Ashtoreth

Avalon 1.1 Hunters in the Dark part 3 of 3

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“Alexis. Lockhart.” Lincoln called, and they came to the door. Lockhart helped Atonis carry his dead wife out into the open where she got put with the others. Alexis and Lincoln brought the children who looked like they might never stop crying. As they walked past, Lockhart heard Mingus utter two words.

“Only nine.”

The survivors slept outside by the fire that night to be near their loved ones one last time. Not one moment in the night passed when crying could not be heard. The travelers stayed with them out in the open and left their tents packed away. Over supper, Boston read from her database for any who cared to listen.

“Ghouls, a type of lesser spirit of the family of Djin. They feed off the fear and terror they induce in their victims and in the end, suck out the life force. It is said, where there is one, there are ten and where there are ten, there are a hundred.” She looked up at Roland before she turned her eyes to Lockhart. “There may be more of them out there.”

“I think maybe one more,” Mingus said. “I think these are ten from the group Ashtoreth let loose in time. That was a number of years ago, when the demon goddess invaded Avalon and got access to the Heart of Time.”

Alexis apologized. “I’m sorry. I remember the story. It gave me nightmares when father told me about them. But they got sent to a thousand year before Christ—more than three thousand years in the future from here. I did not think they could come this far or I would have mentioned them.” She looked at her father and wondered why he did not mention them either.

“Probably still looking for the way out,” Lincoln said.

“The family of Djin?” Lieutenant Harper interrupted.

“Genies,” Roland and Boston spoke together.

“Tell me about these ghouls,” Lockhart said, and he looked at Mingus.

“They can play with the mind,” Roland answered. “They can make you see things that aren’t there.”

“I may have mentioned that glamours are hard to cast on others,” Mingus spoke openly. “It would be hard for Procter, Roland, Alexis and I to make everyone here look African to blend in with the locals. But Ghouls can easily cast illusions over others and over things to make you see and hear all sorts of things and literally frighten you to death. We caught these by surprise and unprepared, but there is likely one still out there.”

“We need to set up a watch in the night,” Captain Decker concluded.

“A single ghoul can only affect one or at most two minds at a time. Normally only one,” Mingus added. “What do you think, Procter?” He looked over, but Doctor Procter was sound asleep. He did not appear to be adversely affected by all the death around him. Mingus just shook his head.

“We will help to watch in the night,” Atonis volunteered the survivors in the camp and Lockhart nodded while Alexis spoke.

“You don’t mind?”

Atonis looked back at his people. Six had died, but there were eighteen survivors. “We will not sleep well in any case,” he said, and turned again to look at Alexis. “And without your help we would all be dead.”

Iris came up to Boston and knelt beside her. Her older sister, Hespah kept back just a little, but Iris came right up close. “Boston?” When Boston turned her head, Iris cried all over her. What could Boston do but hold the young girl, pat her back and say, “hush” and comfort her.

~~~*~~~

“Did you hear that?” The man picked up his spear.

“Hear what?” The other man squinted into the dark beyond the wood. “A predator of some kind?”

“No. Hush.” The first man crawled slowly over the wood, crouched down low and began to inch forward.

“Oleon. Wait, shouldn’t we wake the strangers?”

“No. It may be nothing. Just wait here.”

The second man waited and waited. He was about to go for help when he heard the rustle of the grass in front of him. “Oleon, is that you?” The man whispered before he saw the ghoul rise-up right in front of him. He barely had time to grab his spear and thrust. He caught the ghoul dead center even as he looked down and saw a spear thrust into his own chest.

The sun rose hot, but by that time most of the tents and things the people would carry were already packed and ready to go. They found the two dead men at first light. Lockhart pieced together what happened.

“It is just the ghoul’s way of reminding us that he is still here, watching,” Mingus said.

“I’d rather have my bokarus back,” Lincoln said.

“I’d rather have him here than running back to warn the other ninety,” Captain Decker said. “You did say a hundred.”

Mingus nodded. “And where there are a hundred, there is a chief who controls and directs the others. They may not know exactly what we did, but you can be sure, whatever time zone they are in, they already know we are here.”

“Cheery thought,” Lockhart said, and he looked over to where the girls had gathered. Iris stood in the middle, and Hespah had warmed up to Katie, Boston, and Alexis. Iris spoke.

“Hespah said I can keep mother’s comb. Isn’t it beautiful?” She held up the comb, white and clean.

“Ivory,” Katie identified it.

“Yes, it is beautiful,” Boston confirmed.

“Now you will always have your mother with you,” Alexis said, and she reached for Hespah’s hand, which the girl willingly gave. “Both of you. And you will always have each other.” Alexis smiled.

Iris was ten and still a girl. Hespah was thirteen and had the look of a young woman. But when the two hugged and a few more tears fell, the others remarked how much they looked alike.

“I don’t understand how she can look so much like her sister,” Boston wondered.

“Because she is her sister,” Alexis responded. “I mean Hespah is her sister. But what I don’t understand is why she doesn’t look more like Amri, or Pan for that matter.”

Katie raised her hand. “I understand that much. Outward appearance is a very small portion of a person’s genetic makeup. I suppose she will always look different, especially when she is a he, which is the part I still don’t really get.”

“Won’t always look different,” Alexis said. “There are the reflections.”

Katie looked at Alexis with curiosity etched all over her face, but she said nothing because Iris and Hespah finished crying for the moment.

The people, with the help of the travelers, piled all the remaining firewood on the bodies and set them on fire. Then the people headed north while the travelers headed south.

“We will go to Neamon’s village by the sea and seek to live among them,” Atonis said.

“I am sure everything will work out well.” Lockhart shook the man’s hand. He paused, then, because Iris tugged on his sleeve. “Yes Iris?”

“The gate should come up quick since we will be moving in opposite directions.” Iris said it and turned her back immediately to stand beside Hespah and take her hand.

An hour passed before anyone spoke. A mass grave will do that.

“We are making excellent time.” Doctor Procter looked at his amulet.

“Shut up.” Captain Decker got rude, and people stopped to look at the man. “Something in the bushes following us.”

“Can’t be the ghoul. They are creatures of the night,” Roland said.

“They are not bound to the night,” Mingus countered.

“Ahh!” Lieutenant Harper got startled and Captain Decker fired his weapon. The ghoul stood there, but also in three other places.

“What are you firing at?” Lockhart yelled.

“Close your eyes,” Mingus commanded. “The ghoul has your eyes.” Lieutenant Harper did not hesitate, but Captain Decker took a second before he closed his. They heard the ghoul let out a sound of frustration, and Doctor Procter took several steps in that direction.

“No!” The doctor shouted at the creature. “You cannot have them.” With that, they all saw it just ahead, but only glimpsed it. The thing made another sound. It sounded hesitant and uncertain before it melted right down into the solid ground.

“It has gone underground,” Mingus said. “It will rest. Quick. Now is our chance to put some distance between us.”

“Could we dig it up?” Captain Decker asked as he opened his eyes.

Mingus shook his head. “They are insubstantial underground. There is no way we could hurt it.”

“Too bad,” Lockhart said, as they made for the gate. “And I noticed it went first for the marines, so they are not just dumb beasts following instinct.”

“Neither is the bokarus, which I assume is still on our trail,” Lincoln said, and Alexis took his arm. He worried too much, but at least this time there were things to worry about.

************************

Monday

Episode i.2 is another one week episode: Beasts in the Night, but not all bests are monsters. Until then, Happy Reading.

*

Golden Door Chapter 24 Ashtoreth

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Beth found herself behind a tree in the rain. The fairies had vanished. She stood alone, and the dragon crawled toward her, spewing fire along the way. Beth felt like screaming. She looked at the river, but it looked like only a stream. Despite the rain, it appeared to be drying up. Beth felt the scream building up in her belly. Beth panicked and took to the sky.

The dragon stretched its wings and followed. Beth flew as fast as she could, but she knew it would not be fast enough. She turned out of desperation. The dragon breathed, and the fire almost reached her. Beth thought of the little something extra gift given to her by Nimbus. She raised her hands, and her little bit of lightning shot out and struck the dragon in the nose. She knew it would not damage the dragon, but it did cause the dragon to turn down. It flew beneath her.

Beth knew the dragon would circle around and be right on her again. She also knew she did not have the strength to do that more than maybe once or twice more. To be sure, she did not know what to do, and her panic neared incapacitating proportions. Then she began to fall. Suddenly, she could no longer fly, and the ground looked very far away. At last, she screamed, but as she took a breath, she heard a voice.

