The Merchant of Death

by D. J. MacHale

“We gotta get the knights away from the door,” I said. “You know how this place works, Alder. What can we do that would make them leave their post?”

  Alder thought and then said, “It would take some sort of emergency. Something they had to respond to quickly.”

  “Keep going,” I said. “Think.”

  Alder looked around. He had no clue. But then his eye caught something near the ceiling. He stared at it for a moment, and smiled. Loor and I both looked up to where his gaze was fixed. What we saw was something that looked like a pipe. It was about six inches in diameter and ran along the wall right by the ceiling.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You have something in your bag,” said Alder. “It has a handle, with a jagged metal blade.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. I dug into my pack and pulled out the camp saw. This one was even better than the one I asked you for, Mark. All I wanted was the small saw from my dad’s workshop. But you gave me this coolio thing that folded in half to fit in the pack. Alder opened it up, locked the saw blade and felt the sharpness of the teeth.

  “This is for cutting?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “What are you thinking?”

  Alder looked back up at the pipe in the ceiling and said, “That carries water throughout the fortress,” he answered. He then looked at us with a devilish smile. It took me a second, but I figured out what his plan was and smiled back.

  “You can cut through that thing?” I asked.

  “Like soft fruit,” was his confident answer.

  Loor still didn’t get it. “Why would you do that?” she asked angrily. She was ticked that we were a few steps ahead of her.

  Alder answered, “I will go a few corridors over and cut out a section of the water carrier.”

  “It’ll make a mess,” I said, enjoying the thought.

  “Yes, it will,” he said, enjoying the idea as much as I was. “And of course the missing piece will not be found anywhere.”

  “That’s perfect, dude. Go!” I said. Alder took off running in the opposite direction, away from the prison corridor. Loor and I hid ourselves in a small room around the corner, waiting for the excitement to begin.

  “I did not think we would get this far,” she said.

  “Neither did I,” I replied.

  We waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. I was getting nervous. Loor seemed calm. She had her game face on. Maybe she was used to this prebattle moment, but my stomach was a knot of tension. I couldn’t take it anymore and jumped up.

  “I gotta see how he’s doing,” I said.

  “Pendragon, no!” she hissed and tried to grab me. But there was no way I could wait there any longer. I moved quickly in the direction that Alder had gone, peeking down the corridors at each junction, expecting to see him. Finally I rounded a corner and there he was. Alder was standing on a table, sawing away at the pipe. He had already sawed all the way through once and water was leaking down on him. There was a pool of water growing on the floor. But the best was yet to come. With a few final pulls on the saw, he sliced through a second time and pulled down a chunk of pipe about two feet long. The second he pulled it down, water starting gushing out like a berserk fire hydrant. Alder got doused and was nearly knocked over by the force. I sure hoped this was fresh water and not sewage. That would have been nasty. Effective, but nasty. Alder got his bearings, caught sight of me and held up the hunk of pipe triumphantly.

  Then suddenly, “Ahhhhhh!” A Bedoowan woman had rounded the corner on the far end and saw the waterworks. The alarm had been officially sounded. Alder tucked the pipe away like a football and ran in the opposite direction from me. I was now in the wrong spot and started back to Loor. I had to force myself to walk. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was running away from the scene of the crime…which is exactly what I was doing. It was a good thing too, because no sooner did I slow down, than I saw the team of knights that had been guarding Uncle Press come running toward me. Or should I say, toward the screaming woman. They ran past me as if I wasn’t even there. I really wanted to stay and watch the madness as they tried to stop the water. But that’s not why I was here. It was time to spring Uncle Press.

  When I got back to Loor, she was up and peering around the corridor toward the cell. She sensed I was near and turned to face me.

  “There is only one guard left,” she said. “It is my turn.” She reached behind her back and from underneath her jacket she pulled a smaller version of her wooden stick weapon. I had no idea she had it. Sneaky. She was all set to charge, but I stopped her.

  “No,” I said as strongly as possible. “They don’t know we’re here yet. The longer we can be secret, the better chance we have of getting out.”

  “There is no other way, Pendragon,” she said seething. She wanted to fight.

  I took a quick glance around the corridor to see the guard standing there. Further down, the corridor ended at a balcony. My guess was that this balcony overlooked the ocean.

  I had an idea.

  “Can you get to that balcony without him knowing?” I asked.

  Loor took a quick look, turned to see that there was a parallel corridor behind us, and said, “Yes.”

  “Then go. I’ll send him to you.”

  Loor wanted to ask how, but I pushed her to go before she had the chance. I figured if the laser pointer trick worked once, it would work again. So I waited a few minutes to make sure Loor was in position, then took the pointer out of my pocket. When I clicked it on, the beam didn’t work! I clicked it a few more times, I banged it, I took out the battery to clean it, but nothing worked. It was dead and so was I. I didn’t know how much longer the other knights would be occupied with the water geyser, and Loor was waiting for me to do something.

