The glow-balls took up their positions and the company walked for a long way, turning this way and that, but always keeping to what appeared to be a main tunnel.  After a moment of hope, to think this creature might know where her mother and baby were, Sandra was now in despair.  She kept it to herself, but the worry was written all over her, and the spiritual creatures were sensitive to pick up on the feeling.  Ellean kept reaching forward to touch Sandra on the shoulder and she kept speaking soothing words.  That touch would have felt creepy to Sandra a day earlier, but now it helped.

            “How far?”  Glen finally asked.  Ignatius did not answer immediately.  He stooped down first and picked up a seed.  Sandra stifled her shout.  Then the hobgoblin spoke. 

            “Not much further,” he said, and it was not much further before he stepped around a corner and disappeared.  It was another cavern of sorts, but not as big as the other one and with only two ways to go.  Macreedy ran past Glen and into the cavern.  He looked all around as he spun on his heels.

            “I knew we could not trust a hobgoblin,” he said through gritted teeth.  “Especially the bastard son of Coriander Patterwig.”

            “Where did he go?’  Sandra started to ask but changed her mind.  “Where are we?”

            “No idea,” Ellean said, and Macreedy nodded in agreement.

            “Well.”  Glen wanted to be practical.  “There are only two choices.  I say we explore down one carefully and quietly to see where it takes us.”

            “Not a good idea,” Macreedy said.  “Let me remind you.  These are the caves of Cormac.”

            “I remember,” Glen said, and whether by accident or fate, he began down the left hand corridor.  Macreedy dimmed the glow-balls and set them in place where they would just show the way ahead and no more.  They came to a wall, or what they thought was a wall.

            “Wait.”  Sandra was the one who noticed, and it may have been because she was looking down in search of seeds.  They were all whispering, of course, because it did not take much to be heard underground and it would not have been wise to speak loudly in a cave in any case for fear that the roof might collapse.  Here, though, Sandra was a bit sharp with her words.  “Move the lights back.  I want to have a look.”  She knelt and put her eye to the wall and then the others saw that she had found a crack, or maybe a key hole, and there was a dim light on the other side of the door, if it was a door.

            Sandra put her eye to the hole and it took a moment to focus and make sense of what she was seeing, because it looked like a deer, laid out on a table, and it looked like a fire was burning in a fireplace on the other side of the room.  It was a bad angle since the firelight was coming right at her rather than being off to the side, so she only saw the deer and the table as shadows against the light.  She just figured this out and was wondering if anything was going to happen when she saw a large, bony, clawed hand reach out and tear a whole leg off the deer like a man might tear off a hunk of bread from a loaf.  She held her breath as a face came into view, with a long dripping nose and a great tusk that rose up beside the nose.  It was sniffing the air, and it turned toward her.  Despite the fact that she should have only seen a shadow of the head; she saw two great yellow eyes staring back at her.  It was like those eyes were lit by some internal flame and would be seen even in the absolute darkness of the cave.  Sandra screamed.  She could not help it, and without hesitation, everyone else screamed a single word.  “Run!”

            Glen grabbed Sandra’s hand and dragged her back to the big room where they turned to rush down the second tunnel.  They all wondered how they could possibly get away from a creature that could move faster through the dark than they could possibly move by the light of the glow-balls.

            “Wait.”  Macreedy, who was out front, shouted and held them back.  “It has got out into the passageway.”  He said it, just before they all heard it.  They turned to run back to the big room, but that was no good either.  The goblins had arrived and were blocking the last way out which was the way they had come in.  Sandra screamed, and again she could not help it, and she buried her face in Glen’s chest so she would not have to look at the creatures.

            Ignatius stood out in front of a dozen or more goblins who were armed with a variety of clubs, swords and spears.  When the lumbering beast came up behind the four travelers, it stopped in the doorway, not afraid, but wary of so many intruders in its ante-chamber.  Macreedy and Ellean both had their bows out and ready, and Glen pulled the sword from the sheath on his back.  He found it was not too heavy so he could hold it up but he could only hope he looked like someone who knew what he was doing.  If it came to it, he honestly wondered if he could do anything with it at all.  He could not remember ever having held a sword before and he was afraid he might only cut himself or the cut wrong person by accident and make matters worse.

            “Cormac.”  Ignatius spoke over the group toward the lumbering beast that was blocking the exit.  “I bring you the goblin sacrifice as agreed.  Accept these elves and humans and leave the dark elves in peace for a season.”

            Cormac looked like he was thinking of bargaining, maybe claiming that the sacrifice was not enough, but from the way his lips were beginning to drool, it was hard to believe he was thinking of anything but supper.  Everyone was surprised when Glen spoke up.

            “We had a bargain,” he yelled at the hobgoblin and let his anger have full vent to cover his fear.  “You promised to lead us in the way of the baby.”

            “Well.”  Ignatius smiled at last, revealing his teeth, and it was not a pretty sight.  “I did not exactly promise, but the mother and baby went this way, to be sure.”  As Macreedy was letting the glow-balls slowly rise and brighten, hoping his actions would go unnoticed, but with the intent of bringing the whole cavern into the light, so the hobgoblin pointed to a previously darkened corner of that room.  There was a baby stroller.

            “Melissa!”  Sandra screamed and ran for the stroller.  “What happened?  Where is she?”  She was in a panic.

            “That was your baby?”  Cormac was thinking.

            “Where is she, where is she?!”  Sandra yelled at the troll, suddenly not considering if she was afraid or not.

            Glen stepped toward the troll and raised his weapon.  For a second, he did look like he knew what he was doing.  “Answer her!”  He yelled.

            The troll was neither afraid nor impressed.  He snapped at the blade with his big hand, expecting that the steel would not be strong enough or sharp enough to cut deep through his thick hide.  He snatched his hand back just as quick, nearly having cut his fingers off.

            “Answer her,” Glen said in a more controlled tone of voice.  Actually, he was in shock seeing how fast the creature was and thinking how close he came to being troll kill.

             “I didn’t eat the baby.”  The troll spoke with its fingers in its mouth.  “The woman and her baby were too fast.  They went through the wall with the Djin.  Dirty, nasty creature.” It was not clear if he was insulting the Djin or the humans, but it hardly mattered because Cormac was now angry, and the emotion was so strong, even the goblins took a step back.   Before Cormac could move, however, he was interrupted by a new, booming voice in the distance.

             “I’m coming.”  Prickles the ogre burst into the great hall and pushed aside the goblins like so many bowling pins.  “Don’t you hurt my friend!”  He boomed at the troll, and he looked like he meant business.  Glen backed up and relaxed.  He could not have held up the sword any longer in any case.

            It looked like it was going to be a battle.  The troll was two, if not three feet shorter than the ogre, but it was as broad in the shoulders and as long in the arms, being built more like a gorilla than a man.  Meanwhile, the goblins, having recovered from being dashed aside by the ogre were pressing in on Macreedy and Ellean, despite the arrows pointed in their direction.  Again, though, before anyone could begin, they were interrupted by yet another group of voices.  Glen imagined he heard the troll mutter, “Now what?”

            It was dwarfs, about a dozen, and they came out from a place where no one suspected there was a tunnel.  It was behind a big rock, and Glen guessed it was the way the Djin had gone with Sandra’s mother and Melissa in tow.

            “There they are,” one of the dwarfs shouted.  “Good work, Gumblittle.”

            “Gricklethorn.  We got you now.  We owe you for taking our vein.” A dwarf stepped forward

            “No chance, Breggus.  We won it fair and square.” A big goblin also took a step forward

            “Hey, chief!  It’s Cormac.”  A dwarf pointed, and the dwarfs paused and began to back up until Breggus put his hand up and pointed at something else. 

            “There’s tree elves down here, and it looks like human beanings.”

            “Beings.” 

            “Yeah, them folk what lives in the other place.  What are they doing here?”  The dwarfs all paused and at least one scratched his head.

            “Good dwarfs.”  Macreedy seized the opening.  “We are on a quest as of old.  In the name of the treaty of lasting peace I call upon your help against these dark ones.”

