Chapter 33 - Pinpricks of Eternity

Chapter 33 - Pinpricks of Eternity


..::Welcome hither, as is the spring to th'earth;
    And hath he too exposed this paragon to the
    fearful useage (At least ungentle)
    of the dreadful Neptune...::
                     
The Winter's Tale
William Shakespeare

                          . . . .

.::Set like a jewel in the sea of Sirens
   Atlantis by Antares ruled
   Rides crystal waves
   That set the blazing sun atremble::.

Jose' Arguelles
The Arcturus Probe

                    *  *  *  *

Yeats and Daryl stood over Jack, who now lay abed in a private healing chamber, having been delivered at last from the starship's med unit where he'd undergone laser, and other, surgeries, ministrations, repairs, tests and survelliance for the past few hours.

'He's...alright now?' Daryl's voice wavered, unused to brevity, and expressing care, perhaps. Hard to feel for others that which was unknown to himself, however, and
this Yeats understood about the man; he, Daryl, had lived alone and as an island his entire life long. His brother, Drake, had tried to cast Jack in that mold as well. And so, this had been Daryl's mission; to free Jack from a solitary life of frozen emotion and robotic relflexes. Like his own...

Yeats inhaled. 'He will be. Resiliant lad, always, Jack.' He put a tentative hand upon Daryl's shoulder.
'We caught him just in time...'

Daryl wheeled away from Yeats, dropping into a handy seat, head in hands...then sat back, shaking his head.
'When I think of what might have...to see it all, happening again!'
  Yeats knew Daryl couldn't help but replay the awful scenes past of his failed rescue attempt of Jack's parents from the very same horror that Morgana and Flubber had just sought to reprise.

'How could you know?' Yeats was firm, but gentle.
'You're a sane man. One cannot always see the future. None of us think like the unbalanced, and, perhaps obsessed...'

Posessed, more like...Daryl thought to himself. He stared at his nephew's limp form, bruised and battered with vicious black and blue welts. The cuts and gashes had been lasered and closed, healing now. And although his internal injuries had been seen to, still much time was needed for Nature to heal his wounds.

'He's a strong young man; he'll heal,' Yeats reiterated. 'But it will take time. Jack's lucky the Van Horns have such hard heads.'
  Daryl ventured a side glance to Yeats at that jibe.
Undaunted, Yeats continued, 'Amazing he was only concussed. But, being so near the malignant Crystal...well, that will take some healing time as well. According to Thelene, it's influence can...alter, realign, the etheric/electric body and meridians. Rough magic, indeed. But here, Jack is in good hands. Back home, any mundane medicine would likely be useless to him.'

Daryl sat as if stunned, and strangely silent. He had been thus since his arrival onboard.
  Yeats took a long look at Jack, and knowing he would likely not awaken for many hours yet, put a gentle hand upon Daryl once more.
  'Come. Jack needs rest, and we've done all we can at present. There are other matters which require our attention.'

Obediently, Daryl rose and followed Yeats out, not taking eyes from Jack until the door sealed behind them.
  Walking through the corridors of the immense ship, Daryl at last took notice of where they now were...and tried to recall how he'd come to be here.

He had found himself arrived here, after bidding farewell to Emlyn's friends; removed suddenly from Nob Hill House, only to discover his whereabouts, deposited seemingly, in the midst of controlled chaos with Yeats before him, yelling to follow him to the hatches below, as he had just effected Jack's timely rescue; other than that, he'd barely had a chance to realize the basics of who and what; never mind the how, of now.

                   

As they rounded about the curving hallways, Daryl noted the exposed sloping struts betwixt sections which appeared to be of polished copper with odd rune-like characters etched upon them. At last Yeats halted and pressed a door chime. They then entered a spacious room with one long curving window showing only grey and white cloud beyond, with occasional patches of blue.
  The control panels, screens and hovering  holoprojections were all familiar to Daryl, but the old-style look of the tables and curving couches bordering the sides of the ship, gave him pause.

'This...is an old ship?' He enquired.

At that, the sealed door opened and Axelis entered, filling the space. 
  'An old ship, indeed! Fa'ilte and welcome, Daryl Van Horn.'


                         

Daryl made a slight bow. 'My thanks to you and your ship for the timely rescue of my...of Jack.' And, although he had found himself in otherworlds and with beings unknown to the mundane plane, Daryl had rarely interacted in Real Time, or in full consciousness with such beings. He found himself trembling slightly.

'Have a seat, old man...' Yeats took his arm and guided him to one of the curving couches, taking a seat as well. Meanwhile, Axelis had moved over to the wall panels and touched a screen, producing a hot mug of warm liquid. This he handed to Daryl.
  'This may help with your acclimatization.' 

Daryl drank, and his tremors ceased immediately; a warm feeling of well-being washed over him.
  'This...is amazing! I feel, ah, very well.'

Axelis spoke: 'We call it: 'ataraxia'. We have found that visitors are more relaxed by the familiarity of the warm cup...I could, of course, merely touch your forehead and all would be...very well.' He nearly smiled then, and seemed to be enjoying a private joke.

Undaunted, feeling more himself, Daryl rallied. 'An old ship, you say?'

'She is.' Axelis straightened, seeming even taller than his, what--8 feet or so?--and gazed out the stunning porthole. 'It is not ours, per se, but loaned to us for a time. It is an ancient Pleiadian war-ship. Our long-chogaidh!'

Daryl was awestruck at this news. Knowing the Pleiadians to be long regarded as a peaceful race, it must be ancient indeed.

Axelis smiled then. 'Yes. 'Time out of mind,' you would say, the aeons past when last this War-wolf saw action.' He deigned then to lower his formidable presence into a seat alongside the two men.
  'The League has many friends. And few enemies.'
  His gimlet gaze scanned Daryl as with xray vision.

Daryl felt rather naked under the tall Elder Kelt's scrutiny, but decided to drink deeply of the becalming ataraxia, knowing that he hadn't much choice of action in this particular here-and-now.

And, too, he was suddenly aware he was sitting with his beloved Anara's paterfamilias. As Jack might be, someday, were he with Emlyn...and if Axelis were indeed, their father.
  So, were the couples to marry, would that make Jack his brother-in-law as well as his nephew? Naturally, that was not an option for himself, or Anara, Daryl knew.
  Still...all was rather boggling to the mind. Good thing his body gave not a ratspatoot at the moment.

'Again, our thanks. It was nothing short of a miracle you found Jack when you did.' Keep on the good side of the eight-foot giant with the warship, thought Daryl.
  Come to think on it; probably for the best he would not wind up with an eight-foot tall father-in-law with a warship...

Axelis smiled that small smile once more, and nodded.   'Indeed,' he replied, startling Daryl back into his mug for a moment, wondering if his thoughts had been heard.
  'Our good Yeats here, you must thank for that. He, together with Thelene, sent us the warning.'

'...And, Anara, who alerted us.' Yeats added, as he looked at Daryl; who noted Yeats seemed quite serene and at home in this ultramundane environment. Perhaps he'd also imbibed a dram or twa of ye olde anorexia as well...? But, what was that about--?
  'Anara...is she...?' Daryl sat forward, eager now, his gaze searching.

But Axelis was shaking his head. 'Not on a warship! Thelene, sometimes will visit here, but not our Anara. She must remain where all is safe and secure; far beyond such rents in the Order of things...' He stood then.
  'As to those who were the perpetrators of this... unexpected detour in our travels, "they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind".' He nodded to them. 'My duties call me to the bridge. Rest easy, now. Here, you are in good hands.'

Daryl still felt becalmed, but his whirling mind betrayed that peaceful patina. In particular, he couldn't stop thinking of this talk of a 'warship',
and all that might mean.
  'So, this is an ancient Pleiadian warship.' It wasn't a question. It was a most uneasy and glaring fact of their current situation.

Yeats, strangely, smiled at that.
  'Axelis makes much of his 'War-Wolf' and 'warship', true. However...' Yeats stood and turned about, looking out the massive porthole. 'However, it is mostly just for 'show' and a red herring...as well as bait.
  'To flush out certain other parties, and to give them pause, as it were.' He looked down at Daryl then. 'As a magician, you should know about sleight of hand.'

Watch what I wave about over there, and look not at the
palmed card here. I see. Daryl felt somewhat mollified at this. However...
  'I'm not sure how happy I am to think of Jack--as well as we, ourselves!--as worms on the hook here!'

'Jack will not be here long. Neither will we.' Yeats began to pace along the curved window. 'Axelis offered this singular ship for Jack's rescue, only at Thelene's behest.' Yeats ran a hand through his wild, white mane.
  '...It isn't easy to explain in so many words, but...
the crystals used aboard ship, are of the same matrix as the Atlantean Crystal. It is one of the very few ways in which such a near approach to the malignant thing could be made, without being sucked into its hypno-magnetized alternate-universe grid-cage.'

You said a mouthfull, thought Daryl. But he only asked, 'Is that where...John and Morgana are, then?'

Yeats ceased pacing. 'One hopes not...I'd not wish that karma-in-action on a cockroach. Although, I suppose it is possible. Most likely they went, ah, elsewhere to their reward...'

Reaping the whirlwind, thought Daryl. Odd of old Axelis to quote the Bible. Then...perhaps not, he decided, recalling the Nephilim.
  'Axelis...his ship and crew, have done us a great service, then. Truly, a Herculean task.'

Yeats smiled. 'Axelis is rather Herculean himself, yes?'

Daryl couldn't argue with that...in any tongue.
  Then he thought of Axelis' daughter, Anara; the love of his life. He hardly felt her equal upon any scale.
  But Maat weighs the balance. Perhaps it was soon to tip into a new and favorable direction.

