The Fifth Jewel of Earth

By James W. Greenhalge

Then quietly the Counselor continued, Your traveling is needed again. The pendant you wear was purchased at an awesome price. That much is finished! And no principality or powerin heaven or on earthcan undo that accomplishment. The bridge has been rebuilt and the path has been thrown open. Now you must complete your traveling in fear and trembling. Salvation is between you and the King, but working out your salvation is between you and Me. Wisdom has been given to allow you to see the plan, Knowledge to understand the circumstances, and Belief in the Plan to strengthen you for the long, hard journey. Choosing life, here the Counselor hesitated, touched again by the inestimable cost of that horrific sacrifice, provides you with an inerrant compass toward home. Now I need you to acquire Right Standing, the privilege to face the Creator in His throne room. He is perfection itself, chosen mortal, and all imperfection will be consumed by His righteous indignation. Your best efforts will not be enough!
Not enough? The last sentence echoed down the corridor. Your best efforts will not be enough? How was he to acquire something which his best efforts could not attain?

How do you acquire the unattainable? Fifth in the Jewels of Earth collection, the continued fighting in the forever war has already cost the king His life and the Traveler narrowly escaped with his own. To return to the fluid battlefield of time is dangerous enough, but the enemy is attempting to alter the timeline and the forces of the Cabala are taking matters into their own hands. Failure forfeits the future. Yet even if he succeeds, the Traveler risks never being able to return home.

His journey is yours. Join the resistance! There is a jewel waiting for you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496940506

James W. Greenhalge

Even as a boy, your author has always had trouble staying fixed at one moment in time. While an overly active imagination is charming in a young child, a mature adult should behave better. Your author's interests flow easily from one topic to another…past, present and future. Fascination with the scientific method, the reality of faith, and a study of the law leads smoothly into the imagination of science fiction. A love of History and human culture compete with a sense of the mystical and the magical. His friends and family will be overjoyed about the re-publishing of this book; now, someone else can listen to his flights of fancy! A traveler at heart, your author is comfortable at home or on the road, in foreign countries or in a local coffee shop. A college graduate, an Army officer, an orator and Christian church leader, a college professor, a licensed attorney, and a prolific writer! And he loves computer-generated games! When some grounding in this reality is required, he is a private practice attorney in Grand Junction, Colorado. His loving wife, Mary, has traveled with him for more than forty-six years, and their son is also married, and has given them a wonderful daughter-in-law and three marvelous grandchildren, and a grand-dog. "If we begin with the premise that there is a design to this universe," says the author, "the truth of its construction is just waiting to be discovered. Life is a journey of discovery, and we are all travelers. I hope you can see yourself in the pages of this book. It was written with you in mind!"

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The lightly creamed coffee swirled in his Styrofoam cup, leaving a tiny whirlpool of creamer spinning about the vortex. For a moment it was a spiral-armed galaxy whirling through the vastness of empty space—or was it a delicate white flower losing its bloom in the dancing wind? Why was the spiral repeated so often in nature? Always an epicenter around which the whole image circled. Galaxies, flowers, atoms, even his own life—events swirling around a seemingly stationary center. His coffee had gone cold, but he still held the cup in both hands, contemplating its contents.

Sighing wearily, he exercised stiff muscles and thought about his exhausted wife sleeping deeply in the room behind him. When he first met Amanda, he was startled by her sudden appearance at the study carrel in the back of the public library. What a moment that was! Years ago now! He was being recruited by Yad’el, a fearsome alien presence from another reality, to fight in a timeless and supernatural war, yet she did not recognize the fantastic creature standing before them. To her, Yad’el was just another patron.

Closing time! she insisted firmly. Amanda worked there—Ms. Amanda Merriam, madam librarian. He smiled at those fond memories. She was so young and intense in those days. They were complete strangers, oddly met, yet the spiraling around each other began at that very moment and a surprising romance blossomed. They would find such wonderful adventures together, kindred souls on the tumultuous sea of modern living. They were so happy together! Who could have predicted it—who could have foreseen it?

They did!

Thoughtfully, his gaze left the coffee cup in his hands to consider the alien pendant hanging loosely about his neck. Given to him by the King’s Counselor at the very beginning of these strange adventures—and invisible to all mortal eyes but his own—this royal emblem of office was an undeniable proclamation to the King’s enemies that he was a foot soldier recruited into the incredible forever war for control of human history. The immortal rebels saw the pendant—and they hated him for it!

You certainly would not suggest that the King use a thief to accomplish His mission? exclaimed Yad’el, his alien companion during that first mission, truly puzzled by the man’s cowardice in the face of the enemy.

I’m being sent here to steal this important jewel belonging to the enemies of the King and I’m wearing a sign that says, ‘Hi, here I come!’ This is crazy!

They only possess the jewel; it does not belong to them. You are sent to recover it, not steal it, in the name of the King. He would not send a thief!

Not a thief—no, but a seer, a traveler and a teller of tales. Returning his thoughts to the empty hospital corridor, he exhaled deeply and stretched his back. So much traveling, so much swirling history around a stationary center! He had seen so much—lived through so much—even now the images cascaded through his mind! Did it all happen? Just as he perceived it? If so, why did the King of Yad’el’s reality seem to be losing the forever war in his own perception of reality? The enemy was everywhere, like an occupying army supporting a puppet regime of human conspirators. The government, the entertainment industry, the press, the educational system, even the institutional church, seemed largely under their control. He glanced apprehensively down the corridor.

Returning his gaze to the deep, blue ocean contained within the central jewel of his pendant, he felt again the perpetual sense of calm and supernatural wonder. It always sparkled, no matter what lighting surrounded it, as if unaffected by its present circumstances. So much promise, brightly pleading with him to run the course, to press on toward the distant prize. Three overlapping golden disks held the large sapphire at their common intersection. Encompassing it in a uniform oval were seven other facets for secondary jewels. Four were filled, while three of those facets remained empty—a clear indication of more traveling yet to come!

