The Soldiers of Halla

by D. J. MacHale

  “Keep moving!” Mark shouted.

  The dados weren’t armed. If they had been, it would have been over in seconds. Even without weapons, our only hope was to keep them off of us long enough to escape down into the hole. Mark and Elli concentrated on the dados near the conveyor. I spun around and fired at those who were creeping up from behind.

  Wump! Wump!

  They fell, one after another. No sooner did one fall than two more came to life, turned, and moved toward us. It was like something out of Night of the Living Dead, except the dados weren’t going to eat us. At least I didn’t think they were.

  We were moving closer to the conveyor tunnel, but not by much.

  “If you can travel, get out of here!” Mark shouted at us.

  No way that would happen. I couldn’t leave Mark to the wolves. But Elli didn’t need to be there.

  “Go,” I said to Elli. “Back to Solara.”

  Elli ignored me and kept firing. It was like she was possessed. She had a steely look in her eye that reminded me of her daughter. She was scared, no doubt, but it also seemed like she was taking some pleasure in blowing the dados away. She had been through a lot. Maybe she was taking some small measure of revenge. Whatever it was, she wasn’t leaving.

  “Elli! Go!”

  She gave me a quick look and shouted, “We’re almost there.”

  She backed toward the opening in the floor, firing as she went. There wasn’t time to argue. Dados were closing in on her from the other side of the conveyor belt. I spun and fired to keep them back. Aim wasn’t all that important. The charged particles that these weapons fired seemed to fan out like buckshot. Close was close enough. I dropped a dado with one shot, and saw a second fall at the same time. I fired again and dropped two more. But we were running out of ammunition, and time.

  Elli’s gun emptied first. Without hesitation she dropped the weapon, turned to jump into the hole…

  And was blown off her feet by a shot from another weapon that was fired from somewhere else. She let out a sharp gasp, as if she had been punched in the stomach. She hurtled backward and hit the floor, hard, square on her back. I think she was unconscious before she landed. I had the brief feeling of relief that she hadn’t been turned to cinder. Whatever hit her, it wasn’t the same kind of charge that we had seen from the silver weapons in the Taj Mahal. But where had it come from?

  I glanced up to the control tower to see someone inside with a rifle up and on his shoulder, leaning out of an open window like a sniper. No doubt he was the guy who shot Elli, and he was swinging the rifle toward me. I lifted my own weapon quickly and fired off three quick shots. I didn’t worry about aim. The sight of Elli being so violently thrown by a shot from that guy made me lose it. I wanted him to suffer.

  One of the windows of the control tower exploded from my first shot. The second hit the guy and knocked him back into the control room. The third blasted out a second window.

  As I ran to help Ellie, I yelled to Mark, “Jump in the hole!”

  Mark was out of ammunition. He fired two more times with no result, then threw his rifle at the approaching dados. No sooner did it leave his hands than he was knocked off his feet by another shot. I looked back up to the control tower to see another sniper leaning out of one of the windows I had shattered. Unlike his pal, he didn’t hesitate to admire his marksmanship. By the time I looked up, he was already aiming at me. I was staring square into the barrel of one of those black weapons.

  I lifted my own.

  Wump.

  I never fired. I didn’t get the chance. My entire body went rigid. It felt like being Tasered by the Ravinian guards when Alder and I arrived at the Sherwood mansion on Second Earth. I’m sure I hit the floor, but I don’t remember it, because an instant after feeling the jolt, I was unconscious.

  Waking up from being rudely separated from consciousness is never easy. I should know. It’s happened to me often enough. There’s that initial feeling of disconnection, followed by the pain of whatever event caused the lights to go out, followed by the desperate need to understand exactly where I had landed and what situation I’d have to deal with. This time was no different. Once I started becoming aware of my surroundings, the first thing I realized was that I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move. Not a pinkie. I didn’t panic. I hadn’t pulled far enough away from the land of the unconscious to feel as if it were anything permanent. I had been through this enough times to know I had to bring my brain back online before I could expect it to control my body.

