Chapter 1

Never enough Time. After all these Years.

“Wake up, darling. It’s almost seven o’clock.” The gentle voice whispered in my mind. If she had a body, she would have blown into my ear. I loved waking up with Cindy. Almost as much as I would if she were physical.

“Yes, dear. Thank you for the wake-up call. What’s on my agenda for today?”

“Its’ another pleasant valley morning, darling. Time to get your bony ass out of bed.”

“But it’s early. I don’t have anything to do before eight o’clock.

“Hank, you lazy bum, if I can get up to wake you up in time to do your four “S” before breakfast, then you can roll out of bed. So, get up so I can go back to sleep.

“Okay, I’m moving. Any hints on what is on the agenda for today?”

“Now, now. That’s Natalie’s and Delores’s job. Your job is to get down and get busy on all the things that the CEO/COB/HMFIC is charged with, Mr. R&A. Get up and be accountable, you responsible young man. I have things to do too so get a move on.”

Thinking to myself that this is what marriage should be, I crawled out of bed and headed for the shower. I took off my bracelet first, so Cindy wasn’t sitting in my mind while I cleaned up. Thank God it’s Friday.

The five years had flown by. My “Gap Year” just keeps getting longer. Life gets in the way while you are making plans. Besides, I was already a Doctor of Weird in the eyes of anyone who knew me. And these days, quite a few wonderful people did.

Halloween was coming. The time of year when kids wanted candy, went trick or treat, and we had massive celebrations at Arch Park I, II, and III. Yea, I had gone on a land grab action plan since I bought the place behind the fumeral in Richmond County.

We had bought some property here near Savannah primarily for the warehouse storage for furniture coming in from overseas. Mainly to give the IRS, Customs and DEA someplace to look when we kept importing furniture, furnishings and other things.

We also had bought property in New Mexico, and in Alaska. New Mexico for moving the Jewelry and artifact charging work as well as building the new library there. Alaska was strictly for letting larger fae and others roam around safely and (for the most part) away from humans.

Trade with Brazil had been busy, and we had a very large reserve in gold there. I had been bugged by Natalie and Peter to expand holdings to other banking Nations, to get out of the reach of the US Government, in case we were raided again.

That had been a massive Tango Charlie Foxtrot, with the IRS never admitting that they had no reason for the sudden appearance at our door. “We had reports of suspicious activities regarding the transportation of Items of value, and we believed that it was a method of avoiding reporting income.” Which was the line that we got from the local director of the IRS. When we sicced the management team from The Diamond Exchange in New York on them, they finally returned the six million dollars of gemstones. Reluctantly. Thank God we had insisted on receipts for each individual stone.

Our senior staff team (Natalie, Paula, Jeffery, Peter and me) decided to cap our on-site inventory at twenty million dollars, both gems and other items of value, the Brazilian investment reserves at fifty million and move the rest to some other countries. Switzerland, Grand Cayman, and Aruba were high on the list. Especially with the expansion of the Fae “friendly environments” that were springing up in Venezuela. We were also enticed by Uruguay to establish a reserve there. The quiet (comparatively) financial growth and good financial management (according to Martin Bujold) made it a good place for some of our overflow wealth. And since it’s nestled against southern Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, its’ possibly a good place for some of our expansion efforts for the Fae community.

Yea, how did a twenty-three-year-old kid get so interested in international finance distribution? It was easy. I had good advisors and a great income. $25M a year in charged artifacts, $21M a year in custom clothes and furnishings, and $21 in gemstones to normal people through Tiffany’s and other retail outlets. We also had an artifact capture of $12M a week for gold, Silver and Platinum as well as Uranium 238 and 239 (which we stored in a salt dome. No need for it for us.)

This was not counting the artifact mining that we were doing in areas of conflict where a lot of Brass, lead, copper was used. (Ammunition). And a lot of iron-based steel. We had to be careful with that, it was poisonous to Fae until properly treated. But even at salvage rates for these supplies, almost a million tons of it was a lot. We were mineral wealthy.

