D. MacHale - Raven Rise

It was up to the tribunal, the leaders of the village of Rayne, to guide the healing process. I’m honored to say that Genj, the chief minister of the Rayne tribunal, asked me to help them. Me. Can you believe it? I guess it’s not so far fetched. Between Alder and Siry and myself, we led the village to victory. To be honest, it was more Alder than myself, but afterward Alder wasn’t around. Neither was Siry.

That took a little bit of explaining. I couldn’t exactly tell the tribunal that I had sent Alder to Quillan to return some dado-killing weapons and Siry to Zadaa to return the dygo digger and then I sealed the flume by exploding the final bit of tak to make sure two more Travelers weren’t trapped on this territory. That wouldn’t have gone over so well. I decided to pretend I didn’t know what happened to them. They became casualties of war. Heroes. Especially Siry, since he was the son of Remudi, a former member of the tribunal. The idea that Siry had grown up as a rebellious outlaw, but turned it all around to help save his home, made him a legend. It’s too bad he couldn’t be around to appreciate it, but it’s better that two more Travelers weren’t trapped. I hope someday he’ll forgive me.

If you remember, the tribunal was made up of Genj, the older guy with the short graying hair, who was so tan he reminded me of a sea captain; Moman, a serious, dark-skinned woman who chose her words carefully and always spoke with wisdom; and Drea, who was full of enthusiasm and joy. She was probably older than my mother, but her light skin, freckles, and long curly red hair made her seem like a kid. These were the people who had the task of putting Rayne back together.

Them…and me. A stranger to the island who tried all that he could not to reveal his true past. These people had enough to deal with. They didn’t need to hear about Travelers and Saint Dane and the battle for Halla. Still, questions were asked. People wanted to know about Rubic City and Lifelight. I more or less played dumb. It was up to the tribunal to educate them about their history. When questions came up about the dados, I planted the idea that the robots were simply another manifestation of how technology had gone awry. Their attack was seen as the last gasp of the old order trying to bring down Veelox. The people of Ibara had so much to grasp that a simple explanation like that was plenty. I don’t think they really wanted to know much more.

The first task at hand was to clean up the village. They had no earth-moving equipment. It had to be done by hand. It was backbreaking. I was put in charge of a group of thirty men and women whose task it was to clear out every last piece of debris. There was a lot. We sifted through tons of splintered bamboo and wood, saving anything that could be reused and piling the rest on the beach. The fallen trees were rough. I had no idea that palm trees were so heavy. I do now. It took several strong backs to move a single tree onto the beach. They weren’t the biggest challenge either.

There were millions of pieces of exploded dado everywhere. We picked up countless arms, hands, legs, heads-everything. It was gruesome at first, but we all quickly realized that these were machines. They may have looked like body parts, but they were actually chunks of metal and plastic. Soon a giant mound of dado pieces grew on the beach.

We also had to deal with the thousands of skimmers that the dados had used to travel from Rubic City. That was an interesting dilemma. Many skimmers were intact. They were great little water vehicles that could have come in really handy. But they were from Cloral. They represented technology from a different territory. They didn’t belong here. Of course, I didn’t mention that to anybody. I’m happy to say that the tribunal made a decision to discard them. It was totally in keeping with the spirit of Ibara. In their minds the skimmers represented technology from a time long past. It was that technology that brought about Veelox’s downfall, and they didn’t want to repeat history. It was all about starting with a clean slate.

The fishing fleet was pressed into service. As the dado and skimmer debris was piled on the beach, the fishermen began the laborious process of piling the junk onto their ships, taking it out beyond the breakwater that enclosed the bay of Rayne, and sinking the junk out at sea.

My job was to organize the workers. It wasn’t hard. The people respected me. They knew how I had helped them. To be honest, I enjoyed it. I liked the simple process of organizing groups of workers, giving out assignments, creating schedules, and also doing a lot of the physical work myself. There was something about it that felt so-I don’t know-healing. I don’t mean to get all cosmic on you, but you might have sensed from my last few journals that my head wasn’t in the greatest place. The battle with Saint Dane changed me. It was all feeling so…futile. It didn’t help that in order to beat him, I had to go against everything that Uncle Press had taught me and mix items between the territories. As I look back on that now, I don’t regret what I did. There was no other way. Still, it was wrong. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. I had sunk to Saint Dane’s level and disrupted that natural order.

It was time to end the battle. I did it by destroying the flume.

Since then, I’ve thought less and less about the troubles of Halla because it was all I could do to concentrate on digging up dado parts and dumping them on the beach. It was simple, mindless work. It was also really satisfying, because it was all about rebuilding. I don’t know how long it took to clean up Rayne because I have no way of judging time here, but I’d guess it took months. That was okay. With each passing day, the beauty of Rayne was restored a little more. I think I know what a sculptor must feel when he’s faced with a giant block of granite that he chips away at gradually to reveal the masterpiece hidden within. That’s what it felt like to clean up Rayne. What began as a devastated war zone was slowly being transformed back into a wonderful tropical beach. It was all done by hand. I can’t begin to tell you how satisfying that felt.

A schedule was made for sleeping inside Tribunal Mountain. Families with small children and the elderly got priority. When every square inch of sleeping space was taken, the rest of the village slept outside in makeshift huts. Or under the stars. I didn’t spend a single night inside the mountain. I preferred to see the sky. Why not? It was warm. The rains were nasty but didn’t come too often. It gave me the chance to look up and wonder at what might be happening in the rest of Halla. It was a great feeling to know that on Ibara, things were good. An entire village was working together to bring back their home. It was a positive thing. It was about building a future. It was exactly what I needed to be part of.

You guys have to know how much I miss you, and my old life. There’s no getting around that. But don’t feel sorry for me, because I’m not alone here. The villagers have adopted me as one of their own. In some ways so has Genj. He has been like a father to me. It’s nice to have an adult around to tell me what to do for a change. I know that sounds strange, but after being the lead Traveler and having everyone look to me for the answers for so long, it is a relief to let somebody else make the decisions.

Four of the surviving Jakills were with me. There was the girl named Twig and the guy I always referred to as “rat boy.” I finally found out his name. It was Krayven. I think I like rat boy better. I wouldn’t tell him that though. He’d been through enough already. So many of the Jakills died in Rubic City. It was a tragedy, especially because all they were doing was looking for the truth. Unfortunately, they found it. I tried my best to convince the survivors that it was their sacrifice that helped save Rayne. I think it helped them deal, but not a lot. They worked beside me tirelessly to help salvage their home. It was like they were doing it for all their fallen friends. In some ways I was too.