The Lost City of Faar

by D. J. MacHale

  Saint Dane walked past us and strode toward the bow of the ship.

  “Come,” he ordered.

  Spader and I had no choice but to follow. Saint Dane walked almost to the bow of the ship and the three of us stood there, alone.

  “Do you see that?” he asked.

  We looked ahead and I didn’t see anything at first, but once our eyes adjusted to the light, we saw what he was talking about. It was a giant whirlpool. And I mean, giant. There was no question as to what was causing it. This was the spot directly above the shattered dome of Faar. The swirling water was pouring into the doomed city, creating this monstrous whirlpool. Saint Dane stood there with his arms folded in front of him, smiling, enjoying his handiwork.

  Spader said, “Where are—” but Saint Dane held up his hand to quiet him.

  “Please, a moment more,” he said.

  We all looked back to the swirling water to see that he was right. A few moments later the whirlpool stopped. The water was still for a moment, and then a giant bubble of air erupted on the surface.

  “That’s it,” Spader said softly. “Good-bye, Faar.”

  It was heart-wrenching. That bubble of air was Faar’s last gasp. The city was now completely underwater. The ocean surface was once again still.

  Saint Dane then turned to us.

  “Now, what were you saying?” he asked Spader politely.

  “Where are the pilots from the hauler?”

  Saint Dane waved his hand as if this were an insignificant detail.

  “We threw them back in the sea,” he said. “Two small little fish of no consequence. But they did help us quite a bit.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “The moment we saw them launch from Faar, we knew the exact spot to target our missles and cripple their fleet. No more bubble boats emerged,” he added with a laugh. “So we must have been successful!”

  “You trapped a dozen men down there!” Spader spat out in anger.

  “And destroyed the heart and soul of Cloral,” Saint Dane replied calmly. “Not bad for an afternoon’s work, don’t you think?”

  I could feel Spader’s tension. He was out of his mind nuts with hatred for Saint Dane and was a hair away from lunging at him. But that would have been a huge mistake. So I put a hand on his shoulder. Spader jumped. He really was a raw nerve.

  “Calm down,” I said as softly as possible.

  Spader forced himself to take a breath and seemed to relax a bit.

  “Pendragon, I am impressed,” said Saint Dane. “You’ve grown wiser since our adventure on Denduron.”

  “I beat you on Denduron,” I shot back.

  “So you think,” Saint Dane said. “Honestly, do you really think I care which territory is my first domino? Cloral will do just as nicely as Denduron. As I told you before, once the first falls, the rest will tumble in turn.”

  “Cloral hasn’t fallen,” Spader spat out.

  “But it will,” Saint Dane replied smugly. “Eventually they will find a way to purify the crops, but not before thousands have died and thousands more go to war. It was a delicate balance here, with all the habitats existing together. But now with Faar gone, the scale just tipped.”

  Saint Dane then walked over to me and leaned down. Our eyes were on the same level and he was so close I could smell his breath. It was sour. I wasn’t surprised. But I wouldn’t back off. No way.

  “It is all happening exactly as I planned,” he said softly. “Even if you managed to stop me here, I would simply move on to another territory. You have no idea what is waiting for you, Pendragon. If you continue to fight me, you will certainly go the way of all the pitiful Travelers who came before. Is that what you want? Do you want to die in futility like Spader’s father? Or Osa? Or Press?”

  This last comment stung, but I wouldn’t let him know it.

  “The offer still stands, Pendragon,” he said with a tempting smile. “When Halla is mine, there will be grand rewards for those who helped me. You seem to enjoy splashing around Cloral. I’ll give it to you. Do what you want with it. Restore their farms, make Spader an admiral, be their hero, make them love you. Whatever you want. It would be so easy and the fight would be over. What do you think?”

