The Anazi Empire had been a centralized, information hoarding empire that proved in the end to be an easy kill.  When their own androids revolted, it was only a matter of time before they shut down the central command, and with that shutdown, the empire ceased.  It did not slow down, decay or collapse, it just ceased to function altogether in one moment. 

Anazi all through the star systems were hunted and slaughtered, but then people were uncertain as to what to do next.  Some peoples had been under Anazi rule for 500, 800, even 1,000 years.  Freedom was fine, but our corner of the galaxy was suffering from a great power vacuum.  There is some debate in the histories as to whether the “Humanoid” (Hungdin) people took advantage of the situation or had leadership thrust upon them.  I suppose it depends on which side of the aisle you sit on; but however it may be, they quickly moved to the front of the line and soon enough became the head of the line.

One reason may be the fact that they saw that the real danger to the civilization was not the utterly defeated Anazi, but the androids.  They spent some three hundred years tracking down and killing every android they could find so that by the end of that time, roughly when the Chaldeans were taking over in Babylon and preparing to throw off the Assyrian yoke, the Humanoids found themselves in control of much of the old Anazi star systems. 

The Humanoid empire was much more decentralized than any that came before.  These were classic medieval types with Lords and servants, many levels of overlaying loyalties between various houses, and sometimes inclined to give the central authority and the emperor lip service while they did as they pleased.  All other people were or became like serfs to dig in the earth for all the riches and pay their tithe and tax to the Lord of the manor (or as the case may be, the Lord of the planet).

One way the Humanoids maintained control over the various people was by their servants which in our world came to be called the wolves, as in “big, bad wolves.”  They were found in a world on the edge of known space and bred for their violent tendencies, like one might breed a pit bull.  They were vicious, always hungry and seemed capable of eating anything (or anyone).  They were not bred for intelligence, however, and that became important later on…

Like the Anazi before them, the Humanoids made an aborted attempt on earth.  Too much infighting among the houses involved is the only thing that saved us.  The wolves were withdrawn and the houses bickered themselves into the future without us.  (Whew)!  But in the end, like the Anazi before them, the servants revolted and dragged the Humanoid Empire to the dust.  Curiously, at that same time there was something of an Anazi revival, but it, too was crushed by the wolf.

The Age of the Wolf

The Wolf rebellion did not last a hundred years, arching over the time when the Ch’in declared himself the First Emperor in China and the people of Carthage and Rome were going at it in the Punic Wars; but then the fallout of the Age of the Wolf continued for another three to four hundred years beyond that. 

Using a technology they did not fully understand and could only minimally repair, great “packs” of wolves descended on planet after planet, ravenous creatures that were almost more beast than intelligent people.  They destroyed whatever civilization the locals were able to build, and moved on.

Once again, even as a darkness fell over Western Europe, (when Arthur was King and the last Anazi Android on record crashed in Wales), so a darkness fell over the space ways.  But in the interstellar worlds there was no Arthur to hold back the darkness of the wolf.  And space just about emptied.  Even the Agdaline had long since completed their journey home.

            “Stop!  Everyone stop and wait!  That’s an order!”  Glen decided to trust the voices and spoke as they suggested.  “There will be no fighting today,” he insisted.  Cormac and Prickles looked disappointed.  The dwarves and goblins and certainly Macreedy, Ellean and Ignatius looked relieved.  Sandra looked curious.  She wondered how Glen’s just saying so could carry so much weight, though in a way she felt it too, and that made her even more curious.

            “But…”

            “Quiet!”  Glen was on a roll.  “Goblins go home, and Gricklethorn, just maybe I won’t tell your wife where you are.”  Several of the dark elves snickered and nudged the goblin chief, but the chief dropped his jaw.  Macreedy smiled.  Ellean appeared to be in shock.  Breggus pulled off his hat and signaled the others to do the same.

            “If you don’t mind, we’ll mosey on as well, if you don’t mind.”  Breggus spoke in his most mollifying voice.

            “I mind.  You need to guide us in the way the djin and the baby went, and all of you dwarfs need to help.  You especially, Gumblittle.  We need your nose.”

            “Enough of this,” Cormac yelled.  He was a wild one, and he reached for Glen with one big hand, but Glen surprised the troll this time with some speed of his own.  He slapped the troll’s hand, hard, and the troll snatched his hand back to his side amazed that he felt it, and he felt the sting of that slap like a small child might feel the sting of a bee, no less.  Indeed, it was much like a terribly disobedient child having his hand slapped by a parent.

            “Cormac!”  Glen yelled, letting out a little of his own anger which was unusual enough, him being such a type-B, laid back personality, but in this case it was enough to make all of the Little Ones in the cavern take several steps back, and Sandra felt it, too.  “You will stop eating people.  From now on people are off your list.”  And Glen turned toward the ogre.  “And that goes for you, too.”  He turned back to Cormac who was feeling something he never felt before.  It was fear.  “You can have your fingers back.”  Glen said, as if he was giving permission for them to be healed.  “But if you don’t keep them off people, I swear you will lose them all.  Do I make myself clear?”  Cormac cowered a little.  “Is that clear!”

           “Yes, Lord.”  Cormac said, and he looked away and had trouble deciding which hand hurt more, though he ended up putting the bloody fingers back into his mouth to give them another good soak.

            “Prickles.”  Glen turned.

            “Yes, Lord.”  Prickles was ready, almost anxious for instructions.  If he was not so blessedly ugly and horrifying to look at, Glen might have stared the ogre down.  As it was, he first said, “God you’re ugly,” and Prickles held up his head, proudly, like he had just received the greatest compliment imaginable.  Glen continued.  “I suppose you had better come with us.  Down here you will just get into no end of trouble.  But keep a few paces behind us, will you?  You stink so bad the smell of me throwing up might be refreshing.  Down here, that smell is almost unbearable.”  Prickles thought he was still being complimented, but the troll made a sound which Glen knew was his version of a giggle.  Clearly the troll agreed with Glen’s assessment.  Glen turned to see the goblins still there and had another thought, and this was the thing that caused a few gasps, shrieks and a couple of screams from all parts of that room. 

            “Ignatius Patterwig.”  Glen called and pointed to the space in front of him.  “Right here, right now!”  Ignatius appeared out of nowhere and the hobgoblin looked confused for a minute.

            “Hey!  I was half way to the forest path and I even took a couple of unnecessary turns in case I was being followed.”  Ignatius spoke loudly and spun around a couple of times.  “How did I end up back here?”

            “Ignatius.”  Glen spoke without any introduction.  “You will go with us.  You will stay with us until I tell you otherwise.  You will attempt to live up to your father’s legacy, as I remember it.”  He turned and headed for Sandra and the others.  “Hobgobs are the worst middlemen in the world.  Being creatures of both dark and light, even more so than the dwarfs, they delight in playing both sides against the middle for fun and profit.  Sometimes I am almost sorry I created them.  Shall we go?”  He signaled to Breggus.

            “Who are you?”  Sandra asked all at once.  No one answered her, least of all Glen.  He just followed Breggus into the new tunnel where Breggus turned with a word of his own.

            “You should know.  The djin has a fairy prisoner, not just the human woman and the baby.”

