Avalon

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

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“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.

Golden Door Chapter 1 Monsters in the House, part 2 of 2

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Green grass stretched out before them in a world that looked bright with late afternoon sunshine. They heard the faint roll of the sea somewhere, but they could not see it through the door. They smelled the fresh air and the aroma of growing grain which they could barely make out off to their right. They felt a touch of the cool breeze that wafted through the meadow on a lazy afternoon in late May. The grass looked freshly cut or grazed. Beth judged grazed, from the medieval dress of the two people who stood some hundred yards off down by the grain. It seemed hard to tell, exactly, because those people had their backs to the door; but they looked medieval, and the grain looked like early grain, barely up to their knees after a March planting.

“Creepy,” Chris breathed.

“Cool!” David yelled. To be sure, yelling was David’s normal volume. “Look at the castle.” It sat up on a hill, well beyond the people. There were more towers and spires than any of them could count, including some that reached right up into the clouds. The castle walls looked formidable enough to withstand any army foolish enough to assault them. A clear stream came from somewhere inside the castle grounds and wound lazily down the hillside, around the occasional clump of trees, until it reached the meadow. By then it became a very small river which found the sea somewhere behind them. Beth looked behind, but all she could see was the kitchen.

The scratching came again, and this time it sounded definite and pronounced.

“Did you guys leave Seabass trapped in Mom and Dad’s closet all afternoon?”  Some scorn entered Beth’s voice, but before the boys could answer, she stepped around the corner. Chris shook his head. David pointed, but Seabass had gone from the couch.

They found the cat under the couch, shivering and afraid. With James’ help, David got the cat out and then held the beast securely in his arms as overweight, gregarious, love everyone Catbird, the golden retriever, began to growl. Beth screamed and the boys heard a tremendous crash in their parent’s room. Beth made it to the bedroom door, slammed it shut. She held the doorknob and poked her head around the corner to the living room.

“Run!”

The boys just stood there.

Catbird began to dance and bark his head off at whatever was behind the door. Seabass tried to wriggle free to follow Beth’s instructions, but David held the cat tight. Chris stared with his mouth open. James had the good sense to step through the door and on to the green meadow. That movement broke the spell; that and the sudden crash against the bedroom door from the inside which almost made Beth lose her grip, and which came punctuated by a loud crack. The wood door looked ready to give way.

Chris grabbed David to keep him from running down the front hall and out the front door. He shoved David after James. Then he grabbed Catbird by the collar, and carefully, because the dog had become agitated beyond belief. Chris nodded to Beth as he dragged the dog toward the golden door, and only paused when he got to the place where the door and rug met.

“Come on!” Chris screamed at his sister and went through, even as a second crash came against the bedroom door.

“There’s more than one!” Beth screamed back.

“Hurry!” The golden door started to close of its’ own volition. A third crash, and the bedroom door came to pieces, but it held together in sharp and ragged edges long enough to keep back whatever growling, snarling, roaring beasts were trying to get at Beth. Beth managed a good scream as she ran and dove through the doorway. They heard the roar of the beast echo in the house before the golden door slammed shut and they were no longer in the world.

Beth chalked up her spinning head and queasy stomach to having just escaped with her life, but as she turned from the door to look at the boys, she noticed they all looked as pale as she felt. Chris started looking around, but it seemed hard to tell if he could focus on anything. David, fallen to his knees, looked sick to his stomach. James just sat, his head in his hands, until he looked up at her.

“I feel like I died.”

“That’s all right.” Beth comforted her littlest brother. “We made it. We’re safe.”

“That’s not it.” James pointed into the west.

Beth turned to look. She shaded her eyes as well as she could against a sun which sat low in the sky, ready to set in a couple of hours. She saw the sea, closer than she imagined. A wide, sandy beach started some twenty yards off; but at the moment, it got hard to gaze in that direction because the sun glistened off the water with such intensity it made her eyes tear. She got ready to turn back to her brother when she realized what he pointed at. The golden door had vanished.

“Chris?” Beth called to get her brother’s attention.

“Catbird and Seabass disappeared when we came through, just like the door,” Chris said.

“They ran off?” Beth wondered, but James shook his head, so she knew they vanished and were not going to be found, just like their dad, and now maybe their mom, too.

David touched her shoulder. Beth reached out and hugged him, which was what he needed at that moment, and then she included James in her hug, and Chris bent down to add his arms.

“What was that thing?” James tried to ask.

“What will happen when Mom comes home?” David’s voice drowned out his brother’s natural whisper. “It will eat her.”

“No,” Beth spoke quickly. “I think the reason Mom was not home when we all got there is because she is already here.” She looked around and wondered where “here” might be. She looked up at Chris, in need of his support.

“Mom is probably here already, and Dad too, I think.” Chris did not sound sure about what he thought, but he tried to speak with conviction to not frighten the younger two.

“But where are we?” James tried again.

“Maybe Mom and Dad are in the castle,” David suggested.

“Maybe.” Beth stood, so the others stood as well. The feeling of having died faded. “Maybe those people can help.” Without another word, they began to walk toward the distant field of grain.

The men beside the field looked away from the sun. They appeared to be studying the grain, like they were watching it grow. But there was no way they would have ever seen the children through that glaring sun, even if they turned around. Thus, the children got close before the mind trick Beth played with herself suddenly let go and things came into perspective. She had imagined two men by a new-May field full of short stalks just sprouted from the ground. As she approached, she came to see the field as fully ripe and tall, despite it being May. That meant it likely stood taller than Chris, the tallest of the four children, and that meant the men had to be fifteen or twenty feet tall.

“Giants,” James whispered.

“Creepy,” Chris agreed, and he clamped his hand over David’s mouth before David could say anything too loud.

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

MONDAY

Four young people escape the monsters by going to another world, only this other world appears to be full of giants. That might not be an improvement. Until Next Time, Happy Reading.

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Golden Door Chapter 1 Monsters in the House, part 1 of 2

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David and James got off the school bus for the last time that year. Summer vacation arrived, but it would be a long one with their dad unaccountably missing. The boys figured their older brother Chris got home, since the high school bus came before their own. Their older sister Beth’s car also sat in the driveway, parked a little crooked. It blocked dad’s car, but that hardly mattered. Dad had been missing for a week, and no one knew where he had gone. Chris said he asked everyone he knew. Beth said she checked the hospitals. Mom had no ideas. She just cried, a lot.

As David and James came into the run-down ranch house, David yelled.

“Mom.”

No one answered. Mom appeared to be the one person who was not home.

Backpacks went on the living room floor, and James pulled out pencil and paper. He turned to his brother. “I’m going to try and write something before I start actual vacation,” he said. “Be good and try not to disturb me. I won’t be long.”

David nodded. He wanted to see what damage he could do in the kitchen first. He watched James go down the hall to the room they shared before he stuffed his face. That did not take long, and then he feared he might get bored before his vacation even started. He paused to listen to the silence in the house.

Beth, his nineteen-year-old sister, was most likely on the phone, locked in her room, though dad said they were not supposed to lock the doors. Chris, who would be sixteen in a month, in his own locked room, probably got on the computer or started playing some videogame. Little brother James had their room where he worked on some secret thing with his pencil and paper. Mom probably went shopping. David felt like the only one left to worry. He very much wanted his dad to come home and be safe and well.

