Avalon 1.4 Sticks and Stones part 5 of 6

September 9, 2025July 27, 2025M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Boston?” That left the three fighters.

“Ready!” The word echoed in the stick ship.

“Zero in on a fighter,” Saphira said, but Katie had already done that.

“Now.” Katie spoke into her wrist communicator, and Boston sent out a plasma pulse. The Balok fighter disintegrated in a crimson ball of fire. Immediately, the two remaining Balok fighters began to move around to avoid being targeted, but Katie and Boston got a second one before the last one dipped below the radar.

Saphira grabbed Katie’s hand and spoke into the wrist communicator. “Lockhart. One fighter landed. Meet us at the front door.”

“Already there,” Lockhart responded. They vacated the stick ship for the firm ground, and a few of the stick people followed them.

The stick leader looked sick. He bobbed up and down a couple of times before he spoke. “You are mad, like the Balok. We did our very best to escape them, but since they found us, it would have been better if we had died than participate in their madness.”

No one knew what to say until Alexis stepped up. “You have the right to live in peace.”

“We have no right to take life,” the leader said, and with that he moved his people away from the travelers.

“I guess we screwed up,” Lincoln said, even as Saphira, Katie and Boston came huffing and puffing down the ramp.

“All right,” Saphira said. “We need to find that ship.”

“They would rather die than be part of the killing.” Alexis summed things up and pointed to the stick people who were keeping their distance. Saphira looked, but she had an alternative view and said so in her own tongue.

“We are protecting my people. We are protecting the human race, even if I am sorry the stick people got in the middle of it. We won’t survive if the Balok come here.” That seemed to satisfy the group. “Now, I want to split us up. Despite the F-whatever-number, single man fighters that are current with your military; most space fighters have two or three occupants. There are too many systems to keep track of. Decker and Roland, you take Coramel’s sons and circle around quietly to approach the fighter on the flank. The rest—where is Mingus?”

“Doctor Procter has taken a fever,” Roland said, and Boston looked at Alexis.

“I do wounds, occasionally help avoid surgery. I don’t do sickness.”

“All right.” Saphira adjusted her thinking. “But still, Alexis, would you stay with your father and Doctor Procter? We should probably leave someone here to watch over the stick people, even if they don’t want our help. Katie and Boston, Coramel, Lincoln and Lockhart. We go straight for the ship.”

“Works for me.” Captain Decker checked his rifle.

“A last thought,” Saphira stopped them all. “We need to kill them. No, there is no alternative, and do not hesitate or they will certainly kill you.”

Roland nodded and led the way into the open fields. They stayed in sight for a time before they dipped down into a gully.

“We go.” Lockhart had judged the time and distance, and they started into the tall grass. There were stubby, non-descript bushes here and there and the occasional tree, but the land held mostly grass to the knees, and sometimes to the waist. They had no way to move quietly, but they spread out and kept their eyes and ears as open as they could. A slim trail of engine smoke still rose into the air in the distance. They headed straight for it.

When they topped a rise, they saw the ship down below, and it looked much larger than they imagined. The grass looked much taller there too, being on the side of a hill where most animals would not bother to graze. All things considered, it should not have come as a surprise when the serpent rose-up and wrapped itself twice around Boston.

Boston screamed and struggled, and that made it hard for the others. They dared not fire at the creature for fear of hitting Boston. The snake kept trying to bite her, but it could not get its head at a good angle. Saphira dropped her bow and waited three seconds for an opening before she brought the butt end of her spear down on the snake’s head. The snake nipped at her, but by then the others were moving.

Lockhart pulled the same stunt with the stock of his shotgun, and the hit appeared to hurt the serpent. Lincoln and Lieutenant Harper still tried to get off a shot, but Coramel came up with a stone between his hands. The snake responded by showing a hand of its own. The hand pealed out from the side of the creature, and it held something. They heard no sound, saw no light, or anything, but Coramel dropped to the ground, stunned and maybe dead.

Then the snake took Boston to the ground while Boston screamed the words, “I can’t breathe.”

Lincoln went to Coramel while Saphira’s next shot with her spear hit the snake in the hand. It dropped the weapon but began to roll down the hill with its captive. Lockhart, Saphira and Lieutenant Harper followed, and when Boston and the creature slowed, Lockhart managed another whack at the creature’s head.

The snake roared from pain and appeared to speak, though no one knew what it said except Saphira. Then it suddenly let go of Boston to slither away in the grass. Saphira, with the snake’s weapon in her hand, went to her knees beside Boston.

When the serpent reached what it no doubt imagined as a safe distance from the primitives, it put its rear legs down and reared up eight feet in the air. It spoke again, more clearly as another hand made itself known, and whether they retained some vestige of the primal tongue of Shinar, or the magic of the Kairos worked overtime, they all managed to catch one distinct word. “Die.”

“Balok!” Lockhart shouted to distract the snake, and Lieutenant Harper’s rifle went off. The creature looked stunned as the bullet tore through its neck. Then Lockhart fired the shotgun and the snakehead shredded. The body fell after a moment.

~~~*~~~

Captain Decker, Roland, and the boys got surprised when the Balok reared-up in front of them. The boys got excited and rushed forward to throw their spears. The Balok easily avoided the stone tips and pulled out a hand and a weapon. To be sure, the hand looked more like seven skinny tentacles than a human hand, and the weapon looked like a small disc but Captain Decker and Roland both saw it.

Roland had his bow out, but he could not get off a shot because of the boys. The Balok clearly recognized the bow as a danger and shot Roland first. Roland froze in place even as Decker yelled.

“Boys! Lie down on the ground. Now!”

One went straight to the dirt. The other knelt and bent down but looked at the captain with questions on his face. It was enough. Captain Decker peeled off three bullets before the Balok shot him and Decker fell. It is likely the Balok would have died shortly. It may have already been dead, but to be sure, Roland shook himself free of his frozen state. He pulled his sword and beheaded the serpent before he turned to see to Decker.

~~~*~~~

Lockhart stepped over to where Boston lay on the ground. She sat up and breathed better, but Saphira thought her ribs were cracked, if a couple were not broken.

“Coramel is fine, but frozen,” Lincoln reported. “His fingers and toes look frostbitten.”

“Frozen?” Lieutenant Harper asked.

“Think like a reptile or amphibian,” Saphira answered. “A heat ray would not be as effective.”

“Lincoln. We need a stretcher,” Lockhart shouted.

“Coramel will be fine in a moment,” Lincoln said. “Oh, you mean—” He patted a groaning, shivering Coramel on the shoulder and got up to search a small stand of nearby trees.

Saphira headed straight for the Balok ship, Katie Harper on her heels.

“Don’t wander off,” Lockhart shouted. Saphira waved, but they ended up closer to the ship than she imagined they would. It would have been too much to ask her not to take a look. When they arrived at the door to the ship, they heard three shots fired not too far away.

“Decker,” Katie said.

“Let’s hope that’s it,” Saphira responded while she examined the outside of the door. It took three hands with pinky fingers and three little sticks to press on the six holes that would have fit a Balok hand very well. The door opened and they could look in if they held their breath. The whole thing smelled like rotten cabbage and decayed meat. Saphira did not have to look for more than a moment before she let out a stream of invectives for the third time. She spun and ran, Katie beside her.

“What?”