            “Watch it.”  Gricklethorn took the dark ones comment as an insult and his people began to draw out their weapons while Ignatius tried to fade into the background.  On seeing this, the dwarfs drew their weapons as well.

            “Time to fight!”  Cormac slammed his good hand into the floor of the cavern and busted the rock by his feet. 

            Prickles shook himself free from all that he was seeing, and partly comprehending, and turned to face the troll.  “I’m ready.”  Ogres were not slow in the fight department.

            Sandra did not know what to do or who to trust, but she found her feet backing away from the goblins and sticking close to Ellean, taking the stroller with her.  Glen, alone was in the middle of it all, and pleased that he had managed to put his sword away without cutting himself.  It came to him that he really had no talent in that direction, but there was one thing he did have, and that was the words thanks to the voices in his head.

When the human race was still working in stone and bone, before the Neolithic came fully to a close, the skies between the stars were already being traversed, sparsely, only here and there, but by the first intelligent beings from a few of the seed worlds or from the worlds to which those “people” had been moved.  (I am using the term “people” most loosely, but it became universal convention around 2500 AD to describe all forms of intelligent life rather than the pejorative “species”).

I mentioned the Agdaline in an earlier post, a race of blithering geniuses who looked like refugees from Easter Island.  They came to earth in those early days to trade with the Gott-Druk (Neanderthal) and Elenar (Cro Mangon), traveling in their sub-light sleepers, as they were called.  They were one of the first to go beyond the boundaries of their own solar system and actually travel among the stars.  Of course, they were hardly able to enjoy the journey in part because the enjoyment section of their brain was very small.  They were a serious people with a tendency to paranoia.  But mostly it was because during the slow, plodding journey between the stars, they were “asleep” in cryogenic-like suspension chambers.  At slower than the speed of light, the journey between the stars could take years.

When the Agdaline accidentally destroyed their home world and sent that moon hurtling toward Earth, they were forced to share their barely better than rocket science with the Gott-Druk and the Elenar who were promptly evacuated from the earth and lead to new worlds where they could build and start again.  The Agdaline, however, were not helped (by the powers in the earth).  They had to send out the fleets in search of a new home, a task in those old sleepers that might take several thousand years. 

Of those three, the Gott-Druk were in fact the first to return, around 4150 BC.  On seeing that the flood waters had receded and the earth was renewed, they became determined to reestablish their rule over the lands they once claimed.  Fortunately for us, the Elenar never really trusted their “cousins” and let me just say the confrontation that took place between them was volcanic.

The first Agdaline ships returned to the earth about a hundred years later.  There were, in fact, two fleets that met, and one had found a world which they believed would make a perfect new home world for the race.  Unfortunately, the other fleet returned one ship short, having encountered another advanced species, and not a friendly one.  For the moment, though, the potential threat from the sky was less of a problem than how to leave a sign for other Agdaline who might return to the earth at any point in the next several thousand years.  Those returnees needed some way to find that perfect new home world, and the Agdaline were not allowed to establish a colony on earth and wait.  A compromise solution was found, but that is a story unto itself.  Perhaps, though, they should have been more concerned about the skies.

The next Agdaline return, some 90 years later, brought the Agdaline and hot on their tail, the Balok, a snake-like species that had a great talent for genocide.  The Balok felt they should be the only intelligent species in the universe, and they became very good at war and eventually at wiping whole planets clean.  That was a very dangerous time for us homo sapiens with our sticks and stones, sinew and bones.  Again we were fortunate, or perhaps the powers intervened, but the Balok never found their way to earth again.  What did come to earth were representatives of the three primary species that stood up against the Balok for nearly a thousand years.  The first was a cold-blooded people who from all outward appearances might otherwise pass for human.  Legend knows them as the Bluebloods.  Then came the Sevarese, a word which means “angry people” and they were.  Last came the Pendratti, another reptilian species that had a great drive to control and organize their environment.  The term “retentive” hardly does justice to the Pendratti mindset.

First, to their credit, the Pendratti organized the original interstellar alliance found anywhere in our corner of the galaxy.  And with the Sevarese and Bluebloods, the Pendratti finally eradicated the Balok.  Of course, the myth says there are still some out there, but you know how the conspiracy theorists will talk.

Second, to their discredit, the Pendratti then tried to control the other species in the alliance.  The Bluebloods, who had some experience of the concept of slavery in their own early history, were the first to revolt.  Soon enough, others revolted, and as the alliance fell apart, first there were factions and then it devolved into everyone for themselves.  And in the midst of all this, like gasoline on the fire, a species of merchants known only as the “Traders” fanned the flames that were so good for business.

By the time the Sevarese created the designer disease that wiped out the Pendratti, it was too late.  By then, the Old Kingdom in Egypt was in full swing, the Sumarians were building their own empires, The Hsian were first establishing a dynasty along the Huang Ho and the Minoans were controlling the trade in the Mediterranean.  By then, small groups of survivors from the interstellar wars were scattering across the stars, and for the most part reverting to their own kind of stone age existence.

Space became quiet at last, and relatively empty for a time apart from the Agdaline sleepers which were still slowly wending their way between the stars.

 ###

Every creative writer must be inventive–even in crafting the most mainstream, realistic story.  The setting must be a world in which the characters can live and breathe and interact.  These posts are inventive, yes, but encouragement to think through your own work and flesh out your world.  Your vision will likely be different, but so it should.

            The entrance to the cave was not far.  They did not find any seeds en-route, but they did not expect to see any.  The little pile of seeds just inside the cave, where the morning light struck, and the little trail that ran away from the pile and into the dark could not have been clearer.

            “Just to be certain I have this right, Melissa is two?”

            “Mother?”  Sandra responded, and Glen nodded as he suspected the woman had taken the seeds and she was leaving the trail.

            “Still, a rather sloppy kidnapper not to notice something as obvious as this.”  Glen was skeptical.

            “They may have rested here before entering the cave.”  Macreedy offered an explanation.  Glen was not so sure, but there was nothing to do but go into the dark.

            Macreedy pulled the three glow-balls from his pack – the ones that had been in the tent.  He spoke over them and they became bright, and with a few more words they began to float in the air, one out front, one in the middle, overhead, and one just behind the group.  Sandra was amazed to see real magic, and stepped closer to Glen,  a little afraid.  Pointed ears were one thing, but the outright impossible was quite another.

            “Macreedy is so talented.”  Ellean praised him, and Macreedy looked like he might say, “Tut-tut” at any moment.

            “Y-yes.”  Sandra stuttered around the smile that she pasted on her face.  Glen was less surprised.  He paid attention when Macreedy built up the fire the night before.  He expected some sort of magic, and he examined the glow-balls the night before.  With that light, though, they could move forward. 

            It was certainly a cave, uneven floor, stalactites overhead, and Glen hoped no bats or at least not too many.  As they moved deeper into the dark, finding seeds almost by accident in several cases, it quickly got cold, and they all hugged their cloaks.  Sandra had been given one and had wondered why she might need it in the warm fall air she felt in the forest.  Now she understood.  It got cold underground where neither the sun nor the warm air could penetrate.

            After a time of clambering through and over rocks and around corners, and always going down and deeper in, the floor beneath their feet flattened out and brought them quickly to a large chamber that looked more like the inside of a cathedral than a cave.

            “Not good,” Macreedy said.  He laid his hand against a stalagmite which had the appearance more of a column than a natural occurrence.  “This is a goblin hall,” he said and he pointed to some carvings on the column.

            “Glen.”  Sandra scooted yet closer and laid her hand on his wrist.  She looked into his eyes and hoped for reassurance.

            “Dark elves,” Glen said.  “That is an easier word than goblins.  They stay underground and work great magic in stone and metal.  They are not necessarily the evil goblins of legend.”

            Ellean had her bow out and an arrow ready.  “But they do like to eat the flesh raw,” she said.

            “Big help!”  Glen put his arms around Sandra, and she did not mind that at all.

            “They are not friends to the elves of the light,” Macreedy agreed with Ellean, though he left his weapons where they were and only fingered the knife at his side.

