Serpents of the Green Moon

A New Time for an Old Prophecy

The Green Moon Returns

Charles Preston Wilcox III stood at the foot of the bed while a nurse attended to his wife, Mary Elizabeth, who was in labor. They had arrived early that morning, fighting the flooded streets and howling wind of the tropical depression that was spinning it way across Georgia. Atlanta struggled to keep going, for the winds were stronger than usual for a tropical depression this far inland. When it had been in the gulf, it came ashore as a category 4 hurricane named Kelly. Now it pounded the city of Atlanta with wind speeds of nearly seventy miles per hour.

Charles looked out the window and the dark sky, the sun recently set, and noticed everything had a green hue about it. The world looked pale and all he could think of when he noticed the shade of green was death. The television went to another weather report, and he turned to watch, worried about the new hotel project in Buckhead under construction. The project was already behind schedule due to some bad soils, part of the site having been used to dump trash at some point in the past. Then there was a problem in getting the TJI’s for the floor framing back in the spring and now they were in October with a deadline for the first of February, but the storm looked prepared to cock it up.

Mary Elizabeth cried out, the contractions getting closer, and Charles turned to his wife wondering how long she would carry on like this, wishing she would just push the child out already. It would be child number four, another boy, and Charles found he didn’t really care. He had his heir and one backup in case Charles Preston Wilcox IV didn’t work out. Marilyn was the third child, and he knew the day would come she would be someone else’s problem to take care of.

“Charles, call a nurse…I think the baby is trying to come,” Mary Elizabeth uttered.

Charles looked over, seeing her sweaty face, and messed up hair, and he pointed at the device laying on her bed. “Just hit the button; that is what it is for.”

An hour later, a nurse found Charles in the corridor talking on the phone. She came to tell him he was a father again, a boy of eight pounds, nine ounces, and twenty and a quarter inches long, but he waved her away, showing frustration at being interrupted. Back in the deliver room, Mary Elizabeth held the baby, looking at his dark hair and long eye lashes and knew her husband would never care for him. Charlie was the heir and Cameron had captured his father’s eye, having the same reddish-brown hair and facial features, but she knew this boy would not, for he had her hair color and she wondered what else about him would garner his father’s disfavor.

“Have you chosen a name?” one of the nurses asked, clipboard in hand.

Mary Elizabeth had been tempted to go against her husband of nine years and name the boy something that would not give him the initials CPW, but she did like the name Charles and she had come to agreement.

“Yes: Christopher Peyton Wilcox.”

The storm moved north, dumping rain in amounts not seen in years. Greenville, South Carolina had fourteen inches of rain, Asheville, North Carolina nearly ten inches. Highways became rivers, and rivers became torrential inland seas, spread out over the lower regions flooding everything within. Further up in the Appalachian Mountains, near the North Carolina – Tennessee state line, the winds lashed out at the windows of the small hospital in Johnson City and rain flooded its parking lot.

On the second floor, in one of the delivery rooms, Joseph Collins held the hand of Ruth, his wife, as he coached her on her breathing. It was their third time going through the process of Ruth giving birth, and they were just as excited and scared as they had been before. Ruth was a small-framed woman, and each pregnancy seemed to be a heavy burden, and this worried Joseph. She was his little flower, cheeks always rosy in color, eyes such a vivid blue, and long hair a golden yellow, like the wildflowers of the valley below their modest home on the side of the mountain. She had been his first and only true love, and had given him two children, a boy, and a girl. Thomas was now a ten, Eve eight, and both had his features. The black hair that was curly and eyes a green that at times looked grey, and they had his temperament, easy going in nature, playing together for hours without need of supervision. Eve had been considered their last child, for the next pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. It was considered a sign that two children were enough for the Collins household. But seven years after the birth of Eve, a time Ruth didn’t think about being out of her birth control, she became pregnant again. There was worry, none more so than from Joseph, but the pregnancy proceeded without issue, and on this night of the worst storm in over eighty years, at fifteen till the midnight hour, Ruth Collins pushed one more time, and Benjamin Ezra Collins slipped into the world. Joseph cried as he watched Ruth hold the newborn infant with its blonde hair and blue eyes, the same as her, and he knew this child would be different and a welcomed addition to their home.

The Witch Returns

The black Mercedes Benz 600 waits at the curb as she exits the airport, followed by two men pulling her luggage. The driver opens the back door, and she glides into the seat as the luggage is put in the trunk. The car stands out among the newer cars, with their plastic bumpers and uniform shapes rounded to the point they all appear the same, monotonous to the eye.

The Mercedes pulls away from the curb and moves through the traffic, the other vehicles consistently moving over to let them pass. As they cross the East River, she pulls her passport out of her coat pocket and opens her handbag to stuck it away. She looks at the cover and smiles, then flips it open to look at her photograph and below it, her current name: Claudia Zinerva. It’s a persona she must wear in this new age, one she has only recently become fully aware.

The Mercedes enters Manhattan negotiating the busy streets, and she reflects on the last hundred and fifty-three years. Until then, she lived in a fog, parts of her memory denied her. How long she lived in such a manner, she did not know. She had lain comatose for decades while her body healed, then went through the following years missing much of her memory. How she came to be at her palace in Istanbul she would never know, for all those involved were long gone from the world. But she remembered when the memory of that fateful night returned to her, with all its pain and anger and when she was honest with herself, fear.

She had been standing on the terrace at her place in Tangier, looking across the ancient city and the Strait of Gibraltar beyond, when the image of a green sphere came to her. Then she saw it all. The two young men fucking right in front of her, defiant in their carnal lusts, and she had been powerless to stop them. She had meant to end them, but the sphere had been some old magic she had misjudged, paying dearly for her mistake.

The Mercedes pulls up in front of a building, its ground floor a restaurant and a bank, and above apartments where none were cheaper than twenty million dollars. She entered the lobby, the elevator awaiting her arrival. It was private, one reserved for the upper floor apartments, and her penthouse at top.

On her floor, the doors opened, and she went into the grand lobby, and the double doors of her penthouse opened as she approached. She went into the two-story foyer with its white marble stair, set her handbag down, and proceeded into the living room, with its tall glass windows providing a full view of the city’s skyline.

She considered it gauche, with its glass boxes, some trying to rise higher than the others. It was some bravado of men, trying to show who’s phallic was the largest, and she laughed softly at the lie of it.

Sitting on the black leather sofa, one that stretched fourteen feet across, she slipped off her heels and put her feet up on the adjacent cushion as one of the kitchen staff approached with a glass of red wine.

Sipping the wine, she stared out the windows, seeing none of the skyline, for all she saw was the plot she had been devising. It was out there, in some form, the magic behind that green orb and she was going to find it, and either possess it, or destroy it if it couldn’t be hers. For decades, she had not been sure, but in the recent years she came to know otherwise. It still existed, its energy just beneath the surface, shimmering like the surface of water in a gentle breeze.

There was also the question of how it had been kept safe for all these centuries, and only one person came to mind. She had searched but found no trace of him anywhere in the world. In the last ten years, she had reached the conclusion he had not been as powerful as she had assumed, and maybe he had simply died, like a mere man. It pleased her to think it, but doubt lingered, for someone was concealing the power behind that green orb, keeping its secrets safe, and no one was better suited to the task than Tegid Foel.

Her awareness was stirred awake sixteen years before, the night the hurricane struck the Florida coast and moved up the eastern side of the country. She had been in Paris, watching news out of Britain on the storm, wondering if she could stir such a powerful storm into existence. She had watched fascinated, as the newsmen in the field held to a tree or a column of some canopy as the wind and rain tried to take them away. Then a report from Atlanta made her sit up and watch intently as a cameraman tilted his handheld camera to the dark sky and with a flash of lighting, revealed its green illumination.

She had felt her heart race in her chest as she watched storm clouds swirl in the sky, the lights of the city reflecting off them, the color bouncing back green. It was happening again, she could feel it, even thousands of miles away. She had grabbed up the phone on the side table and stared at the images on the television as it dialed the person she sought.

“Get me back to the states as soon as possible,” she had commanded.

“But there is a storm and…”

“I know there is a storm; just do it!” she yelled into the phone, then slammed it down into the cradle.

She had landed in New York the next afternoon, realizing she had no idea of what to look for, or where.

Namibia

At an outlying site to the southwest of Berseba, a small town in a remote part of the country, there was a dig. It had begun the fall of the previous year, the soil removed in large rectangles across the site. It was a site most archeologists dismissed as a waste of time, but for the leader of the dig, the man who organized it, it possessed the possibility of being one of the most important digs in the history of man. He knew it would reveal nothing new about the evolution of early man. What he sought was something far more precious. It was the source of the earliest power, something most men called magic.

His search had been going on for centuries, the one thing that occupied his time like nothing else. Not the witnessing man’s development of writing to the point he created tall tales, recorded histories as they perceived it, and on rare occurrences created the most beautiful poetry, or later on, music of such clarity and grace, he still felt amazed when he heard it. He had witnessed everything, traveled among the men who saw beyond the present, and yet still felt himself ignorant, deprived of knowledge of the one thing he desired above all else.

He came out of his tent and moved to the latest dig site, standing at its edge.

“Anything?” he asked, seeing the men in the pit respond by shaking their heads. He smiled at them, despite his frustration, knowing it would take time. He moved to the next pit where Henri and Jules had remained, continuing to dig deeper. They were his second and third in charge, men who enjoyed the tedious labors of a dig, getting down it the pits and working loose the soil with a care and precision few possessed.

“Terryl, can you come look at this?” asked Oliver, the only Englishman among the crew of French, German, and Namibian.

The name was too new, one only a year old, and he didn’t register Oliver was addressing him.

“Terryl?”

“Oh, sorry, I was lost in thought. What is it?” he responded.

“There is something you should look at in site 3B,” said Oliver, referring to the pit that lay at the base of a rock outcropping.