“Three,” Saphira said.

~~~*~~~

Alexis spent her time cleaning up the camp and getting things ready to move out. She confessed to herself that being twenty-five again did not necessarily change things. She might be Boston’s age, but she was not wild and free like that girl. She had been a mom too long, and now she had become a grandmother. She liked being a mother and grandmother, and she was good at it, and maybe there was nothing wrong with that. At the same time, though, maybe she did need to let Benjamin get adjusted. She smiled. Poor little Billy, her grandson. He would always be older than his uncle, or maybe his aunt. She had two boys. She decided this time she wanted a girl.

“Daughter.” Mingus startled Alexis.

“Father? How is Doctor Procter?”

“Shivering from fever,” Mingus said. “But he won’t let me so much as touch him. He growls at me every time I try.”

“Growls?”

“He is an old man, far older than his human half should be. Old men growl, haven’t you noticed?”

Alexis looked up into her father’s face. She looked serious at first, but quickly smiled. She reached for his hand. “You don’t growl; you just get grumpy now and then.”

Mingus returned her smile. “I am sorry about the stick people.”

Alexis shifted her gaze to where the stick people were gathering, still repairing their ship, and keeping their distance from the mad humans. “They would rather die than take life,” she said. “What can the human race offer to compare with that?”

Mingus took back his hand and began to take down a tent. “The Kairos was wise all these millennia to keep us from interacting with the human race. Look at me. I have studied human history for centuries and have been corrupted. I sometimes think I must be more human now than elf.”

Alexis said nothing. She screamed. The Balok lifted-up from the grass, only a dozen yards away. It splayed both hands and each held an instrument of some kind. The first, a freeze ray, shot at Mingus, but Mingus easily shrugged it off because of the fires inside of him. He shot back with a ball of flame, and while the Balok backed away from the actual fire, the heat and warmth of the flames appeared to strengthen it.

Avalon 1.1 Hunters in the Dark part 1 of 3

August 11, 2025July 26, 2025M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After 4480 BC on the Sahara Grasslands. Kairos 8: Iris of the Anamites

Recording …

Boston stepped through the gate and found a hand pressed over her mouth. Lincoln’s hand tasted like sand. Good thing he was there, because otherwise she would have screamed. A wildebeest pressed up against her leg. It begrudgingly moved. Lockhart and the others came through quietly, and the herd made a little room, but that was all.

“Doctor.” Lockhart whispered the word, but Doctor Procter did not move. He appeared frozen in place. Roland stepped up and one beast stepped aside while Roland reached for the amulet.

“No!” The Doctor yelled and covered his chest with his hand, like he had to protect some great secret. Several beasts got startled and reacted. They made more room for the people, but soon settled down again. They all recognized the dangerous moment. They might have all been trampled if the herd started to run. Doctor Procter looked up at Roland and his outstretched hand. He looked surprised by his own word. He pulled out the amulet and both he and Roland looked, and Roland pointed to the south and west, into the setting sun.

They walked slowly, like a little herd of their own, while the sun went down, and the moon rose. Zebras, gazelle, and antelope filled this herd. Just as the last of the light began to fade, they found some elephants, and a couple of giraffes grazing on a small copse of trees. Boston thought it safe to speak if she whispered.

“Sahara grasslands,” she read from the database and spoke as they moved to the far side of the trees where there was some room for them to breathe. They had walked for more than an hour by then and found no end of the herd. “I didn’t know what that meant, but I see it meant Africa.”

“No kidding,” Captain Decker said, softly.

“Before the Sahara turned to dust,” Lincoln nodded.

“But the soil is no good here.” Mingus knelt to touch a handful. “Full of sand already.”

Alexis joined him to look for herself. “Unless this land is getting good rainfall, a herd such as this won’t take long to turn the Sahara into the desert we all know.”

Something laughed in the distance. “Hyenas,” Roland named them.

“Lions and tigers and bears,” Lockhart said. “We better keep moving while we can, and pray we find the edge of this herd before too long.” He looked up. They felt lucky the moon had already risen and looked three quarters full. In that land, with little undulating hills and few trees, the moonlight helped enough see where they were going.

It took two hours to reach a point where the herd thinned out sufficiently for the group to spread out a little and relax. A lion roared a warning somewhere off to their left, and it made Lincoln jump. It took another half-hour before Lockhart finally agreed they moved far enough out of range to pitch camp for the night. They stopped on the edge of another small wood, so they had plenty of wood for the fire. In fact, they built three fires on a small hill out in the open. They placed the fires in a triangle shape far enough apart so they could set up their tents inside the light.

“At least there is no shortage of game,” Captain Decker said.

“Good for attracting lions, I bet,” Lieutenant Harper countered.

Roland simply pulled his bow and trotted back the way they had come. He easily shot a Wildebeest and a zebra and cut rather large flank steaks. He returned to the camp and left the carcasses where they lay in the open.

They ate well that night, though the wildebeest proved to be tough and stringy. The zebra tasted good. Everyone said so, except Boston who declined to partake. She said zebras reminded her too much of Spunky, her horse back home.

After they ate, Lockhart looked at the moon. It kept rising. “Lincoln and Alexis get the first watch. Captain Decker and Roland take the second watch. Mingus and I will take the third watch. Boston and Katie can watch the sun come up,” Lockhart ordered.

“What?” Boston sat up straight. “You want Katie and me up early so we can cook breakfast? Well, forget it.”

“Actually, I want a pair of elf eyes available in the dark of the night, but now that you mention it, I take my eggs over easy.”

Boston made a face.

“What about me?” Doctor Procter asked, not that he sounded like he minded getting a full night’s sleep.

Lockhart looked at the man. Lockhart felt something wrong there, but he smiled as he spoke. “Old man, you just hang on to that amulet and keep it safe for us all.”

Doctor Procter did not argue.

Three in the morning, Mingus abandoned his corner of the watch to speak with Lockhart. “I do not understand my friend,” he admitted. “Procter is usually a gregarious and talkative fellow, but he has been so quiet.”

“I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Lockhart said, as he moved a little so the elder elf could sit on the log they dragged out from the woods. He had started to adjust to being around the elves. “Of course, I didn’t know him before.”

“Strange. You think you know someone.” Mingus shrugged.

“I was thinking that maybe after all those years of studying these time zones, to now finally have a chance to see with his own eyes. It must be overwhelming,” Lockhart offered an explanation.

Mingus shook his head at that. “I studied the lives of the Kairos longer than him. It is exciting, but I would have thought it would make him talk more, not less.”

They got interrupted by the sound of a distant howl. It started out low and rose-up the scale to a scream. They heard no animal.

“Bokarus,” Mingus named the howler.

“It followed us.” Lockhart nodded.

They heard the howl rise-up to a scream three times before they heard something else. It sounded like thunder.

“Everybody up!” Mingus and Lockhart yelled and went to the tents to be sure.

“Stampede,” Boston called it.

“And headed right for us,” Roland confirmed.

“To the trees,” Lincoln said but it sounded like a question. Mingus shook his head. That would not help.

“Roland,” Alexis called her brother. “Split the herd.”

They grabbed hands. “One, two, three,” and the light went out from their hands to form a golden triangle with the point in the distance. The stampede split down both sides of the triangle and away from their camp, but a few animals stumbled through the light.

“Lieutenant.” Captain Decker only had to say that much before both marines raised their rifles and began to pick off the ones inside the light. Boston and Lincoln pulled out their pistols and Lockhart readied the shotgun in case the ones inside got too close.

In the distance, the howls continued until suddenly it cut off in mid-scream. Then they heard it no more.

“Father!” Alexis yelled. The pressure against the outer edge of the triangle of light started to become too much to bear.

“Father.” Roland spoke softly through his teeth as Mingus stepped up and laid a hand on each shoulder. The light strengthened as the elder elf managed to add his magic to the force, and it seemed enough. Once the screaming stopped, the herd soon settled down. The herd was too large to move far and fast outside of a migration.

“The bokarus must have broken off a piece off the main herd,” Lincoln said. “Good thing the screaming stopped.”

“Yes,” Lockhart shouldered his shotgun. “But I want to know what scared the bokarus bad enough to make it stop.”

Avalon 1.0 Neverland part 4 of 5

August 5, 2025July 26, 2025M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The man shook his necklace again. “I have the bear claws, the teeth of the lion, and the paws of the wolf. I am the hunter,” he said.

“And I am just an ordinary woman,” Alexis responded with a sigh.

“I think not.” The Shaman leaned forward and touched her clothes, respectfully. “I am fifty winters and look it. You are older than you appear.”

“I am.” Again, she saw no reason to lie to the man. “Let’s see. I was born in the spring, so next spring I will be two hundred and fifty-four years old.” She smiled. The shaman did not smile. “Really,” Alexis defended herself. “My father is a goblin.” The shaman frowned at that as if to suggest she might be carrying things a bit far. Alexis dropped her eyes. “I suppose I may have counted wrong, but I tell you what; when he gets here, you can ask him.” She smiled again even as Hog, Chodo and Shmee returned.

Chodo handed her the leg bone from a deer, but it was still moist and chipped at one end. The other end looked a little dog chewed, but with a great deal of work it might suffice. Shmee handed her a stick from an elm tree. She said oak, but who was she to quibble. The stick looked newly dead instead of dried but at least it did not look nibbled. The stick looked a little thin at the tip, but about the right length, and it had something that might do for a handle. Alexis waved her hand above the stick and the bark peeled back, then she focused her magic as well as she could with such a crude instrument and waved the stick at the leather that still bound her legs. The leather separated, and no eyes got bigger than the shaman’s. He stood with some quick words.

“This one belongs to the goblins. I have persuaded her so she has promised to make bread one time for us, but we must return her to her father when he arrives.” With that, he rattled off some words about placating the spirits and keeping the gods happy before he returned to his tent, and Alexis imagined, he sealed himself in.

“Now, Shmee, be a dear and hand me my bag.” Alexis reached out.

Shmee shrieked and handed it over with his hand shaking, terribly.