The facet in the lower left position held the blood-red ruby—the first jewel of Earth—the jewel called Wisdom. Vertical alignment with the King’s will—seeing the world as the King sees it! His first quest and his first jewel. Ensconced beside it, so very similar and yet not quite the same, was the orange jewel called Knowledge—the second jewel of Earth and the goal of his second mission. This companion stone, together with Wisdom, allowed the bearer to see the blueprint—the horizontal alignment of people and events in this world, and how the circumstances were unfolding within the King’s plans. Across from them, on the far side of the central jewel, was the third more mysterious and often elusive violet jewel called Belief in the Plan. Possession of this stone required faith—it could not be measured or classified—even now, studying it closely only made the purple stone nearly disappear from view. And atop the oval ring of facets now glittered the emerald of Choosing Life, recently placed there by the quivering and bloody fingers of the King Himself, being tortured by His mortal enemies and facing imminent death. Choosing Life, indeed! Ishi was willing to die for the Kingdom, His willing sacrifice giving birth to a new race of humanity—the Redeemed! Even now, the memories of such pain and longing caused the Traveler to bow his head. Like the pangs of childbirth, the goal was so important that the sacrifice was endurable. Oh, Ishi!

I can’t do this! Amanda had shouted between contractions during the delivery. More indelible memories about choosing life, created only a few hours ago. Her face was contorted in pain, flushed and drenched with sweat. The hospital staff busied themselves with the delivery, leaving him sitting there on a round stool beside her, lamely offering her ice chips and encouraging her to breathe regularly.

Just try to rest between contractions, he had muttered, suddenly forgetting almost everything they had learned together in the maternity classes. We’ll get through this.

"We? We’ll get through this? You already did your part, buster, and it was pretty easy!" Another contraction came upon her and she shuddered with pain and effort.

Now bear down on the contraction, Amanda, slow and steady, coached the maternity nurse. Fully gowned, they could only see her friendly and supportive brown eyes between mask and cap. Push! Then, in a pleasant aside to the beleaguered husband, she added, Remember this when it comes time to start changing diapers, daddy! You have some catching up to do!

Yeah, well, he’s gonna have the next one, moaned Amanda from the bed.

The next one?

The Traveler’s thoughts abruptly returned to the present moment in the hospital corridor. How did he get here? When did he start down this dramatic road toward fatherhood? He remembered Amanda looking radiant in her wedding dress, as beautiful and innocent as their new love. They exchanged promises about forever and prayed for a blissful life together. She completed him, and he completed her. The two persons, separate and unique for their whole previous lives, were suddenly becoming one flesh—spiritually, emotionally and physically—forever after. Children were always possible, of course, but that was a distant thought on their happy wedding day. In that precious moment, it was only the two of them, so much in love, and their bright future together. As one, they swirled through life, good times and bad, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, mostly poorer, yet so much in love. Even now, he smiled at the memories of their love-making. They were both so young, and strong, and passionate.

Now, they were having a baby! His thoughts rebounded to the delivery room. The baby’s first cry had broken his reverie at the birthing table. He was gazing helplessly at his suffering wife on the delivery room bed, regretting all of this pain he had caused her. Stripped of all the romanticism and poetry, sex had led them to this moment. It’s a boy! announced the doctor loudly, as the new little creature cleared the birth canal and joined the human race. In that instant, he was suddenly made a father, forever! A snatch of dark hair crowned a bloody and waxy little head, his ruddy face scrunched with a rush of confusing new impressions. This was his son? The first chapters in his life—the early years being a lone, male human being—suddenly closed forever and another opened when he became a loving husband. Now that chapter closed and he was becoming a loving husband and father. One became two, who now became three. Whatever he was before was changed forever—he was a father now! At that moment he joined a long, unbroken line of men fathering a future generation stretching back into the long, forgotten past—he was a father!

Amanda had collapsed back onto the delivery bed, completely exhausted. The doctor snipped and clipped the umbilical cord, then handed the baby to the attending nurse, preoccupied now with helping Amanda. The nurse moved to another table and expertly began cleaning the baby’s mouth and nostrils, testing his reflexes, checking his eyes. He cried in fits, rapidly running out of breath. It always began this way—for every human being—leaving a dark, warm and aqueous environment where every need was automatically met—to be violently thrust into a strange world of new sights, smells, colors and sounds. Instead of being inseparably one with his unseen mother, he was now irretrievably alone—apart—isolated. His first change of chapters! And he cried—air filling pristine lungs for the first time. He cried for what was lost and he cried for what lay ahead. He had no words to express his anguish. Soon he would even forget those first memories of life apart—forget life in the womb, life in those early years, before language and training. But each of us was there once—unique and alone—just beginning our journey called life.

Gently the maternity nurse bathed the naked little baby in warm water, cleansing him of the blood and waxy residue from the delivery, carefully keeping his head above the bath. In that dramatic and almost instantaneous transformation, each human being went from water breather to air breather, never to return. Bathed in the water and the blood. Such universal and profound symbolism. Was it any wonder that Ishi once taught that we must be born again? Not merely changed, but radically transformed—forever—never to return to the former existence?

Oh, Ishi!

The Traveler, sitting in the vacant hospital hallway, closed his eyes. So much pain! Images flashed past—Ishi’s angry face confronting His enemies at Suleimah’s Portico, His compassionate face shepherding the crowd of anxious followers, His stern countenance directing the Traveler back to the mikvah for a ceremonial cleansing, His beaten and swollen face as He took the Traveler’s place on the cross of judgment, His radiant and transcendent face after His resurrection—anxious to be with His Father again. Ishi knew what the Traveler would find in the waters of the ceremonial bath—his true, animal nature—a carnal soul that warred against the spiritual man within him, both trapped within the same body of flesh.

Here you go, daddy, said the nurse affectionately as she had handed him a carefully wrapped bundle of dreams. Do you have a name for him?

Nathan, sighed Amanda from the table, for he is ‘a gift from God.’

The Traveler had nodded in agreement and lifted the little bundle up to where Amanda could see his face. She reached out with her right hand to caress his ruddy little cheek, but was still too weak to hold him. They had created a wholly new human being together! It was astounding.

Everything appears fine, the nurse assured them. The doctor will finish up with you in a few minutes, she explained to Amanda, then you can rest. We will let Daddy hold him for now. In the meantime, I will clean up around here. She departed, leaving the new family alone in their own little world.

You have done wonderfully, my love, said the Traveler proudly, holding Nathan carefully in Amanda’s weak embrace.

I can’t hold him, she admitted wearily.

I will hold him for us, affirmed the Traveler.

Are you happy? she asked.

Are you happy?