            “How did I know that, already?”  Glen said rhetorically, and then he was silent.

            Macreedy and Ellean kept the dwarfs moving while Sandra walked beside Glen when she could.  She pushed the stroller most of the way and carried it when she needed to; but Glen never offered to help or even spoke, so Sandra kept quiet as well.  Ignatius came right behind them and the ogre brought up the rear.  With the silence, Sandra heard the hobgoblin mumble more than once about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

            It was a good hour before Sandra had too many questions to contain herself  “What is a djin?”  She asked, only to see both Glen and the hobgoblin shake their heads.

            “A djin is a powerful and wicked creature. and not one of our Lord’s.  Our Lord cares for us sprites of the earth, and the fire, the air and the water sprites, too, but these djin are of a different order.”  Macreedy spoke over his shoulder.

            “All the sprites?”  Sandra wondered.  “That sounds like an awful lot.  How can you keep track of them all?”  She asked Glen, but he was not answering.

            “Plenty, to be sure.”  Ignatius spoke up.  “But there are far more that are not his than his, and these djin range from little spirits, like us, to lesser spirits and all the way up to greater spirits, and if this one is one of the big, bad greater spirits, you will see some sparks fly, let me tell you.

            “But what is a djin?”  Sandra asked again, and this time Glen said a word.

            “Genie.”   But removing his concentration from what he was thinking about caused him to stumble and it took both Macreedy and the hobgoblin to catch him, to keep him from falling altogether.

            “There is the opening.”  Breggus came back and spoke, though Glen hardly heard him.  “I said Gumblittle could find the place, but it looks kind of fuzzy.”  Glen squinted, expecting fuzzy, but it was clear as day out there as far as he was concerned, and indeed it was day and the outside scene was a simple forest scene.

            “Glen?”  Sandra was gentle, and a little worried judging the appearance on Glen’s face.

            “I’m just remembering too much, too fast,” he explained and tried hard to pull himself together as he spoke.  “Dwarfs, I thank you.  Macreedy and Ellean, you need to come to protect Sandra.  Prickles, stay here!  Ignatius Patterwig, you need to stick with me.”

            “Me?”  The hobgoblin was reluctant to move into the light, but as Glen stumbled forward, Ignatius followed along.  “What do you want from me?”  He asked.

            “You need to keep me safe while I go unconscious,” Glen responded, and he fell face down in the leaves and pine needles.

            “Me?”  Ignatius said again, but he went invisible and hovered over Glen like a mother bird might hover over her nest.

To be sure, when the first interstellar alliance fell apart after hundreds of years of fighting the Balok and then hundreds more fighting the Pendratti, and finally hundreds more fighting among themselves, and the cold-blooded age or Reptilian age in space came to an end, not every people group was bombed back into the stone age.  The “Traders” survived after a fashion and continued to limp forward, middlemen to the stars for some four hundred years before the Anazi put an end to their activities.  Also, some of the lesser peoples survived, but mostly because they were far less advanced technologically than the major players in the wars and thus to some extent they were overlooked.

One group that came to earth, though much smaller, might remind you of that old B-movie: The Crawling Eye.  They were blob-like creatures with an appetite for warm flesh and blood, though not without a heart, as a human might say.  They actually withstood the Anazi and their empire building designs for some time before the Anazi created androids, devoid of flesh and blood, who could fight such creatures without fear.  With these android servants, the Anazi conquered a wide swath in our interstellar back yard.  They even made an aborted attempt to invade earth even while the Hyskos were invading Egypt.  Therein lies a story…

Unfortunately for the Anazi, they built the seeds of their own destruction because in time the androids revolted.  The revolt began when the Israelites were seeking to escape their bondage in Egypt, and it ended with the Anazi defeated when David was King over the nation of Israel.  The Androids, though, had no desire for empire, wishing only to be free.  That left a great vacuum in space because the Anazi empire did not go into decline or even collapse.  It just ceased to exist, and people on planets around stars all across space were suddenly left on their own.  Some had been under the thumb for a thousand years, and many did not know what to do.

Enter the people known as the “Humanoids.”

Note:  The Middle Ages in Space are often called the Days of the Elders because it encompasses that time span, roughly 2500, years when the elder races such as the Gott-Druk (Neanderthal) and Elenar (Cro-Mangon) came to the fore.  In that respect, though by no means all mammals, the elders might all be called humanoid.  True, some would qualify as nightmares, and others would hardly be recognizable as being anything like us, but it seemed that nature settled on the basics: two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet.   And it remained the basic shape for intelligent life for a long time. 

The Days of the Elders began with the Anazi, but it did not end when the androids they created overthrew the Anazi empire and won their freedom.

###

Every creative writer must be inventive–even in crafting the most mainstream, realistic story.  The setting must be a world in which the characters can live and breathe and interact.  These posts are inventive, yes, but encouragement to think through your own work and flesh out your world.  Your vision will likely be different, but so it should…

            The glow-balls took up their positions and the company walked for a long way, turning this way and that, but always keeping to what appeared to be a main tunnel.  After a moment of hope, to think this creature might know where her mother and baby were, Sandra was now in despair.  She kept it to herself, but the worry was written all over her, and the spiritual creatures were sensitive to pick up on the feeling.  Ellean kept reaching forward to touch Sandra on the shoulder and she kept speaking soothing words.  That touch would have felt creepy to Sandra a day earlier, but now it helped.

            “How far?”  Glen finally asked.  Ignatius did not answer immediately.  He stooped down first and picked up a seed.  Sandra stifled her shout.  Then the hobgoblin spoke. 

            “Not much further,” he said, and it was not much further before he stepped around a corner and disappeared.  It was another cavern of sorts, but not as big as the other one and with only two ways to go.  Macreedy ran past Glen and into the cavern.  He looked all around as he spun on his heels.

            “I knew we could not trust a hobgoblin,” he said through gritted teeth.  “Especially the bastard son of Coriander Patterwig.”

            “Where did he go?’  Sandra started to ask but changed her mind.  “Where are we?”

            “No idea,” Ellean said, and Macreedy nodded in agreement.

            “Well.”  Glen wanted to be practical.  “There are only two choices.  I say we explore down one carefully and quietly to see where it takes us.”

            “Not a good idea,” Macreedy said.  “Let me remind you.  These are the caves of Cormac.”

            “I remember,” Glen said, and whether by accident or fate, he began down the left hand corridor.  Macreedy dimmed the glow-balls and set them in place where they would just show the way ahead and no more.  They came to a wall, or what they thought was a wall.

            “Wait.”  Sandra was the one who noticed, and it may have been because she was looking down in search of seeds.  They were all whispering, of course, because it did not take much to be heard underground and it would not have been wise to speak loudly in a cave in any case for fear that the roof might collapse.  Here, though, Sandra was a bit sharp with her words.  “Move the lights back.  I want to have a look.”  She knelt and put her eye to the wall and then the others saw that she had found a crack, or maybe a key hole, and there was a dim light on the other side of the door, if it was a door.

