We had been flying for a few hours. I was daydreaming, lost in my thoughts. Or maybe I was dreaming for real. Whatever. While I was out, we had left the jungle and reached the miles of wasteland that separated the vegetated regions and the majestic, rocky mountains where Black Water was hidden. Looking over the side of the gig, I was met with a frightening sight.

We had caught up with the Ravinian army. They marched below us, moving toward the mountains. It was a formidable force. There had to be thousands of klees, all marching in formation. Half the force wore the uniforms of the Ravinians guards. Many carried the red flags of Ravinia. I wondered if they were all dados. The other half wore dark green, lightweight armor. These were soldiers from Leeandra. On their backs they carried their weapons. They had staves, la.s.sos, and bolas.

Most walked, but there were many, probably officers, who rode on zenzens. The large horses with the multijointed legs bucked and bridled as they were coaxed along the rocky path toward their meeting with the gars. There were also small, mechanized vehicles that carried equipment of some kind, but I couldn't tell what it might be. Were they weapons? Provisions? From that high up in the air, I couldn't tell.

Most disturbing of all was the line of covered transport trucks that followed at the rear. I figured there were even more klees inside, but had no doubt what they would be used for after the battle. These would be the transports that would bring the captured gars back to Leeandra. These gars weren't going to be prisoners of war. They were to be food for the Ravinians. The sight of those trucks turned my stomach for so many reasons. Not only because of the gruesome cargo they were meant to carry, but because of the vicious philosophy that drove the klees to be hunting gars in the first place.

There was only one thing I was happy about while looking down on this army. They had not reached Black Water yet. I had no idea what we could do to stop them, but at least we wouldn't be too late.

Kasha said, "They have another half day's journey. Then they must make their way over the mountains to enter the valley before reaching Black Water. We have time, Pendragon."

I nodded, but didn't say what I was thinking: Sure, but time for what?

We flew on, headed for the mountain range and Black Water. I remembered hiking up the narrow, rocky path that led to a narrow cleft in the mountains and a long, winding path that eventually opened up onto a beautiful, green valley. I remembered the large lake in the center of that valley, and the forest, and the seven waterfalls, one of which protected the entrance to Black Water. It was only when the sunbelt hit that waterfall at a certain angle that it cast a shadow that blocked all light, making its water seem black. That was the only way into the second valley, which was the home of the gars. It was surrounded on all sides by impa.s.sable mountains. The only way in was through that cave tunnel behind the waterfall. Or you could fly. Obviously, our plan was to fly.

"It might get a little b.u.mpy over the mountains with updrafts," Kasha explained. "Make sure your belts are tight."

Boon and I buckled down. As fun as it was to fly in an open c.o.c.kpit, it wouldn't have been wise to get ejected by sudden turbulence. Soon we were sailing over the rocky spires of the first range of mountains. Kasha was right. It was b.u.mpy.

"Do not worry, this is normal," Kasha a.s.sured us.

In no time we had cleared the front range, and I could look down onto that amazing, green valley that was so out of place among the gray, dry mountains.

"Nothing has changed," Boon called out above the whine of the rotors.

It reminded me again of what Nevva said to Saint Dane. The valley was as spectacular as I remembered. Nevva expected it to stay that way. I wondered if it would.

We had gotten maybe halfway across when we were hit with sudden turbulence. The gig must have dropped several yards, then suddenly rocketed higher. I looked to Kasha, waiting for her a.s.surance that we were okay.

She didn't give it.

"That was not normal," she announced.

The craft was suddenly thrown again. It was like we where hit with something that knocked us sideways. Were we under attack? I couldn't tell. The gig wasn't damaged and we definitely didn't hear anything being fired from the ground.

"Are those updrafts?" I asked, hoping that she would give me a simple, "Yes."

She didn't. Kasha looked worried. That was something I hadn't seen in her before.

"Whatever it is, it is not natural."

We were hit again, and again. Each time, the little gig was buffeted. First one way, then the other.

"I cannot maintain control," Kasha announced with a voice that was way too calm for the circ.u.mstances.

"Get us down!" I shouted. "Whatever it is, we're better off not flying in it."

We were hit again. The gig began to spin.

"Kasha?" Boon called nervously.

I looked over the side to see that the ground was coming up fast.

"There's a clearing beyond the lake," I announced. "I'll try to keep us in the air long enough to reach it," Kasha replied.

The gig was rocked again. We nearly went over sideways, but Kasha was able to right us. It was amazing that she was as skillful as she was, considering she hadn't flown in a long while.