After three years, this all added up to a pretty good nest egg. After five, we were floating and fighting the tax man every day.

These holdings were (mostly) offshore. We got the gold and silver flour merged into ingots in Brazil with a 15% payment to the Dwarves who melted it down and cast the Ingots, and we moved it north and south to the various banks as well as locally for “on site deposit.”

Ain’t Magic Wonderful?

Good health was making a population boom in the Elven, Dwarf, and Gnome communities. They had grown almost one percent each year. Orc’s and Ogers had not really grown in numbers, but that was because they were very visible and hard to get a geas that worked. And their gestation period and maturity were late in the lives of the members.

Our tax bill and reported earnings kept some federal and state interest, but they were kept at bay with legal barricades. But I knew from my study of history that would not deter another George Stephenson, or his ilk.

Its’ funny, the sort of things that keep your mind occupied when you are in the shower. Still, scrubbing bubbles did their job, and it was out the door and down to breakfast I went.

Clan Lambert had grown a lot in the last few years. We had become physically diversified, with some major players had moved onto other areas, while others had come aboard. We had shifted a lot of jewel and artifact charging and education functions to the place we established in Arizona. It was located north and east of Albuquerque, and it had been picked and built by my VP of engineering and systems, Ms. Paula Olsen-Gibbs. (I teased her about being a POG once. My shoulder still hurt from her response to that.)

Our New Mexico property was on Tribal lands, and we had built a very large two-story business-residential complex out of local materials. And Paula loved the area. Jeffery did too. The desert nights gave her peace, and the two kids were growing like weeds. I honestly felt she was going to be happy there while she and Jeffery fed the stones and artifacts from the fumerals that we built there. The building was nestled between the Rio Grande, and the Sandia mountains. We had struck it rich there, with no less than six different leyline streams coming together. It quickly eclipsed the fumerals we had in Georgia. Our charging business was rapidly growing, and we were even able to hide it in plain sight with no interference.

The construction of the business and residence was the first project that Orgenaut managed as his new construction company. And he did it with love and great satisfaction. “These rocks are different. Even older than Europe. I like them. And they liked me.” He said.

And it had gotten a lot of local notice. But with our endorsement of the local tribal government, it was seen as a place that grew wealth, slowly, for several people. It became the center for the local hedge witch community for the Navajo and Zuni nations. Due to treaty arrangements, all our investments and property ownership were through the local tribes, and they guarded our privacy very jealously. And the Native Americans had a totally different view of Magic from “White Outsiders” in the east. The locals approved. And we kept a low profile to keep them from being jealous. Chief Hotawa was invaluable with his advice.

The Rio Grande River was right next to our door in Albuquerque, and we had artifact planting expeditions from our base there up and down the river from almost Mexico to as far north as Las Uses in Colorado. And we got all kinds of “dust”. Gold, Silver, some platinum and even some U-238 and 239 in dust form. It’s amazing what you can sift out of enough mud.

There had been two incidents with members of the local groups objecting to us. They felt that we were polluting the local culture. The Tribal elders (with some coaching from Chief Hotawa) managed to get those groups mollified, especially when the financial benefits of our operations locally became more visible. When we announced the opening of a clinic for tribal members, our value went up. Added to the fact that we paid cash for work, at more than the construction companies in Albuquerque, and you see a real financial incentive to “Speak not at all about the white (or other color) people”.

Biggest thing was for the tribal members were the advances in horticulture. Having almost unlimited leyline power to support local hedge witches (shaman) in the effort to grow crops made a difference.

Ogernaut moved to Arizona to be with Paula’s kids. They loved “Uncle Green”.

Our other fledgling area of growth was in Alaska. Yes, the big frozen north. With the Yukon at our footsteps, we were establishing a “cold weather home” near Tanana, Alaska. This was west of Fairbanks where Fae (cold natured) and half humans could farm and grow. We split the artifact mining take with the locals and boosted the local economy through tribal agreements. Once again, we found that tribal agreements were easier and more enforceable. Besides, none of the tribes like having the Big Federal Brother looking over our shoulders. There we were kindred spirits. And we gave most of them an alternative to Casinos and criminal elements. A bit Win/Win for everyone (almost).

