The doorbell rang again.

"L-Let's hide," said Mark.

Courtney gave him a sarcastic look and said, "Hide? Gimme a break, I think we have bigger things to worry about than getting caught for skipping school. Answer the dumb door."

Courtney was right, thought Mark. Who cared if they got busted for skipping school? Whoever was at the door he'd deal with them and get back to the bigger problem at hand. When he got downstairs, he hesitated a second and tried to look sick in case it really was somebody from school coming to check up on him. He gave a little sick cough and then called out with a weak voice, "I'm coming."

He got to the door, unlocked it, swung it open, and then shouted out, "Bobby!"

Indeed, Bobby Pendragon was standing at the front door wearing the same clothes he had worn the night he disappeared. The Milago leather clothes were history.

"Hey, Mark," he said casually. "Can I come in?"

Courtney came running down the stairs on a tear. "Bobby?" she shouted.

Bobby stepped into Mark's house and gave Courtney a little smile.

"Miss me?" he said.

Courtney grabbed him in a hug and Mark hugged the two of them together. Bobby was home. He was safe. Everything was going to be okay. When they finally pulled away from the group hug, Mark and Courtney looked at Bobby in disbelief. This was too good to be true. A few seconds ago they were worried about never seeing him again. Now here he was standing right in front of them. But Bobby looked different. Both Courtney and Mark noticed it. It was still Bobby, no doubt about that. But he looked tired, like he had gone through an ordeal that took a lot out of him.

"Are you okay, man?" asked Mark. "You look kind of...sick."

"I'm not sick; I'm totally beat," was Bobby's answer. "I gotta lie down."

Mark and Courtney quickly led Bobby up the stairs to Mark's bedroom. They watched him as he walked and saw that he was a little unsure on his feet. They also noticed streaks of blood on his cheeks that came from many tiny cuts all over his face. Obviously a lot had happened since they saw him leave through the flume on his way back to Denduron. To Mark and Courtney only a few hours had passed. But as they had already figured out, time here on Second Earth and time in the other territories weren't relative. Bobby could have been gone for much longer than a few days for all they knew. Bobby looked as if he'd been through a war, but neither Mark nor Courtney wanted to ask him about it. They both figured that he'd tell them when he was ready. So without another word, they followed Bobby into Mark's room and watched as he lay down on the bed.

"I gotta get home," said Bobby weakly. "But I want to rest up first. Is it okay?"

"Absolutely," answered Mark. "Whatever you want."

"Thanks, man," said Bobby and put his head down on the pillow. Mark cringed, wondering how he was going to explain the streaks of blood on the white pillowcase to his mother. But then he felt bad for even thinking so selfishly and put the thought out of his head.

"Will you guys come with me?" asked Bobby without opening his eyes.

"Sure, Bobby," answered Courtney. "Uh...where?"

Bobby spoke weakly, as if he were nearly asleep. "To my house. Everybody must be going nuts looking for me. I'm gonna need you guys to help explain things."

Mark and Courtney exchanged looks. Both knew what the other was thinking. Bobby's house wasn't there anymore. His family had disappeared and along with them so had any history of the Pendragon family ever having existed. His parents, his sister, even his dog were just...gone. The police had launched an investigation to try and figure out what had happened to them, but so far they had come up empty.

"Whatever it takes," said Courtney. "We'll be there for you."

Bobby smiled.

Mark, on the other hand, was dying with curiosity. He didn't want Bobby to nod off before finding out what happened on Denduron.

"So tell us what happened!"

Courtney gave Mark a punch in the arm.

"Ow!" yelped Mark and grabbed his stinging arm.

"Go to sleep, Bobby," said Courtney. "Tell us later."

Bobby didn't open his eyes, but he chuckled at his friend's curiosity. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot," he said while reaching up to his shirt. He unbuttoned a few buttons, reached his hand in and pulled out a roll of parchment paper.

"It's all there," he said fading fast. "Everything that happened since I wrote last. Wake me up when you're finished."

That was the last thing he said. Bobby was in dreamland, the roll of parchment paper still in his hand. Mark glanced to Courtney, hesitated a moment, then took the precious journal. Courtney took the folded-up comforter from the bottom of Mark's bed and laid it gently over Bobby, right up to his chin. This was probably the first time he had slept in a bed in a long time and she wanted to make sure he was as safe and comfortable as possible. Then the two of them walked quietly to the far side of the room.

