D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

“But he was there when Pelle a Zinj was assassinated,” Loor argued. “And Bokka said he is down here-“

“Yeah, I know, but we still don’t know what he’s up to. We’re only guessing. Maybe he’s just hanging around, observing.”

“What are you saying, Pendragon?” Loor asked.

“We came down here thinking that we’ve got to stop the war,” I answered. “I have no idea how we’re going to do that, but it’s why we’re here. What are we going to do if we find out that Saint Dane hasn’t influenced events after all, and the war between the Batu and the Rokador is the way it was meant to be? What do we do then?”

This truly was a dilemma. If Saint Dane wasn’t controlling events, then the Travelers had no business being here and monkeying around. We’re not supposed to mess with the natural course of a territory. That’s not our job. We already screwed things up by putting Pelle a Zinj in a position to be killed.

Loor said, “I believe the real question is, am I here to do the work of a loyal Batu, or a Traveler? As a Traveler, I must do all I can to stop Saint Dane. But as a Batu, I must be loyal to my tribe.”

“Right, which means you might suddenly have to go from somebody who wants to stop the war, to being the first warrior who has to fight it.”

Loor looked at the ground, thinking. As we sat in that cavern, only a few yards away from Kidik City, we truly didn’t know if Loor was there as a peacekeeper or an invader.

“That is our first challenge,” she finally said. “We must learn what Saint Dane has been doing. Once we know that, we will decide how to proceed.”

She was right. Until we found Saint Dane, we wouldn’t know what to do. I took a tired breath and asked, “Is this Traveler stuff ever going to get easier?”

“I do not believe so,” Loor answered.

We continued on through the last portion of the tunnel. Up ahead I saw that the stone corridor turned sharply to the right, just as the map showed. My heart raced. Around that corner was our destination. Kidik. I was excited about what we would find…and scared to death.

“You ready for this?” I asked.

“Do you need to ask?” Loor shot back.

I gave her a smile, and we continued on. We reached the corner, made the turn, and came face-to-face with… a dead end.

There was no Kidik.

(CONTINUED)

Loorand I stood staring at a huge, blank wall of rock where there was supposed to be a city. “No way,” I said.

It was the end of the line. There wasn’t any way around it. Literally. The tunnel opened up into a large cavern, but instead of a city, there was nothing but a vast wall of rock. There were no tunnels. No doorways. No hidden passageways. We had cometothe end of the map, but there was no Kidik.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said, looking at the map. “Did Bokka send us on a totally useless trip?”

“No,” Loor said defensively. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe…” A thought hit me. “Maybe we didn’t get this map from Bokka after all.”

“You were there, Pendragon,” Loor said impatiently. “You took it out of his boot.”

“Yeah, but was it really Bokka? Maybe Saint Dane turned himself into Bokka to get us this map!”

Loor dismissedit, saying, “Then Saint Dane’s ashes are now scattered across the desert.”

Oh. Right. Bokka died. Maybe I was getting a little too paranoid about Saint Dane turning up in various disguises. “Okay, so it was Bokka,” I said. “Then why did he send us into a dead end?”

Loor stared at the blank wall, looking to find some clue that would make sense of this.

She found it.

“Look!” she said, pointing to where the rock wall met the ceiling.

I looked. I didn’t see a thing. “Look at what?” I asked. “Look to where the wall in front of us meets the side of the cavern.”

I looked. Nothing. “I’m still not getting it,” I said.

“Look at the color of the rock,” she explained. “The wall is different from the ceiling, and the side. That is not natural.”

A closer look told me she was right. The ceiling and side walls were a different brown color than the wall. The dead end wall was ever so slightly darker.

“So what?” I asked.

“That is not natural, Pendragon,” Loor said. “I believe this wall in front of us was constructed.”

“Constructed?” I shot back. “You can’t just build a huge wall of rock.”

“The Rokador can,” Loor said confidently. “How can you doubt that, after seeing the world they have built? I believe this is another attempt to stop the Batu attack.”

I took a step back and tried to imagine the wall not being there. Now that I was thinking that way, it did seem like where the wall met the sides and the ceiling, and even the ground, was a little bit too perfect and precise.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe they sealed off the cavern. It’s still a wall of rock and we’re still stuck.”

Loor smiled and said, “Maybe not.”

“It’s a stone wall, Loor,” I said impatiently. “Whether it was made by the Rokador or not, we can’t get through-” The words were barely out of my mouth when the lightbulb went on. I realized what she was talking about. “Are you serious?” I asked. “Do you really know how to use those things?”

Her answer was to take off running back the way we had come. Not knowing what else to do, I followed. Loor led me past the open area where we had stopped to talk, through another section of tunnel, and back to a larger cavern that had two sizable passageways off to either side. When I looked down one of these passageways, I saw something hidden in the shadows. It was the silver shell of a dygo.

“Wait here,” she said, and ran to it.

A few seconds later I heard what sounded like an engine starting up. But it was like no engine I was familiar with. It was a deep, growling buzz. A moment later the silver sphere came rolling out of the shadows. The giant ball rolled on treads. It moved to the center of the cavern with the giant drill bit positioned to the rear. It stopped, Loor lifted up a side hatch, popped her head out, and said, “Would you like a ride?”

“Oh, I am loving this!” I said.

She leaned back so I could get in. I stepped up on the tread and slid past her to enter the small vehicle. I had never been in a space capsule, but I imagined this was kind of the same thing. It was pretty cramped inside. There were two hard seats, side by side. In front was a window for both seats that was only about a foot high. It wrapped halfway around the sphere to give a little bit of a sideways view. There was no way to see behind us. The controls were in front of the left-hand seat. Loor’s seat. The instrument console had a few switches, along with a round glass ball that looked like one of those compass things people sometimes put on the dashboards of their cars. There were two joysticks in front of the driver’s seat. It didn’t look all that complicated, but I was just as happy to know that Loor had driven one before. She sat in her seat and pulled the hatch shut. It closed with a solidthunk.

“The shell is thick,” she said. “It can withstand tons of pressure.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Let’s not test it. What about air?”

“There are vents to the rear,” she explained while toggling a switch to the left of her controls. “They can be opened and shut, depending on what kind of material is being tunneled through. When they are shut, there is enough air inside to last several minutes.”

“Let’s keep them open,” I suggested.

Loor grabbed the two joysticks and gave me a quick demo. She manipulated the sticks and the sphere instantly responded, moving quickly and smoothly to the right, then the left, up, and down. Our seats swiveled and rotated on yokes, so we were always upright. She cranked one stick one way and one the other, and we did a complete three-sixty. I noticed that the glass ball on the control panel always stayed in one position. I guessed this was the device that told you which way was up.