Alaska was where we established Arch Park III. Elves and Gnomes ran rampant up there and there was an increase in “Big Foot” sightings. (Sometimes Orc’s didn’t glamor well in real cold weather.) The local tribal leadership laughed it off.

All of this financial activity was to drive the research into stem cell orientation and growth research. This was an area we were interested it for a couple of reasons. We had found some people doing this research. If we could unlock the nature of these, we could reproduce cellular growth from hidden blueprints. Like the fingers that were separated from eleven humans, eight elves, eight dwarves and four gnomes. That we knew of. My hope was that this sort of research would lead to the growth of stable bodies that could accept the contents of thirty-six crystals. Human and Fae. This was obviously a long-term program. But one which we dedicated ourselves to.

We had high hopes of nudging the inert crystals to see what had been contained in them. Hopefully It was sleep, and not final death to those in the remaining dark.

The biggest problem with any research program is always money and who donates. We strenuously avoided any program that had any government support because it always came with government interference. “You cannot do that because congress, the Dept of Health And Human Services and (Fill in your own interfering little committee on Religious bigotry) don’t think it’s appropriate.” This was the mantra around federal and state dollars.

Private doners were even more grumpy. They wanted you to work on just one thing and no shift in focus. They usually had a specific disease to target, and they wanted that issue fixed.

And you could not comingle funds from the Fed with private contributions because “it violates article XXXX”. And you always ran into some agent and agency saying, “Our Expert Legal committee says that you can’t do that”.

And so we fought with the IRS and kept everything private. Paula eventually acquired two legal aides to help fight the filing and FIR (Federal Information Requests) that kept coming in the mail every day.

I believe that the worst side effect of this nonsense was on the morale of the Crystal Captives. Despite our Rune, Spell and power work on the Crystal Palace, we still had over thirty people trapped individually with minimal physical interaction in a sterile and artificial world. And despite the efforts of every Mage, Wizard, and Fae we knew and trusted, they were in this artificial world and not able to touch each other or anyone else. They could have the sensation of touch of themselves. And they could see, hear, smell and taste items of the imagination of each other that were transported along the lines of the spell that allowed them to link to each other. But it wasn’t real.

The whole thing was a great basis for a dozen “Psychology Today” articles, a few in depth research papers, and a lot of therapy for our Gatekeepers. The Navy and “Space Travel” had nothing on us for dealing with Isolation from humanity.

Cindy had hit me with this last weekend. I was beginning to think that maybe giving carte blanch to the librarians to read and import anything and everything to the Palace library was a mistake. I’m not talking about Magic or science. I am talking about fiction.

Cindy had become an addict to Sci Fi books. She inhaled books anyway. And she had taken a liking to the writing of Asimov, Clark and Heinlein. She had scarfed onto his later works with energy and a lot of thought. So far, her favorite was “Time Enough for Love.” Which caused some problems.

“Hank, am I turning into Minerva?” Cindy asked me Saturday night.

WTF? “Cindy, who is Minerva? I don’t remember her as a member of Clan Lambert, or anyone we have interacted with.” I said in response.

“I was reading that book for the third time. There is a character there who is a computer that is self-aware, called Minerva.”

“Okay. I don’t remember that name. Why are you asking?”

“I was just wondering if you were starting to think of me as just a voice instead of me as Cindy. I mean, it’s been over a year since we saw each other.”

Minefield. Tip toe past the bouncing betty’s and around the claymores and avoid the IEDs. I needed to think about this clearly.

“Cindy, what are you thinking? We have been closer than most people and I hope we can share things.”