~~~*~~~

When the boys awoke, they huddled around the fire and ate what got offered. Their eyes were wide to take in the strangers in daylight. They said nothing, but Ramina sat there with Boston, Katie Harper and the two fairies, and they were using up all the words in any case. When Duba woke, the first thing he saw was the fairies and he screamed. When he saw Mingus and Roland right behind him, he stepped back and quickly let his fingers draw something like signs or symbols in the air. Mingus surprised his son, terribly, and shocked everyone except Pan. He jumped to his feet.

“Not the Praeger Defense,” Mingus shouted. “My heart!” He clutched his chest and fell to his knees before he fell to his side with his eyes closed.

Everyone got quiet except Duba. “What? I didn’t mean it.” He stepped up close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Mingus opened one eye and grinned at the boy. “Well, as long as you didn’t mean it, I suppose no harm done.” He sprang to his feet. “So are we ready to go yet?”

“Time to move out,” Captain Decker agreed, and Lockhart made no objection. Only Lincoln spoke.

“At last.”

Once they arrived and found a place from which they could overlook the Shemashi camp, it did not take long to make an assessment.

“They are all bunched up around a central fire,” Lincoln borrowed the binoculars.

Lieutenant Harper looked through her own binoculars. “I make it about forty people altogether, plus children,” she said.

“About two hours before sundown. Time to go.” Captain Decker spoke as he cocked his rifle.

“No!” Lincoln’s word sounded a bit loud.

“This is covert,” Pan said, much more softly.

“But isn’t this like a computer program? Aren’t we covered by that Heart of Time thing? I figure it will reset after we’ve gone, or after you’ve gone. But you said if she is injured, she stays injured.”

Mingus put his hand on the man’s gun. “And that is why we don’t go with guns blasting. You don’t think I am going to take a chance on her getting struck by a stray bullet.”

Captain Decker yanked his rifle barrel free of the elf’s hand and frowned but said no more.

“I never said anything about a reset in that way,” Pan said. “I mean I don’t think it will work like that kind of reset. The information in the Heart of Time will change to reflect the truth, not the other way around. What we are living is real.”

“What?” Captain Decker and Boston both reacted, and Lockhart made everyone pull back into the forest so Pan could explain.

“My Storyteller, Glen is missing. He isn’t dead or Jennifer would be in the womb, but I can’t reach him. Everything back home on Avalon is confused, poor Alice.”

“So, which is it? The Heart of Time program resets things or it doesn’t?” Lincoln asked.

Lieutenant Harper thought out loud. “I think reset might mean the time gates jump back to the beginning point of that time zone when the Kairos dies so it can replay from the start. I don’t think the things inside the zone reset. I mean, the people that get killed will get killed again in the replay, even if they never got killed in the original.”

Pan shrugged, nodded, and shared his thoughts. “When time began, real time, Alice got drawn back to the beginning of history. Yes, she was in the Second Heavens, but she stood on a rock under a dome of air, and angel stood there along with Cronos. Alice, that is, the Kairos and Cronos made the Heart of Time together. That was when history began.”

“The rock where we first landed.” Boston swallowed.

“I, that is, Glen did not intend to go that far. The source must have had other ideas.”

Lieutenant Harper kept thinking. “So, what you are suggesting is we will be imprinted on the time zones from the beginning and for all time as far as the heart of Time recording is concerned. Whatever time we spend in each zone will become part of the historical reality.”

Pan nodded his head. “This seems utterly real to me, but maybe I am not a fair judge.”

“It seems utterly real to me, too,” Lincoln admitted.

“Mingus?” Doctor Procter questioned his friend and Mingus rubbed his chin.

“I don’t know.”

“So, what difference does that make?” Captain Decker still did not get it.

“It means if we change something here it might change all of history,” Lockhart answered. “Real history,” he added for emphasis.

“Like the butterfly effect?” Lieutenant Harper lifted her foot to look in case she stepped on something.

“No.” Pan smiled for her. “Reality isn’t that simple or that inflexible. You would have to change something serious and maybe several things to really change history. Of course, I can’t let you do that. I would send you all to present day Avalon right now if I could.”

“What? Why can’t you?”

“Well for one, Alice isn’t finished building it yet. But for two, I told you, Glen is missing, and it has repercussions all the way through history. And for three, the only way for you to get back to your own time is by going through the time gates.”

“But what happens if we screw up?” Boston sounded concerned.

Pan shook his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Only now we have to be really careful not to change history,” Roland said.

“What do you mean you don’t know anymore?” Boston interrupted.

Pan frowned before he turned red and yelled. “I mean, in reality I am an eleven-year-old kid and I told you; Glen is missing and Alice and everything is confused. Come on, Ramina. We have to start operation scatterbrains.” He grabbed the girl by the hand and headed toward the boys who kept back from the strangers. He huddled them up like a football team, and though Ramina giggled at one point, it otherwise might have been a youth team. They even said, “Break!” when they were done.

The boys scattered and hunkered down to move through the trees like hunters, or maybe sneaky kids. Pan returned to the others. “A bit of temporal borrowing,” he admitted. “Don’t try that at home.”

“What’s the plan?” Lockhart asked, and Captain Decker gave him a curious look, like why was he really asking this kid?

“Wait for the signal, and then come in with Lincoln, Mingus, and Roland out front. Stop about ten yards off. The rest of you keep back and try not to kill anyone.”

“What about us?” Honeysuckle asked.

“A special assignment,” Pan said in English, and watched as several eyes widened at being reminded of their native tongue. Pan started to speak whatever he could think of in English, and only got interrupted once.

“What is the signal?” Boston asked.

“You’ll know.” Pan smiled, and then continued to imprint English on the fairy minds while they went back to the lookout spot.

Avalon Pilot part III-4: The Plains of Shinar

July 14, 2025June 4, 2025M G Kizzia 4 Comments

In the morning, the armed and ready group walked slowly toward the mass of people. They paused only briefly when they were seen. They started to walk again when it appeared they were seen and ignored.

“I was going to mention this gathering of humans,” Mingus said quietly to Lockhart. “I guess it slipped my mind.”

Oddly enough, Lockhart did not get angry. He fully expected the elder elf to lie or withhold information, if for no other reason than because he was an elf. But he had been taught by the Kairos in years past that once a little one gave friendship, it was solid and steadfast. He could only hope.

As they drew near to the crowd, they began to see the gaunt faces of the people. Ragged, well-worn animal skins barely clung to some of the people. Others were simply naked, and on many of them, the ribs showed to indicate their hunger. The eyes of many were empty, like they had lost all sense of what it meant to be human—what it meant to have hope. Still, they labored. Lockhart noticed the men dragged trees from further and further afield, and he noticed the great pit that had to be a quarter mile wide from which they dug clay with tools of stone and bone.

“Oh, the children.” Alexis spoke with concern. A pack of them gathered to see these strange new people. “Boston, give me some of the bread-crackers you have in your pack.” She reached one hand back but her focus stayed on a grubby little girl in the front of the pack. Boston would have given the crackers to her if Lockhart did not speak up.

“Don’t do that,” he commanded. “You will start a food riot.”

“Best to keep things hidden for now,” Mingus agreed.

“Absolutely,” Captain Decker seconded that agreement.

Alexis looked disappointed. She turned to Lincoln, her hand still out in search of bread. “Dear?”

Lincoln shook his head and gave a very practical answer. “We may need that food down the road. It isn’t for these people.” He held his breath as they walked straight into that mass of humanity. “I still say we should have gone around,” he mumbled, but one way was the clay pit, and the other offered no place to hide. Truth be told, they were all curious about what they might find.

They walked around most people who hardly gave them a glance. Some people stepped aside for them to pass and mumbled unintelligible words in their direction. Sometimes they had to walk a good bit to the side because there were fire pits everywhere, where men and women baked the clay into bricks, adding only a bit of grass, leaves, or crumbled bark dragged in on the trees, in order to hold the clay together.

“Straw would work better,” Lieutenant Harper spoke quietly, but they looked around and saw only mud beneath their feet. It looked that way for miles. The earth had been stripped clean of every living thing and trampled under two million feet

They walked slowly, all bunched up, eyes everywhere, until they came near a mound in the center of it all. It had a tent on top, and sat about half-way to the hill with the growing tower. Lincoln looked ready to ask about the mound, the one spot that remained untouched in all that mass of humanity, but several men stepped in front of them and finally and deliberately blocked their way. They stopped. One man with skin the color of red clay, and with big eyes, big hands and a big nose took a long whiff of air. He smiled, showed all three of his teeth, and said, “Mangot.” The man beside him said, “Golendiko.” The third man, one almost as big as Lockhart, shouted, “Clidirunna.”

