The Unchanging Heavens

By Kat Folland

The third full length Daganu novel, The Unchanging Heavens takes Joe, Kristy and Becky deeper into the magic and mystery of Daganu than ever before, as they have to procure rare talismans to enter the feared land of Bistami Stulba and try to help Emily and Chen find happiness, rather than exile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kat Folland
• Release date: Nov 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310153754

Kat Folland

Kat Folland was born in 1970 and adopted six weeks later by some really excellent people who, for some reason, opted to keep her. She grew up comfortably middle class – you could be comfortable in the middle class in those days – getting a fairly useless degree in History and an even more useless minor in Anthropology. Dabbling in writing all her life, she finally got around to finishing a novel in her forties, and is now publishing with some regularity.

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The Unchanging Heavens

by Kat Folland

The Unchanging Heavens

Copyright: Kat Folland 2013

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art by Dana Cruz de Leon

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Unchanging Heavens is a work of fiction. All names and places are either fictional or used fictionally. Many animals were eaten during the creation of this novel, and at least one EPA violation occurred, but no contaminants were allowed into the final product. This novel contains no carcinogens known to the state of California, and is safe for pregnant and breast-feeding women.

Author's Note: The tale thus far...

If you are new to the Daganu series, fear not! The Unchanging Heavens is meant to be enjoyed in its own right. Rest assured that you don't need in-depth understanding of references to past events or off-stage characters.

That said, here are the basics:

In The Sunshine Line Joe Kane meets his new girlfriend Kristy's parents and only later learns that their home hides a secret: a portal between our world and the world of the fairies. His introduction to this surprising fact came in the midst of a crisis, at the conclusion of which the fairies offered Joe a job securing other portals between the worlds, and the Portal Project was formed.

The Mirror's Image takes us into Daganu, as Joe, with his bride Kristy, start their job with the Portal Project. They prepare for their new duties by being tutored by the learned elf, Angelina. The training is shown to be less than complete as the pixie Becky takes them out on their first expedition into the world of the fairies. Before long, however, they are side-tracked by a rescue mission, with unknown enemies demanding the dismantling of the Portal Project as ransom.

The Unchanging Heavens rejoins the story six months after the peaceful resolution of the conflicts posed in The Mirror's Image, as Joe and Kristy are starting to feel a bit restless...

I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.

~Susan Sontag

Table of Contents

The tale thus far...

Thursday February 4, 1993

Friday February 5, 1993

Saturday February 6, 1993

Sunday February 7, 1993

Wednesday February 10, 1993

Friday February 12, 1993

Saturday February 13, 1993

Sunday February 14, 1993 6:00 AM

Sunday February 14, 1993 3:30 PM

Monday February 15, 1993

Monday February 22, 1993

Thursday February 25, 1993

Friday February 26, 1993

Saturday February 27, 1993

Probably Monday March 1, 1993

Probably Tuesday March 2, 1993

Probably Wednesday March 3, 1993

Probably Friday March 5, 1993

Saturday March 6, 1993

Sunday March 7, 1993

Saturday March 20, 1993

Acknowledgments and Special Thanks

About the Author

Also by Kat Folland

Keep up with Kat

Thursday February 4, 1993

Kristy and I stepped through what we now thought of as the Greenbrae Portal, leaving our own world and entering Daganu, the world of the fairies. In Daganu, as in our world, the day was chilly and gray. There was somewhat less wind here, but still it was gloomy and slightly unpleasant.

We were greeted at once by a large booming voice. Joe, Kristy, I was hoping to find you here! It was Torp, the giant we'd met the first time we traveled to this weak spot we had converted to a Portal. We'd only met him on one other occasion since, when he'd met with the Portal Project. I hadn't been present at any of the meetings, and only had a chance to exchanging friendly greetings.

Were you? I asked, surprised. This trip was spontaneous.

Indeed, replied Torp. I was passing through the area and thought it would be nice to see you. Torp's enormous size had alarmed me the day we met, but now I was merely intimidated. He was a gentle and civil soul, and couldn't help being gigantic.

Well, it's nice to see you again, Torp, Kristy said.

It is nice to see you too, Kristy, Torp said with his unfailing courtesy. And you, Joe. But I wondered if I could ask you to take a message to the Portal Project for me. I can't seem to contact Greve.

You may be 'looking' in the wrong place, I told him. Greve went to seek other giants in the coastal mountains far to the south.

Ah, that would explain it, Torp said, nodding his boulder-sized head. Anyway, he said, moving on, would you, indeed, be willing to carry a message from me to the Portal Project?