The Traveler’s thoughts returned to the present moment in the hallway. He leaned back in the chair, resting his head against the wall behind him. Was he happy? In those stressful moments of birthing he had run through the whole gamut of human emotions. Joy at holding a new life in his hands, the thrill of seeing the future, apprehension at the great unknowns of fatherhood lying before him, fear for his wife’s safety, doubts and concerns about his ability to be a good father, even pangs of shame and contrition at the horrible pain that his male ardor had caused his trusting wife. Yes, there was happiness inside that tumultuous cascade of emotions, a temporary sense of well-being that all was right with the world.

The excitement here is over for now, new daddy, said the maternity nurse as she came wearily up the hospital corridor. Your wife and son are resting quietly. And so should you, while you can. Soon enough, they will both be home and you will find restful moments harder to come by. He nodded and set the coffee cup aside, preparing to leave.

Not much for new dads to do at the moment, is there?

Oh, you already did your first part just fine—nine months ago—and again today! She laughed heartily. "That was the ‘lover’ part and that was easy! Now comes the ‘daddy’ part. And that is much harder! She sat down beside him on the bench and placed a firm hand on his knee. You work on being a good daddy, while remaining a devoted husband and passionate lover. You have only added a new role, not replaced any of the others."

Childbirth is so hard, he admitted, shaking his head. Women must forget the pain or they would never do this again!

Well, if men were having the babies, they would certainly think twice about rolling in the hay! Her broad smile was engaging. I have delivered and cared for more babies than you could count. She paused to consider the delivery rooms along the hallway. Some are born healthy and some are not. Some are loved from the ‘git-go’ and some are not. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors and flavors, but they are all a little miracle. She squeezed his knee hard. "Do you believe that? I once heard that a baby is God’s vote that the world should go on! I agree with Him!"

Suddenly feeling very tired, the younger man smiled and made ready to leave. The nurse removed her hand, but her attention remained riveted on him.

This doesn’t change your traveling!

He froze, electricity bolting through him. Perhaps it was just a curious turn of a phrase. She couldn’t know!

You have traveled as a child, an adolescent, a single man, a fiancé and a husband. Now you must learn lessons as a father. All of this traveling through your life will bring you closer to the heart of God, not excuse you from His service.

Yes, sure it does, agreed the Traveler nervously, edging away from her in his chair. He stared back into her intense brown eyes. There was no way she could know the truth about him. Surely, she could not see the pendant! Had Amanda said something to her? I should be going now.

"You should be traveling wherever the King leads you, but you are not. Why? What holds you here to this moment in time?"

Such direct and probing questions! The Traveler glanced anxiously down the hallway. They were still alone. He shook his head, admitting his confusion at her questions.

You agreed to travel for the King, she pursued, pointing a long finger at him while remaining seated in the adjacent chair. It was certainly easier when you were a single man, with no cares for the future. The traveling was exciting, the danger manageable. But then there was that maddening whirlwind of love and the new reality of a total commitment to one woman. Suddenly more was at risk, more to lose! Then your marriage to Amanda and the subtle concerns of life in this reality began to ensnare you. What keeps you from flying, Traveler?

Flying? He licked dry lips. Who was this woman? How do you know so much about me?

I have been there from the beginning, she stated flatly, leaning back and breathing deeply.

From the beginning… of my marriage? asked the puzzled man.

From the beginning! restated the nurse confidently. "From the very beginning!"

The Traveler peered deeply into her eyes. Recognition! Time and this reality slipped away. No longer sitting on a bench of chairs in a hospital hallway, he was instantly transported to another place and time.

Falling! Flailing! Helpless and hopeless! Tumbling headlong into the abyss, he had been here before. Behind him—above him—a wondrous star beckoned eternally, but somehow he had lost all forward momentum. Now he fell away from it.

Lost! Condemned! Abandoned! There was no bridging the ever-increasing chasm. He closed his eyes in dreaded resignation, not seeing the silver-golden chain descend from the star above him and encircle him like an umbilical cord.

Unmerited favor! Boundless love! Salvation! He was reborn! The supernatural chain encompassed him, and then went taut with a jerk, taking his breath away. He opened his eyes to perceive himself suspended between the single glorious star overhead and the fateful black abyss waiting beneath his feet. He swung there, a human pendulum marking time.

Yet, not alone! Peering back at him across the void—the jeweled pendant now dangling between them—he had seen those timeless and compassionate eyes before! The Counselor!

Asked and answered, said the Counselor, smiling confidently at his growing understanding. I told you I could appear as anything necessary to complete your mission. A burning bush—a donkey—a dove—a maternity nurse!

That was… so long ago… the first mission and the first jewel!

"Nothing has changed! That was the first time you became aware of my presence, but I have been there from the very beginning." In that supernatural universe, the Counselor had gently placed the pendant about the man’s neck and smiled approvingly at the King’s choice of ambassadors. It was a transcendent moment.

The image now blurred and they were both back in the hospital hallway. The matronly, black female nurse was facing him.

You must return to your traveling. There is work to be done!

My traveling is like a young man… and a fiancé… and a married man? repeated the Traveler, stunned by this unexpected revelation. He had never viewed his traveling in this way. And now as a father?

All travelers begin as newborn babes, filled with anxiety, wonder and expectancy. So much potential! The nurse smiled wistfully. Some are born healthy and immediately receive life-giving nourishment from older travelers. Others… her voice trailed off. Not all children were born into a loving embrace. Others must go a very long time before receiving any spiritual nourishment. And still others die before receiving it!

We are not talking about babies anymore, are we?

Spiritual babies, affirmed the Counselor, needing spiritual milk. Are you ready to see yourself as a nursing mother?

The Traveler shook his head. That was too strange a concept. His world view, up to this point in time, was always framed by his experience as a male human being.

If you do not travel and nourish others with the fruit of your traveling, some children may die of hunger. You have a part to play in this creative process, just as surely as you are the father of that child sleeping in the nursery.

Spiritual children?

Fellow travelers, less mature in the faith. Newborn lambs requiring protection and nurturing from the older flock. Every believer has a duty to turn and bring others along—generation upon generation of travelers, all moving toward home. You can be both mother and father—parent, mentor, friend—the very future depends on you and other travelers from your place on the timeline to keep the Promise alive. The King needs witnesses! Without witnesses, the lineage could end.

