Chapter 34
Solara had changed.
Dramatically. At first I thought we were in the wrong place. Had we somehow taken
a wrong turn through time and space?
Kasha was just as confused.
"Pendragon?" was all she said, but I knew what she meant. Where the heck were we?
I looked at Gunny.
My tall friend gave me a warm smile. "Amazing, isn't it?"
It's hard to explain this, since Solara wasn't like any other place I'd ever been. There
weren't buildings or roads or much else that you'd think of to define a location. Solara
was the beginning of Halla. It was the crossroads for the spirit of man, and the spirit of
man didn't exactly need a normal house to live in. When we were all there before, right
after the destruction of the flumes, Solara was a vast wasteland of dark matter. Though
I sensed the spirits around me, it felt dead. Or dying. What we learned was that the last
of the positive spirit in Halla was being kept alive by the exiles. When the Travelers
had gathered there earlier, it wasn't looking so hot for the good guys.
Now I saw life. Actual life. Kasha, Gunny, and I stepped into a pretty meadow
covered with green grass. We were surrounded by rolling hills. I wondered if the grass
had grown out of the gray rock that we had all seen before, or if the rock had actually
transformed. The meadow was dotted with flower s. Solara had become a bright,
beautiful place.
The only thing I recognized from our previous visit was overhead. The sky was still
dark and filled with stars. Bright, colorful clouds continued to roll by. Maybe it was
wishful thinking, but it seemed like there were more brilliant clouds than we had seen
before. Since there was no sun, it felt as though light from these brilliant clouds was
what made Solara so bright.
As positive as this all seemed, there was also something odd about it. Looking off in
the distance, the meadow seemed to go out of focus. The view wasn't infinite. It ended.
We could only see so far, and then the view became blurred. It was as if we were
surrounded by a wall of water. There was no way to judge how large this green
meadow was, but it didn't go on forever.
I looked to Gunny and asked the obvious question: "What happened?"
"Not sure" was his answer. "Looks pretty good though, doesn't it?"
A fourth person joined the party. Uncle Press walked up from the edges of reality.
"What happened on Eelong?" he asked with excitement in his voice.
I was used to Uncle Press having all the answers. It was strange to be the one getting
him up to speed. As we spoke, one by one the other Travelers appeared and joined us.
First Elli, then Siry, Spader, Patrick, Aja, Alder, and finally Loor.
