Travelers

Avalon 2.10: Loose Ends

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            I think confusion is Eliyawe’s middle name.  As angry as she was, even Zoe got caught up in the play, it being Eliyawe’s time period and all.  But Alexis is safe and restored to Lincoln’s arms.  Where Mingus is, no one knows.

###

            Back at the camp, Eliyawe first turned on the midget in their midst.  She shook her finger to scold the poor former giant.  “Gorman, you lived a good long time being bigger than everyone and making people afraid.  Crush their bones, indeed.  Now you can live the rest of your days smaller than everyone.  And you will like it.”

            “I won’t like it,” Gorman grumped, but he knew he had no choice in the matter and nowhere else to go.

            “All the same, you better stick with Atonas the fisherman.  If you follow me, the gods will find you for sure and then you won’t live at all, I reckon.”  Eliyawe looked over at Marduk and Assur.

            “I want a horse,” Assur said.

            “Can’t be a real cowboy without a horse,” Marduk agreed.

            “Sit and be good for now.  It is supper time.”  The boys grumbled, but complied.  Katie did not mind cooking.  Eliyawe got up to help and together they made a pass at the remaining deer and some bread crackers. 

            “A bit lean on vegetables,” Katie said and Eliyawe shrugged and wiggled to some unheard music.

            Most of the spices they used to make the local venison more palatable had been in Alexis’ bag.  They retrieved the bag and all the vitamin jars which mysteriously refilled themselves.  They also got the pouch in which Alexis carried her portion of the bread crackers.  That also refilled itself, but the spices, though they found the containers thanks to Elder Stow, they remained mostly empty.  Fortunately, Eliyawe found some local grasses that cooked up something like lemongrass.

            “Better on chicken,” She said, but it would do to cut the gamey flavor.  

            No one bothered Alexis as she cried on Lincoln’s shoulder and whispered softly to him.  He whispered in return and she had his full attention.  Lockhart did what he could to help with the cooking, but he and Katie, with Boston chiming in now and then wanted to know the whole story of Eliyawe’s adventures.  Elias told most of it, with Jonas showing his wit now and then.

            “But what about these two?”  Katie asked at last.  “Young gods, very young I am guessing.  How is it they are willing to go along?”  She wanted to say obey Eliyawe’s commands, but she imagined that might be rude, and being rude to even young gods was never advisable.

             “About one hundred and fifty,” Eliyawe said and sat down so she would not have to cook anymore.  “More than old enough to start acting mature.”  She gave the boys a sharp look and they pretended not to notice.  “You remember Beltain and that great migration from Caana to the land of Sumer.  You were there I think when she got called off at the end.  Doctor Mishka was needed.  You see, without the good Doctor, they would never have survived, even being gods.  Their mother gave me a special dispensation so I could check on them from time to time and make sure all the extraordinary measures it took to save their lives were still in order and without complications.  They kind of have to obey.  Personally, I think I grew too much skull and made them into hardheaded knuckleheads.  But I love them dearly as if they were my own.”

            Marduk and Assur looked up at her when she said that.  They looked surprised, and pleased, and Assur appeared to form a little tear in his eye.  Eliyawe did not see because she turned to Elias.  “Husband.  I think I am going to be a strict mother.  I hope you don’t mind.”  She pecked at his lips and his hand came up to touch his lips, but his eyes went out of focus and looked up at the darkening sky.

            “Lost,” Jonas said.  “Now he’ll be dreaming all night about being a father.  How about you people.  Do you have any children?”

            Katie found Jonas looking at her.  She pointed at Lockhart.  “Oh, we’re not married.”

            “Us neither,” Boston looked at Roland.  “Not yet anyway.”

            “I haven’t asked her yet,” Roland admitted in front of everyone.

            “We have three so far,” Alexis sat up.  Lincoln kept his arm around her to protect and support her.  “I would like another.”  Lincoln said nothing.

            Clearly Jonas wanted to ask more, but once Alexis was out of her weeping, Roland could no longer contain himself.  “What about father?”  he asked.  “Alexis, where is he?”

            “I don’t know.”  Alexis’ voice was soft and she shook her head.  “When Atonas left in the morning, Father woke and said I should rest.  He said I had been on watch all night by myself and needed my sleep.  He seemed perfectly normal.  But when I woke, he had packed up his tent and things, saddled up and left.  And he left the camp in disarray, so I wondered if perhaps he swallowed some of the poison he pulled out of me. 

            “LSD,” Lincoln told her.

            “But in a day or two it will work out of the system and in the lake and the sea it will sink and not be a hazard.  The streams will be clean again and people will be normal soon enough.”

            “Father has the prototype.”  Alexis looked at Boston first before she returned her eyes to her brother Roland.

            “The what?”  Lockhart asked.

            “He has the prototype amulet that leads him to the next time gate.  He took it from the history department on Avalon.  He worked on it.  That is how he took me into the past when he first kidnapped me.”

            “You mean I don’t have the only one?”  Boston pulled hers out from beneath her shirt and looked at it carefully before she also looked at Roland.

            “So when he sobers up, he should be able to follow us well enough.”  Captain Decker spoke and Alexis nodded.  “So no need to mount a search and rescue mission,” he concluded.

            People paused to think and eventually looked at Lockhart.  Lockhart looked at Roland and Alexis because it was their father.

            “Father can take care of himself,” Roland said and Alexis nodded her agreement with that assessment.

            “Good,” Eliyawe jumped up.  “Because it would probably be best if you were gone by the time the gods wake up.”  She began to wiggle.  “I’m hungry.”  Then she began to sing and dance while she waited.  “Something, something runnin’.  Da-da-da-da-da-da.  Head out on the highway.  Da-da-da-da-da-da.  Lookin’ for adventure.  Da-da-da-da-da-da.  And whatever comes my way.  Hey!  Lincoln.  Get out the database.  I am sure I loaded Steppenwolf in there.”

            Everyone’s eyes shifter to Lincoln.  “There is an extensive music library in here,” he said, but he did not look up at the others.  He had not exactly been forthcoming with that information.  It took a second, and the music started plenty loud.  Boston jumped up and joined in the dance.  Katie looked at Lockhart and he shook his head.

            “Not on a bet.” 

            Captain Decker added his own thoughts, unasked.  “Not even under torture.”

            But after a moment, Assur and Marduk joined the girls and then the nymphs joined the dance as well.  And they all danced in the campfire light in 3366 BC as the sound echoed across the plains of Meggido and bounced off the mountains and Eliyawe, her hands over her head to show off her long legs and her skinny butt wiggling away sang, “Born to be wild … “

###

            The travelers have no control over the time gates, like what period it will be in the life of the Kairos when they enter a new time zone.  The Kairos might be old, middle aged, young as Eliyawe, or as in the next zone, a child.  Somehow, though, even childhood does not prevent the Kairos from being at the center of a swirl of trouble. 

Avalon 2.11:  Scorpion … Next Time

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Avalon 2.10: Retrieval

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            Tiamut is dead.  Osiris is in the coffin headed back to Egypt.  Assur and Marduk are present, very young and inclined to argue without Eliyawe’s intervention.  It was an interesting lunch, but now it is time to retrieve their friends.

###

            They left the horses with the Nymphs to guard them and walked across the field.  There were boulders scattered around the base of a hill, and a cave a short way up the hillside.  Roland reported that they were in the cave.

            Roland and Boston walked carefully toward one of the boulders, uncertain as to what to expect.  Marduk and Assur came a step behind them with their eyes wide.  Lockhart knew of no way to confront whoever they might be except directly.   Captain Decker spoke first.

            “Lieutenant Harper,” he said, and Katie looked up.  Decker signaled with one hand and Katie nodded. 

            “What language was that?”  Lockhart asked.

            Katie smiled for him, then spoke with a straight face.  “Marine language.”  The two marines separated and went to where they could draw a bead on the cave, each from a different angle.  Lockhart kept Lincoln with him to prevent the man from running out or doing something stupid.

            Eliyawe, Elias, Jonas and Atonas walked up in the open.  They figured they were out of bowshot range, so they did not worry.  They were talking and laughing and having a good time.  They only paused when Lockhart stood and shouted toward the cave.

            “Alexis!”

            The answer came back at once.  “I’m here, Robert.”  Lockhart stepped on Lincoln’s foot so he would not go running out.