David paused at the door of his parent’s room. The bed sat empty and made. Mama said it was the strangest thing when Dad disappeared. One-minute Dad lay there, and the next he vanished, like into thin air. “Like he went invisible?” David had asked. Mama could not answer because she had been in the kitchen at the time. She did not actually see him disappear. She heard scampering, like little feet, but then he was gone and all she could do was cry. In fact, crying seemed about all she could do for the first few days—that and stare at the golden door in the living room which showed up at about the same time.

David peeked around the corner at the living room—just a step away. He looked at the door, solid gold in a silver frame. It reached to the ceiling and stood in the middle of the room with no visible support of any kind. Mom did not know what to make of it, but she said don’t tell anyone until she had a chance to think about what to do. Chris said it was only a gold painted slab of junk metal with a handle and ignored it. Beth said Dad was probably behind the door. David wondered how it stayed upright. He imagined a good knock would send it falling flat-side to the floor, and what a terrific crash that would be!

A scratching sound came from the closet in his parent’s room. David imagined Mama went out and accidentally shut Seabass the cat into the windowless, walk-in closet. “Mama would never allow the clothes to be hung in a way where they might scratch the paint,” David assured himself, out loud, to calm his nerves. He hesitated at the handle. David was not the bravest soul in the world, but he thought that maybe this once he might look. Besides, Seabass the cat was nowhere to be seen, though how the cat might have shut himself in the closet was beyond his ability to imagine.

He opened the door quickly. The late afternoon sun shot into the space. He called the cat, but nothing happened. He did not look any further. He felt afraid to look too closely, so he shut the closet door again and returned to the living room where he sat on the couch and stared at the golden door for a long time.

Seabass, the cat came to sit beside him. Catbird, the big golden retriever, yawned and got up from where he slept against the sliding doors to the back yard. That spot no longer appeared attractive once the sun dipped behind the trees and cast the whole back side of the house in shadow.

David petted Catbird’s contented golden head with one hand while his other hand stroked Seabass’ soft fur. They stayed that way for a time, until David abruptly stood. Both animals looked up, startled by the sudden movement and loss of attention. David clenched his teeth.  The fact that the door had been locked all week did not matter, except in the back of David’s mind where he hoped the door might still be locked.

“Ga!” It was unlocked. David peeked and closed the door again with another “Ga,” significantly louder than the first.

James heard. He had finished writing his letter and decided he better find out what Davey got all stirred up about. He went next door and tapped Chris on the shoulder. Chris took a couple of taps before he looked up and lowered his headphones. A piece of sandwich dangled from his mouth. He honestly wasn’t listening.

“Come on,” James said. “Come on.” He had to say it twice before Chris got up. Perhaps Chris was still not paying attention, but at least his feet started moving.

Halfway to the living room, they heard it again. “Gaaa!” It got deliberately shouted down the hallway.

“The call of the excited Davey.” James spoke under his breath as they arrived, and David shouted something at his brothers they could all understand.

“It’s unlocked!”

Chris immediately turned to get Beth and almost bumped into her as she came barreling out of her room.

“I heard,” Beth said. “What’s in there?”

Chris shrugged.

“I looked,” David grinned, and his eyes were as wide open as they could be.

“What did you see?” Beth sounded miffed that she had to ask twice.

“Gaa!” James answered for his brother. He shrugged, as if to say, “What else?”

Beth looked perturbed, but David giggled. “Gaa!” He nodded in agreement with James. He kept grinning as he pointed at the door.

Beth shoved Chris forward. Chris put on the brakes. While they stared each other down, James stepped up to look for himself. He opened the door a mere crack.

“He’s right. It’s Gaa,”

Beth frowned, swung the door wide open and almost said “Gaa!” herself.

Golden Door Prologue: The Letter

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Dear Nancy Ann,

My father got very sick, so he was not able to write to you. No one will tell me what it is. They say they don’t know. I think he may be dying.

 

He quit his job and Mama said that was stupid. But then he got sick and now he has disappeared. He is not in the hospital. Chris and Beth both checked. Even Mama says she doesn’t know where he is.

 

Then a funny thing happened. A door just appeared one day in the middle of the living room. I think it is made of gold. I can walk all the way around it. The back side is just flat and gold, but the front is a door except it doesn’t go anywhere. It is locked. Davey thought it was cool until Chris said monsters were going to come out of it in the middle of the night. Davey likes to sleep with the light on. I don’t care. Beth and I think that maybe my Dad is behind the door. I wish it wasn’t locked.

 

I am glad it is the beginning of summer vacation. I don’t know if I am going to like the fourth grade and the intermediate school. I wish we could visit you like Dad wanted, but it doesn’t look like things will work out for this summer. I wish my Dad was here.

 

Your Best Friend

James

 

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If you have read the Avalon stories that have appeared regularly on this blog, seasons one to nine, you might recall that much of the trouble the travelers faced was the result of a demon-goddess who once invaded Avalon and used the Heart of Time to try and change history. The Golden Door is that story.

The Kairos is deathly ill. Avalon is slowly falling apart. History and time itself is threatened, and the four children of the Kairos, Beth, Christopher, David, and James are the only hope of overcoming the demonized goddess and saving the Heart of Time.

If you have not read the Avalon stories, they are all available at your favorite online retailer.

You might begin with the prequel Invasion of Memories. The Pilot Episode is now included in one version of Season One, Travelers. Both are available in ebook or trade paperback as you may prefer.

Seasons 1, 2, and 3, with 13 episodes in each book, brings the Travelers from Avalon through the days of legend. This romp through time, history, and myth begins at the fabled Tower of Babel and moves from one time zone to the next where the travelers have to deal with all sorts of spiritual and supernatural beings, creatures, monsters, and demons as well as ancient aliens.

Seasons 4, 5, and 6 brings the travelers into the days of ancient empires. Some travelers are lost in the struggle. Some new people lost in time are added to the group as the only chance to get back home alive. The spiritual beings and ancient aliens never go away and the travelers discover that some can follow them from time zone to time zone, and are now hunting them.

Seasons 7, 8, and 9 brings the travelers into the common era and face to face with the worst monsters of all — the human monsters. This last of the three trilogies of the series are being formatted and covers are being finalized even as this brief promo is being written. Coming to an online retailer near you soon. Look for them.

Please support this author and remember, reviews are always appreciated.

Happy Reading.

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Medieval 6: Giovanni 5 Search and Rescue, part 3 of 3

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Giovanni sat at his father’s bedside. He had been a poor, rebellious son, but not so bad that his father did not trust the whole world to him. “You’ll grow up,” Father said. “A little sooner than I planned, but you will. Take care of Titania. Take care of Baklovani and the rest.”

“I will, Father,” Giovanni said, though he wondered who the rest might be.

“You are the Don, now,” Father told him. “The title that was given to my father by the Doge I now give to you. Don Giovanni, the third of that name.”

“Yes father.” Giovanni said. He wanted to say many things, but his mouth would not cooperate so he sat there in silence, listening intently.

“Son.” Father grabbed Giovanni’s arm. He could feel it in his sleep. “Don’t let the circus die. Don’t let Corriden take over. He is too greedy, too selfish, too mean, and unfair to the others. He will kill the show, and maybe kill the whole idea so there will never be another circus.”

