Black Water Read online

  “Tempting, isn’t it?” Courtney asked playfully.

  Mark nodded. He shot a sideways glance at her, worried that she might leap inside.

  “How will they know we’re here?” she asked. “Whoever they are.”

  “I don’t think they have to know” was Mark’s answer. “The flumes put the Travelers where they need to be, when they need to be there. So if somebody needs to see us, it doesn’t matter when they enter the flume, they’ll be here when we’re here.”

  “That makes no sense,” Courtney said, shaking her head.

  “I know,” Mark agreed. “But so far it’s worked out that way, right?”

  Before Courtney could answer, a light appeared in the depths of the flume. “I guess you’re right,” she announced. “Here we go.”

  The two backed away as far across the root cellar as they could go, which wasn’t far. They clung to each other for support. Both were thinking the same thing: The last time this happened, Saint Dane showed up. Gulp. The light inside the flume grew closer, brightening the dank root cellar. The musical notes grew louder and the gray rock walls of the tunnel melted into glorious crystal.

  “It’s okay,” Mark whispered with an oddly confident voice. “I think this is the way it was meant to be.”

  An instant later the light flashed and disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, taking the music with it. When Mark and Courtney’s eyes adjusted back to the dark of the cellar, they looked into the flume to see who had arrived. Both gasped in surprise. It wasn’t Saint Dane. It wasn’t Bobby. It wasn’t any of the Travelers they had met or read about.

  It was a huge jungle cat.

  Mark and Courtney didn’t let go of each other. Though they had read about the klees of Eelong being intelligent, it was totally unnerving to be standing a few feet away from one. This was a beast that could rip them in half and eat them for lunch. The big cat was on all fours, staring back at them. Its coat was gray-and-white spotted, like a leopard’s. The only thing that gave Mark and Courtney a glimmer of hope that they wouldn’t be devoured was the fact that the cat wore a tunic, like the ones Bobby described.

  “Are you the acolytes from Second Earth?” the big cat said with a firm, male voice.

  Neither Mark nor Courtney could speak. They stood dumbly, with their mouths hanging open.

  “I said,” the cat repeated more forcefully, “are you the acolytes?”

  Mark and Courtney nodded.

  “Good,” the cat said. “My name is Seegen. I am the Traveler from Eelong.”

  Courtney shot Mark a surprised look.

  “W-We got a message to come here,” Mark said weakly.

  “Yes,” Seegen replied. “Sent by my acolyte.”

  “Your acolyte knows about us?” Courtney asked, surprised.

  “The acolytes know of many things,” Seegen answered.

  Courtney said, “Really? We’re acolytes and we’re clueless.”

  “I must see Pendragon, the lead Traveler,” Seegen continued. “I have vital information for him. He must come to Eelong.”

  “Well, I guess your acolyte doesn’t know everything,” Courtney said. “Because Bobby’s already there.”

  If it were possible for a cat to look surprised, Seegen did. His head wavered, as if he were dizzy. He sat down on his haunches.

  “You feeling all right?” Courtney asked.

  “You don’t look so hot,” Mark added.

  “Pendragon doesn’t know what he’s stepped into,” Seegen said weakly. “I must find him.”

  “Tell us,” Courtney said.

  “I believe I’ve discovered how Saint Dane plans to decimate

  Eelong” Seegen said. “He’s going to poison the territory.”

  “Poison?” Mark said. “The whole territory?”

  “I’ve already seen the signs. Tangs have been dying, by the hundreds. I believe they ate crops that were infected by this poison. Pendragon needs to know!”

  “How do you know Saint Dane poisoned the tangs?” Courtney asked.

  “Because nothing like this has ever happened on Eelong,” Seegen answered. “Mass deaths? It’s unnatural. It can only be the work of Saint Dane. No one else but Pendragon will understand that. I must tell him before—”

  Seegen didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t move. The big cat sat there like a freeze-frame, his cat eyes staring forward.

  “Before what?” Courtney asked.

  No response.

  “Hey, a-are you okay?” Mark asked.

