Gollum

Helen and Milch rode out front, with Milch regularly looking at Helen, and Helen trying to keep her mouth closed and not look at Milch. They started on the road to Milford Bridge, but soon turned on to a hunter’s trail that led to Pleasley north and east of Estreide Bridge and the king’s lodge. Lockhart and Katie rode in the center, their guns close to hand and their eyes, ears, and senses open to whatever or whoever might wander into their area. Lady Milpryd and Will brought up the rear. They rode with a little conversation but relatively quiet, pleasant, and like they might be out for a Sunday afternoon ride.

Helen stopped, so they all stopped. Something rattled the bushes. Katie raised her rifle but kept the safety on. A badger came to the path. It paused to grunt at the people and horses before it finished its walk across the path and disappeared in the bushes on the other side. Helen leaned back.

“I’m cheating, you know,” she said. “Lady Alice is giving the directions from Avalon. There is a need ahead and I hope we don’t step on it.” She started moving again and concentrated on keeping her mouth closed.

After a short way, the path narrowed so they had to travel in single file. Helen got followed by Milch, Lockhart, Katie, Lady Milpryd, and Will, who brought up the rear. Helen stopped again on the edge of a small clearing. She looked back once at Milch and said, “I’ll be back.” Then she looked forward and said no more.

Milch, Lockhart, and eventually Katie squeezed around Helen’s horse to get to the clearing and watch. Lady Milpryd and Will had to keep back because there was not any more room. They saw a flat, white blob of puss on the ground, with a brown spot in the center, and a dozen or more lines or maybe tentacles coming out from the blob. It looked like some giant walked along and spit phlegm on the ground as he walked by.

Milch gasped when he looked, though he hardly noticed the blob on the ground. The most beautiful lady he had ever seen stood beside the blob and appeared to be staring at it, like she was studying it or something. The dark spot in the center of the blob appeared to pulsate, almost undulate, but Milch ignored it. Sight of the lady brought tears of joy to his eyes, but at the same time, the thought that she might look up and see him terrified him. He feared if he looked in her eyes, he would be found naked and be lost in the darkness, alone for all eternity. Surely, this was an angel of God. Surely, he needed Jesus to save him.

The woman looked up and spoke to Katie and Lockhart who knew her as the goddess Danna, mother goddess of all the Celtic gods. “Take Helen back to the camp. There is nothing you can do here. I will talk to you later.” the woman raised her arms and she, and the blob, vanished.

Katie reached out and took the reins to Helen’s horse. Helen did not object. In fact, Helen said nothing, and Katie checked regularly to make sure she stayed on her horse. Lockhart turned around and Will led the way back to the camp. Milch brought up the rear with much to think about. They arrived in time for supper, but Will took them to the barn. He knew they had to take care of the horses first.

Milch got excited when they got to the barn. He began to babble and talk about how beautiful and amazing the lady was. He used lots of words. He kept saying to Helen, didn’t she think so? Helen made no answer while Katie unsaddled Helen’s horse after her own. Will tended to Lady Milpryd’s horse while the lady kept shaking her head.

“I have never heard Helen be so quiet,” she said in a worried voice. She checked. “She is still breathing.”

“I’m fine. I’m okay,” Helen said in Helen’s voice, but it seemed to Katie that the girl just mouthed the words without any meaning behind them. Katie had to take Helen’s arm and direct her to the supper table. Then the girl hardly ate, and only when Katie or Lady Milpryd said something.

Robin sat beside Marian at the head table and stood at one point to say the men would have to leave Maunsfeld in the morning. “Surely, the sheriff has figured out where we are, and it is never our intention to put good people in danger. But first thing, we have a wedding to attend. Milton and Nanette will be married, and our new friend and spiritual guide Friar Tuck has agreed to do the ceremony. Let us toast the happy couple.”

Lincoln nudged Lockhart and said, “Milton?”

Lockhart tried to keep a straight face. “Colonel Decker if you want to stay alive,” he joked.

Shortly after that, Helen came back to herself, or perhaps switched places with herself and promptly ate enough for three people between sentences.

“She was a Gollum. Almost no initiative. I will have to work on that because I will have to do that more and more as I move into the future. Sometimes it isn’t wise in these days to trade places in time right in front of certain eyes. People don’t need to know. People write things down and record things these days.”

Helen got up and made Katie slide down so she could sit between her and Lockhart. She lowered her voice while she kept talking and eating, starting with her second plate full.