"Should we go downstairs and leave him alone?" whispered Mark.

"No," was Courtney's reply. "Nothing we could do would wake him up now."

Mark nodded. He didn't want to leave either. He slipped the familiar leather twine off the rolled-up scroll and opened it enough to read the very first line.

"Journal Number Four?" asked Courtney.

"Journal Number Four," answered Mark.

The two sat down next to each other on the floor and began to read the final chapter in Bobby's adventure.

Journal #4.

Denduron.

Ican't believe I'm still alive. At least I think I'm still alive. Every muscle, every bone, every hair follicle I've got is sore as hell, which pretty much tells me I'm still among the living. As I write this final journal to you guys, I've still got one major task ahead of me before I can come home. But right now I don't even feel like moving. Even the effort of pushing this pen across the paper is painful. I'm going to try and rest up, write this journal, and then get myself psyched for the final push.

As hurting as my body is, it's just as painful to remember the events of the past few days. But I've got to do it and write it all down because once it's on the page, I'm going to do my level best to forget it all.

I should warn you that some of the things I'm going to write about I didn't see for myself. It has been an incredible few days and there was no way I could be everywhere at once to see it all. But I'll do my best to re-create those events in my journal as accurately as possible based on what others have told me. I don't have a problem doing this because I'm sure everything they described is true. So sit down, take a breath, and hold on. It's going to be a wild ride.

I finished my last journal right after we rescued Uncle Press, then got recaptured by the people whom we thought were our friends-the Milago. Their leader, Rellin, showed us the huge bomb of tak they planned on using to vaporize the Bedoowan. There is something you should understand here. The Milago are not our enemies, but they were afraid we would try to stop them from using that nasty weapon. And they were right. If they exploded that bad boy, the destruction would be horrible. If we could stop them, we would. So we were in the weird position of being friendly enemies.

They brought us back to the hospital hut I'd been to a few times and locked us up with guards at the door. They said that as soon as the battle was over, they'd let us go. Great. If they detonated that bomb, there wouldn't be any placeleft for us to go. So the four of us-me, Uncle Press, Loor, and Alder-were prisoners again.

As soon as we entered the hut, Uncle Press looked around quickly. "Osa isn't here," he said. "She must be in hiding."

Uh-oh. We hadn't gotten the chance to tell Uncle Press what had happened to her. I also realized that Osa's body wasn't there any longer.

"What happened?" he asked quickly.

Loor pointed to me and said, "She was killed while protecting him from the Bedoowan knights."

Perfect. As if I didn't have enough guilt going on at the moment, she had to remind me about my part in Osa's death. I guess I couldn't be angry with her. Osa was her mother. She deserved to be angry. But I wished she didn't have to lay all of the blame on me. Mallos and the Bedoowan knights had a little something to do with it too.

We all looked to Uncle Press for his reaction. It was a strange one. Rather than show any sign of grief, he simply nodded as if the news of Osa's death were nothing more than a simple fact to file away. I think he realized that the three of us were taking it harder than that, because he put his hand on Loor's shoulder and said, "Don't be sad. This is the way it was meant to be."

That was exactly what Osa said just before she died. Was that some sort of Traveler motto? If so, it was a lousy one. It didn't make me feel any better, and I doubted if it helped Loor at all.

"Everyone get some rest," Uncle Press ordered. "Tomorrow's going to be a tough day."

He was right; we all needed rest. So we took places apart from one another in different corners of the hut. This is when I wrote the last journal that I sent you. Loor wrote too, as did Alder. We were all documenting our experiences as Travelers, though I'm pretty sure we all had different opinions about how things were going. The only one who didn't write was Uncle Press. He laid down on one of the benches and closed his eyes. I wondered how much sleep he had gotten while a prisoner in the Bedoowan palace. Not much, probably.

As I wrote I sensed that there was tension in the room. Maybe it was just my own paranoia, but I had the feeling that the others were blaming me for the tough position we were in. Whenever I looked up, both Alder and Loor would quickly look away. The truth was, I didn't blame them. As I played out the events of the past few days in my mind, the sickening realization came to me that the situation on Denduron was much worse because of me. If Uncle Press hadn't brought me here, then he probably wouldn't have been captured by the Bedoowan. And if he hadn't been captured then he wouldn't have needed to be rescued, and I wouldn't have written to you guys to send me the stuff from home. And if I hadn't gotten that stuff from home, then the Milago wouldn't have the ability to explode that huge bomb. And if I weren't here, Osa would still be alive because...if, if, if. Whenever you look back and say, "If," you know you're in trouble. There's no such thing as "if." The only thing that counts is what really happened, and the truth was that every chance I got, I screwed up. Even when I thought I had done something good, it always turned out bad.