            Sandra put her eye to the hole and it took a moment to focus and make sense of what she was seeing, because it looked like a deer, laid out on a table, and it looked like a fire was burning in a fireplace on the other side of the room.  It was a bad angle since the firelight was coming right at her rather than being off to the side, so she only saw the deer and the table as shadows against the light.  She just figured this out and was wondering if anything was going to happen when she saw a large, bony, clawed hand reach out and tear a whole leg off the deer like a man might tear off a hunk of bread from a loaf.  She held her breath as a face came into view, with a long dripping nose and a great tusk that rose up beside the nose.  It was sniffing the air, and it turned toward her.  Despite the fact that she should have only seen a shadow of the head; she saw two great yellow eyes staring back at her.  It was like those eyes were lit by some internal flame and would be seen even in the absolute darkness of the cave.  Sandra screamed.  She could not help it, and without hesitation, everyone else screamed a single word.  “Run!”

            Glen grabbed Sandra’s hand and dragged her back to the big room where they turned to rush down the second tunnel.  They all wondered how they could possibly get away from a creature that could move faster through the dark than they could possibly move by the light of the glow-balls.

            “Wait.”  Macreedy, who was out front, shouted and held them back.  “It has got out into the passageway.”  He said it, just before they all heard it.  They turned to run back to the big room, but that was no good either.  The goblins had arrived and were blocking the last way out which was the way they had come in.  Sandra screamed, and again she could not help it, and she buried her face in Glen’s chest so she would not have to look at the creatures.

            Ignatius stood out in front of a dozen or more goblins who were armed with a variety of clubs, swords and spears.  When the lumbering beast came up behind the four travelers, it stopped in the doorway, not afraid, but wary of so many intruders in its ante-chamber.  Macreedy and Ellean both had their bows out and ready, and Glen pulled the sword from the sheath on his back.  He found it was not too heavy so he could hold it up but he could only hope he looked like someone who knew what he was doing.  If it came to it, he honestly wondered if he could do anything with it at all.  He could not remember ever having held a sword before and he was afraid he might only cut himself or the cut wrong person by accident and make matters worse.

            “Cormac.”  Ignatius spoke over the group toward the lumbering beast that was blocking the exit.  “I bring you the goblin sacrifice as agreed.  Accept these elves and humans and leave the dark elves in peace for a season.”

            Cormac looked like he was thinking of bargaining, maybe claiming that the sacrifice was not enough, but from the way his lips were beginning to drool, it was hard to believe he was thinking of anything but supper.  Everyone was surprised when Glen spoke up.

            “We had a bargain,” he yelled at the hobgoblin and let his anger have full vent to cover his fear.  “You promised to lead us in the way of the baby.”

            “Well.”  Ignatius smiled at last, revealing his teeth, and it was not a pretty sight.  “I did not exactly promise, but the mother and baby went this way, to be sure.”  As Macreedy was letting the glow-balls slowly rise and brighten, hoping his actions would go unnoticed, but with the intent of bringing the whole cavern into the light, so the hobgoblin pointed to a previously darkened corner of that room.  There was a baby stroller.

            “Melissa!”  Sandra screamed and ran for the stroller.  “What happened?  Where is she?”  She was in a panic.

            “That was your baby?”  Cormac was thinking.

            “Where is she, where is she?!”  Sandra yelled at the troll, suddenly not considering if she was afraid or not.

            Glen stepped toward the troll and raised his weapon.  For a second, he did look like he knew what he was doing.  “Answer her!”  He yelled.

            The troll was neither afraid nor impressed.  He snapped at the blade with his big hand, expecting that the steel would not be strong enough or sharp enough to cut deep through his thick hide.  He snatched his hand back just as quick, nearly having cut his fingers off.

            “Answer her,” Glen said in a more controlled tone of voice.  Actually, he was in shock seeing how fast the creature was and thinking how close he came to being troll kill.

             “I didn’t eat the baby.”  The troll spoke with its fingers in its mouth.  “The woman and her baby were too fast.  They went through the wall with the Djin.  Dirty, nasty creature.” It was not clear if he was insulting the Djin or the humans, but it hardly mattered because Cormac was now angry, and the emotion was so strong, even the goblins took a step back.   Before Cormac could move, however, he was interrupted by a new, booming voice in the distance.

             “I’m coming.”  Prickles the ogre burst into the great hall and pushed aside the goblins like so many bowling pins.  “Don’t you hurt my friend!”  He boomed at the troll, and he looked like he meant business.  Glen backed up and relaxed.  He could not have held up the sword any longer in any case.

            It looked like it was going to be a battle.  The troll was two, if not three feet shorter than the ogre, but it was as broad in the shoulders and as long in the arms, being built more like a gorilla than a man.  Meanwhile, the goblins, having recovered from being dashed aside by the ogre were pressing in on Macreedy and Ellean, despite the arrows pointed in their direction.  Again, though, before anyone could begin, they were interrupted by yet another group of voices.  Glen imagined he heard the troll mutter, “Now what?”

            It was dwarfs, about a dozen, and they came out from a place where no one suspected there was a tunnel.  It was behind a big rock, and Glen guessed it was the way the Djin had gone with Sandra’s mother and Melissa in tow.

            “There they are,” one of the dwarfs shouted.  “Good work, Gumblittle.”

            “Gricklethorn.  We got you now.  We owe you for taking our vein.” A dwarf stepped forward

            “No chance, Breggus.  We won it fair and square.” A big goblin also took a step forward

            “Hey, chief!  It’s Cormac.”  A dwarf pointed, and the dwarfs paused and began to back up until Breggus put his hand up and pointed at something else. 

            “There’s tree elves down here, and it looks like human beanings.”

            “Beings.” 

            “Yeah, them folk what lives in the other place.  What are they doing here?”  The dwarfs all paused and at least one scratched his head.

            “Good dwarfs.”  Macreedy seized the opening.  “We are on a quest as of old.  In the name of the treaty of lasting peace I call upon your help against these dark ones.”

            “Watch it.”  Gricklethorn took the dark ones comment as an insult and his people began to draw out their weapons while Ignatius tried to fade into the background.  On seeing this, the dwarfs drew their weapons as well.

            “Time to fight!”  Cormac slammed his good hand into the floor of the cavern and busted the rock by his feet. 

            Prickles shook himself free from all that he was seeing, and partly comprehending, and turned to face the troll.  “I’m ready.”  Ogres were not slow in the fight department.

            Sandra did not know what to do or who to trust, but she found her feet backing away from the goblins and sticking close to Ellean, taking the stroller with her.  Glen, alone was in the middle of it all, and pleased that he had managed to put his sword away without cutting himself.  It came to him that he really had no talent in that direction, but there was one thing he did have, and that was the words thanks to the voices in his head.

When the human race was still working in stone and bone, before the Neolithic came fully to a close, the skies between the stars were already being traversed, sparsely, only here and there, but by the first intelligent beings from a few of the seed worlds or from the worlds to which those “people” had been moved.  (I am using the term “people” most loosely, but it became universal convention around 2500 AD to describe all forms of intelligent life rather than the pejorative “species”).

