The Merchant of Death (34 page)

“Are you okay, man?” asked Mark. “You look kind of. . . sick.”

“I'm not sick; I'm totally beat,” was Bobby's answer. “I gotta lie down.”

Mark and Courtney quickly led Bobby up the stairs to Mark's bedroom. They watched him as he walked and saw that he was a little unsure on his feet. They also noticed streaks of blood on his cheeks that came from many tiny cuts all over his face. Obviously a lot had happened since they saw him leave through the flume on his way back to Denduron. To Mark and Courtney only a few hours had passed. But as they had already figured out, time here on Second Earth and time in the other territories weren't relative. Bobby could have been gone for much longer than a few days for all they knew. Bobby looked as if he'd been through a war, but neither Mark nor Courtney wanted to ask him about it. They both figured that he'd tell them when he was ready. So without another word, they followed Bobby into Mark's room and watched as he lay down on the bed.

“I gotta get home,” said Bobby weakly. “But I want to rest up first. Is it okay?”

“Absolutely,” answered Mark. “Whatever you want.”

“Thanks, man,” said Bobby and put his head down on the pillow. Mark cringed, wondering how he was going to explain the streaks of blood on the white pillowcase to his mother. But then he felt bad for even thinking so selfishly and put the thought out of his head.

“Will you guys come with me?” asked Bobby without opening his eyes.

“Sure, Bobby,” answered Courtney. “Uh . . . where?”

Bobby spoke weakly, as if he were nearly asleep. “To my house. Everybody must be going nuts looking for me. I'm gonna need you guys to help explain things.”

Mark and Courtney exchanged looks. Both knew what the other was thinking. Bobby's house wasn't there anymore. His family had disappeared and along with them so had any history of the Pendragon family ever having existed. His parents, his sister, even his dog were just. . . gone. The police had launched an investigation to try and figure out what had happened to them, but so far they had come up empty.

“Whatever it takes,” said Courtney. “We'll be there for you.”

Bobby smiled.

Mark, on the other hand, was dying with curiosity. He didn't want Bobby to nod off before finding out what happened on Denduron.

“So tell us what happened!”

Courtney gave Mark a punch in the arm.

“Ow!” yelped Mark and grabbed his stinging arm.

“Go to sleep, Bobby,” said Courtney. “Tell us later.”

Bobby didn't open his eyes, but he chuckled at his friend's curiosity. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” he said while reaching up to his shirt. He unbuttoned a few buttons, reached his hand in and pulled out a roll of parchment paper.

“It's all there,” he said fading fast. “Everything that happened since I wrote last. Wake me up when you're finished.”

That was the last thing he said. Bobby was in dreamland, the roll of parchment paper still in his hand. Mark glanced to Courtney, hesitated a moment, then took the precious journal. Courtney took the folded-up comforter from the bottom of Mark's bed and laid it gently over Bobby, right up to his chin. This was probably the first time he had slept in a bed in a long time and
she wanted to make sure he was as safe and comfortable as possible. Then the two of them walked quietly to the far side of the room.

“Should we go downstairs and leave him alone?” whispered Mark.

“No,” was Courtney's reply. “Nothing we could do would wake him up now.”

Mark nodded. He didn't want to leave either. He slipped the familiar leather twine off the rolled-up scroll and opened it enough to read the very first line.

“Journal Number Four?” asked Courtney.

“Journal Number Four,” answered Mark.

The two sat down next to each other on the floor and began to read the final chapter in Bobby's adventure.

I
can't believe I'm still alive. At least I think I'm still alive. Every muscle, every bone, every hair follicle I've got is sore as hell, which pretty much tells me I'm still among the living. As I write this final journal to you guys, I've still got one major task ahead of me before I can come home. But right now I don't even feel like moving. Even the effort of pushing this pen across the paper is painful. I'm going to try and rest up, write this journal, and then get myself psyched for the final push.

As hurting as my body is, it's just as painful to remember the events of the past few days. But I've got to do it and write it all down because once it's on the page, I'm going to do my level best to forget it all.

