ISBN 0-7599-0267-4
HARD SHELL WORD FACTORY
http://www.hardshell.com
Publication May, 2002
Cover Art by Nur

Index

Soul-Traveler
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Author's Biography

Soul-Traveler
Laurance D. Pearsongreer
Copyright
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One
Shannon: A Prologue

        At 4:00 p.m., the sky over Cleveland is overcast and colored sweatshirt gray. It is the day after Christmas, this year.
        He, who has yet to acquire a name, sits in a filthy windowsill. The sash is sealed with an ancient sheet of plastic, meant to repel the icy fingers of the Lake Erie wind. Still, the relentless wind steals entry to his rented room.
        From the single window the room owns, the view is of a snow-trimmed curving freeway. The freeway tarmac twists and turns upon itself, like a serpent's tongue, it gleams blackly with God's own tears turned to sleet in the winter chill. Candy-colored cars slide up and down its length on the way out to Suburbia. Those cars are fleeing the freezing rain as frantically as garden beetles avoiding a summer downpour.
        The sky no longer offers light to his tiny room. The roaches venture out for dinner at the dusty, impotent, roach motel that leans in the corner by the door. As darkness engulfs this lakefront city, he is forced to move a pitifully thin arm towards a lamp. The lightbulb is a dull 40 watts. The lampshade, a patina-browned piece of cellophane, was adorned with representations of the Flintstones at a Bedrock beach party, but now the images are somewhat faded. There is a spasm in his extended long brown fingertips--and light erupts into the darkness of the flop house room.
        By an act of sheer will, energy flows to his ancient limbs; ageless muscle and sinew respond and his body rises to stand. He falls forward into a shuffle towards the door. The darkness has come and so he must go.
        The Halogen street lamps make a harsh intrusion through the soothing darkness of his sunglasses. One city block back, he pilfered the wrap-around sunglasses at an all night drugstore. The glasses are an amenity required by his atrophied optical nerves, nerves that have not tasted even the kiss of genteel starlight--in tens of centuries.
        Do not think him a pitiful soul who was locked away from the light of the life-giving stars, it is only this particular ancient carcass that has lain unexposed for these many centuries. This ancient body has been held, unnaturally, outside the normal ebb and flow--the eternal cycles of sun and stars and galaxies--for this body has been held outside time, itself. This particular human hulk was acquired in a remote period of forgotten earth history; back thousands of years in the flow of time, in times about which modern man remembers little.
        In order to answer the 'How,' of his sharing an alien body, we are required to take a walk along the banks of the 'Stream of Time.'
        Time, for mortal beings, has always been like a whiff of a passing odor, like a barely perceived aroma. It was like an aroma swiftly held to the nose of perception, then spirited away.
        Time is not always so.
        For those in torment, time can be like a filthy stench that overwhelms human perception with its suffocating fumes, choking hope from the spirit through its moment by moment plodding dissipation. To the time-locked mortal, it can be like an endless penance for the sin of being born.
        For he that is immortal, time is mutable, time is optional, it is even reversible!
        Traveler is the only designation with which he chooses to identify himself. Traveler is his only noun or pronoun. It is what he is. It is what he does. To Traveler, there is no I or me, there is only... Traveler.
        Traveler is like the chameleon. He may assume any façade or guise in the context of his time trips. He may assume a human body and its attendant identity, temporarily--as cultural camouflage--but in his eternal mind, he is still Traveler!
        He, is a being of form without substance. He is a being of pulsating energies. He has to but will it and he can slip his own consciousness in or out of a will-less being's body. Another act of such will and he can slip from the bonds of time and space. However, such acts require an expenditure of tremendous energy, energy that he must draw from the atomic conversion of the very flesh he wears.
        Traveler's conversion of his host body's mass into energy will exhaust every erg, every bit of energy that binds the body's molecules to each other. As a result, defying the laws of space and time is not without its costs. The body he assumes at the start of this Time-Slip will be little more than steaming water vapor and ash at its terminus--and thus, at the terminus of Time-Slip, the immediate acquisition of a new host body is crucial. It is preferable the host be, mercifully, on the verge of death--about to give up the ghost. An unoccupied vessel can be acquired more easily.
        Traveler had found, from past experience, his intellect would degrade without the shelter of a corpus. Every minute of unprotected exposure to the random energies and radiations of the physical world, served only to inject static incoherencies into the cloud of electrical patterns that was his intellect. Traveler is intelligent, coherent, energy. Therefore with time, any outside energies could destroy first his mind and, eventually, his life force.
        On this particular day, Traveler found himself plodding along in a carcass that would be better used for heating fuel than for walking. How he acquired this body is at the moment, unimportant. He needed this form to accomplish a task. The task was one of great importance. So much so, that it had caused him to cross the barriers of time and space.
        The street before him was a landscape of gray snow covering damaged, or even missing, sections of sidewalk. Walking on the unpredictable surface was drudgery for this old body, but he continued anyway. He didn't know where he was or to where he was headed. He relied on an instinct as precise and finely tuned as any Geiger Counter used to find radiation. That instinct was leading him to someone he had never seen before, in a city he didn't know. But, nothing would deter him from searching block by block and street by street, until he found that certain someone.
        "Hey, old dude! Where you goin'? You out here in this cold-ass weather 'cause you lookin' to maybe score som'tin?" said a skinny youth in baggy pants.
        "Aw naw, man! Maybe, he's just lookin' for a Grocery," added another youth who had appeared out of nowhere, "Hey, Pops! You lookin' for the Quickie-Mart?"
        Traveler ignored them. He had no interest in their inconsequential remarks.
        "Hey, fucker! You better answer me, or I'll kick the shit out of yo' old ass! You holdin'? You out here looking to buy some food? Maybe, you out to score some shit, huh?" asked the first youth.
        The young man had moved in closer to Traveler's field of vision. Now he could see the fellow was brown skinned, perhaps Latino, as they are called these days.
        "Naw, man! This old shit ain't got no money... he's piss poor!" the other replied. This boy seemed to be a mix of races both dark and light. "But, maybe we can get somethin' for that big ass coat he's wearin'! You give up that coat old man and maybe we'll only beat the shit out of you!"
        Yet Traveler did not vary his course or his speed, he merely plodded on.
        The two surly fellows quickly glanced around them. The snows of Cleveland's winter were slowly beginning to fly again. Lake Effect snow is what it was called. These snows could arrive quickly and heavily, emerging from the chilled winds flowing across Lake Erie from Canada. The city could be blanketed in a cold white silence in no time. No one was likely to observe, or even notice what the two hoodlums planned to do next.
        The Latino thug, decided now was the time to make a move. "Do it, man!"
        With that remark, both youths grabbed one arm each and dragged the old man quickly into an alleyway. With practiced coordination they picked him up and slammed the waif-like man violently against a wooden alley fence. "Give us what we want fool," yelled the first youth.
        "Yeah, give up the fuckin' coat, asshole!" screamed the second. Then he made a fist of a hammy hand. "Ain't talkin,' huh? Guess I'll beat the shit out of ya then!" His huge muscular arm moved in a flash! With a resounding BAM, the fist and the wall collided. "Aie-ee-ee-eek!" A screech of agony filled the air.
        But Traveler, was not there.
        "Mother-fuck! Where'd he go?"
        "Fuck where he went, I think I broke my God-damned hand!" He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to look.
        "Look!" the friend cried, pointing nearly a full city block down at the other end of the alley.
        Traveler, hands still inside his pockets, plodded along in his large warm coat. Exiting the snow filled alley he turned the corner, still heading in his same original direction. Unperturbed, Traveler continued his walk, silent, determined, unrelenting.
        One hour later, some local thugs showed up at an Emergency Room. They were screaming that an old foreign guy had attacked them. The policeman on duty threatened to arrest them for suspected gang-related violence, but until their little story was checked out, they were entitled to some emergency aid. The boys were street wise. This was the only way the ER would aid a thug with a broken hand. The police would know this too, so they wouldn't really rush to file a report. Being thugs they were probably lying, anyway.
        Traveler, his senses operating at optimal range, scanned the Cleveland streets for a suitable host. His consciousness flicked from this person to that searching for the best possible accommodations for his next lifetime.
        Traveler shuffled his arthritic feet across the broken cement. He made as much haste as possible from one side of the lamp-less intersection to the other. Despite the traffic he never trotted. He purposefully stepped with care, to avoid the cement fragments thrusting up through the dirty snow. A slush-pushing snowplow missed his fragile carcass by inches, as it rounded the corner. Fortunately, he just made it to the curb in time. Unsteady as he was, the slushy wake of the plow splashed over him like a great heavy wave, forcing him down to his knees.
        Once in this position, Traveler paused to take a long rattling sigh. Then, on a hunch, he took advantage of his interrupted gait. He began to probe the mind of a nearby solitary woman. Her red boots extruded from a shadow-hidden doorway, not five feet from where his knees had come down. Traveler feigned helplessness. This was merely an excuse to delay, while he dived into her memory. He needed to determine her suitability, as a host.
        A moment of delay, in her jaundice-eyed perspective, was long enough for Traveler to review a lifetime of abuse: of her; and by her. There was abuse of her innocence, by a drunken father. And abuse of her maternal bond, when Mama cast her out of the family Eden--so as not to tempt Papa's lust anymore. There was the abuse of her potentials, due to the burden of the child she bore in incest. She was burdened to support that child by peddling her own flesh.
        Having been schooled in the abusiveness of others, the girl graduated to self-abuse. Self-prostitution led to no self-esteem. A woman without esteem is easy prey for men who abuse with both the mind and the fist. She sought solace in a crack pipe, after graduating from booze and pills. The drugs abused her youth, making her ancient at twenty-five. Lack of her youth made her aware of her own mortality and also made her desperate for some kind of hope.
        Shannon was her street name, she abandoned her given name when her innocence was taken.
        She stood in the doorway of the closed 'Blood Plasma Center,' exploring the hole in her gums left by her recently departed tooth. The front tooth gave up the ghost at the insistence of her last client's right fist. That fist pounded her when she made the error of being caught exploring the client's pockets.
        Shannon was fully dressed for 'business.' Like so many women of her profession, she dressed so she could readily display her assets to potential clientele--a tight, white, short, shift of loosely knit wool that buttoned down the front. Red leather boots and woolen leggings topped off her ensemble. She was covered overall by a short, rose-colored parka, trimmed with a pink fake-fur collar without benefit of any undergarments. Most hookers wear a half-bra that lets their breasts be exposed and pushed-up, to create better cleavage. Curiously, Shannon did not. There was something atypical about her.
        Traveler mentally sighed. He observed and catalogued her pitiful, desperate situation. He struggled up from his kneeling position and moved into the shelter of her doorway. "Sorry, Ma'am!"
        "Oh no! No you don't! Don't be comin' up in here expectin' no freebies. You better keep your sorry self away from me! I mean that, old man!"
        After that short outburst, she ignored him. After all he was too old, to need her skills. 'And definitely too poor!'
        The swirling snowfall hurried to erase the rest of the world. In those few freezing moments, she couldn't see Traveler--but he could see her... she couldn't see her outstretched hand--but Traveler could see her, with unnatural clarity, to the depths of her being.
        Traveler knew from long experience that such girls, even in ancient Babylon, dressed not only to attract trade from the odd passerby, but also in garments easily hiked-up or pulled down. Traveler appreciated the depths of the cold wind that breached the defense of her parka and struck a chill in her marrow.
        As would be expected, the girl's face and lips were heavily painted. Adorned lips were made popular by Babylonian whores, who'd discovered such displays reminded men of the engorged lips of a certain female orifice. Which usually stirred a similar engorgement in the male counterpart.
        'Prostitutes have used many such devices to attract buyers. In truth, they should be credited with the invention of advertising!' Traveler thought bemusedly.
        Judging from her emaciated hollow eyes, she had no will left beyond standing, available to any who would ask. Her dull look signaled a near-stupor, brought on by drugs. The cold drained the last of her health, poor as it was.
        Traveler decided he could aid her. She too would serve his needs... until he had accomplished his goal.
        The ancient carcass he'd brought with him across thousands of years, abruptly collapsed. It disintegrated into a leathery brown mass of bones inside a tent of gabardine.
        The old gabardine coat and all the rest of his clothes were gifts from the Salvation Army. They had clothed him on the day of his arrival from Time-Slip. Looking old and indigent--the once proud Moy soldier's emaciated body begged for charity and got it from the kind missionaries.
        'It is right to repay such kindness,' Traveler thought, as his consciousness slammed into Shannon's insensible brain, 'In time they will be repaid.' But for now, his main concern was keeping the legs under the stunned Shannon, long enough for her to recover.
        In the snowy darkness smothering the city, no one noticed or cared about the ancient carcass found in a doorway. Nor, of the woman in a man's large gabardine coat, seen trudging swiftly away from that doorway. She hustled onto the next Uptown bus that labored by in the thickening snowdrifts. She confronted the bus driver with her nearly expired bus pass. She again thrust it defiantly toward him when his open disdain for her gabardine overcoat erased his friendly demeanor.
        Approving the pass, the driver's attitude shifted from one reserved for penniless bums begging a ride, to one of practiced apathy.
        She lurched past an empty bench that smelled strongly of urine. Staggering on shaky legs, she plopped down near a window at the rear of the bus. Instinct had placed her as far away from the offending smell as possible.
        Her head pivoted toward the window. The glass was glazed over, white with frost and mirrored a pale reflection of her face. The red hair she had always been so proud of was frosted with snow. Her eyes saw the lifelessness within themselves. She saw the hope drained from her face and the permanent frown carved there.
        "God girl--you must'a really been tah-ripping!" Her glib remark didn't seem to cheer up her gaunt image. "Good lord! I watched that old fart die and then I ripped off his dirty coat. Those drugs are fu-fu--shoot--furthering the rot of my already re-fried brains--heh-heh-heh!" She stammered, yet gloried in her avoidance of the 'F' word, even to herself. Her ten-year-old son had fought a long hard campaign with her. He was determined to convince her such language held her back in life. His teachers had taught him the intelligent usage of one's language was the foundation of success. Those teachers should know! It cost Shannon $200.00 a week to mold her boy into a social success. Keeping him in a boarding school, kept her life-style from clinging to his bright future. At least that's what she'd always told herself.
        'Besides, a girl who has no self-esteem might as well get paid for the crap she was bound to get anyway! Yeah....'
        She was considered a flesh-peddler's rarity: an 'exotic.' Her mixed-race beauty stood out amongst her peers. She was tall, slim and buxom--her eyes of gray-green leaped out from her peanut butter brown complexion. Some said those eyes haunted a client long after he forgot the cost of the 'adventure.' As a result, several wealthy men were bewitched by her looks and she commanded fees as high as the classiest call girl in town.
        Traveler was surprised, she was not a street-hooker at all! She was a courtesan merely playing the part. The woman's native intelligence, smothered by the latest recreational drug, had hidden itself beneath the costume she wore.
        For a huge hunk of money, Shannon catered the fantasies of white suburban-type males who dreamed of tasting Black forbidden fruit, but felt safer with a girl who was at least half-white. Perhaps they feared a 100 per cent black hooker might consume their lustful desires whole, remorselessly and without effort--like so many canapés--destroying their macho ego forever.
        Strangely enough, she would never have dressed so blatantly whorish had her client not requested a 'Street-Hooker' fantasy. Her 'date' had been a local City Councilman who actually liked tough street-whores. But, the Councilman would never approach a possibly diseased, indiscrete street hooker to get his jollies. So getting an upscale, call-girl-type, to act down and dirty for him was his clever solution. He liked it rough. Shannon tolerated modest abuse and so he had become one of her regulars.
        On this night however, the physical abuse got way out of hand.
        She'd cut the 'session' short and loudly demanded her due. She'd backed out of the hotel room's door, so there would be witnesses if he got homicidal.
        The Councilman, a true politician to the last, simply refused to pay. He even threatened her. He said if she didn't stay and co-operate, he would give her address to a cop who owed him favors.
        The threat clung round Shannon's ankles like two blocks of cement. It was the kind of unwanted attention that could ruin her life. She stayed. Her co-operation proved to be painful, all over her body and in her most private areas.
        Afterward, whilst he slept, she attempted to extract a cash premium from his wallet--for the extra services she rendered.
        That's when he awoke... and that's when Shannon lost the tooth.
        In the end, he left her in the hotel room unconscious, taking all her money. He also tacked a note to the door threatening her with imprisonment if she ever talked.
        Shannon then wandered downtown Cleveland, dazed and desperate, until she remembered the bus pass and a $20.00 bill. Fortunately, she always kept them hidden in the lining of her red boots. Hurriedly, she stumbled through the frosting snow and took up position in the nearest doorway to a bus stop. She looked for the right bus going uptown, to her home. She consoled her pain with some tranquilizers found in her parka pocket until the creepy old man came into the same doorway.
        Silently, her back against the cold brick wall, she conducted an internal soliloquy. She was depressed and freezing. The beating made her face look bad. Being robbed and on foot in a snowstorm made getting home a hassle. Finally, the pills she took must have been laced.
        'Were they LSD or something? I could have sworn that old guy looked dead. But, hadn't he smiled, just before collapsing. Jesus! I wonder if maybe he just fainted from numbness, it is cold as hell tonight. And I stole the old guy's coat! My God, what was I thinking?'
        The events played out again, as if happening for the first time.
        'You, did not kill him!'
        'Lord knows I hope so but--who the hell was that? I'm hearing voices now? Oh... shit! Feels like them drugs hit the back of my head all at once! Jeez-us, what's going on! I feel so-o-o fu-uck....'
        She never finished the thought. From that point on, every move she made was more rational and logical than ever before.
        Traveler had joined with her--mind, body and soul.
        The transition was swift. Endless repetition of this joining process, over thousands of years, refined it so the transition took place without being noticed.
        Traveler was now co-pilot of Shannon's life. He was a partner in their mutual existence. He abided within her as a teacher, but not as a master.
        Traveler's co-habitation of a living human host used to require endless dialogues with them. His stratagems of the past, had now been abandoned--in favor of more subtle methods.
        Traveler found it better to indoctrinate the host... subconsciously. The entire history of Traveler's existence was encapsulated into a stream of data, fed directly to the host's subconscious mind. The subconscious part of the brain directed the conscious mind through intuitive hunches, when required--or through dreams. These dreams created acceptance and trust of him in advance, before he revealed himself directly.
        Eventually Shannon's mind, convinced of the need to share its control with Traveler, will assume the role of a willing co-pilot, but with full power to reject anything she doesn't like. Her queries about Traveler's actions could be answered swiftly--directly from her own subconscious--in a flash of insight.
        Unbeknownst to her, Traveler had already begun to stimulate her body's healing. Within 60 seconds after he joined her body, her immune system was working over-time. An hour after that, all of her bruising was healed. In that hour's bus ride, Traveler projected a physical sense of well being.
        As confusing as it was, Shannon felt her luck had just gotten much better! Some great insight, that eluded her for years, had suddenly flowered. She understood it emotionally, but her brain was still dragging its feet. That was actually not unusual for her, so she accepted it without argument. Shannon felt she was about to move up in the world, if she just studied hard.
        'Studied hard? Where in the fu--shit. Shannon, watch it--where in the world did I get that messed up idea? How in the hell is studying gonna help me? Boy, maybe this pill is a lot better than I thought!'
        Traveler planned for them to spend next week in places where knowledge was accumulated--learning as much as possible, about many things. This was a necessity if she was to be ready for what was to come.
        She survived the stench of the long bus ride and trudged her way up a side street near Shaker Square, in Shaker Heights. The snow--shin deep--impeded, but did not halt her determined homeward march. Shaking off the last dregs of slush with each step, she navigated the stairs to her small, but expensive apartment. She stumbled to her prized four-poster bed and collapsed.
        That first night's dreams, from Traveler, would be of epic proportions.
        Laying half-dressed across her Faux-Fur bedspread, she quickly slipped into oblivion. This was territory she knew well. She was a frequent flyer in the dream world, because this was the only world she felt no limits in. Drugs and booze were her ticket into this realm... ever since her father raped her at fifteen. Whenever she was worried, frightened or depressed, she took a pill and was off on the Dreamland Flyer to a place found only in her fantasies.
        Shannon's dreams this night were not her own.
        In this dream Shannon ceased to exist--only Traveler existed.
        The dream began as far back in time as he could remember....

