R E T R O S T A R
D I R E C T O R Y
A N D
L I N K I N G
P A G E
Chronicles of a Twin Earth, Sun, and Solar System Under Siege
Dedicated to Gabriel Tall Chief who first blew the horn and to M.G.Y. who couldn't hear it...
Vol. I, Fatal Convergence by Gabriel Tall Chief, Vol. II, Cloud and Avalanche by Gabriel Tall Chief, Vol. III, Battles of the DUBESOR (mostly on-line, with CHRONICLE FIFTY-NINE, "The Blind Man Who Could See," now available) by Gabriel Tall Chief, Vol. IV, Lost Chronicles, Mystery Chronicles, and Unchronicles by Horace Brave Scout, Vol. V, Beyond the Rapture by Horace Brave Scout, Vol. VI, Natal Convergence by Horace Brave Scout Vol. VII, Final Wars...Convergence at Orion by Horace Brave Scout
WELCOME TO THE TWIN EARTH(S)!
AND WELCOME TO FATAL CONVERGENCE!
Gabriel Tall Chief and Horace Brave Scout greet you as an honest friend and candidate for Retrostar challenger! This is a narrative by CP-challenged Gabriel and his cousin Horace that chronicles the struggles of humanity enlisted in a genius's computerized zero sum wargame against the global invasions of unknown superior entities. The Twin Earth chronicles record these battles with relentless waves of alien power which cause the reversal of technology and culture. Mankind sustains one attack only to be blasted by another. How many onslaughts will come? How will they appear? How long can people cope? Or can they? In today's society that has come to question the ability of world powers and leaders to solve catastrophic problems, the struggles of people on Earths I and II will speak to all those who are searching for a winning strategy in a seemingly no-win dilemma.
Our RetroStar Chroniclers:
Gabriel Tall Chief, a Lakota Indian prophet in Holland House, a private children's care center and hospice, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, in the 1990s. As his chronicles for Earth II show, years in advance of the developments he revealed that there would be a catastrophic tsunami, a world-wide network of terrorism and use of conventional explosives to disrupt government and society, the confrontation of the Arab bloc with the West involving the threat of chemical-biological WPM (Weapons of Pestilential Murder), a decline in NASA and the secret intelligence services, catastrophic weather changes, and the discovery of artifacts of Atlantis (much larger pyramids than Giza's have recently come to light in the former Yugoslavia); he also predicted a total collapse of computer-based Western society and the reversal of technology, not to mention, the reversal of cultural development, the rise and fall of a world government based on the European Union, and a Dutch takeover of America and the Caribbean as an Ice Age clamps down on most of the Northern Hemisphere.
Gabriel's disciple and dream-weaver and dream-rider, Horace Brave Scout, who gathered the "fragments" of the chronicles that remained after Gabriel died and made a great leap for mankind.
Horace Brave Scout, before he starts school at Holy Cross Mission, rides his pony across a prairie dog town on Rosebud Reservation.
Back in the 1700s the Lakota got a little prophetic recording the tribe's events, foreseeing ANNO STELLAE 1912's Sinking of the Big Canoe:
Later, Horace Brave Scout journeyed back to the same event, and the others that followed it in quick succession:
The Kiowa, too, had their recorders:
The best cushy job in his life--working for Wolff and Harland in the Belfast shipyards--turned sour for Marty Yeager, so sour he drew a star that, one bitter-cold, black night, answered his call for bloody revenge from across the universe.
Did you get the impression from the calendars that Earth got into some kind of big trouble sometime around ANNO 1912? Your impression is absolutely true to the facts. But that was just the beginning--the first tiny baby step to what we now are facing. What is causing all this havoc and mayhem and unannounced terrorism in the Universe, the Solar System, and the Twin Earths that follows close on the sinking of the White Star Line's greatest ship? Nobody seems to know, and the right questions aren't even being asked--not for a long time anyway, thanks to the opposition of all-powerful vested interests, and by then it may be too late to save Earth(s) from the unknown Alien(s).
The Series of the Twin Earths is available on disk or can be electronically transmitted. The series consists of: RETRO STAR, Vol. 1, Fatal Convergence, Vol. 2, Cloud and Avalanche, Vol. 3. Battles of the DUBESOR, Vol. 4, Lost Chronicles; Part Two, Unchronicles, Vol. 5, Natal Convergence, Vol. 6, Beyond the Rapture, Vol. 7. Final Wars...Convergence at Orion
A "Letter to Agent, Outlines, and Overview and Marketing Strategy" of the Series":
Agent Letter, Outlines, Strategy
A Last Word Count in ANNO STELLAE 1997: 1,400,000
Outlines for VOLUME I, RETROSTAR:
CHRONICLES 1-24--WHAT'S IN THEM?
CHRONICLE ONE--WHAT'S IN IT?
CHRONICLES TWO TO SIX--WHAT'S IN THEM?
CHRONICLES SEVEN TO NINE--WHAT'S IN THEM?
CHRONICLES TEN TO TWELVE--WHAT'S IN THEM?
CHRONICLES EIGHTEEN TO NINETEEN--WHAT'S IN THEM?
CHRONICLES TWENTY TO TWENTY-THREE--WHAT'S IN THEM?
CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR--WHAT'S IN IT?
OUTLINES, CHRONICLES ONE TO FORTY-FIVE
OUTLINES, CHRONICLES FIFTY-EIGHT TO SIXTY TWO
Main Game Players (Earth II):
1. The Titans (Atlanteans) who lost Atlantis, on both Earths; then tried repeatedly to re-assert their rule over Earth II; they are a superhuman species that has turned vampire and lives almost indefinitely.
2. The Ten Stones of Fire (Starlike, Jeweline, Super-intelligent, Alien Entities), each performing as OP, or, Opposing Player, with the aim of conquering and destroying the Earths, I and II, and their respective universes.
3. Dr. Pikkard's Computer Wargame, represented by Wally, an electronically-created, free-roaming butterly who fights for humanity's survival against the Alien(s)
4. Human "Alphabetic" or A-Z Champions, also a subgroup called DUBESOR, or the Rosebud Champions
5. Yeshua, the A and Z, the Alpha and Omega, and the Aleph and Tau (also known as FC, the so-called "Forbidden Category")
EVEN BEFORE THE TITANIC'S SPECTACULAR MAIDEN VOYAGE DIVE TO HADES IN CHRONICLE ONE, SOME CLUES ARE GIVEN US. FOR INSTANCE: ON BOTH EARTH I AND EARTH II A CERTAIN CHOICE OF A YOUNG RUSSIAN ARISTOCRAT'S FIANCE (UPPER CLASS, KREMLIN-BORN AND BRED DAUGHTER OF A COURT PHYSICIAN, KNOWN LATER AS ONLY THE "OVERLY POSSESSIVE" WIFE OF THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER COUNT LEO TOLSTOY) PREPARED THE WAY OF THE ALIEN ENTITY ON EARTH II AND THE DRAGON ON EARTH I: FOR THIS CHECK OUT SCENARIO I. THEN RETURN FOR SCENARIO II, WHICH REVEALS THE GREAT RECORDER HIMSELF, CHRONICLER GABRIEL TALL CHIEF. FINALLY, SCENARIO III, WHERE A KREMLIN STARETZ REVEALS YEARS BEFOREHAND WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE ILL-STARRED 20TH CENTURY OF BOTH EARTHS, WHEN SOMETHING WORSE THAN THE H5N 1 STRAIN OF THE BIRD FLU VIRUS IS INFECTING THE TWINS, SO THAT THEIR INTERTWINED FATES ARE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER.
(Chronicles Completed unmarked; Chronicles Not Yet Available Marked IP, In Progress)
Volume I Fatal Convergence
Retrostar Contents
Scenario I: CHRONICLE OF SOFYA'S CHOICE
Scenario II: CHRONICLE OF THE MEDICINE SPEAR
Scenario III: CHRONICLE OF THE KREMLIN STARETZ--EARTH I
CHRONICLE ONE, A. S. (ANNO STELLAE, Year of the Star) 1912 1. The Belfast Colossus 2. Night of the Tornnarsuk
PART I, CHRONICLE ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
3. "What, have we hit anything?"
PART II, CHRONICLE ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
4. Pursuit 5. Mystery Stone
PART III, CHRONICLE ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWO, A. S. 1918 Visions from Space
CHRONICLE TWO, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THREE, A. S. 1924 1. The East Gate 2. Carter's Pill
PARTS 1-2, CHRONICLE THREE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
3. Carter's Royal Sphinx Turkish Cigarettes 4. G-EAOU
PARTS 3-4, CHRONICLE THREE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FOUR, A. S. 1939 1. The Polar King 2. Convergence in Tinsel Town
CHRONICLES FOUR AND FIVE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIVE, A. S. 1967 1. "Act of God" 2. Letter to ANNO 5931 3. The River of Time's End
CHRONICLE SIX, A. S. 1969 1. The Chevy Chase Inscription 2. A Different Drum 3. Signature of the Drum 4. Miracle at Project M
CHRONICLE SEVEN, A. S. 1985 1. "Switched off?" 2. Epitaph for a Lost Ship
CHRONICLE EIGHT, A. S. 1986 1. "Roll Program." (Challenger) 2. STS 51-L Sequence of Main Events 3. Dear Mr. President:
CHRONICLES SIX, SEVEN, AND EIGHT, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE NINE, A. S. 1987 1. Black Tuesday II 2. Spackle in the Sky with Diamonds 3. Tempest in a Teapot? 4. Mouse or Lion? 5. "Now you see it..." 6. Skylab II: the Year of Sol 7. Enigma of the Gleba 8. Catamaran and Mouse 9. Last of the Great American Icons
CHRONICLE NINE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TEN, A. S. 1994 1. "And so if he sign rosebud. It just a game." 2. "A lot of 'mind games,' yeah?" 3. Kamamoto's Mind Game 4. Butterfly's StartUp
CHRONICLE TEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
5. "It's All in the Frequency."
"It's All in the Frequency," CHRONICLE TEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE ELEVEN, A. S. 1996- 1. Flyby of the Blue Centaur 2. Hantsbo's Main Chance
CHRONICLE ELEVEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
3. The Thief in the Night (Earth I) THE THIEF IN THE NIGHT, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWELVE, A. S. 2024 1. A Question of Any 2. A Matter Under Advisement: The Triliths of Orion--Part I
CHRONICLE TWELVE, PART I, RETROSTAR
A Matter Under Advisement: The Triliths of Orion--Part II CHRONICLE TWELVE, PART II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THIRTEEN, A. S. 2113 1. A Childish Phase 2. Reformed 3. Q.U.I.P.
CHRONICLE THIRTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FOURTEEN, A. S. 2145 1. Fresh Ice 2. The Ultimate Weapon 3. The Unstoppable Chill 4. Nils the Red
CHRONICLE FOURTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIFTEEN, A. S. 2146 1. Head #41 2. Plots and Counterplots
CHRONICLE FIFTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE SIXTEEN, A. S. 2155 1. "First Citizen" 2. Red Bladed II, Retrenchment, and the Mole
CHRONICLE SIXTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE SEVENTEEN, A. S. 2165 1. More Crowns for the Emperor 2. Convergence of Kings
CHRONICLE SEVENTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE EIGHTEEN, A. S. 2170 1. Convergence in Greece: Beyond the Roche Limit 2. Marching Trees 3. Workin' for the Man 4. First the Foie Gras, Then... 5. Old is In, New is Out! 6. Another Domecraft Scratched! 7. Homecoming to Chillingsworth-opolis! 8. A Mongolian Interruption 9. Bisbee on Alert! 10. Chillingsworth's Zombie
PART ONE, CHRONICLE EIGHTEEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
11. Crisis Control at the Olde Guildhall 12. "Sorry, folks, no Tube today" 13. Visions and Portents 14. Last Breakfast at the Chillingsworthies 15. Fleeing Birds, Floundering Fishes 16. Chillingsworth's Contingency Plan 17. Chillingsworth's Personal Test 18. Black Death II 19. Our Lady of the Angels--Vacancy 20. Palms, More Palms, and Fire Jaguars
PART TWO, CHRONICLE EIGHTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
21. "What, has the plumbing been hit too?" 22. "Hull bloody world's fallin' apart!" 23. Final ESCape 24. 19.9999999999999...Chthonic Complications 25. The Arctic Fox 26. Seemingly Doomed 27. Death of the Rose? 28. Counterclockwise 29. Birdman of Our Lady's 30. Cause: Unknown
PART THREE, CHRONICLE EIGHTEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE NINETEEN, A. S. 2171... 1. Hermon's Folly 2. Crazy John from Ivujivik
CHRONICLE NINETEEN, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY, A. S. 2251 1. Ice and Fire 2. Singer of the Stone
CHRONICLE TWENTY, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY-ONE, A. S. 2382 1. A Plain Dutch Boy 2. The Good Ship Argo 3. A Mill Worker! 4. Shafted CHRONICLE TWENTY-ONE, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY-TWO, A. S. 2390-91 1. "Work, woman!" 2. Wooden Wings 3. The Big Little Apple
CHRONICLE TWENTY-TWO, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, A. S. 2392 1. Leamis's Good Turn 2. The Mountain Climbed! 3. The Contract 4. Dendrochronology--the Professor's Folly 5. Just What the Doctor Ordered 6. Decline in a Dutch Paradise? 7. Vent and Rip
PART 1, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR
8. The Perfect Getaway 9. "A River flowed out of Eden..." 10. "Discoverer of Lost Atlantis" 11. Cave of Cannibals 12. Visitors to Earth 13. The Mary Celeste Avenger 14. "We three kings of Orient are..."
PART 2, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR
15. The Paper Chase 16. Outings with Anne 17. The Kilpaison Female Temperament 18. King of Ellis 19. The Break 20. The Treasure Room 21. The Professor's Wargame
PART 3, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR
22. The Gray Fox Speaketh 23. "Was it in his contract?" 24. A Dream and a Face 25. Atlantis--will she ever come? 26. Four Cents Saved, Four Cents Earned 27. "Low bridge! Everybody down!" 28. Rebirth of the Atlantis
PART 4, CHRONICLE TWENTY-THREE, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, A. S. 2393 1. Convergence in Wioteheka Wi 2. Fool's Day 3. A Good Deal 4. Losers, Weepers 5. Fritz the Farmer 6. Cloaks and Daggers 7. Escape of Department 13 8. No Ordinary Day 9. The Tramp CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, PART I, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
10. Dr. Pikkard's Papers 11. Van Donkt to the Rescue 12. A Charmed Life? 13. Black Tuesday III 14. Fritz, Loti, the Domine, and Plenty of Nothin' 15. Choices 16. Dead Man's Cheque 17. Star of Jamaica 18. The Trouble with Wednesday II 19. Battle of the Atlantis PART TWO, CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, VOL. I, RETRO STAR
20. "Ship up!" 21. Reunion Amidst the Stars 22. "Nach Palestine, Reno nicht!" 23. The Open Porthole 24. "Ship down!" 25. Ship Across! 26. Taken for a Ride 27. The Mystery Youth 28. Second Thoughts 29. Visitations in the Night 30. Angels! 31. A New Olson? 32. "Who will stop it?" 33. Hodgkins the Magnificent 34. "I've failed!" 35. The Plain People 36. Anna Invicta 37. Pieter and the Blue Centaur
PART THREE, CHRONICLE TWENTY-FOUR, VOL. I, RETROSTAR
(Chronicles completed: unmarked)
Volume II Cloud and Avalanche
Contents Book One
CHRONICLE TWENTY-FIVE, A. S. (ANNO STELLAE, Year of the Star) 2415 Breath of the Red Star
CHRONICLE TWENTY-SIX, A. S. 2433 Star Song
CHRONICLES TWENTY-FIVE AND TWENTY-SIX, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY-SEVEN, A. S. 2444 1. Three "Pearls" 2. The Dragon and the Dragoman 3. Farewells 4. The Liverpool Express 5. The Sphinx and Lady Anne 6. Letter of Marque 7. The Enchanted Islands 8. The Compleat Angler 9. Anne's Discovery 10. Pluto's Ball 11. Deliverance 12. The Reverend's Journey 13. Nemesis III 14. The Devil Man's Medicine 15. La Calaca 16. The Mail Bag from La Boca 17. Change of Administration
CHRONICLE TWENTY-SEVEN, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE TWENTY-EIGHT, A. S. 2457 1. Diana's Expedition 2. Dr. Celman and the Papers 3. The New Atlantis 4. Artiste with a Gun 5. The Captain's Cross 6. Artiste at Work! 7. The Scarlet Woman 8. Madmen and Savages 9. Island of the Moon 10. Jaguars, and Glyphs
PART I, CHRONICLE TWENTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
11. Day One 12. Day Two 13. Day Three 14. Papadoc 15. Dzong kunu! 16. The Shrine in the Square 17. Celman's Escape 18. John Canoe's Discovery 19. The Fatal Asterisk 20. Convergence on the Lago Negro 21. Homecoming in 3C 295 PART II, CHRONICLE TWENTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
Book Two
CHRONICLE TWENTY-NINE, A. S. 2458 1. Much Ado About a Key 2. Much Ado About Moons
Chronicle Twenty-Nine included in link below
CHRONICLE THIRTY, A. S. 2460 Terra 2, Alpha Centauri
CHRONICLES TWENTY-NINE and THIRTY, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THIRTY-ONE, A. S. 4130 The Blue Chair
CHRONICLE THIRTY-TWO, A. S. 4133 The Sixth Hour
CHRONICLE THIRTY-THREE, A. S. 4146 The Dreaded Day
CHRONICLES THIRTY-ONE, THIRTY-TWO, THIRTY-THREE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THIRTY-FOUR, A. S. 4148 1. "Have you ever heard such nonsense?" 2. The Power of Life and Death 3. Thirty Silver Pieces 4. A True Diplomat!
CHRONICLE THIRTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THIRTY-FIVE, A. S. 4149 1. A Dish of Rue 2. "God go with you, dear Auntie!" 3. One Major Hindrance 4. Higher Ground 5. The Trial
CHRONICLE THIRTY-FIVE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THIRTY-SIX, A. S. 4150 1. Street Women 2. The Golden Bowl 3. The Miracle 4. Noahdiah's Daughter 5. The Widow's Mites 6. Convergence on the Viaduct 7. Tower Ghosts 8. The Lustration 9. Falling Towers 10. The Tablets of Destiny
CHRONICLE THIRTY-SEVEN, A. S. 5909 The Tower of Eder
CHRONICLE THIRTY-EIGHT, A. S. 5913 The Road to Enaim
CHRONICLES THIRTY-SEVEN and THIRTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE THIRTY-NINE, A. S. 5918 1. The Many-Colored Robe 2. The Pit of Dothan 3. Twenty Pieces of Silver 4. The Iron Collar 5. The Wilderness of Shur 6. Visions of the Night 7. The Beak of Nebel 8. City of the Moon 9. The Cobra's Den 10. Thief in the Night 11. A Fruitful Bough
CHRONICLE THIRTY-NINE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY, A. S. 5920 Woes
CHRONICLE FORTY-ONE, A. S. 5923 Joseph the Steward!
CHRONICLES FORTY AND FORTY-ONE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-TWO, A. S. 5926 1. War! 2. The Gold Harp 3. Daughter of the Desert 4. The Voice of the Pomegranate 5. The Scorpion's Sting 6. Sleepless in Paradise 7. The Road to Babelen 8. The King and the Prophetess 9. Angel of Death 10. The Gray Dove 11. Horsemen in Pairs
CHRONICLE FORTY-TWO, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-THREE, A. S. 5927 1. Rising Waters 2. The Death of Heaphes 3. More Falling Gods 4. Into the Pit 5. "Will you and your god slay him too?"