            “You get one chance,” Lockhart shouted.  “Return Alexis unharmed and we will let you live.”

            They were answered with gunfire.  They had Alexis’ pistol.  Lockhart took the first in his shoulder.  Eliyawe swore and shoved Atonas and Jonas behind a boulder.  Elias followed as Eliyawe called out and her clothes were instantly replaced with fine chain armor over leather.  The suit came complete with boots to the knees, gloves to the elbows, a long white cape that fluttered in the wind and a helmet that made the face hard to see.  She had weapons at her back, including a long sword.

            “Hey,” Elias said.  “You got your sword back.”

            “What, this old thing?”  It was not Eliyawe’s voice.  “Zoe,” the woman gave her name as she stepped out from behind the boulder.  Three bullets came straight to her, but they did not appear to touch her.  Zoe lifted her hand and the pistol came flying out of the cave and landed in her hand.  Then something else came from the cave.  It was dark and faceless and looked like strips of black cloth flying in the wind.  It was a wraith, and Zoe shouted to Boston.

            “Little Fire, make a lasso.”

            “What?”

            “Rodeo queen, make a lasso from your fire.”

            A whole bunch of western, rodeo images flashed through Boston’s mind, but she was not sure she could make a lasso from fire.  She looked at Roland and heard a sound over her shoulder.

            “Eee-ha!”  It was Marduk, dressed in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and he was twirling a lasso of light and shouting.  He caught the wraith by the head and yanked it to the ground.

              “Hog tie it,” Boston yelled, and Assur flew forward while Marduk kept the rope taught, and in the blink of an eye had the wraith tied, arms behind and one foot with them.  He even stood and raised his arms.  Too bad there was no crowd to cheer.  Boston applauded and Roland joined her.

            Meanwhile, Zoe stepped up to the cave.  The giant was just inside the light, afraid to come out.  It was not connected to the Masters, but a useful tool.  Zoe knew this one was not entirely a fool, just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Several arrows came in her direction, but never touched her as she thought things through.

            Alexis was not beaten badly, and through use of her magic and her fairy weave, which covered her again every time a piece was  taken off her, she was not raped.  Zoe waved her hand and the frightened giant became a little person, just three and a half feet tall.  He vanished from the cave entrance and appeared in the midst of Jonas, Atonas and Elias who sat on him to keep him quiet.

            “Alexis!”  Lincoln came running up at that point.  Lockhart could not hold him.  Katie had abandoned her post and was presently holding Lockhart up and they were watching the Gaian chits in his system push the bullet out of the wound.  It fell to the dirt and the wound began to close up and heal.

            “Benjamin!”  Alexis shouted back.  There were two men determined to carry out the rape, but Zoe got there first and brought Lincoln along.  He and Alexis hugged and kissed while the Queen of the Amazon pantheon get very angry, again.  Zoe made sure those two men would never rape anyone again, ever.  Then she waved her hand again and all six men and three women were tied like the wraith. 

            It was Eliyawe who shouted from the cave entrance.  Zoe was still too angry.  “You can come up now.  Alexis is alright.  No Mingus.  Lockhart?”

            “Here,” Katie answered.  “We are fine.”

            “What are we supposed to do with this little one?”  Elias yelled.

            “Stay where you are for now,” Eliyawe answered.

            Elias looked at the little one he was sitting on.  “You heard my wife.  I try not to argue with my wife.”

            “Wise,” Jonas said and Atonas nodded.

            “Get off me, you elephant,” the former giant complained.

            “Boys, bring the wraith.”

            “Yes, Mam.  Glad to oblige. Shuckins, ‘twern’t nothing.””

            Lincoln walked a weeping Alexis out of the cave.  She had enough fairy weave left to cover her private parts and her breasts, but that was it.  Roland and Boston met her at the cave entrance and Roland handed back all the fairy weave cloth he picked up along the trail.  It merged back into the rest of her cloth and quickly formed a proper dress and shoes.  And the twins only whistled once as they marched by with the screaming wraith in tow.  The wraith was not hurt or mad at being tied.  It was screaming because it realized just who had tied it and the wrath of the gods was a terrible thing to behold, even in those two.

            “Toss her in here,” Eliyawe said.  “Now make sure they are all tied tight.”  She took Marduk’s and Assur’s hands and changed to Junior.  They were in the dark where no one would see them.  He left a message from the three of them when the signal he set up was followed by the gods of El’s court.  “These serve the Masters, not you.  If they are left to live, they will try some new horror.  We leave them for your pleasure to do with them as you will.”

            Then Eliyawe returned and brought the boys back out into the light.  They were looking at her with wide eyes.

            “That was amazing, how you did that.”

            “That was so sophisticated.”

            “Hush,” Eliyawe quieted them.  “We have about three or four days before the LSD is fully broken down and the gods should awake, and we have a long way to go to reach Egypt.  Seal the cave, but leave a small air pocket so they don’t suffocate.”

            “Really?  Can we?  Is it okay?  Yeee-ha!”

            “Boys,” Eliyawe rolled her eyes and grinned at Boston and Alexis as they all ran down the hill to the safety of the plains.  The earth began to shake, and all at once the front of the cave collapsed.  It formed a perfect seal with only a small hole here and there for air.

 ###

Avalon 2.10:  Loose Ends … Next Time

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Avalon 2.10: Lunch and Stories

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            While on the trail for Alexis and Mingus, the travelers first found the Kairos, Eliyawe, a skinny young girl in a mini skirt with nice long legs that she obviously liked to show off, who seemed to be suffering from ADHD, at the least.  She had several men and women with her, as well as a floating coffin, but had yet to get through the introductions without interrupting herself.

###

            “Boys,”  Eliyawe’s voice grabbed their attention again.  “Leave the fisherman alone.  I want you to meet Roland, the hunter.”

            “Hello,” they said before they ran to the horses.  “What are these?  Where did you get them?  Which is the fastest?  Can I have one?”

            “Children, come and sit.”  Eliyawe made them sit down where Elder Stow was building a fire.  “Now behave so we can have a nice lunch.”  Eliyawe turned to Boston and rolled her eyes in a very Boston-like manner.  “Boys,” she said with a liberal dose of sarcasm.

            “I understand,” Boston said and rolled her eyes in return.

            Roland provided a deer, but it took time to cook.  Elder Stow made a small force field around them so they could let the horses out to graze without worrying about them watering.  Katie and Boston argued a bit about the cooking.  Lincoln sounded morose when he talked.

            “Alexis is a great cook.”

            “And I am sure we will enjoy her cooking when we get her back,” Lockhart said.  And he explained to Eliyawe and the others what they were doing.  They expected to catch up, soon.  Lincoln threw the grass he had yanked out of the ground, but he said nothing.

            “Maybe we could help them?” Elias suggested with a look at his wife.  Eliyawe squinted at him. 

            “I thought you were my husband,” she said.  He nodded.

            “So how far ahead of you do you figure,”  Elias spoke to Lockhart and Eliyawe grinned and took her husband’s arm.

            “Sometime this afternoon.”  Lockhart said, but he looked at Roland for confirmation.

            “Sooner than that,” Roland said.  “I think they saw the Kairos coming from in front of them and with us following they scooted out between us and are hold up somewhere in the rocks there where the hills really start to rise.”

            “What?”  Lincoln sat straight up to look.

            “Relax,” Lockhart held him back.

            “So who is in the box?”  Decker changed the subject when he could not suppress his curiosity any longer.  He slept in an Agdaline box for 500 years, so he was curious.

            “Osiris,” Elias answered and Eliyawe nodded.

            “We are returning him to Egypt,” she said.  “The nymphs of the swamps of Lebanon are doing penance and carrying the coffin.

            “Nymphs?”  The men reacted.  Jonas and Elias looked embarrassed for some reason.

            “Osiris?” Katie also reacted.  “You mean, the Osiris?”

            “Hey.” Lincoln looked at Elyawe with sudden curiosity.  “Which ding dong the Witch is dead?”

            “Tiamut,” Eliyawe said.  “Set planned the whole thing so Osiris would snuff it away from Egypt.  The Masters are working for Tiamut, more or less.  They seeded the streams with the drug.  Tiamut was hoping the gods would go crazy, but it just put them all to sleep for a time.  Some universal default or something would be my guess.”

            Atonas could not contain himself any longer.  “You slew Chaos?  You killed the great and terrible goddess?”  He fell at Eliyawe’s feet and dared not lift his eyes. 

