The Menace of the Ancient Foe: A Tale of Two Times, #1

By JBS Palmer

In the first volume of A Tale of Two Times, The Menace of the Ancient Foe, after a few adventures, such as taming the Fontana Few motorcycle gang and finding Soviet Atomic bombs stashed on American soil, Rhoda Knox unexpectedly encounters the Ancient Foe at the biologists' costume party in a stone cabin in Southern California.  Rhoda and the god exchange hostile words over some very old, unfinished family business between her Clan and the god Sunderer's Circle. Their altercation causes the party to break up in a panic.  Seeing the drastic course she must take, Rhoda strides out of the confusion she has precipitated, leaving Yohanna Okubo to handle the aftermath:  The blow intended by the Ancient Foe to turn Rhoda into a Shade or destroy her, falls upon Isabel Tavares, a Portuguese mathematician studying at New City University.  With the aid of Leo, Antonia and Hans, Yohanna succeeds in rescuing Isabel at the last moment.  For days, the five huddle in Antonia's house during a Pacific storm, while Yohanna seeks, by drawing the others into the Clan's world, to hide them from death or capture by the Foes's agents. (121,000 words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Lad Press
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201193270

JBS Palmer

JBS Palmer lives with family and a hoodwink of cats in Idaho.  He is a graduate of Oberlin College and has a PhD in biology from the University of Oregon.   Retiring from a career in science and industry before the turn of the century he brings the insight of long experience into the yet to be critically acclaimed semi-historical saga, A Tale of Two Times, a tale to stir mind and heart about Earth’s Province and the surrounding unseen supernatural world, the gates of which are held by the Keen Makers of the Clan of Thiuderieks.  A Tale of Two Times is being released in nine tantalizing volumes.  He also has written two books of mind-stretching Thought Verse which speaks in the Venn intersection of supernatural religion, philosophy and science.   Old Wine and New New Wine was published in 2022 and The Spiritual Thing will be released by April of this year. The author's portrait is by Mari and the cover is by Mariel, both talented young women of his clan.

Book preview

Chapter 1 — Challenge

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~ 1 ~   Rhoda Knox came home to Home Ranch in a cloud of Texas road dust, pivoting her sage green enhanced Karmann Ghia to a skidding halt before the massive ranchhouse.  She waited briefly for her following dust cloud to disperse.  Then, in one fierce smooth motion she snatched a suitcase from the passenger seat, threw open her car door and swung her booted feet to the gravel drive.  A thoughtful moment passed.  Abruptly, she stood and slammed the car door behind her.  Rhoda strode rapidly up the broad ranchhouse steps, passed blindly the old folks on the veranda, and straight-armed one of the pair of ancient hand-carved entry doors, sending it flying violently inward on its smooth-working hinges.  They were the original hinges, on which the two beautiful doors had served daily since the year in which the ranchhouse’s earliest foundation had been laid.  Rhoda’s ancestor Frederick Knox had built the original structure on land granted to him by the Spanish Crown long before the existence of the United States of America.  Since then, the ranchhouse had grown substantially, through the work of generations of Knoxes.  But on this day in the early sixties of the twentieth century, Rhoda had no time to gaze fondly at the rambling building.  The long history of the family to which she belonged had swept her up into this moment in time, of deep peril to her.

Diego had watched the dust cloud clearing and the young woman abruptly exiting her hastily-parked car.  She’s probably that insurance woman.  She sure is in a hurry.  Diego’s limber body had carried him swiftly down the curving staircase.  His new responsibility as Ranch Chief had been suddenly not so much to his liking.  He loved the out-of-doors active life and the camaraderie of ranching work, and repulsing an insurance saleswoman was a poor way to begin his first day.  Kurt had promoted him just yesterday from foreman to Ranch Chief.

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Kurt had awakened on the previous day knowing at once that Martha had something big to tell him that morning.  The aroma of freshly-brewed coffee had told him even before he was aware of her absence that Martha had slipped out of bed without waking him with her usual hugs and kisses.  After hurriedly splashing his face, he had sauntered into their coffee nook as though nothing was up, and Martha had smiled, setting a steaming mug at Kurt’s place at the little table.

