Imps

Avalon 1.5 Little Packages part 4 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Godus came running back and shouted, even as the sounds of barking and growling reached their ears. “Hurry,” Godus yelled. “The dogs are into the sheep.” He turned and ran back toward the stream.

“Everybody! Come and help,” Dallah yelled, and followed her husband. The travelers followed Reneus, except for Alexis who thought to stay and keep an eye on Doctor Procter. Guns came out, and Roland got out his bow. The people all came, and so did the imps who were generally faster than the people. The elves were fastest, and Roland had one shot before anyone else arrived.

The imps dove into the herd howling, rolling their eyes, waving their big hands, using glamours to make themselves appear big and frightening. They just about scared the boys and sheep to death. The dogs looked like they wanted no part of it either. When Stonecrusher arrived, the dogs ran, but by then the travelers were near enough.

Lockhart got one with the shotgun. Captain Decker and Lieutenant Harper were a little slower, but both brought a dog to the ground. Three escaped, but they looked like they could not run fast enough, and like they might not stop until they were out of that region altogether.

Dallah was one of the last to arrive. “She is not strong,” Reneus explained.

“She won’t eat,” Mya added.

“Mother,” Andor tugged on her dress and Korah stood beside her little brother, her mouth open.

“Stonecrusher, stand still and keep your mouth closed and your hands to yourself.” Dallah practically whispered the words, but Stonecrusher stopped where he was. “Imps, here, now.” Dallah said, and people gasped as the imps appeared a few feet away. This time the imps all doffed their hats. “Thank you.”

“Our pleasure,” Crusty said, and Dwizzle nodded.

“It was?” Itchy turned to the others before he had something like a revelation. “It was. It really was our pleasure.”

“Were you scared?” Andor asked.

“Well, it’s like this young master—” Itchy started to speak but Crusty interrupted.

“Dwizzle wet himself,” Crusty said and Dwizzle nodded.

“But now what are we going to do with them?” Godus asked when they heard the sound of wailing among the sheep.

Korah recognized the sound and ran toward the cry. The sheep parted to let her through, and her future husband ran right behind her. The young boys in the field stood over their mother but did not know what to do. She cried over a dead sheep, and there was no comforting her.

The dogs only killed one, but the woman’s herd had gotten down to six. Herds that once sported forty or fifty sheep were in a death spiral in that harsh and inhospitable environment.

“Godus, dear.” Dallah turned again to her husband. “Give her one of ours. Make it a good one.”

“But then we will have just six.”

“As she will. Give it to Korah for her new family,” Dallah decided. Godus raised an eyebrow. That was not really playing fair.

“Pardon, lady.” Itchy stepped forward. “Might Stonecrusher have the dead one? That would certainly be a relief for everyone.”

“No,” Dallah said. “Roland, you take the dead sheep for tomorrow and the next day if necessary since you likely won’t find anything between here and the gate. Stonecrusher.” She waited until she had the ogre’s complete attention before she spoke. “You can have the dogs.”

“Mother!” Reneus objected. They had a lot of good meat on those animals, and that would sustain them for some time. But Dallah had not finished speaking.

“Take only the dead dogs and be content. Share one with your impy cousins and go with them to Lord Varuna. He may have new work for you. You are released from your obligation to Dayus.”

“Yes, Lady. Thank you, Lady.” The ogre picked up the dogs one by one and carried all four back into the wilderness without any strain at all.

“Strong sucker,” Captain Decker noted.

“And you imps.” They looked up at Dallah with big eyes. She smiled. “Skat,” she said. “Shoo.” They ran off, happy.

Godus sidled up to his wife and spoke softly. “Any more surprises?”

“A few, but mostly you are looking at them.” She took his hand introduced the travelers. She remembered to say, “Her name is Mary Riley, but everyone calls her Boston.” Then they all went to a wedding.

Dallah cried. Boston cried with her. Alexis only got teary eyed, so Lincoln cried for her. Captain Decker said, “Women.” Captain or not, Katie Harper slapped him in the arm.

The third family in the camp performed the actual ceremony. They also stood as witnesses to the union. It was a lovely ceremony, and surprisingly like modern ceremonies in most parts. But then there came the sacrifice of a sheep. And several moderns looked away when the old man who performed the sacrifice soaked his hands in the sheep’s blood and sprinkled it liberally all over the couple.

Boston kept her mouth shut, but she thought “Ewww,” really loud.

After the wedding, the couple had a place not far from the camp. They had their own fire and sweets and got the prime portion of the sacrificed sheep for their supper. The families, meanwhile, settled in for a party of their own. Korah’s new mother sat beside Dallah for a time, though it made Dallah uncomfortable. Dallah only had one word of advice for the woman.

“Korah has a big, sensitive heart full of love. If you treat her gently and with kindness and encourage her in what she does she will love you forever.” The woman responded in a way which should not have been too surprising given the events of the day.

“Yes, Lady. I will do that very thing.”

By evening, Doctor Procter appeared to be much better. He sat up and ate but thought it best not to go join the celebration. He claimed to be too tired.

Later, when the sun set and most of the camp slept, Alexis stayed up a bit to watch the Doctor. She looked out beneath a moon that appeared just shy of being full, when her eye caught something glisten in the moonlight. She had no idea what it might be until she heard the sound of a horse snort a big gust of breath. The knight came close to the camp, but it did not come into the camp. Alexis stood. Doctor Procter appeared to be asleep, but he began to shiver. Alexis held her breath while the knight reared up, turned, and galloped off into the dark. She immediately woke her father and told him.

“It was a Knight of the Lance. I am sure. It had to be.”

Mingus shook his head. “There haven’t been any Knights of the Lance around for centuries.”

“No,” Alexis argued. “I heard of one a few years ago when Ashtoreth came up into the castle of the Kairos and the Kairos got so sick.”

Mingus nodded. “I heard that too, but never any proof… Just a rumor…”

“But father—”

“Go to bed and sleep. We will be leaving in the morning.”

Alexis looked down and nodded. Maybe she had not seen it. Maybe it had been like a waking dream. Maybe, but she was not sure.

Later in the night, Doctor Procter woke when a lizard crawled across his belly. His hand reached out and grabbed the creature. A harmless little thing, and the Doctor held it and bent it backwards until there came a snap! The Doctor Procter had no reason for doing that. He felt the urge to kill and wanted the pleasure of watching the beast die.

More tears came in the morning as everyone said good-bye. The witness family, the first to leave, took their sheep and headed off to the southeast. Then it came time for Korah and her mother to be parted. “Always respect your husband,” Dallah whispered between the hugs and tears. “And he will love you without ceasing.”

Korah nodded, and shortly they headed off into the north. They said they were going to go as far as the mountains to escape the dead lands. Dallah truly wished them well.

Last of all the travelers headed into the west, and Andor waved until they were out of sight. After they were gone, Andor pointed his fingers at Mya and said, “Bang! Bang!” She just had to chase him. They would be staying where they were for the present. They had the stream and some grass worth eating for their few sheep, but how long they might hold out was anyone’s guess.

Boston was the last to say anything under that blazing sun. “Doesn’t the Kairos ever get born anywhere off the equator? I mean, a little rain might be nice, at least.” Naturally, as they stepped through the gate, they found themselves in a torrent.

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

Monday

Avalon 1.6 Freedom is another 4-part / 4-post episode, so don’t forget the Thursday post. The travelers get into the middle of a forced migration. The people are fleeing from some in their own village. There is a story there. Until Monday, Happy Reading.

*

Avalon 1.5 Little Packages part 3 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Lockhart! Boston!” Dallah groaned as she got to her feet and waved.

“Mother?” Mya spoke.

“These are the ones I told you might come one day.”

“I had forgotten.” Reneus said, as the travelers came to the water. Dallah had to hug Boston and Alexis, in her wet clothes.

“It is so good to see you. I am so glad you are here.”

“Where can we set down Doctor Procter?” Lockhart asked. He looked exhausted. He and Mingus were taking a turn and the elder elf, in particular, looked unable to go much further.