CHRONICLE FORTY-THREE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, A. S. 5929 1. Signet, Cord, and Staff 2. Joseph's Prison 3. "Forbidden Vases"
PART I, CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
4. Judah's Return
PART II, CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
5. Two Prodigals 6. Zenobia's Return 7. A Ring of Red and Black 8. The Lowest Pit
PART III, CHRONICLE FORTY-FOUR, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-FIVE, A. S. 5931 1. The Per-aa Dreamed 2. The Per-aa's Secret 3. The Ka of Narmer 4. Doors of Brass
PARTS 1-4, CHRONICLE 45, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
5. The White Lady PART 5, CHRONICLE FORTY-FIVE
6. Tamar's Children 7. Imhotep's Signet 8. The Sinking Ship 9. M.G.Y. Calling PARTS 6-9, CHRONICLE FORTY-FIVE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
Book Three
CHRONICLE FORTY-SIX, A. S. 6098 1. A Second OP? 2. Pher's New Army 3. The Two Serpents, Part I
CHRONICLE FORTY-SIX, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-SEVEN, A. S. 6286 1. Waters of Blessing 2. Mosheh's Fire-Chariots 3. The Rod of a Ready Deliverer 4. The Pen of a Ready Writer
CHRONICLE FORTY-SEVEN, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-EIGHT, A. S. 6679 1. Lightning over Kedesh 2. Under the Tamar Tree 3. Tinker's Nail
CHRONICLE FORTY-EIGHT, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FORTY-NINE, A. S. 6688 Greener Pastures
CHRONICLE FIFTY, A. S. 6699 The Gleaner CHRONICLES FORTY-NINE and FIFTY, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIFTY-ONE, A. S. 6700 Two Wives and an Attitude CHRONICLE FIFTY-ONE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIFTY-TWO, A. S. 7074 1. The Dove 2. The Fish 3. The Ship 4. The Worm and the Vine
CHRONICLE FIFTY-THREE, A. S. 7504 The Topmost Twig CHRONICLES FIFTY-TWO and FIFTY-THREE, VOL. II, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIFTY-FOUR, A. S. 7506 1. The Lost Dream 2. The Colossus 3. The Fourth Man 4. "O God, how long?" CHRONICLE FIFTY-FOUR, VOl. II, RETROSTAR
(Chronicles Completed unmarked)
Volume III Battles of the DUBESOR
Book One
CHRONICLE FIFTY-FIVE, A. S. (ANNO STELLAE, Year of the Star) 7537 Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin CHRONICLE FIFTY-FIVE, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIFTY-SIX, A. S. 8033 Iskander's Secret CHRONICLE FIFTY-SIX, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, A. S. 8507
Notes on Algol, Gorgons, and Nergul
1. U the Dire Knight PART ONE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
2. Lords of Ahpikondia PART TWO, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
3. Molu and the Gorgons PART THREE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
4. 02K05 00340 00000000000150000000001000000010 5. Peninah's Comeuppance PART FOUR, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
6. Molu and the Gorgons, Part II 7. The East Gate Regained? PART FIVE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-SEVEN, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
Book Two
CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, A. S. 8732 1. Chiron's PQ Plan 2. Elektra's Comeuppance BOOK TWO, CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
3. Mink and the Flying Horse 4. Uwe's Last Farewell 5. The Wandering Paiute PART TWO, CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
6. Wally and the Nano-Queen 7. Michael's Last Trump PART THREE, CHRONICLE FIFTY-EIGHT, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
(Chronicles in Progress marked)
Book Three
THE LOST CHRONICLE, A. S. 9117 The Goatherd Who Turned King BOOK THREE, VOL. III, THE GOATHERD WHO TURNED KING, Retro Star
Book Four
CHRONICLE FIFTY-NINE, A. S. 10, 272 The Blind Man Who Could See BOOK FOUR, CHRONICLE FIFTY-NINE, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
BOOK FIVE WILL SOON BE ON-LINE, SO PLEASE RETURN
CHRONICLE SIXTY, A. S. 10,282 1. The Shadow Line 2. The Lacquered Wardrobe 3. A Pilgrim's Heart BOOK FIVE, PART ONE, CHRONICLE SIXTY, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
4. Talulah's Star IP 5. South by Southwest IP 6. The Gray Wolf IP 7. Lux ex Tenebris IP
CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, A. S. 10,995 1. Five Stars for the Long Road
CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, PART I, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
2. ARGO Unrequited 3. Pilgrim, Bluebird, Starboy CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, VOL. III, PART II-III, RETROSTAR
Part III, IP
CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, VOL. III, PART III CONTINUED, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE SIXTY-ONE, VOL. III, PART IV, AND CONCLUSION
4. Zu the Birdman IP 5. The Tiger of Hagi IP 6. The White Stone
Book Five
Just as a classical Greek epic does not begin at the beginning but in the middle, so the Retrostar chronicles of Gabriel Tall Chief and Horace Brave Scout do not end at the ending--no, they finish exactly here: This is the Last Piece of the Whole Puzzle, Ariadne's Thread for the Labyrinth, Alexander's Sword for the Gordian Knot, the Checkmate, the Royal Flush, the Golden Key in Quinn's search for the meaning locked into his father's sand painting game...all rolled into one grand finale, one classical drama's catharsis and denouement, and...you must join the ARGO and decide for yourself if you really want to find what all men want but are mostly seeking in the wrong places:
CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, A. S. 10,999 IP Voyage of the ARGO V: Quest of the Cybernauts PART I, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
Part II, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, VOL.III, RETROSTAR
EPILOGUE I EPILOGUE I, "LAST TO LEAVE...," EPILOGUE FOR VOLUMES I-III, VOL. III, RETROSTAR
(Chronicles Completed unmarked, Chronicles In Progress marked)
Volume IV Lost Chronicles, Secret Chronicles, Mystery Chronicles, Unchronicles, Twin Chronicles with Appendix by Horace Brave Scout
Book One CHRONICLE OF THE INUNDATION, A. A. S. "Year of the Metamorph" How a small, big-winged, thirsty creature with only a sip of water on its tiny mind set in motion events that created the lake-like Mediterranean Sea--the vital body of water around which most of the earliest and greatest civilizations of mankind were birthed.
CHRONICLE OF THE INUNDATION, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
SECRET CHRONICLE A. A. S. (Ante Anno Stellae, Before Year of the Star) 100,000 The Flamesteeds of Ara How the cherubic magistrate and Mercy-seat guardian, Uran, joined forces with Michael against the take-over of Universe I by the rebel archangel. How the other two cherubs fought to quarantine the equal threat to Universe II that was posed by the corrupted star-stones.
SECRET CHRONICLE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE CRYSTAL BRIDGE A. A. S. 9, 500, Battle For the Bridge How Lucifer, the fallen archangel, fails to seize the vital Gate of Ara, which controls access to the twin Universes; how he makes up part of this loss with vindictive destruction, and goes on to attack the new species the Enemy has planted on what he sees as his exclusive domain, a planet in his allotted sector, Universe I. How going up against Michael a third time, for the control of the interplanetary bridge connecting Earth I and II, he is worsted by the loyalist forces commanded by Michael. It is a terribly humiliating and painful setback (almost as bad as being thrown out of heaven by the triumphant Michael and his armies!). Yet human beings, taken in by Lucifer getting them to rebel against the Enemy, remain his to control and manipulate any way he chooses. He has succeeded in stamping out all fearers of God, except for one man named Noah. That one man should be no problem, Lucifer reasoned. What could one man do against him? He, Lord Lucifer, had won the battle for Earth I--or so it seemed to him.
CHRONICLE OF THE CRYSTAL BRIDGE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE STAR ORACLES (EARTH I) A. A. S. "The Day of Enoch" The Man Who Was Taken Up How Enoch, son of Lamech, cultivated a relationship with the Most High God when most men of his generation worshipped many gods and lived immorally and violently. How the Most High God was so pleased with Enoch that He reached down one day and took Enoch bodily into heaven, but before that day Enoch was given divine signs that signified the meanings God had put in the stars to guide all men back to the truth and to warn them of the coming of His Son, the Dragon-Destroyer.
CHRONICLE OF THE STAR ORACLES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE HARVEST TIME, Part I A. A. S. 3,301, Year of the Sky Reaper, Harvest Time How no serpent can change its stripes and how a simple shepherd-farmer is confronted with an Atlantean plasma-harvesting expedition. How Lime Flower, Yew Tree's wife, and family coped with being dragged off from their village to slavery in Crooked Tree Village far down from the mountains and on the river plain, and how they were rescued by a God who was unlike all other gods of woods and trees and stones and brooks they had known and worshipped. VOL. IV, CHRONICLE OF THE SKY REAPER, PART I, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE A. A. S. 1200, Voyage of the Argonauts How the vampire race of the Atlanteans, working behind the petty geopolitics of humanity, sought to stop Jason of Iolkos from gaining the Golden Fleece and returning a hero to Greece. All it needed was such a man of this caliber to unify the whole country of Achaea (at present a hodge-podge of rival city-states and kingdoms ruled by lesser men), which would then be a major setback to the expansion of Ilios and its snake goddess, the major player the Atlanteans had chosen to promote in their grand strategy to regain an Earth II recontructed to their liking.
PART I, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
PART II, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
PART III, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
PART IV, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
PART V, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
PART VI, CHRONICLE OF THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE TWO SERPENTS, PART II A. A. S. 1230, The Horse of Tenedos How two serpents were released to cause havoc in the Upper World. How two ways of life, two sets of gods, two worlds collided at Ludim's chief city, Ilios, later called Troy (Troas) by the Romans. How the poets, chiefly Homer, celebrated the conflict in terms that glorified the heroes on both sides and capitalized on the abduction of a beautiful queen that supposedly sparked the conflict. How Atlanteans paid a prior visit with a burning "stone" that could have, if finished in construction and put to great effect in the war, have finished the Achaeans in their bid for mastery of the ancient world centered on the Aegean. How, then, the Two Serpent-Armed Goddess was deposed in the bud by the "Horse of Tenedos" and a new world was free to take shape. How these vital affairs played out in the coming of Yeshua, and the Good News of that coming was able to be spread universally by the Greek language (not the mother-goddess's language of the Ludim, which would always be spoken locally, not universally like Greek).
CHRONICLE OF THE TWO SERPENTS, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF HORSES OF ISRAEL, A. A. S. 984, The Budding Sopetet How a prophet of Israel, destined to be one of her greatest, was born in Tishbe of Gilead, a village so small it was a flyspeck on the map, and how he suffered early hardship and rough training in Life's School of Hard Knocks, and how he came to confront the king of Israel, Ahab, because he took a foreign, idol-worshipping wife from the wicked heathen city of Sidon.
CHRONICLE OF THE HORSES OF ISRAEL, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF LION-KING, A. A. S. 686, The Wounded Lion, How the king of Assyria, though he was styled "King of the Universe," was badly mauled in a campaign against a tiny kingdom called Judah, and how he returned home without his army (which had mysteriously perished in camp in a single night) only to find his country stirring with rebellion against his tyrannical and disastrous rule.
CHRONICLE OF THE LION-KING, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE VISIONS OF DIVINE MEMORY A. A. S. 537 How the prophet of Israel, grown old, took ship from Joppa to the Iktis, the port city of the Isles of Tin in the Extremity of the West, taking not only his loyal servant Uthai but the Good News of the holy name and saving goodness and almighty power of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to idol-worshipping tribes who burnt people as sacrifices in tree-high haystacks. How the prophet shared with them his divine visions of things and worlds to come.
CHRONICLE OF THE VISIONS OF DIVINE MEMORY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF LIMERICK II A. A. S. 270 A Cruise on Joseph's Canal How two Irish Celts from the Gaelic Kingdom of Limerick serving as mercenary soldiers in Ptolemy II's army encountered a late and fading memory of a Great Deliverer who kept the land of Kem, Mizraim, the Land of Red and Black, from starving to death in the "Years of the Fat Hyena" when all crops failed for seven years in a row and the hyenas and other scavangers grew fat on the multitude of dead and dying animals and even the bodies of people left unburied in abandoned villages.
CHRONICLE OF LIMERICK II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF CLEOPATRA A. A. S. 31, The Horse of Antirrhodus and the Burning Eye How the last ruler of the royal Macedonian line of Ptolemy in the Land of the Red and Black sought to stop Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, the grand-nephew of the late Julius Casesar of Roma, from seizing her kingdom so that she could reign as Empress over East and West, with herself deified as the Goddess Isis's incarnation, thus heading the world's state religion. How she retrieved from the world-famed Museum of Alexandria's archives certain old books that contained plans for a super-weapon invented by a race of "Orthrysians"--reputed to be demi-gods from the distant past who had paid her predecessor, the Macedonian pharaoh Ptolemaeus II Philadelphus a state visit with this all-powerful weapon as a "gift" in exchange for certain concessions.
CHRONICLE OF CLEOPATRA, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE STAR OF THE ROSE A. S. 4 -, Wan Li and the Star-Men of the Zoziash How Wan Li, a wealthy merchant of the kingdom of Kuo in the lands of the East, met a prince of stargazers, and together in a caravan they followed the star of the coming King of the Jews--which first appeared in the Sign of the Fish set in the heavens by the Creator of heaven, the earth, and all things and creatures int them; how they met the wicked king in the West, and yet found the young Child born King of kings and Lord of lords, Whose star led them to his house in the little town of Bethlehem of Ephratah-Judaea; how Wan Li and the Star-men worshipped the divine Child, and gave Him royal gifts, then returned secretely without telling the wicked king the whereabouts of the precious Child, and how all their lives were changed forever by the mere sight and Presence of the holy Child.
CHRONICLE OF THE NATAL STAR A. S. 1-30, The Naked Brave How the Light-Bringer, Lucifer the Covering Cherub who hovered above the Throne of God and kept the Stones of Fire, lost his place in heaven after seeking to be Supreme Deity and was cast out by Michael the archangel and his loyalist forces. How the Messiah, only Son of the Great Father Spirit, leaving the Great Council Fire to live and fight for his Father on Earth (lost to Lucifer and his allies), stripped off his skin and scalp, leaving them shining in his Father's sky-lodge, and how like a star they went seeking for him on Earth.
Reunion
How the Messiah, the Bright Morning Star, was rejoined by His stellar glory after his great Victory, and how one of the thieves crucified beside him on a cross shared in the Yeshuas' incomparable splendor.
CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER A. S. 30, Part I, Tsedahh's Quest How heaven's most insignificant angel was given the task of finding the Universe's most significant tree.
CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. Secret Sharers How two secret disciples of Yeshua, the condemned and executed Messiah-claimant, were unwitting participants in the greatest drama of the ages, and how one, Joseph of Arimathea, took the news of that Event to the Earth's far corner, the coasts and isles of Britain, and how he gave a lasting apostolic blessing to safeguard the land against heathen barbarians after his departure.
3. A New Name How Tsedahh the Ribbon-Bearer retrieved the ribbon and after loosing it above Jerusalem was appointed Keeper of the Tree of Life for eternity, and how he received a new name and a glorious, bright make-over.
CHRONICLE OF THE RIBBON-BEARER, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE SUFFERING SERVANT A. S. 33, The Forsaken Stream How Yeshua took a towel and wash basin of the lowest household slave and taught his disciples what the Messiahship truly meant on the eve of his trials before the Jewish Council, Pilatus Pontius, and Tetrarch King Herod. CHRONICLE OF THE SUFFERING SERVANT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF SAUL IN SELA A. S. 35, The Eighth Pillar of Wisdom How the budding apostle (who would change his name to Paulus) received a revelation about God's grace directly from the Source, and how it changed his entire perspective on life and the course of his life, not to mention the direction and whole ethos and spirituality of Western Civilization and even the world at large.
CHRONICLE OF SAUL IN SELA, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE THIRD HEAVEN A. S. 49 How two apostles, Paul and Barnabus, reached Lystra in Asia Minor with the Good News of Yeshua, but were hideously stoned when the people, incited by anti-missionaries, turned against them after first proclaiming them gods, Zeus and Mercury (Barnabus called Zeus because of his substantial size and Paulus, being small, called Mercury). How in death (for Paulus was killed) Paulus was taken to view heaven, but was restored to life and sent back to finish his mission on Earth by Yeshua Himself.
CHRONICLE OF THE THIRD HEAVEN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE OF TROAS A. S. 50, Philippi Calling How Paulus and two companions, Silas and Lucanus, all believers in Yeshua the Messiah, paused at Troas Alexandria on the coast of Asia Minor (Ionia) to rest and pray. How this epic site where two world-views and their respective gods and goddesses had fought for supremacy 1,180 years before became an even more epic launching point for Paulus's Gospel, for from this jumping-off point to all of Europe a new world was launched at the same time that would overturn the seemingly all-powerful, pagan Roman Empire itself.
CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE OF TROAS
CHRONICLE OF PAULUS AND SILAS IN PRISON A. S. 50, Birth of a Church and a New World How Paulus received a vision in the port of Alexandria Troas (a city near ancient Troy on the NW coast of Asia Minor) of a man of Macedonia urgently calling him to cross over with the Gospel, and how he and Silas were treated in Phillipi of Macedonia and how the city's jailor and his whole family were converted, which was the start of not only a new church but a new world.
CHRONICLE OF PAUL AND SILAS IN PRISON, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHAINED APOSTLE, A. S. 63, Paulus in Britain How Paulus and Silas journeyed to the Estremeity of the West, also known as the Isles of Tin, to bring the good news of Christus to the pagan (and sometimes Jewish) inhabitants. CHRONICLE OF THE WEARY ANGEL A. S. 65 "Welcome, O Sweet Angel of Death" How Paulus, summoned back to court in Rome by the magistrate (a cynical man and Roman pragmatician) handling his case, found the innocent man somehow deserving of death, and how the condemned apostle greeted death by beheading in such a way that the unjust judge could hardly believe his ears when he questioned his aide about Paulus's last words.
UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHAINED APOSTLE and CHRONICLE OF THE WEARY ANGEL
CHRONICLE OF THE FOUR CROSSES A. S. 289, 1. The Theban Insurrection, 2. The Tenth Man How a chief killed his best warriors out of pride, but in doing so made them even greater warriors in the country of sky lodges, where they held the river ford against the raiding Red Dog Star while he suffered everlasting shame for his deed.
CHRONICLE OF THE FOUR CROSSES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE M-Q WILD GOOSE A. S. 349, Wan Hoo the Kaikonaut and the Rocket Chair How a son honored his ailing, aged mother and went to find the potent herb on the moon to cure her and make her live forever, thereby becoming the first man to attempt to fly there on a "wild goose" (the rocket-propelled chair he invented).
CHRONICLE OF THE M-Q WILD GOOSE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF EIRE'S MESSIAH A. S. 362, The Slave's Gift How Magonus Sucutus Patricius, a young, licentious, shallowly-believing Christian Briton of the noble Roman curiale class, was kidnapped and enslaved by Irish raiders, then later escaped from slavery in Ireland and returned home, only to be accosted in a dream by an Irishman begging the noble youth to return and bring the light and deliverance to the lost and despairing people of the Emerald Island.
CHRONICLE OF EIRE's MESSIAH, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE PAY-BACK A.S. 410, The Fall of Roma, A.S. 1453 - Lamentations with Sacqueboutes How the Burgundians reaped what they sowed; how when barbarians they first shared in the destruction and sack of Western Roma, then benefited by the very civilization they helped destroy, becoming rich and powerful and even Christian in the formerly Roman territory they seized; how the East Roma emperor came to them seeking help against the Moslem Turks attacking his capital city, all that was left of his empire; how he went back to Constantinople without the Burgundian's aid, and how later the Burgundians lost not only their once glorious realm (full of music and feasting and courtly manners) and shining destiny but were reduced to Dijon, a brand of mustard.