Thanks, honey.  Hugging her welcoming body and kissing her warm lips, Kurt had felt reassured.  He had relaxed and sat down, turning to the newspaper’s listing of team standings in the Texas League.  Can the San Antonio Missions make it to the Dixie Series?  After reading the newspaper and sipping his coffee for a minute, he had glanced up at Martha’s back where she stood at one of the apartment’s tall windows.

Windows were Martha’s morning newspaper.  From the windows of their second-floor quarters in the ranchhouse, she read volumes of useful information in the activity below.  She was able to surmise what was going to be happening that day on Home Ranch by watching the many ranch folks arriving from the various Gardenlands and chatting among themselves on their way to breakfast in the ranchhouse.  Kurt found her surmises to be highly accurate, and they were valuable enhancements to his understanding of what was in store for him each day.  There sure was good reason for Martha’s having been made a First Scribe and a Guild Mother, and Kurt was proud of her.  She still looked darn good, too, and sparks of silver flashing among her dark brown curls added the spice of maturity to her charm.

After he had returned to reading the newspaper, Martha had turned away from the window and had watched Kurt for a few moments, smiling to herself.  She had been smitten by that handsome guy on the day she had first met him—and not only for his good looks.  She had discovered at once that he was a darn good man.  Kurt was now a loving and considerate husband to her, and a kind and loving father to their two daughters.  He had become a tough but kindly father to the ranch hands, too, and to all of Home Ranch’s other workers—first as foreman, and then as the savvy Ranch Chief who had for years kept the Guild at peace among themselves and with the Head Family.  But events were changing their world, and today Kurt would have to pass the baton to the next runner in the the relay.

....  What’d you say, honey?  Looking up at Martha, Kurt had found himself again staring at her back.  What he had heard her say just now had sounded to him like a Touchstone maxim, one of those oracular ones that some Scribes wanted to snip out of the Touchstone—as if they could!  When Kurt had been a young man visiting Reggie Chapman Jr. in Kansas, Reggie had taken a pair of scissors and had demonstrated the impossibility of cutting a page of the Touchstone!  Kurt had tried snipping at a page, too, with the same result.  Looking at Martha at the window, he had thought for the first time of the possibility that Scribes in Martha’s Thing would consider their treatment of the Touchstone sacrilegious.

Martha had turned then and looked him square in the eye—the way he’d seen her do in a Guild Thing when she had needed to pull rank.  She had repeated, 'War Thing’s winds begin to blow!  Cut out the old wood; nurture the green.’  Kurt, I believe Rhoda will be blowing in tomorrow.  I talked with her this morning.  She called very early, and you didn’t hear the ring.  Her calls wake me like a baby crying in the night; she knows I’ll answer.

What’d that sweet prickly pear have to say?

Rhoda asked me if Victoria and Manuel and the twins are visiting in Mexico City for Maria’s birthday.  After I told her they are, she said, ’So, Father’s home by himself?  ...Good.’ There’s only one other person she asked about, and that’s Fr. Damian.  She seemed mighty pleased when I said he’s away on his retreat out at the Barracks.

Kurt had thought hard.  That kind of clears the deck for the two of them, don’t it?  ...Diego’s the green wood?

Yes, honey; you’ve got that right.

He’s pretty green alright.  He’s no kind of match for Rhoda, but...  Is any man?

Kurt honey, I don’t know exactly what Rhoda’s up to, except that it has everything to do with the new War Thing that’s coming and nothing to do with romancing Diego.  Whatever wild dreams about his prospects they might have in Argentina, she’ll never be his bride.  But when the War Thing hits, we’ll need a new Ranch Chief who can keep the Guild and the Head Family together.  Diego’s the man for that job.

Yeah, I know.  The Guild looked mighty long for the right fellow, and it’s a good thing they finally found Diego in Argentina.  I’ve taught him everything I know, and now he’s a better foreman than I was.  I’ll make him Ranch Chief this morning.

Martha breathed a silent sigh of relief.  It’s for the best, honey.  It’s almost time for second breakfast now.  Diego’ll be there.

But Diego always eats at first breakfast.

