In the morning, the armed and ready group walked slowly toward the mass of people and 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 was not 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.  He could only hope.

            As they neared, 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 was all on a grubby little girl in the front of the pack.  Boston would have given them 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 or crumbled bark dragged in on the trees in order to hold the clay together.

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

            They were near the mound in the center of it all.  It had a tent on top, and was about half-way to the hill with the growing tower.  That was when several men 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 after, 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 was enough to attract a crowd, but the crowd still looked reluctant to touch the strangers.

            “Keep moving.”  Captain Decker urged them forward and 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 said 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 was 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 was on the opposite side of the circle from her husband.  She was 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.”  And 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 clean path.  They ran.  No one had to say it, and they reached the mound before the crowd could stop them.

            “To the high ground and prepare to defend yourselves,” Lockhart shouted and the marines moved before they noticed what the others saw right away.  The people were not following them.  None of the people so much as stepped on the mound.  They looked like they did not dare touch it, and after only a moment they began to wander back to whatever they had been doing as if the travelers were never there.

            “Very primitive construction.”  Doctor Procter was already examining the crude tent.  It was really just a number of overlapping animal skins held up by some precious lumber.  It was larger than Lincoln thought when he saw it from a distance and might easily hold a dozen or more people.  He sketched furiously, but at the same time he imagined a good gust of wind might blow it apart.

            “Wow.”  Boston stared at Alexis and Roland.

            Alexis smiled.  “On my bad days, Benjamin calls me a witch.”  She looked at her father.  “But he says it with love,” she added.

            Boston got herself spun around to face a pair of angry eyes.  Lockhart was not happy.  “You nearly got us all killed.  I said leave the food alone.”

            Boston dropped her eyes.  “I know.  I’m sorry.”

            “You’re lucky they didn’t mob you and tear you to pieces looking for more food.”

            “Don’t be too hard on her,” Roland came to her defense.  “She was thinking and just trying to help.”  Boston heard, but she was busy.  She looked up into Lockhart’s eyes.  She saw that he loved her and the scolding was out of love, and that made her happy.

            “I won’t do it again,” she said.

            “Yes you will.”  Lockhart softened a little as the relief he felt washed over him.  He hugged her.  “You just need to remember I’m the Director here in Bobbi’s absence.  Maybe I can’t tell these elves what to do, but I’m still your boss.”  He looked up.  “And that goes for you, too. ”

            “Yes boss.”  Lincoln spoke absentmindedly since he was busy.  Alexis grimaced and gave a sloppy little salute. 

            “Oh!”  Doctor Procter was about to open the front flap of the tent when he was surprised.  A woman came out and held the flap open.  She opened her hand to invite them in.

            “It appears we are wanted,” Mingus said.

            “Careful,” Lincoln said as they walked into the dark tent one by one.

            “Come in, come in.”  They heard the man’s words before their eyes adjusted to the dim light.  It was not much of a tent.  There was no furniture, just some straw in the corner to sleep on and a big stump to sit on.  The man, himself was very old, but when he stood up from the stump he also proved to be a very big man.  “We do not often have strangers here.”  He examined them as closely as they examined him.

            “Where are we, exactly?”  Lincoln asked.

            “In my world.  And my people, as you have seen are hungry.”  He took a step and paused in front of Mingus.  “I do not traffic much with elves.”  He stepped over to examine Doctor Procter.  “And there is something different about you.  Something odd.”

            “He is a half-elf,” Boston offered.

            The man shivered a little, reacting the way Lockhart reacted when he first thought about it.  “But you others,”  He paused to point at Alexis.  “Six, I think.  You six are my people.  You should be helping with the tower.  You should be building the monument to my eternity.”  There was a compulsion in his words.  For a moment, Lockhart felt very much like that was what he wanted to do; but then Alexis touched him.  He watched Roland touch the two marines while Alexis touched Boston and took her husband’s arm.  The feeling of compulsion faded.