                      . . . .

Daryl found himself waking in another sleeping chamber, much like Jack's and spartan, still aboard ship. He recalled then that Yeats had insisted he rest; although he had been plagued by worries about Emlyn's fate, now that Jack was rescued and appeared to be recuperating safely enough here...

Stretching, he had to admit he felt more the thing; fast and furious interdimensional flights and shifting frequencies had a disorienting effect upon 3-D corporeal human-kind. Flexing arms and legs, Daryl thought: yep, still in the material body. A quick shower, and see how Jack was faring were first on his agenda. Maybe a wee cuppa and sommat in his stomach...still living in the material world, as George Harrison once noted, then.

He found Yeats in Jack's room, and saw that Jack's color seemed much improved and the marks on his body were nearly healed.
  Daryl sighed, relieved. 'He looks much better than yesterday.'

Yeats looked at Daryl quizzically, but only nodded. 'Physically, he is much improved. We are still maintaining a close watch upon his other, more delicate systems and how the healing goes there.' He looked at Daryl.
 'How are you? Rested up somewhat?'
  Daryl smiled a wintry smile, nodding.
 'Let's get something into you, then. Tea and some real sustenance, eh?' He took Daryl's arm and steered him to the door. 'Now that you are more rested, we can talk in earnest. Don't worry,' Yeats noted Daryl's concerned gaze still locked upon Jack, 'there will be plenty of time for you to see Jack. He will benefit most by rest, now.'

Back to the familiar room with the viewing porthole, Yeats punched in an order for tea for them both, fruit and, at Daryl's request, mushroom and vegetable quiche
with kelp seasoning, and a bowl of hot miso soup with wakame. He felt protein, saline and iodine-deprived.

Delivered pronto, hot, into the receiving station, Daryl sat at the counter gazing out the wide window and set to.

'Not bad, for ship's galley fare, eh?' Yeats teased. Daryl knew this was a ship like unto no other; and he could feel his body's hungry cells soaking up the proteins and nouishing vitamins and minerals.
  'Much better. I felt in need of grounding.' He sipped his gunpowder tea. 'Indeed. I feel a new man aready. But truly, Jack will be alright, won't he? The crystal did no...permanent damage?'

Yeats stood at the porthole, hands in pockets, gazing outside. Still in cloud-cover, Daryl knew that they were, effectively, cloaked besides.


                          

  'No. Certainly no damage. However...' he paused, still not looking at Daryl, '...there may be...certain, ah, changes, in Jack.
  'You, we all here, were not in the crystal's vicinity long, however you must admit you feel much more disorientation than is usual for just timewalking, or dimension-hopping, yes?'

Daryl nodded, frowning. 'Yes. What do you mean by 'changes' in Jack?' He was no longer hungry.


Yeats sighed, and sat upon the couch curving alongside the walls of the room. 'Actually, we aren't completely sure as yet. 'Jack appears to be...travelling.' He put a hand up, to forestall Daryl's rising panic, as Daryl had himself risen, and was now looming over Yeats for a change.
  'Don't hover so. He's fine. Do have a seat, Daryl, and I shall explain...'

Daryl grabbed the teapot and his cup and took them to the wall-table beside the couch, poured and sat, knowing Yeats would get around to The Point sometime seeming aeons from now...
  'I'm all ears.' Daryl challenged.

'Jack's traveling-body does appear to 'check in' from time to time with his physical self. So, there is no permanent severing of the cord. But, it is a bit of a mystery where he goes...and what he brings back...' Yeats rubbed a finger over his chin in thought.
  'We will know more with Thelene's report, soon.'

'What do you mean?' Daryl's hands were not as steady as they had been a minute ago, Yeats noticed. Steady on, old man...
  

'Well...he does wake on occasion and speak. But sometimes, we can't decipher what he is saying, or what language he speaks.  At times, true, he does speak English, but it all seems rather...technical; although what exactly it relates to is a bit of a mystery. Also, he doesn't seem to focus on his physical surroundings; even eyes-open, he doesn't see us, or react to stimulus about him. Yet.'

'I thought you said he would be alright!' Daryl demanded, although his eyes pleaded with Yeats.

'Actually...yes. He's fine. Probably, more than fine...' Yeats flicked an odd glance Daryl's way.
  'He seems...in many ways, to be much improved, beyond the norm.' he sighed, 'Even at Jack's young age, there should be some cell damage, slowing of certain systems and synapses...but no. All repaired, like new. He appears to be physically the same age, but it is as though...he inhabits an entirely new physical body.'

Daryl's frown deepened. '...Like a, clone?'

Yeats frowned as well. 'Strictly speaking, yes. However, we don't believe that is the case, in actuality. No worries there. It is the 'primordial' Jack, just, 'new and improved'...'

Madison Avenue sales slogans did not reassure Daryl. He was about to challenge Yeats, when the door chimed.
  'Enter,' Yeats called.

                       

The door slid open soundlessly, revealing Thelene at the threshold, in all her Otherworldly glory; she appeared, to their eyes, to be bathed in a glow from within, making her skin appear translucent.
  Both men stood, out of respect; but also pulled, Daryl felt, by a need to bask in her natural luminosity, as if by simply being in her presence, they themselves would absorb and reflect such Light as she.

'Thelene...' Yeats took her hand and led her within. He held her hand with both of his and they gazed a while into one another's eyes. Yeats tore his sight from hers at last.
 'Ah, you know Daryl, naturally.'

'My Lady...' Daryl offered a small bow her way.

'Daryl...' Thelene nodded to him, and sat. 'Do be seated gentlemen. I shan't be long.'
  She fixed him with her steady silver gaze. 'Due to certain...changes of late, Axelis has requested that I explain more of our mission to you now; as you, Daryl, may have harbored some...misconceptions, regarding the League and our presence amongst your people.'

Yeats sat beside Thelene upon the couch, while Daryl took the seat on the other side of the small table.
  'I am eager for any words you may have to impart, my Lady.'
  Daryl found his heart rate increasing and tried not to tremble as he had in Axelis' presence. He had, of course, interacted with Thelene and others of the Sidhe, but, never in full beta consciousness. He wondered if a bit of that ataraxia was perhaps handy...

Intuitively, Thelene smiled, and lay a hand upon Daryl's arm. He felt awash suddenly by a warm wave of relaxation.
  'There. I'm not so awful, now, am I?' Thelene teased.

'Quite the opposite, my Lady...' Daryl merely sat, quiet and still for a change.

Thelene glanced at Yeats and they locked eyes a moment.
  'That is well, then,' she replied, regarding Daryl once more. 'For I have news of some import.' Daryl nodded for her to continue.

'This...disclosure comes about somewhat sooner than planned, mostly due to the, transition, having now taken place with young Jack.'
  The calmness Daryl had felt was quickly vanishing.
  'You mean, the effect of the crystal...?'

'Yes.' Thelene sighed softly, and sat back against the couch. 'Do still thyself Daryl...' she held his gaze with her own and he did feel himself relaxed once more.   'It isn't bad news! Quite the opposite...so you must take hold of yourself, and just listen.' She waited, holding his gaze with her own until Daryl's breathing slowed and his facial muscles showed less strain.


'Very well, then. As you may realize, there is a Universal Code, if you will, whereby developing cultures
are to be left strictly alone, to evolve at their own pace without intercession of others. A Law of Non-Interference.'
   Daryl nodded slightly.

'This is all well and good, for the most part. However, for us, the Tuatha de Danann, who, along with Axelis' folk, the Kelts of lost Kantek; in short, we who are, in part, the ancestors of your people...it goes hard for us to watch our children become so abused and enslaved as they are now upon your world. Trapped, in a seemingly never-ending cycle of ignorance and lies, and imprisoned in this slow hell for countless aeons...while we were made to watch, and do nothing.
  'This, naturally, makes us heart-sore, and we suffer with you. But, it was decided no longer do we merely watch and wait and wring our hands in grief...especially when the entire planet's existence seemed to now be at stake!
  'And, so, we, much against the wishes of the High Council, and others, had implemented a Plan, which, strictly speaking does not go against the mandates of Non-Interference. However,' Thelene emphasized her words with consequence, 'This Plan, long in the making, should ultimately free your world.'

Daryl could grasp this somewhat, however, he couldn't help but ask: 'What has this to do with Jack?'

'Patience. Still much needed upon your world...' Thelene smiled softly, however. 'I was just coming to that, young one.' She blinked at Daryl and momentarily he saw elf-lights dance in the corners of her silver-reflective gaze.
  'Our Plan, then, was to add our own genetically-enhanced material, to your own. As we are the progenitors of the Keltic race, you were of our own make and making, as it were, and our altogether salubrious 'upgrades' should be absorbed and assimilated quite naturally and without rejection or resistance by the host subject.
  'No, Daryl,' she shook her head, holding up a slim white hand, seeing Daryl shift and begin another inquiry, 'recombinant DNA it isn't. We are the same species, recall. We are merely more evolved. Some many thousands of years ahead of your people...but of the same basic 'stock', as you would say.'

'The reasoning behind this bold move, was to further your peoples' evolution somewhat, so that you could be able at least, to see The Great Trap set upon your world, and to avoid it, thereby granting your release and escape from what, elsewhere, is known as 'The Prison Planet'. You can see, what others cannot at this point. Most are simply willing sheep, to follow their leaders to their useless slaughter...to die as they have lived, like beasts used only to enrich the privileged few.'

'A built-in bullshit-detector,' supplied Yeats, crudely, but helpfully...


