D. MacHale - The Lost City of Faar

Mark took off the ring and put it on the floor. He then rolled over and turned his back to it. He knew what was going to happen. He didn’t have to see. He closed his eyes and softly whispered, “I’m sorry, Bobby. I’m going to fix everything, I swear.”

When he turned back around, the ring was lying right here he had left it. Next to it was another journal.

Ihave seen things that I never thought possible and most of it isn’t good.

Since I wrote you last, things here have been pushed to the hairy edge of catastrophe and I feel as if it’s up to me to bring it back. The worst part is I don’t know how. Not a clue. I’m frustrated, freaked out, and most of all… scared. Definitely scared. Not only for me, but for the whole territory of Cloral. Whoever had the bright idea of making me a Traveler should be re-thinking that decision right about now. Did I mention how scared I was?

I’m writing this journal from a place that is both wondrous and frightening. As I think back on the events that led me here, I can’t help but wonder where it’s going to end. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on things, something new happens that turns me upside down. I thought I couldn’t be surprised anymore, but I am. I guess that’s why they call it surprise.

Once again we are on the verge of a battle. I don’t want to sound overly dramatic or anything, but if things go south, this may be the last journal I write. I’m not trying to freak you out but, well, okay maybe I’m trying to freak you out a little. Why not? The whole point of writing this is for you to know what I’m going through, right?

I’m getting way ahead of myself. There’s a lot to write about and I don’t have a ton of time. I finished the last journal where Spader and I had hit the flume for Zadaa. There wasn’t anything unusual about the trip, except for the fact I wasn’t alone this time. Spader and I flew side by side. This was Spader’s first flume ride and I wasn’t sure how he would react. He was pretty tense at first, as you can imagine, but once I assured him everything was fine and that he could enjoy the ride, he simply looked forward and folded his arms. We flew along like that for a few minutes and I could tell he was starting to relax. He had been through a lot hairier situations than this under the sea. Maybe not as bizarre as this, but definitely not as hairy.

“What is this, Pendragon?” he finally asked. I could tell he was working really hard to stay calm.

“It’s called a flume,” I answered. “It’s taking us to meet a friend of mine.”

“And where is that?” he asked. “Your home habitat?”

“No, it’s a place called Zadaa. She’ll help me explain to you what’s going on.”

He nodded as if to say, “Okay. I’ll wait until we get there to ask the eight hundred million other questions I have.” He did ask one more question though.

“Pendragon, are we safe?”

Wow. How could I answer that one? I felt totally unsafe every second of every day. But I couldn’t tell him that. I decided to play dumb to the more cosmic issue and only deal with the here and now.

“Yeah,” I answered. “The flume is safe. I promise.”

Moments later we arrived. The flume deposited us into an underground cavern. Big surprise, right? Spader looked back into the flume that had now gone dark, his eyes wide with wonder.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It works both ways. We can take it right back to Cloral.”

“You mean we’re not on Cloral anymore?” he asked in shock.

Oh man, this guy had a lot to learn and I didn’t know where to start explaining.

“Let’s find my friend,” I said. “Then we’ll try to answer your questions.”

Trywas the right word. There was only so much I was going to be able to explain to Spader. Once he started asking the big questions as to what all of this meant, I’d be just as lost as he was. I needed to find Loor as soon as possible.

I looked around the cavern and saw a pile of clothes. A quick exam showed me they were lightweight white robes, like those long togas they wore in movies about ancient Rome.

“We gotta wear these,” I said. “It’s what people wear around here.”

Spader didn’t question. We took off most of our Cloral clothes, but left on our shorts. Technically that was against the rules, but I wasn’t going commando here. No way. There were also leather sandals and we each put on a pair. As we dressed, I hoped that Spader wouldn’t ask me how these clothes got here because I wouldn’t have a good answer. I supposed they came from the mysterious acolytes that Uncle Press had told me about, but that’s all I could say. Luckily Spader didn’t ask.

As I placed our Cloral clothes on the ground, I saw something that made me smile. There was another pile of clothing there. It was a pair of denim overalls and a pink shirt and a pair of Dr. Marten’s boots — the clothes Loor wore when she came to Second Earth. Seeing these gave me confidence. Loor was definitely here. Of course the trick now was to find her. Up until now Uncle Press had been my tour guide. Now I was on my own. Gulp. I glanced around the cavern but saw no way out. We were surrounded by walls made of brown, sandy stone. A complete 360 showed no entrance, no door, no passageway, no nothing. But that was impossible. There had to be a way out. Then, just before I began to hyperventilate in panic, I saw it. There were footholds and handholds chiseled into the rock that led up toward the ceiling. I walked to the wall and looked up to see. Sure enough, the cutouts led up into a dark crevice. This was the way out.

I wanted to shout “Woo hoo!” but decided I should be cool. Like it or not, I was in charge and I wanted to show Spader I had total confidence, even though I didn’t. So without a word, I began to climb. The cutouts led up into the dark crevice. In seconds, I was totally surrounded by rock. I knew this had to be the way out, so I didn’t panic. After climbing for another few seconds, I hit a dead end — with my head. Ouch. That hurt. My first thought was that we were trapped, but then I realized my head didn’t hurt as much as it should if I had just bashed it into hard rock. I carefully reached up and found that I was right. The ceiling wasn’t rock, it was wood. A quick push up revealed that it was a trapdoor. We were out!

I scrambled up and out, followed right behind by Spader. Once he was out, I threw the trapdoor shut and saw that carved on the top of it was the star that showed this was a gate.

So far, so familiar.

We found ourselves in what looked to be a storage room. The walls were made of the same sandy stone as below, but there were large wooden storage bins that were filled with what looked like metal machine parts. The floor was covered with sand, which made me realize the trapdoor was normally buried. So I quickly covered it over with a few inches of sand.

Spader watched me but didn’t say anything. I’m sure he was trying to process all this new information. His questions would come later.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s find Loor.”

A wooden door led out of this storage room and as soon as I reached to open it, it hit me that I had no clue what to expect on Zadaa. All I knew was that Loor was a warrior. Obviously that meant that Zadaa wasn’t exactly a futuristic society. I could only hope that it wasn’t like the Wild West and that we wouldn’t have to fight for our lives every step of the way. That would suck.

As soon as we opened the door we heard a loud, steady sound. It was a constant, unwavering roar.

“It’s water,” Spader said.

That’s exactly what it sounded like. Rushing water. But the sound was huge, so if it were rushing water, then there was a lot of it. We left the storage room and made our way through a labyrinth of tunnels cut into the rock. It reminded me of the mines of Denduron, but these passageways were more like corridors than wide mine shafts. Every few feet was another wooden door. We didn’t bother to look inside any of them. This wasn’t about exploration, this was about getting out and finding Loor.