~~~*~~~

Chris stood alone at the front gate. He could not remember rightly, but he could not imagine the others running off with the dogs. As he thought of the dogs, the three-headed dog came out of the shadows. It barked at him, in stereo, and he backed up slowly, like one might back away from a rabid animal. The dog stretched the chain with which it had been tied to the gate. It leapt and leapt, snapping the chain, while Chris raised his hands and avoided saying, “Nice doggy.”

The chain broke.

Chris turned and ran as all three heads snapped at him. He vaguely remembered the gift of Crystal, the oread of the mountain. Just then, he did not care how many alarms he set off. Chris swerved in his run, the dog nipping at his rear. He thought as hard as he could and slipped right through the castle wall.

He heard the three-headed dog crash into the wall and hoped at least one head got knocked unconscious. He threw his hands to his knees to catch his breath as he heard the crash again and again. He heard digging along with the growling and howling of an animal determined to get in. Suddenly, one of the stone blocks in the wall fell out. Chris heard the growl and wondered how many times he could go through the walls before he tired out. Somehow, he imagined it was not as many times as Cerberus could break through the walls. As one of the dog heads poked through the wall, Chris set himself to run, when he heard a voice.

~~~*~~~

James saw the wolves run off. Everyone got carried away from the basilisk at the postern gate. James figured that, like the bear, they did not realize he had gotten down from his wolf.

James ran into the forest. He heard the basilisk follow and saw that great bulk moving out of the corner of his eye. He ran from tree to tree, telling himself not to look in the eyes. He feared he would soon catch up with the rest of the snakes, if not the spiders, or if the bats did not swoop down on him from overhead.

He heard the crunching of leaves and bushes, but the basilisk did not appear to be in a big hurry. It felt like a nightmare, and the basilisk appeared to want him frightened to death before it ate him. James felt the fear intended to freeze him in panic, but his feet did not give him that choice. He kept moving and thought of the gift of the dryad. He figured the serpent would smell him out easily enough, and the glamour would not hide him. But then, he remembered that movie, and he surrendered.

James stopped running. He took on the glamour of a phoenix. Sadly, it was only a glamour and not real. He could not fly up and peck out the basilisk eyes. He got surprised when the basilisk stopped and appeared to hesitate. James figured he was dead, but then he heard a voice.

~~~*~~~

David felt the tentacle of the giant squid wrap around his middle. He screamed and hit the tentacle. He kicked and did everything in his power to break free. The naiad made it so he could breathe underwater. He knew he would not drown; but now the squid began to tighten its grip. David felt the air being squeezed out of him. When he saw the clacking maw of the creature, he felt absolute panic wash over him, but then something penetrated his mind and heart. It felt like something he rarely felt. It caused an interesting word to come out of his mouth.

“No.” Then he shouted what filled his heart. “Angel said, do not be afraid.”

David found himself standing again in the tower, facing the Heart of Time, breathing heavily, but safe from the monster. James, Chris, and Beth, all repeated, “Angel said, do not be afraid.” They all returned to the tower room if they ever left. Ashtoreth looked very surprised, angry, and unhappy.

They all heard the Thump! by the door. They all looked, and Ashtoreth’s eyes went wide with fear of her own. The Golden Door arrived, and the elders could move again. They stepped up beside the door as the door opened to reveal the purest light, a light impossible to look into, not from its brightness, but from its purity and holiness.

“No,” Ashtoreth shouted, as everyone heard the thunder. A knight covered in plate armor and riding a perfect white horse rode out of the door. Ashtoreth screamed. She grabbed the Heart of Time, pulled it from the three-pronged stand, and smashed it on the floor. She began to run, but since she had nowhere to go, the knight’s lance quickly touched her, and Ashtoreth and the knight vanished in a brilliant flash of light.

For one brief second, everyone stared at the crystal, shattered all over the floor.

“Get the pieces…” everyone shouted at the same time. The children scrambled and the elders rushed forward to grab piece after piece of the broken crystal. No one said, “God help us. History is going to end. Maybe the whole universe is going to end…” But they all thought similar things.

Beth gasped, as a piece she reached for vanished in front of her eyes. They all gathered as much of the crystal as they could, but then stood for a second, arms full of shards of the shattered heart, unsure what they could do with it. They looked at each other with blank stares, hoping someone could think of something.

Angel stepped out from the Golden Door. Angel rose both hands, like a moment of praise, and all the pieces everyone gathered vacated their arms and lifted into the air, up over their heads. Even the little bits and slivers that still covered the floor rose and joined the mass of pieces. The pieces of the heart began to spin, and the light covered it all. It stopped spinning all at once, and they saw the light of the heart throb once again, as the Heart of Time settled gently back into the three-pronged stand.

“It is missing some,” Inaros said, and they all saw the missing chunk of time. The Heart of Time throbbed like before, but the light did not appear as bright as it had been.

“But where is the rest of it?” Beth asked, and every eye turned to look at Angel, who stood patiently.

“One, two, and three times, and I will see you again,” Angel said. “This day is not over. The future can be restored.” Angel appeared to smile directly at all four children at the same time before he stepped into the light of the Golden Door, and the door closed and vanished.

Father appeared where the door had been, and while everyone smiled to see him, and Davey let out a little shout, he could only see the missing chunk of the heart. He fell to his knees as in prayer and began to weep. The people, old and young, went to him. They knelt with him, hugged him, and wept with him.

“The future,” he breathed. “Time is in jeopardy…” Their father faded and disappeared from their arms. The children tried to hold on, but it became like he was never really there.

Golden Door Chapter 23 The Tower

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The tower stood, a cathedral-sized building in the middle of the forest. Chris remembered his view of the inside that he saw on the white-wall screen behind the Golden Door. It did not seem cathedral sized on the inside, but then his eyes stayed focused on the Heart of Time and the demon goddess. Chris looked up and had another thought. Then again, the height of the tower may have made it appear not so wide, something like an optical illusion.

Deathwalker put his claw up on Chris’ shoulder as he spoke. “Though the sky is dark, even goblin eyes could not see the top of the tower.” Beth looked up. “Not even fairy eyes, even if the sun was out and it wasn’t raining.”

The group moved slowly along the outside wall of the tower, looking for the door. The bushes and brambles resisted them until the forest ended abruptly on the edge of a manicured lawn. They saw the spring of water that bubbled out of the ground in that place. Beth followed the stream that came from it, with her eyes, and imagined it eventually left the castle at some point to meander down the hill, where it became the small river that flowed into the sea. She remembered that river as one of the first things she saw when she and the boys came into Avalon.

“The poor naiad of the spring,” Mrs. Aster said, with a sad shake of her head. “The water is still running fresh and clean, but no one really knows what happened to her. Some fear the worst.”

“I am grateful for the river,” Beth responded. “I thought about jumping into it when the dragon attacked.”

“Avalon Castle University,” Inaros said, leaning on David’s shoulder and pointing with his walking stick. David looked at the buildings across the lawn, and the footbridge across the stream, which said there were paths through the grass, even if he could not see them in the rain. “Some of the best and brightest minds in Avalon teach and study there.”

“Some?” Chris asked, as he and Deathwalker stepped up.

“Well,” Inaros drew out the word. “Some of us are retired.”

“Here it is,” Mrs. Copperpot garnered everyone’s attention.

“The door,” James whispered, and it looked like a medieval wooden door, with black-painted, wrought-iron decor, hinges, and handle, though it otherwise looked like a regular, human-sized door.

“I assume it is locked,” Inaros said.

“No doubt,” Deathwalker agreed and rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

Mrs. Copperpot held up her cooking spoon. Mrs. Aster pulled out her wand and spoke. “I don’t know the combination.”

“I don’t either,” Mrs. Copperpot agreed.

“I am not sure regular magic would work in any case,” Inaros mused.

“Why are we going in there?” David asked the elf. “Isn’t that where the demon is?”

“We have to,” Chris said. He looked determined.

“We are all there is who can do it,” Inaros told David in as calming a voice as he could muster.

Deathwalker agreed. “As the Kairos said a million times, there isn’t anyone else.”

“Well, we must do something,” Mrs. Aster said, with a look at the sky, where it began to rain harder and harder.