He followed Oliver around the pits, wondering how long it would take him to respond to his current name. It was his French persona, the one that allowed him the fastest means of getting the dig underway. Terryl Fontaine, he repeated to himself as he kept pace with Oliver. He had many identities but over time had to change them, update them to fit the time. He currently had three. Terryl Fontaine that was for his French passport. For Britain or America, he had Thomas Fisher, and for Germany, its variate, Tomas Fischer. No matter the cultural origin he chose, the names chosen utilized the initials of his given name, the one that no one of this time knew. Only the witch, Zinerva would recognize it, if she were of her right mind yet. It made him smile at her predicament, the loss of much of her memory and he wondered if she finally had the last memories returned to her. He should send her a note, something to test her, and he looked down so the other men would not see the mischievous smile spread across his lips.

At the pit, he saw the men had dug deeper along the rock until a smooth faced section was uncovered, about a meter wide and near two in height. The reddish-brown rock had bands of green tourmaline running through it. He knew the green crystal, from digs in Brazil, but had never seen in it in this region until now. Between the bands of green crystal were handprints and crude images of animals, but the thing that made him gasp was the image at the top of it. A green color smeared across what could be a sky, possibly symbolizing a cloud, for above it, a green circle that could only be the moon. Below the cloud, lettering of some ancient script none of them had ever seen before. It wasn’t like the earliest hieroglyphics of the Egyptians or the later symbols of the Proto-Sinaitic script that would develop later, and the men knew it predated both by tens of thousands of years.

But he recognized it, something from his ancient past and he could read the meaning of it. It was terrifying to see it, this writing that spoke to him personally, for it read Tegid Foel.

That night, alone in his tent, Tegid Foel held photographs of the images, studying them as if a long-lost writing he himself had done, trying to remember if and when he had done it. And why so far south, in this continent. He looked at his arms, the tanned tone of his skin, but not nearly dark enough to be a direct descendant of the people of the region. Then images came to him, fragments of what could be memories.

Traveling by foot at night. A green moon. Then a falling star that became something terrifying, coming closer and closer, until a burning ball of green flame crossing the sky. An impact, debris and dirt blown high in the sky blotting out the moon. Days and nights of travel until standing at a crater, the bottom still smoldering with green smoke. Then he saw a city skyline, one he recognized as Atlanta. There was a park, with winding sidewalks, and on a bicycle, a teenager rode along casting hungry stares at the young men laying on towels sunning themselves or riding their own bikes, shirtless or in tank tops. The teen stopped and stared across the park. A mountain, covered in trees, and on a trail made my deer another teenager, one moving silently along it. At a rock outcropping the teen moved to its very edge and looked south.

Tegid Foel woke with a start, finding himself covered in sweat. The tent glowed with the early morning sun shining on it. He eased off the cot and moved to his desk and pulled out a notecard of plain white heavy stock paper. He rubbed his hand over it and the paper turned a pale moss green. Reaching into the back of the drawer, he pulled out his artist case, the one with oil paints and brushes. It was time to let Zinerva know he was still in the world. It had taken centuries, but he had eventually worked out his mistake with the prophecy. It had another aspect that had yet to unfold, one whose time drew near. He would mail the card to her when he got to the airport, for he also had another mission that needed to be accomplished to set things in motion. Once the card was complete, a painting he would spend the rest of the day creating, he would book a flight to Atlanta, the first destination that was summoning him.

Atlanta

Peyton drove up the drive, the cobblestone surface rough enough to make him keep to a slow speed. He pulled up to the front of the mansion, a Federal style house that rose three floors with its front door surrounded by ornate stone and such a rise of steps it gave the house an uninviting façade. Something that was no doubt the main allure to Charles Preston Wilcox III.

Peyton climbed out of his sixteenth birthday present, a Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet that was black with an Iceland green and black interior. It was one more gift meant to bribe him to behave, to remain discreet. It followed a string of gifts since he was thirteen and announced to his father in the same stern manner he had been forced to endure by him, that he was gay. He had been defiant, prepared for a fight, but his father had laughed and informed him he knew already. There was a lecture about family reputation and being discreet, then a callous off-hand comment of not caring who he fucked, as long as it was never made public. For Peyton, it had hurt more than he could admit. This uncaring attitude had been worse than if his father had blown up and yelled and carried on. At least then, he would have an illusion that maybe the bastard did care for him in some way.

So, he took advantage of his father’s wealth and carefully crafted reputation that could not afford to be sullied by a son being gay. There had been the Aurumania Crystal Edition bike that set his dear father back over a hundred thousand, a huge sum after the other bikes that were only a few thousand dollars each. When he turned fourteen, he got the Alaskan guided tour and cruise for his five closest friends, and for that Christmas, two weeks in southern Europe by himself, for it was preferrable to being at home with Charles and Cameron, his two brothers, and their father. His mother had protested, but when he agreed to meeting her in Rome for the last two days of his stay, she relented, knowing he would go regardless. At fifteen, he took flying lessons, purchased another bicycle, a limited run sold by Lamborghini, and spent his birthday in Montreal and Christmas in Milos, Greece watching the local boys and those visiting as tourist. He spent lavishly on clothes, colognes, watches, anything to dig into his father’s wealth. He may not inherit any aspect the family holdings, but he would drain them as much as possible before he was forced out on his own. And he drained his father the hardest by forcing an increase in his already exorbitant allowance, investing the money in secret, creating his own wealth that would eventually free him of the ole bastard.

Peyton ascended the steps, entered the vast foyer and headed to the stair, noticing the door to the study open. As he reaches the stair, he hears Cameron and Charles arguing, catching a few words, like percentage, fair, controlling and asshole, and he smiles while ascending it. In his room at the end of the house, the one that overlooks the courtyard and garage area, he sees Cameron’s Ferrari and Charles’ Bentley parked close to the house and he’s tempted to go down and tamper with each but decides he can’t be bothered. Instead, he falls back on his bed replaying his plans for summer. Originally it was going to be Stephan and he going to California to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, then a week in San Francisco, but Stephan had been enticed by a better offer, a trip to Rio with his family. Peyton felt hurt by it, but would never let Stephen, or anyone else see it. He proceeded with his plans, another trip he would do alone, for it was better than being couped up in the house with his father.

He is about to drift off to sleep when his cell phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket and is shocked to see the message on the screen. It isn’t a number from his contacts, or a number at all. It doesn’t say ‘spam’ either. Across the screen is two lines of text, something he didn’t think possible, but he sees it, lighting up the screen.

Answer the phone, Peyton

He smiles, for he amused someone has the power to manipulate his phone, to do the unexpected, thumbing their nose at established systems or protocol. He hits accept and holds the phone to his ear.

“Peyton, you do not know me, but it is imperative we meet. Your life could be in danger.”

“Who is this?” Peyton asked, despite what the caller had just said.

“That is not important right now. How soon can we meet? I’ve just landed and can be in downtown in about forty minutes or so.”

Peyton is more curious than worried about some stranger having his number and he looks at the clock on his nightstand. It reads 11:22 AM and he knows someone will be calling him down for lunch soon. But this stranger’s request to meet is too enticing.

“Do you know the High Museum?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be in the Photography exhibit at one.”

“I’ll be there,” the stranger replies and the connection ends.

Peyton stood in front of a photograph by William Christenberry, considering the image of five cents painted on a brick wall. It was fading and vines were growing up the wall below the small price and to its left. He couldn’t image a time when such a small amount could purchase anything. Even though the image was taken in Alabama, the adjacent state, it still seemed so alien to his privileged eyes. He knew he lived in a manner most did not, and at times he felt a guilt about it. He wondered what life would be like to have to scrimp and save, to go without, or be required to work constantly just to put food on the table.

Focused on the photograph, he was unaware of being watched. From the adjacent gallery, a man who appeared to be mid-forties with brown hair neatly trimmed, wearing a safari jacket that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but on this man, it seemed appropriate, as if everyone could see he just arrived from Africa. The man approached Peyton, moving silently across the room until standing next to him, close enough to garner his attention but not too close that would make him nervous.

“I assume you are my secret caller?” asked Peyton, not looking around.

The man smiled, amused at the confidence exuded by someone he considered so young. There appeared to be no apprehension at his strange request.

“Yes.”

“And should I ask why me?”

“It would be a logical question.”

“And?”

“My name is Terryl Fon…well, that is not exactly true. My real name is Tegid Foel.”

“Tegid Foel? What kind of name is that?”

“A very old one.”

“And tell me, Tegid, what business do you have with me?”

No one had ever made the mistake of cutting his name in half, but Tegid Foel let it slide, instead leading Peyton to another image, of a wooden wall, shown in several images decaying, being grown over, and ultimately falling down.

“Time is a funny thing,” Tegid Foel whispered, then he turned to Peyton. “You were born on the night of the storm sixteen years ago, correct?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“The sky that night was green, and it is a foretelling of things to come.”

Peyton stifles a laugh, putting his hand over his mouth as he looks around at Tegid Foel, wondering if meeting him was a mistake.

“Laugh if you will, but it’s true.”

“And you’ll prove it?”

“Not today. Today, I’m here to give you something. Consider it a birthday present, although not nearly as showy as that Porsche you bribed out of your father, but far more important,” said Tegid Foel, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a small metal box. He held it out, hand flat with the box sitting on his palm.

Peyton considered it, the simple box, but he also felt some notion of its age, the metal tarnished and blackened with age. He took it from Tegid Foel and rubbed a finger over the smooth corners, across the small hinges, then over the top feeling the stamped image of the moon.

“What’s inside?”

“Inside is the gift. The box is just a box,” Tegid Foel lied, knowing the box was important too.

Peyton put his finger to the circular hasp, and started to rotate it, when Tegid Foel reached over and pulled his finger from it.

“Not here. Wait until you are alone, then open it.”

“Then what?”

“Keep it hidden, and the day will come when you’ll know it is time to take it out.”

“Just like that? I’ll know?”

“Trust me.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Very well, humor a stranger with an odd request.”

Peyton scoffed, turning back to the photographs, letting his eyes scan them, going from the oldest image to the newest, seeing the subject deteriorate. When he looked around to ask another question, he was alone. Looking around, the man was nowhere in sight. Then despite where he stood, he laughed, aloud, until a staff member asked him to be quiet.

