“Of all the things you’ve told me, those are the words I will remember.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Telleo.
“Destiny brought you here for us, Pendragon,” she said. “You are our future.”
She leaned forward, kissed me on the cheek, and hugged me close. I hugged back. For that one moment, I let myself believe that everything was going to be okay.
Alder and I returned to the community hut that I had made my home. That’s where I finished my last journal and sent it to you. There was no way I could sleep. What would the morning bring? How would this play out? Was this going to be the beginning of the end? Or the greatest victory of all time? No, of all times.
For so many years we’ve lived by Uncle Press’s mandate that the territories should never be mixed. Each territory is supposed to live out its own destiny without interference. That’s the way it was meant to be. But Saint Dane changed that and forced me to make a difficult choice. Is there a price that is too high to pay for victory? Should we have let the klee of Eelong kill off the gars? Should I have left Quillan without entering the Grand X? Saying things should happen the way they were meant to be doesn’t mean that things will always turn out for the best. We shouldn’t interfere with the natural order of the territories, but neither should Saint Dane. Because of his devious influence things have not played out the way they were supposed to. Anywhere. Will two wrongs make a right? I don’t know. The only thing I can say for sure is that it’s too late to turn back now.
As I finished that last journal, I still held out hope that you had gotten to Mark, Courtney. I imagined the sun rising with no dados on the horizon. I imagined waiting for a battle that was not to happen, because the dados had ceased to exist. It actually made me more anxious. I couldn’t let myself think that way. I had to prepare as if the battle were inevitable. I had to put my game face on. Lying at my feet was one of the black dado weapons from Quillan. I wanted to use it. I wanted the sun to rise.
I wanted to fight.
(CONTINUED)
IBARA
Alder and I left early the next morning for Tribunal Mountain. We walked through Rayne in the dark. With an hour to go before sunrise, the archers were already taking up their positions. For all I knew, they’d been there all night. The first line was at the edge of the beach. The next line was inside the village itself, using huts for protection. The third line was underground, peering out from the tunnel beneath the sand. The fourth and final line was behind that, halfway to the mountain. We made brief eye contact with some of the archers. I saw fear, but confidence. They weren’t soldiers, but they were ready to fight a war. No words were exchanged, only slight nods of acknowledgment.
The command post was set up inside the firing room that controlled the underwater guns. From there we had a clear view of the bay, the ocean beyond it, and the village below. The battle would play out beneath us. We had the best seats in the house.
The three members of the tribunal were already there, along with Siry and the big guy who arrested me when I first got to Ibara. This guy was our first line of defense. He sat in the gunner’s chair. Also there were three young guys who were runners, to pass along commands to the archers.
I approached the gunner and asked straight out, “How good are you?”
The big guy swiveled his chair toward me and boldly said, “The best there is.”
The guy had total confidence. That made a grand total of exactly one of us.
The map of Ibara hung on the rock wall. Lines were drawn to show where the archers were placed. I stood staring at it, wondering how it would all play out. I could envision the battle, what I couldn’t see was the end game. Of course, I hoped we’d obliterate the dados before they did any real damage, but that didn’t seem likely. I didn’t want to be a pessimist, but the numbers weren’t on our side.
As if reading my thoughts, Genj approached and said, “If this goes badly, will they accept surrender?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out when the time comes.”
“if the time comes,” Siry corrected.
He was feeling confident too. Now there were exactly two of us.
“Where’s Telleo?” I asked.
Genj answered, “I sent her to be in charge of the villagers who are in hiding.”
Drea asked, “Is there a chance this might not happen at all?”
“We can hope” was the best answer I could give.
I left the map and went to the wide window that was cut into the rock. The sky was beginning to lighten. Soon we would be able to make out detail on the ocean and learn if anything was out there. Alder joined me. We both looked out onto the black sea.
“I do not know if what we are doing is right” he said.”But I do not believe we had a choice.”
I nodded, grateful for the support.
The inky sky slowly turned blue, followed by a thin line of light that appeared on the horizon. Sunlight was minutes away. We all stood at the window, focused intently on the glowing band.
“I don’t see anything,” Siry said hopefully. “Shouldn’t we see them by now?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.
“This is good news,” Moman proclaimed hopefully. “Perhaps the sinking of the pilgrim ships was all they wanted.”
I had my own hopes. I hoped that you had found Mark, and there was no longer any such thing as dados.
“You may be right about the pilgrims,” Drea added. “They may have felt threatened by our attempt to move off the island and only wanted to make sure we’d stay here and-“
“There,” Alder announced sharply. “Something is out there.”
It was next to impossible to see anything. The water was still black.
“I don’t see anything,” Siry said.
We had to wait a few painful minutes for the sun to throw more light over the horizon. When the first direct rays spilled onto the ocean, it all came clear. Drea gasped. Considering what we were looking at, it was a pretty mild reaction.
Genj said softly, “What manner of evil could have created such a thing?”
I knew the answer, but didn’t think he wanted to hear it. What we saw on the ocean that morning was indeed evil.
There’s no better word to describe it. At that moment I knew how those German soldiers must have felt on the beach in France during World War II when they woke up one morning to see the entire Allied fleet on the horizon.
Out on the open ocean, beyond the break in the beach that led into the bay, were thousands of skimmers. I’ll repeat that. Thousands. They moved slowly, in tight formation, headed directly for us. The first line had about fifty craft. Followed by another. And another and another. Too many to count. It looked as if each skimmer held three passengers. The rising sun made them look like ghostly silhouettes. They were angels of death. The waiting and wondering was over.
We were about to be invaded.
“They have weapons,” Alder announced.
From as far away as we were, we could see that one dado on each craft held a golden rifle. They looked like weapons from Quillan. The gunner stood next to me, staring in wide-eyed wonder.
“You say you’re the best,” I said to him. “Prove it.”
The gunner stiffened with resolve and jumped for his chair. The controls were simple. In front of him was a panel with a series of toggle switches. The chair was high enough for him to look down onto his weapons in the sea below. A series of mirrors were embedded in the stone beneath this window, each giving him the view of a particular gun.
“What kind of ammunition does it fire?” I asked.
“Small projectiles, propelled by water pressure.”
