Stuff I've Written

Ok so here’s what I’ve got so far:

“Mr Golub’s idyllic world will never become stale. Unrivalled storytelling of the highest order, unforgettable characters, rich world creation, this is a miraculously brilliant book. A work of rugged wonder.” – Ms Bookish of Bookish.dk

It is 1879 and the colonial empires of Britain and Russia battle for control of the vast expanse of Central Asia. But darker forces are at work as well, threatening to corrupt Mennonite communities around the globe and plunge the world into restrictive copyright regimes from which it will never recover. It’s a tall order for two time-travelling Jedi to fill, but if anyone can do it it’s the teenage Maori padwan Anne Kawharu and her quizzical teacher Rex Masterson, adjunct field Jedi extraordinaire. As they draw closer and closer to the enigmatic Pool of Lost Souls, Anne and Rex pursue their goal with the help of Lawrence Lessig, Sammy Davis Junior, a super-intelligent Belugah whale, and the Baal Shem Tov. But no one can help them as their fate becomes bound up with immortal book dealer Andrew Huff’s quest to track down the his one true love — the deadliest woman in the world.

“The most touching and upbeat thing I’ve run across since I got The Beatles to cover ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ in Maori.” – Cinnamon

I’ve created a permanent link for the complete ahatpols manuscript. As I move towards publication this will get revised (i.e. spell checked). But if you’re looking for a complete copy in non-backwards order, that is the place to go.

If you’d like to help with doing the layout for the novel or – even better – illustrations, please email me at a dash golub at uchicago dot edu.

(for a quick reminder you may want to reread the first episode)

“I understand that as professional assasins, you probably don’t have a particularly well developed ironic sensibility,” I said, edging nervously away from them and towards the rim of the caldera, “but surely,” I said gesturing towards the roiling sea of lava that splurped and hissed directly behind me, “surely you can see that this entire thing is just a little bit, how can I put it, de trop?”

“We’re not assasins,” spat one of the business-suited, sunglassed, AK-47′d men advancing slowly towards me, “we’re executive outcome professionals. We provide advanced morbidity solutions… enterprise wide.”

“Because I mean really,” I said, laughing nervously and trying to sound brave, “being forced to the edge of a lava-filled volcano in the middle of the Taklamakan desert as a dozen assasins advance menacingly towards me… I mean, can you really go through with something like this?”

The men in front of me took a moment and glanced questioningly at each other.

“Yep.” said one.

I sighed deeply and made my light saber live.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn – ”

I took a deep breath and… and then I shuddered as I realized where I was – back at the volcano where this had all begun. I remembered everything – the way they were about to attack me, my rendez-vous with Rex, escaping to Kashgar and meeting Andrew for the first time. I touched my mouth – there was a hint of blood, red now, and felt my head – the pain was gone. Then I began shaking, almost uncontrollably. What had happened to Andrew and Cinnamon? Where wer they? Before I could even finish formulating the thought one of the men charged me. With a single glance I saw there were too many to take on at once. I took a deep breath and charged forward and used the force to push three or four of them down with a wave of my arm, riding the aftershock of their concussion through the air in a long, somersaulting leap. I landed in the sand behind them, sheathed my lightsaber, and sprinted down the sandy slope of the volcano, juiced on the adrenaline running through my blood and the confusion running through my head.

Pulled by intuition down the slope, I saw a humvee lit up with the variable green illumination that I recognized immediately as the flash of Rex’s lightsaber in close quarters. A body flew out of the open window and the car started heading towards me. As it approached I saw three over humvees behind it in pursuit. The passenger-side door flew open and I felt an intangible invitation from Rex. As the humvee veered towards me I leapt sideways, caught the edge of the door in my hands, and used the torque of my rotation to fly inside of it, slamming the door shut in the process.

“How is it?” asked Rex distractedly, glancing now in the rear view window and now over the windshield, shoulders hunched in intense concentration.

“I’m ok,” I said, “a group of MPAA goons tried to corner me.”

Rex stole a moment to give me a serious, guilt-inducing look.

“What did I tell you about taking on large groups of professionally trained assasins when I’m not around?” he said, looking down his nose.

“I didn’t,” I protested, suddenly feeling like a little girl again, “I avoided them when I saw I was outnumbered. You can’t expect me just to rush headlong into battle every opportunity I get.”

“Can’t I?” asked Rex suspiciously.

“And anyway,” I said, the enormity of what had happened flooding back to me, “we did it! We made it! Here we are. Back in Kashgar in 2004!” I exulted, collecting my tattered robes about me. I took out my lightsaber and sniffed at the tell-tale smell of ozone that clung to it – a clear indication my leap forward in time was successful.

“Yeah we made it,” said Rex, “we got the artifact the MPAA were interested in. But we won’t be in the clear until we loose those three humvees – and you know how much I hate driving. And, uh, Anne – did you just sniff your lightsaber?”

* * *

Six hours and three burnt-out enemy Humvee husks later were back in our safe house in Kashgar, exhausted.

“God that was close,” said Rex as I poured us out a cup of tea before bed, “those guys must have been real nuts for whatever this is.”

He took a canvass bag from out of his robes and undid the draw string, dumping the Codex of Lost Souls unceremoniously onto the kitchen table.

“Ohmigod,” I said, frozen, kettle in one hand, “don’t read it, Rex. Whatever you do. Don’t. Read. It. For god’s sake!”

Rex looked at me quizzically.

“Why not?” he asked me, genuinely puzzled.

“Don’t you remember what happened in Bukhara?” I asked with more than a little hint of desperation in my voice.

“But Anne, We’ve never been to Bukhara,” said Rex, walking towards me, giving me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder with one hand and taking the kettle from me with the other, “you’ve been acting oddly ever since I rendez-vous’d with you back at the volcano. Are you feeling ok?”

“What do you mean? Don’t you remember what happened to us?”

Rex looked at me as if a large penguin had sprouted out of my forehead.

“I…” my voice trailed off in uncertainty. Had I dreamed it all? Everything that had happened to me? How could Rex not remember?

“I’ll tell you what,” said Rex, “it’s been a long night. Let’s have our tea, sleep on it, and I’ll have a plan developed in the morning.”

* * *

I awoke the next morning filled with resignation. The same fan turned the same dusty eddies about my bed. The same figs sat in the same bowl. It was all exactly as I remembered it. Was I stuck in some sort of time-loop, destined to repeat the same experiences over and over again? Was the Rex that had rescued me the night before the real Rex, or some imposter? The power of the pool certainly seemed to have deserted me. What would I do? What was happening to me?

I trudged downstairs and sat grumpily at the table, shoulders stooped over my tea. Rex bounded down stairs with his usual ebullient energy.

“Well Anne,” he said, obviously trying to cheer me up, “I think I’ve got our little problem solved. I happen to know a person who lives here in Kashgar who can have this little codex-thingie identified lickety split.”

“Great,” I said unethusaistically, stirring my tea.

“And the interesting thing about him is….”

“I know, I know. He’s immortal.”

“Why yes,” said Rex, clearly nonplussed, “how did you guess?”

* * *

An hour later we were walking the streets of Kashgar to meet Rex’s ‘mysterious friend’ who I already knew would be Andrew. A few blocks from the safehouse I turned down the road leading to Andrew’s store.

“Where are you going, Anne?” asked Rex, eyebrows wrinkled.

“To your friend’s place,” I said tiredly.

“Hmmm. Good guess but no. The force is weak with you. He lives down this way,” said Rex, jerking his thumb in the opposite direction.

“No he doesn’t.”

“I assure you he does,” said Rex, brow wrinkling in concern, “are you sure you’re ok? Did you sleep well last night? You seem out of sorts.”

“I’m fine,” I said glumly, acquiescing to Rex’s route, “let’s just get this over with.”

* * *

“He does not live here.” I said, glancing skeptically up at the twenty foot tall white-washed walls that encircled the enormous mansion outside of whose gate we stood.

“I assure you he does,” repeated Rex, winking at me and walking towards the gate where he handed his card to two guards wearing bullet-proof vests and brandishing assault rifles. At the very edge of Kashgar, where the irrigated fields blended sterile into the desert, I could see the tops of green, water-hungry trees peak over the wall of the estate. Whoever lived here was rich.

In a moment we had cleared security and were inside the estate. A large tiled fountain gurgled away serenely at the front of a scrupulously trimmed British lawn dotted by luxurious growths of peach trees and grape vines. In front of me, a massive house topped with minarets and riddled with wrought iron windows stretched upwards.

“Rex old man, how are you?!” I heard an unmistakable voice ask.

It was Andrew. There was no doubt about it. But instead of wearing his usual crumpled earthtones we was dressed in a carefully tailored linen suit complete with a cravat. In one hand he held an oversized martini glass filled with an oversized martini. He hugged Rex warmly but carefully so as not to spill and then glanced at me, eyes twinkling in curiosity.

“Andrew, how good to see you!” said Rex happily, “Meet my padwan Anne Kawharu. Anne Karhawu, Andrew Huff.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Andrew, smiling and shaking my hand warmly as if he’d never seen me before in his entire life.

“Uh.. er… um…” I said articulately.

Whatever remaining ability I had to use language to communicate with other humans was completely taken away a moment later when Cinnamon bounded out of the house in a light summer dress and ran to embrace Rex.

“And this is Andrew’s wife Cinnamon,” said Rex, extricating himself from her arms, “Anne, Cinnamon. Cinnamon, Anne.”

“So pleased to meet you, Anne,” said Cinnamon without a trace of recognition, “a friend of Rex’s is a friend of ours. Welcome to our house.”

“Gagh. Grrr. Ugh. Er.” I said in reply, trying not to faint.

“I say Rex,” said Andrew, sipping on his martini, “I’ve just asked Wajid to make a pitcher of martinis. It’s on the side table on the third floor dining room if you’d like to help yourself.”

“You know me too well, Andrew,” said Rex, already making for the door, “You’ll make Anne at home, won’t you?”

“Of course – go get your martini,” said Cinnamon, waving to him. But he was already indoors.

There was a moment of akward silence as Andrew and Cinnamon stood arm and arm, beaming benevolently at me.

“Uh… nice house you have here…” I began lamely.

Ever so slowly, Andrew’s eyes wrinkled with supressed mirth. He leaned towards to me.

“Rex doesn’t remember a thing, does he?” he whispered, chuckling.

“Oh Anne!” exclaimed Cinnamon, breaking into peals of happy laughter, “it’s been centuries!”

And then they both embraced me, laughing and crying at once.

* * *

“We’re still trying to determine how much of our future you changed,” said Andrew, pouring me a glass of lemonade, “or perhaps I mean how much of your past? It’s all quite complicated. When we finally met Rex again for the first time a couple of years ago it was clear he had no idea who we were and had no memory of the incidents surrounding the Pool of Lost Souls. We played dumb, of course. When you’re in our line of business, you learn how not to give too much away.”

“Your business? And this,” I said, looking around at their estate, “this is your house? And Cinnamon – you’re alive? I don’t understand. When I met Andrew in 2003…”

“Yes, well, the thing is that that never actually happened,” said Andrew.

“Perhaps we ought to back track a bit,” said Cinnamon, seeing my confusion and patting me on the arm comfortingly, “everything you experienced in your first time in Kashgar was before what you did at the Pool of Lost Souls. Even though it happened afterwards, chronologically speaking.”

“Lessig and Kathy were right about you, Anne – you did change the course of history. If it hadn’t been for you Cinnamon would have died and I’d have been left to wander the earth for eternity bemoaning our unrequited love. But you did the right thing and saved us both.”

“The last thing I remember is you two falling into the Pool of Lost Souls.”

“Well that’s the last thing I remembered for a long time too,” said Andrew, “when we regained consciousness it was all we could do to scramble out of the cavern before the entire place came tumbling down around us. It wasn’t until years afterwards, when our friends started turning grey and we were as young and vital as ever, that we realized what had happened to us.”

“Consciousness? I remember that you, Andrew,” I said, shuddering slightly, “The water didn’t hurt you anymore – you had already become immortal. But Cinnamon…?”

Both of them beamed benevolently at me.

“You’re both immortal?” I guessed.

“Well, let’s just say that you’re not the only person who can bestow immortality with a kiss.” said Andrew. Cinnamon blushed.

“The pool gives life Anne – it doesn’t just take away. And not just that,” said Andrew, tapping his head with his forefinger, “but there’s a bonus! After my experience at the Pool of Lost Souls, I was plagued by bad dreams. Soon those dreams congealed into memories – memories of the future. A future which, thanks to you, I’ll never have to live.”

“You remember meeting me for the first time?” I asked, a bit embarassed.

“I remember meeting you for your first time. And I remembered everything else that never happened to me – I remembered an entire future that hasn’t occurred, thanks to you.”

“And that,” said Cinnamon, pouring herself more lemonade, “was when we decided to go into the art market.”

“The art market?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, with a century’s worth of memories you can’t help but want to make a killing in art speculation,” admitted Andrew, “most of our profits go to our philanthropic endeavors, of course. The liberation of Tibet, a couple of endowed chairs in philology, some research grants to further human-cetacean communication. But basically the businesses and NGOs are merely a front for our other activities.”

“Other activities?”

“Our cultural preservation special ops,” said Andrew, smiling broadly, “as a little in-joke we decided to call it ‘Section 13′.”

“The past century or so has been incredibly hectic,” said Cinnamon, squeezing Andrew on the arm, “we just barely realized we were immortal before we had to dash over to Greece to strip the Parthenon bare before that idiot Turk blew it up. Trust me – the Elgin marbles are nothing compared to what we’ve got!”

“I spent most of the First World War doing oral history – collecting autobiographies of soldiers in the trenches, poetry. Cinnamon was busy in China, of course, making sure the Qing didn’t sell too much of China’s heritage to the Big Noses. And then then thirties – ”

“Oh god, the Thirties!” laughed Cinnamon, “it was all we could do to keep up! By the time we’d gotten our Cubist collection together we were straight onto stealing stained glass out of cathedrals – sometimes we’d only get to them minutes before the allied bombings. And then the Cultural Revolution in China – god! We’ve still got five container ships anchored off of Brunei we haven’t even catalogued yet!”

“Oh yes, and then the post war years! Which reminds me – we’ve got a little thank-you present for you Anne,” said Andrew, producing a jewel case from his pocket. The cover featured a blurry black-and-white picture of four obviously drunk young men with bol-cuts flipping off the camera while Cinnamon and Andrew hovered in the background, waving and winking.

“It’s an acoustic live recording of The Beatles doing ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ in Maori – I think I got them to pronounce it right,” said Cinnamon, “We used to hang out with them in Berlin.”

“Obla-di Obla-da is actually about us,” confessed Andrew modestly.

“Wow. Great,” I said, trying to sound enthused as I turned the jewel case over in my hand, “uh… who are ‘The Beatles’?”

“Kids these days!” snorted Cinnamon, easing herself into Andrew’s lap and kissing him on the ear, “try Googling them sometimes, Anne.”

“And what happened to Cumin?” I asked, intrigued, “the last time I saw her she seemed to be getting along with Trevor quite well.”

“Trevor?” laughed Andrew, “No, that didn’t last. It turns out she only likes Jewish boys. No, the last time we saw her she was still going out with the Diamond Dealer.”

“The Diamond Dealer?” I said, jaw dropping.

“Yes. We saw her a couple of weeks ago, pulling some crazy Jewstastic stunt.” said Cinnamon.

“She’s immortal too?”

“No she’s not immortal,” said Cinnamon, brow wrinkling in curiosity as if I had suggested something outlandish, “she just, well, gets around a lot these days. She works mostly with Elijah – as much as she likes the Diamond Dealer, they quarrel a lot when on assignment as a team.”

“What about Lessig and Ghyslain?”