“Don’t worry, father.” Giovanni lied. “It is all arranged. The show will go on for many years to come. It is the Don Giovanni Circus.”

“The Greatest Show on Earth,” Father said with a smile.

Giovanni returned his father’s smile, and thought as far as Corriden went, he had already taken the whole circus to his new winter camp several miles away. They were building tents and things and planning to continue the tradition, at least at this point.

Where would they go? Giovanni wondered. He decided they would probably follow the same pattern of towns and cities the circus always followed. Giovanni decided he had to get out in front of Corriden.

He thought about the ones who stayed with hm. They wanted nothing to do with Corriden, especially Baklovani the wolfman. Baklovani and Corriden hated each other and used to argue all the time. Then there was Madigan the musician. He swore Corriden cheated him once too often, and Constantine, the tightrope walker; but he would not say why he stayed. Titania, he knew, stayed because she was secretly in love with Giovanni’s father, and sometimes mothered Giovanni.

“We will rebuild our circus,” he told everyone. “We will find acts and make the Don Giovanni Circus better than ever.”

“There is no Don Giovanni Circus left.” In a moment of honesty, before they gathered at the graveside, Madigan growled. “I might do better on the road by myself, like the old days.”

That was when Oberon, Goldiwig, Sabelius and Madam Figiori showed up. They really did save the circus. They had enough to build on then. One half-troll, two dwarfs and an elf come all the way from Avalon.

He smiled in his sleep and watched his dream turn to Avalon, the home for all his little ones, all the elves, ogres, dwarfs, and fee that were given into his care in ancient times. Avalon. and the seven isles, and the incalculable isles beyond rested in the Second Heavens like the layers on an onion, taking up the same space, but separated by time and the unique properties of the Second Heavens.

Giovanni woke.

He thought he heard something, but all seemed quiet and still in the night. Was there trouble in Avalon? No, he decided it was only his imagination. He got up quietly and drew back the window curtain, opening the shutters at the same time. The moonlight fell on the sleeping girl. She looked ideal, angelic, lovely. He stopped and shook himself. She was circus now and he did not sleep with circus women. As young as he was, he had already had more than his share of women, sampling the wares up and down the Italian shores. But he never touched the circus women. He imagined he would have a hard time and no show at all if everyone started sleeping around.

But sweet Jesus, she was beautiful. He stood, stepped to the door, and looked outside taking in the moon and the stars in a clear night sky.

“Boss?” Sabelius was there.

“Watching over her?” he asked. “Making sure the watch does not come back?”

“I am,” he admitted.

“I’ll be back,” Giovanni said, but instead of walking to the outhouses as Sabelius might have expected, he ran to the nearest shore point and tossed himself into the sea. I needed a cold shower, he told himself. Since it was early spring, he found the water plenty cold. But when he came out, he was still filled with desire for the child sleeping in his bed. He thought of Madam Delfin. She was a noble lady. She would know what to do and do it very well besides.

He shook his head. He surprised himself. He hardly knew the girl, but he already knew no other woman would satisfy the longing he felt. “Good while it lasted,” he mumbled and stopped at the outhouse before returning to the wagon where in a matter of minutes he fell asleep again and dreamed.

This time, he dreamed of witches. There were two, floating about ten feet off the ground, sharing thoughts with one another and cackling. It was true. They were cackling, cliché though that was. Suddenly, a streak of power came from somewhere behind a building. They were in a town. The witches shrieked and flew off, and the Flesh Eaters came to the town square. They put their weapons away and started grabbing the people who suddenly appeared in the square. They shot out their tongues and attached their tongues to the people, usually in the neck, and sucked out all the blood neat as a vampire. Then they started eating the people.

Giovanni wanted to turn away, but as often happens in dreams, he was stuck, unable to so much as close his eyes, until the Flesh Eaters saw him. They chased him. Many abandoned their feast and chased him, blood and torn flesh still dripping from their sharp toothed mouths. They kept jutting their tongues out at him like they were smelling his blood in the air.

Giovanni’s feet could move, but not fast enough. They were going to catch him. He felt sure he would be caught. He ran through the streets, transitioned to fields, some fallow, some filled with wheat. He ran up the side of the hill and down the other side into a dark and spooky forest full of monsters. It was the haunted forest Greta went through. It was the forest with dead water where Festuscato faced the Grendel. It was the mist filled forest where Gerraint found Arthur after his indiscretion with Mordred’s mother. He expected to run into blue painted faces in the mist, men ready to ambush him. It was the forest where Margueritte took an arrow in her side that almost took her life.

Giovanni tried to break out of the dream. He tried to wake up, but all he did was find himself in a box canyon. He reached the wall—the cliff face. The Flesh Eaters, Succubus, hags of Abraxas, and even the witches were nearly on him. He would have to climb the cliff, but he really did not like high places. Oddly enough, he thought if he fell to his death that would deprive all of his pursuers from getting him. With that thought, he woke up. The sun was rising. His mouth felt completely dried out. He smacked his glue-like lips, put one hand to his stomach, and decided he was hungry. He paused.

He looked at the girl and sighed before he pulled the blanket up to cover the girl. She responded in her sleep by pulling the blanket under her chin and smiling. Her eyes never opened, so Giovanni went out quietly to see if Gabriella started cooking breakfast.

While he walked, he wondered why he never checked on the Flesh Eaters. He wondered more about the succubus, and the hags. Now that Abraxas was gone over to the other side, there were no more hags. He wondered more about the witches. He did the calculations in his head and concluded the Other Earth, the source of what many called magic energy, phased out of range of his earth some twenty three years ago, and it would stay out of range for three hundred years. Presently, the amount of magic energy leaking between the two universes was negligible and getting less. There were no more witches or wizards on Earth unless they carried the magic in their blood. He would have to think about that.

Giovanni thought about Avalon, that special place that the Kairos called home. Of course, he was presently the Kairos, so for the time being it was his home. Alice, a life of his who would not even be born until far in the future lived there and had lived there since 4500 years before Christ. He shook his head. Making sense of his own life or lives could be hard to follow, even for him.

With Avalon he thought about the innumerable sprites that inhabited the world and went to Avalon for a time of rest. He wondered why he had not called on any of them to help him in his times of need. Well, he had two dwarfs, one elf, and a half troll. But just as well. As Kirstie said, so he needed to work things out in the human world with human beings the best he could and should not depend on the little ones who had their own work in the world to do.

“Up for breakfast?” Gabriella interrupted his introspection.

“You are up plenty early,” he responded.

“I get up every day at this time, but you would not know. You usually sleep in.”

“Only because of so many late night hours,” Giovanni excused himself, accepted a plate of breakfast, and sat at a table thinking again. He wondered if his father was really in a better place. He believed he was.

Medieval 6: K and Y 19 To Abraxas, part 2 of 2

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Kirstie

“You evaded my traps much too easily. I felt sure the dragons would devour you right at the beginning.”

“Dragons are smarter than you think. They will not bite the hand that feeds them.”

Abraxas squinted at her. “I did not know you could move from place to place here like one of the gods.”

“There is much you do not know about this place.”

“I know I have shut down your access to other lives. You cannot call on one of your godly lives to challenge me. It is just mortal you in this place.”

“But this is my place, and you have no business being here.”