Of course, I said.

Torp looked thoughtful for a few moments and then said, "This, then, is my message: the giant community is not yet of one mind. Generally they are glad to not be disregarded by the Portal Project anymore. Consensus has also said that the giants will not, at this time, interfere with the Portal Project. However, they - we - still have concerns about the Portal Project in general. The leadership and management of it. What its main goals are and how do they fit in with our sense of what's right and appropriate. He sighed, then laughed wryly. Did you get all that?"

Yes I think so. You know I am an advocate of Solitaries being full participants of the Portal Project. As long as nobody thinks it's all right to eat anybody else, I said, only slightly joking.

Torp laughed loudly, like thunder. Well I, for one, am vegetarian so that should ease your mind. He looked mischievously thoughtful for a moment, and added, That Bixel, though, he's pretty annoying... He trailed off and winked.

Don't worry, gnomes are a vegetable, or perhaps a fruit, I said, trying hard not to smile, with limited success. Kristy snorted and dissolved into giggles.

Torp laughed even louder at that, chuckling at length. Ah, Joe, you tempt me slightly, he said with a wide grin.

Sobering a little, I said, Is that all you wish me to tell them?

Yes, he replied. His own demeanor became more serious again and he added, Joe, I'm trying hard not to doubt the Portal Project's sincerity on the matter of the Solitaries. But it's not always easy. The Tribal fairies have held us Solitaries in contempt from time out of memory.

Well I do my best to encourage the spirit of cooperation with them. That is, when they aren't driving me nuts, I winked at him.

He laughed softly - for him - and said, Well, that is my message and I don't want to detain you any longer. Also, I still have much walking to do to track down my brothers and sisters. Then he asked, "If I'm not prying, what is your business here today?"

Nothing really specific, Kristy answered him. We just felt like seeing if there had been any changes in the immediate area since the portal construction was finished.

And it doesn't look like there have been, I said, looking around. This portal was in a quiet uninhabited area of Daganu and, aside from the frame of the portal standing incongruously in the shallow valley, it seemed just as it had when I first came there.

Well, then, it was my good fortune that you came here, Torp said. Will you be returning through the portal now?

I looked to Kristy for confirmation. She nodded and I said, I suppose so.

Travel safely, humans. I'm sure we will meet again.

And you, Kristy said.

Good luck on your work, I added. I took Kristy's hand and walked the few steps back to the portal we'd left ajar. Waving goodbye to the giant, we stepped through and closed the portal behind us.

We no longer needed to be sneaky about getting in and out of the house surrounding the Greenbrae Portal. We owned it. We had even had it furnished. We got in the car and headed through the suburban streets to Highway 101, which would take us back to San Francisco.

The skies were leaden as we drove south. It looked like it might rain.

As I drove, I thought idly about our current duties as employees of the fairies. We'd spent the last six months focusing on the Greenbrae and Folsom portals. Both properties had been purchased - at prices that would have been quite painful if it had been my own money rather than funding provided by the Portal Project - and while the Greenbrae location was finished, we'd had to start from scratch in Folsom. That structure was still under construction, and Tom - Kristy's uncle and adoptive father - was managing that aspect of the job, which left Kristy and me somewhat at loose ends.

The Portal Project had not yet assigned us a new Weak Spot to work on. When I'd discovered the lingering division in the ranks of the gnomes and the Solitaries had made a bid to be included, the Portal Project had taken some time to reevaluate its goals and methods. They had not let me in on what, if any, progress had been made. It was my hope - and Kristy's - that we would be at least consulted when the time came to assign the next job. As it was, we were running out of things to do. Actually, we had run out and were now making them up - like the visit to the Greenbrae portal - to keep busy.

Our drive was reasonably pleasant, as we were going counter-commute, and early for the commute in any case. As we were crossing Golden Gate Bridge, however, a spitting rain began, an irritating drizzle that required constant adjustment of the windshield wipers. It didn't significantly slow us down, though, and soon enough we were parking in Tom and Molly's driveway. We still slept there a good deal of the time, though as our jobs became less substantial we had been spending more time at our apartment. As much as I liked Kristy's adoptive parents and her biological mother, Emily, sometimes it felt a bit crowded there.

When we let ourselves in the front door, voices from the living room drew us to them. Tom, Molly and Allyson - the only human member of the Portal Project who wasn't related to me in any way - were in the living room apparently having a snack break. There was bread cut in chunks and a shallow bowl of oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in. Tom and Molly were drinking beer, and Allyson had an iced-tea. She probably still considered herself to be on the clock.