Daryl was frowning and nodded slightly. 'Yes, I have long thought as much. And, attempted to pass the word along, to those with ears to hear, as they say...  It always was utterly amazing to me, how others could blithely go along with whatever the government or society deemed the norm, or even, what was 'best', when it seemed so obviously, glaringly wrong and even dangerous to the point of total world-annihilation!'
 'It was even more apparent especially in America, where it was said, 'Fascism would come wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross--'; one might add: 'and a gun.' You could make the people do anything at all, or not do anything!--simply by hiding it neath these handy cloaks. As long as people can kill one another with their weapons of choice, and fall upon their knees to an agreed-upon savior whilst waving a flag, all was well with my countrymen.
  'And, when the PTB made it impossible for any but the very wealthy to be educated, it became child's play to bombard the masses with screeching pundits filling folk with fear that what they loved most, more than their own children, would be taken from them: their beloved weapons to kill one another. Mass insanity, sanctioned and bankrolled by the wealthy behind their bunker doors...and it worked, beautifully. Leaving us...' Daryl sighed wearily, '...where we now are...underground, in a virtual world, devoid of air and water, atmosphere irreversibly toxic with poisons...'

Thelene looked with compassion upon Daryl, allowing his outburst, as he so obviously needed to vent. She flicked a eye toward Yeats, who spoke then.
  'True, the Others have had more than a hand in the affairs of the world, and for many thousands of years.
And, thanks to the treaty between your country and the Others, They Own You! You abide in what is now their territory! A Devil's Bargain, that!
  'But the patriarchy and corporatocracy are poised to fall soon, as the planet has at last come nearly to the end of its ability to host the lifeforms upon it.
  'The Others had whispered grand and glorious words of power; all to be had, if the PTB would only join them in their despoilment...which they merrily did.
  'What they did not realize, however, that the Others wished the world for themselves alone, and that their earthly minions would be summarily dealt with: to dust; along with the rest. Satraps are rarely magnanimous, in the End...they merely had lesser tyrants do their dirty work for them, before dispatching their little lick-spittals to the hells they so readily deserved...'

Thelene put a warning hand upon Yeats' arm then, with a slight shake of her head. 'No one forced anyone. Ever.'
She regarded Daryl once more.
  'A free-will universe it remains. However, without education, a people bound by ignorance cannot evolve out of chains they are unable to perceive.'  She folded her hands upon her lap.
  'We merely helped our folk to become aware of what lay beyond the veils, somewhat. Helped them, to help themselves.'

Daryl knew all that she was imparting, however...there were questions, still.
  'Surely, not only the Keltic progenitors are concerned about their people on my world...? And, if the Others have so much of the planet in a stranglehold?'

Thelene smiled a real smile at last. 'Yes! Exactly! Now you see where the formation of the League began! We found other allies in our quest to free the people of Terra...and, we all were labeled 'renegades',thus!' She nodded.
  'The Pleiadian 'renegades', had a hand long ago in the genetics of many Native American tribes; in North, South and Central America, Asia and elsewhere. Sirian brotherhoods oversaw the development of much of Africa and beyond...the list is lengthy one. All, share our quest for your ultimate freedom from tyranny All, exist in what is, to most in your world, an alternate reality or dimension. All, are your ancestors.  All, are part of the League.'

Daryl cleared his throat. 'And...as to Jack, my Lady?'

Thelene leaned to Daryl, hand upon his arm once again. And, again, Daryl settled into calmness. She smiled.
  'All is well with our Jack. He is, of course, one of our star-seeds. Like yourself.' She nodded.
  'You see, the dormant strands of his DNA were programmed at birth; programmed with a time-release sequence of transition, to activate, slowly, and 'naturally' as possible, incrementally. Results of this were noticeable in his high IQ, and inherent proclivities in the sciences...' Thelene trailed off...

                      

She took Daryl's hand in hers. 'Now, Daryl...after Jack came in close contact with the Atlantean crystal, it seems to have...sped up the process. All of his once-dormant DNA strands have been activated, suddenly.' She patted his hand. 'It is something like a spontaneous kundalini-activation, of the yogis and yoginis.
 'And it is, ultimately, a good thing. And, well for Jack that we are here, to aid his acclimatization to this new way of being and perceiving. He is, perhaps, closer to our frequencies now, than to your own.'

Daryl's frown deepened. 'What does this mean, Thelene. It is worrying, all...this...'

'Jack will be fine,' Yeats sat forward, hands clasped. 'He...is still the same young man you knew. And, then some. However, he will be needing some time and space to realign himself with his new...abilities.'

'Which is why, we have kept him here with us this long,' Thelene continued. 'Now that we know what has transpired, we can better guide him, and give him all he may need, while he is...processing the changes.'

'Soon, however,' Yeats added, 'Jack will be able to return to Crowley Place. It will also help him to heal; being back on Terra firma and in familiar surroundings.
I have informed Dr. Parsons of what has transpired, and we, of course, will be nearby in case of need.'

Daryl nodded, seeing more of the big picture now. Although he himself, needed time to process it all, as well...     However, now with Jack back on the road to recovery, although somewhat rocky, perhaps he now would be able to turn his attention to his other problem: Emlyn.

'Ah, yes...' Thelene smile was rather rueful. 'We are aware of Emlyn's journeying... But, Gwydion is her distant kinsmen, Daryl! However distant, the Twyleth Teg still are much closer blood-kin to Emlyn than we. And, so, we would not presume to intrude into such private affairs. But, I do understand your...anxiety over her welfare.
  'Gwydion is...as he is. He will not injure Emlyn, never fear. And, I believe this adventure will give her much to think on in days to come.'

Days to come...Daryl realized now that he'd no idea of the Time spent here.
  'How long...? Ah, that is...in Terran, 3-D terms, When will I be, now, upon my return?'

'Ah, well...' Yeats looked at a non-existent watch absent from his wrist. 'I believe that, should you wish to take your leave of us, you will find yourself returned to Nob Hill, soon in time for the Winter Solstice.'

                        . . . .

WATCH!!AND LISTEN: WOODEN SHIPS -- CROSBY/STILLS/NASH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2e2kC-geMI
WOODEN SHIPS
  Intro :  D  A  G  Em  Am7
  Em                        Am7      
Fmaj7
  If you smile at me I will understand
 Em                                              
      Am7  Fmaj7 Em
 Cause that is something everybody everwhere does
in the same language
  Em                                      
       Am7   Fmaj7
  I can see by you coat my friend you're
from the other side
  Em                                      
       Am7     Fmaj7
  There's just one thing I've got to know
can you tell me please
  Em        Am7
  Who won?
  Em
  Hey can I have some of your purple
berries
  Am7                           Em
  Yes I've been eating them for six or
seven weeks now
              Am7       Fmaj7            
Em          Am7
  Haven't got sick once, probably keep us
both alive
 D A G   Em                        G  A D
  Wooden ships on the water very free
      Em                            G    
A  D
  And easy you know the way it's supposed
to be
  Em                             G   A  D
  Silver people on the shoreline let us be
                Cmaj7         Em7    Am7
Em Am7
  Talkin' `bout very free and easy
 D A G   Em                    G     A   D
  Horror grips us as we watch you die
      Em                           G A    
  D
  And all we can do is echo you're
anguished cry
  Em                 G  A     D
  Stare as all human feelings die
         Cmaj7             Em7     Am7 Em
Am7
  We are leaving you don't need us
 D A G Em                    G  A   D
  Go take a sister then by the hand
      Em                      G  A    D
  And lead her away from this foreign land
  Em                      G     A D
  Far away where we might laugh again
         Cmaj7             Em7   Am7
  We are leaving you don't need
            Em7        Am7 ...
  You don't need us                      

Chapter 32 - I Must Away, Love
Ariel to Prospero -
'...the King's ship, in the deep nook, where once thou call'st me up at midnight to fetch dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes...'

Prospero to Ariel -
'...Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax?
...This blue-eyed Hag was hither brought with child...'
-Shakespeare
-'The Tempest'
                      . . . .


    
'You may be a schmatt guy, but you are still the veriest fool.'
  Flubber squinted down at Jack, grimacing around his pipe stem. Jack, meanwhile had been so rocked by this supposed 'news' that he hadn't realized how rocked he was, along with the rest of the boat.

'Quiet!' Morgana raised a hand, as she headed into the pilot house and turned up the radio.

Flubber spun a 180 and found himself facing a dark and threatening skyscape upon the horizon. The boat was rocking in earnest now.  
  'Come on, John! You've got to turn me loose! If a hurricane's coming, we could all die out here!' Jack nodded at the gathering storm. 'I can help.'

Flubber just stared at the black and steadily building stormclouds, saying nothing. The wind began to flog the sails...

'Just tell me this,' Jack said, 'Which side are we on? East or west of the islands?'

John at last dragged his gaze back to Jack. 'The Atlantic, of course...' He finally began to tack back. 'That's where we want to head, Jack...'

'No. Get out of the path of it, John! I've been in hurricanes, man; you can't even stand up!' Jack knew they were doomed; Flubber and Morgana mad as hatters.     'You'll never outrun it, John...they can travel 15 to 25 knots or more--up to 800 miles wide...and the swells...' Jack couldn't hear NOAA, but he could see the storm gaining on them and felt the wind whipping him, lashed as he was to the mast, like a sacrifice to the Sirens...which he was, he now guessed; or to one in particular.
 'Reef the sails, John! Please! Let me loose, and I'll do whatever you say, just let me help!'

'"Winds gusting to 40 knots!"' Morgana yelled from the cabin, echoing NOAA warnings.