I asked him to wait, this morning.

Okay.  Are you coming, too?

Yes.  I’ll be the Guild witness.  Honey, I think it’s best we not have any talk about particulars, especially regarding Rhoda.

We’ve never talked about her.  Nobody mentions her, except for the grousin’ by Kansas folks over the aviation deal.  And he don’t even know what she looks like.

Do you, honey?

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Diego quickly arrived at the bottom of the staircase, preparing himself to confront the saleswoman.  He strode across the hall, reaching out to pull open one of the entrance doors—and was barely missed by the other door’s multitude of carved birds flying violently at him!  In that instant his mind identified the green Karmann Ghia.  Mother of God!  I’ve seen it parked at the Knox hangar!  Miss Knox, I am...  Rhoda glared straight into his serious brown eyes, dropped her suitcase at his feet, and ordered, Bring that up after me!  She was as tall as he, and very imposing in her well-tailored flight suit.  Her voice was low and pleasant, but Diego felt her flash of annoyance like a blow.  Turning sharply away, Rhoda strode across to the staircase opposite the one descended by him, and Diego dazedly watched her swift ascent, admiring her long, copper-blond hair streaming like a comet’s tail behind her.

Two highly-amused maids had witnessed Diego’s encounter with the Head’s eldest daughter, and he glared at them with the ferocity of a victim of teasing sisters.  Hoping to apologize properly to Miss Knox upon delivering it, he reached for the suitcase with one muscular arm and snatched its handle in his hand, beginning what was meant to be an effortless leap up the stairs in Rhoda’s wake.  Diego jerked painfully to a halt, nearly losing his balance.  Shocked and confused, he clenched his jaw, gripped the handle with both hands and began lugging the suitcase up slowly, resting it on each step as he climbed.

Third floor, Señor Mendoza, came directions from behind a grin-hiding hand below.

When Diego arrived with his load in the vestibule of the Head family’s private quarters, he found himself half-surrounded by a curving wall in which he saw a number of doors.  He had never before set foot in this part of the ranchhouse.  Imagining the interesting shapes of the rooms to which the doors opened, he looked around and saw that all of the doors were closed.  Not knowing which door was Rhoda’s, he waited, staring at the well-crafted old doors and not daring to risk disturbing folks by knocking at any of them.  No one appeared.  Defeated, Diego left the suitcase at the head of the staircase and slowly descended the worn wooden steps.  Martha was waiting for him.  Diego told her, You're in charge here, now.  I’m going back out to my work.

Martha, having witnessed his promotion on the previous day, replied, Surely you may go, Diego, but I’m not in charge.

Flustered and annoyed, Diego strode toward the stables near the ranchhouse.  Martha’s words echoed in his head:  ... I’m not in charge.  He stopped in his tracks.  Martha wasn’t referring to Miss Knox.  She means I’m in charge!  He turned on his heel.  Martha smiled as she held open the door for him.

I’ll go inform Mr. Knox that his daughter is home, he said.  Martha nodded.

After Diego had left, Martha ascended the stairs, slid the suitcase to Rhoda’s door, and knocked in her own special way before departing.

A few minutes later, Rhoda retrieved her suitcase.  She removed from it a few items of clothing and her purse.  After hanging some clothes in her big old wardrobe and tucking the remainder into her antique dresser’s drawers, she slid her empty suitcase under the bed and removed from the purse her grandfather’s old Colt.  She spun the cylinder a few times, frowning thoughtfully, and placed the gun on her dresser.  Then, after glancing quickly into the dresser’s ancient mirror, Rhoda silently and effortlessly slid the heavy piece of furniture to one side—and vanished into the Great Maze.

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~ 2 ~   Please, Diego, call me Martin.  Martin, Rhoda’s father,  was Head of the Clan.  He was a leader who never threw his weight around and never micromanaged.  He was wise and shrewd and well-informed about nearly everything; in fact, people of power and wealth secretly sought his advice.  Tall and athletic, his keen aquiline features framed by carelessly combed-back thick hair—dark, but greying slightly at the temples—he had the look of a former professional quarterback.  His handsome face, affectionately expressive when he was relaxing with his family and friends, became intense and searching when he was dealing with serious matters.