Mingus tried to clean out his ears. Elves were gifted with the ability to hear and respond no matter what language was spoken, but he was getting none of it.

“I think they are trying to say food,” Roland said, and he put his hand to his sword hilt but made no hostile move. The shouting soon became enough to attract a crowd, but the crowd still looked reluctant to touch the strangers

“Make for the mound,” Lockhart suggested.

“Keep moving.” Captain Decker urged them forward. At first the crowd parted, but before they could reach the actual mound, the crowd closed in again. Lockhart could see over the heads of nearly everyone, and he saw the commotion had not drawn in more than fifty or so people.

“Make for the mound,” Lockhart repeated, softly, for fear the people would understand. They moved, but the crowd moved with them to block the way.

“Food!” Everyone spun around. Boston was at the back, as usual, and she threw a half-dozen bread-crackers over her shoulder, away from the mound. People shrieked and raced to fight over the morsels. Everyone got jostled. Lincoln got knocked to the ground, and Lockhart yelled.

“Everyone circle around Boston,”

“Lieutenant, opposite sides,” Captain Decker shouted. They circled up even as more people arrived to block their way. Eyes looked at Boston and wondered if there might be more food where that came from.

“Serious damage going on here.” Lincoln pointed at the fight over Boston’s generosity.

“You mean you? You big baby.” Alexis got on the opposite side of the circle from her husband. She stood next to her brother and faced the mound.

“Let us move together, as one body,” Mingus suggested. They did, and the crowd backed up, slowly. They got within ten yards of the mound before the crowd froze and would not budge.

Roland reached for his sword. “No, no.” Doctor Procter stayed the elf’s hand. “One act of violence on our part and we will be dog feed.”

“So, we are in the red zone,” Lockhart said. “Any ideas as to how we score?”

“A quick shot over their heads?” Captain Decker suggested.

“Sudden moves and frightening sounds would not be a good idea,” Lieutenant Harper said. “Besides, they would not understand it.”

Alexis grabbed her brother’s hand. He looked at her with a curious expression as she spoke. “Split the herd.” He nodded. They swung their hands, once, twice, three times, and a brilliant flash of light poured from their fists. It shot straight to the mound and shoved everyone in that line back ten feet on either side to make a clear path. They ran. No one had to say it, and they reached the mound before the crowd could stop them.

Medieval 6: Giovanni 10 Flesh Eaters, Witches, Apes, part 2 of 2

February 4, 2025January 6, 2025M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Matilda looked at the young couple that she imagined they were and wondered how such children could be in charge of this circus thing. “I came to warn you that we have worse than witches in our neighborhood.”

“The Flesh Eaters,” Leonora said, like she knew, though Giovanni felt her tighten her grip on his arm.

“Is that what you call them? We’ve been calling them Snake Heads….”

“Or Big Mouths,” one of the men spoke up.

“Or Big Mouths,” Matilda agreed. “What Rudolf said. They say they are not allowed to eat people, but we got four dead and eaten…”

“And that is why there are only eight left out of the twelve that came here. The four that could not resist eating people all died.”

“As it may,” Matilda said. “Though why God didn’t make it so they couldn’t eat people, I don’t know.”

“Because people always need to have a choice. Adam and Eve had a choice. It is part of the package.”

“And they chose wrong,” Rudolf said.

“Snake Heads aren’t people,” Matilda argued.

“But they are people,” Giovanni responded. “They are not human people, but they are Flesh Eater people. They talk and think and are self-aware. Just because they are not human it doesn’t make them less of a person.”

In the timing the little ones often exhibit, Oberon and Sibelius walked up and Oberon spoke. “Boss? We got to go see the Flesh Eaters?” Oberon and Sibelius together hardly looked like people in that moment. The two men looked at Sibelius and took a half-step back.

Matilda’s eyes widened for a second before she nodded for some reason. “I assumed you planned to go and see the Snake Heads—Flesh Eaters. I suppose I better go with you. How about you gentlemen?” One man waved them off, turned and walked away. Rudolf said he was game, and Matilda explained. “I understand Wilfred was the worst of the worst when he could do magic, but since the magic went away he has proved himself to be a real coward.”

“Everyone makes choices,” Giovanni said and Leonora nodded.

It took almost an hour to get there so they arrived around two in the afternoon. Giovanni heard from Lady Alice that the Ape ship kicked in the afterburners and nearly caught up to the Flesh Eater shuttle. While they walked to where Matilda knew the Flesh Eaters were parked, they saw the flash high in the sky when the shuttle broke into the atmosphere. They arrived just before the shuttle set down, and Leonora, Oberon, Sibelius, Matilda, and Rudolf were all eyes on the shuttle. Giovanni was busy with an internal dialogue and Leonora guessed.

“Junior?” she asked, knowing Giovanni had no special ability to deal with people from another world.

Giovanni shook his head. “Nameless,” he said. “This is his part of the world, and he needs a turn, though he is complaining that he always gets stuck with the werewolves and hags and such things.” Giovanni traded places with the ancient god he used to be, though like Junior, he kept up a perfect glamour of Giovanni so no one would notice unless they were sensitive to such things.

Leonora smiled at him and held on to his arm. His attention stayed focused on the newly arrived shuttle until the shuttle turned off all systems. He noticed when Leonora’s attention shifted from the spaceship to the oncoming local Flesh Eaters. She got one good look and swallowed her scream as she buried her face in Nameless’ shoulder.

“Matilda.” The Flesh Eater out front spoke. “We have rescue.”

“Snakes,” Matilda called the Flesh Eater. She obviously talked with the Flesh Eaters enough to not only name this one but to be able to distinguish between one Flesh Eater and another. Not an easy thing to do. “These people came to see you. I do not know what they want, but I thought to bring them because you can be frightening for our eyes to see.”

“Captain and crew,” Nameless said, and the newly arrived captain and all of his crew appeared with the others. “Quiet. Listen.” he made sure no Flesh Eater interrupted and they all heard so there would be no mistake. “Quercus,” he called. A fairy dropped down from the tree branch above. He faced Nameless and put his back to the Flesh Eaters. “Have they been good?”

“They have not used their VR Energy on the people and they have not used their weapons to kill people,” Quercus said, as Leonora dared to peek. “Define good.”

“Only one is good and he is beyond us. In this universe of flesh, good is relative, but there are some certainties, such as leaving the humans alone and not eating people.”

“Then they have been relatively good,” Quercus said, and smiled for Leonora. “My lady,” he bowed to her.

“Don’t start,” Nameless said and turned to the newly arrived Captain. “You are here to rescue this crew and leave this planet forever, and do not come back here.” He allowed the captain to speak though only himself and his little ones would understand the Flesh Eater language.

“I do not know what we may do.”

“I am not asking. I am telling. You will leave this planet and not come back here.”

“We are being followed. We might not be going anywhere.”

“What happens if we do come back?” Snakes asked.

“Your broken shuttle,” Nameless said and raised his hand. Every eye looked there as the shuttle slowly turned to dust, inch by inch. “It is now gone forever. So will you be the minute you touch the atmosphere.” Nameless tapped the shoulder Leonora was not using and Quercus came to take a seat and watch the fireworks, if any.

One of the Flesh Eaters did pull a gun and fired, but the fire stopped at the screen Nameless put up. Snakes and the captain both yelled, “No.” but it was too late. That Flesh Eater became dust and blew away on the wind.

“I am sorry for that, but we all make choices and choices have consequences.”

The Flesh Eater captain paused before he spoke. “We are here to rescue our people and leave this planet to never come back.”

Nameless nodded and put his hand up again, and the functioning Flesh Eater shuttle and all the Flesh Eaters present became invisible. Nameless allowed Leonora, Matilda, and Rudolf to continue to see the Flesh Eaters and their ship, but only after they saw everything vanish. When they reappeared, they appeared to be surrounded in a glowing light of some kind. Of course, Quercus the fairy, Oberon the dwarf, and Sibelius saw that as the invisible spectrum, so-called.

Moments later, the Ape warship broke into the atmosphere. It only took a couple of minutes before they landed and three Apes came out to face the humans. “Where have they gone?” The Ape commander insisted on an answer.

“Out of your reach,” Nameless said. “This world is off limits. You do not belong here.”

“In the years ago, the Kairos in this world said we could come and remove the hated Flesh Eaters from this place.” The Ape ground his teeth. “Where are they?” he raised his voice.

Nameless sighed. “The time for Apes and Flesh Eaters has ended, and you who were once the most kind and gentle of people have become filled with anger and hate. Let go of the evil that grips your heart and return to your peaceful ways. Please leave this world in peace and do not expect me to ask you again.”