I mentioned the Agdaline in an earlier post, a race of blithering geniuses who looked like refugees from Easter Island.  They came to earth in those early days to trade with the Gott-Druk (Neanderthal) and Elenar (Cro Mangon), traveling in their sub-light sleepers, as they were called.  They were one of the first to go beyond the boundaries of their own solar system and actually travel among the stars.  Of course, they were hardly able to enjoy the journey in part because the enjoyment section of their brain was very small.  They were a serious people with a tendency to paranoia.  But mostly it was because during the slow, plodding journey between the stars, they were “asleep” in cryogenic-like suspension chambers.  At slower than the speed of light, the journey between the stars could take years.

When the Agdaline accidentally destroyed their home world and sent that moon hurtling toward Earth, they were forced to share their barely better than rocket science with the Gott-Druk and the Elenar who were promptly evacuated from the earth and lead to new worlds where they could build and start again.  The Agdaline, however, were not helped (by the powers in the earth).  They had to send out the fleets in search of a new home, a task in those old sleepers that might take several thousand years. 

Of those three, the Gott-Druk were in fact the first to return, around 4150 BC.  On seeing that the flood waters had receded and the earth was renewed, they became determined to reestablish their rule over the lands they once claimed.  Fortunately for us, the Elenar never really trusted their “cousins” and let me just say the confrontation that took place between them was volcanic.

The first Agdaline ships returned to the earth about a hundred years later.  There were, in fact, two fleets that met, and one had found a world which they believed would make a perfect new home world for the race.  Unfortunately, the other fleet returned one ship short, having encountered another advanced species, and not a friendly one.  For the moment, though, the potential threat from the sky was less of a problem than how to leave a sign for other Agdaline who might return to the earth at any point in the next several thousand years.  Those returnees needed some way to find that perfect new home world, and the Agdaline were not allowed to establish a colony on earth and wait.  A compromise solution was found, but that is a story unto itself.  Perhaps, though, they should have been more concerned about the skies.

The next Agdaline return, some 90 years later, brought the Agdaline and hot on their tail, the Balok, a snake-like species that had a great talent for genocide.  The Balok felt they should be the only intelligent species in the universe, and they became very good at war and eventually at wiping whole planets clean.  That was a very dangerous time for us homo sapiens with our sticks and stones, sinew and bones.  Again we were fortunate, or perhaps the powers intervened, but the Balok never found their way to earth again.  What did come to earth were representatives of the three primary species that stood up against the Balok for nearly a thousand years.  The first was a cold-blooded people who from all outward appearances might otherwise pass for human.  Legend knows them as the Bluebloods.  Then came the Sevarese, a word which means “angry people” and they were.  Last came the Pendratti, another reptilian species that had a great drive to control and organize their environment.  The term “retentive” hardly does justice to the Pendratti mindset.

First, to their credit, the Pendratti organized the original interstellar alliance found anywhere in our corner of the galaxy.  And with the Sevarese and Bluebloods, the Pendratti finally eradicated the Balok.  Of course, the myth says there are still some out there, but you know how the conspiracy theorists will talk.

Second, to their discredit, the Pendratti then tried to control the other species in the alliance.  The Bluebloods, who had some experience of the concept of slavery in their own early history, were the first to revolt.  Soon enough, others revolted, and as the alliance fell apart, first there were factions and then it devolved into everyone for themselves.  And in the midst of all this, like gasoline on the fire, a species of merchants known only as the “Traders” fanned the flames that were so good for business.

By the time the Sevarese created the designer disease that wiped out the Pendratti, it was too late.  By then, the Old Kingdom in Egypt was in full swing, the Sumarians were building their own empires, The Hsian were first establishing a dynasty along the Huang Ho and the Minoans were controlling the trade in the Mediterranean.  By then, small groups of survivors from the interstellar wars were scattering across the stars, and for the most part reverting to their own kind of stone age existence.

Space became quiet at last, and relatively empty for a time apart from the Agdaline sleepers which were still slowly wending their way between the stars.

 ###

Every creative writer must be inventive–even in crafting the most mainstream, realistic story.  The setting must be a world in which the characters can live and breathe and interact.  These posts are inventive, yes, but encouragement to think through your own work and flesh out your world.  Your vision will likely be different, but so it should.

            The entrance to the cave was not far.  They did not find any seeds en-route, but they did not expect to see any.  The little pile of seeds just inside the cave, where the morning light struck, and the little trail that ran away from the pile and into the dark could not have been clearer.

            “Just to be certain I have this right, Melissa is two?”

            “Mother?”  Sandra responded, and Glen nodded as he suspected the woman had taken the seeds and she was leaving the trail.

            “Still, a rather sloppy kidnapper not to notice something as obvious as this.”  Glen was skeptical.

            “They may have rested here before entering the cave.”  Macreedy offered an explanation.  Glen was not so sure, but there was nothing to do but go into the dark.

            Macreedy pulled the three glow-balls from his pack – the ones that had been in the tent.  He spoke over them and they became bright, and with a few more words they began to float in the air, one out front, one in the middle, overhead, and one just behind the group.  Sandra was amazed to see real magic, and stepped closer to Glen,  a little afraid.  Pointed ears were one thing, but the outright impossible was quite another.

            “Macreedy is so talented.”  Ellean praised him, and Macreedy looked like he might say, “Tut-tut” at any moment.

            “Y-yes.”  Sandra stuttered around the smile that she pasted on her face.  Glen was less surprised.  He paid attention when Macreedy built up the fire the night before.  He expected some sort of magic, and he examined the glow-balls the night before.  With that light, though, they could move forward. 

            It was certainly a cave, uneven floor, stalactites overhead, and Glen hoped no bats or at least not too many.  As they moved deeper into the dark, finding seeds almost by accident in several cases, it quickly got cold, and they all hugged their cloaks.  Sandra had been given one and had wondered why she might need it in the warm fall air she felt in the forest.  Now she understood.  It got cold underground where neither the sun nor the warm air could penetrate.

            After a time of clambering through and over rocks and around corners, and always going down and deeper in, the floor beneath their feet flattened out and brought them quickly to a large chamber that looked more like the inside of a cathedral than a cave.

            “Not good,” Macreedy said.  He laid his hand against a stalagmite which had the appearance more of a column than a natural occurrence.  “This is a goblin hall,” he said and he pointed to some carvings on the column.

            “Glen.”  Sandra scooted yet closer and laid her hand on his wrist.  She looked into his eyes and hoped for reassurance.

            “Dark elves,” Glen said.  “That is an easier word than goblins.  They stay underground and work great magic in stone and metal.  They are not necessarily the evil goblins of legend.”

            Ellean had her bow out and an arrow ready.  “But they do like to eat the flesh raw,” she said.

            “Big help!”  Glen put his arms around Sandra, and she did not mind that at all.

            “They are not friends to the elves of the light,” Macreedy agreed with Ellean, though he left his weapons where they were and only fingered the knife at his side.

            “I see three ways we can go.”  Glen changed the subject.

            Macreedy shook himself from his own thoughts and raised his arms.  The glow-balls brightened a little, spread out and showed that there were actually five choices.  “The problem is two or three of these ways will lead to the warrens, the goblin homes.”  He added that last for Glen and Sandra.  “Only two or three ways will lead to other places.”

            “And which is which?”  Ellean finished the thought and she, Sandra and Macreedy all looked at Glen.

            “No, no,” Glen said.  He let go of Sandra and stepped back a full step.  “I’m no seer.  If there is magic in the human world, I have less of it than anyone I know.”