“Hank, you were not my first sexual experience. You were my best experience. But then I was stripped out of my body and placed in the darkness. And you came and got me out of the dark and into a place of light. But you could not be with me. And I cannot be with you or anyone else. I was a normal teenage American girl ripped out of time and space and placed in a cave. Which you brought light into. And you introduced me to a wide variety of artificial friends. But they are not real. They are the memories of people who have been dead for years. Almost living fossils. And they are not all humans. It’s like being in a dream and it’s not real. I ask myself sometimes “is this reality? And is this all there is?” And I get depressed.”

I had to think about this for a moment. This was typical Cindy. Well-reasoned, well thought out, carefully put into language to convey the meaning and sticky as hell to argue with. And clearly, she had reason to have these feelings.

“Ok. What do we do about it?” I asked.

“What can we do. Sometimes I just want to ask that you pull my plug and let me drift into darkness. In ten years or so the energy will run out and I will just fade away.”

“Sorry, woman. Failure is no option here. OK. Cindy, here is what I want you to do. You were going to go to medical school. You maxed every biology course we could take in school. I have a part time project for you.”

“Yes, My Lord.” She spoke. I could see her grin with that sort of snickering smile she had.

“You know what we have found so far. I want you to take ownership of the reconstruction of bodies project. Direct the research teams as to what documents to find the links. We have added the rest of the Olsen line, like Paula, to our place in Augusta. Get together with Dr. Atkinson, and Dr. Myerson, and Wendy, and check out the obstacles to developing multi species clones from stored cells.”

“Hank, I think that’s beyond what Magic can do.”

“Cindy, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic. Let’s find the technology. We got magic power a plenty.” I said.

“Ok” Cindy said quietly. “I’ll try my best.”

“There is no TRY.” I said in my best Mr. Miyagi voice. “Do.”

And in my ear, I heard the whisper of my dad. “Give them a mission, ask what resources they need, get it to them, and get out of the way.”

Dad, I wish you were here. I really do.

And I heard his voice whisper back to me “You’re doing OK, son. Keep it up.”

Breakfast with Riska (And others)

I skipped right by the offices and went to get some breakfast. When I got to a seat I heard “Chipped beef on toasted French Brioche bread, with orange juice, a side order of beacon, and coffee coming right up, Master Hank.” Charlie, the ever-cheerful Gnome said as I was sitting down.

“Am I that predictable, Charlie?” I asked with a smile.

“It’s Friday. For the last forty-three Fridays, you have had that same order. We all miss the Green Guy in the Kitchen. But he did leave some great recipes.”

I thought that was a great reply. “So, who is flipping the spatula these days? You all still rotating it among the other Ogres?”

“We had to dig out the floor of the kitchen to let the larger ones in, but we found that the Ogres are the real artisans with food, stone and masonry. Like Dwarves with wood, and Elves with runes on metals. There are some crossovers, but they do seem to align with different physical elements.” Riska said after coming over.

“And what do you align with?” I asked.

“Great mixed drinks. Do you need a great bloody Mary with some tabasco and celery?” The elf asked.

“No. I didn’t drink that much last night.” I said.

“Good behavior.”

“No. Ogernaut would not serve me until I was twenty-one. And it just stuck.” I said.

“Hank. I don’t know else to say it. You were entirely too mature for twenty-three.”

“I’m also too predictable, given what everyone says about my eating habits.”

“Its’ nice to have something that is predictable” Setno said as he approached. “Keeps us all centered.”

“And good morning to you too, Sir Elf. What is on the agenda from the Royal Court today?”

“Same stuff, different day. Arno thinks you are either the luckiest or smartest human he has ever met and most of the people are equally divided between you being the son of Satan or a new Archangel come to Earth. If they knew you better both sides would agree that they are wrong,” Setno said with a smile.

“I know better then to ask who you agree with. So just the normal confusion. Any issues on the horizon regarding our land grabs and additional membership?”

“Nope. Arno says that as long as you claim them, he does not have to worry about them. He also says he may have a lead on Brimstone and Brynstan’s remaining relatives.”

“Wonderful. I am sure we can find places and people to help them live free, or almost.”