“Well whatever you did had far-reaching consequences,” said Andrew, sipping, “Lessig got his wish after all. He’s a senator now, and the DMCA never passed. Ghyslain, unfortunately, has been reduced to an embarassingly juvenile movie that was famous on the internet for 10 minutes. Now he only dreams of being a Jedi, I’m afraid.”

“Rex will be back at any moment, Anne,” said Cinnamon, “and we still have the most important thing to discuss. As you no doubt realize, the Pool of Lost Souls is neither just a group or people nor a part of the primordial landscape. The Pool exists at that intersection where nature and humanity meet – where inevitability and choice intersect. It took us decades to come up with an answer to the question of what it meant for someone to be part of the Pool of Lost Souls – an answer you came up with instinctively, Anne, when you tasted the waters of the pool. The Codex played with the skeins of our fate numerous times before we finally understood what it wanted.”

Our immortality was not an accident – even your intervention, an act of free will so great that it rent realities asunder, was but one turning point in history designed by Codex itself. Now we understand that it seeks guardians – people like ourselves, Anne. People as immortal as the Codex’s desire for secrecy, people as dedicated to safeguarding it as it is powerful. Our call to service began that day long ago when we tasted of the Pool of Lost Souls and became immortal. So we were sort of hoping…”

“Keep quiet about this to Rex?”

“Bingo. We still need to get a hold of Codex if we’re to keep to our new purpose in life, and now it’s cleverly worked its way into our hands. But you can’t let anyone know what’s happened. Don’t mention it ever Anne – especially to Rex” said Andrew, “don’t tell a soul – at least not until you’re old and grey. As usual, Rex seems to have gone through yet another adventure without a scratch on him. And as for the rest, here he comes now, I see…”

* * *

“Damn that’s a fine Martini,” said Rex, settling comfortably into his chair and sipping on his drink, “so – how are y’all getting on with Anne?”

“Oh splendidly,” said Cinnamon, casting the briefest wink at me, “it feels like we’ve known Anne for years.”

“So,” said Andrew, “what was it you came to see us about, Rex?”

“Oh well,” said Rex, pulling the Codex from his robes, “Anne and I recently retrieved this book from an MPAA convoy. My orders were to keep it out of Valenti’s hands. But of course the Council didn’t specify what I ought to do with it after that, and then I thought ‘hey, don’t Cinnamon and Andrew winter in Kashgar?’ and so I thought…”

“Thanks Rex,” said Andrew, taking the Codex from Rex’s hand, “It’ll make a great addition to our collection – whatever it is. Looks real old to me.”

“Oh yes, very old,” said Cinnamon, blinking with earnest innocence, “and it’s probably very valuable.”

“Well,” said Rex, beaming, “just consider it on permanent loan from the Council, ok?”

“Sure thing,” said Andrew.

There was an awkward moment of silence as Rex stared expectantly at them.

“Uh… could I get a receipt for that? It’s just, you know how the council is…” began Rex awkwardly.

“Of course,” said Andrew, pushing Cinnamon off his lap and producing a reciept book from the inner pocket of his coat and writing out a receipt.

“Great!” said Rex, “I’m glad we got that out of the way, I’m kinda busy, actually. Pancho Sanchez is doing a week’s worth of shows in New York in two days and I promised Kathy we’d make them all. Can you hold on a sec?” said Rex, pulling a mobile phone from his robes and pressing speed dial preset.

“Kathy? mobile phone? You don’t own a mobile phone! What are you doing calling Kathy?” I blurted, confused.

“Ha ha. very funny. Very funny ha ha. Rex has had a mobile phone for the past three years,” said Andrew beneath gritted don’t-fuck-this-up teeth.

“And of course you remember Kathy of course,” said Cinnamon, expositing bravely, “Rex’s chidlhood sweetheart and dance partner who he’s never broken up with ever despite their occasionally rocky relationship?”

“Hello? Hey babes,” said Rex contentedly, bending in concentration over his mobile phone and sticking a finger in his un-mobilephoned ear, “how are you? Good? Great. Yeah, I’m all clear over here – ”

Rex glanced up my way.

“Oh – Kathy says to send you big smoochies,” he said, smiling at me.

“smoochies…?”

“Yes. No. Yes. Ok. I’ll see you then. No. Andrew and Cinnamon. Cinnamon and Andrew. Yeah. I don’t know – some stupid codex. You? Has Ambi been getting his walkies? Ok. Ok. No, I believe you. Kat – what did I just say? Why would I say I believe you if I didn’t believe you? If he’s getting his walkies he’s getting his walkies. Ok. I’ll see you later. Love you too. Ciao.”

Rex snapped his phone shut and turned to look at me.

“You don’t mind, Anne? It’s just something we thought we’d try to do alone.”

“Alone? But what about me? What am I supposed to do?”

“Oh right, I forgot to tell you,” said Rex, making his lightsaber live and shearing off my padwan’s braid, “congratulations Anne, you’re a Jedi now.”

“I’m a what?”

“A jedi. You know – light saber, force powers, fighting for good? I got word from the council about a month ago that you were to get made at the end of this mission. They think you’re ready and so do I – it’s a good sign for your career you got a bump so early. I had sort of hoped we could go out with a bang – you know, an epic adventure, big battles, the world at risk, that sort of thing. But I guess some folks are lucky and some ain’t.”

“But I’m not ready to be a Jedi!” I protested, suddenly panicking, “I’m only sixteen! I don’t know anything about anything! I feel like I have so much to learn! I’m finally beginning to realize how difficult all this Jedi stuff is!” I protested.

“I think that’s why they decided you were ready.” said Cinnamon quietly, “I’m sure you’ve had adventures that Rex can’t even begin to rememb – uh, imagine.”

“But isn’t there some sort of official ceremony or something?”

“Oh well you can walk at convocation if you want, but officially it’s all settled. Congratulations, Anne,” said Rex, squeezing my hand fondly.

“But what will I do?”

“Wander the earth. Right wrongs. Just like we did, only without me.”

“Well just because you can’t think three days in advance doesn’t mean that I’m going ‘wander the earth’, Rex Masterson,” I said, surprised at how determinedly down to earth I sounded.

“Well it sounds to me like you’re more than a little ready to take responsibility for yourself, Anne,” said Andrew, grinning, “care to stay for dinner?”

* * *

We had veal with artichoke hearts and asparagus. Cinnamon made a salad. Andrew shoo’d the servants out of the kitchen and we made peanut butter cookies for desert as we finished the rest of the wine. Afterwards I saw Rex off at the gate of Andrew and Cinnamon’s mansion. He was a little worried about leaving me there and was concerned that I was imposing, but I assured him that Cinnamon, Andrew and I would have plenty to talk about. He smiled and hugged me briefly before he left.

“I’m going to miss you, Anne Kawharu,” he said.

He turned to go. I stayed at the gate and watched him walk away into the desert until his form shimmered with the heat, and then until it disappeared altogether, and then until even the outline of his presence was only a memory. And then I went inside.

* * *

The night air was crisp with summer in the high mountains. Andrew made glog and we took it out to roof. We talked all night. I felt the cold work its way into my clothes and watched the stars wink on and off. Soon enough, the dawn spawned orange and we sat together, letting it rise over the three of us. We felt it spread its growing warmth on our faces and watched as it glowed dimly, and then brighter, over our ever-lessening silhouettes, revealing in its growing light the outlines of our friendship – our own little pool of lost souls.

We staggered down the corridor, a sad group – Rex in Kathy’s arms, Ghyslain in Lessig’s, Trevor in Cumin’s, and I in Andrew’s. Cinnamon walked in front of us, bloody but unbowed.

The ground shook beneath us again and a spray of fine silt drifted downward from the ceilings and into my hair.

“What’s going on?” Asked Cinnamon, looking up at the ceiling and squinting as the dust fell into her eyes.

I felt something electrical shoot through me – and I felt Ghyslain and Rex feel it too.

“The pool,” I said, “it’s here. It’s coming.”

“She is right,” said Ghyslain, shaking his head, “it’s filling my mind.”

“I thought,” said Rex, panting uneasily in Kathy’s arms, “I thought we were going to go with the ‘Pool of Lost Souls is Us’ option.”

The ground shook again, so hard that we were thrown to the floor. We tried to get up, but the tremor continued unabated, until finally the walls around us cracked and the ceiling buckled precariously.

“That option seems increasingly unlikely,” said Lessig, walking to one wall, “look!”

Between the cracks in the stone corridor where he pointed, a small but visible smudge of ultra-bright blue appeared. It welled slowly out of the stone and then began dripping thickly towards the floor.

“My god,” said Andrew, walking towards it, “look at that.”

It wasn’t the first time that I had seen that color but it was the first time I’d seen water from the Pool of Lost Souls. It was like an optical allusion, the visual equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. The more you tried to look at it, the more you had to look away.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Andrew, slowly extending one finger towards the wall to scoop up a smidgeon. The instant his finger made contact he yowled and pulled back, the water eating away at his flesh with an audible hiss. He shook his hand quickly, but already the heat-welt was starting to rise on his finger, as if he has stuck it into a fire.

“keep moving,” I said weakly, “just keep going down. We’ll find it in the depths of the palace.”

* * *

Eventually the hallway widened out into a largish room with a sand floor. Above us the ceiling faded away into infinity, the pale beams of illumination that shone down from the skylight overhead gave only the hint that somewhere up above us was daylight. A narrow grooved channel like a bowling gutter ran along the edges of the room, and enormous spikes of some unidentifiable metal burst from the floor in irregular intervals. Across from us was a massive stone wall with an elaborate abstract series of grooves carved into it. They glittered with a swarm of small blue sapphires that shone at the vertices. Standing in front of the wall were Klaas Epps and Syvestro D’Alogna along with several monks. Epps was chanting, half-entranced, rocking slowly back and forth with the Codex of Lost Souls in one hand as his other hand darted across the carving, touching first this gem and then another. As he touched each, they began glowing with a soft, interior light that was, quite simply, otherworldly.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Syvestro, “Look what we have here! Party poopers! Intrepid party poopers, don’t get me wrong, but still…” he glanced up at us, “doomed, I think.”

“Shut it, D’Alogna,” I said, “You tried to stop us once and failed. The games up. Give up now before its too late.”

The room shook like a bad Star Trek special effect and I struggled to remain standing. With an enormous crack, the walls of the cavern shattered. From the gaping wounds in their stone, a hundred thin spouts of ever-blue water burst and flowed into the gutters along the edge of the room, where they dripped downwards, through the gate. Epps’ chanting increased, and the jewels began to glow a brighter blue.

” ‘before it’s too late?’ ” he asked, laughing, “Oh really? My dear girl, do you have any idea what’s going on, or what we’re about to do? The Pool of Lost Souls is filling even as we speak – it is coming and we are to meet it! Beyond the Gate of Lost Souls lies my final triumph and immortality itself! But don’t worry – you don’t have to wait for me to kill you. I’ll have them do it for me.”

He gestured to the monks, who grinned broadly and drew their swords.

“If you think…” I began.

“Think?” said D’Alogna, “Think what? You barely escaped death the last time you faced my Buddhist allies. And now look at you – two wounded Jedi, one stripling Padwan and a few minor characters? Without that damnable Tibetan Monk you’re no match for us! It would take a dozen more Jedi too…”

D’Alogna was about to continue when the room exploded in light and sound. I turned away and instinctively shielded my eyes with my forearm. Two hooded, robed figures appeared in front of us. They walked towards me and then dropped to one knee.

“Reporting for duty, Ms. Kawharu,” they said in unison.

“Duty?” I asked.

They paused and then glanced at one another. One was a young man, barely a teen-ager, with unruly blond hair and devilishly handsome features. The other was an equally young redheaded girl with a wide, pale face full of freckles. I realized with a shock that they were both wearing Jedi robes.

“Wow,” whispered the girl out of the side of her mouth, “she really is our age.”

“We’ve still got to do whatever she tells us to…” began the boy, casting his eyes up at me. Then they hit on something behind me and fixed in fascination.

“Dad?” asked the young man, amazed.

“Willem?” asked Lessig, moving forward, “good god – but you’re only one!”

“Well I…” he began.

In a well-practiced gesture that I had never actually done before, I reached out with both hands and grabbed their ears and twisted, raising them slowly up my eye level.

“What is going on here?” I asked them imperiously, glancing fiercly at one and then the other.

“It’s definitely her, Sarah.” winced Willem Lessig.

“Well Ms. Kawharu you weren’t very clear on the details,” began Sarah, the girl, “you said something about how you needed a ‘deus ex machina’…”

“What?!” I roared, twisting even further.

“You told us you needed help…” said Willem, squirming.

“… made us promise not to tell the council…” confessed Sarah.

“… I thought you were kidding when you said you had a key to the clean room where they stored the portal…”

“That should be interesting to see,” said Epps, “three exhausted Jedi, an injured Padwan, and two of her friends versus a dozen Shaolin warriors? I hardly think this is the deus ex machina you were looking for, Kawharu.”

“We’ll see about that!” I said defiantly, trying to ignore the migraine-pain in my head, “I’m not injured.”

Epps raised an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked, nonplussed.

“Anne – you’re bleeding.” said Kathy quietly.

I stopped, confused, and then felt my eyes watering. I lifted my fingers up to them, and when I pulled them away they were coated in blood.

“Kill them.” said Epps simply, turning again to the door.

* * *

The monks came on with a fury that was beyond what I had experienced at our first meeting. Sarah, Willem, and I tried to form a perimeter to defend the others. Kathy and Ghyslain helped ward off the occasional close call – the others were too hurt or tired to defend themselves. Meanwhile, Epps began chanting again. As our combat continued his chanting grew to a fever pitch. Suddenly there was a tremendous crack as the walls within the chamber split, fracturing again into thousands of hairline cracks which, wound like, poured steady thin streams of bright blue water down their side and into the rapidly-filling gutter around the corner of the room.

The monk I was tussling with took advantage of my distraction and nailed me in the calf, paralyzing my leg and sending me sprawling to the ground. I tried to stand up, but the blood-magic coursing through my veins had already weakened me. The monk grabbed the back of my neck and shoved my face just centimeters above the gutter that was rapidly filling with the water of the pools of lost souls.

I felt as if I were somewhere else – a million miles away. As he ranted about my death, all I could do was watch with abstract fascination as the blood from my eyes dripped down into the gutter beneath me, a sizzling muddying crimson polluting the pure blue-on-blue of the water of lost souls.

“And now that the pool has come, you will die – and we shall become immortal!” he crowed triumphantly, sadistically pushing my face even closer to the water of pool.

“The Pool. Of Lost Souls. Is…. us!” I managed to grunt. I got one hand free and scooped it into the waters, splashing them onto the leg and torso of the monk behind me.

I remember him screaming and I even remember him dying, although I can’t tell you exactly how it happened. The pain from my own hand was too intense – the water from the pool burned me all the way through to my soul. I felt as if my hand was one giant cavity-ridden tooth stabbed with an ice pick. I stared at it in horror as it hissed and smoked. The skin stretched and retracted as my hand grew wrinkled and liver-spotted and then as smooth as a newborn’s.

“Is that so?” said a voice behind me. I turned to see another Monk. I reached for my light saber, but it was gone – he held it in his hands and tapped it lightly as he lectured me.

“Yes,” I said, “It makes sense. It has to. Everything I’ve seen so far has proved it – meeting Andrew, going back in time, everything. We are the Pool of Lost Souls.”

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” he said, walking towards me, “so stupid. So stubborn. Look all around you – the Pool of Lost Souls has arrived!”

Then something snapped in my brain. My one remaining good arm reached into my robes and pulled out the empty perfume bottle that my older self had given me earlier. It was slipper in my hand, I realized, because they were covered with my own blood. I vaguely realized it was from the blood running from my ears and down into my robes.

