“Lockhart! Boston!” Dallah groaned as she got to her feet and waved.

“Mother?” Mya spoke.

“These are the ones I told you might come one day.”

“I had forgotten.” Reneus said, as the travelers came to the water. Dallah had to hug Boston and Alexis, in her wet clothes.

“It is so good to see you. I am so glad you are here.”

“Where can we set down Doctor Procter?” Lockhart asked. He looked exhausted. He and Mingus were taking a turn and the elder elf, in particular, looked unable to go much further.

“Of course.” Dallah stepped close to the half-breed but knew better than to touch him. “How long has he been like this?” she asked.

“This is the second day,” Captain Decker said. He shouldered his rifle and took Mingus’ place.

“Well, come. We must get him to the camp.”

“Mother.” Andor got her attention. “Your imps went ahead of us.”

“Oh dear.” She hurried and everyone hurried to follow. Fortunately, the imps just arrived since they stopped first for an argument.

“We are free now,” Crusty said.

“We’re supposed to go see Lord Varuna,” Dwizzle said.

“Wait a minute!” Itchy bought none of it. “Since when does a thicky bean tell us what to do, especially when our orders come from the king of the gods himself?”

“But I feel free,” Crusty said. “I don’t feel like doing the work of Dayus anymore.”

Dwizzle nodded, but Itchy responded. “That don’t mean anything. Crusty, you don’t ever feel like doing any work.” Dwizzle laughed.

“I’m thinking we could ask Lord Varuna when we find him. He always tells the truth.” Itchy hit him. “Ooowww.”

“You don’t do the thinking, you’ll only hurt yourself worse than before.” Dwizzle put his hand back in his mouth and pouted.

“I think that is a good idea,” Crusty said. Itchy stomped on his foot. “Ooowww.”

“Right now, we got to find Stonecrusher some meat before we become meat.” They could agree on that. With their glamours on, they came right up to the edge of the camp, which was not much to speak of, the huts being barely more than lean-tos with skins on the open side. They were snuggled between some stick trees, and there were only five of them altogether. There could not have been more than twenty people in that camp and barely more than twenty sheep as well.

The sheep were presently in a pen where Dallah’s husband, Godus, and two men had separated the sacrifice from the others. When they were done, the groom had two younger brothers who drove the rest to the stream.

“Not much selection,” Crusty said. The sheep were all scrawny, stunted, and underfed.

“Yeah, but it will do,” Itchy responded.

“Hey, look. Sweets.” Dwizzle pointed to a table by the altar. It sat full of dried fruits and cooked roots and tubers of various kinds.

“Oh, boy!” Crusty shouted, and before Itchy could stop them, they were on the table, they had let their glamours drop, and people screamed, some ran away, and some did not seem sure what to do.

“Hold it right there!” Dallah shouted between breaths. The imps froze in place because Dallah had that in mind. “This is my daughter’s wedding, and you will not mess it up.” She yelled a little, but mostly walked more slowly to the table so she could regain her breath. When she arrived to stare at the imps, she pushed an escaped gray hair back toward the bun on her head before she spoke. “Your hands, empty.” Dwizzle and Crusty put out their hands and she slapped them. The imps made no sound, but both squinted from the sharp, if temporary pain. “Itchy.”

The imp had his hands behind his back. “No.” He shook his head for emphasis.

“You should have been named stubborn,” Dallah said. “Your hand.” She did not ask and Itchy whipped out his hands, empty despite what his mind told him and despite his better judgment. She slapped them both, and Itchy had a hard time putting both in his mouth at once.

“Hey! How do you know our names?” Crusty asked, like the truth of that suddenly caught up to him.

“I know all about you,” Dallah said. “More than I would like to know. Now get off the table and behave, I have to see to my daughter.” Korah was already running into her mother’s arms. She cried, but Dallah brushed Korah’s hair with her hand and said, “Hush, everything will be all right.”

“Mother.” Andor tried to get her attention as Godus came up from the sheep pen.

“Who are you?” Itchy finally removed his hands to ask, and then decided to take turns soaking one hand at a time.

“She is your goddess,” Boston said. “Or she will be one day.” She knew she should not say it because it came out of time context, but she could not help herself.

“What? Don’t we have enough gods and goddesses already?”

“No, no.” Alexis spoke to clarify. Apparently, she could not help herself either. “She will not be another goddess of humans that you have to work for. She will be your goddess; goddess of all the little spirits of the earth.”