'Alright! Alright!' John yelled, and, at last, thankfully, unlocked the cuff on Jack and cut the ropes from his legs. 'Reef that bad boy and then just do like I say, alright?' Jack noticed then the Luger John had pointed at his guts. 'Don't forget who's the captain here. A memory lapse would be fatal.'

Jack said nothing but got to work hauling and securing sails now flapping angrily in the wild wind, while John attempted to steer the ship.
 '"Winds increasing to 55 knots! Swells reported upwards of 10 meters!"' Morgana reported, doing little else, until she looked up at said swells now nearly half that, and promptly vomited like a big dog...

'"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!!"' Flubber yelled, completely bughouse.

                       

The storm was upon them.
Jack was glad he couldn't hear the meshugga dementoid now for the roar of the wind and sea. Morgana was on her knees, hugging the doorframe of the pilot house and retching fairly constant now.
  He slowly pulled his way along a rope he'd secured, inching closer to John.
 'Come about, man! We can still get away from the worst of it!' --Maybe, thought Jack. But heading directly into it was psychotic.

Flubber stood his ground, gun jammed in his belt, and grimaced.
  The sound was unbelievable; waves washed over the sides of the yacht, drenching them both. Huge swells, white with foam like mad dogs, broadsided the craft, making it shudder.
  'Come about!' Jack held on to the mast, but barely; thinking all had turned to shite.  But, looking up, the storm was nothing compared to what he now saw before them, and where they seemed to be headed; inescapably. Utterly. And fatally...

A dark hole had opened up out of the ocean, an unseeing eye that swept the sea around it in tight, inexorable spirals; a giant whirlpool, the mother of all whirlpools, the Whirlpool of the Gods...and into It's hungry maw was where their little craft was surely headed.

                               
                            . . . .

'Atlantis?'
Emlyn thought on this; she'd read Ignatius Donnelly. Even Samuel Butler's 'Erewhon'. And other fancies...
  But, the Sidhe were long-lived, and so their memories and histories must perforce edge near the World's Beginnings. Still...


                        

 

 

'You are doubtful, I ken.' Gwydion smiled. 'Ah, "fair Atlantis" --in the beginning, perhaps. Yet, not so fair by the end of it all.' He kept Gwen to a brisk walk
along the leaf-strewn pathways of gold and crimson.
  'As in this future time of which you have spoken, so too, was Atlantis corrupted and, in the end, destroyed by the hubris of men; believing themselves above and apart from those they deemed 'below' them, encluding the planet itself. A great and terrible mistake, that. As Mother Earth will ever remind mankind.'

More and more like Daryl, is this Sidhe Lord, Em couldn't help but think. Is it all in my own mind then?--what I perceive as 'reality'?

'Somewhat, perhaps...' Gwydion leaned about to catch her eye, knowing she knew what he knew, which was what she was thinking.

'Indeed, IF, and a grand IF that be!--If humankind might ever align itself upon fair and equal terms with their bretheren, and naturally and most importantly, with their other and better 'halves': their sorors!--perhaps they may at last realize their true natures and the attendant boons that would entail. Then they would know the Earth as a living, intelligent and Great Being Herself, as are all upon it. They would become Aware, and the very stones would speak to them, teaching them secrets and mysteries long forgotten...'

Emlyn was silent for some while, pondering: the pyramids, and Stonehenge. Someone, some Time had such knowledge, obviously.
  As she breathed in the clear, sweet air about them, scented with the damp earth and leaves, she felt she was but upon an Island of the natural world, while all about her, men carved great jagged gashes into the heart of mother earth, there to wrench forth her minerals to create more machines; for enrichment of the few and to the exhaustion of the factory workers...green growing things trampled and uprooted, leaving only a vast empire of steel and iron, choked with smoke and poison...a vision of hell, it was...

'Daryl, my guardian, would say that people are only driven to prejudice by fear. Fear of not having enough; fear of the foreign usurper,' Em mused aloud.

'Yes,' sighed Gwydion, 'Fear brought about by stark ignorance...those who know, sayeth not, while those who knoweth nought, speak both loud and long. Ignorance, alas, begets only more and more ignorance. And ultimate violence. So goes your world.'

Em stiffened. 'And, to us then, our due? If others know better, why say they not, then?'

'"I danced upon the Sabbath, and was hung upon a Tree..."' Gwydion sang. 'There are those who know. And knowing what was done to those had gone before, who also knew, they kept their silence, and so, their heads.'

Em sighed in her turn. She bethought then of Daryl, and what had become of him, as a Cathar...and One who Knew...couldn't argue with that. 'Is there never hope for my world?'

'There is always hope, my Lady Love.' Gwydion squeezed her waist to him, and kissed her hair. 'But, I see that the graces of Caer Gwydion are no match for your fevered brain. You are a singular one, now! Most are utterly enchanted by my realm! You would bring your world with you, to rub elbows 'til most raw and chapped, against mine here! I had hoped to entrance you, and to give you some pleasure, beauty and peace...'

'I am enraptured, My Lord...or I'd not have remained with you so long in this place...' Em smiled to herself; to be 'reassuring' the Lord of the Sidhe!   'Still, I feel we are but within the eye of the hurricane here, whilst frenzied winds do rage all about us...'

'That will never do!' Gwydion purred in her ear, as his hand went from Emlyn's waist to her hair, and stroked her long elf-locked mane of scarlet, down to her thigh, and ran a hand along it, shocking her senses.
  'You have been too long in my company alone, perhaps...Oh, yes! Though it pains me, I see I cannot be your All-in-All; even I, the Lord of the Cambrian Sidhe, the Twyleth Teg, must seek beyond myself to keep my Lady best-pleased...
  'I have it: we shall have a ball, to-night! A costume ball! And there will be such music, drink and dancing as never you have dreamed!'

And declaring thus, Gwydion nudged his fair Gwen into a gallop that took them fast, far and beyond all thought or care of mundane things.

                        . . . .
..::I must away Love
 I can no longer tarry
 The morning Tempest
 I have to cross--
 I will be guided
 Without a star, now
 Into the arms that
 I love the best::..
-I Must Away, Love
-Halali

                         . . . .

Ferdinand:
Though the seas threaten,
They are merciful
I have cursed them without cause.
Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'

                        *  *  *  *

Jack had managed to get Morgana, who had fainted, clipped into a harness, noting that water had drenched all computers; radar and electronics fried. Amazed that Flubber kept an old VHF radio, he put his ear upon the speaker and was somehow able to get a weak signal from Maritime Radio on the old dinosaur, for all the good that would do them now... Emerging from the cockpit, Jack was knocked to his knees by another frothing mountain of water...

When he could see again, he was wishing he couldn't: they had lost all control of the craft and were caught in the maelstrom now, circling ever-nearer the great Mouth of the Monster which swallowed all in it's path... Flubber had lashed himself to the helm; not that it did any good, the rudder busted long since.
  The daft idjit had at last been bashed senseless and flopped about like a ragdoll. Jack had realized long before, that Flubber had relieved him of all he'd had on him, encluding his homing device, which was now rendered inoperable, if not washed overboard.

Jack now secured a line to himself and the cockpit, and as the boat neared the awesome Black Hole, he shook his head thinking that he'd never expected to go this way; enemies all around, and without even a friend to speak a farewell to. He hung his head and decided to forgive them all...his father, Daryl, even freaking Flubber and Morgana...he didn't want any chains holding him to this mortal coil...he raised his head, his salty tears  blending with the ocean drenching him.
  Ah, Emlyn...if she only knew his last thoughts were of her...

                           
                           . . . .

--'Jack!' He thought he heard a voice calling in the wind. He must be addled...
  'JACK!!' He did hear something! Louder, more insistent. He suddenly felt arms reach out grasping his, cutting the rope which held him onboard. He felt himself being hauled upward--

--into the arms of Yeats!
  'Good gods, man! I can't turn my back for a minute, can I?' Yeats, now drenched by Jack, smiled grimly at him.

Jack hadn't time or energy to register anything else; he looked down, just in time to see the yacht sail spinning into the abominable Black Maw and become swallowed out of sight...
  He vaguely noted an opening in the bottom of a craft above them and himself being heaved inside by Yeats.
  His battered body and senses were at last at the end of his reserves though, and as he lay on the floor of the craft in a pool of seawater, his eyes went up into his head as his eyelids fluttered, and Jack's racing brain was stilled awhile, at long last.

Mr. Yeats leaned back on his elbows, panting and soaked to the bone;
 'You're welcome,' he said.

                           . . . .

WATCH Halali-- I Must Away, Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2KgbgGzL2A

Chapter 31 - Dreams of Futures Past

Chapter 31 - Dreams of Futures Past

Sly Old Reynardine

One evening as I rambled among the leaves so green
 I overheard a young woman converse with Reynardine
 Her hair was black, her eyes were blue, her lips as red as wine
 And he smiled to gaze upon her did that sly old Reynardine
 She said, “Kind sir, be civil, my company forsake
 For in my own opinion I fear you are some rake”
 “Oh no,” he said, “no rake am I, brought up in Venus train
 But I'm seeking for concealment all along the lonesome plain
 Your beauty so enticed me I could not pass it by
 So it's with my gun I'll guard you along the mountains high
 And if by chance you should look for me perhaps you'll not me find
 For I'll be in my castle, inquire for Reynardine"
 Sun went dark, she followed him, his teeth did brightly shine
 And he led her over the mountains did that sly old Reynardine

--Traditional

                        

                       * * * *
'Tell me more...'
Emlyn lay upon a green bower, in a evergreen glade; surrounded by ferns and flowers. Her couch itself was soft as a featherbed and spread with richly woven tapestries and pillows in shades of deep greens, blues, turquoise and burgundy, shot with threads of gold.
 Soft music stirred gently upon the air of harp and lute while the warm lustre of small amber lamps encircled them with a rosy glow. Breezes carried the scent of cinnamon and pine.

