Chapter 10 — Tierra del Fuego

IF YOU’RE NEW HERE, YOU ARE LATE TO THE SAGA OF A TALE OF TWO TIMES. WE ARE NOW BEGINNING THE 9TH AND FINAL VOLUME OF THE NARRATIVE, WHICH WILL WRAP UP IN THIS POSTED FORMAT IN JUNE 2025.

TO START READING AT THE BEGINNING, THE FIRST VOLUME, THE MENACE OF THE ANCIENT FOE, CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING THE BUTTON:

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~ 1 ~ The steady cold wind ever rattled the sturdy hide hut. Inside a woman with a dagger in her hand knelt over a man who looked as if he lay in a semi transparent cocoon of many layers; with her knife she slit open the top most layer moving her blade methodically from over his head to beyond his feet, backing slowly along on her knees, over the fur rug upon which the man in the cocoon lay. The rug was placed on the compact earth floor. When she finished her incision, she grasped the dagger with her teeth, and with both hands, she grasped the cut edge and peeled back the translucent layer, moving back toward his head, and the layer curled away from his body. She spread the edges down with her hands forcing them into the rug where they liquified and boiled away leaving a sweet lavender scent which filled the hut.

Keeping her eyes on his face, she waited for the next layer to slowly swelled up, and then she cut it away in the same manner. She worked for hours, repeating her actions as lower layers swelled up to meet her blade, but the man’s features were becoming visible. Finally, there were only two or three layers to go, and she stood up, looked satisfied at her work, and re-sheathed her ankle dagger.

She took her leather windbreaker cape off its peg, and turned it to her front, pushing her way through the flap of the hut. A triangular wind break was set in front of the entrance which deflected the steady wind. In its lee was a tripod supporting a large metal pot swinging over a wood fire in a stone fire pit. A large supply of fire wood was stacked against the wind break; taking some wood, she built up the fire under the pot and ladled out some of the stew and sipped the broth, and picked out a few morsels to eat quickly. Then she washed her hands with water from a jug and took a drink, drying her face and hands with an elegantly embroidered towel, that, like her ornate dagger seemed out of place in her raw, primitive domicile. She stepped out into the wind and stared out into the waters.

Looking into the wind, she unexpectedly entered into a Partial Vision of a young man floating over the waters. She recognized him to be Martin Knox, seeing her, as he had told her he had seen her when he was a young man on the seaplane over the Atlantic in the early 1930s. She wanted to wave at him, but did not.

With a carry-cloth she took some firewood into the hut. With the wood, she built up the fire next to the man, rehung her windbreaker next to the other larger man-cape on the hook next to it. She ran her fingers through her long, full dark hair and let it fall on both sides of her naked body.

She knelt down next to the man’s head and smiled affectionately at him; tears flowed easily from her eyes, and fell on the cocoon causing a sizzling sound which recalled her immediately to her work. She quickly cut away the sizzling layer and disposed of it as she had the others. No harm done; you eager fool!

She removed two more layers, and reached the final layer, it was smooth like the surface of a bubble and slightly pinkish in color; unlike the others it glowed slightly. The woman stood up and adjusted the oil lantern and stoked the fire. She removed her dagger’s sheath from its place on her ankle and placed it on the low carved wooden chest, over which the windbreaker capes hung, and studied the masculine form lying naked beneath the last layer.

Thersa sighed deeply in anticipation. Thiuderieks's eyes opened upon her. With her hands she pulled open the last layer, slipped quickly through the opening which she had made. It closed behind her as she slipped into his embrace and the last layer of time that had separated them, now closed around them, and they were rejoined in Earth’s Province, freed from the Commons, which had separated them for 8000 years.

~ 2 ~ Rhoda had directed Lisa’s and Lingyun’s work to set the foundation for the Spiral City, and she had anchored her stake in the Foe’s Heart Weight in the four Teutonic pendants which brother and sister Su had delved into the wheelhouse of the vessel—which was to transport the Soma to the Netherworld. Rhoda had renounced that Heart Weight to seal the enablement of the Friend in order that he would be perfectly free to not act as the Foe when she and Ricardo would confront him, the god Sunderer, vested in the Soma as Thiuderieks had promised him, thinking him to be the Friend, eight-thousand years ago.