But surely the King can prevent that disaster? asked the Traveler. In all of his amazing travels, there appeared to be no limit to the King’s ability to change human history. And yet, there was the haunting reminder of Ishi’s face before him, blood seeping down from the cruel crown of thorns thrust upon Him by a cynical humanity. And His final words to him. "It is your cross. This is the Omnipoint, Traveler—the intersection of past and future—the focus of all history and eternity. Every human life comes to the cross; either you carry it, or I do! Ishi had swallowed hard, wincing and choking in pain. I love you!"

The Traveler blinked back tears again at the memory.

It is God’s perfect will that none should perish, whispered the Counselor, feeling the man’s pain, "and yet there must be an atoning sacrifice under the Law offered by a perfect priest—or all perish. With man, this is not possible. But with God, all things are possible."

"And my traveling—it was all so I could come to understand this?"

The nurse smiled affectionately and replaced her strong, brown hand on his knee. "The world the way the King sees it! Remember? He sees it perfectly. You… well, you require some… maturing! Ram of the flock—nursing ewe—and newborn lamb, all at the same time! Rather amazing, isn’t it?"

From the Garden to the present moment! said the amazed Traveler. From rejection to redemption! It is like a maturation process, from newborn to adolescent to fully grown manhood. This is the history of the Chosen people!

The maternity nurse shook her head, curbing his sweeping enthusiasm. The history of the Chosen People is not yet complete, nor is that the only story being told here. Your pendant now shines in a different light. She pointed to the mystical medallion hanging about his neck. Once he thought it was merely a translator—what were its true capabilities? He knew it was a far more complicated mechanism than he first guessed. How complicated, he could not say. But the price for this incredible gift had been a perfect sacrifice, offered by a perfect high priest. The Traveler cradled the pendant in his hands, still wincing at the pain necessary to forge it.

And now… you are a father, added the nurse emphatically. Another momentous crossroad in the human experience. From fatherhood you will learn something more about the father heart of God.

"The creator of this universe is a father?"

"A devoted father, an attentive mother, a life-giving spirit, a faithful son, a trusted friend, a righteous judge—each human expression provides some insight into His fullness. He is all in all! She regarded the Traveler for a long moment, knowing that temporal human words were inadequate to express all that described the Creator of the universe. Some travelers will never be a father; you can bring them nourishment. Others will be a mother and learn nurturing; you should listen to them. Together, you will experience God."

Ishi said He was the Father’s Son, recalled the Traveler. The Counselor nodded. And He was so anxious to get home. Did He get home?

Oh, yes, Traveler! He received a royal homecoming! The two became One again in ways you cannot imagine, even if you were shown the scene.

And you, pursued the Traveler breathlessly, you once said you were not God and yet you were indistinguishable from God. How can that be?

The Counselor smiled confidently and gestured to the man’s coffee cup sitting on the small table between their chairs. The man’s gaze followed her leading. The dark brown fluid rippled from the slightest jostling and then suddenly froze solid. Icy frost formed across its surface. Amazed, the Traveler reached for it, but the contents instantaneously broke into a full boil, dissipating in a whiff of steam, leaving the Styrofoam cup rattling to an empty stop. Solid—liquid—gas! Creator—King—Counselor! Father—Son—Spirit! Which state of reality is correct, son of Adam?

Correct? The Traveler averted his eyes and shrank back in his chair. They were all correct! What was he to do? Kneel? Fall prostrate? Confess his unworthiness? Mortality shrinking to insignificance before divine immortality. There were no words—no strength—no energy! Like a newborn baby, his senses were being overloaded with impressions for which there were no words. He bowed his head.

Then quietly the Counselor continued, Your traveling is needed again. The pendant you wear was purchased at an awesome price. That much is finished! And no principality or power—in heaven or on earth—can undo that accomplishment. The bridge has been rebuilt and the path has been thrown open. Now you must complete your traveling in fear and trembling. Salvation is between you and the King, but working out your salvation is between you and Me. Wisdom has been given to allow you to see the plan, Knowledge to understand the circumstances, and Belief in the Plan to strengthen you for the long, hard journey. Choosing Life, here the Counselor hesitated, touched again by the inestimable cost of that horrific sacrifice, provides you with an inerrant compass toward home. Now, I need you to acquire Right Standing, the privilege to face the Creator in His throne room. He is Perfection itself, chosen mortal, and all imperfection will be consumed by His righteous indignation. Your best efforts will not be enough!

Not enough? The last sentence echoed down the corridor. Your best efforts will not be enough? How was he to acquire something which his best efforts could not attain? Perhaps he had already failed at some previous test and had arrived at this moment hopelessly flawed and deficient. Perhaps the Counselor was displeased with his lack of progress up to this point in time and his failure was now inevitable. Perhaps there were lesser assignments in the Kingdom for which he might qualify, rather than standing in the throne room before the Creator.

How long he sat there he could not say, but the silence was deafening. His heart pounded in his ears. Blinking back tears, he slowly raised his head.

He was alone.

Glancing at the empty coffee cup, he knew he had only two choices. Eventually, everyone’s cup was empty. He could either stay here while refusing to follow the Counselor’s leading, or he could begin another quest. There was no holding back the moment; time ran on with the tyranny of inevitability. Travel for the King or don’t; those were his only choices. Seek the King’s way—or die! You could give up your life and find it, or try keeping your life and lose it. All mortals die, but there was only one way out of this paradox. A bridge had been built. Where? How could he find it?

And what of his life here? Amanda—and Nathan? In leaving them here, did he lose them? If he tried to stay in this moment, could he hold on to them? No, in the end they needed him to go! These journeys for the King equipped him to be a better man, a better husband and a better father. He regarded the pendant again. Was it changing him? Remaking him into something better? Rather than being conformed to the mold this world forced upon mankind, was there another way to be transformed into something… more than human? The answers were not here. His cup was empty. He must move on!

He stood and faced the double doors at the end of the corridor. Well, this was certainly familiar; his first journey had begun facing closed, double doors. Then, he had been a timid and frightened victim of life. But he was shown someone in that hallway that had been transformed. The epiphany had come—it was himself, as he could be—as he would be! A confident and gallant soldier dispatched in the King’s service. Had he learned anything in his traveling?

That time he had cowered before the future! This time, he strode confidently through the double doors.

CHAPTER 2

Even so, the Traveler held his breath, braced himself and clutched at the pendant hanging about his neck. The sudden transition of these transportations was always startling. Seeing the world, and people, the way the King saw them was always so shocking—such uncompromising candor, such disorienting truthfulness. Why was the King’s vision so different from his own? More to the point, why was the King’s view of reality always so threatening to him personally?

