“What is this magic?” Alder asked in awe.
“It’s not magic,” I answered. “It’s the surveillance I told you about. Oops.”
Naymeer added, “Suffice it to say, leaving the compound won’t be nearly as easy.”
He pointed the remote, and the screens changed to what looked like live pictures from the same surveillance cameras. Several red-shirt guards took positions at the front gate, at the front door, and at the four corners of the outside walls of the compound. In other words, we had walked into a trap.
“No matter,” Naymeer said jovially. “I’m sure you don’t wish to leave so quickly. Not after going through such trouble to see me.” He put the news program back on and sat behind his desk. “You caught me as I was preparing for this evening’s conclave. I would love it if you honored me by attending as my guests.”
“What’s a conclave?” I asked.
“A small gathering of the faithful,” Naymeer answered, waving his hand as if it were nothing. “Tonight should be especially eventful though. We’re preparing for the big night tomorrow.”
“What will happen tomorrow?” Alder asked.
Naymeer’s eyes went wide. “You can’t be serious! It’s the night of the General Assembly vote! It’s nothing less than the event that will decide the future of mankind.” He got a mischievous gleam in his eye and added, “And the future of Halla.”
I wanted to jump over the desk, yank him by his expensive robe, and drag him down to the flume right then and there. I might have tried, too, if the TV news show hadn’t caught Naymeer’s attention.
“Shhh!” he commanded, looking to the screen.
Alder and I looked to see a dark-skinned man being interviewed. He was introduced as Professor Haig Gastigian of New York University, the leader of a group called the “Foundation.” Mark and Courtney had told us all about the guy. He was the one sane voice that anybody seemed to be listening to.
On the screen, Gastigian said, “To say this has gone too far is a gross understatement. For the General Assembly of the United Nations to allow a single entity to dictate matters of morality is nothing short of fascism. There are far too many people who will not sit still and let these Ravinian people impose their value system on the world. We plan on staging a protest outside of the United Nations, beginning today and carrying through the vote tomorrow evening. In addition, as a show of strength and unity, there will be a major rally beginning tomorrow evening-”
Naymeer clicked off the TV and tossed the controller onto his desk in disgust. “Gastigian and his people call themselves the ‘Foundation,’” he scoffed. “Foundation of what? Failure? Excuse? Whimpering? Thinking that a group of loudmouthed ne’er-do-wells can stand up to us is exactly why we have become so powerful. Ravinia is about taking positive, decisive action, not whining and fearing change. Do they have any idea that their complaining and negativity is their downfall?”
There was plenty to discuss with Alexander Naymeer. But not then. Not there. I glanced at Alder and nodded. It was time.
“I want to hear all about it,” I said as the two of us stalked toward Naymeer’s desk. “Let’s take a trip first.”
“Excuse me?” Naymeer said, genuinely confused. “And please,” I added. “No whimpering.”
“Wha-”
Alder grabbed the guy’s arm and twisted it behind his back.
“You’re hurting me,” he complained.
“Nuh-uh,” I cautioned. “No whimpering.”
“I will not hurt you, so long as you do not resist,” Alder said to the man.
Naymeer didn’t fight. “You realize this is futile,” he said.
“Let’s find out,” I replied, and walked for the door.
Alder followed with Naymeer. The dog named Nevva sat on the couch and didn’t so much as whine in protest. It seemed as if this Nevva was just about as loyal as the original. When we exited the office, four red shirts arrived, each carrying Tasers.
“Stand back,” Naymeer ordered them. “I must not be harmed.”
The guards looked confused. Or as I’ve written before, as confused as a dado can look. They kind of bumped into one another as they jockeyed to get out of our way. I ran to the door that led to the cellar and the flume.
“Go,” I commanded after opening it.
Alder pushed Naymeer ahead and down the stairs. I looked back at the dado guards and said, “You bozos wait here. We won’t be long.” I closed the door, leaving them standing there, befuddled.
“What is the point?” Naymeer asked as Alder wrestled him down the stairs and through the basement. “Do you think taking me away from Second Earth will change anything? Ravinia is more powerful than any one man. All will continue as planned whether I’m here or not. This is all so futile.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. We’ll know for sure in a couple of minutes.”
“What? How?” Naymeer asked.
“We’re going to see the future.”
We stopped at the wooden door with the star. The gate to the flume. I took a second, and touched the star symbol that had been burned into the door.
“This star used to represent something special,” I said to Naymeer. “Something bigger than all of us. This star said Halla. But you took it and made it into something small and hateful. You feel good about that?”
Naymeer lifted an eyebrow and said, “What makes you think that star ever represented anything other than the pursuit of perfection that is Ravinia?”
I wanted to hit the guy. Especially if he was right. I didn’t want to believe that the star was put at all the gates solely to mark the way for Saint Dane’s crusade. That would have been too horrifying to even think of. So I didn’t. I pulled open the door and motioned for Alder to take him into the root cellar.
“We’ll all travel together,” I said as I stepped into the mouth of the flume. “I don’t want to risk this guy getting away and-”
The flume came to life.
