Raven Rise

by D. J. MacHale

  I decided I wasn’t going to give up that plan. I was still going to do all I could to help Ibara. To help Veelox. To do that, I had to go to Rubic City, find the “mine,” and destroy it. With the flume open, Saint Dane could bring more dados from Quillan. He could bring more skimmers and weapons and anything else he wanted. I couldn’t let that happen. My duty now was to this territory. In that sense, I was keeping with my decision. I was going to do all I could to help Ibara thrive and bring Veelox back. If that meant going up against Saint Dane again, I was ready to do it.

  What I wouldn’t do is jump back into the flume. I am no longer a Traveler. Do I feel guilty about that? A little. But by destroying the gate in Rubic City, I’ll be making sure that Saint Dane is trapped here for good. That’s a good thing for all Halla. How will I do that? No idea. I’ll have to figure that one out.

  I also have to hope that the Flighters haven’t already uncovered the flume. I’m sure that as soon as Nevva left Tribunal Mountain she flew right to her boss to tell him that the masquerade party was over and I knew all about Project Flume. Saint Dane would be ready for me. That made me a little anxious. I’d been out of the game for a while. I was feeling kind of rusty.

  All those thoughts fought for brain time while I was supposed to be resting. I may have dozed off a little, but not for long. I wrote some in my journal, then finally decided that lying there was a waste of time.

  I first went to Loque’s room and woke him up. I needed to tell him all that had happened since he was nearly killed. He deserved to know. But I had trouble finding the right words. How could I tell him the truth, when the truth was so freaking complicated? I decided that the best thing to do was to say that Twig would tell him everything. Once I said the words, I realized it was the perfect solution. Everyone on Ibara had their own way of dealing with the events of the war, and the revelation of their past. It would be better for Loque to hear it from the perspective of someone who was like him—a Jakill who’d lived on the island his entire life. Twig didn’t know of Travelers and flumes and Halla. All she knew was that some mysterious evil guy organized the Flighters and launched an attack against their home. The people of Ibara banded together to stop them. That’s all Loque needed to know.

  “Ask her everything,” I said to Loque. “Everybody knows the truth about Ibara now. It’s what the Jakills wanted all along.”

  Loque asked, “What about Siry?”

  I decided to go with the story that was commonly accepted. “He’s missing,” I answered somberly. “Nobody knows for sure what happened to him. I’m sorry.”

  “He was my best friend,” Loque said sadly.

  “He’s a hero and so are you. Don’t forget him.”

  I then told Loque that I was going to Rubic City to destroy the mine. He got all worked up and said it was suicide. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I didn’t back down. I asked him to tell me how I could get into it. At first he wouldn’t tell me. He said he wanted to show me. He wanted to go with me! I convinced him that as much as I’d want him to come, between his injuries and his eyes, he’d make the trip that much harder. He started to argue, but gave up quickly. He knew I was right.

  “It’s hard for me to say exactly where it was,” he finally answered. “They brought me back and forth in the dark, and my vision wasn’t very good to begin with. It seemed close to the big black triangle building where the Flighters lived. Maybe a short walk. We entered something that looked like a red arch, then immediately went down a ladder. At the bottom of the ladder was the mine tunnel.”

  Loque sat up and added, “You can’t hide. They’ll know you don’t belong.”

  That gave me an idea. I grabbed the clothes Loque had worn when he was in Rubic City. They were perfectly disgusting. The idea was to make myself look like a Flighter. I could always make myself dirty; the trick would be to get that rancid Flighter smell going on. I figured a day out on the ocean under the sun would take care of that.

  I was about to head out when Loque grabbed my arm and said two simple, sincere words. “Come back.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said with more confidence than I actually had.

  I started for the door when he asked, “Is everything all right with Telleo?”

  How was I going to answer that? The truth was, Telleo was dead. The real Telleo. I didn’t think Nevva would be coming back.