CHRONICLE OF THE PAY-BACK, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK-ROBE A. S. 735, Herald of the Parousia: Bede of Wearmouth-Jarrow How a young brave of the Anglo-Saxons found refuge in a great stone tipi filled with holy men, and how he became a recorder of great things, and how he saw even greater things at the end of his life, which when written his frightened scribe thrust secretly, he thought, into the fire, only it refused to burn--things such as a future world ruler with his throne in London, a royal family renamed Windsor, and even a "people's princess, the glossy Cow Bird beauty called Diana.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK-ROBE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN EAGLE FEATHER A. S. 878, A Refuge from the Storm How a mighty chief of a tribe fought tribes that came from the east stealing his people's horses and burning their tipis, and how, led by the wisdom of an old woman on the Isle of Athelney, he found a way to save his country, Wessex, which grew and became the mighty nation called England--a nation which came to possess power to obtain a vast realm and change the world. CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN EAGLE FEATHER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU'S COMING IP A. S. 1620, The Mayflower How pale-skinned, strange newcomers who sailed a great canoe named for a flower and who wore many thicknesses of buckskins settled in a place with bad spirits but learned from us the Vanished People how to plant and produce plenty to eat.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK PRIMSTAV A. S. 1707, Chronicler of the Messiah How a rather ordinary Norwegian dairyman, Dreng Bjornsson, began a new Norwegian calendar stick, carving it to replace the old one that had been handed down to him. How the calendar stick became the opportunity for the enlargement of Dreng Bjornsson's vision of the world and the future as well, in the most unexpected way.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK PRIMSTAV
CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU GHOST DANCER A. S. 1755, Bullets That Turned to Raindrops How a young chief trained his spirit with such wisdom and prudence that even bullets could not touch him (and later he would lead the new nation that formed after he achieved victory with arms over the superior forces of the British).
CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU GHOST DANCER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE DIVER'S CASQUE A. S. 1768, Angel of the Lake How Gouveneur Morris, a great leader of the Wasichu who helped write the Great Covenant of his people, when a young man was rescued from drowning in a sporting dive in a lake located on the Morrises' Manhattan island estate.
CHRONICLE OF THE DIVERS' CASQUE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE ASSASSIN A. S. 1775, The Lieutenant's Aim How a British sharpshooter had the commanding general of the break-away American colonies's arm dead in his sights, but, despite all his training and the 1,000 pounds paid him, could not bring himself to pull the trigger on what he saw to be a true king and a man of noble soul.
CHRONICLE OF THE ASSASSIN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE FATHER'S PASSING A. S. 1799 How George Washington, who could have ruled the brand-new United States of America as a king but declined a third term and everything else smacking of kingship, spent his last day of life busily inspecting his estate and the well-being of its servants and workers; how he fell ill from a chill caught from five hours exposure to the raw weather, and how the unscientific medicine of the day not only failed to help but hastened him to his death; nhow the Dream he had dreamed was reviewed by an aged black woman of devout faith, and how the Dream fared along with the great one who dreamed it.
CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE FATHER'S PASSING, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GARDENE OF DESTINYE A. S. 1850, Holiday at Castle Edzell How an eight year old girl from Abbotsbury solves the castle's greatest mind-game, a puzzle left over from the Age of Titans and later amended by Joseph of Arimathea and the 17th Century Tradescant brothers that was reputed to hold a key to the future well-being, even the preservation, of the British Isles.
CHRONICLE OF THE GARDENE OF DESTINYE, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU BROTHERS' WAR A. S. 1863, Christmas at Andersonville How the white brothers of the North and South fought, and how the brother of the North, after terrible setbacks administered by the South's genius in war-craft and chieftainship, finally prevails--but in a Christmas play in a prison camp, not on the battlefield.
CHRONICLE OF THE WASICHU BROTHERS' WAR, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BELZONI EXHIBIT A. S. 1865, Part I, The Colossus of Thebes, Part II, Twenty Minutes After Ten, Part III, "Where are you taking the Colossus, my good fellow?" How the reputed Colossus of Thebes representing the Pharaoh of the Hebrew Captivity came to Washington and was given a Presidential visit, and how the dying President, a Colossus to come, came to view the end in turn of the future Washington City. CHRONICLE OF THE BELZONI EXHIBIT, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF TWO BROTHERS A. S. 1865-, Giant Footprints How the Wasichu flooded the land of the Lakota, and how a young pioneer Wasichu "sodbuster" on a Dakota Territory homestead saved the life of a Rosebud Lakota chief who was Gabriel Tall Chief's great-grandfather.
CHRONICLE OF THE TWO BROTHERS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK SHIP'S CREW A. S. 1877, Escape from Wolverton How two delinquent boys escaped from a rural Californian reform school and were enlisted in a computerized wargame far in the future after one of them killed the other. CHRONICLE OF THE BLACK SHIP'S CREW, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GREY DOVE A. S. 1878, Wings over Te Aute How Te Hapuku and Karaitiana, two of the greatest warriors and chiefs of the Island of the Long Cloud, who had fought a bloody war over selling land to the white Europeans and opposed each other as bitter enemies for twenty five long years, were finally brought together by a compassionate intermediary, Sir George Grey, Premier of New Zealand, as Chief Te Hapuku lay dying in his lodge; how the wonders of the far future were unveiled before the amazed premier as he was given the secret meanings of the wonderfully intricate wood carvings of the Maori people--carvings that, to the Maori, contained not just the future but the power, the mana, of the world.
CHRONICLE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGE A. S. 1889, Norton's Grand Vision How a self-crowned "Emperor of the Americas and Protector of Mexico" in San Francisco envisoned a great bridge spanning the Bay, that not only would carry the commerce of men but their hearts' forgiveness and reconciliation. CHRONICLE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGE, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEARTS A. S. 1912, 1. Wrestlers at the Brook How a Welsh miner left his home and job and followed a divine call to Swansea to establish a training camp for prayer warriors.
CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEART, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. The Premonition How a mother in Second Class aboard a luxury liner on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic could not sleep because the ship had been called "unsinkable," and spent most of three days voyage sitting up and praying.
CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEART, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
3. "Sweet dreams, Mademoiselle!" How a rich, little girl in First Class aboard the doomed ship dreamed what was going to happen, and how her French governess calmed the girl and wished her sweet dreams only a few minutes before the vessel was fatally struck and sent to the bottom of the sea.
CHRONICLE OF THE LISTENING HEART, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE TIGERS' FEAST A. S. 1919, The Mirrors of Versailles How a peace conference of the victorious Allies brokered a treaty at Versailles that produced the Second World War, and how the mirrors reflected a far different scene than Clemenceau, Wilson, and Lloyd George wished to portray to the anxious, watching world
CHRONICLE OF THE TIGERS' FEAST, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE RAT STAR AND THE EXODUSTER A. S. 1919, Convergence in Kansas How a young black Kansas farm girl, Pearl Shoey, painted barn rats red to get rid of them, and saw then a red-glowing star that afterwards she thought must of changed her beloved Pa, because he seemed never the same after the red star touched him with its light. CHRONICLE OF THE RAT STAR AND THE EXODUSTER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD--PART I A.S. 1922, Shackleton's Third Expedition Continued How Sir Ernest Shackleton, famed polar explorer, on a solo day trip doing reconaissance for his third expedition south to the Pole by way of McMurdo's Dry Valleys--a 1,500 square mile tract of ice-free terrain--finds a strange, mastless ship, which he enters just as a polar cyclonic storm strikes, rndering the area uninhabitable. Christening it ENDURANCE II, after his last ship, the three-masted barkentine ENDURANCE that was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Basin, he sails on a pre-determined curse to the stars in the north, the Constellation of Orion, with a mission he does nt know until he reaches his destination.
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE TRAVOIS A. S. 1919-1939, The War Between Wars How the First Horse, Ian "Breaks Eggs, " learned many things from Second Horse, until both could pull the travois together to the place chosen for the Great Council Fire of the End-Time.
CHRONICLE OF THE TRAVOIS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF YELLOWSTONE DAYS A. S. 1928, Song of the Golden West How the rollicking, high-spirited, hard-working girls and boys serving the crowds at Yellowstone, easily the premier national park of America, enjoyed a moment of innocence and beauty rare in the world, not realizing it was all over for them and their generation in but a few months, with the Wall Street stock market melt-down of '29 just one incident in the long road backwards.
CHRONICLE OF THE TIME ROCKET, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF RAGNAROK
A. S. 1937, Singer of the Ancient Seer
How a bard left the Emerald Island to look at old vellum books
and paintings preserved by the Benedictines in a monastery in Padua, Italia, and how they warned him about a second great world conflict of the Wasichu nations, which would usher in the new world order and the rise of a lion-bodied, man-headed Beast, the False Messiah, who would seize world power and crush out all the light of liberty and decency in Civilisation.
CHRONICLE OF RAGNAROK, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE MOUNTAIN TOMB
A. S. 1938, Eugenio's Secret
How a Basque fighting with the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War found ancient scrolls and artifacts in a tomb that were older
than even Eskual Herria, the Basque homeland that predated every
other nation and nationality in Europe.
CHRONICLE OF THE MOUNTAIN TOMB, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE OSLO TAPESTRY
A. S. 1938, Katrine's Secret
How a Norwegian woman, living alone, grew so desperate about her dry spiritual condition that she would do anything, even take pictures of leaves and shadows in her garden, if it would help restore her faith--pictures forming a tapestry portraying events to come that would have astounded the world if all of them had been made public.
CHRONICLE OF THE OSLO TAPESTRY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE RUINED CATHEDRAL
A. S. 1940, Winter of the Soul How Coventry was sacrificed, along with its ancient cathedral and much of its population, by a decision of Churchill who aimed to let the bombers through without any warning to Coventry in order to make the Nazis believe their secret code had not been cracked by Britain's code breakers at Bletchley House. How a half-literate scrubwoman in the smoking ruins of the Cathedral found the means to confront the unspeakable tragedy of losing practically everything in the bombing and firestorm that destroyed Coventry; that is, her husband, children, neighbors, city, cathedral, even her house and job.
CHRONICLE OF THE RUINED CATHEDRAL, VOL. IV. RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION
A. S. 1940, 1. Convergence at Abbotsbury
How a pious, elder daughter caring for an aged, ailing mother,
prayed the right prayer, effectively throwing a switch to a
most powerful blessing 1,900 years old.
CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. Winter's Grace
How a Welsh "College of Intercessionary Prayer-warcraft and Fasting," founded by a former coal miner, succeeded in turning the major events of World War II, starting with the Battle of Britain.
CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART II, RETROSTAR
3. No Wings But a Prayer
How Sir Francis Cecil, hereditary Lord St. Aubyn of the Mount of St. Michael, Cornwall, while squadron commander of Spitfires in the Battle of Britain, was struck wingless by enemy fire but continued flying, and
how he was taken out over the coast where he witnessed an even greater event taking place off the notoriously stormgirt Chesil Banks.
CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
4. Ivy's Grand Slam
How a little English girl in Portsmouth changed her bedtime prayer and turned back an incoming V-2, setting it on a trajectory that almost took Shickelgruber out of the war.
CHRONICLE OF THE SEA LION, PART IV, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT, A. S. 1940- , How on Earth I Elijah, a Romanian boy growing up in a brutal Communist-ruled country, found a miracle-producing faith to stand up against
the impossible odds of confronting a militaristic, atheist dictatorship destroying his beloved homeland, and how he made a new life for himself, succeeding after tens of thousands before him had been slain in the attempt.
CHAPTER 1, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 2, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 3, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 4, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 5, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 6, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 7, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 8, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 9, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 10, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 11, CHR0NICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 12, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 13, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 14, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 15, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 16, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 17, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 18, CHRONICLE OF THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
CHRONICLE OF THE ORACLE OF MENO
A. S. 1938-1941, St. Roderick's Secret
How a Basque patriot, deserting the Loyalist army in the Spanish
Civil War, became a free lance secret agent for the British side against the Nazis, luring Shickelgruber into the race for a Super-Bomb
while withholding vital information that would have made the Nazi
project a success.
CHRONICLE OF THE ORACLES OF MENO, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE RAG DOLL
A. S. 1943, Christmas at Auschwitz
How a young, brilliant, blind chemist, soon to perish in a gas chamber, afraid it was all for nothing, was given unmistakable proof her life was divinely touched.
CHRONICLE OF THE RAG DOLL
CHRONICLE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY'S SECRET PANELS
A. S. 1944, Questioning the Sphinx
How nuns guarded what came to be known as the world's most famous tapestry, the one detailing the Norman invasion of England in 1066, and how an American nun, an expert in tapetries, discovered additional panels that had not been sewn onto the masterpiece--panels that had been kept secret for the obvious reason they were found so disturbing because they were so prophetic about the world to come.
CHRONICLE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY'S SECRET PANELS, Vol. IV, Retro Star
CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS
A. S. 1945,
1. Legacy
How the victorious chieftains at the Potsdam council meeting from Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union, in the name of peace started the "War of Ice," and how Britain's "Tube Alloys" nuclear project came to nothing with suppression and disappearance of vital M-2 intelligence, and President Truman's ace in the hole, the Manhattan Project's Super-Bomb, fizzled at Alamagordo--apparently forcing America to join forces with Britain and Stalin's Russia to fight on to the finish with conventional forces against Premier Hideki Tojo's best troops and, unknown as yet to the Allies and their war planners, a whole nation swept by Kamikaze, the "Divine Wind".
CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. The Pack Rat
How a peddler of information, selling whatever he dug up to the highest bidder, happened on a deadly superweapon--one of three that Senhor Averinata had offered the British--that later would be used to help tip the scales against America in favor of the United Nations and a world government. To the Jews the crushing of the wine glass in a Jewish wedding recalled the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in ANNO 70, but to the Basques, it meant the whole universe was shattered--never ever to be put back together as it had been. (How could he barter and trade the destinies of whole nations as if they were trinkets and trifles? Peddlers, like foraging rats, consider only the present moment, and the penny or two gained or lost--never the long haul, which is, for a peddler, far to frightening to even consider in a rodent-type mind. Without the ship, the rat would drown in the open sea. Yet it infests the ship, spreads its diseases with its own dirt, and gives the crew a deadly plague, and the ship, without anyone to guide it to safety, strikes a rock and sinks, drowning the rats who caused the disaster. This has happened countless times. Their own nature, thus, gnaws off the rope that holds them above the pit. Pity the civilization where such men, such vermin, proliferate and gain high office! And you can always tell the end is near when such are numerous and run free, from deck to deck!).
CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
3. The Angels of USS Indianapolis IP
How on July 29, following the successful test of a new death ray in the first week of July, that dissolved atomic structures and could fuse human flesh to metal, a battleship was loaded with the deadly "gadget" and sailed for Tinian, an island in the Marianas Chain. Locked in a steel box bolted to the deck of the captain's cabin, the weapon that would knock the Japanese on the home islands to their knees would be assembled in the secret facility at North Field on Tinian, then deployed by aircraft over the first test cities of Tokyo and Kyoto, the two most revered cities in Japan and the centers of Japanese cultural life. How the best laid plan of the war came to naught, with details of immense tragedy and even angelic intervention that were so explosive in nature they could never be revealed to the American public.
CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART 3, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
4. The Divine Wind
How Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands,
ultimately succeeded but without superweapons proved so costly to America and Russia that they had cause to recall King Pyrrhus of the Greek kingdom of Epirus, who conquered Roman armies on their home turf but sustained such heavy losses he complained in his famous statement known for its unforgettable pathos, "Another such victory and I am ruined!"
CHRONICLE OF THE BROKEN GLASS, PART 4, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE WINTER SACRIFICE
A. S. 1947, 1. Winter's Child
How deeply the alien star's rays penetrated postwar America, and how an old farmer's beloved son was killed in the Wioteheka hi, Month of Terrible Moons.
2. Plain View Farm
How two deaths in a fiery plane crash were needed to thaw the frozen hearts of two other men.
CHRONICLE OF THE KILLER BEAR'S DESCENT
A. S. 1951, The Bear and the Lamb How Djugashvilli fared, while on the operating table in the Kremlin, as a small army of surgeons desperately tried to preserve his life after a massive sroke; how they failed and Djugashvilli, an atheist, found himself still alive, imprisoned in an Afterlife cell which could only be described as hellish. How things got progressively worse for him, as he encountered a strange Jew wearing a prayer shawl and next faced a Judge sitting on a throne so immense it couldn't be anyone less than God sitting upon it, and how he was judged by the testimonies of thirty or so millions he had had tortured and slain, and how after that he found himself shunted into a burning lake of blast furnance intensity, and how he, like all the others in it, were forgotten.
CHRONICLE OF THE KILLER BEAR'S DESCENT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE MAN LIKE A BRIDGE A.S. 1956, The Search How a young woman of the First World discovered the way back to her lost childhood faith, a faith that carried her all the way to Third World Cameroon wilderness in West Africa where it finally set its roots deep and briefly bloomed.
CHRONICLE OF THE MAN LIKE A BRIDGE
MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY A. S. 1962
The Phantom Ship How Lt. Greg Culpepper's life and career took a radical turn and plunge to the bottom of society after a storm at sea and his sighting of the R.M.S. TITANIC going down as he was inspecting the lighthouse facilities at Cape Disappointment and North Head on the mouth of the Columbia River, Washington State.
MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE 50th ANNIVERSARY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF EDYTH'S GOLDEN CROSS
A. S. 1963, A Truth Not Told How Miss Edyth Hamilton, humanist, classicist, and world-renowned authority on Greek and Norse mythology, was strangely confronted on her deathbed with certain false premises that undergird her whole life-work.
CHRONICLE OF EDYTH'S GOLDEN CROSS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE SPARROWS, A Tale of Old New York and Central Park
A.S. 1964, Lucky's Big Strike How Lucretiza Tisdale, a spinster
lady in her nineties,
fed
the sparrows of Central Park faithfully every day and how her death under the wheels of a beer truck brought
changes,
through the very sparrows she had given soda crackers, that she could not otherwise have achieved at her age and
with
her
insignificant, sparrowlike strength.
CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE SPARROWS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE FIGHTING ANGEL, PARTS I AND II
A. S. 1963
How the Swensons, a young American newlywed couple, in training for the mission field, took a break from language school in Paris, and came to a crisis of their relationship and a man's faith in God on and beneath the Mount of St. Miguel, the Fighting Angel.
CHRONICLE OF THE FIGHTING ANGEL, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
PART II: How the Swensons came to share their Christmas with the Fulani Tribe in Cameroon, West Africa, and how their cheer spread from there as far as the stars to a lost tribe of the Alpha Centaurii.
CHRONICLE OF THE REVIVAL OF HAGIA SOPHIA
A.S. 1968 How Lidia, a Greek Orthodox nun, ventured from her safe refuge in a convent in Athens, to return by tourist boat to her lost homeland in the Turkish nation that had forced her family to flee for their lives in the savage. almost genocidal war that broke out between the Greeks and Turks after World War I. How she learned things she did not expect from her day trip and contact with the enemy occupying her people's chief city and seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople and East Rome. How she received a gift she would always treasure--and ceased feeling herself robbed by the Turks though they had taken her Greek homeland as their own and pushed out virtually all her fellow Greeks.
CHRONICLE OF THE REVIVAL OF HAGIA SOPHIA, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE SHOW ME STATE'S PROPHET (EARTH I)
A. S. 1966, Elijah's Mantle How young and aspiring Brad Bright Jr. dreamed of becoming a prophet to "Holy Spirit-led, on-fire" Pentecostal churches in Missouri, his home state. How his promising life was cut short by a fatal collision with a tree when he was driving his truck home from a church youth meeting, and how his dream of ministry was defeated only temporarily, as a bit later he was brought back to serve with Elijah's mantle in the war against the AntiChrist Beast and his prophet during the post-Rapture Tribulation Period.
CHRONICLE OF THE SHOW ME STATE PROPHET, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GIANT CHIEFS
A. S. 1972, Two Sayings of Uwe Hantsbo Regarding the Atlanteans:
Elektra's Sad Fate, and Atlantis on the rocks, anyone?