It began to crack and writhe as light appeared in the deep distance. I shot a look to Alder. I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t have any more answers than I did.
“This is my lucky day,” Naymeer said with a confident grin. “It looks as if I’m to be receiving additional guests.”
I jumped out of the flume and stood with Alder and Naymeer, our backs to the far wall. The gray stones of the flume turned to crystal. A shadow appeared. A tall shadow. A single Traveler had arrived. He walked slowly from the depths of the flume and stood with the light at his back.
The light didn’t disappear. That meant only one thing.
“I’m honored that you’ve all come to greet my return,” Saint Dane said. “I trust you’re getting acquainted.”
“We’re taking him out of here,” I shouted.
Saint Dane laughed. “Why would you do that? You wouldn’t want him to miss all the fun, would you?”
“Let’s go,” I growled to Alder, taking his arm and pulling him toward the flume. I didn’t care if Saint Dane was there. I was ready to bowl him over. We had to get Naymeer away from Second Earth. We had to change the future.
It was going to be harder than I thought. More shadows appeared from deep within the flume, walking toward us in two military-like lines.
Alder and I stopped short. “Dados,” he declared.
They all wore the red-shirt uniforms of Naymeer’s guardians. Naymeer was right. It was going to be a lot more difficult leaving the house than it had been getting in.
We weren’t ready to give up. I spotted the two dado-killing rods that we had brought from Denduron. They were still on the dirt floor where we had dropped them when we were Tasered on our arrival.
“Let him go,” I commanded Alder, while diving to the ground and grabbing the rods.
Alder pushed Naymeer away. I tossed him a weapon.
Saint Dane stood in the center of the flume with his legs apart and his arms folded. He wasn’t about to move.
“Must you always be so difficult, Pendragon?�
�� he asked, bored.
“Uh, yeah” was my answer, and the fight was on.
The dados jogged past Saint Dane on either side of the demon, headed for us. I dropped my rod down to my waist, ready to use it like a prod. I nailed the first dado in line, instantly feeling his power going out. I pulled the weapon back and jabbed again at the second. They didn’t know what hit them. Wherever these dados came from, it wasn’t Quillan. They knew nothing about the power of these weapons. We had a chance.
Naymeer ran from the root cellar. I didn’t care. We had to get out of there and go to Third Earth, where we could figure out another plan of attack. Alder took out the dados one by one. The bodies were piling up, but more red shirts marched from the depths of the flume. Many more.
I heard Alder gasp. He’d been hit. I wasn’t sure by what. A Taser? The butt of a gun? He staggered. I went to him to try and keep the dados off him. It was the last move I made. There were too many of them. As soon as I jumped to Alder’s defense, I felt a sharp shot to the back of my head. I fell forward, dropping the weapon. Alder was already flat out. I was on my knees, about to join him. I took another shot to the side of my head and went down, hard. The last thing I remember seeing was Saint Dane’s smiling face looking down at me.
“Always the hard way,” he said, shaking his head.
(CONTINUED)
SECONDEARTH
“Howare you feeling?”
It was a deep voice that sounded vaguely familiar. How was I feeling? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Like I was hit by a bus,” I croaked. Of course, I’d never actually been hit by a bus, but I was pretty sure that this was what it would feel like. I struggled to pull myself out of the dark pit of the unconscious, knowing that when I got out, I wouldn’t want to be where I found myself. I opened my eyes. At least I think I did. It was hard to tell, because everything was black.
“Alder?” I asked.
“He is fine,” came the deep voice.
Who was that? Why did he sound so familiar? I blinked. It didn’t change anything, other than to make my head hurt. I decided not to blink anymore. I was lying out flat on something soft. At least somebody had tried to make me comfortable. Good for them, whoever they were.
“Over here, Pendragon,” the voice said.
The third time was the charm. I recognized the voice. I wanted to be unconscious again. I looked toward my feet to see him standing over me, lit by a small lamp near the end of the couch I was on. The light hit him from below, like when you hold a flashlight under your chin to look all spooky. But Saint Dane didn’t really need any lighting effects to help with his creep appeal. He loomed over me like a vulture, his bald head in shadow caused by the light of the single bulb.
“Welcome back,” he said warmly, as if he actually meant it. “I was afraid you’d miss the festivities. Close your eyes; I’ll put some lights on.”
What a courteous guy! He didn’t want me to be uncomfortable when he flicked on the lights. How thoughtful. I’d have thanked him, if I hadn’t wanted to hurt him.
Saint Dane walked slowly to a wall panel and turned a dimmer switch. The room slowly grew brighter, and I got a view of the space. It looked like the waiting room at a doctor’s office. I didn’t think for a second that Saint Dane would have taken me to a doctor. There were a couple of couches and chairs with tables. One whole wall was covered by heavy red drapes that were probably blocking a window. I was lying on a couch along one wall. My head hurt. I wasn’t sure if I had been knocked out by getting hit or being Tasered. Probably both. Bottom line was, I felt like, well, like I had been hit by a bus.
