D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

“It’s all there,” he said fading fast. “Everything that happened since I wrote last. Wake me up when you’re finished.”

That was the last thing he said. Bobby was in dreamland, the roll of parchment paper still in his hand. Mark glanced to Courtney, hesitated a moment, then took the precious journal. Courtney took the folded-up comforter from the bottom of Mark’s bed and laid it gently over Bobby, right up to his chin. This was probably the first time he had slept in a bed in a long time and she wanted to make sure he was as safe and comfortable as possible. Then the two of them walked quietly to the far side of the room.

“Should we go downstairs and leave him alone?” whispered Mark.

“No,” was Courtney’s reply. “Nothing we could do would wake him up now.”

Mark nodded. He didn’t want to leave either. He slipped the familiar leather twine off the rolled-up scroll and opened it enough to read the very first line.

“Journal Number Four?” asked Courtney.

“Journal Number Four,” answered Mark.

The two sat down next to each other on the floor and began to read the final chapter in Bobby’s adventure.

Denduron

Ican’t believe I’m still alive. At least I think I’m still alive. Every muscle, every bone, every hair follicle I’ve got is sore as hell, which pretty much tells me I’m still among the living. As I write this final journal to you guys, I’ve still got one major task ahead of me before I can come home. But right now I don’t even feel like moving. Even the effort of pushing this pen across the paper is painful. I’m going to try and rest up, write this journal, and then get myself psyched for the final push.

As hurting as my body is, it’s just as painful to remember the events of the past few days. But I’ve got to do it and write it all down because once it’s on the page, I’m going to do my level best to forget it all.

I should warn you that some of the things I’m going to write about I didn’t see for myself. It has been an incredible few days and there was no way I could be everywhere at once to see it all. But I’ll do my best to re-create those events in my journal as accurately as possible based on what others have told me. I don’t have a problem doing this because I’m sure everything they described is true. So sit down, take a breath, and hold on. It’s going to be a wild ride.

I finished my last journal right after we rescued Uncle Press, then got recaptured by the people whom we thought were our friends-the Milago. Their leader, Rellin, showed us the huge bomb of tak they planned on using to vaporize the Bedoowan. There is something you should understand here. The Milago are not our enemies, but they were afraid we would try to stop them from using that nasty weapon. And they were right. If they exploded that bad boy, the destruction would be horrible. If we could stop them, we would. So we were in the weird position of being friendly enemies.

They brought us back to the hospital hut I’d been to a few times and locked us up with guards at the door. They said that as soon as the battle was over, they’d let us go. Great. If they detonated that bomb, there wouldn’t be any placeleft for us to go. So the four of us-me, Uncle Press, Loor, and Alder-were prisoners again.

As soon as we entered the hut, Uncle Press looked around quickly. “Osa isn’t here,” he said. “She must be in hiding.”

Uh-oh. We hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Uncle Press what had happened to her. I also realized that Osa’s body wasn’t there any longer.

“What happened?” he asked quickly.

Loor pointed to me and said, “She was killed while protecting him from the Bedoowan knights.”

Perfect. As if I didn’t have enough guilt going on at the moment, she had to remind me about my part in Osa’s death. I guess I couldn’t be angry with her. Osa was her mother. She deserved to be angry. But I wished she didn’t have to lay all of the blame on me. Mallos and the Bedoowan knights had a little something to do with it too.

We all looked to Uncle Press for his reaction. It was a strange one. Rather than show any sign of grief, he simply nodded as if the news of Osa’s death were nothing more than a simple fact to file away. I think he realized that the three of us were taking it harder than that, because he put his hand on Loor’s shoulder and said, “Don’t be sad. This is the way it was meant to be.”

That was exactly what Osa said just before she died. Was that some sort of Traveler motto? If so, it was a lousy one. It didn’t make me feel any better, and I doubted if it helped Loor at all.

“Everyone get some rest,” Uncle Press ordered. “Tomorrow’s going to be a tough day.”

He was right; we all needed rest. So we took places apart from one another in different corners of the hut. This is when I wrote the last journal that I sent you. Loor wrote too, as did Alder. We were all documenting our experiences as Travelers, though I’m pretty sure we all had different opinions about how things were going. The only one who didn’t write was Uncle Press. He laid down on one of the benches and closed his eyes. I wondered how much sleep he had gotten while a prisoner in the Bedoowan palace. Not much, probably.

As I wrote I sensed that there was tension in the room. Maybe it was just my own paranoia, but I had the feeling that the others were blaming me for the tough position we were in. Whenever I looked up, both Alder and Loor would quickly look away. The truth was, I didn’t blame them. As I played out the events of the past few days in my mind, the sickening realization came to me that the situation on Denduron was much worse because of me. If Uncle Press hadn’t brought me here, then he probably wouldn’t have been captured by the Bedoowan. And if he hadn’t been captured then he wouldn’t have needed to be rescued, and I wouldn’t have written to you guys to send me the stuff from home. And if I hadn’t gotten that stuff from home, then the Milago wouldn’t have the ability to explode that huge bomb. And if I weren’t here, Osa would still be alive because…if, if, if. Whenever you look back and say, “If,” you know you’re in trouble. There’s no such thing as “if.” The only thing that counts is what really happened, and the truth was that every chance I got, I screwed up. Even when I thought I had done something good, it always turned out bad.

Then, just to rub salt in everyone’s wounds, my watch alarm started to beep. I had totally forgotten about my Casio. Alder and Loor shot a look at me. They had no idea what it was. Uncle Press just cracked an eye open and gave me a deadly look. Without saying a word I jumped up and ran to a corner of the hut where I pulled the watch off and threw it into the latrine. I think it was a safe bet that nobody would go down there after it. I even pulled my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and dumped it in the ooze. I looked back at the others to see they were all staring at me. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“What?” I yelled. “So I messed up! Yeah, I got that stuff from home, but it was the only way I could think of to get Uncle Press out. And it worked, didn’t it?”

Nobody said a word. They just stared back at me. It was making me crazy.

“It’s not like you tried to stop me, Loor…Alder,” I added. “You used the stuff too!”

“But we did not know it was wrong,” said Loor quietly. “You did.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but I was still in an arguing mood so I yelled, “I didn’t ask to come here, you know! It’s not like I had a choice. I’m not a warrior like Loor or Osa. I’m not a knight like Alder. And I’m not a…not a…I don’t knowwhat you are anymore, Uncle Press, but I’m sure as hell not like you! You never should have brought me here.” I was ready for a fight. I wanted them to say what a loser I was because I had a great comeback. I’d agree with them. I never claimed to be anything more than a junior-high kid from the suburbs. That’s it. I wasn’t a revolutionary, or a fighter, or anything else they wanted me to be. It wasn’t fair to blame me for not living up to their expectations. I was doing the best I could. If that wasn’t good enough, well, too bad.