How the Earth's tribe of original giants that stood like the tallest trees on Earth lived in a vast land that sank beneath the Eastern Sea.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE SALIENT A. S. 1973-1978 Even while the armies of France, Britain, and America struggled unsuccessfully in southern Asia to push back the communist forces from the north, a greater battle was being fought among the stars. How Atlantean star fleets combined with the red star and other star-stones to force an entry into the Great Nebula in order to destroy the protective forces centered at the Blue Brige. How, nearly successful, they were rebuffed, forcing an Atlantean subcommander to retreat to Earth.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE SALIENT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF HANTSBO'S NOTES
A.S. 199?, On the Bipedal Workforce of 1994tk66--A Flying Texas
How Uwe Hantsbo discovered on a planetoid a most interesting cache of mutants, freeze-dried specimens of the very kinds that had been proposed by a Washington geographical society in its magazine to be authentic human prototypes proven by science and archeology. The only problem, as Hantsbo points out, is that they were found all mixed together, obvious contemporaries, not separated by millions of years or mere hundreds of thousands as was said to be the case by the East Coast Brahmin evolutionists entrenched in the powerful, elitist geographical society.
CHRONICLE OF HANTSBO'S NOTES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART II A. S. 1973, Voyage of the PRION Inspired by Shackleton's legendary heroism, how an exlorer from New Zealand set out to be the first to circumnavigate Antarctica in a small boat solo, and stumbled into an unknown "Devil's Triangle" of ancient Atlantean orgin just off East Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf that changed his course so radically he was propelled in space and also time as far as an ancient Atlantean outpost opposite the gate of the Great Nebula of Orion--the very site of what Tennison the Poet Laureate of Britain described as holding a "vast mystic charm."
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE WHITE CANOE
A. S. 1977, Fairwind in Deep Waters
How a young electric plant operator of mixed working class and New England blue blood background takes a cruise into the unknown mysteries of time and space aboard what had first seemed a New York based cruise ship on its way to Peru.
MYSTERY CHRONICLE OF THE WHITE CANOE, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART III A. S. 1978, Cavendish in the Sky with Diamonds A somewhat crusty curmugeon of a retired journalist, in remission from cancer but angry over the recent loss of his wife to the same disease, goes out into his ruined back yard and changes places with a Prion, a polar bird that has wandered into his garden and died. Somehow the bird in death becomes him, giving him wings of a starship that can touch the farthest stars and Orion, Gateway to the Morning, where something bright and shining with destiny for everyone one arth seemed to open to him.
CHRONICLE OF THE ICE BIRD, PART III, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE ANCHORED
A.S. 1983
On the Trail of St. Paul
How Prunella, a sedate altar guild woman from the Midlands, England, on tour with a cruise ship company in the Middle East, finds release from a crushing depression over the accidental death of her daughter.
CHRONICLE OF THE LADY OF THE ANCHORED, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE SURVEYOR OF THE QUEEN'S PICTURES
A. S. 1983-,
The Knight of Darkness
How Sir Anthony Blunt and his fellow Cambridge-educated colleagues became involved in a secret spy ring inside the British secret services, serving not Fascism but Soviet Russia during part of the Second World War and for some years of the following Cold War with Soviet Russia. How Sir Anthony "retired" from being a double agent to being the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, with the responsibility for all the Queen's artworks in the royal palaces, but how he was exposed as a spy and found guilty but was allowed to retire with some dignity to his home, while his co-conspirators fled to Soviet Russia. How in dying they singly and together discovered an
Afterlife their Darwinistic beliefs had denied was possible, which delegated them to a new venture just as exciting as betraying their own country and serving her arch enemy--a contest involving the Golden Fleece and a rival ship called the Argo.
CHRONICLE OF THE SURVEYOR OF THE QUEEN'S PICTURES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE SACRED COWHIDE PAINTER
A. S. 1987, Ira's Letter to the 11,000th Century
How an artist's paintings for a B.I.A.-Lakota Christmas arts and crafts competition were preserved for a tribe of Wasichu lost seemingly forever among the lodges of the stars.
CHRONICLE OF THE SACRED COWHIDE PAINTER
CHRONICLE OF THE LION'S DESCENT, A. S. 1995, "The Lion's Descent," Part I, "The Lion's Legacy," Part II, How a U.S. Supreme Court Justice who was a very nice and likable gentleman became responsible for a once great and godly nation's descent into self-destructive depravity and violence and also for more deaths of Americans than were slain in the death camps of Himmler and Hitler (Earth I), and how he fared in Hades (Hell) after his death.
CHRONICLE OF THE LION'S DESCENT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF UWE HANTSBO'S NOTES
A. S. 199?, On the Bipedal Workforce of 1994tK66, A Flying Texas
How Uwe Hantsbo points out certain rather glaring flaws in the evolutionary timeline and evolutionary theory after seeing the flaws in question with his own eyes, frozen specimens of hominids and so-called human precursors, flying aboard a Texas-sized hunk of rock; how their existence supports his own view that highly intelligent, highly terrible ante-humans he names as the Atlanteans were responsible for the Dachau-like work camp on the asteriod.
CHRONICLE OF UWE HANTSBO'S NOTES, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WEAVER PEOPLE
A. S. 1997, The Secret of Dream Catching
How Horace Brave Scout wanders the Southwest and finds his life-guiding vision among the caves and baskets of an extinct tribe.
CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WEAVER PEOPLE
CHRONCLE OF THE UTERO-NAUT
A. S. YEAR OF THE CHILD,
PART I,
Orientation
How Shawnta, a 19 year old wannabe careerist like her single mom, was processed at the local abortion mill
newly opened in her black neighborhood.
CHRONICLE OF THE UTERO-NAUT, PART I, RETROSTAR
PART II, The Argonaut
How Shawnta's unborn child (no such thing as "fetus" ever existed on earth), genius that he was,
got going with the name of Jason on a very promising career that
might well have benefited the whole society and probably the world, but was rudely
interrupted by an abortionist's foreseps, scizzors, and vacuum--but also how the Master Plan created by the FC kicked in with a contingency plan to restore Jason's life and future.
CHRONICLE OF THE UTERO-NAUT, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE PEARLY GATES
A. S. 1998, How a Pearl Was Made
How a farmer's daughter's experiences in life and her decision to be forgiving came to form one half of a gate of heaven.
CHRONICLE OF THE PEARLY GATE, PARTS I-II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GRAND PUZZLE--Earth I
A. S. 2001-
How Anatoly, a survivor of a notorious Nazi death camp where Anne Franke and her sister perished along with tens of thousands of other Jews, spent his convalescence and waiting period to go to Israel by playing the lottery after the camp was in the hands of the Allies; how he shattered the laws of probability by never losing and always managing to win back his stake; how this impossible gambling feat came back to haunt him in the last minutes of his life as he lay dying in a Denver hospital, but how the Hound of Heaven led him to win the Jackpot of life, the greatest prize of all.
CHRONICLE OF THE GRAND PUZZLE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE LOST CITY
A. S. 2002, Last Breakfast in the West Wing; Melt-down on Pennsylvania Avenue
How the Wasichu of the U. S., in moral and political decline over against the British Commonwealth ever since Potsdam despite the highly-publicized moon and space programs of NASA, are struck by an invisible enemy and lose all their chiefs at once, and chiefs from the rest of the world come and set up a new council fire for the nation on Manhattan Island.
CHRONICLE OF THE MILLION MAN FLESH-EATER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE DEAD MOVIE QUEEN
A. S. 2003, The Burning of Coburn How a Hollywood legend found that all her fame, fortune, and feisty feminism couldn't erase the incredible after-death reality that was evidently turning against her--not only did she find she existed when she should have dissolved into nothingness, but all sorts of strange, powerful beings seemed intent on judging her and then throwing her into what appeared to be a Pacific Ocean set on fire.
CHRONICLE OF THE DEAD MOVIE QUEEN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF MOSHE, HONORGUARDSMAN
A. S. "Night of the Iguana" How on Earth I, Moshe Benlevi, a young Israeli soldier,
a freedom-loving Sabra, was chosen to be a part of Michael Jayson's
honor guard in Israel when the EU President arrived there for the signing of his
"eternal peace" accord he had brokered with the Palestinians and the Israelis. How Moshe tasted sour grapes in the deal and decided to stop the world (at least his slice of it) and get off, but how he was intercepted by someone he hadn't included in his life's equation.
CHRONICLE OF MOSHE, HONORGUARDSMAN, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF DJUGASHVILLI'S SERVANTS A. S. 2024 The Titan of CNNC A hostile takeover by Ted Hunter of a competing Christian network, Alpha-Omega, backfired tragically for him when his wife, converting to Christianity right in his own penthouse on top the CNNC Towers in Manhattan, took A-O's side in opposing him. A takeover that was supposed to be routine, thanks to his billions and an army of corporate lawyers, became a living nightmare when he met a world-class power player in A-0 that more than proved his match.
CHRONICLE OF DJUGASHVILLI's SERVANTS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE FALLEN GIANT
A. S. 2024, How the Dominion of Canada, like the Humpty Dumpty the ill-starred egg man in children's nursery tales, broke up due to the disastrous effects of resurgent glaciation but could not be put back together; how it gained an ephemeral capital called Flin Flondia, once called the "Sunless City," in a book by that name.
CHRONICLE OF THE FALLEN GIANT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT
A. S. 2170-,
1. Idylls of the King
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART I, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. The Panther's Jaws
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART II, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
3. Women and Children First!
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART III, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
4. Le Morte D'X-2914000?
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART IV, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
5. "Merry Christmas from Lyonnesse"
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART V, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
6. Wotoo's Black Box; The Duck King
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, PART SIX, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
7. Last Wagon Train to Avalann
How the Royal Tribe of Windsor fared in exile on a base off Charon,
Pluto's moon, and how they adapted to the loss of Earth and the
dissolution of the monarchy
CHRONICLE OF THE LAST CAMELOT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE STAR CHAMBER A. S. 2363, Christ in Atlantis? How Professor Pikkard was tried before a university panel for his heretical views and found guilty without evidence to refute his case.
CHRONICLE OF THE STAR CHAMBER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF CHRISTUS TRIUMPHANS, Parts I, II, & III
A. S. 2392, The Christmas Factor How Dr. Pikkard, meditating on the mystic Teilhard Chardin's visionary commentary on a medieval painting portraying a "standing" not a "hanging" Christ on the Cross, went on to reflect as well as the Incarnation of Yeshua, and how he concluded that a mystic thread connected all things, even to the blood of the human body, but that he had to wait for a "later" and "younger" talent to make it known scientifically. How, unknown to him, that younger visionary came to be his own predecessor, a Darwininian Establishment-challenging young man named Behe in the 20th-21st centuries, along with his contemporaries, Gabriel Tall Chief and Horace Brave Scout, who traced golden threads and lesser threads in a grand "blood cascade" of their own in the chronicles they brought forth.
CHRONICLE OF CHRISTUS TRIUMPHANS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
Book Two
CHRONICLE OF YOSEF'S PILGRIMAGE A. S. 4117, Flight to Avaris How Yosef and his young wife Maryam, with Maryam's newborn Yeshua the Promised Messiah of the Jews, fled from troops and spies of Herod the Great to safety in Mizraim, and how they journeyed back to Nazareth, their natal city, once Herod was dead.
CHRONICLE OF YOSEF'S PILGRIMAGE
CHRONICLE OF THE SECOND RESURRECTION
A. S. 4150, Secret Sharers, Part II
How the Second Zechariah the prophet, slain in the temple courts alng with many other prophets and saints, rose from the dead as a sign of the resurrection of the Messiah way back in A.S. 30, and how he went into the holy city and appeared to many, after which he was triumphantly escorted by angels to heaven's paradise--a spectacle first recorded, with certain new additions to the Resurrection Rolol, by Secret Sharer Josheph of Arimathea.
CHRONICLE OF THE SECOND RESURRECTION, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHRISTMAS PLAY
A. S. 4 6 5 ?, "Merry Christmas from Lyonnesse," A Play, How a miserly, cruel banker seeks to destroy a whole town he has foreclosed on, closing down the only means of employment, the town mill, and how a small girl, Emily Cogwell, revives faith and hope in the people by refusing to give up her own in the bitter circumstances of poverty and homelessness, and how she turns and saves the banker when he experiences a change of heart after seeing her standing alone in the town square holding the Nativity Scene's Christ Child doll.
UNCHRONICLE OF THE CHRISTMAS PLAY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE DRIED SPRINGS IP
A. S. 4760, A Chief's Son Named Laughing Waters
How an old chief and his old wife who had no children were
promised a son by God, and the old woman laughed, yet later she
conceived and gave birth to a beautiful son she named Minnehaha.
CHRONICLE OF THE PEARL DIVER
A. S. 5927 -, Shipwreck of Dreams How a despised half-breed, part Keftiuan and part Myceneaean (both nations bitter enemies in the world) and Prince Daedalus do not get along and almost
come to blows over the pretty orphan girl Theseus runs off with, and later after the
girl's death (and the shipwreck of Theseus's dreams) how they find
a way past hatred and revenge.
CHRONICLE OF THE PEARL DIVER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE FIRE WATER MAKER
A. S. 5931, The Chosen
How a brewery malt masher got herself a mighty warrior as a husband, and how her head was knocked in by other poor women, and left to die,
but a great chief's prayer gained her the ear of the Most High and she was healed.
CHRONICLE OF THE FIRE WATER MAKER, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE BREASTS
A. S. 5932-, The Wayward Vine
How the births of two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, comforted and
cheered Joseph in the land of his bondage, but how his beloved
wife and companion's heart turned toward her people and away from her husband.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE BREASTS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED MAIDENS, TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED BRAVE
A. S. 5934,
1. Dawn Flower
TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED MAIDENS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. The Prince of Gilead
TWIN CHRONICLE OF THE AMBUSHED BRAVE
How a chieftain's daughter and her maid-servant fought for their
virtue; how the maid-servant escaped to safety and found a young man she could make her husband; how a prince, robbed of all his wealth, was left for dead in the desert, and how he found a greater wampum.
CHRONICLE OF THE BITTER ROOT
A. S. 5938, Abdullah's Return
How good times fattened Abdullah but did not improve his character,
and how resentment and blood revenge took root in his heart, and how
he could not rest until he avenged his brethren's deaths on the head
of the chief of those he held responsible--Joseph.
CHRONICLE OF THE BITTER ROOT, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF FAT WOLVES AND HUNGRY PEOPLE
A. S. 5941, Part I, A Bruised Reed and a Broken Staff; Part II, The Return of the Brothers
How the little family tribe of Joseph's father began to starve in their desert
hogans and needed to go for provision in another country where there was said to be abundant food and water, thanks to a most far-seeing ruler in it who had set aside one fifth of the harvest for seven straight years of abundant harvests.
PART II, CHRONICLE OF THE FAT WOLVES AND LEAN PEOPLE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE FAR-SPEAKING VASES
A. S. 5931-, 1. Secret Diary of Ipu-Pheres (cont. by Benohe-Pheres);
A. S. 5942, 2. Letters of Ipu-Pheres, Jonathan H. Thompkins, and Bertha Mae 3. Letter to Reader by Editor of the 23rd Edition of RETRO STAR series.
How spirit-house shamans who have not yet been born could talk to people in stone tipis which had long since vanished under the ice.
CHRONICLE OF THE FAR-SPEAKING VASES, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS AND CURSINGS
A. S. 5957, Jacob's Last Testament
How all his sons received their future shares in the Promised Land
and how his blessings in some cases seemed more like curses; how
Jacob's embalmed body was carried back to Ken'an and buried with
his father's bones.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS AND CURSINGS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS
A. S. 6011, The Kingdom Pledge
How Joseph, on his deathbed at age 110, prophesied that his bones would not lie forever in Mizraim, but they would be gathered to his fathers in the Promised Land by his people. How seventy five years of great blessing followed Joseph's death, but then enslavement of the Hebrews began. How blessed was the one piece of ground, the field
outside Shechem, owned by the people of Jacob and Joseph.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLESSINGS OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF A CLOUDY AND DARK DAY
A. S. 6719, A Mighty Chief Called Barley Cake
How one young brave was chosen by God to fight tribes of thousands of enemies that oppressed and starved his people, coming every year
and taking all their food away.
CHRONICLE OF A CLOUDY AND DARK DAY, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
CHRONICLE OF THE GIANT-SCALPER
A. S. 6852, The Runt of Ephratah
How a tribesman of tiny Ephratah, smallest portion of a small country, he himself youngest in his family and despised by his brethren, killed and scalped a giant warrior and became the chieftain of the whole country and one of the most famous kings in human memory and whose second name is spread over the whole earth.
CHRONICLE OF THE GIANT SCALPER, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE CHIEFTAIN'S DAUGHTER IP
A. S. 8732, Elektra's Contingency Plan--Implemented
How a chieftain's daughter lost her last sky-canoe and seemingly all her people but found a tribe who didn't know better and took her
along with them.
CHRONICLE OF THE CHIEFTAIN'S DAUGHTER
CHRONICLE OF THE SEVEN STARS, THE GREAT WHITE CHAIR, AND THE END OF EARTH'S SKY-TRAIL AND THE GREAT LAST COUNCIL FIRE (EARTHS I AND II)
Z-Point II
GREAT LAST COUNCIL FIRE, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
1. Z-Point Deferred: Battle of the Seven Stars How, on Earth I, the "Light Bringer" Lucifer attacks the Seven Agensl of the Seven Cburches, determined to gain absolute control of Earth I, and how he uses this attack as a feint in order do the most damage he can to his true objective: the Blue Bridge of Orion that contains, he senses, to the Plan of Restoration for both Earths and their Universes.
CHRONICLE OF THE SEVEN STARS, VOL. IV, RETROSTAR
2. Part I: The Sentencing Trial: The Great Assize
Part I How all the people who had done bad things were shown what they
had done and were cast alive into the mouth of a Star-Eater along with all the spirit-creatures that lodged inside the enemy stars. Part II: City of Destruction How the cities and nations were judged and then their names and official seals and insigne cast into the Pit, and all memory erased in the mind of God of their former existence.
CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT WHITE CHAIR, VOL. IV, RETRO STAR
CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE LINKING CHAMPIONS--EARTH I AND EARTH II
How the Bridge once linking the Twin Earths was restored in the Cavern of the Great Nebula of Orion, a work that spanned the ages and completed the destiny of both worlds; how the choice to forgive by one wounded human being, a pioneer Exoduster's daughter from a farm in Kansas, joined the two half-spans together forever.
CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE BRIDGE LINKING CHAMPIONS
2. Homecoming of the City of the Great Chief IP
How the council gathering of the Lamb of God, finished after an eternity of careful construction, came down from heaven and set upon the center of restored Israel, where the Nail-Pierced One and his tribes would rule the Earth's nations for a thousand years until the Final Reaping of the Earth.
Volume V
Beyond the Rapture--An Eschatology Lived,
Chronicled by Horace Brave Scout
CHRONICLE OF THE GREAT CHIEF'S RETURN
A. S. 200?
How Yeshua comes to Earth I, unexpectedly to most people, gathers those few "Wise Virgins" who are prepared, and leaves those who
were tremendously successful followers, they thought, only to find themselves lumped with the ungodly in a world society racing
toward the abyss. How Heloise Turnbull, the televangelist, lost her world-wide organization and wealth along with her husband and family but found new life and a new ministry in Israel where she fled to escape the collapse of everything she had achieved.