            “Not me,” Eliyawe said.  “All I did was stab her in her big toe.  Broke my best sword, too, and dern, it was my new one.”  Eliyawe shrugged.  “You want the slayer of Tiamut, look to Marduk and Assur.”

            “The Marduk and Assur?” Katie started again but several people yelled at her in case she said something about the future that was best not to mention.

            “I like that phrase, “The” Marduk and Assur,” Assur said.  “But it would be better to say “The” Assur and Marduk.”

            “Yes,” Marduk ignored his brother and spoke in feigned humility.  “I slew chaos for all time.”

            “Ha!  I slew Chaos.”  Assur countered, but Marduk had already jumped to his feet.

            “There she was, a true titan, terrible to behold, but I found the courage to rise up into her face, the very face of death.  I brought my great sword down upon her head and cut her in two so her brains leaked out.  And by the fire in my loins, I set her mind ablaze until it became but ash to blow away on the wind.”

            “Ha!”  Assur had a counter story.  “I rose up to her great maw that was swallowing the light itself and looked big and dark enough to swallow the very sun.  I smote her breast and cut off the paps that fed the world with destruction.  I bore a great hole in her chest and tore out her heart.  This I crushed with my bare hands.”

            “Her heart was only about this big,” Marduk pinched his fingers together to show how small it was.

            “It was not.”

            “It was too.”

            Eliyawe whistled and Marduk and Assur  fell silent.  “Actually, Tiamut was about to step on me and squish me like a bug, and my boys found the courage to finish the job.  Thanks for saving my life, boys.”

            “Aw, hush.  Think nothing of it.  You are more than welcome.  The least we could do.”

            “Twins,” Lincoln said.  “Identical.”

            “So which is older?”

            “Hey!”  Eliyawe intervened before the argument started.  “They were both born at exactly the same time, joined together at the top of their heads.  Doctor Mishka had a hard time separating them.  She had to re-grow the skulls and do some dermal regeneration and stimulate the hair follicles and voila!  Better then a plate in their heads.”  Eliyawe smiled until she saw Marduk open his mouth.  “And they both got an equal number of brain cells down to the micro-nano level, so there.”  Eliyawe stuck her tongue out at the boys.

            Elias got Atonas back up and sat him between himself and Jonas.  Jonas had to lean over to speak.  “You know, I still only understand about one in three words your wife says.  Very disturbing.”

            “Ha!”  Elias said in imitation of Assur.  “What is really disturbing is I am starting to understand the most of it.”  Eliyawe tightened her grip on Elias’ arm and robbed her head against his shoulder like a kitty  All that was missing was the purr.

            They all heard a click.  Captain Decker had his rifle at hand.  “Lunch is over,” he said.  “Time to get our missing travelers.”

            “Thank you.”  Lincoln stood straight up.

### 

Avalon 2.10:  Retrieval … Next Time

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Avalon 2.10: Eliyawe and Company

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            Lincoln has great hopes of finding his wife, Alexis, and Roland has equally high hopes of finding both her, and their father Mingus, but the place where they expected to find them turned out to be a ruined camp.  They determined from the lack of bodies that they are likely still alive, they have been taken by someone, but they are on foot.  The travelers believe it should not be too hard to catch them on horseback.  What they will find as to who took them is the question. 

###

            The travelers followed the trail as far as they could into the night, but eventually had to pitch a light camp, eat, and give their horses a rest.  They were up with the sun and moving again, headed to the north and west toward Lebanon and the coast

            Decker took the flank.  Lincoln and Elder Stow stayed in the middle as usual, with Lockhart and Katie watching all of their backs.  Roland and Boston, and that meant Atonas who knew something about the land were out front.  Roland, to be sure they stayed on course, and Boston, to be sure they did not get too far off course as far as the next time gate was concerned,

            Every now and then Roland would ride ahead to a place where he could stop and check the signs of passage.  Once, he came back to Boston and whispered.  “They are not alone.”  Boston looked up and he explained.  “I don’t want to say anything yet because I am not certain, but they are traveling with a ghoul, perhaps, or a wraith and a giant, I would guess about ten feet tall.”

            Boston nodded and looked back to be sure the others did not hear.  Atonis spoke up.

            “I knew a giant once,” Atonas spoke loud and clear.  “Not an Amalakite.  I have to say that back home because everyone in Caana hears giant and automatically thinks Amalakite.”

            Boston rolled her eyes.  Lincoln, Katie and Lockhart were all staring at her.  “Roland thinks they may have a giant with them.  Not confirmed.”

            “Yes, he was taller than me on this beast.  Nice fellow.  Drank too much.”

            “Thank you for your insight,” Lincoln quipped from behind and did nothing to disguise the sarcasm.

            “Glad to help,” Atonas responded.  “Of course you have to be careful with giants.  Some are quite bright, but even the dumb ones can be very clever.  Not a good idea to make them mad either.”

            Lincoln joined Boston in eye rolling.  Elder Stow found the whole thing quite amusing.

            “Hold up.” Decker rode in from the flank and the party stopped moving to hear the news.  “People approaching.  Four men and five women, and they have a box with them that looks like a coffin.”

            Katie got out her rifle.  Lincoln, Boston and Lockhart all checked their side arms.  They started forward again at a slow walk until Decker had them dismount at the base of a ridge which was barely more than a long lump in the ground.  There were trees where they tied off the horses, still afraid the horses might wander to the nearest stream.  Roland and Boston agreed to watch the horses while the rest climbed the ridge to have a look.

            “No Alexis or Mingus,” Elder Stow stated the obvious.

            “No giant or other spookies either,” Katie added as she handed her binoculars to an overly anxious Lincoln.

            “A strange crew,” Decker said.  The casket was floating along without anyone touching it.  Even the telekinetic Shemsu needed to raise their hands and focus on such an object to move it.  But here, four rather scantily clad women merely walked at each of the four corners.  Two young men walked side by side, and the fat one sweating like they had been walking for some time.  The skinny young girl in the super short miniskirt and the other two young men, identical twins, appeared to be dancing along.  The young girl was singing, though it took a few minutes before they were within range to hear the song.

            “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.  Which old witch?  The wicked witch.”

            “Eliyawe,” Katie said through her grin.  It could not possibly be anyone else.  Lockhart stood and waved and instantly found himself frozen in place. Everyone was frozen, including Roland, Boston and the horses who were out-of-sight.

            “Marduk!”  Eliyawe used her scolding voice as she huffed and puffed her way up the ridge.  “Let these people go.  These are friends of mine.”

            “Blame me?  Assur must have done it.”

            “I did not,” Assur protested.

            “Well it wasn’t me,” Marduk responded.

            “Well it wasn’t me either.”

            “Hey!”  Eliyawe put her fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle.  “Would you boys please set them free.  I don’t care which one.”

            Marduk and Assur looked properly scolded and the travelers could move again.

            “Eliyawe!” Lockhart shouted and finished his wave before he realized what happened and Eliyawe was now in front of his face.  Eliyawe played along.  She took two steps back, waved and shouted.

            “Lockhart!”  She grinned.

            The two other men then joined them, the fat one huffing and puffing.  The women surrounding the casket also started up the ridge and they all noticed the women at the back levitated in order to keep the casket level.

            Eliyawe immediately went into the introductions.  “This strapping, handsome young man is Elias, my husband.  His wild and crazy friend is Jonas.”

            “Not anymore,” Jonas spoke up as he shook hands with everyone.  “I have given up my wild and crazy.  Eliyawe owns the wild and crazy country and I can’t compete.  Sorry, Elias, but she is all yours.”  He tapped his friend on the shoulder as every eye turned to stare at the young man.  He was not put off.

            “And she is all I want,” he said.  Eliyawe shrieked and tackled him.  She landed on top of him and he grinned the whole time, especially when she wiggled a little.

            “They’ve been married, what, twenty days?,” Jonas said.  No one else said anything, especially the women.  They were too busy smiling, including Boston who climbed up from below to see what was happening.

            Eliyawe turned her head and tossed it to get her hair out of her eyes.  She stared at Jonas through big, brown eyes and said, “A whole month if you don’t mind.”  Then she saw Boston and abandoned her husband to shout, “Boston!”  And she ran to give her a hug.  Then she hugged all the women.  Then she kissed Lockhart on the cheek and got to Lincoln where she stopped.  “Okay,” she said.  “What is going on?”