        Once long ago, as the moment of Time-Slip had seen its completion, Traveler's mental tendrils stretched outwards. He was searching for feedback. But, none could be felt. He sought out the delicate vibrations of intelligent life force somewhere nearby, but none could be found. Time swiftly passed. Having no handy human body meant he had no mass to convert into energy. He needed energy to convert into power. He needed power to move, to maneuver. But, there was none. Traveler's intellectual vibrations intensified into a level of chaotic frenzy. He realized his survival was at risk. For every minute of delay, his energy patterns would become increasingly erratic and his store of memories--his electric energy matrix--would dissipate.
        How fortunate he had materialized into a body of cool dark water.
        He found himself located deep, away from the sun's deadly radiations, miles below the surface of an ocean.
        Judging by the familiar tug of the earth's magnetic field, he must have been in the Pacific, deep inside the Pacific Trench; a huge rift in the earth's crust found miles below the surface of the ocean.
        Marooned in an ocean desert, in an area devoid of any but microscopic life forms, he was limited in his ability to move to a better location. There was an option to convert water molecules into motive energy, with one drawback: the process could also boil away thousands of years of his memory.
        His situation was desperate. In the end he was forced to sacrifice his oldest memories--the why, when and wherefore of his being. He would no longer know of his origins or how he came to this point--or even about what he was.
        Converting the water around him into power, he cast about attempting to survive. But, he had landed inside of an underwater desert. Miles of water lay on top... and below him a stark lightless wilderness. With the pressure of several hundred square miles of water above him this place was devoid of any animals large enough to accommodate his being. Only the smallest and most ephemeral of creatures existed here. In the end, Traveler was forced to seek temporary shelter inside the hollow shell of a molybdenum nodule, a hollow sphere of a chromium-like metal, formed by unknown forces in the Primeval terrestrial sea eons and eons ago.
        He abided, huddled inside one of those large nodules, wretched and stripped of most of his memory. A 'Micro-Time-Slip' had materialized what was left of him inside the nodule's shell and there he kept very well.
        Six thousand years later, in a time of seismic upheaval on the ocean floor, the earth's crust spasmed.
        Tossed about by energies too massive to be measured, the nodule sanctuary was hurled upwards. Like a missile it arced upwards against even the ocean's watery resistance for thousands of leagues. Finally, when all of its momentum was spent, the nodule settled onto an ocean plateau.
        As a result of this excellent fortune, Traveler finally gained proximity to an ancient and feeble dolphin. It was an amenable corpus, a chance for escape from his dull, dark, dank, sanctuary. He escaped that black sea, for the bright blue sky and the solid dry land beneath it.
        The dolphin's dying energies were used to find a landfall. A Peninsula, teeming with suitable life forms, was eventually located. And even though the landmass was some miles distant, he soon detected coherent thought patterns.
        Attuning his own energy vibrations to that particular array of thoughts would create a physical affinity--a magnetic field of force--that drew him inexorably, unerringly to that life-form. Apart from the will needed to slip into the new life-form--an unresisting ox--there was no energy or effort required of his enfeebled form.
        Traveler had, as always, persevered. Although he had forfeited memories that could never be regained--he had survived.
        As he struggled landward with his dying dolphin host, he determined a defense against such misadventure in the future. He determined he must maintain a permanent emergency body. And he must find a way to keep that body sequestered away from the ravages of time.
        He must create an emergency refuge, a place with which he would have an affinity. It must be a haven that would attract his being to it--only in moments when he lacked all will to resist--only when his energy was on the verge of death.
        The entity's present habitat, the mind of a bovine forerunner of the modern ox, was so rudimentary--that his mental abilities were somewhat curtailed. There were not enough brain cells to augment his already depleted mental capacities.
        A larger brain must be commandeered, a human host. He had utilized such hosts from as far back in time as his now diminished memory could recall. He was drawn to such a mind, as a moth to a flame. Insinuation into a human host was always accomplished with ease. Especially when passive due to sleep, illness, intoxication, or near death.
        Days passed. The simple-minded beast wandered aimlessly foraging for grasses and the smell of a cow in her season. No cows were actually found. The bull was not particularly disturbed. He had plenty of greenery to eat. And he had no other cares on his mind.
        Traveler felt mentally cramped.
        'Ah-ee-ee-ee-eck!'
        Shannon/Traveler sensed a silent scream.
        Willing the bull forward in the direction of the telepathic cry, they charged.
        'That was a human cry. A human was nearby.'