PART ONE, JACOB'S TROUBLE, "THE VOICE FROM THE GROUND"
"Thief in the Night," Part Two, Beyond the Rapture
"The Spin Shamans," Part Three, Beyond the Rapture
"luv heat and the marcyz boyz," Part Four, Beyond the Rapture
"Hard Choices, Part Five, Beyond the Rapture
"The Wailers at the Wall," Beyond the Rapture
"Shelter from the Storm," Part Seven, Beyond the Rapture
"A Covenant God," Part Nine, Beyond the Rapture
"The Lion Unleashed," Part Nine, Beyond the Rapture
"Retreat to Petra," Part Ten, Beyond the Rapture
Please return for Book Two of Beyond the Rapture, "Yom Kipppur"
(Chronicle completed)
Volume VI
Natal Convergence
by Horace Brave Scout
CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE
A. S. 1,136,786
How the Alpha Centaurii discovered an archive of Late Twentieth Century artifacts in a time capsule, and information revealing a Magnum Mysterium that revolutionized everything, to the point where
they chose the dreaded White Martyrdom, a final search of the Universe for what they had lost, in which they discover what Ira
Sulkowsky has already shown them in....
"The Christmas Factor"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A1, "Dogon Star Child"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A2, "Lakota Nativity"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A3, "A Victorian Christmas"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A4, "Christmas with James Dean"
"Subfile A4: Christmas with James Dean, A Requiem with Poinsettias"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A5, "A Fawn in Winter"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A6, "A Fulani Christmas"
"A Fulani Christmas," Vol. VI, CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE, RETRO STAR
61000202A-Z, Subfile A7, "Street of Dreams"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A8, "Winter Rose"
CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE, WINTER ROSE, VOL. VI, RETROSTAR
61000202A-Z, Subfile A9, Act III, "Christmas from Lyonnesse"
61000202A-Z, Subfile A10, ACT III, "Joseph's Letter"
CHRONICLE OF THE LOST TRIBE, VOL. VI, "Joseph's Letter," RETROSTAR
"Natal Convergence!"
Volume VII
Final Wars...Convergence at Orion
by Horace Brave Scout IP
How two major battles fought for Orion and its secret "Skunk Works" resulted in the destruction of the
chief project, the Blue Bridge, to the point where only half survived in each Universe; and how a single act of an individual was strong enough to unite the two halves into one whole, thereby completing the bridge and defeating the opposing players.
Epilogue II
EPILOGUE II, "THE HARROWINGS OF HADES AND HELL," RETRO STAR
Struggling along, they hardly noticed the small boy who peered at them from the top of the grassy riverbank. He vanished when an Argonaut called to him, just as a wild animal would leap away into cover. They thought nothing of it as they kept working to free the Argo.
It was such a strange sound they had to look and see--and then they
realized it was not war but a welcoming party of native people gathered on the bank. The arrows had merely been to get their attention--at least they hoped
it was.
Warily, Jason and his crew, with weapons in hand, went to meet
the people, whom they judged were the Colchians.
The people, seeing them come armed, drew back alarmed, but Jason decided
these country people were not hostile, and told his men to lay their swords
down. When they did this, the people ran forward, encircling the crew and captain, putting garlands on them, and singing and playing their strange-crafted
harps and wailing flutes.
The people had wine for the Argonauts, but they beckoned for Jason to follow with his men, and they were led to a nearby village, set up on higher ground where fruit trees and vineyards were growing abundantly. It seemed a propsperous place, with plenty livestock too. The village had evidently stopped everything to greet the strange ship and its crew, and Jason
was pleased that his men had such a warm welcome instead of a fight on their hands.
Three days later, after much feasting, dancing, and singing (but not much resting and sleeping), the Argonauts made it known they must be going--they had important business with the king. This was done in trader language, an argot of Akkadian, Tyrian, and Ilian, which was widespread enough in the world enough to reach even this out of the way corner.
The villagers were a bit sobered by the news. Jason asked about the king, seeing the look on their faces. Was he a good king or was he evil?
This question really alarmed them. Nobody among them seemed to want to ansswer Jason. Finally, an old man, who perhaps had least to lose being so aged,
stepped forward to speak for the others.
"He is cruel, greedy, and changeable--like this mighty river before you--for he is always devouring our lands and lives. It is a good place, if he would leave us live in peace, but he never has enough gold and treasure in his high palace. He is always making us work for him,
gathering the gold in the river, and if we drown--as many of us do--it matters nothing to him.
The old man then told them some stories of how the king had treated them basely in the past. Jason did not enjoy the telling. It confirmed everything he had heard before about this king. What kind of reception, then, could they hope for? Yet they must go forward, if they were to find the Golden Fleece, even with this wicked king ruling the whole land.
Some of the young women who were marriagible and liked the sight of these valiant Argonauts very much, were grieved that they should depart so soon. They acted as if they were losing all their marriage prospects as the Argonauts trooped back to their ship. On the
Argonauts' side, it was
hard to leave the people who had been so friendly and generous toward them, but it had to be done.
With the knowledge gained about the river from the villagers, they
did not try the water again at that point, but went back into the sea, and
entered the river mouth again at the farthest bank. Here it was as the
villagers said--the main current ran true and deep, and they had a much
easier time of it, even though they had to oar furiously to make progress
into it. Mopsos even broke an oar in the racing current, snapped off like a twig.
The wind had shifted by this time, and was helping them too. They
left the winding channels and entered a broader section of the river, which
looked more like a gently winding lake than a river. As they sailed along the shore, they
saw what looked like fortresses, set high on the craggy hills, one after the other. Could there be watchmen in them, able to spot their arrival? Jason wondered. He knew they would soon find out, if they were sighted.
With their arms close at hand, the Argonauts plied their oars, and
they continued. They saw many fishing boats in the big river channel,
and then an acropolis, or fortified palace and royal hall. Beyond and below it lay a city, they
could tell, from the many masts in the harbor and the sight of
houses climbing up the steep slopes of the hills behind the harbor.
Was this the Colchian capital of Aea? And was the palace-fortress the king's?
Their excitement rose as they drew closer. A ship came out,
a warship with an iron beak for ramming, and the excitement turned to the possibility of having to
fight for their lives if they were rammed and attacked by the bowsmen and swordsmen on board. But the warship, which was joined by four others of equal size and crew, did not
launch an attack, and turned and led them into the harbor, all the men cheering and raising oars in salute.
Apparently, they had been expected, for city officials were
standing on the wharves, waiting to greet them when they docked.
Colchian speech was unknown to Jason, of course, but the old trader talk was
good enough. Perhaps they would meet some people who knew Achaean as well,
once they met more people, Jason thought hopefully. He wanted more than anything to explain why they had come, but though trader talk was good for quantities and the names of goods to be exchanged for so much of this and that, it did not come close to helping him describe the true reason for their coming to this land.
What did the Colchians think they were? he wondered. Traders? Adventurers? Gold-seekers? It was impossible for him to tell in the excited gabble of the Colchian language, except that they were continually pointing to his one sandalled foot and smiling as if they had heard about it for a long time. He asked to see their king, and
at once he and his men were led out of the city and with mounted, armed escort up the road leading to the palace-fortress. Jason the captain was carried in a gold chariot, while the others followed on foot. It was a stiff climb, and many guard posts had to stop them, before someone gave an order, and they were allowed to proceed.
A crowd of people from the city also followed them, and they were too many for the guards to hold back, and so the throng joined the royal guards and escorted the Argonauts--which was just as well, for Jason felt they were safer with the common people than with the king's men.
King Aeetes, sitting on his throne in his royal audience hall,
did not seem the ogre that he had been painted, but yet he did not seem at that friendly either as he stared with almost an envious look at the beautiful bodied, one-sandalled, lion-maned Prince Jason of Iolkos.
Jason explained, using the trader talk and even some Achaean words
when trader talk proved insufficient, that they had come to seek the Golden Fleece that Phrixus, their countryman, had left for safekeeping in their country, or so the account was given to him in his city of Iolkos.
Hearing his, the king frowned, but his daughter--if that was what she was--seemed to be pleased. She leaned close to the king's ear and said quite a number of things, as Jason waited with growing impatience.
What was so strange about this quest of his?--hadn't they expected that someday someone from the native homeland of Phrixus would come looking for him and his Golden Fleece? The four sons of Phrixus? Where were they all? His grandsons were on board the Argo, kept there under the watchful eye of Mopsos, but where was their uncles? What had the king done to drive them away?
Jason thought the king needed more information. "O king," he began. "Do not think it so strange that we have come to your great country! I went to my own kingdom to claim it, where my uncle ruled for my father, and he offered me this wonderful adventure, and I took it, since I am young, and it seems hard for one of my few years to sit so long in a chair, day after day, even if it is golden and it is a king's. Can you help us find the Fleece of the heavenly ram? We will go in search of it at once, and cease to be a burden to you!"
Now it was the king who looked pleased, and the young woman at his side looked just the opposite.
Surprised, Jason decided that he would never get used to these
changeable Colchians and their swift turning currents of mood. He waited for
their answer, and it was the king who spoke next.
"You are welcome, foreign prince! Of course, you all must first bathe and be feasted
properly, before you go forth to gain the Fleece! You are my honored guests! But when you take your leave, I will then tell you a few, little tasks you must perform first to prove yourself worthy of the Fleece. If it is so valuable to you, surely you will understand that it must cost you something to win and possess! The Fleece is not freely given. What treasure comes without price, unless it is stolen? To prove you are not thieves come to rob my kingdom, you will first prove you are honorable men at heart and do the things I request, which should be slight tasks to the likes of you. We cannot let just anyone, particularly strangers like you, to tread anywhere you please in my kingdom. No! But once you have proven yourself worthy by paying the price I set for you, then you can go forth with my royal favor and the speed of the gods! Is this acceptable and fair in your eyes?"
All the eyes of the courtiers and counsellors and the guards were fastened on the One-Sandalled Champion, to see how he would respond to the outrageous demands.
Jason felt very uncomfortable, unable to comprehend the full extent of the
demands in the first moments. What did they know he did not know? Just what were these "little tasks" anyway? How could the king presume to put a price on the Fleece? Did it belong to him? Phrixus had sacrificed the Golden Ram of heaven--so the Fleece had come from heaven's kingdom, not this barbarian king's! How could this man presume to set his price on a heavenly ram's fleece anyway? But what choice did he, the
suppliant, have? He was a royal guest, along with his crew, whether he liked the idea or not.
He bowed, and replied: "You are most gracious, O great King! If you must set a price on the Fleece, we will attempt to pay it with full obedience to your wishes. May
your gods favor you in return!"
The Argonauts were led away by palace servants to their quarters,
and there they bathed in fine, Ilian bronze tubs filled for them by palace men-servants with scented, warm water, and were given fresh changes of clothes fit for princes. Returning to the hall, they found it set with banqueting tables all prepared for them. The banquet
began, and continued until late in the evening.
Jason was surprised--just now hearing that this high-spirited royal princess, whom he found
fascinating and strong in mind like a man, was part of the royal prize he was seeking to win. She went on, more rapidly, though still keeping her voice low. "Don't mind my father. He is jealous of
rivals of any kind. That is natural for a king of his power and wealth. He will not
try to kill you right away now and will set some tasks for you, but I will help you if I can--whenever I can."
That was all she could tell him, as too many people were looking at them and whispering to each other with knowing smiles. Jason stared at her as she broke off and left him by the wall where she had
stood many days looking out to sea for the coming hero with the one-sandal. In the morning, after they had slept in the down-soft beds, they were greeted and brought back to the royal hall. Here they found the king prepared for them, but his daughter was
not present. The military men--who all looked like generals--stood
stiffly on each side of the king. The whole air of the audence had changed from that of host with his honored guests to something like an audience a suspicious king would have
with an untrusted ally or the envoys of a treacherous, neighboring kingdom.
"Prince Jason, you must complete the tasks I assign, before I let you launch forth on your quest. These are my little labors. First, you must bend a certain bow of bronze and string it. It was the bow of Herakles who was said to be half a god in his strength and prowess, if not his intellect! Nobody has been able to do it--not among mortal men. The second task will
be to sail your ship backwards up the river, with your sail furled and your oars turned so the handles are plying in the water, not the blades. Third, you will subdue the bull of Hades that reputedly guards the cave entrance to the underground chambers of the souls of dead men, but you will carry no weapon. Fourth, you will use the bull of Hades to plow the ground, and then sow dragon teeth that I will give you from my royal collection. When the dragon teeth spring up as fully armed men you will fight with you, you must slay them all.
When you have completed these simple tasks, you will then face the dragon which guards the tree on which the Fleece hangs. Are you ready to begin the first labor? Or are you
like all the others, who proved cowards? If you are a wretched coward, I will personally whip you all the way to the city gates like a dog for wasting my royal favor and dining at my table! Well?"
Jason, his face ashen, glanced at his men, and their faces showed they were
equally shaken.
"O king, you ask some difficult things of us. I must go and seek the open council of my men freely. Why do we do this? We are free Achaeans--bound by our customs and laws, which were granted us by our forefathers. They met in these free and open councils, and kinds were silent in their midst, while all others spoke whatever was on their hearts, without fear of punishment. It is our ancient Achaean way, and it is good, lest our kings and princes become tyrants over us after all good counsel fails to reach their ears. Will you give us a day to decide? It is a difficult matter."
The king's face grimaced, and he seemed not at all pleased about the Achaean custom of seeking wisdom in open, free councils, but he was anxious to hear
the decision, and so he signalled that they could do so, but he said that if they were delaying him just so they could runaway--he would send his mounted soldiers to
catch them, and then it would be the prison for their likes!"
Jason and his men, shown out of the hall, were wide-eyed. This king was everything they had been warned. But he was even worse! No king on earth would demand such things as this king demanded! What were they to do? They could not hope to outrun the king's horses and chariots. They walked back down to the ship, and
then held their council as free Achaeans do since the time of their forefathers.
The men pleaded with him. "It's all clearly impossible!" they cried. "Yet we are strong and brave and are
able to fight this wicked, unjust ruler," Boreus said, speaking for the others. "At least let us fight manfully, and die honorably as free Achaeans! We will not let him put such impossible tasks on you to crush you and defeat the Quest set deep in your heart!"
Jason gazed at the men, and realized that he had to save his men, even if he were not saved and his dream perish with him. As for Mopsos, he remained silent, with no opinion expressed--Phrixus's grandsons leaning against his mighty shoulders as they would with a loved big brother or their father. Finally, when no one offered anything else, Jason stood, and the council ended. "No," Jason shook his head, "I must attempt them. There is no other way for us. He will kill us all if we do anything but what he has demanded. At least, it will be only one death, mine, rather than all yours. You will remain here, with oars, swords and shields, at hand,
and if I fail, you must get away at once the moment you see his soldiers running to capture you! I think he will not strike you
too, but if he tries, you must not stay and fight so many as he has, but
sail at once out of this place! The river's current is swift, your arms are as strong as your oars, you can outrun them to the sea! That is my decision! What say you?"
The men all stared at him, speechless. Then, one by one, they nodded
with great reluctance. And some of the men wept--they knew this was probably the last time they would see their great, one-sandalled captain alive.
Jason went up to the palace unarmed, for his strenth was his chief weapon now. The king and his court and daughter sat in a high pavilion above a pavement where Jason was led out. He was handed a bronze bow reputed to have belonged to Herakles, too heavy for an ordinary man. Made of all metal, it was unbreakable but would be useless in battle, for it would defeat the arm of any bowsman who tried to bend it.
Having switched his sandal to his left foot, he used that foot to hold one end down, while he put his arm over the other and pulled down hard. It did not bend.
Jason began praying silently. He tested it again, and still it resisted
his strength. Truly, it was impossible.
He was facing his own sure death, he knew, when the king exacted the full punishment for his failure--as this cruel, barbarian king naturally would.
Jason began to think hard and fast. Defeat and disgrace were staring him in the face, like the dread faces of snake-haired Medusa and her sisters that turn a man to a stone, petrifying him with one look at them. He was sweating hard. He had to wipe his hands off on his loin cloth to get a tight grip on the bow. Then it came to him--words he had heard Orpheus and also Mopsos and his father say, and other things too that spoke to him. There was a God above all gods, who was Almighty! This Most High God had grown unknown to the far-sailing Achaeans, because they grew darkened in their minds and began to prefer the many gods of their neighbors with all their feasts, revelry, and evil
sport rather than the holy, pure worship demanded by the Unknown God of their forefathers, the One Who dwelt in unapproachable light.
To this true, holy God dwelling in pure light Jason turned in his desperation. "I will belong to You,
Holy One of my forefathers, if you will help me now in this impossible task! Grant me mercy and the needed strength, I pray!"
It was a simple prayer, but utterly sincere. He did not expect
a lightning bolt or a clap of thunder or a chariot with horses descend out of the sky. He felt nothing, in fact, that could tell him that this God had heard his
urgent prayer and surrender.
As the king was growing restless, he gave orders to the men to strike Jason
with the flat of their swords if he delayed any further.
But Jason did not wait for that humiliation to be dealt him--a prince of a royal kingdom of heroic-hearted men just as great as any high-towered, gold-rich Colchis, in his view! He grasped the
arms of the bow of Herakles, applying all his strength.
He felt nothing give in the bronze, and pressed on it all the more,
and still nothing! He gave it everything he had! His heart was beating furiously, as if to burst! His fingers and knuckles whitened, and his chest heaved, and every muscle and bone stood out on his body. The bow refused to surrender to all the violence of his strength and will!
Giving a cry of anguish, Jason was about to drop the bow and accept a miserable end at the hand of the king when a surge of power nearly knocked him off his half-bare feet. The bow nearly snapped in two as he held it in his trembling hands while the Power coursing through him did its work for him. He quickly strung it, hoping the divine strength would last long enough. It did. He strung the bow, and then stepped back, raising it high and waving it. The crowd roared in surprised approval. When he took an arrow from a quiver held out to him, he drew the bow and the arrow shot through the air with such speed it struck the target, one of the high fortress towers. Men ran to retireve it. They came back, shouting that the arrow had passed completely through, piercing two stone walls as if they were butter! And the arrow had continued on, not dropping to the ground, for there was no sign of it! The whole gathering was thunderstruck at the news. Hundreds of Colchians jumped from the stands, running to mob him, hoisting them on his shoulders and carrying him around the viewing pavement in a victor's parade. The king rose, looking very disgusted, and his daughter, looking very pleased, went with the king to present Jason
the One-Sandalled the gold-leaved victor's crown for completing the first task successfully. Intricately figured,
gold bracelets fashioned in Ilios were clamped on his arms and ankles as well, but he took the splendid trinkets off and gave them to the poor in the crowd.
Mopsos, in his boyhood, had trained a dolphin once to pull his little fishing boat--with a rope halter he had made for it. These dolphins of the river, he reasoned, could learn the same trick. If they were given enough tasty fish treats, that is! Once they thought they would be given rewards for any task, they were eager to do them! Otherwise, they were so free in spirit they could not be made to do anything--and were like Achaeans, in that respect--a life and liberty-loving people who did not take kindly to tyrants and their suppression of freedom and mistreatment of the poor farmer, the widow, the elderly, and the honest wayfarer.
In the hours he had before Jason's test with the bow of Herakles, Mopsos had already made friends with six or seven river dolphins who quickly responded to the names he gave them. There were others too that were drawn to
the free fish he offered them--but they proved too wild and wary for him to tame.
But Laugher, Ox-back, Darter, Flier, Water-walker, Flip-tail--they were the sweet cream of the crop! Such jolly, big fellows, it seemed it was their joy to try to please him. Stroking their bellies, his
six dolphin friends came again and again to him when he, or his adopted sons--as Phrixus's grandsons were to him--called their names. Dolphins learned very, very quickly, with hardly any practice. They were so bright they seemed to anticipate what he was going to teach them. Soon he knew that they would
take the rope halter and pull the Argo itself, being such powerful swimmers they equalled many strong oarsmen. But could they pull the ship against the racing, snow-fed currents of the deep-channeled Phasis? That remained to be seen!
When the king was settled in his grandly-tapestried royal pavilion on the wharf, and a golden trumpet was blown,
it was the signal for the Argonauts to begin the rowing. Jason's Argonauts put all their oars into the milky white, muddy water, handle down, and among them were six that had halters already
being nibbled by the six hungry dolphins Mopsos had trained. One by one, they accepted the
halter, after being given a tasty fish. Now the Argo was ready!