  This is going to be hard to explain, but at that moment something changed for me. Yes, I was still afraid of Saint Dane. I still didn’t know much about being a Traveler or even why I was chosen to be one. There was still a ton for me to learn, but at that moment, something became very clear and it filled me with a sense of confidence that I hadn’t felt since, well, since I was on the basketball court at Stony Brook.

  “You want to know what I think?” I asked Saint Dane. “I think if you truly knew what was going to happen, if you really believed this was all part of your plan and that you couldn’t be beaten, then you wouldn’t keep begging me to join you.”

  Saint Dane blinked. I saw it. I had hit a nerve.

  “What do I think?” I added. “It might not be here, it might not be today or even on this territory, but for the first time since I met you on Second Earth, I think that when this is all over, I’ll be the one who’s beaten you . . . because that is the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Something clicked in Saint Dane’s eyes. It wasn’t huge. He didn’t gasp or shout or anything like that, but I saw it: Saint Dane was afraid of me. I was sure of it.

  The two of us stood there for a moment, not knowing who would make the next move. And that’s when I heard it. It was a far-off sound and hard to make out. But it was definitely a sound I had heard before. It was a faint whistling sound. It was coming closer, too. Fast. Where had I heard it before? It took me exactly two seconds to remember.

  I turned to Spader and shouted, “Incoming!”

  I grabbed him and dove down onto the deck. An instant later the submarine was rocked by an explosion. The control tower was hit by a water missile—just like the ones that Saint Dane had launched on Grallion. The sound I heard was that of an incoming bomb.

  Boom, boom! Two more missiles hit the control tower and the submarine rocked in the water. But where was this attack coming from?

  “Look!” shouted Spader, pointing off the port side of the sub.

  I looked and saw such a wonderful sight, for a moment I thought I was dreaming. But it was no dream. It was a fleet of speeder boats full of aquaneers, and they were attacking.

  “Hobey, Pendragon! It’s Yenza,” Spader laughed. “She was a step ahead of us.”

  That had to be the answer. When we didn’t resurface, Wu Yenza must have gone to get her rescue team. And they were coming in full force. Some of the speeders looked more like gun ships. They weren’t as big as the battle cruiser, but they would definitely stand up to this submarine.

  There was frantic activity on the deck of the submarine.

  “Dive!” shouted Saint Dane. “Get us below!”

  A raider shouted, “Sir, we can’t!” He pointed to the control tower and sure enough, the first few missiles from Yenza’s aquaneers had blown a hole in the skin of the tower. If they tried to dive, they’d sink. Saint Dane looked at the damage, then spun to look back at the approaching fleet. He looked angry. I liked that. When he got angry, it meant things weren’t going his way, and that didn’t happen too often.

  “The guns!” he commanded. “We’ll fight them off.”

  He then ran along the deck and disappeared into the control tower. Spader and I were left flat out on the deck. Saint Dane no longer cared about us. And why should he? We were targets too.

  “Time to go, mate,” said Spader. “Let’s slip over the side and we’ll swim for it.”

  Three more missiles struck near the sub, sending up waves of water that splashed over us. The raiders were now on the guns and firing back. This was going to be a fierce battle—a natty-do, as Spader would put it—and I didn’t want to be floating in the water in the middle of it.

  “I have a better idea,” I said.

  I got up and ran back toward the cont
rol tower. Two more shots hit the hull, rocking the sub and nearly knocking me off. But Spader caught me and kept me going.

  “No place to run, Pendragon,” he said.

  “Sure there is,” I answered.

  I ran inside the control tower. Spader was right after me.

  We had to push past a bunch of raiders who were scrambling to get to their battle stations. They didn’t care about us anymore. Remember, they were raiders. They knew nothing of Saint Dane’s grand plan to conquer all the territories and control Halla. All they knew was that they were being attacked.

  Even Saint Dane wanted a fight. He stood at his station, barking orders, turning the submarine so it wouldn’t be such a wide target. If there were ever a time to get out of there, it was now.

