The Path to Greatness and Proof for One: Ancient Beacon, #2

By Dan Gallagher

Be amazed in this, the fourth "Travels Through Flame" paired stories set:  Travel five millennia ago to the first human landing on Australia. Will the prophet Mahur survive, or will his work and time travel have to be continued by Lesh? What will this bode for life in just-beyond modern Australia and Dr. Smythe's world view? What is proof, really, when you know a fact, but cannot convey it to the world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Gallagher
• Release date: Apr 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386659976

Dan Gallagher

A Writing Style Shaped by Life-experiences: As the youngest of eight in a Catholic working class family; as a soldier, scholar, family man, advisor and adventurer, Dan developed a vivid, hard-hitting style: He has trekked volcanoes, deserts, swamps; trudged Appalachian, Arizonan and Venezuelan heights & gorges. He has explored exotic locations like Macau, Hong Kong, the Everglades, Bayous, Mexico's Baja? even New Jersey! Attacked by a charging bear, Dan killed it at fourteen feet, evaded a northern Canada wolf-pack and an enraged moose. He's parachuted, been in a knife fight and numerous other life-threatening tangles. Though he's not seen combat, Dan held command of Mechanized Infantrymen in live-fire assaults, ambushes and defenses in Germany & the U.S.. He has lived in Rhode Island, Alexandria & Williamsburg, VA and North Carolina. Other personal experiences inform Dan's writing style. He knows what faith, race and age discrimination feel like. He helped reform court-marshalled soldiers, consoled the homeless and took charge in deadly accidents: a C-130 aircraft crash and a 110 mph motorcycle collision. In counseling clients (Dan's pre-retirement financial & business brokerage work), Dan handled hundreds of millions in transactions. He's seen what strengthens and dissolves relationships. Dan has experienced spiritual and miraculous phenomena and investigated those of others. Dan usually pursued simultaneous endeavors (studied Economics, Modern Languages, Finance Math, English, and was a published professional instructor). He's been a lifelong student of Natural Sciences, Comparative Religion and Cryptozoology. Dan and wife Laura have been in love for over three decades and treasured raising their four "snit-generating" kids. Several professional and personal tragedies have been profoundly humbling. Yet, through it all, Dan kept sane to help others. He says, "I give psychological counseling to my cat, Watson, who claims to be a sabre-tooth tiger. Watson must think I'm gullible: he never tries to convince others of his delusions." Dan is the author of financial & expository nonfiction and quite a bit of humor, but mostly speculative and adventure fiction; no fantasy. He endeavors to give readers vivid sensory and emotional experiences. His bio is at the AuthorDan website, AuthorDan.com or StoriesAmazing.com

Book preview

The Path to Greatness

We will need bigger rafts for the journey, Lesh, the gray-brown complexioned shaman stated flatly as he rose from his hollow palm log. He extended his hand from beneath his warm deer pelt shawl toward the fiery sandpit and retrieved a skewered fish. He handed it to his similarly wrapped scribe, an adult now at half the leader’s forty years. Moonlit waves of the outgoing tide rippled from an equatorial breeze that mixed the scent of foamy plankton with aroma of their supper.

Lesh cocked his head in puzzlement, dislodging unnoticed a scribing tool from his densely curled black hair. He scooped out the fish and handed the largest chunk silently to Mahur.

The shaman’s wide nostrils flared and he nodded thanks. Mahur gazed at the ocean, southward away from the peninsula, which, some five hundred fifty centuries later, would be referred to as the Southeast Asian island of Timor.

Journey, master? Lesh finally inquired, licking meat particles from his thick lips. We only reached this place five moons ago. Tens of thousands have homes now, and fields. We can go no farther, for there is nothing beyond the sea but more sea.

We must continue. We will be pushed out by the light skinned straight-hairs of the North unless we sail beyond this sea, beyond where the monster riders dare.

Lesh stared, incredulous. The Chi? How do you know this, master, and how can you know there is anything beyond the sea?

The earth is round, Lesh. I have seen it. Tomorrow, I will show you and the council.

The disciple could extract no more from his master that evening, and found sleep as frustrating as his misplacing of his pen to ink the prophecy on skins. As the sun shone through the bamboo walls of their temple-hut, he dozed, hoping that