        Shannon stirred nervously in her sleep. The physical act of running had translated itself into her arms and legs. Delicate movements of her limbs showed how vivid this memory was. Then suddenly her gently bicycling legs stopped cold.

        An unfortunate female was drowning off the peninsula's coast. The Bull's limited vision could make out that much. Traveler found himself viewing the event from a high bluff looking out over a rough-water cove. The scene below was in itself confusing.
        Three men were struggling mightily to hold a smallish girl down in the dark cold water. The girl, though diminutive, fought them fiercely. The men laughed loudly as they pressed their full weight into the task. In seconds, the girl's valiant struggle would sadly be ended. Traveler realized that if he would save this child's life and conveniently his own, he must act quickly.
        Shannon, even in her dream state, was terrified. Past abuse at the hands of so many others, made real the attack she was viewing. She could actually feel the hard fists of the men as they pummeled the girl. Her lungs felt the sharp stinging burn of the lack of oxygen. Her mind reeled in confusion, pain and the freezing numbness of the cold sea.
        'My God! I'm not imagining this! I am feeling this! I'm inside this child's body!'
        Shannon was right. Traveler had already switched their joint consciousness into the girl's body. A wave of understanding washed over Shannon and just as suddenly she felt none of the girl's pain.
        'He is doing this! He/it whatever, is absorbing her pain and keeping her alive!'
        Shannon stood back mentally from what was happening within the child. She observed Traveler indoctrinating the near dead girl about the miracle he was giving her, a chance of survival.

        The attackers finally allowed the child's still body to spread out, arms and legs akimbo, on the surface of the water. Waves pulled the body away from shore. The girl's long black hair danced like seaweed on the sunset speckled surface. The limp body continued to move, like a discarded ragdoll, as it floated further from shore with the changing tide.
        The attackers left the tide to do their cleanup work and returned to shore without a backward glance. Two of them slapped each other's shoulders and boasted loudly. The third followed sullenly behind them. He felt no joy for his complicity. He stopped to look back at the human flotsam cast into the sea, but it was gone! 'How strange, hmph...' He shrugged and walked away.
        The girl found the strength to dive below the surface and swim quickly to another part of the cove. Gasping desperately for air, she clung to a huge rock that seemed to float on the water's surface. She hid behind the boulder, so for the moment, if she ignored the terrible chill of the water, she was safe.

        In a flash the scene changed and she was on shore. Just as quickly, all the events that had taken place--and Shannon was somehow certain they had taken place in a time long past--went by in a swift compressed version.

        With practiced understanding of the human form, learned from hundreds of previous hosts, Traveler repaired then revived the girl's emaciated body.
        She built herself a primitive lean-to near the rocky shore that she dragged herself up on, guided only by Traveler's will.
        Once she had shelter, He directed her feeble body to eat certain wild grasses within easy reach of her hovel. Once the grasses strengthened her, Traveler led her to roots and herbs, which she found further afield from her new 'home.'
        Her vitality grew. A vigorous mind thinks clearly. A clear mind would finally be able to give him information about his location and how this young woman had come to the sorry state he found her in.
        Her name happened to be Moy!
        Her people called her 'Moy-ulcla,' which meant: 'Moy, the lowborn.'
        Moy was fourteen summers old, by her reckoning, when Traveler saved her.
        Moy had the misfortune to be born the last of four daughters, in a family with three elder sons.
        Moy was a skin and bone stick figure. She was also a seventh child of a seventh child--her mother. In her world such women have psychic vision.
        The three sons and their wives, found it a burden to support the aged parents and a worthless sister. Especially, one never likely to be married off. In this community, daughters not bartered into a profitable marriage contract, were usually abandoned or drowned.
        Moy was an unattractive girl, cursed with strange visions. A superstitious native husband would not feel at ease with such a wife, nor would he relish such an adopted concubine. Moy was, therefore, a prime candidate for drowning.
        On the day Traveler found her, her brothers had happily done the honors. Traveler changed all that. Now she would live to see another winter's snows. Traveler nurtured her knowledge the way only a being who had lived for many millennia could. He devised a diet to nourish her body, heart and mind to optimal efficiencies. He drove her forward to advanced levels of strength, endurance and agility. Now she could outrun or outsmart any prey, outfight any attacker. She was uncanny in trees, on the ground, or in the sea. No fisherman could match her sailing prowess. No, Shaman healed or knew the medicinal properties of the herbs as well as she. She could foretell the time and day of a baby's birth, the gender and even where his talents would lie.
        By the time she was eighteen summers old, she was a dark legend of the pine forest. The people sought her out for advice--the Elders also, though they didn't like to admit it.
        Moy's unusual talents had distinguished her amongst the villagers. As she aged to twenty, the men of the ruling caste considered her a potentially valuable second wife and advisor. She eventually married very well and, under the guidance of the small voice only she could hear, actually came to rule her people.

        RIII-III-IINNNNNNNGGGGGGG!
        RIII-III-IINNNNNNNGGGGGGG!
        Shannon's heartbeat leaped from sleeping calm to frightened alarm.
        "Wha-whassit?' she stammered loudly to the silent darkness of her bedroom.
        "Phone? Phone! Shit!" 'Oh, Sweet Lord! Please don't let it be about my baby!' She ended her prayer hurriedly, then scampered across her bed to reach the phone. The phone lay hidden beneath a pile of wet clothes discarded on the floor.
        'When did I get undressed? I remember being dressed... but that was before I started tripping on that strange-ass dream! Man, was that a strange one.'
She dragged the phone towards her, reeling in the long base unit cable until the cordless receiver tumbled from its cradle and rolled over within her reach.
        "Hello...hello? What's wrong? Is something wrong?"
        "Yeah! You was wrong, whore!" The gravely-voice was chillingly familiar.
        "Uh--what? Who's--"
        "You know who, you cheap-ass hooker! What did I tell you would happen if another customer complained about your crazy ass?"
        "Uh, hey! Wait a minute! Wait just a damn minute, Large!" Shannon pronounced the man's nickname exaggeratedly, making no attempt to hide her contempt. "You promised me the sick bastard was going to play nice! That creep almost killed me!"
        "Hey, watch yourself, whore! That GUY is very well-connected, you know what I'm sayin'?" Large Bob Codespotti was irritated. 'She knows we don't say too much about our clients over a phone, there's too many ears might be listening in!'
        "Look, dammit! I'm a Free Agent! I agreed to work for your agency only as long as I didn't have to do any freaks! And, it was also understood that if I did the FULL Slick-Willie--I'd get top dollar!" Shannon referred obliquely to that special service the Councilman got. He'd asked to be treated like the former US President who got "Blewed; Screwed; and Tattooed" with the scarlet letter 'A' for Adulterer. Only in this instance, the scarlet letter was a press-on tattoo applied to the guilt-ridden client while he committed his adulterous act. Somehow, the humiliation of wearing the tattoo on the way home added to his satisfaction.
        Shannon didn't understand what the big turn-on was, but clients told her it was a kinky 'Crime and Punishment' sort of thing. "Well, I did the Slick-Willie, but I didn't get crap! The bastard robbed me! So, now what are you going to do?"
        "What am I gonna' do? You're lucky I don't knock the choppers right out of ya' mouth--two-bit, crazy whore!"
        'Why is this low-life calling me now? Damn him! Right in the middle of that amazing dream, too! Jeeze, all that wild stuff about Moy... and the dolphin and that Traveler thingy too--this is the heaviest trip I have ever been on!'
        Shannon reflexively tongued her missing tooth area--but the hole was gone!
        'Oh Mah Gawd! I wasn't trippin'? This whole thing isn't a dream? This shit's crazy!'
        "...And another thing! If you ever jerk me around again, I'll do YOU and your little BASTARD too!" Codespotti would lose no sleep even if he had to put both of them down.
        The last part of his threat was loud enough to finally penetrate her thoughts. Suddenly he had her complete attention. "Hey man! I don't play that! You don't threaten me and you sure as hell better not threaten my child." Her response was deadly calm.
        "You don't scare me, whore! What could you do to me? You thinkin' of dropping a dime on me? You gonna' talk to the cops, maybe? Do that and there ain't a hole deep enough for you to hide in! Remember bitch, I'm connected! You understand me? Even if I'm in a Federal Pen,' I can still reach out and touch your boy. You remember that!"
        SL-LL-AA--MMM! The phone went dead.
        Normally she'd stay up all night worrying about his threats. But, inside her mind a different voice from her own said: 'Rely on Traveler as Moy did and no enemy can stand against your will.'
        Within seconds after the message's import mentally registered--she felt relaxed, more so than ever before. Instantly, she fell back into a deep sleep.
        Her fear was relegated to the back burner, so urgent was Traveler's need to explain himself. Once she was fully aware of what he could do for her, fear would be the last thing on her mind.
        The story of Moy resumed.
        With help from Traveler, Moy ruled her people well. Their relationship was much as between a musician and her inspiration in the creation of a beautiful song. Traveler served as muse to her. She used that inspiration to orchestrate the fate of her people. Her people prospered as a result--not only in the summers--but through the worst winters. Her sphere of influence spread greatly. Soon she was the Matriarch of a dynasty of rulers that would survive her for many, many years. She bore seven children, of whom six married, according to her august advice and she had many grandchildren.
        Decades of abundance passed under her rule. The prosperity spilled over into surrounding lands. Even distant unrelated Clans revered her. They all swore allegiance to her throne and her dynasty.
        At an advanced age, the Royal Moy secretly sojourned to the deepest part of the inland forest, with her brightest grandchild in attendance.
        From that day on Moy was never seen again.
        When the chosen grandchild returned to the Clan, Traveler was in residence.
        The reins of control were thus passed on from member to member of a dynasty that spanned twelve hundred years. The official name of that dynasty and all its rulers became Moy.
        The dynasty brought great power and wealth to its kindred; and through the agency of Traveler's great accumulation of wisdom, the dynastic rule of the MOY Clan was extended over vast distances. Forests were felled, lands farmed, great harvests on land and sea were collected and taxed.
        A subclass of scientists and artisans emerged under the patronage of the Moy. Those talented people were guided, prodded, encouraged and dragged up to almost magical levels of advancement and creativity. They had no word for technology, so they called it Moy Majick.
        Meanwhile, the great dynasty had created enemies. Those enemies were organized. This threatened to send the Moy into warmongering expansion just outside their walls. Or worse, might cause society to turn in on itself and build thicker walls to maintain the status quo, as the emperors of China would one day do. This could accelerate its slide down the path to stagnation and decline. Either way, in Traveler's estimation, the civilization had reached its peak.
        Prior to either eventuality, Traveler reckoned his Time-Slip terminal must be completed and stocked for a speedy departure.
        Sensing the ebb and flow of the earth's magnetic field, he picked a powerful nexus of energy to create his construction. Geometrically perfect monuments of carved granite stone immediately began to swell along the horizon. Stone upon stone was stacked into intricately baffled caverns, designed by himself and executed by the Moy magicians. The stones had to sift and sort cosmic emanations by geometric defraction angles and reflective surfaces plotted into the very structure itself. The emanations were not conceived of by even the adepts of Moy wisdom and were only theorized about much later in modern times.
        Finally, the day of departure arrived. The ruling Moy informed his multitude of relatives of his decision to enter the stone mausoleum. Out of desolate mourning for his recently departed spouse--the Moy woman from whom he had inherited his position--he would give up the ghost.
        His final order as absolute ruler of the Moy realm, was that henceforth all Moy royalty would be interred within the mausoleums when they died.
        This was a device by which Traveler hoped to acquire a new host from amongst the mourners at each subsequent state funeral, on those occasions that he returned to the Time-Slip Depot from the future/present/past. This unsuspecting host was usually a priest of Royal lineage who practiced the state religion. The priests, as initiates, were all taught the divine spark of the original ruler was sometimes passed on to a sufficiently pious priest at these funerals. In this way Traveler observed the society's progress, unencumbered by the requirements of rulership.
        A priest was supported by the state in his pursuit of the Moy wisdom, science, art and philosophy. So Traveler and his host priest, were free to explore the meaning of life and the universe with no concern for working a trade. He therefore acquired great amounts of empirical scientific and philosophical insights and using his Time-Slip Depot as a temporal pit stop, he could explore the universe.
        These funereal customs were followed faithfully by the Moy descendants. Bodies, at death, were prepared according to rituals created by Traveler/Moy--laid to rest inside the special cabinets created for the honored Moy dead.
        However as political and social patterns changed, the rituals were altered or perverted; and then finally fell into disuse. This took several centuries, but the downward spiral, once commenced, was inescapable.
        This regrettable fate of Traveler's first society had been anticipated. Inside his primary mausoleum, hundreds of meters below the public funeral chambers, was sequestered a second chamber.
        This lower chamber was cavernous. Its shape was spherical. Its inner surfaces were adorned with large hand-worked stones three meters along each side, encased in pure copper. These copper stones were shaped as equilateral pyramids.
        Dead center of the chamber, on top of a pyramid several stories high, rested The Crystal Outside of Time. It shined and sparkled in a strange yellow light that cascaded down upon it from nowhere. It was not glass, the crystalline material was quartz--cut and polished into two perfect bowls. The bowls, polished smooth inside, were beveled to fit together as a perfect globe. The exterior of the globe was made to mimic the geometric pattern of the pyramid covered walls, with one exception. The spikes of the crystal faced outward, opposite the spikes on the chamber walls.
        Only the heightened perceptions of Traveler could see the interplay of the cosmic waves as they filtered into the chamber from the tons of stone above it.
        The mausoleum's structure was designed to filter all but a certain wavelength of energy. Once inside, the waves could not escape. The waves thus would accumulate and concentrate near the mausoleum floor. Their only escape was down through the copper floor. From the floor, energy flowed to the copper encased pyramid tips covering the walls of the crystal chamber.
        Every one of those tips was, in turn, aimed at the Crystal-Outside-of-Time. All such energies captured in the crystal caused it to emit an energy field that slowed the flux of time. All matter in the chamber would be affected as well.
        The one hundred terminally ill volunteers who entered the crystal chamber, stood in awe of the room's alien beauty. After being feasted in grand style for two days of religious ceremony, they had come here to die. They stood in awe even as the entrance was sealed forever behind them. They had consented to attend the needs of the Moy in the next world--in this special funereal chamber beneath the general mausoleum. The crystal chamber was thus made safe from intruders, as no man can intrude where there is no entrance. The passageway was plugged with huge stones and cemented tight.
        The 'cadaver' of Traveler/Moy lay atop the stair-stepped pyramid next to the Crystal-Outside-of-Time. As Traveler watched the drugged volunteers succumb to merciful death--he allowed enough time for their souls to abandon their lifeless hulks--before he activated the crystal. He watched the soul energies rise and phase out of existence into another dimension, one to which he could not travel. This was a reality he accepted. Traveler was not part of that life cycle. Perhaps, he thought, he would meet them again in another of their incarnations. When one is immortal, such things often occur.
        Traveler activated the crystal. The chamber and its contents were withdrawn from what men perceive as the flow of time.
        He willed the chamber outside time.
        Simultaneously, he initiated a Time-Slip....
        Utilizing the mass of the Moy host completely, Traveler transported himself. Inside the crystal, he sped across the boundaries of time-space.
        Back in the crystal chamber, the bodies of his grateful dead attendants were frozen between the beats of their native time, awaiting his pleasure as hosts for his next Time-Slip.