  I led Spader back the way we came, down the ladder into the hull of the ship and back toward the water tank we arrived in. I figured there was only one way we could get off this sub and survive in open water. We had to get to the hijacked hauler.

  As we ran through the submarine we kept getting knocked around by the force of the missiles that were hitting the hull. Yenza was really pouring it on. That was cool, as long as Spader and I were off by the time she sent it to the bottom the same way she had the battle cruiser.

  Luckily it’s kind of hard to get lost in a submarine, so we found the tank chamber pretty easily. When I threw the door open and we saw the hauler, Spader smiled.

  “Why didn’t I think of this?” he laughed with surprise.

  “You know how it works?” I asked.

  “Pendragon, if it moves in the water, I can drive it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But can you get it out of here?”

  Spader gave me a “don’t ask dumb questions” look, and ran for the hauler.

  “Get our gear, then go over to those levers,” he instructed as he climbed up onto the bubble.

  As Spader lowered himself into the bubble, I ran to get our air globes and water sleds. I grabbed them all, then threw each up to Spader, who stood with half of his body out of the top of the bubble.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Four levers,” he said. “One floods the chamber, another empties it, third opens the hatch, fourth closes the hatch. We don’t have to flood the chamber because we’re already on top of water. The pressure keeps the water out. All we have to do is open the hatch, and we’re gone.”

  “Okay, which lever opens the hatch?”

  “Hobey, Pendragon. I don’t know everything!”

  He then slipped into the bubble and started powering up. This was the old Spader, the one I knew before his father was killed. It felt good.

  I went to the four levers. None of them were marked. There was only one way to figure out which was the right one. I had to call upon all my Traveler experience and special powers to figure it out. It’s called . . .

  “Eenie, meenie, miney . . . mo! I pulled on “mo” and with a grinding screech, the floor began to move. The hatch door was sliding open! Go, mo! Unfortunately, as soon as the hatch began to open, it set off an alarm. A shrill, blaring horn blew, which said only one thing: “Someone is trying to escape in the hauler.” My guess was at least one of the raiders would come to find out who it was.

  “Better hop in,” Spader shouted.

  I ran across the moving floor and leaped on to the bubble craft. I dangled my legs down into the cockpit and was just about to drop in when Spader said, “Hold on, mate. We gotta release first.”

  He was right. The floor hatch was now all the way open, but the hauler wasn’t free. The craft was suspended from two hooks that kept us dangling over the water below.

  “So how do we release?” I asked.

  “I’d say you should swing that lever right there.”

  Sure enough, there was a lever right over my head. I grabbed it, pulled it toward me and—whoa! The hauler fell free and splashed down in the water. I lost my balance and fell into the globe, right in Spader’s lap.

  “Thanks for droppin’ in, mate,” Spader said. “Close ’er up, please.”

  I stood up and pulled the bubble closed over us. With Spader in the left pilot’s seat and me in the right, we were ready to go.

  That’s when the door to the chamber flew open and two raiders jumped in with guns.

  “Dive, please,” I said.

  “Right!”

  Spader hit four toggle switches, air bubbles hissed through the water around us and we began to sink. The raiders shouldered their rifles and took aim. All I could hope was that the bubble on this hauler was strong enough to take a direct shot from a water rifle. I didn’t have long to wonder. The raiders opened fire on us. I ducked, expecting the bubble to shatter to pieces. But it didn’t. Their water bullets splattered against the clear shield without leaving so much as a scratch. Score another one for the genius of the people from Faar.

  We were now almost submerged. The raiders had stopped firing and watched us helplessly as we sank below the surface. Then, just before the water closed over us, someone else entered the tank room. It was Saint Dane. For an instant I actually thought I saw a look of worry on his face. That’s the last image I saw of him, then we slipped underwater.

  Spader took control of the vehicle like he had been a hauler pilot his whole life. We descended well below the submarine, then he hit the throttle and we left the dark shadow behind.