"Brace yourselves," she called out. "I don't know how hard we'll hit."

She held on to the control stick with both paws, fighting gravity and the rotors and whatever force was knocking us out of the sky.

"Thirty feet!" I called out as a warning. "Move forward!

We were still over the water. It wouldn't have been good to land on wet.

We were hit again; this time we were knocked forward, as if we had gotten a huge kick from behind.

"Whatever it is, it's coming at us from all angles!" I shouted.

"Losing control," Kasha announced calmly, as if she were actually not losing control. "Twenty feet. We're over land." "Put it down!" Boon called.

Kasha dropped the bottom out. We half fell, half descended under control. I grabbed on to anything I could find to brace for the impact. We were hit one last time. The force knocked the gig onto its side. We were so low, the overhead rotor hit the ground and tore apart.

"Cover up!" I shouted.

Boon and I huddled down into the c.o.c.kpit, desperate to protect ourselves from flying shrapnel. Kasha didn't flinch. She maintained control until the end. The gig hit the ground with a violent thud that felt as if it shook my teeth loose. We were down. Dazed, but down. What followed was a jumble of hands and feet and paws and fur. The crystal engines whined louder for a few seconds more, then calmed down. We weren't moving anymore. I took mental and physical inventory. Was I alive? Yes. Was anything broken? I didn't think so. What about the others?

"Kasha? Boon?"

"I'm all right," Kasha answered.

"I can't move my arms," Boon announced, scared. "I'm trapped."

The gig was on its side. The rotor was gone. The side rotors were winding down. The fuselage walls were crushed in around us. We were all still in our seats, held in by seat belts.

"We gotta get out of this," I said.

No sooner did we start to pull ourselves out of the wreck, than the scene turned chaotic. The attack came from everywhere. We were descended upon by a group of gars that screamed and yelled to intimidate and confuse us. They didn't have to bother. I was plenty confused as it was. I have no idea how many there were. Ten? A hundred? They wore hoods, much like the gars I had first encountered on my original visit to Black Water.

"Friends! We're friends!" I shouted, but I didn't think they heard me. Or understood. Or cared. They were too caught up in their attack. They moved quickly, as if not wanting to let us get our wits back. As chaotic as it seemed, I got the feeling that it was being orchestrated. I guess you'd call it organized chaos.

They first went after Boon. They violently pulled out the chunk of fuselage that had pinned him inside and dragged him out of the gig. He didn't fight back.

"We're here to help you," he called in desperation. "Listen to me!"

They didn't. Boon was a klee. Klees were bad. That's all they cared about. Kasha was yanked from her pilot seat and pulled away the same as Boon. She didn't try to speak. She knew it was futile. As the gars hauled her out, they cheered at having bagged another klee.

Finally they came for me. I felt hands reaching in to grab at me, and 1 was rudely pulled from the wreck. They dragged me out and threw me on the ground next to the destroyed gig. I think it wasn't until then that somebody realized they weren't dealing just with klees. I heard somebody shout, "It's a gar!"

The chaotic screaming suddenly stopped. A confused rumble followed, as word spread that a gar had been pulled from the wreckage. n.o.body made a move for me. Instead, they formed a protective circle, staring in at me like I was some kind of freak. My cheek was on the dirt, which meant a lot of dirt was in my eyes, which meant I couldn't see all that well. I made out the fact that all the gars wore brown cloaks with hoods that covered their faces. It was a frightening sight. I wasn't sure if they were going to welcome me as a friend a or tear me apart.

"Leave the klees alone," I coughed. "They've come as friends."

Someone pushed through the crowd. He was a tall guy with his head completely covered by the hood. He stood over me, looking down. It seemed like whoever it was, he was in charge, because n.o.body pulled him back. He stuck the tip of his boot under my chin and lifted it to get a better look.

I squinted up, but saw nothing more than a shadow, because the sunbelt was high in the sky behind his head.

I squinted and croaked out, "Sorry for dropping in like this, but you're ah in danger."

I sensed the guy stiffen, as if I had said something earth shattering. Or Eelong shattering. As it turned out, I had. But it wasn't what I expected. I had rocked him all right, but it wasn't because of what I said. It was because of who I was.

He knelt down by my head and said, "Tell me something I don't know."

I knew that voice. It wasn't a he, either. It was a she. The hood came off and I was faced with a vision. It was a girl with long, brown hair and amazing gray eyes.

"Cutting it kind of close, aren't you, Bobby?"

Yeah. I found Courtney.