        'There were many such departures from the chamber, Shannon. Here is a fine example of what was encountered on one unique occasion...'
        The point of view shifted quickly through a gauntlet of unrelated images and scenes--almost as if Traveler had history on fast forward--abruptly the scenic panorama ended. A single image emerged into real-time.
        The Crystal-Outside-Time materialized, high above a hilly plain in what is now known as South America.

Chapter Two
Txela

        Sunrise. A river of light cascades downward, between and around the wind-rounded faces of rock. Traveler, ensconced within the living crystal, is sheltered from abrasive winds by the hill's unselfish stone. He contemplates the landscape and awaits an opportunity.
        A company of goats wanders about the sunny face of a mountain, foraging for lichens and bushes succulent with life-giving moisture. A young goat's eye is attracted downward on the face of the mountain, to a riot of light and color in the stones below. The animal, already perched dangerously close to the edge of the goat-path, disturbs a pile of broken stone debris. Pebbles and dust trickle downward toward the shining colorful object, followed closely by the unwary kid. After a few moments of utter stillness, he shakily regains his legs. He starts back up the mountain, with Traveler in control.
        After Traveler occupied his goat host, he divided his being in two. Each half was a complete copy of the whole, a holographic duplicate of the original. One half of his intellect stayed within the goat. The other, returned with the crystal to the Crystal chamber.
        This was an act of self-preservation. The weaker of his two halves would always be drawn to the stronger, in case of an emergency. For example, when another host body was required, Traveler in America need only relax his will and he would be inexorably drawn back to the Crystal-Chamber-Outside-of-Time. Inside the chamber, the first half, inside a new host, could be Time-Slipped to any destination inside the crystal. But, this would require utilizing yet another host as fuel.
        A ragged boy lay prone upon a wing of granite rock erupting from the mountain's grassy bluff. Eyes, as brown as his own sun-painted skin, smoldered with the spark of inspiration.
        The boy senses an idea taking form, in his mind's eye.
        Lacking even the company of his father's goats for the moment, the boy speaks aloud to himself, "Txela, Txela--that is the right symbol for my hidden spirit." A sparkle grows in his eyes as he continues, "Txela, is the symbol of the watcher of the night sky--he who seeks the patterns of the campfires in the sky and the omens they bring. This is the work I would do. It must also be the name I choose for myself, as a man!"
        The excitement in the man-child's voice is barely contained. He rolls the name over his nimble tongue as if to taste each syllable--Txe-la, spoken as Zee-La. The name is well chosen for this boy spends more time watching the night sky's show of lights than he spends tending his father's sorry herd of goats.
        Txela has just turned over 'The Thirteen Stone' outside his Father/Uncle's hutch. That stone is painted red on one side, as opposed to being totally white, as are the other stones used for counting the age of children. Had he been born a girl the stones would have been uniformly green, except for the one red stone. In his compound, each family hutch proudly displays the stones in an array around their hutch. The innermost ring of stones is for the first born, each successive ring outward is for each living child born/adopted by that Clan.
        When Txela turned over the thirteen stone, it meant he left behind childhood and decided to accept the ritual and burdens, of manhood.
        All children were considered precious. All male, female, halt, lame, blind children were valued as a gift from the 'Mighty-Mother-that-Rules-All,' Yahua.
        In 'The Dark-Time' most of the world had died.
        The tribal belief was that the few humans spared by Yahua, were so blessed--in order to replenish her supply of children. As a result of this, no child was worthless. No orphaned child of another tribe was turned away. All children were encouraged to be a full member of the Clan. All men who were not your father, were your uncles. All women were your aunts. All adults in the tribe were respected as parents. All children were treated as their own precious babies.
        Since the year of Hurakan, when most of the world died, all human life was valued. Nearly fifty years had passed since then.
        Hurakan was the agent of the world's destruction. It was the physical agent that brought darkness and swept away houses and trees, rocks and hillsides. Hurakan, was the great wind that destroyed the world.
        In the darkness swept by the great wind, resinous hydrocarbon particles fell from the sky. These particles, along with fire and water, swept most of the humans from every populous corner of the Earth. Save for the burning naphtha and the blazing of erupting volcanoes, the world lay completely dark for five days. That great wind swept across the earth steadily--day in and day out--whilst the sun hid his face in shame at the destruction of mankind.
        Traveler was aware of these events. Every time he slipped outside Time/Space, inside his crystal chamber, he gained a unique perspective. It was as if he had risen above and beyond the flow of time.
        Routinely, Traveler had risen--above the day of the Great Moy funeral; above the year of the death of the first Moy volunteers; even above the entire life span of those volunteers. Time, stretched itself out below him like a mighty spiraling river. Directly below him was the moment of his departure from the crystal chamber. Ahead of him on the River of Time, lay the moment of the Moy Empire's eminent decline. Behind him, more than a thousand years, lay the day in which he discovered Moy-ulcla.
        And, on those occasions when Traveler continued to rise still higher above the flow of time--he could see ahead several thousand years to the day of the great wind, Hurakan.
        Each time, he foresaw the cool blue Earth in a fight with a fiery Cometary body, spewed forth from the huge planet of Jupiter.
        Jupiter had a vast seismic gas attack. As a result it had expelled an irritating morsel of rock, ice and gases--about the size of the earth--from its bowels. The Comet, falling prey to the laws of nature, was inevitably captured by the sun's compelling gravity.
        The Comet was forced into an orbital path already occupied--by the Earth. In their mutual struggle for dominion, the two bodies had danced in and around each other. For the people on earth, this was a dance of death. It caused huge gravitational forces to rent and tear along Earth's surface and down to its molten metal core. The dance occurred with regularity again and again over thousands of years.
        In the time of Hurakan, the two bodies had nearly collided, but not for the first time. Over a span of a thousand years, during such near collisions--major orbital perturbations of Earth, Luna, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Comet itself occurred regularly.
        The orbit of Luna, the moon of Earth, became 30 days long for a thousand years and the earth year was 360 days long. The sun for the first time began to rise in the East, opposite the westward rise traditionally recorded in Egyptian records.
        The exchange of atmospheres between the two, polluted the Earth with the Cometary body's hydrocarbon gases. Those gases and the dusts, stirred by Hurakan, hid the Earth from the sun for a decade and created a permanent dark twilight in the sky for 30 more years.
        Then in the year 747 BC, 1,000 years later--Earth's orbit changed to 365.25 days. Luna, once circling in 30 days, settled into its current orbit as well.
        All of the peoples of the Earth remembered that day, even if only in superstition. On Friday, the thirteenth of March, the endless darkness fell and endless twilight lay heavily upon the Earth.
        Traveler had chosen a time well after that endless twilight had lifted and then stepped into the river of time again. That is when he met Txela....
        Txela felt the furry muzzle of his youngest goat brush along the tips of his extended fingers. In some mystical way, it seemed as if the goat knew Txela and they were inescapably bound in their destinies. The goat kid was deformed at birth and had been a disappointment to the Clan. The kid--born male and normally prized as a potential stud--was deformed in its testicles and was unable to reproduce. Txela's semi-nomadic Clan found solace knowing the kid could be put to at least one good use, as a sacrifice in Txela's Ritual of Manhood.
        The boy who would be named Txela at the sacrifice, was thus very careful of the kid's good health. That care would be rewarded at the Full Moon's rising when the ceremony commenced. Then he would plunge the tip of an ancient sharpened stone into the pulsing throat of the unsullied kid. Only after accomplishing this would he be allowed to climb--unarmed and unprovisioned--to the top of the mountain and back. The climb could be completed by a healthy man in a day.
        Upon his return from the sacred journey, he would be welcomed as a fully privileged male in his Clan. A newly ritualized male could--upon completion of some preliminary instruction--seek out an apprenticeship with one of the tradesmen in his Clan. He would also gain the marriage bed of the teacher's eldest unwed daughter, as was the custom.
        Txela had made known his choice to apprentice under the Master of Omens, Cycles and Healing--the Clan's Shaman. He would thus be able to study and know the cycles of the campfires in the sky, the celestial bodies.
        He'd come by this ambition because of his long association with the Shaman's daughter--Myan. She had an anemic body, but was known for possessing the eyes of the sea turtle, which meant she had the wisdom of a hundred years. She was respected for her keen mind, but not considered prime marriage material, due to her extreme plainness. Myan was the only true friend and admirer of Txela. She knew her limitations. She also harbored the conviction that her only hope of having a husband was in her beloved friend.
        Txela was not without his disadvantages.
        To begin with, he had been a foundling. The story was a favorite tale in his Clan. His Father/Uncle had been on a foraging expedition out to the seacoast with other elders, when the infant boy was rescued.
        The Clan heard rumors that the once prosperous fishing colony nearby, would not last long. That colony called B'urrat, was a satellite of the mighty nation of B'imini--a nation consisting of three large islands named Aryan, Poseidia and Og. The colony of B'urrat served as one of many bases for the Empire's far-flung fishing fleets. The fleets constantly scoured the seas for foodstuffs for the large urban empire.
        Since the time of Hurakan, the colony, separated from what survived of the Imini Empire, had struggled for survival. Its population had sadly dwindled from hundreds to handfuls. Those remaining members were the offspring of the Imini and the local people. They had stubbornly stayed behind, when all others attempted a return pilgrimage to B'imini.
        The pilgrims had set off across the sunless sea, during The Dark-Time, but no one knew what became of them.
        The worst of the Dark-Time was past by the time B'urrat baby Txela was born.
        The fish were plentiful. The diseases, famine and pestilence of that time had run their courses. Survival of the colony was once again a viable option. What gave the final blow to B'urrat, was a tidal wave. Poor Txela's birth father, the last adult survivor of B'urrat, had lived only long enough to hand over the two-year old-child to the Clan members. The Clan Elders had come in search of useful tools abandoned by the colonists. So Txela was saved solely because of the legendary superiority and rarity, of those B'imini tools.
        The B'imini culture had produced creations so advanced, as to appear magical to the majority of the world's survivors. It was that magic the Clan sought. With it, they hoped to improve their chances of survival in a world turned upside-down.
        Txela had grown up a happy and healthy brown boy. He was brown as dirt, because the sun had finally returned to the people of Earth and the crops and animals prospered. He was a fine--potentially excellent--boy for the Clan. That is, until the tragedy struck.
        Txela was violently touched by the mountain spirit during a storm. A raging bolt of lightning struck him. His senses were completely befuddled by the experience and all ambition and purpose were drained from him. With his body twisted and his ambition gone, he was thought to have no will left of his own. Myan wanted Txela to marry her and, with her guidance, take over her father's trade one day. She believed the feeble-minded Txela would accept her will, in place of his own. She possessed enough ambition and craftiness for the both of them.
        The day of the Ritual drew to an end. A ghostly pale moon reached its zenith in the blue night sky. A dark figure ignited a torch and lit the ceremonial fires. Gathered Clan members formed a circle around the flames and awaited the approach of the boy who would become a man.
        The encircled crowd then heard the distinctive footfall of the boy--
        The heavy thud of one foot... and the ragged drag of the withered second foot. The legacy of Txela's encounter with the lightning was the diminished use of both limbs on his right side. Into the flickering torchlight, dressed in an immaculately white linen robe, protruded the solemn face of the boy. He was unnaturally at peace, calm and unconcerned.
        Traveler, controlling the sacrificial goat's body, was fully aware of the situation. At the moment of the kid's demise, Traveler, tasting the subtle flavors of human brain waves, changed hosts. Now it was 'Traveler/Txela' who actually walked up the sacred mountain, totally in control of their mutual future.
        Time passed. The moon had set. Slowly dawn oozed through the cracks in the canopy of night.