‘Where are they?” the Ape yelled.

Nameless raised his hand and the three Apes vanished and maybe reappeared in their ship. The ship started its engines, whether voluntarily or forced, and the ship lifted back into the sky. It moved at maximum speed out of the atmosphere and when it was clear, it shifted to multiple light speed, as much as the engines could tolerate, and soon left the solar system.

The Flesh Eaters reappeared by their shuttle and the captain spoke again, and this time he meant it. “We will leave and not come back.” They boarded their ship and in a few minutes took off. Giovanni returned and hugged Leonora.

“I see what you mean,” she said as he turned her toward the village, and everyone turned with him. “I can’t imagine what a battle in the sky might have been like.”

“It would have destroyed everything around for miles, maybe hundreds of miles,” he said. She nodded and smiled for the fairy on his shoulder as he walked with his arm around her shoulder.

“One question,” Matilda spoke as they walked. “How come your magic still worked?”

“Because it was not magic.” Giovanni answered. “It was the ancient power rooted in the source… In God.”

Matilda nodded. “I certainly could not have done anything like that when I did have the magic.” She looked at Rudolf and he shook his head to say neither could he. They walked for a while before Matilda added, “But that certainly would be a power to conjure with. If I could do like that I could become really corrupt.”

Oberon took that moment to interject a thought. “That is strike two as you are fond of saying. The Masters are going to figure it out.”

Giovanni sighed, much like Nameless, and changed the subject. “By the way,” he said. “We have a magician as part of the circus. Try not to laugh too hard when you see his cheap tricks.”

“Oh, I hope I get a good laugh,” Matilda responded. “I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t had a good laugh in years. You know when you are a witch nothing is ever funny.”

Leonora shared her thought. “So you can be like march. you came in like a lion and can go out like a lamb.”

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

January 6, 2025November 24, 2024M G Kizzia Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giovanni woke.

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

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

“Boss?” Sabelius was there.

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

“I am,” he admitted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Up for breakfast?” Gabriella interrupted his introspection.

“You are up plenty early,” he responded.

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

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

Charmed: A Disney-Like Halloween Story (Without the Singing) Part 1 of 11

October 9, 2023September 23, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Chapter 1

Every town in America has one house on one street where no one dares to go. In Bridges, New Hampshire, that house was 317 Bleeker Street where old man Putterwig lived alone in the dark. The grass in the yard stayed brown and never quite got cut. The gate in the picket fence let out an excruciating squeak when opened. The paint, dingy and faded on the old wooden slats and shingles, looked chipped here and there in uncountable places. The floorboards in the long wooden front porch creaked with every step. And when the wind picked up, the walls in that old house had enough cracks and holes to make the whole house moan, an ethereal, unearthly sound.

Now and then Mister Putterwig could be seen on that porch, sitting in an old rocker, taking in the life that passed before his eyes. No one ever saw him leave that house, but no one wanted to look. The adults all said they felt sorry for old Mister Putterwig, widower that he was, but when he was out front watching, they hurried passed the house, afraid of the glare in the man’s squinting yellow eyes. The kids knew better. There was something more than just odd about Greely Putterwig.

Bleeker street was a good, solid neighborhood full of fine middle class citizens, with plenty of kids to fill the schools. Jake Simon, a high school junior, lived there with his parents and his seven-year-old surprise little sister, Elizabeth, whom he had to watch every day after school because mom and dad both worked. Jake wanted to play soccer. He wanted to join the Sci-Fi club at school. He imagined all sorts of thing he might have done if Elizabeth never came along and ruined his life. When Jake thought like that, he would say to himself, “What life?” and he would sit down at the game console and tell Elizabeth to go to her room. It all would have been so much easier if Elizabeth was a brat instead of the kind, loving and purely innocent child she was. Dad said Elizabeth got her good nature from her mother. Mom blamed Dad. All Jake said was she didn’t get it from him.

Jake imagined most of the time that things might have been different if he was really good at something. His childhood friend, Robert Block, the one they all called Blockhead, made the football team. Tommy had money, that is, Thomas Kincaid Junior, the one who had not been seen without sunglasses in several years. Mike Lee was a nerd who could not only win every video game, but he could fix the console if it should break. Jake had no special skills, talents, or abilities. He was average, normal, middle of the road, in the middle of the class, or as he described himself, boring. No wonder Jessica Cobb was not interested in him.

It was late in October, the leaves showered the streets and lawns. and the air got almost crisp enough to frost, when Jake picked up the mail and found a note from Vanessa Smith inviting him to a Halloween party. Jake was thrilled because Vanessa and Jessica were good friends so he felt sure Jessica would be there. He fixed himself some food, dreamed about Jessica, and waited for Elizabeth to come home on the school bus. Someone knocked on the door.

Sunglasses Tommy and Mike the nerd were there, and they brought their magic decks. They wanted a three-way game. Jake got taken out first.

“My deck’s too big. It needs work,” Jake said. While he watched, he casually mentioned the invitation. Mike and Tommy immediately had to spoil it by saying they got invited too.

“Everyone got invited. The whole junior class,” Tommy said.

“I’m going as a nerd,” Mike said.

“Thomas Kincaid Junior, mister Cool,” Tommy shook his long hair and adjusted his shades. “What are you going as?”

Type casting, Jake thought, and he decided to stick with the theme. “A babysitter,” he said, as he heard Elizabeth come in the back door.

Tommy and Mike packed up and headed for the front door and Tommy’s car. Tommy’s parents had the money to buy him a car, even if it was an economical model.

“Mister Donut?” Tommy asked and offered. They all knew the answer. Jake had Elizabeth, and as they left, Elizabeth came into the living room and switched on the television.

Jake turned with a touch of anger in his voice. “Don’t you have homework?”

“Not in the second grade,” Elizabeth said, as she found the cartoon channel.

“You know that will rot your brain,” Jake said, and instantly thought of several good comebacks. Are you speaking from experience? Is that what happened to you? Or even the proverbial, “Like you should know.” Elizabeth said none of those things. She looked up with an innocent, trusting face.

“It is only cartoons. Would that be all right?”

Jake regularly disliked himself. He did have homework and took himself up to his room.

~*~

When Halloween rolled around, Jake found he could not go to Vanessa’s party anyway. Mom had cooking and cleaning to catch up on and Dad would not be home until later. Jake had to take Elizabeth out so she could trick or treat. He really resented her for that.

They planned to follow Jake’s old route which wound around the neighborhood in a way where they did not miss any houses and did not have to backtrack. The well designed plan put Bleeker Street first on the list.

The one hundred block, mostly businesses and buildings, had a group of apartments set back from the road. Jake always found the apartments to be slim pickings. They did not go there.

The two hundred block was where the houses began, and Jake took Elizabeth to the first couple of doors. After that, he stayed on the sidewalk and let her go alone, now that she knew what to do. They came to the three hundred block.

Elizabeth went up to 315 when Tommy’s car roared to a halt out front. Mike rode shotgun. Jessica and Serena Smith squeezed in the back with Blockhead who wore an old football jersey in keeping with the type casting costumes.

“Lookin’ for you, dude.” Tommy sported a new pair of shades.

“Nice costume,” Jake let the sarcasm flow. Mike at least looked like he ironed his white nerd shirt. Jessica and Serena made an attempt. Jessica had on a plaid shirt and jeans that fit her well, but over the shirt she had the orange vest of a hunter. She even wore a ball cap with a gun of some kind as the logo. Serena, the glam-girl, was supposed to be a zombie, albeit a cute one that was not too rotten.

“I was going to say, what are you supposed to be?” Serena asked.

“Babysitter,” Jake answered with a straight face. “I’m taking my little sister trick or treating.”

“You’re going to miss the party,” Blockhead had party on the brain. He slipped his arm over Serena’s shoulder but she shrugged it off.

“I know,” Jake responded glumly. “I sometimes wish Elizabeth would just disappear. Then maybe I could have a life.” He looked straight at Jessica.

“You don’t mean that.” Jessica stared right back at him.

Jake looked to the side. “I don’t know what I mean anymore.”

“Hey dude.” Tommy got their attention and pointed. “Your sister is with old man Putterwig.”

“What? No.” Jake turned in time to see the old man take Elizabeth’s hand and walk inside the haunted house. “No!” Jake screamed and started to run. Jessica popped out of the car and ran right on his heels. The gate out front closed on the others who needed a moment to get it open again. When they reached the porch, the last touch of the sun dipped below the horizon and the front door slammed shut. Jake and Jessica managed to dive inside, but the rest got stuck outside of the locked door.

