by Brandon Mull
“I’m sure it is,” Lorenzo said. “Kendo visited Earth many times before walking the Pilgrim Path. He left the box shortly before he departed the five kingdoms for good.”
Cole looked at the note.
Dear Cole, Mira, Jace, and Violet,
I trust you are well. If all goes according to plan, when you read this, we will have recently spoken, though from my point of view it has been a very long time since our last conversation. I will have walked the Pilgrim Path ten years ago. Hopefully, Lorenzo was able to confirm that I arrived to Earth safely. If not, I apologize and encourage you to plan alternate strategies with him.
Come see me, and I will tell you all I can about how we might lure Ramarro to Earth, and whether it would be ethical to try. You will find me in the Miami area. South Beach. A condo high-rise called the Pinnacle on Playa Circle. I’m number 1421. Hit the button. I’ll be waiting. See you soon.
By the way, I have encountered the Perennial Serpent a few more times and feel it could indeed be an embodiment of stolen shaping power. I hoped to defeat it for you, but never succeeded.
See you shortly,
Kendo Rattan
“I’ve never been to Miami,” Cole said.
“It’s pleasant,” Lorenzo replied.
“You’ve been?” Cole exclaimed.
“I’ve visited many places,” Lorenzo said. “Miami had delicious stone crab. And wonderful Cuban sandwiches. I can get you near the Pinnacle. You’ll have two hours maximum. But I can send you again if needed.”
“Our shaping won’t work there,” Mira said.
“None of it,” Lorenzo agreed. “Your powers will be entirely dormant. So be careful.” He took out a roll of twenty-dollar bills and handed it to Cole. “Some money . . . just in case.”
Cole thumbed through the bills. It was surreal to look at regular money after so long—something that had once felt so valuable and now seemed incredibly small compared to everything else at stake here. Still, his old self would have freaked out to have this much cash in his hands. “This is a lot!” he exclaimed.
Lorenzo shrugged. “Don’t be conspicuous about it. You’ll have it if you need it.” He held out a hand. “Do you mind giving me a little help?”
Cole took his hand and energized his power.
A wayport opened.
It was too bright to stare at directly.
“Are you sure this doesn’t lead to the sun?” Cole asked.
“Openings to the Outside tend to be brilliant,” Violet said.
“And a little more disorienting,” Lorenzo said. “Try to relax. You’ll arrive just fine.”
“We can go?” Mira asked. “Already?”
“Thanks to my limitless energy source,” Lorenzo said, giving Cole a pat on the shoulder.
“I like the hustle,” Cole said. “We have no time to waste. I can’t believe I’ll be back in my world. Even for a little while.”
“Me first,” Jace said, stepping into the radiant portal.
Cole followed.
When Cole stepped inside, bright whiteness blinded him entirely. His foot did not reach the ground. Instead he floated forward. Or down? He seemed to move and hold still at the same time. Cracking his eyes against the glaring light, Cole could see no details.
He began to feel nauseated.
And then his feet were on dirt, and he could open his eyes just fine. Cole stood beside Jace in a corner where concrete walls intersected. Succulents and shrubs grew all around him, screening him from view. Mira appeared, and then Violet.
Cole led the others out of the patch of vegetation and into a parking lot. Towering white clouds floated in an otherwise blue sky. Art deco buildings crowded an avenue. A row of palm trees stretched high and slender with shaggy tops. Not far away, a white-sand beach spread out with the ocean beyond. Lots of foot traffic moved along a walkway paralleling the beach—a blend of people in touristy attire, scantily clad beachgoers, slackers, and fitness enthusiasts.
“If you get thirsty around here, just breathe,” Jace said.
“Hot and humid,” Cole agreed. “But look at that beach.”
“People in your world don’t wear very much when they swim,” Jace observed.
“I guess not,” Cole had to agree.
“The buildings are huge,” Violet said, looking around.
“This is nothing,” Cole said. “They get bigger. Like Zeropolis.”
“Want to go for a quick swim?” Jace asked, eyes on the water.
