Chapter 23 The City Council of Heliopolis and the Circle of Elders
Tara and Nick were the next to join in the dance. Tara had always been into dance, but this was the first time he had seen Nick get into it. Again Tobal was impressed at how the winter had matured Nick. Then he thought of the changes in his own life. He was not the child that had been dropped off at sanctuary almost a year ago.
He realized he had been here one year and he still had one more newbie to train. He was not going to beat Rafe’s record after all. Looking around the room he spied Mike and Butch talking with some girls and urging them to dance. They were laughing and having fun. He figured that Mike and Butch were also looking for newbies. A murmur rippled through the crowd, pulling Tobal’s attention from the laughter to hushed whispers about Sarah, Anne, Derdre, and Seth still at the village with Crow. Rumors of jailed Elders added a tense edge, though they seemed old news from last month.
Wanting to hear something new, he looked around for Ellen and Rafe. He spied Ellen over in a corner talking with Rafe and made a beeline toward them, trying not to spill his tankard in the jostling crowd. At least it was warm in here, he thought, moving past bodies that smelled of wood smoke.
“We can’t talk in here,” he shouted to Ellen above the drum beat.
She nodded and shouted back, “We are meeting in the brewery in a few minutes.”
Tobal nodded and went off to find Fiona, Becca, and Nikki to tell them about the meeting. Their robes were still wet but warmer, and they put them back on before dashing over to the brewery where they took them back off and found places around the fire to sit. They folded their robes and sat on them on the wooden floor.
Ellen and Rafe welcomed them, and Ellen brought everyone up to date on what had been going on with the Council of Elders.
“We tried everything we could think of to contact the city government through the communications and computer systems we have access to,” she said. “What happened was we were warned not to make contact with the city and just to mind our own business. The city will contact us when we are ready to become citizens. We are not part of the city yet and have no legal rights until we complete our training and become citizens.”
“These messages were prominently displayed on each air sled monitor screen and on the computers at home base. No one even thought to come to us in person to explain or hear our concerns,” she said bitterly.
“This did not sit well with the Council of Elders, especially since the arrest and questioning of the five of us that had been sent to the village. We were released, but the Council of Elders now realized someone thought they had the power to arrest clansmen anytime they wanted and hold them without cause. They believed this same someone was responsible for the rogue attacks. The council wants to know why these things are happening and if they are happening with the approval of the city.”
Ellen looked around the small group. “The final decision was that the same five delegates would journey on air sleds to Sanctuary and then cross the wall into the city. We would find a place with lots of people and set our sleds down and wait for the authorities. We would probably be arrested, but the city itself was populated with clansmen. We were counting on that bond of kinsman to get a fair hearing.”
She grinned, “I was the first to go across the wall and land my air sled in a central area. The others followed me in. Even before we had landed, a crowd of people appeared wondering what was going on. I called out that there was an emergency, and one of the citizens nodded and started talking on her cell phone. Several of the others were also on cell phones. It was a matter of minutes before authorities arrived and put us on some type of air transport. We were not arrested or treated as prisoners, but we certainly were not given any choice about things either.”
“They took us down to the police station where we gave our statements.” She laughed, “It was obvious that the persons involved wanted no part of this and were way over their heads. They passed us on to the mayor who listened and then called an emergency session of the City Council. This was against the strong opposition of someone wearing a Federation military uniform. I gathered this uniformed person was the representative of the mountain complex and the ones that had arrested us.”
“I was elected the spokesperson for our group,” she told them, “and with grim determination I faced the City Council and told our story of being arrested and questioned, about the massacre at the lake and the mass grave, how it was a forbidden area. I told them about the rogue attacks that were centered around the lake itself and the attempt to make it seem the village was responsible for those attacks.
Then I told them that was impossible because the rogues have some way of tracking anyone that has med-alert bracelets and are able to hide in a way that the villagers can’t. I told them of the rumors the city was going to lead an attack on the village. Several members of the City Council looked at each other quickly, and at least a couple had red faces.”
“They weren’t the only ones,” she continued. “I could see the man in uniform getting redder and redder and angrier and angrier. I spoke about Crow who had grown up in the village and now wanted to become a citizen. How his concern for the safety of his village was the reason that led him to make the journey back with four of his friends. The entire group is still within monitor range of our air sleds, and they can visit the village according to our own Council of Elders.”