“Of course.” Dallah stepped close to the half-breed but knew better than to touch him. “How long has he been like this?” she asked.

“This is the second day,” Captain Decker said. He shouldered his rifle and took Mingus’ place.

“Well, come. We must get him to the camp.”

“Mother.” Andor got her attention. “Your imps went ahead of us.”

“Oh dear.” She hurried and everyone hurried to follow. Fortunately, the imps just arrived since they stopped first for an argument.

“We are free now,” Crusty said.

“We’re supposed to go see Lord Varuna,” Dwizzle said.

“Wait a minute!” Itchy bought none of it. “Since when does a thicky bean tell us what to do, especially when our orders come from the king of the gods himself?”

“But I feel free,” Crusty said. “I don’t feel like doing the work of Dayus anymore.”

Dwizzle nodded, but Itchy responded. “That don’t mean anything. Crusty, you don’t ever feel like doing any work.” Dwizzle laughed.

“I’m thinking we could ask Lord Varuna when we find him. He always tells the truth.” Itchy hit him. “Ooowww.”

“You don’t do the thinking, you’ll only hurt yourself worse than before.” Dwizzle put his hand back in his mouth and pouted.

“I think that is a good idea,” Crusty said. Itchy stomped on his foot. “Ooowww.”

“Right now, we got to find Stonecrusher some meat before we become meat.” They could agree on that. With their glamours on, they came right up to the edge of the camp, which was not much to speak of, the huts being barely more than lean-tos with skins on the open side. They were snuggled between some stick trees, and there were only five of them altogether. There could not have been more than twenty people in that camp and barely more than twenty sheep as well.

The sheep were presently in a pen where Dallah’s husband, Godus, and two men had separated the sacrifice from the others. When they were done, the groom had two younger brothers who drove the rest to the stream.

“Not much selection,” Crusty said. The sheep were all scrawny, stunted, and underfed.

“Yeah, but it will do,” Itchy responded.

“Hey, look. Sweets.” Dwizzle pointed to a table by the altar. It sat full of dried fruits and cooked roots and tubers of various kinds.

“Oh, boy!” Crusty shouted, and before Itchy could stop them, they were on the table, they had let their glamours drop, and people screamed, some ran away, and some did not seem sure what to do.

“Hold it right there!” Dallah shouted between breaths. The imps froze in place because Dallah had that in mind. “This is my daughter’s wedding, and you will not mess it up.” She yelled a little, but mostly walked more slowly to the table so she could regain her breath. When she arrived to stare at the imps, she pushed an escaped gray hair back toward the bun on her head before she spoke. “Your hands, empty.” Dwizzle and Crusty put out their hands and she slapped them. The imps made no sound, but both squinted from the sharp, if temporary pain. “Itchy.”

The imp had his hands behind his back. “No.” He shook his head for emphasis.

“You should have been named stubborn,” Dallah said. “Your hand.” She did not ask and Itchy whipped out his hands, empty despite what his mind told him and despite his better judgment. She slapped them both, and Itchy had a hard time putting both in his mouth at once.

“Hey! How do you know our names?” Crusty asked, like the truth of that suddenly caught up to him.

“I know all about you,” Dallah said. “More than I would like to know. Now get off the table and behave, I have to see to my daughter.” Korah was already running into her mother’s arms. She cried, but Dallah brushed Korah’s hair with her hand and said, “Hush, everything will be all right.”

“Mother.” Andor tried to get her attention as Godus came up from the sheep pen.

“Who are you?” Itchy finally removed his hands to ask, and then decided to take turns soaking one hand at a time.

“She is your goddess,” Boston said. “Or she will be one day.” She knew she should not say it because it came out of time context, but she could not help herself.

“What? Don’t we have enough gods and goddesses already?”

“No, no.” Alexis spoke to clarify. Apparently, she could not help herself either. “She will not be another goddess of humans that you have to work for. She will be your goddess; goddess of all the little spirits of the earth.”

“There is no such thing.” Itchy understood.

“There will be,” Alexis responded with a smile toward her brother who frowned. The law said they were not supposed to reveal the future like that.

“Mother.” Andor tried again. Reneus, Lockhart and some of the others looked where Andor looked, but hardly knew what to say.

“But she is old and will die soon,” Crusty protested.

“But she will be reborn,” Mingus stepped up. “And sometimes she will be a god and sometimes a goddess for us all.” He turned to Itchy. “Whether we like it or not.”

“Mother.”

“But lady…” Dwizzle tugged on Dallah’s dress and pointed. “Stonecrusher is hungry.

The ogre came down the path from the stream. He appeared hard to look at because he was so ugly; but not simply a disgusting ugly. He looked mean, mad, and hungry, and now the people had something they could really scream about.

“I’m gonna eat me some people,” Stonecrusher said.

“I’m gonna eat some people,” the ogre said it again, like he was trying to make it into a song. Dallah felt sure no one wanted to hear the ogre sing so she shouted.

“Save your bullets!” Dallah said that before anything else, and Captain Decker and Lieutenant Harper lowered their weapons, if reluctantly. The marines were surprised to see Lockhart, Lincoln, Alexis, and Boston all grinning. Mingus had his hands over his eyes as if he did not want to watch. Roland looked at Boston to be sure she was not too frightened. Besides, it felt too hard to look at the ogre, even for him.

“Your bullets might penetrate and maybe a shotgun slug at close range,” Mingus said. “But most would just bounce off his rock-hard skin and make him mad.”

“Rock-hard head, you mean,” Itchy added.

“That too, I am sure,” Mingus admitted.

Dallah placed Korah in her father’s arms and stepped toward the oncoming terror. Hold it right there!” She had to shout to be heard above the screams, though she knew her little one would hear her no matter what. “Stop walking. Feet, stand still.”

“I’m gonna eat some people,” the ogre repeated himself before he shouted back. “Hey! What happened to my feet?” It was fortunate the commands of the Kairos did not have to be processed through the brain before becoming effective.

 “Sit down.” Dallah said, and to the dismay of many of the people, not the least her family, Dallah walked straight toward the thing. As the ogre sat, he asked his question again.

“But what happened to my feet?” Stonecrusher paused while Dallah walked the distance and then the ogre asked a second question. “Why am I sitting?”

“What am I going to do with you?” Dallah asked a rhetorical question in return as she neared. The ogre reached for her. People gasped, but Dallah merely slapped the ogre hand like she had slapped the imp hands. The ogre snatched his hand back and looked at it.

“I thought you said the skin was rock hard.” Lieutenant Harper spoke.

“It is,” Roland answered. “But the Kairos is not hampered by any of it.”

Then the pain got processed and the ogre imitated his little cousins. “Ooowww,” he said in a very loud voice, and he slipped its hand into its mouth.

“Quiet and keep your hands to yourself.” Dallah thought as hard as she could but saw no alternative. “Godus.” She shouted back to the people who had fallen into a hushed silence to watch this spectacle. “We have to give it one of our sheep.”

“We’ve not but seven left,” Godus responded. Being the spouse of the Kairos had its privileges as far as the little ones were concerned. Her family certainly adjusted to the imps fast enough in the stream.

“Well, we will have to have six. You can pick the least of the lot that is left, but we have to feed it something. The poor thing is starving.”

“Somehow, I never imagined an ogre being called a poor thing,” Lincoln said quietly, and Alexis went to take his arm.

Godus handed Korah to her older brother, Reneus, but she already semed fine, had stopped crying, and stared with the rest of them.

Crusty sighed. “I was afraid if she was still mad at us she might feed us to the ogre.” Dwizzle nodded.

“And she could make us walk right into that big mouth without another thought,” Itchy added.

“She would never do that.” Mingus lowered his hands. “Don’t you know how much she loves you?” A small tear came to his eye, and also to Dwizzle’s eye.

“But she is old and will die soon.” Crusty said it again.

“That’s okay,” Itchy decided. “I could live with a god that dies now and then. Then she gets to be a baby again?” Mingus nodded. “So, we get a season of peace when she is young and growing up,” Itchy concluded.

