Chapter 228: Return to The Marae

Tuesday, August 3, 1971

“What was that?” cried Rachael.

Everyone seemed to have heard it and we all came to a stop as we strained to make out where the now pitiful cry was coming from.

“Come on,” I told them as I started towards the steps that I knew were hewn into the side of the cliff. When we reached the bottom, I noticed Beth looking at me in wonder as she watched the sword slide into the rock wall. That wonder turned to amazement when the opening to the cavern appeared where solid rock had been before.

“How...?” she started.

“Magic!” I said with a grin. Beth did a double take and then looked at me again. This time, I could sense she was torn between slugging me for what she thought was a flip answer, and hugging me in amazement.

Holding my sword aloft, I took her hand and led everyone a little further into the dark cave. As I expected, Flaminia began to glow her special blue color and it only took me a moment to spot the second slot in the rock wall.

“Watch this,” I told Beth as I inserted my sword in the second slot. Within seconds, the tunnel we were traversing was bathed in the now-familiar indirect lighting. Well, at least familiar to me and maybe Anna, Sandy, Kip, and the few others who had all seen it before.

“How did you know to do that?” Beth asked. “And don’t you dare say ‘magic’ again!”

“It’s a long story,” I told her, “but I’ll be glad to share it with you sometime.”

Leading the group further into the cavern, I heard several gasps as we emerged into the immense, cathedral-like main room of the cave.

Walking over to the left wall, I inserted the sword into the slot next to the natural basin. Moments later we heard the sound of cascading water, seconds before it flowed over a natural looking rock formation and began its downward journey to splash joyfully into the basin.

“Damn! I forgot to bring towels!” I said.

A chorus of giggles permeated the group as Anna and Sandy removed their daypacks and produced the forgotten items. It was then that I realized that they were ALL wearing or carrying some kind of pack.

Moving past the waterfall/shower, I inserted the sword into the next slot and out slid a platform holding the alien waterbed. It wasn’t really a waterbed, at least by 1971 standards. It only resembled one. Instead of water, it seemed to be some kind of gel that would adapt to your body’s weight, much like a waterbed, but it was only a few inches thick.

I went to sit by the fire pit and looked around the cavern as Anna and Sandy seemed to be having a blast showing everyone how things worked. I happened to glance down at the pattern in the floor and noticed an odd shape.

“It couldn’t be that easy...” I muttered to myself. Then placing my sword into the slot I had just noticed on the floor, I turned it slowly counterclockwise.

Before me, the fire pit seemed to come alive. I could feel the heat coming off the flames, so I didn’t need any further convincing, but before I could say anything, the others noticed it and converged on the fire pit.

“Please tell me somebody brought some marshmallows,” I laughed.

“We could always send you back for some,” Sandy said happily.

Just then, we heard a cry, “Please help me!”

I jumped to me feet and stood staring at the two doors in the right-hand wall. Which one? With nothing else to base my decision on, I chose the left door, simply because the slot was the closest to me. Without hesitation, I slammed the sword into the slot and twisted it counterclockwise. There was a slight rumble and then the door slid back.

The room was stacked, floor to ceiling with chests, like the plastic tubs we used in my first life, to store off-season clothes in the garage. But their composition was nothing like the flimsy plastic containers from my future. Instead, they seemed to be some sort of composite, maybe even titanium.

“Oh help me!” cried the voice again.

“Quiet!” I called out to the girls. Then to the voice I asked, “Where are you? Can you hear me?”

“I don’t know. It’s dark,” the voice whined. “I can feel you are close though.”

“Okay, let’s see if we can open one of these,” I said to everyone as I pulled the top chest off of the first stack. While several of us were studying it to see how to open it, I noticed that Kip had pulled another chest off a stack on the other wall and was doing the same thing.

We kept looking at the chest, running our fingers over the polished surface looking for a crack or a seam, or something that indicated a latch.

Nothing! I reached down and flipped the chest over and felt the contents shift.

“Can you tell if we’re getting closer?” I asked aloud.

“I can feel you!” the now obviously female voice responded. “You must be close because I can really feel you!”

Leaving the chest to Anna and the others, I moved to the center of the room. Settling down with my legs crossed Indian-style, I placed the tip of my sword on the floor and closed my eyes. Then erecting my shield to block out any interference, I began to focus on the floor, hoping that it would help the room give up its secrets. I totally forgot that this act would cause me to become invisible to the others.

It seemed to take forever, but finally, the story began to unfold before my closed eyes. I saw the man I now knew to be Don’rahall or The Protector as he was known on Tapato as he was unhurriedly carrying in chest after chest and stacking them neatly in the room.

“This is not going to tell me what I want to know,” I thought to myself as I dropped my shield in defeat.

“THERE HE IS!” screamed Shelly. I couldn’t remember if she had ever seen my disappearing act before, but it was too late now.

“Leave him alone!” cried Sandy as I moved across the room. “He’s on to something.”

“Please don’t leave me!” pled the tiny voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was a little kid.

Immediately, I changed directions and moved to the other side of the room. Then taking a deep breath, I laid my sword on one of the chests and closed my eyes.

Nothing!

Quickly putting my shield in place again, to block out all the noise the others were making, I began to move around the room, touching each chest individually.