He pulled his car into the garage and eased into the house, not wanting to talk to anyone. He used the servant’s stair up to the third floor and down the hall to his room, easing the door closed and locking it. He went to his desk and sat the box on it. He felt the edges of the box again, feeling the smoothness of each. He traced the moon, then impatient to see what was within, he spun the hasp, feeling it click, releasing the top. Lifting the lid, he saw the necklace lying on leather, and lifted it out by the fine chain. A pendant hung before him. A serpent, the body shaped like lightning, zig zagging from the head. He watched it spin around slowly and felt it, some power contained in it. His hand tingled as if a mild charge had been released through the chain.

On the backside of his desk sat a Newton Cradle balance ball set, the shiny metal balls hanging from thin cables from the black metal frame. He moved the necklace close to it, and saw the balls vibrate. Moving it to the right end of the set, the balls began to move, the entire line pulling toward the pendant.

“What are you?” asked Peyton of the pendant, and he knew it was not something to let anyone else see, especially one of his brothers. Not understanding why, he put the necklace back in the box, spun the hasp until it locked and carried it to the wall safe within his closet. Only the staff knew of it and what was inside, only his attorney was privileged with that information. The box would be the one thing that was his alone, something no one else knew about except for that strange man with the strange name. Tegrid, or Tigry, or whatever it had been.

White Rock, Tennessee

Tegid Foel drove along the twisting road coming out of White Rock. He had flown into Tri-Cities from Charlotte that morning, and with a rental car, headed to Johnson City. After a lunch in the town, he drove southeast to White Rock and now headed south along the edge of Cherokee National Forest, knowing his destination was within it. He had not called ahead for he saw how he would meet young Ezra. Wearing his best hiking books, and pants made for the rigors of hiking and climbing, and a shirt that would wick away moisture, he was prepared for what lay ahead.

The road curved hard west, and he knew if he stayed on it would take him back north to Tiger Valley. But after a short distance he turned onto a gravel road that cut across a narrow valley, then climbed up the side of a mountain. The boy’s house lay at the end of the road, but he knew not to go that far, instead pulling off at an area, others used to park. With the car locked, he moved to the edge of the small open area and found the narrow trail, one originally made by animals on the mountains, and utilized by the human residents of the area. He saw fresh tracks, a size twelve boot print and knew Ezra Collins was already on the trail.

* * *

Ezra moved along the trail, each step firm and confident. He knew the trail better than most. Every bend, every rock, every root that snaked across its beaten down surface. He strolled easily up and down its changes in elevation. He was sixteen years old and had been hiking the trails since he was so young, his mother had made him hold her hand for most of it. Now his lean body took him up the trial without getting winded.

He never felt more himself than when alone on the mountain. It wasn’t that he was a loner, someone who wanted to avoid the company of others. It was worse. He knew he was gay since he turned thirteen, and as the understanding of this difference became clear to him, the more he worried about being found out. At school, any boy considered gay, or just a bit feminine, was bullied. Some physically, but most in more subtle ways. Ostracizing being the main one. He had only had a few friends, a few who he trusted, but not enough to reveal to them this one secret.

Moving up the trail until he came to his place, a small trail most others never saw, for ferns concealed its first few feet. He turned on it, and climbed the side of the mountain, at times so steeply, he used the understory trees as hand holds, pulling himself up. He came to a rock wall, with boulders laying at its base that had sheared off, and he moved to a fissure in its face, squeezing in. Within the narrow gap, the rock face had natural steps that allowed him to climb upward until he was near the top and with a final jump, grabbing the edge of the top, he pulled himself up. He stood and looked out over the valley below and sensed something powerful in the air. Some natural force of nature he imagined he alone felt. He sat down, legs dangling over the side and began to daydream, as he did often. He imagined castles on old mountains, knights in shiny armor battling at its base. Then he imagined stormy seas, and boats with men lining the starboard and port sides, each holding a long oar fighting to keep the boat moving against the swells of the sea. This world would be ancient, inhabited by witches and wizards and ancient magic no one knew the origins. He imagined two young men, much like himself, finding each other against all odds, and they loved each other, lay naked on a rock up on a mountain, where they could see a town and its harbor far below. And they would have sex, and kiss openly, unafraid of being seen.

Ezra imagined different scenarios, but the elements were always the same, as if there was some truth to it. He leaned back, hands resting on the rough rock, and wondered if he would find someone. He knew one way was to leave this place, dare to find a new life in some city, Atlanta, or Charlotte or…it didn’t really matter, for any place would be more accepting than here.

* * *

Tegid Foel followed the footprints up the trail. It was so easy with such a foot size. He moved with a steady pace wondering what place Ezra would go. Was it a cave he could hide within, or was it some rock outcropping that afforded a grand view of the valley? He knew it the latter, for it was as such the time before, and no doubt would be again. He rounded a bend, stepped over a fallen limb, and moved another twenty feet before coming to a stop. The footprints had disappeared, and he knew he missed the place Ezra turned off the trail. He stepped back, slowly looking at both sides of the trails. At a cluster of ferns, he saw it, the trail beyond and he smiled at how it was so naturally concealed. It was perfect, and he eased through them until on the side trail and he continued up its steep descent.

After a short distance, he felt the box vibrating in his pocket. It was something new, having never responded in such a manner before. As he climbed up the trail, the box seemed to vibrate faster, and he wondered what it could mean, sensing Ezra would be the one who could weld the power more fully than any of the others. Maybe he was the one who would bring Zinerva to an end, and thus the prophecy. He tried to imagine such a thing over the centuries but each time there was doubt sown by the images not being clear. But now, he could see it, this boy of the mountains being the one.

Tegid Foel came to a rock face, and he looked up the shear face and how it towered above him. It was ever bit twenty meters high. Looking closer he saw legs hanging over the side and he smiled, shaking his head at what he must do to obtain an audience with this boy. He could wait for him to come down, but there was a chance Ezra would descend another way, and he was impatient to meet this boy. The one who seemed to stir the power within the pendant even before he possessed it.

At the base of the rock, he moved along looking for a way up, knowing something had to be nearby. Then he saw one footprint in the only place on the ground with loose dirt, and it led into a crevice, one almost too narrow for him to enter. He shimmied into it and found the natural stepping of the rock at the back of it and he began to climb. Halfway up, he began to laugh at the absurdity of this climb required of him. He remembered how he met Killian and eventually Ansgar, and it seemed so quaint now, as he struggled to pull himself up another step.

Near the top, he saw how it required him to jump up and grab the top edge of the rock. It amused him, this insane last leap, for when he looked down it was obvious to not make the jump would prove extremely painful, if not fatal. He looked up and jumped.

Pulling up until able to lift himself up and swing his ass around and sit down, Tegid Foel found himself in a place that reminded him of so many other places, but none more so, than that mountain that overlooked the north seas. He glanced over and saw Ezra staring back, shocked someone else had found their way up.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize someone was up here already,” said Tegid Foel, pretending to be surprised to see him.

“It’s okay, but how did you find your way up?”

“A natural sense of direction and a mischievous streak that guarantees trouble,” Tegid Foel replied, letting a smile spread across his lips.

Ezra laughed shaking his head. “Do you have water?” he asked, holding out his water bottle.

“Yes,” pulling out a plastic bottle of water he had purchased in Johnson City.

“I’m Ezra.”

“Thomas…Thomas Fisher.”

“What brings you to the end of the world, Mr. Fisher?”

“This is going to sound a bit crazy, I’m afraid, but Benjamin Ezra Collins, I’m looking for you.”

“You’re looking for me?” Ezra asked in an incredulous tone.

“Yes, for I have something for you.”

“And why would you hike up here to this place just to give me something, someone you have never met before?”

“That is a good question, one that would require explanations too fantastical for belief.”

“Try me.”

“You were born sixteen years ago, during a storm that caused massive flooding in the valleys of these mountains, and the aspect of that night that garnered my attention was the color of the sky that night, something rarely seen.”

“The color of the sky? You mean that greenish tint from the cloud cover?”

“Yes. I’ve seen it before and…” Tegid Foel realizes he is about to lose Ezra, for he senses the skeptical nature of him, distrustful of things not easily explained. “Let me get to the point of my search for you. I want you to have this,” bringing out the metal box that had been his coat pocket. He holds it out in the palm of his hand feeling it vibrate.

“That little metal box?”

“It’s what’s inside that matters.”

Ezra climbs to his feet and moves to Tegid Foel, taking the box and holding it up for a closer look.

“It really looks old, but the craftsman ship is good.”

“It’s very old and it is the best of its time.”

Tegid Foel watches how Ezra looks at the seams along each corner, studies the hinges, then the hasp. A finger traces the moon on the lid, then rubs over the hasp. And like the other boys, Ezra instinctually rotates the hasp until it clicks open, and he lifts the top revealing the necklace inside.

“Jewelry?”

“That’s a superficial way to look at it.”

“It is interesting,” Ezra whispers as he reaches in and lifts the necklace by the fine chain. It hangs before his face as he holds it up studying the shape of the pendant. “A serpent? Interesting. Is it meant to be a symbol of evil, or something else?”

“Something else.”

Ezra reaches for the pendant and when his hand makes contact the winds pick up, blowing hard over the mountain. Then the pendant begins to glow, and Ezra appears to glow, a green haze surrounding him. Tegid Foel stares in surprise, for with Ansgar and Killian, the initial release of power required both pendants and a connection between them. This time, only one pendant, Ezra displays an ability for channeling the power within it on his own, and Tegid Foel wonders what his power will be once combined with Peyton and the other pendant.

Ezra drops the pendant into the box and looks over at Tegid Foel with a confused expression.

“What was that?”

“I’m not sure. It usually doesn’t occur until your older and with the person who possesses the other pendant.”

“There is another one?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, and you’ll have to be patient, for you will not meet them for a couple of years.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Ezra replies, his tone sharp.

“I know in this age, it is best to be skeptical, for most times it is the prudent thing to do, but in this instance, I beseech you to just be patient.”

“So, in the meantime, I’m just to hang on to this and what?”

“Hide it away and when the time comes, you’ll know when to take it out and wear it.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t we see just how fucking far I can throw the damn thing,” Ezra exclaims, taking a step to toward the edge of the rock and rearing back to throw it.

“NO! You can’t do that…please.”

“Then prove to me this is something I should take seriously.”

