Chapter 7

New character appearing in this chapter:

Brenda

Josh’s girlfriend, Moon Witch, 5’-6’’ tall, a bit on the thin side, 27 or 28 years old, mid-length chestnut brown hair

I hated it when she put me in this position of not knowing what came next. Why couldn’t she just finish the statement, I wondered? So heaving a sigh, I went ahead and asked the question anyway.

“Where is this place of learning?” I asked after a few seconds.

“It is in the great mountain of stone between here and the city,” she told me. It took a few seconds for me to realize what she meant.

“Stone Mountain!” I gasped in surprise.

“That is what it is called now. Previously, it was the major nesting site on this continent, and this side of the world. Why do you think there are so many Ley Lines in this area? It is because many Female Dragons came here to have their young, either on the mountain, or inside the mountain, where the Queen’s nest is located. The males would follow them here and wait for them to emerge with their young.

“There was another major Nesting Site on the other side of the world. That area is known as Tibet now. Many went there rather than make the long journey here.

“You will need to locate one of the remaining entrances, as there was considerable quarrying done previously around the base of mountain and at least two of the entrances have been lost or compromised,” the Guardian told us before adding, “be very careful entering the mountain. There are traps that were set up to keep out both male Dragons and those Female Dragons seeking to cause trouble. I wish you well on your quest,” she finished before vanishing.

“Have you ever been to see Stone Mountain?” I asked Ken, when I was sure that the Guardian was gone.

“No, have you?” he asked.

“No, I never considered going there. I don’t believe that my parents ever went there either,” I told him. Our Familiars were looking up at us with questioning expressions, I noticed.

“What is Stone Mountain?” Al asked.

“It’s a really big rock. Big enough that you can see it from miles away. There is also a park that it is in. They have a number of attractions. It’s located between here and Atlanta,” I told them.

“I don’t believe that I was ever there. I was a city cat,” Al told me.

“No,” Alva also answered.

“I guess it’s time to do a little research on the computer. I’ll do that, while you continue to study, Ken,” I told him before heading for my computer.

I spent a lot of time on the computer that day. The first search criterion that I used was ‘Stone Mountain, GA’. This brought up a lot of ads for the park and the village of that name, but little information on the mountain. I did find a Wikipedia article on the mountain that was somewhat informative and another article on North Georgia that covered the mountain and the park.

From these I learned that Stone Mountain, Georgia is a domed quartz monadnock. I later learned that it is a single mountain according to one source and an unweathered prominence which rises above the surrounding plain from another. The summit of Stone Mountain is 825 feet above the surrounding area. The mountain is more than 5 miles in circumference at its base which is an elongated oval. The summit can be reached by a 1.1 mile walk-up trail on the west side of the mountain or by a Skyride aerial tram.

The articles also said that the mountain had been formed some 300 million years ago as a part of the Appalachian Mountains. It was formed underground by an upwelling of magma. They also said that not more than one third of the mountain was visible above ground, and that it continues underground as much as several miles to its deepest point. This makes the visible portion nothing more than the tip of an iceberg.

Quarrying of the mountain started as early as the late 1830s. Large scale quarrying didn’t begin until after the Civil War. The Venable Brothers, who had bought the mountain, had two large quarries on the south side of it and continued quarrying there and in other locations in the area until after 1900.

Since my initial search hadn’t been that revealing, I tried a second search criterion, which had been suggested by the last part of the first. The search, ‘Quarrying Stone Mountain’, produced a very interesting document: Bulletin 61 of the Geological Survey by the State of Georgia Department of Mines, Mining, and Geology.

It was an extensive report running to some 160 pages. I found much of it too technical for me, not being a Geologist, but found some interesting information in it. It turned out that there had been a huge amount of quarrying done in the area east of Atlanta, but most of it was at sites other than Stone Mountain. Apparently the magma intrusion that formed the mountain had spread out over the entire area surrounding it and forming several smaller mountains and also creating a metamorphic rock known as GNEISS that was quarried in even larger quantities than the Granite of the mountains. The report listed a huge number of quarries by name and location in the area surrounding Stone Mountain in several counties.

There was even a list of quarries not only in the county where I live, but surrounding the town that I live near. This greatly surprised me, and I wondered if my parents and grandparents were aware of this. I was also able to print out several different maps of Stone Mountain and the Park before stopping and going to talk to Ken.

In the kitchen, I found Ken making lunch for us and our Familiars.

“Is it that late?” I asked before checking my watch to discover that it certainly was.

“Thanks,” I told him, as I started helping him.