“Or he,” Mingus said.

“That must be weird,” Itchy said.

“Not if you are born that way,” Mingus said.

“Oh yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.”

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

Don’t forget tomorrow (Thursday) will finish the episode, so…

*

Avalon 1.5 Little Packages part 2 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Dwizzle, the imp closest to the travelers stood. “Look, females.” He reached out a hand too big for the little body that supported it.

“Careful, Dwizzle,” Itchy spoke from beside the rock. “It may have prrrrikles.”

The hand paused and Alexis pointed her wand. An electrical discharge struck the hand, and Dwizzle snatched his hand back and slipped it into his mouth, a mouth too big for its face. Indeed, the nose, eyes and ears were all oversized.

“She’s a blinking witch,” Crusty said, as he waddled over to the rock to stand beside Itchy.

“I think you may have cooties,” Lockhart told Boston who grinned at the idea.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Lincoln remembered that the imps belonged to the Kairos, even if the Kairos was not yet official. That helped him relax and ask his question. “What are you imps doing out in this forsaken wilderness?”

Itchy looked at the man like he was daft. Crusty spoke. “We got our job, don’t we? Dry the land and make it sand.”

“Yeah, but we’ve been working too hard,” Itchy complained. “We heard there was a party around here.”

“Hey look!” Dwizzle removed his hand from his mouth as he spoke. “This female has bumps.” He reached for Boston’s chest, and she did not hesitate to slap the imp across the cheek, hard.

Dwizzle paused. His eyes got bigger than big. He let out a drawn-out sound.  “Ooowww,” and put his good hand to his cheek while his other hand went back into his mouth.

“You better go stand behind your friends before you hurt yourself,” Lincoln suggested. Dwizzle did that while Itchy spoke.

“Surprising sense from one so thick.”

Mingus interrupted any response with his explanation. “He means thick like more body, less spirit. He doesn’t mean stupid.”

“I mean what I mean,” Itchy said, with a stern look at the elder elf, but then Dwizzle had a thought.

“Stonecrusher is hungry, you know. He eats human beans.”

“Is Stonecrusher a troll?” Boston had to ask.

“Nah!” Crusty answered. “He’s just an ogre with a bad temper. Ooowww.” Itchy hit Crusty in the arm.

“He is a great, big ugly giant,” Itchy said. “Terrible and mean and, and hungry for human meat.”

Dwizzle removed his hand for a moment. “Yeah, we thought we could snitch some food from the party.”

“Better than him eatin’ us,” Crusty mumbled and put his fists up in case Itchy had in mind to hit him again.

“When the ogre is fed, you are safe in your bed,” Boston said.

“I remember.” Lockhart patted her on the shoulder.

“That’s very good,” Alexis complimented Boston. “Where did you hear that?”

“Missus Pumpkin,” Boston answered.

“Ahem!” Lincoln coughed and pointed to the imps.

Itchy smiled too big a smile for his face. “Anyway, all you got is elf bread stuff.” The imps made faces of disgust. “How can anyone stomach elf food?”

Everyone paused while the sound of howling and dogs fighting echoed across the barren land. Doctor Procter chose that moment to sit up and yell. The words were nonsense, but then he fell back to his makeshift pillow and grew quiet again.

“You got a sicky.” Crusty pointed.

“What’s a sicky?” Dwizzle asked.

“That there.”

“You’ve never been sick. You don’t know what sick is,” Itchy mocked.

“Do so. I saw a thicky get sicky before.”

“Hey!” Lockhart got their attention again and the imps paused in their own argument to look up at the man. Lockhart smiled, but not as broadly as Itchy had smiled. Itchy shook a finger at the man.

“We gotta watch this one,” he said. “But right now, we gotta go find that party.”

“Right,” Crusty agreed.

“Better than us getting eaten by Stonecrusher,” Dwizzle added.

Roland stood behind them with his bow ready. Captain Decker had his rifle to one side, and they were hemmed in on the other side by the big rock. The rest of the travelers were in front of them so they appeared surrounded, but they moved with surprising speed and slipped around both sides of the Captain knowing better than to test the elf. Captain Decker might have plugged one, but Lockhart spoke quickly.

“Hold your fire.” In a few short seconds, the imps blended back into the landscape and became impossible to see but for the motion of the dust and sand they kicked up.

“A glamour,” Mingus described it. “Not true invisibility.” Everyone else just nodded.

~~~*~~~

Andor got into the water and the first thing Dallah did was judge the depth. It barely came to her son’s knees, which meant it had dried up another two inches or more. Reneus knelt down to fill the water skin. Mya stared at Andor before she made the boy strip down to nothing. Andor did not mind playing in the water. It stayed hot out, and even the shade of the few lively trees that bordered the stream did not help all that much.

Dallah sat slowly in that shade. Her joints ached. “You better do a good job, Andor, or you will have to take a real bath and get scrubbed.”

“Aw, mother.” Andor glanced at Mya.

“Now, come. Your sister is getting married. Do it for her.”

Andor did not mind that so much. He liked his sister, so he began by dumping a double handful of water on his head.

Mya grinned at some impish thought, dropped her dress so she stood in her under things. She stepped into the water with a word that perhaps Andor needed help, and she splashed him. Of course, he splashed her back, and they went at it for a few turns before they turned, without a word, and splashed Reneus. He immediately dropped his wet clothes and put his hand to the water. He turned to look at his mother, but she spoke first.

“Don’t you dare.”

He did not dare, but he had fun with the others while Dallah watched the visitors come in close. She would rather not deal with them at the moment, but nothing in this lifetime went the way she wanted. She watched as the imps came out from beneath their glamour and she put her hand to her ears when Mya screamed and grabbed hold of Reneus.

Dwizzle immediately jumped into the water and began to use his two hands like water shovels. Poor Andor did not stand a chance. Surprisingly, Mya was the first to come to his assistance. Then Crusty joined in, but he splashed Dwizzle by accident. So they splashed each other a few times, and that brought Itchy and Reneus into the fray.

“Wait!” Dallah shouted. Everyone stopped and looked in her direction. “Have your fun as long as no one gets hurt but leave me out of it.” She spoke sternly, and at least Crusty gave a little bow. Dwizzle just opened his jaw and Andor took advantage by splashing Dwizzle in the face to make him swallow some water.

Then it became a free-for-all, and the water went everywhere. Inevitably, Itchy and Crusty teamed up to make a big four-handed wave aimed at Reneus, and Reneus ducked. Dallah got soaked, and again, everyone stopped.

“I would say that is enough,” she said. “Imps, come here.” Dwizzle and Crusty came right away, but she had to sternly add, “You too, Itchy.” The imp came whether he wanted to or not.

“Now, who are you working for?”

Crusty took off his hat, which no one realized he wore, and so Dwizzle followed that example. Itchy chose to be stubborn, and he was the one who answered.

“Dayus, the king of the gods himself.”

“Oh? He got sober enough to give you instructions.” The imps, even Itchy grinned at that, but Reneus and Mya reacted at her blasphemy.

“Mother!”

“Please!” Dallah sighed. “It is a wonder he gets up in the morning and can follow a straight line across the sky.”

“Automatic pilot,” Itchy whispered with a grin.

Dallah nodded. “Now what is your job?”

“To dry the land and make it sand,” Crusty recited. Dwizzle nodded. Itchy had a thought.

“What’s it to you?”

“I think you have done enough of that. The die is cast, as they say. There is no stopping it now.” She paused to examine the three imp faces one at a time before she spoke again. “I release you from your duty to Dayus. I think you should go see Lord Varuna. He may have work for you.”

“Wait a minute. Who are you?”

“Mother,” Reneus interrupted. The travelers were on the horizon.

“Quick, now’s our chance.” Itchy pulled the other imps to the side. They melted back into the landscape and made for the party.

Avalon 1.5 Little Packages part 1 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After 4364 BC on the Plains of Thera. Kairos 12: Dallah

Recording …

“Another one.” Alexis pointed. Lieutenant Harper trained her rifle in the general direction, but it was hard to pinpoint, whatever it was, since it kept going invisible. They were the color of the sand, the main part of the landscape. The rest of the scenery was not much to look at. The trees, what there were of them, seemed just sticks, short, stunted, and dry, like they baked too long in the oven. The clumps of grass that stubbornly refused to give up looked burnt yellow and brown. The sun felt relentless.

A dog howled in the distance, but Alexis shook her head. “They aren’t dogs,” she said. “What we are seeing,” she clarified.

“A mirage in this heat?” Lincoln wiped the sweat from Alexis’ brow. The sun itself appeared to be sweating from its own heat.

“Not a mirage,” Lockhart answered. “With mirages you see things. All we are seeing is occasional movement and glimpses of figures that vanish in the heat.”

“And not enough of glimpses to make out shape and size,” Roland added.

Lockhart and Captain Decker set down the stretcher. Doctor Procter kept mumbling that he would be all right, but Alexis was not so sure. Lincoln needed to take a turn carrying the stretcher, and Roland, though it would be his second turn. Mingus said he would be there to help if needed.

Poor Doctor Procter stayed delirious most of the time. The only time he came awake was when someone reached for him. Then his words sounded clear and sharp. “Don’t touch me.” And they got spoken with such vehemence, no one dared to disobey.

“At least it is not the bokarus,” Boston pointed out. “There is only one bokarus.”

“This is no terrain for a bokarus,” Mingus assured them.

“Or ghouls,” Alexis said. “If they sent out a second group after the first stopped reporting, they would not be nearly this far along yet.”

“Whatever it is, it is a wild one.” Roland suggested, as he sipped some water. Lockhart had already started watching their water supply, carefully. No telling how long it might be in that environment before they found more water. Captain Decker also seemed to have gotten the idea, but neither said a word.

“Wild ones, I think.” Mingus responded. He gave them the impression that he might be seeing a bit more than the others, but he did not let on yet about what he was seeing or thinking.

Alexis bent down toward Doctor Procter. The man sat straight up. “Don’t!” Alexis paused.

“It is just some water.”

Doctor Procter reached for the cup, carefully, to not touch the woman. He drank greedily and when he handed the empty cup back so she could take it by the handle, he added a word. “Don’t let anyone else drink from that cup.” His words were stern as he began to shake his head. He closed his eyes, fell back, and mumbled “no, no, no.”

