The Rivers of Zadaa
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 First edition cover |
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| Author | D. J. MacHale |
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| Cover artist | Victor Lee |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Pendragon |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
| Released | June 28, 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 405 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 1-4169-0710-6 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | Black Water |
| Followed by | The Quillan Games |
The Rivers of Zadaa is the sixth novel in the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale.
From the publisher: "The struggle of good versus evil continues as Bobby Pendragon follows Saint Dane to the territory of Zadaa. Saint Dane's influence has fueled the fire of discontent between two warring tribes: the Rokador and the Batu. This is also the territory where the Traveler Loor lives as a member of the Batu. Together she and Bobby must work to thwart Saint Dane's efforts to destroy Zadaa. But as Bobby pursues Saint Dane, he begins to notice changes in himself. He is no longer a flip kid looking for excitement. He is a young man beginning to see this quest as more than a series of adventures. He is also learning that as a Traveler, he has powers no normal human should have."
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[edit] Plot introduction
This story takes place mainly on a territory called Zadaa. There are two main tribes here: The Rokador and the Batu. The Rokador live in tunnels underground, while the Batu are dark-skinned and live in a city called Xhaxhu in the desert. For years, the Rokador have relied on the Batu to protect them from other savage tribes on Zadaa, and the Batu have relied on the Rokador to provide them with water. But the Rokador seem to be holding back the water, causing all the Batu to starve.
[edit] Plot summary
As all of the other Pendragon books, this book covers both Bobby's adventure on Zadaa, but also Mark and Courtney, his friends on Second Earth.
[edit] Zadaa
The story starts after Bobby has arrived in Zadaa with Loor. Loor explained to Bobby Pendragon, the lead Traveler and main character, the situation on Zadaa, and introduces Bobby to her sister Saangi and her friends, Bokka and Teek. Soon afterwards, Saint Dane, who is disguised as a Batu fighter, beats Bobby up with a wooden staff. Bobby is almost killed but is rescued by Pelle a Zinj, the kind prince, and recovers very quickly in a Batu hospital. After Bobby has fully recovered, he decides to start training to be a warrior. Alder, the Traveler from Denduron, joins Loor and Saangi to help train him. For a week, Bobby works hard in a deserted training camp. Finally, at the end of the week, they all celebrate his successful training but are interrupted by an attack from a group of Rokador, who shoot Bokka with an arrow and then run away. Before Bokka dies, he manages to give Bobby and Loor a map to the underground city Kidik, and tell them that Saint Dane is there.
Loor and Bobby decide to attend the Batu Festival of Azhra first, because Pelle a Zinj has invited them personally. At the festival, Pelle a Zinj is killed by a Rokador. After this, it rains, but still there is no ready supply water for the Batu. This convinces the Batu that the Rokador are indeed holding back the water and they start making preparations for war. Meanwhile, Bobby and Loor begin their journey to the city of Kidik. Once they reach it, they find an underground ocean of water. They take a boat across it, and find an island where Saint Dane captures them and puts them in a prison-like room. However, Bobby and Loor escape and finally discover what happened on Zadaa.
After an epidemic virus had killed most of the Rokador, Saint Dane was able to convince them to kill all the Batu. First, they would hold back the water, making the Batu starve; when the Batu attacked, they would flood the entire underground, drowning all of the warriors.
Saangi and Alder join Bobby and Loor. Just as the Rokador prepare to flood the underground, they foil their plans by flooding it prematurely-- presumably to the ruin of both tribes. Rather than abandon one another, warriors of both tribes help one another escape the flood. The heroes escape from the floods by taking a dygo, the machine that the Rokador use for driving and making tunnels. All the water shoots out from the underground and creates a river which flows by the city of Xhaxhu, providing water once again for the Batu.
Bobby goes back to the flume to try to return to Second Earth (Earth in modern-times), but Saint Dane comes out of the flume in a fury and kills Loor with a sword. He then tries to kill Bobby, but Bobby raises the same sword that killed Loor as Saint Dane jumped on top of him, impaling him in a way that should have killed him. However, Saint Dane disappears and reappears at the entrance to the flume, proving that he cannot, by physical means, be killed. Saint Dane then flumes to a territory called Quillan.