“I told them how we were suddenly alerted that the village was forbidden and that we needed to keep Crow and his friends from going there. That was not right. I faced the City Council and told them Crow was technically a citizen of the village and had every right to be there. He could also bring friends if he chose to do so. Then I mentioned how the air sleds went back to the base and were severely reprimanded and ordered back out to bring Crow and his friends back by force.”
“The City Council was pretty quiet by then,” Ellen said. “They listened as I told them of the confrontation between Howling Wolf and the other villagers that offered to protect Crow and the others. I told them how I was there and that pressing the issue then could have resulted in injury or death to innocent people.
At the mention of Howling Wolf, I saw several council members glance at each other and take stronger notice in what I was saying.” She chuckled, “I took advantage of that interest and told how the Council of Elders decided to send a delegation to talk with Howling Wolf and find out the truth of things for themselves.”
“I then described the armed strike force I had seen waiting by an air transport back at the mountain complex when we returned. I also told how we five members of the Council of Elders had been immediately arrested and held for an entire week without being told why. The man in uniform was a pasty white by now and struggling for composure. I told them how we tried every possible way to make contact with the city itself. We needed to see if the City was aware of these things and if it supported them. I told how the Council of Elders had tried all ways possible to reach the city but been blocked and told it was forbidden. That is why in a last ditch effort we chose to fly a delegation over the city walls and speak with the city officials directly.”
“They didn’t know what to think or say,” she chuckled. “There was a dead silence as the City Council looked toward the man in uniform and waited for his response. He was clearly uncomfortable and said that he was not prepared to respond to these allegations and needed to consult with his superiors.”
“The Mayor then asked what the Council of Elders would like to have happen. I said the Council of Elders would like to ensure the safety of the villagers and Howling Wolf. They would like communication between the village and the city so they could monitor and address any abuses that were happening.
I mentioned this could be done by opening new communication lines to the city from the base in the mountain where we were stationed. I concluded by saying this was a matter for the Elders of the village, the City Council and our own Council of Elders and there were many things that needed to be discussed and brought out into the open. We also wanted the rogue attacks to stop and whoever was responsible for them to be punished.”
Ellen continued her story, “The Mayor looked pretty grim and told us the City Council would need to do its own research and find out what was going on. They also needed to hear from the Federation, and he looked pointedly at the uncomfortable man in uniform. He suggested they adjourn until next month and set a time to meet again here in the city and asked for a vote from the City Council. All voted in approval.
He then asked if the City Council approved a direct communication line to be opened so the Council of Elders could contact them and keep them informed of developments. Again all voted in approval. At that, the Mayor asked the uniformed person if it would be possible for the Federation to open a communication channel for the Council of Elders or whether the City Council needed to do it. He saluted and said the Federation would provide the link.”
“ I think it’s bugged,” Ellen continued, “but it’s more than we had before.”
She continued, “Then the Mayor adjourned the meeting and escorted us back to our air sleds. He told me we had done a very brave thing coming into the city and they would look into our story and be looking forward to our meeting next month.”
Ellen completed her story and looked at the others.
“So it seems things are happening. Hopefully next month we will know more about what is going on.”
They talked a bit more and asked more questions until they reached the point where they just needed to leave things and process them later. The talk shifted to other subjects.
The big news was Rafe had gotten his sixth chevron and would be leaving with Ellen after the party to get his Master’s initiation. With all that was going on, he was eager to get his own air sled and do some snooping around on his own even though Ellen was warning him not to.
The meeting broke up and most of them went back to the dance. Tobal spent a little more time in his farewells with Becca. After a final kiss and hug, he took his pack and left in the pouring rain.
Tobal was getting impatient. It had been almost one year and he wanted to move on into the Journeyman degree. After Tyrone soloed this month he would have five chevrons. He only needed one more newbie to train. He was no fool. After talking with the others he knew at least eleven of them wanted newbies to train and they would be lucky if five showed up. He left immediately in the rain heading for sanctuary. He had not been the only one with that idea. Kevin and Zee were already there ahead of him when he finally got there a few days later.