~~~*~~~

Dallah walked out from the camp. She needed some alone time. Her daughter, Korah would be married in the afternoon and in her world, the mother-in-law made all the arrangements, not the mother. She supposed that was only right since Korah would go and live with her husband and his family. The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law needed to form a relationship to carry them through the rest of their lives—hopefully a good one. To be sure, she had a wonderful time when Mya married her son, Reneus. Still, she had to think about it.

Dallah had too many cultures in her head. She imagined it might be best if she did not think about it at all, but lately she could not seem to help it. She turned forty-three or forty-four years old. She was not sure, but at her age, and given her life circumstances, there seemed little for her to do but sit and think.

Godus, her husband, stayed away for days at a time. He always came home with food for the fire, but the absences were hard. Her nine-year-old, Andor, the love of her old age kept the sheep, what remained of them. Her son, Reneus, stubbornly tried to bring grain out of the soil. Mya had taken over most of the cooking and cleaning duties for the family, and Dallah had no complaints, but it gave her too much time to think and worry.

Somehow, she made an enemy of the sun god Dayus when she was a child. She could not imagine anything she said or did. Dayus simply did not want her to be born in his world. His advisors warned against killing her outright as a child, but that did not stop him from ruining the world around her, thus killing her slowly. They moved and migrated and moved again to greener pastures, only to find those pastures dry up under the incessant sun. The people swore the rains would come again. They can’t stay away forever. But Dallah knew it was more complicated than that.

She had no doubt Korah would move away with her new family once the marriage was consummated. Dallah would cry but pray for her. Korah would do well away from Dallah and the ruination that surrounded her life. She might even be happy.

Dallah looked up at the sun and squinted. “Is it enough?” she asked. “Are you satisfied?” She knew the sun god was not yet satisfied. After all, she still lived.

“Mother!” Reneus called. He followed her out into the wilderness. She had an empty water skin with her, but she walked, in no hurry to get to the stream. “Mother. You don’t need to be wandering out here alone.”

“Well, there does not seem much for me to do back in the camp,” Dallah said. “I thought I could fetch some water and at least and make myself useful, somehow.”

Reneus took the water skin from her hands. “No need for that,” he said. “Father is looking for you.”

“Is he?” Dallah looked back once, but she only saw Mya chasing after Andor.

“Mama!” Andor ran up to her. “Help me! Help! Mya is going to make me take a bath.”

Mya arrived with a stern look on her face directed at the boy that hid behind Dallah’s dress.

“There is time for that,” Dallah assured her daughter-in-law. “Reneus and I were headed to the stream. Maybe Andor would like to splash in the water while we are there.” She winked at Mya, who understood what Dallah suggested, but had a strong-willed streak that did not like to be disobeyed by a certain nine-year-old boy. Andor knew the dynamics well. He stuck his tongue out at Mya before he took his mother’s hand.

“Why you.”