            “So that is how it is.”  The old man stared at them for another moment before he noticed the Doctor’s amulet.  Of all the sophisticated things they had, the big old man went for something he might call familiar.  “And what is this?”

            “It is just a bit of sentimental wood.”  Doctor Procter practiced that lie.

            “No, wait.  Don’t tell me.  It is, how should I call it, a locator.”  The big old man smiled at himself.  He obviously had special powers of discernment as well as compulsion.  “I should have this, but then you know how to use it.”  Doctor Procter could do little but nod.  “I need you to locate something for me.”  He turned his back on them to walk again to the stump and bed where he lifted a spear as tall as the tent top.  “Please.”  He said that last word without facing any of them and it sounded like it was forced through gritted teeth.

            “Well, I don’t know.  It isn’t—“  The Doctor started to speak but stopped when Mingus bumped him.  Mingus was a full-blood elf and knew the sound of a bargain when he heard one.

            “What would you have us find?”  He asked.

            The big man stood with his spear.  “There is a creature,” he said, and then he thought to explain.  “My people are hungry because the powers in my world have rebelled against me.  They have made this unnatural abomination and kept the food to feed it and help it grow.  This travesty must stop.  You must help me find it so I can end it.”

            “And what is in it for us?”  Mingus responded.

            The big old man turned and eyed the elf with big, sad eyes.  “My people are hungry,” he repeated.

            “A true manipulator.”  Mingus spoke with a bit of admiration.  He would have said something else, but Lockhart interrupted.

            “We will do it.”  Several eyes shot to him in wonder.  “Doctor, we can follow the direction on your amulet and I am sure this fine man will help us with the crowd.”

            “But—“

            “Yes, of course.”  Alexis stepped up and took the Doctor’s hand.  “We will follow the direction pointed out on the amulet and this man will help us through the masses of people.”  She turned to the big man.  “We will help you because the people need food.  People should not starve.  That isn’t right.”

            The big man smiled weakly but called with some strength.  “Moragga!”  The woman poked her head into the tent.  “Gather the men.  We are going on a hunt.”

            It took all day to climb and scramble down the mountain and cross the hills that quickly petered out as they approached the plains.  In the first valley, Alexis found a section overgrown with vines.  She picked grapes and everyone had some and enjoyed them even though they had seeds.  The travelers were no longer used to eating grapes with seeds.

            “The Kairos said the food here would nourish only we might not find everything we need,”  Lincoln made a note in his book.

            Boston spoke up.  “I have the daily vitamins we need to start taking in the morning.”  In fact, she had three bottles in her medical pack.  One was marked human, one elf, and one marked especially for Doctor Procter.  She wondered what made them all different.  “Hey, wait a minute.”  Boston took the medical kit out of the top of her pack.  It was in its own carry pack, like a purse that could be worn over a shoulder.  She handed it to Alexis.  “You have to be better at this than I am.”

            Alexis took it and by what she called a simple bit of magic she made the strap longer so she could slip her head and one arm through and carry it on her hip.  “I was thinking of asking for this, but I thought maybe you wanted it.”

            “No, mam,” Boston said.  She was used to thinking of Alexis as a much older woman and decided it might take some time to make friends.  “I cry too much and I don’t like to see people bleed.”

            “I thought so.  Emotional, like a little one.”

            “Really?”

            “Flighty as a fairy, they say.”

            Boston frowned.  She was not sure that was a compliment, but she did not say anything for the sake of a possible future friendship.

            “I hope you keep a good eye on your father,” Lockhart told Roland as they walked.  He looked at the elf and tried hard not to show anything on his face before he turned his eyes again to the trail.  “To be honest, I was not made for elves and fairies and such, though I have known a few in my time.  Still, and I mean no offense, but I find being so close to elves—“ he paused.  A bit creepy?  “Let’s just say it is going to take me some time to get used to it.”

            Roland was not offended.  In fact he answered in innocent honesty.  “I know exactly what you mean.  I have spent time on earth, but working and observing.  I am not used to being around mortals, er, humans like this.  I think what makes it hard for me is the fact that we are more similar than most think.”

