Black Water tpa-5

by D. J. MacHale

  “I guess,” was my answer. “But he can change himself to look like whatever he wants. I’ll bet he could change himself into a tang if he wanted to.”

  “Really? That’s hard to believe,” was his response.

  Hard to believe? I was walking along a wooden sky bridge talking to a cat. Don’t tell me about hard to believe.

  “You think he’s here, on Eelong?” Boon asked.

  “Yes, I do,” was my answer.

  “Finally!” Boon exclaimed. He hopped ahead of me with excitement and walked backward while talking quickly. “I’ve been waiting forever to meet this guy. Seegen said he’d be here someday, but I never thought the day would actually come! He’s really bad, right? I mean, do you think he’s going to try and do something horrible on Eelong? Let him try. I’ll slash him like that quig in the flume tree!”

  I realized that this man-eating cat was no more than an excited kid who thought the war with Saint Dane was some kind of exciting game.

  “Uhh, this isn’t like pro wrestling,” I said. “This is real.”

  “I know that,” Boon said defensively. “What’s pro wrestling?”

  I didn’t like having to be the voice of reason. I was suddenly feeling like I had to act like an adult or something. I stopped walking and spoke in my most serious voice.

  “Look, Boon, I don’t know what Seegen told you, but this isn’t going to be fun. Saint Dane is a killer. I’ve seen him start wars and destroy cities. He’ll do anything he can to turn Eelong inside out.”

  “Let him try!” Boon shouted with defiance. “I’m not afraid and neither is Seegen.”

  “Yeah, well, I hate to burst your bubble, but maybe you should be.”

  “Why? He’s a gar! There hasn’t been a gar born that I can’t handle.”

  “He isn’t an ordinary gar, Boon, he’s…Wait, what am I doing? I’m talking to a cat! You’re a freaking cat! This is insane!”

  Maybe it was because the shock of my first few moments on Eelong had finally worn off. Maybe it was because I was feeling alone. Or maybe it was because my mind had finally rejected the possibility that cats could talk, but I had had enough.

  “I’m going back,” I said, and turned back for the flume. I had no idea how to find it, but I was ready to try. Boon ran around in front to head me off, but I kept walking.

  “You can’t go back, you’re supposed to be here!” he complained.

  “No, I’m not,” I shot back. “This territory is crazy. Quigs are humans. Cats talk and live in trees because they might get eaten by big lizards. And I’m supposed to follow somebody who thinks battling Saint Dane is going to be fun? I don’t think so.”

  I kept walking. Boon kept pace. “But, but, Seegen will be really angry with me,” he complained. “I was supposed to bring you to Leeandra.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’m going back home, to Second Earth, where humans are humans and cats pee in a litter box. If this Seegen character wants my help, he can find me there. Let’s see howhelikes dealing with a world where he belongs in a zoo.”

  “But what about the other Traveler, Gunny?” Boon asked.

  That made me stop. Gunny. I’d almost forgotten. Whatever problems I was having with Eelong, Gunny had them too. I couldn’t leave without finding him.

  “Ahhhhh!”A horrifying scream came from down in the jungle. Boon and I ran to the railing of the sky bridge and looked down. On the ground we saw a small band of klees run from the jungle into a clearing that was directly below us. They were running on all fours like, well, like cats.

  “I thought the klees lived in the trees?” I asked.

  “We do,” Boon answered. “But we still need to spend time on the ground. Food doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”

  There was a joke in there somewhere, but I didn’t go after it. Running behind the band of cats we saw a group of humans. They were dressed in the same rags as I wore, but didn’t look as wild as the quigs. They just looked like smallish, dirty people. There were about a dozen in all. Mostly men, but a few women as well. They all looked as if they were running in fear from something, and a second later I saw what it was.

  A green shape sprang from the bushes and grabbed the last of the fleeing humans. It was a tang. The lizard wrapped its talons around the leg of the human, who had fallen on his stomach. The beast dragged the guy along the ground toward the bushes. The victim may have looked human, but his terrified screams sounded more like an animal. Adoomedanimal.