Dallah put her hand up to stop them both. “I really came out here to be alone for a while. I don’t mind you coming along, but please keep your thoughts to yourselves. And that goes for you, too.” She poked Reneus in the chest. He backed up in innocence to say, “Me?” But he did not actually say anything out loud.

~~~*~~~

Boston stepped back. Something moved ahead, just around the edge of the rock. “Did you see that?” She turned her head and asked. Captain Decker already moved out into the brush to get an angle on it. Roland made his way quietly around the far side of the rock. Lieutenant Harper had her rifle ready, and Alexis had her wand in her hand. Lincoln and Lockhart had already put Doctor Procter on the ground. Mingus responded.

“Yes,” he said and raised his voice. “And they better all come out of hiding if they know what is good for them!”

A face popped up from the ground, not far from Boston’s feet. She might have stepped on it, but instead she jumped back though it hurt her muscles to move like that. He had not been invisible, but perfectly colored to blend in with the desert floor, and he spoke with a sandy rasp in his voice.

“Look, Itchy, it’s human beans.”

A second came from behind the rock. “Yeah, Dwizzle, and they got elves. ‘bout the worst case of elves I’ve ever seen. What do you think, Crusty?”

A third stepped from behind a skinny tree. No one saw him there but could not imagine why. He looked much fatter than the tree. He clicked his tongue a couple of times before he spoke. “Domesticated elves no less.” He clicked his tongue some more.

“Imps.” Mingus identified the creatures with some disgust in his voice.

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

FOUR part episode this week so it will conclude with a post on Thursday.

Dom’t miss it.

*

Golden Door Chapter 18 James at the Door, part 1 of 2

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“Before we move off,” Pug rubbed his bearded chin as he spoke. “I’ve been thinking about James fallin’ off the bear. Let me see if there is something I can do.” He put fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. The bear returned, moving carefully on the rocky path. Two mountain goats followed, far less concerned than the bear about slipping on the wet stones. Picker and Poker got one goat. James and Grubby got up on the other, which left Pug and Mrs. Copperpot to ride the bear. Warthead did not need the help, and they were not sure he was coming until he followed them down from the cave.

Down at the bottom of the hill, Pug made them get down and stop and wait. The goats, not comfortable so near the bear, headed back into the hills to be lost among the rocks. The bear also wandered off, but James got the impression it would be close if needed. It got uncomfortable when the rain started again, but they sheltered under the edge of the trees, which helped a bit. Mrs. Copperpot pulled out her cooking spoon and stared at James. She had something in mind but at the moment, James really did not want to know.  He preferred to listen to Grubby complain about the rain.

“Don’t you know that I’m like cotton candy. I’m gonna wither and melt in the rain, like the Wicked Witch of the West. Why do you think imps live in the desert?  I’m like a sponge and all this rain is gonna make me swell up until I’m Warthead’s size and you’re gonna have to wring me out like a wet washcloth and hang me on a line to dry. The rain is getting in through my hair.” He did have a hairy little body for one so young. “It’s gonna soak my insides all the way to my spine and I’m gonna get ricketies and Arthur-itis and have to walk bent over like old dotter human people.  Sheesh!”

Mrs. Copperpot ignored the imp and clunked James on the head with her spoon. She held both Picker’s and Poker’s hands with one hand so she could give James a real bonk.

“Ouch.” James felt his head and imagined he would find a lump any minute.

“I should have done this right from the start, but it is hard to remember what human people are like,” Mrs. Copperpot said. “Now you got some dwarf endurance and no excuse for not keeping up. You will never run with the elves, but you can set a spritely pace and keep it up all day.”

“Thank you,” James said before they heard a rustling of leaves in the forest. A pack of a dozen wolves poked their heads out from the trees and two came right up to Pug.

Pug introduced the gnomes riding on those two wolves as Bogus and Reese, and they got down to join the others. James thought Smurfs, but he hoped he did not say it out loud. Besides, they were not blue.

“Now it is our turn,” Pug said, even when James realized that Reese was a girl. She stepped up first, and they all took turns with Pug giving James a big hug. That was it. There was no singing or chanting or dancing or pelting James with dust or dirt or grass or anything; and there was no hitting on the head either, for which James was grateful. When they were done, a she wolf stepped right up to James. James felt surprised to know it was a she wolf, but she wolf or he wolf, James still had to hold his feet to the ground and not run. The wolf thought at him. That was how James described it, like a picture suddenly transported into his mind. Then the wolf licked his face and James tried not to say, “Eww.”

“Ride with me,” the she-wolf thought, and James did not dare argue. He got on the wolf’s back as carefully as he could to avoid pulling the wolf’s hair.

“Hold on with your knees, like on a horse,” Pug instructed, though James had never ridden a horse so he could only guess. “And there is a handful of skin at the back of the wolf’s neck you can grab. It won’t hurt her.”

Pug got everyone up on other members of the pack, though Picker and Poker were rightly scared, and Warthead, of course, needed no such help, having very long legs to carry him along. Neither was there a wolf that could hold him. Even the bear would have struggled with Warthead’s weight, despite Warthead’s youth. But at last, when everyone got ready, Pug led them into the dark, rain-soaked forest. Bogus and Reese brought up the rear with the pups in the pack.

It did not take long to reach the spot where they encountered the spiders. Mrs. Copperpot, Pug and Grubby kept looking up whenever they came to a clear spot, though James imagined it had to be impossible to see anything through the rain. James did not want to look, and he did not feel happy about being out in the wilderness when he started to hear the thunder and lightning in the distance.

“Rain’s gonna get dangerous when the lightning catches us,” Bogus yelled from the rear.

“Keep your eyes open for tornadoes,” Reese added, and Picker and Poker both yelped at the idea of tornadoes. Grubby did not mind so much because he thought Reese said watch out for the tomatoes.

They came to the rough, side path that led to the postern gate and moved carefully, eyes, ears, and noses as open as they could be. It was not long before they came to the wall, and the path took them to the left, toward the gate itself.

“And I thought this little, forgettable gate might be unguarded,” Mrs. Copperpot mumbled.

“I thought the same,” Pug agreed. “I said I have been watching this gate, but the demon in the castle doesn’t miss a trick. She has all the basic guards here, like all the gates. You found the snakes. The spiders were a bit of a surprise. Then, we got the bats.”

“Bats?” Mrs. Copperpot interrupted.

“Oh, sure,” Pug said, clearly not thinking about what he was saying. “Vampire bats, big as your dwarf arm.”

“Bats,” Mrs. Copperpot yelled, and the wolves certainly understood something. They began to turn around even as the sky filed with a cloud darker than the rainclouds, and one that flapped and screeched.

Medieval 6: K and Y 6 Sickness and the Cure, part 2 of 2

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Yasmina

They entered and found boxes, work benches, and other things to hide behind near the door. Aisha went to the right and Yasmina went left but listened first. Al-Hakim was explaining about the rifles and their firepower. They had the Alexandrians as prisoners there. Three were bound and blindfolded but dressed in solid armor. They stood against the wall and three men stood facing them with rifles ready to fire. Yasmina recognized Abdallah. The other two looked familiar but she could not quite place them.

“Fire,” al-Hakim said, and all three armored Alexandrians against the wall collapsed. The bullets punched right through the armor.

Yasmina saw al-Din among the few remaining Alexandrian prisoners, and she could not stop her voice. “Al-Din,” she called, and everyone turned to look in her direction. “That was not smart,” she mumbled to herself and let her arrow fly. It was a lucky shot, or an unlucky shot. Abdallah grabbed at it as it pierced his chest and sank deep into his heart. He fell over, dead.

“No!” Al-Hakim became enraged. He could not see straight. He did not think. He rushed at Yasmina, probably not really seeing her. He pulled his sword. She grabbed Ziri’s spear and just pointed it, and al-Hakim ran onto it. “Sister?” He recognized her at the last as his life left him along with his blood. Then everything broke loose.

Yasmina looked up. Al-Rahim killed Captain Hasan and crouched behind a box firing his arrows. Ziri fired from her left and Gwafa from her right. It took a second to find Aisha. She snuck forward and used her knife effectively to cut the bonds of the remaining Alexandrians.

The Berber guards lost a number of men right at the beginning, dead and wounded, but now they crouched behind their own benches and boxes not far away. They only had a couple of bows to return fire, but they still had the numbers. Yasmina feared a concerted charge on their part would finish her people. She thought to hurry around to get at the Berbers on their flank. When she came out from behind her bench, she came face to face with a man and his knife.

She recognized the man. “Lind.” She whipped out her scimitar as he hesitated, just as surprised as her, and doubly surprised at hearing that name. The scimitar sliced the man across the throat, nearly cutting his head off. Yasmina said, “one of two” as she tried not to wretch, but then, it was not her standing there. She did not do the deed. It was Kirstie who took her place. It was also Kirstie that recognized Lind and came to finish the job.