  “Seegen?” Courtney called out. “Hel-lo?”

  The cat didn’t answer. Courtney took a step toward the Traveler. Mark followed close behind.

  “Maybe you should go back to Eelong,” Courtney told the cat nervously. “Bobby is there looking for you. You can tell him all about the poison.”

  Still, Seegen didn’t move. Courtney reached out to touch him, but Mark grabbed her arm and screamed, “Stop!”

  “What’s the matter?” Courtney asked.

  “Look,” Mark said. He was pointing to Seegen’s mouth. A thin line of bright green liquid had dribbled out and trickled down his fur. Mark cautiously held his open palm in front of the cat’s nose. He held it there for a moment, then declared, “He’s not breathing.”

  Courtney took a surprised step back. “Whoa, no way!”

  Mark waved his hand in front of the cat’s glassy eyes. They remained fixed. Staring. Unseeing.

  “He can’t be dead!” Courtney yelled in a panic. “He was fine a second ago. You don’t just . . . stop living!”

  Indeed, Seegen didn’t look any different in death than he had in life. Nothing had changed, except that life had left his body. Mark turned away from the big cat and looked to the ground, his mind lost in thought.

  “Mark!” Courtney called. “What are we going to do? This is . . . this is . . . bad!”

  “It’s worse than bad,” Mark answered.

  “How’s that?”

  “I know Bobby’s journals inside out,” Mark explained. “I’ve reread each one a dozen times. I remember everything. Every event. Every detail.”

  “Yeah, so?” Courtney said anxiously.

  “We’ve read about this,” Mark continued. “Think. Seegen suddenly died, with no warning, and there’s green liquid dribbling from his mouth and—”

  “And there’s a deadly poison on Eelong!” Courtney interrupted, realizing where Mark was going. “Like nothing they’ve ever seen. It infects crops and makes them poisonous. You don’t think—”

  “Yeah, I do,” Mark said solemnly. “Saint Dane said the walls between the territories were crumbling.”

  “Cloral,” Courtney said with finality.

  “Yeah, Cloral,” Mark echoed. “I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but somehow the poison that Saint Dane tried to destroy Cloral with is still active, and it found its way to Eelong.”

  “And a Traveler is dead,” Courtney added. “What if he’s the only one who knew the truth?”

  “He isn’t,” Mark said. “We know.”

  SECOND EARTH

  (CONTINUED)

  Courtney grabbed Mark’s arm, pulling him out of the root cellar and back into the big, empty basement of the Sherwood house. Once outside, he yanked his arm back. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded.

  “I couldn’t stay in there with a dead, a dead—”

  “Klee,” Mark snapped. “He’s called a klee. And he was the Traveler from Eelong.”

  “Whatever, it was . . . creepy.”

  “Creepy is the least of our problems,” Mark said.

  “What are we going to do, Mark?” Courtney asked quickly, her normally calm exterior showing signs of cracking. “Saint Dane has brought that poison from Cloral to Eelong, and we’re the only ones who know it.”

  Mark paced. His mind was full of possibilities. None of them were good.

  “It’s wrong,” he muttered nervously. “He’s not supposed to mix things from the territories.”

 
“Saint Dane’s not supposed to do a lot of things,” Courtney said. “But that hasn’t stopped him. Bobby’s gotta know!”

  “And I know how to tell him,” Mark exclaimed.” We can send a note to Boon, the acolyte from Eelong. Dorney showed us how to do that!”

  “Good idea, except for one thing,” Courtney said.

  “What?”

  “Boon’s not the acolyte. Not yet, anyway. I thought you remembered every detail?”

  “Then who sent us the note?” Mark asked.

  “Seegen’s acolyte. That’s not Boon.”

  “Well, we gotta try!” Mark exclaimed. He grabbed the backpack that he left outside the wooden door and pulled out a spiral notebook and rollerball pen. He nervously flipped through dozens of pages filled with notes from his classes (Mark loved taking notes), until he found a blank page. He spoke aloud as he wrote:

  “This note is for Pendragon, the lead Traveler. Saint Dane brought the mutant poison from Cloral to Eelong. Seegen is dead. He was killed by the poison. His body is on Second Earth. What should we do? Mark and Courtney.”