But Rhoda, finding herself nearly exhausted by her traversal of the Great Maze from the Ontario hangar Workshop—shorn of her godly Heart Weight—was forced to divert to her room in Home Ranch. She was not completely in her room, but remained within the Plenum of her Workshop as she sat, hoping to gather strength to find Ricardo. Looking into the ancient dresser mirror at her own image, she spoke to it, “I’m wearing my bridal gown!” Her image smiled back at her. “Did I miscalculate my need for that Heart Weight in the convergence? I should have enough Heart Weight anchored in my bridal gown.”

Her bridal gown was woven from from threads which Rhoda herself had fabricated from linen fibers harvested from her flax plants grown in her Trillium Gardenland. There, as the flax plants had grown, Rhoda, had bound Living Memory Strands to the plants. These Strands were from Thersa and from all of the members of the present and past War Things. The Heart Weight of entire War Thing would be present to her and Ricardo in their bridal robes, sewn by their mothers, Victoria and Xochitl, and woven by Manuel. Continuing to look into her ancient mirror, she studied her bridal robe. “Will I die in it before I have Ricardo in it? ‘How will I cross so vast a plain of battle?’”

She looked through her reflection into the space of her sisters in the House of Women. “Can you hear me, my sisters? I am in need of aid.” She briefly brushed her hair and adjusted her robe, the thought flashed through her mind that in the Hangar this evening that it had not the first time that she had seen Ricardo in his wedding robe. Then a voice spoke to her from the mirror. It was not Ingundis the Maker as usually was the case, but Ottilie Krüger, dressed as she had been, when, for a minute she and Rhoda had exchanged Places at Rhoda’s Head Thing in Home Ranch. “I will meet you along the way, sister Rhoda. There we must say our farewells. You have the deepest Secret, from which you can draw the strength to reach me.”

Rhoda stared at Ottilie. And then she recalled her foray into the biological Living Memory with Hans and Evelyn. “Ah, yes! Even Ricardo does not know the whole, Ottilie.”

“Neither do I, Rhoda, but I know that in that Secret you have hidden help.”

The mirror went blank, and Rhoda stood and slid her dresser to one side and entered the Great Maze refreshed, to rendezvous, God willing, with Ricardo, whom Thersa with her escort of Isabel and Reyna would be following—if all were going well with their Thing’s plan in the convergence of the timelines of the human and godly players in this final act of the War Thing. Now the Seams of Doing and Meaning were closing evenly, so no communication, except with those who were truly near, was possible. She was alone, in stature little more than a Denizen, and Rhoda realized that in the convergence, the massive Heart Weight would be of little use anyway. Her deep Secret was enabling to her, yet it would help her reach out only to Sunderer, not to find Ricardo.

The Footpath unto which Rhoda stepped was in the very high Airs. She caught a whiff of the delicious wild roses of the Craggy Heights but saw no sign of the familiar Craggy Heights. At once, she smelled Ottilie’s perfume—as she had when she was fifteen and had met Ottilie in Greystone Castle. Rhoda understood that she was moving through Ottilie’s past at the point when Denizen Ottilie had sought out the House of Women.

Rhoda’s Footpath turned down Air and its hovering Electrum Flagstones became more intense as Rhoda descended toward a more substantial surface of the Commons, over which shadowy Denizens ranged on their own Footpaths. Looking about, Rhoda searched for Ricardo, but she became aware that her personal timeline was drawing close to Ottilie’s. Rhoda struggled again to make headway. She was being overcome by an intense thirst like one trekking too long to cross a desert. Then, she began to sense the radiance of Ottilie’s personal power ahead of her as their Footpaths merged. Like the shade and water of an oasis, it drew out of her a final burst of strength. If only she could reach it! Dear God, may it not be a Fata Morgana. Exhaustion was rapidly overwhelming her. How will I ever reach Ricardo?

Rhoda stumbled, missing the next Electrum flagstone and floated off the Pathway. Denizen Ottilie reached out and grabbed her hand and pulled Rhoda to her. Rhoda’s mind cleared as she saw Ottilie’s radiant face, from which strength flowed into her. “I bequeath to you my Keen Maker’s Heart Weight, Rhoda. Forgive me for the burden that I have laid upon you. I have held back my Heart Weight from you for this moment.”

