Black Water

by D. J. MacHale

  And that’s when his ring started to twitch.

  He didn’t react at first. He was too busy being stunned. But a second later, when the ring began to grow, he was yanked back to reality. It was the bright light that started to flash from the gray stone that did it. It was a good thing he was sitting in the back of the room because nobody else saw it. He quickly clamped his hand over the ring.

  “You okay, Dimond?” Andy called from the front of the class.

  Every one of the Sci-Clops members turned to look at Mark. Mark felt like he was in one of those dreams where you suddenly discovered you were only wearing underpants.

  “Uhh, y-yeah. I’m fine,” Mark stammered. He stood up, caught his foot on the leg of the desk, and nearly tumbled over. “I-I just remembered I g-got something—”

  “Is everything all right?” Mr. Pike asked.

  Mark could feel the ring growing on his finger. In a second everything wouldn’t be all right.

  “S-Sure,” Mark stammered. “D-Don’t mind me. B-Bye.”

  Mark half ran, half fell out of the room. He didn’t care what he looked like. He had to get out of there. He sprinted down the hallway, gasping for breath, and blasted through the doors back to the stairway. It was too late to find anywhere more private. He pulled off his ring, put it on the floor and stepped back. It was already the size of a bracelet and still growing. The gray stone shot out lights that lit up the stairway like a storm of sparklers. The ring grew to the size of a Frisbee. Mark saw the dark opening in the center that he knew was a portal to the territories. The light show was followed by the familiar jumble of musical notes that grew louder, as if they were coming closer. Because they were. A brilliant light flashed out of the hole that forced Mark to cover his eyes. He had been through this before. He didn’t have to see.

  A second later it was over. The music was gone, the lights stopped flashing, and the ring returned to normal. Mark looked at the floor. He was close to hyperventilating. In that moment, all the waiting, all the frustration, all the anxiety of the last few months washed away. He didn’t even care that Andy Mitchell was now addressing his beloved Sci-Clops. That’s because sitting on the floor next to his ring was a rolled-up piece of parchment paper tied with a piece of green, plantlike twine. Mark looked at it for a moment, just to make sure it was real. After what he had been through over the last few minutes, he wasn’t sure anything was real. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the cell phone his parents had given him for the holidays. It was only supposed to be used in emergencies. This qualified. He hit #1 on his speed dial and listened. After a few seconds . . .

  “Courtney?” he said. “Hobey-ho, let’s go.”

  He snapped the phone shut, bent over, and reverently picked up the next journal in the saga of his best friend.

  Bobby Pendragon.

  Traveler.

  JOURNAL #16

  EELONG

  I’m in trouble, guys.

  I know, I’ve said that a million times before. But here on Eelong I’m faced with something that is way different than anything I’ve ever had to deal with. As I’m writing this, I can honestly say I don’t know what to do. This isn’t about being afraid, or being confused about Traveler stuff or even about finding Saint Dane. Finding him is the least of my worries. My problem is that, unlike Cloral or Denduron or Veelox or the Earth territories, the intelligent beings that inhabit the territory of Eelong aren’t normal. I know what you’re thinking: has anyone I’ve run into since leaving home even come close to being considered normal? Not really. But here on Eelong, the inhabitants may be a lot of things, but there is one thing they definitely are not.

  Human.

  Yeah, you read right. They’re not human. I’ve got to figure out what the turning point is here and stop Saint Dane just like on the other territories, but how can I do that when I can’t communicate with the very people I’m supposed to help? This is impossible! I’ve been on the run from the first moment I landed here. I’m in constant danger, and the scariest part is that my biggest threat isn’t Saint Dane—it’s the inhabitants of Eelong. How wrong is that?

  It gets worse.

  Saint Dane told you that the rules have changed, right? Well, I can’t say for sure what that means, but I think he’s right. From the moment I left Veelox, I felt as if things were different. In some ways, I’m starting over. It’s not a good feeling. But I’ve got to calm down, take a breath, and write this journal. This may be the only chance I’ll get. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but I am really, really scared.

