Like most everything else on the northern end of Feyland, the main house to the property was sitting so far back from it’s estate walls that you couldn’t see it from the road. If you did not already know what was on the property, you were not going to find out by just driving by it. Patty already knew what was here and, in fact, the driver who picked her up at Seau-Neaut Imperial Air Force Base had come from this very place. The property sat on the outskirts of Uea-Au, the largest city in this part of the country, and it housed one of it’s most prominent citizens, the de facto leader of humankind in a world dominated by other species, Curwin Losmun.

The guards that checked the car in at the modest looking little iron gate, wore uniforms that did not look at that different from the Elf faction known as the Noveus-Faeyu. The human soldiers had on blue berets, tan short sleeve shirts, and shorts to match. They had almost a British kind of look, from their colonial days back in the twentieth century, something that Feyland had never seemed to have left behind. The place certainly had that feel and, as Patty had come to note, the Noveus-Faeyu had some pretty close ties with the Brits, or, at least, the folks that were pretending to be that. Placing the Camelonians, and who they were exactly, in the grand scheme of things was a maddening exercise in aboslute confusion.

So were the politics of this country. Seeing those uniforms on humans made Patty really wonder about it. Patty had come to notice that, of the many clans of elves, the Faeyu and their allies seemed to be the more progressive of the two factions. They were the ones who had allegedly been behind opening up relations with Earth. They were the ones who had cooperated the most with the American Military. Yet none of that stuff, on the surface at least, appeared to be what it was.

Losmun and his people were a good example of just how bad Elf-human relations were around here. You would think that the humans would get along better with the more progressive elves but, from all that Patty had seen, Losmun spent more of his time dealing with their biggest rivals, the Olyan-Notae, who were about as conservative as they came. In the elf world, where the average attitude did not much care for any change at all, that was saying quite a bit.

The paradox was not only confined to the elves, either. As Patty understood it, the Camelonians were descendants of colonists that Curwin’s people had sent through the Dell, ages ago. In fact, if Curwin was to be believed, the very name that had been made famous in the chronicles of King Arthur and his knights, Camelot, was actually derived from the root word of a more ancient form of his native language. Apparently, Camelot was a knock off of the word Camalywn, which literally meant in English, ‘colony.’ That was why it was such a paradox.

Today, those descendants of Curwin’s people almost universally spoke English as their first choice of languages. They even acted very English, even if, again, according to Curwin, the English were despised amongst them. At the same time, while you seldom had trouble finding an elf that spoke English, and Patty figured it was because they dealt so much with the Camelonians, the humans up here in the north were an entirely different matter. Almost none of them knew any English at all and that was the despite the fact that they were now routinely dealing with the American military.

While her driver spoke no English, Patty was met by someone on the front steps of the small mansion that had no problem speaking it at all. Penelope Losmun had been born and raised in England so, naturally, she spoke it just fine. She had met Curwin when he was living in London, long before anyone even knew the Dell existed. Patty did not broach that subject with them, just like she avoided many topics. It was not because she didn’t trust Curwin or his wife. Patty trusted them about as much as she could and called them personal friends as well as professional acquaintances. In fact, that was exactly why Patty avoided those subjects, It protected not only her but, them as well.

Penelope had the bags taken to a room as she escorted her guest back to the central courtyard where her, and her husband, spent most of their time when they were at home. They were very accustomed too, and favored, the pop culture of earth. Penelope was a big fan of contemporary pop music whereas her husband was a huge Beatles fan. It was very easy to sit around that courtyard and pretend you were on Earth, of course, except for when you looked up at the sky.

One question that was on Patty’s mind was, “is Curwin home?”

“Oh yes,” Penny replied, “he’s here right now, love. He’s just kind of busy at the moment. As usual, these days, we have guests of the earth variety. You know how Curwin gets about that.” Then Penny became rather giddy and she asked, “and you know that’s not what I want to talk about.”

“Oh no,” Patty backed off that subject, “I know where you are going with that and I am not.”

“Posh!” Penny poked at her friend, “I can read between the lines Patricia. You wrote plenty of them to read between. I’m going to stick it to Curwin this time. He tells me I’m just projecting. What the hell does he know about that? He’s been married to me for going on fifteen years. He better not be doing that.”

Patty laughed and then said, “no Penny, I’m not getting married. That’s final. I don’t have time for that kind of thing.”

“Listen to you,” Penny was almost pouting, “you can’t tell me it isn’t serious. I knew that when you first came here. That man practically made you livid, about everything.”

“Yes Penny,” Patty admitted reluctantly, “he did. Only in America, that’s usually not a good sign that a relationship is going to take off and flourish.”

“Don’t play that on me girl,” Penny winked and elbowed her, “human is human no matter where you are. I should know that better than anybody. He was yanking your chain cause you had one to yank. You cared about what he thought then, just like you do now. That’s not a sign that you’re in it just for the hanky panky.”