I should warn you that some of the things I'm going to write about I didn't see for myself. It has been an incredible few days and there was no way I could be everywhere at once to see it all. But I'll do my best to re-create those events in my journal as accurately as possible based on what others have told me. I don't have a problem doing this because I'm sure everything they described is true. So sit down, take a
breath, and hold on. It's going to be a wild ride.

I finished my last journal right after we rescued Uncle Press, then got recaptured by the people whom we thought were our friends—the Milago. Their leader, Rellin, showed us the huge bomb of tak they planned on using to vaporize the Bedoowan. There is something you should understand here. The Milago are not our enemies, but they were afraid we would try to stop them from using that nasty weapon. And they were right. If they exploded that bad boy, the destruction would be horrible. If we could stop them, we would. So we were in the weird position of being friendly enemies.

They brought us back to the hospital hut I'd been to a few times and locked us up with guards at the door. They said that as soon as the battle was over, they'd let us go. Great. If they detonated that bomb, there wouldn't be any place
left
for us to go. So the four of us—me, Uncle Press, Loor, and Alder—were prisoners again.

As soon as we entered the hut, Uncle Press looked around quickly. “Osa isn't here,” he said. “She must be in hiding.”

Uh-oh. We hadn't gotten the chance to tell Uncle Press what had happened to her. I also realized that Osa's body wasn't there any longer.

“What happened?” he asked quickly.

Loor pointed to me and said, “She was killed while protecting him from the Bedoowan knights.”

Perfect. As if I didn't have enough guilt going on at the moment, she had to remind me about my part in Osa's death. I guess I couldn't be angry with her. Osa was her mother. She deserved to be angry. But I wished she didn't have to lay all of the blame on me. Mallos and the Bedoowan knights had a little something to do with it too.

We all looked to Uncle Press for his reaction. It was a
strange one. Rather than show any sign of grief, he simply nodded as if the news of Osa's death were nothing more than a simple fact to file away. I think he realized that the three of us were taking it harder than that, because he put his hand on Loor's shoulder and said, “Don't be sad. This is the way it was meant to be.”

That was exactly what Osa said just before she died. Was that some sort of Traveler motto? If so, it was a lousy one. It didn't make me feel any better, and I doubted if it helped Loor at all.

“Everyone get some rest,” Uncle Press ordered. “Tomorrow's going to be a tough day.”

He was right; we all needed rest. So we took places apart from one another in different corners of the hut. This is when I wrote the last journal that I sent you. Loor wrote too, as did Alder. We were all documenting our experiences as Travelers, though I'm pretty sure we all had different opinions about how things were going. The only one who didn't write was Uncle Press. He laid down on one of the benches and closed his eyes. I wondered how much sleep he had gotten while a prisoner in the Bedoowan palace. Not much, probably.

As I wrote I sensed that there was tension in the room. Maybe it was just my own paranoia, but I had the feeling that the others were blaming me for the tough position we were in. Whenever I looked up, both Alder and Loor would quickly look away. The truth was, I didn't blame them. As I played out the events of the past few days in my mind, the sickening realization came to me that the situation on Denduron was much worse because of me. If Uncle Press hadn't brought me here, then he probably wouldn't have been captured by the Bedoowan. And if he hadn't been captured
then he wouldn't have needed to be rescued, and I wouldn't have written to you guys to send me the stuff from home. And if I hadn't gotten that stuff from home, then the Milago wouldn't have the ability to explode that huge bomb. And if I weren't here, Osa would still be alive because . . . if, if, if. Whenever you look back and say, “If,” you know you're in trouble. There's no such thing as “if.” The only thing that counts is what really happened, and the truth was that every chance I got, I screwed up. Even when I thought I had done something good, it always turned out bad.

