The Rivers of Zadaa

The Rivers of Zadaa is the sixth book in the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale. The cover image is here: [1]. 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. Template:Spoiler

Setting

This story takes place mainly in a territory called Zadaa. There are two main tribes here: The Rokador and the Batu. The Rokador live in tunnels under the ground. 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, making all the Batu starve.

Characters

• 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 who wants to destroy Halla, everything there ever was and ever will be, so he can rule it. He has a special power: He can transform himself to look like anyone, so it's very hard to find him sometimes.
• Loor: The traveller from Zadaa, Bobby's friend. Loor is a Batu.
• Saangi: Loor's acolyte, also a Batu.
• Pelle a Zinj: A prince from Zadaa, very kind.
• Bokka: A Rokador, who has known Loor since she was born and is one of her closest friends.
• Teek: Bokka's companion, also a Rokador.
• Alder: The Traveller from Denduron. Alder comes to Zadaa to help Bobby train to be a fighter.

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.

Zadaa

The story starts after Bobby has arrived in Zadaa with Loor. Loor explain to Bobby the situation on Zadaa, and introduces Bobby to her friends, Bokka and Teek. Soon afterwards, Saint Dane, who is disguised as a Batu fighter, beats Bobby up with a stick. Bobby is almost killed but is rescued by Pelle a Zinj, the kind prince, and recovers 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 but are attacked by 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 festival of Azhra first, because Pelle a Zinj invited them personally. But at the festival Pelle a Zinj is killed by a Rokador. After this, it rains, but still there is no water. 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 swim across it, and find an island where Saint Dane captures them and puts them in prison. However, Bobby and Loor escape and finally discover what happened on Zadaa.

After a terrible virus kills most of the Rokador, Saint Dane convinces them to kill all the Batu. First, they would hold back the water, making the Batu starve, and then when the Batu started to attack, 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 too quickly and scaring away the Batu. Then, they all 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 and kills Loor with a sword. Then he tries to kill Bobby, but Bobby skewers him on a spear. However, Saint Dane disappears and reappears at the entrance to the flume, proving that he can't be killed. Then Saint Dane flumes to a territory called Quillian.

Bobby goes back to Loor and somehow manages to bring her back from the dead, using a power he has as a Traveller that he never knew he had. It was because it was not supposed to be that way. Finally, he gets a message from the Travellers from Quillian, so he decides to go there instead. The story ends with him writing his last journal in a house on Quillian.

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 by himself for the summer. 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 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 resturant 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. She falls into trees off the side of the road, but before she loses conciousness, she sends Mark a message on her cell phone.

Mark soon realizes that he must go to Courtney's rescue, so he convinces Mitchell to drive him to Courtney's summer school. There they find Courtney, so they call the 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, but Saint Dane sneaks into the hospital and uses his healing powers to bring her heart rate back up to normal.