Alder called down from above, "Hurry, Pendragon."

Yeah, thanks for the tip. My foot nearly slipped off a rung and I had to hang on for my life. The movement caused the ladder to swing and I had all that I could do to get my balance back. Uncle Press wasn't holding the ladder at the bottom either, which made it more tricky. I looked down and saw that he was staring off into the depths of the cavern. He must have sensed that I was watching him because without looking up he shouted, "Climb!"

Another bellow came from deep within the cavern. Only this was louder and closer. The quig had definitely picked up the scent and was on its way.

"Come on!" I shouted down to Uncle Press.

"No!" yelled Loor. "It is not strong enough for two."

"There it is!" said Alder, pointing into the cavern.

As I kept climbing I glanced back. A quig appeared from out of the shadows, stalking closer. It was hunched down like a hunting cat, with its belly grazing the ground. Any moment now it would pounce. All Uncle Press had to defend himself was the Bedoowan spear. Why had he thrown away the whistle? If I still had it, he would be safe. Now he was back in the same position he was in at the stadium, only this time I couldn't help him. I was near the top and stole a quick look down to see that Uncle Press was sliding a heavy, flat rock toward the bottom of the ladder. What was he doing? I climbed up two more rungs and was high enough now to reach up for Alder and Loor. They each grabbed one of my hands and hoisted me up.

"I'm up!" I shouted down to Uncle Press. I quickly scrambled around and the three of us looked back down into the cavern. The quig was only a few yards from Uncle Press and stalking closer. Its horrible yellow eyes were focused on him. If Uncle Press started to climb, the quig would pounce and easily pick him off. His only choice was to fight, and fighting a quig could only end in death. Not for the quig, but for Uncle Press. History was repeating itself. Someone I cared for was about to die so that I would live.

The quig stopped advancing as if it sensed that Uncle Press was more dangerous than the average Milago miner. It crouched, facing Uncle Press, who stood holding his spear at the ready.

I was surprised to see that the first one to make a move was Uncle Press. But he did a curious thing. He relaxed. He lowered the spear and held it down at his side. Why was he doing that? It was like he was giving himself up. He stepped over the heavy rock that he had pushed under the ladder and held his hands out in surrender. To the quig it must have looked as if Uncle Press were opening himself up to be eaten without a fight. The quig didn't move. It must have been just as confused as I was. But its hesitation didn't last long. It was suppertime. The quig coiled, wagged its butt, and with a snarl it launched itself at Uncle Press.

Uncle Press barely moved. As soon as the quig had committed itself, he jammed the tail of the spear against the rock that was now behind him. At the same time he dropped to one knee and angled the spear up toward the flying quig. The quig realized too late that Uncle Press had set a trap and that it was now sailing toward a six-foot spike! Yes!

The quig landed on the spear. It impaled him through the chest and came out his back. The weapon didn't move because it was anchored by the heavy rock. Uncle Press let go of it and did a dive roll to the side just before the wounded quig fell to the ground. But the battle wasn't over. The quig was injured, but the spear didn't seem to have pierced anything major. The angry animal squirmed and screamed and writhed on the ground like a fish out of water, but it was still very much alive...and dangerous. Uncle Press had to get out of there fast.

He leaped for the rope ladder. The quig saw this and swiped at him, but his claws bit into the air below his feet. Uncle Press was much better at climbing than I was. He flew up the ladder as if it were rock steady. Yet the quig wasn't done. Judging from its pained bellows it was in horrible agony, but it still wanted a piece of Uncle Press. It squirmed over to the rope ladder and with a sweep of its mighty paw, grabbed on to it and began to pull. The quig must have been eight hundred pounds. There was no way this flimsy rope ladder could withstand that kind of pressure. I looked next to me to see that the top of the rope ladder was tied to a tree. The point where it was tied was dangerously frayed as if it had been rotting in the rain.

"Look!" I shouted.

