“Nevva’s death is on your conscience, Pendragon,” he said. “It was all for nothing.”
I wound up to finish the guy, and he disappeared. Just like that. He took a step back and was gone. I was thrown for a second, but shouldn’t have been. He was a Traveler, after all. Why would he stand there and let me pummel him? I stood there alone, breathing hard. My pent-up emotion had no outlet. I let out a scream and flung the wand as far as I could. It clattered to the ground somewhere deep within the Taj Mahal. I screamed again. I couldn’t keep the frustration and anger inside.
“Pendragon!” Elli called.
I forced myself to get back some kind of control and ran to her. She was on her knees, holding Nevva’s head in her lap. Elli was crying. Her brief moment of bliss was already forgotten. The agony had returned.
Nevva wasn’t dead. Yet. She stared up with glazed, unseeing eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You can’t die.”
I put my hand on her chest, ready to will her back to health. She grabbed my wrist and held it tight. “No,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do.” “I can! I can heal you!”
“No,” she insisted. “Don’t waste your spirit. It isn’t possible. He won’t allow it.”
I didn’t know what she meant by that, but I took her word for it. “Go to Solara,” I said. “You’ll be safe there.”
“I can’t, Pendragon,” she whispered. “I’m controlled by a different spirit now.”
“But your spirit can go to Solara. Right?”
“Not anymore” was her answer.
Elli wiped her tears while stroking her daughter’s cheek soothingly.
“It’s not only my body that’s dying. My spirit is ending. There will be no existence for me beyond this one.”
“You don’t know that,” Elli said desperately.
Nevva looked up to her mother and focused. I saw the affection she had for Elli. That they had for each other.
She took her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said. “None of this was your doing.”
Elli looked at me with pleading eyes. “Pendragon, do something.”
“How can I save you, Nevva?” I asked.
“You can’t. Saint Dane controls the dark power of Solara. He will not allow it to save me. Not anymore.”
Nevva started to flicker. Her physical being was fading out.
“What’s happening?” Elli asked in a panic.
“I’m ending, Mother,” Nevva answered with a weak voice. “My spirit is ending.”
Elli wept. Her daughter was about to disappear forever. Literally.
Nevva focused on me. “Pendragon, you must do to him what he has done to Solara. His power will not be fully realized until the light of Solara is destroyed. Make him use his power. It is the only way to weaken him and end his spirit.”
“I… I don’t understand,” I said. Nevva was giving me the answers, but I didn’t know what they meant.
“Saint Dane has split Solara. He draws his power from the dark spirit he has created. Make him use it… and save the exiles. He fears their spirit more than he fears even you, Pendragon.”
Nevva’s image winked. She wouldn’t be there much longer. “Stay with us,” Elli begged.
“Where are the exiles, Nevva? They must be here on Third Earth, right? Where are they?”
Nevva looked at me with glazed eyes. “They aren’t on Third Earth,” she whispered.
I was rocked. Everything I had seen up to that point led me to believe this was where the final battle would take place.
“But they must be!” I blurted out. “Saint Dane can’t attack another territory without the flumes!”
Nevva struggled to stay focused. She didn’t have much time left. “You saw what happened on Second Earth. You were there. He has the power. Make him use it again. Weaken him.”
My mind was flying in a million directions. What did I see on Second Earth? Was she talking about Yankee Stadium? The Bronx Massacre? Naymeer created a flume that drew in all those victims. It suddenly came clear to me.
“He’s going to create another flume,” I stated with finality, realizing the truth as I said the words.
Nevva looked up at her mother. She was in pain. Her imaged winked out, then came back… faintly.
“I love you, Mother,” she said. “Tell Father I’ve missed him more than he could know.”
“He already knows, Nevva. We both love you and always will.”
Nevva smiled. In spite of the pain, and her imminent death, she was at peace. But I wasn’t.
“Where are they, Nevva?” I begged.
Nevva looked to me and said two words. Two words that I had been hunting for. Two words that could hold the salvation of Halla, or lead to its final destruction.
She looked me right in the eye, grabbed my hand, and whispered, “Black Water.”
A moment later Nevva Winter was gone. She disappeared. Her spirit had ended along with her physical self. There was nothing left for Elli to hold, or to grieve over.
Her hands were still outstretched, holding nothing. Elli was strong. She barely whimpered. I reached out and held her.
“I’m sorry” was all I managed to say.
We sat that way for several minutes. Elli didn’t cry, but she accepted whatever small comfort I could offer. I was ready to stay that way for as long as she needed.
It wasn’t long. The troubled woman pulled away and looked at me with weary eyes. Through the tears, came a smile. “She came back to me.”
“Yes, she did,” I said, trying not to cry myself.
Elli wiped her tears, straightened up, and in a voice that was far stronger than I could have imagined, gave me an order. “Don’t let her death be for nothing.”
It was exactly what I wanted to hear.
I stood up and backed away from her.
“Go to Solara,” I said. “Tell them what we’ve learned.”
“And what will you do?”
We’d had so much thrown at us in the last few moments. The implications were huge. There was so much to digest. So much to try and understand. As confusing as it all may have been, I knew that we were a big step closer to finding the answers we needed.
The next step was clear.
After having been denied access for years by the tragic destruction of a flume, it was time to go back to the jungle. To the klees. To the gars.
To the tangs.
“I’m going to Eelong,” I said. And stepped off Third Earth.
Chapter 27
The jungles of Eelong. Yikes.
I never thought I’d see them again. Not after what happened the last time I’d been there. The flume collapsed, killing Kasha and trapping Gunny and Spader on that twisted territory where cats called klees were the dominant species. The destruction of the flume happened because non-Travelers weren’t supposed to use them. But they did. Mark and Courtney went to Eelong and brought along the critical piece of information that allowed us to defeat Saint Dane there. But each time they traveled, they weakened the flume, until it crumbled on us. Mark, Courtney, and I got out just in time. Kasha didn’t. She was killed by the tumbling gray rocks.
Of course, that was ancient history. As Saint Dane’s dark spirit grew, the flumes became open highways. Anybody was able to use them. That is, of course, until they all exploded. Once again, the rules changed. After the destruction, Spader and Gunny left Eelong and moved on to Solara with the rest of the Travelers. Including Kasha. Her body died on Eelong but her spirit lived on.
