Chapter 10

The following characters return from previous stories:

Dallas Kavanagh

Maddy and Ken’s first daughter, Doreen’s twin, 5’-7’’ tall, 32 years of age, 134 pounds, 36D-24-36, alabaster skin, long, lustrous black hair, violet eyes, some freckles, beautiful, Magic user

Doreen Kavanagh

Maddy and Ken’s second daughter, Dallas’s twin, 5’-7’’ tall, 32 years of age, 133 pounds, 36D-24-36, alabaster skin, long, lustrous black hair, violet eyes, some freckles, beautiful, Magic user

“This ... this is amazing!” Sara said in awe before turning to me.

“You said it was a cave. I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” she continued in an accusing voice.

“It was and is a cave. I just made a few improvements,” I told her.

“A few improvements! This could be a small apartment in the high rent district of any big city,” she exclaimed. The area spread out in front of us did indeed look like a small apartment.

I had cast the lighting spell as we moved up the entry tunnel, and the lighting had come on as we neared the open area of the cave revealing what she had called an apartment. I had also closed the entrance ward as soon as there was enough light to see by.

The apartment, as she had called it, was about thirty feet by thirty feet (about 9.2 meters square). There was no electricity, but we had the lighting spell and could heat anything that we needed to eat, or even the entire area of the cave if necessary. There was a stream part of the way down the mountain that flowed from a spring into Indian Camp Creek which continued on south to the Wallalla Fish Hatchery some 2500 feet (750 meters) south of us and about the same distance east of our location on the mountain. The water from the spring was safe to drink even in our Human form.

The furniture in the cave/apartment was dated but not antique. All of it was made from fine hardwoods and was of the best construction. All of it and the other things had a preservation spell on them during my absence, and all were in very good condition as were all of the fabrics and the mattress on the bed.

There were several other things that Sara noticed right away beside the furniture. The first was the open chest that contained the gold doubloons from some of my various sea adventures. She quickly moved over to the chest and picked up several of the gold coins.

“Are these gold ... real gold?” she asked holding them up.

“Yes, that is a part of the loot that we relieved the Spanish of on some of my adventures on pirate ships,” I told her.

“You stole it?” she asked in shock.

“Liberated it is more like it. The Spanish stole the gold from various tribes in Central and South America,” I told her.

“But this much gold is worth a fortune especially as nearly new coins,” she told me in an excited voice.

“Yes, every once in a while, I’ll sell a few if I need more money than usual. I get retirement pay from the CIA for the work I did for them, plus I have other investments that I get money from regularly. I have a number of bank accounts in various countries that I can draw on when needed,” I told her. We hadn’t discussed finances previously, and she seemed surprised by what I told her. Being as old as I am, I had accumulated money and other things over all of that time. Some of it was a bit difficult to keep track of, and much of it had changed over time. We didn’t really need to discuss that now.

The next thing to catch her attention were the wooden cases that my favorite weapons were kept in.

“What is in these fancy boxes?” she asked pointing to the collection of walnut and mahogany boxes that sat not far from the chest of gold coins.

“Those are the various favorite weapons that I have saved over time. The long narrow box is my Japanese Katana or long sword, and there are several other swords and favorite daggers. There are a number of prized firearms from flintlocks to a Colt Walker revolver plus other revolvers and automatic pistols. There are also a number of long arms; muskets and rifles from various periods in addition to a number of modern rifles and shotguns. A warrior accumulates the tools of his trade, especially over a long period, such as I have lived,” I told her.

Finally, her gaze fell on the large enclosed bookcase that contained the many books of Magic that I had accumulated along with other types of books. This was what we had come here to get, and I lowered the ward and preservation spell around the bookcase, so we could retrieve the books for her to study.

“So many books,” she said in surprise as I opened the doors of the bookcase. “Are all of them on Magic?” followed that.

“No, while many of them are on Magic, I have a number of Bibles and other books that struck my fancy, or that I found interesting. They are on many subjects. Some are novels and plays. I have some first editions of Shakespeare’s work and the work of other favorite authors,” I told her.

“I never considered you an intellectual before,” she said with a smile.

“There has been much time when I wasn’t engaged in fighting or adventuring. There were many years of peace, and I needed things to fill the time besides sex and drinking. Because of my Dragon genes, alcohol has little effect on me. I burn it off too quickly,” I told her with a smile, before opening the bookcase all of the way and removing the six books that we had come for. Sara looked at them and frowned.

“I thought they would be more impressive,” she said looking at their moderate size and the plain black leather covers of the six books of different thickness, which gave them the appearance of being nothing special.

“They were purposely designed like this to avoid attention from those they were not intended for,” I told her and handed her the first book of the series. I could see her surprise when her Talent reacted to the presence of the book.

“What did I just feel?” she immediately asked.

“Your Talent recognized the spell on the book. If you had no Talent or only a weak Talent, the book would have appeared to contain nothing but blank paper,” I told her.

“Really!” she asked in surprise.

“Yes, really. These books are only intended for those with strong enough Talents and Magic to be able to use the information they contain. You will find that Book six is very demanding when you open it,” I told her.