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I guess I kind of weaseled out. I left Loque with more questions than answers, but I believed the full answers would have been harder to take than the mystery of not knowing the truth. It made me realize something else I didn’t want to deal with. Genj. What would I tell him about his daughter? His real daughter. He had to know the truth, but I couldn’t think of anything to tell him that he’d understand. What could I say? He wouldn’t believe me, especially since I started acting all crazy the night before. He might even try to come up with his own logical explanation for why his daughter disappeared and prevent me from leaving.

  I couldn’t let that happen, so I made a tough decision. I decided to not tell Genj that his daughter was dead. I felt horrible about it. All he’d know was that his daughter had disappeared. He’d have no idea why. My silence would condemn him to the agony of uncertainty and wonder. I promised myself that when I returned I’d tell him everything, even if it meant revealing the existence of the Travelers and Saint Dane. At least I’d be able to give him closure on Remudi, too. Yes, that would be the right thing to do. But not just then. Daybreak was too close.

  I gathered a few supplies for the trip. My plan was to make the voyage back on the skimmer that Loque brought from Rubic City. It wasn’t a very big craft, so I couldn’t exactly load up on gear. I took four canteens of fresh water and some dried fruit, along with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. I didn’t know what I’d do with the weapon, but at least it gave me a small feeling of security, as false as it might have been. The final task was to get rid of my lightweight green shorts and shirt and put on Loque’s dirty, torn rags. After putting the shirt over my head, I realized that I didn’t have to worry about faking the bad smell thing. The clothes were plenty foul enough.

  I walked through the quiet, sandy streets of Rayne, headed for the shore. I didn’t hurry. It wasn’t that I was having second thoughts; it was more because I wanted to take a good look at what I helped create. I passed newly built huts and many more that were in various stages of construction. The roads were clear. Water lines were being buried. Some homes already had flowers growing around them. It was a beautiful thing. I was proud of this village and its people. I was one of them. I wanted to do right by them. That last walk to the shore gave me the final gut check I needed. One way or another I had to protect this village from Saint Dane and the Flighters.

  The skimmer was still onshore where I had beached it. I loaded up my small provisions under the deck and pulled it out onto the water. I had the brief fear that it wouldn’t have power. That went away as soon as I started toggling switches and the engines hummed. Skimmers ran on water power. There was plenty of that around.

  The sky was already turning from black to blue, extinguishing the stars. A thin line of light appeared on the horizon that said the sun wouldn’t be far behind. I needed the sun to get my bearings. Between that and the small compass, they would be my only guides to Rubic City. It was a good thing it wasn’t a cloudy day.

  I lowered the pontoons into the water. As soon as they submerged, I could feel the power of the skimmer growing. I hesitated. This was really happening. I was going back to Rubic City. I was going to meet Saint Dane. It was something I thought would never happen again, but there I was, poised to go. I took a look back at Rayne and Tribunal Mountain. It was a tropical paradise. I vowed to keep it that way. I looked ahead and throttled the engine. With a quick lurch I was off.

  The warm, tropical waters of Veelox were glassy calm, allowing me to fly over the surface. I had made this trip before on a s
kimmer, in the opposite direction. I knew I was in for a long day, so I settled in and tried not to get bored. A few times I actually broke out in song. Why not? Nobody could hear me. I sang a little Green Day, and in honor of my dad, some Beatles. I’m not a good singer. It didn’t matter, unless you were a fish.

  I can’t tell you how many hours the trip took, because I didn’t have a watch. It was many. It took most of the day. That’s the best I can say. I kept my eye on the compass and on the movement of the sun, to make sure I was headed in the right direction. When I wasn’t rechecking my heading, I stared at the horizon, hoping to see the beginnings of the skyline of Rubic City. It was torture. It didn’t help that I was alone. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the razor-sharp edge of ocean slowly grew jagged. I knew what that meant. I was seeing the tops of skyscrapers. My first reaction was relief.