Has Rhoda gone to her room, Diego?

I believe she has, sir.

'Martin’, Diego.

Martin asked him detailed questions about his brief encounter with Rhoda.  The Head’s manner was intent and soul-searching, unlike Kurt’s relaxed, conversational review of the day’s work over a beer.  Martin questioned him like an officer sifting a scouts’s report, but Diego heard, beneath his brusqueness, a father’s deep concern for his daughter.  Why doesn’t he just go and talk to her?  He knows where her room is.

Martin smiled only when Diego described his encounter with Rhoda’s unusually heavy suitcase.  Diego, do you have any experience with the Goth sword art? he asked.

No, Mr. Knox—Martin—not personally, but I have briefly observed a few contests at the Ranch School, when I’ve done some work over there with Kurt.  I'm surprised that no one ever gets hurt.

Diego, the reason for no one getting hurt is that all of the blades have been made by Keen Makers, using their ancient art of storing and redirecting momentum.  A person can’t use the sword’s momentum during a contest to hurt another contestant, either by mistake or intentionally.  On the other hand, in actual combat Goth war blades rarely fail to strike their mark.  Martin’s manner had grown more like Kurt’s:  relaxed and conversationally mentoring.  Diego understood that Martin had given him a clue to the cause of Rhoda’s suitcase’s unusual weight in his hands.

They discussed Diego’s encounter with Rhoda until Martin was satisfied that he had learned everything which Diego was able to tell him about it.  It was a great deal more than Diego, himself, had known that he had observed.  Thank you, Diego.  You did well; you’re a good observer.  I’ll walk back with you to the hall so I can talk with Martha.

They left by the door to a small porch which was the commonly used approach to Martin’s office.  This had been Diego’s first visit to that office, and his first extended conversation with Martin.  From inside he had seen, through one of the office’s two corner windows, the ranchhouse entrance in front of which Rhoda’s car was parked, and he had wondered if Martin had observed her arrival.

After dinner, when all of the others had left the large dining room—many of them having hoped to greet Rhoda—her father waited alone, contemplating for a long time, in the room’s empty silence, Rhoda’s place across from him.  At last, he carried his dirty dishes to the kitchen.  He went across to the stables and saddled his favorite horse.  Martin then rode slowly and alone—except for a few ranch dogs—over the ranchland, returning well after moonrise.

Martha had gone out to the garden after dinner.  At the far end of the large kitchen garden which was tended by Home Ranch’s families, she came to the shrine of Our Lady of Tepeyac.  The shrine was enclosed by a grape arbor formed by one massive old grapevine—a descendant of one brought from the Old World centuries earlier by the original Texas Knox family.  From the shadows of the shrine, Martha looked up to Rhoda’s rooms, in the southeast-facing corner of the Head family’s third-floor quarters.

Rhoda’s curtains were open, and Martha saw her appear at a window, looking out over a wide expanse of Home Ranch’s land.  Fading now in the twilight, the scene was like a watercolor in mauve and violet.  Rhoda moved away from the windows, and Martha—remaining invisible under the arbor—imagined her pacing in the recesses of her rooms.  She had known Rhoda since the young woman’s infancy, and was her Guild Mother.

The air surrounding Martha embraced her with its fragrance of many roses, the red ones all hidden from her by the growing darkness and the yellow ones still glowing dimly.  Rhoda’s mother, Victoria, had brought the rose bushes from Mexico and had planted them herself at the shrine.  Now the fresh herbal scents of thyme, lavender, rosemary and mints in the nearby herb patch blended with the sweet spice of the roses, accompanying Martha as she walked back toward the ranchhouse along the garden’s meandering path, looking into the recesses of her mind.  She came to a conclusion as the path brought her up to the kitchen door:  Rhoda knows who she is and what she is going to do.

In the kitchen, Martha chatted with Grace and some of the others working there.  Martin bussed his own dishes tonight, and he helped us put some things away, Grace told her, but we surely—none of us—dared talk to him about Rhoda.  We joked about the horses, and we all told him we’re mighty pleased Diego’s been promoted to Ranch Chief.  But Martin didn’t stay long.  You don’t think Rhoda’s gotten pregnant, and she’s waiting to tell Victoria—do you, Martha?