  Mark asked, “Anything else you can think of?”

  Courtney shook her head. Mark ripped out the note and folded it in two. He took off his Traveler ring and laid it on the floor.

  “Dorney said all we have to do is say the name of the acolyte we want to send it to,” Mark said, breathless. He held the note over the ring, cleared his throat and announced, “Boon.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Boon from Eelong,” Mark said louder.

  The two looked at the ring. It lay there doing absolutely nothing.

  “Send this to Boon! The acolyte from Eelong!” Mark yelled.

  Still nothing.

  “Am I forgetting something?” Mark asked with a hint of desperation.

  “Yes,” Courtney answered. “Boon isn’t the acolyte. Hello! I told you that.”

  Frustrated, Mark picked up the ring and put it back on his finger. “Then I don’t know what to do.”

  Courtney took the note from Mark, read it, then read it again. An idea was forming. “Mark,” she began softly. “Think about what I’m saying before telling me I’m wrong, okay?” Mark nodded.

  “Saint Dane said that when the first territory falls, the rest will go over like dominos, right?”

  “Yes,” Mark agreed. “And I’m getting sick of hearing that.”

  “From what we’ve seen and what Bobby wrote, Saint Dane’s prediction is coming true. Veelox is doomed, and now weird things are happening. Like those images Bobby saw when he flew through the flume, and the way Saint Dane’s hair burned. I think he’s getting stronger, and if he gets another territory, there’s no telling what might happen.”

  “I’m with you so far,” Mark said.

  “Eelong is in big trouble,” Courtney continued. “It looks like Saint Dane’s got the klees ready to start killing off the gars.”

  “Hang on,” Mark interrupted. “I think Saint Dane is wrong. Sure, if all the gars were killed off, it would throw Eelong totally out of whack, but get real. Even if they made it legal to hunt gars, they couldn’t wipe out the entire population.”

  “Exactly!” Courtney agreed quickly. “That is, unless they had a weapon that was so powerful it could kill off thousands of gars at one time before they even realized what was happening.”

  The weight of Courtney’s words hit Mark hard. The horrible truth was becoming all too clear.

  “The Cloral poison!” he shouted. “Saint Dane brought the poison to Eelong to wipe out the gars!”

  “It’s worse than that,” Courtney said with passion. “Think about it. What are the klees going to do after they kill the gars?”

  The answer came fast to Mark, hitting him like a punch in the gut. “Oh my god,” he said, his panic growing. “They’re going to eat them! If some klees don’t know about the poison and eat gars who were killed by it—”

  “Yes!” Courtney shouted. “They’ll be poisoned too. Then the whole food chain thing will be thrown out of whack and . . . Mark, with this poison Saint Dane truly has a chance of bringing down Eelong.”

  Mark paced nervously. “I can’t believe this!”

  “I’m not finished,” Courtney said, still calm.

  “There’s more?” Mark asked, incredulous.

  “Yes,” Courtney said. She took a deep breath and said, “You’re not going to like this.”

  “I don’t like any of it. What?”

  “Mark, we’ve got to travel.”

  Mark froze. He wasn’t expecting to hear that.

  “Say something,” Courtney said.

  “No way!” Mark shouted. “That’s exactly what Bobby said we shouldn’t do!”

  “Bobby could be wrong,” Courtney countered. “The ball just got slammed into our court. Bobby knows that Saint Dane wants to kill off the gars, but we’re the only ones who know how. The Council of Klee may have already revoked the law that forbids the killing of gars—”

  “Edict Forty-six.”

  “Whatever! We know the truth. How are you going to feel when we read in Bobby’s next journal that thousands of gars mysteriously died off? I don’t want to be the one to tell Bobby we knew it was coming but didn’t do anything to stop it.”

