D. MacHale - Raven Rise

“There are ten territories,” I said to Alder. “Until today we stopped Saint Dane on six of them. Veelox was a loss, but by winning Ibara, I thought it had become a victory. The only solid loss was Quillan…until now.”

“Now they are all in danger of turning,” Alder replied with no emotion.

“That’s not all. There are still two territories that haven’t been targeted. Second and Third Earth. If territories are defined by their turning point, what’s the deal with those two? If Saint Dane’s big plan was to create a convergence of territories, why did he skip those two?”

“Perhaps he did not need them,” Alder offered.

“Or maybe he’s been waiting until now.”

The thought made my stomach twist. That always seemed to happen when reality paid a visit. Especially if it was bad, which was often. All I knew about events on Second Earth had to do with the change in technology that happened because of Forge. Same with Third Earth. As far as I knew, neither had reached a definite turning point. As we spoke, the truth became obvious. Unfortunately.

“It’s about Earth,” I announced soberly. “It’s always been about Earth.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because everything leads there,” I answered, my mind racing. “Second Earth is where Saint Dane got Mark to invent Forge. First Earth is where the evolution of the dados began. The dados attacked Ibara. We took tak from Denduron to battle the dados, which is why things have gone sour here. Dados are everywhere on Quillan, and they were trying to get to First Earth. They’re already on Third Earth, and they’re headed back to Ibara. I’m the lead Traveler. I’m from Second Earth. It’s like Earth is the hub of a wheel. Everything spreads out from there. All the events that have led to the Convergence began on Earth.”

Alder let that sink in, then asked, “What do you believe that means?”

“I think the turning point of either Second or Third Earth might be the turning point for Halla.”

Alder shook his head. “I do not know, Pendragon. For all that I have seen, the concepts of which you speak are still beyond my grasp.”

“Yeah, I’m not far ahead. I’m reaching here, but I think I know what we should do. We’d be wasting our time by going to any other territories. We’ve got to go to the source. We’ve got to see what Saint Dane is doing on Earth.”

“So do we go to Second Earth?”

“No, Third Earth. From there we can use the computers to look back on everything that has happened on Earth. That’s where we’ll find answers.”

Alder didn’t say anything. I wasn’t surprised. He was a simple guy from a primitive society. The ideas I was throwing out were completely alien to him. They weren’t exactly comfortable to me either, but I had been through a lot more than he had. I hoped he would continue to trust me.

We climbed silently for several minutes. The horse was strong. Once we entered the snowfield, the animal barely slowed as it trudged across the icy expanse. Finally, after rolling our dilemma over in his head for the better part of our trek, Alder spoke.

“I do not know if your theory is correct, Pendragon, but I do agree with one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We should not look back. The Convergence has begun. I fear that if we revisit any of the other territories, we may not have the power to change events. Even if we did, what would prevent Saint Dane from manipulating events yet again to create other turning points?”

He was exactly right. It was the reality that had been eating at my stomach since I discovered that Ibara was the future of Veelox. Saint Dane was in control. More than I had ever imagined. He seemed to have the ability to travel between times at will. We only had the power to chase after him and trust that the flumes would put us in the right time. I didn’t know why that was. I didn’t know who made up the rules, but it was the truth. We could be chasing Saint Dane between territories from now until forever, and he would always have the ability to change the rules.

“If we are to stop him,” Alder continued, “we have to understand exactly what his goals are. It is the very essence of warfare. The only way to defeat an enemy is to understand what he wants. Until we do that, we have no hope of victory. We need to learn why we have been fighting this battle.”

Alder may have been a simple guy. He may have not understood modern concepts or technology, but with those few words he had defined our mission perfectly. We had to stop thinking small. This wasn’t about a single territory, or even about ten individual territories. This was about Halla. This was about flumes. About Travelers. About Saint Dane’s ability to change shape. It was about the Travelers being able to heal one another. It was about our being illusions. About traveling through time. It was about Saint Dane saying that he wanted to prove his superiority. We needed to know who he was proving it to. We had to learn it all.

“You’re right,” I declared. “I think we have the best chance of doing that on Third Earth.”

“Then Third Earth is where we will go.”

We heard a distant rumble. The horse stopped, spooked.

“Thunder?” I asked.

More rumbles followed. I looked back at Alder. His eyes were sharp. His hearing focused.

“No,” he answered somberly. “The battle has begun. The Bedoowan have used tak against their brothers. Denduron is lost.”

What we were listening to was the sounds of war. There was no way we could change things for the better on Denduron. Those distant explosions proved it.

“Are we that close to the Lowsee village?” I asked.

“No. It is well beyond the far side of this mountain. That will tell you how devastating the tak is. Right now, people are dying.”

“So is Denduron.”

We listened to the explosions. The power was incredible. The snow beneath us shook. More explosions echoed over the mountains. The snow shook again. And again. Something was wrong. The sound of the explosions and the shaking beneath us weren’t coinciding. There was something else happening.

“Earthquake?” I asked, jittery.

Alder didn’t know. We heard more explosions.

We weren’t the only ones who heard them.

The snow continued to rumble and shift. I realized the real reason for all the shaking a split second before it all came apart. Thirty yards in front of us, the snow started to boil. I saw the surface crack and crumble. A few yards beyond that, more snow shifted. Another area began to roil. It wasn’t the whole surface of the snowfield; it was only in specific areas. Areas where things were buried. Things that were awakened by the sound of exploding tak. An area of snow erupted like an ice-filled volcano, sending sparkling shards into the air. Through the cloud of snow that blew into the sky, I saw the cause.

The quigs were awake.

Allaround us the vicious bears that had been hibernating under the snow were coming to life. We were nowhere near the gate to the flume. There was nothing around us for protection. We were in the middle of a pack of quigs, who weren’t happy about having been rudely awakened from their slumber.

As the first quig rose up out of the snow, our horse panicked and reared.

“Whoa, whoa!” I shouted, as if that would do any good. The poor horse was terrified. I didn’t blame him. All around us, quigs erupted from below. It was all I could do to stay on the horse and control it. Control? Not exactly. It was more like desperately holding on to the reins to keep from falling off. Alder had nothing to hold on to but me. The horse brought its front legs back down and turned to run, only to be faced by another quig that had appeared behind us. I pulled with every bit of strength I had, just to keep the horse from bolting.