“Oh, Ottilie…” But Ottilie had passed. In bestowing her gift, Ottilie had closed the Living Distance between them. Then Rhoda instantly sensed the love that her father had had as a young man for Ottilie. It passed through her, following Ottilie. Rhoda suddenly understood why her own personal Heart Weight had been insufficient to seek out Ricardo: Her father had died of old age, and to her timeline and to Ricardo’s, Martin’s death was in their past. She had unknowingly presumed upon a living relationship with her father when she had restored to Sunderer her stake in the god’s heart weight. In the moment of this realization Rhoda felt Victoria’s love for Martin—and Ottilie!—passing through her. Victoria’s death was also past.

Yet, refreshed, Rhoda followed the direction which she felt led to Ricardo. Among all of the shadowy Denizens with whom she moved at random, she could not distinguish him or know if he was one or a thousand strides distant from her. All that she could truly see was the next Flagstone of Electrum, the one which she felt was the one to take, and she was also haunted by the knowledge of her father’s and mother’s deaths. They could be decades, or centuries, in Rhoda’s past. Her inability to get nearer to Ricardo must be rooted in this fact. Was she separated by as great a span of time from him, too? Was this wandering after him for her an eon of purgatory?

After Ricardo had passed the fork that Thersa must take alone, if she were to win through to Thiuderieks, he counted his strides, along the Edge of Meaning, mounting into the future in order to gain high ground necessary for the encounter with the Foe in Earth’s Province. Ricard halted and turned. He reached the last step; one step more would be folly by his calculations; one step less would be folly by his feeling that only to here, where he now was in this vast place of Electrum Pathways, did Rhoda’s way lead. His Powers were quiet, all was poised on the brink, and everything now depended upon what others did. I have shot my bolt! Has it found its mark? Is Rhoda near? Ricardo felt the streams of Doing running along the Edge of Meaning that he had been sculpting since the Burden of the victims of the Wild Way had come upon him, but Hans now carried the Burden of victims.

Ricardo beheld the three shadowy figures who had been following him. They halted at the fork. All around him he sensed a multitude of shadowy Denizens. He and they were in the forward Rarity of the Advancing Front, where there was scarcely any closure of Doing. For a moment Ricardo marveled that there were so many moving so far in advance of their personal experience in Earth’s Province, but he forced himself away from this useless speculation, and focused on the three women; he realized from the increasing clarity of their images that they were already in his remote past, but Tintina was with them in this vast present as planned. That was a relief.

~ 3 ~ The flash of Tintina’s Light from the lantern held up by Reyna passed through Rhoda and she beheld Ricardo. Rhoda cried out, “Ricardo!” In that place, it was not a wise thing to do, but she couldn’t help herself. He turned and came toward her on the flagstones of Electrum. Her Pathway had become only the single flagstone upon which she stood waiting, her eyes fixed upon him. Ottilie’s Heart Weight could take her no farther. In the same flash of Light Ricardo beheld Hans who was pursuing the green serpentine Soma. Had Rhoda not called to him in that instant, they would not have found each other.

Ricardo squeezed Rhoda’s hand and whispered, “Softly now, sweetheart, look only at me.”

Rhoda looked into his face and fought off the sudden desire to follow his gaze back down the way he had come. “Is it Thersa, Isabel and Reyna?” she asked in a whisper.

“Speak no more of such things until we are safe.”

She gazed at his bridal gown. Ricardo himself had provided only the matching woven rush slippers, which Rhoda had put on without thinking, back at the airfield. Suddenly her feet tingled as if with pins and needles. Ricardo had altered the Device of the robes in a way she did not understand! His Secret! Suddenly Rhoda could see nothing. Ricardo gripped Rhoda’s hand firmly, “We must flee quickly along our path, before it closes!”

For many paces, Rhoda ran blindly at his side, delighting in the reckless abandon that she took in Ricardo’s sure guidance. Her open eyes beheld only the Great Blackness. The Great Blackness began to fill with the legions of dragonfly and swallow Devices which she had fabricated, using Makers’ secrets she had obtained from Ingundis the Maker’s Workshop. Rhoda recalled Ricardo’s teasing presence when she was in the midst of fabricating the Archetype of the dragonflies. What was he doing? More than teasing. Now, they filled her hair; they were her hair, but they were not only her Devices any more! The sweet thief! She and Ricardo were swept up as if by a great wave. It was like the one that they had experienced on the night of their Head Thing, when they opened Hamner’s Casket and crowned each other—almost in jest—as War Prince and Princess, and had almost fallen to their destruction. But this wave of dragon flies and swallows cast them suddenly—and gently—through a narrow doorway.

