“Is this a custom where you come from?” asked Spader, who was just as surprised at my enthusiasm as everyone else in the stadium.
In fact it was, but that didn’t make this nightmare any easier. I stopped yelling, looked down on to the field and made eye contact with Loor. She too was looking up to see where all the screaming was coming from. She saw me, but at first it didn’t click for her. She was exhausted and still flush from the battle and the victory. Seeing me didn’t compute. It made me feel even worse. She didn’t even know who I was. I felt horrible. Then, a moment later, I saw it in her eyes. She finally recognized me; that’s when something happened that I never would have expected. It was so shocking that I no longer cared about being embarrassed. It just didn’t matter anymore, because as she stood there breathing hard, Loor looked up at me and smiled.
ZADAA
It was a training exercise,” Loor explained. “All warriors must take part. It is good experience to teach fighting as one, and as a team.” For all of the mayhem she just went through, Loor came out fairly intact. Nothing broken, only a few bruises.
“Seemed more like football with weapons to me,” I countered.
Both Loor and Spader gave me blank stares. They had no idea what I meant. That was okay. It didn’t matter.
The three of us walked along the streets of the desert city, which Loor told us was called Xhaxhu (pronounced Zha-ZHOO). It was the capital city of Zadaa.
Spader walked behind us with his head down, listening to everything we said. Unlike the other people of Zadaa, he was able to understand her because she was a Traveler. Understanding everyone else would come in time, just as it did for me. I wished that Loor could have seen him the way he was when I first got to Cloral. She would have loved that guy. But as I wrote before, Spader had changed. Okay, he was pretty freaked out about our trip to Zadaa; can’t blame him for that. The death of his father had turned him inside out. I could only hope that at some point he would deal with his anger and become his old self again.
“Why did you come to Zadaa, Pendragon?” asked Loor.
“Two reasons,” I said. “Uncle Press and I think we know what Saint Dane is up to on Cloral and we could use your help, big time. The other reason is…”
I looked back at Spader, debating about how much I should blurt out in front of him. I decided it was time to jump in with both feet.
“The other reason is that Spader’s father was the Traveler from Cloral. He’s dead. Now Spader is the Traveler. The problem is, he has no clue… about anything. I’ve got to get him up to speed and I need your help to do it.”
I looked back to Spader. He had stopped walking and was now staring right at me with confusion and what I thought might be a little bit of fear. I had just hit him with a boatload of information that didn’t compute. Nothing I had just said made any sense to him. That was pretty obvious. Loor turned to him and said, “Tell me what you will remember most about your father.”
Spader shot her a look. The question surprised him, but he wanted to answer. He looked down, remembering. He then looked back to Loor and said, “He was a great man, a great teacher, and I loved him.” I think he was holding back a ton of emotion.
Loor touched him on the shoulder and said, “Then you will make a great Traveler. Come with me.”
She turned and continued walking. Spader looked to me and I saw that the confusion was still there, but the fear was gone. I knew at that moment that coming to see Loor was the best move I could have made.
Loor took us to her home. The large building was made of the same brown sandstone that all the structures were made of here on Zadaa. It was all on one level, with wooden floors and a thatched roof. The place was big, too. There were many rooms where others lived, like some big, sandy apartment building. Judging from the other muscle-types who were hanging out, I figured this must have been some kind of warrior dormitory. Loor’s space had two rooms — one main room where the cooking was done and another that was a bedroom. The furniture was woven, like wicker. There were a few low chairs and a bed that were plain and simple. A community bathroom outside the apartment had a trough of running water for drinking and washing. Another trough of water that was the sewer ran underground. The place was crude, but efficient.
The three of us sat in the main room and Loor actually cooked for us. She baked three loaves of very tasty bread and we had crunchy fresh vegetables to go with it. She also gave us a sweet drink that was made from the sap of a tree. It reminded me of coconut. Uncle Press would have loved this. I wondered what he was doing just then, and if he was safe from the raiders on Cloral. But there was nothing I could do about that now, so I tried not to worry.
As we ate, Loor told us about her life as a warrior in training. She was part of the military here on Zadaa. The apartment she lived in was given to her by the military and she could live there for as long as she served. Because she was so young, she was pretty much a low-level soldier. But she hoped to someday become a leader. I had no doubt she would.
When we finished eating and cleaning up, we all sat there staring at one another. There was a very big issue hanging in the room and I had no idea how to attack it. Spader did it for me. He had been listening silently to our conversation and finally decided it was time to speak.
“You called me a Traveler,” he said, breaking the ice. “What does that mean?”
Loor took the lead. She calmly explained to Spader how every territory had a Traveler who could fly through the flumes. She told him how each territory was about to reach a critical turning point and how it was the job of the Travelers to do all they could to make sure the outcome would keep the territory peaceful. To fail would mean the territory would fall into chaos. She also told him of Saint Dane, the evil Traveler who was working to do the opposite. His goal was to push the territories into bedlam.
This is where I jumped in. I told Spader that Saint Dane could change the way he looked. On Cloral, he was the pirate Zy Roder. Uncle Press and I felt sure that he was responsible for poisoning the crops. I said how a bad food supply on Cloral would cause a civil war when people fought over the food that was still safe — just the kind of thing Saint Dane would love.
Loor finished by saying how she and I still didn’t understand why we had been selected to be Travelers, or who it was that chose us. But the job we were given was an important one. She said how the battles with Saint Dane weren’t only about each territory, they were about all of Halla. She explained that Halla was everything — all territories, all people, and all time. Saint Dane’s ultimate goal was to control Halla. The only thing standing in his way were the Travelers. That would be us.
Spader listened intently. This was some serious stuff we were laying on him. I had no idea how he would react.
“So?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”
I could tell he was trying to put this puzzle together in his head but was having trouble getting all the pieces to fit.
“This is… this is a lot,” he said.
Yeah, no kidding.
“I’m sorry, mates,” he added. “I’m an aquaneer. I know boats, I know water, I know how to fix them and have some fun along the way. That’s pretty much what my life’s about. But now you’re telling me I’ve got to be responsible for the future of everything? Hobey, I’m not the best choice for that particular job.”
“Tell me about it,” I threw in. “Neither am I!”
Loor stood up and took something out of a wicker basket near the fireplace.
“Do you think your father was someone worthy of being a Traveler?” she asked Spader.
“Absolutely,” Spader shot back without hesitation.
Loor handed Spader the item she pulled from the basket. I saw that it was a piece of green paper that was folded in two. It looked like the same kind of paper I was used to writing my Cloral journals on. Spader opened it up to reveal that it was a drawing. Actually, it washalfof a drawing. It looked as if it had been ripped in two and this was the left half.