  I dug back in my pack, looking for an answer…and I found it. It was the radio-controlled stunt cycle. If the batteries failed on this baby, then we were out of luck. I wasn’t as good with the stunt cycle as with my four-wheel humvee, but I understand why you guys couldn’t go to my house to get it. It was going to be the stunt cycle or nothing. I still remember the day you got this for your birthday, Mark. We both picked up on the radio controls pretty quick and had that cycle taking air off ramps in no time. The plastic helmet on the driver still had the scars from all the times he landed on his head. But I wasn’t planning any tricks with him today. All I wanted him to do was drive straight and smooth. If I could pull that off, then we might have a chance.

  So I took the little motorcycle out of my pack, reached around the corner of the corridor, and put him on the floor. My plan was to send it slowly past the guard, but I didn’t want him to see me standing there with the radio controls. I had to do this blind. I took a breath, then pushed the forward stick. The motorcycle hummed to life with that familiar whine. I wasn’t sure how fast it was going, but I couldn’t take the chance of looking too soon. If I sent it off course, I was dead. If I sent it too slowly, the guard might just bend over and pick it up. So I forced myself to count to ten, then I peeked an eye around the corner.

  I saw exactly what I wanted to see. The guard was standing at the door, dumbfounded, staring at the little man on the motorcycle. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. I couldn’t tell if he was curious or scared. Probably a little bit of both. I had the motorcycle moving on a perfectly straight line, headed for the far end of the corridor. So far so good. But just as the cycle was about to roll past him, the guard took a step forward and reached down to pick it up.

  I quickly hit the throttle and the cycle shot ahead, just barely out of his grasp. Maybe I was better at this than I thought. This seemed to get the guard’s curiosity up even further, and he walked after the cycle. Perfect. This was like playing a fish on a line. I teased him by slowing up. When he would bend down to pick it up, I shot it forward. The whole time he kept moving closer and closer to the balcony on the far end of the corridor where Loor was lying in wait.

  With one final push on the thrott
le, I accelerated the motorcycle forward and it shot out onto the balcony. The guard walked out behind it. He looked down, then hesitated because he expected it to move again. But it didn’t. He stared at it for a second, then suddenly bent over and snatched it up with one quick move. But his victory was short-lived because he never stood up again. Loor jumped out and whacked him with her ministick. With two quick moves she slammed the guy, pivoted, and sent him sailing over the rail into the ocean. Mission accomplished and we hadn’t given ourselves away.

  I quickly reached into my pocket and pulled out my walkie-talkie. “Get Alder,” I commanded into the yellow walkie. Loor definitely heard me, because she took off running along the balcony and out of sight. I put my walkie-talkie away and looked to the cell door. There was nothing left between me and Uncle Press but that door. So I quickly grabbed my pack and ran for it.

  It was too much to expect that the door would be unlocked, and it wasn’t. There was an old-fashioned keyhole, but of course I had no key. So I dug into my pack to look for something that might help me open the door. All I could come up with was the Swiss Army knife that I had nabbed back from Figgis. I opened up the awl blade and stuck it into the keyhole, figuring I might be able to turn the lock somehow. But it didn’t work. I jammed the awl up and down desperately. If I couldn’t open the lock then maybe I could break it. I think that’s exactly what happened, because with one final twist, the latch moved and the door opened. I was in! Or should I say, Uncle Press was out.

  “Uncle Press!” I shouted as I ran in. “It’s me! We gotta get—”

  The small cell was empty. Uncle Press wasn’t there! I didn’t understand why it would be guarded if there was no one to guard. The answer came quickly.

  “Ahhhhh!” Somebody jumped me from behind. He leaped up on my back, wrapped his legs around my waist, and tried to wrestle me to the ground.

  “Let me outta here, ya filthy Bedoowan pig!” he shouted. The guy wasn’t very heavy, or very strong for that matter. All I had to do was spin once and he went flying off. He landed on the hard floor with a loud thud that must have knocked the wind out of him. I looked down and saw that this definitely wasn’t Uncle Press. It was a grimy little guy dressed in Milago skins. His hair and beard were incredibly long, which meant he’d been here for a long time.

  “Where’s my uncle?” I shouted.

  The strange little man looked up at me with confusion in his eyes. “You…you are not Bedoowan?” he asked.

  “No! I’m here to get my uncle. Where is he?”

  The guy took a while to answer. I guess he wasn’t used to this much excitement. Join the club, neither was I.

  “You must be…Pendragon,” he said.

  “Yes! And I’m looking for my uncle. Do you know where he is?”

  “They took him,” answered the Milago prisoner. “Early, before the suns came up. He is to be executed today.”

  Yeah, I knew that. This guy wasn’t helping much. I didn’t know where to turn. Uncle Press could be anywhere. My mind raced but I didn’t come up with a single answer. I was in total brain lock when my walkie-talkie came to life.

  “Pendragon,” came Alder’s voice. “I found Press. He is not in his cell.”

  I grabbed my walkie and said to him, “Yeah, I know. Where is he?”

  “I am with him now,” he came back. “I will direct you to us. Hurry.”

