Return to the River Lis

By George Wier

Some believe that love is timeless, but the breadth of life is equally immeasurable, and love is merely one of its many facets, if its most important one.

When John Adams and his native guide, Calo, stumble upon the greatest archaeological and anthropological find the world has ever known in the Great Gobi Desert, the anthropologist—along with Katrina Maybridge, the most beautiful archaeologist in all of Asia—is transported back in time some 45,000 years to the long dead ancient Kingdom of Umphar along the Great River Lis. There they not only have the adventure of a lifetime in their quest to finalize a peace treaty with the disingenuous ruler of the Kingdom of Mar-yar, but they also discover what they truly mean to one another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flagstone Books
• Release date: May 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393392156

Book preview

Also by George Wier

Published Short Stories:

Return to the River Lis

The Tale of the Yankee Traveler

The Feast of All Souls

Norbert the Summoner

Dark-Thirty

They No Here

The Woodsman

Death Kiss

Duckweed

In The Radio

The Eternal

Published Novels:

The Bill Travis Mysteries:

The Last Call

Capitol Offense

Longnecks & Twisted Hearts

The Devil To Pay

Death On The Pedernales

Slow Falling

Caddo Cold

Arrowmoon

After The Fire

Ghost Of The Karankawa

Desperate Crimes

Mexico Fever

The Lone Star Express

Trinity Trio

Buffalo Bayou Blues

Reveille In Red

Bexar County Line

The Long Goodnight (forthcoming)

The Bill Travis Omnibus

The Bill Travis Omnibus 2

The Bill Travis Omnibus 3

The Bill Travis Omnibus 4

The Elysium Chronicles:

Murder In Elysium

Sentinel In Elysium

Other mysteries:

Long Fall From Heaven (with Milton T. Burton)

Errant Knight

Neptune’s Forge

Neptune’s Dominion (forthcoming)

West of Valhalla

Science Fiction/Steampunk/Fantasy:

The Vindicators: Book One—Last Defense (with Robert A. Taylor)

Captains Malicious (with T.R. Harris)

1889: Journey to the Moon (with Billy Kring)

1899: Journey to Mars (with Billy Kring)

Jem of Skye: Book One of the Factions of Skye

Company C: Rebirth of the Rangers

Anthologies:

‘14: A Texanthology

Unto the Night

Lone Star Lawless

Lone Star Noir

RETURN TO THE RIVER LIS

One of the drawbacks of being a cultural anthropologist—what they used to call an ethnologist—is there are usually few public places close by to drink a tall cold beer and talk shop with your academic brethren, either in the USA or in the far-flung places where once walked cities full of men and women whose bodies long ago returned to the dust. And, of course, that’s mainly what I have to work with—dust, which is the principle reason for the constant and consistent overpowering thirst. It’s first of all the thirst—the unending quest—for the exactly right bar with the perfectly correct atmosphere, the quintessential lip-smacking brew at just the right temperature, and the best possible company to share it with. No, instead I found myself at Koji’s on the outskirts of a grubby little village called Shahai in the Great Gobi Desert in—you guessed it—Mongolia, drinking something the locals called kumis with Gordo Swearingen, the most obtuse, egomaniacal and uncommunicative archaeologist academe could possibly produce. But the kumis was good, if at room temperature, which is to say eighty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. It would have been warmer, but we were indoors and out of the sun.

So you don’t believe me when I tell you there was a River Lis here.

The satellite data states otherwise, Gordo simply stated, and sipped his own kumis. I wanted to punch his lights out. He’d