Saint Dane walked toward me. Except for the fact that he had lost his gray hair when his head caught fire a while back, the guy hadn’t changed a bit since the day I’d first seen him. He still stood tall and ramrod straight. He still wore that black suit. He still had those blue-white eyes that burned into my head whenever he looked my way. He still made my skin crawl.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said groggily.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“How many of those suits do you have? Do you like, send them to the laundry, or just toss ‘em out and put on a new one when it gets all gamey?”
Saint Dane chuckled. I amused him.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“It was a joke, idiot.” On top of everything else wrong with him, Saint Dane didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Except when I amused him. Which happened a lot, I’m sorry to say.
“I’m glad to see that you’re in a good mood. You should be. Our struggle has finally come to an end. Perhaps we should celebrate.”
“Perhaps you should bite me.”
Saint Dane cocked his head, confused. “I’m afraid I don’t understand that remark, but I’ll assume it’s a provocation. There’s no need for hostility between us anymore, Pendragon.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
He sat down in a chair across from me. I tried to sit up, but decided my aching head preferred that I stay on my back. What the heck. I didn’t need to be polite to this guy.
“You’ll soon learn that I speak the truth,” Saint Dane said calmly. “The Convergence is well under way. The territories are becoming one. All is as I anticipated it would be. Our duel is complete.”
“You keep talking as if this were a contest between us,” I said.
“It is. It was.”
“Then why didn’t somebody tell me that from the beginning? You can’t have a competition when only one side knows the rules.”
“It was the only way,” Saint Dane explained. “This has been a battle to determine the future of Halla. Though not in the conventional sense. If you were to have understood the stakes from the beginning, it would not have been a fair demonstration.”
“Demonstration of what?”
“The quest for control of Halla was never about armies or physical strength or even technology. It was about a battle between two basic, philosophical differences. It was about determining which is the more effective way to play out one’s destiny. By chance or by design. I, of course, believe in design. You and your sort prefer to let fate lead you where it may. If you knew that issue was at the core of our struggle, you would not have had a fair chance to prove your philosophy.”
I finally sat up. I didn’t care that my head was being pounded by a sledgehammer. “What philosophy? I don’t have any philosophy.”
“But you do. At every turn you have made choices based on the belief that the people of Halla know what is best for them. Correct?”
I didn’t answer.
“Press told you that the territories should never be mixed. Each culture, each society, each world, each individual should be given the chance to live its own destiny without interference. Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“Of course not. And I have proved time and again that the people of Halla will consistently make the wrong choices.”
“Because you’ve pushed them into making the wrong choices,” I exclaimed.
“Only to prove my point. Do you honestly think the battles we’ve been through are the only cases of misery in the history of Halla? Pendragon! I know you are still just a boy, but certainly you know that each world has its own legacy of violence and strife that has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I didn’t invent conflict. Quite the opposite. I’m trying to end it.”
My head hurt, and not just because I had been beaten up.
“So what?” I exclaimed. “What’s the point? Let’s pretend you’re not lying. Again. Let’s say that everything that’s happened between us was all some huge philosophical debate that used the people of Halla as pawns. Why? Who are we trying to prove something to? Who’s running this, Saint Dane? What’s the prize? If this war is truly over, then it won’t make any difference if you let me know what’s going on.”
Saint Dane blinked. I saw it. He didn’t answer right away either. It was the best possible response I could
have hoped for.
I smiled.
“It’s not over, is it?”
“It was over when you quit, Pendragon,” he spat at me. “It was the ultimate display of weakness. You are incapable of making difficult decisions. You flinch in the face of adversity. Your so-called morals have been your downfall. When you buried the flume on Ibara, it opened the door for the Convergence.”
“But it isn’t over, is it?” I said, goading him.
Saint Dane’s face grew dark. His eyes flared. He stood quickly and strode to the panel with the dimmer switch. He hit another button. The red drapes that covered the one wall parted automatically. I struggled to stand and look at what was being revealed. There was a long glass window, but it didn’t look outside. I had heard all about this place from Mark and Courtney and Patrick, but seeing it was still a shock. Hearing about it and seeing it for myself were two different animals. I couldn’t breathe.
The window overlooked a huge room that seemed to me like a cathedral. Or a big theater. There were multiple rows of green seats all facing the same direction, with a center aisle dividing them. It was exactly as my friends had described it. It wasn’t a cathedral. It wasn’t a theater. Roughly ten yards in front of the seats, was the flume.
“Look familiar?” Saint Dane asked. “This is the flume that was unearthed next to the subway tracks in the Bronx. It’s now the Conclave of Ravinia.”
The room we were in was some kind of private viewing area that overlooked the seats from a level above. To the rear of the huge space was a wide staircase. I saw people coming down and filling up the rows. They could have been arriving for a church service. Or a movie. Or a school play. There were all kinds of people. All races. All ages. I saw families with little kids and people who arrived alone. They all seemed to be dressed pretty well. Some had what looked like traditional costumes from other countries, and some even wore military uniforms. They filed in quickly and quietly. Several of the red-shirt guards were stationed around, leading people to their seats like ushers. They didn’t have guns. I wondered if the people knew they were robots.
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