All Patty had to say to that was, “thank you, Penny, for that most colorful play by play of my personal life. I shall forever treasure it, um, when I’m thinking about something else.” Patty then asked, “so who’s your guests?”

“Oh,” Penny blew that off with a nod and a waive, “some stick in the mud professor and her pet biker. They were out in the forest, digging up dirt like they thought they were Indiana Jones. Then all hell broke loose when they found that little girl. Now they can’t go out so, where do they come? Curwin brings them here, of course. What else would he do? He’s Curwin.” When Patty just shrugged, Penny pointed towards a particular breezeway that led to some downward stairs, “down with all those damn dusty scrolls.”

Patty had known what was down here since she had first visited the Losmun home. Curwin had never really made it any secret from his friends even if he had never been down there since Patty had been visiting. Usually the thick wooden door to this cellar was locked, along with the iron gate that closed in front of it. Curwin seldom ever paid it any attention at all. As Patty wandered down the stairs to the main part of the cellar, she got the distinct feeling that her first impressions were right. She also realized that Penny was not making a metaphor. The place was covered in so much dust that Curwin’s guest, a young Asian looking girl, was actually wearing a cheap cloth mask.

Of course, the place could not have been deserted since ancient times since most of the shelves looked pretty modern. They also seemed to clash with all the old pirate looking chests that were stacked, seemingly, at random. There were even a couple of stone containers, complete with chiseled pictures and symbols in their surfaces. Patty wiped the dust off one with her finger and said, “so is the ark of the covenant in one of these?”

Curwin seriously replied, “no, we keep that somewhere else.” Both Patty and the little girl stopped what they were doing and looked at the man with wide eyes and jaws opened. Then, with all of the seriousness that he had put them into shock with, he then said, “that was a joke.”

“Oh,” Patty was still wondering if it were an attempt at humor or not. After finding out elves were real, she was not ready to write off anything anymore. She shook it off and decided that pursuing that matter was pointless. Instead Patty introduced herself to the little girl who turned out to be a professor from southern California. Patty wondered, “so what have you found?”

Melanie Wu looked a little baffled by the question, “well as of yet, not too much.” When she got a strange expression, from Patty, the girl answered it with, “I can’t read any of this stuff. If what he says is true, he can’t read half of it.”

Curwin simply shrugged, “the truth is, I don’t even know how much of it I can read. The really old documents are written in a dialect that maybe extinct. The younger ones are written in an elf dialect that maybe extinct. No way to know till we start just going through them.”

Melanie added, “and if there is an organizing principle to their filing system, I haven’t figure it out.”

That caused Patty to wipe another layer of dust off with her finger. The tip was pure black when she looked at it. She then took another good look at the room and said, “kind of small. I would have thought you’d have had a whole warehouse of this stuff.”

“Oh this is far from all of it Patty,” Curwin replied. “We don’t keep them all in one place. Too much danger of something happening and wiping them all out.”

Melanie coughed as she kicked up a cloud of dust, “what difference does that make if you never look at it?”

“There’s a lot of truth in that Miss Wu,” Curwin remarked in a very matter of fact tone. “Maybe now that you people are here, you can help us reconstruct our past. We haven’t had much time for anything but concentrating on survival.”

Wu could understand that. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess. Maybe in a few decades, you guys might get back on your feet.”

That caused Curwin to give a short laugh, “Doctor, we’ve been fighting to save ourselves from extinction for better than a millennia, of your time. It’s probably going to take longer than a few decades to correct that.”

“Well if it’s been more than a thousand years Mister Losmun,” Melanie replied, “I’d say you’re doing a good job.”

“You keep at it,” Curwin said as he used is cane to push himself back to his feet. As he walked up the stairs he said, “call me if you need anything.” Patty decided to follow and she caught up with the white haired man as he strolled across the lawn just at the back of his house. When he noticed Patty, and seemed to be expecting her, he commented, “you see. That’s the kind of problem we’re going to have to get around.”

There was only one thing he could be talking about and Patty knew it, “you have to forgive us Curwin. America is a new country. We don’t think in terms of time like you do.”

“Not just your country Patty,” Curwin replied, “you whole world is young. As long as that’s the case, there is going to be quite a gap in our understanding of each other. That applies to the practical as well as the philosophical, I’m afraid.”

“I guess,” was all Patty could say.

That caused Curwin to laugh but, in a friendly way, “what you’re saying is you know this, you just don’t understand it. I’m not sure I can even explain it to you.” He thought about it and tried anyway, “when you are looking at the world with a long term kind of view, the kind that took us ages to acquire, some things become more important than others while, yet, other things don’t matter at all.”

Patty took a guess, “you’re talking about wisdom.”