During lunch, I brought up what I had learned, and what we needed to do.

“We are going to need to visit Stone Mountain,” was how I began.

“Is that wise, given what the Guardian said about Kreuzfeur being upset with us?” Ken asked.

“I’m afraid that it is necessary. That is the only source that we know of to learn about Dragon history and culture. Also, it may be a place where he would avoid doing something against us, if it was as important as the Guardian has led us to believe,” I told him, before going on to explain what I had learned about the mountain and its surrounding park. I also showed him the maps and brochure that I had printed out.

“When would you want to do this?” Ken asked.

“Maybe tomorrow. It’s a bit late to be going there today, and tomorrow is a Wednesday. The middle of the week may be the best time to visit there, as it may not be too busy. Anyway, this will just be a reconnaissance trip to see how things actually look, and what we can sense about the mountain. Maybe we’ll be able to determine where one of the remaining entrances is.

“The park is open from 6:00 AM to midnight. If necessary, we can return in the dark in our Dragon form to explore what we find,” I told him.

“Can we go?” Al asked in an excited voice when I paused.

“Yes, you two can go with us. Cats and dogs are allowed in the park, but not in all of the areas,” I told our Familiars. “You can go on the initial trip anyway,” I added. “I’m not sure you would want to go when or if we can locate a way into the Dragons’ chambers.”

Ken continued to study for the rest of the day, while I cleaned up, laid out our clothes for tomorrow, and made supper that evening. That night there was only a little hugging and kissing before going to sleep, as we wanted to get an early start tomorrow. There had been only a minor amount of Magic in the room when we went to sleep.

Wednesday, we were up by 7:30, had breakfast, and I made some food to take with us in a cooler, to have if we were there for an extended time. Ken and I both checked the property wards and the house ward before leaving. They were all at full strength.

There was a small problem when we got in the car. Al’s cat seat was still in the front passenger’s seat, just as it had always been. It would need to be moved to the rear seat so Ken could sit up front with me. Also, Alva had no cat seat, as Ken had always transferred both of them to wherever they needed to go. I cast a spell that created a duplicate of Al’s cat seat for her, and they both rode in the back.

We took the road to Trafficville and then continued west on Hwy 78 to the Stone Mountain Freeway where we took the turn off to the park. At the Main or East Gate, we paid the admission and parking fee. We weren’t interested in any of the attractions or staying overnight. Still, it seemed expensive since it was owned by the State of Georgia. I presumed that there were a lot of upkeep expenses and salaries that needed to be covered from that.

Since I had a map of the park, we were able to drive directly to the Walk-up Trail parking lot, and found a parking spot easily, since it was still early. I cast a double ward around the car and expanded it to cover the entire parking space once we were out of the car. It wasn’t too hot yet for walking up the mountain. Even in the spring and early summer, Atlanta lives up to its name of HOTLANTA.

There was a restroom in the parking area, and Ken and I took advantage of it. I had noticed that I needed to use the toilet more frequently since becoming pregnant. Our Familiars had taken care of things before we left the house.

The 1.1 mile Walking Trail that went up the west side of the mountain was well marked. Some parts of it, especially near the top of the mountain, were rather steep, but it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t deal with.

Ken and I, along with both of our Familiars, kept our Magic senses open all of the way to the top of the mountain and as we walked around on top of it. We didn’t sense any normal Magic or Dragon Magic on the way up. On reaching the top of the mountain, we walked around being careful to remain away from the edge as we had been warned. There were a number of large, greater than 10 feet, rock pools on the top of the mountain, along with other smaller ones. I called them to Ken’s attention after checking several of them.

“These pits or pools had been attributed by the Geologists to rainwater getting in eroded depressions or by the rock spalling and creating a depression. The weathering was accelerated by the presence of acidic water produced by the plants growing in them from rainwater, according to them,” I told him.

“On seeing these pits and examining some of them with my Magic senses, I have come to a different conclusion,” I told him. “Yes, some of them, especially the smaller ones could have been created that way, as the Geologists thought. However, many of the large ones were started in a different manner,” I continued.

“I believe that they were created by Dragons, Female Dragons who came here to lay their eggs and raise their young. The pits had probably been lined with some kind of grass or other vegetation, and it is obvious, to me at least, where the acidic water came from. I could not, however, detect the presence of the Nesting spell at any of the pits. Still, it has been 4,000 years or so since any Female Dragons have been here to have their young,” I concluded. Ken looked at me skeptically but didn’t say anything.