The door blew shut behind them. The room’s light was that of late evening. A single beeswax candle burned on a table next the bed, adding warmth to the color of a vase of red and yellow roses placed next to it. Rhoda felt the quiet and human warmth of a home in Earth’s Province. At last, her eyes saw their bridal chamber, and in joyous and sudden exhaustion, Rhoda threw herself unto the bed and passed instantly into a deep slumber.

Ricardo kissed her forehead, removed her slippers and carefully unlaced her sheathed ankle dagger, kissed it reverently and placed it next to the vase of roses and the candle. He tucked her in.

Ricardo then picked up and unwrapped a bound package which had blown in with them. It was a gift that Manuel had made: a hanging Front Gate, like the one Manuel had made for Ricardo’s Workshop at Cliff Rancho. Ricardo hung it on the far wall of their bedroom. In a moment, the bedroom mellowed to an outpost of Earth’s Province, like the cockpit of the Greased Lightning. Behind him, Rhoda stirred but did not wake. Ricardo ran his hand along the hanging strands. As they waved in response, he saw through them the straight Pathway along the Great Maze stretching back to the hub of the Maze at Home Ranch. Manuel had made the wallhanging Gate exactly to Ricardo’s specifications. Manuel supposed that it was a gift for Rhoda. “Keep your work a War Thing Secret from you sister,” Ricardo had told him. “It will is a most pleasing surprise.”

Carrying his finished work, Manuel had found the Back Gate where Ricardo had told him it would be. He had wondered at its height in the Air. Without following the Footpath that Ricardo had shown him, he could not have climbed so high. He opened the Back Gate to place the package inside the Inner Sanctum. It was in a state of temporal flux, and the Place-god of the Workshop himself received Manuel’s work. Manuel had hurried back down the Footpath, so as not to be caught in its temporal ambiguity. When he reached the head of the Footpath, where it joined his own neighborhood in the Commons, he had looked back. The Footpath had dissolved and he could perceive only the impenetrable High Wall. He had wondered where Ricardo would place his Front Gate. Perhaps it will be Mexico City, where they will be married.

When Ricardo was satisfied with Manuel’s handiwork, he drank in a view of Rhoda. The sleep of the innocent. He sighed with concern, pleasure and eager anticipation, and he swiftly slipped out the door opposite to the Back Gate through which they had been carried from the Commons. No trace of the Back Gate remained. In its place now stood one of two large windows which looked to the Commons and the other window, close to Manuel’s hanging Gate, looked into the night of Earth’s Province.

While Rhoda had been raising her flax crop, Ricardo and Benjamin had labored long and in great secrecy to make this Bridal Bower and Battleground. Benjamin in consultation with Isabel agreed with Ricardo’s calculation that he and Rhoda would have at least two years before they had to face Sunderer in the Soma.

Little did Ricardo suspect how closely Sunderer was following upon the heals of his sleeping bride.

~4~ The Green Serpent reached the Front Gate of the Wild Way. Long had Gabrielle’s eyes been fixed upon it. When she first beheld it from a great distance in the Commons, she was certain that it was their destination, but once she had begun to advance toward it, the Commons had become a churning darkness in which only the Gate and the Green Serpent and its entourage were visible to her. After some time, she asked, “Liubagilds, what do you see about you?”

“You, Mistress, the others and the Green Serpent, although my feet are finding their way, I do not know upon what they tread.”

“And you, Retimer?”

“I see the same, Mistress.”

While she had been speaking, she had not taken her eyes off the distant Gate. “Kinthila, be of some service. Circle back around the Green Serpent and report back to me if what we see here is what you see from the Serpent’s tail.”

After Kinthila had left on his errand, Gabrielle asked Mortimer Kane what he and his Hands saw about them. “We see only darkness, Gabrielle. Do you know where we are?

“Yes, I do, because I see one thing more. It is to where we are headed: The Gate of the Wild Way into Earth’s Province. As she spoke, she suddenly felt moist sand beneath her feet.

Liubagilds exclaimed, “Now I can see what it is upon which we walk!”

“It must be a sign that we are moving onto the higher ground for our encounter with the Clan’s witch—by whom I mean the Keen Maker who has confronted the Friend.”

“Who is she?” Kane asked moving near to Gabrielle.

“We still do not know. Herbert thought that it was one of three, most likely Yohanna Okubo, whom Herbert failed to kill—at the cost of his life.”