“Holy SHIT!” I thought as I was suddenly inundated with all kinds of images. The main one was of a giant long-tooth cat-like animal. “A saber-tooth tiger!” I realized as I jerked my sword away.

“There he is! Over there!” cried Aida as I moved to the next chest and erected my shield again. This time though, I tried to proceed a little more carefully, but I was still deluged with a variety of sights as the items in the chest gave up their stories all at once. Still, there was nothing that felt like a young girl.

Suddenly, I remembered a game I used to play as a child. Stepping away from the chests for a moment, I focused all my energy and then thought, “Are you there? Can you feel me?”

“Oh! Oh! Where are you?” came the replay.

“Listen to me. I want you to focus on my voice. When you feel me moving closer, say ‘warmer’. When you feel me moving away from you, say ‘colder’. Okay. Can you do that?” I asked her.

“I’ll try...” came the reply.

“Hang in there, we’ll find you,” I thought as I took a step forward.

“Does it feel like I’m getting closer?” I asked.

“Uh ... I don’t knowww” she whined.

“That’s okay, it will come,” I thought to her. Then taking another step, I asked again.

“ ... a little, ahh, warmer?”

“That’s great!” I encouraged her. “How about now?”

And so it went until I came to the end of the wall where I started to cross to the other side.

“Colder! Don’t go! Colder! Colder! she cried.

“It’s okay, I’m not leaving you,” as said as I backed up to the last row.

There were five chests stacked in a column. Re-erecting my shield once again, I touched the tip of my sword to the top one. An image of a woman carrying water in earthen jar quickly came to mind. But it wasn’t the same voice. There were other images, but I quickly ruled them out.

“Warmer! Please hurry! You are so close!” she was almost crying now.

Quickly I discarded the items in the second and third chests, although the image of small purple vines that had hands with fingers momentarily distracted me.

It was when I touched the fourth chest, that she screamed, “YOU’RE HERE!” Oh thank the gods!

Dropping my shield, I slumped wearily to the floor.

“Here he is!” cried Rose, who just happened to be standing next to the stack I was in front of when I appeared.

“Michael! What’s wrong?” called out Hanna.

“He’s exhausted! Quick, Sandy, bring me my canteen,” Anna directed as she slid to the floor beside me.

“It’s this one,” I told them, pointing to the fourth of the five crates in the stack beside me. Then I crawled out of the way and Kip immediately began unstacking the crates to reach the fourth one. While he did, I sipped from the canteen Anna was holding to my lips.

“Shhh, leave it for a minute,” she told the others when they started bombarding me with questions. “Let him get his strength back.”

“Let’s stand back and give him some air,” Beth told everyone authoritatively. The fact that she was taking charge like that, even without understanding what was going on surprised me a little. When she saw my astonishment, she gave me a little smile. I winked at her.

“Whoever it is, they are in that chest,” I told Kip. “But I still haven’t figured out how to open them.

“Not to worry,” Anna said. “Vickie and Aida figured it out.”

Another surprise. Vickie I would have figured. But Aida? The human chatterbox? Who knew?

I smiled at both of them as Kip set the designated chest on the floor in front of me. Then Izzy stepped forward holding a short, hollow rod, about the size and thickness of an empty toilet paper roll.

“Aida found it over there and thought it might be something. Then she and Vickie worked with it a few minutes and got it to open the first chest. After we saw what was in it, we decided to wait on you before opening anymore,” Izzy said with a shudder.

“Why?” I asked.

“There’s a shrunken head in it!” squealed Abby.

“Yeah! And it’s gross!” added Allie.

“Anyway, after Anna and Sandy explained what you were doing and why you kept disappearing, we decided to wait on you,” Izzy continued to explain. “So, is the girl we heard inside there?”

“Well, if you’ll have Aida and Vickie open it, we’ll see,” I told them.

Vickie turned the chest towards Aida who held the tube over the center of the top of the chest. Then we all watched as the chest seemed to come alive. Well, not really alive, but we could all see the mechanics as the gears appeared and began to rotate, causing a hole in the top of the chest to appear. This continued for a few moments, until the hole was almost as wide as the chest itself.

Both Vickie and Aida looked inside, then looked at me. Getting to my knees, I edged closer to the chest. Inside was a package wrapped in treated animal skins, almost like leather. Reaching inside, I gently lifted the package out.

It was about eight inches square, and maybe three inches thick. I carefully began unwrapping the skin that enveloped it. It was a manuscript of some kind. I held it with the skin it had been wrapped in, showing it to everyone.

“That’s it!” cried Rachael. “It’s the book from my dream!”

Suddenly the voice cried out, “I can FEEL you! Oh, praise the gods you have found me.”

I think we all pulled back for a moment.

“If that is the codex, you need to be careful,” Rachael said. “You probably should be wearing gloves.”

“You think it could hurt him?” Abby asked.

“I would be more concerned with Michael hurting the codex. It appears to be very old, and if it is the one the muses mentioned to Michael, it is well over 4,300 years old. Just the natural oils on our fingers could cause the pages to decay.”

Still holding the codex with the animal skin it had been wrapped in, I pulled one of the other chests close, then set the codex on it. Rachael reached over and pulled the skin back so we could see it better.