Loor and Alder looked to see how the rope ladder was going to break right on top. Loor didn't stop to think. She jumped over me and grabbed on to the rope. This was crazy. The rope ladder was going to break and if Loor were hanging on when it went, she'd go down with it. Alder realized this and ran to Loor. He sat behind her, grabbed her waist and dug his heels in. Maybe the strength of two would be enough. Or maybe the strength of three. I had to help. It was crazy, but it was the only thing to do. I dove behind Alder and grabbed him around the waist. That's when I heard thesnap! The rope ladder broke from the tree. Loor held on tight and became the only link that kept it from falling into the pit. I could see the muscles in her arms bulge as she fought desperately to hang on. Alder held on to her and I held on to Alder but we all started to slide toward the edge of the hole. We dug our heels in, desperately trying to stop. I felt the tension in both of their bodies as we strained against the weight of the ladder, of Uncle Press, and of the quig that was pulling from below.

It felt like we were hanging on for hours, but it was probably only a few seconds. Where was Uncle Press? Did the quig get him? Were we hanging on just so that the quig could pull its bad self out from the hole and eat us? It didn't really matter, because we weren't going to be able to hang on much longer.

Then, finally, just as we were about to go over the edge, I looked up and saw the welcome sight of Uncle Press's head poke up from below. He crawled to the surface, rolled away from the rope and shouted to Loor, "Let it go!"

She did. The rope whiplashed away and we all fell back. A second later I heard the heavy sound of the quig hitting the ground below. It let out a yelp of pain. Good. Served it right.

As we all lay there, trying to catch our breath, I looked down the bluff toward the stadium. It was about three hundred yards behind us. We had traveled quite a way in the quig pen. It was hard to believe that a huge stadium was dug below the surface, and even more amazing was how, beneath the stadium, was an elaborate, multileveled palace.

A moment later I realized that we weren't safe yet. The Bedoowan knights had finally figured out what we were doing. Several of them were now climbing up out of the stadium to come after us.

"We gotta move," I announced while pointing back to the palace.

Without another word we all jumped up and ran for the woods. Our best hope was to lose them in the dense forest that surrounded the Milago village. Compared to what we had just come through, this was going to be a piece of cake.

Loor led the way again. She took us on another romp through the forest, but this time I knew what to expect. I was in for another grueling cross-country trek, but I didn't care. The further we got away from the palace, the more I realized that we had done exactly what we had set out to do. Uncle Press was running next to me because we had saved him. We went in, we found him, and we got him out. How cool was that? Better still, my adventure was almost over. As soon as we got him back to the Milago village, he could take charge of their rebellion and I could go home. So even though we were running like scared deer through the forest, I began to relax because my job was nearly complete. I already started plotting how I would go back down into the mines, make my way to the flume, and launch myself home, for good.

Loor ran us a long way around. We were on the far side of the farmland, maybe a half mile from the Milago village.

"Can we rest awhile?" asked Alder.

I was happy that it wasn't me who burned out first, for a change. So we stopped and the four of us stood together to catch our breath. After a few seconds I looked to Loor and smiled, but she didn't smile back. Neither did Alder. I looked to Uncle Press and he scowled back at me. What was going on? Was it because I had used the dog whistle from home? Okay, maybe it was against the rules, but if I hadn't done it, we'd all be on the inside of some quig by now. I think I deserved a little more credit than I was getting. Before I had the chance to say something about it, we heard a sound. It was a loud, sharppop, like a firecracker. No, it was louder than that. It was more like a cherry bomb. Both Loor and Alder tensed. Uncle Press shot a glance in the direction of the sound too. From the look on his face I could tell that something was wrong. It didn't seem out of the ordinary to me, though. I hear sounds like that at home all the time. It could be a car backfiring, or fireworks, or even somebody's TV. But we weren't at home. Whatever made that sound was something out of the ordinary for Denduron.

There were two more pops.Crack. Crack. Uncle Press jogged toward the sound. The rest of us followed.

We traveled a short distance through the woods until we came upon the edge of a clearing. This was an area I hadn't seen before. It was past the Milago farmland and not exactly on the beaten track. Uncle Press hid behind a tree to watch what was going on. We all followed his lead. What we saw seemed to be some kind of target practice. On one side of the clearing was a line of scarecrow-type figures that were crudely made out of straw. Opposite them was a group of Milago miners, each holding one of the slingshots I had found down in the mines. The miners were practicing throwing stones at the scarecrows. They each had a pile of rocks at their feet that were about the size of walnuts. They would put one of the stones in the slingshot, spin it overhead, and release it. They were pretty accurate, too. But still, a small stone being flung from a slingshot wasn't going to do much to stop a knight in full armor.