            “Someone has to decide,” Sandra said.

            “Or you could all just stay here until you starve.”  An eerie sort of voice spoke out of the dark.  Sandra jumped back into Glen’s arms and Ellean pulled her bow to the ready, though how she knew which direction to point it was a mystery since the cavern not only looked like a cathedral, it echoed like one as well.

            The stranger stepped into the light.  He was a bit shorter than a man or an elf.  Macreedy was actually the tallest person there.  But then this person did not look like a man or an elf.  He had red eyes and almost no ears at all, and little horns on its head; what could be seen of them through the thick black hair.  It also had a forked tongue, like a snake, with which it was presently licking its lips.

            “A goblin,” Sandra said.  She burried her face into Glen’s chest so she would not have to look at it.

            “A hobgoblin.”  Macreedy corrected her.  He was still fingering the hilt of his knife but he left it where it was for the present.

            “Ignatius Patterwig, son of Coriander.”  The hobgoblin bowed, graciously.

            “Coriander Patterwig?”  Macreedy knew something. 

            “The same,” Ignatius said.  “But since my father did not survive the uprising, I have had to find other employment.”

            “Who?”  Sandra asked.

            Ellean answered.  “The self-proclaimed king of the hobgobs.”

            “Hobgoblins are an independent lot.  They don’t take kindly to kings,” Glen explained for Sandra.

            “Very perceptive for one made of blood and mud,” Ignatius said.  “How…”  He had to think of the right word.  “How impossible.”

            “Never mind that,” Sandra interrupted.  “Can you show us the way to go?”

            Ignatius paused and a smile turned up his lips – a smile that was too big to be human, though it never showed any teeth.  That was fine.  Sandra did not want to see the teeth.  “I assume you are following the mother and the baby.”

            “I’m the mother!”  Sandra shouted.  “That was my mother and my baby.”

            “Do you know where they are?”  Ellean asked.  Panic was building up in Sandra’s voice so Ellean verbalized for her.

            Ignatius looked like he was about to say one thing, but as looked again at Glen, he changed his mind.  “I know which way they went,” he said.

            “Show us,” Glen said.

            “And for me?”  The hobgoblin could not resist the bargain.

            “Anything,” Sandra said, but everyone ignored her, and Macreedy interrupted her.

            “Your life.”  Macreedy was blunt.

            “Your life.”  Ellean agreed and she held her bow steady with the arrow aimed right at the hobgoblin.

            “And what does the warrior say?”  The hobgoblin asked.

           “You will have the satisfaction of knowing you have done a good deed,” Glen said, and everyone looked at him like he had a loose screw, except Macreedy who got that suspicious look once more.  “Now, show us.”  Glen put some command in that voice.

            “I will,” the hobgoblin said, but then he paused and wrinkled his brow.  “But only because I am a sucker for a mother’s love.”  He figured a way to justify his agreement.  “This way,” he said, but as he began to walk, he turned his head, and a bit too far as far as Sandra was concerned.  “Anything?”  He asked.

            “Too late,” Glen said.  “The bargain is with me and made.  Walk on.”

            Ignatius grunted.  “I don’t normally argue with weapons,” he admitted.

            “And I am dressed like a true warrior,” Glen said, speaking a half-truth like a true elf.  Ellean was impressed.  Macreedy just smiled a bit and nodded.

###

NOTE: To read this story from the beginning or to read any of the stories of the Traveler please click the tab “Traveler Tales” above.  You can read any of the stories independently, or just the Vordan story, or the whole work in order as written.  Your choice.  Enjoy.  –Michael.

            When the sun was about to rise, Glen’s eyes popped open.  Sandra snuggled into his shoulder, and with the little bit of new light, he looked over at the elves.  He felt embarrassed.  He saw Ellean snuggle up to Macreedy and Macreedy looked at her with a loving expression and tenderly brushed her long black hair behind her ear.

            “Ahem.”  Glen coughed softly and Macreedy looked more than slightly embarrassed.  “This is a switch.  It is usually the women who wake up before the lazy men.” 

            “Oh, we’re awake,” Ellean said, and Macreedy jumped back as if stung by a bee.

            “We?”  Glen asked.

            “We are,” Sandra confirmed without opening her eyes.  She shifted her head in Glen’s shoulder and reached for his other shoulder with her free hand.  She seemed to want to snuggle some more, but Glen noticed what he was wearing, and though he was not exactly naked, he jumped further than Macreedy.  He got out from beneath the covers altogether.  All he had on was a t-shirt and boxers, though when he examined the clothes, he caught a glimpse of Fairy Weave.

            “What is this?”  He asked as he sat on Sandra’s bed and covered up.  He thought dark blue, and his weave turned dark blue which was better than the almost translucent white it had been.

            “The magic came in the night,” Ellean said.  “I was surprised that it did not wake you.”

            “Lord Alderon said you are to put this on.”  Macreedy pointed to a suit of armor, chain on leather.  It sat neatly laid out at the end of Sandra’s unused bed.  There were swords and knives with the outfit, and a cape that looked reversible, with black on one side and white on the other.

            “But I…”  Glen was not in a position to argue.  He got into the outfit as rapidly as he could and found that it fit perfectly.  It was also very comfortable and light, which was a surprise.  He had expected all of that metal to weigh a hundred pounds.  At last he set his hands on the weapons.  “I don’t know what to do with these,” he said.  “I never killed anything bigger than a spider.”

            “You need to bring them,” Macreedy said.

            “I can help you put them in place,” Ellean said.  “These are like the ones our God carries.”

            “They are?”  Glen spoke absentmindedly because he was trying to figure out where they hooked on, and they appeared to have rings that only needed hooks.

            “Wait.”  Macreedy stopped Ellean in her tracks and he looked very suspicious.  “Try calling to them,” he said.

            “What?” 

            Macreedy stepped over and took the weapons and laid them out again on the bed.  “Try calling to them,” he repeated.

            Glen looked at Sandra who had gotten up to watch the proceedings, but she could only shrug.

            “A virtue in their making,” Macreedy suggested.  “They were given to you so you should be able to call to them and they should fit themselves into place.”

            “Like magic?”  Sandra was not slow to catch the implication and Macreedy nodded.

            “OK,” Glen said, but he sounded doubtful.  “All-ee, all-ee in come free.”  He shouted and shrugged because nothing happened.  He was kidding.  He tried again.  “Sword, here.  Knife here.  Here, swordy, swordy, swordy.”  Still nothing happened.  He tried a poor man’s Shakespeare.  “Afixeth thyself before I be off, oft.”   He shrugged again.  “Nothing.”  Macreedy looked relieved. 

            Ellean began to move again to help him, but Glen held out his hand.  He was getting into this.  “Open sesame.  Attach sesame.”  He started in on loony tunes, beginning with Yosemite Sam.  “Ya gal-dern galoots!”  He went on for a while with nonsense words until he said something that sounded almost like a string of consonants with hardly any vowels at all, and the sword and knife jumped.  They rushed at Glen so he was inclined to cover his face.  He thought that maybe he angered the inanimate objects – the sharp inanimate objects, but then he heard several clicks and Sandra applauded, Ellean shouted something not at all like “golly gosh!” and Macreedy went back to looking suspicious.