  “We gotta do something!” I shouted.

  “Like what?” Boon answered casually. “It’s okay, Pendragon. This happens all the time.”

  It was horrible. Maybe Boon was used to seeing humans dragged off to a gruesome death at the hands of a hungry lizard, but this was alien to me. I’d never seen anything like this on the Discovery Channel.

  “But he’s going to die!” I shouted.

  “That’s how it works,” Boon said patiently. “Survival of the fittest.”

  Even though we were high overhead, I could smell the deadly-sick odor come from the hungry tang. It was getting ready to feed. The human grabbed at the ground, digging its fingers in, desperately trying to pull away. It was futile. The other humans kept running. The cats, too. This guy was left to die. My stomach turned.

  Then I saw a black shadow flash back into the clearing. One oFthe cats had returned. It ran toward the tang on all fours and stood up on its back two feet.

  “Kasha!” Boon exclaimed.

  “Who?”

  “She’s a friend of mine,” he answered. “And she hates tangs.”

  The cat Boon called Kasha was jet black. Her fur was so black, it looked blue. It was shiny, too. She wore the same dark clothing as the other cats. In one hand she held a long stick. In the other she held what looked to be a coiled rope.

  The tang stopped dragging the human. It eyed Kasha warily. The human let out a guttural plea, begging for Kasha’s help.

  “Kasha, let it go!” came another voice from below. The other cats had returned. They stood together in a group, on their back legs, keeping a safe distance from the action. Boon pointed to the big, gray cat who had yelled at Kasha.

  “That’s Durgen,” he said. “He’s in charge of the group.”

  “It’s over, Kasha,” Durgen yelled, sounding bored. “I want to go home.”

  Another cat called out, “He’s past his prime anyway. The tang’s doing you a favor.”

  The other cats laughed at the remark. Kasha ignored them. She crept closer to the tang and stopped about ten feet away. With her left hand she held the stick out as a threat. She swiped the air a few times, getting its attention. The tang kept its eye on the stick, but didn’t let go of the human. What the tang didn’t see, was that in Kasha’s right hand, she held the lasso. I saw that one end of the rope split off into three threads. Hanging from each end was a ball about the size of a big lemon. Kasha turned her body sideways so the tang couldn’t see that she was getting ready to throw it. She swept the air with the stick again. The tang snarled. It held tight to the leg of the human with one of its talon hands, and held the other up, ready to fend off the stick.

  “Hurry up,” Durgen yelled. “I’m already late for supper.”

  Kasha flashed the stick once more, the tang swiped at it, and Kasha hurled the rope. The three balls spun toward their target. The tang had no idea what hit him. The three balls wrapped around its neck, winding the vines along with it. Kasha quickly dropped the stick, grabbed the vine with both hands, and yanked hard. The tang screamed in pain and reached for the vine. Of course, by doing that he let go of the human, and the frightened guy scrambled to his feet and fled. When he ran past the group of cats, one of them shouted at him, “What? Not even a thank-you? Where are your manners?” The others laughed.

  But it wasn’t over. Kasha was still grappling with the tang. The lizard made a move for her, but Kasha danced away and yanked the rope again, making the tang scream in agony. As long as she held the rope, she could
control the tang. But if she let go, the tang could attack. It was a standoff.

  Kasha called to the others, “Uh, little help, please?” Her voice was definitely feminine, which is weird to say because she was a cat. She didn’t sound scared, either. But it was clear she didn’t want to be dealing with this tang on her own.

  “Come on,” Durgen said to the others, sounding like he was bored with the whole event. “Let’s help her out…again.”

  The cats all picked up long sticks of their own and moved toward Kasha and the tang. Durgen said to Kasha, “What if we weren’t here to help?”

  Kasha replied, “But you are, so start.”

  The cats poked at the tang with their long sticks. Kasha let go of the rope and backed away. The tang made an angry move for her, but the other cats poked it back.