            “I see three ways we can go.”  Glen changed the subject.

            Macreedy shook himself from his own thoughts and raised his arms.  The glow-balls brightened a little, spread out and showed that there were actually five choices.  “The problem is two or three of these ways will lead to the warrens, the goblin homes.”  He added that last for Glen and Sandra.  “Only two or three ways will lead to other places.”

            “And which is which?”  Ellean finished the thought and she, Sandra and Macreedy all looked at Glen.

            “No, no,” Glen said.  He let go of Sandra and stepped back a full step.  “I’m no seer.  If there is magic in the human world, I have less of it than anyone I know.”

            “Someone has to decide,” Sandra said.

            “Or you could all just stay here until you starve.”  An eerie sort of voice spoke out of the dark.  Sandra jumped back into Glen’s arms and Ellean pulled her bow to the ready, though how she knew which direction to point it was a mystery since the cavern not only looked like a cathedral, it echoed like one as well.

            The stranger stepped into the light.  He was a bit shorter than a man or an elf.  Macreedy was actually the tallest person there.  But then this person did not look like a man or an elf.  He had red eyes and almost no ears at all, and little horns on its head; what could be seen of them through the thick black hair.  It also had a forked tongue, like a snake, with which it was presently licking its lips.

            “A goblin,” Sandra said.  She burried her face into Glen’s chest so she would not have to look at it.

            “A hobgoblin.”  Macreedy corrected her.  He was still fingering the hilt of his knife but he left it where it was for the present.

            “Ignatius Patterwig, son of Coriander.”  The hobgoblin bowed, graciously.

            “Coriander Patterwig?”  Macreedy knew something. 

            “The same,” Ignatius said.  “But since my father did not survive the uprising, I have had to find other employment.”

            “Who?”  Sandra asked.

            Ellean answered.  “The self-proclaimed king of the hobgobs.”

            “Hobgoblins are an independent lot.  They don’t take kindly to kings,” Glen explained for Sandra.

            “Very perceptive for one made of blood and mud,” Ignatius said.  “How…”  He had to think of the right word.  “How impossible.”

            “Never mind that,” Sandra interrupted.  “Can you show us the way to go?”

            Ignatius paused and a smile turned up his lips – a smile that was too big to be human, though it never showed any teeth.  That was fine.  Sandra did not want to see the teeth.  “I assume you are following the mother and the baby.”

            “I’m the mother!”  Sandra shouted.  “That was my mother and my baby.”

            “Do you know where they are?”  Ellean asked.  Panic was building up in Sandra’s voice so Ellean verbalized for her.

            Ignatius looked like he was about to say one thing, but as looked again at Glen, he changed his mind.  “I know which way they went,” he said.

            “Show us,” Glen said.

            “And for me?”  The hobgoblin could not resist the bargain.

            “Anything,” Sandra said, but everyone ignored her, and Macreedy interrupted her.

            “Your life.”  Macreedy was blunt.

            “Your life.”  Ellean agreed and she held her bow steady with the arrow aimed right at the hobgoblin.

            “And what does the warrior say?”  The hobgoblin asked.

           “You will have the satisfaction of knowing you have done a good deed,” Glen said, and everyone looked at him like he had a loose screw, except Macreedy who got that suspicious look once more.  “Now, show us.”  Glen put some command in that voice.

            “I will,” the hobgoblin said, but then he paused and wrinkled his brow.  “But only because I am a sucker for a mother’s love.”  He figured a way to justify his agreement.  “This way,” he said, but as he began to walk, he turned his head, and a bit too far as far as Sandra was concerned.  “Anything?”  He asked.

            “Too late,” Glen said.  “The bargain is with me and made.  Walk on.”

            Ignatius grunted.  “I don’t normally argue with weapons,” he admitted.

            “And I am dressed like a true warrior,” Glen said, speaking a half-truth like a true elf.  Ellean was impressed.  Macreedy just smiled a bit and nodded.

###

NOTE: To read this story from the beginning or to read any of the stories of the Traveler please click the tab “Traveler Tales” above.  You can read any of the stories independently, or just the Vordan story, or the whole work in order as written.  Your choice.  Enjoy.  –Michael.

            When the sun was about to rise, Glen’s eyes popped open.  Sandra snuggled into his shoulder, and with the little bit of new light, he looked over at the elves.  He felt embarrassed.  He saw Ellean snuggle up to Macreedy and Macreedy looked at her with a loving expression and tenderly brushed her long black hair behind her ear.

            “Ahem.”  Glen coughed softly and Macreedy looked more than slightly embarrassed.  “This is a switch.  It is usually the women who wake up before the lazy men.” 

            “Oh, we’re awake,” Ellean said, and Macreedy jumped back as if stung by a bee.

            “We?”  Glen asked.

            “We are,” Sandra confirmed without opening her eyes.  She shifted her head in Glen’s shoulder and reached for his other shoulder with her free hand.  She seemed to want to snuggle some more, but Glen noticed what he was wearing, and though he was not exactly naked, he jumped further than Macreedy.  He got out from beneath the covers altogether.  All he had on was a t-shirt and boxers, though when he examined the clothes, he caught a glimpse of Fairy Weave.

            “What is this?”  He asked as he sat on Sandra’s bed and covered up.  He thought dark blue, and his weave turned dark blue which was better than the almost translucent white it had been.

            “The magic came in the night,” Ellean said.  “I was surprised that it did not wake you.”

            “Lord Alderon said you are to put this on.”  Macreedy pointed to a suit of armor, chain on leather.  It sat neatly laid out at the end of Sandra’s unused bed.  There were swords and knives with the outfit, and a cape that looked reversible, with black on one side and white on the other.

            “But I…”  Glen was not in a position to argue.  He got into the outfit as rapidly as he could and found that it fit perfectly.  It was also very comfortable and light, which was a surprise.  He had expected all of that metal to weigh a hundred pounds.  At last he set his hands on the weapons.  “I don’t know what to do with these,” he said.  “I never killed anything bigger than a spider.”

            “You need to bring them,” Macreedy said.

            “I can help you put them in place,” Ellean said.  “These are like the ones our God carries.”

            “They are?”  Glen spoke absentmindedly because he was trying to figure out where they hooked on, and they appeared to have rings that only needed hooks.

            “Wait.”  Macreedy stopped Ellean in her tracks and he looked very suspicious.  “Try calling to them,” he said.

            “What?” 

            Macreedy stepped over and took the weapons and laid them out again on the bed.  “Try calling to them,” he repeated.

            Glen looked at Sandra who had gotten up to watch the proceedings, but she could only shrug.

            “A virtue in their making,” Macreedy suggested.  “They were given to you so you should be able to call to them and they should fit themselves into place.”

            “Like magic?”  Sandra was not slow to catch the implication and Macreedy nodded.

            “OK,” Glen said, but he sounded doubtful.  “All-ee, all-ee in come free.”  He shouted and shrugged because nothing happened.  He was kidding.  He tried again.  “Sword, here.  Knife here.  Here, swordy, swordy, swordy.”  Still nothing happened.  He tried a poor man’s Shakespeare.  “Afixeth thyself before I be off, oft.”   He shrugged again.  “Nothing.”  Macreedy looked relieved. 

            Ellean began to move again to help him, but Glen held out his hand.  He was getting into this.  “Open sesame.  Attach sesame.”  He started in on loony tunes, beginning with Yosemite Sam.  “Ya gal-dern galoots!”  He went on for a while with nonsense words until he said something that sounded almost like a string of consonants with hardly any vowels at all, and the sword and knife jumped.  They rushed at Glen so he was inclined to cover his face.  He thought that maybe he angered the inanimate objects – the sharp inanimate objects, but then he heard several clicks and Sandra applauded, Ellean shouted something not at all like “golly gosh!” and Macreedy went back to looking suspicious.

            “Well.”  Glen looked up and smiled.  “But they can stay where they are because otherwise I will probably cut my foot off.”

            “Why would you cut your foot off?”  Sandra asked.

