D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

“The sphere moves in every direction,” she said. “As does the drill.”

She twisted the grip on top of the joystick, and the drill came over the top and settled in front of us. Since the huge drill was hollow, it was possible to see all the way through to the front and ahead of us. Loor moved it to the left, to the right, up, and down, demonstrating how it had complete maneuverability.

“So, this thing can drill any way but straight down?” I asked.

“It can do that too,” she said. “The treads move to the side and raise the vehicle up to allow the drill to face downward. It is quite ingenious.”

“The Rokador are pretty smart people,” I said.

“With machinery, yes,” she said, sounding a touch insulted. “There is much they are not as capable of.”

Meow. Loor’s competitive nature was showing itself. But this wasn’t the time to start a debate about which tribe was better, so I didn’t press. Loor positioned the drill so it was directly in front of us, pushed her foot down on a floor pedal, and we moved forward. The ride was pretty smooth. I guess the treads softened out all of the bumps. Loor was pretty capable, too, steering the vehicle like a pro. It was a good thing the dygo was so small because we had to travel through some narrow passages to get back to the dead end. In no time we were looking at the blank wall of rock where the map, and our trip, had ended.

“What if we’re wrong and there’s nothing but rock?” I asked.

“Then it means Bokka has betrayed me,” Loor said. “I do not believe that is an option.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

Loor toggled a switch on the control panel. The massive drill whined to life and the cutting rings began to spin. She pushed the joystick forward, and the dygo rolled ahead. The tip of the drill touched the wall, and cut through it as if it were cotton candy.

“Whoa,” I said, totally impressed. “No problem.”

It was amazing. The spinning rings were designed so that they not only cut into the rock, but pulled the material back and away, pulverizing it. The rock that was within the hollow drill bit was chewed up and spit out as easily as if we were shredding paper into confetti. The dygo vibrated slightly as it cut, but it was pretty minor considering we were boring through solid rock. It wasn’t very loud, either. I guessed that was because we were sealed inside this thick sphere and insulated from the outside noise.

“Are the vents open for air?” I asked.

“Yes,” Loor answered, but kept her attention straight ahead.

“How thick do you think the wall is?” I asked.

Loor didn’t have to answer. A few seconds after we started drilling, I saw light come through the hollow tip of the drill. The wall couldn’t have been any more than a few feet thick. The drill kept grinding, though. We needed to make the hole large enough for us to move the dygo through. Moments later I felt the shuddering come to a stop. We were through. Loor stopped the drill, turned to me, and announced,”Nowwe can see Kidik.”

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.