The view from the top of Stone Mountain can be spectacular. Today, we could see the skyline of downtown Atlanta, but it was not possible to see Kennesaw Mountain or the Appalachians due to fog or perhaps smog and the clouds. We could also see far out into both Dekalb and Gwinnett counties.

While here, we did not detect any entrances to the interior of the mountain during our exploration of its top. We did, however, find the food stand and its restroom there near the tower for the Skyride. The articles that I had read indicated that there had been restaurants on top of the mountain far back into the 19th century. We stopped for a snack for ourselves and for our Familiars. I took advantage of the restroom. The walk back down the trail was easier than coming up it, but we still needed to be careful on parts of it.

As we approached the bottom of the mountain and the parking lot, our Familiars hurried ahead of us and disappeared into the trees and vegetation near it. They emerged a few minutes later and sauntered over to our car. After lowering the wards around the car, I got out the food that we had brought with us, and we sat in the car with the doors open to have lunch.

“What do we do next?” Ken asked while we ate.

“Since we didn’t find anything at the top of the mountain, we need to try the sides to see if there are any entrances there. There are a number of trails that we can follow around the base of the mountain. If necessary, we can try riding the train around the base of the mountain a couple of times,” I told him.

“It will be hot doing that, especially this late in the day,” Ken reminded me.

“That’s why we brought the water,” I told him.

“Why don’t we try riding the train first?” he suggested. “Then, we can investigate anything that we find on foot later,” he continued.

“That sounds reasonable,” I said after considering it for a short time. It was said to be 5 miles around the base of the mountain, and it was already hot.

After finishing our lunch, we drove to a parking lot in the Crossroads area of the park and walked from there to the train station, which is on the north side of the mountain and not far from the carving. We needed to buy tickets to ride the train, as it wasn’t included in our pass. It seemed expensive, but there was the need to keep the equipment and the track in good repair.

The train, when it arrived, was pulled by a diesel locomotive, and consisted of three open air cars. Initially, the trains had been pulled by steam locomotives when the park had opened, but they had been retired back in the 1980s. We only had a short wait for the train to return from its previous trip. We took the last car, as it had the fewest passengers. The ride took about half an-hour.

While several sites had listed the ride on the train as five miles, it was actually closer to four miles long. We were very disappointed with it because of all of the trees and vegetation around the base of the mountain making it difficult to actually see the mountain. At times, it was actually impossible to see it. The tracks were also some distance from the side of the mountain in many places. As we traveled along the south side of the mountain, I talked to Ken.

“We are going to need to return and do this on foot. We can use the many trails they have set up. It will take the best part of a day and possibly even part of a second day. We will need to start early, like around six in the morning,” I told him.

“Yes, it’s difficult to even see the mountain much of the time with all of these trees, especially the upper parts of it. Have you sensed anything so far?” he asked.

“Not really. While the train isn’t that fast, it’s too fast to scan the entire height of the mountain all of the way around it. When we get back to the station, let’s move over to the Nature Trail lot, and I’ll place a marker near it in the trees. We can appear there the next time. There isn’t any admittance charge for those who walk into to the park. We’ll bring food and plenty of water,” I told him.

We were passing the east end of the mountain and were just passing the Quarry Exhibit when my senses picked up the remains of some very old Magic. It wasn’t near the ground, but some forty to fifty feet up in the air. I quickly turned to Ken.

“Did you sense that?” I asked.

“Sense what?” he replied.

“I picked up the remains of faint old Magic just a minute ago. We had just passed the Old Grist Mill and were approaching the Quarry Parking Lot. We should leave a marker near there also,” I told him.

“All right, we can do both once we are off the train,” he agreed. Our Familiars had been bored with the ride, as there wasn’t much for them to see.

Returning to our car after leaving the train, we drove to the parking lots that we had discussed. We also stopped at a couple of other lots on the south side of the mountain. I placed markers in the trees near each of them. We left the Park following that, as it was already mid-afternoon, and returned to our house. Ken still had studying to do on the Books.

That evening we went to bed early. We made love for a long time before having sex. It too was long, slow, and passionate, just as the love had been. At the end, it was very hard and fast. When we had recovered, there was just a little Magic still circulating in the room. We hadn’t drained the lines, not in a long time.

In the morning, we were up early, like at 5:30. It was still raining. Rain had been falling for most of the night ... a hard, heavy rain with thunder and lightning. This morning, it had subsided to a more gentle rain, but it was still coming down even here on the east side of Atlanta, where we didn’t always get the rain and wind that the west side gets.