  My second reaction was fear. I was really going to do this. Was I ready? The answer was no. I had no idea how to prepare myself. To say I was going to wing it would be an understatement. Ready or not, it would soon be showtime. It took another hour or so before I was close enough to make out details of the decaying city. The sun had already traveled across the sky and was heading down. The late afternoon light warmed the cityscape. Things looked pretty much the same as when I’d been there months before. At one time this had been a busy, thriving city. Now it was a hollow, rotting place of the dead. Beneath the water, I could make out the shadowy hulks of ships that had been sunk and left to rust over many generations. You’ve heard of ghost towns? This was a full-on ghost city. Actually, the only thing I didn’t have to be afraid of was ghosts. At least I didn’t think so.

  I saw the pier where we had tied up the pilgrim ship when the Jakills and I first discovered the city. I couldn’t bring myself to put in there. It was a place of death. The hull of the burned ship was still beneath the surface. If there were any ghosts in Rubic City, that’s where they’d be. Instead, I maneuvered the skimmer toward the large pier under which the fleet of skimmers was kept. My thinking was that the perfect place to hide the craft was among others just like it. I didn’t want somebody stumbling on it and raise some kind of alarm to announce an intruder had arrived and was poking around.

  I was about a couple hundred yards out from the pier when I heard an odd sound. I had been listening to the steady drone of the skimmer’s engines for the last million hours. This was different. It was steady, but definitely a different frequency. I cut the engines. Water lapped up onto the deck as I came to a stop. Once the sloshing sounds stopped, I listened intently. The sound was faint, but distinct. It wasn’t like anything I remembered hearing in Rubic City. The steady sound grew louder. Was it coming closer? The skimmer bobbed gently on the small swells. I scanned the city. There was nothing in sight that could be making that kind of sound, but it was definitely there and getting louder. It sounded like the buzz of a machine. That was impossible. There was nothing mechanized in Rubic City. At least nothing that had worked for centuries.

  I was about to hit the throttle and travel the rest of the way to the pier when my eye caught movement. Dead ahead. It looked like a dark cloud moving along a street, between the rows of tall buildings. I strained to get a better look. The cloud grew bigger. It was definitely moving. Was it a dust storm? A minitornado? Whatever it was, it had cleared the last row of buildings and was headed my way. For a second I thought that maybe there really were ghosts in Rubic City, because a big, black-looking specter was coming toward me.

  That’s when I saw the lights. It was almost pretty. Almost. As the cloud grew closer, it seemed decorated with thousands of tiny, twinkling lights. Yellow lights. Like Christmas. The sound grew even louder. The buzzing sound. The lights were the tip-off. It wasn’t a cloud. It wasn’t a tornado. It wasn’t a ghost. It wasn’t Christmas.

  It was a swarm of bees. Quig-bees. The weird thing was, I wasn’t afraid. Not just then anyway. My first thought wasn’t that I had to do something or I was going to get swarmed and stung by those monsters. No, my first thought was that there were quigs in Rubic City guarding the flume. That meant that this territory was once again hot. Saint Dane had sent his little demons out to welcome me. There was no chance of surprise here. He knew I was coming.

  That’s when I got scared.

  JOURNAL #34

  (CONTINUED)

  IBARA

  I was alone in the middle of the harbor on a tiny boat with a swarm of quig-bees closing fast. I looked around for some kind of protection. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. I feared I was done before I even set foot back on dry land.

  Dry land. I wasn’t on dry land. I did have protection. The water. Could quig-bees swim? I hoped not. I figured I could dive underwater and hide under the skimmer. How long could I last doing that? Were those bees smart enough to hover around, waiting for me to run out of air? If they were smart enough to leave the city to find me, they might be smart enough to bide their time until I poked my head above the surface.