“That blob thing was the Kargill. Not a Kargill, but the Kargill. It is one being spread across a thousand solar systems already. No. They are not like the Achaean colony intelligence. They were individual one-celled animals… mostly animals who increased in intelligence when they gathered together. Something like telepathy, I guess. But no. The Kargill is a multi-celled being whose cells can act independently but remain connected even as far away as a billion light years. I think they are all brain cells… as far as I know.” She shouted to the cook. “Frypan.” she held up her plate for thirds.

“You are going to get fat,” Frypan told her. Helen gave him her snooty look and got up. She grabbed Milch by the head and put her lips briefly against his.

“Thanks for going with me and protecting me,” she said and went back to sit down again to start round three. “And I may get fat, too.”

The next morning, Friar Tuck, that is, Father Tucker said the man’s full name. Lieutenant Colonel Milton Eugene Decker.” Lincoln could not prevent his smile. Lockhart struggled to keep a straight face.

Robin and Marian appeared the couple everyone expected. Marian had been betrothed to Baron William Wendenal, Sheriff of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and the Royal Forests, but that marriage would never take place. Lady Milpryd cried, she said, for thinking about Helen getting married. Sukki got teary-eyed thinking she was the last sister to remain unmarried. Boston and Alexis nudged each other and pointed at Milch who never took his eyes off Helen, though she never looked in his direction.

After the wedding, Robin Hood and his core of men, with Friar Tuck and the women prisoners, who were Marian, Helen, and their ladies, moved off to meet up again in Oxton, on the other side of Sherwood in two weeks. The travelers said good-bye and crossed the Milford bridge and went into Derbyshire. From there, they turned south and found the time gate somewhere near Canterbury.

On their last night in England while they sat around the campfire, Tony said. “Well, at least we know how the story turned out.”

“Not necessarily,” Katie countered. “We have seen any number of things happen that are not exactly like in the history books.”

Elder Stow agreed. “I have a Gott-Druk database, like yours, but I cannot tell you how wrong it has been time and time again.”

“Lincoln is the only one with an accurate history,” Alexis said. “His database was downloaded from the Heart of Time itself. I believe Father had something to do with that.” She stirred the fire vigorously.

“You worried about your father?” Sukki asked, kindly.

“No. My brother, Roland. I accept that both my father and brother may be dead, but it is possible both may be alive and waiting for us to return. But mostly, I am worried about Boston. She said, seeing Margueritte and Genevieve marry was hard enough, but now Decker and Nanette really pushed her buttons. She wants to be happy for the couple, but she misses Roland so much she can hardly stand it.”

“She said she wanted to check on the horses,” Sukki said.

“She is off sulking,” Alexis countered.

“Yes,” Lincoln said as he pulled his head from the database and tried to catch up with the conversation. “Where are Decker and Nanette.”

“Off being married,” Alexis said.

“But they are married now…” Lincoln said, before he understood. “Oh, you mean off being married.” He returned to the database.

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

MONDAY

We come to the last episode in Avalon, Season 8: Aliens. Episode 8.12, Abomination brings the cyborgs and genetically enhanced super soldiers into conflict with the travelers, the Kairos, and Marco Polo caught in between. Until Then, Happy Reading.

Boston and Roland spent most of the night worried about the horses. One or the other was usually about, checking to be sure they were undisturbed. Lincoln hardly slept a wink, being as close as he was to the land of the dead, and Alexis never could get comfortable. Katie worried about Lockhart and wondered if something would ever come of the relationship or if they might just fizzle out. Lockhart spent much of the night watching Decker sleep. The former Navy Seal had mastered the art of sleeping when he could. Elder Stow had his own tent-like shelter that he put up and took down with a click of a button, but even his sleep seemed to be off. At least he did not seem to be snoring as much as usual.

As far as anyone could tell, Junior never slept. He just sat cross legged in front of the fire and hardly ever moved. The hole to the underground closed again at midnight, but to everyone in that place, the night felt exceptionally long and dark. The sun rose wan and pale, and the people hoped it would not be as hot and oppressive as the day before, but then the heat never really went away in the night so they figured it would not take much to get things cooking and sweating again.

The imps slept in a pile where they only complained now and then about a foot in the mouth. They untangled with the sunrise and Magpie set about cooking some morning donkey.

“You know what I need,” Junior said, and Magpie nodded but said nothing. Her sons brought in wood for the fire and the travelers had no idea where they found wood among the sand and scrub grass that ruled the landscape. But the travelers had learned that sometimes it was better not to question things too closely. They found seats around the fire and beside Junior and only Decker made a comment about breakfast.

