into hamburger. It was like making our way through a medieval video game full of pitfalls and surprises. Only this was no game.
There was something else we saw along the way that I should mention. Whenever we reached one of the larger caverns, on either wall there would be these huge, round metal plates sunk into the rock. They each had to be about thirty feet in diameter. When we saw the first one, I stopped to examine it.
“I do not know what it is,” Loor said before I had the chance to ask. “I have never come this far into Rokador territory.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what they were, and if they might give us trouble. They weren’t on the booby trap map, so chances were they were safe. After passing hundreds of these giant disks, I didn’t know any more about them than after I’d seen the first one. Though my curiosity was still tweaked, the main thing was that they didn’t do us any harm, so I had to ignore them.
We continued walking cautiously for a couple of hours. There’s no way to tell how far we had traveled, since we had to stop often to find ways around the booby traps. The map was really accurate. It showed every intersection, tunnel, and cavern exactly as we were seeing it. At one point we rounded a corner and came upon yet another bizarre sight. It was sitting to the side of a larger cavern, looking totally out of place. It was a giant, silver ball. I was so surprised by seeing this thing, I actually took a step back. It didn’t faze Loor, though.
“That,” she said, “is a dygo.”
Dygo? Oh, right. The tunneling machine. Very cool. I took a closer look at this odd device to see that the silver sphere was actually a passenger cab. It wasn’t much bigger than a golf cart. It looked like it could hold two people, with a clear window that wrapped halfway around. The giant silver ball rested on treads, like a tractor. This thing could move forward, back, or turn in place. But the most amazing thing was the gizmo attached to the outside. It was a six-foot-long drilling device. It was shaped like one of those old-fashioned megaphones-as wide as the sphere at its base and narrowing down to a hollow point that was about a foot across. Along the body of the drill were dozens of rings with various gnarly looking cutting devices. The circular tip had inch-wide teeth that looked like they could drill through pretty much anything.
“That’s how they dig the tunnels?” I asked.
“Yes, though it is one of the smaller vehicles.”
I took a step closer to admire this silver tractor, drill, rock eater, whatever. “I figured they needed something more than shovels to create the underground, but this thing is…is…just killer.”
“Bokka and I used to race dygos through the caverns,” Loor said.
“They let you do that?”
“No.”
Oh. Those wacky kids.
“So you can drive this thing?” I asked.
Loor smiled mischievously, as if remembering some taboo joyrides. “They are quite fast.”
“So let’s jump in and drive to Kidik,” I said. “If it can drill through rock, it’ll definitely protect us against the traps.”
“Unless the trap is another bottomless pit,” Loor said.
“Oh, yeah.” I’d forgotten about that.
We had done all right getting by the booby traps up until that point, so it made sense not to mess with success. We left the cavern with the strange vehicle and continued our journey. Along the way I noticed more dygos. Some were parked in dark caves off to the side. Others were lined up in larger caverns, waiting for the next big project. I was getting very curious about the Rokador. In many ways they were incredibly advanced technologically. Yet they chose to live like moles. I hoped that someday I’d learn more about them-hopefully before they were annihilated by an army of Ghee warriors.
“We are getting close,” Loor finally announced.
I took the parchment and saw that we were only a few turns away from the top of the map. The markings showed that the final tunnel led to an area with no detail. That had to be Kidik. My excitement started to build. Not only were we nearing the end of a dangerous journey, I was dying to see what an underground city would look like here on Zadaa. I tried not to think about the fact that we would be going from the frying pan into the fire. We were Batu. At least Loor was. I was kind of an honorary Batu. Bottom line was, we were the enemy. There was every possibility that the Rokador would capture us and lock us away. Or worse.
“Let’s rest a minute,” I suggested.
We double-checked the map to make sure there weren’t any land mines around, and sat down.
“There’s something we need to talk about,” I said to Loor. “What is that?” she asked.
I had been bothered about something since we decided to leave for Kidik. It was a problem I didn’t know how to handle. Now that we were on the verge of arriving at our destination, it was time that I shared my concern with Loor. “We still have no proof that Saint Dane is controlling events down here,” I said.
“But he was there when Pelle a Zinj was assassinated,” Loor argued. “And Bokka said he is down here-“
“Yeah, I know, but we still don’t know what he’s up to. We’re only guessing. Maybe he’s just hanging around, observing.”
“What are you saying, Pendragon?” Loor asked.
“We came down here thinking that we’ve got to stop the war,” I answered. “I have no idea how we’re going to do that, but it’s why we’re here. What are we going to do if we find out that Saint Dane hasn’t influenced events after all, and the war between the Batu and the Rokador is the way it was meant to be? What do we do then?”
This truly was a dilemma. If Saint Dane wasn’t controlling events, then the Travelers had no business being here and monkeying around. We’re not supposed to mess with the natural course of a territory. That’s not our job. We already screwed things up by putting Pelle a Zinj in a position to be killed.
Loor said, “I believe the real question is, am I here to do the work of a loyal Batu, or a Traveler? As a Traveler, I must do all I can to stop Saint Dane. But as a Batu, I must be loyal to my tribe.”
“Right, which means you might suddenly have to go from somebody who wants to stop the war, to being the first warrior who has to fight it.”
Loor looked at the ground, thinking. As we sat in that cavern, only a few yards away from Kidik City, we truly didn’t know if Loor was there as a peacekeeper or an invader.
“That is our first challenge,” she finally said. “We must learn what Saint Dane has been doing. Once we know that, we will decide how to proceed.”
She was right. Until we found Saint Dane, we wouldn’t know what to do. I took a tired breath and asked, “Is this Traveler stuff ever going to get easier?”
“I do not believe so,” Loor answered.
We continued on through the last portion of the tunnel. Up ahead I saw that the stone corridor turned sharply to the right, just as the map showed. My heart raced. Around that corner was our destination. Kidik. I was excited about what we would find…and scared to death.
“You ready for this?” I asked.
“Do you need to ask?” Loor shot back.
I gave her a smile, and we continued on. We reached the corner, made the turn, and came face-to-face with… a dead end.
There was no Kidik.
(CONTINUED)
ZADAA
Loorand I stood staring at a huge, blank wall of rock where there was supposed to be a city. “No way,” I said.
It was the end of the line. There wasn’t any way around it. Literally. The tunnel opened up into a large cavern, but instead of a city, there was nothing but a vast wall of rock. There were no tunnels. No doorways. No hidden passageways. We had cometothe end of the map, but there was no Kidik.
