The Merchant of Death

by D. J. MacHale

  “Flumes?” I repeated.

  “That’s how you got here. Through a flume. When you travel to the territories through flumes, you’re not just going from place to place, you’re moving through space and time. I know that’s hard to comprehend, but you’ll get it.”

  I was not so sure I wanted to get it. Maybe it was better to stay ignorant. I looked at Uncle Press and for the first time it hit me that this guy wasn’t the person I thought he was. I always knew he was a mysterious character, but now he was way more ozone-esque than I could ever have imagined.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Really, you’re not a normal guy.”

  Uncle Press smiled and looked down. Somehow I had the feeling that this wasn’t going to be an easy answer either.

  “I’m your uncle, Bobby. But I’m also a ‘Traveler.’ Just like you are.”

  Another new word. “Traveler.” I didn’t want to be a “Traveler.” I wanted to be Bobby Pendragon, point guard on the Stony Brook basketball team. But that life seemed pretty far away right now.

  “So if we’re not on Earth, why is it like Earth? I mean, I can breathe and there’s snow and normal gravity and all.”

  He answered, “All the territories are pretty much like Earth, but not exactly.”

  “You mean, like the three suns here?”

  “Good example.”

  “And those weird yellow stone things sticking up out of the snow?”

  Suddenly Uncle Press got tense. “Where? Outside? How many are there?”

  “Uhh, I don’t know. Ten. Twelve.”

  Uncle Press shot to his feet and started pulling off his coat.

  “We gotta go!” He dumped his coat on the ground and hurried to the far side of the cave where there was a pile of dried branches. He started pulling at them.

  “What’s the matter?” I said, confused and more than a little worried.

  He turned to me and raised a finger to his lips to “shush” me. He continued pulling branches off the pile and spoke quietly, as if not wanting to be heard.

  “Quigs,” he said.

  Uh-oh. Quigs. Not a new word. I hated that word.

  “Those aren’t quigs. Quigs are like dogs, right?” I asked hopefully.

  “Depends on the territory,” he whispered. “On Second Earth they’re like dogs. Not here.”

  “So what are…quigs?” I asked, but I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know.

  “They’re wild animals that are special to each territory,” he explained. “Saint Dane uses them to keep the Travelers away from the flumes.”

  There was that name again. Saint Dane. Somehow I knew he’d factor back into this equation. But how was it possible for a guy to “use” a wild animal to do anything? Before I got the chance to ask, Uncle Press pulled off the last branches to reveal a jumble of fur and leather. Animal pelts. He then started taking off his shirt.

  “We can’t wear Second Earth clothes in this territory. Put these on,” he said as he lifted up a nasty looking piece of skin.

  “You gotta be kidding!” was all I could say.

  “Don’t argue with me Bobby. These will keep you warm.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Hurry!” He said this in a stage whisper. He really was afraid of the quigs. I figured I should be too, so I started taking off my clothes.

  “Even my underwear?” I asked, horrified at what the answer would be.

  “They don’t wear boxers on Denduron,” he said, which is exactly what I didn’t want to hear. This was going to be uncomfortable. I followed Uncle Press’s instructions and dressed in the leather and fur. There were even leather boots that were kind of soft, which was good because they didn’t wear gold-toe sweat socks on Denduron either. As we took more of the clothing off the pile, something else was slowly revealed. I picked up one last furry pelt, and saw a two-man sled! It looked sort of like the sled you see in Alaska for sled dogs, but there was nothing modern about this thing. The runners were slats of wood, the sides were made of branches, the seats were woven out of some kind of cane, and the steering mechanism up front was fashioned out of huge antlers. Fred Flintstone would have been proud. But there was something else about this sled that made me nervous.

  Lashed to either side were long, deadly-looking spears. The shafts were carved from smooth tree branches. The tips were made of hammered-out metal and looked surgical sharp. The tails had some sort of feathers attached for stability. As crude and low-tech as the whole rig was, these bad boys looked pretty lethal. They hung on either side of the sled like prehistoric sidewinder missiles, ready for launching.

  “What about your gun?” I asked hopefully. “Can’t we use that on the quigs?”

  “There are no guns in this territory,” he answered, then stopped working for a moment and looked me dead in the eye. “We can only use what the territory offers. That’s important. Remember that. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

  He then shoved something into my hand. It was a small, carved object that hung from a leather cord. It looked like…

  “It’s a whistle,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Keep it handy.”

  I wanted to ask why, but at this point it didn’t really matter. I just hoped Uncle Press was as good with a spear as he was with a gun, because a little whistle sure as heck wasn’t going to protect us if things got hairy. I followed orders and put it around my neck.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “No,” was my usual reply. Though honestly, I was. I felt a little like a caveman, but the strange clothes fit me fine. Where they were too big, I tied them tight with leather straps the way Uncle Press showed me. I was actually pretty comfortable. The only bad thing was I really wished I could have kept my underwear. There was going to be some major league rash action going on here and they probably didn’t have talcum powder on Denduron either.

  Uncle Press started dragging the sled toward the light and the entrance of the cave. I helped him pull.