“There is no such thing.” Itchy understood.

“There will be,” Alexis responded with a smile toward her brother who frowned. The law said they were not supposed to reveal the future like that.

“Mother.” Andor tried again. Reneus, Lockhart and some of the others looked where Andor looked, but hardly knew what to say.

“But she is old and will die soon,” Crusty protested.

“But she will be reborn,” Mingus stepped up. “And sometimes she will be a god and sometimes a goddess for us all.” He turned to Itchy. “Whether we like it or not.”

“Mother.”

“But lady…” Dwizzle tugged on Dallah’s dress and pointed. “Stonecrusher is hungry.

The ogre came down the path from the stream. He appeared hard to look at because he was so ugly; but not simply a disgusting ugly. He looked mean, mad, and hungry, and now the people had something they could really scream about.

“I’m gonna eat me some people,” Stonecrusher said.

“I’m gonna eat some people,” the ogre said it again, like he was trying to make it into a song. Dallah felt sure no one wanted to hear the ogre sing so she shouted.

“Save your bullets!” Dallah said that before anything else, and Captain Decker and Lieutenant Harper lowered their weapons, if reluctantly. The marines were surprised to see Lockhart, Lincoln, Alexis, and Boston all grinning. Mingus had his hands over his eyes as if he did not want to watch. Roland looked at Boston to be sure she was not too frightened. Besides, it felt too hard to look at the ogre, even for him.

“Your bullets might penetrate and maybe a shotgun slug at close range,” Mingus said. “But most would just bounce off his rock-hard skin and make him mad.”

“Rock-hard head, you mean,” Itchy added.

“That too, I am sure,” Mingus admitted.

Dallah placed Korah in her father’s arms and stepped toward the oncoming terror. Hold it right there!” She had to shout to be heard above the screams, though she knew her little one would hear her no matter what. “Stop walking. Feet, stand still.”

“I’m gonna eat some people,” the ogre repeated himself before he shouted back. “Hey! What happened to my feet?” It was fortunate the commands of the Kairos did not have to be processed through the brain before becoming effective.

 “Sit down.” Dallah said, and to the dismay of many of the people, not the least her family, Dallah walked straight toward the thing. As the ogre sat, he asked his question again.

“But what happened to my feet?” Stonecrusher paused while Dallah walked the distance and then the ogre asked a second question. “Why am I sitting?”

“What am I going to do with you?” Dallah asked a rhetorical question in return as she neared. The ogre reached for her. People gasped, but Dallah merely slapped the ogre hand like she had slapped the imp hands. The ogre snatched his hand back and looked at it.

“I thought you said the skin was rock hard.” Lieutenant Harper spoke.

“It is,” Roland answered. “But the Kairos is not hampered by any of it.”

Then the pain got processed and the ogre imitated his little cousins. “Ooowww,” he said in a very loud voice, and he slipped its hand into its mouth.

“Quiet and keep your hands to yourself.” Dallah thought as hard as she could but saw no alternative. “Godus.” She shouted back to the people who had fallen into a hushed silence to watch this spectacle. “We have to give it one of our sheep.”

“We’ve not but seven left,” Godus responded. Being the spouse of the Kairos had its privileges as far as the little ones were concerned. Her family certainly adjusted to the imps fast enough in the stream.

“Well, we will have to have six. You can pick the least of the lot that is left, but we have to feed it something. The poor thing is starving.”

“Somehow, I never imagined an ogre being called a poor thing,” Lincoln said quietly, and Alexis went to take his arm.

Godus handed Korah to her older brother, Reneus, but she already semed fine, had stopped crying, and stared with the rest of them.

Crusty sighed. “I was afraid if she was still mad at us she might feed us to the ogre.” Dwizzle nodded.

“And she could make us walk right into that big mouth without another thought,” Itchy added.

“She would never do that.” Mingus lowered his hands. “Don’t you know how much she loves you?” A small tear came to his eye, and also to Dwizzle’s eye.

“But she is old and will die soon.” Crusty said it again.

“That’s okay,” Itchy decided. “I could live with a god that dies now and then. Then she gets to be a baby again?” Mingus nodded. “So, we get a season of peace when she is young and growing up,” Itchy concluded.

“Or he,” Mingus said.

“That must be weird,” Itchy said.

“Not if you are born that way,” Mingus said.

“Oh yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.”

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Don’t forget tomorrow (Thursday) will finish the episode, so…

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