One moment the Traveler was living in his own time—his own reality—walking down the corridor of the hospital, confidently approaching the closed, double doors. The air was clean, almost antiseptic, and the air conditioning kept everyone uniformly cool and comfortable. Here he was a man, a husband, a new father, a faithful employee, a good neighbor. Yet those outward observations about him, while all true, did not fully describe him. That was only his physical existence filtered through his public persona, that portion of himself he allowed others to see. Everyone in his culture survived this way, projecting their masked image and calling it reality, all the while knowing that it was incomplete or even intentionally dishonest.

Reality, indeed! Each of us withholds an inner self, with boundaries and concentric circles of restricted access seldom shown to others. This inner self appeared more real to us and seemed to be the source of our motivations and reactions, desires and loves, prejudices and fears. However, even our perceptions about ourselves were distorted, dishonest and self-serving. Humanity tried so hard to persuade itself that this inner kingdom of self was the true reality, yet within that hidden core there still existed an even darker center where intellect and reason gazed helplessly into the blackness.

Reality?

The dark heart of man resides there, the animal drives that war against the projected self-image, war against the perceived self-image. In the starkest reality, we were all bipolar creatures, pulled between right and wrong, light and darkness, reason and insanity, greater values and primal appetites. We spiral about a bright vision of what we could be, sometimes closer and sometimes further away, while darkness waits to consume us if we should break free of our precarious orbit. At times his life spent traveling with the King seemed too fantastic to be real, yet his reality seemed too dishonest to be trusted. Right Standing before God? Was that even possible?

The door opened—and he was gone!

The world the way the King sees it!

In a flash, he was thrown into utter darkness, a world of shadows punctuated by screams of terror and shouts of alarm somewhere nearby. Smoke caught at his throat, gagging him and burning his eyes. A crowd of running people pushed past him. Panic! Fear! It was much hotter here than the cool hospital corridor just left behind, and the air smelled of sweat, burning timber and burning flesh. Hot cinders pelted his neck and shoulders. Where was he? When was he?

Get out of the way! shouted a desperate man, pushing past him. The language was unknown to the Traveler, yet vaguely familiar. The pendant translated for him.

The wolves have set fire to the docks! The man was goat–faced, his strange vertical irises wide in panic. Short, sharp horns curled around long, pointed ears. He fumbled with a large bundle. Behind him, a goat-faced woman struggled with two frightened children. The children had fully human faces, before the age of accountability.

Where am I? shouted the Traveler, grabbing at the man’s arm.

Near the temple of the Muses, the man shouted breathlessly, pulling his arm away, intent upon navigating his family through the crowd. The wind is blowing the fire this way!

The Temple of the Muses? That was not very helpful. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, the Traveler realized he was standing in an open street paved with cobblestones, in the dead of night, with a stream of animal-faced refugees rushing past him. Turning around, he could see bright, orange flames leaping skyward over the rooftops of an ancient city. In the distance, a single alabaster spire soared skyward, flickering in the distant firelight. Someone collided with him, knocking him down.

Out of the way, moron! an ox-faced man roared in his face, tripping over him. In an instant, the bullish refugee was gone with the stampede. The Traveler tried to rise, but another knot of frightened people tumbled over him, sending everyone sprawling. Cursing and crying! Screaming and threatening! The entire city was in flight. But where was he? When was he? The Traveler finally pulled himself toward the closest wall, out of the stream of bestial humanity, and managed to regain his footing.

What city is this? he shouted. No one answered him. He clung to the smooth stones of the wall and tried to get his bearings, both in the temporal world and in the endless corridors of time. He had traveled instantly to the distant past, that much was certain, but how far back? And where? There were no electric lights and no cars to be seen. Further back! He could see neither glass nor metal in their architecture, and there were no explosions from the growing maelstrom behind them. Before the use of fossil fuels and gunpowder then—much further back. The stone beneath his fingers was etched with painted pictographs. He spun around to examine the facade of the adjacent buildings. Many were carved with larger-than-life etchings depicting happy, sheep-headed workers in loin clothes working in a field, other cow-headed laborers herding cattle, and a jackal-headed overseer receiving their homage. Eastern Mediterranean—Egyptian—further back yet. The crowd running past him was all clothed in simple one-piece tunics, robes and sandals, nearly identical to the people pictured in the murals above their heads. Their faces? That was no help—their faces were those of frightened animals—sheep, goats, camels, horses, cattle, even a crocodile glared back at him in the firelight. This was some ancient Egyptian city being put to the torch. And yet a graceful colonnade of Grecian columns lined the main thoroughfare. A Greek city in ancient Egypt? A temple dedicated to the Muses in a culture which worshiped animal–headed gods? It was so confusing. Where? When?

The Roman wolves were definitely involved, that was a fact that helped place the time period within a few hundred years, the centuries immediately before and after the life of Ishi. He shivered involuntarily, remembering the wolves’ heartless cruelty in torturing Ishi before his violent death at their hands.

Those bittersweet memories triggered another line of critical thinking. When Ishi last met the Traveler and Amanda, three days after his crucifixion, the bestial crowd in the street below them had suddenly appeared human—even the wolfish soldiers. It was a miraculous and instantaneous transformation, accomplished by Ishi on the cross. It was finished! The perfect atoning sacrifice was made by the sinless High Priest. Redemption from the curse was made available to all—spreading from the Chosen people to all of humanity. Even to him! Was that another clue? This time and place, wherever and whenever he was located, must precede Ishi’s sacrifice at Jebu City. Before the Omnipoint—before the inevitable collision of celestial time and human history! Prior to that atoning sacrifice, the entire human race, except for a precious few chosen people, and the very young, were given over to their animal compromises. The Traveler, with the aid of the pendant, could see it in their faces. A warren of rabbit-faced people crowded past him, eyes round with fear. A distant roaring, like a furnace being heated, was growing louder. Cinders and ash were falling more heavily.

Why are the wolves doing this? he shouted at a passing refugee. The cheetah-faced man only shrugged his shoulders and moved on. What question could he ask that anyone in this time and place would understand?