When Jake and Jessica leaped into the house, they became very confused. Instead of a downstairs hallway, they came down on pine needles and pine cones, enough to litter the ground beneath their feet, several inches thick. Somehow, they fell into an ancient pine forest. The last of the purple sunset faded and the stars came out bright and twinkling above their heads. They caught a glimpse of the doorway they came through, but before Jake or Jessica could react, the door shrank and disappeared altogether with a loud Snap!

“What the —?”Jessica mumbled. Jake had something more pressing on his mind.

“Elizabeth!” he shouted. “Eiliza-BETH!”

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

Charmed is a story offered in eleven chapters over this October, 2023, leading up to Halloween. The posts will be put up on the blog on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, in October. If you miss a post, or want to go back to the beginning, they are easy enough to find. Just click on the archives and select October 2023. Charmed will be fully posted this month … So come the 31st I say to you all Happy Halloween, you know, Boo!

Avalon 9.0 Pestilence, part 6 of 6

March 29, 2023March 5, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

That evening, Babara and Malore did not come down to supper. Prudenza wondered if they had taken ill, but Francesa assured her they were fine. “Babara is very old. No telling how old. And the young one is her only support. I will take some food upstairs. They will not go without.”

“Fine,” Prudenza said, but paused when Francesa stiffened.

“Yes. Yes,” Francesa said, seemingly to the air. “I will send Divitia up right away.” Francesa smiled for Prudenza and stepped to the door to call Divitia. She and Sancta were playing in the snow with the dogs. She got ready to say something, but Sancta came to the door first. On seeing Prudenza, Sancta turned to her.

“Mother. Divitia does not feel well.”

Divitia came in holding her tummy. Francesa did not blink. “Divitia. You must take this upstairs immediately.”

“Now wait,” Prudenza interrupted. “She is not well.” She reached for the girl but someone in her head said, Wait! Prudenza did not fight it. She traded places with the Nameless god, one of her lives that she spoke with earlier. That is, Prudenza went to some safe place utterly beyond this world, and Nameless came through time from the deep past to stand in her place. He came dressed in the ancient armor of the Kairos with the sword Wyrd at his back and the long blade Defender across the small of his back. Yet, he kept up a glamour of Prudenza, so no one was the wiser. He looked and sounded like Prudenza. It was a simple thing for a god to do. He learned how from his Mother Frya, the Asgardian goddess of love, war, and magic.

Nameless immediately noticed a spiritual string connecting Divitia to something else, a string Prudenza would have gotten tangled up in. He cut that string. Divitia fainted and Sancta got down on the floor with her friend. A cry came from overhead, and a forty-year-old woman came staggering to the stairs and part way down. She shouted.

“Kairos. You have no power in this life. I made sure. I saw when you came inside.”

Nameless knew who it was and in Prudenza’s voice, he named the woman. “Malore.”

“I should have feasted on you yesterday. But Babara was reaching the end of her strength. I could not risk losing her before I had a new child in place. Now, I will feast on Divitia for the next twenty years. She will age, and I will stay young forever.”

“That is not going to happen,” Nameless said.

Malore laughed as she aged a little more. “You have no power. Mine is the power of the goddess Frigg, the queen of the gods herself. I will crush you and I will feed.”

“No,” he said. He saw tendrils of power snake out from Malore’s hands and reach for Divitia, but he put an Elder Stow-like screen around the girl and around Sancta so the witch’s power could not reach them. Malore screamed.

“What power do you have to defy Aesgard? Even now the men of the mountain are coming to kill you. The gods have all gone over to the other side. I will feast and live and you will die.”

“No,” Nameless said again, and as he dropped the glamour of Prudenza, he let out a touch of his glory and said simply, “I am Aesgard.” Tedesca and Carlo came to the kitchen door and had to look away. Francesa dropped her jaw before she closed her eyes, completely free now from the witch’s control. Sancta looked at Divitia who became bathed in the healing light of eternity. Malore screamed louder than before.

Nameless reached out his hand and the amulet and rings vacated Malore and appeared in his hands. The witch began to age rapidly, and still she screamed. She surpassed a hundred before her skin began to peel back and show the bones. In the end, she collapsed into a pile of dust to be swept out the door.

Nameless prepared to return to his own time and let Prudenza come home, but he heard gunfire outside and though it would not hurt to see. He quickly sent the amulet and rings to Avalon where they could be locked away for safe keeping, and where no mortal could ever get them again. Then he vanished from the Haus and appeared on the mountainside between the travelers and the mountain men, being careful to stay invisible for the moment and watch.

Nanette and Dagnanus were in a magical duel. Nameless had no doubt Nanette would win that one. Her magic had great potential. His magic was small. The mountain men had some bows and were mostly hunters, but they could hardly get close enough through the hail of bullets put out by the travelers. He saw the dwarfs sneaking around to come up behind the mountain men with their axes sharpened. Too bad they would have to be disappointed. He also saw Elder Stow with his weapon and Sukki with the power she carried inside her. They looked ready to fly overhead and bake the poor mountain men. Too bad. But at least Nameless knew Elder Stow and Sukki, unlike the dwarfs, would not be disappointed at being prevented from carrying out their plans.

Nameless became visible as he waved his hand and said, “Stop.” Everything on the mountainside stopped, even the birds in flight and the bullets half-way to their target. He first set the mountain men free of their compulsion to kill and told them to go home to their wives and families, which they were more than willing to do. With their chief gone and the compulsion of Dagnanus lifted, some wondered what they were doing there in the first place.

“Sorry for your losses,” Nameless said, as he waved his hand again and all the bullets spent in that area gathered together. He sent them all to Avalon, to his island in the sea of eternity that held all the things misplaced in time that he found and removed from the Earth. It made a regular museum. Then he set the travelers free so they could watch as he called Dagnanus to face him. He took Dagnanus’ magic away and the man fell to his knees.

“Please, Lord. The Masters are torturing my future life.”

Nameless nodded, waved his hand again and Dagnanus went away to be replaced by a man who looked similar but not exactly the same. The man cried and folded his hands as in prayer. Nameless killed him painlessly and sent him back into the future so Dagnanus could come home. Dagnanus cried, just like his other life, and Nameless spoke softly.

“If I let you go home, will you be good and stay away from the pope and the first men of the renaissance?”

“Yes, Lord. I promise. I will be good. You will see…” Nameless waved and the man vanished.

“Where is home?” Katie wondered out loud as she and Lockhart stepped up to see.

“He really has a home in Pisa, and a family, so not everything he said was a lie. Sadly, Pisa is due for demolition by the plague if it has not already begun.” Nameless smiled for the couple but shouted to be sure he was heard. “Dwarfs, go home. The war is over. And take that stinky, ugly ogre with you.” He let the birds fly again, the animals run, and the plants blow in the cold breeze of the first of November. Then he let Prudenza come home to her own time and place. She also began to weep and hugged Lockhart, and hugged Katie. She made a special point of hugging Sukki but said nothing about missing Boston.

###

Prudenza sat on a chair and waved to the travelers as they headed off in the morning. She did not want to hurry them, but they wanted to get to the other side of the mountains before the winter truly came. The early snowfall was just a brief indication of what was to come.

Prudenza told them if the gate was in or around Milan, it should remain there. She and her family and friends were headed off the main road. The village nestled in a hollow between two peaks stood eight miles away. Francesa arranged for them to take an empty house to winter. She said it was her old family home, but all three sisters had their own houses now and the house sat empty. Prudenza said, “Thank you,” but Francesa said, “No, I thank you.”

Sancta came up, holding her puppy, Rosso. The two girl puppies, Blu and Verde would be staying at the way station. Sancta wanted her mother’s attention, but Prudenza’s mind was wandering.

“We will stay in the village until spring, late March or early May. Then we will find my brother and my son and come back this way as soon as we can. But in any case, the time gate location should remain stable for some time.”

“You know, the plague will dog you in France, if it doesn’t get ahead of you,” Katie said.

“Yes, I know. There is no escaping it. It is like the Masters. They seem to be everywhere trying to change history to their liking.” She sighed. “But in this case, at least I know what we are facing now, and I can take some precautions against this pestilence. You are lucky. According to Lincoln, Milan is one of the few areas in all of Europe that is not impacted by the pestilence or is minimally impacted.”

“And you? Will you be all right?”

“We will be fine. This is where I live, remember? You are the people who belong in 2010, or whatever year it is by the time you get back there.” Prudenza smiled and Katie nodded. “Meanwhile, I understand some alpine villages escape the plague as well. I don’t know if where we are going is one of them, but it is better than nothing.”

Prudenza let go of her thoughts and hugged her daughter, and the puppy. “Now, what is it?”