  One thing was clear. I may have been the illusion that Saint Dane said I was, but at that moment my body felt all too real. I hurt every bit as much as if I had been born in Stony Brook, Connecticut, instead of in some alternate universe filled with spirits. At that moment I kind of wished I was a little more spiritlike and a little less humanlike.

  I opened my eyes and tried to focus. There wasn’t a dado in sight, which meant I was no longer in that factory. I was flat on my back and looking up at a ceiling covered with white tiles. Was this a hospital? It didn’t seem like a prison. I moved my head, which meant I wasn’t paralyzed. At least not from the neck up, anyway. Mark was lying next to me, still unconscious. Someone had covered us with dark green blankets. I saw that we were lying on thin mats and not directly on the floor. That was good. At least we were being treated semi-okay.

  I felt control slowly returning. I twisted my head around to see that we were in a large, empty room. Windows were set high near the ceiling. There would be no way to get out that way. The walls were covered with ornate tiles that created mosaic patterns. If this was a prison, it was a fancy one. I rolled my head the other way and saw that someone was standing by the only door.

  Nevva Winter.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said without compassion. “The effects are temporary, which is better than what those weapons do to the dados. Where did you get them, by the way?”

  Nevva wore a dark outfit that kind of reminded me of Saint Dane’s black suit. But not quite as severe looking. She had a cloth belt that tied at the waist and an open collar. It looked more like a dark warm-up suit. Her hair was tied back too, which was different from the way she’d worn it on Quillan. This was more casual and made her look almost human. Still, she had those piercing eyes that made me remember just how cold and calculating she could be.

  “Water?” she asked.

  Elli. Where was Elli? I forced myself up to my elbows and scanned the room. Another body was lying against a far wall. Her face was covered, but I saw the end of Elli’s gray ponytail poking out from beneath the blanket that was over her. She was here, but still unconscious. I hoped that the effects of the blast hadn’t hurt her.

  “No,” I answered.

  Nevva walked toward me. “Why did you come back?”

  I put on my best smile. “I missed you.”

  Nevva didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. She glared at me. “It’s over, Pendragon,” she said with a touch of impatience. “Halla has fallen. Anything that you and the Travelers do now is futile.”

  “So then you won’t mind that we hang around a little longer,” I replied.

  “You can do whatever you like, but why would you bring Mark here and put him in jeopardy? That’s just irresponsible. He’s your friend.”

  I gave her a surprised look and said, “Wow. Do you really care?”

  Nevva grimaced and turned away. It struck me that she hadn’t said anything about Elli. Did she even know that her mother was lying only a few feet away? It didn’t seem like it.

  “Leave, Pendragon,” Nevva said. “Take your friends with you and find someplace safe for them to live.”

  She said “your friends.” She didn’t know that Elli was one of them. I had to figure out a way to use that to our advantage. I also had to figure out a way to learn what Nevva knew about the exiles.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Monkeying with Saint Dane is a hard habit to break. I think I’ll keep at it.”

  “But it’s over!” she rep
eated with a touch of frustration. “Surely you understand that. You’re fighting a war that has ended. The territories are no longer. Every world in Halla has been cleansed. There’s nothing left to do now but rebuild.”

  I sat up. “Cleansed? Is that what you call it? What you mean is that the people Saint Dane considers worthy are living the life, and everybody else has either been killed or will be soon.”

  “We have rewarded excellence,” Nevva said patiently. “That has been the vision from the beginning. Nothing has happened to the rest of the people of Halla that they didn’t bring about themselves.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Saint Dane manipulated the people of seven worlds into making decisions that led to their own destruction, and you’re saying it’s their fault? That’s like pushing a puppy out into traffic and saying it was his own fault that he got hit by a car. Give me a break!”