            “Down below,” Lockhart pointed.  “We build a fire, have lunch and figure out our next move.”

            “But Alexis,” Lincoln protested.

            “That’s an order,” Lockhart said as he took Katie’s hand to help her down the hill, not that she needed help.

            “Order?  You’re resorting to orders?”  Lincoln stomped past and grumbled the whole way.

            “My father,” Elder Stow stepped up to Lockhart.  “He should treat you with more respect.”

            Lockhart looked at the Gott-Druk.  “I know where his heart is.  I trust him implicitly.  No need to make a scene.  He will get over it.”

            The Gott-Druk paused to think and later was surprised to see Lockhart’s wisdom.  “I did not know humans could be so wise,” he said.

            Poor Atonas had to walk sandwiched between Marduk and Assur.  He knew who they were even if the others did not.  He was terrified to the point of being ready to wet his pants at any moment.  “I think I will claim this one,” Marduk said.

            “Atonas the fisherman?  What, are you going to have fish in your temple every day?”

            “Maybe.”

            “Too bad you don’t have a temple.”

            “You don’t either.”

            “Neither do you.”

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Avalon 2.10:  Lunch and Stories … Next Time

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Avalon 2.10: Friend

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            The travelers appear to have walked into a world of madness, a derivative of LSD poisoning all the water in the area.  The experience is surreal, but one thing is most curious.  A local fisherman calls to them, “Friend, friend,” and it is in twenty-first century English.

###

            “Friend.  Ride horse.  Come.  Follow.  Friend ride horse.  Come.”  The man pointed up the lakeshore and repeated the word, “Friend.”  No one had to guess that he wanted them to follow.  After a moment Lincoln said that it must be Alexis and everyone was surprised at how calm he sounded.  Everyone was also annoyed at how slowly they moved along the edge of the lake.  They offered the man a lift and promised to use Captain Decker’s rope to bring the boat, but the man refused to leave the lake.

            “Good water,” he said and pointed toward the depths.  “Water good.”  Elder Stow agreed.  He checked and shared that it would take a long time to contaminate such a large body of water.

            The evening was quiet apart from Lincoln’s impatience.  They butchered a cow when Elder Stow suggested there were only traces of the drug.  “But I would not recommend such a diet for more than a few days.”

            Their fire could be seen for miles, but they were not worried.  The only thing they imagined they might attract would be crazy people and animals under the influence.

            “I don’t get it.”  Boston spoke up from the security of Roland’s arms.  “How can all the streams feeding into the Sea of Galilee be tainted with LSD?”

            “Human intervention,” Lockhart suggested.  He looked at Katie who was beside him, and she nodded her agreement before she spoke.

            “The phenomenon is too wide-spread for a natural occurrence.”

            “As I am thinking,” Elder Stow said.  “The formula is too complex and enhanced to be natural, the way it defies light and air and holds together in the water instead of being diluted and dissipating.”

            Lincoln grabbed a piece of beef from the fire and chewed slowly as he read from the database.  The horses were tied for the night so they would not wander off in search of a cool drink.  The tents were not set up.  Everyone expected to sleep around the campfire.  He looked at the simple boat of Atonas the fisherman, which he finally pulled up on shore when he agreed to join them for supper.  It was hardly bigger than a row boat.  It had a simple sail, and Atonas had a long pole which he used to move the boat along the shoreline.  He went back to his book as Atonas spoke.

            “The gods are all asleep.”  It was not in English.  It was his native tongue, but everyone understood what he said.  It was one of the gifts given by the Kairos just before he jumped into the void of the Second Heavens.  He gave them the ability to be understood and understand, whatever the local language along with a never-ending supply of vitamins, elf bread crackers and bullets.  Lockhart felt they had depended on the bullets far too much, especially for people who were trying to skip through history to get back to the future without disturbing any more than they had to.

            “What do you mean, asleep?”  Lockhart asked with another glance at Katie.

            “The man in his own world would be sensitive to the disposition of his own gods.  You remember Faya’s people.  Her whole world went to war when the gods of Aesgard and Vanheim went to war,” Katie responded.

            “I mean asleep, like you and I will do soon.  They tasted the water and fell asleep.”

            “Good thing they are not hallucinating,” Lincoln said as he switched off the database and prepared for sleep, now that the subject had come up.

            “I was thinking the drugs might be because of the gods in some way,” Boston suggested.

            “I don’t think they work that way,” Captain Decker said as he checked his rifle.  He was taking the first watch in the night.

            “I can’t imagine any of them being so incompetent as to put themselves asleep,” Katie responded.

            “Tiamut might.”

            That made everyone pause before Lockhart spoke again.  “But I cannot think of what she is doing that would risk the ire of all the gods by putting them to sleep, even temporarily.”

            “It does give one pause,” Elder Stow said as he laid down in fetal position to sleep.

            “But tell me.”  Atonas had something on his mind.  “This most beautiful woman, Alexis.  You know her well?”

            “She is my wife,” Lincoln said as he turned his back on the fire.

            Atonas looked disappointed.  “You are the most fortunate of men.”  No one said much after that so it was not long before the rest got on their blankets.  Boston stayed right where she was, in Roland’s arms.  Atonas walked back to the shore to sleep in his boat.

            It was mid-afternoon when the travelers reached the far Northern end of the Sea of Galilee.  The Golan heights were ahead on their right and the hills of Lebanon were several miles yet straight ahead of them.

            “Eliyawe is still off to the left, likely near the coast,” Boston reported as she checked her amulet.  “But she appears to be headed this way, probably headed home after whatever it was she was doing.”

            “Probably knows her only source of clean water will be Galilee,” Roland suggested.

            “This does not look good,” Katie Harper said softly as she handed her binoculars to Lockhart.  Captain Decker lowered his binoculars and retrieved his rifle.

            “What?”  Lincoln asked, but no one answered, and no one handed him binoculars to take a look. 

            Atonas had gotten ahead of them when they stopped to check the lay of the land and which way to go, but when Lockhart said, “Ride,” they rode right passed his slow movement along the shore.

            There was a camp up ahead where Alexis and her father Mingus had settled in either for the night or, less likely, to wait for them.  The camp was torn up, the fairy weave tents collapsed, the campfire kicked around, Alexis’ medical bag was dumped and the vitamins and elf crackers were spread all over.  The pot Alexis used to boil water to turn the elf crackers into bread was there and dented.  And Alexis and Mingus were not to be found.

            “Alexis!”  Lincoln only shouted her name once before he dismounted to look for signs of passage.  Roland was also on the ground looking at the signs.  As a hunter, he understood more of what he was looking at.

            “Eight or ten people.  No more than a dozen.  They appear headed for Lebanon, or at least the coast.”

            “Right direction,” Boston said as she dropped the reigns of Roland’s horse, jumped up on Honey’s back and headed out across the grasses.  There was a horse out there, attracted to movement in the camp.  It was Alexis’ horse, Misty Gray.  Boston had no trouble catching the animal.

            “Alright people,” Lockhart got everyone’s attention.  “Pick up everything you can find, all the equipment and let’s get it loaded first.  Then we can follow and maybe find them.”

            “No dead bodies near.”  Elder Stow had his scanner out.

            “No sign of much of a struggle despite the disarray of the camp,” Lincoln noted.  He had worked for the CIA before joining the Men in Black so Lockhart accepted that he knew what he was talking about.

            “Good reason to believe they are still alive,” Katie spoke up from where she was gathering and compressing a fairy weave tent.

            “The Lady?” Atonas spoke up from the lake as his boat arrived.

            “Tell me,” Lincoln confronted the man as the man came ashore.  “How did you meet her.  What did she say.”

            “Please, please.  I know nothing of this,” he insisted.  “I saw the campfire three days ago back where we camped last night.  I came to warn them about the water, but it was too late.  The woman had already taken the poison.  Her father did great magic and I saw the poison escape her with my own eyes.  It was red, like blood and yellow, like piss.  It came right out of her mouth.  I swear.  Then her father slept from such effort while the lady instructed me.  She said you were following and I should look for you.  She said she would delay her father at the head of the lake, here.  Please, I left in the morning to look and found you, but I know nothing of this.”

