hurt. I wasn’t sure if I had been knocked out by getting hit or being Tasered. Probably both. Bottom line was, I felt like, well, like I had been hit by a bus.
Saint Dane walked toward me. Except for the fact that he had lost his gray hair when his head caught fire a while back, the guy hadn’t changed a bit since the day I’d first seen him. He still stood tall and ramrod straight. He still wore that black suit. He still had those blue-white eyes that burned into my head whenever he looked my way. He still made my skin crawl.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said groggily.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“How many of those suits do you have? Do you like, send them to the laundry, or just toss ‘em out and put on a new one when it gets all gamey?”
Saint Dane chuckled. I amused him.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“It was a joke, idiot.” On top of everything else wrong with him, Saint Dane didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Except when I amused him. Which happened a lot, I’m sorry to say.
“I’m glad to see that you’re in a good mood. You should be. Our struggle has finally come to an end. Perhaps we should celebrate.”
“Perhaps you should bite me.”
Saint Dane cocked his head, confused. “I’m afraid I don’t understand that remark, but I’ll assume it’s a provocation. There’s no need for hostility between us anymore, Pendragon.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
He sat down in a chair across from me. I tried to sit up, but decided my aching head preferred that I stay on my back. What the heck. I didn’t need to be polite to this guy.
“You’ll soon learn that I speak the truth,” Saint Dane said calmly. “The Convergence is well under way. The territories are becoming one. All is as I anticipated it would be. Our duel is complete.”
“You keep talking as if this were a contest between us,” I said.
“It is. It was.”
“Then why didn’t somebody tell me that from the beginning? You can’t have a competition when only one side knows the rules.”
“It was the only way,” Saint Dane explained. “This has been a battle to determine the future of Halla. Though not in the conventional sense. If you were to have understood the stakes from the beginning, it would not have been a fair demonstration.”
“Demonstration of what?”
“The quest for control of Halla was never about armies or physical strength or even technology. It was about a battle between two basic, philosophical differences. It was about determining which is the more effective way to play out one’s destiny. By chance or by design. I, of course, believe in design. You and your sort prefer to let fate lead you where it may. If you knew that issue was at the core of our struggle, you would not have had a fair chance to prove your philosophy.”
I finally sat up. I didn’t care that my head was being pounded by a sledgehammer. “What philosophy? I don’t have any philosophy.”
“But you do. At every turn you have made choices based on the belief that the people of Halla know what is best for them. Correct?”
I didn’t answer.
“Press told you that the territories should never be mixed. Each culture, each society, each world, each individual should be given the chance to live its own destiny without interference. Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“Of course not. And I have proved time and again that the people of Halla will consistently make the wrong choices.”
“Because you’ve pushed them into making the wrong choices,” I exclaimed.
“Only to prove my point. Do you honestly think the battles we’ve been through are the only cases of misery in the history of Halla? Pendragon! I know you are still just a boy, but certainly you know that each world has its own legacy of violence and strife that has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I didn’t invent conflict. Quite the opposite. I’m trying to end it.”
My head hurt, and not just because I had been beaten up.
“So what?” I exclaimed. “What’s the point? Let’s pretend you’re not lying. Again. Let’s say that everything that’s happened between us was all some huge philosophical debate that used the people of Halla as pawns. Why? Who are we trying to prove something to? Who’s running this, Saint Dane? What’s the prize? If this war is truly over, then it won’t make any difference if you let me know what’s going on.”
Saint Dane blinked. I saw it. He didn’t answer right away either. It was the best possible response I could have hoped for.
I smiled.
“It’s not over, is it?”
“It was over when you quit, Pendragon,” he spat at me. “It was the ultimate display of weakness. You are incapable of making difficult decisions. You flinch in the face of adversity. Your so-called morals have been your downfall. When you buried the flume on Ibara, it opened the door for the Convergence.”
“But it isn’t over, is it?” I said, goading him.
Saint Dane’s face grew dark. His eyes flared. He stood quickly and strode to the panel with the dimmer switch. He hit another button. The red drapes that covered the one wall parted automatically. I struggled to stand and look at what was being revealed. There was a long glass window, but it didn’t look outside. I had heard all about this place from Mark and Courtney and Patrick, but seeing it was still a shock. Hearing about it and seeing it for myself were two different animals. I couldn’t breathe.
The window overlooked a huge room that seemed to me like a cathedral. Or a big theater. There were multiple rows of green seats all facing the same direction, with a center aisle dividing them. It was exactly as my friends had described it. It wasn’t a cathedral. It wasn’t a theater. Roughly ten yards in front of the seats, was the flume.
“Look familiar?” Saint Dane asked. “This is the flume that was unearthed next to the subway tracks in the Bronx. It’s now the Conclave of Ravinia.”
The room we were in was some kind of private viewing area that overlooked the seats from a level above. To the rear of the huge space was a wide staircase. I saw people coming down and filling up the rows. They could have been arriving for a church service. Or a movie. Or a school play. There were all kinds of people. All races. All ages. I saw families with little kids and people who arrived alone. They all seemed to be dressed pretty well. Some had what looked like traditional costumes from other countries, and some even wore military uniforms. They filed in quickly and quietly. Several of the red-shirt guards were stationed around, leading people to their seats like ushers. They didn’t have guns. I wondered if the people knew they were robots.
There were two flags on stands up front, one on either side of the flume. There was an American flag and a red flag that had the star symbol on it. Saint Dane and I stood there, looking down at the growing crowd. He let me take in the scene for a few minutes before speaking again.
“This conclave is the prototype,” he explained. “The first. It will be repeated throughout Halla. I will admit to you, though the end result was never in doubt, events did not play out precisely as I anticipated.”
“So what’s different?” I asked.
“I fully expected you to become the leader of Ravinia.”
I laughed. “Me? You thought I was going to be like that guy Naymeer?”
Saint Dane nodded. “How many times have I asked you to join me? I felt certain that eventually you would see reason and take your place at the forefront of this movement. I was wrong. It was not meant to be. I’m not sure if I should commend you, or pity you.”
“There was zero chance of that happening.”
“Apparently. And so the honor went to Naymeer. He is now the Traveler from Second Earth and the leader of a revolution. Your loss.”
“What’s this all about?” I asked, gesturing to the rapidly filling space below. “What are they doing here?”