He whined and his face contorted with anger. “You shut down the rest of my options. I was all set to go to a completely different world on the other side of the earth. I wouldn’t have bothered you. I had followers. But no, you killed them. You went all the way there and killed them. This place is all I have left.”

“Now is your chance to let go and go over to the other side.”

“No!” He sounded like a three-year-old. And he screeched. “You don’t know what that means. The gods are immortal. I haven’t had a chance to live. I’m not finished. I’m not ready.”

“Now,” Kirstie thought and said out loud.

“You mortals cannot hurt me. Your weapons cannot hurt me.” He yelled, but as he spoke he got pelted with keyboards, wires, and all kinds of equipment from overhead. Cassandra shot her arrow and scooted behind a desk chair. Inga threw her vial which burst and filled the room with smoke and a noxious smell. Wilam and Brant, now behind him, yelled a war cry like they were ready to attack him with their swords.

Abraxas threw his hands forward and made Cassandra and Inga push back to the wall. The force drove Erik right back into the hall, but Kirstie ducked. He threw his hands up and scattered the elves that were bombing him with equipment from the skylight above. He spun around, angry at the annoyance and shot a poison spell at Wilam, but Brant jumped in front, so he caught the full spell.

When Abraxas turned back around, he found Kirstie in his face and her battleaxe cut deeply across his middle. She cut deeper into his side on her backswing and the axe caught in his ribs. He looked down as his life began to quickly bleed out and he looked like he did not understand. “But no mortal weapon can harm me.”

“Made by the dwarfs Eitri and Brokkr under the blessing of Odin himself,” she responded, as her long knife Defender vacated its sheath and flew to her hand. “The others were just distracting you.” She shoved the knife in the heart of the god and Abraxas collapsed, still not comprehending what happened. “Made by the dark elves in Mount Etna under Vulcan’s watchful eye.” Kirstie held her hand out and the long knife vacated Abraxas’ chest, pulling a piece of his heart with it. “And I have been counted among the gods from the beginning, even when I am strictly a mortal nobody.”

“But…” it was Abraxas’ last word.

Kirstie stood while Abraxas died, or as they say, went over to the other side. Everyone else stayed on their knees, gagging for their breath, not the least because of Inga’s stink bomb. They rubbed their sore muscles, looked for cuts, and examined their bruises. They all turned their heads to the door when they heard a clinking-clanking sound.

A knight dressed head to toe in plate armor such as had not yet been invented stepped into the room. He said nothing but went straight to Abraxas and lifted the body off the floor. He easily slung the skinny dead god over his shoulder, turned, and exited the room to disappear down the hall. Inga, Cassandra, and Erik all spoke at once.

“Who was that? What was that? Where did he come from? Where did he go?”

“A Knight of the Lance,” Kirstie said as she sat at a desk and began furiously poking at the flat box with the letters and symbols on it.

Brant collapsed and moaned. Wilam held up his head and Brant smiled for him. Inga ran as much a she could. She got down beside him to examine him. She found some tears in her eyes and turned to Kirstie.

“I don’t know what it is. There is no wound. He is growing cold.”

Kirstie paused and got down with the others. She traded places with Mother Greta because she could do that again, now that the source of the pressure that closed off her personal timeline was removed. Mother Greta had little magic, but one thing she could do was diagnose internal problems much easier than Doctor Mishka who would have to draw a blood sample to analyze. It did not take long.

“Sorcerer’s poison,” she said, and shook her head as if to say there was nothing she could do.

“He obviously meant it for me,” Wilam said. “But Brant got in the way.”

“He wanted to hurt Kirstie as much as he could,” Greta said before she went away, and Kirstie came back to finish the thought. “That is the way an evil mind works. Abraxas claimed to be a god over good and evil, but no one ever saw the good in him.”

Brant struggled to talk. He looked at Inga and whispered through uncooperative lips and tongue. “It is what we do.” He tried to turn to Wilam, but all he could turn was his eyes. “I’ve been watching out for you since you were a baby. Give me this one.” He looked again at Inga, and she bent over him, eyes full of tears, and planted her lips on his. He closed his eyes, and after a moment he turned cold, and Inga pulled back from his lips and cried on him.

Kirstie and Wilam cried with her, but eventually, Kirstie got up and went back to her workstation. She traded places with Alice of Avalon because Alice was the one who set it all up in the first place. She would correct whatever was amiss. And while she grieved for Brant, as any life of the Kairos would, she did not feel the immediate sting as certainly as Kirstie.

Erik and Cassandra stood by the door. The elves that escaped to the roof when Abraxas came and pelted him with electronics when the time was right, came first. They worked in the control room and quickly returned to their stations to help. They acknowledged Erik and Cassandra as they came in. Erik smiled, remembering the elves he met the last time he, Inga, and Kirstie visited Avalon. Cassandra looked more astonished and inclined to bow her head to the people of legend and look down like one who felt unworthy.

Erik questioned her, and she answered forthrightly. “The Amazons have always seen the little ones as a sign of good fortune and great blessing.” Erik understood .and pointed down the hall.

A delegation of little ones came toward the control room. It looked like the kings and queens of the dais—the elves of light and dark, the dwarfs, and the fairies, with their attendants. It also looked like the lesser gods who called Avalon home; the Naiad of the spring that burst from the rocks beside the great tower that housed the Heart of Time, the Dryad of the deep forest that began at the back of the castle and climbed all the way up the distant mountains, and the oread of the mountains themselves that kept Avalon and the many isles grounded in reality. Erik had to keep Cassandra from falling to her knees.

Alice came to the door. “Welcome friends. All is settled. The evil one who disturbed your peace is no more. He has gone to the other side. But we lost a man in the struggle. He was a great man and should be treated and buried in all honor and respect. Please take him and prepare him.”

Several attendants broke from the group and waited patiently until Inga indicated they could take Brant’s body away.

Brant was buried in the cemetery near the tower of the Heart of Time, and the others stayed three days in the castle. When the time came to go home, Kirstie first sent Cassandra back to the Isle of the Amazons. The others gathered in the Great Hall beside the Hall of Feasting.

“We cannot go back to Aesgard, or to Freyja’s Hall in the place of the Vanir. Our route is simpler, and direct. She waved her hand as she did many times by then, and a door appeared between here and there. The little ones all waved goodbye and said encouraging words, though Inga and Wilam seemed barely able to smile.

When Kirstie opened the door, she found the Big House back home on the other side, but something did not feel right. The place was empty, though it was the middle of the day, and she saw signs of violence in the big room.

Medieval 6: K and Y 19 To Abraxas, part 1 of 2

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Kirstie

The room was similar to the one they came from. Kirstie went straight to the end opposite the fireplace, and she sat down at the table where she pulled up a screen of some sort, and a keyboard. She went to work, mumbling something about how it would be much easier if she could get Alice to do it, but somehow her access to her other lives was shut down.

Erik wandered to the windows without glass. He looked out on the garden, but it appeared planted in the clouds. “Is there dirt under that? It doesn’t look like there is any dirt under that. It looks like if you step out there you will fall straight through the clouds to the earth.”