  Mark walked deeper into the vast basement. All he could hear was the sound of his own footsteps, crunching on the gritty floor. The problem was, he agreed with everything Courtney had to say. But the idea of going against Bobby’s direct orders was tough to imagine. Even tougher was the idea of shooting through the flume. Sure, he had fantasized about it. But when it came right down to it, he didn’t think he had what it took to join this fight. Maybe Courtney did, but not Mark. Mark feared he was way too . . . Mark.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to go,” Courtney said softly. “But I do.”

  Mark whipped around and saw that Courtney stood with both feet planted firmly. It was at that exact moment that Mark realized Courtney had already made up her mind. The time for discussion was over. She was going to jump into the flume.

  “H-Hang on a second,” Mark said, trying to restore sanity. “Suppose I agreed with you? I’m not saying I do, but just suppose. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had to fight a quig or a tang or any other nasty creature that might be lurking around the jungles of Eelong. Heck, my mother’s cat scares me! I’ve got the scratch scars to prove it. You’re right, Bobby has to know what’s going on, but we’d be killed on Eelong before we got the chance to tell him.”

  Courtney gave Mark a sly smile and said, “Who said anything about going to Eelong?”

  Mark gave her a curious look. She had just logically convinced him how important it was to ignore Bobby’s wishes and flume to the rescue, only to hear that this isn’t what she was suggesting at all.

  “Now you lost me,” Mark said.

  Courtney took Mark’s spiral notebook and his pen and began writing another message. She spoke as she wrote:

  “This note is from Courtney Chetwynde and Mark Dimond, acolytes for Bobby Pendragon from Second Earth. We believe that Saint Dane has taken the poison that threatened Cloral and brought it to the territory of Eelong. Acolytes can now travel through the flumes. We are coming to get your help to find a way to stop it.”

  Courtney ripped out the page and folded it in two.

  “Who are you sending that to?” Mark asked, totally confused.

  “An acolyte,” Courtney answered. “I think her name is . . . Wu Yenza.”

  “Wu Yenza?” Mark shouted. “But she’s from—”

  “Exactly,” Courtney announced. “She’s from Cloral.”

  Mark stared at Courtney, stunned.

  Courtney held out her hand and said, “Give me your ring.”

  Mark did as he was told. He was too numb not to. Courtney took the ring and gently placed it on the basement floor. She held the note over the ring and announced in a clear voice, “Wu Yenza!”

  Instantly one of the ten symbols that represented t
he territories sparkled to life. It was a single, squiggly line that looked like a wave. The ring quivered on the ground and grew larger, revealing the tunnel to the territories. Brilliant light shot from the ring, looking like a headlight on the front of an oncoming freight train. The familiar jumble of musical notes grew louder. Courtney looked to Mark, winked, and dropped the note through the ring. The paper disappeared and the ring shrank back down to normal size. Courtney picked it up and held it out for Mark.

  “Special delivery,” she said with a smile.

  Mark took the ring and put it back on his finger.

  “You’re right about Eelong,” Courtney said. “We probably wouldn’t get out of the flume tree. But even if we got lucky and found Bobby, there’s only one way to stop that poison . . . the antidote that saved Cloral.”

  “You want to bring the antidote from Cloral to Eelong?” Mark asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Mark’s mouth went dry. What Courtney was suggesting went against everything they’d learned about how the territories worked. “But n-nothing is supposed to be moved between the territories,” Mark said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Saint Dane said the rules have changed,” Courtney countered. “And he’s certainly moving things around. I think the alternative is worse. If we don’t do something, he’s going to have his second territory.”

  Mark felt dizzy. He actually had to spread his feet to keep his balance. He looked down at the ground, praying that he’d wake up and this would all be a nightmare.

  “I wish you’d come with me,” Courtney said. “But I’ll understand if you don’t.”

  “I-I’m really confused, Courtney,” Mark stammered. “Everything’s getting so, so . . . twisted. Did you know that Andy Mitchell does college-level scientific research?”

  The surprised look on Courtney’s face was almost comical. If Mark weren’t so upset, he would have laughed.