“Before the ground beneath our feet starts to break apart,” Mrs. Copperpot agreed.

Beth agreed with that statement. “We must do something.”

“Maybe all four together?” Deathwalker suggested.

The elders began to argue about it while James reached for the handle. He opened the door, easily. “It’s unlocked,” he said.

Everyone stopped and stared at him for a second before the talking started again.

“Be careful. Quiet. Don’t make a sound. Hush. Shh!”

They stepped into the tower, and the door slammed shut behind them. They got surprised for a long second with the silence of the sanctuary before they heard the voice of pure evil.

“Welcome.”

Something struck the four elders, and they froze where they stood, like stone statues, unable to move a muscle. The children got lifted an inch from the floor and rushed forward against their will, while the voice continued.

“Children. How my husband used to love to eat the children.” The Ashtoreth demon cackled, a true witch’s laugh and the children got deposited at the four corners around her.

The Heart of Time throbbed in front of them, the light getting bright and dim, and bright again, reminiscent of a true heart beating. It rested securely in the three-pronged stool, or table, a crystal about twice the size of a basketball; both smaller, and in some sense bigger than they imagined.

Ashtoreth appeared not far from being a corpse, with her gray green, rotting, wrinkled skin, and black circles around her eyes, which gave her gaunt face a skull-like appearance. She had a few strands of hair left. They grew around the two-great bull-like horns that projected from her forehead. She moved by gliding in a circle around each child, examining them closely. Her sunken, bloodshot eyes showed only death. Her sharpened teeth clacked the whole way, and her mouth drooled, David thought about the idea of eating the children. Her claws with nails like daggers reached out but did not touch.

The children tried not to look. They held their breath, and none of them screamed, though they all wanted to.

 Ashtoreth stopped by the Heart of Time where the children of the Kairos let their eyes rest. It was the only other thing in the room they could focus on, besides the demon-witch. The demonized goddess appeared to smile and spoke about the heart like a child showing off her favorite toy.

“Trapped in this glow is the entire record of human history. Sadly, I have not yet found a way to disrupt that history and change it. But I will, if given enough time. My will be done.” The witch laughed again. “I hear your thoughts, but this tower and crystal were the first things made in this unnatural disruption in the natural chaos of these heavens. It will stand and continue long after the castle, the islands and all are destroyed and returned to the hell they should be.”

Ashtoreth walked once around the crystal, looking alternately at the crystal and the children, which caused the children to turn their eyes to their own feet and the mosaic floor beneath them. Ashtoreth laughed again, and clacked her teeth, seemingly in anticipation of something.

“I saw myself in here, when I escaped this place and walked again for a time on the earth. That happened a thousand years ago, but nothing there was to my liking. The gods abandoned you, but everything there became faith.” Ashtoreth expressed pure disgust. “It was unbearable. After a thousand years in hiding, I found my way back into this place, and I will change the history of all things to my liking. My will be done.” She repeated herself and stopped walking. She appeared to think. “But children, it is not enough to consume your flesh. We would have your souls. Fear is the key. You must be frightened to death.”

Ashtoreth waved her hand, and each of the children found themselves in a different place.

Golden Door Chapter 8 Morning Matters, part 1 of 2

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The children awoke to the sound of church bells, far away; a lovely, soft and comfortable way to wake. Beth had to lay for a few minutes longer to figure out what she was hearing. Chris smiled, but in his usual fashion, he did not want to get up right away. James felt hungry. He always ate a good breakfast. David, with the nightmare journey completely behind him, only remembered his wonderful dream about elves and fairies.

“Get up boy.” David heard the words and sat straight up in bed to find Inaros looking down on him. He realized it had not been a dream. “Sleep all day ‘oft gang aglay,” Inaros said, and though it did not entirely make sense, the tone was clear. David got up.

Beth looked for a change of clothes, but there weren’t any. She looked for her own clothes, but they were not to be found, either.

“No, dear.” Mrs. Aster fluttered there. “Just think to freshen your clothes and then shape them and color them as you wish.” Beth did that, with a deep grin, and thought that she might never have to do laundry again.

“Yeah, yeah.” Mister Deathwalker seemed inclined to agree with Chris. He would not have minded a few more winks himself; but Chris got up, and having overheard Mrs. Aster’s instructions, Mister Deathwalker thought he ought to say something, too. “Freshen up and let’s eat.”

“Why?” Chris asked about the freshening, not the eating.

Mrs. Copperpot outdid herself with the rich variety and quality of breakfast choices. The children tended toward the sweet rolls and Danish type dishes, but James had some eggs, and Chris liked the sausage. Even finicky eater David had more than enough to keep his face stuffed.

 “Maybe we should have shown them before they ate,” Deathwalker said, suddenly. The three little spirits looked at him as if in agreement, but then Mrs. Copperpot appeared to change her mind and shook her head.

“Even that one can’t upset my good cooking,” she decided.

“See what?” Beth asked.

“What we’re up against,” Chris guessed, and the spirits nodded.

“We?” David asked.

“Of course, boy.” Inaros eyed the young man with a knowing eye. “We may be old and all that rot, but once more into the breach, say what?” David just swallowed and nodded.

“Better get it over before Davey changes his mind,” James teased.

“Not funny!” David’s words sounded sharp, even if he knew his brother was only teasing.

Mrs. Aster gave an equally sharp look at the boys but held her tongue as she fluttered up to the wall. The ceiling light, which had been at full glare, softened in anticipation of what was to come.

Mrs. Aster could not get a picture at first. The wall filled with swirling colors, but they would not congeal into a viable picture. Mrs. Copperpot came up with her cooking spoon to help, and Mister Deathwalker also tried flinging some dust at the wall which he pulled from a small pouch he carried at his side. By then, Mrs. Aster shook her stick and looked bewildered, as if something clogged up the magic. Inaros stood with a dour expression.

“Amateurs,” he mumbled. “All together now. One, two, three.” And he pointed his walking stick while the others tried their stick, spoon, and dust at the same time, and at last the picture came into focus. The children came up to stand around them as they all watched.

The room that they looked into did not appear to be all that big, though the ceiling looked cathedral-like, as it went up and up. It ended in beams of wood that were big enough to come from redwood trees and set in the shape of a dome, but the room itself looked relatively small, like the inside of a great tower. The floor looked all inlaid marble, though no one could quite make out the pictures set in the stone. Apart from that, there appeared to be only one noticeable piece of furniture in the room. A three-legged, waist high stand or table of a sort sat in the very center. The tabletop looked shaped like a three-fingered claw of wood, and it held the crystal which beat bright and soft, bright and soft, exactly like a heart. They all recognized the crystal—the Heart of Time.

The creature beside the crystal seemed of general human shape, though little could be determined through the long black robe, and nothing of the face, since it faced the crystal with most of its back to the watchers. It appeared to be staring into the crystal before suddenly, the creature picked up its head and turned around.

“Eh? What is this?” It looked straight at them all, and they saw, for all practical purposes, what looked like a classic hag, or a witch, with only a few straggly strands of gray hair that still clung for life to a skull whose ancient skin had turned a gray-green color. There were bumps and knobs, perhaps warts all over the head, except where the two horns protruded from the skull. These were no knobby little devil horns, but real bull horns, discolored and chipped in a few places, but ready to rend anything that got too close.

“Ashtoreth,” Deathwalker whispered, and Chris thought the goblin looked like a tame puppy compared to this horror.

“Looks like Gollum.” James suggested, and it did look a bit like someone who should have died ages and ages ago.

“I see you watching.” Ashtoreth raised a hand and flashed her teeth. The children expected to see few teeth, if any, in that ancient skull; but the teeth still looked as sharp and pointed as they had probably ever been. Beth imagined those teeth tearing apart live rats while the demon-goddess stayed in hiding for two thousand years.

“I hear you speaking my name.” Ashtoreth turned her head to the side and put a hand to her ear as if listening. Those nails, which may have once appeared human, were so long and thick and sharp they looked more like knives than fingernails.

The head turned again, and they all saw the blood red color come up into those eyes and noticed the darkness around them as the eyes seemed to sink a little further back into that horrible, ancient, decrepit face; and at once they all realized that when Ashtoreth hid herself for a time inside Lydia, she picked up more inside herself than perhaps she bargained for.