            “Fair enough,” Lockhart stepped up and put a hand on Lincoln’s shoulder.  Lincoln said nothing.  He returned to his horse.  “We are going to find her,” Lockhart told Atonas.

            “I can come?  Do you promise the big beast will not bite me?”

            “He could ride Misty,” Boston suggested as she came up close.  She was still on Honey’s back and managed to miss the whole clean-up operation.

            “I have clean water,” Atonas said, and he lifted two wineskins filled with lake water.  There were more.

            “All right,” Lockhart agreed.  “Elder Stow, help me get these water skins and see that everyone gets at least one.  Elder Stow said nothing, but Boston had something more to say.

            “Hold on with your legs, try not to bounce too much and hold on here to the saddle horn.  I have Misty tied to my saddle so you won’t have to worry about steering or anything.  That’s it.  And trust me, you will only be sore for the first two or three days.

 ###

Avalon 2.10:  Eliyawe and Company … Next Time

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Avalon 2.10: Born To Be Wild

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After 3383 BC in Caana/Southern Lebanon  Kairos life 30: Eliyawe

Recording…

            The travelers exited the time gate by the sea of Galilee and headed north, which was unexpected.  Lincoln had read from the database that Eliyawe lived her whole life not too far east of Salem, about where Bethlehem would be one day.  He suggested they might come out near the Dead Sea, or travel too it from the north, but that was not the case.  They were headed toward Lebanon instead, and Lincoln was searching the database to find out why.

            This was hot, dry country, full of sand even as far in the past as they were.  But it was also grasslands, suitable for simple agriculture and animal husbandry, and still sparsely populated enough so families could do very well.  They saw smoke rise from a village up ahead, but first they came to a small stream that ran into the lake.

            Boston got down and walked to the water.  She was thirsty because she was still healing.  The others and the horses waited, all having had their fill on tributaries of the Danube in the last time zone.  They took the time to look around while Elder Stow got out his scanner to get a reading on the water.  It was their habit to check the streams and ponds before drinking, just to be safe, and though they all had the necessary equipment in their bags to do so, they found it easier, and more accurate to let the Gott-Druk do it for them.

            The reading took a moment and Boston sipped a little from her hand until Elder Stow shouted, “Hold!”

            “What?”  Boston froze and looked at the Elder while other heads also turned.

            “There is something in the water.  A very complex molecule.  Give me a moment.”  Boston dropped the water from her hand and backed up.  “Ah!”  Elder Stow smiled.  “Lysergic acid diethylamide.  Not what anyone would expect.”

            “LSD?”  Lincoln spouted even as Boston started to throw-up.  Roland was right there to hold her.  Katie commented.

            “Looks like those Gaian healing chits are still doing their job, ejecting the poison.”

            Lockhart got down from his horse to hold on to Roland’s and Boston’s horses.  “Yes, but that has to be painful.”  Boston was holding her stomach where she had been wounded.  “Keep the horses back,” he added.

            “But I thought air and light were enemies of LSD,” Lincoln spoke up.  “And in the water it has to be terribly diluted.”

            “A derivative,” Elder Stow suggested, “with added properties the scanner is still analyzing.  It can occur naturally in some forms of mold that attack certain grains like rye and barley.”

            “Common grains to this part of the world,” Katie said.

            “Look.”  Captain Decker had his binoculars out and interrupted everyone as he pointed.

            Katie Harper got her binoculars and took a look before she handed them to Lockhart.  There were rabbits, a whole warren on a rise beside the stream, but they were fighting each other, and drawing blood.  Several looked dead.”

            “Madness,” Elder Stow breathed.

            “And more madness up ahead, I’ll bet,” Lincoln handed the binoculars back to Decker.

            “We are ready.” Roland helped a shaky Boston get up on Honey’s back, and they rode on, eyes open.

            They found cattle outside the village chasing their tails.  “I’ve seen this in Africa,” Lincoln reported.  “There is a kind of fly that crawls inside a cow’s ear to lay its eggs.  The larva eat the cow’s brains.  They will collapse from exhaustion after a while.”

            “But no such flies here,” Katie said.  “I hope,” and suddenly her ear itched.

            They saw no people at all when they first entered the village.  They paused at the center only when they heard yelling.  Two naked men came from behind a building and ran across the village center without so much as noticing the strangers.  They were followed by a half-dozen almost equally naked women with hoes and pitchforks.  Only one of the women stopped, turned and stared at them like she was trying to bring the picture into focus.  When she did, she screamed which got the attention of the others.

            “Monsters!”  The woman screamed the word and pointed at the travelers up on their horses.  The other women all dropped their farm-implements and scattered.  The men ran off across the open field.

            No one said anything.  What could they say?  Boston said she was feeling better and as far as she knew she was not hallucinating.  Lockhart mentioned the Gaian chits again, but otherwise they simply moved on.

            Outside the village, where it edged up to the sea of Galilee, there was a fisherman who waved to them and kept a big smile on his face. “Friend,” he said.  “Friend.”  It was Elder Stow who realized the man was speaking in English.

 ###

Avalon 2.10:  Friend … Next Time

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Avalon 2.9 In the Night, Dark and Light

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            Black Sea snake.  I understand at sea they were sometimes confused with sea serpents, but they were not made to survive rifles and a double barreled shotgun.  But the travelers have virtues that most people in 3420 BC cannot imagine, and some that people in the twenty-first century might not imagine, like Gaian healing chits.  Hopefully they are transferable and will work.  Slow poison is not a good way to die.

###

            The sun fell to the western horizon, but it would be some time before they knew if the healing chits of the Gaian would be effective on Boston and Kined.  Flern stayed beside Kined and Roland stayed beside Boston, but Flern made Riah get up and help the others.  They were planning something.

            Once the dark was well along, with the moon near new so it was very dark, Riah, Elder Stow, Captain Decker and Lieutenant Harper moved slowly across the grass.  Goldenwing flew between them to keep them informed of their progress until they stopped where they formed a wall against the Jaccar camp.  Once they were set, Goldenwing flew back to start the others.

            Vilder and Pinn made three trips to the wagons where they got weapons to arm their group and plenty of rope so they could tie off the horses close to hand.  The others went after the horses that had wandered some distance as they grazed for two days.  The horses did tend to come near the wagons at nightfall, but not so much on this third night and some were afraid they might wander away altogether, 

            Kiren and Thrud caught two fairly quickly while Lockhart watched with his shotgun ready.  Gunder and Vinnu had a bit more trouble with Flern’s and Riah’s horses, not the least because Gunder kept having to remind Vinnu to be quiet.  Lincoln stayed with them, his pistol near to hand.

            It took most of the night, but between them thy managed to catch the nine horses ridden by the four couples and Riah, their elf guide.  Godenwing needed no horse.  He preferred to travel in his small fairy size and needed no more than a horse’s mane to rest in.  They did not find the six draft horses they had trained to pull the wagons, however, and expressed their fears.

            “Well, one good thing,” Gunder kept saying, “The Jaccar won’t be able to take the wagons either without the horses.”

            “I am sure they have gone back to the wild,” Kiren said.  He had been with Flern when they caught the horses and broke them to their task, but that was only a few months ago.

            Vilder shook his head.  “They may have just wandered out of range.”

            “I would have thought the draft horses would have stayed closest to the wagons,” Pinn said.

            Vilder shook his head again, but before he could speak there was a brilliant flash of light out over the grass.  It was far brighter and illuminated far more of the land than any eldritch fire or fairy light could hope.  There were gunshots before Goldenwing came racing back to the beach.

            “The Jaccar were trying to get to the wagons just as the friends of my Lady said they would.”  Lockhart got up quickly, prepared to run out to join the fight, but he stopped on Goldenwing’s word.  “Stay giant.  Your friends and weapons made short work of those few Jaccar.”  And the great light went out.  Moments later, Lockhart and Lincoln heard Katie and Elder Stow arguing. 

            “I did not know you had infra-red glasses,” Elder Stow sounded defensive.

            “Night goggles,” Katie responded.  “Standard issue for an assignment like this.”

            “As is the blast of light.”

            “I understand.  Just warn us next time before you pull out a new technological wonder.”

            “Yes.”  Lockhart could hear the strain in Elder Stow’s voice.  “Mother.”

            “You alright?”  Lincoln wondered as they climbed down the riverbank to the beach.

            “Seeing spots,” Captain Decker said with no other comment.

            “Hey, where are the draft horses?”  Riah was concerned to notice and ask.