“Kind of,” Cole said. “Aren’t we racing the end of the world?”
“Exactly,” Jace said. “What if this is our only chance?”
“Maybe after we talk to Kendo,” Mira said. “There may be time.”
Cole noticed a street sign. “Playa Circle is right over there. It looks tiny.” He pointed to a white building taller than some of the others. “I bet that’s the Pinnacle.”
“Let’s find out,” Mira said.
They hurried over to Playa Circle and turned up the little street. An awning over the front doors proclaimed the suspected building the Pinnacle. Cole opened the front doors into a small room with columns of buttons beside four-digit numbers on the wall. The air was markedly cooler. Jace tried the next door but found it locked.
“I think we can call him from here,” Cole said. He had seen such devices in movies but had never used one.
“Fourteen twenty-one,” Violet reminded them.
Cole found the number and pressed the button. They waited a moment.
“Hello?” asked a male voice, recognizably Kendo.
“Hi, Kendo,” Cole said. “We’re here.”
A pause followed. “Excuse me?”
“It’s Cole, Mira, Jace, and Violet,” Cole said. “We’re here for our meeting.”
Another pause. “I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not expecting anyone. There is no soliciting allowed here, young man.”
“You’re Kendo Rattan, right?”
“That is not . . . what I go by,” the man said. “Who are you? Why are you contacting me?”
“You told us to come here,” Cole said. “We’re from the Outskirts. The five kingdoms. You set up this meeting a long time ago.”
A long pause followed. Cole wondered if Kendo had hung up. “Who put you up to this?” the man asked.
“You did,” Cole said. “We really need your help.”
Violet leaned forward. “Have you forgotten?” she asked.
“There are four of you?” the man asked.
“And we don’t have much time,” Cole said. “We’ll be sucked back to the Outskirts before long. We need to talk about Ramarro.”
There came a buzzing sound.
“Come on up,” the man said.
Cole pulled the door open and led the way to the elevator. He pushed the button, and they waited until the doors opened. Inside, the buttons rose from L to 18, skipping 13. Cole pressed 14. The elevator started to ascend.
“This will take us up?” Jace asked. “Your world is like Zeropolis.”
The elevator stopped abruptly enough to make Cole’s stomach lurch a little. He walked down a hall until they found the door marked 1421. Cole knocked.
The door opened. Not all the way.
It was definitely Kendo Rattan. He wore a bowling shirt, shorts, and sandals. His hair looked a little grayer and thinner, his face somewhat older, but he was unmistakable.
“Do you remember us now?” Cole asked.
Kendo looked perplexed. He slowly shook his head. “You are not familiar to me.”
“None of us?” Mira asked. “You met us a couple of times over the years.”
“Have you been working on Ramarro?” Jace asked.
“Where are your parents?” Kendo asked.
“Creon,” Violet said.
“Orphan,” Jace said.
“Mine don’t remember me ever since I was kidnapped to the Outskirts,” Cole said.
“And mine were recently abducted,” Mira said. “The High
King Stafford Pemberton and his consort, Harmony?”
Kendo rubbed his eyes. “I am really losing it.”
“You really don’t remember?” Cole asked.
Kendo regarded them thoughtfully. He pulled the door fully open. “Come inside.”
“Thanks,” Cole said.
The front room was nicely appointed. A sliding door led to a balcony with an ocean view. A tiny brown dog yipped at them.
“Hush, Monster,” Kendo said. “These are only figments of my imagination.” He looked at Cole. “Have a seat. Are you thirsty?”
“We’re all right,” Cole said.
“What do you have?” Jace asked.
“Water,” Kendo said. “Ginger ale. I could make some lemonade.”
“I’ll try ginger ale,” Jace said.
“Anyone else?” Kendo offered.
“Sure,” Cole said. “Lemonade.” Who knew when he would get his next chance for a taste of home?
The others shook their heads.
Kendo walked into his kitchen. Cole heard an ice machine grinding. Kendo returned with a glass for Jace and another for Cole.