“This jackass bacon isn’t bad.”

Lincoln and Alexis got elected to clean up the mess from breakfast. The imps certainly knew nothing about cleaning, and besides, they had a job to do. They set about gathering the donkey bones, the skin and the skull and laid them out carefully and in a precise order with Magpie only whacking one son or the other now and then. When everything was in order to Magpie’s satisfaction, Magpie added five stones she collected. She placed them where one could almost imagine hands and feet and one between the legs. Then the imps began to dance and chant and something slowly began to happen.

Snot danced like a man with no bones. He waved his overlong arms, like flags in the wind, and collapsed to the ground now and then, like a piece of rubber, unable to stand, only to get up again and start over. All three imps kept up the chant, but it was not words, just sounds and strange noises no human vocal chords could make.

Puss danced more like a stiff-legged animal, and it looked at first like he was pealing bits of skin off his chest and tossing it on to the donkey skin. The travelers decided it was not what it seemed when they saw, every now and then, all of the imps sprinkled sand and occasionally scrub grass on the skin.

Magpie bounced. She went from foot to foot, flipped her hair back and forth, and worked her way all the way around the skin. Junior later remarked it looked sort of Gangnam Style, but the travelers did not know what that was.

The donkey skin began to move, It jiggled and the bones and stones and donkey skull began to jump and shift positions. Things slowly knitted together and took shape. They could see arms and legs now, and something like a body shape. The donkey skin spread out and covered all of the body shape like human skin and the color changed to a well tanned Middle Eastern color. When Magpie stopped dancing and huffed and puffed to catch her breath, the boys stopped as well. There was a person on the ground, but it looked like a manikin in a shop window with the face and extremities still undefined.

“Good,” Junior said and as he raised a hand, the manikin rose to its feet. Junior took a long walk all the way around before he spoke again. “Now the details.” He touched Magpie on her forehead and she squinted before she shook her head.

“Those are hard details,” she said. “I don’t know if we can do all of that.”

“Do your best,” Junior said and he stepped back to the travelers who were still seated by the fire, watching and fascinated.

Magpie grabbed her son’s hands in a way that reminded the travelers of Boston, Alexis and Roland all grabbing hands to combine their magic. After a moment, the travelers saw something like a ghostly image project from the imps. It covered the manikin and the manikin began to conform to the ghostly form. The manikin grew a smidgen taller as features formed to make a face. The hands and other areas took on definition as the imps swayed and sang off key. To look at the imps, it looked like they were singing campfire songs—kumbaya; but when they were done, there was a man in front of them, and a rather handsome and well built one at that.

The man moved and the travelers tried not to gasp. He opened his eyes and reached up to wiggle his jaw. “Good to have a mouth,” he said. “Got anything to eat?”

“What does he eat?” Alexis asked.

Junior made no response at first. He was walking around the man examining the handiwork. When he returned to face the man, the man followed with his eyes and asked a second question.

“Do I have a name?”

“Niudim,” Junior said. “Niudim Bacon. I was thinking Decker, but Bacon is more appropriate.”

“Thank you,” Decker mumbled.

“Just one more thing,” Junior said. He raised his hands and showered Niudim with golden sparkles of light. Suddenly Niudim became very attractive to the women who were watching. Junior quickly took a bit of fairy weave from his clothes and covered the man in a blue dress and sandals such as men in that age wore. “And he eats human food. In fact, if done right, he should imitate human behavior very well.”

“Food?” the man said. Alexis got up to fetch whatever was left of breakfast and Boston got up to help, though she wondered if this might be something like cannibalism for the donkey-man.

“But wait.” Lincoln had a question. “Couldn’t you have made the man?”

Junior nodded. “And out of nothing, but he would have had “Made by the gods” stamped on his forehead for all practical purposes. This way I hope Erishkegal will not notice until it is too late.”

“You want the goddess to fall in love with Niudim?” Katie asked.

“I am the goddess of desire’s grandson and the goddess of love’s son. Niudim is as close as I can figure to Erishkegal’s dream lover, but to be sure, I want to break her heart. If she blames love, I hope she will throw Ishtar out of the underworld for good.”

“This is very good,” Niudim said as he ate. “My compliments to the chef.”

“Ahem.” The chef, Magpie was standing with her sons, unnaturally patient for imps.

“Yes.” Junior faced them. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here,” he said, waved his hand, and the three imps vanished from that place.

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

Be sure to visit tomorrow for the conclusion of the first episode of season three

Avalon 3.0: part 4 0f 4, A New Beginning

Until then … MGK

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