        Txela tried to pace himself as he trod daintily over the crumbled stone and dirt at the foot of the mountain. His deformed leg gave him little purchase on the shifting mounds of gravel and debris. An image in his mind, but not of his mind, pictured him veering off to the right. Not resisting, he simply veered. That path brought his steps closer to the large array of boulders hugging the northern face of the mountain. Between the boulders and the mountain was a clear channel twisting upward. Will-less Txela simply followed the channel.
        'How is it that any other goatherd, nor I knows this path? Yet, my mind shows it to me, as if I've walked it before!' Part of him questioned the source of the new thoughts, but he nonetheless acceded to the directions given.
        Txela's normally unfocused thoughts trickled down a single consistent path into his consciousness....
        He found himself considering the plants, sprouting raggedly along his trail. He recognized some of them as healing herbs. He recounted their names and their properties to himself. Strangely, he found he remembered more about the plants than he could possibly know!
        ...The trickle of thoughts became a rivulet....
        As he progressed on his journey, his eyes drifted skyward. The clouds above the mountain's peaks looked pregnant with rain. He estimated his arrival at the crater lip of the old volcano in four hours. The downpour would hold until then. Even though he had never been this far up the mountain, he knew he would find the shelter of a dense forest inside the crater.
        ...The trickle of thoughts became a stream....
        With a sense of certainty, Txela knew these were not his thoughts. The ideas filtering through the fog of his confused brain... were crisp, sharp, fully dimensional concepts. Since the encounter with the lightning bolt, his mind had been in a perpetual fog. These new, alien thoughts... were like bright sun beams piercing through and burning away that fog.
        Txela experienced Traveler's consciousness as a background voice in his head. Sometimes it slipped into the foreground with a compelling force of will. He did not bother to resist. The logic of the thought was unassailable. Txela instinctively felt the balanced symmetry of the thoughts and their unrestrained efficiency... reflected the efficiency and symmetry of nature herself.
        Txela was certain the voice was of Yahua, the Earth-Mother-Goddess. What other being could communicate with him thusly? Who would know so many things about... so many things? Yahua had chosen to guide his footsteps, for reasons unknown and unquestioned by him. Txela was receiving a blessing, he would prove himself worthy by being zealously obliging.
        And so Traveler's voice became associated with that of Yahua's.
        Experience had taught Traveler that it is wiser to encourage such an association. He/she would, therefore, attempt to stay in character. Traveler decided to adopt certain characteristics associated with the Earth-as-Mother deity, to complete the impersonation.
        The Earth Mother would need to probe and empathize with the elemental consciousness present in all living matter. Using a perception that sees everything as patterns of energy, S/he expanded the envelope of her consciousness outward.
        She, Traveler/Yahua, probed into the green scrub plants dotting the upward path to the mountain's summit. Some of the plants detected were vibrant, full of growth and energy. They possessed electromagnetic auras colored brilliantly yellow and green. Other plants lingered tentatively, desperately. Their auras were colored pastel brown. These plants were thirsting, dying for a life-extending drink from the gravid clouds above.
        As her consciousness expanded, she was aware of the pulsating volcanic heap beneath her. The volcano's molten flow of lava and iron induced static electric discharges that set the clouds to rumbling with heavenly fire. Harsh blue-white arcs of lightning peppered the top of the mountain in large numbers.
        Soon the clouds would gush forth their wet bounty to the thirsty plants.
        Thus she perceived the inter-relatedness of nature and the Earth-as-Mother, here on the mountainside and ultimately throughout this world.
        Txela's mind infused by the depth and breadth of Traveler/Yahua's revelation, trudged up the goat path. He giggled and wept. His mind could only absorb a small percentage of the breadth of omniscience contained in the revelation, but the bit absorbed put him on a level of understanding far above his peers. Having soared to such heights of knowingness, he would never be the same again.
        "Oh mother of us all, great Yahua--what sort of place is there at the mountain's top?"
        He was afraid to offend the spirit within him, but fearful also of what lie beyond the old volcano's summit. Fear of the volcano and Yahua's legendary image as the forgiving Mother, made him so bold as to ask this question. If she struck him dead, it would be no worse than what might lie ahead. This was the new Txela, weighing the circumstances and making a decision based on that.
        Traveler/Yahua would comply, any question asked would receive some form of answer.
        Txela, however, could not understand every answer given--thus a self-contained censorship would operate between them and keep the boy in the dark when necessary. As Txela grew in knowingness, he would play a more equal role in their mutual existence.
        S/he intended Txela would be given a growing responsibility for the course of their life together. In compliance to the question, Traveler expanded the envelope of electromagnetic force surrounding her/his being. She molded part of her energy field into a probing finger, an energy umbilical, that stretched its way upward along the path they must walk--licking back and forth rapidly.
        The probe relayed back to their collective mind a composite vision of the path to come. Over the volcano's rim stretched a vast crater. The crater was old and worn by time; no eruptions had disturbed its surfaces in ages. Instead of being deadly, it was teeming with life. Below, down the inside rim, grew a variegated carpet of grasses. The bushy heads of tall pines swept the clouds ahead of gusting breezes.
        All around the crater rim, plant life radiated downward towards the center. It was like a green fire flowing into the sky blue lake at the crater's heart. In the center of the lake, on a single isle of blackened rock, was the smoking spume of a small inner volcano. The fire was still in the mountain, but had not displayed itself in many years.
        Txela felt relieved to find no eminent death lurking over the crater rim. The wonder of being able to see where his foot had not yet trod, elated him. He found the verdant beauty of the crater intoxicating. The reflected blue mirror of the Crater Lake inspired his awe.
        His misapprehensions about the crater proved more dangerous than the reality itself. He learned valuable lessons about fear.
        'Fear is only the shadow cast by things one has yet to encounter, Txela.'
        Txela heard the words in his mind. He knew whose voice he was hearing, but he was amazed at how the words reached him.
        'The shadow of a thing often looms as a larger threat than actual the thing itself. Always remember this Txela: caution is wise; stealth is prudent; but groundless fear is foolish. Fear dampens the fire of ambition, young one--it has no place in the life you will lead.'
        "Yes. Thank you, Yahua, for your wisdom. I will try to remember your words." Txela answered sincerely, but he was fearful still.
        Traveler guided Txela's footsteps up an easy incline to just below the rim. A hidden rift in the rim-lip ushered him directly into the crater, without having to climb the rough rocks.
        "This rift, it would not have been seen without your blessing Yahua." A loudly gasping Txela, wearied by the swiftness of his ascent, paused to take a breath.
        'True! Tarry here. Catch your wind boy.' Traveler/Yahua was concerned because of Txela's physical limitations. But, Txela would not let a twisted body hold him back for long.
        Once through the rift, his eyes saw the truth of the vision given him by Yahua. He hobbled down the inclined inner face of the crater. He trod clumsily through accumulations of pine needle and twig, towards the blue mirror of water below. His thirst was great, so he hurried. The steepness of the ground added momentum to his headlong rush to the lake. Txela covered the distance to the water more swiftly than he had ever moved before.
        At the water's edge, S/he admonished him in a silent whisper. 'No further--'
        Txela froze in mid-step. Even as a query formed in Txela's mind, a response flooded his consciousness: 'This water could be deadly, drink not of it--'
        A vision from Yahua showed Txela why. She showed him the inner funnel of the old volcano. This funnel, barely smoking, sat in the middle of the lake. Surrounding the funnel was a thickened ring of rock, almost as tall. The ring stood as a remnant of an older funnel that preceded the 'little smoker' funnel. The older funnel actually formed the crater from which the little smoker had emerged. The old funnel walled-in a moat of rainwater, which surrounded the base of the little smoker.
        'Observe!'
        As if he was seeing it all from the eye of an eagle in flight, the perspective of the vision flew down close to the rainwater moat's surface. On the surface of the water was an accumulation of floating debris. Closer examination proved the debris was a thick carpet of dead flying insects. The dead unfortunate creatures were amassed like a layer of soot all around the inner face of the stone ring wall.
        'I have a question for you boy. Do you know what could cause the fall of so many flying insects?'
        "I know not, Goddess."
'Look to the befouled water. Its fumes are so deadly they can kill even those creatures whose path of flight merely carry them close to it!'
        At this point, the eagle's-eye view shifted beneath the murky befouled water to show a rent in the little smoker's base wall. Spewing from the rent were cloudy gases bubbling up from the volcano's depths.
        'This gas smells of brimstone.' Then she showed Txela how the offensive gas sulfur, when dissolved in water, created sulfuric acid.
        'This caustic water kills on contact. And its fumes foul the breathing parts of the insects, making them swoon--and thus fall into the deadly moat.'
        Having established the potential deadliness, Yahua again shifted the perspective of the vision: The eagle's-eye view gained altitude, as if they had taken flight. The view rose swiftly up from the foul water, over the stone ring wall and out over the blue lake water.
        Winged trout leapt clear of the blue surface, as if trying to taste the clouds. A true eagle dashed to intercept one of the trout as it sought the sanctuary of the waves. The talon-pierced trout dangled helplessly below the eagle's pumping wings and the eagle soared aloft.
        'The lake waters outside the stone ring-wall, do not reject life.'
        "What mean you, Yahua?"
        'That which is not too foul for the fish, may be safe for a man.'
        The stone ring-wall stood as an un-breached barrier to little smoker's foul waters. The wall's high rim and thickness had contained the foulness for centuries. Txela now understood Yahua's warning about the safety of the blue lake's waters and gained yet another lesson in life.
        Mindful of all Yahua had taught him, he cautiously prepared to bend to the water's edge for a well-deserved drink. His actions fell into what was a practiced routine. Wrapping his left arm around a convenient tree trunk and bending his left knee, he made as to stretch out his withered right leg, bringing his face down to the water's edge. His target was a muddy shallow of water left in a rut on the shore. Once on his good knee, he brought a cupped hand of refreshment to his lips--
        Txela froze in mid sip. The cupped hand, was his crippled right hand!
        'It is within my power to make right the wrong done you by the lightning's strike. Not many days hence, you will be fully restored to good health--and more!'
        Txela fell back against the tree, stunned. He stared at the flexing muscles of his restored arm. 'How is it such a blessing should be given to me?' The arm muscles danced like baby eels beneath the surface of his brown skin.
        "Thank you Great Mother! Thank you, thank you!"
        Visibly weeping, he recited the prayer taught by his Clan for blessings both desired or received. He mumbled the words through silent lips again and again. He would continue to repeatedly recite that prayer, in his idle moments, for several days--such was his gratitude.
        Txela found a question filling the void left by his silent meditation.
        "Great Mother, I beg of you tell me, how I have earned this blessing from you?" Now recovered from his shock Txela felt emboldened. "What am I to you, that you would bless me so?"
        Traveler/Yahua was not yet prepared to go into the details with Txela. Traveler was a bit stunned also. The boy could not appreciate the quantum leap in perception which their recent joint visions brought to Traveler. Up until now, Traveler's own vision of the world had been limited by comparison. The fully cognitive, intuitively brilliant, eagle's-eye discourse on the origin of the foul waters--was just a sample of what they together were capable of. That experience involved not only the senses of sight, sound, smell, tactile perception--but also spatial movement, extrasensory vision, and a vast ancient knowledge of the workings of the universe. The whole thus created, exceeded the sum of each party.
        Traveler had felt S/he was physically present in the vision. S/he felt as if she could easily fly from place to place--without a form--or adopt the form of any creature as desired. S/he knew that on rare occasion humans could experience such things. Her past hosts had included mystics and wizards. Traveler had never experienced these altered states of mind, only observed them. Traveler was the perennial observer... until now.
        'Txela is a rare creature, one whose neural pathways could allow such a perfect meshing of our mutual intelligence.'