He heard shouting nearby in a distinctly different language from the rest of the crowd. It was in the language of the seafaring travelers he had met in the last adventure, the Sea Lords, but this small knot of men shouting to each other across the torrent of people were not gull-headed and pale-skinned as he expected. These men looked to be priests or clerics of this city, dark and tanned like the crowd, heads shaved, but wearing pendants and earrings, bracelets and sashes over knee-length jerkins. Each of them clutched as many scrolls in his arms as he could carry. Like the frightened crowd around them, they were rushing away from the fire. Yet they spoke the language of the Hellenes.

Switching to that language, the Traveler shouted back, Where is a place of safety?

One of the priests, ferret-faced with small, beady eyes, looked up at him in surprise. The sanctuary of Isis. All is stone there. Follow us! The small knot of priests rapidly passed by.

The sanctuary of Isis?

The Traveler hesitated, swallowing hard. A foreign temple was the last place he wanted to go. In his previous traveling, he had learned the painful lesson that the demonic rebellion disguised themselves behind the popular religions of the day, directing the course of human history from the shadows. It had not always been that way—and he recalled the story of the great Star Tower at the very inception of recorded human history—but that was another culture, another goddess, centuries in the past. Perhaps this temple would be the safest place to be. Local priests would be a repository of knowledge. He could slip in, quietly investigate the time and place, then fade back out into the night amid the confusion. Lacking any better plan, he pushed through the crowd to follow after the knot of fleeing priests.

Where was he? It seemed a grand city, much like Jebu City of Ishi’s day, but much larger and no great Temple mount dominated this city’s skyline. It was mostly level, with a line of finer villas and temples surrounding the older waterfront district in a broad crescent. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the harbor. He could barely see the white spire rising several hundred feet high, massive and square-sided, through greasy, black clouds obscuring his vision. Its size and location were impressive for the ancient world and the Traveler was reminded of the pyramids he had seen on an earlier adventure, but this was no time for sight-seeing. He concentrated on following the priests in the flickering shadows cast by the macabre flames dancing behind them. A coastal city, progressive for its day, somewhere in the eastern end of the Wolfish Empire, yet heavily influenced by the presence of the Sea Lords. He choked on the smoke and swallowed hard. A picture was slowly evolving, but his knowledge of ancient history was so superficial. How many cities had the wolves burned in defense of their empire?

Help us! pleaded an exhausted, pig-faced woman, clutching two frightened children to her breast. The crowd pushed past her, oblivious to her need, shoving them aside. The Traveler, carried along by the current of fleeing humanity, could do nothing for her. Her desperate face faded in the tumult.

Returning his attention to the cluster of priests running ahead of him, he could see that they were veering away toward a different quarter of the city. The masses were flowing out of the city on the main roads. A smaller, serpentine avenue ran generally perpendicular to it, curving around toward a cluster of great, stone buildings facing the sea. He followed at a safe distance, picking up several scrolls dropped by the priests in their haste. Another five minutes of pushing and shoving slowly separated them from the throng.

They approached a formal stone archway with two anxious guards still standing at their post astride the gate. They both had the canine face of a jackal and their dark, black-skinned bodies glistened with sweat. Leather shields and tall spears, tight-fitting leather helmets, loin cloths and sandals. The Traveler staggered to a stop, breathing hard. He recognized the armor—he had seen it before. The River Kingdom of the Jackals in the first adventure! Home to Osidon, Mendes and so many other rebels. So, this was the River Kingdom! The last grim fact that he could recall about this strange land was that he had a price on his head here due to a terrible injury he had accidently inflicted upon Mendes, the ram-headed demon lord. A burst of energy from the supernatural sword emblazoned on the breastplate of his mysterious armor had sent the demon lord shrieking into another reality, wracked with painful, blue fire. Perhaps following the priests was not such a good idea!

The carved walls surrounding him flickered in the firelight and smoke—scenes of human glory and conquest. Rising above the walls, beyond the archway ahead, was the cold, impassive face of a large, stone sphinx—half-man and half-lion—enigmatic symbol of their empire. Another animal compromise! The cluster of priests neared the entrance ahead of him. Decision point—go or don’t go! He wiped his gritty forehead with his sleeve. Going forward was dangerous, but staying here was to remain lost in this foreign city. Steeling himself, he ran to catch up with the last of the priests.

Summon the whole guard force and the rest of the priesthood! shouted the highest ranking priest in the group as he ran past the sentries through the open gate. We will need an escort back to the library. One soldier turned and ran for the barracks. Wagons, carts, stretchers—anything that will carry a load! he shouted at the other soldier, who saluted and ran in the other direction. Gesturing toward the area beyond the sphinx, the priest shouted back over his shoulder, We will deposit the scrolls in the narthex of the main temple, and then join the soldiers going back for more! He ran in that direction, followed by the other priests and the Traveler.

Smoke and ash swirled through the compound, torchlight and firelight flickered, while people ran about in confusion. In the darkness and panic, no one noticed an intense, black shadow rise from the shoulder of the stone sphinx where it had been lounging with indifference, watching as the city burned. While spectacular, it was merely a human drama. Something far more unusual had caught his eye—a magnificent pendant, clearly off-worldly in origin, worn by a mere mortal—just as the great goddess herself had predicted. The inky, black shadow smiled. It would be his good fortune to bring the great goddess this surprising news. The shadow dissolved into the ashes and cinders of the night.

Depositing their burden of scrolls just inside the entry to the temple in a haphazard pile, everyone stood about, catching their breath, watching the flames leap skyward from the harbor. Elevated on slightly higher ground now, the Traveler could barely see a line of long, low, single-masted vessels burning furiously, and the adjacent dock area was already in flames. Wooden warehouses and the tenements of the poor were catching fire easily and the wind was spreading the fire to an area of more stately buildings.

It will surely reach the museum and library, your eminence! exclaimed one exhausted acolyte to the high priest.

Perhaps the great goddess Isis will spare it, sighed the weary old man, shaking the soot and ashes from his catlike fur. He still clutched one particularly precious scroll to his chest. By the sacred Bastet, there are thousands of documents, the astronomical and hydrological observations of our order gathered over centuries, crop circle plans, original manuscripts, volumes of the occult practices. It cannot be replaced!

Damn the wolves! cried another ibis-headed acolyte. Why do the eternal River gods not strike them down where they stand?

The old man turned hollow, catlike eyes in the acolyte’s direction. "In the end, this world is given over to suffering. This brief journey is only preparation for the afterlife. Shedrah!" Shoulders slumping, he coughed as he gestured for them to return to the forecourt.