Tegid Foel climbs to his feet and moves to the edge of the rock facing Ezra. “Very well,” he says in a calm voice then steps off.

Ezra tries to cry out, taking a step forward in a vain attempt to stop him, then he sees Tegid Foel hovering in space, floating out from the rock.

“I’m sorry Ezra, this is really important, and I don’t have time to explain, but there is a reason for everything,” said Tegid Foel as he looks at the stunned Ezra. He thinks of the prophecy, what he knows of it, and how the two boys are to come together and at that time everything will become clear to them. He had thought that was to be the case centuries before with Ansgar and Killian, but after they disappeared, he knew there was much left of the prophecy yet to be fulfilled. It was time for him to go, and let Ezra dwell on what was happening, seeking his own way. In two years, Tegid Foel knew he would be back, but in what capacity he didn’t know. All he did know was Zinerva would be involved in some manner.

“Ezra, I must go. Take care of yourself and know we’ll meet again,” said Tegid Foel as he began to descend. He floated down and when he looked up one last time, he saw Ezra look over the side watching him. Then just as quick, step back, and Tegid Foel knew he meant to rush down and corner him, seeking answers. He descended until his feet touched down, then he turned and started down the path. One turn, then another and he came out to where the rental car was parked. By the time Ezra reached the road he would be in Johnson City preparing to board his flight.

A Witch’s Fury

Zinerva stood on her terrace looking across the city. It was late, after midnight and for the last two days she has sensed the power of the pendants. It was strong, stronger than before, and she knew they were somewhere close, both in the country somewhere. She went back inside, crossed the large living room, and went up the stair to her suite. She walked into the bedroom as the curtains pulled closed. She crossed the room, the side opposite of the closets and bath, and stood at the wall, uttering some incantation. The wall opened revealing another room, round in shape, walls perfectly smooth and painted red. In the middle, the bowl of Netherium holding the shimmering waters of Mithrill. She entered the room and held out her hand, suddenly holding the rod of Nth Metal. She stirred the waters, clockwise, then watched the waters slow, seeking their equilibrium within the bowl.

Images began to form, mountains overlapping a skyline of some city, the two so intertwined she couldn’t make out which city. Then she saw a rock outcropping, massive in size, the face of it flat, and on top a green orb, growing larger and larger and larger until the waters began to boil and the image dissipated.

“No,” Zinerva cried out, wondering what magic could cause the disruption of her seeing. She raised her fist, intent on slamming them down, until an old memory returned to her and her arms burned with its recollection. She waved her hand making the rod of Nth Metal return to its hiding place, then stormed out the room, leaving it to close on its own.

She stormed down the stair only to find one of the staff in the foyer with a tray in hand, awaiting her descent. She reached the bottom of the stair and saw there was an envelope on the tray.

“What is this?”

“A card, I think. It came in today’s mail.”

“The return address?”

“It’s in Africa, a city in Namibia: Windhoek.”

“Windhoek?” Zinerva repeated, curious about who would be contacting her from such a place. She tried to think of someone from her past who might be hiding out, finally reaching out to her, but no names to came to mind. She took the envelope from the tray and walked to the living room. The handwriting was block style letters, revealing nothing of the person who wrote it, and she sensed something was not right by her inability to read the person who handled the envelope. She saw a woman at a post in Africa, and several handlers afterward, but not the one who wrote out the address. She slipped the long nail of her index finger under the flap and easily broke it loose. She saw a light green card inside and felt her heart rate increase. Slipping it out, the side facing her was blank. Turning it over, she gasped, then became red faced with fury, for on that side, painted in beautifully intricate detail, was a green orb and within it two young men embracing each other. Their naked bodies were detailed to the point she could make out the muscular development of each, how one’s biceps bulged as he held the other. She would recognize them without such detail. Killian and Ansgar, intertwined in passion, as they had been on that fateful night. Her hand shook with her rage, and it only grew worse by the one word written beneath the orb.

Remember?

Suddenly the card burst into a white flame, quickly consuming it, turning it into ash. As it fell from her fingers, the ash disappeared, never striking the floor.

An Awakening

Ezra stood with his friends, their parents taking photographs while beaming with proud at them graduating from high school. They posed in a formal stance, then tossed caps into the air laughing. Then everyone began to file out of the school’s parking lot, some heading into town for an early dinner, others to a party or a trip to the beach. Ezra climbed into his parents Explorer, letting the façade of earlier fall from his face. He stared out as his dad drove them home.

He had been invited to Jason’s house for a party, to the diner with Jessica’s family, and to hike up in the mountains with Robbie, camping out for the night, but he declined each invitation. He was anxious and felt a need to get home. He had been feeling this way ever since meeting Thomas Fisher at his secret place and given the necklace.

After coming down the mountain, finding Mr. Fisher already gone, he had walked home and stayed in his room until the next morning, just staring at the necklace lying in the metal box. He was drawn to it in a way that scared him. For the longest time, he would come home, do his homework as fast as he could, then take out the metal box from its hiding place. A week passed before he realized his studies were easier, his memory so much better he only needed to read an assignment once. Two teachers accused him of cheating when he aced their next tests. It was his English teacher who unwittingly came to his rescue coming into the principal’s office to praise him on his latest paper, the best in the class she had stated. She knew he hadn’t cheated, for the class wrote the papers in class.

For Ezra, it wasn’t the improvement in his memory and understanding, it was the way the necklace made him feel. His heart beat faster, his eyes focused on the smallest of detail, and he felt something in the air, as if it were charged. When sitting in the dark late at night, propped up against the headboard in bed, he would sit the open box in his lap and watched amazed as the necklace glowed. It was a green hue, just bright enough to see, and when he dared to lift the necklace by the chain, his fingers tingled, and the glow grew brighter. Every time, he felt its power.

After dinner, Ezra retired to his room, stripped down his boxers, and climbed onto his bed. Legs crossed, he sat in the middle of it and pulled the metal box from under his pillow. He opened it and lifted the chain out, holding it up, letting the pendant slowly spin. A sphere formed around him, as it had been doing for the last two months. It encircled him, spreading out until it filled his room.

“Who am I waiting for?” he uttered in a low voice, feeling the time was drawing near.

Everything felt different, even the air around him. He closed his eyes and imagined he could feel it against his skin, in his blood, and sending impulses through his nerves. He fell back, eyes rolling back until only the white of the eyes were visible and he began to shake and jerk about with a seizure. The room glowed brighter as he shook violently. Then he fell calm, breathing normal once again. He opened his eyes and could see. Not only his room, but he could see a mountain, then a wide dry desert. He saw a woman, her face twisted in anger. Then he saw him, driving fast along an interstate in a sports car. He saw the green eyes staring ahead, and a face he found attractive, and hanging around the neck, he saw a necklace like his own. Christopher Peyton Wilcox…Peyton. Then a mountain trail came into view, winding along the side of a mountain.

Ezra closed his eyes to stop the visions, and he relaxed on the bed. He slowed his breathing, then floated upward, slowly, until hovering over his bed. There was a release of static electricity, green in color, arcing out to the sphere’s surface.

The Witch Knows

Zinerva is wandering the streets of Savannah, feeling a new magic permeating everything. The foolish people considered it old, something mysterious, and she laughed out loud at the notion. They knew nothing of old magic. She walked past the Hamilton-Turner Inn and scoffed at what passed as a haunting. She stopped and looked up at the front façade, admitting to herself she did like its architecture. She crossed the street and strolled into Lafayette Square. She was at the fountain when her head began to hurt. It was so sudden and so painful she bent forward and gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. Tears pooled in her eyes as the pain increased, making her loose her balance and fall. She rolled to her back, hearing the voices of others, then she saw people standing around her, their lips moving but she heard nothing they were saying.

Then they disappeared and she saw a young man floating in space, hovering over a bed. He was within a green orb and appeared calm. She felt the power coming from him and she felt terrified, for he was alone, not yet connected with the other. Then she saw what he saw, the other young man driving fast up an interstate, the necklace around his neck.

Zinerva screamed, making the people around her step back. She screamed in pain, then anger, finally because she could. It pushed the vision from her mind and stopped the headache. She sat up and looked around. Someone said something about an ambulance, another about lying back, but she ignored them all, climbing to her feet and walking away. She raced down Charlton Street, cut in by Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home and vanished.

The End Draws Near

Tegid Foel comes out of the airport to the car waiting for him. The driver opens the back door, and he climbs into the back seat of the white Mercedes. As the driver pulls around the drive leaving the airport, he looks at the skyline of downtown Charlotte off in the distance. It has been two years since his last visit, and he found himself feeling anxious with this return. He had felt it, months ago, how Ezra was gaining strength and increasing in power. The two years living with the necklace had been more transforming than with any of the others.

The driver gets to the parkway and turns toward I-85. They are not going to downtown but heading toward the mountains. It would have been faster to fly to the Tri-Cities Airport, but Tegid Foel knew he had time, for there were events yet to play out. The drive would give him time to think of the prophecy and what had been unfolding, and how they were connected.

As the driver merged on the interstate, heading west, he wondered what Zinerva was doing now. She was Savannah, roaming the streets like a succubus, ready to terrorize the people without provocation, but in the last few hours Ezra’s power had increased dramatically, and there was no way Zinerva was unaware. She would act out, and soon, for fear of the two young men gaining in strength until she could no longer deceive herself into thinking she had the power to defeat them.

Tegid Foel wasn’t sure why he was racing to the mountains, for there was nothing he could do, but watch. But he had to be there to observe, to see the final aspects of the prophecy unfold. He had wondered why events had occurred as they had, first with Killian and Ansgar, then centuries later, with Ezra and Peyton. He knew Zinerva had been planning on unleashing untold destruction on the people to bring them to their knees, and Killian and Ansgar stopped her, put her into a comatose state, allowing for the next phase of the prophecy to be set in motion. But why it spread out over such a long span of time, he didn’t know. With Ezra, once joined up with Peyton, he knew without doubt, this would be the final phase.

The Joining

Peyton raced up the interstate, pushing the limits of what he could get away with, eyes constantly on the lookout for state troopers. He had the top down, letting the wind and sun surround him. The necklace hung around his neck and he felt its warmth against his chest. At times he believed it vibrating, as it seemed to have done in the last few months. He had been taking it out with more frequency, holding it up to watch the pendant spin slowly around, wondering why he was so drawn to it. It made him feel like something was missing, some part of his life not yet fulfilled.