Bobby goes back to Loor, who lies dead upon the floor. His own desire that she live rather than dying appears to resurrect or revive her; her wound closes of its own accord while she resumes full faculty, memory, and mobility. Moments later, Bobby gets a message from Quillan, from people named Veego and LaBerge, so he decides to go there and see what Saint Dane is up to instead of fluming back to Second Earth. The story ends with him writing his last journal in a castle on Quillan.
[edit] Second Earth
The story begins when Mark and Courtney have just realized that they have accidentally destroyed the flume to Eelong trying to help Bobby. Courtney begins to become seriously depressed and stops coming to school.
Eventually she decides to go to summer school for six weeks in order to recover, so Mark is left to read Bobby's journals alone. Throughout the summer, Mark collects Bobby's journals and reads them, and begins to have conversations with Andy Mitchell, the former school bully. Mark soon realizes that Mitchell is actually very good with numbers and became a bully because he couldn't fit in anywhere. Gradually Mark and Mitchell become friends.
At her summer school, Courtney meets a boy named Whitney Wilcox. She grows to like him, and one night Whitney invites her to go on a date at a pizza restaurant for an evening. She agrees, and is riding her bike on the road to town when she is nearly run over by Whitney, who turns out to be Saint Dane in disguise. Her bike runs off the road and down a steep cliff and into trees, but before she loses consciousness, she sends Mark a message on her cell phone.
Mark soon realizes that he must go to Courtney's rescue, so he convinces andrew mitchead to drive him to Courtney's summer school. There they find Courtney, badly injured and unconscious. They call the local ambulance and hurry Courtney to the hospital. Courtney slowly begins to recover. In the last scene of the book, Courtney's heart rate suddenly begins to slow. Andy Mitchell, unseen, uses healing powers to bring her heart rate to normal, saying, "Like I said, I give and I take away." This leads us to believe he is truly Saint Dane until it is confirmed in The Quillan Games.
[edit] Characters in "The Rivers of Zadaa"
- Bobby Pendragon: A teenage boy who used to live a normal life until his uncle took him through time and space to a "territory" called Denduron, where he stopped an evil man named Saint Dane from causing chaos and destruction. Since then, he has been to many other worlds, battling Saint Dane. In this book, he goes to Zadaa.
- Saint Dane: An evil man/demon who wants to send Halla (ergo, the universe) into chaos, that he might rebuild it in his image. He is able to change shape, making discovery difficult.
- Loor: The traveller from Zadaa, Bobby's friend. Loor is a Batu warrior, living according to a strict discipline. Bobby has admited to desiring her love, and she has admited to reciprocating his feelings. They have agreed to set their quest for love aside to fulfill their mission.
- Saangi: Loor's acolyte; also her sister.
- Pelle a Zinj: A Batu prince from Zadaa, very kind.
- Bokka: A Rokador, who has known Loor since she was born and is one of her closest friends.he is described as handsome.Had it not been for Loor's being a Traveler, she and Bokka would have most likely ended up together.
- Teek: Bokka's companion, also a Rokador.
- Alder: The Traveler from Denduron. Alder comes to Zadaa to help Bobby train to be a fighter.
- Mark Dimond: Bobby's best friend from Second Earth
- Courtney Chetnwynde: Bobby's other friend also from Second Earth
| Books in the Series: | ||||||||
| The Merchant of Death · The Lost City of Faar · The Never War · The Reality Bug · Black Water · The Rivers of Zadaa · The Quillan Games · The Pilgrims of Rayne (forthcoming) · The Guide to the Territories of Halla (Companion Book) | ||||||||
| Characters: | ||||||||
| Bobby Pendragon · Saint Dane · Loor · Alder (Pendragon series) · Vo Spader · Vincent "Gunny" Van Dyke · Patrick · Aja Killian · Kasha · Remudi · Nevva Winter Elli Winter " · Courtney Chetwynde · Mark Dimond | ||||||||
| Locations: | ||||||||
| Halla · Second Earth · Denduron · Cloral · First Earth · Veelox · Eelong · Zadaa · Quillan · Ibara · Third Earth | ||||||||
