Chapter 25

Mark's Narrative Continues:

We didn't see Seamus or most of his people for ten days following dinner that night. Meagan and Maureen did appear for dinner a couple of times during that period, and they borrowed Dymphna for a time as Seamus and Carl had taken Dealla and Cessair with them. Having three Mages in the Ohio country put a strain on our one remaining Mage, Coleen, who was rather busy with two locations to take care of.

Things on this side of the Ohio River had not slowed down or ceased to function because of Seamus's absence. After Captain Moore was returned to Fort Jefferson by Sererena and Saraid, I had gone to Fort Henry to see about transferring the two administrative NCOs to our unit. Colonel Hubbard had been surprised to see me again so soon but had been reasonably pleasant.

"What is it that you need now, Major O'Connell?" he had asked when I got in to see him.

"I need a couple of more administrative people, and was informed that there were two that you were going to release or retire. I was wondering if they could be assigned to my unit instead?" I asked.

"Who are you talking about?" he asked. I gave him the piece of paper with the names on it.

"Oh, them!" he said after looking at the paper.

"Yes, you can have them, but I don't know how much good they will do you. Are you aware that they have vision problems?" he asked, and I just nodded. "I'll have the orders made out today, and they will report to you some time tomorrow," he finished.

I returned to Hickory Hill after that to find out that I now had an office there as the Commander of the Border Rangers. Sererena had assigned the den in the main house to be my office. It wasn't currently needed for anything else and was quite comfortable actually with a fine mahogany desk and numerous built-in book cases along with some books. I didn't plan on using it a lot, as I was planning on being out at Mount Sterling most of the time. I did appreciate the thought, and would use it for any official functions, whatever they might be.

Everyone was busy when I returned to Hickory Hill, so I went to the stable there and the two new stablemen readied my horse for me, before I transferred out to Gilmore's Station. To my surprise, I found a large map of Kentucky sticking out of my saddle bags. It turned out to be a 1940's road map and showed all of Eastern Kentucky with the towns, roads, rivers, and major streams on it. There were a number of locations that had been circled on it. I was fairly certain of its source -- the Eternal Flame had obviously sent it. I wondered what else our benefactor had sent but would have to wait until later to find out.

The next location circled after Mount Sterling and Gilmore's Station was the settlement of Morehead some sixteen miles or so from Peeled Oak / Gilmore's Station. I set out on my horse from Gilmore's Station for Morehead and arrived there in the early afternoon. When I asked a local resident of the small settlement in Gaelic if this was Morehead, he told me that I was in Logan and that he had never heard of any place named Morehead.

Despite this setback, I could see on the map that there were a number of settlements that could be reached from Morehead or Logan as it was called here. I was even able to find the various trails that were shown as roads on the map. A short distance from the settlement, I found a convenient open area among the trees and created a spherical Defensive Shell about thirty feet in diameter. It would make a convenient intermediate point to transfer to for further exploration of our area.

After that I transferred back to Mount Sterling to check on Wolf and Coleen. I was told by Coleen that the garden was growing well. A & A had again stayed at Hickory Hill to help with the Magic classes. Dymphna had also stayed to help with other things like the garden there and inspecting the milk and butter.

On returning to Hickory Hill later that day, we learned that I wasn't the only one to receive something from the Eternal Flame. Sererena and the others had found books on Magic here in the small parlor, and there had been a package of gel pens and refills in her office. There was also a large box containing toilet paper, tooth brushes, and tooth paste plus another box containing ladies products in the sitting rooms when they checked there. I hoped that Seamus and his team had received maps also, but we wouldn't know until later.

The following day I returned to Fort Henry to look up the two administrative men. Lieutenant Leister went with me to turn in the pay sheet from Mount Sterling and the personnel lists for our unit. The two men, Sergeants Morgan and Parker had received their orders yesterday and were ready to leave. They were a bit surprised when a Major appeared to pick them up.

As Sergeant O'Faolain had told us, they were older men with graying hair. Other than that they were very dissimilar. Morgan was short at about 5'-7" tall and thin. Parker was taller at about 5'-11" tall and heavier but not fat. He was the one with a Wife. Both appeared to be in their late forties or early fifties.

"Are you sure that we will be of any assistance to you, sir?" Morgan asked when I identified myself to them.

"I am certain that the two of you will be a great help to us," I assured them.

"The Army was about to retire us, sir. We have a bit of trouble with our eyes. When we received those orders, we thought that retirement was what they were for," Parker told me.

"Trust me, that your eyesight will no longer be a problem once we reach Hickory Hill," I assured them. We waited for Lieutenant Lister to finish in finance. The men were surprised that we had no horses when we prepared to leave. I transferred all of us to Hickory Hill drawing on Lister's Talent and my own to power the spell. The two new men were seriously shocked at this turn of events. They had several more shocks in store for them when we arrived at Hickory Hill. The first was finding O'Faolain there to greet them.

"We wondered where you had disappeared to," Morgan told him after they met. The next shock was the fact that we had female Officers here.

"We heard that there were female Officers at Fort Henry, but we never saw them," Parker told me.

The last surprise was when we took them to the small Parlor in the house. They had been surprised when they saw the interior of the house, but that wasn't the surprise that was waiting for them there. Dymphna and Coleen were there waiting for them. After the introductions, they had instructions for the men.

"We want the two of you to sit on these chairs. We will sit next to you and will touch your arms to determine what problems each of you have, and we will then work on your eyesight," Dymphna told them. She took Morgan and Coleen worked on Parker. They sat next to them, and began a mantra. I could feel their Green Magic at work but couldn't tell what they were doing.