He had gone through the graduation ceremonies, forcing his father to attend, knowing his obsession about appearances. And when everyone else was going to find their parents for hugs and praise and photographs to maintain the memory of the day, he had slipped out a side door and gone to his car. It was packed with camping gear, and the provisions he would need to hike for a few days. He was going off the grid, leaving his father to wonder about his whereabouts. Why he chose this over something more accommodating to his taste, such as a luxury hotel on some Caribbean island, he wasn’t sure, but there was something about getting to the mountains that seemed important. He felt drawn to them, like some answer awaited him.

He knew there would be no return to Atlanta. He had his money safely hidden in offshore accounts, and investments in properties around the world under names his father would never come to know. He had broken up with Bryce, said goodbye to his closest friends and closed his social media accounts. He meant to leave no trace of his departure. He was even going to sell the car, and he had arrangements for a new one in Greenville, South Carolina.

It was dark when Peyton arrived in Johnson City, a small town that was near some trails he wanted to hike. He found his hotel and checked in. After a quick dinner, a long hot shower, he fell on the bed and lay there for a few minutes wondering what he was doing in this particular place. He remembered searching online for trails he could hike for two to three days at a time. He found the AT, and small trails in national forest or parks, and after scanning the options, he settled on those near Roan Mountain. The area seemed to beckon him, just as he had felt compelled to take out the necklace and put it on that morning. He wore it during graduation, then on the drive up with an odd sense it was guiding him somewhere.

The next morning, he put on a loose-fitting shirt, leaving several buttons undone, letting the pendant hang around his neck exposed. He put on cargo shorts, wool socks, and the new hiking boots. He put his gear and provisions in the backpack, layering everything in a manner instructed in one of the videos he watched on backpacking. He moved in front of the mirror looking at his reflection. He still saw the teenager who was yet a man, but he felt at the threshold of change. He pushed his dark hair back and looked into the green eyes staring back. Grabbing up his keys, wallet, and cellphone, he stepped away from the mirror and headed out.

He drove slowly down 107 until he came to 395 and he turned to the east heading to Indian Grave Gap, an access point for the Appalachian Trail. He planned to hike all the way to where the trail crossed 19E, then he would figure out how to get back to his car, willing to walk to Johnson City if that were what it required. Backpack slung to his back and secured, he set off, getting the feel of walking with the weight on his back and his feet settled into the new boots. His pace was slow at first, but after a short distance he was moving along the trails steadily. He climbed steps, moved around the sharp bends of switchbacks until up on a ridge where he stopped at vistas of the valley below. And as he hiked further along the trail, he felt like he was getting close to something. The pendant felt warm against his chest and he felt stronger, his stamina so much better he was not even breathless.

He rounded a bend, made his way over some rock, and began to increase his speed when he stopped. He looked around and saw a small side trail that wound up the mountain, and it seemed to beckon him. He even thought, he heard his name called out. Looking around it was obvious no one was around, but when he looked up the side trail, he was compelled to take it.

It was narrow, at times ferns raking his ankles as he negotiated its winding path. It was switchbacks for most of the way up, and just below the ridge, he came out to a rock outcropping. It jutted out from the side of the mountain, and sitting on the end of it, legs dangling over the side, was a young guy about his own age. From behind, he could see wavy blonde hair and a lean body. But there was something else about him, some pull that lead him to step up on the rock. He moved out on it, tentatively taking one step, then another until he was only a few feet behind the guy.

“Peyton, you made it. I’ve been waiting for you,” said the guy without turning around.

“You’ve…been waiting for me? But I don’t know you?”

The guy turned and Peyton nearly gasped at the attractive face and the blue eyes that looked up at him. Then he saw the necklace with its familiar pendant lying against the front of his shirt.

“You have the other pendant,” Peyton uttered.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why you have it?”

“I think so. Do you?”

“No…I mean…I get this sense something is going to happen. That we’re meant to meet.”

“I’m Ezra, by the way.”

“Ezra,” Peyton repeated, then he moved up next to him, suddenly aware how high they were on the rock and he eased down, keeping back from the edge. “What now?”

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Okay. I’m the fourth child of an ass…I mean…let me back up and start again,” said Peyton, and he spoke of his parents, his older siblings and his life of privilege, and how his father used it to keep his silence.

“Silence? About what?” asked Ezra.

“I’m gay.”

Ezra laughed, shaking his head.

“What’s so funny?”

Ezra looks around at Peyton, his eyes looking more vividly blue than from earlier, and he smiles, and Peyton smiles back, feeling the stirrings of his desires.

“I’m gay too, although up here I could not be open about it.”

“Must have been lonely.”

“Yes.”

“What about your life?”

“Not much to tell really,” Ezra replied, then he told Peyton of his life on the mountains. When he finished, he climbed to his feet and held out a hand to Peyton. “Shall we hit the trail. We need to get further along before Zinerva arrives.”

“Zinerva? Who is that?”

“In the past, she was called a witch, but that is really a crude way of describing her. But she is one not to be taken lightly.”

“Is she why we are meant to meet?”

“Yes,” Ezra replies, as he leads Peyton back to the trail.

It scared Peyton, and at times made him doubt his sanity, for it couldn’t be real. But then he considered Ezra, and what he knew about him before they even met. He followed him down the narrow trail, wondering where it would lead.

“How do you know this?” asked Peyton when they had gotten back to the Appalachian Trail.

“Does the pendant not speak to you? You know, reveal things?”

“No, not really. I just get these feelings, a sense of what I should do.”

“Like come for a hike?” Ezra asked, looking back with a questioning stare.

“Something like that.”

“What has the pendant revealed to you?” Peyton asked after they had gone up the trail for a while.

“Zinerva is looking for power and control out of a sense of revenge. It is an excuse as old as man himself, but no less serious. The pendants were used against her before. How I’m not sure, but she was defeated and left greatly diminished in some manner. She is now back to her old self and seeking revenge.”

“Against us? We’ve done nothing to her.”

“We’re in possession of the pendants.”

“But can we defeat her?”

“Yes.”

“When will we meet her?”

“Day after tomorrow at sunset.”

“You know the exact time?”

“And the place. Come on, we’ve got some ground to cover.”

It is near sunset when Ezra leads Peyton off the trail and down into the woods. They descend the slope, working around rock and fallen trees. Near the bottom, the ground levels out in one area, and just beyond Peyton hears water rushing over rock.

“We’ll camp here for the night,” said Ezra as he slips his backpack off.

“How did you know of this place?”

Ezra looks at Peyton and smiles. “I grew up here, remember.”

They set up their tents, unroll sleeping bags, and build a fire in the middle of the rock. As Peyton strokes up the fire, Ezra takes something from his backpack and goes to the edge of the rock where it cantilevers over the creek below. With his back to Peyton, he conceals what he is doing, but suddenly he is tugging upward, pulling at a line and a small trout lands on the rock.

“One more and its dinner time,” said Ezra, glancing back at Peyton. “Do you know how to clean it?”

“I think so,” Peyton replies, recalling fishing trips down in the keys, watching their guides clean the day’s catch.

Ezra soon pulls another trout from the creek and he moves next to Peyton, who is staring at the poorly scaled fish. “Let me,” he says, sliding the fish over in front of him. “Look in my backpack for a blue bag. It’ll have cookware in it.”

With the sun below the horizon and the sky darkening, already inky black in the east, they have the fish sizzling in a pan with butter as Peyton boils water for the freeze-dried vegetables. They move quietly around each other, Ezra focused on the fish and Peyton looking from the boiling water to Ezra, wondering how he could be so attractive to someone he just met. Someone of this rural mountain area who is his opposite in every way.

The vegetables ready and the fish cooked, they sit by the fire and eat. For Peyton it is the best fish he has ever eaten. Not only for its freshness, but because he was starving. He eats with a relish, savoring every bite, and when he sets his plate to the side, he sees Ezra is still eating, slowly, taking his time.

“You know all of these trails?” Ezra asked.

“Most of them,” Peyton replies, then he looks over, face in shadow, “but that is not what you want to ask, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Ask me.”

“You seem so knowledgeable about what is happening. You even knew me by name, and I feel like I know nothing. How?”

“I don’t know, but this,” holding up the pendant, “shows me things. I can see…images of things. Like your name, I saw your driver’s license when you showed it to someone, a big guy at an entrance to a club or something.”

“You saw my license?”

“Yeah.”

Peyton considers it, how Ezra is more attuned to the pendant, able to channel the power he himself only senses. He cannot but help to wonder what his purpose is in all of it, why he is even needed, but then images came back to him; lying with Ezra, bare torsos moving against each other. Looking at Ezra, hoping the dark shadows conceal what would be evident in his stare, he thinks about how attracted to him he feels. It’s insane, for this is his first time meeting Ezra, a boy of the rural mountain region who is unlike any other he has met. But he stares, unable to look away when Ezra looks back at him.

“You do feel it, don’t you?” Ezra utters.

“Do you…like me?” Peyton ask, unsure how far to go.

“I feel like I’ve known you all my life, then at times you are a mystery, something I’m to discover…and there have been images that I’m too embarrassed to admit.”

Peyton laughs nervously, then leans back resting on his hands, for it is comforting to hear Ezra admit to his own discomfiture.

“Same here,” Peyton finally admits. He thinks of their day together, and how he followed Ezra, looking at the lean muscular body, amazed at its stamina. There were times he couldn’t look away from the sun’s reflection off the blonde hair, or how he would nearly trip when Ezra would look back, most often with a smile. Then there were the eyes, so vivid blue, they looked like gems, sparkling in the light, as they were now, the firelight reflected in them as Ezra was watching him again.

“To answer your question…I do find myself attracted to you,” Ezra admitted, his voice so low Peyton barely heard it.

“Do you think it is some voodoo shit with the pendants, or is it real?”

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe…maybe not.”

“I’ve seen myself kissing you so often, just leaning over and…it seemed so simple, but…”

Peyton sits up, then rolls to his hands and knees. He moves across the rock, until close to Ezra, who pulls back just a little, then stares at him.