“Divitia,” Sancta said. “I like her well enough, but she won’t stop talking. I can’t get a word in.”

Prudenza laughed as Tedesca came to sit with her. They watched the travelers vanish in the distance. Then Tedesca unloaded.

“The Nameless. Will he help us? And Nina. Must she be gone?” Tedesca did not know how to say what she wanted to ask.

“The ancient gods have gone away, and no. Nina is gone to us in this world. Even for the gods there were two rules. Rule one is people die. Rule two is even the gods are not allowed to change rule one.” Prudenza found the tears in her eyes as she thought of the millions that would die. Tedesca and Sancta joined her in a good cry.

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

MONDAY Episode 9.1 Johanne

The travelers find themselves in northern France and the name that keeps coming up is Joan of Arc. Until then, Happy Reading

Avalon 9.0 Pestilence, part 4 of 6

March 27, 2023March 4, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The travelers bought the young nobleman wine, explained about being pilgrims headed toward Rome, and said they would be leaving in the morning. They basically lied their way out of being arrested. They said the man must have mistaken them for someone else.

“Are you English?” the young man asked. “Are you Celtic, from Bretagne? Your French is very good.”

“German,” Lockhart said quickly. “From around Basel.” It was the only thing he could think to say.

“And Scandinavian,” Katie said, and clarified. “Mostly Swedish.”

“I have some French in me,” Lincoln said. “On my mother’s side.”

“Italian,” Tony raised his hand. “From south of Rome.”

“Africa,” Decker said. “Not Muslim.” He gave Nanette a small kiss. “We find Europe fascinating and different than expected.”

Everyone looked at Elder Stow, but he was prepared. “My daughter and I are from far in the east. It is a good land with plenty of snow.”

“Slavic?” the man asked, and Elder Stow nodded. Slavic was close enough, though he really wanted to say he lived thousands of light years not miles away.

“We found Elder Stow in Jericho,” Lincoln remembered. “He and his daughter were separated, but we found her all the way over on the coast, in Gaza. We rescued her. She might have been killed.”

“So, you have been to the holy land.” The young man nodded and spoke in English. “The man said you were English.”

Elder Stow, Sukki, Nanette, and Tony all recognized the change in the language, but Nanette and Tony in particular, were not as practiced in switching their tongues when confronted with two languages, so they kept silent. Lincoln looked at Lockhart and said nothing for a change. Decker kept silent and nibbled on the remains of his supper. Lockhart looked at Katie and dredged up a few words in German from all the way back in Genevive’s day. “What words are these?” He did not do the best acting job.

“English,” Katie told Lockhart in English like she was explaining. She turned back to the man and answered him in French, the local tongue, which in that time zone came most naturally to the travelers. “Our understanding of English is limited since we have had no reason to learn it.”

“I see,” the young noble said and finally sipped his wine. He made a face, like it was not the best wine he tasted. “The man must have been mistaken.” He stood. “All the same, if you are leaving first thing in the morning, that would be best.” He gave a slight bow, turned, and marched out, his soldiers following. The travelers all breathed and sat quietly for a time.

Four days later, having made good progress in the French countryside, the travelers began to climb into the foothills of the alps. The road stayed good, and they found villages all along the way where they could stop for the night. No one bothered them, though Katie swore they were being followed. Nanette closed her eyes, held out her hand, and tried to focus back on the trail. She did that several times over those days but could not bring anything into her mind for sure. She could only confirm Katie’s feeling that they were being followed, and shrug.

When they moved up into the foothills, they came across their first way station. All along the main ways through the alps there were stations roughly every fifteen to twenty miles. Many were built by the Romans as places where travelers could stop and get a meal and a bed for the night. They were Hauses, Hostels, or Hospitals, as in hospitality places. Some were Toll Hauses, though the taking of tolls from the merchants who mostly traveled the roads was frowned upon. At the first one the travelers came to they found an old man looking for help over the mountains.

“There are thieves in the mountains, and in a month the snows will come and make the passes impossible for travelers. Please. I heard there is a great sickness in Genoa, and it has spread to Pisa. I am worried about my family. Please. I left my train some days ago. They will make the trip to the low countries and return in the spring, hopefully with a profit, but I must see to the safety of my family.”

“We are not inclined to travel with strangers,” Katie said. She looked at Nanette and Lincoln, both of whom thought the man looked like the old man who sat alone by the fireplace in Lyon, but the others did not see it.

“Do you have a name?” Lockhart asked.

“Dagnanus,” the man said. “I am a simple merchant from Pisa where the grapes grow thick. I bring Tuscan wine to the world, and even to the French who only think they know how to make wine. Ha…” He scoffed. “But please. I have been over the mountains many times. I know the way, and the ways to avoid, but I will not make it alone, and the weather is turning. I must go to save my family, but I need help.”

Lockhart stared at Lincoln and Nanette who he later told they had to keep one eye on the man, but he spoke. “Dagnanus. We leave in the morning right after breakfast. Be up and ready if you want to go with us.”

“I will. I will go and pack my few things right now. Thank you. Thank you.” The man hurried up the stairs.

“He is spritely for an old man,” Katie remarked.

“Dagnabit,” Decker said through whatever he was chewing on. He looked like he wanted to spit, but he held it back while Nanette smiled.

Two days later, well up into the mountains, some friends of Dagnanus blocked the road and surrounded the travelers. Everyone stopped moving, but only Lincoln said anything.

“I knew it.”

Dagnanus moved ahead and got down from his horse next to the leader of the group. His appearance changed as he moved, like the man wore a glamour that whole time, which told the others he had magic of some sort at his fingertips. He proved to be the man Nanette saw in the street, and she almost echoed Lincoln’s I knew it comment. Then Dagnanus said something that surprised everyone, and at the same time, did not surprise anyone.

“The Travelers from Avalon, as promised.”

“Good,” the brigand leader grunted. “Malore and her old lady Babara have the Kairos in sight. If we can kill her at an inopportune time and stop her rebirths, then all we need to do is remove these annoyances traveling through time and the future can be shaped the way the Masters want.”

“I am to serve,” Dagnanus said, but Elder Stow spoke at the same time.

“There. I have put up Decker Screens all around us. You may fire when ready.”

“Good,” Decker said. He pulled his rifle and began to shoot the ones that might have ended up inside the screens. The others reacted more slowly, except Nanette, who got mad. She whipped out her wand and caught Dagnanus and the brigand leader in her own magic. She lifted them two feet off the ground so they could not run away, and she growled at them. She studied the face of the brigand leader even as Lincoln shot the man. When they turned to Dagnanus, however, they saw that he escaped somehow.

The confrontation did not take long. The brigands quickly hurried away. Several arrows came in their direction and bounced off Elder Stows screens, but then everything went quiet.

“We have to hurry,” Lockhart said. “Ready? Is Ghost ready?”

“Ready,” Tony said, and he pulled the mule in close.

“Okay, Elder Stow. Cut the screens. Everybody ride.”

They hurried as well as they could. It was all uphill, so a strain for the horses, but no more arrows came in their direction, and they soon got out of range. They left ten dead men behind them, including the brigand leader. There were still ten or more out there in the woods, and Dagnanus. Nanette refused to curse to think of it, so Lincoln cursed for her.

“He may have taken us off the main road without us realizing it,” Katie said, as soon as they got about a mile away and slowed to let the horses catch their breath in the cold. They saw some early snow in the area.

“My mother,” Elder Stow responded to Katie’s concern as he pushed forward. “I was thinking the same thing, but I see in my scanner that this path soon returns to the main path. I can hardly call it a road.”

“Good thing we ditched the wagon,” Lincoln said.

Lockhart nodded. “Decker and Elder Stow, stay in close. Sukki, you have the point.”

“Yes boss,” Sukki said, echoing the response Boston would have given, and she pushed her horse, Cocoa, out ahead of the others to scout the area.

That evening, the travelers might have frozen if not for their fairy weave clothes, which they made as thick as possible, and their fairy weave tents, which they also thickened and made waterproof. It began to snow. Fortunately, they had plenty of fairy weave blankets which they draped over Ghost and the horses and shaped to imitate real medieval blankets that fell to the ground.

“At least the horses won’t freeze,” Sukki said.

That night, Elder Stow surrounded the camp with a screen no normal thing could break through, though they understood Dagnanus might contrive some magical way to get inside the screens. With that in mind, Nanette and Katie kept their senses on high alert and worried in the night. Elder Stow set the alarm on his scanner so if anything bigger than a marmot or an owl came into the area and got through the screens, they would be alerted. The big predators, like lynx and wolves could be kept out by the screens, along with people. The return of the brigands would be bad, but they also did not need a bear stumbling into the camp.