Allyson looked a bit faded by the cold gray weather and indoor work, but she still had a healthier, more vital yet relaxed look to her than when I first saw her. Granted, it must be stressful holding a shotgun on innocent people for a cause you aren't sure you believe in.

Back then she'd sported the styles of the new rich, her clothes whispered wealth in every stitch. She had rejected her wardrobe along with everything else when she left her old life behind - her husband, her friends, everything she had become immersed in. She kept her daughters, though, and was renting a house just around the corner from Tom and Molly's.

These days she was more relaxed about everything. Her wardrobe was mostly jeans and pullover tops, and she usually wore her fine blond curls bound up in a pony-tail out of the way. The Portal Project was paying her for her work on the bequest materials, but she usually kept working hours that minimized the time her girls were unsupervised. She had had a nanny in her former life and now was wholeheartedly embracing the chance to mother her children.

She had consented to take on the chore of finding order in the books and correspondence we generally referred to as the bequest materials as they had been inherited by Molly along with the house. Allyson had made copies - in some cases multiple copies - of everything so that she could work with the information without damaging the source material. Now she was attacking the enormous task of organizing the information in the documents. She had set up a cute Macintosh computer on a desk in the den and was creating databases with a clever program called Filemaker Pro.

She was creating one database that cataloged the types of fairies mentioned in the bequest materials, a second that organized the information we had concerning portals in other areas, and still another that attacked the matter of portal construction and maintenance. That last was woefully underpopulated. Most of the information in it had not come from those old sources, but from what Kristy and I had learned in our training in Daganu. The fairies knew quite a bit about such things, though they could not build or use them without human assistance.

Allyson's efforts - and results - had been impressive. She really did have an organizational genius, even if it wasn't her preferred way to occupy her time. But she was, like Kristy and I, at loose ends while the Portal Project did whatever it was they were doing that was taking so long. It had been approximately six months since they started their re-think. But then, perhaps they felt less hurry with their longer life-spans.

Emily, of course, was not present. She was at school in Daganu. When Emily was returned to our world thirty years after her disappearance she was still nineteen, having only lived through a few weeks of personal time in that same period. She had been in a Slow Zone - an effect occurring in Daganu that causes time to flow differently where water flowed - due to traveling by boat across the bay, through the delta and up the river we call the American. So not only was she not even close to the age she was supposed to be, but she had been declared dead many years back. Her disappearance had become a cold case. There was no way she could convince someone she was the same Emily that had gone missing.

So here she was, in the nineties, with no official identity. There seemed to be no way to make a place for her in the modern world. So she had decided to make a place for herself with the Portal Project by dedicating her energies to education in Daganu.

The school she attended was taught by Angelina, an elf who was very learned by their standards. There were only two other students, as elves, like most fairy species, have a low birth rate. Chen was slightly older than Emily, though no more mature. The third student was a young female elf named Qiao, a child by anyone's reckoning. I had not yet met either of them.

Kristy fetched beers for us and we joined the others around the bread.

How'd it go, son? Tom asked me.

No troubles, I reported. We ran into Torp, though, and he asked me to bring a message to the Portal Project.

Oh really? Tom said, interested.

I told him about the message Torp had given me.

That's not the most encouraging report, is it? Allyson said.

Maybe not, I said, but I'm starting to feel like our impatience may be a little unfair. The slow progress is frustrating, but I suspect the fairies are, in general, unused to rushing things.

I think you're right, Allyson said seriously. They don't have the sense of urgency that comes from our short human life-spans. She stood up and stretched, then said, Well, I think I'll go back to work in the den for a bit longer before calling it a day.

Tom, Molly, Kristy and I spent the remainder of the afternoon chatting companionably. We were all very comfortable with each other by this point. At five, Molly got up to open the portal for Emily and Amaleen. Amaleen was still insisting on preparing all our meals for us, for obscure reasons of her own. Her brownie nature had something to do with it, I'm sure.

To my surprise, Molly came back to the living room accompanied by Emily's teacher, Angelina. Emily had excused herself to her room, and Amaleen had gone straight to the kitchen.

I couldn't remember seeing Angelina on our side of the portal before. She was clearly uncomfortable. I thought she must have something very important to discuss to put herself through the discomfort.

We exchanged greetings without much small-talk. Angelina seated herself on one of the living room chairs and gave us all a solemn look before she spoke.

I'm concerned, very concerned, about Emily, she began.

Why? Molly asked, at the same time that Kristy said, What's wrong?