            “Similar?”  Lockhart could see very little in the way of similarities.  Creepy was not a bad word.

            “We both fall in love and elves and humans can even have babies together.”

            Lockhart could not keep his lip from curling ever so slightly at the idea of making love to an elf.  He looked back at Alexis and Boston, and gave Roland the point.  Not every human had his problem.

            “Do not worry, Lockhart.  I will keep father ever in sight.”  Lockhart merely nodded.

            “Aha!”  Doctor Procter shouted from the front of the line.  Lincoln was beside the doctor and Mingus was right behind.  In fact, Mingus nearly bumped into the two when the doctor came to a sudden halt.  “It’s working.”  The doctor held up the amulet.

            “Let me see.”  Lincoln wanted a look and Boston ran right between Lockhart and Roland.

            “That girl has too much energy,” Lockhart said softly

            “Yes she does,” Roland agreed, but it was impossible to tell what he thought about that matter.

            “You see?”  The Doctor explained.  “It is linked to the Castle all the way in the future.  It points the way we need to go, like a compass, and that will take us to the next gate.  It gives an approximate distance to travel, here, about twenty miles, and it should give off a dim green light when we get near the gate.  I don’t know if that part works yet.”

            “But that is wonderful,” Lincoln shouted.  “However does it work?”

            Doctor Procter looked up at the man and Mingus said what was expected from an elf.  “Magic.”

            “You lie like and elf.” 

            Mingus and Roland spun around to see who insulted them, but it was Alexis who said it.  Mingus stared at her for a second before he conceded the point.  “I never could lie to your mother, either.”  Roland wisely said nothing.

            “Let’s have it.”  Alexis reached out and the Doctor handed over the amulet as Lieutenant Harper came up to have a look.  Alexis twirled it twice in her hands before she handed it to Lockhart.  Lockhart immediately handed it to Boston and Boston spoke up.

            “The latch,” and she opened it and stared at the sophisticated electronics inside for a few seconds before she made her pronouncement.  “It is a homing device.  On earth I would call it a geo-positioning device, but here I suspect it works in some strange way because of the space and time distortions we are traveling through.”  She closed the amulet and looked up.  “So how close was I?”

            “Judging from the looks, I would say you nailed it,” Lieutenant Harper said.  “And that was very good.” 

            “She is a natural born geek,” Lockhart added before Roland burst out with his thought.

            “Why, that was brilliant.”  Boston turned a red, as was her way, and she pointed up the hill.  She handed the amulet back to Doctor Procter and walked out front until her embarrassed feelings subsided.

            From there, it did not take long to get to the top of the last hill before the plains.  When they arrived, about an hour before sunset, they were astounded at what they saw.  There had to be a hundred thousand campfires and a million people packed into a treeless, grassless valley that butted up to a hill at least two miles away.  On top of that distant hill, there was an Empire State Building high tower.  Captain Decker got out the binoculars.

            “It can’t be.”  This time Lincoln said it first.

            “Shinar,” Doctor Procter announced.

            “We went under glamour here,” Mingus said.

            “I remember,” Alexis spoke up, and this time she took a moment to explain what a glamour was.  “That means we made an illusion so we would look like the normal people and not stand out in the crowd.”  Alexis shook her head.  “But it is not easy to do, and it works best when applied to oneself.”

            “That is something Roland and Mingus may have to consider in the future.”  Lockhart looked at the sky.  “For now it is nearly dark and I think we should camp on this side of the hill, out of sight.”

            “It is hot enough,” Captain Decker agreed.  “I suggest we skip the fire to not draw attention to ourselves.”

            Lieutenant Harper had her own binoculars out and she responded only to Doctor Procter’s statement.  “Shinar.  The Tower of Babel,” she said.  Then she paused.   She caught the glint of sunlight off something shiny on that distant hill.  When she squinted, it looked to her like a man on horseback.  It looked like a knight in armor.  She blinked and it was gone and she shook her head.  She knew horses were not domesticated yet and surely these were not a metal working people to produce such armor.  She decided it must have been an illusion or her imagination and put it out of her mind.

