Chapter 6

There was little point in taking the Goat any further north, following the stream up the narrowing ravine into the obviously impassable heavily forested hills. A pair of relatively high cliff walls less than half a mile ahead also suggested that the pass onwards would be quite narrow. We had made it to the stream in good enough time, with the sun still two-hands high in the western sky. Lydia had said that it was essential that we reached the temple with its oracle before sunset and we’d made it, likely with considerable time to spare.

But something wasn’t quite right apparently, judging from the sour faces that Lydia and Linda were exchanging. From the moment that the Goat had stopped, the pair of former fairy sisters had dashed out of the car to privately commiserate with each other, and from the looks of outright shock, horror and exasperation on Linda’s face, it appeared that as usual, the ‘Good Fairy’ Lydia had perhaps neglected to inform us all about a few small minor but salient details. The pair of them quickly reached some sort of agreement and Linda, with a rather sour expression on her face, nodded her head in some sort of agreement with her younger sister’s plan. From the way that she kept staring at her feet, it was pretty obvious that she was none too happy about what was about to occur.

“Guys,” Lydia shouted out to gather Barry, Jack and the prince’s attention, “drop your packs right here and go ahead and make a full camp down at the base of this hill. This is as far as you can safely pass, that’s especially true for the knights and the centaurs as well. You’ll all be staying right here... only the women can go onwards ... safely, from this point on!”

Huh? “What’s the deal with this that only women can go to the temple?” I exclaimed, quite genuinely dismayed.

“It gets even better sweetie,” Linda muttered, her eyes not rising to meet mine and remaining fixed upon some imaginary spot on the grass about a foot in front of her.

“Up the stream just beyond that gap in the hills ahead of us is a fenced gate that marks the edge of the temple grounds.” Lydia continued, managing a cheerful smile that more than suggested that some unpleasant details were being either avoided or glossed over as being irrelevant. “Beyond that, the land itself is sacred to Mother and I know that us ladies, the women anyway, can pass through safely. If any of the men were to go onwards with us ... that could be bad in several different ways. I don’t know if they could continue on with us, or even be able to safely return back here, without certain ... complications.”

Everyone wanted more details, especially the men, but Lydia just shook her head violently and wouldn’t argue or say another word about it. I then gave Linda a quizzical look and she just sadly shook her head and turned away from us, unable or unwilling to say a word.

“Are we agreed then?” Lydia calmly asked. “If necessary, just Linda and I will go, but we will need at least one other woman to come along with us. One more will do, but a few more would be far better. There will be other... challenges, that might need to be faced. Oh ... and let’s get this last matter settled as well – no clothing ladies, not a scrap, from the gate onwards. That means no guns or swords either ... nothing but skin! Don’t bother to argue about it, I didn’t make the rules, so either accept and come along or stay. Linda and I have to go, if we are to have any hope of rescuing the three captive princesses!”

Lydia was half crazy at the best of times and far, far from a reliable trustworthy person, but in a nutshell, she was right ... this was our best and perhaps only chance to get the odds back slightly more on our side. Right now we were essentially powerless and needed to be able to find and confront the kidnappers, fast, before something nasty occurred to our captured friends and family members.

I gave Dottie a quizzical look and she nodded in agreement and she started to strip down with surprisingly little reluctance. I was far less happy about the lack of important corroborative details about our mission here, but I started to comply too. Bitching wasn’t going to get Amelia back, safe and unsoiled. I’ve never minded being naked, but the thought of being unarmed without at least a pistol or throwing knife was downright terrifying.

“No guns? Not any? Not even one in my boot? What about a knife then ... and does a rocket launcher count as a gun?” I whimpered. Being without at least one weapon on me at any time would indeed make me utterly naked, and far too helplessly so!

“No, no, no boots, no ... and fuck it, yes it does!” Lydia growled as she glared at me. “And NO, Goddess damn it, don’t even think about lugging along that Ma Duce! Trust me ... you won’t need them here and they are forbidden inside the temple and in the grotto below. So either strip or stay here!” There wasn’t any choice. I needed to be there to help rescue Amelia, so I finished stripping ... and so did Jasmine and Trinity, and also the female knight champion and guardian of the prince, whose name I hadn’t quite gotten, stripped right down as well, after first formally asking her prince for his permission to go.