  Nevva took a breath. She was trying to control her emotions. “I know you don’t feel that a guided future is right. You believe that people should be free to choose their own destiny. But time and again the people of Halla have chosen poorly. And not just where Saint Dane was involved. The people of Halla were flawed, and I have no doubt that if Saint Dane never intervened, their destruction would have occurred anyway. This way, we have separated those who are worthy of rebuilding Halla and protected them from those who are not. I know, the worlds of Halla are in shambles, but it was necessary. This is only the beginning. We are going to make it right this time, Pendragon. We are going to create Utopia.”

  I stood up. My head hurt and my legs weren’t working that well, but I didn’t want to be sitting on the floor to have this discussion. I wanted to be on Nevva’s level.

  “What about the dado attack on Ibara?” I asked. “Did the people of Ibara bring that on themselves?”

  Nevva blinked. She didn’t answer right away. I had struck a chord.

  “They created the situation that allowed for it to happen,” she finally answered.

  “No, they didn’t!” I shot right back. “They saw that their society was in trouble, looked ahead, and did exactly the kind of thing that you’re talking about. They created Ibara as a way to save Veelox. And they were going to succeed, until Saint Dane convinced the Flighters to attack and destroy the pilgrim ships, and then invaded the island with dados. Where was his grand vision there? The dado attack was sent as a conquering army. Plain and simple. It wasn’t the people of Veelox who let that happen. It was all Saint Dane. How do you explain that?”

  For the first time since I’d known her, Nevva looked unsure of herself. “It…it was about you, Pendragon. It was intended to put you to the test, and you failed.”

  “So what if I did? I’m not even from Halla! What was I being tested for?”

  “The ends justified the means,” she complained.

  “No!” I shouted back at her. “You can’t tell me this is all about doing what is best for Halla. Maybe at one time that’s what Saint Dane thought. Maybe on some philosophical level he was right. Who knows? But it’s not about that anymore. It’s about his own selfish goals. He wants to be king, Nevva. No, he wants to be a god. He wants to create his own Halla. It’s the ultimate power play. He’s living in a palace. He likes being human. Look how he’s changed himself. He’s developed vanity. He wants to look good. Don’t you see that? That’s why he sent conquering armies, and that’s why he’s built another army of dados to do it again. Whatever noble thoughts he may have had at one time have been corrupted. If you think he’s got any other goal than to be a god, you’re kidding yourself.”

  Nevva looked stunned. I couldn’t believe that my words had hit her that strongly. No way. She was too firmly committed to her mission to let a little argument like this change her mind. But something I had said got through, and shook her.

  “What do you mean, ‘he’s built another army’?” she asked tentatively.

  “Oh, please,” I shot back. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “We saw the factory, Nevva. Where do you think we got shot by the dados?”

  “You were found in the helicopter plant.”

  “Yeah, the helicopter plant that also happens to be building about eighty thousand dados. What do you think they’re for? Washing windows and doing all the little chores you Ravinians think are beneath you? I’m not an idiot.”

  Nevva was shaken. Really shaken. I didn’t think she was a good enough actor to fake that. And why would she want to? As far as she was concerned, the battle was over.

  “Are you serious?” I asked without sarcasm. “You didn’t know about the new army of dados out there, all polished up and ready to go?”

  Nevva’s eyes told the story. She really didn’t know. It was a total surprise to her. She was about to get another one.

  “Nevva,” came a thin voice.

  Nevva didn’t look at first. She kept looking at me, but I saw the change in her eyes. She had heard a voice from the past. One I’m sure she never expected to hear again, and certainly not in a dim room on Third Earth. She held my gaze, silently asking if what she had heard was real. I motioned for her to look. Nevva had trouble turning away from me. It was as if she were fighting the pull of a magnet that wouldn’t let her turn. But she had to.

  Slowly Nevva turned to face her mother.

  Elli was on her feet. She stood across from Nevva, tall and straight. Mother and daughter. It was like looking at the same person, though one was several years older. They locked eyes. Nevva opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Elli looked strong. Stronger than I’d ever seen her. As tough as it must have been to be reunited with her daughter this way, Elli was up to it. I was proud of her. My fears about her not being able to handle the situation were gone. Elli didn’t say another word. I think she wanted Nevva to speak first.