  Where to begin? It already seems like a lifetime ago that I was on Veelox with Aja Killian. I’ve lost all track of real time. Jumping between territories will do that. A day in one territory isn’t always twenty-four hours in another. What year is this? What month? What century? I’m totally lost. I gotta get a grip. Let me go back to where I finished my last journal and pick up my story from there. So much has happened, I hope I can remember all the details.

  • • •

  Aja Killian and I stood together in the dark, subterranean room that held the flume on Veelox, not sure of what to say to each other. Her normally well-kept blond hair was kind of a mess. I know that doesn’t sound all that weird, but for somebody like Aja, who is all about being perfect, it was a huge statement. It was a tough moment because no matter how you cut it, we had lost. The Reality Bug had failed. No, worse than that. It had nearly killed every last person on Veelox. Calling it a failure is kind of an understatement. The virtual-reality computer called Lifelight was back online and most everybody on Veelox had jumped back inside to live in their own personal fantasy worlds. There was nobody left in reality to grow food, to maintain buildings, to uphold the law, or to do the million and one other basic things that a civilization needs to function. It would only be a matter of time before the territory itself began to fall apart. Bottom line was, Saint Dane had won his first territory. I couldn’t let him win another, so staying on Veelox wasn’t an option.

  “Please finish my journal for me,” I asked Aja. “Tell Mark and Courtney that I went to Eelong to find Gunny.”

  “You don’t want to finish the journal yourself?” Aja asked.

  Good question. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe I was drained after having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I could even say that I was in too much of a hurry to find Gunny. All that was true. But as I think back, I believe the real reason was because I was too embarrassed to admit defeat. Especially to you guys. I still don’t know why I was chosen to be a Traveler, but I’ve been around the block enough times now to realize that whether I liked it or not, the job was mine. On Veelox, I had done a lousy job. I was angry, frustrated, and a little bit scared, because I didn’t know what losing a territory was going to mean in the battle against Saint Dane. My head was not in a good place.

  “No,” I finally answered. “Please finish it for me.”

  She nodded and said, “I’m sorry, Pendragon; this was my fault.” Aja was near tears. She took off her small, yellow glasses and cleaned them on her sleeve. Aja hated to admit defeat even more than I did. She was a brilliant computer scientist who never failed at anything she tried, until now. Too bad it had been the most important challenge of her life.

  “Don’t think that way,” I said, trying to sound positive. “This isn’t about any one of us. When we fail, we fail together.” That was a totally cheesy, football coach-type statement, but I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

  Besides, it was the truth. I was as much to blame as Aja.

  “What do I do now?” she asked. “Maybe I should go with you.”

  I have to admit, I thought about bringing her along. Every time I had gone to a territory for the first time, I had another Traveler with me. But it wouldn’t have been right to take Aja away from Veelox. No, this time I had to fly solo. I was suddenly missing Uncle Press a whole bunch.

  “No,” I said. “You’ve got to keep Lifelight running for as long as possible. Remember, this is
about all of Halla, not just Veelox. Saint Dane hasn’t won yet. Anything can happen.”

  “So you think there’s still hope for Veelox?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” I answered. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about that at all. But I had to give Aja hope. She grabbed me and hugged me close. It took me totally by surprise because Aja wasn’t normally an affectionate person. But she held me so tight—it made me realize that telling her there was still hope was like throwing a lifeline to a drowning person. She needed to hear that, whether it was the truth or not. I hugged back. I liked Aja. I felt bad that she was hurting. But I was hurting too. Hugging her felt good. I guess misery loves company.

  “Find Gunny,” she said while still holding me. “And do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  She pulled back from me. I looked into her deep, blue eyes. They once again flashed with the confidence I remembered from when we first met. “I want another crack at Saint Dane,” she said with authority. “Get it for me.”

  I had to smile. Aja wasn’t the type to feel sorry for herself for long. She had too much brass for that.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I answered.

  Aja leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. She held her cheek against mine for a second longer and said, “I believe you.” We stayed that way for a long moment. I have to admit, it felt kind of good.