“You came from the Outskirts,” Kendo said as if it were unlikely.
“Yes,” Cole assured him.
“What did I do there?” Kendo asked.
“You were a Wayminder,” Cole said.
“Not just a Wayminder,” Violet gushed. “You are Kendo Rattan! Grand Shaper of Creon. The founder of Creon! You helped make the Outskirts.”
Kendo gave a little chuckle and tapped his temple. “That I might believe. If I invented it in here. Inside my mind.”
“You really don’t remember,” Mira said.
“This is all very odd,” Kendo said. “If it is some kind of joke, please desist. You have no idea how much you could be setting me back. But I’m not sure who would care to make this joke.”
“It isn’t a joke,” Cole promised. “It’s the opposite, actually. Desperately real. Life and death.”
Kendo rubbed his elbow uncomfortably. “I have . . . journals.”
“Yeah?” Cole asked.
“My handwriting. They tell of another place. Another me. An impossible place. An impossible me.”
“Creon,” Violet said.
“The Outskirts,” Jace added.
“You know the names,” Kendo said. “How do you know those words?”
“We just came from there,” Cole said.
Kendo gave an awkward chuckle. “You can’t imagine how absurd this sounds. And how confusing it is.”
“Why?” Mira asked.
He gazed at her. “I don’t remember my life. My memory goes back eight, nine years. Nothing before then. Only scribblings in journals about preposterous places and incredible dilemmas. As if I wrote an elaborate fiction and became lost in it. As if I broke my mind.”
“Why don’t you go by your real name?” Cole asked.
“The journals warn me not to use the name Kendo Rattan,” Kendo said. “I go by Andy Starnes. Andy Starnes has no history before ten years ago. Neither does Kendo Rattan. No birth certificate.”
“Don’t you have ID?” Cole asked.
“I have papers,” Kendo said. “Andrew Starnes. American citizen. I have a Social Security number. I have a birth certificate. But I did the research. They’re fake. Good fakes, but fake.”
“How did you get them?” Cole asked.
“I don’t remember,” Kendo said. “It happened during a hazy period about nine years ago that contains my first flickers of recall. No clear memories. My journal tells me I converted gold to dollars and used it to buy this apartment and a false identity. My journal makes all sorts of wild claims. I have long suspected that I am neither Kendo Rattan nor Andrew Starnes, but rather someone else who lost his sanity. Maybe I had an accident. Maybe it was drugs. I made up a story land called the Outskirts, where I lived. An elaborate farce. Somewhere along the way my true identity perished.”
“You’re Kendo Rattan,” Mira said.
Kendo winced. “Perhaps. Can you imagine how painful that is to hear? I have . . . tattered scraps of the Outskirts in my mind. Like a half-forgotten dream full of gaps and inconsistencies. I can hardly distinguish between what I actually remember and what I read in my journals. My writings are disturbingly coherent. Especially at first. I seemed utterly convinced of this fanciful reality.”
“You came here ten years ago,” Cole said. “You called it the Pilgrim Path. You knew you would lose your powers. Apparently you also lost your memory.”
“I don’t remember parents, siblings—any family,” Kendo said. “I don’t know if I had wives or girlfriends. Children. I don’t know if I held a job. I just have words in a book that sound insane. Preposterous. Imaginary.”
“Those words are true,” Cole said. “And important. In less than two hours, we’re going to get drawn back into the Outskirts. You can watch us disappear. Would that help?”
Kendo regarded him in silence. “It would be a comfort to see something concrete. It would also be . . . so distressing. I thought I had this figured out. I thought I had it behind me. If this is some sort of con job, you are unspeakably cruel.”
“We’re not tricking you,” Mira assured him.
“It would seem not,” Kendo said.
“You came here to do research about Ramarro,” Cole said. “To see what would happen to him if he came here.”
“The torivor,” Kendo said. “I wrote a lot about him. I was evidently obsessed with the topic. He is dangerous?”
“He’s going to destroy the Outskirts if we can’t stop him,” Cole said.
Kendo nodded. “Wait one moment. Let me fetch my journals.” He walked out of the room.