            “If I had a gun I would probably shoot my foot off and I figure fair is fair.”  And that ended the discussion about the weapons.  Glen saw that both Ellean and Macreedy sported long knives at their belts and both carried bows, and that felt like more of a comfort than anything he might carry.

            Sandra and Ellean found the food that had been left for their breakfast.  It looked like the troops pulled out before dawn since they and their tent were all that was left in the area, and Glen looked all around.  When he returned, the tent was already reduced to a cube the size of Macreedy’s hand which the elf slipped into his side pack.  The fire was still burning, though, and they had bacon and eggs cooking.

            “There goes any chance of getting my clothes back, I suppose,” Glen said.

            “I think you look good,” Sandra grinned.

            “What, for Halloween?”

            Sandra stood up to whisper in his ear.  “You look sexy,” she said and quickly scooted to the other side of Ellean.

            “My birthday is the day after Halloween.  I’m open to suggestions on presents,” Glen said, and Sandra turned a little red beneath her blond hair.  Macreedy temporarily dropped his suspicious look for a confused look.

            “I don’t understand the game,” he admitted with a shake of his head.

            “Human mating ritual,” Glen said.  “You should try it sometime.”  He pointed at Ellean with a shake of his head.  Macreedy made no response other than to open his mouth, wide.

            “Enough of that,” Sandra scolded.  “Breakfast.”  And they all ate what they could, even Glen who was not normally a breakfast person; but to be sure, none of them knew when they might get another good meal.

###

NOTE: To read this story from the beginning or to read any of the stories of the Traveler please click the tab “Traveler Tales” above.  You can read any of the stories independently, or just the Vordan story, or the whole work in order as written.  Your choice.  Enjoy.  –Michael.

            “How they came to be here is less important than why,” the voice said.  An elderly elf came in, followed by the commander of the troop that had picked up Sandra and Glen.  “I am Alderon and this is Commander Peregrine.”

            “The Falcon.”  Glen saluted.  “But let me ask, why are you here?”  Glen spoke quickly, and the old elf raised an eyebrow so Glen continued.  “You have brought an army into the wilderness.  I hope we have not fallen into the midst of a war.”  Sandra suddenly looked concerned.  She had not thought of that.

            “No fear,” Alderon said.  “Wars in our realm are rare events these days.  Rather, we had a report of a demon djin crossing close to the border.  We sought to destroy it, if we could, or at least keep it from our homes.”

            “A ghoul?”  Glen asked.

            Alderon shook his old head.  “Our observers did not see it well enough to classify it, except to say it is one of the lesser djin.”

            “But a terror all the same,” Glen said, thinking out loud and turning toward Sandra.  “They can possess people, and feed off the fear and pain they cause in tormenting their victims.”

            “And how do you know the ways of the djin?”  Macreedy asked.

            “Behavioral Sciences,” Glen answered.  “I have studied my Anthropology and my folklore, unless we humans have it all wrong.”  Glen looked up at Alderon who was smiling, just barely.

            “Essentially right.,” Alderon confirmed.  “But now you must answer a question.  Why have you come here?”

            “My daughter and mother disappeared.”  Sandra spoke quickly.  “We were following their trail and found ourselves here.  I don’t know how.  None of this makes any sense, but now I fear we have lost the trail.”  Sandra felt the surge of emotion rise up inside and a few tears began to fall.  Glen quickly put his arms around her and reassured her.

            “We will find them.  Hush.  It will be alright.”  He stroked her hair, gently, and she quieted.  “We were following the seeds, but I don’t know if we can pick up that trail again without going back and getting tangled up with the ogre.”

            Alderon waved and Commander Peregrine held out his hand.  “Were they pumpkin seeds like this?”  Alderon asked.

            Sandra jumped up and took the elf’s hand, not thinking twice about it.  The hand was full of pumpkin seeds.  “Yes,” she shouted.  “But where did you find them?”

            “In this place,” Commander Peregrine responded.  “My command was charged with following them to see where they lead, and they brought us to you.”

            “So, wait.”  Glen said.  “You’re saying if we followed the pumpkin seed trail from the beginning, it would have brought us to this place?”

            Alderon nodded, and Sandra turned.  “Oh, Glen, we haven’t lost them,” she said and then she just had to fall into Glen’s arms and kiss him smack on the lips, and she kissed his cheek as well before grabbing his arm and turning to sit beside him, and pull herself together.

            At the mention of Glen’s name, Commander Peregrine looked surprised, Macreedy had one eyebrow up, Ellean was too busy watching Sandra and thinking her own thoughts to notice, but Alderon was smiling that almost invisible smile of his.  “But where does the trail go from here?”  Glen asked.

            “Ahh…”  Alderon said as he stepped up behind Macreedy and Ellean.  “There are a small number of seeds heading into the caves of the Cormac.  We have chosen not to explore that way since it leads away from our homes.”

            “The caves of the Cormac?”  Macreedy did not think much of those caves and Ellean looked positively frightened.

            “What’s a Cormac?”  Sandra asked, drawing herself as close to Glen’s side as she could get.

            “An ever hungry troll,” Macreedy said.

            “And the caves are full of goblins as well, no doubt trying not to be eaten,” Commander Peregrine added.

            Alderon simply looked at Glen and would not let go of that smile that touched the mere corners of his lips.  “Somehow, though, I have a good feeling about your chances,” he said.  “And since young Macreedy and young Ellean have agreed to see to your welfare, I know you will do well.”

            “What?”  Macreedy looked up sharply at his elder and tried to stand, but Alderon put a hand on the elf’s shoulder to keep him seated.  Then he clapped his hands and stepped aside while two elf maids came and went, quickly.  The first had two more blankets and the second carried four little packs, provisions for the expected journey.

            “You planned this.”  Macreedy accused as Commander Peregrine set down his handful of pumpkin seeds and followed the maids out the tent door.

            “Yes,” Alderon said, finally letting out a bit more of that smile.  He held up his hand and twisted it like one might twist a dimmer switch, and the light in the glow-balls dimmed to night lights.  “Sleep well,” he said, and left.

            Macreedy was not entirely happy, but Ellean set about immediately showing their companions what they could do with the Fairy Weave blankets, changing the color, size, thickness and texture, and all with a thought. 

            “I don’t know why it is called Fairy Weave, though, since it is made by elves.  These were made by the elves of the grove,” Macreedy said.  Glen just nodded and he got the idea easily enough and made something like an air mattress with covers to sleep on.  Sandra had a little more trouble with hers so Ellean helped; but by then with the thoughts and worries about the caves of Cormac getting in the way, Ellean was the only one smiling.

            “This will be so much fun.”  She said.  “I just know I can learn so much from you.” 

            Sandra stared at the elf maid in disbelief.  “You’re seventy three years old and I’m just twenty-three.  How are you going to learn anything from me?”

            Ellean cocked her head to the side and spoke in all seriousness.  “You have a baby.”  She stole a glance at Macreedy.

            “But I haven’t got a husband,” Sandra said and Ellean looked at her again with eyes that were big and brown and suddenly sad.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “No, actually he was a jerk.  Melissa and I are better off without him.”

            “Well.”  Ellean did not know what to say until she looked over at Glen.  “Glen seems very nice, what do you think?”

            Sandra just looked, and since Macreedy and Glen heard everything in that small tent, they also looked.  Sandra appeared to be more concerned to find out if Glen thought she was nice, and while Glen was not ready to answer that question, he did feel that he ought to say something. 

            “I think we all ought to try and get some sleep,” he said, and he got under his covers and turned his back on them all.  Macreedy finished dousing the glow-balls so only the dying embers from the fire provided any light in the tent.  Even so, it was not long before Glen relaxed.  He felt certain that everyone else in the tent was asleep.  He was a little surprised when Sandra crawled under his covers to curl up beside him.  He was more surprised when the other two spoke.

            “I wish I had thought of that,” Ellean said.

            “Go to sleep,” Macreedy responded.

            Glen had a hard time sleeping at first since it was not easy to keep his hands to himself; but then the something inside of him rose up and he felt he could hold this beauty after all without being overly excited.  He slept well after that.  He could not vouch for the others.