Kirstie set the scimitar, an unfamiliar weapon beside Ziri’s hand. She pulled her battleaxe and shield, which apparently showed up the same time she did. She moved, knowing full well who the other two members of the firing squad were. Lind was one servant of the Masters, but there was another.

“Gruden,” she called as she pushed into the work area and away from the Berbers, contrary to what Yasmina had in mind. “Gruden,” she said when she found him. He got his hands on a sword, but he had no shield. Still, he grinned at her as Kirstie growled at him. Curiously, she understood her own end of days since at that point in history, the event occurred in the past. She knew when she went back to her own days, she would not remember anything about it, but presently, it seemed a very vivid memory. She had to say something. “This time, my ribs are not busted, and my arm is not broken.”

He came at her anyway with a powerful blow, but her shield was up for it. She came back with a swing at his head, and he only had his sword to fend off the blow. This time, she learned from Captain Ulf and did not give Gruden time to breathe. He stepped back as she came at him, blow after blow. He kept stepping back, until she caught the flat of his sword and busted it in half. Gruden would have run, but Kirstie axe sliced him in the middle. It ended with her axe in the man’s head, and Kirstie wondered how many times she had to kill the same man.

Yasmina returned. The battleaxe and shield disappeared, and her scimitar was back in its sheath, miraculously cleaned of Lind’s blood. She hurried back to the others, afraid, because she no longer heard any fighting. She saw Creeper the imp standing there, minding his own business, picking something from his overly large and sharp teeth.

Al-Din and the Alexandrians, with Gwafa, Ziri, and al-Rahim all stood in a tight group against the wall with Aisha in front, her arms outstretched to protect them and ward off any imp, troll, or sand monster that came their way.

“What do you want us to do with the Caliph?” Creeper asked, nonchalantly. Apparently, beyond her own people and the Alexandrian survivors, al-Mahdi was the only one still alive. He had an arrow in his chest, or upper belly that looked bad. No telling if he would live. Probably not. Yasmina closed her eyes for the moment. She did not want to see all the torn and shredded bodies.

“He needs a horse,” al-Rahim said as he dared to step free of the group that cowered behind Aisha.

“Send him back to the palace where he will either live or die,” Yasmina agreed and opened her eyes again. “We have to find whatever black powder they were making and pile it in several places around the building. Then we need to set it off and get out of here.”

“The black powder is in a back room encased in concrete,” Aisha said. Al-Din followed her and questioned the word, concrete.

“A Roman invention from centuries ago,” Yasmina explained. “It is very hard and would mostly contain the explosion if there was an accident in the powder room.” That did not really explain it, except that it was a hard Roman invention of some sort.

“Creeper,” Yasmina called. “I need some of your people to take the guns and some of this equipment to Avalon,” she said. Al-Rahim presently had a rifle in his hand, and he was trying to figure out how it worked. “No, no.” Yasmina told him, took the rifle, and handed it to a waiting little one. “There are not supposed to be guns for another three or four hundred years.”

“How do you know…?” Al-Rahim bowed. “Princess. I saw Kirstie, you know. I’m sorry I did not get the chance to meet her.”

Yasmina frowned. “She is not happy. She had to kill two men.”

“And you. Are you all right.”

Yasmina nodded and looked down at her shoes before she spoke between some tears. “It was an accident. When I shot Abdallah, I was aiming at a different man, a soldier. When I picked up Ali’s spear, I thought he would stop and back up, but he ran onto the spear. I could not help it.” She began to cry softly, and al-Rahim hugged her.

It took a couple of hours to clean out the place and set the charges to destroy all the gun making equipment that could not be moved. Aisha said they were taking too long. “Al-Mahdi made it back to the palace and the Berbers are gathering. They should be here soon.”

Al-Rahim raised his eyebrows before Yasmina explained. “A couple of imps followed the Caliph and are spying on events there. Aisha is able to get some information from them. Long distance, I know. Don’t ask how. Just trust that it is so.”

Creeper came up at that moment with the same word. “We have to go.”

Yasmina nodded. Al-Din and his three Alexandrians picked out the best horses from the dead troop of Berbers. Ziri and Gwafa were already mounted. Aisha held Yasmina’s horse with her own, and al-Rahim mounted, wholly trusting by then that Yasmina knew what she was doing. Yasmina nodded and lit the fuse, then they rode as fast as they could away from that place and away from Mahdiya.

Aisha saw the Berbers riding to the factory, but she knew Creeper and his people would stop them or at least stop their horses from following. She saw that the Berbers stopped all on their own when the factory went up in several massive explosions. Then she joined the others in a grove of date palms and could see no more as they vanished into the desert. They got away, but Yasmina sneezed and wondered if she was coming down with a cold.

M3 Margueritte: Tales, part 2 of 3

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The afternoon began wonderfully, and full of celebration for the newborn child.  “Every child is like the Christ child,” Father Aden said.  But then there were horses in the fens, and four men came up quickly, followed by a fifth some distance away.

“Duredain, the king’s druid,” Bartholomew breathed.  He did not especially like the man, and neither did the people of the fens, many of whom were there under sentence of the druid acting as magistrate for the king.

“Lord Bartholomew.”  The druid was always polite to the Franks, but it seemed thin.

“Roan and Morgan I know,” Sir Barth said.  They were Brian, the chief of Vergen’s deputies.  “But who is this tall, lean one with you?”

“Finnian McVey.”  The man introduced himself.  “Lately arrived from the Irish shore and welcomed to the hospitality of King Urbon’s court.”

“You will cease and desist this distribution at once, on the king’s orders,” Duredain said, getting right to the heart of the matter.  “These men and women have been put to this hardship under penalty of law.  They are not to be aided in their sentence or comforted for their wrongdoing.”

Sir Barth reached up to rub his chin and think of what to say.  In the interim, Lady Brianna and Aden the Convert both spoke in unison.  “Nonsense!”  Fortunately, before the argument could begin, the fifth rider arrived; Thomas of Evandell, the king’s bard.

“Lord and Lady Bartholomew.”  He shouted from some distance to gain the attention of all.  “Lord and Lady Bartholomew.”  He repeated when he arrived.  “The king requests your presence in the court at this time.  Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”

“The girls.”  Lady Brianna voiced her first thought, and Father Aden nodded for her sake to indicate that they would be safely escorted home.

“Actually.”  Thomas negated the whole arrangement.  “The king has asked if you would bring the girls, if it is not inconvenient.  He has heard stories and wonders if he may hear more of the truth of the matter.”

Duredain the druid squinted at the girls.  He had not anticipated this, but it did make his job easier.  “Yes,” he said.  “I, too would like to hear about these things.”  He snapped at Roan and Morgan who did not get it at first but realized soon enough that their mounts were required.  They reluctantly got to their feet in the unfriendly crowd.  Sir Barth got up on one horse and took Elsbeth in his lap.  Margueritte got up behind her mother on the other horse and held on tight around her middle.  As they left the fens, she saw Aden the Convert try to turn the men to their drink.  The men seemed determined, en-mass, to scare the pants off Roan and Morgan who, after a moment of hesitation, fairly ran for their lives to the sound of much laughter.

“You bet your bippy,” Margueritte said in a language she did not know, and she laughed without having the least idea why she laughed.

In the house with the wooden towers, which was clearly more of a fort than a proper castle, Margueritte looked at everything while Elsbeth ignored it all.  Margueritte saw a great skill in the tapestries and that all the furnishings were well made and well kept.  Elsbeth yawned until they came to the armed guards and entered the courtroom.  The king sat at the end of the room with the queen beside him.  Everyone else stood, except for Brian, the very overweight village chief, who had a little chair off to the side, and Canto, his druid, stood there with him.  Duredain and Thomas went to one knee before rising.  Lord and Lady Bartholomew nodded their heads and simply said, “Your Majesties.”

“I have heard some strange tidings concerning these daughters of yours,” the king said and did not wait for the niceties.  He looked at the girls and Margueritte curtsied and nudged Elsbeth to do the same, which she did after a thought.

“Your majesty,” Margueritte said, as she momentarily looked down to keep her balance.

“Majesty.”  Elsbeth echoed.

Margueritte looked at the queen.  She heard so little about her, Margueritte could not even remember the woman’s name, but she looked like a nice older lady, and the queen smiled for her.

“Come.”  The queen spoke up to her husband’s surprise who still scrutinized the girls with his best, practiced glare.  “Come and tell me all about it,” the queen prompted.  Margueritte accepted the invitation, and Elsbeth followed.  When she sat at the queen’s feet, Elsbeth beside her, there arose some consternation in the gallery.  The king said nothing, however, as it was apparently what the queen intended.  The gallery became mollified and snickered a little when Elsbeth’s seven-year-old finger went to her nose.