April rolled around and spring was in the air. Tyrone was on his solo and Tobal was at sanctuary waiting for a newbie to show up. There had already been three and it was not likely there would be any more this month, but he was determined to hold his place in line and get it over with. Kevin and Zee and some others had already taken their newbies and left. This would be his last trainee and then he would be ready for the 2nd degree. He wondered about his last student and who it would be.
Would it be a boy or a girl, somehow it didn’t matter. The skills they needed were all the same. He thought about his last five newbies. Some like Melanie and Crow he had grown very close to. Others like Nick, he hadn’t hit it off with and didn’t see very often. Sarah and Tyrone were fun to hang around with and he loved doing things with them, but they weren’t really that deep and sometimes he missed the serious side of life.
Still, he wasn’t prepared when Llana walked through the door for the first time and claimed sanctuary. He did a double take as he saw a fierce Native American warrior dressed in soft decorative buckskin with a claw necklace around her neck and tattoos on her face.
She was tall and good looking with straight ebony hair like Zee’s. She was about his age, older than most of the newbies and from the village. She was Crow’s older sister. He remembered Crow had a sister but hadn’t thought he would meet her here. He was shocked at how little he really knew of Crow and his family. She had been training with Howling Wolf since she was a little girl.
“I can’t train you,” he said in dismay.
Tobal’s pulse quickened, the cave’s echo fading as he braced for her reply. She studied him, her gaze steady, before speaking. “Why not?” She looked at him pointedly.
“I already went through this with Crow,” he protested. “You already know more than I do. I can’t teach you anything you don’t already know. It would be wrong to take credit for teaching you when I didn’t.”
She relaxed a little. “Is that all that’s bothering you?”
He nodded glumly.
“Let me ask you something,” she said quietly. “Do you have any doubt in your ability to train newbies in survival skills? Any doubt at all? Even the smallest?”
“No I don’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Last fall I had to give additional training to three of my newbies so they would be ready for winter. I thought they were trained well enough and then realized they weren’t, so I took extra time and gave them more training.”
She nodded, “Nobody made you do that did they?”
“No.”
“What does the Council of Elders think of your training?”
“I’m one of the better trainers.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the newbies I train are happier and healthier than a lot of the others. They also seem to make good trainers themselves and most are willing to train through the winter.”
She smiled at him. “Your parents created this program to bring people up to a certain skill level in both knowledge and demonstrated ability. Do you believe you have reached that skill level and are ready to move on to the next?”
“Yes I do.”
“But you can’t advance because the program will not allow early advancement even if you are already prepared correct?”
He nodded, “That’s right.”
“Well, I’m in the same situation,” she said. “I already know how to survive, how to defend myself, and I am also a healer. I also know advanced techniques that my grandfather taught your parents and other advanced techniques that your parents in turn taught my grandfather.”
“Can you talk to my parents?” He interrupted.
“Yes,” she nodded biting her lower lip. She paused, letting the weight settle.
“Are they going to be alright? Can we save them?”
“Tobal,” she said slowly, with pain in her eyes. Her voice softened, eyes glistening with shared pain. “Your parents are no longer human, and they are dying. They are asking for our help.”
“What do you mean, no longer human?” he shouted. “I see them and talk with them during circle.”
“What you see and talk with are their spirits,” she whispered. “They have developed their spirit bodies to the point where they are almost physical. In fact, once their spirit bodies were physical and they could go anywhere they wished by changing their physical bodies to energy and teleporting instantly to where they wanted to go. They can’t do that anymore. That’s the problem. The Federation keeps their spirit bodies deliberately corrupted so it can use their vital life force for their own projects.”
She shuddered, “Your uncle captured them and imprisoned them. He wired them like electrical components into the circuitry of their time travel machine and they have been kept alive artificially for over twenty years in special fluid-filled tanks.” Tobal’s breath caught, the image searing his mind.
“Tobal,” she said looking hard into his face with tears in her eyes. “I have traveled in the spirit to where they are kept imprisoned. Their physical bodies have mutated and become grossly deformed. Only their spirits remain human. They wish to be free of their physical bodies and become simply the Lord and Lady. But your uncle won’t let them die.”
“I need to see!” He sobbed in denial and fear. “I need to know for myself. I need to see them and talk with them. I need them to tell me.”
She put her arms around him as his shoulders shook and comforted him till he regained his composure.
Wiping angry tears from his eyes, he asked, “You’ll teach me?”
