with the water.
“Do we have a plan?” I asked Loor.
She took out the map that Bokka had given us. I took another look at the complicated labyrinth of tunnels and the route marked in red.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to several unique sketches that showed up every so often along the route. They were all different. Some were slashes across the tunnels. Others showed what looked like small structures off to the side.
“I do not know,” Loor answered. “But we will find out.”
“Which way?” I asked.
“Bokka’s route begins at the crossroads,” she said. “We must go through those large doors to begin our journey.”
“So right off the bat, we’ve got to go through a team of Tiggen guards who were assigned to make sure nobody goes through those doors because there is a major water transfer-control machine on the other side?”
“Yes.”
“Just checking.”
We started off, retracing the route that Bokka had led us on when we first went to the crossroads. I got confused pretty quickly. There were many turns and options. But Loor knew where she was going. I followed as if I did too.
“If we meet with resistance,” Loor said, “listen for my commands.”
“No problem, you’re the pro,” I said.
I was actually feeling pretty confident. When we were attacked by the Tiggen guards before, I did all right. I was getting more used to Osa’s stave, so I felt sure I could put a little more “oomph” behind it this time. On the other hand, there wasn’t much we could do to defend ourselves if that assassin were there and he started shooting those steel arrows. We had to watch out for that dude. In a few minutes we arrived at the final tunnel that opened out into the large cavern called the crossroads. My heart sank when I saw that there were three Tiggen guards in front of the door. The road to Kidik was through those guys, and the doors they were guarding. The only good news was that the guy with the crossbow was nowhere to be seen.
“They are not alert,” Loor whispered.
“How do you know that?” I whispered back.
“From the way they are standing,” she answered. “Either they have been on duty for a long time, or they do not believe they will be attacked. Possibly both.”
“Tell me what to do,” I said.
“Fight,” she said, and took off running for the guards.
Just like that. No plan. No sneaking around. No coordination. No signals. Just an all-out, frontal attack. I pulled out my stave and followed.
I shouldn’t have doubted Loor. She actually did have a plan, and it was the only one possible. The crossroads was a large, empty cavern with nothing but the two huge wooden doors that were being guarded, and a number of tunnels that led off to other points. The tunnel we had come out of was directly across from the wooden doors. There was nowhere to hide. No place to sneak and get closer without being seen. Loor made the only choice possible. She ran quickly and silently for the guards. If she was right, and they were not alert, we’d get pretty close before they even realized what was happening. If she was wrong, well, ouch.
Loor was right. She moved so quickly and so quietly that she was nearly on the first guard before he knew it. He never even got the chance to go for his weapon before Loor swung her stave. She knocked him to the ground with one shot, out cold. The other guards were just as slow to react. Loor targeted the next guy while I took the third. Neither of them even reacted to their buddy getting beaned. I figured my guy would pull out his steel baton and wait until I got close enough so he could dig it into my ribs and zap me. I didn’t give him the chance. Just before I reached him, I dropped to the ground and swung my stave at ankle level. I was hoping to get him to reach down to protect himself, but it turned out even better. The stave hit his ankles and the guy toppled. He was on his back before I finished the swing. I brought the stave back, ready to drill the guy when I heard, “Pendragon, stop!”
It was Loor. I froze, but kept my eye on the Tiggen guard. I didn’t want him to pull a sneak attack when I was looking away. Ihad learned my lesson, over and over again, that I had to keep my eye on my opponent. As I stood there with my stave raised and ready to strike, I saw something odd. The Tiggen guard still hadn’t moved. As he lay on his back, he didn’t even turn to look up at me. Ifigured he might have hit his head on the way down and been knocked senseless.
“Relax, Pendragon,” Loor said calmly. “They will not give us trouble.”
A closer look at my opponent revealed something eerie. His face looked frozen. Almost…dead. My heart raced. HadIkilled the guy? There was no way. All I did was sweep out his feet. Loor walked over to the guy, reached down, and yanked back the white hood that covered his head.
“Dummies!”Iexclaimed.
His face was a cloth mask. A quick look back showed me that all the guards were fake. They had been propped up to look as if they were guarding the doors. From a distance, the effect was pretty good. Now I knew how we got so close without them reacting. The word that came to mind was “scarecrows.”
“Ido not understand,” Loor said. “Why would they no longer have real guards protecting such a valuable piece of machinery? Did Bokka not say they feared the first attack would be here?”
“I don’t know,”Isaid. “But we can find out.”
I walked up to the large wooden doors. There was a heavy lock on the handle, but it was no match for Osa’s stave. With two quick whacks I knocked it open.
“Let’s see what’s so important in here,” I said as I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. It was heavy. No big surprise since the door had to be twenty feet high and made out of wood that looked to be four inches thick. But it swung easily on its hinges. I was about to peek inside when Loor pulled me back.
“Careful,” she said.
She took the lead. It didn’t hurt my ego. Whatever nastiness might be waiting on the other side, she was better equipped to deal with it than I was. I grabbed my stave, exhaled, and took my first step onto the map, and into the fire.
JOURNAL #22
(CONTINUED)
ZADAA
Whatwe saw beyond the door made no sense. Like Bokka said, there was another one of those water-control machines. And it was awesome. It had tobe four times the size of the one back at the waterfall-that-was-no- longer-a-waterfall. The pipes that passed through this monster had to be six feet wide. There was no doubt that this was a major piece of machinery.
But it was shut down. And the cavern that held it was empty. There wasn’t a Rokador in sight.
“Strange,” I said. “I thought they were all sorts of worried about the Batu getting control of this.”
I walked to the monstrous device to get a better look. The gauges all registered zero. It made no sound. I touched it. It was as still as a rock. Stranger still, there had to be several dozen valve controls, but all of the knobs and levers were gone. All that was left were small stems where the levers used to be. I ran my finger across several of the gauges, wiping a clear path through a thick layer of dust.
“This thing hasn’t been used in a long time,” I said.
“There has not been water in a long time,” Loor commented.
“So why were they guarding it yesterday?” I asked. “And why did Bokka tell you this was such an important piece of machinery?”
Loor didn’t know any more than I did. I took a look past the machine to see that this cavern narrowed down