“Well, it all started…” Margueritte began her story, and she told it almost word for word, exactly as she told her parents.  She stuck strictly to the truth as well as she remembered it.  The queen asked very few questions and the king asked none and only spoke at the beginning when the queen lit up at the word dance and said how she, too, loved to dance.

“You have the Maying, woman.  And that is enough dance for the year,” the king said.

When Margueritte finished, she felt satisfied that the real story had gotten out in spite of Elsbeth’s interruptions and embellishments.  And when the king and queen were silent, the king opened the floor to questions from the court.

Duredain the druid became one of the first to step up.  “You say you slapped this ogre, this very force of nature itself, and he crashed against the wall and fell unconscious?”

“Yes sir,” Margueritte answered forthrightly.

“And how is it that you, a little girl, were able to do this?” he asked with a smirk.

“I do not know sir,” Margueritte said honestly.  “Unless it was by the grace of God.”  She swallowed and added, “I am a Christian, you know.”  She looked to her mother and saw pride in her mother’s eyes.  Margueritte was not completely unaware of the political implications in her statement.  The queen appeared unmoved by the revelation, but the king sat straight up, and the druid huffed and puffed, but said no more at that time.  Instead he chose to stand warily beside his king.

“And how is it that lightning came from your fingers to strike the imp?”  A woman asked.

“I do not know,” Margueritte said.

“And there are no imps handy to show you.”  A man back in the crowd muttered and several of the courtiers laughed.

Far and away, most of the questions were about the unicorn.  Elsbeth could not say enough in praise and told over and over how she was healed of all her fears and torments simply by touching the beauty.  Marguerite, however, did not like the tone of some of the questions.  These were asked mostly by men at arms, hunters all.

At the last, the Lord Ahlmored stepped forward as if he had waited patiently for just the right moment.  “Well I, for one, do not believe a word of it.  Oh, I am sure the young ladies have told what they believe is true, but I suspect the truth is more that some ordinary thieves stole the girl in the woods when they had a chance, no doubt to hold her for ransom.  The lovely Margueritte followed her little sister and probably found a gentle old nag that had come loose of its tether and wandered off in search of a good graze.  Then by mere chance they stumbled on the cave of the thieves, sheep rustlers we might call them.  The leader probably slipped in the doorway to allow the girls to escape, which happens.” Lord Ahlmored shrugged.  “The nag, which was certainly lost and had nowhere else to go, then carried them off before the other thieves could stop them.  I suspect there is no more to the real truth than that.”  He shrugged again like that should be the end of the story and the discussion.  Reason prevailed.

Lord Bartholomew, however, had not been counted on.  Red with fury, he broke Brianna’s hold on him.  “Are you calling my daughters liars?”  He shouted and faced the African who merely smiled and bowed.

“Not at all,” Ahlmored said.  “I did say they honestly believe their own story, but you know how these things get built up in the mind, and especially in the imagination of children.”

Bartholomew only kept back when Baron Bernard and Bernard’s squire, his own son Michael stepped in front of him.  Sir Barth felt steaming mad, but he was not the only one.  Duredain the druid looked ready to spit.  Ogres and unicorns made sense in his world, even if they were encountered by one who had the audacity to speak of this Christ.  Arrogant Moslem ambassadors and their rationalistic “explain-it-away” sentiments, however, were intolerable.  For all his faults, the druid could never tolerate a closed mind.

“You’re a fool, Ahlmored,” he said, as Bartholomew looked at his girls.

Avalon 3.3: part 3 of 6, Serpents of the Deep

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Iddin-Addad stood on the beach and took a long whiff of salt air. “One day those hill will be covered with grass and trees. All they need is several thousand years for the wind and rain to leach out all the salt in the soil.”

“How do you figure?” Clicker asked.

“Easy. The Caspian Sea is shrinking. Once, it covered those little hills and deposited plenty of salt. Now, it is drying up, and the sea will continue to get smaller over the next some thousand years.”

“I like it,” Serpentelle said as she splashed her feet in the water. “I never got to see the water before in caspian sea 4the sunlight.”

“You are a hobgoblin now, no longer stuck in the dark,” Iddin told her for the thousandth time.

“I know, and I can’t wait to have a handful of little hobgoblins.”

“Not with me you don’t,” Iddin said as he looked down the beach in the direction they had to travel.

Serpentelle smiled at him even if he did not notice, before she turned to the imp. “How about with you, Clicker.” She bent down to kiss the imp’s gray, bald forehead and gave him a good view of her scantily clad body. Iddin noticed a little reddening underneath Clicker’s gray skin.

Clicker coughed when Serpentelle stood up straight again and looked once more at the sea. “We best keep moving on,” Clicker said.

“I don’t think we can,” Iddin responded. Nine riders, warriors by the look of them, were blocking their path.

###

The three witches floated in the air and let their eyes look all around the village, like they were calculating something. “Move village.” The one in the center spoke in the local tongue.

“We bring the three serpents of the deep,” the one on the left spoke. It was in a language unknown to the locals, but thanks to the translation gift of the Kairos, the travelers understood perfectly what the witch said.

“Serpents, come!” The one on the right shouted.

“Move village,” the center one repeated and the three witches flew off down the beach that the travelers had just come up.

“Congratulations Major,” Lockhart said. “We managed that whole exchange without you taking a potshot at one of the witches.”

Caspian sea 2“It was tempting,” Decker said. “Just to see what they were made out of.”

“Some kind of robotics,” Elder Stow reported what they already guessed.

“The serpents?” Katie got their attention and they followed her down to the sea which was already beginning to bubble with activity. Of course, it turned out there was only one serpent left, and it squealed when it saw the travelers, like it recognized them and did not want to be there. But it could not help itself. It was still bleeding from several bullet holes it received earlier in the day, but it dutifully began to reach for boats and nets, to tear them up.

“Allow me,” Elder Stow said, and he fired his weapon. The energy beam sliced perfectly through the neck, and like the last time, the head fell before the body joined it “Mercifully quick,” Elder Stow added even as Andovar and some thirty men armed with spears and bows came to the beach.

There were several moments of silence and dropped jaws before spontaneous joy erupted from the men on the beach. It was quickly joined by shouts and cheers from the people around the village. Boston took Roland’s hand and said they had to check on Alexis. The others and Andovar abruptly paused the celebration when they saw the witches returning. It was hard to tell on those unexpressive faces, but the travelers imagined the witches were not too happy

The witches moved again to the edge of the village and the center one spoke once more. “Move village”

“We bring the Giant of the Transvaak,” the one on the left said.

“Giant, come!” The one on the right shouted.

“You got a stun setting on that thing?” Lockhart asked.

Elder Stow fiddled with something on his weapon, but shook his head at the same time. “I don’t know about robots as you call them, or giants,” he said as the witches once again flew off down the beach to the south.

“We may have a wait,” Andovar said “The giant lives some distance from here.”

“Good to know,” Lincoln said

“How big?” Elder Stow asked.

“Which direction?” Major Decker asked.

“Hold up!” Katie yelled and pointed. There were twelve horses riding toward the village, eleven with riders, though one horse appeared to have two figures on it. Andovar quickly gathered his men into some semblance of a defensive formation, and they waited.caspian ponies

The riders were mostly women, as it turned out. One man and one of the women dismounted immediately on arrival. “Hey, Lockhart,” Iddin got that much out before he was surrounded by spears. The woman drew her sword. The other women appeared to have bows already strung and ready for battle.

“No, no,” Lockhart spoke quickly. “Andovar. That would be most unwise.”

There was serious tension in the air until they heard a squeak from the back of the horse that appeared to be wandering off down toward the beach.

“Help.” It was a pitiful sound.

“Get your paws off of me.” The response came in a woman’s strong voice.

Iddin rolled his eyes. “Clicker! Serpentelle!” he yelled and pointed at the small space in front of where he stood. The little ones appeared as out of nowhere. Clicker breathed. Serpentelle brushed off her little bit of clothes and remarked.

“Normally I don’t mind hands all over me, but you were preventing me from getting down.”

The men with the spears backed up. It was hard to say what was more frightening, the imp or the hobgoblin, or maybe the fact that this man just called them to appear out of thin air. Iddin signaled to the woman beside him and she lowered her sword. She turned to her troop and shouted, “Lower your weapons.”

“Borsi, put down the spears,” Andovar shouted as soon as he found his breath. The spears were lowered, but Iddin was already on another track.