I woozily reached over and dipped the bottle into the pool, filling it with the water of lost souls.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” I said thickly to him, tasting blood flowing into my mouth now.

The monk laughed as he looked down at me.

“I can’t decide which I will enjoy more – killing you myself or watching all of the blood flow out of your body on its own accord.”

“This entire time,” I said, feeling myself nodding and struggling to regain consciousness before continuing, “We’ve only ever heard two different sto… stories.”

I swallowed heavily, tasting iron and salt as I did so.

“Is the pool of lost souls the people who wa… watch over the Codex, or is the waters from which I… we… from which it gets its powers. No one knows which one it is…”

A haze of red covered my eyes now.

“But I think,” I said, lifting the perfume bottle to my lips and swallowing, “I think it’s both.”

At first I felt nothing. Then I felt as if someone had poured molten lead into my skeleton. My vision faded away into a blue first cobalt and then cerulean, and then white, whiter, and white again. My ears roared with the sound of my own blood and then, ever stranger, the sound of nothing at all. Then I was gone altogether.

* * *

I awoke to find the Monk staring into my face curiously as he held me up in the air by my throat. He rotated my head around as if examining a broken doll.

“That’s odd…” he began, fixating on my eyes.

“No,” I said, feeling a surge of strength through my body, “this is odd.”

I reached forward with one hand – now unburned – and reached for a pressure point beneath his jaw. He yowled and dropped me to the ground. I punched him hard in the windpipe and still had enough time to retrieve my light saber from his grasp before he crumpled to the ground, dead.

The scene had changed. Epps and D’Alogna had disappeared, and things had gotten much worse. Kathy was struggling bodily with a monk while Willem and Sarah, panic written on their faces, tried to keep the two monks that remained away from the rest of the group. I made my light saber live. The monks felt me coming and turned to face me, dodging, but it was too late. The world jumped and I saw where they would move to. I sliced through one, followed through on the withdrawal, pulling my light saber through the air where the other would – and did – land. I grabbed the wrist of the monk struggling with Kathy, twisted the wrong way, and sent him flying to the ground, clutching his sprained hand. A few more tried to come at me, and I watched in slow motion as they dove, sidestepping leisurely and slashing through them. The ones who could, fled. The remained laid on the ground, moaning in pain.

“Anne!” said Andrew, staring wildly at my face, “What’s… what’s happened to you?”

I put my hand to my mouth and looked at it. I was still bleeding, but now the blood was a pure blue-on-blue.

“Well,” said Willem Lessig, dusting himself off jauntily as if he were solely responsible for our victory, “now all we’ve got to do is follow them.

He walked up to the wall full of glittering blue stones, “now all we have to do is get this door open. I saw them do it. It’s all a matter of getting the right combination…”

He turned to me and winked, cock-sure, “I can’t remember the combination they pressed. But I’ll just use my Jedi powers, like you taught me… er… will teach me.”

He reached forward and touched a series of jewels. Each glowed as his fingers made contact. When he touched the last one, a bolt of blue light shot forth from them and burned him to a crisp. The flesh dripped from his skin as his lifeless corpse fell to the floor.

“NO!” I cried in horror.

The world jumped around me.

He turned to me and winked, cock-sure, “I can’t remember the combination they pressed. But I’ll just use my Jedi powers, like you taught me… er… will teach me.”

“No Willem, don’t!” cried his father, rushing towards him.

He reached forward and touched a series of jewels. Each glowed as his fingers made contact. When he touched the last one, a bolt of blue light shot forth from them and burned him to a crisp. The flesh dripped from his skin as his lifeless corpse fell to the floor.

“NO!” I cried in horror.

The world jumped around me.

“I’ll just use my…”

I grabbed his hand and pulled it away.

“Don’t touch that.” I hissed at him.

“Yes Ms. Kawharu…” he said, instantly deferential.

I pushed him roughly away and limped towards the portal. I spat out a thick wad of blood that fell sizzling to the ground where it burrowed, acidic and blue, into the sand to find the pool that was its source.

I stared at the portal and pressed the first stone, and then the second and then third and then the fourth. I felt the bolt of blue light hitting me and eating away at my skin and then the world jumped around me.

I pressed the second and then the… I pressed the fifth, then the third, then the second… I pressed the third and then the fourth… I felt futures and pasts jump jitteringly beneath my hand. I watched myself press the second… I felt myself die… I pressed the first, the world slipped away below me and snapped up again. I pressed the fourth, then the second, then the fifth, then the third, then the first. With a rumbling wave of movement, the gate of lost souls ground open for me.

“Well that was easy,” said Willem as he and the rest of the group walked past me.

* * *

The roar within the cavern was deafening. Wind from nowhere whipped our hair. Our feet slipped coltish on the smooth black-glass floor. Razor sharp stalagmites thrust up from the floor while above us stiletto-like stalactites dripped lethal blue drops. They slid off the smooth floor and ran down to the ground and up and over the razor-sharp jags that thrust up, forming a wide lip. Beyond them a massive sea of turbulent, blinding blue roiled angrily and lit the cavern with an eerie blue glow.

“Willem, Sara,” I said, turning to them. But the minute they entered the cavern they dissolved in an ghostly light, first real, then images, then nothing at all, as the pool, furious that they had ventured out of their own time, sent them back to it.

A fair distance away from us, I saw Klaas Epps kneeling and facing the shore, chanting. The Codex lay at his knees and beyond him, a beam of light shone down into a whorling vortex of water in the Pool of Lost Souls. Carefully, Epps took a long-handled silver pan and dipped it carefully into the Pool, retrieving a hissing, boiling sample of its waters for his own personal use.

“There he is!” said Cinnamon, pulling a pair of embroidery scissors from her knitted holster and walking determinedly towards him.

“Cinnamon – wait!” cried Andrew following after her. I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. I felt sure, somehow, that I had been here before.

“Andrew!” I yelled, running after him and abandoning the others.

“Andrew don’t!” I yelled, slipping on the smooth glass floor as I struggled to catch up with him, “don’t!”

I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to a stop.

“She’s badly injured – she could die if we don’t get her to a hospital. I’m not letting her face them on her own.” he said impatiently, tearing his arm out of my grasp.

“No Andrew don’t you see that something terrible is going to happen!?”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me.

“Don’t you see this is how it all started, right here – in this cave? Whatever it is that happened to us – to you – this is where it all started.”

Andrew looked at me, eyes screwed up in disgust. He shook me off him angrily and turned to run after Cinnamon. He was about ten feet behind her when she caught up with Epps. She was about to grab him when Syvestro appeared out of the shadows, a long stilletto in one hand. As Cinnamon made a swing for Epps Syvestro got one arm around her neck and buried his weapon in her back. She screamed in agony. Her limbs were twitching in their death throes when Andrew caught up to her. As Andrew approached, Epps took the pan full of water he held and flung it at Andrew’s face, smiling in sadistic pleasure as he did so. Andrew doubled over in pain, hands scratching madly as his face. The camera of my consciousness pushed forward into his writhing face, and I watched as he clutched, screaming, at his face full of fire even as one drip of water burned its way slowly down into his throat. The pain on his face eased as he stood up, startled by the new sensation that I recognized as his immortality. He watched in horror as Syvestro took Cinnamon’s body and shoved it rudely into the Pool of Lost Souls. Andrew struggled vainly at the shore to reach her. He finally grabbed a hold of her knit holster and tried to pull her to him, but it snapped as her body sank sizzling slowly into the pool. Andrew held it, tears running down his face, staring at the only remaining memory he would ever have of her.

The world jumped.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me.

“Andrew – I don’t have time to explain,” I said urgently, “but this is where it all happened, all the events you had lived through when you first met me in that bookstore in Kashar. This room, this place – everything that’s about to happen to us, the holster you wore when I first met you! It was what you remembered when you first saw me this day, these are the memories you didn’t share with Rex and I when we first appeared. This is why you first helped him all those years later when you met him, and he didn’t remember. I didn’t know at the time but I do now. Don’t do it…”

Andrew looked at me, eyes screwed up in disgust. He shook me off him angrily and turned to run after Cinnamon. He was about ten feet behind her when she caught up with Epps. She was about to grab him when Syvestro appeared out of the shadows, a long stiletto in one hand. As Cinnamon made a swing for Epps Syvestro got one arm around her neck and buried his weapon in her back. She screamed in agony.

The world jumped.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me.

“Andrew, I don’t have time to explain,” I said, starting to cry, pushing him aside and running as fast as I could towards Cinnamon. But it was too late. She screamed in agony. I pushed D’Alogna away and grabbed her body. From behind me I heard a scream. I turned to see Andrew clawing at his face.

The world jumped.

I ran towards her… she screamed in agony. The world jumped. I dove towards where I knew Syvestro would be hiding, but I was too late. She screamed in agony. The world jumped. I struggled to reach Epps before Andrew did, but tripped and fell. He clawed his face. The world jumped. Futures slid in and around me as I plummeted forwards, trying to reach her and Andrew before it was too late. I spent an infinity of discrete instantaneous moments pressing forwards, moving first here and then there, but the velocity of the future was too great, and the more I tried the more her fate hardened into immutability. After eons of trying

the world jumped

I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me.

“Andrew,” I said, crying, “I can’t save her. I’ve tried. But I can’t. There’s nothing I can do – ”

“What are you talking about?” said Andrew, confused at my apparently reasonless hysterics and concerned to protect the woman he loved.

“Andrew,” I said, collapsing into his arms, “I can’t,” I sobbed, “I’ve tried. She’s going to die. But you don’t have to mourn her for eternity. Don’t chase her. Don’t be forced to live forever with her memory in her head. Don’t…”

“Good god, Anne!” said Andrew, pushing me out of his embrace and throwing me to the floor. He ran towards Cinnamon. She screamed in agony. Her knit holster snapped as her body sank sizzling slowly into the pool. Andrew held it, tears running down his face, staring at the only remaining memory he would have of her. I felt the world settling into its routine, foregone conclusion. But I resisted. I felt its edges close around my soul, but I pushed, and it jumped.

* * *

I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me.

“Andrew,” I said tears streaming down my face, taking his face in my hands, giving myself up, “I’m so tired. I’ve had to be so strong for so long now. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. I don’t know how to save the day. I just know how I feel. And I know I don’t want to loose you. Don’t go.”

I wrapped one hand around the back of his head. My fingers buried themselves in his hair. I pulled him towards me. From behind closed eyelids my intuition watched his face grow round with astonishment, and then relax as he gave himself up to my kiss. I felt him in my mouth, and then watched him jerk as he turned away. He was shaking as if he had been awoken with a sudden start. For a brief second, I saw his skin glow a soft, subcutaneous blue.

“Anne – what… what did you just do to me?” he asked. He wiped one lip and stared in amazement as the blue water of the tainted blood that had filled first my mouth and then his. It wriggled, struggling to return to the pool. It didn’t hurt him at all to hold in his hand.

After a moment’s hesitation he realized where he was. He turned to run after Cinnamon. He was about ten feet behind her when she caught up with Epps. She was about to grab him when Syvestro appeared out of the shadows, a long stiletto in one hand. As Cinnamon made a swing for Epps Syvestro got one arm around her neck and buried the other in her back. She screamed in agony.

Her limbs were twitching in their death throes when Andrew caught up to her. As he approached Epps took the pan full of water he held and flung it at Andrew’s face, smiling in sadistic pleasure as he did so. To Epps surprise, Andrew brushed off the water as if it had come from the tap. He grabbed Epps, lifted him up by his lapels, and threw him into the pool. The cries of Epps’ slow, agonizing death filled the chamber as Andrew turned to faced Syvestro. Syvestro through Cinnamon’s dying body into Andrew’s arms as a distraction and dove for Codex of Lost Souls, which lay open on the shores of the pool. At that moment an enormous tremor shook the cavern. I fell to the ground. When I looked up, I saw Syvestro lurch, off balance, at the edge of the Pool of Lost Souls, teetering on the brink, Codex in hand. He hung there for a moment, grabbing madly at the air. As he fell slowly backwards, he caught Cinnamon’s hand. Andrew refused to release her, and all three of them fell into the pool of lost souls. I screamed in horror as I watched them sink into the Pool of Lost Souls while only the codex itself, as if mocking me, floated for a moment before it, too, descended into the depths of the Pool.

I felt a desperate, clawing panic in my lungs. I felt loss tear through my skin and into my soul. I screamed desperately, crying airlessly, heaving, sobbing, shuddering, against fate. I was not going to let this happen. I wished, willed, demanded that it did not. No longer a woman, and now just a helpless little girl, I rallied against fate, denying reality, demanding that there be a happy end.

And then the world jumped.

(next one this P.M. Last one Wednesday morning -A)

We found them in the dungeon – a dark, airless space dripping with water. The torch that Cumin held to light our paths was too dim for me to see the floor, but I could smell – smell – the blood on the floor around us. Hung spread-eagle against the wall were Ghyslain, Norbu, Trevor, and Rex. Their bodies slouched tracing a curve against the wall that terminated at the cruel manacles that held them up. I heard a low, incessant murmur – it was Trevor. I realized with a start that he was praying.

“God good!” said Lessig, shocked at the sorry state of the prisoners.

“Rex what the hell are you doing hanging up there are bloody and sad looking like?” spat Kathy as she moved towards him.

“Heh…” laughed Rex lowly with what appeared to be all the energy he had, “the last time you saw me you told me to drop dead.”

“Well I didn’t think you’d up and do it,” said Kathy, disgruntled, as I cut Rex and the others free of their chains with my light saber.

“Oh look at the poor cute little injured Jewish boy!” said Cumin delightedly as she took Trevor from his chains and laid him carefully on the ground.

“He’s Mennonite, not Jewish.” I corrected.

“He’s not?” asked Cumin, obviously crestfallen.

“They both wear the weirdo suits, but the Jews have the funny hair,” I said, making peyot-like corkscrew motions around my ears with my fingers.

“Well,” said Cumin, as if making her mind up about something, “he’s still very injured and very cute. How do you feel, dear?” she asked, mopping Trevor’s brow.

“They tried magic… torture… nothing worked…” he moaned feverishly.

“No wonder,” said Kathy expertly as she looked over Rex, one eyebrow cocked skeptically as if torn between helping him and kicking him in the crotch, “Mennonites have unbelievable savings throws. Magic, cold, breathweapons, you name it.”

“Breathweapons?” asked Lessig, wide-eyes.

“You see a lot of things when you’re the world’s number one operative for ballroom dance espionage. Trust me. Someone out there is looking out for them – I saw a guy named Horst take it full on from a Silver Dragon once and the only thing that was singed was his bible.”

Rex tried to say something but coughed up blood instead and his head fell back on the floor, lolling blankly to one side.

“Ah Christ Masterson,” said Kathy with an air of resignation, setting down her crowbar and putting her purse under his head, “don’t die on me, ok?”

“Ghyslain’s got almost no pulse,” said Lessig, feeling his friend’s wrist.

“We’re all going to die,” croaked Norbu.

I rushed over to his side.

“Rinpoche,” I said fiercely, “I’m not going to let that…” was about to continue but gave a yawlp of pain instead as the Saami blood magic ran through my head again. I saw red and recovered a minute later to find myself on my kneed, clutching my head.

“Anne are you all right?” asked Cinnamon concernedly.

“It… hurts…” I whimpered.

“We’ve got to do something,” said Cinnamon to Kathy.

“Well what the fuck are we going to do? We can’t leave the others in this condition!” shot back Kathy heatedly, looking up from where she was stroking Rex’s forehead.

“I’m ok,” I said, standing uneasily. I felt myself totter and reached for the wall to hold myself up.