“Let me, okay?”

Ezra nods his head, and Peyton moves closer, hands resting either side of him, and he leans closer, holding the stare. When Ezra closes his eyes, he closes his own, and leans forward until he feels the tug around his neck of the pendant pulling outward. He feels the power of it, and as his lips touch Ezra’s, he knows immediately the pendants have come together.

A green sphere, perfectly round, hovering over the ground. Red and blue lights flashing. Tegid Foel, a strange name but a familiar face. Explosions. Then a vast desert.

Two bodies intertwined. Their own.

Peyton slides a hand up a thigh, over the stomach until pressing against the chest and he can feel the rapid beating of the heart. He feels a hand rub up his arm, slide over his shoulder then cup the back of his neck.

“Peyton,” Ezra whispers and suddenly hands are tugging on his shirt, working the buttons free. Peyton pulls back and lets the shirt be slipped from his shoulders. The hands move to his shorts, working the button loose, then tugging down the zipper. He comes to his knees letting the shorts fall around his legs. He sees Ezra hesitate, pull back, unsure how far to go. He stares at the blue eyes as he slips his boxers down, then works each leg free, leaving him naked, and his cock responding to his arousal.

Peyton moves to Ezra, works the shirt off, then pushes him to lay back and he tugs the shorts and boxers down the long legs, desperate to have him naked. He takes the growing cock, strokes it, then moves down, slipping it into his mouth.

Ezra lays back, head tilted upward, eyes closed, as he feels Peyton on his cock. The lips that move up and down it. The tongue that glides along the shaft then tortures the head with the way it swirls around it, then bores into the slit, making him shiver with the manipulation. The pendant tugs at his neck, stretching out toward its mate.

Then he feels his cock hovering in the cool air, flexing with arousal, and he raises his head. Peyton is up on his knees, moving over him, up his legs until hovering over his cock. He watches Peyton ease down then work his ass back and forth. His pinned down cock, stroked by the ass bearing down on it makes him cry out, and he grabs each of Peyton’s thighs, digging fingers into the flexing muscle.

When Peyton rises and takes him in hand, he watches with fascination and desire and a lust for another that is overwhelming, as Peyton eases down penetrating himself on his cock. He watches as inch after inch disappears, until Peyton is seated on it.

Peyton begins to move, up, then down, slowly at first and when he leans forward, their pendants connect again, and this time they begin to glow. They feel the power of their connection, something ancient and powerful and revealing about their natures. Peyton kisses Ezra as he moves up and down. He feels hands on his waist and a push upward as he moves down.

For Ezra it consumes him, the raw passion of their copulation, and he understands the visions of the last few months with a new wisdom. He pushes upward, feeling his cock sink into Peyton. The soft heat of the penetration and he tries to push deeper. Opening his eyes, he sees the green glow that surrounds them, then he sees Peyton, right above him, face flush, mouth open, and eyes staring back. He sits up, encircles the body, feeling it move within his arms. He feels the heat of the body, the slickness of the skin against his own. He kisses the place just below the neck as cock rubs up his stomach and chest.

It makes Peyton shudder, the feel of his cock against Ezra. He’s so aroused it leaves a slick trail in its wake and he struggles to maintain the rhythm of their fuck. He moves with greater physicality, body undulating and muscles straining with his exertions. He feels Ezra, the need emanating from him, a desire that threatens to consume them both. He feels the lips against his skin once again. There is a nip, then the hungry drag of tongue over it. Ezra presses his face against his chest and cries out, shuddering with release. It’s too much, the feel of another in the throes of release and his own surges through him and he jerks and shudders as his cock erupts, shooting wads of cum up Ezra’s chest.

One tent remains empty, the other holding the tangled limbs of two bodies in sleep, after being intertwined in sex. They sleep naked, the sleeping bags pulled over them, and in their sleep, they utter words to the other they were too afraid to say earlier.

A Day Before the Reckoning

Tegid Foel took a long shower, dressed in black slacks, a white polo shirt and black dress shoes. He went out to his rental car and drove into town to a small diner for breakfast, the atmosphere casual and staged with crafts. The patrons were mostly local residents, and they gave him curious looks, some even staring, as he was led to a table at the front window.

With black coffee and later a plate with two eggs, sausage, and toast, forgoing the grits, he sat up and ate leisurely. He knew the timeline, and today was not the day. He knew where the two young men were on the trail and how it would be tomorrow when Zinerva would figure it out. Her ability to see still compromised by the events of so long ago, and by some manipulation of his own, forcing the timeline to stay ordered.

After paying for breakfast, Tegid Foel rode into the mountains, finding an overlook the let him look toward the area he knew Ezra and Peyton were hiking the trail. He stared into the trees as if he could see them for the longest time, then he smiled at the knowledge it would soon be over. Zinerva would not get her revenge against this old power, enabling a return to her original schemes.

Back in the rental car, he sat with the engine idling, wondering if it was advisable to spend the day just enjoying himself, but he looked at the blue sky, only a few clouds drifting across it, and smiled, as he slipped the car into drive and pulled onto the mountain road and headed further away from town and deeper into the mountains.

Peyton followed Ezra on the trail, their pace once again fast and steady. They moved by other hikers with the pleasantries one would never do back in urban environments, and navigated the grade changes with stamina that surprised him. They crossed a narrow stream, the water making the softest of trickling sounds as it worked around rock, then climbed up a switchback on a grade so steep, each turn was forty feet above the last. Peyton keep his eyes on the trail where the footing was loose or stepped, otherwise he watched Ezra, thinking of the night before and earlier that morning, when at first light, they had sex again.

Peyton had woke first that morning, right at first daylight and he lay still, Ezra against his back, with one arm around his chest. The warmth of Ezra, with his rhythmic breathing, was too comforting for him to disturb. Reaching up, he ran his fingers along the necklace, feeling how it was pulled back, and he knew the pendants were still connected. He didn’t need this physical confirmation, for he felt it too. The power radiating from them. He could see it too, the green illumination that surrounded them. It made the air still with a warmth that made their nudity while lying on top of sleeping bags, of no consequence.

Ezra had stirred, then pressed tightly to his back while kissing the back of the neck.

“Can we?” Ezra had asked.

Peyton was soon lying on his back, legs against Ezra’s chest held tightly together. Ezra moved rhythmically, and he felt it, the way cock piston in his hole. It would push into his depths, then tug outward, and he clutched at the sleeping bags beneath him and took it, every thrust.

“Fuck...Ezra...fuck me...harder,” Peyton had uttered.

Erza pushed his legs down until thighs were pressed against his chest. Hovering over him, Ezra fucked harder, faster, the smack of bodies coming together echoing around them. Peyton reached up, hugging Ezra around the neck, pulling him down. He wanted to feel the weight of him, and the undulation of the body as it bore into his depths. It was hot against his legs, the skin becoming slick agianst his own. The tent grew hot, their breathing labored, as Ezra fucked relentlessly.

Then Ezra had rose up, body arched back as he cried out with his release. Jamming cock repeatedly into Peyton’s depths, Erza shuddered with each ejaculation until spent. When he pulled free, Peyton saw he was still hard, cock wet and dripping, and he pushed Ezra to his back, moving over him. He had moved quickly on top, penetrating himself on the still hard cock. He rode it roughly while stroking his own. The way Ezra’s cock worked his hole, moving through the tight opening, made him so aroused he didn’t want the moment to end. He wanted to forget why they were on the mountain, to forget Thomas Fisher and this witch, Zinerva, who would come to them on the next day. He wanted to forget Charles Preston Wilcox III and his life back in Atlanta. Moving up and down on Ezra, his body became hot and sweaty, every muscle feeling tight with his exertions.

Arms had wrapped around his chest and pulled him back until resting on top of Ezra and he spread his legs wider as Ezra pumped cock into his depths. There was a kiss on his neck, then a tug at his ear. Then a soft breathless whisper.

“Don’t leave me,” Ezra had uttered.

Peyton had never been asked such a thing. Never heard such need, and beneath it, a fear it would happen. The pendants reconnected and the tent glowed brighter and Peyton saw it, the sphere that surrounded them. It glowed brightly, radiating its power. He threw his head back, pushed his ass down on Ezra’s cock and came, spraying cum over his chest and stomach.

Hands moved over his back, while cum smeared between them as he lay heavily on top of Ezra, taking every push into his depths.

“I’m going to...” Ezra uttered, then shuddered beneath Peyton with his release.

After cleaning up in the stream, eating breakfast, they had packed up and hit the trail. Now they were crossing over a ridge, getting a view of valleys on both sides of the mountain.

“Wow, look at that view,” Peyton exclaimed as they took a minute to admire it.

“If you stay with me, you’ll always have it,” Ezra whispered, barely loud enough for Peyton to hear, and before getting a response, he began to hike again.

As before, Ezra led them to a place off the trail, and it too was beside a stream. There was a small level area in a bend, and something about the surrounding trees, slope of the land around it and maybe even some ancient power, that distorted the sound of the water trickling over rock that made it seem to eminate from all around it.

One tent set up, no longer pretending two were needed, they stripped off their clothes and walked out into the stream. The water was only ankle deep and to Peyton, freezing cold. He was shivering, lips turning blue, when Ezra moved up to him, standing close enough for the pendants to float out to each other and connect. The green sphere formed around them, grew in size until it was wider than the stream. Ezra smiled, knowingly, as the air warmed, then the water as it flowed through the wall of the sphere.

“How are you doing this?” Peyton asked, smiling with child like glee.

“I’m not sure, but I want you to be comfortable,” Ezra replied, then he leaned to Peyton bringing their lips together.

Ezra guided Peyton back until sitting on a large rock and he went to his knees, moved up between spread legs and took him in his mouth. With a slow patience, Ezra moved his lips along the growing cock, then kissed the head. He licked it, then licked down the shaft. He took each nut into his mouth, tugging slightly on them until Peyton’s cock flexed with arousal. He dragged his tongue up the shaft and captured the bead of liquid pooling in the slit. Then he slipped his lips over the flared head and sank his mouth down until his nose was buried in pubic hair.