Her scream was enough to still the heart as she stretched out her right hand and ran straight at them.

The little spirits moved fast, and whether in concert or just accidentally at the same time, they managed to shut down the picture, but not before Ashtoreth stuck her right hand into the room, right up to the elbow. It grabbed at the air three or four times before it went stiff and turned as white as the wall and as brittle as plaster of Paris. It crumbled to dust. A thump shook the floor ever so slightly, and the golden door opened. A breeze came, swept up the white dust without missing a grain, and blew it out to be scattered in the wind of the world.

Everyone stared at the scene outside the door. It looked like a park, or perhaps an orchard, with the trees spaced liberally about, and only grass and a few ferns and flowers growing beneath. Mrs. Aster quickly turned everyone back to the table. “We’re not ready,” she said to the ceiling.

“I can’t go there,” David said straight out what everyone honestly felt.

“Fortunately, we won’t have to,” Inaros assured him as they took their seats.

“Thanks be,” Deathwalker added.

“Then, what are we doing?” Beth asked.

“We thought we would go to the castles,” Mrs. Aster responded.

Golden Door Chapter 7 Explanations, part 1 of 2

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Mrs. Aster reached out to hold Beth’s hand which rested on the table while Mrs. Copperpot settled into the last seat, the one next to her good eater, James, and Inaros fell silent readily enough. He would let the woman explain.

“And who is Angel?” Beth asked before the fairy could begin.

Mrs. Aster looked at the others before she spoke. “When Ashtoreth, the demon-goddess came out of hiding, and drew your father into this place, and captured the Lords of the Dias, and imprisoned your mother, we four did something that is not normal for our kind to do.”

“And it was a shameful hard thing for us, let me tell you,” Deathwalker added.

“We prayed, not to your father, the Kairos, as is our way, because he is in the most danger of all, but to the other.”

“To the one above,” Mrs. Copperpot said.

“To the Source,” Mrs. Aster closed her eyes.

“To God?” Chris said the word out loud and saw the four elders wince, but nod.

“We were brought into this place and told to wait for you,” Mrs. Aster went on.

“And it was the most scariest moment of my life, let me tell you,” Deathwalker said, and to hear a goblin, or whatever he was, talk about being scared really felt like something.

“And so, now, here we all are, but I am not sure what we can do about the situation,” Mrs. Aster finished.

“Out there?” David asked. He looked up at Inaros, who like James, kept trying not to doze off.

“But it is dangerous out there,” Chris said, in all honesty.

“Yes, son, it is,” Deathwalker said, knowingly. He raised a hand, filled with very sharp nails, and placed it gently on Chris’ shoulder. “There’s danger on every street corner. Washington, Bangkok, Paris. Why, a person can’t hardly make his way in the world without bumping into some evil…” He stopped. “Oh, you meant Avalon.”

“Well, yeah.” Beth sounded exasperated.

“Well, maybe we ought to start with some pictures, some background to get the gist of what we are up against,” he said.

“No,” Mrs. Copperpot said sternly as she stood. “Children got to get ready for bed first,” she insisted.

Clothes were laid out on the four beds, clothes the children did not notice before or that somehow just magically appeared. Mrs. Copperpot pulled a screen from the wall to separate Beth’s area from the boys, and Inaros showed them the bathroom, behind a door on the bedside. The door, almost invisible, fit perfectly into the white wall like the door to the kitchen on the table side.

“Everything off,” Mrs. Copperpot insisted.

“This is fairy weave,” Mrs. Aster explained to them all. You can grow it, shape it, and even color it just by thinking about it. You can harden it for shoes or leave it soft underneath against the skin. You can even separate it into several pieces or bring it back together into a nice dress if you like.”

“I’m not wearing a dress,” James said.

“Of course, you have to separate it to make shoes,” Inaros said, grumpily, like it had gotten past his bedtime.

“She meant me and the dress,” Beth told her little brother.

“Don’t be wearing shoes to bed. You’ll get the sheets all dirty,” Mrs. Copperpot said.

Eventually, all four children were ready, though Beth kept changing her nightgown from blue to green and back again, unable to decide, until Mrs. Aster turned it into a green background with big blue flowers and told her to leave it alone. Then they took their pillows and gathered themselves on the floor in front of the big blank wall at the back of the room, which was going to be their television, as Deathwalker explained.

Mrs. Aster changed back into her fairy size, with wings fluttering gently against the air to keep herself aloft. She said it felt much more comfortable than being big, and Beth said she did not mind. Mrs. Copperpot wanted to pick James up and hold him in her lap, but James decided he would rather not. David would not let poor Inaros sleep. He got excited and expected a good movie. Chris talked with Deathwalker who wanted to get things started; but he tried to answer Chris’ questions and got loud enough for everyone to hear while they waited.

“But how can my dad have lived other lifetimes?” he asked, having realized that the Kairos had to be something more than just a title passed down from person to person.

“Well, it would be more correct to say the Kairos has lived many lifetimes and at present he happens to be your dad. In other lifetimes, the Kairos lived as dad or mom, as it were, of other children.”

“But look. I remember where it said it is appointed once for a man to die and after that the judgment.” Chris insisted.

“Yes, it is, but there is the hurt of it, don’t you see? The Kairos gets all the pain and suffering of death, right up to the last breath, but before he can cross over to the other side he gets pulled into a new conception. He is never actually allowed to die.”

“But I thought reincarnation—”

“It isn’t reincarnation.” Deathwalker spoke with certainty. “It is deliberate and done by a power far greater than us little spirits have. Sometimes he calls the doers his friends, and sometimes he bitterly refers to himself or herself as an experiment in time and genetics, but all the same, he or she gets born again and starts from scratch again as a know-nothing baby.”

“But…”

“Sit down, son,” Deathwalker said, gently, and he reached up again with that clawed hand and rested it again on Chris’ shoulder. “There’s a couple of things to know yet, and no sense in getting worked up over what none of us can really know or understand.”

Chris nodded and sat as Mrs. Aster fluttered up to the wall, pulled a stick out of some unseen pocket, or something like a stick, and began to tap the wall here and there. Wherever she tapped, there came a swirl of color which spread out until it touched other swirls, and then the swirls began to form into shapes, out of focus at first, but they slowly came together.

“Like Tinkerbell.” David suggested.

“Wrong kind of wings,” James pointed out, and then they all grew quiet as the pictures on the wall took on a three-dimensional quality that no television or movie could match. It seemed like they were looking through a glass into another place, altogether.

Alice stood in that place. They all recognized her by her blonde hair, and when she turned around, by her light brown, almost golden sparkling eyes. They named her; and the golden door stood there too. The children imagined it had to be how Alice got into that place, wherever she was. It looked completely desolate, a bit rocky and full of bare dirt without the least sign of grass or anything growing and alive at all.

“This all happened ages and ages ago,” Deathwalker explained. “That spot where they are standing is at the very center of where the Castle of the Kairos now stands.”

“And who is the other one?” Beth asked, because a man that faced Alice had to be nine or ten feet tall.

“Cronos,” Deathwalker said, and they watched while the two held out their hands and something began to glow between them. In a very short time they saw a crystal of some sort, but with an internal glow as if something bright got trapped inside the crystal. After another short time, the crystal began to pulse with a regular steady beat, and then the making of that object seemed to be done.

“That is the Heart of Time,” Mrs. Aster said. “That is the point where human history began, and everything that has ever happened since then is recorded in the heart.”

“Everything?” David wondered, and the four little spirits all nodded.

“Trouble is, the heart is now in the hands of the demon,” Deathwalker said. “And there is no telling what she is doing with it.”

“Our fear is that she may attempt to break it,” Mrs. Aster said.

“And a real fear that is,” Mrs. Copperpot interjected. “Some say that human history will come to an end at that point. Some say that time itself will come to an end. Some say creation will be ended and the whole universe will roll up like a scroll. Who can say exactly?”

************************

MONDAY

After witnessing the making of the Heart of Time, and hearing the dire predictions, it is time to have some further explanations, like why they are there and what they hope to do about the trouble. Next time. Until then, Happy Reading

*

Golden Door Chapter 4 A Light in the Darkness

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“I am Alice,” the woman said, as she came to the ground and plain sandals appeared around her otherwise bare feet. “Come, let me look at you.” The children stepped carefully forward. “Beth.” Alice named her, “And Chris.” She hugged them both. She turned and hugged David. “And my Davey-boy needs a hug, I can tell.” David felt grateful. He did need a hug, but an eyebrow went up. Only Dad occasionally called him Davey-boy. “And James.” Alice squatted down and hugged him as well, and then she held him at arm’s length and talked to them all, but she kept her eyes focused on James and David. “And I wanted your first visit to Avalon to be special,” she said with a sigh.

