impossible and so wrong, I’m surprised I didn’t drop my weapon too.

I walked to Loor, and without taking my eyes off the water, I said, “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

Loor couldn’t speak. It was like her brain wouldn’t accept it. But it was no illusion. A forty-yard-span of stone floor stretched between us and the water. I left the cavern at the base of the stairs, passed under an archway, and walked across the deck to the edge of the water. There was something I had to know. I got down on my belly, and scooped up a handful of water. Touching it to my lips, I instantly realized that somebody somewhere had some serious questions to answer. This was freshwater. It was drinkable. I had no idea how deep it was, but the surface was vast. I had no doubt that there was enough water here to feed the rivers of Zadaa and end the drought.

Loor walked up behind me. “Someone will pay for this,” she said while staring out over the water. “My people are starving and there is enough water here to…” She didn’t finish the sentence, that’s how ticked she was. She gazed from right to left and said, “There.” She was pointing to the right of us, where I saw that tied to the stone deck, bobbing in the water, was a small boat.

“Bokka said a vehicle was waiting to take us to the center,” I said. “Do you think-“

Loor’s answer was to walk quickly toward the boat. I followed. Without another word we boarded. It was about the size of a rowboat and made out of the same silver steel as the dygo. There was nothing sleek or modern about it, though. It looked to have been hammered out of sheet metal into a shape that was kind of like a Boston whaler with two bows. One end had a tiller, which made it the stern. Loor went right to work. There was a small control panel in the stern that reminded me of the instrument panel in the dygo. Loor toggled a switch, and I heard an engine start up with a low growl.

“Can you handle this thing?” I asked.

With one quick move she tossed the line back on the deck and gunned the engine. That meant yes. I sat down in the bow quickly, and not a second too soon. If I had been standing, I would have toppled. Loor kicked the throttle open and in no time we were bouncing across the waves. This wasn’t a pleasant skimmer ride, like on Cloral. This was more like being in a small boat on the choppy Long Island Sound at home. It was dark, too. Once we got away from Kidik, there were no lights to guide our way. Of course, there was no moon or stars above either. Only the rock ceiling. I glanced back to Kidik and saw a giant wall of stone. At the base was the opening that led to the cavern at the bottom of the stairs we had just come through. The platform and cavern were lit up, but this light wasn’t anywhere near powerful enough to help us see farther out over the dark ocean. I tried to memorize where this opening was, since we would have to come back this way. At least I hoped we’d be coming back.

Loor was focused. Her jaw set. She had been hit with a lot over the past few hours. I had no idea how close to the edge she was. I figured the best thing to do was try and diffuse her anger.

“Yeah, it sucks,” I said. “Bokka is dead, and it looks like the Rokador have been hoarding water from the Batu. But we gotta stay focused. There’s more to come, I guarantee it. I need to know you’re with me.”

That was pretty harsh. Basically I’d just told Loor I was worried that she’d let her emotions take over to the point where she’d do something dumb. Spader had done that, more than once, and it cost us. I couldn’t allow Loor to do the same thing.

“This has become personal, Pendragon,” Loor said. “My best friend is dead, and my people are starving. If this is the work of Saint Dane, he will suffer for it.”

I felt the anger in her voice. We had reached a crossroads. I couldn’t blow this. It was my job.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost friends and family,” I said just as firmly. “Yours isn’t the only territory in trouble. We’ve come too far to let Saint Dane goad us into doing something stupid. We’ve all made mistakes. Big ones, and we’ve paid for them. I will not let you do it too. Not here. Take a breath and get your head back in the game!”

My eyes stayed locked on hers. I wasn’t about to blink. Loor was supremely confident in everything she did. That was her. But she wasn’t stupid. She gave me a slight nod. My words had struck home. I could feel the tension melt. “Do not worry, Pendragon. I have not lost sight.” Her voice was softer. I still felt the intensity, but she was now in control. She was with me.

“Good,” I said. “Now, where the heck are we going?”

Loor pointed ahead. I turned around and saw a single light glowing in the distance.

“That’s as good a choice as any,” I said.

Loor kept us headed for the light. I’d say we traveled for about half an hour. That’s how big this underwater ocean was. As we got closer, we could see that it wasn’t a single light at all-it was several. They were torches. Six of them. The flickering light illuminated enough of the surroundings that I could see we were approaching a shore. As we drew even closer, I saw that one torch wasn’t lit.

“Six flaming torches surrounding one dark torch,” I said. “I wonder if that’s some kind of symbol?”

“The dark one is not a torch,” Loor observed.

I squinted to try and see better, and sure enough, standing at the center of the ring of torches was a person. It was kind of creepy. The guy stood there, alone, stock-still, with the torches burning around him. Was it some kind of Rokador ceremony? He didn’t seem to be dressed in the classic white robes of a Rokador. He was wearing all black.

“Should I land the boat near him?” Loor asked.

“I guess,” I said. “I don’t think it would be a trap because nobody knows we’re-uh-oh.”

My mouth went dry.

“What?” Loor asked.

I wanted to be sure I was right, so I didn’t answer right away. As we drew closer and I saw the truth, I still couldn’t answer because my brain wouldn’t kick my tongue into gear.

“Pendragon?” Loor asked. “Could it be?”

I didn’t have to answer. Loor knew. Standing in the sand, surrounded by torches, was a tall man wearing a dark suit. He was completely bald. We were still too far away to see the angry red veins that slashed across his head from front to back, like bloody lightning bolts. But even from this distance, I could see his eyes. His blue-white eyes. They caught the light from the flames, dancing like he was possessed by some evil, inner glow. Because he was. As we drew closer to shore, he actually smiled and lifted his hand to give us a slight wave.

We were being welcomed… by Saint Dane.