Again Curwin laughed, “I wish. It’s not better Patty. The elves think it is but, they’re just snobs. It’s just different, that’s all. Sometimes we’re wrong, sometimes you’re wrong, every now and then we might both be on the same page but, it’ll never be because we’re seeing eye to eye. That‘s all just the luck of the draw. What do they say about stuff like that? A stopped clock is right twice a day?”

“I wish I understood this,” Patty said with an edge of frustration.

“I wish I could explain it better,” Curwin replied right on the heels of her statement. “What I fear is, nobody is ever going to be able to explain it to each other. That goes both ways too. I don’t understand Miss Wu’s attitude any better than she gets mine.”

“Fair enough,” was all Patty could say and, in fact, she was not sure she had much to say about any of this. She changed the subject to the question that was burning on her mind, “you’re the man to ask and, well it’s not the main reason I’m here, I just…”

“Ask me Patty,” Curwin told her, “no reason to beat around the bush.”

“Who would want to kidnap an American soldier?”

Curwin laughed, yet again, “so your editors, or producers, whatever they call them these days, they have you chasing ghost stories do they? That’s what got you back here, that little girl they found. Do you want me to tell you what I told Arbuckle, or do you want my opinion?”

Patty developed a sour face but, it had nothing to do with the subject at hand, “Arbuckle is still here? Oh god, I had so hoped they had sent him home.” Then Patty sighed and said, “what’s your opinion?”

“In this case,” Curwin replied, “it’s the same as the facts I know. I have no idea what happened to that girl.”

“Come on,” Patty came back with, “surely you have an opinion? As long as I’ve known you, that’s something you’ve never lacked for. I mean, somebody had to have a motive?”

“That’s the problem Patty,” Curwin replied, “everybody did. That’s a lot of everybody’s too.”

“So,” Patty said half jokingly, “is that an official denial?”

Curwin shook his head when he laughed this time, “let me ask you Patty. If my people had snatched and held that girl, do you think I’d admit it?”

Patty gritted her teeth, forced a smile, and then replied while clicking her tongue, “guess not.”

“Then you already know the answer to that question,” Curwin told her. Now Curwin stopped, squared up with her, and said, “although, I’m starting to wonder something. Is this really about the girl they found, or the one they haven’t. She was a friend of yours, right? I mean, you didn‘t have to come back. I have to wonder if, when you heard they found Sayers, you weren‘t thinking to yourself that they might find the other one too.”

“OK,” Patty smiled and bobbed her head, “you got me on that one Curwin. Guilty, I really want to know what happened to Angie if, for no other reason than, maybe, bring some peace to her family, and, well, me too.”

“That is a noble sentiment,” Curwin replied. “Glad I count you as a friend of mine. It’s also a fools errand.”

What could Patty say to that, “maybe not.”

“Maybe,” Curwin admitted, “but nobody has heard from your friend in over a year. If she’s still alive then she’s probably better off not being. If some smaller clan got their hands on her, she didn’t live very long, and that’s if she was lucky.”

“You call that luck?”

“Yeah,” Curwin said without batting an eye, “cause if one of the bigger ones did, like the Faeyu or the Notae, first they would have tortured that girl for information, then after they got what they wanted, they would have tortured her for fun. Finally, after they got bored, they would execute her by the same method. Now is that how you would have wanted your friend to go?”

“You already know the answer to that Curwin,” Patty replied sternly, “but what about others? Not the elves?”

“I don’t see the Gnomes doing it, they don’t really deal in animated chattels. Too much trouble. Anybody else? They wouldn’t have the resources, not in Cheau-Gan.”

“You left out the human element,” Patty said.

At first Curwin almost wondered if she really was talking about him and his people. Then it occurred to him, “the Camelonians? What would Arthur have to gain from doing that?”

“You said everybody had a motive,” Patty pointed out. “I mean I wouldn’t put it past our own military, or another earth military but, again, where’s the reason? I did some checking on the guy who picked us up that night. He was a Brit, said he was in their army. I didn’t find out very much about him but, that was the problem. He’s got a shady past, one that…”

“What was his name?”

“Major David Cross,” Patty replied.

Now Curwin laughed again, “he’s not a Brit. He’s a Camelonian. I know him. He’s one of Ian’s goons. Half that special warfare outfit, maybe even all of them, you know the one? The one they ran out of Merlin before the UN took it over? They were on Ian Balfour’s payroll in one way or another.”

“Why would they take Angie?”

“Ian would do it,” Curwin replied. “He’d do it without even blinking twice. That’s the bad news.”

Patty understood and, she actually believed she was getting somewhere, “you say bad news. Does that mean there’s good?”

“Kind of a slightly less than bad,” Curwin replied. “It’s the reason he would do it. Ian would only have one. Somebody paid him too.”