“Avalon?” David had heard the name, probably from his father.

“A generic name for this island, for the whole string of islands, and there are many other names, but I did hope to give you a wonderful treat as soon as your father found his way here, only now I can barely hold things together, and with your father so sick…” Alice paused, turned her head, and sneezed, twice.

“Bless you,” James said. Lady Alice nodded and took a hankie from her sleeve.

Father might be sick, but this woman did not look too well either, Beth thought.

“This is the second heavens.” Alice stood to explain what she could. “It is the dividing place between the Earth and the throne of God. The laws of physics do not exactly apply here. Things fold in and back on themselves in impossible ways, but I have made this place stable and a place of sanctuary for my little ones. But now that Ashtoreth is here, there is no telling what may happen. The Lords of the Dias have come under her control, and they rule the castles. The Ladies are with your mother.”

“Mom is here?” David interrupted when he heard something he understood. He had hope in his voice.

“Yes, but she is in the dungeon with the Ladies, and that is not a good thing.”

“And what about Dad?” James asked in his almost whisper voice. Alice squatted down again to face him. She placed her hand on his arm and spoke.

“Sweet James.  I do not know how much of this you may understand—any of you. I do not wish to confuse you, or tell you wrong, but some things you will have to learn in time and through experience.” She stood again, shut her eyes, and spoke as clearly as she could.

“Your father is a very old and wise person called the Kairos. He did not know this before he got sick, and why he did not know is very complicated. But suffice to say, your mom did not know, and you did not know. But in this life, he is the Kairos.” Alice paused and took a deep breath.

“The Kairos stretches back into the most ancient days, even to the beginning of history.” She smiled. “I am also the Kairos—at least the one that will live fifteen hundred years from now. You see, the Kairos has lived many times in the past, and will live again in the future, except I don’t know what Ashtoreth may do. She may yet find a way to kill me, by which I mean she may find a way to kill your father.”

“The demon Ashtoreth?” Chris wanted to be clear about the Ashtoreth they were talking about.

“For the most part,” Alice said. “As like to a demon as can be.”

“The Kairos. It is like a title passed down from person to person?” David asked.

“Not exactly, but near enough,” Alice said. “It may be easiest to think of it that way.”

“You’re from the future?” James caught that.

“I am,” Alice admitted, and smiled for James.

“But wait. My father. He is this Kairos person in the present day? Okay. I don’t know what that means, but I have no reason to disbelieve you.”  Beth had another thought. “So, how many different Kairos people have there been?”

“Sixty women and sixty men, so far. He is the sixty-first, a male life. And to be more honest, Chris, Ashtoreth is not exactly a demon. She was a goddess in the ancient days, but not a nice girl even then. Now, after hiding here on Avalon for nearly two thousand years, she has been transformed into something terrible; something horribly wicked and twisted.”

“But what about my dad?” David asked. He did not entirely understand what Lady Alice meant when she said he was this Kairos person, and so was she, but his mind stayed focused on what he saw as the present and most pressing problem. “We have to save him.”

Alice smiled again, though this time, it looked like a weak smile. “Your father is in a coma, but he is resting comfortably for the moment. I don’t think Ashtoreth has decided what to do with him. In the meanwhile, she has opened doors and let all sorts of unsavories into Avalon. Monsters and the like have invaded this sanctuary. With your dad unconscious, though, she has also opened the door for me to act. I have been straining against her to keep Avalon and the whole system of islands from collapsing into the natural chaos of the second heavens, but I don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep it up without help.”

“What can we do?” Beth wondered.

Alice shook her head. “I worry about my future life, and about your father, to be sure, but I am worried about Avalon as well. If this system, this sanctuary world should be destroyed, the little spirits of the earth would have no place to run but to Earth, and that would be an unimaginable disaster for the human race. The whole future of humankind, overrun by elves, dwarfs, imps and all would be irrevocably changed, forever. It is possible that I might never be born.” Alice sneezed again. “You have no idea how keeping this place open for my little ones has kept human history moving forward in human hands.” Poor Alice appeared to be genuinely sick, and suffering, but she tried hard not to show it.

“But what can we do about all that?” Chris asked. Beth nodded. David looked up as if surprised by the idea that they might be able to do anything in a land filled with giants and monsters. James remained his usual, unreadable self.

“Go to the light. I have prayed that you may find help there. See if there is anything you can do or not. But you are your father’s children. You are the children of the Kairos. You are hope. I do not know how to hope for myself, but I will hold the land and the sea and the sky together for as long as I can. Now I must go.” A look of relief lifted to the Lady’s face as she laid her sweet hand once more against David’s face and said, “Courage.” Then she vanished. She just utterly and completely disappeared and left four children to stand in the sudden darkness.

Golden Door Chapter 2 The Lay of the Land, part 1 of 2

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“Hey! Children!” Someone yelled from behind. Beth and Chris spun around to see a man tall enough to block the sun.

“Run!” Beth and Chris both spoke at the same time, and all four scattered for the grain. They had little hope they could get there, or hide once they arrived, but there seemed no other choice.

“Bert?” One of the giants turned, squinted, and shaded his eyes.

“Say something?” The other giant looked up, afraid he missed something important.

“Get them! Get the children!” Bert yelled, but by the time the other two figured out what he was yelling about, the children were hidden in the field, amongst the grain. After a short way, Beth fell to her knees and crawled in a zig-zag pattern as fast as she could. The boys came right behind her.

Bert continued to yell. “Get out! Get out of there, you morons! Get out of the grain, you’re stomping it to bits!” James, in the rear, caught sight of a sandaled foot nearly as big as himself being gently lifted into the sky. “Lady Ashtoreth isn’t a stupid demon. She doesn’t want the field destroyed.”

“But this is the field of the Kairos,” one of the giants spoke. “If he wakes up, he’ll be really mad.”

“All the more reason to stay out of it, you blinkin’ fool,” Bert responded.

“Sorry, Bert.”

The children heard a loud slap! “Stupid doofus!” Bert said, and one giant began to cry.

“What did you hit Rupert for? Why are you yelling at him?”

They heard a second slap. “I was yelling at you, pea brain.”

That got followed by a dull thud, which sounded like a punch. “I am not a pea brain. You take that back.”

“Why should I, pea brain?” Apparently, someone got pushed because the giant that was crying stopped crying and yelled.

“What ya pushing for?” He must have shoved back, because the cursing started up along with plenty of slapping, hitting, and kicking.

“I feel sorry for the one in the middle,” James mumbled as he came to a stop. Chris and Beth were whispering, and then Chris shared with David and James.

“We’re going to try and get to the trees at the back of the field. I think we can lose them in the forest.”

“But we have got to stick together,” Beth added, and they started to crawl in the direction they hoped would take them into the forest.

The fighting between the giants, and it sounded like an awful row, stopped as suddenly as it started when Bert shouted, “The children!”

“But the grain,” Rupert reminded them.

“Get around to the back,” Bert ordered. “If they get to the trees, they might get away. Come on, Knuckles, quit lying around.”

“Coming,” Knuckles answered, but his voice sounded rather shaky and uncertain.

The children stopped. The giants circled the field much faster than they could go through it. “The castle?” Chris whispered, but Beth shook her head. She was not moving until she saw what the giants did.

“But Bert. The field’s too big for the three of us,” Rupert complained.

“They could be anywhere in there by now,” Knuckles agreed with his friend, and the children heard a groan coupled with a rending in the earth. Bert pulled up a switch, in fact, a young sapling. The others did the same.

“Now, look careful-like,” Bert said, and the children heard the swishing back and forth, as the grain covered them for a second. They heard swishing down the way as well, until Bert exploded. “I said careful!” Then they heard a whoosh of wind and the stinging sound like a whip struck home, and a tremendous, “Ow!” This got followed by more whooshing and the cracking of whip-trees against shirts and bare skin, and Beth decided to take a chance.