  My time on Veelox was over. I was on the wrong territory. I backed away from Aja and took two steps into the mouth of the flume. As I stood there staring into the infinite black void, my thoughts went to what I might find next. Truth was, I had no idea. Eelong was a total mystery. Gunny had left for Eelong only a few days before, in pursuit of Saint Dane. The plan was for him to get a quick look around and then meet me back on Veelox. He never returned. That could only mean trouble. So I had to flume to a new territory, alone, and be prepared to face whatever nastiness prevented Gunny from coming back. I suddenly wanted to step back out of the flume and hug Aja again. But that would have blown whatever small bit of cool I had managed to build.

  “Eelong!” I shouted into the flume. The tunnel instantly came to life. The stone walls cracked and groaned; a distant pin spot of light appeared and the sweet magical jumble of notes could faintly be heard. They were coming to take me away.

  “I won’t let you down again, Pendragon,” Aja called.

  “You didn’t let me down this time,” I answered.

  The stone walls of the tunnel began to dissolve to crystal as the light grew brighter and the music grew louder.

  “Remember,” she said with gritted teeth. “I want another chance.”

  “You’ll get it,” I replied, trying to sound as if I knew what I was talking about. But other than making Aja feel better, what I thought didn’t matter. Veelox was then. The battle was moving to Eelong.

  “Good luck, Pendragon,” Aja shouted.

  “And so we go,” I said.

  I squinted against the brilliant light as I felt the familiar tug that meant my trip was beginning. A second later I was lifted off my feet and launched through the flume. Next stop, Eelong.

  I still had no clue as to what a flume actually was, or why they were able to send Travelers through time and space, but the experience was awesome. It was like floating through space on a bed of light. It was the closest you could get to playing Superman.

  But this time something was different.

  It wasn’t a physical difference. The ride felt the same as always. The difference was with what I saw. I was surrounded by the usual star field, but there was something else. Something more. Beyond the crystal walls of the flume, I saw floating images. As I flew along, I’d see something far in the distance, then whip past it and watch it disappear behind me. The images were nearly transparent, which meant I could see the stars behind them like they were ghosts on the edge of becoming solid. Some looked to be my size, others were so huge it took me a few seconds to move past them. Some I even recognized. I saw a Bedoowan knight from Denduron on horseback, galloping through space. I saw what looked to be a school of swimmers in green swimskins from the underwater city of Faar, moving in formation. I saw a tall building that could have been the Manhattan Tower Hotel and an aquaneer on a skimmer from Cloral, riding the sky.

  Other images I didn’t recognize. There were two giant men who looked like twins, running across the sky. They looked powerful, though somewhat stiff, as if they were mechanical. I saw a vast field of people wearing nothing but rags. They were all raising their open hands into the air in some common gesture that looked like they were cheering. I also saw a huge, spotted jungle cat charging across the field of stars.

  None of this was scary. In fact, it was kind of cool. It was like kicking back and watching a bunch of weird movies projected in space. But the more I saw, the more it bothered me. Why was it happening? What had changed? What did the strange images mean? I couldn’t help but think back to what Saint Dane had warned. He said that once the first territory fell, the rest would fall like dominos. I didn’t want to be paranoid or anything, but since Saint Dane had finally toppled a territory, I worried that there might have been some grand, cosmic change in Halla.

  I didn’t get the chance to stress about it for long because the musical notes began to play quickly. I was at the end of my trip. My thoughts turned to Eelong. Was I about to be dumped into a pool of water, like on Cloral? Would there be quigs waiting for me, licking their chops because the dinner bell had just rung?

  A few seconds later the flume gently deposited me on my feet. Nothing dramatic at all. That was the good news. Bad news was that I was instantly engulfed in a tangle of thick, sticky ropes. At least I thought they were ropes. For all I knew it was a massive web and the quigs on Eelong were hungry spiders. But I didn’t want to believe the worst, so I pushed my way through the dense tangle of ropes. I came out on the far side to find myself standing in a cave. A quick three-sixty showed me it was a grand, underground cavern with a high ceiling. Light leaked through random cracks high above. The ropes I had pushed through turned out to be a curtain of thick vines that cascaded down from the ceiling and covered the mouth of the flume.