I then found out how very wrong I was.

Someone stepped forward holding a small basket. It was Figgis, the crafty little salesman. He walked up to each of the throwers and held the basket out to them. The throwers reached inside and took out another kind of rock. These new stones looked very different. They were about the same size as the stones they had been flinging, but they looked soft and rusty red colored. It seemed to me these new rocks would do even less damage than the rocks they had been flinging, yet the shooters held them gingerly as if they were precious. The first shooter loaded a new stone, spun the slingshot over his head and let it fly. The rust-colored stone shot across the clearing toward its target. When it hit the scarecrow, the scarecrow exploded in a ball of fire!

Whoa! The Milago had some kind of explosive that detonated on impact! Those were the loud pops we were hearing. I looked to Loor and Alder. They were just as shocked as I was. Uncle Press watched intently. Nothing surprised him.

The next miner flung his stone at a scarecrow and it too erupted in a ball of fire. Figgis jumped up like a child and clapped with delight.

"Where did they find such a thing?" asked Loor.

"They didn't find it," answered Uncle Press. "He did," he said, pointing to Figgis.

The odd little man held the basket of explosives over his head and danced a jig. He was having a great time.

"I knew that little guy was up to something," said Uncle Press. "But I didn't know what...until now. He must be selling the stuff to the Milago."

One word sprang to mind. Tak. That's what Figgis was trying to sell me. It was a weapon. An explosive. He said that "tak was the way" and maybe he was right. If there was enough of that stuff around, the Milago could use it against the Bedoowan and the odds of beating them would suddenly be very good. Maybe there was hope for them after all. Tak may indeed have been the way.

But Uncle Press looked worried. He didn't like what he saw.

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"If the Milago use that, it will be the end of Denduron," he answered soberly.

We all looked to him in surprise.

"End of Denduron?" I said. "Am I missing something here? That stuff could help the Milago beat the Bedoowan. Isn't that the point?"

Before Uncle Press could respond, all hell broke loose. We were attacked. But it wasn't the Bedoowan knights who caught up to us, it was a group of Milago miners. They jumped us from behind and wrestled us to the ground. One put a knee to my back and jammed my face into the dirt.

"Hold them," someone commanded.

I struggled to look up and see who was giving the orders and saw Rellin stride up past the miners. What was happening? These were the good guys, right? Why were they attacking us? Did they think we were Bedoowan? Rellin surveyed the scene to make sure that none of us could escape, then his eyes fell on Uncle Press.

"Hello, Press," he said. "I wish I could say that I was happy to see you."

Two miners pulled Uncle Press to his feet and held him opposite Rellin.

"You can't do this, Rellin," said Uncle Press.

"I am glad that you are alive," said Rellin. "But do not try and stop us."

"Listen to me," said Uncle Press with passion. "I want you to defeat the Bedoowan. You know that. But using that weapon is wrong. It will change everything."

"Wrong?" spat Rellin. "How could it be wrong to end our misery? Without tak we have no hope of defeating the Bedoowan. But with it, we can return centuries of pain and torture to them in a few short seconds."

"But at what cost?" asked Uncle Press.

Rellin smiled at him and then said, "Let me show you something." He walked toward the clearing and motioned to the miners to follow with us. The miners pulled us to our feet and we were dragged along after him. There was no use in fighting; there were too many of them. I wasn't really sure we should be fighting them anyway. Up until a few minutes ago they were on our side. Now, well, now I didn't know what was happening. Same old, same old.

Rellin entered the clearing and the Milago miners instantly stood at attention. That was a surprise. Maybe these guys were more organized than I knew. Could all of the cowering and silence have been an act to make the Bedoowan think they were pushovers? Rellin walked over to something that looked like a big box that was covered with a large, brown blanket. He stopped there and turned to us.

"Soon we will begin the battle of our lives," he said proudly. "But it will not last long thanks to you, Pendragon."