Martha smiled.  Well now, honey, let’s not start any rumors.  Victoria’s expected to return tomorrow, and maybe we’ll find out something then.  Now, you all are just about done here.  Please, let me do the finishing up; there are just some counters that need wiping.

Alone in the kitchen, Martha finished the cleanup.  Then she put together a meal and packed it into one of the wicker baskets used mostly for carrying meals to the more remote work sites on the ranch.  They stacked neatly into carry-sized bundles.  She picked out a basket made by Rhoda.  Martha had learned to recognize by touch the works of Makers, and she knew the distinctive feel of Rhoda’s work.

After packing and closing the basket, she looked thoughtfully at it for a moment.  Then she gave it a good hard cuff with the heel of her hand.  The basket remained unmoved—like Rhoda’s suitcase when Diego had attempted to lift it one-handed.  Her hand stinging, Martha selected a basket not made by Rhoda.  She packed it with the same selection of food and then cuffed it in the same way.  It shot off the counter.  Slowly, she shook her head.

Tucking under her arm the basket made by Rhoda, Martha unlocked the door connecting the kitchen to the Maze.  Locking it behind her, she followed the route which Rhoda had taught to her years earlier, through the Maze to the Head family’s quarters.  Placing the meal basket before Rhoda’s door, she knocked.  After waiting for a few moments, she turned to descend the curving staircase to the entrance hall, from which the murmur of several voices had suddenly ascended.

Thank you, Martha.

Martha turned around and looked into Rhoda’s eyes.  I know you’re not back yet, Rhoda, she said softly, so I brought you food for the way.

Rhoda smiled, letting Martha know that she understood.   She picked up the basket.  This will help.  And tomorrow, Martha, I’ll need you at noon with a horse for each of us.  Be ready to ride.

I’ll be ready, Martha assured her.  She gestured toward the stairs.  Our visitors from Kansas are beginning to arrive; I have to see to them.

Rhoda nodded and closed her door, and Martha turned to descend the stairs to the broad entrance hall.

Diego himself had driven the twenty miles from the ranch to the airfield to pick up the Kansas group.  He had wanted to confirm personally that the Karmann Ghia parked by the hangar was gone.  It was.  While the Kansans' airplane had been circling and landing, Diego had chatted with one of the Aeronauticas workers, and had taken the opportunity to ask, What airplane did Miss Knox pilot in this morning?

It’s called the Greased Lightning, the man had answered.  They keep it in that special Knox Aviation hangar.  My brother, Wilson Cintra, is on Miss Knox’s crew.  In a hushed voice he had confided, He says they don't understand how it works, Mr. Mendoza.  She makes most of the parts herself in her Workshop’s Inner Sanctum.

Diego had been struck even more by being addressed as Mr. Mendoza, than by the information about Rhoda’s Greased Lightning.  Even out here they knew that Kurt had designated him Ranch Chief!  It had dawned on him at that moment that he now held, in fact, a position like his father’s:  Chief.  And Diego was Chief of the foremost Hold of the Clan!

Ambrose had been Diego’s front seat passenger on the way back to the ranch, and the two men had chatted amiably while they were rattling over the gravel road.  Diego’s Argentinean family was friendly with Ambrose Chapman’s family, and one of Diego’s cousins was a Scribe like Ambrose.  A gentle man whose dark eyes showed friendliness to all through his spectacles, Ambrose had enjoyed a few outings in the wild with Diego a few years previously, but by inclination he was a book-loving indoor person.  He was a Touchstone Scribe who had recently taken the position in Kansas formerly held by his own father.  Martha was a First Scribe versed in the Histories; in fact, for years she had been inscribing an account of the most recent past War Thing for the Guild.  Touchstone Scribes like Ambrose were the more numerous of the Clan’s Scribes.  First Scribes like Martha had more prestige, because of their association with Head families.  Always, there had been a friendly rivalry between the schools of Scribes.