“Go, Gerta,” Magnus laughed, enjoying a complete with yet tastefully restrained inspection of her bare lithe but surprising muscular flesh. She too didn’t like being without her sword or the quite respectable collection of a half-dozen various daggers that she kept on her personage, and quite unhappy too about being disarmed she joined me in scowling at Lydia. Any gal who daily strapped on that much sharp hardware was certain to quickly become a respected friend of mine!

“Ok, more than enough. We should be fine ... gather together over here girls for a quick word and then we need to get our bare asses in gear. It’s later than I’d hoped and we really don’t have as much time as you think. Guys! Eyes off of our tits and listen up! If everything goes right, which so far ... nothing has, we’ll be back right here by tomorrow morning after dawn, or worst case, the morning after. If we’re any later than that ... then things are really fucked up and you’ll need to get going on your own and do the best you can without us. We can catch-up later, afterwards ... if there is an afterwards and we can fix things otherwise here.”

I hugged Barry goodbye and had one last lustful thought about taking my Mossberg along with me, but I reluctantly restrained myself. I knew that I’d regret leaving it behind! Perhaps the Israeli Dillon-style minigun would do ... but that bitch was heavy and I’d need the strength born of madness to port her, not to mention the 5000 rounds of 5mm ammo that the whore drank like water. So, no guns ... fuck! Well, naked I would have to go in the shadow of the valley of death, or at least into the land of Whatthefuck? I was trusting Lydia ... which was almost never a wise suggestion. Well, if she ended up screwing us over I was quite ready and willing, just quite in the mood, actually, to cunt-punt her crazy twat right up to her tonsils!

Dottie and the girls hugged Jack and Gerta the warrior maiden made a last bow to her prince before trotting over to where Lydia and Linda were. Linda was still unusually restrained and quite lost in her own thoughts and didn’t utter a word, leaving Lydia to offer us a last few instructive words.

“Up this stream and beyond those trees is the gate to a small lake valley and the temple grounds. Beyond which is the temple, our destination. We need to get there, inside its great doors before the last stroke of the sunset bell. If we are late, the doors will be locked to us until dawn and we will have lost irreplaceable time! The valley will have a guardian, some sort of mostly benign protection, and it cannot be faced with arms or battle. The valley is sacred to Mother, a place of love and peace and no violence must ever occur there! Inside the temple, it would be helpful, but not entirely necessary that we all join and participate in their rituals, their celebrations of our Mother until the passage to the grotto below can be opened, which is at midnight. We will find the answers we need below ... but this may not quite be the end of our journey. While here ... or beyond, no lasting peril should befall us, but I cannot promise this. Events may occur that may offer other choices, decision paths or alterations to our various destinies. For Linda, for myself, or in fact for any or all of you that come with us, our fates will sooner or later be entirely in Mother’s hands. I do have a plan for once we reach her sacred grotto below, and how to best seek her help ... but Mother herself, have other plans. I just don’t fucking know what will happen down there ... but I know we must try to gain her help!”

Linda’s face was pale, like she was certain that some dreadful peril almost certainly awaited us, but when I tugged on her arm and glared at her, she just shuffled away a bit from us, with her eyes downcast and her arms protectively crossed. I didn’t care about her pouting act, and I marched over and grabbed her upper arms with both of my hands and shook her.

“Linda, tell me what you know ... now, because I’m smelling a rat and I’m wondering if this is just one of Lydia’s crazy old tricks, like how to screw us all over in a cracked attempt to get back her powers once more. Is this plan at all safe or wise?”

“Safe? Wise? No, it’s completely fucking crazy ... but she’s right this time. It’s our only chance of getting one of us powered back up to be able to start righting this fucked up situation. It’s likely our only chance at all ... but no, crazy or not, it won’t, if we’re lucky, involve any sacrificial altars and the applied use of sharp daggers to rip out all of our hearts, either.” She hugged me tight, but didn’t have another word to say. This was Lydia’s plan and she was supporting her sister. Clearly though, she was anticipating some sort of immanent cataclysm that now seemed inescapable.

