D. MacHale - Black Water

Not Yorn or Boon or some misguided mission. As long as you understand that, I’ll help you.”

“Understood” was my simple answer.

She then dropped the ring in the dirt. “But I am not a Traveler,” she said with disdain.

Boon and Yorn looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I didn’t get ticked or anything. All I did was bend down and pick up the ring.

“Whatever works for you,” I said. I dusted off the ring and added it to the two I already had on the cord around my neck.

It was a tense moment. Yorn broke the silence by saying, “Seegen was my best friend and I was his acolyte. I may be old, but I can still be of use.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Good,” Yorn said. “We should first attend to his body. After that we can set our sights on Saint Dane.”

We struggled to bring Seegen’s body from the underground cavern out to the jungle where a zenzen-powered wagon was waiting for us. We had traveled to the flume tree in this wagon because we knew we would have to bring Seegen’s body back. We gently loaded the big cat’s body onto the wagon, covered it with a blanket out of respect, and began the long journey back to Leeandra.

“Will there be a ceremony?” I asked. “And a burial?”

“A ceremony, yes,” Yorn explained. “But we do not bury our dead on Eelong. Bodies must be burned to keep them from scavenger tangs.”

“Like with Gunny’s hand,” Boon reminded me.

“Yes, Gunny’s hand,” Yorn added. “I was surprised to have found it after he was attacked. I thought for sure the tangs would have devoured it.”

Yorn dropped his head and fell silent, as if the conversation was upsetting him. It wasn’t doing much for me, either. The whole subject was depressing and gross. I didn’t mind that we didn’t talk for the rest of the journey. I was too busy watching out for tangs, anyway. Luckily for us, we didn’t run into any. I suppose I should be grateful for that small bit of luck, because it seemed as if the only luck I had been having lately was the bad kind.

Back in Leeandra, I stayed at Kasha’s home while the others attended to Seegen’s body. I wanted to go, but we all figured it would be tough to explain why a gar was there. It gave me time to collect my thoughts, eat something, and start writing this journal. I didn’t get very far. No sooner did I start writing, than I conked out. My body really needed the sleep. The last thing I remember was that it was still daylight when I put my pen down to rest my eyes. The next thing I knew it was dark, and I was looking up at an excited Boon who was shaking me awake.

“Pendragon! You have to come, now!” he said, barely able to contain himself.

“Huh, what?” I asked groggily.

“Kasha told me to get you quickly.”

“Why? What’s going on?” I asked, trying to kick-start my brain.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, saying, “It’s about Black Water.”

A bolt of adrenaline shot through me. Suddenly I wasn’t so sleepy. Boon ran out of the tree house without waiting for me, but that was okay, because I was ready to roll. I caught up and we jogged across several sky bridges. He didn’t put restraints on me, and I didn’t remind him to. It was nighttime and there weren’t many klees around to see us.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we ran.

“Kasha has many friends in government,” Boon answered. “She found out where the Inquisitors are questioning the gar about Black Water. We have to hurry.”

Excellent. Kasha had only been a Traveler for a short time and she was already helping out. I was very curious about Black Water. Not because it was an interesting fable or anything, but because the klees were so interested in it. A few minutes later we arrived at the tree that held the Circle of Klee. Boon took me to an elevator that brought us much higher into the tree than we had been before.

“Be quiet now,” he whispered. “We aren’t supposed to be here.” He led me along a sky walk that circled the tree, and into a doorway. Inside was a dark corridor that traveled around the inside of the tree. We moved quickly and quietly until we came upon…Kasha. She was peering through a small window into the center of the tree.

“We’re here!” Boon announced in a loud voice.

“Shhh!” Kasha scolded.

“What’s happening?” I whispered to Kasha. I moved to look through the small opening, but Kasha stopped me.

“You must be prepared for this,” she cautioned. “You will not like what you see.”

“Okay,” I said. “Prepare me.”

“There’s no good way to say this,” she said coldly. “They are torturing the gar. Unless he tells them what they want to know, I fear he will die. He may anyway.”

“What do they want to know?” I asked.

“They want to know where Black Water is,” she answered.

“So it’s real?” Boon asked, a little too loud. He quickly clamped his own furry hand over his mouth. He shrugged an apology.

“The Inquisitors seem to think so,” she answered. “Are you prepared?”

“Yes,” I answered. I took a deep breath and peeked into the hole. Turned out, I wasn’t prepared at all.

We were high overhead, looking down through small slits near the ceiling. We must have been in an observation area for those who didn’t have the stomach to be too close to what was happening below. I was one of them. Beneath us was a large room with a table in the middle. Tied to the table was the gar I remembered from the prison. He was naked from the waist up. My stomach twisted when I saw that his torso and arms were covered with hundreds of bleeding cuts. There were two klees in the room. One lashed at the gar with a thin strap that made a sharp, uglycracksound. The poor gar cried out in pain. It left an ugly, bleeding cut on his chest. I had never seen anything this cruel before, and hoped I never would again.

“This can end,” the klee said calmly. “If you tell us where to find Black Water.”

The gar whimpered, but didn’t answer. If he knew where Black Water was, he wasn’t saying.

“Don’t you have laws against this?” I whispered to Kasha.

“Well…no,” she said. “They are animals. They aren’t protected like klees.”

“They aren’t animals!” I whispered back angrily, straining not to shout. “And even if they were, that doesn’t make it okay to torture them.”

“Uh-oh,” Boon said. “This just got more interesting.”

I looked back down to the torture room. What I saw was only a small surprise. It made perfect sense and confirmed my interest in Black Water. Stepping up to the gar was the klee called Timber.

“Saint Dane,” I said under my breath.

“It isn’t,” Kasha whispered. “That’s Timber, from the Council of Klee.”

“That’s what he wants you to think,” I answered, keeping my eyes on the demon Traveler. “I tried to tell you before. He can transform himself into anything he wants.”

I didn’t explain further. It wasn’t the time to start educating Kasha on the evil ways of Saint Dane. I watched as the klees backed away from their torture victim and let Saint Dane approach. He held something out for the poor gar to see.

“What is this?” Timber asked in a calm, friendly voice.

It was one of the small amber cubes. I knew it had something to do with Black Water, but didn’t know what. Neither did Saint Dane. But it was important enough for him to torture a gar to find out.

“Tell me what this is,” he said to the gar soothingly. “And your pain will end.”

The gar’s eyes were wild. Even from where we were, I could tell that he was shaking. It would have been easy for the gar to tell Timber what he wanted to know, but he kept silent. Brave guy.

Timber leaned down to the gar and asked, “Tell me, when will you go home?”