Martha completed her descent of the two flights of stairs and met the newly-arrived party in the entrance hall.  She was soon teasing Ambrose, telling him it was time for Touchstone Scribes to learn Old Goth too, so that they would be able to study the Touchstone in the original Goth language.  Ambrose countered with the Touchstone Scribes’ usual assertion that they were well-served by Fr. Sigurd’s perfect translation of the Old Goth Touchstone into modern German.  Well, it’s not perfect, and it’s hardly his own work, replied Martha.

Acting the part of a good host, Diego changed the subject, announcing, Rhoda arrived here earlier today.  He knew that Rhoda’s name was familiar to their guests from the Guild in Kansas, where Aeronauticas had a factory and an airfield.  The Kansans told Diego then—very politely—about their concern regarding Rhoda’s recent alteration in behavior:  Her manner had become more grating than gracious.  Diego did not mention his own rude treatment by her, which had made him wary of meeting Rhoda again.

Grace had stepped over to stand next to Ambrose, laying her hand lightly on his arm.  She reminisced aloud to them all about the Rhoda whom she had known well, until recent years.  There was nothing she couldn't do if she aimed to do it.  She learned so darned quickly, you wouldn’t believe it, and she knew so many languages!  She handled animals better than anyone else on the ranch.  But she was always considerate when she was working or playing with other folks.  She’d slow down to their pace and help them, very tactfully.  She once said to me something like, ‘Showing someone up would be a failure on my part.  The reason I’m good at things is so I can help other people, and helping is what gives me pleasure.’ That’s the friendly Rhoda I used to know.  She wasn’t a bit like the prickly pear she is now.

Responding to Grace’s candor, the Kansans felt free to be more explicit in their complaints, particularly about the abrupt way in which Rhoda had shifted the Knox Aviation project from Kansas to southern California—where there were hardly any Guild people, the Kansans said.  Diego, who had not previously heard these particular complaints, was absorbing it all with great interest.  Then he noticed Martha giving him a look.

Martha, he said, what do you think about how Rhoda’s feeling?  Will she be rested up and wanting to see people tomorrow?

Diego knew that the fact of Martha being the one to whom he had turned, was reminding them all that Martha was Rhoda’s Guild Mother.  They would be recalling that Martha’s daughter Antonia lived in southern California, as did more than a few of the Guild’s families, and the Guild had several small businesses in southern California, in addition to its large Home Construction company which was working on a major project there.

Martha assured them all gently, Rhoda’s still resting today, and she isn’t feeling like seeing people yet, but I’m sure we’ll see her tomorrow—surely at the evening meal.  Please, God, make it a smooth landing.

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~ 3 ~   Rhoda did not appear for breakfast, and Martin retired to his office.  For a long time he stood gazing with unfocused eyes through the windows, his mind deeply agitated by a swirl of thoughts about his eldest daughter.

Martin’s office was in the base of a four-story former watchtower where, until recently by Clan reckoning, watch had been kept day and night over the open ranch lands for fires, foes, driven or wandering cattle herds, and the like.  The only clash of arms on the ranch had been to repulse a Texas timber baron who had been unable to buy Home Ranch’s live oak woodland.  He had intended, therefore, to simply help himself.  From the tower, the ranch foreman’s wife had seen the timber baron’s crew approaching, and she had raised the alarm.  The Home Ranch men had routed the timber baron’s crew, seizing much of his equipment, and the timberman, cutting only his losses, had moved on.  Home Ranch remained intact, retaining its treasured old-growth woodland.

The Clan valued its woodlands and forests far more highly than the timberman could have known.  For long ages their few and scattered cities in the Old World had been guarded by extensive forest mazes.  The patient cultivation of their forests and woodlands, which the Clan had always practiced, had not been forgotten when they had gone into cattle, aviation and other businesses.

Martin’s ancestor Frederick Knox, builder of the tower and the original family dwelling, had been, like Martin, a Keen Maker of the Guild.  In addition to the tower and the dwelling, he had built a deep, capacious underground cellar for storage and for refuge in emergencies.  And—using a Guild art which he had perfected—Frederick Knox had crafted the Great Maze.  In the Clan it was said that the Labyrinth built by Daedalus for King Minos was child’s play compared to Frederick’s Maze, where any foe would be swallowed up by the real Minotaur.