"Shedrah!" intoned his fellow priests in practiced response. Wearily, they turned to follow him.

Shedrah? The Traveler hesitated in the shadows, searching his memory. That expression meant something… something important, he should remember. But that was another place and time! He needed a moment to work this problem out, but the priests were leaving. He shuffled the scrolls he was holding into one armful and grabbed at the sleeve of the closest acolyte.

This city, what is it?

The zebra-faced man glared at him, thinking him daft.

I am new here, explained the Traveler, and our shipmaster abandoned us without telling us where we were landing.

Alexandria, answered the priest suspiciously.

Alexandria? And this library he spoke of?

Why, the great library of the Museum, built by Ptolemy hundreds of years ago. It is the repository of everything recorded in the Hellenic world. Tears came to the man’s large, black equine eyes. It is irreplaceable. His horselike lips trembled as he looked at the small pile of scrolls dumped unceremoniously on the floor beside them. The Iliad of Homer, mathematics by Euclid, natural sciences by Aristotle and Plato, art and literature, histories and inventions, medical treatises and cultic incantations, great treaties and plays—even the original Book of the Dead penned by Osidon’s own hand. We must save it all! The gods must save it!

Why are the wolves burning it?

The man pulled his arm away and gestured wildly at the burning city laid out before them. They don’t care about knowledge! They only care about power! They put the Egyptian fleet to the torch to secure their seaward escape route. The safety of the Museum was meaningless to them. He turned away bitterly, trotting after his leader.

"You said, Shedrah, in your benediction, shouted the Traveler after him. What does it mean?"

We honor the great goddess Isis, the queen mother of all creation, ancient beyond time. The words are hers! He waved the Traveler away.

Soldiers and priests were excitedly assembling in the forecourt, receiving hasty instructions from the high priest. The Traveler hid behind a broad, marble column, listening while catching his breath, and clutching three scrolls to his chest. A temple priesthood speaking the language of the Hellenes honoring an Egyptian goddess in a city that looked more like Athens than Zoar? Jackal-headed soldiers in River Kingdom garb guarding the temple, yet speaking the language of the Sea Lords, while invading foreign wolves burned the city? And the benediction was an ancient Biblosi word from a thousand years in the past. It made no sense! The crowd in the forecourt moved out toward the inner city, leaving him alone in the temple narthex.

Yad’el? Latris?

The Traveler called out for his mysterious traveling companions, but there was no response. Supernatural messengers and soldiers serving the King of the other reality, they seemed to appear and disappear as they pleased. Joining him as companions on the previous adventures, their help was always invaluable, if a little unpredictable. He could certainly use their help right now. Many times Yad’el had said that they would never leave him, yet they were not always with him. So, how could that be true? And he sensed they would never lie to him, yet he seemed alone right now. The Traveler coughed in the smoke, shaking off those thoughts. There were more pressing needs.

He considered exploring the abandoned temple complex, but glancing up at the reclining stone sphinx, he decided against it. While the human population here was in a general state of panic and occupied elsewhere, the rebellion was still in command of this city and they would not be distracted by humanity’s dire circumstances. Incredibly, the rebels were from the same supernatural race as Yad’el and Latris, but they had been changed—physically disfigured and emotionally scarred—by some terrible battle in the other reality long before recorded human history, and now they were exiled here by the closing of the passage home. The human race suffered from their presence. Angry and violent, sensual and dishonest, manipulative and proud, the rebels exploited humanity in an effort to assault the gates of that other reality. Apparently, a united humanity and the rebellion together could have accomplished this feat, but that first offensive failed miserably. Humanity was splintered into different ethnicities and languages, scattering from a central point in the Middle East to populate the whole world. It sounded like hoary, old religious doctrine, yet he had found genetic research conducted in his own century that confirmed a common origin for the entire human race in sub-Saharan Africa, and the human genome project confirmed an outward expansion from the Middle East at the dawn of human history. Articles of faith and the empirical evidence of science? Weren’t they supposed to be in conflict? The facts remained strangely in agreement.

And these animal-headed compromises? His adventures were revealing an incredible dual history for humanity, unlike anything taught by either religion or science. There were actually two sources to our human ancestry. One source, the feral animal nature, evolved from lesser creatures just like the rest of this world, leaving the fossil records and artifacts behind, while another source of humanity with the breath of divinity was nurtured somewhere else in a controlled setting called a Garden, then brought here to interbreed with their animal counterparts. Genetically identical, yet distinguished by divine intervention, the rest of human history was the story of their interbreeding—the shortening of vast life spans, the introduction of diseases and genetic defects, the ravages of aging and malnutrition, the fruit of a difficult existence in a fallen world. Gradually the animal compromises became dominant, so much so that the King of the other reality launched a counteroffensive to purge the world of their worst offenses. The Traveler shuddered, remembering again the cascading waters and torrential rains of the flood, and the small family of redeemable humanity and selected animalkind huddled in the confines of a crude barge, awaiting their deliverance from the storm.

He deposited the scrolls he carried onto the haphazard pile just inside the doorway. What was he looking at? Dozens of papyrus scrolls and a stack of clay cuneiform tablets, written in every language of the ancient world. One scroll, partially unraveled, revealed a section covered top to bottom in colorful hieroglyphics, while another scroll was covered front and back in the tight boxy letters and pointillism of Hebrew. A third scroll was written in a scratchy script that could be Greek. A set of notebook-sized clay tablets were covered with rows of neat, triangular indentations—cuneiform writings from Biblos. He clasped his miraculous pendant in his right hand, but that was no help. The pendant did not translate the written word, only the spoken word. These valuable documents, so precious to the priests of Isis, were meaningless to him. He was just another barbarian to the Hellenistic world, much like the wolves who were burning the city.

His eyes watered from the drifting smoke as he returned to the front row of columns and gazed out at the scene. The tall spire in the distance at the mouth of the harbor was momentarily illuminated by flames and then obscured again by smoke. Ruddy in this light, the tower must be brightly whitewashed in the daylight, he reasoned, a signal to distant ships that this was a safe harbor for them. He recalled something from his reading about a wondrous lighthouse built at Alexandria, but there was no burning beacon atop this spire. More mythology? More misrepresented history? Was there any safe harbor for time travelers, tossed about on the dark sea of history?