  “What about the big guns?” I asked. “The ones they used on Faar. They can blow Yenza’s boats out of the water.”

  “They can, but they won’t,” Spader answered. “They only fire when it’s submerged. Yenza knows what she’s doing, all right. She nailed that control tower so they can’t submerge again. Saint Dane made a big mistake. On the surface, he’s no match for my mates. There’s only one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s going to be over too fast. I want to join up with them and take a couple of shots at Saint Dane myself before the natty-do’s all done!”

  I looked back at the dark submarine. If Spader was right, the battle above was as good as over. Yenza would handle the raiders, and with a little luck, Saint Dane would go down with his ship. I was no longer worried about what was happening up there. My thoughts were elsewhere entirely. So I reached forward and killed the engines.

  “Hobey, mate, what’re you doing?”

  “You really know how to pilot this thing?” I asked seriously. “Don’t get all macho aquaneer on me. I want the truth.”

  “This is a fine piece of machinery,” he said, looking around. “It’s way more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen. But that just makes it easier. All modesty aside, I can move this little beauty through a mile of kelp and not break a single leaf.”

  My mind was working hard, figuring the possibilities.

  “What are you thinking, Pendragon?” Spader asked. “You think we should start dumping this cargo over some of the farms?”

  “Good idea, but no,” I said. “We can do that later. Right now, I got something else in mind.”

  “What?”

  “I want to go after Uncle Press.”

  Spader’s eyes opened wide with surprise. He hadn’t expected me to say that.

  “Hobey, mate!” he said in awe. “Do you know how dangerous that would be? You’re talking about finding our way down through that submerged city; poking through who knows what that’s floating around in there waiting to get us all tangled up and trapped. Then if we’re lucky enough to make it to the bottom we’d have to dig through the pile of rubble that’s covering the door with a mechanical arm we’ve never used before and for all we know can’t even lift that kind of weight. And it’s all on the chance that Press and the others are still alive down there. Do you know that’s what you’re asking?”

  “Uh . . . yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

  “You’re crazy!” he said. A moment later, he smiled. “I like that.”

  “Then why are we still here?”

  Spader fired the engines back up, banked ha
rd to the right, dipped the nose, and we were on our way back toward the coral reef for one last visit to the city of Faar.

  JOURNAL #8

  (CONTINUED)

  CLORAL

  Descending into Faar wasn’t exactly like diving into the unknown. We had just come from there. But to say that things had changed a little would be a major understatement. We sort of knew the geography of the place, but now that it was underwater it would be like traveling through the dangerous insides of a giant sunken ship. The whole space would be filled with water and that meant stuff would be floating all around.

  Still, I didn’t think we had a choice. There were a dozen Faarians down there who could still be alive, and Uncle Press was with them. We had to give it a try.

  Spader drove the hauler back toward the coral reef that was the dome over Faar. He kept making slight maneuvers he didn’t need to so he could get used to the controls of the hauler. Smart idea. Better to get totally familiar with the craft out here in open water than down in the murky depths.

  As we approached the coral reef, I looked for the hole that Saint Dane had blown open. It would be our doorway into Faar. It wasn’t hard to find. There were long, parallel lines dug into the reef that must have been caused by the huge volume of water that was pulled across it as it was sucked toward the hole. It was like a road map. All we had to do was follow it.

  A few moments later we both saw our goal. The huge, jagged hole stood out like a black scar on the reef. It looked even bigger up close than it had from down below. Spader stopped the hauler just shy of the edge and we hovered there, looking at the damage in silence. A moment later something floated up from down below. It was a white tunic, the kind the people of Faar always wore. The piece of clothing rippled and moved in the current. It looked like a lonely spirit leaving the city forever.

  “Pendragon, I want to get ’em out as bad as you do,” Spader said. “But we have to be smart. If it’s a tum-tigger down there, we’ll have to pull out.”