Gwydion carried two earthenware cups to her side and setting them upon a low table, sat beside her and smiled...absently stroking the scarlet locks straying about her shoulders.

'Tell me more of home. Of Wales, in ages past...'

He handed one of the cups to her, pottery brown with a gold and cobalt glaze; small spirals encircling the bowl. She looked at him, then took the cup.
 'Must I 'ware of faery drink?' she asked with a wry smile.

'Only if you believe so.' His warm hand curved about hers upon the cup. 'But, speak you of 'home',' his gaze took in the glade about them. 'Could this not be your home, my Lady?'

'It could be, easily,' she sipped daintily, '...perhaps too easily.'

'Ah. How so?' Gwydion leaned back upon one elbow, taking up his cup in turn.

Emlyn sighed gently. 'I don't believe that it is my calling in life, to take my ease here. Not yet.'

Gwydion nodded. They drank of the golden wine scented with jasmin and tasting of clear mountain springs; a tang of citrus and honey.
 'Home, say you. Our true home, the home of the Celts, is long gone, you know. Ages upon ages past.'

Em was surprised to hear that; apparently what Daryl had said about a lost planet, now the asteroid belt, was true then. Gwydion looked deep in her eyes and nodded. 'Just so.' His gaze dropped and he drank of his wine.

Inhaling, he met her eyes once more and smiled.
'So, then. We all gather about the big bonfire, the Coel Coeth, which blazes through the night, and when the last spark is finally out, folk call out: 'The Cutty Black Sow take the hindmost!' and all take to their heels for home...'

'Ah. That's where 'devil take the hindmost' comes from then.' she grinned. 'In the colonies, we lose our roots so easily...one forgets where things originated.'

Gwydion nodded. 'That is what bedevils, if you will, your new country, indeed. Folk have not that rootedness to the land, you see. And so they feel free to defile; to decimate the buffalo, to over-graze their herds, to deforest the hills to erosion, to poison the land and water in their du lust for gold...' His green eyes blazed near-gold then as his gaze bore down upon her.

Em met his gaze, and agreed with her eyes.
'"Du",' she said, '...'dark' is it?'

'Black, indeed.' Gwydion meant business. But Em was up for a challenge.
  '...I, was warned against you, yourself, you know...' Here the Sidhe Lord smiled once more, well-pleased at that.
  'Indeed?'

'Aye.' She set down her cup. '"Gwydion the Trickster, the Magician", I was told. And, of course, one is cautioned against the Fay in general. And...' she decided to go out on that far-reaching limb, '...it is said there are even stranger beings of Otherworlds.'

Gwydion crossed his knees and folded his hands about them, oddly reminding her of Uncle Daryl. She banished the memory...
  'Indeed there are, Lady. Many.' He looked up and about them. 'We are safe from their reach. They do not quest here.' He paused, frowning abit, thinking.
  '...However, they do, quest upon your world; and, now that the Way has been Breached from your side, you have aligned yourself more with their frequencies.'

...Sounding more like Daryl all the time, Em thought.
  'You did ask,' he told her, again binding her gaze to his. At last he looked elsewhere, and sighed.
  'Tis a free-will universe and like will attract like. Is it any real shock to find rievers and raiders seeking prey upon a planet of same?'

So, Daryl was right...Em was not pleased to realize.
She frowned. 'I'm still...much confounded by this...
So, what are we to do, then?'

'Be yourself.' His eyes studied hers, golden lights dancing within. No one had ever gripped her with a gaze as did Gwydion. 'I know your soul and spirit, cariad, and it would not allow you to do other than good.'
  Em looked down, blushing. But he touched her chin with his finger, bringing her head to rights. 'My wee cig oen...' he smiled.

'What is that?' asked Em tentatively.
  '"Lamb", he stroked her cheek, '...so soft...'

'Does that make you a wolf, then?' she dared sass the Sidhe.

It fazed not Gwydion, who then took her in his arms and eased himself down upon her bower. 'Nay...tis a Llew, am I, a Lion...made thus, to lie down with the Lamb...'

                       . . . .

Emlyn and Gwydion walked through the morning mists of the grounds of Caer Gwydion; the sun high as they slept late (whatever was late or early here, though, seemed arbitrary and capricious, Em noted...sometimes they were abed as the stars rose with the moon just after sunset, and then asleep again by noon, only to rise with the dusk and walk, sing, dance throughout the long evenings; which may end with a seeming sunrise and then, finding yet another starry night hard on its heels...

Emlyn was not the least discomfited by these chancy capers of sun and moon...here the day was not so bright, the colors not so glaring to the eyes; while the evenings were, contrary-wise, not as dim; indeed, pale colors glowed softly as if lighted from within, and one could stroll through a wood easily as if t'were daylight, a seeming Twilight ever accompanied the moon's regnancy.

Gwydion paused as the wood opened onto a meadow, and whistled thrice, sounding more like a bird's call than a man's. A thunder of hooves announced the approach of a white stallion, gold mane flying...just as in tales of old, thought Em, quite giddy with delight.

'Shaa, shuh-shuh...' Gwydion whispered to the faery steed, stroking his grand head, and producing a green apple from his pocket, handed it to Em, who offered it to the lordly beast, which was received with dainty gusto.

'He's magnificent!' Emlyn stroked his elegant features, as the fey creature breathed in her scent and then she turned up her chin and nose-to-nose with him, they exchanged breaths. Just as would a mundane equine would do, then he snorted and shook his head, and began to graze at their feet.
 'I have seldom, if ever, seen such a horse, of such a rare color, or type...' Larger than an Arabian, but with the sculpted, dish-face of that breed, yet somewhat like unto the Andalusian; they of the long, lusterous mane and tail. Small hooves on slender, but muscular legs, with feathered fetlocks which seemed almost like...feathers.

'Nor will you see any like, anywhere but Here. He is a faery horse.' His eyes danced merrily. 'I call him Gwyn, of course.'

Of course, thought Em, patting the sleek neck. 'Gwyn, meaning 'white, shining'...' Em knew that much, and more: she also bethought of Gwyn ap Nudd --"fair/white son of Nudd"--the abductor of the maiden Creiddylad after her elopement with Gwythr ap Greidawl, a long-time rival of his. He helped Culhwch hunt the boar Twrch Trwyth, and in later legends he was king of the "fair folk", the Tylwyth Teg.


Gwydion laughed. 'Ah, that Gwyn, indeed. The father of us all, well...of many, let us say! He was ever the one for abducting maidens fair. But, here...'
  He cupped his hands and made a stirrup, helping Em up on the stallion's back. 'I can see you two are friends already...' Grabbing a handful of mane, he hoisted himself up behind her and took firm hold of her waist.

Bending about her over the stallion's great neck, he then whispered, 'Let us fly!' And fly they did, Mercury-like, Gwyn needing little encouragment to take to his feathered heels...

                     . . . .

                          

Later, as they walked with the great horse sedately by the flowing river, (Which was named 'Dee', also; like unto it's worldly sister in Wales, Em learned), Gwydion pulled up their mount allowing him to graze; he slid from the faery steed's back then, and reached up to help Emlyn down beside him.

They strolled along, Gwyn following, (not something many unbridled mundane steeds would do, thought Em), and Emlyn breathed in the warm fall air scented with brown leaves and grasses, noting with pleasure that although the breezes blew here, and the leaves fell, the trees themselves were never denuded. It had always made Em rather sad to see the last of autumn...

Gwydion spun her round into his arms as he leant back upon a mossy rock. He kissed her neck, saying, 'Here you may never want for lack of leaves, in all their fine fall rainments...'

Emlyn smiled, and fingered the moonstone about her neck. She wondered, for the first time, how long she had been here. She'd given little thought to those she'd left behind, or indeed, of anything but Here and Now. Surely, she'd been here only a day or twa...

Gwydion was silent. He gazed beyond her, sighing, and pulled her to him. He rested his chin upon her crimson head. 'A ceiniog for your thoughts, Lady...'

Em sighed in turn. 'I...I just realized I haven't thought of anything or anyone back home, since I've been here...'

Gwydion frowned, looking at her then. 'I thought this was 'home' to you now.'

Emlyn bit her lip, thinking. It wasn't easy to focus here... 'It is. I hope, in fact, someday, that it may be my home, for good and all.'

'But, not yet?'

Em looked down at the leafy carpet beneath their feet, swishing the colors together with her toe, like a painter mixing her palette.
  'I have some friends, back...back in California, who have journey'd through Time.'

Gwydion smiled. 'Indeed? The Van Horns, you're speaking of?'

'You know them!?' Em looked at him, aghast.

'Not personally, no...' Gwydion took her hand and they sat upon the large mossy stones scattered about.
'It was Daryl Van Horn, was it not, who was so ferociously intent upon us, the night we left?'

Em sighed shortly. 'Yes, it was he. Anyway,' she endeavored to return to the topic at hand, 'they came bearing ill tidings of the future. They returned, I believe, to try to alter that course somehow.'

'Ah. I see. Men of vision.' Gwydion pulled a grass-stem and chewed upon it, musing. 'Tis a tricky contrivance, that. Time.'

'Contrivance?'

'Aye, just so. To fool the folk into linear thinking.
Once, all knew time to be circular, you see, not an unnaturally straight line from beginning to end. In the cycle of the seasons, the Mother makes this plain to all, with eyes to see.'