        The essence of the boy was in harmony with the essence of Traveler. Being so precious, Traveler/Yahua would see to it the boy lived a long, healthy life. S/he had no intention of giving up this amazing symbiosis. Traveler wanted these sensations to last. Traveler had for the first time experienced, elation. What other emotions might S/he one-day feel?
        'I have found you to be a rare and gentle soul Txela.'
        "Oh?"
        'You are one in whom my spirit could abide for a time, all the better to protect you and your people. So I have started the re-building of the human host, you Txela, in which I would reside.'
        "You honor me. Thank you for your generous concern, Mother Yahua!"
        'There are important reasons for my concern. Once you are perfected, my young host, you will be my tool. I shall use you to make manifest my will in the world of men.' The voice of Yahua, having said this, fell silent.
        Traveler/Yahua would say no more about her true nature or purpose. S/he would not betray the boy's naïve trust or his expectation of goodness from the Goddess Yahua. It would serve no good purpose to disillusion Txela of his religion, at least not at this point in their relationship. Thus, Traveler/Yahua determined to stay in character--and make the survival and happiness of Txela, her priority for as long as possible. S/he felt she owed him that much.
        Yahua formed a mental image of Txela walking off to the left toward an unfamiliar section of the crater forest. In the image, at the wall of the crater, was found a large projecting mass of igneous rock, forming a cliff that grew from the wall at mid-height and extended outward into the lake. The cliff formed a plateau that rose above the crater floor. The cliff cleaved the blue lake's edge like the prow of a great ship, extending itself one hundred lengths of a man's outstretched arms into the cool water.
        'This cliff is to be called, the High Torr,' Yahua whispered.
        At that moment the vision's perspective shifted upward, to the sky above the Basalt High Torr.
        Charcoal-colored clouds seem pulled across the crater rim by an unseen hand. The clouds blotted out the blue sky. Torrents of rain flooded the crater floor. Nevertheless the vision showed him dry inside a cavern entrance at the High Torr's base. The eagle's-eye view of the vision flew downward into the grotto, following Txela's progress into the cavernous interior. Trickles of rainwater sliding down an inclined cavern wall, lead Txela's gaze up that incline. The source of the flow was a lightning-lit exit-hole at the cave's roof. A gentle, but rocky path led up to the exit-hole. Txela knew this was a path to the High Torr plateau and silently thanked Yahua for the information.
        The glare of the blue-lightning pierced the veiled awareness of his hallucination.
        Thunderstruck, Txela's head snapped automatically to the left. Backlit by lightning, jutting defiantly through the now falling downpour, stood the High Torr.
        Txela made haste to the anticipated location of the cavern. As a shelter, it was more than adequate against the warm summer rains. What was more important, it gave safekeeping from the angry lightning bolts dancing about the volcano's crown. Until the storm ended, he would rest. When the rain subsided, he would seek food.
        Txela found a dry elevated ledge far from the cavern's windy entrance. He felt warm, much warmer than he should have inside a cave.
        "Mother Yahua!" he shouted, as if Traveler's silence meant he were not nearby. "Will you answer a few questions for me?"
        'Whatever you ask, I will answer. Ask freely and the answers will be returned in kind.'
        Traveler/Yahua seemed to whisper right into the boy's ear.
        When Txela realized just how close the deity was to him, he was struck silent for a brief moment. He had not expected such a generous reply. And he had not realized the deity was so close at hand. He modified the volume of his question. "Mother Yahua, it seems strange that in this chill storm--this cave should remain so warm."
        'There is a hot water spring bubbling up from beneath this mountain. Over countless years it has dissolved away enough of this hard rock to make a pool. The pool can be found in a small steamy grotto at the bottom of that descending tunnel. It is straight ahead of you. You may go there and wash yourself, if you like.'
        "Thank you, Goddess. But, if you don't mind, I think I will stay here--just a while--and rest. I am so very tired, after all that has happened today. Do I have your leave to rest now?"
        'Yes. You may rest now.'
        "Will you leave me while I sleep?"
        'I can. Unless you want me to stay.'
        "Please, stay! I fear I would be overwhelmed by all that has happened, were you gone from me!"
        'In truth, I will always be close. But tonight, I will be joined to you in your dreams.'
        "You will? Right at this moment?"
        'No, You must fare on your own for a time. But, I shall join you before the morning comes.'
        "Will you also sleep, dear Goddess?"
        'No. I have much to consider. This time would be good for such things.'
        "Will you never rest?" the boy asked in the echoing darkness of the cave.
        There was silence. No reply came to him. A bright strobe of lightning danced along the cavern walls. The roar of thunder reverberated through the cave and echoed down its many tunnels. For a moment the boy felt abandoned.
        'I rested once, for six thousand years. I will not need rest, again.'
        The boy should have been astonished by such a sleep. But, he was too exhausted. 'Besides, what else might one expect of a Goddess?'
        His closing eyes folded all doubt out of his tired brain and veiled his dreams from the lightning's dazzling glare. Watched over by an unsleeping deity, he slept as soundly as a babe....
        Traveler/Yahua determined the first night of sleep in conjunction with Txela should be one of quiet acclimation. S/he observed the way Txela's dreams linked his conscious mind to: needs, fears and urges on a primitive level; but also linked him to experiences on the spiritual level of being.
        Yahua would need to insinuate certain ideas and concepts into the dreamtime's symbolism. In this way alien concepts could be taught, around the objections of Txela's provincial biases. Txela's life would be a whirlpool of new thoughts, perspectives and conclusions. In order that he absorb these new things optimally, he must become like the terminus of the whirlpool--he must aggressively take in the knowledge, rather than float along with it.
        Traveler/Yahua decided to explore the new power of perception the boy brought to their relationship. Without leaving the sleeping protégé, Traveler's awareness began to drift upwards. Moving at a brisk pace, the point of view passed right through the cavern's ceiling of solid rock and emerged above the mountain crater-edge. Bright arrows of grumbling electricity extended themselves miles off in every direction. The dark clouds boiled with fierce agitation. They shed their burden of liquid in cold shining sheets that dropped whole from the night sky.
        Traveler's point of view drifted over the crater's edge and plunged down the shear side of the mountain.
        'What? What has altered the viewpoint? No change was desired!'
        "Forgive me great Mother, but I have willed it! Please, Yahua! Let my heart take us to my home. Let me see my family and all those I miss tonight!"
        The point of view rushed towards the dying embers of a fire. Illumined in the sparse light was the circle of stones that Txela recognized as the entrance to his home. All was peaceful and silent. Discouraged by the lack of activity, Txela could no longer hold the vision. It quickly faded.
        'You surprise me, boy. I never thought your desire could compete with my own. Amazing. You have taken over this vision, though I believed you were asleep.'
        "But, I am asleep, Goddess. And what you are calling your vision--is merely my yearning, my dream."
        'Again you have surprised me, Txela. You exert influence over me where none have succeeded before.'
        "I do not wish it so, Yahua. I am your servant. I meant no offense. I only felt the desire to see home, I did not command it should be thus."
        'What the heart desires, does not the will command? I am not offended boy. You are still my loyal servant. Perhaps one day the servant will become equal to the mistress.'
        "Such a balance is as far beyond me as you are, dear Yahua. Never could I aspire to such an insult!"
        'Be unashamed of your aspirations, boy. An aspiration is a conceit, only when that desire far exceeds your grasp. Truthfully, at this amazing moment... I am no longer certain how far your grasp may one-day reach. Now, go to your rest boy. Tomorrow approaches on swift feet.'
        The rest of the night passed uneventfully--
        But, the next days did not.
        Twenty-eight days passed upon the mountain. Txela's days were full of new wonders. He gained new understandings about the fundamental laws of his universe. He was instructed about the balancing act required of Yahua--in order to keep the world running--each part supporting the other. Each day was a feast of knowledge and each night a time of rumination, cogitation and absorption--through the agency of his dreams.
        Traveler/Yahua took great pains to instruct the boy in the fundamentals of living with the life that abounded in the crater paradise. On the outside of the High Torr cave was a lush green forest and downhill from there was the high grasses of a plain area. The landscape was ideal for all variety of animal-life. The crater was full of game, all one would ever need.
        Internally, the cavern proved to be a constant, dangerous, surprise for the boy. Traveler came to his aid. First, he taught Txela how to fabricate an efficient oil lamp. Then, Traveler did something to improve Txela's eyes. He widened Txela's perception of light in both the infra-red and ultraviolet spectrums.
        With his vision also enhanced, Txela then felt confident enough to explore. The place was multi-leveled from the top of the main cave's ceiling to hundreds of feet beneath its floor. Smaller tunneling caves riddled the entire High Torr. Some of those caves were or had been occupied in recent history. By following the trails left by these creatures, Txela discovered a multitude of hidden places and exits from the Torr. One cave was blocked and filled with the crumbled debris of a recent cave-in. Txela discovered the bones of several large man-like creatures in that cave.
        One night, Yahua's visions explained how the extinct volcanic crater came to be: how long the process took, how the various life-forms migrated up to that lofty place of isolation, etc. Oft times these explanations were fascinating--for instance: various indigestible seeds of berry-sprouting weeds eaten in the valley by birds, were often left on the crater floor in their droppings. Other plants--during violent storms--used wind borne spores or puffs of pollen to invade the once virgin crater. Trout flown by an eagle to his nest dispersed their fish-eggs along the way. Some on the ground, some into the unsullied blue lake, a survival tactic that assured the continuation of that trout species. Other creatures during years of brood growth, foraged up the mountain in search of new territories. This was understandable. The same conditions that made the plants grow in abundance caused over-population in the animal communities. That condition often made the lower valley areas impossible for many to survive. So, there were periodic animal encroachments into the crater. All this and more did Txela learn. He accumulated this new wisdom at a dizzying pace. He had little time to consider anything else.
        He did not consider what consternation his failure to return had caused, down the mountain in his village.
        The whole village lay in dread and disbelief. Poor Txela had not yet returned. No elder could find a trace of him on the mountainside or in the valley. The ritual visit would have only taken a matter of hours to complete. It was meant only as a cursory attempt to breach the impassable crater rim. That was all the village had expected of the boy.... unless there had been an accident. Even had there been an unfortunate occurrence there should have been the remains of a corpse.
        After a week of waiting, the elders declared him lost to the mountain and prepared themselves for the next initiation ceremony due on the next full moon. There were three boys being tested simultaneously. It was hoped the joy of seeing them succeed would wipe out the sadness of Txela's failure to attain manhood.
        Txela's adopted family was grief-stricken, but the loss of so many in the Dark-Time had hardened the hearts of all to the ravages of death. No one dwelled upon the subject of his demise for long--
        No one except, Myan.
        Myan was desolate. She had lost her dearest companion and, her only hope for happiness. Even though a young girl, she had felt the beginnings of a great passion for the joys that only a married couple could enjoy. Now her body would never know such pleasure and it ached deeply for that loss. She had no marriage prospects left in the village. Even if she did have a suitor, he would never replace Txela in her heart. She foresaw only a token marriage to any other.
        Myan thus performed the ritual of the mourning wife, for the loss of what might have been. She shaved off all her hair, for a widow must mourn for as long as it takes to re-grow it to original length. She stripped naked and painted her skin with white ashes--for she was to be the bride to death only--and should look like death. Any man indulging in a widow's suddenly available 'charms'--would be, as a consequence, stained in white ashes too--and subject to stoning by anyone who saw him.
        Myan built a hutch next to the gravesite of the deceased, where she survived on donations of food and fuel from the villagers for one month. In that month, it was hoped the majority of her mourning would be accomplished, away from prying eyes. With no grave to mark his passing, she built a hutch for Txela on the mountainside. She built it as close to the place that Txela walked up the mountain as she could remember. Sitting daily, covered in tears, she awaited the end of her mourning period.