Then, just to rub salt in everyone's wounds, my watch alarm started to beep. I had totally forgotten about my Casio. Alder and Loor shot a look at me. They had no idea what it was. Uncle Press just cracked an eye open and gave me a deadly look. Without saying a word I jumped up and ran to a corner of the hut where I pulled the watch off and threw it into the latrine. I think it was a safe bet that nobody would go down there after it. I even pulled my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and dumped it in the ooze. I looked back at the others to see they were all staring at me. I couldn't take it anymore.

“What?” I yelled. “So I messed up! Yeah, I got that stuff from home, but it was the only way I could think of to get Uncle Press out. And it worked, didn't it?”

Nobody said a word. They just stared back at me. It was making me crazy.

“It's not like you tried to stop me, Loor . . . Alder,” I added. “You used the stuff too!”

“But we did not know it was wrong,” said Loor quietly. “You did.”

I couldn't argue with that, but I was still in an arguing mood so I yelled, “I didn't ask to come here, you know! It's not
like I had a choice. I'm not a warrior like Loor or Osa. I'm not a knight like Alder. And I'm not a . . . not a . . . I don't know
what
you are anymore, Uncle Press, but I'm sure as hell not like you! You never should have brought me here.” I was ready for a fight. I wanted them to say what a loser I was because I had a great comeback. I'd agree with them. I never claimed to be anything more than a junior-high kid from the suburbs. That's it. I wasn't a revolutionary, or a fighter, or anything else they wanted me to be. It wasn't fair to blame me for not living up to their expectations. I was doing the best I could. If that wasn't good enough, well, too bad.

But that's not what happened. Instead Uncle Press sat up on the bench and softly said, “Come here, all of you. Sit down.”

We all kind of awkwardly exchanged glances and walked over to him. I had no idea where this was going. Uncle Press then spoke to us in such a calm manner that it took all of the tension out of the room. It kind of reminded me of the way Osa always seemed to have the ability to chill everybody out.

“I understand how tough this is for all of you,” he began. “You haven't known about being Travelers for very long, and it's gotta be confusing.”

“I do not understand why this has happened to me,” said Alder. “Why must we be Travelers?”

“I was not given a choice,” added Loor. “It does not seem fair.”

I then realized that I wasn't the only one who was freaking out. Loor and Alder hadn't known about being Travelers for very long either. The only difference was they were better equipped to handle the assignment than I was. The closest I ever came to that kind of training was in Saturday morning karate class when I was ten. I usually ended up getting a
bloody nose and running home crying. That's not exactly elite warrior training. I was definitely out of my league here.

Uncle Press smiled warmly and said, “If you want to know why you are Travelers, all you have to do is look back on what you've already done. The way the three of you rescued me from that palace was an amazing thing. You proved yourselves to be smart and brave and resourceful. But more important was the fact that you willingly put your lives at risk because it was the right thing to do. Ordinary people wouldn't do that. You want to know why you're Travelers? Look first to yourselves.”

“But what are these powers?” asked Loor. “We understand words that we should not.”

“There's a lot for you to learn,” said Uncle Press. “But the best way for that to happen is for you to experience it. As time goes on everything will come clear, but you need to learn it on your own.”

“Come on,” I said impatiently. “You gotta give us more than that. Are there others? I mean, are there more Travelers?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Press. “Every territory has a Traveler. When you arrive in a new territory, always find the Traveler. They know best about the customs and history of their home territory and can help you along.”

“Like Alder,” said Loor.

“Yes, like Alder,” confirmed Uncle Press.

“And what about Mallos . . . Saint Dane?” I asked. “He's a Traveler too, right?”

Uncle Press's expression grew hard. “Yes,” he said coldly. “This is something you should know about now,” he said. “Every territory is in conflict. There are always wars and disputes and battles. That's the nature of things. Always was, always will be. But no matter what the conflict of a territory is, the true enemy is Saint Dane. Here on Denduron it's not the
Bedoowan, or Queen Kagan, or even the quigs. The real threat is Saint Dane. He's the one who must be stopped.”

“What's his deal?” I asked. “Why is he so dangerous?”