  “When we get the sled in the snow, hop on and sit in back,” he instructed. “I’ll get us going and steer from the front. If we’re lucky we’ll be gone before the quigs wake up.”

  “What if we’re not lucky?” was the obvious next question.

  “We can’t outrun them. Our only hope is to get one of them.”

  “Get? Define ‘get.’”

  He didn’t. We were at the mouth of the cave. Uncle Press looked at me.

  “I’m sorry for this, Bobby, I really am. All I can say is that sometime soon you’ll understand why it had to be this way.”

  He said this with such conviction that I actually believed him. The thing was, I was afraid to believe him. Because if what he had been saying was true, I’d have no choice but to face whatever trouble lay ahead. And based on what had happened so far, it wasn’t going to be fun.

  “I hope you know how to drive this thing,” I said.

  “Hold on tight,” was his answer. Yeah right, like I planned on waving my hands in the air like on a roller coaster. Give me a break.

  We pulled the sled out of the cave and onto the snow. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the light again, but when I did, the first thing I saw were the ominous looking yellow pointed rocks sticking up out of the snow. In spite of Uncle Press’s fear, I didn’t see how these things could be dangerous. Uncle Press motioned silently for me to get in. He then went to the back and started pushing. For a clunky prehistoric bobsled, it moved pretty smoothly. In front of us was the field of yellow stones. I counted twelve of them, spread out over several yards. We glided closer to them with almost no sound. I looked to Uncle Press. He winked at me and put a finger to his lips as a reminder to be quiet. After a few more yards, we were right in the middle of them. Uncle Press maneuvered the sled carefully so as not to disturb anything. That’s when we started to pick up speed. The slope was growing steeper. I looked ahead and suddenly I wasn’t worried about the quigs anymore. We were about to set sail down a steep, craggy, boulder-strewn,
snow-covered mountain on a rickety piece of wood that was held together by leather straps. Compared to that, how horrible could some two-foot-tall animals be?

  I was about to find out.

  We were nearly out of the field of yellow stones, when right in front of us the snow started to shake. There was only one stone left, but one was enough. Suddenly, right in front of us, the snow cracked and the yellow, pointed stone started to rise up. But it wasn’t a pointed stone at all. This was a spike made of bone that stuck out of the back of the most hideous beast I had ever seen. The quig rose up out of the snow until its entire body was free. It looked like a huge, dirty-gray grizzly bear. But its head was giant, with fangs like a wild boar. Upper and lower. Spiky sharp. Its paws were oversized too, with claws the size of piano keys. Sharp piano keys. And its eyes looked like the eyes of the dogs in the subway. They were yellow, and angry, and focused on us.

  Uncle Press maneuvered the sled around the quig and ran while he pushed, trying to get more speed.

  “Get the spear!” he shouted.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the beast. It reared up on its hind legs and let out a horrifying bellow that I thought would wake the dead. Or at least wake the other quigs. And that’s exactly what happened. Behind us, the snow around the other yellow spikes started to boil. The rest of the quigs were waking up.

  “Bobby move!”

  Uncle Press jumped onto the sled and I snapped to my senses. I dove forward to grab one of the spears. We were moving faster now, bouncing over the snow. It was tough to keep my balance. I stayed low and leaned over the side to try and untie one of the two spears.

  “Hurry please,” came from the back. He was calm, but insistent. I turned to look and saw that there were now a dozen quigs behind us, shaking off the snow.

  I shouldn’t have looked. The trouble was I had almost finished untying the spear and just as I looked back, the sled hit a bump. Before I realized what was happening, the spear worked itself loose and fell off! I tried to grab it, but it was too late. It clattered to the snow, just out of my reach. Gone.

  “The other one! Now!” shouted Uncle Press.

  I dove across the sled to get the other spear. I grabbed it and held it tight with one hand while fumbling to untie it with the other. There was no way I was going to let this one get away. Finally I worked off the strap and the spear was loose.

  “Got it!” I shouted. I fell back, holding it up for Uncle Press to grab. Once he had it I got to my knees and looked behind us. To my horror, I saw that the quigs were now charging. It was like a stampede of snarling, vicious bears that had us in their sights. I had no idea what one little spear could do against this deadly onslaught.

  “Steer!” shouted Uncle Press. “Keep it steady.”

  I scrambled to the front of the sled and grabbed hold of the antlers. The sled responded perfectly. Whoever built this thing knew what they were doing. Still, Uncle Press was right. We weren’t going fast enough to lose the quigs. They were getting closer.

  The first quig was far ahead of the others, and it was getting dangerously close. I kept glancing back over my shoulder to see what was happening. Uncle Press was amazing. He stood on the sled, backward, with spear in hand. I was getting used to seeing Uncle Press pull off stunts like this. Nothing surprised me anymore. Like Captain Ahab hunting Moby Dick, Uncle Press waited for the quig.

  “Come on. Come on. Little closer,” he growled, taunting it.

  The quig obliged. It was nearly on us. It charged forward with a bloodlust, ready to snap its jaws shut on Uncle Press.

  “The whistle!” Uncle Press shouted back. “Blow it! Now!”