“The castle in the clouds,” Casandra called it, as Inga, Brant, and Wilam came to take in the view. Casandra continued. “As I understand it, there are four castles, but they are all one castle, and a person can transition…” she shook her head, like she was not sure if that was the right word. “A person can change from one castle to another if they know how. The castle of the Lady Danna is in a great cavern underground. It is where the dark elves and fire sprites live and work their great metal forges, and where the dwarfs work in gold and precious stones. That was the first place we changed to. The castle of the Lady Amphitrite is under the ocean, and the water sprites and mere people and others live there and guard the ways of the sea. That was the second place. The castle of the Nameless one is on the land such as people know, and the elves of light, the dwarfs and fairies keep it. That was where we started. Then the castle of Amun Junior is in the clouds where the sprites of the air and mostly the fairies keep watch over the earth. That is where we are now, in the clouds.

“And… Enter,” Kirstie said and hit the button. Everyone heard a prolonged wail not far away. The glass appeared on the windows and the ground looked solid outside. “I gave him an electrical shock and locked him out of the system, hopefully permanently. He can’t pull any more surprises unless he wants to be electrocuted.

“Would that kill him? Electrocuted, whatever that means,” Inga asked.

“No, but it certainly would not feel good. This way,” Kirstie said, and she opened the same door they just came in, but it led to a completely different hall. She felt this time that she finally had to explain something. “Space, I mean area or areas in the Second Heavens are naturally unstable. Areas fold in and back on themselves in ever changing ways, something like a kaleidoscope.” she waved her hands to prevent questions as they walked. “You don’t know what a kaleidoscope is. Anyway, you can walk down one hall, blink, and find yourself in a completely different part of the castle altogether.”

“Someone could get lost in here and never find the way out,” Brant said.

“It is a bit like a labyrinth,” Inga agreed with him. “Maybe a maze.”

Kirstie responded. “Normally, there are people here and there, working, playing, or going on about some errand or other. You would not wander aimlessly and alone for very long before running into someone.” She shook her head as they turned into a different hall. “I am a little concerned to know where they people have all gone.”

“By people, you mean little ones mostly,” Wilam guessed. Kirstie nodded and took his hand.

“Aah!” Erik shouted, and everyone stopped moving and asked, “What?”

“That picture,” Erik pointed to a hallway off to the right. It looked dark, like no one lit the torches in that hall. Erik breathed and clarified. “I was looking at a picture of the sea. It looked real. I thought the waves were moving, and suddenly it vanished.”

“The picture?” Cassandra asked. She had been keeping one eye on the boy since he almost went out the window and the others seemed preoccupied with their men.

“No,” Erik said. “The whole wall. It turned swirly, all different colors, and some colors like I never saw before. I felt dizzy, but then it stopped moving around and a hall appeared where the wall had been.”

“The natural chaos of the Second Heavens,” Kirstie said softly.

Inga understood something. “If everything is becoming unstable, might he make us walk in circles and never find him?”

Kirstie shook her head to say no. “Usually, Alice and the Captain keep the structures stable, but Alice is ill, and the sicker she becomes, the more things slip out of her control and begin to break down. Avalon and the seven isles and the innumerable islands beyond are in danger of breaking apart and collapsing into the natural chaos that is the Second Heavens. But I believe I have stabilized this section of the castle for the time being… Mostly… Hurry.”

It did not take long to reach a dead end where the hall went left and right but they could no longer go forward. Kirstie stopped and stared at the big, blank wall directly ahead of them. She waved her hand. Nothing happened. She looked angry and stomped her foot, but after a moment, she deliberately calmed herself, took a deep breath, and waved her hand again. Slowly, great wooden double doors appeared in that place, and she talked, perhaps some to herself.

“He tried to keep the entrance closed and covered, but Avalon is my place, and I have the final say here.” She waved to Brant and Wilam who each took a door handle. They planned to swing the doors wide open at once when Kirstie was ready.

When Kirstie indicated she was ready, they yanked on the doors. They were locked tight. Wilam gave an extra tug, but it was no good. The doors did not even jiggle.

Kirstie made them stand back, and she tried the hand wave again, several times, but the doors would not budge. She felt frustrated, but clearly Abraxas used some exercise of his own godly power to seal the doors shut so he would not be disturbed. Again, she spoke mostly to herself, though this time she looked at Inga.

“The gods can do almost anything they want, and some of it is as easy as breathing. But much of it has to be learned and practiced, like learning to read or learning to sail. Some of it is beyond the ability of some or many of the gods to learn, like most people would not be good at navigation, or making compound medicines, or higher mathematics, or control programming.” She gave the doors a mean stare. “Abraxas was very young when the gods went over to the other side. He did not have the time or the chance to learn much. He is mostly self-taught on the few things he can do. But one thing he knows less about, and it was sort of a weakness of all the ancient gods, is the kind of brute force humans sometimes have to revert to. The gods have no need for crowbars.”

With that, she raised both of her hands and shouted, “Get back and close your eyes. Tight.” She let the fire given to her by Fryer, god of the sun, shoot forward furiously. The wooden doors turned to ash and the metal braces and hinges all melted. Kirstie grabbed her battleaxe and shield from her back. Following her lead, Wilam and Brant both pulled their swords and Cassandra put an arrow on the string of her bow. Inga grabbed a vial of something she had in her purse. Erik looked around and grabbed a decoration off the wall. He did not know what it was, but it had a wooden handle and a ball on the end covered in spikes, and it looked deadly.

They hurried into the room and found a man, alone, standing in the middle of the room. Behind him, one whole wall looked like glass, but it had moving pictures all around. To the sides there were desks and chairs with their own glass with moving pictures and flat boxes on the desk with letters and symbols on them. The man laughed at his intruders and shook his finger at Kirstie. Cassandra and Inga came up alongside Kirstie. Erik stayed behind her. William and Brant split and moved to get behind the man as the man spoke.

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

MONDAY

They reach the control room where Abraxas is hold up… Until Monday, Happy Reading

*

Medieval 6: K and Y 18 Aesgard to Avalon, part 2 of 2

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Kirstie

The cave disappeared, and they found themselves in a room, much like the meeting room in the big house in Strindlos. The room had wooden benches, a couple of tables, and a raised platform on one end with a couple of chairs, presumably for the chiefs. Fortunately, no one appeared to be present at the moment.

“Everyone here?” Inga asked, because somehow she lost hold of Erik, but all were present. Erik managed to squeeze himself between Wilam and Brant when the chittering started behind them.

Erik asked, “What was that chittering?”

“Dragon babies,” Kirstie said offhandedly. “Not something to get tangled with. Really sharp teeth.” Kirstie seemed to be focused on the lines again as they appeared in mid-air.

“Looks like home,” Wilam said, looking around.

“Except it looks clean,” Inga countered. “The floor has been swept.”

Brant supported Inga. “They have picked flowers in vases on small tables by the windows off to the sides and on the altar at the back of the dais.

“And it does not smell like too much beer and sweat,” Inga concluded.

“We have been here before,” Erik added his own conclusion, which got Inga to take a second look around.

“Not here, exactly,” Kirstie said, and she touched something in the air that caused the lines to temporarily disappear.. “This is Amazon Island. The Amazon women control all this land.” She looked at Wilam and added, “I hit the reset button,” even if he did not know what she was talking about. “The transport program should reset to the default settings.”

The door opened at the far end of the hall, and a handful of armed women came in to welcome, or maybe confront their visitors. The women stopped by the door and one asked, “Who are you and what do you want?”