'That's just it, my Lord, people don't see! Especially in their time. And, I must admit, that in the city, I lose touch with the natural rhythm of nature...' Emlyn looked troubled. 'I would wish that there was something I could do...'

Gwydion looked intently upon her. His hand went to her hair...she had left it long, making small braids randomly about. Elf-locks, he bethought.
  'You are so much like Seren, your mother.'

Emlyn studied him now, intent. 'You knew my mother?'

'Of course. We are kin. As are you and I, my darling dear. Cariad...' he put a hand upon her shoulder. 'Not close kin! But, all Kelts are kin to the Sidhe, who came there, to your world, from the stars, as was told in your legends of the Tuatha de Danann.   And, as you have the Welsh blood of your mother, so too, have you ours.' He kissed her hand softly.
  'And, as the Sons and Daughters of Don are the progenitors and guardians of the Welsh, so am I, your guardian, blood-brother, and lover. Husband, if you would have me. Stay, Lady...and be my Queen...'

Emlyn felt rocked to her core. She was moved beyond measure. This was all she could ever wish! But, it would mean leaving the battleground below, and it made her heart-sore. She choked back a sob, thinking that tears had no place in this world beyond travail.

'Ah. There, now...druan a chi!' Gwydion held her close, rocking her slowly, and began a slow waltz with her, as he hummed a quiet tune, familiar and yet not...
  'What does that mean?' Em sniffed.
  He kissed the top of her head. 'It means sommat like, 'you poor wee thing!' Isn't that how we comfort one another? Tis not so different here...'

They stayed thus awhile, as Em got over her fit of sentimentality, as she bethought it, strangely melancholy suddenly. She felt a cold breath of air upon the back of her neck then, and Gwyn raised his head, snuffing the wind. She felt a Presentiment. And she thought then of Jack.

Gwydion was no fool, he. 'Hmm. Well, think on things some while then. I'm not going anywhere, you know!' He smiled, then became serious. 'It is an odd place, this new country you have adopted, Lady...some say, that it has called to it the souls of those lost beneath the Great Wave.'

'What is this?' Em looked up at him, as they ceased their dance. 'Do you mean the tale of Noah's Ark?'

'Nay, Lady. Long, long ago; ages before the god of the Hebrews came with his fire and brimstone...' He called Gwen to him and they mounted, heading back to Caer Gwydion. The Lord of the Sidhe sighed deeply. 'For 'tis Olde Atlantis, of which I speak...'

                       . . . .

Chapter 30 - Ascend and Descend

Chapter 30 - Ascend and Descend

..::We touched down in the Hollow Mountains just after dawn...Here, well north of Caerdroia, it was already autumn, and I looked in wonder at the spectacular fall tapestry that lay unrolled at my feet; red, yellow, gold, the shine-purple of sumacs, brown oak, with the bone-white of trees already bare veining themselves like ghost rivers out of the flaming colored map of the forest wall.
 ...A subtle vibration and before I could cry out to Arthur we were taken up and set down again a few blank moments later before the great silver gates I well remembered.
 ...The gates swung open soundlessly and I was not a whit surprised to see Gwyn son of Nudd, prince of the Sidhe...
 'There is indeed much to be done, for now all times run short until the end.' He gestured us to follow him and we passed the gates into the Dun.
  'We are going to Merlynn Llwyd,' I said suddenly, and certainly.
 ...The curtain of spark-shotten darkness seemed to turn to silver brightness before us; and Merlyn Llwyd was there.
 ...I paused again for my voice began to tremble, and however understandable that may have been, for Taliesin, not so for a bard and Pen-bardd.
  'So I ask you now, how came the Lady Cathelin to know of us--she who came to Keltia long before most of us were even born, much less named or crowned or chaired as bard or wizard? How came Earth to have tales of us here in Keltia centuries before we ever even were?...'
  The living, speaking Merlynn faded briefly, and the sleeping Merlynn shone strongly through, as a pulse-star will do far in its corner of space; then they were once more as they had been.
  'Those tales your mother loved so on Earth and brought with her to Keltia,' said Merlynn, and I all but died at the gentleness in his voice, 'were not tales of things as they had been but things as they would be.'::..
The Hedge of Mist - V. III of the Tales of Arthur
Patricia Kennealy Morrison
                   * * * *
A Twilight World...
 Emlyn's impression; as she strode, or glided, rather, hand-in-hand, with the Sidhe Lord ~ an impression of a hall, yet instead of pillars a-sides, there reached tall silver birches soaring high above, creating archways of autumn leaves beneath the indigo sky where stars could be seen shining betwixt and between...her feet seemed to sink into a soft carpet of mossy green and the air stirred with slight breezes bearing the scent of hay newly mown and fresh flowers, and which sounded an almost sub-audible tinkling of small silver bells, with an occasional low chime in counterpoint. She also discerned the rush of a river somewhere beyond the hall of trees...and a soft amber glow like candlelight shone amidst the tree tops and sides.
Fire-fly-like points of light flitted occasionally in the canopy of leaves above them, wafting a sparkling trail behind...
  No one else was about, no tables laden with fairy fare and drink, no mad dances or capers here in Gwydion's hall...all seemed peaceful however, and not empty. It was the aliveness of nature, restful after sunset.
  Gwydion smiled down at her. 'I wished to make your welcome here a pleasant and peaceful one.' He glanced about, '...Find you Caer Gwydion to your liking then, my Lady?'

                         

Emlyn was altogether Enchanted. 'It is perfect, my Lord...' Indeed, if Em could have created the best and most comfortable environment she could dream, it would in no whit differ. 'It's...everything I could possibly desire.' She sighed, closing her eyes; 'The scents upon the wind are like ambrosia to me! The soft bells, the water-flow, soothe every overwrought nerve,' she opened her eyes and gazed at the sky of star and leaf, '...and my favorite color in all the worlds...is this very deep cobalt blue...'
  She stopped suddenly, and took both his hands in hers. He turned to her and smiled, gazing dreamily upon her, as she looked close into his grey-green eyes like forest pools.
  'It feels like I have, at long last, come home.'
                       . . . .
..::Nephthys (Nebt-het, Nebhet)
Symbols: kite, crow, bones and skulls
Cult Center: Heliopolis
Nephthys was the daughter of Geb and Nut and the sister of Osiris, Isis and Seth. She was also the wife of Seth. The name "Nebt-het" means the "lady of the house." By "house" it is understood to be the portion of the sky where Horus lived. Nephthys was portrayed as a woman wearing on her head the symbol of her name, or the symbol on top of a pair of horns.
Her son was Anubis, whose father was Osiris. Some myths say that Nephthys intoxicated Osiris and seduced him, thus creating Anubis. Yet others say that she disguised herself as her sister Isis, Osiris' wife, and became pregnant by him. It was Nephthys' affair with Osiris which enraged Seth and was one of his motives for murdering Osiris.
Since the earliest of times, Nephthys was considered to be Seth's counterpart and wife. She was always associated with him.
"Ascend and descend; descend with Nephthys, sink into darkness with the Night-bark. Ascend and descend; ascend with Isis, rise with the Day-bark."
Pyramid Text Utterance 222 line 210::..

                       * * * *

Jack meanwhile, was feeling not at all comfortable; he felt, in fact, angry as hell and quite desperate. Nothing for it, he told himself; and leapt over the side.

'Maaaan Overboard!' yelled Flubber, who grabbed a rope and tying a loop, flung it far and netted Jack neatly about the neck. 'Don't struggle thar, lil' doggie! Don't want you to choke yourself!' He then  began to haul Jack back, who was writhing, trying to free himself of the wet noose tight about his neck.

He didn't. Morgana meanwhile had shouldered a rifle and had him in her cross-hairs. A second later, Jack felt a sting in his shoulder and saw the dart poking from it. That was the last he saw...

                        . . . .

Trussed up like a turkey, Jack was now sitting lashed to the mast, chin to his chest, eyes shut. Morgana draped herself in a lounge chair while 'El Juan' Flubber chomped upon a pipe and studied maps, a skipper's cap crowning his red and peeling pate.
A low moan was heard from Jack's direction...

'Ah, sleeping beauty awakes!' Flubber turned, regarding their prize, grinning around his pipe stem. 'Alright, Jack!?' he called.

Jack blinked blearily and squinted about him at the unchanging scenery: blue above, blue below. Damn. Still here. His head swam. Too bad the rest of him hadn't. 'No,' he croaked. 'Thirsty...'

Sighing, Flubber heaved himself from his captain's chair and brought a water bottle to Jack. 'Open wide!' he raised his brows and popped his frog-eyes at Jack, who drank the cool liquid in grateful, choking swallows. 'Why desert the ship, matey? We're just getting started.'

Jack tried to focus. 'Where are we?'

'Guess.' Flubber grinned still, but his eyes were menacing. 

Jack had some sailor's experience, but not nearly as much as his dad or uncle. He studied the sky and at last hazarded an answer. 'I'd say...somewhere in the Caribbean.'

'Bingo! Me boyo!' Flubber turned to Morgana. 'Jack has deigned to join us once more, my dear! Do bring us the maps and perhaps some comestibles and a wee sommat to slake our thrist, eh?'

Morgana took no notice. She flipped her sunglasses on but otherwise made no move.

  'Women. Bad luck aboard ship...or anywhere, for some, eh, Jack? The Lady of the House, appears to be indisposed...' Flubber said in his best W.C. Fields as he shuffled off below and later reappeared carrying a picnic hamper. Jack had to admit he was ravenous...how long had it been since he'd eaten? He'd no idea the date.