Beth got to her feet but stayed bent over. The boys did the same, except James who did not need to bend over at all, and they ran for the forest. They were very close. Fortunately, Bert and Knuckles had their backs to the children. Knuckles turned away, because he just whipped Rupert in the eyes. Rupert, the only giant facing them had both eyes closed and he rubbed one. Bert did not notice, because he got busy bringing his small tree down on the back of Knuckle’s head.

“Doofus is right,” James mumbled as they ran deep into the trees. This time David heard and smiled in spite of himself.

After a while, the children stopped. They huffed and puffed, and Beth had to put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Chris seemed the best off of the four. At fifteen, soon to be sixteen, he did a lot of jogging and walking around town back home when he could not catch a ride.

“Which way?” Beth asked, but she honestly wondered, because the forest turned thick with undergrowth, so their trajectory had not exactly been in a straight line. Chris judged the position of the sun and pointed in the way he imagined led to the castle. He started to walk before the others were quite ready.

“Wait a minute,” Beth said, sharply. She kept herself from yelling. “Who put you in charge? Don’t we even get a vote?”

Chris did not answer her directly. “The castle has to be this way.”

“But don’t you think that is where the Ashtoreth demon is, and the sleeping Kairos, whoever she is?” Beth spoke, even as she began to follow. David got ahead of her at that point, and he turned to walk backwards.

“But maybe Mom and Dad are there, too.” David held on to that thought as his source of comfort. He tripped over a root and fell. James laughed but tried to cover up. “Not funny!” David yelled, way too loud, and he only realized that maybe yelling was not a smart thing to do after it was too late. They heard the noise of crashing trees back the way they came, and they all hurried to catch up with Chris.

Avalon 6.6 The Count, part 1 of 6

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After 588 BC Babylon. Xanthia lifetime 78: Sister of Cyrus the Great

Recording …

Muhamed groused the whole way through Assyria.  Nothing appeared to work or go his way.  The diseased natives died anyway.  They came back to life, but the local gods ended that quick enough.  He honestly dared not stick around to see.  There had been one god in that place.  He tried to explain his mission, but the pig-headed fool rushed him to the time gate and kicked him out of his world.

Muhamed groused and stopped walking.

He saw a farm house up ahead.  He imagined he was being generous to call the slat and mud brick shack a house.  No doubt a farmer and his wife lived there—a farmer who would die young from too much heavy labor.  He would see if the wife had any bread.  He might use the wife if she proved good looking.  Not like marriage meant anything to unbelievers.

He walked and thought again.

After his failure with the Native-Americans, he got stymied.  India proved far too dangerous.  He whipped up some insect repellant, but got out of there as quickly as he could.  The next three, count them, three time zones were filled with space alien monsters.  In the first, he brought those horrible skeletons to life, but before he could do anything with them, he got caught by his enemies.  Then he found the aliens, and they had real weapons of mass destruction.  He escaped and got out of there.  The third alien time zone looked like all-out war any minute, and he almost got eaten. The middle one, Rome, might have worked. The space aliens were quiet, and the thought of ruining Rome might have made it worthwhile; but nothing was there, yet. He remembered how early in time he traveled.  Mohammed had not come yet, but neither had those Christians, thank god.

Muhamed stopped walking to check on something.

He thought he might kill a Jew if he found one.  He pulled out his big steel knife, the one he took from the black-haired witch. “Hello,” he called to the house. They would not understand him, and he would not understand them, but he could make his wishes known well enough. He hid the knife in the folds of his clothes.  “Hello,” he called again.

He got his feet moving again, and let his complaints finish.

Finally, in this last time zone, he thought he had them.  The city appeared quiet.  The walls would give the dead nowhere to wander.  They had many graves within the city.  He found a whole catacomb full of the dead, and had to move swiftly to drop on them all on his way out.  He could not claim to have gotten them all, but he got most.

Muhamed stopped. A man came to the door of the farmhouse.  “Hello,” he called, smiled, and waved at the man.  The man might have been thirty, but he already looked fifty.  Muhamed got a good grip on the knife hidden in his clothes and walked.  He considered what went wrong, last time.

Muhamed imagined zombies would work much better than skeletons, but if some of the dead were virtual skeletons, he would not mind.  The enemy all sat up on the ziggurat, a pagan, ungodly artifice that should be torn down and turned to rubble.  All he had to do was convince enough zombies to go up the steps and attack his enemies. It sounded simple enough.

“Do you have any bread?” Muhamed asked, and pointed to his mouth, like he was eating.

The man smiled for him and the man’s wife came to the door.  She appeared quite young and good looking, like the years of toil had not yet had its way with her.  Muhamed came close, and shoved the knife into the man’s heart.  He might not be a doctor, but he had to know his anatomy from pharmacy school.  The man did not live long enough to struggle or fight back.

He pulled out the knife and went for the woman.  They conveniently had a bed in the one room hut.  He enjoyed himself, even if she screamed, but in the back of his mind, he kept thinking about what went wrong last time.

The zombie brains were too rotten to follow even simple commands.  He had to get a torch to defend himself.  Then he hit upon an idea, as other people decided torches were a good option.  He got the people to corral the zombies. Apparently, their brains were not too rotten.  They still recognized fire as a threat, and backed away.  He did not come up with the idea, and some of the zombies got driven into the river, but plenty of them got driven toward the ziggurat.  He felt elated.  Surely, the people built the monstrosity for their dead gods.  He guessed they were hoping their gods would deal with the living dead.

He saw when the enemies up top reacted to the zombie attack.  He saw that man with his weapon of incredible power reduce his zombies to piles of dust. He gagged, when suddenly all of his zombies became dust, all at once.

He hit the farmer’s wife as he remembered in this ancient world, there were some people who masqueraded as gods. Ashtoreth was one.  She found him.  She rushed him to the next time gate.  She yelled and threatened him, again.

He hit the farmer’s wife again.  He thought Ashtoreth had to be a very powerful sorceress.  He knew he dared not make her cross. He knew he needed to succeed in his mission if he ever hoped to get home again.  But he did not have to be happy about it.  He could be angry.  He could hate Ashtoreth in his heart.

He beat the woman beneath him until she was raw.

The farmer’s wife stopped crying and probably passed out for a while.  He did not kill her.  He would use her again after he calmed down, and he might actually enjoy her.  He sat at the table, found what food the house had to offer, and he watched the woman.  His mind kept thinking about the living dead.  Then it hit him.  He found a cup and some water.  He put two drops of his elixir of life in the water, and gave it to her to drink.  It never occurred to him to see what his elixir would do to a person who was not dead, or diseased and about to die.  He figured the woman might have a couple of broken bones, and her face and arms were badly bruised and cut, but she would live. He made her drink the water.  Then he went back to the table, ate what he wanted, and watched and waited.

###

“Xanthia, female.  588-529 BC,” Lincoln reported.  “The database calls her Cyrus the Great’s crazy baby sister.”

“Cyrus the Great?” Katie and Evan spouted at the same time.

“Yeah, that guy,” Lincoln said, before Katie and Evan took turns spouting information about who “that guy” was. Alexis and Millie might have followed some of it.  Millie in particular spent five years sitting in on Professor Fleming’s lectures, which to be fair, covered a fair amount of history up to the time of Julius Caesar, where they thought they were trapped.  Certainly, when they talked about the Roman Empire to come, they could hardly say the word empire without mentioning Cyrus the Great and the founding of the Persian Empire.  That was about all Lockhart and Lincoln got; that the man started the Persian Empire, though to be fair, it registered that he would be a rather important person to history, in the grand scheme of things.

When Katie and Evan wound down, Lincoln got back to reading.

“Xanthia’s father, Cambyses, married her off to some general when she turned eighteen.  He got killed in battle, so he married her again, at twenty-four, to another general.  That was in 564.  Cambyses had a stroke in 559, and Cyrus took over running the kingdom, under the Median king, of course, who was also Cyrus’ grandfather.  But then, Xanthia’s second husband died in battle.  Despite his stroke, Cambyses tried to marry her one more time, and this time to a noble administrator in Ecbatana, Media, when she was thirty.  He figured the man had no interest in war.  That was actually in 557.  Cambyses died in 551, and Xanthia’s third husband died in battle the same year.”

“Poor girl,” Alexis said, and Millie agreed.

