The Merchant of Death (33 page)

Rellin entered the clearing and the Milago miners instantly stood at attention. That was a surprise. Maybe these guys were more organized than I knew. Could all of the cowering and silence have been an act to make the Bedoowan think they were pushovers? Rellin walked over to something that looked like a big box that was covered with a large, brown blanket. He stopped there and turned to us.

“Soon we will begin the battle of our lives,” he said proudly. “But it will not last long thanks to you, Pendragon.”

Me? What did I have to do with any of this? Uncle Press shot me a look. So did Loor and Alder. All I could do was shrug. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Rellin continued, “Tak is powerful, but it is delicate.” Figgis appeared next to him and held up his basket. Rellin reached in and took out a piece of tak that was no bigger than a pea. “All it takes to release the power is a small impact.”

Rellin threw the pea down on the ground and it exploded with a huge bang that echoed through the forest. There was a blast of flame and smoke that left a deep, jagged hole in the ground the size of a water barrel. Man, that stuff really
was
powerful. Figgis giggled. I wondered how much he charged for each piece of tak.

“It is dangerous to use any more than a small amount,”
said Rellin. “But we had to find a way to use more. We had to find a way to release the power of enough tak to deliver a single, crushing blow to the Bedoowan. We have not been able to find that way, until now.”

He reached under the brown blanket and pulled something out that made my heart sink. It was a heavy-duty twelve-volt battery, the kind you use in big flashlights. At first it didn't make sense to me. Where did he get that? Then it hit me. I guess you guys sent me a flashlight after all. The reason I didn't find it was because Figgis must have stolen it from my pack when he took my Swiss Army knife.

Rellin held the battery up and said, “Such an interesting device you brought to us, Pendragon. I do not know why, but it too gives off power. And it is a power that can be controlled.”

He then reached under the brown blanket and pulled out the flashlight. He looked at it admiringly and played with the on-off switch. I looked to Uncle Press. I wanted to apologize, but it was too late for that. Uncle Press didn't look at me. His jaw was set and he stared at Rellin.

Rellin then continued, “We can now use the power of this strange device to release the awesome power of tak.” He said this while switching the flashlight on and off. “One little push will unleash as much tak as we desire. The Bedoowan will fall, and they will suffer greatly for how they have treated us.”

I now realized where this was going. They were going to make a bomb. They weren't satisfied with throwing little bits of explosives in slingshots. No, they wanted a big bang, and I had delivered the means for them to do it. They were going to use the electricity in the battery to set off a huge bomb. Nice going, Bobby.

With a flourish Rellin pulled away the brown blanket that
was covering the big box. What lay beneath wasn't a box at all. It was one of the ore cars from the mines. To my horror, I saw that it was filled with tak. There must have been a few hundred pounds of it. Judging from the big explosion that came from a very small bit of tak, if this load blew up it would be like a nuclear bomb going off.

“This is a mistake, Rellin,” Uncle Press pleaded. “You think this will save the Milago? You're wrong. If you use this weapon, you may find yourselves free of the Bedoowan, and slaves to a new power. The power of tak.”

I immediately realized what Uncle Press was worried about. The Milago were on the verge of creating a weapon of horrible power. If they used it, it would alter the course of Denduron forever. Not only would there be devastating destruction, but once these simple people used the power of this explosive, where would it end? Already they weren't satisfied with using small bits of tak. They wanted more power. It was like the Milago skipped over gunpowder and jumped right into the nuclear age . . . and Armageddon.

The crazy thing was, this all came about because of two people who never could have foreseen the outcome of their actions. There was me, who stupidly brought the last piece of the bomb puzzle from home. And there was Figgis, this strange little man who lived by scrounging things and selling them to whomever had the coin to pay. Figgis had struck the big time now. He wasn't selling sweaters and knives anymore. No, Figgis was now a merchant of death, and the people he was selling to were eager to buy.

It was clear to me now. The turning point for Denduron wasn't the battle between the Milago and the Bedoowan. It was the introduction of this strange and horrible new power into the territory. As I looked at that deadly load of explosive
in the ore car, there was something else that became clear. I wasn't going home. Even if I could get to a flume, there was no way I could go back now. No way. Not after the damage I had caused. I had no idea what to do, or how to stop this horror from happening, but I resolved then and there to stay and see this through to the end . . . even if the end meant my own death.

This may be the last journal I write to you, Mark and Courtney. If it is, then please know that it wasn't your fault about the flashlight. All you did was help out a friend. The blame is all mine. If you don't hear from me again, then please know I did everything I could to undo the mess I created. I may not be successful, but at least I tried. Thank you for reading this, and for being my friends.

Hopefully this isn't a final good-bye.

END OF JOURNAL #3

SECOND EARTH

Mark threw the parchment pages
down onto his bedroom floor angrily.

“We should have known!” he shouted. “It was as much our fault as it was Bobby's!”

Courtney and Mark had waited until they got back home to Stony Brook before reading Bobby's latest journal. After saying good-bye to Bobby in the abandoned subway station, their journey back home was uneventful. They traveled the same route as the one that brought them to the flume in the Bronx, taking the subway to 125th Street and catching the first commuter train back to Connecticut. Once back in their hometown, they went straight to Mark's house and locked themselves in his bedroom where they could read Bobby's journal in private.