Avalon 9.0 Pestilence, part 1 of 6

March 20, 2023March 4, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After 1312 A.D. The Alps

Kairos lifetime 111: Prudenza Doria D’Amalfi de Genoa

Recording …

Nanette stepped up to the porch out in front of the inn. She paused to look on the streets of Lyon. She came a long way from Rome—she and Tony. He was Professor Fleming’s graduate student. She was the Professor’s administrative assistant, but that was in 1905. Decker insisted on the title of administrative assistant, though in truth, she was simply the professor’s darkie in 1905. The professor taught antiquities and classics, but his special love was Rome. He taught about the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In fact, he was speaking on that very subject when the whole house they were staying in got picked up from 1905 Rome and sent back to the days of Julius Caesar. She lived in those days for seven years—she and Tony. They would still be living there if the travelers had not come along.

Nanette sat down on a chair to watch the soldiers and the strange looking man that the soldiers talked to. She pulled her fairy weave shawl tight around her shoulders against the chill. She even told the shawl to thicken a little and marveled at the material. She could change the size, shape, texture, color, and all with a word. It was not any magic on her part. The magic was in the material itself, and she understood in this way the travelers could dress like the locals no matter what time zone they entered. Presently, they were somewhere in the fourteenth century.

Nanette paused in her thoughts. She thought the man in the street looked familiar, but they had traveled a long way over the last year and a half, from 44 B. C., time zone by time zone, to the present. Since this was now the fourteenth century A. D., of course the man could not be familiar.

Nanette shrugged it off and thought about Decker. Lieutenant Colonel Milton Decker was now her husband. Milton, with the other travelers, came from 2010, not 1905. As a couple, they had things to work out, to say the least, but she had no complaints. Of course, he dd not like the name Milton. Everyone called him Decker, or Colonel. She thought Milton was a fine name for 1905. Nanette sighed. They had things to work through, not to mention both being black Americans from what sometimes seemed like two different worlds. Nanette’s grandmother was a plantation slave freed by the Republicans and that wonderful Mister Lincoln; God rest his soul. Decker’s grandmother lived in the segregated south, and he grew up in the hood, whatever that was. And he claimed to be a Democrat, the very ones who forced segregation, wore hoods, and lynched negroes at every opportunity. A Democrat? Nanette steamed before she changed it from “lynched negroes” to “lynched blacks”, and then “lynched African Americans”. It was like learning a whole new language, but she was learning.

Wait… She remembered Elder Stow and Sukki were not even human, originally. Well, she was assured they were human, just not homo sapiens. They were Neanderthals who got taken off the Earth at the time of the flood. She never heard of Neanderthals before. Elder Stow was the result of thousands of years of learning, or evolution, as Decker said. He had devices he carried around—Lockhart called them gadgets—which seemed miraculous. He had a screen device which could make an invisible barrier that nothing could break through. He had a scanner that could far-see and tell him what was over the horizon. He had other things, including a sonic device, and a weapon—a powerful handgun that could melt metal or set whole buildings on fire. And he could fly and go invisible. She often forgot he was a Gott-Druk, as the Neanderthals called themselves. He wore a glamour that made him look like an elderly human, well, a homo sapiens, and he seemed such a nice man.

Sukki was also a Gott-Druk, at first. She actually got taken off the Earth at the time of the flood with Elder Stow’s ancestors and slept in a chamber of some sort where she did not age at all. When she arrived on her new home world, she joined a small group of Gott-Druk determined to return to Earth and repopulate their ancient territory. By the time they got back to Earth, it was thousands of years later, and she was the only survivor of that fateful trip. The travelers took her with them knowing she would never survive in that day and age on her own. Elder Stow adopted her as his daughter. But then things changed.

Sukki said she never felt comfortable as a Gott-Druk traveling with humans through a human world. When the travelers arrived in Rome and Nanette and Tony joined the group as the only relatively safe way to make it back to their own time, Suki begged to be changed, before the gods went away, she said. Nanette saw the goddesses appear in her living room in that Roman house. They transformed Sukki from Neanderthal to homo sapiens and gifted her with all sorts of special things. She could fly, and produce her own heat ray, as Lockhart called it, and more. Decker said the goddesses empowered the poor girl like a superhero. Nanette was not sure what a superhero was, but she got the idea. Sukki was sweet, shy, and a good girl, and Nanette imagined that was why the goddesses did not mind gifting her with so much power.

More curious from Nanette’s point of view, was the fact that she was not without some power of her own. She reached in the side sack Alexis used to carry and touched her wand. She understood her ability to do magic would come and go as they traveled though time, depending on the position of the Other Earth, whatever the Other Earth was. But basically, she would be empowered for three hundred years, and then be without her magic for three hundred years.

Nanette’s hand touched something else. It was Boston’s Beretta, gifted to her when Boston and Alexis made the jump through the Heart of Time back into the future. They had to be elves to do that, but Alexis’ father, Boston’s father-in-law was dying. They had to go. The rest of them, the humans still had to get back to the future the slow way, time gate by time gate.

Nanette was not happy carrying around a handgun, but she understood that sadly it might come in handy during those years when she was without her magic.

Nanette paused when the man in the street pointed at her, or at the inn. The soldiers all looked in her direction before one of them said something and they once again faced each other. What was that about? Nanette wondered, before she thought again about Decker and her companions.

Come to think of it, of the eight people traveling through time, only four remained from the original group. Colonel Decker was her husband. Lockhart, the leader of this expedition through time, was the Assistant Director of something called the Men in Black. He, and Major Katherine Lockhart, or Katie, an elect, which is a one-in-a-million warrior woman, were the other married couple in the group. And then there was Lincoln, a former spy who carried the database. The database had all the relevant historical information about the time zones they went though, including information about whatever life the Kairos was living where he or she stood at the center of the time zone, equidistant from both time gates.

Nanette considered the time jumps. When they came through a time gate, they traveled usually between six and sixty years into the future in one step. Then they crossed the time zone, about two to three hundred miles to the Kairos and another two to three hundred miles to the next time gate. If only it was that simple, Nanette thought and rolled her eyes. They inevitably ran into trouble in every time zone.

Lockhart came out to the porch. “Are you coming in?” he asked. “Katie and Sukki are comparing their amulets to figure out where we are going, and they are comparing it to the map in Lincoln’s database.”

Nanette glanced at the street. The street conference broke up. The soldiers marched away, and that strange man was not to be seen. She glanced at the barn and stables just down from the inn. Decker and Elder Stow had the horse duty for the day, and apparently, they were taking their time.

“Might as well,” she said. “But I am more curious about who the Kairos is in this time zone.”

“Prudencia, no Prudenza,” Lockhart said.

“Prudence,” Nanette responded as she stood, and Lockhart held the door. “Seven years of living in ancient Rome and speaking Latin every day has to be worth something.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lockhart responded with a smile. “One of the gifts of the Kairos when we started this journey was to be able to hear and respond in English to everything, and sound to the other person like we are speaking their native language. Even the written word automatically translates to English in my head.”

Nanette frowned. “I know. I was kind of hoping we could get to a point where I could practice my French. Now, that is not going to happen.” Nanette stopped in the doorway and glanced once more at the street.

“What?” Lockhart asked.

Nanette shook her head as she spoke. “I saw someone in the street talking to some soldiers and pointing at the inn. I don’t know if it means anything, but I thought he looked familiar.”

“The Masters have repeat people,” Lockhart responded. “It may have been one. The Kairos told us if we see any repeat people and they are not one of the good guys, we need to consider them the enemy.”

Nanette nodded. “But it might not have been someone I saw before. Maybe I was just picking up a bad sense about him.”

“A bad vibe.” Lockhart rubbed his chin. “Alexis told me before she left us that apart from Katie and her elect senses, where she can detect danger and enemies in the distance, you know. Apart from her, you are the only one we have to count on when you have your magic. She said you have something near telepathy, not that you can read minds, exactly, but you can sense intentions, like what a person might be thinking about and how they feel about that. I’m not sure what Alexis was saying, but do you understand?”

Nanette stared at the door before she nodded. “That was it. It was us, not the inn that he was pointing at. I sensed he wants to hurt us in some way. I wish I had thought of that. Alexis taught me how to focus and concentrate. I’m sorry I didn’t do that. I just picked up the bad feelings—bad vibes with a casual glance.”

“It’s okay,” Lockhart said and smiled. “Next time.” Nanette agreed and went inside. Lockhart followed.

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

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Chapter 1

~*~

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Avalon 9.0 Pestilence, part 6 of 6

Avalon 9.0 Pestilence, part 4 of 6

Avalon 9.0 Pestilence, part 1 of 6