good a time as any.
“When I was on First Earth,” I said to her, “things didn’t go too well.”
“Saint Dane failed,” she said. “That is all that matters.” “Did he?” I said. “We saved the territory, but no thanks to me.”
“And how did that make you feel?” she asked.
“Like I never want to let him get the better of me again,” I said. “And I won’t.”
Loor looked at me and said, “I know you, Pendragon. Your heart is in the right place, but you have been unsure of yourself, and of our mission.”
I wanted to argue, but she was right.
“It sounds to me as if Saint Dane tried to take away your confidence, but instead made you more determined. If that is the case, he made a very bad mistake, for all he managed to do was bring you fully into the conflict. He will regret that.”
In that single moment, things became incredibly clear. I had been struggling with my failure. But now, Loor made me believe that my weakness at that critical moment on First Earth might actually have been the best thing that could have happened. Any doubt I had up to that point about wanting to battle Saint Dane was taken away. Uncle Press always said that this conflict was about more than a single battle. Heck, even Saint Dane said that. By facing my own weakness, maybe I was now ready for the long haul.
“I missed you, Loor,” I said. I wanted her to tell me she missed me, too.
She didn’t. “I will always be there when you need me,” she said. “As I know you will be for me. That is our destiny.”
Okay, maybe not exactly a statement of undying friendship, but it was better than nothing. I guess.
We rode for a long time, mostly in silence. I was beginning to think those cowboys had pointed us in the wrong direction, when…
“Look!” Loor exclaimed, pointing ahead.
I looked to see the tops of buildings peeking up over some trees. This had to be Old Glenville.
“Last one there buys the sniggers,” I exclaimed. “The what?” Loor said.
Too late. I kicked my horse into action and galloped toward town. Loor probably could have beaten me, but I had gotten such a head start that there was no way she could catch up. A few minutes later, I rode straight down the center street of Old Glenville.
It was a ghost town. I pulled up my horse and Loor stopped right beside me. The two of us sat there in the middle of the dirt street, looking around at the empty town.
Old Glenville was something right out of an old-time Western movie. There were two-story wooden buildings down either side of the main street, with wooden sidewalks and hitching posts in front. I saw painted signs on the stores that identified them as: general store and dry goods; barber and dentist; sheriff; telegraph office; and even one that said: coroner. At the end of the street was a church with a tall steeple that dwarfed the rest of the buildings. It was the perfect little frontier town. The only thing missing was people.
“Here we go again,” I said. “Just like Rubic City.”
I kicked my horse into gear and we walked slowly down the center of the street. I listened for any sign of life, but there was none..
“I’m surprised there’s no tumbleweed blowing through,” I said.
“What is tumbleweed?” Loor asked.
As if on cue, a big piece of brown tumbleweed rolled past us. This was getting strange, in more ways than one. I guess I could believe that another territory was just like Earth, but this meant the territory of Veelox also had the same kind of history as Earth. This town of Old Glenville was exactly like a typical town from the Old West in America. Very strange.
“There,” Loor said. She pointed to a barnlike building that was off the main road.
There was a hand-painted sign leaning against a fence that said: BLACKSMITH. This was where we were supposed to leave the horses. We rode over to the barn, but didn’t find a soul. Even stranger, all the tools of the trade were lying around. There were hammers and nails and coal and all the stuff you’d think a blacksmith used. The barn even had a few horses in stalls, but they were the only sign of life. This town looked like it had been recently abandoned.
We tied the horses to a hitching post near the barn. I was about to suggest that we start on one end of town and work our way down the street, searching each and every building, when we heard something strange.
“Music,” Loor said.
It was old-fashioned, honky-tonk piano music, which is the exact kind of music you’d expect to hear in a Western town. “I’ll bet you a dollar there’s a saloon around here,” I said. “What is a saloon?” Loor asked. “I’ll show you.”
Not that I had ever been in a saloon, but I had seen enough Western movies to know that’s usually where the music was played. And since everything about this town smelled of the Old West, I had no doubt we’d find a saloon. So we took off walking back to the main street. The closer we got, the louder the music became.
Sure enough, across the street I spotted a sign over a balcony that said in fancy gold letters: Old Glenville Saloon.
We walked across the dusty street like a couple of gun-slingers headed toward the O.K. Corral. The music was definitely coming from the saloon. As we got closer I saw a set of swinging doors in front. Classic Western. We got as far as
222 230 the wooden sidewalk and were about to step up, when the piano suddenly stopped. Loor and I did too.
We then heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor inside, as if someone were standing up. It was followed by the sound of footsteps walking across the floor, headed for the swinging doors, and us.
Loor and I didn’t move. Whoever was inside, we were about to meet them. I really hoped it was Dr. Zetlin.
It wasn’t.
When the swinging doors flew open, I saw something that made me question whether this was Dr. Zetlin’s fantasy nightmare… or mine. Because standing in the door before us was Saint Dane.
He wore black from head to toe, like a gunfighter. On his hips were twin six-shooters. His gray mane of hair fell down to his shoulders, topped off with a black cowboy hat. The demon acted as if he were expecting us. He smiled a yellow-toothed grin, stared at us with those cold blue eyes, and said, “Looks like it’s time to liven up this dead little town!”
(CONTINUED)
VEELOX
Howdy, Pendragon!” Saint Dane exclaimed jovially while leaning against the hitching post. “I see you brought along your violent little girlfriend. What a nice surprise!”
This didn’t compute. How could Saint Dane be in Dr. Zetlin’s fantasy? This wasn’t like before where he was a prerecorded hologram. This was him. For real. Or should I say, in fantasy. My brain locked.
“You seem surprised!” he laughed. “This can’t be possible, yet here I am. It seems as though Aja’s Reality Bug has completely scrambled Lifelight.”
Loor looked to me and said softly, “This is real, isn’t it?”
“Real enough!” Saint Dane answered for me.
He pulled out one of his six-shooters, aimed it at the sky and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack sounded pretty real to me. A moment later four more cowboys with six-shooters appeared from the saloon. They moved quickly behind us, cutting off any chance we had of escape. These guys didn’t look like the friendly cowpokes from the mountains either. The word that came to mind was, desperados.
“Since this is a fantasy,” Saint Dane continued, “let’s have some fun.”
He stepped off the wooden walkway and strolled over to us with his thumb in his gun belt. He was enjoying this. We weren’t.