            “If there were six, my people will bring them along, shortly.”  The voice came out of the dark before a man some three feet tall stepped into the firelight.  Three guns were immediately pointed at the man along with two bronze swords in the hands of Vilder and Gunder.  “Am I right to assume the Kairos is among you?”  That helped lower the guns and swords and Lockhart spoke.

            “She is with her husband.”  He pointed.

            “Shhh.”  Katie came up beside Lockhart.  “Boston and Kined are better and Flern is asleep.”

            Several eyes looked over into the shadowed area where they could just make out Flern resting on Kined’s chest and Roland still holding tight but tenderly to Boston’s hands.

            The guns and swords went all the way down as Pinn stepped up.  “We thank you, er … “

            “Pigot, and gnome is the general designation.”

            “Imp still,” a woman’s voice joined the party.  She was hardly two and a half feet tall and probably would not have topped three feet even if she was not so old and bent over.  “There’s imps and ogres all around, trolls and goblins underground, dwarves in the middle are ready to fight while elves and fairies live in the light.  All the sprits, too many to stand rest secure in the Kairos’ hand.  That’s called poetry.  I invented that.  What you got to eat around here?”

            “You invented poetry?”  Katie was stunned.

            “Well, Toth and that kid, Braggi helped some.”

            “We have elf bread,” Lincoln suggested.

            “And left over deer stew with something in it that used to be green.  Ouch.”  Kiren said ouch because Thrud, the cook hit him.

            “Please excuse Madam Livia,” Pigot spoke while the old imp scrambled down to the beach.  “She sees things and some think it has addled her brain.”

            “Addled my foot,” the old imp mumbled before she spoke up.  “Once an imp, always an imp.  That is an old and well known expression I just made up.”

            “Sees things?”  Katie wondered if this imp might be a seer, like the seers among the Amazons.

            The woman paused as she pulled up a ladle of the stew and turned up her nose.  “Sure.  Thirty goblins moving down the mountains in the dark.  Some fifty dwarfs marching through the hills and three dozen elves rowing down the river all planning to meet up with this caravan and bring the gold home.  I can see you will have to let me do the cooking.”

            “Bronze.”

            “Eh?”

            “We are bringing bronze home, not gold,” Pinn explained.

            “I think she means the stuff you value,” Pigot said.

            “So, do you need all six of those horses?”

            “Pigot smurf,” Captain Decker mumbled as he sat and enjoyed his stew and bread.  The others settled down and Riah went back to sit beside Flern and Kined.

            “Seriously.  There’s good eating on one of those horses.  Ever had horse bacon?  Makes my mouth water to think of it.”

            “Yes we need the horses!”  Vinnu yelled.  She was uncomfortable around the sprites and still was not even sure about Riah and Goldenwing.  She buried her face in big Gunder’s chest.  He didn’t mind.

            “Fogbottom,” the old imp swore as she pulled out leaves, whole branches and all sorts of spices from unknown pockets and unseen pouches.  “Might at least make this edible.”  She began to add them to the stew as the gnomes brought in the draft horses.

 ###

Avalon 2.9  Morning Surprise.

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Avalon 2.9 Healings

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            Obstacles and enemies overcome, and it looks like the travelers may have an open route to the young couples trapped on the riverbank.  Getting them out of there safely is a whole other proposition, especially when there are wounded who do not look at all well.

###

            Everyone looked up when they heard the loud cracks in the distance.  “What is that?”  Vinnu asked.  She was easily spooked and said she felt claustrophobic being trapped between the Jaccar warriors and the Danube.

            Flern stood slowly and walked toward the sounds.  “The cavalry,” she said, and then thought to offer a better explanation.  “Friends of mine, and maybe help to get out of this mess.”  Vilder and Pinn stepped up to flank Flern and they waited, but not for long.

            “Flern?”  The call came from a man on horseback.  Flern waved as the man stopped and dismounted.

            “Lockhart.  Good to see you.  You don’t want to be here.”

            “Lady!”  Roland interrupted and came up quickly.  He dismounted before his horse completely stopped and untied Boston’s stretcher from the back.  He floated it gently towards the waiting trio.  “Lady.  It’s Boston.  She’s been shot.”  Boston was presently delirious with fever.

            “Let me see.”  Flern stepped up as Roland butted in front of Lockhart and stepped down on the small beach. 

            “Elder Stow got the arrow out of her middle, but she appears to be getting worse, not better.  Is it an infection?  Is Alexis near?”

            “Bring her,” Flern said, but as she turned, Kined spoke up.

            “Flern!”  He called to her and lifted a hand to reach for her.

            “He has a bad fever,” Riah reported.

            “Make a place,” Flern said, and Vilder and Pinn helped so Flern could set Boston beside Kined.  “My husband took an arrow in the leg.  Doctor Mishka treated the wound so it can’t be an infection.  I don’t know what to do.”  Flern looked up at Thrud and Kiren, Gunder and Vinnu, but they were keeping back, wary of these strangers.

            “Slow poison?”  Pinn suggested.  “That is all we could think of.”  She looked up at Vilder who nodded. 

            “What is the situation?”  Katie asked as she, Lincoln and Lockhart came up.  Captain Decker was already in among the trees that grew along the riverbank, trying to see some evidence of the enemy.  There were campfires, but well behind a rise in the grasslands.

            While Roland and Riah passed some unspoken elfish words, eye to eye, Flern squeezed Kined’s hand and stood.  “Katie.  We got bronze.”  She pointed to the idle wagons out in the field. 

            “What?  No.”  Katie, the group expert in ancient cultures and technologies was impressed.  This was a big step in the development of civilization.

            Flern just nodded and fought the tears in her eyes.  “We got it to arm our people against the Jaccar.  Our village is captive to the Wicca.”  She broke down and fell on Kined.  “We have only been married a month.  I don’t want to lose him.”

            Lockhart looked at Elder Stow who was the last to vacate the edge of the grasses for the beach.  He just shook his head, sadly, to say there was nothing he could do against slow poison.

            “Alexis could pull it out the way she and Anenki’s daughter did back in that time zone,” Lincoln said.  “Maybe one of the gods?”  He looked at Flern but she sadly shook her head.

            “The gods are not permitted to interfere or Mother Vrya or Artemis would have done so.  And as for me, this is not exactly time threatening.  These are human problems and must be solved in a human way.”  Flern sniffed.  “Or not.”

            Goldenwing chose that moment to rush up.  He fluttered briefly out over the river and returned  “My lady,” he said.  “Beware.”  The water began to roll, and close to shore.  “Black sea snake.”  And the snake rose out of the water some fifteen feet in the air to hover over those on the riverbank.  It began to weave and spread its cobra-like head in preparation for feeding.  The mouth was easily big enough to swallow a person whole.

            Thrud, Vinnu and Lincoln all screamed, and Lincoln added, “I hate snakes.”  But then the snake struck.  It dropped straight toward Vinnu and big Gunder was barely able to pull her out of the way in time for the snake to eat dirt.  The snake tried to move laterally with the young woman, but there were several, sudden loud cracks, and the snakes eye poured out blood.  It squirmed more rapidly than its strike, and even as Lockhart unloaded his shotgun which turned the snake’s neck to mush, the head caught him in the shoulder, bowled him over and scratched his forearm.

            As the snake sank back into the water to die, Katie knelt down.  “Robert.  Are you all right?” 

            “Just a scratch.”  He tried to shrug it off.

            “Oh,” Riah spoke up before Roland could.  “But they are deadly poisonous.”

            Elder Stow shook his head.  “You would think being so big and all they would not need poison.”

            “Wait,” Lincoln and Pinn both spoke at the same time and pointed.  Something green and pussy formed in the cut on Lockhart’s arm.  It dripped to the ground, and then the cut began to close.

            “How is that possible?”  Vilder asked and looked at Pinn.

            “Yes!”  Flern saw and jumped up even as Lockhart explained.

            “I must still have plenty of functioning Gaian healing chits.”

            “And what are Gaian healing chits?”

            Flern took over the explanation as she examined Lockhart’s vanishing wound and his hands.  “The Gaian are humans from a parallel universe and more advanced technologically than you, Elder.  Far more advanced.  The chits are organic and microscopic and were given to Lockhart to heal his crippled back and legs.”

            “They liberated me from my wheelchair,” Lockhart confessed.

