leather pieces apart and saw…
There was no wound. Huh? I checked around the area, but there was no wound to be found. How could that be? I saw Saint Dane impale her. I saw the sword come out of her back. I reached over and grabbed the sword-it still had her blood on it. There was still blood all over her armor. It was real. That had to have come from somewhere. What had happened?
“Pendragon?” Loor said weakly. She was awake!
“Don’t sit up,” I warned. “You’re hurt. Saint Dane-“
“I know,” she said. “Saint Dane came at me with the sword. I did not move in time. He… he killed me.” Loor’s hand went to her chest. She felt the area where there should have been a wound. She looked at me with wide, confused eyes. I was just as confused as she was. Loor moved to sit up.
“Let me help,” I said, and went to give her a hand.
“No, I am all right,” she said. “Pendragon, what happened?”
“What do you remember?” I asked. Loor sat up on the edge of the flume. She was shaken, but otherwise totally okay. “I remember him coming at me out of the flume. I remember the sword. I remember his white eyes looking right at me. He said ‘Now-“’
“Die,” I finished the sentence. “He said, ‘Now die.’”
Loor continued, “I remember. I felt like I was falling. But it was not a frightening thing. I felt safe. There were people around me. I knew they were friends, but I did not recognize anyone. They were unfocused shadows. I said I was ready to go with them. A woman said that it might be my time, or not. We would know soon. They were all very happy to see me, and I was happy to see them as well. I liked being with them. I was happy. But I do not know who they were. Then somebody said, ‘This is not the way it was meant to be, Loor.’ It was a man. I knew who he was, but I didn’t. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t see him. The next thing I knew I was here, looking up at you.”
“I guess it wasn’t time” was all I could add.
Loor nodded thoughtfully. “Pendragon,” she said, “something has been bothering me.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said.
Loor ignored my sarcasm and continued. “There have been other times where things did not make sense to me. Did you not think it was odd how you recovered so quickly from your wounds after the fight with Saint Dane?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “But I figured I was a quick healer. I’ve always been a quick healer.”
“But you were nearly killed,” she said. “Your recovery was nothing short of impossible. And what of Alder? That arrow should have killed him, yet he was up and fighting with us so soon afterward. Did you not think that was unusual?”
“I had a few other things to worry about at the time,” I said. “And here,” she said. “I should be dead. Iwasdead. Yet I am not. How can that be?”
Good question. I wished I had an equally good answer.
“Could it be because we’re Travelers?”Iasked.
“I do not know,” she answered. “None of us knows our own true history. We were not born of our parents’ blood. There is much we have yet to learn.”
“Then why did Osa die? And Kasha? And Uncle Press? They were Travelers.”
Loor gave this some deep, troubled thought. She said softly, “Maybe it was because you did not know you could heal them.”
Those words stunned me. Ilet them sink in for a minute, then rejected the idea. Ijumped to my feet and paced.
“No way,” I said. “That’s impossible. This isn’t about me. Ican’t bring back the dead.”
“Perhaps not,” Loor said. “Or perhaps with Travelers, it is different.”
“So you’re saying I could have saved Uncle Press? And the others?”
“No, but only because you did not know. You told me that Uncle Press said to you that killing Saint Dane was futile, because he would only come back in another form. Saint Dane is a Traveler. We are Travelers. We may be more alike than you think.”
The idea was incredible. I would have thought it was ridiculous, if not for what had happened to Loor. She was dead. Iknow she was. There was no heartbeat. She had a mortal wound. Yet there she sat, as good as new, and the wound was magically gone. I wasn’t ready to accept the fact that I had incredible healing powers, but it would have been stupid to ignore the fact that there may be more to being a Traveler than we first thought.
I was about to suggest we get her back home, when the flume sprang back to life.
“You gotta be kidding me!”Isaid.
Ihelped Loor to her feet, and we backed far away from the tunnel. Neither of us wanted to be sitting ducks again. It was too late to climb out of the cavern. Whoever was coming, we had to face them. Though just to be safe, Iquickly picked up the sword that Saint Dane had left behind.
The flume did its normal pyrotechnics with light and music. I squinted through the bright display to get a glimpse of who would be coming back at us. This time there were no shadows emerging from the tunnel, primed to kill. The light disappeared and the music stopped. Nobody was there.
“Look!” Loor said.
Resting on the bottom of the flume, near the mouth was a brightly colored square box. It looked like an elaborate gift. It had bright red and yellow stripes and looked about the right size to hold a big pumpkin. The whole thing was tied up with a bright red bow.
“I’ve lost my mind,” I said.
Loor walked boldly over to examine the package. I was behind her, but without the same enthusiasm. There was a huge, yellow tag dangling from the bow. Loor looked at it, then held it out for me to see. There was one word written on the rectangular tag. In fancy letters was the word PENDRAGON.
“Oh, great,” I said with absolutely no enthusiasm. “Is it my birthday?”
Loor pulled off the tag and found that it was folded in half. She opened it to see what was written inside. Her face fell.
“What?” I asked quickly.
She turned the tag around so I could read it. It said: “With my compliments. S.D.”
“S.D.,” I said. “Cute. Do I want to know what’s inside?”
“Don’t you?” Loor asked.
I didn’t, but I had to. I thought back to the time Saint Dane had made a present of Gunny’s hand in a bag. There was every reason to believe there would be something just as nasty in this box. I knelt down and pulled off the ribbon.
“This might be dangerous,” I said.
“There is only one way to find out,” Loor said.
I grasped the sides of the lid, winced, and pulled it off. Instantly a jack-in-the-box clown popped out. It was a scary-looking thing, with a garish smile and a jester’s hat. It was on a spring, and bounced around while laughing over and over. I thought I recognized the laugh.
“There is something else inside,” Loor pointed out.
Sure enough, there was an envelope in the bottom of the box. It was bright blue and looked sort of like a birthday card. Again on the outside was the word PENDRAGON. I rolled my eyes and opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of heavy paper. It was bright yellow, with fancy, red writing. It read:
Riggedy riggedy white
Come and spend the night
We’ll play some games
Some wild, some tame
Cause if you will, you might
Your hosts on Quillan, Veego and LaBerge
“What does it mean?” Loor asked. “It means I’m going to Quillan.”
I’m writing this journal to you from the territory of Quillan, in very strange surroundings. More of that in a second.
I reluctantly left Loor in the flume cavern on Zadaa, convinced that she was healthy, but clueless as to why.