“It's not our fault!” argued Courtney. “The Milago are like a step above primitive. How could we know they'd figure out how to make a bomb with that stuff?”

“Because we read the journal,” countered Mark. “We knew the same things Bobby did. Press told him never to bring anything from one territory to the next. We read that, but we did it anyway!”

Mark paced the floor out of sheer nervous energy.

“We helped Bobby,” argued Courtney. “And maybe we helped the Milago, too. To be honest, I hope they do make a bomb that'll blow those Bedoowan creeps away. They deserve it!”

“You don't get it,” argued Mark. “The Milago aren't ready for this kind of power. They don't know how to control it.”

Now Courtney was getting angry. She jumped up and said, “What are you saying? Only socially evolved, brilliant people are allowed to blow themselves up?”

“No,” Mark shot back. “It takes socially evolved brilliant people to figure out how
not
to blow themselves up. Look at it this way. The Milago are pissed off and they should be. The Bedoowan have been torturing them for centuries. Now suddenly they're given a weapon that's so powerful they can wipe out their enemies with the push of a button. They don't really understand it. They really don't know how to control it, but they're angry enough to use it anyway. If that tak stuff is as powerful as Bobby wrote, then they could end up killing themselves as well.”

This made Courtney stop. “Is it really possible to use a battery to set that stuff off?” she asked thoughtfully.

“I don't know,” answered Mark. “I suppose so. If tak is that volatile then a small electric charge could set off a chain reaction and . . . boom.”

The two fell silent for a moment, imagining the consequences.

“I guess the trick is to be somewhere else when the button gets pushed,” said Courtney. “I don't think they're smart enough to figure out how to make a timer.”

“It wouldn't matter,” said Mark soberly. “Tak isn't like anything I've ever heard of. If a little bit can make an explosion that big, then the amount Bobby described in that ore car would not only destroy the Bedoowan palace, it would level the Milago village too.
And if the explosion makes fire the way it did with those scarecrow targets, then it could create a firestorm. Every living thing for miles around would be torched . . . the Bedoowan, the Milago, the farm, the forest . . .”

“And Bobby, Alder, Loor, and Press, too,” said Courtney slowly. “I guess this Figgis guy really is a merchant of death.”

Mark picked up the latest journal and scanned it, looking for something. It didn't take him long to find it.

“Listen to this,” he said. “This is what Loor said to Bobby.” Mark read from the journal.
“My mother explained that there are many territories, and they are all about to reach an important time. A ‘turning point' she called it. It is a time when the outcome will either send the territory toward peace and prosperity, or plunge its people into chaos and destruction.”

Courtney said, “Yeah, and if the Milago beat the Bedoowan then everything will be okay.”

“I don't think that's it,” said Mark. “I think it's all about tak. Think about it. The Milago have been slaves of the Bedoowan for centuries. If they fight them and lose, then it will be business as usual. But if the Milago tip the balance by using something as horrible as that explosive, then who knows what it could lead to?”

“Then we've got to try and undo it!” countered Courtney.

“How?” was Mark's obvious question. “It's not like we can go through the flumes. It doesn't work for us, remember?”

Courtney paced, her mind kicking into overdrive.

“Then maybe we can send something to Bobby,” she said. “Like a . . . like a . . .”

“Like a what?” shouted Mark. “We can't send anything to him. It would only make things worse! The only thing we can do is—”

Ding dong.
Mark was interrupted by the doorbell. The two instantly fell silent.

“You expecting somebody?” asked Courtney.

“We skipped school today,” Mark said nervously. “Maybe they're coming to check up on me.”

The doorbell rang again.

“L-Let's hide,” said Mark.

Courtney gave him a sarcastic look and said, “Hide? Gimme a break, I think we have bigger things to worry about than getting caught for skipping school. Answer the dumb door.”

Courtney was right, thought Mark. Who cared if they got busted for skipping school? Whoever was at the door he'd deal with them and get back to the bigger problem at hand. When he got downstairs, he hesitated a second and tried to look sick in case it really was somebody from school coming to check up on him. He gave a little sick cough and then called out with a weak voice, “I'm coming.”

He got to the door, unlocked it, swung it open, and then shouted out, “Bobby!”

Indeed, Bobby Pendragon was standing at the front door wearing the same clothes he had worn the night he disappeared. The Milago leather clothes were history.

“Hey, Mark,” he said casually. “Can I come in?”

Courtney came running down the stairs on a tear. “Bobby?” she shouted.

Bobby stepped into Mark's house and gave Courtney a little smile.

“Miss me?” he said.

Courtney grabbed him in a hug and Mark hugged the two of them together. Bobby was home. He was safe. Everything was going to be okay. When they finally pulled away from the group hug, Mark and Courtney looked at Bobby in disbelief. This was too good to be true. A few seconds ago they were worried about never seeing him again. Now here he was standing right in
front of them. But Bobby looked different. Both Courtney and Mark noticed it. It was still Bobby, no doubt about that. But he looked tired, like he had gone through an ordeal that took a lot out of him.