Sighing once more, Flubber hand-cuffed Jack to the mast with one hand and untied the ropes about his upper body, leaving his legs tied tight.
 'You can fend for yourself now, here--' he mumbled as he set out sandwiches and opened cans of beer.

Jack fell upon the food like a hungry bear whilst Flubber fetched the maps and his chair, and sat beside Jack, taking a sandwich and munching casually.
  'Now. We should be...nearly on track...if this map is anywhere near correct...?' his voice took on an edge as he narrowed his gaze at Morgana, who slowly looked up and then oozed from her chair and came over to the men, draping herself about Flubber and
regarding the map from over his shoulder.

Jack took a guzzle of beer and finally felt his head clear somewhat once he had some food in him. 'Why are we in the Bahamas, in the middle of hurricane season? This is the worst part of the Caribbean for storms. We should head south.'

'Who died and made you skipper?' Flubber squinted at Jack, his mouth a grimace around his pipe. He looked about them. 'All seems a bucolic blue and not a wrinkle on the sea, eh, m'dear?'

'Lucky sea...' Morgana purred, and pulling her lounge near, took a cluster of grapes and began to feed.

Idiots, thought Jack. Gods I have to get away from these fogheads. 'You DO have a radio, at least?'

Flubber just looked at him, saying nothing. He took up a remote control and punched a button. NOAA crackled to life in the pilot house. Flubber turned the disembodied voice down to a murmur, and took up his map. After munching down another sandwich and starting on a chicken leg, Flubber said something of interest at last:
  'We're taking the route taken by Drake. And I don't mean Sir Francis.' He looked up at Jack, all pretense gone from his features.

Jack stiffened. He knew exactly what the ghastly little gremlin meant: 'Are you...talking about my father?'

Flubber looked at Morgana. 'Every inch a genius! Of course, my dear, you'd know better than I...' Morgana smiled like a contented cat. Jack felt his insides clench. He was headed to his doom in a ship of fools.
  'What in hell are you playing at!?' he seethed.

'Easy, lad! Don't get your jammies in a twist!' Flubber knocked his pipe ash out against the metal mast making Jack's ears ring. Putting the map aside, he leaned forward, Jack in his sites.
  'Your father had the right of things, all along, you know! A brilliant man!' John shook his fat head.
'If it hadn't been for that damn Daryl!' he flicked a glance at Morgana, who shrugged. 'It was Daryl's bloody interference that kept them all from their goal--tried to turn them around and head for shore...no wonder they wound up where they did.'
He pinned Jack with a hard stare. 'Don't you get any ideas about doing the same now!'

Jack was confused. 'Wait! What do you mean, 'Daryl's interference'...I thought sailing out here had been Daryl's idea.'

Morgana began to giggle and Flubber grinned, chuckling. 'Meester Schmatt Guy!' He laughed, a hidious hyena-like noise. '"Which way I fly is hell; Myself am hell!"--that's Milton, Jack.' He pointed his pipe at Jack and growled...'Another schmatt guy, like you...' He pocketed the pipe.
  'Oh, no...bloody Daryl flew out here and managed to catch Drake and Sarah before they accomplished the Great Work! We could have all been Home by now!
Back to the Beginning, Jack! Back, to Atlantis!'

Great Goddess, these people were banjaxed beyond belief, thought Jack. He was starting to see a crazy zig-zag pattern to it all now... 'You mean...you're actually trying to find...the Bermuda Triangle? You believe the legends of a lost Atlantean crystal that causes all the fluctuating energies here?'

Flubber just shook his head, smiling. 'Such genius!'
He crowed. 'Utterly wasted. Well, perhaps not utterly...eh, m'dear?' he winked at Morgana who had turned their way, smiling still, and rubbing her stomach.

Jack was beginning to feel a little sick. 'I, I'm gonna...' He thrashed onto his side as Flubber flung a bucket his way, just in time.

'Yeah, our girl sometimes has that effect upon a guy...' John screwed his face up at the smell, as he dumped the spew and 'fed the fish'.
  'Well, if it's any consolation, Jack, she'll be puking her own guts out soon enough. A couple more months, perhaps, eh, m'dear?' Flubber's grin was like the smile of Atilla surveying his carnage. 'Wonder if it'll have a jackal's head...?' He wasn't grinning now. 'Tut, tut, Jack! How could you consider escaping our cozy little circle here; couldn't just leave the little larva, now you might be called upon to act: "in loco parentis", as they say. Ah, the ties that bind, and gag, eh, b'hoy?'

Jack choked as he tried to drink some water, then frowned at Morgana, who patted her belly and licked her lips at him. This did not console Jack in the least. As sick as he had been, it was nothing to what he was feeling now...

                        . . . .

Chapter 29 - "Ain't Myth-behavin'..."

Chapter 29 - "Ain't Myth-behavin'..."

.::The Love-Talker:
The gancanagh originated in Ireland and the Hebrides Islands of Scotland although the Irish version of the gancanagh is vastly different than the Scottish. In Scotland, the geancanach element is fire and they are most active at night, and can be found around a blazing fire at your hearthside. They are considered the guardian of the home and hearth and crave the warmth of the fireplace.
In Ireland, the gancanagh is also called the love-talker. He's a debonair man who appeared in lonely glens, smoking his clay pipe. He had no shadow, birds stopped their singing in his presence, and there was an aura of mist surrounding him.  He would also seduce young maidens with his enchanting voice and whispered nonsense then would promptly disappear, leaving the maiden to pine away for him. Few of his victims live for very long afterwards dying of despair and a broken heart::.
                         . . . .
Beware the tunes that touch your heart.
The gancanagh will play the soul
Beware sweet lass don't crave his art
He'll pierce your heart and leave a hole.

                         . . . .
Cupid is a knavish lad,
Thus, to make poor females mad...
--Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream
                          * * * *

Emlyn knew not where she was...
Mist surrounded her, all about. Such a thick fog, she could be on the waterfront back home, but, no cries of gulls or bells, no creak of boats tied to docks sounded here.


                        

She may as well be in a cloud, she thought, rather wary of taking a step. But, whither now? She walked slowly, gingerly along, seeking...something, anything!--to get her bearings.

What was that? A shadow of something dark loomed ahead. She approached, warily...it was large and stark here in this nebulous opacity. But, it was Something, at least, and drew her on...
  As she neared, it resolved itself into a Standing Stone, such as she'd seen in pictures of Stonehenge.
But this one stood alone...or did it?
  Dim shapes she now could discern, possibly... She reached out and touched the cold stone Giant, to assure herself of reality, such as it seemed to be here, wherever that was.

The mist began to clear somewhat and she saw that indeed, there were other stones, like their brother here, ringed in a circle. Keeping her hand on the one, she gazed about her at them all, in quiet amazement.
Suddenly she felt a Presence, and turning, she beheld, at last!--Gwydion.

Smiling, he enfolded her in his warm cloak and immediately she felt as though bathed in a warm, envigorating pool of pleasure...he kissed her brow and
taking her hand, led her to the other side of the circle where a great stone was set atop two others, creating an arch, or gateway.

Here he stood beneath the lintel stone and held both hands out to Emlyn. 'Do you enter here, Lady, and Beyond, with me, of your own free will and wish?'
 His eyes danced with elfin lights and the mist seemed to swirl about him like a live thing, as a pet cat might rub about one's legs...


                                

Emlyn hesitated not. Taking his hands, she breathed,
'Aye. I do and will, my Lord!'

Smiling trimphant, Gwydion, called Son of Don, Lord and progenitor of the Cambrian Sidhe, kissed her hands and led her under the lintel stone, and Beyond...

                      . . . .

'It's only anaphasic energy...just anaphasic energy...' Jack recited to himself, over and over, rubbing the bad dreams from his aching head and trying to convince himself that what seemed to have happened--hadn't.
But it had.

He remembered, sort of, going to bed at Jethro's and
well, passing out, drunk. Which was odd, as he hadn't had much to drink...other than that couple of sips of the odd flask that weird woman had offered...

He felt rather dizzy still, as if rocking on a boat. Bleary-eyed, he sat up in bed, banging his head on a low ceiling that hadn't been there when he'd retired the night before.
That woke him up.

He WAS on a boat.
And they were at sea, by the movement of it. Bloody hell, where was he? He glanced about and found his clothes, dressed hurridly and tried to keep his bile down as he found his way out of the cabin and up the stairway to the deck above.

Glory! What the hell was this!?
He was on a yacht. All about was blue...blue skies, water. In the distance, he could discern islands, palm trees gracefully waving in the breezes. By the shading of the turquoise water he feared he was in the torrid zone, possibly somewhere in the Caribbean?

He gazed nervously about him, noting the flag the ship flew; a triange within a circle. And a Jolly Roger.

'Ahoy, matey!'
To Jack's utter fear and disgust, a familiar round pale pudgy head poked up over the side of the craft, followed by the rest of Flubber, blubber encased, sausage-like, in a wet-suit. Flopping finally, walrus-like upon the deck, he proceded to remove his swim-fins, as Jack gaped at the horrid site like a newly-caught cod.
Which he was, apparently.

He heard another breaching beside the boat, followed by another head--a dark, wet, red head;
Morgana heaved her slick sinuous body aboard, smiling like the Siren she was, and well-pleased with her catch-of-the-day: Jack.

'Hel-lo, Lover-Boy...!' She purred.
                      . . . .