“Hey, Katie. I brought some friends of yours.” The woman beside Iddin opened her mouth and her eyes, wide. She rushed to Katie and two of the women in the troop leapt from their horses and joined her. All three went to their knees.

“Elect,” the first woman said. “The second in all the world. Zoe is gracious to her humble servants.”

“Yeah.” Iddin was still speaking. “The Amazon seer said I was going to face a terrible monster and she sent help all the way from the Black Sea. They have been chasing me for weeks, and finally caught me just up the beach here. Say, where is Little Fire?”caspian village 2

“You? Facing a terrible monster? Hard to believe,” Lockhart said and Decker almost smiled.

“Here I am,” Boston said as she and Roland came back out of the house. “What’s up?”

“Iddin-Addad,” Lincoln pointed at the newcomer.

“Just Iddin,” Iddin said. “Addad is a reference to our family god, if you follow me. Nice guy, by the way. I met him.”

“Come on Alia.” Katie was already giving orders. “Let’s get your horses rubbed down and put up for the night.”

“Can someone explain what is happening?” Andovar shouted to the sky. Lincoln and Lockhart decided to try to explain the inexplicable.

Boston and Roland came close and Serpentelle became very animated. “An elf. A light elf Well, well. I could have fun with this one”

Boston grabbed Roland’s hand. “Not a chance. He is taken.” The fire danced in her eyes.

“I don’t traffic much with hobgoblins,” Roland said, honestly.

“I could show you how,” Serpentelle batted her eyes and wiggled her fine figure in an enticing way.

Boston found the fire down in the palms of her hands and Roland had to let go quickly to keep from being burned.

“Hold it” Iddin bravely stepped between the women. “Boston. You have no claim until you and Roland make a decision.” That stopped Boston cold and she looked at Roland, but he deliberately kept his eyes on the Kairos whom he hoped was not finished speaking “And Serpentelle. You keep your wiggles to yourself. You can practice on Clicker, but that is it.” Serpentelle pouted.

“Incoming,” Major Decker interrupted everyone. At least he was still keeping watch.

“He is bigger than I thought.”  Elder Stow shook his head again.

The giant began to throw stones into the village that were more nearly the size of small boulders.

Avalon 3.3 Fireworks, part 1 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After 3029 BC, around the Caspian Sea. Kairos lifetime 36: Iddin-Addad

Recording …

Every time Iddin-Addad reached the top of a hill, he expected to see the shoreline of the Caspian Sea stretched out in front of him in blue and deep glory. Instead, he found there was yet one more hill. “There is always another hill to climb,” he said out loud, and then scolded his tongue for mouthing the cliché.

“We are almost there,” Clicker the imp said. He always said it with the same cheery voice, and Iddin thought if he said it one more time, he might hit the imp.

Serpentelle, the hobgoblin laughed. She always laughed when the imp said it, and licked her lips with Caspian hills 2her forked tongue. Iddin thought he might have to do something about these two and their obsessive, compulsive disorders.

Iddin stopped and looked back. Whoever that group was that was following, they were still following.

###

“Over here,” Roland yelled. “This one is alive.”

Boston raced up and dismounted before her horse stopped moving. She rushed to Roland’s side, but said nothing as she looked. Alexis was moments behind. She arrived as the man began to moan and mumble.

“Three witches,” the man said. “No escape. Three witches.” He fell back into a semi-conscious state as Alexis came up and began to lay on hands to heal the man’s obvious wounds.

Lincoln and Lockhart rode up more slowly. They each had a string of ponies that trailed out behind their stallions. Three of the ponies had dead bodies of men carefully draped over the backs and tied underneath with old fishing net to keep them from falling off.

“Did he say anything?” Lockhart asked. He was searching for some idea of what they might be up against.

caspian 1“He said something about three witches,” Boston responded. Lincoln quickly looked around. That did not sound good.

“We must be getting near the Kairos.” Lockhart tried not to grin.

“How do you figure?” Lincoln asked without moving his eyes from the horizon, what he could see of it over the hills.

“Dead bodies and witches. What could be more Kairos than that?”

Lincoln gave Lockhart a foul look, as Katie came up leading another pony. “That makes seven ponies,” she said. “But we only found four men.” She craned her neck to see what she could. “How is he?”

“He’ll live,” Alexis stood. “But I have no doubt he has a concussion and maybe some internal bleeding around the brain. He had a terrible gash there.” Alexis looked at the arrangement. “Katie, would you take Lincoln’s string of horses? I want to tie the pony you found to the back of Benjamin’s horse so we can put our wounded one on it. I want to keep an eye on him.” Katie nodded, and she and Lincoln got down to make that arrangement.

Major Decker and Elder Stow came in last and the Elder reported. “The scanner doesn’t pick up any more bodies.” He looked up. “Flesh and blood bodies.”

Caspian pony“There is a village not too far north along the shore,” Decker said with one more look around. “But this is a pretty desolate area.” The rises in the ground they had been traveling over were full of rocks. The horses had to tread carefully. Even the shoreline of the Caspian Sea was rocky, though those stones were rounded from the sea and the tides. “No place to hide a body here,” he concluded. There were trees here and there and some grass and bushes between the rocks, but that was it.

Lincoln got up on his horse to keep the horse steady while they got the wounded man up on the pony. They draped the man’s arms around the neck of the pony and Alexis and Roland did some magic to keep him glued there. Lincoln would not be able to move fast in any case because of the man’s wounds and head trauma, but at least they would not have to worry about the man falling off.

Roland and Boston prepared to take the point, as usual. They had seen two villages in the morning, likely fishing villages, but both were deserted. There were signs of violence, like the people were driven out in a hurry, but at least they found no bodies until now.

Lincoln and Alexis took the middle, and Alexis paralleled the pony with the wounded man. Decker and Elder Stow switched their normal sides so Decker could watch the inland flank while Elder Stow floated over the sea. Katie and Lockhart took rear guard position, still wary of what might be following them, though presently, two strings of ponies with three dead men, trailed out behind. The ponies at least seemed to be obedient animals and had not bucked much since being tied in a line.

“We ready?” Lockhart asked with a quick look around at the nods. “Wagons ho!” He waved his hand forward and spoke in a funny voice before he turned to Katie. “I always wanted to do John Wayne.”

“That wasn’t anything like John Wayne,” she scoffed. “He was a movie actor, right?”

Lockhart was astounded before he said, “We have some generational issues I see.”

“Great Gobs of Puss!” Elder Stow swore. He had not done that before. Everyone looked as three giant serpent heads rose out of the shallows. The center one snapped at the Elder and could have swallowed him in one bite. Elder Stow raced to the shore as Decker came riding up, blazing away with his rifle.Caspian serpent

Everyone kicked their horses into high gear as Katie got out her rifle and began to fire. One snake head lunged for Alexis, but Lockhart blasted it with both barrels of his shotgun and it swerved off.

Decker and Harper put enough holes in the one on the end, it began to jerk from the concussions before it collapsed to the beach behind them. They turned on the one out front that made a snap at Alexis. Elder Stow had his sonic device out, but the sound made no difference to the snakes. He fumbled for his weapon, but before he drew it, the center snake grabbed the pony on the end of Lockhart’s string. The serpent easily lifted the pony and began to lift the whole string of ponies.

Katie dropped her rifle and grabbed her knife. She got up on her horse’s back and leapt straight toward that terrible mouth. She cut the lead and the snake head snapped back, the screaming pony in its jaw. It began to submerge.

Elder Stow had his weapon by then, but he dared not fire on the snake with the pony for fear of hitting Katie. Decker was riddling the other even as it made a try for the pony with the wounded man. Elder Stow turned and made short work of the beast when his weapon sliced through the neck. The head fell and landed inches from Alexis. Then the body fell, mostly in the sea.

There was pandemonium as the travelers struggled to restore order to their animals and the trailing ponies. Katie was banged up when she fell, but all right. The second to back pony on Lockhart’s string broke its leg when it fell. It had a body tied to it so they had to transfer the body to one of the unburdened ponies they had. They took it and tied it at the end of Lockhart’s string so he and Katie now had two each rather than three ponies trailing behind. Lockhart shot the poor pony with the broken leg, and Decker came up to Elder Stow with an observation.

“Now we can guess where the other three bodies went.”

############

Please forgive my haphazardness in posting these episodes.  I am 70,000 words into a book.  I’ve been writing for the past twelve days like a madman, and losing track of day and night, and things like posts.  Episode 3.3 of the Avalon season 3 will cover six posts.  M, T and W of this week, and again, M, T, and W of next week.  If I lose track and miss a posting.  Bear with me.  I will get it up on the net.as soon as my brain starts functioning outside my current story mode.  Thanks, and enjoy the episode.

— Michael.

Avalon 3.0: part 3 of 4 Gollum

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

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.cooking bacon

“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.”

horses-in-desert“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