Beginning Monday, April 2, 2018

If you have read some of the Avalon stories that have appeared on this blog (available at your favorite e-book retailer), I thought it only fair that you get a look at several of the actual Kairos stories in their full form.  If you have not read any of the Avalon stories that have appeared on this website, that’s okay.  The stories here are self-contained with one exception:

The books (not presently available to buy) weave the partner stories like a fine tapestry.  For this blog, however, I have pulled the stories apart so you can read a whole Festuscato story, for example, without having to flip back and forth to Gerraint and Greta, or as the case may be, to Gerraint and Margueritte.  Hopefully, that will work well.  You can just ignore the rare references to what is happening in those other stories, knowing, that like the Kairos, you will get there, eventually.

This series of stories will begin posting on Monday, April 2, 2018, just in case you want to go into the archives and read from the beginning.  All weeks will have posts on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday = 3 individual, easily and quickly read posts per week to carry the story forward.  A good way to start the day.

 

Kairos

A Greek word meaning opportunity, the right time, a propitious moment, event time, or as the Kairos defines it, history.  It is the name the old titan Cronos gave to the polyploidy being he struggled to bring to life as a complete male and a complete female.  Knowing his time would soon be over, he imagined this complex “one being in two persons” would be his replacement.  When Cronos died at the hands of his children, the mere counting of days ended, and with the birth of the Kairos, history—event time began.

The Kairos might be called the god of history, though the Kairos prefers the term watcher over history, because unlike the gods of old, he or she is not immortal.  Instead, the Kairos normally lives as an ordinary mortal, male or female, sort of taking turns, and as such is subject to all the frailties of the species, while at the same time, being captured by the very events where he or she must inevitably act.

Not allowed to fully die, the being or spirit of the Kairos is taken at death and reborn somewhere else on the planet, where some important historical juncture looms on the horizon.  On bad days, the Kairos complains about being no more than a cosmic experiment in time and genetics.  On good days, the Kairos averts a disaster.

Taken out of the hands of the most ancient gods, and placed in the hands of persons unknown; it is her or his job to see that history turns out the way it has been written.  With access to future lifetimes, as well as past lives, the Kairos knows the way things are supposed to go.  But getting it to turn out right is not ever easy.  Fortunately, the Kairos is able to borrow lives from the past or future that often have the skills and knowledge to meet whatever might arise.  No guarantees, of course.

Stories

Kairos and Rome 5: Rome Too Far

R5) Festuscato: The Last Imperial Governor of Britannia.   9 weeks of posts

Festuscato Cassius Agitus is both a wealthy Roman senator and a cad.  Because of his indiscretions, the emperor’s mother has him sent to the abandoned province of Britannia to bring order out of chaos.  The people there appealed for help.  He can’t end the fighting.  Thus is the age.  But maybe he can bring the Gaelic people together long enough to face the real threats: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Picts, Irish, and especially, the Huns.

R5) Greta: Over the River and Through the Woods.   23 weeks of posts

Greta, wise woman of Dacia under Roman rule, must go through the haunted, forbidden forest to reach the capitol in time to stop the rebellion.  The Masters buried some hundred-year-old rifles in that area, and Rome and all of history will be in danger if they are dug up; especially if they are discovered by the wicked witch.

R5) Gerraint: In the Days of Arthur, Pendragon.   10 weeks of posts

Gerraint, son of Erbin, with Percival and Arthur, romp through the early days of Arthur, Pendragon.  They fight off a rebellion and beat back the Saxons, Irish, Jutes and Picts, and rescue Gwynyvar.  Sadly, as the boys become men, the fighting never seems to stop.  And Meryddin, a fly in the ointment, appears to be on his own agenda.

Kairos and Rome 6: The Power of Persuasion

R6) Gerraint: Love and War   12 weeks of posts

Gerrain, son of Erbin wins Enid, his love before he is called to the continent to help Brittany stay free.  After a time of torment, Gerraint and Arthur continue to fight off Picts, Scots, Danes, and Angles, before the final battle of Mount Badon.  And still, Meryddin has his own agenda working, subversive in the background.

R6) Festuscato: The Dragon in Ireland   10 weeks of posts

Festuscato gets roped into providing safe passage for Patrick to get to Ireland.  Festuscato wants to see Patrick get started on a good foot, but that isn’t easy when the so-called king of the Irish is against you, not to mention the reluctant druids, the Irish pirates, and the Saxon intruders.  The boy and his pet dragon don’t help, either.