Chapter Three
Natasha

        When Shannon awoke, huge white fangs came into view before her sticky eyelids.
        With a whoop and a leap, she sprang almost to the ceiling before she realized her mistake.
        Her mistake was in pulling one of the stuffed lions she kept on her bed, to her face whilst she dreamed. It was nearly impossible not to stumble over the all of the lion toys and images she owned. The whole lion motif permeated her home and her life.
        The ancient woman who lived down the hall had said as much. She was called Natasha and claimed to be part Mystic/part Astrologer. SOUL MOTHER--NATASHA ROMANOV-KLUG, was embossed on a plastic sticker glued to her door--but her preference was to be called only, Natasha.
        Common wisdom within the apartment building said--despite her mystical trappings--she was a retired psychiatrist.
        Mother Natasha called Shannon, 'Leona,' meaning the lioness. Shannon was born under the Zodiac sign of Leo, according to the Astrologer. Natasha had befriended the wayward and, in the purest Christ-like practice, had passed no judgment upon her way of life. Natasha willingly served Shannon, or any of her clients, as a substitute mother.
        The Mystic calculated birth charts for Shannon and her entire family, in an effort to make sense of the mess the young woman's 'current lifetime' had sprung from. Natasha had spoken of 'Karmic obligations' and 'mutual incarnations' and other terms that made no sense to Shannon's unsophisticated intellect. The explanations comforted the confused child-woman for some time--until Traveler's arrival as her mentor. Now whole worlds of understanding could be gleaned for those Astrological charts.
        Shannon was uneducated, but she had a normal subconscious--and everything that was said or done in her presence was stored there. In the dreamtime revelations created by Traveler, this stored data was the yarn the dreams were woven from. Thus, Traveler wove a tapestry of known and unknown history. Opening up capacities present, but unexplored in her average brain, Traveler made way for the information to come. He made sophisticated adjustments in the electro-chemical balance of her mind. As she slept, her IQ grew--quickly surging up and eventually off the IQ scale.
        On this particular morning, she had managed to drag herself into the bathroom, to make a deposit in the porcelain dumpster bolted to the green-tiled floor. Bowels and bladder empty now, she stumbled over to the wash basin.
        Gray-green eyes stared back from the bathroom mirror. Shannon's eyes had changed. They throbbed with intensity, intelligence and sadness--a great sadness. The sadness she felt was not her own, she had learned to live with her own sadness, this sorrow was for the world.
        Her eyes had been pried open to the suffering of others, something she had not given a lot of thought to in the past. The dreamtime revelations brought to her by Traveler, filled her with the suffering of billions.
        She witnessed billions of souls passing in and out of life, often in pain and confusion. Through Traveler's perspective of thousands of years, she saw those same souls leave and re-enter life with renewed hopes.
        The hopes of those departed souls were re-ignited after glimpsing the wonder of the 'other world,' for at the moment of death, they entered a world of infinite possibilities. The other world was free of pain and strife. It was filled with love, understanding and all of the loved ones they thought lost. The other world was filled with the hope of balancing the scales and satisfying the law of retribution, the law of Karma: "...Whatsoever ye sow, so shall ye reap...."
        Traveler explained that the majority of souls who reentered this world did so with the hope of repaying their Karmic debts and exiting the Karmic Carousel, freed from the need to re-incarnate. Usually the hopes of repayment would increasingly fade, from the moment of re-birth onward. The trial and pain of life often diverted their resolve to make amends. Too often they failed to even remember what their debt was. Nor could they recall that life's pain was only temporary and only the soul was eternal.
        Now knowing this, Shannon was sad with the knowledge that many souls would suffer for many more lifetimes before they stood at the same point of understanding as she. She now suffered under the weight of empathy and the gnawing hunger of compassion, for all of humanity.
        Shannon was no longer concerned with her own future, alone.
        Traveler's mission and the task for which Shannon was recruited, was to avert a great danger to the future of humanity. As to the nature of and origin of this threat, Traveler promised greater understanding to her... once she was brought up to speed on the developments of the last several thousand years.
        This process of education would take time. Traveler could only allow her to absorb so many years of historical chronology per dreamtime. Then she would still be able to absorb other information while she was awake, too. The great mass of that other information was about the world of today.
        Learning was the only priority for now. Traveler must cram several lifetimes of learning into a matter of months. He was not only a teacher--he was a student. He needed to absorb all of the recent technical, scientific and cultural knowledge he could--through Shannon.
        Shannon's understanding of the world in which she lived would color any knowledge she acquired for Traveler. So, she too must be as sophisticated in these matters as possible. Therefore, she could not just read for Traveler's education, she must also absorb for her own enlightenment. That was why Traveler enhanced Shannon's intellectual capacities.
        Overnight, Shannon's reading speed increased. It was nothing short of phenomenal. And, her level of comprehension was almost... mystical.
        Several nights of dreamtime was sufficient. Now, some field research was in order.
        Shannon dressed warmly in a flannel shirt, denims and her red boots. A shawl-necked sweater and an army surplus parka, completed her survival suit. She had no intentions of getting frostbite on her trek downtown. She was headed to the Cleveland Public Libraries and from there to various University libraries.
        Those libraries were the first in a series of places she would seek information. The next few days she borrowed books, videos and computer diskettes. She used her credit cards to purchase a complete multi-media computer unit. She had it all delivered the same day to her place and set herself the task of learning its operation. It took her new intellect an hour to master the dozen programs included 'free' with the unit.
        From that day forward, Shannon was locked up in her apartment. She studied 18 hours a day sleeping or relaxing the other six hours. Her new body chemistry required she sleep deeply only two hours a day, as long as she took frequent meditation breaks during the course of the day. During the long periods of study on her computer, she listened, read and exercised. The exercises were needed to stimulate her body and mind... and to teach her self-defense skills. Neighbors saw her only when she went out for food, or more books.
        She took no more client calls from the escort services that at one time had been her sole support. This escort service catered to an elite list of clients, who have plenty of money and influence. As a result the service, unhappy to lose her assets, threatened various forms of coercion to get her back on the job.
        Shannon's newly emerging independence caused her to view such threats with contempt. Her new friend, Traveler, promised her his total cooperation in protecting her child and herself from any reprisals.
        With such support, Shannon was left free to concentrate on her learning.
        A brilliant sun was reflected from the puddle-pocked blanket of snow that spread over the streets of Shaker Heights. Shannon, loaded down with fresh vegetables in a canvas shopping bag, hiked homeward.
        Gingerly her footsteps avoided the mirrored surfaces of re-frozen slush-puddles.
        The air was clean and crisp. She breathed in deeply the sharp freshness of the chill morning's atmosphere. She felt joyous expectation for what her life was becoming. Enjoying her walk, she wondered at the simple beauties of the street on which she lived. She loved the neat manicured look of the landscaped tree lawns and the absence of filth accumulating in the gutters. In the world she had risen from, such niceties were abnormal.
        She had originally moved into this upper class neighborhood to give her son such an environment. He stayed with her only on the days he came home from his special boarding school. This arrangement had allowed Shannon to keep her occupation a secret from him. It also did not hurt that the boy's home address was from such a posh area. It was the sort of thing that impressed the school's management.
        Turning up the path to her three story apartment building, she stopped at her mailbox for an infrequent visit.
        Instinctively, she stepped to the left--just as a black leather clad fist smashed into her mailbox door.
        "Shit!" a male voice screamed suddenly.
        The mailbox door collapsed like a cheap aluminum pie pan, at about the same time the assailant's arm folded in on itself--now in three distinct pieces. This was followed by a counter-blow from Traveler/Shannon. It came with a wind whistling blur of speed.
        That kind of skill was acquired over thousands of years of unarmed combat. Traveler had acquired vast experiences in many martial disciplines, now applied coolly and efficiently on the assailant. Shannon watched in shock and awe as her body performed feats seen only in martial arts movies. The result found the huge man at her feet, the spiked red heel of her boot pressing firmly into his carotid artery.
        "Run out of white girls to put in the hospital? Huh? Huh? Or is the terrifying Large Bob Codespotti into licking the bottom of my shoe?" Shannon pivoted her heel harder into his throat, dragging the toe of her pump across his lips. "No? Oh well! Then maybe you're here because your boss doesn't like my quitting his stable?"
        As he attempted to talk she pressed harder, stifling any response. Even laid out on the sidewalk he was a huge man. He was dark and hairy, of Mediterranean descent and easily weighing in at two hundred pounds.
        "Listen up! I'm not working for you cheap, woman-beating, low-life bastards again. And believe me, the next time you try to beat me up, I will lose my temper--all over your sleazy butt!"
        Shannon left the crumpled man sputtering for breath on the wet sidewalk. As she entered the security door of her apartment building she tossed back a final remark. "Our little dance was recorded on a security camera. If you ever contact me or try to hurt me, I'll put your butt so far under the jail, you'll have an earthworm for a boyfriend."
        After an hour of creative computer network searching and probing--'Hard encryption hacking' as the computer fanatics called it--Shannon, decoded the access codes to each of the escort service's computer-billing systems. Intending to remove that threat permanently, she attacked them where they lived.
        Shannon knew the escort service's clients hid their activities' cost on their corporate credit cards. When the amorous executives hired an escort for a business related social event; it was casually billed to their corporation. If the client also required chauffeured limousine services to the airport, or for the transport of potential clients, this service was also billed to his employer's credit card.
        The fact that in reality the chauffeurs were also party girls and boys, would never be known by the taxman. Thus were such adventures written off on tax returns as 'business expenses.'
        Shannon extracted their client billing lists from the secured areas of their databases. Then, she sent copies of those lists to several TV news departments.
        That next morning, people named on the lists were confronted by cameras and journalist all over town. In their public response to this action, the accused pled innocence. The smarter ones even called for an immediate police investigation of this despicable computer prankster. Privately, the escort entrepreneurs were coerced to fold their operations and depart for a new location--without ever knowing what, or who, hit them.
        Shannon now earned her sum of daily bread through shrewd off-track betting. It was done without ever leaving her apartment, through her on-line computer network. Predicting the vagaries of: dog racing, horse racing, etc., was made possible by her newly evolved intuitive perception. When Traveler enhanced her mental capacities, this was an offshoot.
        Earning a sizable nest egg--swiftly--was essential to the completion of the coming mission.
        As Shannon's accuracy in making predictions increased and her knowledge of astrological cycles matured, she started betting on the commodities market--and other rich man's sports. Weeks passed and her computer became an extension of her six senses. She kept buying more and more equipment for the system to enhance its capacities and therefore her own capacities.
        Her computer systems now took up an entire room and allowed her access to ever more secret business and government files.
        No boundary of corporation or government was to be respected; no law of man was sacrosanct, no regulation sacred. Traveler had declared that what was at stake was of paramount concern. It was the fate of humanity itself. No other priority was above that, except the laws of Karma and God.
        After a long intense period of work, Traveler determined Shannon was in need of some emotional recharging--with her family and friends.
        She too wanted some real human contact and interaction.
        First Shannon made a phone call. She asked for permission to visit her son's boarding school campus in two days. Afterward, she walked down the hall of her apartment building to see her surrogate mother and friend, Natasha.
        Inside her apartment, Natasha sat in her easy chair--facing a windowsill adorned with memories. Picture frames were arranged, more for the sake of volume than neatness, like soldiers marching two abreast across the wide picture window. The frames each enveloped a likeness of an important event in the course of her life.
        The event of her graduation from the University of Moscow was represented. The event of her doctoral dissertation's successful acceptance was recorded for all time.
        Another photo, of her dead husband Olav, on the day he wed her. He successfully got her out of Mother Russia, with his diplomatic connections... and a case of Johnnie Walker. In those days: several bottles of English whiskey could easily open the cold heart of any Soviet bureaucrat.
        Oslo was Olav's home. Once they had arrived there, a defection was decided upon. In the time of Josef Stalin in Russia, Jews such as Natasha were 'allowed' to settle elsewhere from time to time. This allowance yielded increased employment opportunities for the more 'desirable' comrades of non-Hebrew persuasion. Her exodus from Russia was also aided by the lack of any jobs for yet another psychiatrist fresh out of university.
        Natasha's specialty had been in the field of extrasensory perception and unusual psychic phenomena. Her doctoral thesis researched the perceptions a select group of Russian psychics had experienced concerning the rise to power of Mr. Hitler in Germany.
        In her research of the psychic trances achieved by the twelve famous clairvoyants, Natasha found a definite pattern about Mr. Hitler. The consensus of opinion was that Hitler was a reincarnated dark priest. They claimed he was once a member of a mystical order called the Sons of Belial or the Sons of Darkness. But, that was back 12,500 years ago in the legendary empire of Atlantis.
        Natasha's psychics alleged Mr. Hitler intended to conquer and dominate the entire world. Hitler had been part of such an attempted conquest in the time of Atlantis--foiled by the Children of the Law of One, an order of powerful Mystics dedicated to stopping his aggressions. They were also called the Sons of Light, whose symbol was the sun, representing the one God.
        The battle that raged between these two powerful ancient groups is said to have unleashed fantastic energies, which caused great volcanic upheavals and the eventual destruction of the continent of Atlantis.
        The psychics also said Hitler was a clairvoyant and a mystic who practiced Black Magic. It was well known he surrounded himself with an entourage of Mystics, Astrologers and Seers. Hitler intended to gain power by sacrificing large numbers of innocent people to mass destruction. Through these blood sacrifices, Hitler would gain great psychic powers from the dark forces--because he was, according to French Mystic Dr. Nostrodamus, the Second Anti-Christ.
        Natasha's paper often quoted psychics like Nostrodamus and the American 'Sleeping Psychic' Edgar Cayce, who corroborated the findings of her group of sensitives. Of course, no Communist university official would offer a teaching post to such a religion-plagued-crackpot of a scientist. The job prospects for a blackballed psychiatrist outside of the state institutions of learning, or the military... were therefore non-existent.
        Natasha met a visiting Norwegian psychiatrist at a conference on post-war stress syndromes in Leningrad. It was the summer of 1938. Natasha had just turned twenty-five. She fell in love with the middle aged life-long bachelor and his radical intellectual attitudes.
        'Twin souls,' is the term of reference her husband used. He offered that as an explanation for their whirlwind courtship and marriage, to his conservative Norwegian relatives.
        The two of them honeymooned in Norway and England, where a premonition of impending doom stopped Olav from returning to Norway. Instead he sought and accepted a residency at H.M.S. Royal College of Medicine. Thus, he and Natasha stayed in England for the commencement of 'Mr. Hitler's War of Aggression' on Europe.
        After the United States entered the war, the Klugs migrated over to Harvard University for twin professorships in the psychology department and eventually adopted America as their home.
        Natasha bore Olav six American children before the 'Angels' took him away. She devoted the rest of her life to her kids. But, she continued her researches into psychiatry. She became a noted expert in the techniques of Hypnotic Regression, used to recall memories of past lives.
        Natasha had moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio to be near children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. This happened after her retirement from psychiatric practice in 1983.