As Moposos threw a fish ahead of each group of three, they started off, pulling the
ship into the river.
The king, fully expecting to see the Argo drift backwards helplessly as his oarsmen
flailed futilely with their oar handles, saw the ship move forwards! He was astounded. Could his eyes be mistaken? Then one of his courtiers, sharper of eye,
informed the king, "They have trained the fishes to pull the ship, Your Majesty!"
"Impossible!" cried the king. Yet it was the case, which more and more of his
court saw for themselves.
"The Argo continued upstream, pulled by the powerful dolphins, while Mopsos
kept throwing tasty fish ahead of them to reward them for their work.
When Mopsos ran out of fish, Jason called a halt. He had his men put blades in the water, and the ship quickly returned to the wharf, his men shouting in triumph. The king was flummoxed. He could not think what to do or say against it. After all, he
had set no provisions, not imagining that the Argonauts would train the river fish
to pull the ship upriver against the current! He soon realized, after looking at
his speechless counselors, that there was nothing for it. With a crowd of townspeople now gathered, cheering for the Argonauts, he could not countermand his former
demand.
With ill grace, he crowned Jason with his second crown of golden laurel leaves for his
victory over the river, while his daughter, who had arrived late in a golden litter with her own entourage, smiled and gave the champion a jeweled ring from her finger, which he kissed and then handed to Mopsos to keep for Phrixus's grandsons.
The king, seeing her hand over a ring to a foreigner he had given her on her birthday, was almost beside himself--but though he was visibly shaking with anger he controlled himself enough not to let his angry words fly. He knew better than to cross his daughter's wishes at this point of the ceremony--who knows what she might do to disgrace him before everyone present? He dared not risk her anger, as it was too much like his own for comfort--and he was not sure who could get angrier. She still had not got over her mother's death. Her mother had been a beautiful woman, but apt to use poison potions to get rid of her rivals. One--a barbarian girl he had since got rid of--had got to first. Now her daughter might
be inclined to try the same things--and so it was politic to try to keep in her
good graces if he could manage it.
The only thing that sweetened the king's sour countenance a bit was the thought that the next labor was even worse. Jason and his men could laugh all they like now, but soon they would be wailing, and begging for his mercy, which of course was in short supply in his kingdom, when it came to upstart strangers like this one-sandalled voyager from Achaea! Let his wrestle with the mighty horned bull of Hades and see which was the greater in strength--a mere man, or a bull that was as big as a house and able to breathe scorching fire through its flaring nostrils? No man had dared such a thing and lived! Jason would not only have to subdue Hades' ferocious, man-killing beast but he would have to make it submit to a yoke so Jason could plow a field he would sow with dragon's teeth. When they sprang up as fully armed warriors, he would have to slay them all, before he would receive another crown. All that was, of course, utterly impossible. Hahaha! the king chuckled to himself, as he mounted his chariot and rode back up the road to his palace to get the dragon's teeth from storage, which the gods had given him on their last visit. This one-sandalled prince was a dead man! Hahaha!
The old herb woman was where her mother had taken her once, busy at her trade of
preparing love potions, and even potions to get rid of unwanted husbands and unwanted wives or rivals of wives. It was a good business, and she never lacked for patrons.
Not at all surprised the late queen's daughter would come alone, she heard her request, and knew exactly what would do. The spider leaf plant was the most potent in the world of herbs. With a leather glove, she gathered a few beans and leaves of the plant she grew outside
the abandoned royal kitchen, now a ruin, where she lived and worked.
Soon she had it worked in a mortar with a pestle into the paste required.
"A little more, perhaps, and it could kill the beast on its feet. Dab this amount I give you on a bundle of provender for the beast to eat--and soon it will collapse. When
it awakens, it will be docile, unable to fix its mind on you as its enemy, so it will not rush at you to kill you. You can do anything you like with this beast as long as
the herb's strength lasts. After the effect passes, the beast will turn and gore you if you tarry."
Medea paid the woman a gold coin, and the woman was all smiles--she had not been paid so royally since the queen had been her frequent customer in former days.
"Now, Your Majesty, please be very, very careful with the potion. It must not touch you, or you will die a horrible death! It is so powerful an herb!"
The herb woman scooped the paste into an earthen jug, sealing it with a stopper,then handed it to the princess.
"Only pour a little water in it, and you can pour it out on the hay for the
beast you speak of. But if you get any on your own hand, you will die! Throw away the jug at once."
She herself cast the utensils she had used away--including the mortar and pestle and the glove she had used to gather the herb.
Medea took the spider plant bane and narcotic straight to the royal wharf. She was fortunate, she found. Instead of the usual gang of talkative, lounging boatmen and traders, with a customs man or official from the palace dealing with them, there was only a fisherman or two casting a line from the wharf, more intent on getting their catch for dinner than anything else.
He was happy to see Medea's face, however, as she pushed back her head covering--surprised as he was that she would come in person like this, wearing a commoner's clothes.
Medea did not waste time on herself as Jason and his men pulled the mooring line, and they drew up close to the wharf. Jason climbed out on the wharf to speak to her in private. She walked away a few paces, then turned around to face him as she held out the
means for overcoming the bull of Hades. She explained everything about the potion, and how careful he must be with it.
"This will make the beast do whatever you want it to do. It is the only way. Otherwise it will kill you! That is why my father set this impossible task on you--he knew what this bull would do! Will you use the potion?"
Jason took the jug. "Yes! I will do with it as you told me."
He thanked her, but she did not give him any more time to say more and hurried away.
Jason watched her go, sighed, and then turned back to the business at hand--the Third Labor! This was a most dreadful task the king had set for him!
His Argonauts fully expected not to see him return from the cave of Hades. But where was the cave entrance to the Underworld of the Dead?
Jason did not want to call on any of the king's men to guide him to it--lest the king
use them to thwart him in any way. He would find it himself, perhaps using
local people's advice if he could get it. Surprising him, however, they
fell silent when he asked the tradesmen in the port when he went to buy the
provender for the bull.
Normally, they were talkative, but not on this subject!
There was nothing for it, he would have to set off walking, and find it himself if he could, without help.
With his Argonauts following, carrying the rake with the bundle of hay for him,
Jason set off, not willing to delay the Labor any longer.
After they left the city gate leading to the mountains, he came upon many farms,
then further out, on the slopes of the mountains, flocks of sheep. It was
so warm and luxuriant below the slopes, but on them the herbage quickly thinned out to grass and small prickly shrubs. Here a shepherd boy ran right into his path. He was very frightened. Evidently, he had been chasing a sheep that had bolted.
Jason caught the boy in his hands before he could get away.
Jason pointed to a bull in a pasture further down the slope. By degrees he got the boy to understand that the bull he sought was under the ground, not on it. Finally,
the eyes of the boy gleamed with understanding, then, terrible fear. He struggled to get away all the more from Jason's grasp. Jason took out a gold piece, and the boy stared at it with big eyes and stopped struggling.
"Oh, so you know the value of this, do you?!" Jason laughed, and his men laughed with him. He handed it to the boy, while indicating that he was to lead them to the bull that lives underground. The boy, grasping the gold piece with his teeth, set out gladly, letting his sheep tend themselves for the time being.
The boy practically ran the whole distance, and the men were hard put to keep up, for the boy was as nimble footed as a goat on the steep slopes and the rocky sides of ravines.
He knew just where to ford streams that plummeted out of the snows and ice far overhead to fall upon the slopes far below. He knew the entrances to all the major caves in the area too, and he lead them to one, stopped, smiled and pointed. Jason undestood. This was the one he sought!
The boy darted off, and Jason did not have a chance to thank him.
The Argonauts peered in. It was a vast cave, and even though the entrance was narrow, they could see there was no limit to it. How would he see when the light of the outside world failed him?
He hoped that he would find the bull where there was still enough light to see it. That was all he could hope, for he had not thought to bring torches. And he could not carry them anyway. He had the rake and hay, the jug, and his sword and shield. His Argonauts wanted to accompany him, and carry everything, but he refused.
"Return to the ship!" he said to them. "You must all guard it for my return. We must not lose our ship. Please go at once!"
The men were most reluctant, but Jason did not give them an opportunity to
try to dissuade him. He left them and entered the cave. Within moments he and his Argonauts had lost sight of each other.
Becoming very wary, he proceeded slowly.
It was good that he was taking his time, and was quiet, for every
stone that was kicked made a noise that repeated itself almost endlessly in the vast
chambers of the cave.
He finally saw up ahead a huge mass he thought was a big, solitary rock. But it moved! And when it turned, it showed its horns.
Jason froze. He did not move even an eyelid. The monster bull was bigger than he had even imagined.
It slowly walked away from him, and Jason was able to breathe again. It had not seen him! Evidently, he was so small, it had not seen him in the dim light, or maybe he seemed nothing but an ant to it.
Jason, laying down the provender, took the jug and pulled the stopper. Carefully,
he applied the potion to the hay and straw, then he picked up the rake and
carried the provender as he followed the bull from a safe distance. The bull finally stopped, swung its head about a few times, then sank onto its haunches, before
laying down on its side. It was going to sleep!
This was Jason's chance. He waited a while, then as quietly as possible
carried the hay to the bull, laying it down where he thought the bull might
see it or come close to it when it was again on its feet.
Then Jason went to the rock walls of the cave, and hiding himself between the huge boulders, waited.
The bull rolled a couple times in its sleep, snorted, flexed its tremendous
legs and hooves, then returned to its slumber. Jason also slept, thinking
it would be a longer time, and he might as well rest too.
When he awoke, it was suddenly, at the sound of something huge, like an avalanche of rocks, falling into the cave with a thunderous roar. He looked out, and saw only the bull. It was lying on the ground as before. Had it?
Jason had to risk it to find out, but he had to know. He crept as quietly as he could toward the bull. He got right in front of the monster, but still the bull gave no sign it knew he was there. Then Jason saw it had eaten the provender, including the rake!
Jason followed, and when the bull quietened, still under the effect of the narcotic,
he took the hair rope he had made of the bull's own tail hair and, attached to the
hair of the beast's head, he led it like a docile lamb.
The astonished Argonauts watched as Jason and the bull continued on down toward the lower slopes. Jason did not dare pause to explain. He did not want the potion to wear off before he had completed the labor. Yes, he had subdued the beast, but he had to plow a field, then sow it with dragon's teeth provided by the kind.
But first he had to get it and himself safely down to the lower cultivated slopes.
"I need plenty rope and a plow," he called to the men. They understood, and some ran for the rope, and others for a farmer's plow from the nearest farm.
The men going for the rope from the ship met Mopsos. That man had seven eyes in his head, it seemed, and seven ears--how could he have known and seen Jason's need? But he did! Grabbing the rope, they ran carrying it up the slopes toward the
highest fields.
When Jason and the bull reached the first fields, the rope and a plow were waiting for them, and he shouted instructions as the bull kept moving along, Jason
not able to stop it. The ropes, wound around the horns, then were pulled back over the monster's flanks and Jason hitched them to the plow as Argonauts carried it. They dropped it, and he was off, plowing!
It was a deep furrow, if not very straight.
Would it notice the danger and turn back? Jason wondered, holding his breath.
No! It continued on over. Then, losing footholds in the loose scree of the
rock, it began to thrash with its legs. But that only made things worse.
Wakening now to its peril, it snorted and roared, but there was no stopping its
momentum. It began to tumble, head over tail. Then, incredibly, as the Argonauts
looked over the cliff edge with bulging eyes, the bull of Hades went airborne,
its leg flailing helplessly.
Down, down, down!
Jason turned back around, shocked but vastly relieved. Wondrous monster that it was--some said it was the ox bull of Herakles, that he used to plow with--it had to be killed this way, he knew. If it had continued to live, it would have killed him and the Argonauts, then go on to
the villages and even the city and destroyed everything and killed everyone. But that wouldn't have been enough. It would have done the same to all the inhabited earth. Nothing could have stopped this monster as it rampaged across the wide earth.
Jason looked round at his wide-eyed Argonauts. How fortunate they all were, he thought, that Medea's potion had not worn off before they could send the monster over the cliff!
But there was no time for celebration. He had a task to complete! Already news of the plowing had no doubt reached the palace. It would be impossible for news like that to be kept back from Aeetes, for the king's hired eyes and ears were everywhere in his kingdom!
It was so as Jason thought, for as he entered the palace, the very mood of the
place was even more hostile than before--an indication that they all knew he had completed the impossible task of
subduing of the Bull of Hades and also the plowing successfully.
The king sent word before he could reach the royal hall--he was to follow a guard, and he would be taken to a place for a private audience.
Jason followed the guard, and was led into a dark chamber. Only the king and
a guard were present. The king went to a huge wooden chest, which was locked. He took
an enormous bronze key, with many cut facets and teeth to it, and opened the chest. Removing layers of gold-threaded
cloth, he bought out the first dragon tooth.
Jason could hardly believe what he was seeing.
The king laughed at him. "It was given me by the high gods who keep the dragon in their palace zoo. They left this one, and others, in my keeping. If I ever need their aid, they said to me, I only have to bring them out, and
sow them in the open field, and they will immediately draw armed men out of the air. I have not
needed any such help, for I have plenty armed men of my own, so you will be the first to use them! But the soldiers that fly down will not recognize you, perhaps, and fight you to the death! We shall see!"
After turning the dragon's teeth over to Jason, the king left without another word.
Jason felt a chill holding the crystal dragon's tooth, but there was no turning back now. He took it, and the others, in a sower's burlap bag, and left the palace.
As an airman swooped at him, Jason let
his shaft fly, and being an expert, he caught the airman, piercing the
transparent shield in front of him.
The other airmen, seeing it, halted their attack, and a moment later they vanished
back whereever they had come from. Jason was alone--alive, and victorious!
It was time to celebrate! The Argonauts rushed forward, hoisting him on their shoulders,
shouting as loud as they could, and the sound reached the nearest village, and the
people ran out, wondering what was going on. They soon heard, and they too began
shouting for joy in his victory, heedless of the king who hated Jason the One-Sandalled with a passion.
Jason went in triumph to the palace. This time the whole palace turned out to view the
champion and his splendid, young men. No man alive on the earth could claim such exploits as Jason's, everyone knew. He would be famous forever--and his glorious deeds, done in Colchis, would rebound to the fame of their country as well. Everyone, except the king, was
full of joy.
The king himself had to show himself to the jubilant crowds that streamed up to join in the
event.
There was no stopping all this festivity now. The king had to declare a state banquet with all the trimmings, at which to award gifts to the victor worthy of a great king and worthy of his great kingdom, and despite all he had tried to do, the victor was the One-Sandalled and his mariners.
His daughter too, was a part of the awards. Word reached her, and she was
very pleased, indeed, as she could not wish for a braver and more handsome mate than
this Jason of the Achaeans. Jason was, in fact, just what she had ordered from the gods! Hadn't she given a rich present of gold--seven royal serving plates of solid gold a servant could hardly lift and the hearts of four slaves--to the goddess Hecate in her hidden, valley shrine, for aid in securing such a husband as Jason would be to her?
She sent word she would be not be coming down to greet him, but she would give him a gift too.
The Colchians understood why she would not attend the royal banquet--that was not her place as a bride to be, as she would need to prepare herself and her maids for the
wedding.
Of course, everyone understood too that this was not her chief reason for her doing it this way. She was a royal princess, full of
her pride of station, naturally. Colchians, being half-barbarian to put it kindly,
had known many a woman who fancied herself a warrior on equal with any man--or, if they were too small in body, at least their equal or even their master in her wits. Medea was one of those in the latter case.
No man she had met had matched her wits. Submission to a man, then, was going to prove hard for her--no matter how much the One-Sandalled attracted her. Jason, on his side, was content to wait for her when she would
be his, at some grand wedding ceremony--and it didn't have to be grand to suit his simple tastes. But what of the greatest prize of all--the Golden Fleece? Would he postpone seeking it to be married? Most men would do that--preferring love to war. Everyone wanted to know what the groom's desire was.
"I will take the gift of my lady," he told them, "and then we will launch immediately, to go and win the Fleece of the heavenly ram before I return to take my lady and wife."
This greatly disappointed the crowds, who desired to see the wedding first, but they had no say in it, and Jason's decision did not displease the king, who did not want the marriage at all, and hoped Jason would be slain by the fierce dragon that jealously guarded the Fleece, never sleeping it was said, with eyes forever open and watchful.
He had asked the Colchians, great and small, of the Fleece's whereabouts--and
got nowhere with them. He concluded that they were either ignorant and did not know, or they were too fearful of the king to tell him, a stranger and a foreigner.
He does not ask the king, the one person who would know for certain--rather than
be lied to or told someplace that would surely be his death and the deaths of his crew and the ship too.
He inquired at a temple of a certain local goat-god, where the most ancient accounts were reputedly kept in safety. The priests who served as librarians, even with a gift of gold, could tell him precious little beyond what he could already guess. They spoke of gods coming to Colchis, even up to
the time of their king's first years of reign--flying in strange chariots the shape of
tear drops or tongues. The gods had left certain treasures with the king to keep until they returned--though they could not describe them--having never been permitted by the king to gain access to them.
Keeping quiet about the dragon's teeth, Jason went back to the ship. What did he care about the strange gods anyway? They had nothing to do with what he was about to
seek, he thought. But on the way to the king's wharf to board his ship, he paused in the gathering of buyers and sellers who congregated in the area before the royal guards cleared them away. He asked a couple traders talking together where the Fleece of Phrixus might be located.
At first they looked to see if any of the royal guards from the palace were
in hearing distance, and seeing it was safe they told him what they knew. It was stolen and taken out of the country by the foreign Achaean, Phrixus and his four sons, they told him. They had abused the trust and hospitality of the king and taken the
treasure secretly away in their ship by night. They shrugged--such was the way of
greedy foreigners!
Jason was not at all pleased with their lies and idle talk--but he kept control of
his anger. "What then has happened to them?" he inquired. "Did they reach
their homeland with the treasure?"
They nodded, smiling and showing their gold teeth. "Assuredly! They are now
boasting how they got away with the treasure right under the king's nose! They are
feasting and dancing and having a jolly time at our expense!"
That was enough for Jason's blood to start boiling--the very idea! They made Phrixus and his sons to be nothing but base robbers and sneaks! His mighty arms itched to grab the three liars and bang their heads together, but he held back, certain he might
kill one or two.
He turned away, as if sorry to leave their entertaining company. "You wouldn't happen to know something, good sirs?" he said. "Such noble fellows as you would surely
know it."
Their interest up, they fell right into his little trap. "Of course, we would--what is it you wish to know, good prince?"
"Oh, where are the forests that hold the tallest, biggest trees? I may need a new mast, that's all."
The traders hastily vied to supply the information, to prove which one of them knew Colchis best.
Jason soon learned the locations of the major forests, renowed for trees that scratched
heaven with their house-thick branches and seed cones the sizes of pregnant ewes. There was one found along the southern coast, where no cities thrived, but where the brigands and robbers flourished. Then there was a swamp toward the north, full of fevers, however--also little visited by people. And a third great stand of trees sprang from the headwaters of the Phasis, the stream that watered the orchards, fields, and vineyards of Aea and her surrounding villages. This forest, they averred, was the most dangerous, since it was full of deadly snakes and magical, enchanting groves where men ventured to their doom.
Thanking the men, who congratulated themselves on their wonderful knowledge of their
country, Jason went to the ship. He knew all he needed, thanks to their
loose tongues.
As he climbed aboard the Argo, carrying his sower's bag with the rope made of the tail hair of the Bull of Hades in it as a momento of the wondrous monster, he was met by Mopsos and the
waiting, excited crew. Jason did not waste time but went to make his last
inspections, noting whatever was still lacking or unfinished.
Strangely, he thought of Medea's offer of a gift. She had not given it--had she forgotten? Even as he was thinking this, a courier ran down the road to the king's harbor--his gleaming green and blue headdress of peacock feathers and sash of gold announcing that state business was soon at hand.