  The swarm was out over the water, halfway to me. They weren’t fast. I wasn’t sure if that was good or just meant it prolonged the torture of my knowing I was about to get stung a million times. My only choice was to go into the water. I was about to jump overboard when I realized if the skimmer stayed dead in the water, I’d be dead in the water too. I had to keep moving toward shore. The throttle for the pontoon engines was on the right handle. It worked like bike brakes. I quickly tore off a length of rotted material from Loque’s pants and looped it around the handle and the throttle. I tied it tight, pulling the throttle so it engaged the engine. I didn’t want it to go too fast or I wouldn’t be able to control it. All I wanted was for the skimmer to move forward. The powerful engine hummed. The skimmer headed toward shore, closer to the swarm of quigs. I tied off the loop and jumped to the back. There were two handles on the stern at water level that the aquaneers of Cloral used to tie up and tow other boats. I was going to use them to try to steer the skimmer from behind. I had no idea if it would work, but it was the only thing I could think of. The dark, sparkling cloud of quigs was almost on me. I put my legs over the stern, grabbed one of the handles, and twisted around while lowering myself into the water. I floated out flat, letting my legs trail behind. I twisted them to the right and felt the skimmer move left. I moved them left and felt the skimmer move right. My legs acted as a rudder. It was working.

  Only trouble was, I had no idea where I was going. I was down behind the stern with no view ahead. Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the only trouble. A few seconds later it grew dark. It felt as though the sun had gone behind a cloud. It had. Sort of. The swarm of quigs had arrived. I held my breath and ducked my head underwater. The handles were above water level, which meant my hands would be too. Would the quigs realize that?

  Yes. I felt a sharp sting on my right hand. Without thinking I let go and pulled it underwater. That meant I was hanging on by only one hand. In seconds the quigs would go after that one and I’d have to let go. The skimmer would power off and I’d be dead. I forced myself to grab the handle with my right hand again and pulled my left hand underwater. It was better to have one hand exposed at a time. It gave the quigs less to go after. Though I was underwater I could still hear their demonic buzzing over the sound of the skimmer engines. I can’t say how many times I was stung. I switched hands a few times, which seemed to be working. The bees weren’t as smart as I gave them credit for. Lucky me. It was a good plan, except for the fact that I didn’t know which way I was going.

  And I was running out of air. Oh. That. My lungs started screaming. I waited until the absolute last possible second, then pushed my head up, gulped air, and ducked back under again. I didn’t get stung. Not once. I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. My arms were starting to feel like they were being pulled out of their sockets, and my hands were cramping. Suddenly the few stings I’d gotten didn’t bother me so much. I wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer.

  I had no idea which direction I wa
s going. For all I knew I had leg-ruddered the skimmer around and was headed back out to sea. Or traveling in circles. The next time I came up for air, I took a quick look behind me, hoping not to see Rubic City growing smaller in the distance. I saw nothing but ocean. Phew. I went back under and tried to duck below the skimmer to look ahead. It was too dark to make out anything, and my vision was blurred. I didn’t think I was in the middle of the harbor anymore, but that’s about all I could tell. I figured that I had been traveling long enough that I might soon hit land. But where? More important, what would I do when I got there?

  The quigs were still after me. I knew that because I kept getting stung. Just when I thought I couldn’t hang on any longer, it suddenly got dark. I mean really dark. Night dark. I knew that couldn’t be the case. Not that fast. Night didn’t really “fall.” I took another gulp of air, tried to take a quick look around, and saw nothing but nothing. The world had gone black. Well, not entirely. The quigs were still buzzing above me. Their glowing yellow eyes made them look like fireflies in the dark. What had happened? I ducked back underwater and pushed my head down to look under the skimmer. It was good I did, because a second later the small boat hit something and stopped short. We hit land. Or something else solid. Good thing I was below the surface or my head would have slammed into the stern. The skimmer stopped abruptly, but I kept going. My hand was ripped off the handle. I was now under the skimmer, someplace dark, and running out of air. The skimmer’s engines whined. It was bobbing against a hard surface, and with nowhere to go, it started to turn. It wanted to keep going and was looking for a way out. The engines screamed louder. I turned in time to see that one of the pontoons was headed right for me. If that thing slammed my head, it would hurt. I shifted quickly as the pontoon slid by, grazing my nose. I got hit with the stream of water that ejected from the rear. If the skimmer had been at full power, it might have ripped my head off. As it was, it only gave me a mild shove. A moment later the skimmer took off. It must have turned away from whatever had stopped it and found an escape route.