  We were back in the game. I glanced at the Milago prisoner and said, “Now’s your chance. Get out!” Then I turned and ran out of the cell. I quickly ran back toward the mayhem that Alder had caused. The water was still gushing out of the pipes and the corridor was totally flooded. Knights and Novans worked together trying to stop the flow, but they were doing a lousy job. Good. It kept them busy.

  Alder then came through the walkie-talkie saying, “Go back to the stairs and climb two more levels.”

  Got it. I did what I was told. But when I entered the stairwell I saw something down below that nearly made my heart stop. Coming up fast from the lower level were a dozen knights. And these guys were in full battle gear, carrying spears. I think some kind of alarm must have finally sounded. They knew we were here.

  One of them looked up and saw me. “There he is!” shouted the knight.

  Yep, they knew we were here. The knights began to run. There was no way I could outrace these guys, so I played my final card. I pulled the CD boom box out of the pack, held it in front of me, cranked the volume and hit “Play.” Instantly the thrashing rock guitar blasted out of the speakers.

  It was like I had thrown a bomb at these guys. They froze in their tracks with a look of total shock on each and every face. They had never heard anything like this before and probably never would again. They turned and fled back down the stairs in total panic. Under other circumstances I would have thought this was pretty funny. Right now it just felt like victory. I left the boom box on the stairs, figuring this would be as good as putting up a gate to keep them down there.

  “Pendragon, hurry!” came Alder’s voice through the walkie.

  As I started to run back up the stairs, I grabbed my walkie and called to him, “I’m almost on the fourth level.”

  “Turn left at the top and go to the end of the corridor,” he instructed. “We’re hiding in the last room to the left, before the balcony.”

  I tucked the walkie away and ran to where he told me. My mind was working ahead to the next few moves. We had to find Loor and get out. But we couldn’t get back out through the kitchen because I had the knights trapped down there. There had to be another way out. Hopefully Alder had one, because I sure didn’t.

  I got to the top of the stairs, made the turn and ran down the corridor. I realized briefly that this corridor was more ornate than any we had seen so far. There were huge sculptures and giant paintings on the walls. It would have been pretty cool, if I weren’t so scared out of my mind. But I had reached my destination. The last room on the left was where Alder and Uncle Press were waiting for me. Hopefully Loor was there too. I ran into the room and skidded to a sudden stop.

  It took all of a half second for me to realize that this had gone terribly wrong. I turned to run back out, but two Bedoowan knights jumped in front of me, blocking the door. I was trapped. Slowly I turned back to see Alder standing there holding the walkie-talkie. A knight had a spear to his throat. Alder looked as if he were about to cry.

  “I…I am sorry, Pendragon,” he cried. “They were going to kill her.”

  Two other knights were holding Loor. One had her arms, the other held a knife to her throat.

  “You should have let them,” she spat out in defiance. There were a few other people in the room too. Seeing them is why I knew all was lost. One of them was Saint Dane. Or Mallos, as he calls himself here. He stood with his arms folded and a smug smile on his face. But it was the final person in the room who gave me the biggest surprise of all. This person was seated on a large, ornate throne that was decorated with cut pieces of glaze. I didn’t need to be told who it was. This was the heir to the throne of the Bedoowan. This was the monarch who had their father killed so they could begin their tyrannical rule over the Milago. This was the person who ordered the deaths of Milago as easily as ordering more glaze. This was Kagan’s throne room, and seated on the throne was Kagan.

  The thing that surprised me though, is that Kagan was a woman.

  “Hello, Pendragon,” said Saint Dane. “Lovely day for an execution, don’t you think?”

  The one person missing from the room was Uncle Press.

  Journal #3

  (continued)

  Denduron

  “This is the Milago boy I have heard so much about?” said Kagan with a sneer. “His odor offends me.”

  Gee, thanks, lady. Nice to meet you, too. I have to describe to you guys what Kagan looked like because she was a real piece of work. First off, she was fat. Not just baby fat chubby, we’re talking gordo. I’ll bet she kept that kitchen downstairs pretty busy. She wore a flowing yellow toga
dress that didn’t do much to hide her rolls of chub. Luckily the dress went to the floor and had long sleeves because I didn’t think her arms and legs would be a pretty sight. The dress didn’t hide her feet, though. She wore these sandals that her toes poked out of like stuffed sausages. Not a pleasant picture. She also had a double chin of fat that hung down over the neck of her dress. Ick.

  I have no idea how old she was. She could have been eighteen or thirty or any age in between. The fat stretched her skin so much that it gave her a smooth, baby look. Of course, she wasn’t a baby; she was a monstrous, evil queen with fat toes. Everything about her was big. Her hands, her feet, her head, even her eyes. Oddly enough, with all of the size she had going on, her mouth was tiny. Such a little hole didn’t belong on this immense, doughy face. She had long hair too. But it wasn’t shiny and combed; it hung down over her shoulders and looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few months. Nice, huh? She was like some kind of bizarro cartoon sumo wrestler woman.