            It took several hours to reach a camp where Glen guessed there were perhaps a hundred or more elves all dressed for war.  The sun was going down when Glen and Sandra were escorted to a tent.  They were left alone, but Glen was sure there were guards near enough.

            Sandra sat quietly and hugged her knees which were pulled up to her chin.  She seemed to be in her own little world.  Glen paced and tried to make sense of what was happening.  It was weird, as Sandra said.  It was unreal, impossible, and no human being would ever believe it.  Glen felt stupid, like he was in the midst of something out of a children’s story, or an old wives tale, or a folktale where some anthropologist would point out the underlying meaning but would never believe that it might be real.  Elves and ogres did not really exist, Glen told himself, but here he was and here they were.  He had long since rejected the idea that this might be a dream.  “That would have made this B-movie extra bad.”  He mumbled.  Sandra took Glen’s mumble as an opening to speak.

            “My grandmother.”  She paused and shook her head before starting again.  Glen sat down beside her, not touching, but close enough.  “My grandmother used to talk about her grandmother like she was, I don’t know, weird.  She said her grandmother had the magic.  That’s what she called it.  She said her mother had some, but not like her grandmother, while she could hardly do anything at all.”

            “When was your grandmother born?”  Glen was curious, but he was not sure why he asked that question.  This – whoever it was that seemed to be giving him these thoughts was getting annoying.  Glen probably should have been frightened by the invasion of his mind except there were two mitigating feelings.  The first was that the someone, whoever it was, felt so comfortable.  Glen could not imagine any harm coming from that direction.  The second was there were far more frightening things happening all around him, he hardly had time to worry about what might be trying to help him.

            “1908,” Sandra said.  “She would have been seventy this year if she was still alive.”  Glen nodded.  It was presently 1978.  After a pause, Sandra added the word, “Cancer.”

            “And her grandmother?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Say, 1870?”

            Sandra shrugged.  “Grandma said her great-grandmother was a half-blood.  I remember asking once half-what?  I got the strangest answer.”  Sandra looked like she did not want to say it, but as an elf chose that moment to enter the tent with a tray of food, Sandra found the courage to verbalize what had always seemed loony.  “Fairy.”  She said.  “My great- great, whatever-grandmother was a half-fairy.”

            Glen nodded.  “1849 gold rush,” he said as the elf put down the food and turned to leave.  “Wait a minute.”  Glen spoke up, and the elf paused.  “What are you going to do with us?”

            The elf turned and shrugged.  He was skinny, terminally skinny the way certain elves were, and his ears were very pronounced and pointed, but they matched his pointed nose.  “Nothing that I know of.”  At least his voice sounded normal. 

            The elf decided to sit and as he crossed his long legs he leaned forward to place a hand over the fire.  It rose up with new life.  Given the circumstances, neither Sandra nor Glen were surprised by that bit of magic. Sandra scooted a bit closer to the fire for the warmth.  Glen decided to to look around. 

            The fire was in the middle of the tent floor and there was a small hole in the tent roof straight above it.  Curiously, the smoke from the fire went straight up and out the hole without the least bit of it filtering into the rest of the tent.  Neat trick, Glen thought.  He noticed that most of the light in the tent did not come from the fire, but from several globes near the tent roof.  Glow-balls, he called them, and he imagined they were like fairy lights.  Of course, they were not plugged into anything and they were not battery run so he was at a loss as to what powered them, but they glowed just fine and the light was warm and comfortable.  Their night in that tent did not look frightening, but then it did not look all that comfortable if they chose to sleep.  There were only two blankets rolled up on the dirt floor, but Glen did not get to examine them closely because by then Sandra found the courage to ask a question.

            “Do you have a name?”

            “Macreedy, son of Macreedy, son of Macreedy, son of Macreedy.”  The elf said.  “My sire had many daughters, but only one son of Macreedy.”  He smiled and cocked his head back to look toward the tent door and said, “You might as well come in, too.  These people do not appear dangerous and I don’t believe they rub off.”

            A young female head poked in through the tent door.  Her face looked more human, being not nearly so skinny, but the ears were still a giveaway.  The face looked unsure, though, so Glen felt obliged to speak up.

            “No human cooties, I promise,” he said.

            “Well.”  The elf came in slowly to take a seat beside Macreedy.  “As long as you promise.”

            “My name is Sandra,” Sandra said.  “Daughter of Mona, daughter of Edna, daughter of another woman and another and another who was a daughter of a full blood fairy.”

            “Really?”  The elf maid found her smile as Sandra nodded and the maid turned to Macreedy.  “That may explain how they came to be here,” she said, but Macreedy was shaking his head.

            “Let me see if I can say this the way Master Olerian of the Bean taught the lesson.”  He coughed, lowered his voice and affected a very formal tone and look.  “The magic is generally well faded by the third generation, and the blood indiscernible by the seventh, though the child is not considered fully human again until the tenth generation.”  The elf maid giggled, and Glen decided that this elf was in truth a simple girl who might have passed for a seventeen- year-old human, if that.

            “I’m the seventh generation and Melissa is the eighth,” Sandra said, looking mostly at Glen in case she counted wrong.

            “You have a baby?”  The elf girl looked surprised.  Macreedy was still shaking his head as if to say that would not explain how they came to be there.

            “Ellean.”  Glen interrupted and got the elf girl’s attention.  He called the girl by name because his inner voice said that was the elf maiden’s name, not because she had given her name.  “Just to be clear, how old are you?”  Ellean lost her smile and looked like she was embarrassed by the question.  Macreedy spoke for them both.

            “I will be one hundred and ten this year,” he said proudly.  “Ellean is seventy-three.”

            “Only,” Ellean said and she looked down at the fire.

            Sandra felt the shame and reached out to the girl.  “Women mature faster,” she said.

            Ellean did not take Sandra’s hand, but she did look up and smile briefly.

            “That’s years,” Glen said, and Sandra looked at him in surprise.  She was thinking it was something like maybe a lunar calendar, with Macreedy looking about nineteen or twenty and Ellean appearing to be sixteen or so.  “Standard counting is roughly between five and seven to one, like dog years except we are the dogs.”  Glen concluded, and he pulled himself a bit closer to the fire.  After a moment, Sandra also scooted closer in order to close the circle.

            “Old Lord Inaros is reported to be fifteen hundred years old,” Macreedy said.  “But that is extremely rare, even among elf-kind.”  He smiled for Sandra, but Sandra was not paying attention.  Ellean was staring at her.

            “What?”

            “I was wondering if your real name is Cassandra,” Ellean said.

            “Her hair is too blond.”  Macreedy interrupted and shook his head.

            “There are dyes.”  Ellean came back, but this time Sandra shook her head.

            “Just Sandra,” she said.  “Why?”

            The elves paused to look at each other before Macreedy spoke.  “Our goddess was once named Cassandra,” he said.  “It is not to be spoken of with humans, but I can say this much, that we have many gods and goddesses, but they are all one.”

            “I thought maybe…”  Ellean began to speak, but Macreedy took her hand to quiet her.

            “So we still do not know how you came to be here,” Macreedy said.  “Even if Miss Sandra managed the passage by some virtue remaining in her blood, it does not explain the presence of this man.”

            Glen reached for Sandra’s hand and she readily gave it, and her smile, too.  “We are thinking of doing a lot of things together,” he said, and Sandra’s smile broadened.  “How about you two?”

            Macreedy shifted in his seat and looked a little uncomfortable as he glanced at Ellean and dropped the girl’s hand.  Ellean had no trouble matching Sandra’s smile.  “We have talked,” she told Sandra and she held out her hand again, but Macreedy did not take it

            “But about how you got here,” Macreedy spoke hastily to try and get back on the topic, but he was interrupted by a new voice from the door.