“You’re pale as a ghost dear – we need to do something and soon. If I were in better condition…”

“You’re not going anywhere!” said Andrew, coming to her side and staring imperiously at her. He was about to touch her but she waved him away. She met his glance, wavered, and then looked down and took his hand, squeezing it.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” she confessed.

“We’re going to fix this,” I said with determination, “and you, Norbu, are going to be fine.”

Norbu laughed dryly and a thick vein of red ran from his mouth.

“We’re are all going to die. Today, tomorrow, in the future. The question is not whether we will,” he said, turning over and beginning to crawl on all fours over to Rex and Ghyslain, “but what significance our life will have, and what we will be in the next.”

He put his hands on Rex and Ghyslain’s head and looked up at me.

“The question is not whether we are attached to the things of this world, Anne Kawharu,” he mumbled weakly, echoing the words he had said to me before, “the question is how much it comes to matter to us.”

He closed his eyes, and began chanting softly. I felt a wave of something purple wash through the room, and then he collapsed.

“Norbu!” I cried, running over to him, “Norbu!”

I turned over his fallen body. He wore a small smile on his face, and he was dead.

“Norbu!” cried Trevor, stumbling over to him. He took his friend’s head in his hands and began weeping uncontrollably.

“There there,” said Cumin, coming up behind him and comforting him, “there’s nothing you can do now. There there.”

I was about to go over to her, but stopped in amazement as I watched Ghyslain’s eyes flutter open.

“Tabernac,” he swore softly before collapsing into a fit of coughing, “I don’t have very long to live, Lawrence.”

“No my valiant francophone comrade, you don’t,” said Lessig looking at us in wonder as he realized what had happened, “but longer, perhaps, than you once did.”

“Oh man,” moaned Rex with a sort of strength, “I feel like shit.”

“Rex? Rex?! Do you feel better?” exclaimed Kathy.

“A little he confessed,” smiling and taking her hand.

“Good,” she said, standing up abruptly and letting his head fall out of her lap and back onto her purse. She looked down at him, had a second thought, and snatched her purse out from under him.

“Oh! God Kathy!” swore Rex as his head hit the hard stone.

“You bled all over my new purse Rex,” said Kathy, chastising him, “this is Prada! Do you know much this sort of thing costs?”

“Well it looks like you’re back to normal too,” said Rex, standing up slowly. He made it to his feet and then began to fall. I caught him.

“Well it looks like there’s someone I can depend on,” he said, smiling at me weakly as I held him.

“Hmph.” hmph’d Kathy, crossing her arms and looking away sulkily.

* * *

“We should have kept Baklava with us,” said Cinnamon, worried, as we walked down the hall, “how will we find Elvira now?”

“Oh we’ll find her,” I said, turning left at a t-intersection, “I know exactly where that bitch is.”

“Language!” warned Rex from my arms.

“Let me handle this, Rex,” I said, surprised at the command in my voice as I made another turn. We had come to a huge wooden door with an impressively thick lock on it.

“Oh boo hoo,” I said grimly, making my light saber live, “looks like it’s locked.”

I slashed an X through the door with my blade and then held out my arm. I narrowed my eyes, concentrated, and the door flew inward in a massive explosion of splinters.

“Mon dieu,” said Ghyslain, who was limping along with Lessig’s help, “how did you teach a Padwan to force-push like that?”

“I didn’t,” said Rex, slightly amazed, gazing up at me.

I strode through the door. Inside it was like a Marilyn Manson video, all candelabras, inky darkness, and gauzy curtains. Elvira was sitting at her desk, without her antler-helmet this time, poring over an enormous book. She turned in surprise and looked at me.

“YOU!” I said, handing Rex to Andrew and walking towards her. She stood up in surprise. As soon as I reached her I slapped her with the back of my hand so hard that she went sprawling.

“You killed Norbu!” I said, grabbing her by her neck and arms and throwing her across the room. She slammed into the wall so hard that dust fell from the ceiling.

“You hurt my friends!” I grabbed her by her hair and tossed her to the floor. She skidded to a stop about three feet away from me.

“My hurt my teacher! My best friend! The man I look up to like a father! And you nearly. Killed. ME!” I grunted, grabbing her and tossing her away as she inched, wounded, back towards her book.

“Anne…” said Rex in a low, warningly voice.

“And I’m not going to let it happen ever again.” said, taking the book from its stand and tearing it in half.

The room shuddered and moaned as a crackle of black-blue lightning sizzled around the book before dissipating around the room. The pain I had been fighting to keep in the back of my head was gone. I glanced at Rex and the others. Cinnamon took his head in one hand and stared into his eyes. With her other hand she felt his pulse with two fingers, like Chinese doctors do.

“It’s better,” said Cinnamon, “but they’re still weak – they’ll need days to recover their strength.”

Elvira had hunched herself up against a wall. One arm hung useless at her side, a bit of bone poking up through a vicious tear at her shoulder. Dazed, she reached up with the other and felt the blood flowing from her jaw. She pulled her hand away and looked at it.

“Bleeding?” I said, mocking her cruelly, “how does it feel?”

“Anne!” said Rex, “don’t. Don’t get angry. Don’t do this, Anne. Don’t do it.”

“Shut up!” I spat back at him, “I’m tired of your complaining. I just saved your life – don’t you dare tell me how to live mine!”

Elvira looked up at me and smiled twistedly.

“You are pathetic,” she said in an uneven, deeply accented voice, “you use anger like a virgin uses a man. If I had your skills you all would have been dead the moment I first met you. You may have taken my book, but there’s still one last thing I can do to you…”

She began chanting gutturally. Even from across the room, I could feel her throat in my hands. I turned to look at them, already closing into a grasping half-fist, bent at two digits. I felt her windpipe, felt the cartilage giving in softly in my grasp, amazed at my own power. I slowly raised my outstretched arm up. Across the room I saw her stop chanting abruptly and begin scrabbling madly at her throat. Drawn by my power her body, puppet-like, began lifting up against the wall as if lifted by some invisible force. I exulted to know it was my own.

“Anne,” I heard Rex’s voice in my ear, and felt his hand on my shoulder, “Anne – don’t.”

Then I snapped out of it. Elvira dropped to the ground like a rag doll. I began crying, sobbing, and now it was Rex’s turn to hold me in his arms. And that was the closest I’ve come, back then and even now all these years later, to ever going over to the dark side.

“You’ve broken my body,” I heard Elvira say from behind me, “you’ve destroyed my power. But there is one curse you can never avoid, never escape. I swear, Anne Kawharu, that you will die – and soon. This is my death wish.”

She closed her eyes and finished the final lines of her incantation. As she let loose a wild howl a massive bolt of energy leapt out of her and enveloped my body. For a moment I was wracked with an all-enveloping pain more intense than any I had ever experienced in my life. Her body collapsed, limp and dead, against a wall.

“Anne, how do you feel?”

I couldn’t even hear her, the pain was so intense.

“Anne?”

Slowly I reached into myself and pushed it down as far as I could. My bones still ached with whatever she had done to me.

Then the room shook. At first I thought it was me, but I saw the others looking too.

“What was that?” asked Lessig, eyeing the ceiling dubiously.

“Whatever it is, we’ve got to get out of here,” said Kathy firmly.

“No,” I said with certainty, “it’s the pool. It’s coming. Epps and D’Alogna… they’re summoning it. We’ve got to find it. Except,” I said, weakly, “I can’t walk on my own.”

“Ok, now this is insane,” I said.

“Trust me.” said Kathy, gesturing ‘gimme’ imperiously.

I scrunched up my face and prepared to make my ‘Anne is About to Cry’ face that always proved so effective on Rex. Kathy, I quickly realized, was much harder to sway.

“But it’s insane!”

“Shut the fuck up and hand it over.” While my mind boggled at the idea that Rex and Kathy had ever gone out, my short time with Kathy had more or less convinced me that she wore the pants in the relationship.

I reluctantly handed over the small plush handbag I kept my tampons in.

“If you even think about opening that…” I warned Kathy.

Kathy’s eyebrows raised in a question.

“It’s just private is all.” I sulked.

“Wait a second – ” said Andrew, “maybe I’m still a little woozy as a result of that enchantment, but… who is this ‘Winnie the Pooh’? Some foreign agent?”

“This,” said Kathy, pointing to the beaming face of my favoritist bear, “is Winnie the Pooh.”

Everyone gathered around for a look.

“My,” said Cinnamon, looking concernedly at Eeyore, “that donkey seems rather unhappy, doesn’t he?”

“The tiger is quite enthused, though!” added Cumin chipperly.

“Ok ok you get the idea,” I said, snatching it away from their prying eyes and blushing a little, “what are you going to do, Kathy? Will Lessig’s love for Eeyore overwhelm his concern for Baklava?”

“Not exactly. Here,” said Kathy, placing my bag prominently on a small side table, “Andrew – you call them in. We’ll hide.”

We ducked behind yet another large curtain, Cinnamon complaining under her breadth about how she’d decorate a harem if she wanted to secure it.

“Oh Lawrence, oh Baklava!” shouted Andrew, “can you come in here for a moment?”

After a few seconds Baklava Kerpushkin swept into the room in a flutter of transparent textiles. Lessig trailed along attentively behind her.

“Andrew?” she asked, looking around, “what’s wrong?”

“I think you left your bag here, uh, my dearest.”

Baklava looked in perplexity at my bag and I felt Kathy squeeze my shoulder.

“Repeat after me:” she whispered, ” ‘Oh yes this is my bag.’ ”

I understood what she wanted at once. I closed my eyes and tried to relax.

“Oh yes this is my bag.” I said softly.

“Oh yes this is my bag.” said Baklava.

I was about to continue, but I felt another wave of pain shoot over me – the blood magic was growing stronger in me, I could feel it. I tried to fight down the wave of nausea and continue.

Baklava walked across the room and picked up the bag, obviously startled by both its appearence and her unmotivated claim to ownership. She held it up and examined it, eyebrows narrowed in puzzlement.

“I… that’s… that’s a Winnie the Pooh bag!” said Lessig, clearly startled.

“Yes – it’s Baklava’s. Haven’t you seen it around here before?” said Andrew.

“But Winnie the Pooh won’t be invented for another fifty years or so. How…?”

I concentrated and willed Baklava to turn to face him.

“That’s what you think, Larry.” she/I purred.

“But…”

“Oh Syvestro and Klaas have been up to quite a lot,” I/she said, running one finger down his chest before continuing, “this may just look like a colorful bag to you, but it’s our future fortune.”

“Fortune?” asked Lessig, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“Yes – once we copyright these images we can sell bags like this across the world. Klaas has a wide assortment of items gleaned from his first experiments with the Codex.” Baklava said.

“Taking retail merchandise from the future… and copyrighting it now? But that’s… that’s… pure evil.”

I tried to get Baklava to say something, but she was too busy purring over Lessig’s use of the term ‘ pure evil’. When she was done I made her say:

“Evil – and lucrative. And with Syvestro’s connections in the British parliament, our copyright will never expire.”

Lessig’s face was turning beat red and his mouth was twitching uncontrollably.

“We’ve got a whole room full of items in the back,” said Andrew, playing along. I reached out with my mind and gave him a small kick to consciousness, “Baklava, some day you’ll have to tell me who originally invented that ‘Mickey Mouse’ character you just got a hold of.”

“NOOOOOO!!!!!!” Lessig exploded in a primal, animal roar of protest at unfair intellectual property regimes. He rushed Baklava and pushed her up against the table with one hand on her throat.

“NOOOOO!!!! THE MOUSE…” gurgled Lessig in an incohate rage, “FREE THE MOUSE!!! MUST FREE THE MOU – ”

Lessig’s thumbs moved onto Baklava’s Adam’s apple. We sprung out of our hiding place and Kathy and Cinnamon dragged him off of her. She collapsed in a massive pool of gasping-for-breath with occasional ripples of choking. With obvious relish, Cumin tied her up and gagged her.

“No! You don’t understand!” screamed Lessig and we restrained him, “She’s got the mouse! She’s got Winnie the Pooh! She’s probably got a hundred unix patents with the words ‘GNU Public License’ crossed out and the words ‘SCO’ written in in crayon! For all I know she’s going to copyright Shakespeare! We’ve got to stop her… stop them… this is why I was sent back in time… I understand now…”

“Larry, calm down…” began Kathy.

But Lessig was raving and incosolable. Cinnamon looked him over, decided there was nothing for it, and delivered a strong, short blow to his solar plexus. Lessig went down instantly, the wind knocked out of him. Cinnamon also yelped with pain and bent double, reaching for her side. Andrew rushed over to her.

“Good god – ” he said, looking at the unmistakable red stain that slowly began soaking her clothes, “you’re hurt. You can’t exert yourself! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m fine,” grunted Cinnamon, “That should… calm him down…”

“You need a doctor!” Said Andrew, “Let me help…”

He moved to touch her side and a moment later found a knitting needle making a gentle but threatening depression in the flesh immediately adjacent his windpipe.

“Cumin, do us a favor would you?” she said, retreating into the other room with her sister, “I could use some help… away from prying eyes.” she said, staring at Andrew accusingly – and with maybe just a hint of something else slightly less hostile as well.

“I… that wasn’t unchivalrous was it?” said Andrew, casting his eyes around the room looking to drum up support for his cause.

“Unchivalrous?” said Kathy, “Andrew, the last time I gave Rex a look like that we were in a situation which involved finals week, homemade brownies, and a 1.75 liter bottle of Jim Beam.”

“Who’s Jim Beam?” asked Andrew. Kathy sighed. I walked across the room to the table.

“Now can I have my bag back?”

“Careful!” chided Baklava as Andrew accidentally smeared some nail polish on the flesh of her big toe.

“Sorry! Sorry!”

“Larry,” said Baklava, “go peel me some grapes.”

“Yes of course at once.” said Lessig with alacrity, hurrying out of the room.

“Disgusting.” said Cinnamon, staring at the scene from behind the grate where we were secretly observing the action in Baklava’s chamber, “pathetic.”

“Men,” agreed Kathy, “can’t live with them.”

She didn’t finish the other half of the truism.

“Oh c’mon,” I snorted with disgust, “you only think it’s disgusting because they’re not fawning all over you!”

“What does that mean?” asked Cinnamon turning to me.

“you didn’t mind it one bit when he was chasing you across Asia!”

“Ridiculous.”

“The only thing that I think is ridiculous,” said Cumin, biting her lower lip like a child denied cookies and staring fixedly at Andrew, “is how he’s still completely dressed.”

“I’ll admit that men have their place,” said Kathy to me, “and I’d say fawning over me is definitely about 80% of it. Who else would you want them to fawn over? Life is like a well-danced foxtrot. You need a man to set the tempo and provide the framework within which you can look fabulous.”

“Your life philosophy is derived from foxtrot?” I asked incredulously.

“Well what’s yours derived from?” she said, looking me up and down contemptuously, “Whalerider?”

“Keisha Castle-Hughes deserves that Oscar…” I began heatedly, but I suddenly found myself doubling over in pain as a flash of something white and razor sharp slashed through my head.

“Anne – ” said Cinnamon, coming to my side.

“She doesn’t look very well.” said Cumin, putting her hand on my forehead.

“I feel fine,” I said weakly, standing and wiping the sweat from my brow.

“Well we’ve got to get some help for you and soon. You can’t hold off the blood magic forever.” said Kathy, “Cumin – what’s going on here?”

“Elvira, Baklava, and I share quarters here in the harem. Baklava is some sort of gypsy seductress type – men follow her like bees to honey. I think it’s a relatively simple enchantment actually. She keeps on promising to show it to me but never does. Elvira is more formidable. Quite the raving berserker Scandinavian that one. But as I said before, if we can get to her grimoire we can make Anne and her friends right in no time.”

“Well we should free Andrew first.” said Cinnamon determinedly.

We all turned to look at her.