  “Easy there, big fella,” Durgen said to the tang. “Party’s over. Go find dinner somewhere else.”

  The tang hissed at them and backed away. With a final shriek, it turned and rumbled into the bushes.

  “Can we go now?” one of the cats asked Kasha.

  “Yes, thank you,” she answered.

  They retreated as a group, in case the tang decided to make a counterattack.

  “Why do you do that?” Durgen asked Kasha. “Risk your life for a gar?”

  “To make you angry,” Kasha replied playfully, and gave the cat a friendly shove.

  “I’m serious,” Durgen added. “One day you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “Then you won’t have to worry about me anymore,” Kasha said with a chuckle.

  The cats dropped their sticks, got down on all fours, and ran into the forest, once again looking like a pack of jungle cats.

  “She’s a friend of yours?” I asked Boon.

  “Since we were little,” Boon answered. “Her father is Seegen.”

  “Seegen? The Traveler?” I asked in surprise. “He has a daughter?”

  “Yes. She doesn’t know it yet, but Seegen told me she’ll be the next Traveler from Eelong. And when that happens, I’ll become her acolyte.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked, sounding more surprised than I meant to.

  “Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Let’s keep going. We’re almost there,” Boon said, and continued walking.

  I followed, but with a new, troubling thought. There was only one Traveler from each territory. My uncle Press was killed, making me the Traveler from Second Earth. Loor’s mother and Spader’s father died as well, making them the Travelers from their territories. Aja was an orphan. If Kasha was destined to be the next Traveler from Eelong, then I was very worried about the safety of Seegen, the current Traveler. It was suddenly more important than ever to meet him.

  JOURNAL #16

  (CONTINUED)

  EELONG

  Leeandra.

  I’m not sure if you’d call it a city, or a zoo, or a fantasy village inthetrees. It was all of the above. When Boon told me we were going to his home, I expected to find a tree house that smelled like cat pee and had clumps of fur piled in the corners. After all, these jungle cats may walk and talk, but they were still animals. I thought Leeandra would be more like a zoo than someplace I would call a city.

  Man, was I wrong. I suppose my first clue should have been the sky bridges and balconies. Near the flume tree they were old and unkempt, but the closer we got to Leeandra, the slicker these bridges became. There wasn’t a rotten board in sight. The supports were taut and true. Whoever built these bridges was a heck of an engineer. Also, the farther we walked, the more complex the structures became. The trees held multiple platforms connected by sky bridges at all levels and angles. As I think back on the journey, I can describe it as being like a trip from the country into the city.

  We also started seeing more cats. I should probably start calling them klees, but that’s going to be tough because, well, they were cats. I saw klees of all different sizes and colors traveling the sky bridges. Some walked on their hind legs. Others ran on all fours, seemingly in a hurry to get somewhere important. I suppose I should have been scared, because any one of them could have turned me into Tender Vittles, but I wasn’t. It all seemed so…civilized. I figured that unlike on Second Earth, predator cats and humans were able to live side by side. Weird, no?

  It was about to get a whole lot weirder.

  We were starting to cross another sky bridge when Boon stopped. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching or listening, then reached into his tunic and pulled out a thick, braided vine that was looped into two small circles on one end.

  “We’re almost at Leeandra,” he explained. “I hate to do this, Pendragon, but there are city rules that don’t apply in the jungle.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Restraints,” he said with his head down, embarrassed.

  “It’s okay, I understand,” I said and took the braided vine to place it around Boon’s furry hands. “I won’t make it too tight.”

  “No!” Boon said and pulled his hands back. “These are for you!”

  I didn’t react at first. It took a couple of seconds to understand what he was saying. He wanted to put the restraints onme!

  “You gotta be kidding me!” I shouted and backed away.

  “Sshhhh!” he said while looking around nervously. “You’re a gar. We don’t let gars walk around on their own inside the city.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with gars? Besides the smell, which you already pointed out.”

