D. MacHale - The Pilgrims of Rayne

Fun. He was about to overrun Halla with a mechanized army. Talk about mixing the territories! Everything else had been prelude. With an army like this, he could wreak havoc on Ibara. And Second Earth. And Third Earth. And every other territory that wouldn’t know how to deal with such an invincible foe.

“As I said, it’s too late, Pendragon,” he chuckled. “For what?” I asked, not really caring to know.

“For you to join me,” he said with mock sympathy. “It wouldn’t be the same, now that you know you’ve been beaten. I wanted you when you thought you still had a chance. Now, well, it would be embarrassing for you to beg. So don’t. Unless you feel the need.”

“What do we do?” Siry whispered.

“Nothing. It’s over.”

“It’s not,” he hissed in anger.

All I wanted was to crawl into one of the Lifelight tubes and make it my home for eternity. Siry grabbed me roughly by the arm.

“Ahhh!” Saint Dane exclaimed with a laugh. “This delusional young Traveler has some fight left. Perhaps you should explain to him how completely hopeless your situation is.”

I was in a daze. Instead of trying to come up with our next move, all I could do was imagine an army of dados marching on Washington. Or New York. Or Xhaxhu. I grew more depressed with every passing second… while the Flighters closed in.

Siry pulled my arm, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were on fire. He got right in my face and angrily whispered, “We can’t give up.”

“They’re robots, Siry. Mechanical men. They can’t die. Even if one did, there’d be a dozen more to take its place.”

“We have to warn Ibara,” he said, still whispering. “They need to know what’s coming. They have the right to try and defend themselves.”

“This is way bigger than Ibara.”

“Not right now it isn’t,” Siry shot back. “We can’t give up.”

I focused on him. Siry had grown up in the last few days. Dealing with death and Armageddon will tend to do that.

Where I had tuned out, he was now thinking clearly. I glanced over his shoulder to see the ring of Flighters tightening up. We were at the center of a large circle that had reached Saint Dane.

“Whispering secrets?” Saint Dane taunted. “Do you actually think you can do anything to stop an army of dados?”

I looked to Siry and saw determination. I looked to Saint Dane and saw arrogance. It was the jolt I needed. The hatred I felt for that guy surged back. We might have been on the verge of defeat, but we were going down swinging.

“Stay close to me,” I whispered to Siry.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I bolted toward the center of the pyramid. Siry was right with me. My best hope was that we would catch the Flighters by surprise before they braced themselves to stop us. I blasted toward the smallest one and barreled right through him, shoulder first. With a loud grunt I knocked the vagrant on his butt. We were out of the circle.

Saint Dane’s laugh echoed through the pyramid. He was still having fun. Good for him. We’d gotten over the first hurdle. There were plenty more to come. I actually had a plan. It was a desperate one, but that pretty much described our situation. I jammed for the elevator in the center of the pyramid. If we could get inside and close the door, we might be able to get up to another level and lose ourselves. There were all sorts of things wrong with that plan. Dados were everywhere. The elevator might not even be working. Or it might not have been on the ground floor. It was a desperate plan, but at least it was a plan.

The Flighters finally figured they should be doing something and ran after us. They weren’t the brightest bunch. We reached the central tube way ahead of them.

“Where are we going?” Siry asked.

“Up!”

The elevator door was open. The car was on the ground. Our luck was holding. We jumped inside and I started hitting buttons. I didn’t know how to work this thing, so I figured if I hit them all, the door was bound to close. That was assuming the elevator had power in the first place.

The Flighters were now sprinting for the door.

“We’re trapped,” Siry said, just as the doors closed in front of us. I heard several loud thuds outside as the Flighters bashed into it. They hammered with their fists, as if that would make it open. It didn’t. I saw a lever that I hoped would get us off the ground. I couldn’t remember how Aja had run this thing. I feared that if I hit the wrong button, the door would open up again and, “Surprise, you Flighters! Just kidding!” I grabbed the lever and pushed it forward. The elevator lurched. We had power!

“Are we moving?” Siry asked, frightened. He’d never seen an elevator.

“We’re going up the central tube,” I answered. “To where?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking we take this thing up as high as it will go, and see what we find.”

“Thank you, Pendragon,” he said sincerely. “I’m not giving up.”

“No, you were right. It would be wrong not to try and warn Ibara. People have the right to choose their own destiny, right?”

Siry gave me a smile and nodded sadly. “There’s no hope, is there?”

Things were about as bleak as they’d ever been. At least we were alive and moving. We had to keep trying. It was our job.

“There’s always hope,” I said. “It’s the one thing Saint Dane can’t destroy.”

“So it’s all true,” Siry muttered. “Everything my father told me.”

I nodded and shrugged.

“Then why was he on the tribunal? If he was concerned about the turning point of Veelox, what did that have to do with the tribunal?”

It was like a ray of light had suddenly cut through the dusty dark. With one simple observation, Siry sparked a thought that made me realize we might not be so done after all.

“Saint Dane wasn’t telling us everything,” I declared. “This isn’t a training exercise. He wants to sway the turning point. That’s what he does.”

“You say that like it’s good news,” Siry said, confused.

“It is. It’s never about a battle. It’s about a decision. A choice. That’s what turns the territories. If it were just about winning a war or enemies fighting, Saint Dane would have won every territory. Saint Dane pushes people into making bad decisions, because he’s out to prove something.”

D. J. MacHale

The Pilgrims of Rayne

“Prove what? To who?”

“To who I don’t know. If I knew that, I’d unravel this whole thing. But I know what he’s trying to prove. He wants to show that the people of Halla are selfish and flawed. He told me that everything he’s ever done would never have happened if the people didn’t want it to happen.”

“Is it true?” Siry asked.

“No!” I replied. “He twists things. He makes people believe they’re doing the right thing, when in reality he’s pushing them toward destruction. The turning points are critical times in a territory’s history. If Remudi was on the tribunal, the turning point must have something to do with Ibara.

That’s why Saint Dane wants to attack. It’s not about conquering the island. It’s about forcing the people into making a bad decision. Then he can say it was all their fault in the first place.”

“So what do we do?”

“We have to get back to the tribunal and warn them about the dados. But we’ve also got to figure out what the turning point is. If we can figure that out, the battle might not even matter.”

Siry frowned. “I’m totally confused.”

The elevator slowed to a stop. I braced myself, ready to pounce. Or be pounced on. The elevator stopped. A very long moment passed. The doors slid open. I was ready to get hit by a dado. Instead I was hit with blinding light and a fierce wind. The force was so strong it pushed us both back to the rear of the elevator. I fell to my knees, I think by instinct. Siry crept forward and grabbed the edge of the open door. I crawled forward, still squinting against the light, trying to get my eyes to adjust.