        "Buzzzz-zazzzz!"
        The loud sound shattered the delicate web of memories Natasha had wrapped herself in. As she waddled to the front door, the snap-crackle-pop of her ancient joints created a percussive counterpoint to the angry music of the doorbell.
        She was happy and eager to receive a visitor and brandished a shameless grin toward her own reflection in the hallway mirror. 'Perhaps it's one of the great grandchildren, on the way to the mall. They might be stopping to beg 'Gram' for some pocket money.' Perspiring with unrestrained anticipation, she opened her door to the mystery beyond and was physically jolted by the eyes that met her own.
        Standing there as calm as the stars themselves... was a lean, alert, magnetic figure whose presence compelled her cooperation--even before it was requested. Her intuition whispered frantically to her heart, a new adventure awaited her in the waning days of her long life. Natasha instinctively knew that whatsoever was asked of her today, she would wholeheartedly commit her mind, soul and spiritual resources to.
        "Hello, Mother Klug!" Shannon gently sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to another. "I have a real, honest to God need of your skill... and your wisdom too. May I come in?"
        Natasha stepped aside and, with an uncharacteristically swift flourish, ushered Shannon into her home. Under her breath she prayed, 'Lord make me worthy of the blessing I am about to receive.' A tear welled in the corner of one of her hazel brown eyes and grinning broadly she closed her apartment door.
        Shannon moved across the room with the cat-like efficiency one associates with athletes of exceptional grace. She moved directly to occupy the stuffed chair she was accustomed to sitting in on her visits to Natasha.
        "Thank you, Natasha. You have always been someone I could count on."
        With her long legs curled under her buttocks and her arms wrapped across her chest for emotional solace, Shannon prepared to launch into her tale of the amazing metamorphosis that had come over her.
        Natasha had not seen Shannon but briefly in the past weeks and she missed the daily visits since they had become close. The two counted on each other to fill the gaps in their lives left by their absent children.
        "Perhaps you will allow me to guess what it is you have come to tell me, Leona." Natasha used the affectionate nickname she called Shannon in order to relax the woman coiled in her easy chair. "I see that now you move with the confidence, grace and menace of the jungle cat. This is a new thing, eh? But, not an unhoped for one! Heh-heh." She laughed gently.
        "Your astrological chart indicated such a transformation, at this stage in your life. This is a development we have discussed before! Your chart also indicated that the transformation would be caused, due to the influence of a powerful spiritual teacher. Someone who would make herself known to you at this important stage. I sense you are now being guided by this teacher. She will now lead you into the actualization of all your hidden potential, correct?"
        Shannon's mouth dropped open in genuine surprise. She gasped some air in order to say so. Her remark was cut short by Natasha's open palm thrust gently towards her.
        "Do not interrupt," these words were said with loving firmness from the old professor. "Just nod yes for now, I need to test my assumptions before you dilute them with your truth--heh-heh."
        Shannon smiled warmly at the woman. No woman she had encountered before had cared so much about her well being, especially not her own mother.
        Traveler too, was amused. The old woman's interpretation of the planetary influences on Shannon's life was uncannily accurate. 'This Natasha is unusually skilled in the Astrologer's art.'
        Traveler knew the value such prognostications had throughout the Earth's history. Though once considered inaccurate and superstitious by many, the Science of Astrology had, of late, returned to the accuracy it had enjoyed some 12,000 years ago. In that time it was highly favored amongst the Super Scientists--the Atlanteans.
        'But, that was before they fell from grace. If Natasha is any example of the quality of Astrologers available in this century, then history is beginning to repeat itself. The human race has re-evolved back to its highest level of development.'
        Traveler's mission was to assure that this time, mankind didn't destroy itself before it could mature. If humanity was given the time to evolve beyond its selfishness and become truly spiritual, then it would fulfill the destiny for which it was intended.
        Today the interconnectedness of the universe was once again being perceived by mankind. The true nature of mankind's reality is that it is energy and is alive... and human souls are like the electrical impulses that fuel this reality's existence.
        What reality does affects humanity and what humanity does affects reality.
        Astrology offered one of many arcane ways to understand this symbiotic relationship. Mankind as a whole had spent many ages evolving toward such an understanding. 'Perhaps those astrologers of old Atlantis had all reincarnated into what might be the last days of this world,' Traveler speculated.
        'Perhaps they have returned to help humanity make the next leap of evolution. A new mankind may about to be born. If that makes sense, then the agonies of the last few millennia have been mankind's birth pains.' Traveler seriously wondered if he were meant to be the midwife to the birth of that new reality.
        Unfortunately, there were others who intended to pervert this event to their advantage. It is those others, that Traveler had spent the last few thousand years trying to stop. He must first help Shannon to understand herself, so that she could help him in this great mission.
        Natasha's skills with hypnosis and past life regression could help Shannon connect with her past lives and therefore understand the agonies she had experienced in this life. Until Shannon was free of these agonies, she could not fully concentrate on the preparations for the deadly mission to come. Total concentration would be required for the tasks Traveler anticipated, anything less could mean sudden death.
        Shannon was happy. Natasha's predictive skills had anticipated the arrival of Traveler into her miserable life. Shannon hoped her friend would advise her on each step taken hereafter.
        Natasha would prove worthy of all of the young woman's trust. She saw this entity as a powerful spirit-guide sent to revive Shannon's arid wellspring of hope.
        Natasha prepared a comfy spot, a pallet of soft quilts on the floor of the living room. This would be a warm, snug spot for Shannon to rest on while she was hypnotized. It was also ideal to prevent any self-injury, should she make any violent movements--while in the throes of a death revisited.
        The doctor wasted no time in starting the hypnotic procedures. Shannon proved to be amazingly receptive and things progressed swiftly.
        Traveler's bird's-eye view of the lifetimes visited... proved unique. After all, he could both observe and participate in events he had not originally been a part of. Thus, Traveler saw Shannon's point of view flee the reality in front of her eyes. Her viewpoint sank backward... into the dimensionless recesses of her Karmic memory.
        Traveler was familiar with the process, encounters with Mystics and holy men had taught him much about the geometric pattern of life-death-life. Each life that one experienced became part of the foundation for the next life. All of those lives interconnect through cause and effect--each one following the other sometimes, but sometimes the order skipped several incarnations.
        In a spiritual sense, one could look down from the height of their current life to see the struts of past experience that supported the present level of soul development. These struts would go downward level by level to the origins of this soul's first Karmic action. What is seen, is seen more dimly the further down one looks.
        Shannon's view slid backwards from her birth in this life, to her death in another.
        She became Bill: a soldier of late; born a Black slave in southern Georgia. Bill's soldiering started after he was recruited to help ravage the countryside for the Union General Sherman.
        The liberated slaves did the runnin,' totin' and latrine diggin' for Sherman's Army and soon Bill became discouraged with the endless, thankless drudgery of soldiering. He made a hasty retreat for the Seminole Indian Country. Word amongst the ex-slaves was they could find a safe haven there. Bill was unfortunately caught and shot as a deserter by the Union forces.
        Bill's life in turn slid into the life of Willum: a 12th century farmer. Willum farmed as a tenant of the Manor Lord in Middlesex, England. He died at the plowshare. Some past lives were just plain uneventful.
        Several more layers of the Karmic Onion were peeled away, more lives were explored. Some lives were mercifully ended quickly. Many lives however were simply inaccessible.
        Traveler recognized this limitation as by Cosmic design. The viewing of those lives served no useful purpose in this one. Reliving the horrible lives could prove counter-productive to the Karmic lessons the soul called Shannon was born to learn in its current life.
        The odyssey through Karmic history drifted into another of her lives as a Germanic slave woman. She was named Loki and was made concubine to a rich merchant in ancient Rome. Loki perished while on holiday with her master in a burning city, called Pompeii. The volcanic eruptions of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the city and boiled the harbor waters into which Loki had fled. It was an ill-considered decision meant to save her from the lava.
        Traveler noted with amazement, how often he had been familiar with the time period and locations of those lifetimes. Several more existences passed by, then a lifetime was revealed that came as a shock, but only to Traveler.
        Shannon found herself living in a time at least a thousand years before Rome. In that life she was vilified as a powerful and vengeful ruler of a small nation of Clans, feared by all who knew her. She was a Queen, consort to a fallen leader... her name was Myan!

SOUL-TRAVELER

ORDER NOW

INDEX