R6) Greta: To Grandfather’s House We Go   20 weeks of posts

Greta’s ward, Berry, and her sister Fae, along with Greta’s brother and Fae’s husband go north, looking for Berry and Fae’s father to bless their marriages.  They get trapped in the land of the lost, and the shattered pieces of the old god Mithras stand against Greta when she sets herself for a rescue mission.  Soon enough, the Iranian (Mithraic) tribes in the wilderness come to knock on Dacia’s door, which doesn’t have enough strength to stand against them.  And the Roman ranks are full of Mithraites.

Kairos Medieval 3: Light in the Dark Ages

M3) Festuscato: The Halls of Hrothgar   8 weeks of posts

After seeing to the safe withdrawal of troops from Britain, Festuscato, Senator of Rome, is shipwrecked on the Danish shore.  With his strange crew in tow, he finds his way to the halls of Hrothgar where a beast called the Grendal has come like a plague on the mighty.  Festuscato leaves nothing to chance.  He sends for Beowulf, but then he has to tread lightly to keep history on track.  He knows things will turn strange as the Grendal, the creature of Abraxas, cannot be harmed by any weapon forged by man.

M3) Gerraint: The Holy Graal   13 weeks of posts

Gerraint, son of Erbin feels his days of struggle should be behind him.  All he wants is to retire to Cornwall with Enid, his love.  But when ghostly hands carry a cauldron across the round table, he knows he has to act.  Arthur deftly turns all talk to the Holy Graal, but Gerraint knows he has to stop the older men from recovering the ancient treasures of the Celts and dredging up the past.  Christendom is only a thin veneer and if Abraxas is allowed to strip that away, history might be irrevocably changed.

M3) Margueritte: The Old Way Has Gone   18 weeks of posts

In the early days of Charles Martel, Margueritte experiences everything a Medieval girl might want: fairies, ogres, a unicorn, dragons, knights to love and daring rescues.  But it is Curdwallah the hag, the devotee of Abraxas, that haunts her dreams in the dark.

Kairos Medieval 4: Saving the West

M4) Festuscato: Senator of Rome   6 weeks of posts

After years of exploring Germania and the Eastern Roman Empire, Festuscato returns to the west, to Saxony and the land of the Franks.  There isn’t much time.  The Huns are moving.  Attila has his eye on the weakened western empire, and the Roman commander in the west, General Aetius, appears stuck in Rome, preoccupied with the Vandals in Africa.

M4) Gerraint: The Last Days of Arthur   6 weeks of posts

Lancelot has taken most of the young men to Brittany, and Greater Britain appears to be falling apart.  Arthur and Gerraint go to bring him back.  They make peace with the Franks, but Lancelot will not be moved.  Upon their return, they discover that Mordred has captured Cadbury and Gwynyvar with an army of Scots, Saxons, and traitors.  The stage is set for the last battle.

M4) Margueritte: The New Way Has Come   18 weeks of posts

The god Abraxass has moved the Muslim Sorcerer to keep Margueritte occupied so the Muslim army from Iberia can invade the north.  Margueritte has to help prepare Charles Martel for that inevitable time, and she must build heavy cavalry for the Franks, virtually from scratch.  What horrors will the sorcerer do to keep Margueritte out of the picture, and will she be too late to save the west?

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A Brief Introduction

Hopefully, you are a rational and reasonable person in search of a good story, though not necessarily willing to break ranks with the relatively dead and sterile universe in which we presently and conceptually find ourselves.  And if you are not naturally given to flights of fantasy, you may be wondering how all this began.  Where did the idea for such a complex character come from?  If the Storyteller could be interviewed, the answer might be something as follows:

“I was sitting at my desk one day at work, staring out of the window, bored out of my mind, when I had a vision.  I think that was what it was.  At the time, I could not remember having had a vision before, but to be perfectly honest, that is the only word that fits the experience.  Anyway, without warning, I found that instead of sitting at my desk, I sat cross-legged in the grass at the top of a ridge, clothed in odd, but very comfortable Roman style chain armor, and holding a sword across my lap.  The sword felt heavy, and appeared sharp, too.  It all felt weird, but the sword and armor, the grass and all was not the weirdest thing.  As I looked down at the sword in my lap, I saw some obstructions to my vision.  You see, I was a woman, a young, and beautiful woman, I knew that much, with long, light golden brown hair that looked to me almost blonde in the bright sunlight.  I backed away instantly and found myself at my desk.  It all seemed too strange for me.  Like most men, I had regular ideas about women, but being one of them was definitely not on the list.  After that I got to work.  That daydream, as I called it, was not something I wanted to think too hard about and certainly not something I wanted to dwell on.

“The very next day, I sat again at my desk, not entirely bored for a change, because I was considering a topic which I always found fascinating.  I wondered about the idea of the Trinity, and I could not figure out how God could be one God in three persons.  I was one me in one person, and I thought that was difficult enough, but then I heard a voice in my head that said, “No, you are one you in two persons.”