But why not a chariot? Jason wondered, watching the man. Ignoring the royal guards at the king's wharf, the man went straight to the side nearest where the Argo was moored.
Giving orders, Jason had his men use the oars and pole the ship up next to the dock, so the man could speak more privately to him the king's matter.
He was mistaken. "A gift from the princess royal!" the courier said to Jason. Jason, leaping to the dock at once, drew the man aside.
"She commands that you tell no one--or you will not receive it."
"I will do as she wishes," he replied.
The courier then brought out of the royal bag he carried a golden casket. He handed it to Jason. Jason, not sure what to do with it, put it inside the cradle of his arm. "I have no proper royal gift as yet for her in return," he said. "Tell her, my gift will be her sight of the Golden Fleece of the Heavenly Ram!"
"Prince Jason, I will tell the princess exactly as you said," the courier replied.
The courier saluted in the Colchian manner, and ran off, again without stopping to speak with the palace guards who made no move to detain him.
Jason watched the man recede up the high, winding road, and then climbed back aboard the Argo, giving order to move it away from the dock and pull the mooring line.
He told no one but Mopsos, as the men were all busy, the preparations going forward
to launch the ship. Mopsos had somehow even got hold of mops and the deck and
plank seats were being given a last scrub by him and the others. What a man for cleanliness, as if cleanliness were next to godliness! Jason thought, amused. Most Achaeans were fastidious, but not as fastidious as Mopsos, who couldn't stand a speck of dirt if he could help it.
Going to the bow where he could sit, Jason held Medea's gift in the crook of his arm, and then, when it was the time, he drew it out and took a look at it. He had no idea what she had given her. Gold? Jewels? What would he do with them? He opened
the casket, which was of Ilian manufacture, fitted with fine golden hinges.
Inside he found a lock of bronzen, reddish hair--Medea's? he wondered, surprised.
He touched it, and it was so fine--the softest hair he had ever touched, for he was
so used to coarse Achaean hair, that grew thick and dense like sheep's wool, only
jet black.
The fragrance in the hair met his nostrils as he gazed at the lock of hair. For a moment he had never smelled so wonderful a scent--it was like a wildflower's, with
something like pine resin added. He closed the box--but the scent stayed in his
mind--he felt bewitched by it, his senses almost drugged. His whole being seemed
captivated. He stood up, almost unsteadily, grasping the upper rails of the bows for support. He glanced up toward the palace, searchingly, as if he could see
her at such a great distance.
Jason's eyes widened. What was that fluttering from the topmost tower of the palace? A long, red ribbon! The palace had many flags and banners, but this ribbon--it was
alone. Was it Medea's? He was certain it was.
Excited, still intoxicated by Medea's lock of hair that had ravished his heart and soul with the very scent of it, Jason climbed up the mast, pulling off a banner. He waved it, back and forth. The ribbon he saw fluttering from the tower, as if in reponse, was dropped. Falling, falling, caught by the wind, streaming this way and that, the
long ribbon looked like a gleaming, red snake in the air. It was a strange sight, drawing the attention of the busy crew, who stopped to look at it as it drifted
down toward the ship.
It was not likely to fall within reach, yet it did so--a miracle in itself--coming to rest on the king's wharf. Jason was first to retrieve it--and then wrapping the lock in the ribbon, he put the casket, ribbon, and lock of hair carefully away in a good place for safekeeping.
Before dawn, well before the first light when people normally arose to start a new day's labors, Jason rose and the ship glided forth under his command, silently as a night-flying bird.
Scarcely dipping their oars, the sail doing the work for them, they moved upriver, quickly putting the king and his palace fortress behind them.
Jason gave the palace-crowned mountain scarcely a glance. It was almost completely dark anyway, with only the guards going the rounds on their patrols. Would they see his departure and report it immediately to the king? Yet he knew he would still have the advantage, even if the king sent a ship to do him mischief. Full light was coming soon, and he could not be caught by surprise.
The king, high in his tower sleeping chamber, heard the report of Jason's swift, early departure. Cursing the spies for not informing him earlier, when there was still chance of creating some difficulties for Jason, the king had to be content with the
knowledge that Jason was headed upriver. That meant his doom, he was fully assured.
No one ever went that way and returned to crow about it!
Even as the king shook the curtains of his canopied bed with his snores, Medea was at the king's wharf.
She had ordered a ship made in Ilios on her design that she had sent with her agents who carried the gold to pay for it. It was shaped like a swan, the royal bird that was found in the king's river, the Phasis.
As it moved upriver in the daylight hours, it drew attention because of its
size and beauty. Was it for a great queen? the people who saw it wondered? Who was she? Had the king remarried? He has completed his months of mourning, and was surely
going to remarry soon. But what queen would submit to such a cruel tyrant? they
had to wonder. Maybe that was why there were so few women of high rank in Colchis who would even consider taking his last wife's place. And then there was his daughter, whom the people talked about. She was said to be very jealous of any woman who might
want to take the affections of the king, and possibly make him think that she,
daughter of his first wife, was of no account. She was also said to be adept in poisons. How long would his new wife last with such a daughter of the king in the same palace? No wonder the king had remained wifeless for some time after his wife
had gone to the halls of Hades! Such was the talk of the Colchians anyway!
Medea's ship had a special sail emblazoned with the sign of the cattle hides
that, coated with butter, captured the river's gold and made Colchis the
rich kingdom it was.
This swan was a bird of magic in her land--and was supposed to insure good
sailings and good fortune and treasure at the end of them. The crew she had selected, along with the soldiers, sailed it upriver, drawing much attention to the size and beauty of the vessel.
Its sail unfurled, it made its way upriver while the morning light dawned above the highest peaks.
Had they come to look for Jason? The sky chariots were formed like the tongue-shaped ones that had assaulted him previously. But these were larger, and they shot flaming arrows that flew faster than any arrow could, without even using bows.
The arrows struck the towers and ramparts, a dozen in the first flight. Sudden, blinding lights erupted, then rolling thunder as if the world itself were coming to an end. The palace disappeared, enveloped in smoke and jetting fires. The second flight of arrows
sped to their target, none missing the mark.
As thousands looked up into the sky where the palace stood, they
saw what looked like a mountain on fire, spewing smoke and rocks and huge chunks of
the stonework down the sides of the acropolis.
The city was now in real danger, as the inhabitants realized the
avalanche was headed for their city and would arrive in a few moments.
Panicked, with no help possible from the king or his government, the crowds that had gathered in the streets rushed this way and that like wolf-attacked sheep without shepherds, some going back inside their houses for valuables or loved ones, while others--posssessing less in this world's goods perhaps--rushed toward the city gates. Alas for them! The guards were so amazed by what was happening, they were like paralytics--and the gates remained shut, their mighty bronze bars and bolts undrawn.
The fleeing crowds ran right into the gates, and many, many people were trampled.
The rest of the story is not any better, for this was just the beginning of their woes. Aea suffered greatly that morning before dawning light.
Jason, giving swords and shields out, gave the men shore leave, while he and Mopsos and the children stayed aboard to keep the ship safe from any passing robbers.
The Argonauts entered the ruined city, amazed at its size and splendor that was even apparent in the ruins and shattered buildings.
Going up the main street, they came to the marketplace, and it too was nothing but burned shells of buildings and shops. But along a ruined wall of one of the
burned shops was a thatched hut or lean-to. A family, startled to see strangers, came out. The Argonauts set down their weapons, to show the family they had come in peace. The coppersmith and his family were overwhelmed, to see other human beings in the city. Evidently, they had not had visitors for quite some time.
The Argonauts were astonished that the man's speech was akin to the dialect of
Tiryns and Argos. Has this city been a colony of those cities in centuries past? They could make out most of his words, as he lamented the destruction of his city by King Aeetes--whom they had considered an ally and trusted, so that they had invited him to come to receive the city's best welcome in celebration of a treaty they signed, insuring peace for them in exchange for a certain amount of gold, which was paid to him because he had the larger navy and could keep the whole coast clear of robber ships.
What a mistake! the coppersmith cried. The king had come with his warships against them, attacking them as soon as they drew up in the port. The treaty had been a
mere convenience for the king to use to cloud his real intentions. It was his way to
keep his plans from being discovered in time for his victims to defend themselves.
The king made quick work of the city--burning, sacking, looting, carrying everything off they wanted, gold, slaves. They seemed to want to destroy everything--but they left the three pillars at the entrance, perhaps to show that the king had destroyed a great city, which would stand a long time as a memorial to his military greatness.
The coppersmith, remembering his family's needs were urgent, offered for sale what little they had salvaged from the city and their own ruined shop.
As they waited for one of their number to go and tell Jason, so they might have money to pay for the items, they turned to the coppersmith with questions.
"How did you escape the king's men?" they asked.
The coppersmith wiped his eyes, which were full of tears for his destroyed city
and his ruined shop, and told them everything. "I was alone when the others trusted the king and his treaty. I knew something evil would come of it. We were too rich a city and had lived too long in peace for this king to leave us be. I had heard what he had done to othe cities farther off. But my people laughed at my fears. So I took my family and we went up into the hills, and hid in the trees. We saw the city destroyed and burning. The king and his men stayed for days, taking everything they wanted away to the ships, destroying the rest. When they had gone, we were near starved to death. But the city had no food, except that I knew of certain stores, that only the king
had--in case of a famine. It was oil, wine, and grain. We found the storage jars, covered by the smoldering ruins. We had to wait for the embers to cool, and then I
dug down to the jars. I found them cracked, burst by the flames. But one, of grain, was still sealed. We had no wine or oil, but there was grain. We could live on it, until someone came--if anyone would come to this city again. But here you are! The gods have been merciful to us today!
The coppersmith, receiving his payment of gold trinkets and rewards that Jason had kept for some good use, was beside himself. It was enough for his family to
use to move to a far, secure, strong city, and begin again!
"But," he protested to the Argonauts, "this is far too much for a few pots and a basket. Surely, you can't be paying me such a fortune as this?"
The Argonauts smiled, and shook their heads. "No, Jason has given it to you, when he heard your plight. Please do not dishonor him by protesting too much."
The coppersmith fell down at the feet of the Argonauts, weeping.
They pulled him to his feet. "It is Jason's heart that was moved so greatly
to help you. He has a god that does this to him--and he obeys. Please
take and use your fortune any way you choose--but remember Jason, and how he
helped you in your distress, and tell it to your countrymen or wherever else you
choose to go. We will return this way again, in a short while, and if you
have not gone with another ship, we will take you away from here."
Having told him this, the Argonauts departed, returning to the ship. The family they left behind was rejoicing, happier than they had been in many days.
The Argo launched as soon as they returned. Unknown to them as they sailed
upriver, still out of sight, the swanship of Medea's followed. Only Medea's brother, Timpala, survived, and he was with the navy, attacking the city that the widow of one of Phrixus's sons had just fled along with the city's ruler and people.
Furious, when he discovered that the city was a mere shell, with no treasure to
make the attack worth-while, Aeetes's son and heir considered searching for
the escaped king and his people, but thought better of it. The Unfriendly Sea
was far too big, and its coasts farflung and unknown, for him to
hope to find them.
Turning back to Colchis with his fleet, the king's son was sure his father would
be enraged when he returned empty-handed.
Then he had an idea. He would not be set upon by his father's wrath and be humiliated by being sent into exile or even executed. This father still could have more sons--and cared little for the idea of his dynasty at present--as everybody knew. No, on
the contrary, he would wrest the kingdom from his father--for it was his to
take, was it not? He was the sole heir, if his sister was not considered.
In truth, he feared his man-hearted, strong-witted sister the more--but first he would deal with his father!
Arriving in Aea, he had planned to proceed against his father with a blockade. He would starve them out--and then his father's royal guards would be easy
pickings. He could cut them down with with his expert hired Persian bowsmen.
What shock was his when he found Aea buried under rubble and rock--and the palace-fortress that commanded the height above gone--nothing but a smoking ruin!
Timpala, so-named by his Mitannian mother, and called Apsyrtus by the Achaeans, was hard put to know what to do with his ruined kingdom and
capital--both utterly desolate and depopulated. Who had done this? He knew his father had to be
dead--which was a considerable relief even in the midst of his loss. It took him some time
to decide, that he had no recourse but see Jason. He knew Jason had arrived,
for his spies had kept him informed up until the attack on his father and
his city and palace. But where was the presumptious, cocky, lion-maned foreigner?
Timpala scoured the surrounding countryside. He even searched Aea's ruins,
hoping to find someone who could tell him something. Finally, he found
a beggar huddling in the ruins near the main sea gate. The man was
near idiotic, unable to make any sense with his blabbering tongue.
Rolling his eyes, spitting all over himself, the man was manhandled by
Timpala's men, which only made him worse.
Timpala tried to question him, but all he could get out of the wretch
was that the One-Sandalled was gone, with a great white swan chasing him. A swan was chasing Jason? Timpala jeered back in the idiot's face.
The man was clearly witless!
Timpala had not encountered Jason's ship in the river, so he knew that Jason
must have fled somewhere upriver after his treacherous deed against his host--for who else could have destroyed his father?--or he had escaped into the Unfriendly Sea--in that case,
he was forever out of reach.
But if he had gone upriver in search of his countryman's Fleece, Timpala was assured of
catching him. His ships were swift, and his oarsmen were the best in that area of the world. He knew he could
catch Jason in a day and a half a day, as the river did not continue long above
Aea.
Leaving Aea at once, for there was no point in staying longer, Timpala and his fleet set out. Jason, he believed, was the one who had destroyed his kingdom and slain his
father. He must be caught and punished with a Colchian-style death, a death so
terrible that even the brutal barbarians on the northern plains, normally careless of human life, shied away from the practice, since
it involved transfixing a man to a big stake, his hands nailed to the
main beam and his hands nailed at the wrist bone to the cross beam. That much pain put to a man disgusted even them--though it did not put off the Colchians from trying it on runaway slaves to teach a lesson to the others.
As Timpala set out after Jason, there was a very sensitive, watershed agreement reached in the council of the Atlanteans. They had been more a danger to themselves, with their constant
struggles for dynastic rivals, supporting this one and that one, with
no one able to gain complete advantage so that the whole question of who should
rule Atlantis was settled once and for all.
Of late one contender for the throne, though a woman, had gained the upperhand, and her name was
Elektra, with some real claim to the throne through her mother, a higher degree
wife of the last emperor. As this became known--that she was going to
assert her claim with the support of most of the princely-house Atlanteans rallied to her
banner--the other claimants fled--rather than lose their heads to her
executioner after some lengthly sessions of torture.
Now, thanks to Elektra's coming to power--gaining the title, "Speaker of the Royal House," the earth would suffer the Atlanteans taking up
residence by two of the claimants who could do a great deal of harm if they
wanted. Then, if Elektra thought to secure the earth under her authority, she would have to find and defeat the escapees, who happened to be twin brothers. But first she would have to find them. As for the destruction of Aea and its kinglet--that was a trivial matter, comnpared with her consolidating her power and locating
the only two men who could possibly thwart her ascension to the throne.
These theiomorphic eyes that were more like a wolf's and a snake's than human, now fastened on Jason, increasingly curious as to his
activities that had created such a stir back in Ilios, whose spies were carrying reports back to the city's rulers concerning his feats of bravery and strength. Could this little human bug be a threat to her own plans for Ilios and its goddess? She might have to stamp him out of existence with her foot! At the same time, she had to deal with the defection and escape of the Princes Calais and Zeetes! It was vexing to her--she was of a single-track mind, and did not like complexity. Her theory of rule was simple: she was the state, absolute, uncontested, universal. Nothing had any right to dissent in the least from her will. Her will was the will of the Universe. Her will was the only one that could be allowed to exist. Everything depended upon her decisions and desires. Everything! And if there was opposition? She would crush it, annihilate it, without hesitation.
As Jason and the Argonauts stopped to rest, Piros, one of Phrixus's grandsons
took bread hunks and fed a forest jay which had no fear of men and came
right to his hand.
Timpala, hearing she was not coming out of her pavilion to greet him,
considered what to do. Should he order her out? Or should he go to her?
He did not think it wise, on either count. What if he went on board her ship, and
she had set a trap there, archers to slay him the moment he stepped on board? Perhaps she thought the same would happen to her--if she left her ship to come to him?
He could not think what to do--for he knew how tricksome she could be--and
always devised to get the advantage over a man. How he hated the thought of
her doing this to him again--in full sight of his navy! He would be the laughingstock
of the country, if that happened!
After more thought, he decided what to do with her. He would not have to wait for her lover to come--he would attack his sister and her ship come dawn, when they
least expected it. Let them enjoy one last evening and one last sleep! He, Timpala, was a generous man!
Even as Timpala was plotting to kill his sister, his own fate was being sealed, for the Atlanteans under Elektra had not finished with their retaliation on Colchis for killing one of their own and destroying his shuttle. Before dawn, as his men readied their weapons on board the ship chosen to
carry archers and swordsmen, Timpala was up and pacing the deck. He was determined to settle the matter once and for all. This way he would never have to worry about
Medea's claim to a throne in his kingdom--and her poison potions either! Once she was out of the way, he would deal with her Achaean lover, the One-Sandalled! The moment his ship came out of the jungle that covered the river channel up ahead, his ships would pounce on him. They wouldn't be able to fight off as many armed men and ships as he
had brought with him! Jason was finished. And the Golden Fleece? If he had found it, he would not be able to enjoy it--for he would not carry it down with him to the
caverns of Hades!
Hahaha! Timpala had to laugh. All Jason would have to his name would be
one sandal! He had come to Colchis with one sandal, and he would leave and be buried with one! Even a pauper lying like a dog in the gutter of the street had two sandals to his name! One-sandalled he lived, one-sandalled he would die! Hahaha!
While Timpala was enjoying this amusing thought so typical of his kind of humor, arrows sped forth from overflying
chariots of the gods--and they found their mark.
When they left the moored ship and jumped down to the shore of the clearing, they were startled when they saw
a man. This was the first man they had seen in the forest, and he too was just as surprised to see them as they were to see him.
Then the man did a strange thing. He ran forward, crying out strange sounds like
a yelping dog, hopping and then flopping down on the ground, holding out his arms as if to ask great favors from a god come in the flesh!
He had no weapons they could see, so he was no threat to anyone. And his eyes were
gleaming with mingled wonder and delight as he gazed on them, like a child might gaze upon a wonderful sweet his mother had just given him as a treat or reward.
The man looked the Argonauts over, up and down, and seemed not to get enough
of them.
Then he began speaking, and this was the most amazing thing of all to the Argonauts.
He was speaking Achaean! Yes, it was rather barbarous sounding in his mouth, but perfectly understandable.
The wonderful speech of the Achaeans poured out of the barbarian--as the Argonauts
listened with mouths agape.
"Wondrous heroes of the Achaean blood! Welcome to this poor land of the Colchi! It is a
very poor land, compared to yours, but we are screamingly rich in gold, the river brings it down in buckets and cart loads
from the high peaks and spread it for us to gather, all the way to the river's mouth!
But the king doesn't let us keep it--he has his taxes, you know! They grind us back into pauperdom, paying them all--and so the gold is worthless to us, and we must make our living in another way that will run faster than his tax collectors can run. Gold is too heavy to run, so he gets it all--but sheep, and, better yet, goats and chamois, run
much faster--so the king is not able to gather his revenue on them!"
By this time the Argonauts were laughing, unable to keep it inside for the sake of civility. The man seemed to enjoy their laughter at his expense, and he kept speaking all the more.
Jason, however, did not like a man to grovel before him like that, so he put out his hand and raised him up. The man bowed, repeatedly, but that could not be helped.
He seemed to want to show how pleased he was at their appearance--in his simple way.
Finally, Jason put out his finger to the man's lips, and he stopped spouting away.
"Now tell me, my friend, some things. What is your name, and where is your city?"