“And Lessig.” she added, “Andrew and Lessig. Lessig and Andrew. Because we need help. More help. In order, uh, to save the others.”

Cumin smiled and tousled Cinnamon’s hair.

“Despite her remarkable aptitude for lethal violence, sis really does have a heart of gold.”

“That’s a pity,” said Kathy, “I was just getting to like her. Now – what’s the plan?”

* * *

“Are you sure this is going to work?” I whispered to Cumin as we hid behind a curtain so gaudy that it looked like it belong in a harem, and thus matched the rest of the decor perfectly.

“It’s simple,” said Cumin, “Baklava can only enthrall her victims until they’re exposed to something that they care about more than her. That’s why she keeps them in the harem – it would be quite messy indeed if they came across any loved ones. It’s really the most craven of enchantments.”

“I think this entire thing is ridiculous,” whispered Cinnamon, fidgeting in the middle of the room, “I mean,” she said, blanching, “what if he doesn’t really like me?”

“Wow,” said Kathy, “and I thought I had vulnerability issues.”

“Ssshhh!” whispered Cumin.

We fell silent from our places behind the curtain as Andrew entered the room, whistling merrily and carrying a small plate with a jar full of color that was, I imagined, the nineteenth-century Central Asian equivalent of toenail polish. Cinnamon stood squarely in the middle of the room facing him.

“Cinnamon,” said Andrew, eyebrows furrowing, “what are you doing here?”

“Oh, uh, nothing.” she said,

“I see… I mean, I’ve got to go!” said Andrew, as if suddenly remembering something, “Baklava told me to tell her at once if I saw you!”

He turned on his heel and made for the doorway he had just come through.

“No wait – ” said Cinnamon. Andrew turned around slowly and watched her curiously.

“Uh, I mean, actually I, uh…”

“Good god woman, out with it!” moaned Kathy under her breath.

“I mean, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Ask me something?” said Andrew uncertainly, “Well, I don’t know… I’m supposed to be turning you in right now…”

“Well uh,” said Cinnamon, tracing a nervous pattern on the table next to her with one finger and scrutinizing it intensely to avoid looking at Andrew, “well, remember when I assassinated that army general in Dunhuang? Well, I stopped by the cave temples afterwards and took a few rubbings before I moved on. And, er, a lot of them were in devanagari and I really only know Sino-Tibetan languages and so…”

“Has she really never done this before?” Kathy asked Cumin incredulously.

“Well,” admitted Cumin, “she does rather tend to rely on the ‘remarkable aptitude for level violence’ thing in dealing with others, to be perfectly honest.”

“Devanagari? That’s most unusual.” said Andrew, oblivious to our presence, as he stepped forward and away from the door.

“So I thought, you know, maybe some time if you were free or something, we could maybe as it were, get together and maybe, uh, you know, go over some of the epigraphy or something.” said Cinnamon in a halting manner that was half torrent of words and half uneasy silence.

“I mean, if you’re not, uh, busy or anything.” she ended, lamely.

Kathy was so disgusted she had covered her eyes and had a pained expression on her face. Cumin was nodding vigorously in unseen encouragement for her sister. Personally, I thought it was about the cutest thing I had ever seen in an unbelievably awkward way.

The expression in Andrew’s eyes seemed to clarify as he stepped towards her.

“Yeah sure, I mean, it’s not like it would be a date or anything,” he said.

“No! I mean, of course not. Just, you know, epigraphy.” replied Cinnamon, smiling a little shyly.

“Good lord!” said Andrew, looking in surprise at the plate he held in his hands, “why in God’s name would I want to paint Baklava Kerpushkin’s toe nails?”

Today marks the beginning of the 1st Annual 2004 Golublog Huffathon. I’ll be posting 750-1,000 words of Andrew Huff and the Pool of Lost Souls until it is finished – the absolute last date being 25 February.

Uh… but I left the files at home, so I won’t post them until later on today. Wait a just a bit and check back towards quitting time.

(episodes i – xiii)
(episodes xiii- xvii)

“Well Anne,” said Cinnamon grimly as she wiped the blood off of the two needles she had just pulled from the guards and replaced them in her knitted holster, “it looks like all the boys have up and got themselves caught.”

“She needs help badly,” said Kathy, her face peering down into mine.

“We need to get out of sight.” agreed Cinnamon.

“Right. I had a look about earlier. This place is ancient. There are at least two levels of tunnels underground – mostly servant’s quarters.”

“Let’s get her there, then.” said Cinnamon. She reached down to lift me and then grimaced in pain, “can you move her?”

“I’ve got her,” said Kathy, lifting me easily into her arms, “let’s go.”

* * *

“You’re doing pretty good for someone whose head was supposed to explode, kid,” said Kathy when I regained consciousness. I cold tell it was false bravado.

“Why are you helping me,” I said weakly, “you hate me.”

“Hate you?” she asked jocularly, tucking a strand of hair that had come loose back behind my ear, “I’m here to help you. Make sure you don’t get into too much trouble.”

I tried to laugh – it came out as a low moan.

“Make sure I don’t… that’s Rex’s job.”

“Yeah, well you can just cancel that shit. Rex has cocked up royally – as usual. My assignment is to keep you from getting killed or destroying the world of ballroom dance, got it?”

I did manage to laugh this time, but it turned into a spasm of coughing.

“I haven’t heard you talk a lot before. You talk like Rex,” I said weakly, smiling.

Kathy’s mouth twitched with controlled emotion, and then her eyes hardened.

“Don’t ever say anything like that to me again. Ever.”

She looked up at Cinnamon.

“What’s wrong with her?”

Cinnamon put the back of her hand on my forehead and put her other hand on my wrist gently.

“She’s getting cold – the energy is draining right out of her. We don’t have much time. I don’t even think we can move her again.”

“Rex needs our help.” I whispered.

“Fuck Rex.” said Kathy bitterly.

“You need our help right now, young lady,” said Cinnamon, business like, “I’ve seen this before, when I was stationed in Sweden. Saami blood magic – usually they used it for political assassinations. I’ve never seen anyone resist it for this long, however.”

“Then I guess I should be glad that I’m just a ‘mere padwan’,” I croaked.

“I don’t think so. As a padwan, you shouldn’t be any easier to find – just easier to dispatch.”

“Then why isn’t she bleeding out like Rex and the others?” asked Kathy.

“Look at these marks,” said Cinnamon, running her finger gently over the moko on my lips. Her hands were soft.

“She’s ariki – noble. I suspect our Anne’s made of sterner stuff than Rex and Ghyslain put together.”

I was a haze of pain. Images and sensations of my surroundings faded blurrily in and out. Kathy dissolved into a mass of green tendrils. Cinnamon was a tawny red, wispy edges of her bleeding out of one arm, and a swirl of tangled skein churning uneasily in her belly.

“You’re hurt,” I said, comprehending.

“I’m fine.” she said stoically.

“Your arm – the bone’s fractured. Your stomach… The insides are torn again from fighting – you’re bleeding… you need help…”

“I’m fine,” she said grimly, sitting up straight and wincing in pain. One hand went involuntarily to her side, “this is not about me. It’s about my mission – and you. After the fight with Epps, Kathy and I consulted, and we both agree we need you healthy if either of us are going to get what we want. We thought it might be a good idea to follow Andrew and the others from a discrete distance. It appears we were correct.”

“What do you want? The codex? The pool? It’s us, Cinnamon – don’t you get that?”

“Well Syvestro and Klaas think it’s a pool, and that it’s coming here soon. If you’re right I’ve already found it. If they’re right, then the pool is coming here soon. Either way, this is where codex is going to be. Anne? Can you still hear me? Listen – these primitive shamanic sorts usually have their magic tied to an object of some kind – typically a grimoire. If we can find it we you stand a chance. That’s what we’ve got to focus on now.”

I lapsed into a spasm of coughing. There was blood in it this time.

Kathy and Cinnamon glanced at each other, obviously worried.

“How long do we have? Hours?” asked Kathy.

“Rather less than that, I’d say.” replied Cinnamon, avoiding my eyes.

Kathy sighed and kneeled before me. She took a deep breath, concentrating. She curled the fingers of one hand into an elaborate pose and laid them against my cheek. She lifted the other hand in a similar, equally familiar gesture and held them gently in front of me.

“What are you doing?” I said nervously, trying to sit up and failing.

“This will help you, Anne,” she said.

“How did you know how to do that? You shouldn’t know how to do that…”

She just stared at me. Her eyes softened – I could almost feel the sadness behind them.

“Rex and I went out for a long time,” she said softly, “he… taught me things. Things I’m not supposed to know. This will help. You’ve got to.”

“No. I – No – ” I said urgently, pushing her hand away from me, “you’re not supposed to know how to do this. It’s not allowed – I could be expelled for doing this with you… it’s secret… at the academy they said…”

Kathy grabbed my hand and began pushing my fingers into the same gesture determinedly.

“You could be hurt… could die…” I continued, afraid.

“You are hurt. You will die. Anne…” she said, staring deep into my eyes, “Anne, just do what I tell you.”

Reluctantly, I took her hand, and then felt my body go limp. From overhead, I saw her tense, and then I was gone.

* * *

The room faded to an overexposed white, and then disappeared altogether. I felt Kathy’s resistance end as the membrane between us snapped. She flowed into me, her pent-up essence released, her health flooding over my soul. The heat dissipated, spreading into her. I felt her give way as the pain washed across and I panicked, trying desperately to take back what I had lent her. Then I felt her weakened self steady. A falling reprieve and I was back.

* * *

I blinked my eyes opened. Kathy got up and teetered unsteadily over to the wall. Then he leaned over and vomited.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she said bravely, wiping her mouth with a Kleenex from her purse and throwing it away in disgust. Beneath her courage her face was ashen, “how are you?”

“How are you?” I said, smiling weakly at her.

Cinnamon’s gaze darted back and forth between the two of us.

“What just happened?” she asked.

I stood up slowly.

“Well I think I was just expelled from the academy, for one thing. But it worked.”

“I know,” she said, shuddering, “I can feel it.”

“I feel like hell too, and that headache is still there, but I feel better.”

“You won’t for long,” said Cinnamon.

“That’s right,” said Kathy, “it’ll keep growing inside you – and if I try that again I will die. Christ, I feel half dead already. Let’s make this right while we still can.”

I smiled involuntarily.

“You sound just like…”

Kathy glared warningly at me.

I took her by the arm and all three of us began walking down the corridor.

“Come on,” I said, “let’s go rescue the men.”

* * *

The palace truly was enormous – even once we left the rough-hewn stone passages of the lower level, we were presented with a labyrinth of passages.

“Servant’s quarters – a harem of some sort. That’s where they’ll be.” murmured Kathy as we walked along.

“This place is huge,” I said.

“And well appointed,” said Cinnamon, “Syvestro spares no expense. Look at this,” she said, turning to a handled shutter in the wall, “dumbwaiters – the latest technology. It’s like a little piece of Europe right here in…”

Cinnamon’s voice trailed off and her ears perked up. She shushed us silently with one finger. She grew totally still and then suddenly jerked open the door of the dumbwaiter and, in one fluid motion, pulled out the body of the person who was hiding within. The two women – for the person Cinnamon had revealed was indeed a woman – wrestled on the floor. Kathy hefted her crowbar, and I thought about making my light saber live, but they were too tangled up for me to risk hurting the wrong person. Finally Cinnamon got the upper hand, pinning her opponent against the wall with a knitting needle poised a hairsbreadth away from her Adams apple.

“What are you doing here?” both women asked each other at once.

“What the hell…?” spat Kathy.

I could see why she was confused – the two women appeared to be mirror images of each other, excepting the sandy blonde hair, slightly more pungent smell, and extremely slutty harem get-up of Cinnamon’s opponent.

“Cinnamon?” asked the woman, eyes wide in surprise.

“What the – ?” began Cinnamon incredulously.

“Oh sis, how terrific to see you!” exclaimed the woman, smiling brightly and throwing her arms around Cinnamon in a bear hug.

* * *

“Cumin? Cumin?” Cinnamon sheathed her needle and grabbed Cumin by both shoulders and shook her, “you’re supposed to be in school in Cheltenham! What in god’s name are you doing in the middle of central Asia? Mother and father will murder me! How dare you!”

“Oh well,” said Cumin, sulking prettily. She reached inside her bra to produce a slim silver case, extracted a cigarette and put it to her lips, “do you have a light, sis?”

“Proper ladies don’t smoke.” chastised Cinnamon severely.

Kathy and I stared at her incredulously for a full five seconds before she relented.

“Yes yes, of course I’ve got a light.” she said, relenting and producing a small lighter and lighting up her sister’s cigarette, “but that’s not the point – and it doesn’t mean that proper ladies don’t smoke. It’s just that, well… some of us are in Her Majesty’s service, you know. When employed by a super-intelligent whale, one must make exceptions – ”

Cinnamon was about to continue when Cumin cut her off by grabbing each of us and hugging us warmly.

“And you,” she said hugging me, “and you,” she said, hugging a somewhat taken-aback Kathy, “well, if I know my sister you must be unwitting accomplices. Unwitting accomplices, Cumin. Cumin, unwitting accomplices.”

“she’s… you’re…” I spluttered.

“I assure you,” said Cinnamon icily, “the fact that we are twins does not for one instance mean that we share any common characteristics.”

“Ooohhh” said Cumin, pinching Cinnamon’s cheeks familiarly and growling in the sort of friendly, teddy bear voice usually reserved for scratching dogs on the tummy, “Sis is so ashamed! Sis is so ashamed! Look at her! Look at her!”

“Stop it! Stop it!” said Cinnamon as she slapped Cumin’s hands away, more out-of-sorts than I’d ever seen her before, “stop it! Good god, what are you doing here? You’re meant to be in Cheltenham!”

Cumin’s aspect darkened and then brightened again – I could already tell that constancy was not her strong suit.

“Oh sis – I’m in a harem!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands with excitement, “isn’t it fantastic – just like Captain Burton’s translation of the karma su – ”

Cinnamon blushed scarlet and put her hands desperately over Cumin’s mouth.

“Why. Aren’t. You. In. Gloucestershire.?.” said Cinnamon through gritted teeth.

“Well I was in London during Christmas, and they were having auditions for this wonderful new comic opera and I thought that, well, it would really be much more interesting than the next term was going to be…”

“Theatre?” gasped Cinnamon, “Cumin, do you have any idea what class of woman involves herself with the theatre?”

“Oh don’t worry sis, it was very artistic – H.M.S. Pinafore, by Sullivan and Gilbert.”

“Sullivan and Gilbert?” Cinnamon asked, trying to dredge up a memory, “the people who did ‘Trial by Jury’?”

Kathy’s eyes narrowed skeptically.

“You were in the world premiere of HMS Pinafore?”

“Oh no, I didn’t get into the show, but Mr. Carte has several other ideas for me,” she said brightly, “he suggested that I try the international circuit, so I got booked into this wonderful Russian circus.”

“CIRCUS?!”

“They had these fantastic bears that danced in little tutus,” said Cumin, getting up and turning a pirouette, “and there was a sword swallower,” she said swallowing, “and then, well, one night in Minsk some Cossacks had a bit of a difference with the manager and, I… well…”

“Out with it.” commanded Cinnamon.

“Well,” said Cumin, wincing, “I was sort of sold into white slavery a little.”

“WHITE SLAVERY?”

“Well it wasn’t my idea, and I was only in white slavery for a little bit, I promise sis really I do. Most of it was actually quite picturesque. And at any rate, it turns out Syvestro is really a very nice sort of person to have in charge of your harem…”

“You’re in D’Alogna’s harem?! Do you mean you’ve actually had… relations with that rancid little dictator?!” Cinnamon said, the color draining from her face.