“What?”  I said that out loud, I think.  I looked around, but I seemed to be the only one in the office at the moment.  Everyone else went out to the field.

“Woah!”  I did say that out loud.

Now, please understand, when I said I heard a voice, I did not mean an actual, audible voice.  I meant it came as something in my mind, only it was not just me imagining a voice or thinking some thoughts to myself.  I knew the voice was somehow external, though I could not tell you exactly how I knew that.  Anyway, I said, “What do you mean, one me in two persons?”

“Male and female,” the voice said.  “It is how you were made to be, even if you are only living as one gender at a time, as far as your present consciousness is concerned.”

“Wait a minute.  Who are you?  And what do you mean one at a time?”

“Chronologically speaking, yours is the one hundred and twenty-first life you have lived.  And there are future lives you will live as well.”

“You’re mad.”  I responded, by which I meant, I’m mad.  I concluded that this boring rut of a job had finally driven me off the cliff.  Here I go, falling, over the edge, I thought.  Er, no…  I don’t like heights.  Then the voice sort of took over.

“It is time for you to learn these simple truths about yourself, your many lifetimes and your making, because soon you will begin to experience your other lifetimes.”

“What?  You mean like that woman in the suit?”  I managed to interject that much.

“You will experience far more than that.  And you will find in the course of these experiences that your lives have been lived in partnerships of two or more, but not necessarily in chronological order.  I know that may be confusing for you, especially when you experience future lifetimes; but you will do well if you simply take and record each experience as it comes.  It will all come together in the end.”

“Experience the future?  What?”

“It may be that only you and your partner with you will experience every lifetime, but that is because it is your job to record the events of your many lives.  The other lives you live call you the Storyteller.  But then, you have another job to do in all of those other lifetimes.”

“A-ha!”  I did not actually get the words in, but I thought it loud enough.  “The catch!”

“Your job is to watch over history and make sure it comes out the way it has already been written.”

“A-ha!”  I repeated, and remembered last Sunday’s hymn about God working His purposes out.  I wondered, why me?

“God is working His purposes out.”  The voice knew my thoughts.  “But as you well know, the work is always done through agents of some sort, and mostly human agents.  The Source even emptied himself at one point to take on human flesh in order to act on his own behalf.  Why should history be any different?”

I did not have a ready answer for that one.

“As you experience these other lives in partnership, you will find that still other lifetimes may temporarily break through the natural barriers of time and into the life you are currently experiencing.  Then you will have access to certain skills and knowledge.”

“Wait!”  I practically shouted.  “Why should other lives break through?  Why should I need access to skills?”

“Because there is no telling in advance what skill set or knowledge or other help you may need at a given moment.”

“What?  No telling?  Does that mean you don’t know or that you won’t tell me?”

The voice paused for a minute before it resumed speaking.  “You know full well that the universe is not the dead empty your current culture believes it to be.  The universe is full of great varieties of life.  There are powers and principalities in the universe, and some of those are ambivalent at best toward humanity and human history, and some may even want to change history to serve their own ends.  The universe is full of powers, and as you know, some of them are not very nice.”

I swallowed.  Trying to keep history on track sounded like dangerous work.  Of course, I had no idea at the time, and no frame of reference to understand just how dangerous it could get.  I did have one more question, though.  “Why me?”  I asked.  “I’m nothing special.  In fact, I would say just the opposite.  I have not exactly lived a sin free life, and more importantly, I have just about failed at everything I have ever tried to do.  I am so ordinary in that sense, it even boggles my own mind.  And besides that, I am not a great writer.  Oh, I can tell a story all right, but my writing is rather pedestrian.  Again, it is just so ordinary, you might say.   So, why me?”  I asked, but the voice did not answer. It had gone, and after a while, I decided that maybe the fact that I was so ordinary was precisely why I was chosen.  I understood that someone who already had an inflamed ego and sense of their own importance and abilities would not have been a good choice.  No, not at all.

To be sure, that very night I did begin to remember some early childhood snapshots, as I called them.  Some came from my own life, and some came from the life of the Princes who was, and apparently is, my partner in this lifetime.  She is my time access partner, which is a bit like time travel and connects me to this keeping history on track thing that I am experiencing and remembering.  After that night, things just got stranger and stranger.”

Author’s Note:

I have done my best to keep to the record of the Storyteller as written, only trying hard not to let the facts stand in the way of a good story.  For that matter, some of the facts, like names, dates, exact locations and so on have been fudged a little to protect the innocent, in some cases, but more often because it would not be good to give the Masters, or any other enemies of history an exact roadmap of the activities of the Kairos.  Basically, don’t send me any letters saying such-and-such is historically inaccurate.  It won’t do you any good.

Happy Reading

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