  “Roots,” I said to myself.

  Roots were good. Way better than spiderweb. The cavern was full of these long, green sticky roots that covered the rock walls. I took a few steps toward the center, still on high alert. But there were no gangsters, no quigs, no pools of water, and no Saint Dane. So far, so good. I looked back to the flume to see it was hidden by the dense curtain of roots. I dug an arrow into the dirt floor with my heel, pointing to it. I wasn’t taking any chances if I had to bolt out of there fast.

  In the dead center of the cavern was a large flat rock. Lying on it was something I wasn’t happy to see. It was a pile of clothing. As you know, acolytes put clothing at the flumes for visiting Travelers. According to the Traveler rules, I had to dress in these clothes. No problem, right? Wrong. The clothing on this rock was nothing more than a pile of dirty rags. I’m not exaggerating. At first I thought that’s what they were. Rags. But when I lifted one up, I saw that it was a crudely made pair of cloth pants. It wasn’t exactly soft, either. It felt like rough burlap. I picked up what looked like a shirt. I wasn’t really sure at first, because I saw one sleeve and a hole that I thought would go around your neck, but the rest was in tatters. Not exactly something you’d find on the rack at the Gap. And they smelled, too. Like bad BO. (Is there such a thing as good BO?)

  I also found some crude shoes made of cloth. I knew they were shoes because they were sort of foot-shaped with extra layers on the bottom. This was not good. I looked around, hoping there might be some other clothes that were a little less nasty, and saw something that made my heart jump. Lying on the ground next to the rock, neatly folded, was a black suit with a white shirt and a large pair of leather shoes.

  “Gunny,” I said out loud.

  These were the clothes he’d worn when he left me on Veelox. There was no mistake; I was i
n the right place in the wrong clothes. I had to change. Those were the rules. I reluctantly took off my comfy green jumpsuit from Veelox and folded it next to Gunny’s clothes. I then did something I absolutely hated, but didn’t have a choice about. I had to lose my boxer shorts. In the past, no matter what territory I visited, I kept on the boxers. I figured that if the future of Halla rested on my choice of underwear, it was beyond saving. But these Eelong clothes were so raggy and threadbare, my boxers would have shown! There was no way I could wear them without arousing suspicion. Or at least looking like a total dork. I wanted to scream. It was the final injustice. I had to wear these rough, itchy, torn-up rags, without boxer protection. They were smelly, too. Did I mention that? I already felt like I was on Eelong for too long.

  I put on the rags as best as I could, but they hung on me like, well, like rags. On the rock I spotted several strips of thin, braided vine about two feet long. I used them to tie up the cloth in places where it hung too loose. I used these vines on the cloth shoes, too, wrapping up both my feet to keep the ratty material on. After a while I felt like a Thanksgiving turkey, all trussed and ready for the oven. It was awful. Compared to these putrid rags, the leather skins on Denduron were like soft pajamas.

  And they smelled, too. I must have mentioned that.

  Now that I was all dressed up (or down) the next step was to find the gate and get out of this cavern. I figured the way out must be hidden by the hanging roots. I walked to the side and stuck my arm out to brush aside the dangling vegetables. I walked along, pushing aside the vines, peering beyond to look for something that might be an exit. I saw that the walls weren’t entirely made of rock. There were thick sections of roots that had grown into and around the rock. I figured there must be some serious vegetation on the surface.

  I had gotten more than halfway around the cavern when I started to worry that I might have missed it. That’s when I saw something. Beyond the thick curtain of hanging vines, there was a vertical crack in the rock wall. This had to be the way out. I took a step through the vines and immediately tripped on something. I stumbled forward, hit the wall, and face-planted into the dirt. Ouch. When I opened my eyes, I was face-to-face with . . . a human skull!