A safe harbor? Not tonight! He watched the flames leaping skyward from moored ships and warehouses, tenements and marketplaces. One of the impressive stone buildings to windward, part of a larger complex of officious structures, was also ablaze now. Too far away to hear the cries of alarm and anguish, he felt strangely detached from this scene of destruction, almost an observer rather than a participant. If not for the smoke in his eyes and nostrils, and the black soot matting his hair, he could have been watching television. Disaster in high definition. More humanity swept away in crisis. History written by the winners. He swiped a dirty sleeve at his eyes to no avail. There were new fathers and innocent babies dying out there, young mothers in labor, old people unable to run for safety. He was more than a dispassionate observer; he was an unwilling participant. His teeth ground on bits of ash and he coughed at the smoke. Whatever this harsh lesson had to do with right standing before the Creator of the universe, he considered it over. A quick return to the main thoroughfare, then running with the masses out of the city. He would surely find his companions somewhere out there. Resolved that this was his best course of action, the Traveler skipped quickly down the steps of the temple and headed back toward the gate, keeping close to the flank of the silent, stone sphinx.

Suddenly, the long tail of a black whip lashed through the air, encircling his throat, snapping taut with such force that it jerked him off his feet. Pulled backward and lifted upward, the Traveler found himself slapped up against the hard flank of the stone sphinx and suspended several feet in midair. Gasping for breath, he clawed at the leather strap. Slamming off the alabaster statue, he spun around helplessly, flailing desperately with his legs.

An eerie blue light flooded the area and a vortex of cold, dark colors swirled in the forecourt before him. Emerging effortlessly from the whirlpool, a statuesque and beautiful woman strode elegantly toward him. Regal and aristocratic, she was dressed in a full length silver dress cut very low between her ample breasts and bound at her narrow waist by a long, golden belt. Her delicate feet were shod with simple golden sandals that… never touched the ground as she walked. An Egyptian goddess!

Not touching the ground!

It was another clue. But the Traveler, suffocating from the whip, was too stunned and shaken to think clearly. Exhausted, he quit struggling and hung limply against the stone sphinx. Spreading out behind this vision of a goddess were ethereal, golden wings, like billowing sails.

Golden wings, Traveler! Where have you seen wings like this before?

She approached within a few feet of the dying man. Her eyes were dark and penetrating, without compassion. Her hair, black and straight, framed her face and a sapphire tiara held her precise coiffure serenely in place. Her full and sensuous lips were blackened with lip color and a wide, golden necklace decorated with precious stones covered her shoulders. Emerging from the miasma behind her were two jackal-headed guardsmen, each eight feet tall, with burning red eyes and golden armor.

Red eyes!

Think, Traveler! Think! Red eyes! His vision blurred.

Leaving us so soon? crooned the goddess, with insincere affection. I think not! The King’s great harbinger of destruction deserves a private audience. She waved her hand and the whip was immediately loosened. The Traveler fell to the ground, then his knees buckled and he fell again, prostrate before her. Another gesture and more unseen guardsmen stepped forward, grasping each of his arms in their viselike grip, lifting him to a kneeling position.

"We are here because we are immortal, she explained, standing imperiously erect and defiant before him. But you should be dead, long ago, with my first capital, if you were merely mortal." She stepped forward and reached out a finely manicured hand with long, red fingernails to his throat. She attempted to close her hand on the Traveler’s pendant, but it dissolved through her grasp. Vexed for only a moment, she raised one sharp fingernail to rake the Traveler’s neck, now reddening with the marks of the whip. The Traveler lost consciousness and his head lolled forward.

Take him to my temple, she instructed curtly. The guardsmen nodded. "And I want him alive for my interrogation. They nodded again and began dragging the unconscious figure toward the slowly revolving maelstrom. Looking up at the impish gargoyle perched on the outstretched arm of the sphinx, still curling his insidious whip, she smiled. You have done very well. Now, make sure we are not followed. Not only does this one show up at every disaster in my plans, he is followed by two servile lackeys from the King’s host."

Two angels of the host? asked the gargoyle, swallowing hard.

I am not asking you to fight them, just watch for them! she snapped. The gargoyle bowed stiffly and popped out of sight in a flurry of sulfurous gas.

Just like at Biblos, commented one of the remaining demonic jackal-headed lieutenants, taking in the scene of the burning city. Another one of our great libraries destroyed by Ba’yel and his minions!

Not quite the same, disagreed the River goddess, sweeping her train about her feet and angrily turning to face the burning city. At Biblos, Ba’yel got to the man first. This time, I have him.

This human trash? grimaced the jackal, gesturing to the prone figure being dragged into the transportation vortex by the guards. Surely the loss of the great library is more important than this single man.

One would think so, considered the goddess Isis, queen of heaven and timeless mistress of the occult. She certainly regretted losing the libraries, but they could be recreated. Her faithful human minions dying tonight were going to be missed, but they could also be replaced. They had time to raise up a new generation of believers! Surely, these were the important losses. Or were they? Disaster strikes and this time traveler shows up. Why? What was the King doing by sending him here to these critical junctures? Was this some veiled counteroffensive to her growing influence in the world? Her temples now adorned every major city, with acolytes taking their worship of a supreme matron goddess to the four corners of the world.

Check with our network of spies and sources in every temple, in every city, throughout the empire for current information about other pendant bearers appearing just now. He is here! This is important! The death of so many humans and the razing of her capital city by Ba’yel and his Roman Empire were meaningless. Humans die! Cities fall! The King was moving here! That fact was of paramount importance.

The man did not start this fire, asserted her lieutenant.

No, it was Ba’yel who fired my city and he will pay for this, I promise you! agreed the goddess. But this… teller of the tale… this mortal ambassador… is here at the King’s bidding. It has been four centuries since the last pendant bearer came to the Chosen people. Four hundred years! Their prophets have gone silent and the light of their cause has almost been extinguished from this world. And suddenly, the King’s harbinger returns and my city burns. Why now? What tale is he telling this time and who will listen? These are the important questions.

Let us kill him and the tales end tonight.

Isis smiled coldly, trying to discern the future—for this mortal man, for her burning city, even her own fate. It was no use. The rebels were no longer time travelers, at least not free to travel the rivers of time as they pleased. As part of the judgment at the Fall, they were condemned to crawl forward on the linear timeline, just like