The land grant received by Frederick from the Spanish Crown did not identify Frederick as a subject of the Crown.  It referred to to him, rather, as a member of a family who were always a faithful ally in need.  The Clan and its Guild had, in fact, always regarded themselves as allies of the nations in which they resided—not as citizens.  The United States Census had counted very few besides the Knoxes, of all of the Clan folk residing on Home Ranch.

Generation after generation, while Home Ranch had grown around the nucleus of Frederick’s original structures, the Maze had remained intact, connecting the Head’s office to the rest of the Head family dwelling.  From the beginning, only occasional Keen Makers had entered and tended the Maze, and Martin’s father, Walter, had shown him some passages connecting one of Martin’s rooms in the ranchhouse to the office in the tower, and to the cellar.  Walter had also shown him the well-used passage from the kitchen to the family’s quarters.

In her girlhood, Rhoda had stunned Martin with the news that she had fashioned a passage through the Maze from the twins’ room to Victoria’s sitting room, and had taught the twins—who had recently mastered the skill of walking—to navigate it.  When he had been a young man, Martin had devised such extensions only with great difficulty.  Taking Rhoda up on her offer of a demonstration by the twins, Martin had found it necessary to get down on his hands and knees to follow them, as the passage was scaled to their size.  With all of its twists, turns and branches, the passage was well-lit and beautifully paneled and decorated.  The twins, toddling happily along on the passage’s fine oak floor, had quickly found their way to Victoria’s sitting room, where Victoria and Rhoda had been waiting to welcome them with hugs and praises.  Shuffling in on his knees behind them, Martin had suspected that, if he had not carefully followed the twins, the Maze’s deceptions would have defeated him.

In those days, Rhoda had also reworked the passage from the ranchhouse’s entrance hall to the observation platform on the roof of the tower, so that she and other Ranch School astronomy students were easily able to access that rooftop area for use as an observatory.  She had built the passage as a graceful spiral staircase, with a mural of the history of astronomy spiraling up along its wall.

Clearly, Rhoda was a fine Keen Maker, and the special rooms occupied by Martin had become hers.  Because of their opening to the Maze, those rooms had been occupied always by the family’s oldest child—if and when he or she had been recognized as a Keen Maker.  Soon after the rooms had become Rhoda’s, she had discovered that Frederick Knox’s Maze was not confined to Home Ranch; it extended into the Commons.  She had not shared her discovery.

When Kurt had been a young foreman, he had gotten lost in the Maze.  He had recently confessed to Martha, You know, honey, I once got into the Maze from that forbidden door in the kitchen.  I was mighty careful:  I tied a cord to the door latch, so I could follow it back.  But that blessed Maze keeps changing while you’re in it!  I’d go straight three paces and look back, and darned if I hadn’t somehow turned a corner.  I’d turn a corner and look back, and now it’s all straight behind me.  Then I come up on my own cord running past me at a crossing; I reach down with my left hand and pull on it, and I feel the tug on the cord in my right hand like I’m right behind me.  Martha, I’ve never in my life felt stymied like I did then!

You’ve never before told me about that adventure, sweetheart.  Martha had chosen not to mention Rhoda’s having told her about it years before.

It was right after I got to be Ranch Chief.  I had the key to that forbidden door, and I just...

Oh, Kurt!  Rhoda showed me how to follow the Maze that way to get to the Head Family quarters.  You should’ve asked me.

Well, she rescued me, and she was just a kid, then.

And if she’d squealed on you to Martin, you’d‘ve lost your job.

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~ 4 ~   Martin had tried, a few weeks earlier, to use a passage well-known to him, connecting his office to the cellar, and he had fared almost as badly as Kurt had years before.  The passage had changed!  It had changed again even while he was trying to work his way along it, and he had retraced his steps with great difficulty.  He had returned to his office bewildered and nearly exhausted, and, for the first time, he had felt truly uneasy about Rhoda's intentions.  Why was she using her abilities in this way?  He recalled something mentioned to him by Fr. Sigurd:  Rhoda had suggested that the Maze was not a relic of Home Ranch defenses from more dangerous times; rather, it was intended to be an offensive weapon.  What did that mean?