“Well,” said Cumin, grinning wickedly, “actually he tends to prefer…”

“I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you,” said Cinnamon, clamping her hands over her ears, “we will not discuss this again ever. Ever.”

“Wait a second,” I said, “you live here?”

“Yes.”

“In the harem?”

“Yes.”

Kathy lifted Cumin up by the arm, dusted her off, and began turning on the charm.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen two women – one with antlers, the other who gives off strong ‘male mind control’ vibes?”

“Antlers? You mean Elvira?” said Cumin. Then her eyes widened in recognition, “oh – you must be after those two American boys that Baklava bought home the other day. Have you seen the younger one, sis? He’s so dishy.”

“Huff? Why no, I don’t know what you mean.”

Cumin ran her eyes over her sister, then looked at us, and then looked at Cinnamon again.

“My, someone’s got quite a crush.” she said, teasing her sister.

“Do not!” protested Cinnamon in exactly the way that Shakespeare must have had in mind when he wrote that line about ladies protesting too much.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen some sort of magic artifact… a grimoire perhaps…?” I asked.

“You mean the source of Elvira’s power? Good lord, she hasn’t been up to the blood magic again, has she?” Cumin sighed and peered into Kathy’s face, “you look like you’ve got a touch… no wait – ” she took my hand and looked into my eyes with an incredibly empathetic gaze, “ah – you’ve got it. I say, rather good of you help her,” she said to Kathy, “Hmm… I see how this goes. My sister is up to her usual no good, ropes together a bunch of Americans, a lady celestial and, er, are you a red Indian dear? And now you’ve got your friends to rescue, but Syvestro has asked his lady friends to lend a hand?”

“Wow,” said Kathy, “you’re good at this.”

“I’m very perceptive,” said Cumin with gay self confidence, taking our arms and leading us down the hallway, “Cinnamon gets it from me. Well this whole rescuing thing sounds quite the adventure. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

(episodes i – xiii)
(episodes xiii- xvi)

“Anne! There you are – are you alright?” asked Rex, picking me up and dusting me off.

“Yes, I’m fine – I’m fine. How are you?”

Rex was clearly not doing all that well. His face was smudged with dirt and dust, and a small cut had opened above his left eye and was trickling blood down into one eyebrow. Behind him stood Ghyslain, Lessig, Andrew, Norbu, and Trevor.

“Oh I’m just fine,” he said, trying to laugh nonchalantly and not really pulling it off convincingly. His eyes narrowed dubiously: “Is that a knish you’re eating?”

“Knish?” I asked innocently, swallowing quickly and trying to keep from choking as the too-hot mass of potatoey goodness worked its way into my stomach, “why no – where would I get a knish? Uh… so we won?”

“We won, all right. Thanks to Norbu and the Diamond Dealer. I mean I’ve been in scraps before but Jesus Christ those guys can rumble.”

“Hmph,” grumped Norbu, straightening out his robes from their fighting-induced disarray, “eight hundred years ago I’d have been able to defeat all of them. I suppose my age is starting to tell.”

I looked around at the entire group – they all looked pretty beat up. While Norbu and Rex were able to laugh it off, Ghyslain was clearly winded, and Andrew had recieved more than a few good socks to the jaw. Lessig and Trevor were both clearly out of sorts – although not fighters themselves they had obviously had to scramble out of a scrap or two.

“Where’s Cinnamon?” I asked.

“I lost track of her in the fighting,” replied Andrew, walking up to where Rex and I were standing – I realized one of his arms hung limply at his side, “I’m worried about her. I… She… that monk got her right in the arm with one her own needles.”

“Well it looks like you could use some looking after yourself,” I said, realizing he was hurt even worse than Rex. “We’ve got to get you out of here… get somewhere safe.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Rex, “Let me see here…”

“I know a place we can go – an abandoned farm on the outskirts of town. The owner lets me use it sometime when I’m, er, visiting here.” suggested Andrew.

“Fine,” I said, “let’s go.”

* * *

“Urgh,” moaned Andrew, “how long have I been asleep?”

“Six hours,” I said, standing over his bed, “I was beginning to get… worried.”

“I feel awful,” said Andrew, rolling over and curling up into a small ball.

“Not so fast,” I said forcefully, taking him by the shoulder and twisting him over, “we’ve got to change your bandages. Sit up.”

He groggily acquiesced.

“My arm hurts.” he said dazedly as I wrapped a fresh bandage around his kneee.

“It was dislocated. I had to pop it back in place.”

“I don’t remember that,” he said, confused.

“I know,” I said curtly, rolling him back on the bed and tucking a blanket around him, “I made you forget.”

He started for a moment, but was too tired to pursue the question. He curled up in bed and pulled the covers tighter over him and drifed off in a Ferris-Bueller-pretending to be sick kind of way I found totally adorable.

“Do you think she’s all right?” he asked me as he faded away into sleep.

I didn’t have to ask him who he meant.

* * *

I pulled up a chair, twisted it around, and sat down, leaning forward on its back.

“Well what are we going to do?” I asked.

“Just give me a minute, I’m working on a plan…” said Rex, trailing off in thought.

“I’ve hear that before,” I said, already regretting the angry tone in my voice.

“Do? Do what? You tell me Anne – what are we trying to do here?” asked Rex, uncharacteristicaly animated, “Go back in time? Return to the future? Save people? Avoid my fucking ex-girlfriend? Do you have any ideas? Do you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, “I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Goddamn right.”

There was a moment of tense silence before he relented.

“Look, I’m sorry. This entire job has just kinda knocked me off balance a little is all. I… I’m just sorry.”

“It seems to me our goals are basically similar,” said Trevor quickly before the awkwardness could settle in, “I’m trying to find and stop Klaas Epps, and Norbu is trying to find and stop the monks who have befriended him. I’m not sure what the rest of you want – but whatever it is, I’m sure it involves the codex, and right now Epps has got it.”

“Yes – since our encounter with Epps I’ve been running temporal diagnostics with some of my equipment,” said Lessig, “the destiny potentiameter is running off the tracks – there’s going to be a major disruption in the time-space continuum, and it’s going to happen in less than three days, if that. We’re here to make sure that all the copyright laws come out straight when it’s over. So yes – Ghyslain and I are with you, Trevor.”

“And Andrew?” asked Trevor, “Is he still asleep?”

“Yes,” I said, “he’s exhausted and hurt – not all of us are Jedi. He needs rest and lots of it. But I don’t think you have to be a genius to see what he’s after. Cinnamon is after the codex, and Andrew is after her. He’ll go along with whatever we plan, so long as it brings him closer to that book.”

“And as for Anne and I,” said Rex, rubbing his eyes tiredly, “I’m not sure why we’re here. But if we ever plan on getting back to our present, we’ll need the codex.”

“It does all come down to that book, doesn’t it?” I asked quietly, “Jasper was right – our whole lives are twisted up around it. Whether we like it or not, it’s got us in it’s spell. We are it’s pool of lost souls.”

The room was still for a moment.

“The codex is like food, like clothing, like love,” said Norbu calmly, speaking for the first time, “it calls out to you. The question is not whether we are a part of this world or not. The question is what we make of this participation. All of our souls are lost to something. How far we should follow it – that is the question.”

As Norbu spoke I felt the force wrap around the small house where we stayed and felt in amazement how bright his presence was. Ghyslain glowed a pale, cool blue just outside the realm of the tangible. Rex pulsed, an unsettled flux more removed than I’d ever felt him – even more than when we first met. Behind me, Andrew’s sleep tickled the back of my consciousness. Somewhere inside my head I could feel his dreaming. It was happy and warm, and very far away from where we were now. And I realized that if it were up to me, he would never have to wake up.

“I know why I’m here,” I said quietly.

Norbu laughed lightly, and began preparing more tea.

* * *

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Lessig asked Trevor as we entered the palace courtyard.

“I’m sure it’s our only choice,” Trevor replied, “let’s face it – at this point the Emir is a mere figurehead.If the garrison at Tashkent were larger, they’d have just marched on Bukhara directly. The Russian advisor is the true power in Bukhara.”

“But will he help us?” asked Andrew, limping slightly behind us.

“If anyone has kept track of Epps, it will be the Russian administration. And this D’Alogna is rumoured to have eyes and ears spread across central Russia. Building up his own little empire here. The question is not whether he knows of Epps whereabouts – it’s whether he’s inclined to tell us what he knows.”

“D’Alogna – doesn’t sound like a particularly Russian name,” I murmured as a group of soliders led us into the palace proper.

“You know how it is with the Russian army – the Czar has swallowed up Central Asia so quickly it’s given him indigestion. Russian officers are needed in the capital or in the Amur. There’s an enormous shortage. They’ll take anyone they can get. And now with Russia so intoxicated with European culture, they’re swamped with distaff nobility trying to make a name for themselves in the Czar’s army.”

“Is that who this ‘Syvestro D’Alogna’ is?” asked Rex as we headed towards the throne room, “Distaff nobility?”

“Word on the grapevine is that he’s Northern Italian – youngest son of a noble family, etc. etc. ” replied Trevor, “But a cultivated sort – I’m sure if we present our cause sympathetically he’ll help. Why on earth would he want to shelter an insane cult leader like Epps?”

* * *

“Heh heh heh,” chortled Syvestro cloyingly, “the question is not whether I know of Epps’ whereabout – it’s whether I’m inclined to tell you what I know.”

Then he farted.

Even seated in his official robes in his throne, Syvestro couldn’t escape looking like a cross between a bar of rancid, melted butter and a toad. His bright red haird curled unkempt into greasy locks and his ivory-white complexion was a welter of zits in various stages of tumescence, rupture, and healing.

“Your honor, surely mere supplicants such as ourselves…” began Lessig, bowing ingratiatingly.

“Har har har ach glugr,” laughed Syvestro sickeningly, trailing off in a cough as his merriment got the better of him. He took a moment to recover.

“I don’t even know who you are – much less what you’re doing here,” he said, “I mean look at you – one geriatric monk, three americans, one Frenchman, and some nigger bitch that they’ve dragged along – ”

I came about this close to making my lightsaber live and clocking him upside the head but I restrained myself. Rex his hand on my wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Oh I’m sorry,” said Syvestro, sensing my discomfort, “I didnt’ offend you, did I?”

Then he farted again.

“Bring me more cannoli! Cannoli, goddammit!” shouted Syvestro to a servant who scuttled quickly through the curtain behind his throne, “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, turning his gaze back towards us, “the only person I’m inclined to take seriously is Trevor here – at least he’s a loyal Russian citizen.”

“They mean no disrespect your honor,” said Trevor, falling to one knee, “But please – Epps is a madman, and his insane prophecies could lead to the suffering of all who believe in him.”

“Would it help,” said Rex, stepping forward, “if I told you that we were… Jedi?”

There was a moment of silence as Syvestro stared at him.

“What the hell is a Jedi?” he laughed, guffawing. His servant returned with a plate of three canolli, which Syvestro proceeded to stuff into his face with unseemly haste and an indecent amount of pleasure.

I glanced at Rex.

“Hey, we keep a low profile – sometime’s it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” he said shrugging.

“No wait – I’m quite interested in what you have to say,” said Syvestro, whipped cream dripping down his chin, “What is ‘Jedi’ – some new state in your American Union, perhaps? Some town in… how do you say… Mississippi?” he chortled gleefully at his own joke.

“Wow,” said Rex, blinking, “I’ve never really had to do this before. Sucks to live a century before Lucas I guess. Um… put it like this: Ghyslain and I are members of an extremely select organization with a strong emphasis on keeping the universe in balance. Our speciality is solving problems up close and personal. Occasionally we levitate shit, ok?”

“Oh really,” said Syvestro, wiping the cream off his chin with his fingers before sticking them into his pimply maw to suck them clean, “that sounds like a threat to me. And just how do you intend to accomplish that?”

Ghyslain glanced at Rex, who nodded to him. In one smooth motion he took out his doublebladed golfball retriever lightsaber and made it live.

“No threats,” said Ghyslain, “we bear you no ill will. Just a statement of fact.”

“I see,” said Syvestro, rising and walking slowly towards Ghyslain, his attention fixated on the French-Canadian’s lightsaber, “I see – a weapon of unsurpassed power. These rumors I have heard are true. And is it true that even such a one as you seeks my help to defeat this Klaus Epps?”

“Normally, we wouldn’t put you out,” said Rex wearily, “It’s just that we’ve kind of got issues about this guy, you know?”

“You believe that you cannot defeat him?” asked Syvestro, his greasy face twisting into an unpleasent smile.

“Uh… no dude – we believe we cannot find him.” replied Rex.

“heh heh heh hee hee he oh now,” said Syvestro, walking back towards his throne, “I believe I can help you with that without too much trouble at all.”

He reached towards the curtain and pulled it aside to reveal Klaas Epps, smiling smugly.

“Darn you Epps!” yelled Trevor, “fooled again!”

“In cahoots with him, are you, Syvestro?” asked Andrew warily.

“You’ve proven yourselves quite adept in combat,” replied Epps, “but I need not resort to violence to put an end to you. Syvestro will deal with you.”

“You see, we’ve made a deal,” splurped Syvestro.

“You’re mad D’alogna – Epps plans on ruling the world, you know!” shouted Andrew.

“Yes that’s the deal – he rules the world, I get to be immortal. Maybe get to be vice-something. Overlord or Regent or something. In a few hours the pool of lost souls will begin it’s ascent to the surface, and then my triumph will be complete.”

“Um, actually,” said the ever-punctilious Lessig, “I think we’re coming down on pretty firmly on the ‘pool of lost souls is us’ side of the equation.

“And if you think some cannoli-obsessed midget Italian is about to ‘deal with us’, I think you’re about to be rudely disillusioned,” added Rex.

“Oh, I don’t need to ‘deal with you’,” said Syvestro, pacing back in forth in front of us, “Imperialism is so complicated, you see. The Czar has realized that brute strength is such an inefficient way to defend his frontier. A true diplomat knows that you win the game before the first move is made. To have to resort to… tee hee… violence is a sign that you simply haven’t prepared properly. And I’ll tell you, Jedi, that I didn’t get this far without preparing properly.”

Syvestro reached one hand into the air and snapped his fingers. Two women stepped out from behind the curtain to face us. One had pale skin, almond eyes, and long black hair and was dressed in what I can only describe as an ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ outfit. The other a strawberry blonde dressed even more improbably in some sort of tribal-leather getup with lots of buckles and a helmet with two enormous antlers sticking up out of it.

“What is this?” exclaimed Ghyslain, “some sort of subterfuge?”

“You won’t us so easy to trap, D’alogna!” snarled Lessig defiantely.

“Uh… is that chick wearing antlers?” asked Rex aloud.

“Oh my,” exclaimed the woman in the hoky harum get-up, taking off one of her earrings and dropping it on the ground, “I appear to have dropped one of my earrings. Could one of you gorgeous men help me?”

I watched incredulously as Andrew and Lessig’s eyes glazed over for a moment. Then they dove towards her, and fell on their hands and needs, fighting with each other over posession of the earring. Ghyslain took a step forward, shook his head, and stopped.

“That’s the wrong trick for an old man,” chuckled Norbu.

“Yeah really,” said Rex, “bushleague succubi stuff? Please. I’m a Jedi. I’ve got like, mental discipline and shit, you know? Also I’ve been working through a lot of shit about my ex, so I’m really not in the mood for forming new attachments right now.”

“Why thank you boys,” purred the woman, tucking Andrew under the chin with one red-nailed finger and lifting him up to eye level.

“Least I could do, ma’am,” he said, eyes round in adoration, “if there’s anything else…”

“I’m sure I could be of service,” said Lessig pushing him out of the way and interposing himself between Andrew and the woman as if he were in some badly-blocked production of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Why boys, no need to fight over little old me…” oozed the woman.