Then, just to rub salt in everyone's wounds, my watch alarm started to beep. I had totally forgotten about my Casio. Alder and Loor shot a look at me. They had no idea what it was. Uncle Press just cracked an eye open and gave me a deadly look. Without saying a word I jumped up and ran to a corner of the hut where I pulled the watch off and threw it into the latrine. I think it was a safe bet that nobody would go down there after it. I even pulled my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and dumped it in the ooze. I looked back at the others to see they were all staring at me. I couldn't take it anymore.

"What?" I yelled. "So I messed up! Yeah, I got that stuff from home, but it was the only way I could think of to get Uncle Press out. And it worked, didn't it?"

Nobody said a word. They just stared back at me. It was making me crazy.

"It's not like you tried to stop me, Loor...Alder," I added. "You used the stuff too!"

"But we did not know it was wrong," said Loor quietly. "You did."

I couldn't argue with that, but I was still in an arguing mood so I yelled, "I didn't ask to come here, you know! It's not like I had a choice. I'm not a warrior like Loor or Osa. I'm not a knight like Alder. And I'm not a...not a...I don't knowwhat you are anymore, Uncle Press, but I'm sure as hell not like you! You never should have brought me here." I was ready for a fight. I wanted them to say what a loser I was because I had a great comeback. I'd agree with them. I never claimed to be anything more than a junior-high kid from the suburbs. That's it. I wasn't a revolutionary, or a fighter, or anything else they wanted me to be. It wasn't fair to blame me for not living up to their expectations. I was doing the best I could. If that wasn't good enough, well, too bad.

But that's not what happened. Instead Uncle Press sat up on the bench and softly said, "Come here, all of you. Sit down."

We all kind of awkwardly exchanged glances and walked over to him. I had no idea where this was going. Uncle Press then spoke to us in such a calm manner that it took all of the tension out of the room. It kind of reminded me of the way Osa always seemed to have the ability to chill everybody out.

"I understand how tough this is for all of you," he began. "You haven't known about being Travelers for very long, and it's gotta be confusing."

"I do not understand why this has happened to me," said Alder. "Why must we be Travelers?"

"I was not given a choice," added Loor. "It does not seem fair."

I then realized that I wasn't the only one who was freaking out. Loor and Alder hadn't known about being Travelers for very long either. The only difference was they were better equipped to handle the assignment than I was. The closest I ever came to that kind of training was in Saturday morning karate class when I was ten. I usually ended up getting a bloody nose and running home crying. That's not exactly elite warrior training. I was definitely out of my league here.

Uncle Press smiled warmly and said, "If you want to know why you are Travelers, all you have to do is look back on what you've already done. The way the three of you rescued me from that palace was an amazing thing. You proved yourselves to be smart and brave and resourceful. But more important was the fact that you willingly put your lives at risk because it was the right thing to do. Ordinary people wouldn't do that. You want to know why you're Travelers? Look first to yourselves."

"But what are these powers?" asked Loor. "We understand words that we should not."

"There's a lot for you to learn," said Uncle Press. "But the best way for that to happen is for you to experience it. As time goes on everything will come clear, but you need to learn it on your own."

"Come on," I said impatiently. "You gotta give us more than that. Are there others? I mean, are there more Travelers?"

"Yes," said Uncle Press. "Every territory has a Traveler. When you arrive in a new territory, always find the Traveler. They know best about the customs and history of their home territory and can help you along."

"Like Alder," said Loor.

"Yes, like Alder," confirmed Uncle Press.

"And what about Mallos...Saint Dane?" I asked. "He's a Traveler too, right?"

Uncle Press's expression grew hard. "Yes," he said coldly. "This is something you should know about now," he said. "Every territory is in conflict. There are always wars and disputes and battles. That's the nature of things. Always was, always will be. But no matter what the conflict of a territory is, the true enemy is Saint Dane. Here on Denduron it's not the Bedoowan, or Queen Kagan, or even the quigs. The real threat is Saint Dane. He's the one who must be stopped."