            “I missed the last ones, but I got you.”  A booming deep, and unearthly voice spoke over Glen’s shoulder.  It was the kind of voice that gave him chills, and the kind that even penetrated Sandra’s screams. Glen got to his feet, dragging Sandra to her feet with him and backed the two of them away from that voice.  The creature stood nearly nine feet tall and was so horrible to look at, Glen’s stomach nearly let go and Sandra could not stop screaming.  Glen had to turn Sandra’s face into his shoulder where she did not have to look at the thing to get her quiet.  This brute, and the word ogre came to Glen’s mind, was covered in warts that sprouted little hairs that looked more like cactus spikes than hairs.  He had several boils on the surface of his skin, if it could be called skin, and a few of those were burst and leaking a pink and yellow puss.  It had a mouth so full of yellow teeth that Glen could not see the back of that maw or count the teeth if he wanted to, not the least because of the green drool that was leaking out over the edge of the lower lip.  It also had a small spark in the eyes that glared at them as if to say that this creature was alive and aware; but to be sure, it was a very small spark.

            “I am going to have you for an afternoon snack,” the ogre roared, and he hefted a club the size of a small tree.

            Glen heard the words “don’t panic” in his mind as his mouth sprang into action, though he was hardly aware of what he was saying.  “Well, if you are going to have us for tea, make sure there are plenty of biscuits, and by all means keep the kippers to yourself.  Those things are almost as slimy and disgusting as you.  Gods you are an ugly beastie.”

            The ogre paused and lifted his head.  “Do you think so?”  He spoke with some doubt in his voice.

            “Oh, yes,” Glen assured him.  “Very ugly.  Frighteningly ugly.  You heard the woman screaming, didn’t you?  Now, let’s get on to tea, you lead the way.”

            “Huh?”  The ogre paused and Glen’s words caught up with his little brain and he guffawed.  “Have you for a snack.”  He guffawed again, and believe me, that is a sound you never want to hear.  Glen had to swallow the bile to keep it from coming out and Sandra had to bite her lower lip, hard, to keep the screams at bay.  “Say, now.”  The ogre stopped laughing and a terrifying looked crossed his face.  “Hold still.”  And he lifted the club.

            Glen’s eyes got wide, but he was looking a little to the ogre’s left side, and he pointed dramatically in that direction and yelled, “Look!”  The ogre turned to look.

            “What?”  He wondered, but by the time he turned again, Glen had grabbed Sandra’s hand and they were running as fast as they could down the path.  “Hey!”  They heard that yell behind them and then heard the tromp, tromp of giant footsteps, following.  Glen wanted to say run faster, but he was fairly sure they could not run faster.  Sandra did not want to say anything.  She was focusing too hard on her feet.  With all that, it sounded like the ogre was gaining on them, but shortly they ran into something, or I should say another thing they hardly expected.  It was a wall of men, all dressed in dark armor, looking like ancient soldiers, and they all had spears pointed in their direction.  Glen was prepared to stop, but at the last minute the men made an opening in the wall and Glen and Sandra raced through.  The opening quickly closed.  Glen heard the twang of bow strings, and while Sandra collapsed to the ground, he found enough strength left to jump up and holler.  “Don’t hurt him.”

            A second volley of arrows came, the ogre having stopped on the first volley.  Most of the arrows landed in front of the ogre as a warning for him to turn around and go back where he came from, but one of the arrows went straight into the ogre’s shoulder.  The ogre looked more surprised than anything else, and while the arrow did not penetrate deeply, when it fell to the ground some blood followed it.  Glen knew someone was not following orders.  This time he really shouted.  “I said don’t hurt him!” 

            The archers were off to the sides of the wall of spears, hidden in trees and behind rocks.  As Glen shouted, he heard a man moan and someone, or something sounded like it fell to the ground.  Glen could not be concerned about that just then.  Instead, all of his concern was on the ogre who he now felt was like a poor child in need of protecting, as odd as that might have sounded.  If he had thought about it, it should have been strange to think that way about a brute that was trying to eat him, but Glen was not thinking at the moment.  He was too busy pressing up to the back of the wall of spears and speaking to the horrifying beast.  “Prickles, go home,” he said.  “Go home, Prickles.  You need to go home right now.”  He told himself that he did not want to see anyone get hurt, and it was not hard to convince himself of that.

            “Go home?”  Prickles the ogre was trying to figure out what he was hearing.

            “Go home.”  A man stepped up beside Glen, and while Glen did not look at the man, he figured it was probably the commander of this troop of soldiers.

            “Go home, Prickles,” Glen repeated, and the ogre nodded.

            “Go home,” the ogre said.  “Go home.”  He turned and walked back the way he came, his long legs taking him quickly out of view.

            Then Glen breathed for all of a second before two of the spear carrying men grabbed him by the arms.  “Bring them.”  The man who had been standing beside Glen commanded, and they moved to where Sandra was also being held against her will.  Glen and Sandra were directed as to where they were to fall in line.

            “This is getting too weird.”  Sandra finally got a word out.  She pointed at the men’s faces and Glen realized, for the first time, that all of the ears were classically pointed and these were not men at all.

            “Elves,” Glen named them and Sandra shrugged as if to say that she was adjusting, that she was not surprised and that maybe she would never be surprised again.

            “And the beast?”

            “Ogre,” Glen said, but then they had to concentrate on walking because they were moving up into the hills.

            Glen left his Anthropology seminar at two-fifty.  He ran to his dorm and tossed his books in the room by two-fifty-five and ran the rest of the way to Haddon House.  Though he was breathing hard when he arrived, the excitement and adrenaline that was rising up inside of him made it more than worthwhile.  After five minutes, he calmed and thought that maybe she was not as excited to be with him as he imagined.  At ten minutes he thought she may have run into some Friday traffic, so he sat on the steps where he could watch the parking lot and the woods.  It was not much longer before his curiosity and trust began to turn.  He began to doubt.  He wondered if she was coming at all.  He began to think that perhaps she did not have feelings for him  – that perhaps he was just projecting his feelings on her.  It was not much longer before he was wondering if he should go look for her. 

            Sandra arrived moments later.  She squealed her tires and stopped without pulling fully into a space.  She ran out of her car without even turning it off. 

            “Glen.”  She cried out and she did not hesitate to run straight into his arms.  “She is gone.  They are both gone, Melissa and my mother.”

            “What?”  Glen got that much out.

            “I dropped Mother in the main lot and she put Melissa in the stroller while I found a safe place to park.  She was going to walk Melissa across the campus to the fork on the path in the woods.  I followed behind, but not too close so people would not see, you know.”  She paused, but Glen reassured her with a nod.  “I was going to get you and when we caught up with them, Mother was going to have errands to run, you know.”  Glen hugged her and patted her back, but Sandra pulled away and looked into his face as if to gauge his reactions.  There were tears in her eyes, and Glen saw that along with the upset, she was also very afraid.

            “It’s alright.  They must be somewhere.”  Glen tried to sound confident.

            “No.  You don’t understand.  They disappeared.  I saw it.  I was behind, and I saw it.  They were there, a hundred yards ahead of me on the path and I was just about to come and get you when they just vanished.  Glen, I don’t know what to do.  I looked everywhere.  I even went back to the car in case they went back there, but I am sure they did not.”

            “So they turned a corner or stepped behind a tree?”

            Sandra grabbed Glen by the arms and squeezed, hard.  “No.  They vanished, disappeared, went invisible.  Oh, I know it sounds impossible but you must believe me.”  She was pleading.  “One minute they were in front of me and the next they were gone.”  She began to cry.

            “Sandra.”  Glen pulled her close and let her cry into his shirt.  “We will find them.  They must be somewhere.  Show me where this happened.”  Glen was not sure what he believed, Sandra was so sincere. 

            Sandra backed up and without a word, she grabbed Glen’s hand and ran.  Glen did his best to keep up.  They were both worn out when they arrived, and Glen mumbled something about running more that day than the past six months put together, but Sandra had her adrenaline running faster than her feet at that point and she started right in.

            “They were here, I swear.  I was back at the beginning of the trail there.”  She pointed.  “And they were right here and they vanished.  They just went invisible.  I swear to God.  I swear it.”  Glen examined the ground and saw the faint impression of what might be tire tracks from a stroller.  He got down to look more closely, and ran his finger over the dirt.  He realized that these tracks were dry dirt and imagined that something was pushed through when the dirt was moist or wet and made the tracks, which since dried.  Thus he was just admitting that the tracks could not have been from Melissa’s stroller when he found a little pile of seeds.