Kirstie quickly stepped in front of Wilam, and Inga took the hint and stepped in front of Brant. She had to shift her bag to the other arm to do it. Erik still stood between the two men, but Kirstie figured he would be fine. At seventeen, he still looked mostly like a boy. “Kirstie,” she said. “Kairos of this present time. And Thriacia, why have you let Abraxas come into this place?”

The women pulled up. The two with spears raised them from their threatening position and backed to the door, like guards. The one on the left and the one on the right both looked at the one in the middle, no doubt Thriacia. Thriacia looked startled. “Lady,” she said. “Why have you let men into the sanctuary?”

“Women sit in the meeting house back home. Men are allowed here as long as they sit to the side and only speak when they have permission.” Kirstie returned to playing with the lights in mid-air. Wilam, Brant, Inga, and Erik had no idea what she was doing, or how she could cause lights to appear in the middle of the air, though Inga maybe guessed the closest. The Amazons looked like they were equally unsure how Kirstie was doing what she was doing, or even what exactly she was doing.

“But…” Thriacia started again.

The woman on the left interrupted, speaking to the question. “We did not let Abraxas come here. We could not exactly stop him. The evil one has done much damage while we have awaited your arrival. Lady Alice is stymied and can hardly hold things together.”

The one on the right added softly, “She may be ill.” Thriacia nodded and pointed to the woman, like she spoke the truth.

“May I ask,” Brant said in his formal best. “Where is this evil one and how can we reach him?”

Thriacia and the women looked hard at the man for speaking out of turn, but Thriacia softened after a moment of reflection. “You may ask, though it would be better if you let your woman speak for you. As for the enemy, my report, as the mermaids who cannot shut up tell it, they heard from the elves that the man is in the castle on Avalon proper and he has found his way to the main control room where he is trying to puzzle out the, um, programming?” She looked at Kirstie who nodded to say she used the right word.

“How…” Wilam began, but Kirstie stomped on his foot. Fortunately, Inga caught the idea and spoke.

“How do we get there from here?”

“I am the queen here,” Thriacia said and pointed to the quiet one, “My healer, Lydia.” She pointed to the one who answered the question. “My hunter, Cassandra, and you are?”

“Inga, volva of Strindlos and the Trondelag, and skald of the Norse people.”

“The wise woman of the Norse is welcome here, but the way to the castle is a journey. Cassandra can guide you.”

Cassandra nodded. “I need to see to my son and kiss my husband and I will be ready,” she said, and Lydia leaned over to speak.

“You are always ready,” she said in her soft voice. “It is annoying.”

“No need,” Kirstie said all of a sudden. “The teleport is back online. I better use it before Moron messes it up again. Hold hands.” Kirstie took Wilam’s hand and Cassandra rushed forward to grab Inga’s hand just before Kirstie touched the line. Once again, the whole room around them changed to a completely different room.

Kirstie put her hands up, but this time the light did not come. “Well,” she said, “At least we are in Castle Turning. Let us hope he hasn’t figured out how to turn the place.” She stopped and looked around at the new hall they were in. It looked long and narrow with a fireplace at one end and a table and chairs on a platform at the other end. One wall was lined with alternating bookshelves and tapestries. The other had windows with some sort of glass that looked out on a balcony and over to a lovely garden area.

“Cassandra?” Inga asked, wanting to get the name straight.

Kirstie let out a small laugh. “Aren’t you afraid the Princess will be mad at you for using her name, the name she hates?”

“Lady,” Cassandra spoke to the point. “Don’t start that argument all over again. The Amazons took a vote and approved Cassandra and Lydia and other names of yours, and the Princess already said she did not mind other people having the name, she just could not stand it for herself.”

“But if it is her name…” Brant was not sure how to ask the question, he never met the Princess and only saw her at a distance, and only knew her as Princess.

“She gets mad if we call her Cassandra. She goes by the name, Princess.”

Brant nodded and Inga interrupted with a comment. “We have been here before. This is Avalon.”

“I thought I recognized the garden,” Erik said as he stared out of the windows.

Kirstie nodded. “The hall of feasting is to the right. It has some windows that look down on the same garden.”

“Which way do we go?” Wilam asked.

“We go the opposite direction. There are several passages we need to navigate to get to the control room.” She headed toward a door between two tapestries, and the others followed. It seemed wide and tall but otherwise an ordinary enough hallway at first, with the occasional table with flowers, wall decorations, including a few paintings and more tapestries, and a few windows to the outside world near the occasional doors that led to some room or other. Now and then another hallway went off to the left or right, and twice they passed a crossroads.

“This is much further than I would have guessed,” Wilam finally said.

“This fortress must be bigger than any on earth,” Brant agreed.

“Endless,” Erik said, dredging up the memory from what the dwarfs told him.

“Don’t believe everything the dwarfs say,” Kirstie mused, and held her mouth while she walked. She got an impression from some elves in and around the control room. It came on her private wavelength, like a prayer to the goddess of the little ones. It was one place—one form of communication Abraxas could not tap into. They said they were in a position to distract the god when she was ready. Before she could answer the light dimmed, like the torches lost some of their flare, and every other torch disappeared altogether. “Oh no,” Kirstie said out loud and picked up her pace.

The air turned toxic. Inga, Cassandra, and Erik began to cough. Wilam held his nose and said, “Smells like your foundry.”

Kirstie shouted. “Hold your breath.” and touched something on the wall.

Everyone tried their best as they found themselves suddenly underwater. The hall looked the same, though the torches were missing. Instead, they had skylights on the ceiling to let in light from some source, maybe the sun, and they had to swim, though they could walk or bob slowly through the water.

Kirstie was not bothered because of the gift of Njord. She could breathe underwater after a fashion, but she feared if it went on too long for her friends, they might all drown. Fortunately, she found another spot on the wall and the hallway changed again, and while most coughed and tried to catch their breath, they got pushed by a great wind that came rushing down the hall. Erik was too close to a window that did not have any glass in it. He almost got blown out. Inga and Cassandra grabbed the boy and looked down.

“It is nothing but clouds beneath us,” Inga shouted to be heard above the howl of the wind.

“In here,” Kirstie said, and she opened the door and shoved Wilam into the room. When they all got inside, Wilam had to help her close the door, but when the door was closed, everything became still.

Medieval 6: K and Y 18 Aesgard to Avalon, part 1 of 2

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Kirstie

Wilam opened the simple latch door and peeked. Kirstie pushed up to look over his shoulder. A hearth across the room held a roaring fire. Everyone suddenly felt the cold on their backs as the fire helped them feel toasty and warm in front. One old man sat in a comfortable chair facing the fire, a bowl of soup held up to his chin with one hand, and he sipped the soup with a big spoon. He spoke.

“Come in my daughter, and friends. Come in.” He even sounded old.

Wilam and Kirstie pushed in so the others could follow. Wilam and Brant looked around. The room was much bigger than they imagined from the outside. Inga and Kirstie looked at the fire, the several chairs that faced it, and the old man. There did not appear to be anything else in the room. Erik said “Wow,” softly, but did not otherwise know what to think.

“Come. Sit. Warm yourselves,” the old man said.

Kirstie pushed forward, so the others followed, and she was the first to speak to the man. “I expected this whole place to be deserted,” she said.