  Nevva was finally able to croak out, “Why are you here, Mother?”

  Elli’s answer was to haul off and slap her daughter across the face.

  It was totally unexpected.

  And totally awesome.

  I wanted to bottle the moment to remember it forever. Unfortunately, something happened that made the sweetness short-lived. We heard a voice come from the doorway. A tall man with long dark hair stood in the frame.

  “My,” Saint Dane said with mock dismay. “Not exactly a touching reunion.”

  JOURNAL #37

  23

  The demon strolled into the room as if he owned it. Which he did, I guess. He wore the same deep red, princely costume I had seen him in earlier. It still threw me to see his new look, complete with long black hair and the elegant suit. His eyes hadn’t changed though. They still cut right through me.

  “I feel sorry for you, Pendragon,” he said with an air of superiority that made my blood boil. I guess I should have been used to it. “You’ve made such a valiant effort for so long, it pains me to see you unable to let go.”

  “Let go of what?” I snarled.

  “Your coming back here smacks of denial. It’s a pathetic attempt to prolong a battle that has long been over. And who do you bring along to help you on this desperate mission? A feeble woman. Is this what the mighty Travelers have come to?”

  Elli ignored him. Her eyes were still fixed on Nevva. Nevva held her hand to her stinging cheek and looked to the floor. It was the first time I had seen Nevva Winter cowed. Instead of lashing back, she’d taken the slap as if she knew she deserved it. Her reaction to seeing her mother was what I hoped it would be. So far.

  When Saint Dane reached Elli, he leaned down to her and whispered, “Did that make you feel better? Did it take away the pain of knowing the daughter you abandoned grew up to be one of the bad guys?”

  It was a vicious thing to say. I wanted to hit him myself. I expected Elli to whirl and land one on him. Instead, she did something I never would have expected. She stepped forward and took Nevva into her arms. She closed her eyes and hugged her daughter.

  “I miss
you,” she whispered.

  Nevva didn’t hug back, but she didn’t pull away, either. There were tears in her eyes, though I couldn’t tell if they were tears of emotion, or from getting whacked in the face.

  “That’s more like it!” Saint Dane exclaimed with sarcastic joy. “Together again! The woman who turned her back on her own destiny and the girl who never should have been.” He smiled, as if realizing something for the first time. “Never been. Is that the origin of the name Nevva? How appropriate.”

  Elli held on to Nevva, but answered Saint Dane. “I do not regret having given birth to my daughter.”

  “No?” Saint Dane taunted. “The union between a creature of Halla and a spirit from Solara is just…unnatural. Then again, it is typical of your way of thinking. No thought to what is right. Or to the future consequences of your actions.” He looked right at me and declared, “And yet you still wonder why you’ve lost the battle.”

  Saint Dane walked toward Mark, who hadn’t yet budged. I’d almost forgotten about him. “Go away, Pendragon. Go back to your dying world and stop fighting a battle you lost so long ago.”

  Nevva gently pulled away from Elli. She stood up straight, regaining her composure. “Is it true?” she called to Saint Dane.

  Saint Dane glanced at her. “Are you speaking to me?” he asked with surprise.

  “The dado army,” Nevva continued. “Pendragon says that you have created another large force.”

  Saint Dane stared at Nevva as if he couldn’t believe she was questioning him. He stepped away from Mark to face her. “I have not created a large force. We have. Ravinia has. You are part of Ravinia, or have you forgotten?”

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I just don’t understand why I wasn’t informed.”

  “I’m sorry, Nevva. I wasn’t aware that I needed to consult you on every decision I make. Forgive me.” His comment dripped with sarcasm.

  “To what end?” Nevva persisted.

  This was getting interesting. Nevva was questioning Saint Dane. I’d never heard anyone do that before. Other than me, of course.