Angelina, rarely at a loss for words, paused for several moments. I think, that is, I'm reasonably certain that she and Chen are developing an inappropriate relationship, she said finally.

Knowing too well how communication can break down between fairies and humans, I asked, 'Inappropriate' how? But I was already worried.

Angelina again seemed to hunt for words. They seem to be... falling in love.

Looking at the faces around me I could see that none of us were exactly sure where the problem lay. Oh, I could stipulate that inter-species relationships could be problematic, but I couldn't begin to say precisely why.

Molly said, I'm sorry, Angelina, but I'm not sure what your concern is. Molly had been dealing with the fairies longer than any of the rest of us. She was used to having to work at genuine understanding.

It's just not appropriate! Angelina almost snapped.

I frowned. It's not uncommon, as I understand it, for there to be relationships between elves and humans.

Angelina looked scandalized.

What about situations like Allyson's great grandmother? And I know for a fact that Leo has done his share of dallying with humans, I insisted.

That's different, Angelina said a little defensively.

How? I demanded.

That's not a relationship, she said, that's just... sex. The way she said it implied that she thought such interactions were uncouth.

Molly said, So irresponsible cross-species mating is okay, but actually having a relationship isn't?

What makes you suspect a problem, anyway? Kristy demanded. She was older than her own mother now, and felt a bit protective of her.

Once more, Angelina hesitated. Then she said, almost reluctantly, We can tell when a bond is forming. That's the difference, for us, between a casual affair and a life-long bond.

Life-long? Molly said. But... whose life?

That's exactly the problem! Angelina protested. Well, one of the problems.

A thoughtful silence ensued.

What... Kristy trailed off, then finished, "are the other problems, then?"

Angelina stared at Kristy as if she were an idiot, which annoyed me. I hardly know where to start.

Well figure it out, O Wise Woman, I said irritably.

Angelina was taken aback, as she always was when someone questioned her authority. Don't diminish the matter of the life-span, she scolded. Chen will probably live a thousand years at the least. How long will Emily live? She'll be gone in the blink of an eye.

Kristy blanched at this callous evaluation.

Angelina continued, "I'm not sure it's even possible for fairies and humans to achieve a true bond. But if it was possible, wouldn't that make it even more tragic?"

I frowned thoughtfully. If it isn't possible, what do you think you're seeing there? I asked.

I don't know! Angelina burst out. Then recovering herself, she said, It doesn't matter, really. It's got to be stopped.

I looked over at Kristy, then said to Angelina, I think you have to agree that humans can form that bond. My bond with Kristy has been commented on at first sight! I was thinking of when we first met Torp. And is this your lady-wife? I can see the bond, it is beautiful, he had said.

With each other! Angelina protested.

Kristy tilted her head slightly, looking perplexed. "If both species can bond, then why couldn't they bond across the species barrier?" she asked.

Angelina looked both abashed and frustrated. Well, maybe they can. But that doesn't make it a good idea.

All right, I said, deciding to cut short this fruitless train of thought, Assuming that it can occur, what are your concerns other than the relative life-spans involved.

I'm not ready to assume bonding between humans and elves can happen! Angelina snapped.

I gave her a flat stare and said Stipulate it.

She had to think about the word for a moment. The concept of stipulation was not exactly central to fairy thought processes or education. Angelina might have been very learned in elvish history and culture, but as deep as her knowledge was, it sometimes lacked in breadth. Elves don't go into research for its own sake, and they don't have a legal system to speak of, nor are they terribly interested in philosophy. With none of that in play, the idea of stipulating something for the sake of discussion didn't have much of a place.

Well that would be tragic, wouldn't it? she said finally.

That was, I had to admit, probably not a bad point.

I bulled ahead anyway. "You still haven't said what else could be a problem."

It's just not right, she said in an oddly petulant way.

Maybe we need to discuss the human ramifications amongst ourselves, Molly suggested.

Well, then, she still hasn't answered my first question! Kristy interjected. I thought back and decided Kristy might have a point.

Do you have any reasons for your suspicions that can be put into words? I asked. That was actually fairly diplomatic for me. Is anyone else concerned, has anyone else observed them and come to the same conclusions?

Angelina admitted that she hadn't discussed it with anyone thus far.

Maybe... Kristy trailed off, then started again, Maybe we could observe them ourselves?

Angelina looked unsure about this. Then she came to a decision. Perhaps if you were to observe them unseen at their studies you would understand what I mean.

We'd like to, I said. Is that possible?

I think so, she said. "I'll tell Amaleen where to bring you; you can watch them