Daryl, meanwhile, was quietly going berserk...
It was now some time past All Hallows Eve, and he had done what damage control he could; telling Connor, Bridget and Rosa and Yvanna, Shannon and Jeanne, and all else encluding the library, that Emlyn was fine, she had simply met up with an old friend and had been convinced to leave with them and stay with them some while.
...Almost not quite a lie.

He'd the devil's own time of keeping himself in check, however, and not showing his growing panic.
  'It's Yeat's fault...if he hadn't dissolved the Order, we'd not have this total Chaos!' Daryl sat, elbows on his desk, hands in his wild hair, trying to get a grip on himself.

Why, why, why...he asked all the gods, why me?
I'm utterly unsuited to this task! I can barely keep my wits together just minding my own business, much less trying to keep the world spinning in the proper direction! He knew he wasn't making sense. It just wasn't in his nature to take on all this...responsibility for others. Goddess knows he'd had hard enough time just keeping his own wee world together, much less assuming the care and tutelage of young Jack and Emlyn. Why had he done it? He sighed.
He knew why.

He'd come to care for them, hadn't he? No longer an island and law unto himself, he had to admit. He'd hoped simply to impart some pithy cosmic truths to the acolytes and hand over the baton and be upon his merry way.
It hadn't happened thus.

Oh, where was Yeats, anyway?
  If he was with the League now, it was quite beyond Daryl's meager powers to contact them. They were like the Sidhe: don't call us, we'll call you.
Fine. For THEM...
  Daryl rubbed his forehead, now in a permanent crease of worry-lines. Alright. So Samhain's come and gone. He knew, as far as Emlyn was concerned, that his best bet would be to bide his time, (hah!--in a pig's eye, he could...), and to wait until Midwinter Solstice and sun-standing.
  Yes? And, what then?

Then...he would at least try...something. Make his move. That gave him, let's see, a bit less than two months to wait. And plan.

Much could happen in two months. Especially in the Otherworld, where mere months here could be years, decades, with the Sidhe.
  Daryl's elbows slid from under him and his head fell slowly upon his desk, it's hard coolness momentarily welcome. He sighed.

A soft knock at the study doors. Daryl slowly raised his head. 'Entre'...'
  Rosa peered into the room. 'Visitors, don Diego. Emlyn's friends. From the party?' Rosa tried not to show her surprise at Daryl's wild hair and bloodshot eyes but her expression told all.
 

Daryl ran hands through his elf-locks and nodded. 'Si, si...send them into the parlor and,' he sighed again, 'we'll all have tea...'
                         ....

Somewhat presentable, or at least looking a rather saner madman, Daryl entered the parlor to find not only Jeanne and Shannon but Allyn as well.
  'Buenos tardes,' Daryl nodded, adjusting his cuffs.
'To what do I owe the honor of this unexpected visit?' He gestured them all back to their seats, as Rosa entered and deposited the tea tray, poured for all and made her practiced, quiet exit.

Jeanne spoke first, 'Please excuse our rather sudden appearance here, Senor Rivera, but, we have news. It concerns your nephew, Jack.'

'What? What have you heard!?' Daryl rounded upon them,
'Please?' he amended, getting hold of himself. No, it can't be, he thought...

Jeanne was clasping her hands in her lap so tightly her knuckles showed white. 'Jethro just told Allyn. It seems Jack has gone missing. Since the Halloween party.'

Daryl sank into his armchair. It was just as he'd feared then. He looked then at Allyn.
  'Tell me. All that you know.'

Allyn recounted Jethro's tale then, beginning with Jack retiring to his usual guest room and then, he was gone
--in the middle of the night and without a word to anyone.
  'Even Aleister may not know,' Allyn supplied, 'he had left the party with his lady friend, Diana. May even still be there...'

Jeanne was gazing intently at Allyn as he spoke. 'True, it may not be cause for alarm,' she turned then to Daryl, 'if not but for appearance at Jethro's party, of the two folk Em had warned us of, when we were all at the equinox festival.'

Trouble in spades. I knew it! Daryl told himself, lips tight, hands grasping his armrests a match for Jeanne's white knuckles.
  'I see.' Daryl feared he did.

'It's just that,' Shannon spoke at last, who had been restive in Em's Spanish chair which Daryl had recently moved from Ye Old Shoppe into the parlor, 'Jethro had mentioned that someone said they'd seen Jack earlier outside with a redhaired, masked woman.' Shannon squirred about as though seated upon an anthill. Suddenly, up she spang:
  'Ach! I can't bear another minute in this chair!' she exclaimed, staring at it as though offended. She came to herself then. 'Sorry!' her hands went to her mouth.
She inched slowly across the room from The Chair.
 'It's...seen things. Been places.' Shannon's eyes sought eveyone's there. She sighed. 'Sorry.' 


Daryl had stood, meanwhile. 'Here, my dear! Do take my seat,' he gestured to his fireside armchair.
  'Rather a sensitive, are you, then?' Meanwhile, he nodded to Allyn and together they hefted the chair out.
Returning, Daryl stood by the fireplace, regarding Shannon. 'Do you need a brandy?'

'Well...' Shannon demurred.

'She's fine,' Jeanne replied for her, as Shannon made a wry face. 'So, that's the long and short of then. Thought you should know...' She set down her tea. 'Odd things happen around this time of year.' She gazed at Daryl searchingly, as though wondering what all to disclose, and what not, taking his measure.

Daryl regarded them, wondering the same. 'Aye. They do.' He ran a hand across his aching forehead, 'Well, thank you all for the information...'

'But, we came here to be of help, you see!' Shannon stood then, facing Daryl. 'Or, at least to offer any assistance you may wish!'

Daryl was silent a moment, looking at their young, eager faces.
  'Thank you all, so much. Truly, I appreciate your efforts...'

'Shannon has Seen something, with regards to Jack.'
Jeanne decided to show their hand at last. 'She has had a bruadar come upon her.' Jeanne nodded at the girl.
'The taibhsearachd, Far-Sight, has Shannon.'

'Ah.' Daryl paused, eyeing Shannon intently. 'My tapadh leat, then. Please, continue.' Obviously, the girl had a certain sensitivity, he had to admit.

Shannon looked nervous. 'You understand, when I See these taibhs, it is like unto viewing only a puzzle piece of a scene. Exact details are not entirely shown...' She glanced at Jeanne, who smiled encouragement.
  Daryl nodded, knowing of what she spoke. 'I see. Pray, continue.'

Shannon took a deep breath, and shut her eyes. 'He's on a boat somewhere. Far from here. I ken...warmth, humidity, fair breezes.' She paused, sighing.
  'There seem to be islands nearby, with palm trees...the water about them looks jewel-like, a pale green-blue...'

Daryl's gaze soon turned to a dark frown and he was clenching his fists. But said nothing to interrupt the girl's tale.

Shannon frowned slightly as well. 'He isn't alone. There are two with him. I believe they may be those Emlyn warned us of...a fat balding man and a tall, red-haired woman seem to be the only ones commanding the yacht.' She opened her eyes. 'I have no good feelings for these two. They...to say they are duplicitous is only the least of their venality.'

'What of Jack? How fares he? Is he...hurt?' Daryl pleaded with his eyes. The rest of him looked ready to kill.

'He seems alright, physically.' Shannon shook her head,
'Anymore, I cannot tell at present.'

Daryl sank down upon the sofa beside Jeanne. He ran a hand through his hair, his hands shaking. With rage, she discerned. 'You know where he may be, then?' She softly inquired.

Daryl seemed about to cave... He slumped forward, elbows on knees and took his head in his hands.
  'First, Emlyn...now this...'

The three visitors looked at one another. Jeanne spoke softly, 'What of Emlyn, then?'

Daryl sighed and straightened. He bit his lip, blinking at them. Decided that they knew as much as he, perhaps more, and there was need no longer to shield the truth.
  'She...is not "visiting a friend," as I said...she...is gone with the Fay.'

To his bewilderment, all seemed to relax somewhat.
'Ah, is that all?' Jeanne looked relieved.

'Is that ALL!?' Daryl couldn't believe it. He gestured with his hand in the air, 'She's, she's been spirited away...who knows where?...by Gwydion ap Don, or thus he has styled himself! Gone--from under our nose!' He looked both pained and angered, and somewhat hopeless.

'THAT Gwydion?' Shannon's eyes were wide. 'Well!' She regarded Jeanne and a certain understanding passed between the two. 'There is more to our Cambria than we first imagined, then, eh?'

Jeanne noted Daryl's distress, however, and put a soft hand upon his arm. 'Dinna fash yourself, don Diego! It is all part of her dan. 'Tis fated.'

Shannon came and sat on the other side of Daryl, 'She's quite alright, you know. I would have surely known otherwise. And--' Shannon closed her eyes once more, 'She will return.' She opened them. 'Soon. I know not when, to the day, though...'

Daryl merely stared unbelieving at the two women.       'I...thank you for your words of comfort, but...' he shook his head. 'She is my ward. I am her guardian, and, I failed at my first duty: to keep her safe.' He clasped his hands again.
  'But, you're right. There are more urgent matters to attend to, now I know she's ...taken care of in a manner of speaking...' Daryl, however, was not one to trust Gwydion the Trickster-Magician Sidhe Lord. Whatever some wee Irish witch-trainee may say...but Jack. Jack was a different matter.

'I'm sorry, but I haven't time to lose. I believe Jack is in great peril, and I must try to help him.' Daryl stood, hoping that the others would interpret this as dismissal.

Jeanne nodded to the others and they stood as well.
'You know where he is, then?'

'I believe I do. I fear...he is in the Bermuda Triangle.' He looked away, steel in his grey gaze.
'The Devil's Triangle.'
                       . . . .