"What's his deal?" I asked. "Why is he so dangerous?"

I could tell we were getting into hairy territory, because Uncle Press had his game face back on. "He's dangerous because you never see him coming," was Uncle Press's answer. "He changes himself. On Denduron he has become Mallos, advisor to the queen. Bobby, you saw him back on Second Earth. He took on the form of a policeman. I'm not sure if he physically changes, or if he uses some kind of mind control to make you think he looks different, but the bottom line is you don't always see him coming. And make no mistake about it, the guy is evil."

Uncle Press paced faster. We all listened closely because it was clear we needed to hear what he was now telling us. "But his evil isn't obvious," he continued. "He doesn't murder, or cause floods or fires. His methods are much more devious. He will go to a territory and move himself into a position where he caninfluence events. He's smart and convincing. He'll appear to be your friend while the whole time he's pushing you toward disaster."

"Like with the Bedoowan?" I asked.

"Exactly," shot back Uncle Press. "The Milago and the Bedoowan have been in conflict for centuries, but Saint Dane has pushed it to the edge. Before he got here things were rough for the Milago, but nowhere near as bad as they are now. He worked his way into the trust of Queen Kagan-"

"Who isn't exactly a rocket scientist," I added.

"No, she isn't," he agreed. "For a while it was looking as if the Bedoowan might cut the Milago some slack, but it was Saint Dane's influence that convinced the Bedoowan to push harder. He's the one who started the unreasonable demands for glaze and the Transfer ceremony and the horrible quig slaughters in the stadium. It looks to the Milago as if the Bedoowan wanted all this, but it was really Saint Dane, or Mallos as he calls himself here. He whispers suggestions to Kagan, and she makes them law."

"But...why does he do this?" asked Alder.

"To push the territory toward chaos," was Uncle Press's firm answer. "Saint Dane doesn't care about the Bedoowan or the Milago. He's using the Bedoowan to push the Milago into getting so desperate that they will fight back. He wants a war. But not just any war, he wants the Milago to use tak. I see that now."

"He wants them to blow everybody up?" I asked.

"Not exactly," he continued. "Yes, using that bomb will cause terrible damage, but the long-term effects are what Saint Dane is after. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. I didn't know about tak."

"Could Saint Dane have brought it from another territory?" I asked.

"I doubt it. My guess is that it's natural to Denduron and somehow Figgis stumbled across it...and Saint Dane is taking advantage. Tak now represents power to the Milago. They've been held down for so long that they'll grab at anything to pull themselves up. But once they start using tak on the Bedoowan, where will it stop? They could create weapons that would make them the most powerful tribe on Denduron. There are thousands of tribes here. None of them have a weapon like this. Putting the power of tak into the hands of one tribe is like tipping the balance. The Milago may be a peaceful bunch now, but they've got years of pent-up anger. Put that kind of power in their hands and they could overrun Denduron. That's the kind of chaos Saint Dane is looking for."

There it was. Loor had told me about the mission of the Travelers, but Uncle Press had now spelled it out pretty clearly. If this war began and the Milago used tak, it would be disaster. It really was a bigger deal than just a battle between two warring tribes. But there was something else that was bugging me.

"What is Halla?" I asked Uncle Press.

Uncle Press shot me a surprised look. "Where did you hear that name?"

"From Saint Dane," I said. "Before he took us to the stadium he told me that Halla would fall and we would fall with it. What is Halla?"

"Halla is everything," he answered. "Every territory, every person, every living thing, everytime there ever was. Halla is what separates order from chaos. If Halla crumbles, there will be nothing left but darkness. Everywhere. For everyone."

Whoa. Now there was a concept to try and get my mind around. None of us spoke for a long while. We had just shifted into a new gear here. Was it possible? Could it be that the battle between the Milago and the Bedoowan was not only about the future of Denduron, but about the future ofall territories? If things turned sour here, could that somehow affect things back home? This was the most devastating thing I had heard so far. The stakes had become so huge that it was hard to comprehend. Before any of us had the chance to ask another question, the wooden door to the hut flew open and a Milago miner stormed in.

"Rellin wishes to see you," he announced.

Uncle Press stood, but the miner held his hand up to stop him.

"Not you," he said. "Pendragon."