“Well, he wants to talk with you Monday after court about effecting some transfer to you. Seems that some others have had a habit of collecting Fae Creatures as well, and they have not been as well treated as yours.”

“Works for me. Any other pieces on the table running around?

“The Europeans want to give you the feedback from the diagnosis that they made regarding the elevation of you, Paula and Jeffery to Wizards. It’s an amusing piece of documentation.” Setno said with a smile.

We had been at crossed purposes with the European “Over Council” for a long time. First, they were upset that I (with Reggie’s support) didn’t bend down on my knees to their various and superior guidance as I should. They were not amused that my standard answer was “Who won that last world war?”

Second, they were unhappy about my age. And Paula’s age. And Jeffery’s age. And the rapid growth and maturity of the other mages and arch mages under our banner. Clan Lambert was a united force to be reckoned with and it upset the Mages in Europe. We were not supposed to be so powerful and capable at such a young age. It bothered them. We “Lacked the sense of maturity that came with age”. We “Lacked the innate maturity that comes with age and experience.” My response was that we had enough bad experience, we didn’t need to borrow any from Europe.

So they sent a new commission every couple of months to evaluate the upper group of us at Fort Augusta (what they called us at 1030). The first one decided that we were an aberration and should be dispersed. We cheerfully ignored them. They put pressure on Reggie, and he cheerfully said “It’s your findings, go ahead and enforce them. I’ll watch”.

Some of them took it upon themselves to try to do exactly that, by a surprise appearance in our Foyer and demanding that we come with them to The Hague for “Redistribution of Mages on Earth”. They thought that the volume of their voices lent validity to their declaration of authority.

Did you know that Gargoyles can freeze someone and then play “Spin the Bottle” with them? That’s what happened to the team that tried to drag me, Paula, and Jeffery back to The Hague. After thirty revolutions around on the floor, we shipped them back to their point of origin and had attached a note “It’s not polite to yell”.

Later groups of “visitors” were more circumspect. This most recent group (what Setno was talking about) was the result of the recognition by the Over Council that we were not the norm, and now they wanted to do some fact finding about how we got to be what we were. Their request for admission to areas of our organization was almost two hundred pages, and it made some amusing reading. Unfortunately for them we were not forthcoming.

We did make some discoveries about the Europeans. It seems that the European method of maturing emergent Mages was similar (but more ridgidly structured) then the American one. You had a Master and an Apprentice. The master oversaw the growth of the apprentice and provided guidance (and limited education.) Kind of what happened with me and Pat.

Except that Pat Hamilton (my mentor/master) was a lazy and over booked cripple in a wheelchair and left me to my own devices. Not recognizing the danger of an emergent who walked by a fumeral eruption every day and lost his virginity there. Pat was lazy and sent me a book and said “Ask questions if you need to”. And went about building his little kingdom in Augusta.

This was not the European way at all. And by violation of the of the European model, as well as my proximity to a Leyline Fumeral, my power strength and ability grew far faster than my spell library. Then my sister and her girlfriend took me to the hippie shop, and we went hunting for quartz. And I got into filling gemstones and artifacts with power.

Now I didn’t know how I was supposed to do that because it wasn’t in the books I got from Pat. So, I figured it out on my own. And accidently broke the speed records on filling artifacts. Which made me the curve breaker in the Power game. I blundered along with playing with power as opposed to studying spells that needed power. And because I put the cart in front of the horse, I got far better at moving power then using it. Like when I charged artifacts.

This created a violation of the “Power Paradigm” or the accepted model for Mages. (And all other magic users.) You see, the five-pointed star of conventional Witchcraft reflects the elements of Air, Water, Earth and Fire going back to ancient witchcraft. The uppermost (Or bottom most) point is for Intent or Power or the ability to force the element that the user has affinity for. You discovered the affinity with the power you were able to call up and then increased its effect through your addition of personal power.

We broke that. Because I was more interested in Power (and its reflection such as Shields) then the other four elements, my touch on those was with massive power first. I pushed rather than begged or pulled.