The man's darting, dancing eyes turned sober all of a sudden. "You will not tell the king, will you, what I said about him? He'd send a man and kill me! Or tax me to death, which would be the same thing, only slower a death! Ai ai ai! Please don't tell him about me, sire!"
Jason hastily assured him he wouldn't mention him to the king. "But tell us your name, and your city, and how we found you in this forest."
"I have no city," the man said. "It once was a city, but it is a dead place now, not even a village any more. There is just my one family living there in our wood-planked hut. Please come, and we will do our best by you, sirs!"
Your name? Jason prompted him.
"Honan," he said. "Honan the woodsman."
"And how did you come to know our speech?"
"Phrixus taught me in my boyhood."
The Argonauts were thunderstruck. Jason shook his head, as if he wasn't sure he had heard the man right. "What did you say?" he shouted at the man.
Honan trembled, and fell to the ground. Then Jason laughed, pulling him up
to his feet.
"We won't hurt you, good fellow! Please tell us how you knew Phrixus, and we will
let you go on your way, after you dine with us, of course."
The man's eyes brightened as food was mentioned, and told them everything. He
related how Phrixus had come to his country and met the king, and the king had
set him up in his high palace, and everything had gone well for a time. The
foreigner had even married a beautiful woman of the court, a royal, it was said.
And he had four sons too--all fine, strapping champions, like their father. But
the king had grown old, and he didn't like foreigners who were growing
in numbers at his court like so many grass sprouts. Who knows how many grandsons Phrixus would have too, and
would one of them want his throne? It was more than likely, in the old king's mind--it was certain.
Then one day Phrixus disappeared, and the sons? They scattered, and their wives
and children with them. As for the Fleece--at this point the listening Jason
could not withstrain himself. His hand shot out and grabbed the Honan by the
neck of his garment, he was so taken by his account.
"Yes, yes, go on! What did the king do about the Fleece! Where is it?"
Honan, helpless in Jason's powerful grasp, seemed at a loss for words for once. Some Colchian expressions tumbled out, that nobody could understand in their group. He pointed, then gathered his thoughts a bit more, and said, "I can show you where
it was last seen--but I won't go all the way--it is too dangerous to do that--you will have to go all the way yourself to see if it is still there!"
"What do you mean?" Jason demanded. "What is the danger?"
The man looked at him as if he were looking at a child. "You don't know? You don't know?"
Jason was losing his patience, he was so agitated by the man's wandering account by this time and how he was breaking off in the most critical parts to confuse everything.
"No, tell me then."
The man sighed, and explained slowly, as if to a small child. "Well, you will surely die! The thing that guards it, it won't let you have the Fleece--and anyone who tries is killed. Many men have tried, but they all die. It slays them--every single one of them!
No one escapes to tell about it. We know they are killed, because no one who goes
to see the Fleece ever returns to brag about it. By the time I became this old, with grown sons, nobody came anymore."
The simple man's eyes suddenly turned tearful.
"I never thought I would see you--as Phrixus promised me I would. When I became old, I doubted him. Then...then here you are--all of you!"
He looked at them, letting them know the whole of his thoughts in one last
revelation. "I knew you had come to win the Fleece of the heavenly Ram--I knew
it had to be you, the One that was promised by Phrixus, a Son of the God of heaven!"
Jason shook his head. "No, I am not a god! Or the son of God! Is that why you
prostrated and bowed yourself like a slave before me? Well, you are wrong. I am a man just like you!"
But the man shook his own head vigorously, almost as if he would shake it off his shoulders. "Oh, but you are a god, and the son of God!
No other One can win the Golden Fleece but you!"
Jason tried repeatedly, but he could not dissuade the man--the idea was so fixed in his mind and heart. Finally, he gave up. He turned to his Argonauts. "We need to
rest and eat something--so let us resume talking at another time, when we
are resting after our meal."
That was good news to the Argonauts, and they set forth immediately to make camp,
catch fish, hunt, make a fire, and do all the other things necessary to make
the place enjoyable.
Later, the upshot of the conversation Jason had with Honan was that he would lead
the Argonauts to his house and then to the vicinity of the Fleece. But first they would take their rest for the night, and set forth refreshed in the morning.
Heloise, once a dictator herself in her own way, has learned a great deal through
the daily humbling the old Jewish harridan has administered to her with considerable
zeal and relish.
At the time she flees via an Israeli army chopper belonging to the breakaway
units of the Israeli Army, she is ripe for reconciliation with her family and
the husband who divorced her for her loveless treatment of him and her two daughters and son--sacrificing them all for the sake of building her ministry up to Forbes 500 status. Aloes, her son, is the most angry with her, but he lands at the secret base of the lost city of Petra, set deep in the south Jordanian desert rocks and canyons,
to join the hidden base of Israelis who are trying to escape extermination in Jerusalem by the occupying armies of the World Dictator and his allies.
Heloise goes to meet Aloes as he lands.
It goes better than she has hoped, after she admits to him everything
that had separated them. He forgives her. The painful, festering breach between them is healed. She becomes his mother again, even though he is now a grown man.
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Reaching the mouth of the River Phasis that led up to the capital of Aea, Jason the One-Sandalled and his Argonauts carefully
entered, but they soon are grounded on a sandbar next to a muddy bank, not knowing the depths are in the channels on the other side, not where they are firmly stuck. The ever shifting main current has tricked them, as it has tricked countless navigators in the past. There is nothing for it but for all to get out and push, push, push! It is backbreaking
work, and they make little progress, if any. The wind is no help either, for the sail hangs slack. If only they had a good wind blowing upriver, they could use the wind
to maybe pull the ship off the sandbar as they wedged their double-sized oars under the keel.
A maiden, slender as a whip of willow, sat by the king, and though she
turned her eyes away from his, averting a direct gaze but often glancing at his one-sandalled foot, it did not think it was
modesty as that she wanted to withhold her true thoughts and feelings for some reason
in a royal hall full of hundreds of inquisitive eyes.
Jason thought she looked too young to be the king's wife. Was she his daughter? He had to wait, as it would be judged impolite to ask now when he was dealing with the king.
After
some time, slipping away from her canopied and veiled table with the women, the royal princess (for such she was, not the king's wife) went out into the courtyard terrace overlooking the river gorge, and there for a short time she spoke privately to Jason, keeping her voice low. He was glad he had had his lion-mane trimmed by the palace barber just in case the king's daughter favored him with a private talk. He had also brought with him a jeweled trinket from Ilios Orpheus had given him in case he wanted a gift for a princess along the route.
She didn't give him an opportunity to present his gift, however, as she began speaking to him on a much more important matter, her face turned away as if she weren't really interested in him.
"One-Sandalled, I was first to see your ship coming and sent word to the villagers at the river's mouth to go and greet you kindly," she said. "My father had received spies' reports of your coming, and he made various plans, and I feared he would send warships and slay you all--but once you landed in full sight of the people, it was too late. He knew I would hear of it and be very angry with him--since he knows I
wanted to see you, since I have rejected every one of these wretched, cowardly princes all round here he has
put forward for my hand. Everyone of them would not dare do what you have come to do--and I spit upon them all! Pfaugh! They all fear my father's wrath, and the dragon that guards the Fleece, more than they love the glory they would gain winning it along with
my hand in marriage. I refuse to be no man's toy! I will surrender to no man who is not worthy to even master his dog!"
The king retired, and
his daughter went with her maidens to her own apartments in the women's quarters, and the Argonauts were led back to their quarters.
The solid bronze bow did not give, not by a hair's breadth! It had defeated him! He was finished!
Meanwhile, down at the wharves, Mopsos heard the shouting up on the
king's mountain palace-fort, but he paid it no attention. He was busy making friends with the river dolphins, who were fast learning to eat from his hand and do other things he was teaching them--such as come when he called their names and even pulling on a rope he looped round their jaws.
As a boy he had gone to fishing countless times with his father and uncles, and had learned the ways of fish and dolphins. Dolphins were wonderfully bright and teachable beyond all other sea creatures, for they loved man best--seemdingly even beyond their own finny brethren of the sea. In shipwrecks, swimmers, growing tired and beginning to sink and drown, had been saved by being held up by dophins until they reached shore. Dolphins did other wonderful things as well--so it had long been held a crime among civilized men to mistreat or kill them for food--unless there was absolutely no other way for a man to find food and live.
Even as the gold-wreathed, one-sandalled Jason began his triumphal descent to the ship to begin the Second Labor, certain forces in the sky--Atlanteans, no less--determined in council to lay aside their long-fought differences and deal with this one main threat to their masterplan to reconstruct the Earth for their imminent return and a
re-established Atlantis II. This Achaean leader must not be permitted to upset their well-laid plans! It was Ilios, its language, and its goddess, that would rule the Earthlings under their Atlantean overlords. The Achaeans and their free, independent cities would be made slaves to the Ilians, and
all would be slaves in turn to their masters of Atlantis and the royal line (which was yet to be settled upon, due to the loss of the born-in-the-purple king and queen when Atlantis was destroyed.
The time the king set for the Second Labor to begin was not to be delayed. When the king, excorted by his mounted bowsmen and swordsmen, went by chariot to
the royal wharf, Jason saw that they would have to begin the impossible task, whether
they could do it or not. He knew the king fully expected them to fail, and
the military escort was really not to protect the king so much as to serve
as captors for Jason and his crew when they failed to row upriver with the handles of their oars in the water.
For the merry-hearted dolphins, it was more like a game of fun than work, with nice rewards along the way, as they pulled the Argo further and further upstream.
Medea thought of a way she could help Jason. She had not been able to help him before, but now a woman's arts came into play. She returned to the palace and
hastily changed clothes, so that she could pay a call in the city, looking more like a commoner so that she might not attract attention.
As she worked, being very careful to not get any of the crushed leaves on herself, she explained how it must be applied.
Jason, not recognizing her, went
to meet the visitor that came and stood on the wharf nearest the ship, thinking she might be a woman of the town, and he was not of a mind to let her come on board, regardless who had called her.
The boy struggled, but
Jason was gentle, and the boy did not fight but looked at him. Jason did not
know the Colchian tongue, but he knew some signs the traders sometimes used with
barbarians. He tried them, and the boy seemed to understand that his
guidance was wanted.
He went deeper and deeper, lower and lower. The bottom of the world seemed to drop out, as he descended, and still there was no end of the cave. The ruddy glowing of the cave increased, even as the light shining in from the cave entrance failed. He could see well enough as his eyes adjusted to the dimness!
When hours had passed and he was weary enough to want to lie down and sleep, he
came into an area that turned level. Was he at the bottom of the cave? He had no idea.
Jason was delighted! But what was he to do now? All he could think to do was wait and see what happened next. Just in case, he moved a distance away, where he had of chance of running to the safety of the big rocks if the bull saw him and charged.
The Argonauts waiting for Jason at the cave's entrance scattered in all directions as the bull burst through, swinging its mountainous head and
tremendous horns, widening the narrow entrance as it forced its way through and into the outer world.
When Jason decided the furrow was long enough to prove he had done it, he cut the hitching ropes to the plow, and let the bull continue on down the slope.
He ran alongside, in case it wandered off to the side. But it continued taking the route of least resistance as he hoped it would--its tremendous weight
taking it ever downwards, right to the cliff edge.
It plunged onto the sea rocks far below--and lay still as the
waves washed up around it, its mighty horns rising and falling in the pounding
surf and surge of the waves.
It was the strangest tooth he had ever seen, for though it was toothlike, at the center glowed bubbles that went up and down, forming and reforming as if it were alive! What was the dragon like that had produced such a tooth as this? he wondered.
It happened just as the king said. The teeth, which he sowed in the furrow, were no sooner sown than he saw things flying in the sky, heading toward him at
great speed.
He knew he had a fight on his hands, and came prepared with javelin and sword. His javelin, first!
Though struck, the airman flew off, but he did not go very far, before tumbling and falling into a deep ravine. There was a loud noise, and
flames shot out of the ravine, and billows of black smoke.
As the Argonauts made last minute preparations, Medea watched secretly, where she found a private place high in a tower looking down on the king's harbor. It was a narrow tower, with only one way up so she could hear anyone approaching. There she remained, until Jason's sailing, while the palace searched high and low for her.
The decision made, Jason inspected the loaves of bread, the wine,
and the other supplies. He had to make certain the sail and the ropes and
other gear were seaworthy--though he was not intending to put to sea.
Would it fly overhead and pass them, dropping in the river?
Arriving with the swanship
at the very time they were most needed, her mariners
took her aboard and she sat in the canopied stern.
It was just as well the prince and princess set out as early as they did. There were sudden, bright glows in the heavens, which moved in unison toward the palace-fortress on its seemingly impregnable site high above the river and the city and port of Aea.
They too caused smoke and fire and tremendous noise--so that the whole city of Aea ran screaming into the streets, thinking
it was an earthquake or a mountain exploding down upon them.
The first day of sailing went without incident. Drawing near a city, Jason and his Argonauts saw that first impressions were deceiving. It was nothing but ruins, they realized, as they sailed close. Even the wharves and the shipping that should have been there in the river port had been burnt. The walls that protected the entrance
to the mountain valley and the city nestling on the mountain slopes and in the
valleys, they too had been burnt and broken down. Where there any people that had survived? they wondered. Who had done this destruction?
The Argonauts looked at the several pots, the basket held by one of the daughters, and even the kid goat. As for the vessels, they could buy them to help the coppersmith and his family
earn something they might use to buy grain for food--but the kid goat? It was too small, and would not feed the Argonauts even if it were made into soup. Best leave it to the family who needed it far more than they, the Argonauts decided.
Unknown to both parties, Aea and the palace fortress were
destroyed, and the king and his court and royal guards dead.
What was he to do? He had to come with heaped up gold and hundreds of slaves--or not return at all,
for his father's rages were to be feared, even by his son and heir.
Since he commanded the navy, he was at the moment the most powerful man in Colchis. Even
his father could not muster a fleet equal to fight his and hope to win.
Elektra's view of humans? They were less than ants to her, of course. But they could be made useful, with enough control exerted over them. Now that the crucial questions of power and dynasty were being resolved, with her gaining
the leadership of a slim majority of the nobles, she was determined to give more attention to the matter of the humans on earth. Her eyes were turning increasingly away from her own immediate household to the human species--and when she paused to examine what was transpiring in the Unfriendly Sea sector, she could not help but become interested in the career of a certain Achaean prince named "Jason the One-Sandalled" by his human contemporaries.
Those Atlantean eyes were essentially non-human eyes--completely devoid of human sympathy or feeling, but entirely self-serving, pitiless eyes, unable to tolerate anything that diverged in the least from her own agendas and her ultimate taking of her seat on the throne of a reborn Atlantis.
As the Argo cleared the last stretch of the river gorge, Jason stood at the mast, thinking of this moment, itself a triumph over many troubles, toils, and snares. As he was enjoying the thought, he caught his first glimpse of a forest up ahead, its trees so tall they stood up over the surrounding slopes of the mountains.
"This is it, the hidden place we are looking for! At last!" he shouted to the men. "God in the heavens has been good to us, and led us true, as an arrow to its target!" They cheered, as they realized
the end of their long voyage was reaching its objective. Soon they would see Jason come bearing the Golden Fleece, shining red and gold, in his hands! The thought made them row all the harder as the sail lost wind in the narrow spaces between the rock cliffs.
Jason's men made steady progress, even in the narrowing channel. The forest grew so thick, they could push the Argo through the tangled boughs only with
difficulty, but they were determined and would not turn back until they found
the tree that held the Golden Fleece and its dragon-guardian.
Medea, unable to follow him any further, turned back to a cove in a bend in the river, where she could wait for Jason to return with the Golden Fleece--something she never doubted he would find and win--however fierce the battle he had to wage with the dragon. She only regretted that she had not given him a potion for the dragon, to make it fall asleep at least, so that he could creep up and cut its head off. How easy that would have made his task--but she had counted on a rendevous, and it had not happened as she had planned.
Medea was still waiting the next day when her brother arrived. Though she saw his ensigns and knew he had come, she had no idea why he had followed them. Yet she did not think he had any right to meddle in her own business, whatever his reasons for coming, so she did not go to greet him--the courtesy that was normally rendered to a royal brother, unworthy though this one was to have such a sister.
In moments Timpala's fleet was in flames. Medea, who had not slept
a wink, suspecting an attack by her treacherous, greedy, dull-witted brother, heard the screaming of the
burning men in the burning ships--but she could do nothing for them.
She had to consider something: at least Jason would not have to deal with
her hostile brother now, as the gods apparently had decided the matter.
Jason and his champions continued to press deeper into the jungle-like forest of the upper watershed of the Phasis. They paused when they came to a clearing, where the sun shown in full and bright. Here they decided to rest and camp, for they were tired of the gloom and tangled forest, fighting it all day long, hour after hour. Here they could enjoy the sky overhead, with the sun beaming upon them, warming
their hearts and bodies. And they could swim and wash off the grime of their
hard work of the day! And fix something good to eat! And tell some stories, and
play some games of strength or cunning--it was a welcome break for all, to be sure.
Amazed by the sight of his behavior, Jason had to go and see for himself
if the man were mad or not.
Long after the re-location of Earth II, Atlantis II is flourishing
with civilizations, and finally, after the time of Joseph II, they develop in a linear fashion into 20th century type societies that are locked shield to shield, in a Cold War. Both sides are bristling with hundreds of nuclear-armed missiles, and all it takes is a wild card to tip the balance of power and trigger a combo cataclysm, Armageddon and Gotterdammerung. Homer is that wild card, though he doesn't mean to be. He is experiencing an extreme identity crisis--which young people his age can well understand. He crosses over into
Atlantis seeking his long, lost father who was last reported headed that direction, and the moment he sets foot on Atlantis he becomes the catalyst that will soon ignite
a world's destruction.
Over on Earth I, the Rapture has taken place just as the evangelicals believed and said it would, but Heloise Turnbull,
one of the most successful televangelists, has been left, unaccountably, since she had built her whole message around the doctrine of the Rapture. It takes her a while to
adjust and realize the cause for why she was left behind is herself--and meanwhile, she has to flee the U.S. to
Israel, where she hopes she can sit out the collapse of her empire and all the legal
wranglings over her ministry's assets. When the Anti-Christ attacks Israel, which has identified him as an imposter and not Messiah and
pulled away from his dictatorial control, Heloise is forced to flee Jerusalem with a Jewish family where she has served as a caregiver, maid, and whipping post for
a tormented old Holocaust survivor who goes through maids like Kleenexes.
Lower right hand corner, Ero the Olympic Torch Bearer in transit from the Genotype Archives of Tutasix, Atka Island, to Argo V, the White Ship.
RETROSTAR GAMEPLAYERS, HAVING FINISHED PART I OF THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO V: QUEST OF THE CYBERNAUTS, CHRONICLE SIXTY-TWO, MUST CHOOSE THE BEST OPTION OF THE THREE AVAILABLE FOR PART II:
If you have chosen the right option, follow it to the final destination, fabled Colchis (the City of Victory on Kastorr yet to be identified by the Cybernauts) and the Golden Fleece won by the Questors. If you chose the wrong option, review the voyage of the Cybernauts, and try again (THIS SECOND CHANCE FOR YOU IS THE REASON FOR THE RETROSTAR CHAMPION BANNER SONG, "AMAZING GRACE.")
Retro Star and Twin Worlds Timelines
The Black Crystal and the White Stone
Bridges of Destiny
The Algol Invasion & Client Species
Universe Terminator: The Sardius, Carnelian, Red Star, Stone of Fire, Fiery Stone, the First Alien Entity, OP, Wormwood, Wormstar, Retrostar
Map of Holland America
Extraterrestrials and Terrestrials
The Topaz
Star Map of the Re-Located Earth, Twin Earth Atlas, Stellar and Terrestrial
Argo, Ships of the Line
Volume IV, Appendix, Part I
Volume IV, Appendix, Part II
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