Chapter 30.

If I were a crying kind of guy, I would have cried.

Okay, maybe I did anyway. A little. But I'm not admitting to anything for certain. Courtney held out her hand and helped me to my feet. I wrapped my arms around her and held her so close I was afraid she might break. Oddly, I thought of a line from a Marx Brothers movie I had seen on First Earth. "If I held you any closer, I'd be in back of you." If I could have squeezed her any tighter, I would have. Seeing her was not only a complete surprise, it triggered a feeling that I never would have expected.

It gave me hope. The last time I'd seen her, she and Mark were being herded into the flume on Second Earth. I feared they had both been killed. But Mark turned up alive. And now, so had Courtney. Knowing that my two oldest and best friends in Halla were okay re-energized me. After all I had learned about my true origins, holding Courtney reminded me that I had another life. A much more familiar, comfortable, and yes, understandable one. I was Bobby Pendragon from Stony Brook, Connecticut. As much as I believed all that I learned on Solara, I couldn't imagine turning my back on the person I had always been. Being with Courtney centered me. It brought back my base. For those few seconds I didn't think about how impossible the battle was that we were about to face.

I thought about how I wanted to win it more than ever. "I've been waiting for you," she whispered. "Sorry it took so long."

"Doesn't matter. I always knew you would come," she said, breathless.

"I was afraid you were killed."

"I came close. A couple of times. I still don't know what happened to Mark."

"He's okay. He's on Third Earth."

I felt Courtney shudder. I wasn't sure if it was a laugh or the physical release of tension she'd been holding for a long time. She pulled away from me and looked me right in the eye. Like Mark, Courtney was older. By how much, I couldn't tell. A few years maybe. She had been through a lot. I could see that just by looking into her eyes. They were hard. They had seen things. Courtney had always been intense. When she played, she wanted to win. But the look she had in her eyes just then showed more than that. The stakes were higher in this particular game.

And she was more beautiful than ever.

"They're coming, aren't they?" she asked straight out. The joyous reunion was over.

I nodded and looked at the sky. "They won't reach the mountains before dark. I'm guessing the earliest they would attack is sunrise."

"How many?"

I took a breath before answering. She wasn't going to like what I had to say.

"It's an army."

She shrugged and sighed. "We've been expecting this. We're ready."

"You are?" I asked, surprised. "How?"

"Come with me," she said, and started to walk off.

I reached out and stopped her. "Wait. Are they here?"

"Who?"

"The rest of the people from Second Earth who were pulled into the flume. The exiles."

She looked at me for a moment, as if trying to understand exactly what I had asked. I held my breath. Her answer was going to determine the future of all that ever was or would be. Whatever she had to say would be kind of important.

"I don't know what happened to the people who went in with Mark and me," she finally said. "We somehow scattered. That's why I lost touch with Mark. I haven't seen him since that day."

"But the others," I asked, getting anxious. "From Yankee Stadium. There were thousands. Tens of thousands. Do you know what happened to them?"

Courtney looked me square in the eye and said, "You should see something."

I wanted to scream out, "Just tell me!" But I was on Courtney's turf now. However she wanted to play this was fine by me. Sort of. She turned to look at the gars that surrounded us. I'd almost forgotten that we weren't alone. There were around a dozen of the little people. None of them were much taller than five feet, but that didn't mean they weren't dangerous. Boon and Kasha were being held tight by several of the small gars. After all the excitement, and the sudden appearance of klees from the sky, it probably didn't make sense to them that Courtney and I would have hugged each other like that. You could see the confusion on their faces.

Courtney stood up tall and announced to them in a bold voice, "They are friends."

The gars stared back at her, dumbfounded.

Courtney walked up to the gars who were holding Kasha and Boon.

"Let them go," she ordered.

They didn't. Courtney added with more authority, "I said let them go; they are my friends."

The gars finally followed orders and released the two klees, though reluctantly. It was strange. Courtney acted like she was in charge. She had always been bold and confident, but now it seemed she was the leader of this band of gars. The image was completed by the fact that she stood nearly a foot taller than most of them.

"h.e.l.lo, Kasha," Courtney said awkwardly. Unlike the confidence she had shown to the gars, with Kasha she seemed tentative. "I don't know what to say about what happened to the flume. I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize. You could not have known. You came here to help us, to help Pendragon, that is all that matters."

Courtney added, "It's a relief to see you. I thought you were, I mean, Bobby wrote that you had been, you knowa ."

"Killed?" Kasha asked. "I was."