            “Lockhart.”  Flern got his attention as she made him get up and follow her to Boston.  Roland looked up at them with tears in the corners of his eyes.

            “She is passing into a coma,” he said. 

            “Do you love Boston?”  Flern asked.    

            “Yes,” Roland said, but Flern was talking to Lockhart.

            “You know I do.”

            “I don’t know if yours can be reprogrammed.  You don’t really have the seeds to grow more when yours are gone, but here is what you must do.  Think about how much you care about Boston and want to see her well.  You want the poison and infection out of her and her wound healed.  You must think that very hard and think that some of your chits go to your pinky finger.  I am going to try a transfer.”

            “Will that work?”  Lincoln was the one who asked what everyone wondered.

            Flern became flustered.  “I don’t know.  I just don’t know what else to do.”

            “I’m thinking,” Lockhart said and held out his hand. 

            “Unwrap her,” Flern told Roland and she pulled out her long knife.  Boston’s wound had festered under the bandage.  It was yellowed and wrinkled like it was too long in the tub.  Flern cut it and set it to bleeding again.  Most chose not to watch.  Then she brought Lockhart’s hand close and told him to keep thinking about healing Boston.  She gave his pinky finger a poke and a few drops of blood dripped into Boston’s wound.

            “Clean bandage.  Cover her back up,” Flern said, before she turned back to Kined and began to cry.  He was delirious, not yet at the coma stage.  She imagined it took longer for the poison to travel up from his leg.

            Lockhart leaned over to comfort her.  “I have another pinky, you know.”

###

Avalon 2.9  In the Night, Dark and Light … Next Time

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Avalon 2.9 Overstepping Boundaries

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            What have the Jaccar got against red hair?  Boston took an arrow in the middle and is laid out on a stretcher.  Decker has identified the young people on the riverbank as well as the Jaccar warriors surrounding them.  The travelers all feel the need to get to those young people and help, but it may not be so easy breaking through the enemy lines.

###

            Thrud was cooking again, though it was hard to do it well and stay behind the trees.  Her husband Kiren kept an eye out in case there was more moving grass.  Goldenwing, in his normal, small fairy size, stayed up a treetop.  He wanted to watch the field, but also the distant rise where the hundred Jaccar warriors remained hidden and were no doubt planning their next move.

            Riah the elf stayed with Flern, her mistress, and together they hovered over Kined,.Flern had immediately gone away from that place so Doctor Mishka could come and tend Kined’s wound properly.  She got the arrow out easily enough, but the hole in Kined’s thigh bled a lot, even through the doctor’s stitches.  Now Kined was sleeping because of the potion the Doctor cooked up and all Flern could do was sit and hold his hand and fret.

            “What are we going to do?”  Vinnu looked up at Gunder’s face.  He looked at Vilder and Pinn, the leaders of the expedition, not counting Flern, of course.

            “I still say we should have made barges to carry the wagons as far as we could downriver before we needed to turn inland,” Gunder said.

            “Too late for that now,” Pinn replied.

            “Besides,” Vilder spoke up he tossed a pebble out into the river.  “Flern was right about that.    All that bronze would have been too heavy for any barges we could build..”

            “But what if the Jaccar get the bronze?  How will we ever set our village free?”  Vinnu was thinking which was not necessarily a good sign.  “The wagons are just sitting out in the grass begging to be stolen.”

            “Not to mention all of our horses grazing, just out of reach,” Pinn added.

            “They probably will get the bronze,”  Gunder rubbed Vinnu’s back gently.  “But only after they kill Flern and the rest of us.”

            Vilder gave Gunder a look to suggest he was not helping.  “The object is to figure out some way to prevent that from happening.  We can sneak out after dark and arm ourselves from the wagons so maybe we can defend ourselves, but it is still ten to one against us and the Jaccar have us trapped here against the river.”

            “Hush,”  Pinn said.  “Think.”  And then Thrud spoke up.

            “Supper’s ready.”

###

 

            Roland tied Boston and her floating stretcher to the back of his horse like he would a travois.  Elder Stow rode to one side of Boston and Lincoln rode to the other side to be sure Boston did not fall off in transit.  Roland did not want to move her at all, at first.  The wound in her gut was severe, but Boston insisted they help Flern, and at present she was sleeping, and with the Gott-Druk’s anti-gravity disc holding her up so she did not bump and drag across the ground he decided she might not even know she was moving.   

            Captain Decker took the lead, though he confessed seeing things from the air was different from seeing things on the ground.  They understood, but started right out in a straight line for the river.  He said it was not far and they ought to reach the young people by nightfall, but he could not guarantee that because it might be slow going.  There would be streams and small rivers to cross where all of the water from the Carpathian mountains drained down into the Danube.  Still, he reasoned the riverside was the only way to approach Flern and her people and avoid the hundred or so warriors he saw camped out on the grasslands.

            “It would not have done any good,” Lockhart spoke softly to Katie who rode beside him.  “This is the way we would have had to go anyway, more or less.”

            “But what do we do when we get there?”  Katie asked.  “What is to prevent us from becoming trapped against the river with Flern?”

            Lockhart shook his head.  “I don’t know, but Decker, mister move on as soon as possible picked this route.  I have to assume he has some plan in mind.”

            “I don’t know.  He has changed since the eagle became his totem and he spent several centuries in that Agdaline sleeper.”

            “Changed,” Lockhart nodded.  “But still a former Navy Seal now assigned to the Marines, like special assignment.  He thinks military and I don’t suppose that has changed.”  After a moment he had a question.  “So how is it a Seal gets reassigned to the regular Marines?”

            “State Department,” Katie responded quietly.  “Embassy service available for other special assignments.”

            “Like this one, working for Colonel Weber and the area 51 crowd?” 

            Katie nodded.   “The Marine uniform is something like a disguise.”

            “And you, Lieutenant?”

            Katie frowned before she grinned, and she only grinned because she saw Robert was smiling at her.  “Pentagon, straight out of graduate school, and overdue for a promotion.  But I guess the Pentagon does not have much call for a specialist in ancient cultures and technologies.  Neither did area 51, until now.”

            “Well I am glad you are here.”

            “Me too.  I mean I am glad to be here, too.”

            They were smiling at each other when Decker rode by.  “We are supposed to be keeping our eyes open for the enemy,” he said, and rode up to Roland.  Katie and Lockhart both turned their heads to watch.  Decker pointed to the woods by the Danube.  They had come up on a small tributary.  Roland nodded and turned to the Gott-Druk.  Elder Stow got out some piece of equipment and after a quick look he also nodded.  Decker waved to them all and started up the small river away from the Danube, riding at a good pace.  They followed.

            It was a short distance before Decker turned the troop to cross the tributary.  The water in that place was slow and meandering, and not too deep.  The horses swam it easily enough and Boston stayed above it the whole time.  She had a bit of a fever by then and getting soaked would not have helped.

            Once on the other side, Decker picked up the pace and rode them angling back toward the Danube.  When he saw a place where the trees stretched out to cover some of the plains, he turned them in.  Roland rode through that small bit of woods to the other side and took Boston with him.  He pulled his bow and unsnapped his sword and knife, just in case.

            “What is going on?”  Boston asked without opening her eyes.

            “Hush,” Roland said.  “Some more of those men.  They probably had the same idea we had, to sneak up on the Kairos from the flank, er, side.”

            “I know what a fllank is,” Boston said and rolled to her side before she immediately returned to lie on her back with an expression of pain on her face.  Roland just stared at her.  The concern showed on his face.

            Lockhart and the others had tied off their horses and had their weapons ready.  Elder Stow still had that sonic device.  He had yet to show a real weapon of any consequence, though no one doubted he had one.  But Lockhart imagined the sonic device would work well on the horses, so he did not say anything.  Besides, they could hear the horses moving slowly through the bushes by the river. 

            A rock outcropping caused the horsemen to vacate their cover and move to the grasses.  There they became open season.  When they were close, Captain Decker said nothing, he just opened fire.  Lockhart and Katie might have wanted to talk first, but they had no choice but to join Decker in the slaughter.  It did not take long to down eight men, and three of the horses were down as well.

            “Jaccar,” Lincoln named the men when the firing stopped.  “According to the database they were probably under the spell of the Wicca and unable to do anything but follow orders.”

            “You mean enchanted?”  Katie used the word.