            “What are these?”  He asked, holding them up so Sandra could see.

             “Pumpkin seeds!”  Sandra yelled and threw her arms around Glen’s neck and kissed him, but it was ever so brief.  “Where did you find them?”

            Glen pointed.  “And look.  There are a few more.”  They were easy enough to see since the seeds were still on the trail. 

            Sandra ran ahead to pick them up.  “Mother!  Melissa, Mother!”  She called out, but there was no response, so she came back to Glen who was slowly moving down the path, looking for more seeds or some other something that might indicate the way they went.  Sandra was still talking. 

            “Melissa is teething and she has a whole bag of pumpkin seeds.  She likes to chew on them.  Mother, Melissa!” 

            Glen grabbed her hand when he found another seed.  “Don’t run off,” he said.  “You need to help me look.”  He paused and looked up at Sandra while he picked up the seed with his free hand.  “They can’t have gone far, but we need to stick to the right trail.”  Sandra just nodded, trusted absolutely, and Glen swallowed.  He did not want to disappoint her.

            “Melissa has a whole bag of seeds.”  She repeated herself, and they walked slowly forward until Glen caught something out of the corner of his eye.  There was a breakaway trail to the left.  It was not easy to see.  It was badly overgrown and rough looking so only a trained hunter might spot it, but it was a trail all the same.  Glen paused.

            “What?”  Sandra asked.

            Glen paused because he was not a trained hunter, or anything close.  He wondered how he could be so certain about the side trail.  It felt like someone was inside his mind, looking through his eyes and helping, somehow, but then he spied a lone pumpkin seed and felt better until he imagined that the someone inside had directed his eyes to the seed.  Glen shook himself to break free of that feeling.  “Here,” he said, and picked up the seed.  As he handed it to Sandra, he lifted an overhanging tree branch and they stepped underneath and into another place altogether.

            “I don’t feel well,” Sandra said immediately.  “I feel faint.”  And she did, and Glen barely caught her before she hit the dirt.  He was feeling a bit woozy himself, but as he went to one knee to hold up the woman in his arms, and as he looked at her tranquil face, his dizzy feelings soon passed.  He felt like he had been in this place before, but that did not make sense because he could not say when or exactly where in this place he might have been.  In any case, if once upon a time he was in that place, it certainly was not with such a lovely companion. 

            “I have to,” he said to himself.  “I can feel guilty about it later.”  He dipped his head and touched his lips to hers, thinking that one kiss would never be enough.  To his surprise, she kissed him back, and with some fervor, though she never opened her eyes.  When they separated, she was smiling and her eyes popped open to look at him; and she began to scream.

            Sandra was twenty-three and a senior at the University.  Glen did not know what she was majoring in, but at twenty-four, that was not what he was interested in.  Sandra was a slim, buxom blond, and Glen was achingly attracted to her.  At the same time, she was showing a decided interest in him; and she was showing it in every way she could think to show it in order to be certain that Glen got the message even if he turned deaf, dumb and blind.  Yet for all of the sexual tension between them; for all of the hormones that filled the air like great clouds, and despite the ache in Glen’s bones whenever she was in the room, and the desire for him that Sandra breathed out every time she was near him, Glen remained a Gentleman, calm and collected, and Sandra remained a Lady, sweet and demure. 

            It was true, an infant could have seen the blood boiling just below the surface.  They weren’t fooling anyone; least of all themselves.  And it was also true that while Glen might have wanted to say, “Come here, babe,” and he certainly wanted to press himself up against her to feel her rapidly beating heart, and he wanted to slip his arms around her and feel her arms around him and hear the shortness of her sweet breath as her luscious, thick lips said yes, o yes, and then he wanted to kiss her without mercy; but he did not.  He could not.  There was something standing between them, and it was something Glen could not name. 

            So they remained apart, at two separate desks in the school newspaper office, and each wondered why the whole room did not just explode.   Glen thought briefly about cursing that something unnamed that was standing between them, but he did not.  He knew curses always carried consequences.  Curses were always more than mere words.

            “Damn.”  Glen could say that much.  He was staring at the electric typewriter and the blank page in front of him.

            “What?”  Sandra asked, but Glen did not answer, so after a short time of staring at him and thinking thoughts that she imagined Glen could not guess, Sandra went back to her textbook, and Glen got up and walked to the window.

            Glen was only a junior in school, having wandered through three other schools, with plenty of time off before ending up at the University which was a small but very good school in New Jersey, not far from his home.  If not for his own history, he might have questioned why Sandra was older than most of her classmates, but he did not.  Instead, he remembered Diana, the young woman he dated a bit more than a year earlier. 

            He remembered how she betrayed him – how he came home one day and found her in bed with his roommate.  He understood that it was not really her fault.  He remembered that it was not his fault either, though he could not exactly remember why; but she betrayed him all the same.  He had been alone for a long time since then, but now Sandra seemed to be so willing.

             Glen tried telling himself that his reluctance to get close to her was because he was afraid of being betrayed again, but that was not true.  He was healed enough to where he was beginning to feel desperate to get close to someone again.  He tried telling himself that his reservations with Sandra were because he did not really know this girl, this lovely young woman, or much of anything about her; but to be honest, young men in their early twenties rarely think about a woman as a person until later; and especially when the attraction is so strong and so mutual; and, just to be fair, most women know this and dress and act accordingly.

            “I think I just need to go back to my room and get some sleep,” Glen said.  “I really am too exhausted to get any work done.”  That was true enough.

            “I could drive you,” Sandra offered, though she was not sure exactly which dorm he lived in.  She was living in town, at home for some reason.  Glen wondered if maybe she could not afford to live on campus.  “I’m late getting home myself,” she said as put her books away and was ready in no time.  She only took a second to straighten her sweater and run her fingers through her long, curly blond hair. 

            Glen just had to watch, especially knowing that she wanted him to watch.  He loved that white knit sweater.  It made a perfect V shape that hid little and suggested everything, and he felt sure she was wearing nothing of significance beneath the knit.

            Glen tore his eyes away and got his own things.  “It is hardly a walk to the dorm.”  It was a small school so the whole campus was within easy walking distance.  Glen pointed this out, but the protest was so feeble they both ignored him, and Glen thought how glad he was that he had a single room. 

            With that thought making all kinds of suggestions echo through his mind, Glen turned off the light and held the newspaper office door so Sandra could go out first.  She obliged, ignored the fact that there was plenty of room,  and brushed by him, or rather up against him, touching in several places as she passed.  Glen did not even check to see if the door locked behind them.

###

            Once in the car, with the windows up and only the light of the distant dormitory buildings and the stars overhead to shine down on them and bring a glow to their faces, Sandra and Glen began to talk.  It was not about much, at first.  It was mostly just talk, like empty words about some of their past experiences, their interests and such.  Sandra asked if he was seeing anyone, and Glen felt every ounce of hope in that question.  Glen started into his routine answer about Diana, not that she betrayed him, but that they broke up when he transferred from the State College to the University; but then he thought he had better be more honest.

            “It was a strange relationship from the beginning.  I found out that she had been abused as a child, and when we met, she left a guy who was abusing her again.  I kind of went overboard to make sure I was a gentleman the whole time, but I guess it is true that nice guys finish last.  She could not handle being with a nice guy, so after about a year she ended up in bed with someone who slapped her around.”  Glen shrugged.  He could never understand why some women can’t feel love unless they are with jerks who treat them like dirt, and of course, that isn’t love, it is only a kind of masochism.  “Well, anyway, that is past history.  So how about you?”

            Sandra turned away from Glen and Glen was surprised but certain that there was a tear or two.  Clearly it was something she did not want him to see.  He had the good sense to wait, patiently, though he did slip his arm around her shoulders to offer his comfort.  He could not help that.

            “Most men don’t want a used woman,” Sandra said at last.  She turned again to look into his eyes with such hope and longing it staggered Glen.