            “Well.”  Glen looked up and smiled.  “But they can stay where they are because otherwise I will probably cut my foot off.”

            “Why would you cut your foot off?”  Sandra asked.

            “If I had a gun I would probably shoot my foot off and I figure fair is fair.”  And that ended the discussion about the weapons.  Glen saw that both Ellean and Macreedy sported long knives at their belts and both carried bows, and that felt like more of a comfort than anything he might carry.

            Sandra and Ellean found the food that had been left for their breakfast.  It looked like the troops pulled out before dawn since they and their tent were all that was left in the area, and Glen looked all around.  When he returned, the tent was already reduced to a cube the size of Macreedy’s hand which the elf slipped into his side pack.  The fire was still burning, though, and they had bacon and eggs cooking.

            “There goes any chance of getting my clothes back, I suppose,” Glen said.

            “I think you look good,” Sandra grinned.

            “What, for Halloween?”

            Sandra stood up to whisper in his ear.  “You look sexy,” she said and quickly scooted to the other side of Ellean.

            “My birthday is the day after Halloween.  I’m open to suggestions on presents,” Glen said, and Sandra turned a little red beneath her blond hair.  Macreedy temporarily dropped his suspicious look for a confused look.

            “I don’t understand the game,” he admitted with a shake of his head.

            “Human mating ritual,” Glen said.  “You should try it sometime.”  He pointed at Ellean with a shake of his head.  Macreedy made no response other than to open his mouth, wide.

            “Enough of that,” Sandra scolded.  “Breakfast.”  And they all ate what they could, even Glen who was not normally a breakfast person; but to be sure, none of them knew when they might get another good meal.

###

NOTE: To read this story from the beginning or to read any of the stories of the Traveler please click the tab “Traveler Tales” above.  You can read any of the stories independently, or just the Vordan story, or the whole work in order as written.  Your choice.  Enjoy.  –Michael.

            “How they came to be here is less important than why,” the voice said.  An elderly elf came in, followed by the commander of the troop that had picked up Sandra and Glen.  “I am Alderon and this is Commander Peregrine.”

            “The Falcon.”  Glen saluted.  “But let me ask, why are you here?”  Glen spoke quickly, and the old elf raised an eyebrow so Glen continued.  “You have brought an army into the wilderness.  I hope we have not fallen into the midst of a war.”  Sandra suddenly looked concerned.  She had not thought of that.

            “No fear,” Alderon said.  “Wars in our realm are rare events these days.  Rather, we had a report of a demon djin crossing close to the border.  We sought to destroy it, if we could, or at least keep it from our homes.”

            “A ghoul?”  Glen asked.

            Alderon shook his old head.  “Our observers did not see it well enough to classify it, except to say it is one of the lesser djin.”

            “But a terror all the same,” Glen said, thinking out loud and turning toward Sandra.  “They can possess people, and feed off the fear and pain they cause in tormenting their victims.”

            “And how do you know the ways of the djin?”  Macreedy asked.

            “Behavioral Sciences,” Glen answered.  “I have studied my Anthropology and my folklore, unless we humans have it all wrong.”  Glen looked up at Alderon who was smiling, just barely.

            “Essentially right.,” Alderon confirmed.  “But now you must answer a question.  Why have you come here?”

            “My daughter and mother disappeared.”  Sandra spoke quickly.  “We were following their trail and found ourselves here.  I don’t know how.  None of this makes any sense, but now I fear we have lost the trail.”  Sandra felt the surge of emotion rise up inside and a few tears began to fall.  Glen quickly put his arms around her and reassured her.

            “We will find them.  Hush.  It will be alright.”  He stroked her hair, gently, and she quieted.  “We were following the seeds, but I don’t know if we can pick up that trail again without going back and getting tangled up with the ogre.”

            Alderon waved and Commander Peregrine held out his hand.  “Were they pumpkin seeds like this?”  Alderon asked.

            Sandra jumped up and took the elf’s hand, not thinking twice about it.  The hand was full of pumpkin seeds.  “Yes,” she shouted.  “But where did you find them?”

            “In this place,” Commander Peregrine responded.  “My command was charged with following them to see where they lead, and they brought us to you.”

            “So, wait.”  Glen said.  “You’re saying if we followed the pumpkin seed trail from the beginning, it would have brought us to this place?”

            Alderon nodded, and Sandra turned.  “Oh, Glen, we haven’t lost them,” she said and then she just had to fall into Glen’s arms and kiss him smack on the lips, and she kissed his cheek as well before grabbing his arm and turning to sit beside him, and pull herself together.

            At the mention of Glen’s name, Commander Peregrine looked surprised, Macreedy had one eyebrow up, Ellean was too busy watching Sandra and thinking her own thoughts to notice, but Alderon was smiling that almost invisible smile of his.  “But where does the trail go from here?”  Glen asked.

            “Ahh…”  Alderon said as he stepped up behind Macreedy and Ellean.  “There are a small number of seeds heading into the caves of the Cormac.  We have chosen not to explore that way since it leads away from our homes.”

            “The caves of the Cormac?”  Macreedy did not think much of those caves and Ellean looked positively frightened.

            “What’s a Cormac?”  Sandra asked, drawing herself as close to Glen’s side as she could get.

            “An ever hungry troll,” Macreedy said.

            “And the caves are full of goblins as well, no doubt trying not to be eaten,” Commander Peregrine added.

            Alderon simply looked at Glen and would not let go of that smile that touched the mere corners of his lips.  “Somehow, though, I have a good feeling about your chances,” he said.  “And since young Macreedy and young Ellean have agreed to see to your welfare, I know you will do well.”

            “What?”  Macreedy looked up sharply at his elder and tried to stand, but Alderon put a hand on the elf’s shoulder to keep him seated.  Then he clapped his hands and stepped aside while two elf maids came and went, quickly.  The first had two more blankets and the second carried four little packs, provisions for the expected journey.

            “You planned this.”  Macreedy accused as Commander Peregrine set down his handful of pumpkin seeds and followed the maids out the tent door.

            “Yes,” Alderon said, finally letting out a bit more of that smile.  He held up his hand and twisted it like one might twist a dimmer switch, and the light in the glow-balls dimmed to night lights.  “Sleep well,” he said, and left.

            Macreedy was not entirely happy, but Ellean set about immediately showing their companions what they could do with the Fairy Weave blankets, changing the color, size, thickness and texture, and all with a thought. 

            “I don’t know why it is called Fairy Weave, though, since it is made by elves.  These were made by the elves of the grove,” Macreedy said.  Glen just nodded and he got the idea easily enough and made something like an air mattress with covers to sleep on.  Sandra had a little more trouble with hers so Ellean helped; but by then with the thoughts and worries about the caves of Cormac getting in the way, Ellean was the only one smiling.

            “This will be so much fun.”  She said.  “I just know I can learn so much from you.” 

            Sandra stared at the elf maid in disbelief.  “You’re seventy three years old and I’m just twenty-three.  How are you going to learn anything from me?”

            Ellean cocked her head to the side and spoke in all seriousness.  “You have a baby.”  She stole a glance at Macreedy.