            Lockhart peered out like from a cave on to a ridge, but he could not see much or very far outside of a blue hazy line in the great distance.  He thought that might be the sea.  He put his hand gently forward until he touched the gate.

            “I see the shimmer of the gate in this light.”  Boston said and everyone nodded.  She had come up to the front and looked around at her fellow travelers.  They could all see it, but not well. 

            “This would be easy to overlook, especially if we were in a hurry,” Lieutenant Harper said.

            “Weapons ready?” Decker suggested and Lockhart nodded.  Mingus rolled his eyes, but Roland got out his bow, Boston fetched her Beretta, Lincoln checked his pistol and Lockhart cradled the shotgun in his arms like a baby.  The marines, of course, were always ready.  Doctor Procter pulled a rickety stick from some secret place up his sleeve.  It was his wand, and with that, Alexis was prompted to look around for something she might use to focus her magic as well.

            When they were set, Mingus rolled his eyes again, but Lieutenant Harper saw and threw the elf’s words back at him.  “Better to be safe,” she said, and they all stepped into the next time zone.

            The ridge was not wide, and though it did not end in a cliff or sharp drop off, the slope was steep enough to make them keep to the ridge top in the hope of finding an easier way down.  Lockhart headed them east, toward the rising sun, and Boston remarked how lucky they were to arrive at sunrise instead of the dark of night.

            “Of course it is dawn.”  Doctor Procter squinted in the early light.  “The time zones all share the same twenty-four hour cycle.  They may be different days or different times of year, or on different phases of the moon, but they all have twenty-four hours.”

            Mingus added a thought.  He was getting used to making up for what the Doctor left unsaid.  “He means when it is noon here, it will be noon in every time zone.  The only way we will enter a zone at night is if we leave a zone at night.”

            “Nine in the morning or so, not dawn,” Lincoln interrupted.  “It is hard to tell with the sun rising behind the mountains.”

            “Chain of mountains,” Alexis spoke to her husband.  “And we seem to be fairly high up, though it is warm.  I would guess in the tropics.”  Lincoln nodded and for the first time he got out his proverbial notepad and pen.  The pistol was put away since there did not appear to be anyone or anything around apart from a few birds.

            After a short distance, they found a place where the ridge crumbled and rolled to the bottom ages ago.  It was a gentle slope, but instead of being full of rocks and loose pebbles, it was covered in grass.

            “Our way down,” Lockhart said.

            “Mmm.”  Boston looked around and half-listened as usual.  She had her hand up to shade her eyes and looked up now that they could see several peaks at once above them.  “I like the way the rising sun sets off the peaks like so many islands in the sea.”

            “Islands in the sea, indeed.”  Captain Decker said and he pointed across the slope to where the ridge top picked up again.  There was a wooden structure there, man made.  It was partly hidden by some boulders, but for want of a better word, it looked like a boat, and a big boat at that.

            “It can’t be.”  Doctor Procter was the first to say it.  No one else said anything until they arrived at the site, and then they all said “It can’t be,” except Mingus who suggested it stunk.

            “Father!”  Alexis protested and Roland was right beside her.  “You stuff all those animals in a boat for forty days and forty nights and see how much stink there is.”

            “The stink is hardly the point,” Roland added.

            “Look at this.”  Doctor Procter got everyone’s attention.  There was graffiti on one panel near the quadruple-wide door and ramp.  Over all was a picture of the sun and the moon squeezed together so it was a half-moon and a half-sun.  There was a mermaid crudely drawn on one side.

            “Half-woman and half-fish,”  Alexis said while Lincoln desperately tried to make a rendering of the drawings in his notebook.  He cursed not having a camera.  “And a centaur, half-man and half-horse on the other side.”  Alexis finished.  She ignored her husband’s curse and pointed with her finger.