She held him against her breast. “I’ll teach you, Tobal. I promise.”
The first thing she taught him was the story of his parents and their classified research involving time travel. Ron and Rachel had built a matter transmission machine and tested it. This machine used powerful pulsating magnetic fields at certain resonant frequencies, powered by the earth’s own core energies, to create a gateway into time and space, much like the ones in current use for matter transmission. The problem was that mineral and crystalline objects would work, but organic materials would not.
After several years of research, Ron and Rachel developed the first gateway or portal that allowed living matter to be transported through it to target locations and began using it themselves. Something about their soul relationship allowed them to work together in a very powerful and unknown way. This was an important military breakthrough, or could have been. It allowed troops to be transported instantly from one area to another and was immediately highly classified. But it never worked unless Ron and Rachel were a part of it.
It was purely by accident the time-traveling capability was developed. One of the giant capacitors malfunctioned while transmitting Ron and Rachel to a target location. It threw the entire machine out of phase, and Ron and Rachel ended up in the 16th century.
When they didn’t appear at the target location, retrieval was attempted, and they were brought back successfully. They also brought some artifacts back with them. From that point on, the classified research became about time travel, not troop transmission.
By trial and error, they were able to travel into the past and into the future and achieved access to four historical time periods and four future time periods. Each time period seemed to act as a nexus point in time and space. If the machine wasn’t keyed to a nexus point, nothing happened. There were nine stable points in all, including the world we live in, and they were called: Hel, Niflheim, Svartalfheim, Vanaheim, Midgard, Alfheim, Jotunheim, Muspelheim, and Asgard after Nordic mythology.
Working with the machine gave access to other probable worlds that were not as stable. It was like working random codes until you found one that worked. The process was slow and frustrating but also highly exciting at the same time. That was when the problems arrived. Ron and Rachel were able to go back in time through the machine, but no one else could and live to tell about it. The machine did horrible things to those that tried, drove them insane or deformed their bodies. No one knew why it only worked for his parents. Howling Wolf says that your parents were divine counterparts. He said time travel only worked with special couples whose souls were linked together. The Time Knights called the females spinners, because they were able to weave new timelines with their partners.
“I’ve met some Time Knights,” Tobal interrupted. “Lucas and Carla. They are going to help free my parents, but I haven’t heard from them for a while.”
“Really,” Llana said pensively. “That is very interesting. I would like to meet them.”
They had developed the necessary training programs to prepare other time travelers. But the machine only worked for Ron and Rachel. It was a classified military project, and a team of scientists worked furiously to remodel the machine and make it work with other people.
It was only when both Ron and Rachel were hooked into the circuit with the machine at the same time and used as buffers that others were able to go through it. Tobal’s Uncle Harry was the first one to successfully time travel through the machine when it was hooked up in this fashion. He led a team through the machine several times to many previously unknown time periods in addition to those that your parents had discovered on their own.
There were problems with this because Ron and Rachel were not willing to be wired into the machine for hours at a time waiting for other time travelers to come and go. Trips into the past or future could only take two hours at the most, and the drain on Ron and Rachel was severe. Their health suffered each time they hooked themselves into the machine and others used it.
Ron and Rachel were able to time travel themselves without any of those restrictions and could be away for weeks at a time. They felt it was more important they be allowed to make extended trips and do research than be confined and wired to the machine so others could experience briefly what they could do for extended periods. They altered the machine and designed different programs searching for ways that others could use it.
Still, the machine would only work if Ron and Rachel were wired into it. They tried wiring other time traveler couples into the machine, and it killed them. It almost killed his Uncle Harry when he tried wiring himself and his wife into the machine. It did kill her and left his uncle paralyzed.
That was when his uncle went mad and had the gathering spot attacked and the villagers massacred. Ron and Rachel were seized and forcibly wired permanently into the machine and declared dead. That was when the program was officially closed down.
That was the story the Federation knew and was trying to keep secret. But there was much more to the story than that. There was an even greater part only Howling Wolf had known. Halfway through the project’s developmental stages, Ron and Rachel were beginning to think that the problem was with the people and not with the machine itself. They discovered Howling Wolf and his secret shaman bi-location ability.