            “But I haven’t got a husband,” Sandra said and Ellean looked at her again with eyes that were big and brown and suddenly sad.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “No, actually he was a jerk.  Melissa and I are better off without him.”

            “Well.”  Ellean did not know what to say until she looked over at Glen.  “Glen seems very nice, what do you think?”

            Sandra just looked, and since Macreedy and Glen heard everything in that small tent, they also looked.  Sandra appeared to be more concerned to find out if Glen thought she was nice, and while Glen was not ready to answer that question, he did feel that he ought to say something. 

            “I think we all ought to try and get some sleep,” he said, and he got under his covers and turned his back on them all.  Macreedy finished dousing the glow-balls so only the dying embers from the fire provided any light in the tent.  Even so, it was not long before Glen relaxed.  He felt certain that everyone else in the tent was asleep.  He was a little surprised when Sandra crawled under his covers to curl up beside him.  He was more surprised when the other two spoke.

            “I wish I had thought of that,” Ellean said.

            “Go to sleep,” Macreedy responded.

            Glen had a hard time sleeping at first since it was not easy to keep his hands to himself; but then the something inside of him rose up and he felt he could hold this beauty after all without being overly excited.  He slept well after that.  He could not vouch for the others.

            It took several hours to reach a camp where Glen guessed there were perhaps a hundred or more elves all dressed for war.  The sun was going down when Glen and Sandra were escorted to a tent.  They were left alone, but Glen was sure there were guards near enough.

            Sandra sat quietly and hugged her knees which were pulled up to her chin.  She seemed to be in her own little world.  Glen paced and tried to make sense of what was happening.  It was weird, as Sandra said.  It was unreal, impossible, and no human being would ever believe it.  Glen felt stupid, like he was in the midst of something out of a children’s story, or an old wives tale, or a folktale where some anthropologist would point out the underlying meaning but would never believe that it might be real.  Elves and ogres did not really exist, Glen told himself, but here he was and here they were.  He had long since rejected the idea that this might be a dream.  “That would have made this B-movie extra bad.”  He mumbled.  Sandra took Glen’s mumble as an opening to speak.

            “My grandmother.”  She paused and shook her head before starting again.  Glen sat down beside her, not touching, but close enough.  “My grandmother used to talk about her grandmother like she was, I don’t know, weird.  She said her grandmother had the magic.  That’s what she called it.  She said her mother had some, but not like her grandmother, while she could hardly do anything at all.”

            “When was your grandmother born?”  Glen was curious, but he was not sure why he asked that question.  This – whoever it was that seemed to be giving him these thoughts was getting annoying.  Glen probably should have been frightened by the invasion of his mind except there were two mitigating feelings.  The first was that the someone, whoever it was, felt so comfortable.  Glen could not imagine any harm coming from that direction.  The second was there were far more frightening things happening all around him, he hardly had time to worry about what might be trying to help him.

            “1908,” Sandra said.  “She would have been seventy this year if she was still alive.”  Glen nodded.  It was presently 1978.  After a pause, Sandra added the word, “Cancer.”

            “And her grandmother?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Say, 1870?”

            Sandra shrugged.  “Grandma said her great-grandmother was a half-blood.  I remember asking once half-what?  I got the strangest answer.”  Sandra looked like she did not want to say it, but as an elf chose that moment to enter the tent with a tray of food, Sandra found the courage to verbalize what had always seemed loony.  “Fairy.”  She said.  “My great- great, whatever-grandmother was a half-fairy.”

            Glen nodded.  “1849 gold rush,” he said as the elf put down the food and turned to leave.  “Wait a minute.”  Glen spoke up, and the elf paused.  “What are you going to do with us?”

            The elf turned and shrugged.  He was skinny, terminally skinny the way certain elves were, and his ears were very pronounced and pointed, but they matched his pointed nose.  “Nothing that I know of.”  At least his voice sounded normal. 

            The elf decided to sit and as he crossed his long legs he leaned forward to place a hand over the fire.  It rose up with new life.  Given the circumstances, neither Sandra nor Glen were surprised by that bit of magic. Sandra scooted a bit closer to the fire for the warmth.  Glen decided to to look around. 

            The fire was in the middle of the tent floor and there was a small hole in the tent roof straight above it.  Curiously, the smoke from the fire went straight up and out the hole without the least bit of it filtering into the rest of the tent.  Neat trick, Glen thought.  He noticed that most of the light in the tent did not come from the fire, but from several globes near the tent roof.  Glow-balls, he called them, and he imagined they were like fairy lights.  Of course, they were not plugged into anything and they were not battery run so he was at a loss as to what powered them, but they glowed just fine and the light was warm and comfortable.  Their night in that tent did not look frightening, but then it did not look all that comfortable if they chose to sleep.  There were only two blankets rolled up on the dirt floor, but Glen did not get to examine them closely because by then Sandra found the courage to ask a question.

            “Do you have a name?”

            “Macreedy, son of Macreedy, son of Macreedy, son of Macreedy.”  The elf said.  “My sire had many daughters, but only one son of Macreedy.”  He smiled and cocked his head back to look toward the tent door and said, “You might as well come in, too.  These people do not appear dangerous and I don’t believe they rub off.”

            A young female head poked in through the tent door.  Her face looked more human, being not nearly so skinny, but the ears were still a giveaway.  The face looked unsure, though, so Glen felt obliged to speak up.

            “No human cooties, I promise,” he said.

            “Well.”  The elf came in slowly to take a seat beside Macreedy.  “As long as you promise.”

            “My name is Sandra,” Sandra said.  “Daughter of Mona, daughter of Edna, daughter of another woman and another and another who was a daughter of a full blood fairy.”

            “Really?”  The elf maid found her smile as Sandra nodded and the maid turned to Macreedy.  “That may explain how they came to be here,” she said, but Macreedy was shaking his head.

            “Let me see if I can say this the way Master Olerian of the Bean taught the lesson.”  He coughed, lowered his voice and affected a very formal tone and look.  “The magic is generally well faded by the third generation, and the blood indiscernible by the seventh, though the child is not considered fully human again until the tenth generation.”  The elf maid giggled, and Glen decided that this elf was in truth a simple girl who might have passed for a seventeen- year-old human, if that.

            “I’m the seventh generation and Melissa is the eighth,” Sandra said, looking mostly at Glen in case she counted wrong.

            “You have a baby?”  The elf girl looked surprised.  Macreedy was still shaking his head as if to say that would not explain how they came to be there.

            “Ellean.”  Glen interrupted and got the elf girl’s attention.  He called the girl by name because his inner voice said that was the elf maiden’s name, not because she had given her name.  “Just to be clear, how old are you?”  Ellean lost her smile and looked like she was embarrassed by the question.  Macreedy spoke for them both.

            “I will be one hundred and ten this year,” he said proudly.  “Ellean is seventy-three.”

            “Only,” Ellean said and she looked down at the fire.

            Sandra felt the shame and reached out to the girl.  “Women mature faster,” she said.

            Ellean did not take Sandra’s hand, but she did look up and smile briefly.