“Eh?” The man responded like he did not hear, but he followed up with a word. “It would have been. It should have been, but I stayed at the last minute. Someone needed to keep the fires burning for a while longer.” He set the soup down on a side table beside his chair and turned his head to take a good look at his visitors. He named them after a fashion.

The husband with the impossible legacy. The skipper who needs to captain his own ship. The brilliant and understanding heart who is a witch without magic. The rebellious, runaway boy whose parents could use his help. And my son who at present happens to be my daughter.” He looked at Kirstie and squinted a bit like maybe his old eyes were not very good. “That is what your mother used to call you.”

Kirstie looked again and saw the missing hand. It was possible he made an illusion of being two handed until she figured it out, though he practically told her who he was. “But Father,” she said, taking the seat next to his. “How is it that you have gotten old?”

“Idon has gone. The apples of youth are not tended.” he smiled and shook his head. “That is not entirely true, but it is what people have been told. To be clear, it is one thing I never experienced before.” he paused long enough to turn to the fire. “I see getting old is not fun.”

Kirstie sneezed again and shivered, which contrasted with the others who were well warmed in the face of the great fire. Wilam asked again if she was all right, and Inga seconded that question, but Kirstie answered in a straightforward way. “No. I’m sick. I’m cold. I feel as if someone is walking on my grave, which is odd because I have a hundred graves, but I am not dead yet.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Erik said. No one else interrupted, and as was her way, Kirstie did not explain.

The old man sat for a minute and stared at the fire. “Your Abraxas came here as I knew he must.”

Kirstie looked at the floor. “Three times I let him live, and three times he failed to do the right thing.”

“The right thing?” he asked. “I suppose,” he answered himself and turned to look at her again. “It took him years to discern your mother’s secret way between her home and your home in Avalon. Sometimes, she would disappear and go to visit all the little ones who loved her so dearly, and Lady Alice who keeps Avalon from crumbling to dust. She always came home refreshed and ready once again to take on her burden of humanity.” He got lost for a moment in some memories and she had to nudge him.

“He found the way?”

“Yes. A portal between one world and another. Yes. Then he attacked your son Soren with a debilitating disease, and while I was preoccupied with concern for the boy, he snuck past me and into your realm. He had in mind to attack you with the disease, but I chased him and drove him back out of your place. I have watched the way ever since, but in my old age, the time came when I slept. Such dreams I had. But he escaped my hand and went again to Avalon. That was several months ago, but now you are here, and you can stop him if you will.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Kirstie admitted her fears.

The old man finally smiled. “Just do your best. That is what you always say to others. The gods do not make promises, but we may pledge to do our best and leave the outcome in hands greater than our own.” he reached over to take her hand but ended up putting his good hand on her head. “Let me do this for you,” he said, and he gave her a gift, part of which was courage.”

“Father… Where is this way?” Kirstie felt the tears coming up into her eyes to see the man in such a condition, old and with trembling hands. She had to say something to distract herself.

“Right here,” he said. “You must walk through the fire.” he pointed at the fireplace. “But since you are not of the gods, since you are flesh and blood, you must first put out the fire. Just be warned. If you put out the fire, this realm will crumble away, and I will be no more. You will not be able to come back this way.”

Kirstie protested. “That is not fair.”

“That is the way it is,” he responded. “My life has been over for a long time. You will merely send me to your mother. Did she not ask this of you?”

Kirstie nodded, before she threw her arms around the old man. She hugged him gently because he was old, and she cried all over him until he pushed her away and she wiped her teary eyes. “I’m ready,” she said, and added, “Hold hands,” because she was not sure exactly what might happen.

“Thank God,” he responded and closed his eyes.

Kirstie took Wilam’s hand without looking back, turned to the fire, and searched for the gift of Njord inside of her. She opened her mouth, and a river of water came and put out the fire. As the fire went out, the room became utterly dark, as dark as a cave where no light ever penetrated. Kirstie stepped forward, and on the third step she seemed to see a light in the distance, or her eyes started paying tricks on her. After a few more steps it became a definite light ahead. She tried not to hurry but let them get there in good order. She saw then that the light appeared to be at the end of something like a cave or tunnel.

When they reached the light, she had a bad feeling and asked the others to stop and wait. She thought she recognized the place, and it did not look right to her. She could see mountains and fire, like volcanic maybe in the distance. She stuck her head out into the sunlight and immediately pulled it back. Tremendous flames came from somewhere above and covered the whole outside of the cave opening. They heard a roar.

“Dragon Island,” Kirstie said. “That is not right.” She lifted her hand, and something appeared on the cave wall. “Mother Freyja did not set her portal to come out on Dragon Island.” She pushed her hand up again and again as lines of some writing appeared to shimmer against the wall.

“There is something behind us,” Erik said. They all heard the chittering sound and Kirstie had to quickly choose.

“He has the whole program messed up,” Kirstie complained. “He doesn’t know how to use it. Moron.” The chittering grew louder. “Damn. Not the best choice. Hold hands again,” she yelled the last and grabbed Wilam’s hand as she touched a line of writing on the wall. Everything around them changed in less than a second.

Medieval 6: K and Y 17 The Rainbow, part 2 of 2

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Kirstie

Thoren gave Kirstie a hard look before he began.

“In those same days, when the Vanlil of Jamtaland invaded our peaceful village, some of us who were younger in that day were set beside the woods and hills to watch for the enemy. You all know this is so. And on that day, Kare and I were well hidden, our eyes open, and we saw Kirstie come to the very edge of the trees. She must have escaped from her watcher.” Thoren paused to look at Inga and Inga responded.

“She escaped several times,” she admitted and lowered her eyes.

“Kare and I argued about which one of us would marry that girl, but not for long as the whole edge of the forest suddenly lit up, bright as the sun. It looked like a piece of the sun itself fell to that spot. I looked away, but Kare stared too long. You all remember that Kare could not see for three days after. Thanks to the good work of Mother Vrya, his eyes were repaired, but Kare never told how his eyes came to be damaged, and I never told.” Thoren paused to nod at Mother Vrya before he continued.

“Soon, the light grew less strong, and I dared to look again. A man stood there, facing Kirstie who did not appear to have even blinked in the face of that light. And there was heat also, like the sun. I wondered how the girl could not have been burned to ash. Then I heard them speaking.

“My daughter,” the man said. “A different daughter, but all the same I have a gift for you.” He took her hands and Kirstie appeared to catch fire. She became covered in flames, and I almost shouted and showed myself, but the flames quickly became less as the man spoke. “I am sorry I was not a very good father to you.”

“Oh, no,” Kirstie said. “You were a wonderful father. You watched over me and kept me safe when no one else could, and I love you very much.” Kirstie changed then into a different person, another woman, one with red hair and… and…” Thoren smiled, a very unusual sight. “And I did not think I could ever become interested in another woman after seeing her. She was beautiful beyond words.”

The confession was embarrassing. Thoren married Kirstie’s best friend, Hilda, when Erik’s father failed to come home from the sea. In fact, Thoren was the father of Hodur, her son Soren’s best friend. But Kirstie could not think of that just then. She felt she had to say something to Mother Vrya. “Faya,” Kirstie whispered, and added, “Five thousand years ago.” Mother Vrya made no answer.

“Anyway,” Thoren continued after a moment. “It could only have been one of the gods. You know Kirstie is a fire starter. She can take soaking wet wood, frozen solid, and cause it to burn. You all know this is so. Now you know how she came by this skill.”