Martin worked for a while on some Aeronauticas paperwork, but failed utterly to distract his mind from thoughts of Rhoda.

The noon hour was approaching, and he saw Kurt heading toward the dining hall.  Martin opened the door to the porch, calling, Kurt, please ask Grace to excuse me from lunch.  If Rhoda shows up, tell her I’m here.  Kurt sensed the tension beneath Martin’s forced casualness.

Martin couldn’t help thinking of Ottilie.  Rhoda was the image of Ottilie Krüger, who had come into her peril under the good guidance of several wise Clan people.  But Rhoda had outpaced her mentors, and, since her Release Day, she had paid little heed to any of them—including him.  She was now something of a loose cannon.  For nearly a decade, Martin had seen many small but nearly certain signs of the War Thing gathering around her, and he had begun to fear that the fate of his Ottilie would be also the fate of his daughter Rhoda.  How could he share this anxiety with his dear wife, Victoria?  Recently, he had begun planning to call a Solemn Council to deliberate the calling of a new War Thing—a council which would take place after the conclusion of the Clan’s Festive Council in the coming month.

The third Festive Council had never been held.  There, in Germany, he would have proposed to Ottilie, but the War Thing had fallen upon her, and the War had fallen upon Europe.

Now, feeling even more deeply troubled, he went to the window from which he could see Rhoda’s Karmann Ghia parked askew where she had left it.  He watched Diego leave the ranchhouse and pass outside Martin’s office windows on his way to Home Ranch’s workshops, to talk with some of the crew who were working there.

Martin imagined that he would see Rhoda among the crowd approaching for lunch, chatting merrily just as she had when she was a girl coming home for lunch from the Ranch School over on the other side of the ridge.  She did not appear.

Martin exhaled heavily.  He walked slowly over to his desk chair and dropped into its comfortable seat.  Rather than immediately swivel the chair around to face his desk, he sat staring at the object hanging on the wall directly behind it—the framed diagrammatic sketch of the Bush Hopper aircraft which he had drawn when he was a young man.  The powerful emotions of those tumultuous days unexpectedly welled up in him.  He closed his eyes.  When had he last looked at that diagram, there among the collection of framed photographs and drawings covering his office wall?

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Daddy.  It was Rhoda’s voice, behind him.  Martin slowly swiveled his chair around to face her.  The young woman had come in silently through the Maze, and she was standing now with her feet firmly planted, both hands on his father’s Colt, and pointing it at him.  Sunlight streaming in through the window illuminated her unusual beauty, and his mind froze, blinded to the fact that she was his own daughter.  In that instant, his hand instinctively grasped his concealed, gold-plated Ol’ Faithful—an act which Rhoda had allowed by pausing for a split second—and his finger rapidly pulled the trigger.  She fired two rounds at her target, shattering the glass protecting the diagram directly behind him.

In the workshop, Diego heard the gunshots.  With dread, he dashed for the office door and yanked it open.  Rhoda stood calmly before him, a vision in gunsmoke.  She was holding the Colt loosely in her right hand; with her left hand she was removing her ear plugs.

Chapter 2 — The Third Teutonic Necklace

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~ 1 ~  Two weeks earlier, Rhoda had been in southern California, driving up to Het’s place to deliver a handwritten transcription of Craven’s Hill.  She had made the copy herself from the original New Goth manuscript possessed by her family.  Knowing that Het would be out, she had been dressed for flying, in her tailored, perfectly-fitted flight suit, and planning to drop off the transcription before continuing on to her hangar.  Her pre-war Sarxx goggles were swept back with artful casualness above her forehead, taming her flowing hair.

It appeared that another visitor was at Het’s, as a vintage Aston Martin was parked in front of his mountain home.  Rhoda parked her Karmann Ghia next to it and stepped out, tucking a folder under her arm.  Inhaling the scent of pines and douglas firs, she ran her fingers lightly along the Aston Martin’s hood on her way to the front door.  Receiving no response to her knock, she pressed the door handle, pushed open the door and entered.

In a corner of the large room,