Lincoln raised his eyebrows. “Let’s just say, she did not want for affection.”  He thought it best not to explain that comment.  “But in 550, the year after Cambyses died, Cyrus overthrew his grandfather, took the Median throne along with the Persian throne, and without much trouble, apparently, since he was the king’s own grandson.  That began the Persian Empire.  But anyway, Xanthia begged Cyrus to let her follow him around like she did when she was four and he was sixteen.  He couldn’t say no.”

“Did she have any children?” Alexis asked.

“One son, but he died young.  Four daughters.  Three lived to adulthood, but by 550, she turned thirty-eight, and her youngest daughter, Roxane, turned nine.  The girl stays mostly with Cyrus’ wife, Cassandane, while Cyrus and Xanthia went off conquering the world.”

“Enough,” Lockhart said.  “Too many names.  I’ll never remember them all.  Xanthia and Cyrus the Great is about my limit, though I suppose he isn’t great yet.”

Avalon 6.2 Sudden Encounter, part 5 of 6

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The travelers made a wide berth around the skeleton army that moved slowly through the wilderness.  When they came to the forest, they turned in. Boston said the Kairos should be among the trees, even if they got off track for the next time gate.  When they came to a meadow, they thought to stop for lunch.  They hardly dismounted, however, when an advanced troop of humanoids caught up to them.

The humanoid soldiers pulled long knives, which they clearly knew how to use.  No one talked.  No one debated.  The humanoids just attacked, and the travelers nearly got caught. Fortunately, Boston and Katie both sensed the approaching soldiers, even if they did not realize how close they were.

Katie and Decker flipped their rifles to automatic.  Boston and Lincoln had their handguns.  Elder Stow, Sukki and Alexis rounded up the horses, while Lockhart turned his shotgun on one that seemed to appear suddenly, and very close.  The travelers mounted and rushed off, even as one humanoid began to shout orders.  A couple of shots from humanoid rifles pierced the woods, but by the time that happened, the travelers were lost among the trees.

The travelers soon broke free of the trees and found a sheltered dip in the landscape to keep the horses.  Then, while the others held the horses, Lockhart, Katie, Decker, and Boston went to the tree line, to make sure none of the soldiers followed them.

“They probably had orders not to use their heat rays among the trees,” Lockhart said.  He lumped all alien weapons under the generic, “heat rays”.

‘Fire is not a good weapon,” Decker admitted.  Lockhart looked at Katie to explain.

“A sudden turn in the wind, and you risk getting your own men trapped by the flames.  Plus, when the air fills with smoke, it isn’t easy telling friend from foe.”

“Plus, there is no way to control it,” Decker added.  “A forest like this; a fire would run wild.  It might burn down half the countryside.

“I’m not sensing any soldiers following us,” Boston said, with a shake of her head.  “I should have known sooner, but they don’t feel like human beings, even if they look like us.”

“Hey, Lockhart.”  Lincoln walked up to join the crew.  “Have you seen Muhamed?”

No one had.

###

After getting around the skeletons, Muhamed simple waited for the chance to slip away.  He might have gone for firewood and not come back, if they planned to prepare some lunch.  Instead, the attack of the soldiers proved the perfect opportunity to leave unnoticed. Indeed, he hurried.

Muhamed stayed unaware of the larger events going on around him.  He imagined the army as local men, since they looked like ordinary enough soldiers, in their leather, and they used no weapons of power.  He imagined they were headed to attack one of the cities nearer the coast, so he did not think twice about them.  And he did not imagine there might be another army coming from the other direction.

He heard a voice.  He saw a person in a different sort of uniform.  He saw three of them.  He just started to wonder what he stumbled into, when he vanished.

Muhamed reappeared a hundred miles away, directly in front of the time gate.  Ashtoreth stood there, hands on hips, looking cross.  Muhamed fell to his face and trembled for his life, while the goddess spoke.

“You’re an idiot.  You almost walked right into the Android front line.  I don’t know whatever made me think you might be useful.”  She tapped her foot and demanded, “Say something.”

Muhamed spouted his thoughts, and proved unable to hold them in.  “The skeletons would not follow my commands.  I found your enemies.  They should be ripe for the taking.”

“Silence.”  Ashtoreth shouted, and Muhamed turned ashen white and spit up some bile.  The anger of such a goddess would have killed many.  “They are mere flies—annoying insects to be squashed without a second thought.  But they are being watched by many in the heavens.  I will not be a fool, like you.”

“But the skeletons would not follow my commands.”

Ashtoreth appeared to take a deep breath. “The elixir gives life.  It does not give you mind control.  Fool.  You must catch them in the swamp before you make the hungry swamp creatures live.”

Muhamed said nothing, but he thought, what about my life?  How could he bring the swamp creatures to life and get away before they ate him?

“I am not concerned about your life,” Ashtoreth said, knowing exactly what he was thinking.  “Unless you fail to kill the travelers.  I am tempted right now to torture you for the next thousand years, to start.”

“No, please.  I will kill them, dead.  I will do this.  They are Kafir.  They do not deserve to live.  I will use the elixir to trap them in their worst nightmare.  You know I will do this.”

“I am not known for patience,” Ashtoreth said, and vanished.

Muhamed stayed where he was for a while, and breathed.  But eventually, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and stepped through the time gate and into the next time zone.

###

Artie cried when she hugged her adopted mother Katie.  Katie cried with her.  Dad-Lockhart put his big arms around both of his girls and nearly cried with them, but they were happy tears.  Boston’s eyes teared up, empathic elf that she was, and Lincoln and Alexis held each other and smiled to watch.  Decker and Elder Stow kept one eye and their ears on the receding battle, and one eye on the android troop that followed Artie.  Sukki did not know what to make of it all.  She stayed beside Elder Stow, being shy in front of so many people, even if the androids were not exactly human people.

Finally, the love-fest broke up and Artie called for a young man.  He looked mostly human, but he had some cyborg enhancements here and there. “David,” Artie called him.  “He is about seven or eight generations from my son. Apparently, when the Kairos made me an android again, he left my uterus alone, temporarily.  I was pregnant.”

“I didn’t know,” Katie said, and her face showed both joy and concern.

“I am fully android now, but I gave birth to a son, so I did have the full human experience after all.  I got to be a mom.”  Artie and Katie hugged again, and almost shared some more tears.

“David,” Lockhart put out his hand, and David knew to shake that hand, but he said nothing and kept looking at Artie to explain, even if he knew the stories.

“He calls me Grandma.”  Artie turned to David.  “These are your great-grandparents.”

Lockhart let go of the handshake and reached out to hug David instead.  “Welcome to the family.”

Katie looked at Artie.  “You make me sound so old,” she protested, before she also hugged David.  “You have your grandmother’s look about you,” she said, and turned again to Artie.  “Do I get to spoil him?”

Artie smiled at that thought.  “I spoil him enough,” she admitted.

Decker interrupted.  “You need to pull your troops back.  It sounds like the Humanoid troops have run into the skeletons.”

Elder Stow checked his scanner for confirmation.  “That appears to be the case.”

“Boston.”  Artie hugged the elf.  “And Sukki.  I remember you,” she said, as she hugged her.  “I was hoping you would go with the travelers.  Are you girls taking care of each other?”

Sukki looked at Boston and nodded.

“We leave no one behind,” Decker said.

“I remember,” Artie agreed and smiled for the marine.  “But come. We need help in scanner technology and in code breaking, if you can.  I wish the Kairos could be found.”  She began to walk, and the travelers and her escort followed.

“Artie.”  Katie came up to walk beside her and slipped her arm over Artie’s shoulder.  “Sweetheart. You should not be so stressed.  After more than four hundred years, you are still here.  You must be doing something right.”

Artie cried.  She let loose, and rivers flowed; and these were not happy tears. She did not stop until they got to the android camp.

They found several odd-looking humans in the camp, and only realized what they were seeing when one younger man opened his arms and shouted, “Boston.”

A red-headed streak raced into his hug. “Wow.”  Haniashtart raised her eyebrows at such speed, and a few androids looked equally impressed.

“Ibelam?”  Lincoln had to ask.

“I am,” Ibelam said.  “And these swarthy fellows are my associates. Haniashtart is an elect, like Katie, you know.”  The two women nodded to each other.  “Abdanath is my marine, or the equivalent in this age.”  Ibelam pointed to Decker who appeared to be in conversation with one of the android officers.  “Ahumm is my navigator, and knows the stars, though he has never gotten close to one. Gerbaal is my cook.  He can make anything taste almost good.”

