Chapter Fourteen

Please proceede to Chapter 15 If You Have Already Read This Chapter

The cave on the other side of the mountain wasn’t much bigger than the one on the opposite side.  “Hello?” Daniel called out cautiously as he looked around at the items present. Table, two chairs, shelf of assorted canned goods in big glass jars, a fire pit with fresh wood and a makeshift bed stuffed off in one corner.  Everything was covered in dirt. “Hello?”  From the back of the cave came a banging and then a rustling sound. Daniel backed up a few feet as he a shadow moving along the wall.  It was very tall and had large pointed ears sticking out of the side of its head.  “I mean you no harm.”

“Company I have.” Grumbled what sounded like the oldest voice in the universe.  “Visit me no one ever does.”

“I’m Daniel.” He called out quietly as he watched the shadow moving along the wall and thought that whatever it was that coming toward him it had to be taller than Ares. “I don’t mean to intrude.”  Whatever the light source was casting the shadow the creature must be carrying it because it too was getting bigger and brighter.

There was more rustling and scuffling before the light went out leaving only the bright sunlight streaming in front outside. “Intrude you do not. Glad for the company I am.”

Daniel kept looking up to see where the voice was coming from but then he heard a loud sniffing sound and looked to the ground.  By the table stood a creature the likes of which he’d never encountered.  It was about three feet tall, almost completely bald, had a greenish color skin and wore tattered old robes.  “Hi,” Daniel stammered glad not to be face to face with a Cyclops or something similar.  He squatted down on his knees so that he was at eye level with the creature. “I’m…”

“Daniel,” the old creature said, “heard you the first time I did. Old I may be, deaf I am not.” Leaning heavily on a rickety cane it hauled its little body into one of the chairs at the table. “Sit.”

Hesitantly Daniel pulled out the other chair and sat down.

“What brings you here?”

“Curiosity.” Daniel said he gazed into what had to be the biggest pair of eyes he’d ever seen.  They were so large Daniel could almost swear he saw entire galaxies within them.

“Very curious you must be.” The creature mused. “To make such a journey to my home. Forgotten I am here most have.”   He let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Daniel offered, “what should I call you?”

The creature looked up at him with enormous eyes. “Adoy Retsam I am. Tea you like?”

The ancient being began to climb down from the chair but Daniel stopped him. “No, thank you.” He said and the fragile creature settled again in the chair. “What are you?”

Adoy Retsam looked around as if deep in thought.  “I am…me.” He replied.

“No, not who are you. What are you?” Daniel explained and then pointed to himself. “I’m human.” That wasn’t exactly true anymore was it?

“Human you say?” Adoy looked at him with those wide eyes. “Olympian thinks I.”

“I was born human and I became an Olympian.”

“Know little of Olympians do I or humans for that matter.” Adoy mused.  “Once an Olympian I met and a human too.”

That lying bastard, he knew Adoy was here.  “Ares? Was his name Ares?”

Adoy’s old wrinkled brow furrowed.  “No,” he said thoughtfully, “Zeus his name was.”

Zeus?  “And the human?”

Adoy smiled and let out a happy sigh. “Guinevere she was.”  He leaned in across the table. “Beautiful was she too.”

If Adoy knew little of Olympians it was doubtful he could be of any help to Calla and all Daniel was going to accomplish was to take a trip down Memory Lane. “My Wife is Olympian. She’s dying….”

“Sorry to hear that I am.”

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m here. I guess I just thought if anyone was up here they could help her.”

“Why?”

That was a good question and Daniel went on to explain about the plagues he’d found in the ruins and of a being called Pythia the Oracle of Delphi.  When he was finished Adoy climbed down from his chair to wander around the small cave with his walking stick. “What happened to Guinevere here in this cave?”

“Nothing,” Adoy said as he rummaged through the shelves of canned goods. “Gave birth did she and then descended down the mountain.”  He sighed again and sniffed. “Similar stories they are.”  He looked up and over at Daniel with a puzzled expression. “Take your Wife to Pythia perhaps you should do.”

Yeah, kicking and screaming. Calla would never go for that.

“Ah, here it is.”  The toddling old creature weaved an unsteady path back to where Daniel was sitting.  “Belonged to Guinevere it did.”  He dropped a necklace into Daniel’s hand.  “Take it you will. No use for it have I.”

Daniel held it out in front of him. It was a stunning triple tiered necklace with several sparkling stones, at the very center of each tier was a large opal.  He looked down at his hand and the large ring sitting on the index finger of his right hand and back to the necklace; aquamarines, pearls, amethysts, emeralds and citrines.  “How long have you been here, Adoy?” He asked absently as he stared at the stones.

“All my days.”

Daniel snickered.  “Did you know Artuir Sera?”

“A great leader was he,” Adoy complimented.  “Know him I did not. Watch and listen I did.” He leaned on the cane and gazed through the opening for a moment to note the sun was going down.  “Ails your Wife, what does?”

“She touched Death twice.”  Daniel told of how she killed Kanan and saved Hades. “She should have to give her life for that; she did two good things she shouldn’t be punished for that.”

“Search far and long for a way to help her you have.”  He sighed again as he gazed from the blazing red ball in the sky to the man at his table with the sad blue eyes.  “All that dies one day is reborn.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard…” No, he hadn’t heard that exact phrase before. “All that’s born dies one day.”  Adoy only nodded his old green head in reply as if to say that was also true. “Reborn? All that dies is reborn one day?”  He clutched the necklace.

“All.” Adoy agreed confidently.

“Father, Brother, Husband, Lover,” Daniel said in a barely audible voice.

“What says you?” Adoy perked up out of his melancholy daze.

Daniel looked over at his host. “I don’t know what it means.” He confessed.  It’s written on Artuir Sera’s tomb and my Wife says it a lot.”

Adoy gazed back out the opening and thought of what he should say.  “Sun descends, go you must, long your journey down the mountain is.”

He didn’t need a brick to fall on his head to know he was being kicked out.  “Thank you, Adoy.” Daniel held out his hand and the small old creature took it.  Adoy’s touch was scaly but not altogether unpleasant.

“Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“Love her you do?”

“With all my heart.”

“Spend each lifetime together we do; all things to all people eventually we are.”  Adoy looked up at Daniel with a mixture of sympathy and hope. “Find all these men help her you may.”  He walked Daniel out to the sliver of a precipice. “Tell no one you met with me you will?”

Daniel was still thinking about the other things Adoy said. “You said you never have company. How can people visit if they don’t know you’re here?”

“Like my privacy, I do.”

If the old creature who’d been so kind and tried to be helpful didn’t want anyone to know he was up here that was ok with Daniel who stuffed the necklace into his pocket.

Two hours later he was standing at the foot of the mountain. An hour after that President Watson came through with the news that then Sengul’s secret for turning water into naquada worked.  Arthur’s body and Excalibur were sent through the Stargate and the Jackson family returned home.

End of Chapter Fourteen of
Golden Years
by Moon Mistress
a/k/a Lisa Beth Darling
Go to
Chapter Fifteen