            “Don’t be so sure, there are all kinds of men in the world,” Glen said.  “Anyway, this is 1978 and aren’t you liberated or something?”  As was normal for him, Glen was trying to lighten the intensity of what she was feeling, because he was feeling it too.

            “Glen, I have stretch marks,” she said without any lightening in her tone at all.  She took his free hand and leaned into him ever so slightly as if to say, thanks for the comforting thoughts, anyway.

            “What?”  Glen did not get it, and he made her sit up again so he could look her in the eyes.

            Sandra looked in Glen’s eyes as well and she saw that he really did not get it.  She wondered how he could be so smart and so stupid at the same time.  “Glen, I have a baby.”

            “A baby?”  Glen still did not get it exactly, but his mind began to race.

            “Melissa.  She is two.”  Sandra said, and then it sunk into Glen’s brain and they got quiet.   For a long time they just looked at each other, face to face, living in the privacy of their own minds and feeling ever so much.  At last Glen leaned forward even as she leaned up and they kissed.  She let go of his hand to put her hand behind his head as if she was not going to let him go.  Her lips were moist and warm and everything Glen imagined they would be, and when they finally parted, Sandra was grinning like a woman who got what she wanted.  But then the something between them rose up inside of Glen’s soul and he pulled slowly away and took his arm back in the process.

            “Can I see you tomorrow?”  Glen asked, and then he amended the statement.  “Can I see you and Melissa?”

            “Oh, no,” Sandra tried to protest.  “I could never bring her to school.  People would ask too many questions and I just couldn’t.” 

            “Three O’clock.  It’s Friday and the campus will be empty.  We could walk in the woods so no one would have to see and ask questions.”  The University had natural woods at the back of the campus where nature trails had been made.  They were perfect for just such an adventure.

             Sandra shook her head ever so slightly, no, but she did not say anything, and the look in her eyes certainly said, yes. 

            “Come on.”  Glen prompted knowing that one kiss was never going to be enough.  “You and Melissa.”  He said it with more certainty and Sandra relented as her head began to nod.  She looked down and took both of his hands as if wondering if this might be the one.  She was not ready to go home.  She wanted to spend some more time with him right then, and maybe share everything, but by then the something was very strong in Glen’s spirit and he gently pulled his hands free, picked up his backpack and stepped out of the car.

            “Three O’clock,” he said.  “I’ll meet you beside Haddon House.”  That was the dorm closest to the woods, and Glen closed the car door before Sandra could answer.  He walked away, still feeling her breath in his face and touch of her lips on his, and the back of her hand holding him agreeably which said to him, “Hold me, too and don’t let go,” and he was wondering what he was getting himself into.  Sandra had a baby.

            “I need to check in and see what the lab has discovered about the equipment we captured.”  Boston changed the subject.  “We had better move fast on devising some countermeasures because it looks like we may have to defend ourselves again.”  She smiled and kissed Lockhart on the head much as Lady Alice had done, and she patted him on the shoulder while she gave one, longing look at Glen like she did not want to miss anything, but she left.

            “I need to arrange a trip to the White House in the morning, I guess.”  Glen turned to Lockhart.  “Would you mind helping with that, or do you have other duties?”

            “Right now, you are my duty,” Lockhart responded.  “And kid, when are you going to start telling rather than asking?”

            “In my next life, no?  Maybe the one after that.”

            Alice looked up from her notes and picked them up along with her laptop.  “I do need to start working on that treaty, though I don’t see how it will help.”  The three of them left together as Belden turned to Ms. Franklin.

            “I need a drink.”.

            It was well into the night before things had calmed down to the point where anyone thought of going home.  Despite her prediction, Bobbi managed to wrap things up well enough by midnight so she could take a break for some sleep.  It was far too late to get rooms in town, so she brought Glen and Alice to the infirmary where there were beds and they set up a partition to separate the boys from the girls.  Glen, Lockhart and Fyodor, who had a home but lived alone and so opted to stay with them, got one side.  Alice, Boston and Bobbi took the other, and it looked like it was going to be a quiet night until the women decided they wanted to talk.  The men tried to ignore them, but the women did not talk long before Alice invaded the men’s side.  She said she had too many questions to sleep, and Boston came because she did not want to miss any of the answers.  Bobbi relented last of all and arrived to ask who brought the marshmallows.

            “That is an interesting piece of clothing you have on.”  Boston noticed.  Glen was wearing what on a glance might have passed for a plain, white undershirt and boxers, but on closer examination it had a sheen to it that no ordinary cloth would have.  When the people brought clothes for them all to sleep in, and fresh clothes for the morning, Glen said, “Thank you,” but he would wear what he had.

            “Fairy Weave.”  Glen named the material.  “It is what I wear under my armor and it is extremely light and comfortable, extremely tough and durable, and extremely versatile.  I can change the color.”   As he spoke the fabric changed from white to blue to red and back to white again.  “I can change the shape and make it appear thicker, more like real clothing.”  The arms of his shirt lengthened to full length and his shirt took on a brown and fuzzy appearance, almost like a winter coat before changing back to a white t-shirt.  “It keeps me warm in winter, and acts almost like air conditioning in the summer, which is great when I’m in chain armor and leather and it is ninety or better outside and humid.”  Glen became introspective, but Alice was not about to leave him alone after that demonstration.

            “Fairy Weave.”  She said.  She had her steno pad with her.  “You don’t mean real fairies, of course.  After all that has happened today, that would just push credibility beyond the beyond.  I’m assuming you mean some different sort of aliens, and that clothing is the result of some fantastic technology, no?”  She was looking around but no one was saying anything until Boston could not contain herself.

            “I always dreamed of fairies when I was young.  I wish I could see one someday.”

            “Young?”  Lockhart looked up from where he was lounging in his bed.  “You mean like last night?”  At least Bobbi smiled.  Boston was the youngster in the group.  Glen imagined she could not have been over twenty-five.

            “You know what I mean,” Boston whispered and stared at Lockhart, but that exchange was overshadowed by Alice’s outburst.

            “You can’t be serious!”

            “Can you think of anything that would mess up history quicker than a bunch of spiritual creatures running around loose in the world?”  Bobbi offered the thought.

            Glen protested quietly.  “Hey!  That’s my line.”

            Bobbi turned to look at Glen.  “As I understand it, he was given responsibility for what he calls his Little Ones when he was first born and he has had to bear that burden ever since.”

            “I think after some six thousand years they have finally gotten the message, though,” Glen added.  “They have no business interfering or even making remote connections with the human world.  I had a few on my crew when I was a Privateer in the West Indies some years back, but really, in the past few hundred years it has only been incidental contacts.”

            “Incidental?”  Fyodor spoke for the first time.

            “Apart from Lincoln’s wife,” Lockhart said, and to Alice he explained in a secretive whisper.  “She’s an elf.”

            “Was,” Bobbi corrected the man.  “But she has been gone for two years now.  I was meaning to ask, but with all that has been going on, it slipped my mind.”

            Glen looked up at the ceiling like he did on the ship at one point.  It was like he was looking for something that only he could see.  “The transformation on Alexis was very thorough, unlike Mirowen, not Doctor Robert’s Mirowen—she’s and elf, too—but you did not know her, the other Mirowen.  Sorry.  I’m not getting anything about where Alexis might be.”

            “Lincoln spent a lot of time looking for her,” Bobbi said.  “Maybe that was why the Vordan picked him up so easily.”

            “Topic, people,” Alice interrupted, loudly.  “We are getting off topic.  I want to hear about the fairies.”

            “Why are you surprised?”  Fyodor asked.

            Alice shook her head.  “I don’t know anymore,” she said flatly.

            “Maybe a story would help,” Glen suggested, and the others were agreeable.  “I would think with this campout, though, wouldn’t you all rather hear a ghost story?”

            “No!”  Bobbi, Lockhart and Fyodor all shouted in unison.  Boston and Alice just looked at each other with yet more questions.

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NOTE: You are welcome to click the tab “Traveler Tales” above and read the story from the beginning.  You can read the whole thing as written or just the Vordan story, or just a short story or two as you please.  Enjoy.