Me? What did I have to do with any of this? Uncle Press shot me a look. So did Loor and Alder. All I could do was shrug. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Rellin continued, "Tak is powerful, but it is delicate." Figgis appeared next to him and held up his basket. Rellin reached in and took out a piece of tak that was no bigger than a pea. "All it takes to release the power is a small impact."

Rellin threw the pea down on the ground and it exploded with a huge bang that echoed through the forest. There was a blast of flame and smoke that left a deep, jagged hole in the ground the size of a water barrel. Man, that stuff reallywas powerful. Figgis giggled. I wondered how much he charged for each piece of tak.

"It is dangerous to use any more than a small amount," said Rellin. "But we had to find a way to use more. We had to find a way to release the power of enough tak to deliver a single, crushing blow to the Bedoowan. We have not been able to find that way, until now."

He reached under the brown blanket and pulled something out that made my heart sink. It was a heavy-duty twelve-volt battery, the kind you use in big flashlights. At first it didn't make sense to me. Where did he get that? Then it hit me. I guess you guys sent me a flashlight after all. The reason I didn't find it was because Figgis must have stolen it from my pack when he took my Swiss Army knife.

Rellin held the battery up and said, "Such an interesting device you brought to us, Pendragon. I do not know why, but it too gives off power. And it is a power that can be controlled."

He then reached under the brown blanket and pulled out the flashlight. He looked at it admiringly and played with the on-off switch. I looked to Uncle Press. I wanted to apologize, but it was too late for that. Uncle Press didn't look at me. His jaw was set and he stared at Rellin.

Rellin then continued, "We can now use the power of this strange device to release the awesome power of tak." He said this while switching the flashlight on and off. "One little push will unleash as much tak as we desire. The Bedoowan will fall, and they will suffer greatly for how they have treated us."

I now realized where this was going. They were going to make a bomb. They weren't satisfied with throwing little bits of explosives in slingshots. No, they wanted a big bang, and I had delivered the means for them to do it. They were going to use the electricity in the battery to set off a huge bomb. Nice going, Bobby.

With a flourish Rellin pulled away the brown blanket that was covering the big box. What lay beneath wasn't a box at all. It was one of the ore cars from the mines. To my horror, I saw that it was filled with tak. There must have been a few hundred pounds of it. Judging from the big explosion that came from a very small bit of tak, if this load blew up it would be like a nuclear bomb going off.

"This is a mistake, Rellin," Uncle Press pleaded. "You think this will save the Milago? You're wrong. If you use this weapon, you may find yourselves free of the Bedoowan, and slaves to a new power. The power of tak."

I immediately realized what Uncle Press was worried about. The Milago were on the verge of creating a weapon of horrible power. If they used it, it would alter the course of Denduron forever. Not only would there be devastating destruction, but once these simple people used the power of this explosive, where would it end? Already they weren't satisfied with using small bits of tak. They wanted more power. It was like the Milago skipped over gunpowder and jumped right into the nuclear age...and Armageddon.

The crazy thing was, this all came about because of two people who never could have foreseen the outcome of their actions. There was me, who stupidly brought the last piece of the bomb puzzle from home. And there was Figgis, this strange little man who lived by scrounging things and selling them to whomever had the coin to pay. Figgis had struck the big time now. He wasn't selling sweaters and knives anymore. No, Figgis was now a merchant of death, and the people he was selling to were eager to buy.

It was clear to me now. The turning point for Denduron wasn't the battle between the Milago and the Bedoowan. It was the introduction of this strange and horrible new power into the territory. As I looked at that deadly load of explosive in the ore car, there was something else that became clear. I wasn't going home. Even if I could get to a flume, there was no way I could go back now. No way. Not after the damage I had caused. I had no idea what to do, or how to stop this horror from happening, but I resolved then and there to stay and see this through to the end...even if the end meant my own death.

This may be the last journal I write to you, Mark and Courtney. If it is, then please know that it wasn't your fault about the flashlight. All you did was help out a friend. The blame is all mine. If you don't hear from me again, then please know I did everything I could to undo the mess I created. I may not be successful, but at least I tried. Thank you for reading this, and for being my friends.