            “And the middle picture?”  The Captain, Lieutenant and Lockhart did not see it but to their defense the pictures were very primitive.

            “The Kairos,” both Doctor Procter and Boston spoke together, and Boston let the Doctor describe it. 

            “The two persons of the Kairos are attached on her right and his left so there are only three legs and two hands on a double-wide body.  You can see the two heads clear enough.”

            “And she has little boobs,” Boston added and watched Roland redden just a bit.

            “So, you like my work?”  Everyone jumped and looked up.  There was a man inside the Ark at the top of the ramp.  “You are future travelers.  I thought that sort of thing was not possible – a self-contradicting proposition.”

            “We are accidental travelers.”  Lockhart spoke up quickly and just as quickly got Captain Decker to lower his weapon.  Lockhart stood back from the others and still cradled the shotgun.  Mingus stood beside him on the other side and frowned for some reason.  “We plan to move on as soon as we can.”  Lockhart finished.

            The man nodded and asked for no further explanation.  “I am just glad there is a future.  I have worked hard so what I once saw might not come true.  My wife says I am making freaks.  I said they are her children too.”  He paused to smile, but since no one joined in the smile he finished his thought.  “The truth is these offer hope, and there are others working elsewhere.”

            “Why centaurs and mermaids?”  Lieutenant Harper asked. 

            “Because the world is empty and needs to be filled.  If the ones who would-be gods have nothing to occupy their time and attention, they will be occupied with each other and that would be very dangerous.”

            “Do I know you?”  Doctor Procter asked and squinted at the man, but the man shook his head. 

            “But I know you.  I can’t help it.  Boston.  You will live much longer than a human should live.  Alexis, your days will be shorter than they might have been.  Doctor.”  The man paused and scrutinized the doctor.  “There is something different about you – something wrong.”

            “He is half-elf and half-human.”  Boston interjected.

            “Half and half.  No, but what an interesting concept.  I wonder why I did not think of that.  It would certainly cut down on their wild rampaging through the earth.”

            “But wait.”  Lieutenant Harper spoke quickly.  She was afraid the man was going to run off or maybe just disappear.  “I still don’t understand the centaurs and mermaids.  What about human beings.”

            The man looked up at the Lieutenant and smiled.  “A sharp mind.  They are the future – your future, but right now they are all bunched up on the plains of Shinar.  Oh, there are some small groups scattered here and there around the world, but mostly – Shinar.”  He pointed.  “I see your way lies in that direction.”  People looked, though there was nothing to see but mountainside.  He waited until they all looked at him again before he spoke.  “I must think on these things you have said, only I fear my children will find me before I can act on my thoughts.”  He vanished.  One moment he was there, and the next moment he was gone.  Mingus answered everyone’s question when he spat the man’s name.

            “Chronos.”

Avalon

            Where you go in life can depend on who you know.  Benjamin Lincoln and his friends went all the way back to 4500 BC and the beginning of history to save his wife.  She had been kidnapped by her father, an elder elf who hated the fact that she became human to marry a human.  He worried to see her age and feared he was going to lose her before her time.  He dragged her through the time gates to the very beginning of the human record in order to hide her from the ravages of time. 

            Unfortunately, the price of saving her was watching the one who made the rescue possible – the Kairos – jump into the primeval chaos before history began.  (If you read the story on this blog titled “Forever,” you have some inkling of who Glen, the present lifetime of the Kairos is… )

            Now, for the people trapped in the past, the Kairos can’t easily whisk home as planned.  They have to get back to the twenty-first century the hard way, time gate by time gate.  They must move through history from one lifetime of the Kairos to the next but that will not be easy, because the lives of the Kairos tend to be surrounded by trouble and danger, and because there is nowhere to hide – others have picked up their scent.  It seems they are not the only ones using the time gates. 

            Avalon, the series Season 2 will begin “airing” on Monday, October 22nd on this blog.  Written in story form, part 2 of the pilot episode will be repeated beginning Monday, September 17th and post as a Monday/Friday story.  Share this, call a friend, don’t miss out.