“This is terrible,” Jace whispered. “What do we do?”
“We hope he wrote something useful before he forgot what he was doing,” Mira said. “Be patient. Part of him wants to believe us.”
Kendo returned with a stack of identical hardback journals. He set them on the coffee table and started thumbing through one of them. Cole and the others watched.
“It has been some time since I studied these,” Kendo said. “I used to read them frequently. I didn’t believe what I had written, but I hoped to find clues about what happened to my mind, what happened to my past.” He smoothed his hand over a page. “In these journals, I gave myself instructions. I apparently became aware my memory was failing and shared advice and warnings. It all pertained to an imaginary world.” He snapped the book closed. “It has to be imaginary.”
“It’s not imaginary,” Mira said. “Just hard to believe from your current vantage point.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds?” Kendo asked. “How can I possibly believe you?”
“Then where did we come from?” Cole asked. “How do we know what you know?”
“You broke in and read my journals,” Kendo said. “Or somebody did. What is more likely? I come from a magical world where I was an important leader? Or I had a mental breakdown, and somebody is now using my journals to exploit me? What do you really want? Money?”
“We want to know how to stop Ramarro,” Cole said. “We want to know if it would be safe to lure him here. And we want to know if I can ever get back to Earth with my friends.”
“You’re from Earth?” Kendo asked.
“Originally,” Cole said. “These other kids were born in the Outskirts. But I’m from Arizona. My friends were kidnapped by slavers and taken to the Outskirts. I followed them there, but we can’t get home permanently. At least not without your help.”
“Yet here you are in the real world,” Kendo said. “Asking for nonsensical information about a nonsensical world.”
“We need the vital information you recorded before you forgot who you are,” Mira said.
“You don’t want money?” Kendo said. “You don’t want favors? No secrets about my actual past to taunt me with? No blackmail? Come on—don’t waste my time. What’s the catch?”
“Just info,
” Cole said. “So we can try to save an entire world.”
Kendo folded his arms. “It has been a long time since I looked hard at this stuff. I rambled on and on. But I seem to remember . . .” He picked up a journal and started leafing through it.
Cole watched in silence. So did the others.
Kendo read for a moment. Then paged ahead. Then read again.
“Your names?” Kendo asked.
Cole repeated their names.
Kendo nodded. “It says you would come.”
“You told us to come,” Cole said. “We’re here because of you.”
“You’re right on schedule,” Kendo said. “To the day. I used to wonder if anyone would actually show up. Then I forgot to wonder.”
“Here we are,” Mira said.
“I left myself a message for you,” Kendo said. “If it helps . . . great.”
“Let’s have it,” Cole said.
Kendo started to read. “ ‘I am utterly powerless, and my memory is failing. I could not ascertain what it would look like if torivors reached Earth. I suspect they would be rendered powerless. Perhaps even more powerless than me. Coming here might destroy them. But I have no way to confirm. Please tell Lorenzo to share the location of the Void. And to give you access to the three talismans. It is now the best help I can offer, unless you can find a way to confirm what I could not about the torivors.’ ”
“You forgot we were coming?” Mira asked.
“I’ve wanted to forget all of this,” Kendo said. “I’ve mostly succeeded. Talking to you stirred up memories of some things I read.”
“Is there more?” Violet asked.
“That was the message,” Kendo said. He read it again. “So much in these journals describes how I set up my life here. A lot deals with failed experiments regarding these torivors. I go on and on like a madman. After my message to you, I kept journaling, but my memory was clearly getting worse. Before long I was mostly musing about whether my journal was fact or fiction. By the end I concluded it was fiction. Not long afterward I stopped writing.”
“You did your best,” Mira said. “It must have been hard.”
Kendo looked like he was having difficulty composing himself. “I’m not sure how difficult it was. I lead a comfortable life. Only the words in these journals trouble me. And the huge gap in my memory. I have considered destroying the journals. I expect I would eventually forget them as I have forgotten the rest. Then all I would have is the void in my memory.”