“That is really disgusting. Really disgusting.” said Ghyslain, rolling his eys, “Now you will release them from this spell or else we will be killing the all of the you here.”

“I told you it wouldn’t work,” said Epps out of the corner of his mouth to Syvestro.

“Ah, but their strength is also their weakness,” said Syvestro, clapping his hands with joy, “you’re just too easy to target…” he clapped his hands twice, and the woman in the antler get-up raised her hands, looked heavenwards, and intoned a short spell.

I felt a blinding white heat in my head, as if my pituitary gland had been put in a vicegrip. I glanced at Rex, Ghyslain, and Norbu. Norbu smiled sadly, sat in a lotus position, and closed his eyes. Ghyslain was holding his head in his hands and trying not to moan. I turned to look at Rex.

“Rex – you’re bleeding,” I said.

“I am?” he asked, pain etched in his face as he felt his mouth and nose with his hands.

“No,” I said, growing suddenly more afraid, “your eyes.”

Blood flowed from the corners of his eyes were tears should have been – as if someone had taken a straight razor and slashed clean across his pupils.

“I…” said Rex, staggering, before he let out an ear shattering scream and collapsed to the ground. Ghyslain was already unconscious, blood pouring from his mouth. Norbu sat, perfectly calm, as blood began trickling out of his ears.

Everyone at the room – except Andrew and Lessig, who were still preoccupied with the woman – stared at me.

“You said her head would explode!” exclaimed Syvestro disappointedly and slapping the antler’d woman on her arm, “I wanted to see her head explode! I’m very disappointed.”

I staggered against a wall, putting one hand against it to steady myself. I tried to will the pain away, tried to concentrate.

“She’s a mere padwan,” said the antlered woman in a gritty, accented voice, “she is less poweful than the others, perhaps – it will probably take an hour before the spell takes hold of her in earnest. Even these Jedi will last an hour or so before I bleed them dry.”

“Oh well then,” sniffed Syvestro, “why didn’t you say so? It might be fun to watch her die slowly. Especially if I can eat a cannolli while I’m doing it.”

“Oh course, darling,” oozed the woman who had bewitched Lessig and Andrew, “Andrew – go fetch Syvestro some cannolli.”

“Of course – immediately!” he said with alacrity, scuttling out of the room.

“I’m not… I’m not going to… let this…” said through clenched teeth, trying to keep the room from spinning.

“…happen?” Epps finished for me, laughing, “how are you going to stop us? You can barely stand.”

I turned to make my way out the door.

“Guards – take her,” I heard Syvestro call out as an after thought, “I do so enjoy a slow, painful death – when it’s not my own, that is.”

I staggered through the door and somehow managed push the pain away and shut it closed. The world turned small and hurtled away below me. From far above, I could see two men in uniforms put there hands on me. I saw one reach to repoen the door I’d just closed. Then I felt my consciousness reach it’s apogee, felt the arc of my height slow, still, and then felt myself plunging back down. I heard a hiss, a crunch, a gurgle, and a scream. I felt myself hustled away to a dark corner.

I watched Kathy give one of the guards an extra bang on the head with her crowbar for good measure before she turned to lift me off the ground and cradle me in her arms.

“Well Anne,” said Cinnamon grimly as she wiped the blood off of the two knitting needles she had just recovered from the guards and replaced them in her knitted holster, “it looks like all the boys have up and got themselves caught.”

(this was originally going to be the ‘Special Atonement Edition’ but I didn’t get the plot to where it needed to be ’til now. Let he who has ears hear…)

I found myself in the interior of a largish horse-drawn coach. My head was still dazed with pain as I watched a tall, gaunt man with a briefcase handcuffed to his hand stretch over me and get out of the carriage.

“That’s right, boychick – go get ‘em. We’ll see you in a bit.”

My hand reached instinctively to my shin as I began trying to massage it back to life. I took in my surroundings in one drunk swallow – a dark, leather interior, over-stacked bookshelves stuck on the walls, two incongruous mini-fridges, one with a huge ‘F’ on it, the other labelled merely ‘M’. As strange as my surroundings were, my company was even more bizarre. Across from me sat a red-faced, round-cheeked jovial-looking man in a dark suit and hat. He had those long braid things that I always associated with super-religious Jews – you know, like those Quaker version of Jews.

“Aleksa!” shouted the round-cheeked man, banging on the roof of the carriage with a cane he held in one hand, “Onwards! Onwards!”

I felt the carriage jerk forward into motion. The man now fixed his attention on me began bubbling over.

“Annle! Oy, what sweet little girl you are! Look at you!” He wiggled my chin and pinched my cheek before turning to rummage around in a plastic bag besides him, producing a small object wrapped in aluminum foil.

“You must be hungry. How about a nice cornbeef sandwich?” he half unwrapped it and waggled it enticingly in front of me.

“I’m ok, thanks,” I said uneasily, still trying to figure out what was happening.

“How about some nice cholent,” he said, smiling widely and gesturing to a huge pot balanced precariously on a hot plate that shifted uneasily from its place on top of one of the refrigerators as the carriage drifted back and forth.

“Cholent?”

“It’s been stewing all shabbes,” said the man, winking broadly as if this were an obvious selling point.

“Thirsty? Celery soda maybe? I got Dr. Browns. No? But look at you all skin and bones. I bet that Rex never cooks for you. Here take a knish. Take it, take it! It’s a mitzvah for me to give. Is it the end of the world you should have something to eat?”

He thrust a round, warm, pastry ball of some sort and looked at me expectantly. I looked down at it and – just to please him – bit into it experimentally. On the inside it was full of potato. After I’d taken another, less tentative bite the man beamed with obvious pleasure and started in again in with his yiddish-accented, babbling-brook locquacity.

“But I’m being rude. I should introduce. I’m Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov. But you can call me Rabbi Izzy. And you’re Anne Kwaharu. What a pleasure to meet you. A real pleasure. The famous Anne Kawharu. Incredible.”

“I… you… who… were… how do you know who I am? And, er, do have have any more of those potato things?” I said, looking down and realizing I had completely consumed my knish. Fighting had in fact made me ravenous.

Nothing could have pleased Rabbi Izzy more. The next thing I new I had three more knishes in my hands and Rabbi Izzy was – against my strenuous objections – attempting to get me to try some celery flavored soda.

“You want, I got,” said Rabbi Izzy, “Tell you what darling, you eat and I’ll talk. We’ve got a little bit between stops.”

“Biftwhin shtps?” I asked, my mouth knishified.

“We’ve got to pick up one more person before this meeting can get underway. And as for how I know you – who doesn’t know you? The Jedi Master who holds fate itself in her hands. The power behind the influence behind the plan. Of course that’s a little in the future for you, I know. But me, well, let’s just say I have extensive travel experience. Are you going to eat this corned beef do you think? Because I already unwrapped it. No? Sure? Well there’s more knishes if you want them. You should try the cholent too. Well anyway, I know it’s very bad form to be bringing all of this up – what with the temporal collapse possibilities and all – but since you’re already a bit of the time traveler I thought it wouldn’t hurt. And anyway we need to have a little heart to heart abou – ”

Something caught Rabbi Izzy’s eye out of the window of the carriage and he began pounding furiously on the roof of his carriage again.

” – Aleksa! Stop! Stop! Stop at this corner!”

The carriage drew to a halt and Rabbi Izzy popped the door open. A thin black man dripping with necklaces and rings and dressed in a light pink leisure suit with a purple shirt and socks hopped in next to Rabbi Izzy and shut the door. Without missing a beat he whipped off his enormous tinted sunglasses and socked Rabbi Izzy familiarly on the arm.

“Hey hey the big BST!” enthused the man, “hows it hanging brother? Good to see you baby!”

The man saw me, stopped as if thunderstruck, and then slowly took my hand and kissed it chivalrously without his eyes leaving mine, which I have to admit I found pretty sexy even if totally overdone.

“And who is this lovely young morsel of female pulchritude that graces our presence this evening, BS? Could this possibly be Anne Kawharu?” he purred, oozing warm machismo, “But she’s even more beautiful than I had imagined – and I’ll tell you baby I can imagine an awful lot. A pleasure indeed to make your acquaintance. I’m Sammy Davis Jr. and I just want to say what a pleasure it is to finally meet you.”

Rabbi Izzy began banging on the roof of the carriage again and urging ‘Aleksa’ – his driver, presumably – to get going.

“Look I’m very happy to meet the two of you and that you’re both were so, uh, happy to meet me. And I’m glad you saved my life and everything but I’ve got to get back. Rex needs me – Andrew needs me. They were in big trouble. Those evil Shaolin monks are tough to beat, even for real Jedi and I’m afraid…”

“BS, is this true?” asked Sammy, sympathy for my plight welling up in his eyes, “you didn’t leave Rex in the lurch did you?”

“Don’t worry Sammy, don’t worry. I sent The Diamond Dealer to help things out. If worse comes to worse, we’ve got a couple of Assault Golems stashed just outside of town.”

“Well that should be ok then shouldn’t it,” said Sammy, patting me on the knee to console me, “they weren’t using blunt weapons, were they? No? Well there you go.”

“The Diamond Dealer?” I asked, now totally confused, “Assault Golems?”

“The Diamond Dealer’s a friend of mine – a real macher – he sometimes helps us with otherwise unresolvable issues. He got out when you got in,” said Rabbi Izzy, winking, “don’t worry – your friends won’t mind if we have a little chat. And anyway we should get started. We’ve only go a few more minutes before dawn and I’ve got to get back to Lvov before the turn of the century.”

“Ok ok but just one moment my friends,” said Sammy, reaching into the refrigerator marked ‘M’ and taking out a bottle and an enormous glass goblet filled with crushed ice, “before we get started I’ve just got to relax. And what better way to relax than a tall cool goblet full of Manischewitz Cream Black Cherry Cordial.”

Sammy poured a thick, cream-in-coffee colored liquid from the bottle into the glass with the sort of relish you normally only see in people doing commercials.

“Mmm mmm mmm – that pleasant mouth feel and smooth finish, that smooth cherry flavor with hints of black currant and almonds,” said Sammy, licking his lips in obvious relish, “Man oh Manischewitz what a drink! BS you want to try some?”

“Please Sammy,” said Rabbi Izzy, clearly distressed as he turned to shield his corned beef sandwich with his body, “I’m with the fleischig over here.”

“Oh ho ho, sorry about that,” guffawed Sammy, sipping his drink and shifting it to his other hand so that Rabbi Izzy could return to a normal sitting position, “Well perhaps we should get started.”

* * *

“You see Anne,” said Sammy, “the Baal Shem and I represent a sort of special interest group if you will. We try to make sure that certain of our co-religionists are well looked after, if you see what I mean. Assure that their destiny goes according to plan. Kapish?”

“Me, Sammy, Harris The Space Jew, a few others. Elijah’s our main go-to-guy since it’s easiest for him to move about. Just to keep an eye on things, you know?”

“Let me guess,” I said wearily, “and you call yourself Section 13?”

“It does sort kinda mysterious, doesn’t it?” enthused Rabbi Izzy.

“But what do you want with me?” I asked.

“Well Anne,” said Sammy, “We’re a little worried about Rex.”

“Rex? What’s wrong? You just said that – ”

“Oh he’ll get past those evil monks just fine,” said Rabbi Izzy, waving off my concern, “we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“We can’t see so far into the infinity of possible futures and pasts as you can, Anne. Or at least not as far as you will be able to. Everything that we know, though, tell us that 99.995% of the time Rex leads a basically happy life, careens from one adventure to another, helps keep the forces of evil at bay, and dies happy at a ripe old age.”

“But lately,” said Sammy, taking up where Rabbi Izzy had left off, “lately things seem to have gone wrong. Rex’s soul is clouded in darkness. He seems sad, angry.”

I thought for a second and nodded slowly, “I know what you mean. He seemed positively bloodthirsty a moment ago – and this whole thing with Kathy is getting him really down. I’ve never seen him so sad.”

“That’s what we mean. Something is wrong – very wrong. And we think you’re the only one that can help. You’re the most powerful Jedi to be born in a millennium, Anne. Surely there’s something you can do.”

“Help? Me? But I’m not a powerful Jedi – I’m just a padwan. I’m just sixteen years old! I don’t know anything about anything! I don’t know what you think I’ll become or who I’ll be but I – I mean I can’t…”

Rabbi Izzy looked at me, suddenly cool.

“Three years a bas mitzvah and you don’t want to take responsibility for what you’ve done?”

“Done? What have I done? I haven’t done anything.”

“Time’s been out of whack lately Anne, and I think everyone in this carriage knows whose responsible.”

“It wasn’t me! It was the Codex. The Codex of Lost Souls! And the Pool,” I said desperately, trying to convince them that I wasn’t guilty, “this is the Pool of Lost Soul’s fault.”

“The ‘Pool of Lost Souls’?” scoffed Rabbi Izzy, “Come on, Anne, we all know that that pool doesn’t exist. The pool of lost souls is you – and Cinnamon, and Andrew. You’re the people responsible for the Codex and what it’s done – the people whose fates are intertwined with it.”

“Wait a sec,” said Sammy, now confused, “the Pool of Lost Souls is a pool – the eldritch sea of energy that surges to the surface of the planet once a century.”

Rabbi Izzy shot him a look.

“Are you meshugganah? ‘Eldritch Pool’? Who told you that? Did they have a bridge to sell?”

“No it’s right here – ” said Sammy, reaching over me to pluck a thick tome from the bookshelf behind me. He muttered a brief prayer, then opened the book, flipped through it, and pointed to a passage in it.

“What do you think this is about?” he said, crowing triumphantly.

Rabbi Izzy looked over it briefly and looked at Sammy with eyes full of weary skepticism.

“That’s about how to dredge out a mikva without making it ritually impure.”

“Well… yes,” said Sammy impatiently, “on the surface. But look at what it says here…”

He took another volume down from the wall and pointed to another passage.

“The Shulhan Arukh?” said Rabbi Izzy, “For proof of an eldritch pool you go to the Rambam? Please! That guy thinks food taboos are about hygeine! Rabbi Gamliel said in the name of… just a second…”

Rabi Izzy pulled down another book and opened it.

“See here! Right there! There’s an etymology of ‘pool’ for you.”

“Rashi? Your source is Rashi? You’ve got to be kidding me, BS! Pace that insane Frenchman, that reference to the Pool isn’t mishnaic no matter what he does to it!”

“GUYS!” I yelled, “what are you talking about?”

“She’s right,” said Rabbi Izzy, turning serious, “and time is running out – we’re almost back to Bukhara. Look, Anne, whatever interpretive difference my friend and I may have, the fact remains that something has gone wrong. Seriously wrong. The universe is out of whack, and as far as we can see, the only person who can get it back into whack is you.”

“Things are coming to a head, Anne. Important decisions will have to be made soon – and you’re going to be the one who will have to make them.” said Sammy.

“But I…”

“No ‘buts’ Anne. When the time comes, you’re going to have to do the right. You won’t have a second chance.”

The next thing I knew Sammy was kissing me on the cheek and wishing me good luck and Rabbi Izzy was banging on the top of the carriage. The door flew open, and I winced involutarily at the sudden sunlight. I felt Rabbi Izzy push me out of the cariagge as someone else – The Diamond Dealer, presumably – climbed in over me. And then I was back on the ground. The dust of Bukhara invaded my senses, obscuring my vision and filling my nose with old and ancient smells. By the time I stood up, the carriage was just fading away into the distance.

( read ‘em all)

“Well at least they didn’t kill us,” said Rex hopefully.

“At least not yet. When that whale decides that Anne is not the same Anne as the Anne he knew, then he will be killing us,” Ghyslain said despondently, “they took my light saber. I hate it when they take my light saber.”