While sucking on Peyton, Ezra began to toy with his ass, rubbing fingers over the tight opening. Peyton spread his legs, encouraging the manipulation, and Ezra sank his mouth down on the cock and pushed his middle finger through the tight opening, penetrating him as deeply as his finger would allow. With his mouth manipulating Peyton’s cock and his fingers prying loose Peyton’s hole, Peyton soon cried out and filled his mouth.

Ezra lifted Peyton’s legs, moving underneath them, and when he stood, he brought them up, then spread them out as his cock fell naturally in alignment with the loosened hole. He pushed into it and watched as Peyton stroked his slick cock, keeping it hard.

He fucked slowly, building up his arousal. He warmed slowly by his slow exertion, but eventually his body glistened with a green glow.

Peyton lay on the rock with eyes closed for the longest time, focused on the feel of Ezra inside his body. The steady push inward, going deeper than what seemed possible. He felt alive, more so than ever before. Every sense focused on how Ezra was making him feel. It didn’t seem possible, but when came again, it was more powerful than the first. Cum hit him in the face, then rained down on his chest and stomach while Ezra bore into his depths. He shuddered and cried out shamelessly, not caring if some other hiker could hear.

Ezra felt Peyton’s release, how the tight opening spasm around his cock, and he piston into faster until he too shuddered with release.

Ezra bathed Peyton, gently drizzling warm water from his hands over the chest and stomach. He rubbed cum and dirt and sweat from the skin until it was clean, then he would kiss it, letting Peyton know he was finished. He helped him stand and when they pulled apart, the pendants separating, the sphere remained.

“What’s happening? Why did it not dissipate as before?” asked Peyton.

“We don’t need the physical connection between them any longer,” Ezra replied.

Peyton felt the power radiating from Ezra, not understanding his role in it. He found it eery at first, how the sphere moved with them, expanding as needed to keep both of them within it. But looking through it, seeing the wind pick up, knowing the mountain was cooling down as darkness settled over it, he found himself accepting the warmth and protection it provided.

What neither understood, was how it was distorting time and space, concealing them from the witch. It was not yet time. Instead it was a time for Peyton and Ezra.

At Sunset, It Ends

Zinerva stands at the vessel, furious at its refusal to show her what she knows is happening. She can feel it, that ancient power once again out there, being utilzed by someone. It made her restless for most fo the night and when she did sleep, there were visions of the most nightmarish nature. She struggled to hold herself together, finding gray in her hair and noticing wrinkles at her eyes. She stirred the silvery waters seeing green mist and water cascading over rock and two bodies moving together, but nothing that showed a location. She knew it was south, some location in the Appalachian Mountains.

She moved out of the chamber and through her apartment until on the terrace overlooking the city. She looked south, for that is where she was drawn to look. Hands on the railing to steady herself, she knew the only way was to get closer, to draw near enough to feel the power more fully. She turned and saw one of her staff coming toward her with a tray in hand. Her cell phone lay on it, and she picked it up, watching the number she wanted come up, then it was dailing it.

“Yes, Ms. Zinerva?” came the voice over it.

“Get the jet ready, I need to be in...” she hesitated, unsure at first, like she had been so often over the centuries since that night on the mountian. She pictured the land, the shape of it, how it lay below her, ancient, with many secrets hidden within it. “Tri-Cities,” she uttered.

“Excuse me?”

“Tri-Cities Airport. Do you know it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there within the hour. Be ready to take off.”

“Yes, mam.”

Tegid Foel sipped the dark black coffee he had purchased on the way, and now he sat at an overlook, watching the sun rise higher and higher in the eastern sky. In a little over two hours it would high above and starting to make its way across the western sky. He smirked at the primitive notion the sun was moving around the earth, a way of reference from such a foolish age, not that the current one was much better. Despite man’s past accomplishments in space travel, going to the moon, and sending satellites out into the solar system, there were still those that clung to the most insane notions, none more ridiculous than the earth was flat. No wonder so many were so easily fooled, this country nearly falling into chaos much as the Roman Empire had done. He knew eventually it would happen, but to what degree was up to the people, and it seemed far too many wanted to burn the place down if they couldn’t have their way.

Looking out across the valley, he knew somewhere on the trail Ezra and Peyton were hiking north, their fate now very near. He looked north and felt the fury and determination and mixed within each a fear. She was preparing herself, figuring out how to see around the obstacles placed before her. She was in the air, flying south, and would be landing soon.

Peyton felt so nervous he had stumbled over rocks and roots on occasion, and each time Ezra was there to catch him. He sensed it, a knowing he had not felt before. The power was greater with Ezra, and he saw how Ezra moved with a confidence he tried in vain to feel.

They had laid in the tent until sunlight penetrated the tree canopy and illuminated it with a soft amber glow. Ezra had held him all night and that morning, held him longer, whispering in his ear.

“We’ll be fine. I know how to end this,” Ezra had whispered between kisses to the back of the neck.

When they had set out, Ezra set a slower pace, one that allowed them to admire each vista provided by gaps in trees or an outcrop of rock. Lunch had been in a valley, the moutains on each side of them. He had looked up at their soft forms, the jagged nature of their years of growth long gone, and in its place the soft rolling peaks and the green vegetation that blanketed them. He sensed their ancient orgins, older than many dare consider, and there had been a sense of power about them. Maybe it was why it was this place, among all others, the pendants needed to be to bring closure, and stop the witch.

He considered how Ezra looked at the mountains. It was one of reverence and knowing.

The afternoon seemed to pass slowly, conscious of every minute. Peyton’s fear and worry making him painfully aware of each one. But in the way of time, the afternoon passed too quickly too, and as the sun hovered just above the ridges to the west, Ezra turned off the main trial and began climbing up the side of the mountain. Peyton knew not to question him as he followed, each step placed in Ezra’s, using the assuredness of each one for a firm footing. They climbed upward, following what barely constituted a trial, and when he focused on it, Peyton knew it was not a path beaten down by man.

Near the top, Ezra stopped and slipped his backpack off.

“We don’t need these; put your backpack with mine,” said Ezra as he laid his packpack on a rock.

“I’m nervous,” said Peyton as he placed his backpack next to Ezra’s.

Ezra moved to him, kissing him on the lips. “I know, but it’ll be okay. There is not going to be any danger to us.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It is time for Zinerva to cease.”

The way Ezra said it, how Zinerva was not to be stopped, but she was to cease. It sounded so final and he wondered if Ezra meant it in such a way. When he focused his mind, he knew it were the case.

They climbed the last fifty feet to the summit in silence, and at the top Peyton was surprise to find it was a plain space. Just a long narrow clearing on a rolled ground. There was even a dead tree sprawled across one end, the bark split and burnt and he knew it was from lightning. He expected some rock outcropping in some shape that had ancient meaning, or some structure that now lay in ruins. Not the space they were standing within. He moved next to Ezra and they looked over the valleys to each side of them.

“He watches us,” said Ezra looking toward the west at the next ridgeline of mountains.

“Who? Tegid Foel?”

“Yes.”

“What about the witch?”

“She’s on her way.”

The sun slowly sank below the mountains to the west, and darkness descended over the land. The sky was going from red and yellow and orange and violet, to inky black, then it lightened up, every so slightly, as stars became visible.

“Here she comes,” said Ezra, and for the first time, Peyton was aware as well.

They heard the sound of the rotors first, then the lights on its black form. The helicopter came straight toward them flying fast. It zoomed over where they stood, flew out and up over the next valley as it turned around. It came back toward them, its speed much slower and soon was hovering over the far end of the clearing. The door slid open and Zinerva stood it in. She had arrived.

Peyton and Ezra watched as the helicopter hovered some fifty to sixty feet above the clearing. Zinerva stepped out and floated to the ground. They saw the pilot look on in shock, and when he nosed the helicopter down and moved forward, gaining speed as fast as possible, they knew he would not make it back to the airport. The helicopter dived down along the side of the mountain, then pulled up, moving away as fast as it could fly. Zinerva watched it, and when she turned back to the Peyton and Ezra, it blew up in a ball of fire and scattered debris across the valley below.

“That wasn’t necessary,” said Ezra in a normal tone of voice.

“Fool, you can’t let them know,” Zinerva replied, and despite the distance and the noise of the wind, Peyton and Ezra heard as if she was standing next to them.

“This ends now,” said Ezra, and despite the pendants not being connected, the sphere formed aorund them. It glowed brightly, as if a beacon on the mountain top.

Peyton felt the power shared between them and how Ezra was channeling it, controlling it, and without need of the pendants being connected. The connection was there, between the pendants and the two of them. He saw Zinerva hesitate, just for a moment, when she saw the sphere form so quickly.

“You can’t defeat me,” Zinerva cried out, her voice betraying the fury and fear within her. She was no longer sure of herself, doubt welling up that made her ashamed and in it, her fury grew, unwilling to admit how it made her feel weak.

The sphere grew larger, and Ezra looked around at Peyton.

“Peyton, it is large enough.”

Peyton then understood he was the one who controlled the sphere, and it was Ezra who used the power it reflected.

Zinerva’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the sphere gaining size, then she lashed out, sending swirling black clouds at it. They encased the sphere, releasing their energy. Streaks of electrical discharge covered it, but within, Peyton smiled at Ezra, now knowing the futility of Zinerva’s attempt.

When the smoke cleared away, Peyton and Ezra could see a black cloud swirling into existence overhead. It winds increased, spining faster and faster. Leaves and debris were sucked into it, then the fallen tree, then rocks. Trees began to be pulled out of the ground to be sucked into its vortex. But despite it all, the sphere hovered in place, deflected everything that struck it.

“Come out and face me!” Zinerva screamed, then she lifted boulders and hurled them at the sphere to no effect. “Face me!” she screamed again.

Then Zinerva turned to the valley to the west and at a place where lights indicated homes and businesses, she hurled a bolt of lighting at it. Fire mushroomed up from the valley floor.

“Noooo,” Ezra cried out, and he looked at Peyton with a fury that made his face turn red. “Stop her.”

“How?”

“You know how...the sphere.”

As Zinerva struck the valley again, black smoke roiling up from where it hit, Peyton tried to calm his mind, to focus.

