D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

The scene was so horrifying that it wasn’t until later that it hit me…I could understand him. It sure sounded like English, but it didn’t make sense that he suddenly would have switched languages. Osa said that the Travelers had the ability to understand all languages, and since I was suddenly able to understand this man, maybe I was a Traveler after all.

But I didn’t think about that until later. Right now I was witnessing the most gut-wrenching moment I could imagine. The two knights dragged the heavy man closer to the open pit. Suddenly a woman jumped out of the crowd and tried to pull him away from his executioners. She was in tears and begging for mercy. She must have been the man’s wife, but her brave effort didn’t help. She was quickly grabbed by another knight and thrown to the ground. She lay there in the grass, sobbing.

The knights finally got the man to the edge of the pit and were about to push him in, when the man suddenly stopped wailing. Up until this point he had been crying and begging for his life. But now he stopped fighting and stood up straight. I swear, there was a look on his face that was almost calm. The knights didn’t know how to react. They weren’t used to someone being calm during the worst moment of their life.

The heavy man turned and faced Saint Dane, and in a distinct, strong voice he said, “My only regret is that I will not live long enough to see Kagan suffer the way we have all suffered.”

Saint Dane chuckled and said, “None of you will live that long, for that day will never come.” He then gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod and the two knights pushed the doomed man backward into the pit. His wife screamed, but the guy didn’t let out a sound. One second he was there, the next he was just…gone. Hopefully his death would be quick and he’d now be in a better place than this horrible village.

The knight holding the chain let it go and the wooden platform fell down with a boom. Saint Dane walked up to Rellin, who looked him right in the eye. Saint Dane then pointed to the man’s sobbing wife.

“We will use her for tomorrow’s Transfer,” he said with pleasure. “She seems quite light. It should make for an easy day. Please thank me for being so considerate.”

Rellin looked at Saint Dane and for a second I thought he was going to spit in his face. But he didn’t. Instead, he gritted his teeth and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Saint Dane said with a smile. With that he strode to his horse, jumped into the saddle and was just about to ride off when he once again looked back toward us. Actually, it was more like he was looking right at me. I could feel it. He knew I was there. Was all of this a show for me? Saint Dane laughed, kicked his horse and rode off through the stunned crowd back toward the Bedoowan palace.

The knights pushed a few of the miners toward the basket of glaze with their spears. The valuable stones had to be delivered to Kagan and it was clear that they weren’t the ones who were going to carry them. That was a job for their slaves. The miners picked up the basket from the seesaw and started the long walk toward the palace. The rest of the villagers slowly started to disperse. Not a word was spoken. A few people went up to console the poor woman who had just lost her husband, but most simply headed back toward their homes. They had been through this horror before, and they probably would go through it again.

But I hadn’t. I was frantic. I had just witnessed a man murdered in cold blood. It was even more horrible than the poor homeless guy who Saint Dane hypnotized into running into the subway train back in New York. That was awful, but it didn’t seem real. This was very, very real and I didn’t understand it. My emotions were all over the place. And yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I was crying. They were tears of anger, and fear, and sadness for a man I didn’t even know. And for his family. I didn’t care that I was crying in front of Loor or anybody else. I was out of control.

“Why didn’t they do something?” I shouted at Osa. “They could have ganged up on the knights. They could have pulled the guy away. Why didn’t they stop it?”

Osa was as calm as I was upset. She said, “If they had done anything, Kagan would have sent an army to punish them. They had no choice.”

I looked to Loor and was surprised to see that she too looked upset. She may not have been ranting the way I was, but her icy calm was cracked. I even thought I could see a tear in her eye. Maybe there was a heart beneath that tough exterior after all.

Still, I didn’t buy what Osa was saying. “So what? They should have done something,” I cried. “If they don’t do something, it’ll never stop.”

Osa put a hand on my shoulder, and I could feel myself starting to calm down. But what she said next was the last thing I wanted to hear.

“They are going to do something, Pendragon. They are going to take destiny into their own hands and rise up against Kagan. That is why we are here. We are going to help them.You are going to help them.”

These words hit me like a bolt from the blue. Uncle Press had told me there were people who needed our help, but I had no idea he was talking about an entire village of people who were at the mercy of a vicious army that didn’t think twice about killing people in cold blood. This was crazy. I felt bad for these people, but there was nothing I could do to help them. I didn’t care how tough this Loor person was, those knights were killers. And there were only three of us…four if you counted Uncle Press. What good could we do against an army? No, this was crazy. I made up my mind right there that the first chance I got, I’d get away from these nutburgers and get back to that flume thing. If it brought me here, then there had to be a way for it to get me back home. Yes, that was the answer. I was going to get myself out of here and kiss this place good-bye-with or without Uncle Press.

Second Earth

“Hey, you kids!”

Mark and Courtney looked up from their reading to see Sergeant D’Angelo calling to them from the front of the building. The two had been sitting there the whole time, reading the pages from Bobby.

“Run!” yelled Mark. He started to get up, but Courtney grabbed him by the seat of the pants and pulled him back down.

“Why?” she asked him calmly. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Mark had to think about that for a second. She was right, all they were doing was sitting in the alley, reading. Nothing illegal about that. So then why was this policeman yelling at them? Courtney looked to the cop, but didn’t budge.

“What do you want?” she yelled.

“I want to talk to you,” came the reply.

“Then you come to us,” Courtney yelled.

Ouch. Mark winced. Courtney was being pretty disrespectful. Okay, so maybe the guy dissed them before, but he was still a cop. Mark was sure he was going to arrest them.

D’Angelo took a few steps toward them with his hands on his hips, and said in a downright civil tone, “I want to talk to you about the Pendragons.”

“Why?” asked Courtney, oozing skepticism.

“Because I believe you,” answered D’Angelo.

Mark and Courtney shot each other a look. Victory! He must have found Mr. and Mrs. Pendragon. They both jumped up to go to the cop. Mark made sure that Bobby’s half-read journal was tucked securely in his pack, and the two followed D’Angelo back into the station house.

Once inside the sergeant led them past the lobby and continued on through the back offices. Mark thought this was kind of cool. He had never been behind the scenes at a real police station. The experience wasn’t exactly what he had expected. On TV, police stations had a lot of activity. There were always cops leading handcuffed perps toward interrogation rooms, and detectives taking statements and SWAT teams hurrying to some mission and generally a ton of cop-type hubbub. But not here in Stony Brook. Here a guy was making a phone call to Domino’s for pizza, and another guy looked bored while playing FreeCell on an old computer. Not exactly a beehive of electrifying police activity. Very disappointing.