After twenty minutes or so, they fell silent. The two Sergeants had appeared to be in a trance while the Cousins had worked on them, but now sat up.

"How do you feel?" Dymphna asked.

"I feel fine, thank you," Morgan replied.

"We will need to treat you again tomorrow, but that should be the last time," Coleen told them. It wasn't until both men stood up that they realized that they really did feel a lot better and the amazement showed on their faces.

"I really feel a lot better!" Parker said in surprise.

"Read this!" I told them. Both men took the papers that I held and looked at them. Shock again appeared on their faces within seconds.

"I haven't been able to see this well in years! What have you done? Will it last?" Morgan asked turning to Dymphna.

"We used our Green Magic to repair your vision problems," she told him.

"But we were told that it would require very expensive eyeglasses, and that they would only be good for a limited time," Parker told us in confusion.

"You won't require glasses. We removed the cause of your problem and returned your eyesight to that of a young man," Coleen told them.

"But how?" both men asked.

"With the use of our Green Magic," Dymphna told him again with a smile.

"We can all use Magic," I told them. "Our Mage Sisters use Green Magic. The rest of us use White Magic. Black Magic is hurtful and has been outlawed," I told them before returning to business.

"Rest for the remainder of today. Tomorrow we will discuss where you will be stationed, and we will move you there then," I told them.

It turned out that I was a little overly optimistic in this, as the next day we moved Captain Moore and all of his people and equipment to Gilmore's Station. It seems that Gwyn and Sererena were keeping tabs on the good Captain, and they had informed us of the move the previous evening.

It wasn't all that difficult a move. The women had been to his present facilities and had already created the temporary Portal. Today they activated it, and we joined Captain Moore, made sure that he and his people were ready, and then led them thorough the Portal to Hickory Hill. They turned their wagons around in the field, and then went through the permanent Portal to Gilmore's Station. I had preceded them and canceled the defensive shell around the station so they could turn the wagons again outside the Station.

Moore's Sergeants and men just stared around them in absolute amazement when they stopped just outside of Gilmore's Station. Samuel Moore addressed them then.

"I told you previously that you would be working with some magically powerful people. This is our new Training Facility. This is Gilmore's Station. It is located approximately forty miles east of Lexington," he told them, adding to their amazement.

"But how, sir?" one of his large Sergeants asked.

"By the use of Magic!" Moore told him and the others. "This is Major O'Connell. He is the Commander of O'Connells Border Rangers. Most of you will be working for him and his people," he continued, pointing to me before adding, "That is after we get set up and this place is repaired."

"First though, we need to get these wagons unloaded and returned to Fort Jefferson. We'll set up temporarily in the block house, as it is in the best condition. Once things are repaired, we'll reorganize some. After that, you men in the graduating class will be assigned to Major O'Connell and move to one of his operational sites," Samuel finished.

After the wagons were unloaded, I led the drivers back through the Portal to Hickory Hill, and Sererena took them through the temporary Portal to Fort Jefferson to turn in the wagons and teams. She brought the drivers back when they finished and sent them through the Portal to Gilmore's Station.

I, in the meantime, had been talking with the new administrative men. They had already had their second Green Magic treatment that morning, and I found them with O'Faolain when I returned to Hickory Hill. He had apparently filled them in on what went on here last night and was showing them the administrative area and was still explaining things. I took them into my new office in the den to discuss where they would be working.

"Last night, O'Faolain told us some things that were hard to believe, sir," Morgan told me when we were seated. They had looked around the den in amazement at its paneled walls, the built in bookcases with books in them and the fine desk there. You didn't see this in the Army, not even at Fort Jefferson.

"We talked to some of the other men and Officers here after that. They corroborated what O'Faolain told us in addition to telling us that they were learning to use Magic," Parker told me.

"While I'm sure that some of what you were told last night was an exaggeration, we O'Connells can do a number of things that many people can't. One of the things that we are not knowledgeable about though is personnel matters. The two of you are very familiar with this subject, and that is why we wanted to have you transferred to our organization. We currently have two other locations besides Hickory Hill. One is at Fort Washington in the Ohio country. The other is at Mount Sterling here in Kentucky. Those are the places where we need your help. I will allow the two of you to decide which you would rather be stationed at," I told them.

"How are we to get there, sir?" Morgan asked.

"There are now two ways to reach those sites. One is the way that you arrived here yesterday. That is known as a transfer and will require the help of an O'Connell.

"The second way is through one of the Portals. A Portal is a gate between one location and another some distance from the first. The other men here are being trained to open and close the Portals. You simply walk through them," I finished. Both men looked at me again in surprise.

"Let's go out to the Portals, and I'll show you both locations," I told them. Outside, I opened the Portal to Fort Washington first and we went through. There were only a few of the Rangers there to greet us.

"All of the O'Connells and the rest of our people are out on patrols," their Sergeant told us. A number of Continentals were visible on their side of the fort. Parker looked very interested in Fort Washington.

"I believe that I would like to be stationed here, sir," Parker told me. "So would my Wife." I looked at Morgan for a reaction to this.

"That's fine with me, sir," he told me. I had made a decision also.

"I will send one of the Officers in training to this location so that there is always an Officer here in charge when the O'Connells are all out on Patrol or otherwise engaged," I told the three NCOs. "Get Sergeant Parker settled in when he returns," I told the Ranger Sergeant, and we returned to Hickory Hill through the Portal. I next took both men to Mount Sterling through that Portal. Morgan looked around at the fort before we were greeted by Wolf who had been alerted to our arrival.