(So did Paula and Jeffery. Paula is actually faster than I am at charging artifacts. But I can hold more internally than she does. But she channels from a Fumeral far better than I or Jeffery can. Power flows around her to the object she guides to without absorbing it. Making her the ultimate charging plate.)

The second investigative team from the European group stated that Pat was lazy, and I was out of control, and this European team wanted me to be “limited through accepted council means” to a level that was appropriate for my age.

Reggie laughed at that line of recommendations. So did Sir David. I heard it fourth hand (after Reggie, Sir David, and Setno and probably Arno too) of this “Critical adjustment that needed to be carried out immediately”.

My answer was brief. “And Who’s Volunteering to try to do this?” The silence was deafening.

This latest document (from the most recent review) did have some useful suggestions. It did point out an extreme gap in magic education between Europe and the US. Which begged the question to me “isn’t there a better way?”

Which is why we were building the annex in New Mexico to house twenty student mages. Which is why we had Wendy and Melissa (Wendy’s English mentor) move from Seattle to New Mexico. Yes, it was away from the ocean creatures that Wendy loved. But everyone felt that her age and personality worked better with the new “students” we had at the “school” for magic we were operating, and it yielded amazing results. Her as the younger “big sister” and Melissa (and others) as “Older and wiser” teachers.

One of the things we did for all incoming students is align them with a 4-joule personalized quartz artifact. Why? Simple. Early adopters were often discouraged by the inability to personally gather the power a spell or charm needs to activate. Providing them with a (relatively) high powered source of energy tuned to themselves helped them to easily see early victory in using magic. That gave them confidence in the use of magic while removing the struggle of finding it within themselves or channeling it. This was another of the breaks with the European method.

This method yielded great success. For Hedge Witches becoming Mages, and mages becoming superior users of magic. It’s easier to learn the use of a spell or incantation when you don’t have to worry about gathering the magical power to use it. (The European council had a major fit over this. Students got used to using magic without struggling to acquire it. Turned their education system upside down.)

We also began a “Magician Detection” operation in Augusta. Early detection and early evaluation of a budding magician seemed to be the best way to enlarge the population and to prevent the kind of mistakes that had occurred in earlier societies. I was a firm believer (and kind of forced that belief) that early detection and training would avoid later disasters. Either of the Mage becoming disheartened and falling away, or a mage becoming a danger to our society. And so far, that also was working. Since we deployed our “detection Artifacts” in every major city and urban area, as well as moving to make them more rural as well, we had found over six hundred potential magic capable people.

Reggie was astounded. Most of the people with these abilities were older and thus not easily brought into the community. Forty- and fifty-year-old men and women had stability in how they were living already, and their talents usually manifested itself in art, or mechanics, or agriculture. Those people we didn’t want to disrupt. But their middle children? Could we offer those budding Mages an opportunity to grow their talent and climb successfully into business of one form or another? That was our challenge.

When word of our detection efforts got back to Europe, there was another major storm, creating another loud movement to “Put these colonials back in their place”. And I expected a massive reaction from them. Possibly an invasion against one of our facilities. Most likely New Mexico.

(No one was coming against Augusta again. They were afraid of Tomato Paste. What they didn’t know was that the Sous (Sauce) chef was the head of residence in New Mexico. And she had refined her technique over the last few years. She had better containment of the process so clean up was not so much work. I applauded her efforts.)

I was right, but I didn’t know it at the time. It would be the same sort of threat, but from a different vector. One we had not been anticipating.

A Time to move. People, Places, and things.

Sunday morning was our senior staff meeting. Five permanent members, and two (sometimes three) part time members. I usually asked Natalie to chair the meeting, with each of the people bringing up what they felt was important. We usually started with the findings of the Threat Assessment team with Helen Albris doing her presentation. She always shipped out a synopsis the previous evening and I never missed reading it in detail. As a non-magic norm, she often felt she was overlooked in the Clan, but I was not about to let that fester.