His parents thought this additional training was needed and started working in secret with Howling Wolf and a handful of others at the gathering spot on the lake. It was after Howling Wolf’s training on bi-location that they realized they no longer needed the machine to time travel to places they had already visited. They met in a secret place under the waterfall at the lake to do this training. It was where they would travel back in time and return with items to prove they had done it. That was when the Time Knights showed up. They had higher technology and understood time travel a lot more. It was not necessary for the team to be divine counterparts; they could also be soulmates. So members of a team could change partners if they were all trained properly. Not only that, but once a team traveled to a location in time and space, they could revisit it by themselves because the pathway had already been formed. Time Knight teams could also take others through the time rift with them if they were vibrationally pure enough.
Howling Wolf needed help to time travel at first. Ron and Rachel had linked together with him and had made several trips back into different time periods. Later he was able to go to those same locations but he was not able to go to new ones. It seemed the machine opened the gateway the first time and that once it was opened by a spinner and a person properly attuned, they could travel through it at will. Even Ron and Rachel had needed the machine to open the gateway the first time to new locations.
At the lake, the group discovered two people who had already been to a specific time period could take a third person without using the machine. Once that person had been taken and brought back, they could make the journey on their own without help. Still, they were only allowed access to the four future times and four historical times that Ron and Rachel had personally gone to. They were not able to go to the alternate probable realities that had been discovered while Ron and Rachel were wired into the machine.
Llana had completed this training, but her grandfather couldn’t link with her well enough to take her through by himself. He needed one other person to be able to do this. Both Ron and Rachel had linked with him and taken him through. There needed to be one more person to take Llana through without the machine, and there were no others.
Howling Wolf thought they were all gone. All except Ron and Rachel, he and the others had called them the Lord and Lady. They were still there in the mountain complex held prisoner and alive. Things were not right because they were both ill and were both slowly dying.
Llana felt they needed her help, and she needed their help to time travel. She had talked with them in the spirit, and they had told her they would help her.
Then Llana spoke of the massacre at the lake and how the small group of people had been below in the cave time traveling when it had happened. Howling Wolf and the others had emerged from the cave only to find their families murdered. They had buried them in a mass grave and raised the pile of stones over the dead bodies. Afterward, they had left, not knowing whom to trust and knowing their very lives were in danger if they were ever found.
This was all news to Tobal, and he was beginning to think she was crazy until he remembered Fiona had said something about time travel. He thought about the strange shop in Old Spokane with its “replicas” and suddenly he wasn’t sure about anything anymore. He hadn’t thought about Heliopolis as having the secret technology of time travel the Federation was willing to kill for. The Federation would kill to keep it and would kill to prevent it from getting into the wrong hands.
Suddenly he thought of Sarah’s father, Adam, and knew Adam and Howling Wolf could teach Llana time travel if they did it together. They were both trained and could take her with them if they went together, at least to the locations his parents had gone to. Lucas and Carla could also teach him more if he were properly prepared. He thought about telling Llana about Adam and decided to wait until he had been trained so he could go with her at the same time. They didn’t need his parents to time travel, but they might need to time travel to rescue his parents.
He thought of circle and the pagan rituals they practiced with the Lord and Lady. They represented much more than the old ways suddenly, and he liked them that way. They were ways to communicate with his father and his mother who were still alive and needing his help. Then he thought about the 3rd degree and the medics flying around in air sleds and the med-alert bracelets they all wore, and suddenly a throbbing headache crept in as he grappled with the med-alert bracelets’ implications, shifting his focus to Crow’s spirit teachings.
Llana’s lessons offered a new path, teaching him to draw energy from the earth’s depths. One evening, she pressed his palms to a gnarled oak, its bark cool under his touch, guiding a surge that left him steady yet awed as a deer approached. She taught him how to use the earth’s energy to make himself stronger, how to stand against a tree and recharge himself after reaching the point of exhaustion. She also taught him how to control that energy and send it out. He shook off the pain, eager to learn her ways, turning to her with renewed focus.
He saw her one time walk up to a deer and pet it. Birds would come to her when she called them. Llana said the spirits of the plants and animals talked to her and told her what they wanted or how to make use of them. As the sap started running in the trees, they collected maple sap to boil down for maple syrup and collected other newly sprouting plants and herbs for medicinal uses. Tobal vowed to master these skills, a step toward freeing his parents from their wired prison.
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