Hopefully this isn't a final good-bye.

END OF JOURNAL #3.

Second Earth Mark threw the parchment pagesdown onto his bedroom floor angrily.

"We should have known!" he shouted. "It was as much our fault as it was Bobby's!"

Courtney and Mark had waited until they got back home to Stony Brook before reading Bobby's latest journal. After saying good-bye to Bobby in the abandoned subway station, their journey back home was uneventful. They traveled the same route as the one that brought them to the flume in the Bronx, taking the subway to 125th Street and catching the first commuter train back to Connecticut. Once back in their hometown, they went straight to Mark's house and locked themselves in his bedroom where they could read Bobby's journal in private.

"It's not our fault!" argued Courtney. "The Milago are like a step above primitive. How could we know they'd figure out how to make a bomb with that stuff?"

"Because we read the journal," countered Mark. "We knew the same things Bobby did. Press told him never to bring anything from one territory to the next. We read that, but we did it anyway!"

Mark paced the floor out of sheer nervous energy.

"We helped Bobby," argued Courtney. "And maybe we helped the Milago, too. To be honest, I hope they do make a bomb that'll blow those Bedoowan creeps away. They deserve it!"

"You don't get it," argued Mark. "The Milago aren't ready for this kind of power. They don't know how to control it."

Now Courtney was getting angry. She jumped up and said, "What are you saying? Only socially evolved, brilliant people are allowed to blow themselves up?"

"No," Mark shot back. "It takes socially evolved brilliant people to figure out hownot to blow themselves up. Look at it this way. The Milago are pissed off and they should be. The Bedoowan have been torturing them for centuries. Now suddenly they're given a weapon that's so powerful they can wipe out their enemies with the push of a button. They don't really understand it. They really don't know how to control it, but they're angry enough to use it anyway. If that tak stuff is as powerful as Bobby wrote, then they could end up killing themselves as well."

This made Courtney stop. "Is it really possible to use a battery to set that stuff off?" she asked thoughtfully.

"I don't know," answered Mark. "I suppose so. If tak is that volatile then a small electric charge could set off a chain reaction and...boom."

The two fell silent for a moment, imagining the consequences.

"I guess the trick is to be somewhere else when the button gets pushed," said Courtney. "I don't think they're smart enough to figure out how to make a timer."

"It wouldn't matter," said Mark soberly. "Tak isn't like anything I've ever heard of. If a little bit can make an explosion that big, then the amount Bobby described in that ore car would not only destroy the Bedoowan palace, it would level the Milago village too. And if the explosion makes fire the way it did with those scarecrow targets, then it could create a firestorm. Every living thing for miles around would be torched...the Bedoowan, the Milago, the farm, the forest..."

"And Bobby, Alder, Loor, and Press, too," said Courtney slowly. "I guess this Figgis guy really is a merchant of death."

Mark picked up the latest journal and scanned it, looking for something. It didn't take him long to find it.

"Listen to this," he said. "This is what Loor said to Bobby." Mark read from the journal."My mother explained that there are many territories, and they are all about to reach an important time. A 'turning point' she called it. It is a time when the outcome will either send the territory toward peace and prosperity, or plunge its people into chaos and destruction."

Courtney said, "Yeah, and if the Milago beat the Bedoowan then everything will be okay."

"I don't think that's it," said Mark. "I think it's all about tak. Think about it. The Milago have been slaves of the Bedoowan for centuries. If they fight them and lose, then it will be business as usual. But if the Milago tip the balance by using something as horrible as that explosive, then who knows what it could lead to?"

"Then we've got to try and undo it!" countered Courtney.

"How?" was Mark's obvious question. "It's not like we can go through the flumes. It doesn't work for us, remember?"

Courtney paced, her mind kicking into overdrive.

"Then maybe we can send something to Bobby," she said. "Like a...like a..."

"Like a what?" shouted Mark. "We can't send anything to him. It would only make things worse! The only thing we can do is-"

Ding dong.Mark was interrupted by the doorbell. The two instantly fell silent.

"You expecting somebody?" asked Courtney.

"We skipped school today," Mark said nervously. "Maybe they're coming to check up on me."