Before Thoren could sit down, Kerga cut through the noise. “Who do you figure it was?”

Thoren paused to think out loud. “He had two hands… He did not have an eye patch…”

“Freyr,” Kirstie interrupted. “God of the sun.” She paused and admitted to the crowd. “I think this rainbow is here for me.” She refused to look at anyone.

“But look,” Harrold said. “This is daft. The bow is an illusion as Jarl has said. It is not something to climb. It is no ladder to the realm of the gods.”

“Perhaps not to you.” Chef Kerga spoke at last. Mother Vrya tugged on Kirstie’s arm. Kirstie got up, but still did not look at anyone. If it was the rainbow bridge that led to Aesgard, or not, she felt she had to know. Yet as she sneezed, she thought she should be going to Avalon, not Aesgard.

She stepped up on the rainbow. It felt as solid to her as—she did not know the word. Her Storyteller life suggested an escalator. “Yes,” Kirstie whispered out loud. “But not a moving one. I’ll have to climb with my own legs.” While a few people screamed, the Storyteller amended his suggestion. “A Stairway to Heaven.” Some people ran from the room. Wilam said something that got everyone’s attention.

“I’m coming with you.” He had to shout above the noise.

“I can’t wait for you.” Captain Olaf spoke with a trembling voice.

“Pick me up at summers end, or not at all,” Wilam said, and he jumped. He stood beside Kirstie on the bridge. Neither knew if he might simply slide through the light and land on the floor, but apparently once Kirstie mounted the rainbow, it became solid enough.

“Inga?” Kirstie called. She hardly had to ask. Inga grabbed her bag with all of her potions and such, and grabbed Brant by the hand, so together they joined the rainbow crew. Oddly, the rainbow seemed well able to accommodate them all.

Young seventeen-year-old Erik ran up. “No way! I’m in on this! You’re not leaving me behind now.”

“Go home Erik,” Brant scolded the boy.

“To Hodur and Soren? I don’t think so. Father, tell Astrid I’ll be back.” The boy jumped as Wilam had and landed firmly on the bridge.

“Then I had better come, too.” Thoren spoke and surprised everyone.

“No more!” Kerga started yelling.

“To watch the boy,” Thoren explained himself,, but when he tried to step on the bow, his feet slid right through.

“I will watch him,” Inga said, and Thoren nodded, trusting, as Kirstie began to walk up the rainbow. The others followed her.

Mother Vrya caught Kirstie’s eye at the last moment. Kirstie knew the old woman and Yrsa would care for the children and Hilda would care for Soren until she got back, if she did get back. The old woman’s eyes told her that much.

“No more!” Kerga still yelled until Kirstie got to the ceiling and without a pause, walked right through the wood as if it was not there. The others came with her. The big house with the meeting hall vanished. They found clouds around them. They had no way of telling how high they were. They felt like they climbed for hours, or a few seconds, or minutes, or perhaps for days.

Finally, they passed out of the world altogether, from the first heavens to the second heavens.

~~~*~~~

Kirstie knew the feeling well. This was the second time Kirstie actually experienced it. She remembered that she and Inga, with the fairy Buttercup sitting on Inga’s shoulder, just caught Erik on the road. He was having second thoughts about marrying Astrid, and Kirstie did not entirely blame him. They were just sixteen, and that felt terribly young.

Erik and Astrid would have Hilda’s old house, the house he grew up in. It was all arranged, but Erik was getting what they called cold feet and Buttercup said maybe he needed a present to encourage him.

“I don’t see how that would encourage him,” Inga said, frankly, but Kirstie had a thought. It was something she never did before, but something inside her said no time like the present, so she asked the fairy a question.

“How many miles to Avalon?”

“Three score miles and ten,” Buttercup answered and excitedly clapped her hands.

“Can I get there by candlelight?”

“Yes, and back again.” Buttercup squealed in delight as an archway appeared in the road just ahead of them. It was a door to Avalon, and Kirstie had never been there before. She wondered why she felt such a strong desire to go there at that time, of all times, but did not imagine it would be a bad thing. Inga and Erik came with her and Buttercup, and they spent the next three days in the castle around all the little ones, and all the kings and queens of the elves, fairies, dwarfs, and so many others it would take all day to explain. They feasted, danced, sang, and played as only the little ones knew how to do so well. But when three days were up, they had to come home, and they arrived back on the road only three hours after they left.

Kirstie wondered if her first trip to Avalon coincided with trouble in the Second Heavens. They had a wonderful time over those three days, and no one let on that there was any problem, but she wondered if it was just beginning. Two days after Erik’s wedding, she set sail with the men of Trondelag to got to King Harald’s war. Hardly two months later, she got word that she was needed at home. She wondered if the trouble had something to do with Abraxas.

She understood the feeling everyone was feeling as a feeling of sudden contrasts, where everything took on an eerie, queasy sense of unreality. She felt it when she went to Avalon, and supposed Inga and Erik remembered it as well. The first time the Kairos climbed the Rainbow bridge, or the first time she presently remembered, she went as the Nameless god, a god among the gods. Even he thought he passed from life to death. The group all felt it. Wilam and Brant actually became sick to their stomachs. Erik became disoriented and only Inga’s quick hand kept him from stepping off the bridge altogether. A little further on, and the feeling lessened before it went away, or perhaps the group began to get used to the new sense of proportions in their surroundings.

“Where are we?” Wilam asked Kirstie, and even as he asked, they came to the place.

“The top of the bridge,” Kirstie said. “Do you see right here?” She pointed at a particular spot by her feet.

“I see only a cloud.”

“An ankle-deep mist or fog,” Brant suggested.

“What about it?” Inga asked.

 “This was Heimdallr’s favorite spot,” Kirstie answered. “From here, he could see everything happening on the whole earth and listen to all the conversations of the people.”

“I don’t see…” Erik started to speak but stopped when he noticed a small echo in his words.

“He is gone now,” Kirstie continued. “They are all gone. We have been cast adrift, left to hear the good news, or to reject the same. It is up to us to make the future a good one or self-destruct.”

No one answered her. As she began to walk, a path appeared to open up in the mist and she cautioned people to stick to the path. “Once, this was a broad road paved in gold and solid as you may imagine. The walls of Aesgard are behind us and all around. We have come in the rainbow gate. Folkvangr is to our left. Valhalla is to our right. In the old days, men and women of worth and valor went to one or the other, to the Vanir or the Aesir. Now, the halls are all empty.

“Where did they all go?” Brant asked.

“God alone knows,” Kirstie answered. “But when the gods gave up their bit of flesh and blood and went over to the other side, the people, those who died were taken. All we are told is everyone will be raised up in the last day and enter into Heaven or be cast down to Hell.”

“This isn’t heaven?” Wilam asked.

“The Second Heavens. You might call it the dividing line between the throne of God in the third heavens and the earth under the first heavens.”

“Kirstie. There is a light.” Inga pointed to their left. It looked like a small building and a firelight shining from a window.

“The path seems to lead there,” Brant agreed.

“So, we go see and say hello,” Wilam said, and Kirstie nodded before she sneezed.

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

MONDAY

Kirstie and her crew find their way to the golden streets of Asgard, but the place is deserted and getting to the source of the trouble proves difficult. Until Monday, Happy Reading

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