“Can I start on the first book now?” she asked in an eager voice.

“You aren’t interested in any of the other things to do here?” I asked.

“Not now. Maybe we can return later. What else is there to do here?” she asked vaguely interested.

“There is the scenery, or we could go down to the fish hatchery. There is also other wildlife in the area that we could check out. You could even help me clean some of the weapons here. I haven’t been here in quite some time and many are sure to need attention,” I told her with a smile, but it was obvious that she wasn’t interested in any of that.

“Okay, go ahead and study. I’ll do some work on my weapons while you’re busy. I’ll need to return later to finish in any event. Maybe we can do the other things then,” I told her as she settled into a comfortable chair and started on the first book.

After several hours of caring for my weapons, I took a break to check on Sara. She was well into the first book and didn’t appear to have moved much at all. It had absorbed her entire attention. I smiled at her remembering my own initial fascination with the books. I, however, could use a bit of water and called some to me from the spring to drink and to clean up after working on the weapons. I also needed to alert Sara.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked when I finally had her attention.

“Ah ... yes, I could use a drink. This book is marvelous,” she told me holding up the book. After pouring her a drink from the pitcher that I had filled previously, I mentioned the next thing I would be attending to.

“I’m going out and find us some lunch,” I told her to a surprised look from her.

“We just got here,” she exclaimed.

“No, WE have been here for quite some time. You have been absorbed in that book for over three hours,” I told her.

“No, I couldn’t have been. It seems like I just started on it,” she said before checking her watch.

“How can it be that late?” she asked in confusion.

“You have been totally absorbed in that book,” I reminded her.

“I’m going out to find lunch. When I get back, we’ll eat and then pack up what we will be taking back to Charleston,” I told her before reminding her of something.

“You might want to get up and move around some while I’m gone. You have been sitting in that chair all of this time and your muscles need a little exercise, so you can move when we need to leave,” I reminded her.

On leaving following that, I left the lighting spell on but closed the entrance ward. On top of the mountain, I changed into my Dragon form at twenty-five foot tall and spent some time searching for an appropriate candidate for our lunch. After a time, I found what appeared to be just the right size deer for our lunch and took off to collect him.

Fortunately, I was able to approach him from behind, so he didn’t see me coming. A blast of Magic from my middle right claw stunned him. The second pass over him allowed me to pick him up and then return to the top of Fork Mountain. I don’t believe that anyone saw me or picked me up on radar as I had stayed mostly in the valley between the mountains.

Back on the mountain, I prepared him for roasting by slitting his throat and then removing his head. Breathing Dragon fire on the carcass removed all of the hair or fur and roasted it nicely. I roasted both sides but not the same. Allowing him to cool a little then, I returned to get Sara. Appearing in the cave in my Dragon form startled her.

“Lunch is ready,” I told her in as quiet a Dragon voice as possible.

“Already?” she asked and rose from the chair but was still stiff as she hadn’t moved around enough.

“Yes, already. You will need to leave the books in here while we eat,” I reminded her. She used a card to mark her place in the book, and I transferred both of us to the top of the mountain. The trouble was, I had shrunk to twelve feet tall to get her, and she was still in her Human form. Taking her hand in mine, I concentrated. She quickly changed to her Dragon form and we both grew to twenty-five feet tall in size.

“How well done do you want your meal?” I asked pointing to the deer carcass as I had roasted the two sides differently.

“Humm ... well done if you have that,” she said in an unsure voice.

“I made one side well done. The other side is just ready to eat for a Dragon. I like my meat more bloody,” I told her before using the middle claw of my right hand to open the underside of the deer and then broke the carcass in half. Sara had looked away while I was doing that.

“This is your half,” I told her indicating which half was hers. I made quick work of my half and cleaned up the remains that had spilled out when I broke it in half. Sara was a dainty eater and took longer to finish, but she did eat all of her half, less the bones.

“That was very good,” she said as she cleaned her hands and claws on some of the stunted vegetation.

“Would you like to see what your wings look like?” I asked her following that.

“Yes, how do I do that?”

“Flex your shoulders and then spread your wings. You may need to think about how to do that the first time,” I told her. She spent several minutes moving various parts of her body before she found how to spread her wings. She had a typical wingspan of around sixty feet at her current height. She flapped her wings and spun around a couple of times to see how they felt. She would need to practice spreading her wings more later until it became intuitive.

“You’re sure that I can fly with these?” she asked. To prove that she could, I spread my wings and jumped off the edge of the mountain. I circled it twice before landing. Sara was suitably impressed.

“Let’s return to the cave and pack everything we are taking with us. We can return to Charleston then,” I told her after landing and returned us to our Human forms.

In the cave, Sara put the books in her backpack along with another book on Magic for me. I collected what I was retrieving and loaded part of it into my backpack. I was also taking my Katana, Dragon of the Night, back with me but sent it to the Timeless Zone rather than carry it with me, I could always quickly retrieve it. I also gave Sara the Tanto or knife from the sword set. It has a twelve-inch blade and a six-inch handle. She put it in her backpack with the books.