the white bear launched itself off its hind legs and clawed its way out of the cement moat. Once out, it lumbered off quickly to lick its wounds somewhere else.
“Hobey, Pendragon. What kind of natty place is this?” came a voice from the rocks that were surrounded by the dry moat.
Looking up, I saw Spader sitting there, wide eyed. Next to him stood the penguin, looking equally wide eyed. Or as wide eyed as a penguin can get. A penguin. A freakin’ penguin. And a polar bear. Why were these cold- weather animals hanging around here? It wasn’t cold at all. In fact, it was kind of hot. I spun the other way to look at the building that was being targeted by the gunships. The attack was over. Both helicopters had stopped firing. They rose straight up and soon disappeared into the clouds. A few seconds later I no longer heard their engines. Whatever their mission had been, it was complete. In their wake they left the remains of an obliterated building. I didn’t want to know how many people lay dead or wounded inside.
“Are you okay?” I called to Kasha.
The klee rose up on her back paws, standing like a human. “Of course,” she answered with confidence. “That beast was nowhere near as vicious as a tang.” She wiped a smear of blood from her mouth.
Yeah. Disgusting.
I looked at Loor. Loor shrugged and raised an eyebrow. She was impressed. Kasha was Loor’s kind of girl. Or klee. Or whatever. “We must find the others,” she declared.
“I’ll find them,” Kasha answered. Before I had the chance to thank her for saving us, she dropped back down onto all fours, sprang out of the trough, and ran off in search of the other Travelers.
Spader, Loor, and I remained. I couldn’t speak for them, but I was shaken. The events that had occurred over the last few hours were nothing short of impossible.
We had lost the battle for Second Earth. Naymeer and his Ravinian cult had lured seventy thousand people into Yankee Stadium, then created a monstrous flume to swallow them up. I had killed Naymeer by dropping him from a hovering helicopter into the mouth of the giant flume. It was the act that gave Saint Dane his final victory. The helicopter was then sucked into the massive flume, along with Saint Dane, Nevva Winter, and me. Instead of crashing, I found myself floating, alone, in space, where I witnessed the destruction of the flumes.
Soon after, I found myself on this barren territory, where Uncle Press and the other Travelers showed up. Dead friends were suddenly, well, not dead, and together we chose to make a final, desperate stand against Saint Dane.
That’s when the gunships attacked, though we weren’t the target. Those odd helicopters were after the people who were hiding in that building. We got caught in the cross fire.
Oh yeah, and Loor and I were nearly mauled by a polar bear.
And Spader was hanging out with a penguin. So I guess it’s understandable when I say that I was a little shaken.
“Pendragon, are we dead?” Loor asked, breaking the silence.
Good question. It was definitely on my top ten list of explanations for what was happening. In fact, it was in the top two. The other was that it was all a dream. But dreams never lasted this long. Or made me cough. I really wanted a third good explanation, but I couldn’t come up with one.
Spader had left his penguin pal and crossed through the dry moat to join us.
“None of this makes sense,” he declared. “One minute Gunny and me were patching up a wonky boat on the river in Black Water, the next thing I know we’re wandering around here in… Where might we be, mates?”
I glanced around at the squat, derelict buildings. I had absolutely no idea.
“Better question,” I said. “Where is Uncle Press taking us?”
“He’s taking you home,” came the answer from a soft voice behind us that I instantly recognized. I hadn’t heard that voice in years, but I knew it for sure. I looked at Loor. She gasped. Her eyes went wide. Loor never registered surprise, but at that moment, she was definitely surprised. She stared at me. It was as if she didn’t want to look and learn that it was a mistake.
It wasn’t.
“Hello, Daughter.”
We all looked to see Osa, Loor’s mother, walking slowly toward us. The Batu warrior was as beautiful as the day I had last seen her-the day she died while protecting me from Bedoowan knights. She no longer seemed as tall, but that was because I had grown. Her dark skin was impossibly clean looking, in spite of the dirt and dust that swirled around us. She wore a long, red wrap that draped off one shoulder and stretched to the ground. She looked every bit as strong and graceful as I remembered her.
“Mother?” was the only word Loor could get out. I’d never heard her so tentative.
“I have missed you, my sweet girl.”
Loor did something that was aggressively un-Loor like… and absolutely perfect. She dropped her wooden stave and ran to her mother. The two joined in an embrace that melted away years of sorrow. For that brief instant Loor became a little girl. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I am so proud of you,” Osa whispered to her daughter.
She looked up to us and added, “I am proud of you all.”
I didn’t know what to say. I really didn’t know what to say. I didn’t feel like I deserved her praise, but more than that, my head was still trying to wrap itself around what was happening. Osa had died in a fury of arrows. I was there. There was no mistake. Yet there she was, as alive as we were. Assuming we were alive, that is.
Loor pulled away from her mother, but still clung to her. “Help me understand,” she said through her tears.
Osa gave her daughter a warm smile, which she then shared with Spader and me.
“You are all going home,” she said. “That is where you will learn.”
“Home?” Spader said, surprised. “Hobey, I don’t even know where home is anymore.”
“Then it’s time I showed ya, spinney fish,” came a gravelly man’s voice I didn’t recognize.
Spader did. He spun on his heel to see a man wearing an aquaneer uniform striding toward us.
Spader stared at the guy and gasped, “It’s me dadl”
“Who else would it be, now?” the man declared. He looked like Spader, only an older version with streaks of gray in his hair. He even had the same Aussie-sounding accent that Spader had. But Spader’s dad had been killed by the poisoned food supply on Cloral. Of course we all knew who was ultimately responsible for his death. Saint Dane. His father’s murder had sent Spader off the deep end. He became driven by the need for revenge. More than once he lost control of his own emotions and put us all in trouble as his anger outweighed his good sense. But that was in the past. Now his father was back. Somehow.
“Let me have a look at ya!” the gregarious man bellowed, and wrapped his arm around Spader’s neck in a friendly bear hug. “You got bigger, you did, but still not big enough to take me on.”
Spader clutched at his dad. He was overcome with emotion.
“How?” was all he could get out.
“How indeed, spinney fish. Let’s be off now,” he said, while leading Spader away.
Spader pulled away from his father and looked back toward us.
“But, Dad…” He let the word trail as he gestured to us.
“No worries, mate,” Spader’s dad assured him. “You’ll see ‘em again, you will. Trust me on that.”
Spader looked at me with confusion. As much as he wanted to be with his dad, he didn’t want to leave us.
“It is all right,” Osa assured him. “You will all be together again.”
Spader nodded, dazed. Just as quickly, the smile returned to his face, and he threw his arm around his father. The two strode away, arms around each other like old chums, laughing. They walked into the swirling dust and seemed to disappear. I mean that literally. I wasn’t sure if the dust swallowed them up, or they actually disappeared.
“The same is happening with all the Travelers, Pendragon,” Osa said.
I caught a glimpse of two men walking together on the far side of the moat. It was Gunny, along with another black guy who looked even older than he was. The man had a hand on Gunny’s shoulder in a fatherly way. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Gunny was listening and nodding. A moment later they disappeared into the swirling dust.
“Where are they going?” I asked.