            “That’s years,” Glen said, and Sandra looked at him in surprise.  She was thinking it was something like maybe a lunar calendar, with Macreedy looking about nineteen or twenty and Ellean appearing to be sixteen or so.  “Standard counting is roughly between five and seven to one, like dog years except we are the dogs.”  Glen concluded, and he pulled himself a bit closer to the fire.  After a moment, Sandra also scooted closer in order to close the circle.

            “Old Lord Inaros is reported to be fifteen hundred years old,” Macreedy said.  “But that is extremely rare, even among elf-kind.”  He smiled for Sandra, but Sandra was not paying attention.  Ellean was staring at her.

            “What?”

            “I was wondering if your real name is Cassandra,” Ellean said.

            “Her hair is too blond.”  Macreedy interrupted and shook his head.

            “There are dyes.”  Ellean came back, but this time Sandra shook her head.

            “Just Sandra,” she said.  “Why?”

            The elves paused to look at each other before Macreedy spoke.  “Our goddess was once named Cassandra,” he said.  “It is not to be spoken of with humans, but I can say this much, that we have many gods and goddesses, but they are all one.”

            “I thought maybe…”  Ellean began to speak, but Macreedy took her hand to quiet her.

            “So we still do not know how you came to be here,” Macreedy said.  “Even if Miss Sandra managed the passage by some virtue remaining in her blood, it does not explain the presence of this man.”

            Glen reached for Sandra’s hand and she readily gave it, and her smile, too.  “We are thinking of doing a lot of things together,” he said, and Sandra’s smile broadened.  “How about you two?”

            Macreedy shifted in his seat and looked a little uncomfortable as he glanced at Ellean and dropped the girl’s hand.  Ellean had no trouble matching Sandra’s smile.  “We have talked,” she told Sandra and she held out her hand again, but Macreedy did not take it

            “But about how you got here,” Macreedy spoke hastily to try and get back on the topic, but he was interrupted by a new voice from the door.

            “I missed the last ones, but I got you.”  A booming deep, and unearthly voice spoke over Glen’s shoulder.  It was the kind of voice that gave him chills, and the kind that even penetrated Sandra’s screams. Glen got to his feet, dragging Sandra to her feet with him and backed the two of them away from that voice.  The creature stood nearly nine feet tall and was so horrible to look at, Glen’s stomach nearly let go and Sandra could not stop screaming.  Glen had to turn Sandra’s face into his shoulder where she did not have to look at the thing to get her quiet.  This brute, and the word ogre came to Glen’s mind, was covered in warts that sprouted little hairs that looked more like cactus spikes than hairs.  He had several boils on the surface of his skin, if it could be called skin, and a few of those were burst and leaking a pink and yellow puss.  It had a mouth so full of yellow teeth that Glen could not see the back of that maw or count the teeth if he wanted to, not the least because of the green drool that was leaking out over the edge of the lower lip.  It also had a small spark in the eyes that glared at them as if to say that this creature was alive and aware; but to be sure, it was a very small spark.

            “I am going to have you for an afternoon snack,” the ogre roared, and he hefted a club the size of a small tree.

            Glen heard the words “don’t panic” in his mind as his mouth sprang into action, though he was hardly aware of what he was saying.  “Well, if you are going to have us for tea, make sure there are plenty of biscuits, and by all means keep the kippers to yourself.  Those things are almost as slimy and disgusting as you.  Gods you are an ugly beastie.”

            The ogre paused and lifted his head.  “Do you think so?”  He spoke with some doubt in his voice.

            “Oh, yes,” Glen assured him.  “Very ugly.  Frighteningly ugly.  You heard the woman screaming, didn’t you?  Now, let’s get on to tea, you lead the way.”

            “Huh?”  The ogre paused and Glen’s words caught up with his little brain and he guffawed.  “Have you for a snack.”  He guffawed again, and believe me, that is a sound you never want to hear.  Glen had to swallow the bile to keep it from coming out and Sandra had to bite her lower lip, hard, to keep the screams at bay.  “Say, now.”  The ogre stopped laughing and a terrifying looked crossed his face.  “Hold still.”  And he lifted the club.

            Glen’s eyes got wide, but he was looking a little to the ogre’s left side, and he pointed dramatically in that direction and yelled, “Look!”  The ogre turned to look.

            “What?”  He wondered, but by the time he turned again, Glen had grabbed Sandra’s hand and they were running as fast as they could down the path.  “Hey!”  They heard that yell behind them and then heard the tromp, tromp of giant footsteps, following.  Glen wanted to say run faster, but he was fairly sure they could not run faster.  Sandra did not want to say anything.  She was focusing too hard on her feet.  With all that, it sounded like the ogre was gaining on them, but shortly they ran into something, or I should say another thing they hardly expected.  It was a wall of men, all dressed in dark armor, looking like ancient soldiers, and they all had spears pointed in their direction.  Glen was prepared to stop, but at the last minute the men made an opening in the wall and Glen and Sandra raced through.  The opening quickly closed.  Glen heard the twang of bow strings, and while Sandra collapsed to the ground, he found enough strength left to jump up and holler.  “Don’t hurt him.”

            A second volley of arrows came, the ogre having stopped on the first volley.  Most of the arrows landed in front of the ogre as a warning for him to turn around and go back where he came from, but one of the arrows went straight into the ogre’s shoulder.  The ogre looked more surprised than anything else, and while the arrow did not penetrate deeply, when it fell to the ground some blood followed it.  Glen knew someone was not following orders.  This time he really shouted.  “I said don’t hurt him!” 

            The archers were off to the sides of the wall of spears, hidden in trees and behind rocks.  As Glen shouted, he heard a man moan and someone, or something sounded like it fell to the ground.  Glen could not be concerned about that just then.  Instead, all of his concern was on the ogre who he now felt was like a poor child in need of protecting, as odd as that might have sounded.  If he had thought about it, it should have been strange to think that way about a brute that was trying to eat him, but Glen was not thinking at the moment.  He was too busy pressing up to the back of the wall of spears and speaking to the horrifying beast.  “Prickles, go home,” he said.  “Go home, Prickles.  You need to go home right now.”  He told himself that he did not want to see anyone get hurt, and it was not hard to convince himself of that.

            “Go home?”  Prickles the ogre was trying to figure out what he was hearing.

            “Go home.”  A man stepped up beside Glen, and while Glen did not look at the man, he figured it was probably the commander of this troop of soldiers.

            “Go home, Prickles,” Glen repeated, and the ogre nodded.

            “Go home,” the ogre said.  “Go home.”  He turned and walked back the way he came, his long legs taking him quickly out of view.

            Then Glen breathed for all of a second before two of the spear carrying men grabbed him by the arms.  “Bring them.”  The man who had been standing beside Glen commanded, and they moved to where Sandra was also being held against her will.  Glen and Sandra were directed as to where they were to fall in line.

            “This is getting too weird.”  Sandra finally got a word out.  She pointed at the men’s faces and Glen realized, for the first time, that all of the ears were classically pointed and these were not men at all.

            “Elves,” Glen named them and Sandra shrugged as if to say that she was adjusting, that she was not surprised and that maybe she would never be surprised again.

            “And the beast?”

            “Ogre,” Glen said, but then they had to concentrate on walking because they were moving up into the hills.