  The whistle? What was a whistle going to do? But I wasn’t about to argue. While keeping one hand on the steering antlers, I fumbled for the carved whistle around my neck. The beast was almost on Uncle Press. I finally managed to grab hold of the whistle, pulled the leather cord over my head, put it to my lips, and blew.

  It didn’t sound like anything. The thing must have been designed like one of those silent dog whistles where the sound was so high pitched that only dogs could hear it. Well, only dogs and quigs, and quigs didn’t like it. The beast suddenly opened its hideous mouth and let out another bellow that made the hair on the back of my neck stand out. It was a roar of pain, as if the high-pitched sound from the whistle was piercing its head.

  That’s when Uncle Press struck. He hurled the spear like an Olympic javelin thrower. The deadly missile flew straight at the quig and stabbed into its open mouth! The beast let out a choked howl as the spear plunged into the back of its throat. It stopped short, kicking up a spray of snow as it fell to its side. Blood spewed from its open mouth like a gruesome fountain.

  It was disgusting. But not as disgusting as what happened next. The other quigs caught up with the first one, and rather than come after us, they all stopped and pounced on their fallen brother. It was a frenzy feed, like you see with sharks when there’s blood in the water. I can still hear the sound they made as they tore into it, ripping it apart. The sound of flesh being torn away from cracking bones is not one I care to hear again. It was still alive, too. Its pained screams were horrifying. Thankfully, they didn’t last long.

  I took one last look back and wished I hadn’t. At that moment one of the quigs looked up at us, and I saw that its mouth and fangs were smeared with the blood of its living meal. Now I knew what Uncle Press meant by “getting” one of the quigs.

  “Look out!” he shouted.

  I quickly looked ahead and saw we were seconds away from slamming into a boulder the size of a car. I turned the antlers, hard. The sled turned, but the back fishtailed into a skid that slammed us into the boulder. We kept moving, though the shock was so strong it threw Uncle Press to the floor of the sled. It nearly knocked me off too, but I grabbed the antlers in a death grip. It would take a heck of a lot more than a little bumping around to pry me loose. The only problem was, when I grabbed the antlers, I dropped the quig whistle. If the quigs came after us again, we’d be in deep trouble. We had no spears and no whistle. Why hadn’t I left the strap around my neck?

  Now we were going fast. The slope turned double-diamond steep. I could see that we were about to reach the tree line. Up to this point we only had to maneuver across snow and avoid some boulders. Now we were headed into a forest.

  “I got it!” shouted Uncle Press. He had made his way to the front of the sled and I was only too happy to let him take charge.

  “I don’t suppose we’ve got brakes?” I shouted.

  “I wish,” came the shouted answer. Bad answer. This wasn’t a nicely groomed ski slope. Oh, no. We were headed full-tilt boogie into the trees. The only thing that was going to stop us now was something solid. I didn’t want to find anything solid. That would hurt.

  “Right! Lean right!” shouted Uncle Press. I did and he skirted us around a tree. “Stay with me! Watch where we’re going! Left!” he shouted.

  It was like riding on the back of his motorcycle. We both had to lean into the turns to help make them. But the motorcycle had brakes and we didn’t have to drive it through a minefield of trees. This was terrifying. We were rocketing down on a rickety bobsled through a slalom course of rock-solid pine trees.

  We flew past trunks with inches to spare. Left, right, right again. We were going too fast for Uncle Press to tell me which way to lean. I had to look ahead and anticipate what turns he was going to make. Branches slashed at our faces. We were so close to some trees I could hear them as we sailed past. The further down we dropped the more dense the forest became.

  “There’s a clearing ahead!” he shouted. “When we hit it, I’m going to turn sharp right. Hopefully we won’t flip.”

  Yeah, hopefully. And hopefully we won’t launch ourselves into a rolling tumble that’ll land us into a tree! Not that I had a better idea.

  “When I make the turn, lean hard right!” he yelled. “We’re almost there.”

  I looked ahead and saw it. Through the trees there was
a field of white. That must be the clearing. But we still had a lot of trees between here and there, and we were still moving fast. Left, left, right. A few more turns and we’d hit the clearing.

  “We’re gonna make it!” I shouted.

  We didn’t. Our left runner hit a snow-covered root that kicked us up on our right side, but we kept going. Now we were on one runner and out of control. There were only a few trees between us and the safety of the clearing when we crashed. The sled hit a tree and spun us around. The force of the collision was huge. I mean, it rocked me. But I stayed with the sled. Uncle Press wasn’t so lucky. He was ejected.

  And I kept going. The sled fell down off the right runner and now ran flat again, but I was lying in the back, miles from the controls. I was nearly at the clearing and for an instant I thought I’d make it. But then the sled hit a rise and suddenly I was airborne! If there was any time to abandon ship it was now, so I bailed. The sled went one way and I went the other. For a moment I was airborne, and then I beefed. Hard. The snow wasn’t as deep anymore, so instead of a nice cushy snow landing, I hit hard ground. It knocked the wind out of me and slammed my head against the ground. The world became a spinning mass of white. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. But I wasn’t moving any more and that was good.