“Breath,” Ezra whispered in his ear and he closed eyes and took several deep breaths. He opened his eyes and saw the red flashing lights of firetrucks racing across the valley, then the blue ones, police cars heading to the same location. He turned to Zinerva suppressing his fury.

It came to Peyton, what Ezra inferred, and he looked at her with calm clear eyes. The sphere around them dissipated and Zinerva turned to them, no longer looking to sow destruction in the valley. She thought they had given in, but as she brought her attention back to the two young men, the sphere formed in front of her. It was small, but growing fast and when she realized what was happening, starting to step back away from it, it was too late. It encapsulated her.

Peyton and Ezra watched as the sphere floated upward, carrying Zinerva with it. She was furious, lashing out, striking the sides with some primitive useless magic. She recited ancient incantations, pulled out the rod of Nth metal and scratched harmlessly at the sides of it.

“Okay Peyton, what now?”

“Do we know what the effects will be when it happens?”

“No, I can’t see it.”

“Then we need to be somewhere that is safe, away from everything.”

Peyton suddenly did what no other had every been able to do. He formed a second sphere, one to surround them. He moved it close to the other one, seeing the shock on Zinerva’s face, then the distorting by her fury. Peyton looked at Ezra, nodding his head.

“You have to do it; it’s not within my power.”

“I know,” Ezra replied, then he closed his eyes and the two spheres glowed more brightly.

Tegid Foel watched from the other ridge. Zinerva’s silly entrance to the mountain top, the unfortunate killing of the crew, then the strikes in the valley. Then he saw something that brought him to his feet. He was shocked, for the first time in centuries, to see a second sphere form. No vision had ever shown such a power, and he watched as it floated to the other. It was then he came to realize how the power was divided between them. It was Peyton who contolled the sphere, brought the energy into the earthly realm, and creating their connection to it. It was Ezra who weilded the power to use it.

He watched as the spheres glowed brighter and brighter until he had to squint his eyes, then there was one final blinding flash of light, and the spheres were gone.

There was no wind, and rain had not fallen in this barren landscape in months. The sun was low in the western sky and the heat it brought to the desert radiated from the ground. A snake stuck its head out from under a rock, then pulled back into its protected shade.

Suddenly a whirlwind forms, stirring up a dust cloud. It grows larger, then begins to glow. Two spheres appear hovering only a few feet apart. In one, Peyton and Ezra watch the other, where Zinerva has hurled her body to the side of it. They let her screams escape the sphere, listen to her cursing and demands, then they hear another incantation. The interior of her sphere fills with black smoke and there are electrical discharges around its interior surface. Zinerva disappears, only her hands, knees and feet visible where they rest against the side of the sphere.

“She’ll destroy herself in her madness,” Ezra utters as he watches in disgust.

“I can’t watch this,” said Peyton, and he turns to Ezra, “end it.”

Ezra nods, and he wonders about the effect of what he intends to do. Will the sphere contain it, or will there be some release of energy they can not control. He looks at the other sphere and it floats away from them.

“What are you doing?” Peyton asks.

“Getting some distance between us.”

The sphere moves faster and faster until it is a small dot in the horizon, almost invisible to the naked eye, but they can see within it. Ezra looks down, then back up, and they watch it shrink. It grows smaller and smaller. Zinerva screams, throws out blasts of energy that grow weaker as she grows more panicked. The interior refills with smoke, then grows quiet as it shrinks. There is the popping of bone and crushing of flesh and the sphere becomes painted red on the interior. It continues to shrink until it is no longer visible. It shrinks until the energy contained within can no longer be held, and it explodes.

Peyton concentrates, increasing the power of their sphere, as white and flue flames surround them. The sphere wobbles as the air outside of it is a swirling tempest of fire. It seems to last for far too long, but just as fast as it began, it dissipates. They see the ground around them is smoothed out, shiny, reflecting sunlight from the late day sun.

“It’s glass,” Ezra utters as they look at the still smoldering surface.

“Ezra?” Peyton whispers and Ezra turns to him. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be here.”

Two Years Later

The Chevrolet truck with the contractor’s name on each door, drives down the drive back to the highway. The driver, and owner of the company, smiles as he feels his pocket one more time making sure the check is still in it. The punchlist completed and the owners moved in, he has his final payment for the largest project he has done to date. The house isn’t the largest, but it was one of the most unique. It sat in a cove, hidden from its surroundings, and with over three hundred acres of land surrounding it, was assured of maintaining that isolation. It was steel framed and jutted out from the side of the mountain in a manner that made first time guest slightly dizzy. The drive had been one of his most difficult, requiring three bridges and the blasting and cutting of rock in one section to allow access to the remote site. He didn’t understand why the owners had been so adamant about the position of the house, but when he stood on the terrace off the master suite, and watched the water fall over the rock and splash into a small pool below before continuing its descent down the mountain to the creek that ran parallel to the road, he understood. The house seemed to become part of the mountain, with its walls of stone and large expanses of glass that let interior feel a part of the cove.

As he turned on the highway, he saw SUV approach, turn signal on indicating its entent. He had dealt with Peyton Wilcox on most of the construction but he wasn’t naive, and knew Ezra Collins was his partner. It was obvious all through the house, none more so than in the master suite. He waited for Ezra to turn and they waved to each other as Ezra eased past him and headed up the mountain. He watched the SUV disappear around a bend wondering what kind of money and influence it took to get a vehicle not yet on the market.

He accelerated, pulling up his voicemail to listen to two missed calls. A white car was coming from the other direction and when it passed it captured his eye for it was an old sports car from the sixties. It was low and wide and one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen on the road. What he didn’t know was behind the wheel was someone far older. A person who had seen much in the way of man’s history and had been content to stay to the side as much as possible.

Tegid Foel turned into the drive and followed the paved road up the mountain. He navigated the tight curves and accelerated up steep inclines until he was driving into the parking court nestled between the house and the side of the mountain. Before he could climb out of the car, the front door opened and Ezra came out to greet him.

“You made it,” said Ezra as he stepped up to the car to help with Tegid Foel’s luggage. “You still going to stay until next weekend, before flying back?”

“If you’ll have me that long.”

“Of course,” Peyton called out from the front door.

Tegid Foel was put in the guest room on the top floor. It overlooked the cove, and had its own bath and sitting room. He stood at the full height window and looked at the lush cove, knowing how Ezra was so tied to the place. And he knew Peyton was bound to Ezra and in turn, to the place as well. He took a deep breath, still amazed that after two years, everything still felt calm. Yes, mere men still waged war and terrorized each other, demonized some in a vain effort to feel some sense of self-worth. But the darkness that had existed, the corruption of the earth’s inner power; that was gone.

Not sure if it was the place or the absence of Zinerva, but he felt a calm that made him wonder if a week was going to be enough and he contemplated buying his own place in these old mountains. He scoffed at his foolishness, knowing the place that called to him, one not for others, was his place near the old White Mountain. It held so much about his life, he couldn’t stand to be away for too long.

A soft knock at the door.

“Yes, Peyton, come in.”

“Tegid Foel, we’ll have dinner ready about six. You can rest or come on down whenever. We’ll be in kitchen or the sitting area.”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Tegid Foel replied, smiling at how Ezra and Peyton felt at ease around him despite knowing what they did of his past. He had tried to conceal it, but Ezra proved to be cunning as well as calculating.

He looked back out and remembered when they returned, after disappearing on that fateful day. They had only been gone a short time, less than an hour, but when they reappeared, he could see how it effected them. They were exhausted, Peyton stumbling as they approached him on the other mountain peak.

He had asked if it was done, knowing the answer already. He could feel her absence, and Ezra had said yes. When Ezra and Peyton had stood in front of him, he felt their power, and wondered if any other over the course of earth’s history had ever possessed such. It was ironic how they may never need it again. He hoped not, but he knew where to go should the need arise. It was their relationship that intrigued him the most, this partnership that exceeded what was normal. He doubted if anyone could see the bond that existed between them. He knew Peyton’s family couldn’t comprehend it, but he had been at the house while under construction on a day Ezra’s parents came for a tour, and he saw the casual way they moved around each other, accepting of Peyton, referring to him as son, just as they referred to Ezra. He wondered if there was something about them, people of this place, that sensed things differently. They seemed to understand so much about Ezra and Peyton despite having everything that had happened concealed from them.

Tegid Foel eased down the stair, moved through the hall, past bookcases full of books and trinkets from travels and relics discovered on the mountain. He eased into the sitting room where music played softly and looked across it into the kitchen where Peyton stood next to Ezra. Peyton was looking over his shoulder watching him stir something on the cooktop. He saw Peyton whisper in Ezra’s ear, then the two of them laugh and he smiled at the simple nature of it. This moment that was so much more important than any of the past events, for this is where life truly existed.

Epilogue

The winds blow gently off the ocean, making the waves lap at the shore in a soft rhythm. It is nighttime on the island and in the distance, fires burn at the village situated near the shore. The sky is clear and brilliant with stars, and in the east, down near the endless horizon, the full moon hovers in the sky, its silvery light reflecting off the dark waters.

It is late, the hour of man that signals the end of one day, and the beginning of the next, and a small light appears. It is bright, despite its small size. It hovers over the water a few feet out from the shore, then it floats in, flying over crashing waves, then dark sands until it is at the edge of the palm trees where it begins to grow. It continues moving, floating through the trees until it comes to a small waterfall, no more than twenty feet high. The waters fall into a pool, and eventually flow down a stream toward the ocean. The sphere settles on the sand near the pool. It gets larger and larger and its true color is revealed. It is green, and perfectly round. Inside the sphere is a green mist, swirling around like a tempest. Static electricity strikes the interior surface as the sphere grows larger, until it barely fits between the trees. Then its glow softens, and the interior begins to calm.

Slowly, there is a revealing, two figures coming into focus. They are intertwined, locked together in their lust and desires. One cries out, then the other, and they fall still, breathing hard. The sphere dissipates, leaving the two naked bodies lying on the sand. One sits up, looks around in confusion, then laughs, so loud it echoes off the water and bounces through the trees. He leans over and kisses the other, then climbs to his feet.

“Come on Killian, let’s swim,” Ansgar says as he holds out his hand.