            Lincoln nodded as Decker spoke.  “So it was kill or be killed.”

            “Fair enough,” Lockhart said with a glance in Katie’s direction.  Then he exploded.  “But next time you ask me and share your information.  This is my decision.  And we don’t kill if there is any possible way to avoid it, is that clear?”

            Decker straightened up.  “Yes, sir.”  He added the sir softly, but he understood.

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Avalon 2.9  Healings … Next Time

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Avalon 2.9: Dead and Wounded

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

            Bronze.  Four young couples are desperately trying to get the newly discovered bonze weapons home to help liberate their village from the conquering Jaccar, only now they are trapped on a riverbank of the Danube by a hundred Jaccar warriors who want no less that to kill them all.  Little do the Jaccar know, the wagons now sitting idly beyond the reach of the couples are filled with weapons presently more precious than gold … and the travelers are riding right into the middle of it all.

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            Boston was examining the amulet to check their direction when Roland shouted.  She was slow to react and the result was an arrow in her  gut.  She screamed her surprise before she moaned and doubled over in her saddle.  Roland quickly pulled her to the side and out of sight from the incoming arrows.

            The others dismounted rapidly and stared hard off into the forest, except Elder Stow who floated over to where Roland was gingerly helping Boston to the ground.  Captain Decker and Katie fired their rifles at the same time, before Lockhart could pull his revolver and wave them toward the trees.

            “Go,” he said.  “Lincoln, help me get the horses.”  He preferred not to watch Katie head into danger.

            “Hey Lockhart,” Boston called softly.  Her lips hardly moved and her eyes were half shut against the pain.  “Why am I always the lucky one?”  She tried to laugh, but that just made her grit her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut.

            Elder Stow leaned over her with that miraculous piece of equipment he once used on Katie and Lockhart.  As the equipment softly hummed, the arrow pulled itself out from the wound.  Then the wound slowly closed, or most of it anyway. 

            “I am sorry, my Father.  I have nothing that will really heal her.  I am no physician.  I can only hope she will recover and heal the old fashioned way, and she should, barring infection.”

            Roland cradled Boston’s head as he looked first at the Gott-Druk and then at Lockhart while tears came up into his eyes.  At last he lifted his head and howled a word into the air.  “Alexis.”  He called for his sister whose magic was especially healing magic.

            “Alexis.”  Lincoln could not help but add his voice in a call for his wife.  The difference was Lincoln’s voice was a mere human shout of frustration while the elf’s voice carried, who knew how far.

###

            Katie put her back to a tree and looked over at Decker who knelt by another tree.  Katie signaled with her hand that there were two just out from Decker’s position.  Decker signaled back that she was facing a third.  The men were bobbing up and down and craning their necks this way and that to see the trail the group had been following through the forest.  They were looking for movement and listening for the sound of horses attempting a quick getaway.  One man even had an arrow ready on his string.  Decker pointed.  Katie called out.  

              “We have no quarrel with you.  Can we talk?”  She did not get to finish her thought as the nearness of their voices caused the three men to abandon their bows, lift their spears, draw their knives and charge, screaming.

            Captain Decker pumped his fist.  Katie and Decker burst out from their hiding places.  A few quick shots and all three men lay dead a few feet away.  It all happened so suddenly, there was no time to think about it.

            “They were determined to try and kill us,” Decker said as he checked the bodies.  “I have no idea why.”

              Katie said nothing.  Elect, Marine lieutenant, impossible situation thousands of years from home all meant nothing.  She did not like the killing.

            Beyond that point, the forest petered out and it was all grasslands to the horizon.  Decker stepped out on to the grass.  Katie followed warily.  There were horses near and Katie thought about what Decker said.  She decided she wanted some clue as to why the men attacked.

            “I wonder if there are others.” Katie asked out loud.  “It may be tribal dress, but those three are dressed the same, almost like a uniform.”

            Decker nodded.  “I’ll have a look see,” he said and sat cross-legged on the grass outside the shadow of the trees.  He put his rifle in his lap, placed his hands on his knees and closed his eyes.

            Katie thought to call the others while she waited with one eye on the surrounding area, just in case.  She looked at her wristwatch and took a moment to remember how it worked.  “Robert?”  She had to wait a minute for a response.

            “Katie?  I forgot we had these wrist communicators.”

            “How is Boston?”

            “Elder Stow got the arrow out and the wound is mostly sealed, but he fears infection from the filthy arrowhead.  He has pretty much ruled out poison, which is a good thing.  Roland is with her.  Lincoln has the horses.”

            “Three here, all dead,” Katie glanced around and something in the back of her mind said there was something about the horses.  “They were all dressed the same, like uniforms even though I know we are way too early in history for such a thing.  Decker is meditating to see if his eagle eye can find more of them.”  Katie heard a sound and caught some movement from the corner of her eye.  “Out here there are grasslands for as far as I can see.  I recommend we move out on to the grasses and away from the forest where we can hardly see around the next tree.”  Her mouth paused as her mind screamed.  There were four horses.  She spun and grabbed the man’s knife hand before he could stab her in the back.  They tussled for a second which startled the horses and sent them scurrying out on to the grass.   The man tried to force the knife, but Katie was stronger.  He tried to punch her, but her foot caught the man first in the belly and sent him staggering back.

            Katie pulled her own knife rather than her gun.  She thought a prisoner might be more useful than another dead man.  He came at her again, and she blocked his copper knife with her American steel.  A few more stabs like that and the copper would snap.  Katie looked into the man’s eyes and wondered what was driving him.  What she saw was wild, bloodshot eyes that did not look entirely in focus.  He caught her look and spoke.

            “Give me the girl with the red hair.  She must die.”

            “What?”  Katie easily countered the man’s next move, and noticed his reactions were not the swiftest.

            “The red hair girl must die.  The Wicca has commanded.”

            Katie stepped up and cut the man’s forearm so he dropped his knife, but he managed to shove her back and retrieved his knife from the ground with his other hand.

            “Who is the Wicca?”

            “She is the great and mighty Wicca.  It is her great desire that the one with the red hair die.”  He charged again, and again Katie easily countered, and got her fist into the man’s face.  He staggered, but he would not fall.  He was sweating like a man with a fever.  He screamed, abandon all sense and ran toward her to tackle her, but there was a gunshot.  He spun once and plummeted to the ground.

            Katie glanced at Decker thinking it was him before Lockhart stepped from the woods.  Lincoln and the horses followed.  Elder Stow and Roland came last with Boston on a stretcher that Roland had hastily constructed.  They did not have to carry the stretcher, however, because Elder Stow rigged up his anti-gravity device to carry it on an even keel over the rough ground.

            “Perhaps if she does not jiggle around so much she may heal faster,” Elder Stow suggested. 

            “Alexis,” Roland was still calling and looking off to the horizon, but now the call was a mere whisper of desperation.

            “Robert, I was trying to take him alive,” Katie complained.

            “Sorry,” Lockhart said.  “But the Kairos, my boss said do not hesitate with anyone who is trying to kill you, and I agree.”

            Katie looked down.  “I suppose I might have had to kill him myself.  I don’t think he would have stopped until he was dead or unconscious, and I imagine it is not as easy to knock someone out as it appears in the movies.”

            “You are right about that,” Lincoln said.

            “A berserker?”  Lockhart saw the look in the man’s face and eyes and wondered

            Katie shook her head.  “Slow to react.  More like he was on drugs and maybe could not help himself.”

            “Enchanted?”  Boston suggested, though her voice sounded weak and far away.

            Katie nodded that time.  “Maybe enchanted.  Maybe enchanted by that Wicca person.”

            The others said nothing for a time.  What could they say?  It was not every day total strangers tried to kill them without any provocation and for no known reason.

            Captain Decker took that moment to stir and everyone came close to hear about what he saw, if anything.

            “Eight young people are trapped against the bank of a big river.  I assume the Kairos is one of them since they have a couple of elves with them.  Three wagons, horses hobbled, but they are surrounded by about a hundred men dressed like these.”

            “Flern.”  Lincoln pulled out the database.  “The Kairos is a she,” he clarified.  “If it is a really big river, it is probably the Danube.”

            Captain Decker nodded and got up on his horse.  The others followed and even Elder Stow got up on Boston’s horse, Honey, and with only a small moan of protest.

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Avalon 2.9  Overstepping Boundaries … Next Time

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