  Boon frowned. He grew nervous. “I…I’m sorry, Pendragon. Maybe you don’t understand. I’m not really sure how to say this but, the gars here aren’t like you.”

  “Yeah, I saw those quigs,” I said.

  “Not just the quigs,” Boon said. “Pendragon, on Eelong, gars are like…animals.”

  I stared at Boon a long time, letting his words roll around in my head, hoping they would settle down in some way that would make sense. They didn’t.

  “I thought you knew,” he said sheepishly. “Most gars can’t even speak, that’s why I was so surprised to hear you talk. I guess I didn’t explain things so well.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I said nervously. “You’re telling me humans on Eelong can’t speak? Or think intelligently? Or work or read or laugh or write or… or play sports?”

  “No, they play sports!” Boon assured me. “Gars play wip-pen all the time.” He then dropped his voice low and said, “But lots of them are killed during the game.”

  “Oh, that’s just swell!” I shouted. “Humans aren’t capable of doing anything except getting killed playing games or being eaten by tangs. I feel so much better now.”

  “But everything will be fine if you stay with me…and put this on,” Boon said, holding up the restraint.

  “No…freakin’…way,” I said. “You’re not going to put a leash on me like some kind of…of…animal!”

  “But that’s what you are!” Boon pleaded. “Nobody here knows about other territories or Travelers or places where gars are intelligent. Believe me, I know about it, and I’m still having trouble accepting it.”

  “Well, that’s just too bad,” I shot back. “The hell with your leash laws. I’m here to help these cats. If they’re going to treat me like a pet, then they can get somebody else to protect them from Saint Dane.”

  I was really mad. But more than that, I was freaked out. Can you imagine dropping down a few notches on the food chain and being treated like a lower life-form?

  “Take me to Seegen,” I demanded. “If he’s the Traveler from Eelong, then I’m going to need his help. And I’ve got to find Gunny. The more time we waste playing zoo boy, the more time Saint Dane has to cause trouble.”

  Boon looked to the ground. “I understand how you feel, Pendragon,” he said quietly. “I don’t blame you. If I went to Second Earth, I’m sure I’d feel the same way.”

  “I guarantee it,” I grumbled.

  “But we’ve
got a problem,” he continued. “If you want to walk around Leeandra like you’re a klee, you’ll be picked up by the Stray Division and impounded.”

  “You mean like a loose dog?” I asked, horrified.

  “I don’t know what a dog is,” Boon answered.

  “What if you explained to them I’m a really smart gar, and I should be treated with respect?”

  Boon looked at me like I had just said I was going to sprout wings from my ears and fly.

  “Okay,” Boon said calmly. “You win. I’ll do whatever you want, you’re the lead Traveler. But please, before you decide, let me show you something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You need to understand how things work here,” he explained. “There’s a meeting going on right now. Maybe we can catch the end of it. It’s being run by the viceroy of Leeandra.”

  “You want me to speak at a meeting?”

  “No!”Boon said quickly, as if the idea actually scared him. “I want you to listen to what they’re discussing. After you hear what they have to say, I’ll go along with whatever you want.”

  I put my anger aside and decided that Boon was being pretty fair. He may have been naive about Saint Dane, and a little overeager, but he seemed to be a smart guy. He was trying.

  “Okay, fine,” I agreed.

  Boon looked visibly relieved. “But please,” he added. “Until that meeting is over, will you go along with me and slip these restraints on your wrists? The klees will think you’re with me and we won’t have any problems.”

  The idea of getting tied up and led around like a dog made my mouth go dry. It’s hard to describe the feeling. It was very primal, like I was handing over control of my life and my intellect.

  “Trust me,” he added. “It will be much easier this way.”

  I answered by holding out my wrists. Boon nodded in thanks and gently slipped the two loops over my hands. He gently tugged the loops tight until they were snug around my wrists. My stomach twisted.

  “Now,” he said. “Let me show you Leeandra.”