Of course, Lydia would know far, far more than she was admitting to, but even if she was giving us the piss, none of us had a better plan either. We were days, maybe a week behind the trail of the kidnappers by now and none of the two former fairies had a drop of magical power. The Goat, even with the extra full gas cans couldn’t catch them before her tanks ran dry and then we’d be grounded, stuck and hopelessly behind in the race.

We gave the guys a last fond farewell and told them to have a nice rest for a day or two without us and we soon disappeared out of sight, as we trailed up the narrow trail along the stream and into the hills. As Lydia had said, shortly ahead was an old rusting iron fence largely covered by weeds and wild-growing brush and at the end of our trail we found the secured iron gate. It was shut fast, but there was no sign of a lock. Clearly, the gate had not been opened in some great length of time, a few years at least.

“Good, nothing seems to have changed since I was last here. That’s good news.” Lydia brightly chirped up. “Ok, this is the last place that anyone can turn back. The gate opens inward to admit newcomers, but we won’t be able to leave this way, at least not without one of us having a working magic wand! Now, one at a time, open the gate and cross it, it won’t be hard, but the gate will only admit one person at a time so don’t try to bunch up and go through all together at once. We’ve still got a little bit of time, so take it easy, and remember ... one at a time!”

Linda, quite to my surprise, went in first. The heavy Iron Gate swung in easily and without a sound at her light touch, but did swing back firmly to lock itself again once she had entered the sacred valley. I went next, then Dot and her daughters, followed by Gerta and then lastly Lydia. I noticed at once that after I had entered the valley that I could now no longer hear the sounds of the centaurs and our men making camp just below us on the hill, less than a hundred footsteps away. While holding the gate open, I could still hear the clanking of armor and harnesses and the sound of heavy packs being unloaded, but once I stepped inside and the gate shut behind me, it was as if the entire outside world was now gone and that we were perhaps somewhere quite else entirely.

“Ok,” Lydia sighed, “just a few last quick words. We keep going into the small valley just ahead and in a few minutes we should be able to see the temple itself up upon the next hill. It’s quite pretty, and so is the series of short waterfalls that stream down from the hillside next to it, flowing out to form a small pond and the little stream here. Take a quick drink or two when we get there, the waters are really crisp and cool. But, don’t dawdle! As I said a few minutes ago, we need to get to that temple before the last bell of sunset is struck. Now, to get there we will face a challenge that must be overcome to obtain a big brass key before any stranger, that includes us, may set foot upon the 69 steps leading up to the ever-locked temple doors. This delightful little valley does have some guardians, but they’ll us very little trouble ... probably. Now, let’s see what our challenge is up ahead of us!”

The light brush surrounding our path began to clear out and soon we began to step down into the valley floor and the sight of a moderately large sized meadow perhaps about the size of a sports field. Up ahead I could just make out a large building behind some trees on the next hillside on the other side of the meadow and after a few more steps I thought I could make out a winding set of stone steps leading upwards. The path to the temple, undoubtedly! But Lydia said that we needed a brass key, so where was it?

Moving into the center of the valley we soon realized that we were not entirely alone here. The guardians of the valley had now found us, and seemed delighted and extremely anxious to meet us. They were satyrs, and a rather good-sized tribe of them too, at least thirty of them, ran over at once to greet us. Off in the shadows of the tree line at the edge of the meadow might have been another dozen or two, slower than their brothers to arise from their afternoon nap.

“Ah ... I thought as much. They’re still here. That’s fine, but this was the first reason why I didn’t want our little quest group to include any men. In truth ... both men and woman could both venture here this far at least to risk the challenge, but honestly it will be much better faced by brave women. Furthermore, below the temple is an underground chamber, the grotto, sacred to our Mother that none but the Fae would dare to gaze upon and its use by mortal men is strictly prohibited and likely to incur unthinkable punishment. So ... here is our first test, so shoulders back, tits up and smile girls ... we’re about to have company!”