“You mean he can make almost anything taste good?” Alexis said.

“I didn’t say that,” Ibelam said, flatly.

“The android people, maybe,” Ahumm said. “I see what you mean about them being people.  But who are these others?  They look like a strange crew.”  He gave Boston a double stare, having seen her run faster than any human ought to run

“Stranger than you know,” Ibelam said, with a grin.  He raised his hand, and the glamours around Boston, the elf, and Sukki, the Gott-Druk fell away.  He lowered his hand, and the glamours of humanity returned.

Artie stood quietly that whole time, her head lowered before the Kairos.  Ibelam obliged her by stepping up and giving her a big hug.  “I have spoken to Anath-Rama.  She is going to help me remove the humanoids from this world. Meanwhile, she says you have kept her very busy.  Tell me about it.”

Artie nodded.  She introduced General Redfern and his first officer, Captain Korman.  She got stools, a couple of chairs, and several big logs for seats, though some, particularly Ibelam’s crew, were happy to sit on the ground.  Then she spoke.

Avalon 5.12 Bad Wine, part 3 of 5

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The travelers were not disappointed with the tantrum.  The ground began to shake, which Elder Stow said had to be below the screen.  He reminded them the screens formed a globe and projected below the ground as much as above the ground.  The travelers watched as the desert cracked.  Steam shot up from several cracks, like wild geysers.  Flame came up from others.  The Tornado slammed into the screens.  The whole landscape turned from the desert, to an image of Hell.

Boston saw one of the streams of fire waver, and curiosity made her go invisible.  She saw a big, vulture-like bird had fallen to the ground.  It smoked, like it had been burned, and it took a moment to get Alexis’ attention well enough to explain what she could see in the dark, lit up by the light of the flames.

“Of course,” Alexis said.  “It isn’t just us stuck between two worlds.  The whole area around us is shifted, like the real world and the sand world are being overlapped in our location.  We are mostly insubstantial to the real world, and the real world is mostly unsubstantial to us, but not entirely so.  We pass through the real world and the real world through us, but not entirely so.  We have substantial shadows, we might say.”

“Uh-huh,” Boston said, but it would take her some time thinking about it before she understood what Alexis understood.

The ground began to rise, beneath their feet, and while the rest of the people, and the horses, began to panic, Elder Stow smiled.

“Something like rock must be pushing us up from underneath,” Lincoln said.

“The ground won’t stay still,” Sukki complained.

“Why are you smiling?” Boston returned to visibility and asked Elder Stow. He played with the screens, and slowly let sand fall out of the screens from beneath the traveler’s feet as they rose.  The travelers began to sink in the globe or protection.  Elder Stow began to float so he, and his scanner and equipment, stayed in the center of the screen globe, even as the bottom half of the globe got pushed out of the ground from underneath.  Elder Stow left enough sand in the bottom part of the globe for the travelers and the horses to stand upon, but soon enough he floated well over their heads.  He seemed to know exactly when the screen globe broke free of the sand, and he moved without warning.

They flew.

The travelers, the horses, the sand beneath their feet, and Elder Stow overhead.  The whole screen globe flew toward the city, and the djin appeared stymied, like this was an option he had not considered.

“My little flotation device is not designed for all this weight,” Elder Stow shouted down.  “It may give out after a short way.  I do not know how we may hit the earth.  I hope we don’t roll.  I hope the horses are not damaged, or worse, roll on top of you and damage you, but for now, we might as well take advantage of the djin’s mistake.”

“He is flying,” Sukki gasped.

“It is how he got around at first, when he followed us,” Boston told her.  “He went invisible and flew after us.  Nothing we could do about that, until he decided of his own free will, that it was safer and better to join us on the journey, since we were headed in the same direction he was headed.”

They did not fly fast, but some time passed before the djin figured out to raise the wind and sand again and try to blow them back.  Too late.  They reached the city, and Elder Stow just had to figure out how to set them down, safely.  He found a market square, deserted in the night, but big enough if he trimmed the size of the screens.  He went for it, though it took some fast and delicate manipulation of the screen and floatation controlers.

As the screens sank back into the sand, and Elder Stow returned to set his feet again, on the ground with the travelers and the horses, he flipped the invisibility disc back on to show them where they were in relation to the town.  He imagined it was a market.  Katie knew better.

“We must be in Rabbah, and this is the temple complex.”  Katie pointed toward the three-story tall bronze looking statue of a man with a bull head which took up one whole side of the square.  “That is the altar of Moloch.  He eats the sacrifice of human children.”

“Ashtaroth land,” Lincoln read, before he explained the Sukki.  “The one with the basilisk, who ate your entire expedition.”

“No,” Sukki whispered, and hid her face in her hands.  Boston and Alexis comforted her, while Lockhart kept Katie from getting closer, to examine the altar.

Something swirled in the square.  It became a little tornado before it began to form, outside the screen.  The travelers feared the djin, but it turned out to be a woman.  She came dressed in a plain, pull-over dress that fell around her like a shapeless tent.  She did not appear a bad looking woman, though it would have stretched the truth to call her pretty.  Mostly, she looked haggard, or cruel, or broken in some way; and angry, which did nothing for her looks—that, and the two big horns, like bull’s horns, that grew out or her forehead.  Still, she looked human-like despite the horns, but from the way the travelers trembled, they knew she had to be the goddess.

“Let me see you,” she demanded, and Elder Stow wisely turned off his screens.  It seemed better than her breaking them. The woman squinted, growled, and waved her hands.  The travelers felt themselves drawn back into the real world.  The only thing missing was the thump! when they landed.  They watched as Ashteroth grinned a wicked grin.  “The two ancient ones from the before time,” she said.  “And six ohers that do not belong here.  How nice.  What fun we will have.”  She looked up at the black cloud that appeared to hover in the sky and defy the wind.  No one had to guess who that black cloud represented.  “I might even let you live for bringing them to me,” she spoke to the sky.

“Who should we call?” Lockhart whispered.

Katie shook her head.  “In this place, only Moloch, her husband.”  Katie pointed at the altar, the big, bronze bull-headed man.

“Yes,” Ashtaroth said.  “And my husband will be very pleased with your sacrifices.  We have seven chambers in image.  We will cook you, and eat you, and I will relish your spirits.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…” she stopped when she pointed at Boston.

“Eight,” Boston prompted, in case the goddess forgot what came next.

Ashtaroth shrugged.  “I have no need for a spirit one.”

“Moloch,” Boston called.  “Moloch…”

“No,” Ashtaroth said, but it was too late.  The god appeared, eight feet tall, muscular, naked, bull head and all.

“You have trespassed on my place,” he said.  “I claim your children.”

“We have no children,” Katie responded.

The bull head looked up at the black cloud and yelled.  “I said no.”  He clenched his fist and the cloud disappeared, leaving a night sky full of stars.  “I claim you,” he said, and Ashtaroth smiled.

“We are hedged by the gods,” Boston said.  “By Enlil, Enki, Marduk, Ishtar, Hebat, Arinna, Hannahannah and Astarte.”

Katie found courage in the names and added to the list.  “By Odin, Zeus, Amon Ra, Tien Shang-Di, by Ameratsu, Leto, Artemis, Apollo and Ares.”

“By Hathor and Horus,” Boston continued.  “By Varuna and Brahma.”

“By Maya, and the Great Spirit over the sea.  By Poseidon, Feya, Bast and Anubis, Sekhmet and the Kairos, and many others.”

“Are you prepared to bring the wrath of the gods down upon you?” Boston asked.

“Harm us at the risk of your life,” Lockhart added.

“The gods will send you to the other side,” Lincoln said, using the words the gods used for death.

“You will be cast into the outer darkness,” Alexis added.

“Even into the lake of fire,” Boston said with a shiver, her head lowered that whole time.

Moloch did not appear to be a bright person.  He held his unclenched hand out to the travelers, like he felt for something.  He seemed to sense something.  He roared loud enough to shake the nearby buildings.  Then he spoke.

“You should not be here.  You should go to the other side.”

Moloch unclenched his fist even as Ashtaroth shouted, “No.”  The travelers vanished from that place.

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MONDAY

Go to the other side…of what?

Be sure to return for the second half of episode 5.12, and the end of Season Five

Until then… Happy Reading

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