Cinnamon had had Jasper towed out of the room, codex afloat besides him, and we were left alone to listen to the roaring fire, contemplate a profile of Queen Victoria, and ponder our fate.

“We may still have a chance. Anne – can you lift the medallion I’m wearing out from underneath my robe?”

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I could feel it – it was some sort of strange metal.

“I feel it,” I said, “but I don’t know if I can lift it. Why can’t you do it?”

“I’ve spent years training my force skills to avoid incoming objects like axes and knives and shit. I do the instinctual-deflect thing. I don’t have the sensitivity to move small items I can’t see. No one does but you Anne – you’re a natural with the levitation stuff.”

I took a deep breath and tried again. I felt the medallion, let myself stop wanting it slip upwards, sensed my lack of desire conjure forth a force from a sympathetic universe, released my will even further as I felt a bubble of non-ego doing what I wanted it to on it’s own accord. At least that’s what I felt. Everyone else just saw the medallion inch up above Rex’s robe and flop face-up onto his chest.

“Well that’s handy,” said Lessig, eyeing the amulet.

It was a small, silver-colored disc with a large, multifaceted red jewel set directly in the center. The metal felt strange in my mind – half plastic and half titanium. Engraved in the silver base encircling the jewel were a series of messages written in different alphabets, some of which I recognized and some of which I didn’t. The english language part of the engraving read ‘in case of emergency press red button’.

“It’s a gift from an old friend who owes me a favor. I think getting us out of this mess would count. The only problem is, he won’t owe me the favor for another two hundred years. Or, depending how you look at it, he’s owed it to me for the past forty million years. Frankly I’m a little curious to see what will happen. But its probably our best bet.”

“Forty million years in the past?” asked Andrew, eyes widening in the way eyes only widen when your timeline of the universe owes more the Genesis than Stephen Hawking, “you’re not one of these atheists who believe in this newfangled ‘evolution’ idea, are you?”

Rex sighed deeply.

“Christians. Anyway, Anne – could you do me a favor and press the big red button?”

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I knew it would be harder than moving the amulet before. I concentrated, gave the button a good wallop.

“Gah! Christ Anne, I asked you to push the amulet, not give me CPR. Less is more, you see what I’m saying?”

“I can’t do it,” I said forlonly.

“You can do it,” said Rex, more gently now, “remember the toast in Kashgar? Remember that night on the volcano? The only thing that’s keeping you from doing it is this crazy idea you’ve got that you can’t. Now, try again.”

I took a deep breath and did my best to try to slip out of my own head. I felt my mind drift into that uneasy waiting room where dreams come to take you away to sleep with a gentle, insistent pull. I felt my future memories swirl through me – blurred vagaries of long falls into emptiness, my ears filled with blue blood, a bald barking dog, the clicking of some jewelry I remembered once, long ago…

I was shocked back to reality by the small steady whine coming from Rex’s medalion, which was now flashing red.

“You rock Anne,” said Rex softly, smiling at me. I could feel the way he would have toussled my hair affectionately if we weren’t well, you know, in chains in a secret British safe house in the middle of nineteenth century central asia.

We all waited, not knowing what to expect.

“Now what?” asked Lessig

“Uh… now we wait,” said Rex, “It’ll take Commander Plaza a while to get here. He hangs out in a secret hide out just north of Tashkent.”

“Tashkent?!” exploded Andrew, “Tashkent is a three day camel ride from here!”

“Oh don’t worry,” said Rex, chuckling, “Commander Plaza ain’t riding a camel.”

At that moment an alarm sounded – a very old-fashioned claxon like a real hammer hitting a real bell, really loud.

“That must be him now,” said Rex with satisfaction, crossing his arms in a point-proven sort of gesture – or at least crossing them as well as he could while in shackles.

We waited a few more moments and then a group of about six asian men with shaved heads and dressed in grey monk’s robes ran through the room, stopped for a second to stare at us, and then ran on.

“This ‘Commander Plaza’ is a Chinese monk?”

“That wasn’t him. What the hell’s going on here?”

At that moment there was a deafening crack as the wall across from us exploded into a thousand particles. Out of the billowing clouds of ash and vaporized dust emerged an amazingly gigantic figure of a man. He floated three feet above the ground, the air beneath his feet rippling with heat and whining with the sound of the jet engines in the soles of his mighty combat boots. His body itself was composed of metallic, bulbous armour that tapered off at each joint. Although originally smooth, the armour was now pitted with nicks, bullet scratches, and laser beam burns. In one hand he held the largest and most impressive gun I’d ever seen – a massive weapon with a four foot long barrel that was at least a foot across. In the crook of his other arm was a small, white dog that wouldn’t stop barking. Perched at the top of the massive body, a small human-sized and vaguely Fillipino looking head protruded from the top of the armor.

DO YOU REQUIRE EUTHENASIA SPACE MARINE? boomed out the man’s voice, while he pointed his massive rifle at Rex’s head.

“Er… hello. No, actually. I was wondering if you could just maybe free my friends and I?” asked Rex unctiously.

THERE IS NO SHAME IN DEATH ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE. THERE IS ONLY SHAME IN CAPTURE BY THE ENEMY. YOUR GLANDS WILL BE REUSED TO FURTHER THE GLORIOUS GOALS OF THE IMPERIUM said the man as the dog in the crook of his arm continued to bark. His head swiveled to look at the dog for a moment and then swiveled back to fix on Rex.

POPPY WANTS SNACKIES. SNACKIES FOR POPPY. SNACKIES FOR POPPY!! DO YOU HAVE SNACKIES FOR POPPY?

“Poppy?” I asked Rex under my breath.

“Poppy – the immortal interstellar Lake Land Terrier,” clarified Rex under his breath to me before directing his attention back towards the others, “Umm… it might really help things along if we could give Poppy a snack, folks. I kinda have a continuing need for my glands, if you see what I’m saying.”

“Er, I have half a tuna sandwhich in my pocket,” said Lessig to the man before us.

The dog began barking particularly shrilly and straining out of Commander Plaza’s arm towards Lessig.

YOU ARE NOT A SPACE MARINE. HOW DID YOU ACQUIRE THE REMOTE DISTRESS BEACON? asked the man, temporarily ignoring the dog and refocusing on Rex.

“I am in fact a Staff Sergeant of the Third of the Fifth Imperial Fusilliers and was created a Pasha by the Sultan himself.” said Rex, sounding slightly hurt.

IF YOU ARE A SPACE MARINE THEN WHERE ARE YOUR ARMOR AND COUP-CLOAKS?

“Oh yes, well, that’s a bit harder to explain. See I won’t be all of those things until a hundred and twenty years from now, at which point we’ll travel back millions of years of time… uh… hey, what are you doing…?”

Rex was now smiling ingratiantingly and sweating visibly as Commander Plaza’s eyes narrowed with suspicion and he brought the barrel of his massive weapon to rest lightly on Rex’s left temple. God knows what he was about to do then, since Commander Plaza’s attention was distracted by Poppy’s barking rising to a fever pitch. The dog was now focused on Lessig, who had managed despite his manacles to pull half a tuna sandwhich out of his robes and was waving it enticingly back and forth in front of Poppy while making cooing noises.

SNACKIES FOR POPPY! SNACKIES FOR POPPY! Roared Commander Plaza, aiming his gun at Lessig.

“Not much honor in that, Commander Plaza,” said Rex quickly, “What sort of space marine steals food from helpless earthlings to feed his Lakeland Terrier? I’ll tell you what – why don’t you free us, and in return we’ll give Poppy the tuna sandwich.”

Commander Plaza’s head swiveled to Rex, Poppy, Lessig, and then back to Rex again. There was a massive series of explosions, and the next thing I knew, I was rubbing my newly-freed wrists while I watched Commander Plaza soar to the top of the room and feed half a tuna sandwhich to the dog clutched in his arms.

“Before you go!” yelled Rex, “Just remember this – in one hundred and twenty years from now when you find a younger version of me tied to an unholy underground altar beneath the streets of Spanish Harlem about to be sacrificed to a super-intelligent twenty-foot albino alligator with a Mexican accent named Luther remember: I told you so!”

PERHAPS WE SHALL MEET AGAIN said Commander Plaza as he screamed out the smoking hole he had used to enter a few minutes before NOW POPPY NEEDS TO MAKE POOPIE. POPPIE FOR POPPY! POOPIE FOR POPPY! he yelled as he flew away into the distance.

“Well,” said Rex, standing up and dusting himself off, “that was easy, huh?”

* * *

While we were still trying to get our bearings, two more large explosions rocked the room. We swayed back and forth, grabbing onto furniture like extras from the Old Star Trek trying to look convincingly discombobulaed by the lousy special effects meant to convey the trauma caused by the direct hit of a Klingon photon torpedo strike.

“What’s going on?” shouted Ghyslain over the furor.

“I don’t know,” said Rex, “but first things first – we need to find our weapons.”

If there’s one thing that a Jedi can find easily, it’s their light saber. Those things glow in our force-sense HUD about as large as a 747. We ran down a hall and were just about there when we ran smack dab into Trevor, the Mennonite secret agent.

“Trevor, what are you doing here?” asked Rex, bewildered, “We were supposed to meet you in Tashkent!”

“Evil… grey robes… really bad… really really bad…” panted Trevor, obviously out of breath.

“Slow down, slow down – what’s going on here?” asked Lessig.

“The source of ‘Chinese contamination’ that Norbu was going on about – we found it. There’s dozens of them. They’re fighting him… in the next room… I tried to get them to sit down and talk it over…”

“Where?”

Trevor led us down the corridor. As we approached we heard the sound of voices growing ever louder as we approached.

“One thing about Norbu,” said Trevor, grinning, “you can always hear where he is…”

We entered an enormous, column lined room. In front of us was a massive pitched battle. Four of the grey-robed monks were locked in mortal combat with Norbu Rinpoche. The entire place was filled with the echoing roar of their screams as they attacked one another – “Dragon tail sweeps the sea!” and “King Kong Buddha Fist!” – As they richochetted off the wall and flew at each other in best Jet-Li wire-work style, a more quotidian battle raged below. A troop of British soldiers in – get this – actual red coats formed a small infantry square in the center of the room, where they desperately fought off a massive mob of seedy-looking hired bad buys. They looked determined, but their haggard looks and blood-stained uniforms hinted at their frayed nerves and physical exhaustion. But while I took all of this in in an instant, the one thing that drew my attention more than anything else was the large padlocked chest on one side of the room – Ground Zero for our sabres. Ghyslain ran over and yanked on the lock.

“Damn these Jedi-strength locks!” cursed Ghyslain, kicking the chest angrily.

The alarms were still sounding, the explosions more frequent, and all hell seemed to be breaking loose. I was about to ask Rex what we should do, when the sound of a voice from the doorway behind me sent shivers down my spine.

“You!”

It was Cinnamon. She had just pushed her way out of the center of the British infantry formation and was heading directly towards us. Her chest heaved with exertion, and her eyes shone with a fatal manic energy from beneath bangs drooped over a head bent low in exhaustion. Her dress was in tatters now, and her hair in scraggily disarray. Soot and blood covered her face, and her now-familiar sewing notions holster was wrapped around her waist. It was disgusting – after what was obviously prolonged periods of combat she should have looked all grungy and nasty from all the blood and gore. But basically it just made her look like deeply determined and sexy in a deadly sort of way like the girl in La Femme Nikita (Anne Parillaud and not Bridget Fonda, thank you very much) after the fight in the restaurant. I mean honestly.

“You!” she exclaimed, “You’re behind this aren’t you! Who are your friends? How did they know you were here?” she spat furiously at us over her shoulder as she turned back to rally her men. At that moment the room was flooded with yet another massive wave of turban’d and scimitar’d bad-guy cannon fodder. Before we could protest two men armed with sickle-shaped knives came at her from behind. In an instant she turned to face them, hands flashing to her waist. It wasn’t until they began slumping to the ground, dead, that I realized there were two knitting needles in their backs.

“Fix bayonets! To arms!” screamed Cinnamon, diving into the fray with her men.

I know that a paragraph ago I said that all hell broke loose, but trust me – this time all hell really broke loose. Ghyslain and Lessig clawed crazily at the locked chest. Rex moved between me at the fight in a futile attempt to keep me safe from the roiling maelstrom that filled the room. And Andrew – Andrew walked slowly and deliberately into the fray.

“What are you doing?” I exclaimed, grabbing him on arm, “you’ll be killed!”

“I can’t let them kill her!” he said simply to me.

“But you can’t do anything about it, Andrew! They’re outnumbered three to one! You’ll be killed!”

Andrew took my hand slowly off his arm, gave it a sad squeeze, and then smiled sadly at me.

“You know Anne – I honestly don’t know if my life would be worth living if it didn’t involve chasing Cinnamon around.”

My mind flashed back to that night in Kashgar, before we traveled back in time, when Andrew and I sat on the porch of a house at the edge of field. I remembered watching him watch the stars, and the tired, dead look I had seen on his face.

“You know what Andrew,” I said, squeezing his shoulder, “I don’t think it would be. Good luck. We’ll be in to help as soon as we can.”

Andrew waded into the fray, pushing his way past the Red Coats and taking Cinnamon’s hand in the center of the infantry square. He drew his pistol and, back to back, they tried desperately to turn the tide of battle.

I ran over to Lessig and Ghyslain, who sat scowling at the locked chest. Lessig was poking at it with a pencil.

“We need that chest open now,” I said as forcefully as I could.

“The lock is a snap to pick,” said Lessig, examining it, “the mechanism is centuries out of date for me. But I don’t have any tools. Goddamn it.”

“If you don’t get your weapons back then we’re all dead.” shouted Rex, losing his Jedi diffidence.

I felt my eyebrow arch incredulously as I watched Lessig poke at the lock, “You know how to pick locks?” I asked skeptically.

“I’m sorry,” said Lessig, firing off his retort with Menckenesque sang-froid, “did you just ask a lawyer if he knew how to steal?”

“Well would this help, then?” I said, nonchalantly producing the spare needles my older self had given me.

“Good god – they ought to do the job. Where did you get them?” said Lessig, putting two in his teeth and using another two to jimmy the lock.

“It’s a long story. I thought they were meant for Cinnamon, but maybe they were meant for yo-”

At that point the lock clicked open and Lessig threw back the top of the chest. I didn’t even realize I had reached for my lightsaber and the next thing I knew it was back in my hand. I heard the familiar flame-on sound of Ghyslain and Rex making their sabers live.

“Oh man, I am so ready to be hating on playas,” enthused Rex, practically glowing with an energy that I didn’t entirely like.

We were about to dive in when there was a sudden rush of wind and nine more grey-robed figures literally flew into the room, landing ready for battle in all sorts of elaborate kung-fu poses.

“Shaolin monks!” exclaimed Rex, “just like in the movies! Wow – cool. Hey guys, why are you fighting the good-guy Tibetan monk? You need to help us fight evil and stuff.”

“I should have known,” shouted Cinnamon, “you are in league with them!” Cinnamon leapt sideways out of the way of one of her attackers, landed, rolled, and reached back towards her hair. Silver flashed, and the next thing I knew, a knitting needle was an inch away from one of the monks’ eyes – caught firmly in his hand.

“Hmph,” sniffed the monk, “your kung-fu is no match for me.”

He lobbed the needle back her way. Cinnamon tried to dodge, but wasn’t fast enough. She screamed in pain as shot into her left arm – exactly where her heart had been an instant before. She shrieked in pain and collapsed into Andrew’s arms.

“You’re supposed to be good guys!” exclaimed Rex.

“They are not ‘good guys’,” said a strong voice from behind us, “They are my employees.”

A man wearing an Abraham Lincoln suit stepped out of the shadows. The monks immediately moved to form a protective cordon around him. In a very significant plot development, he had the Codex of Lost Souls in one arm.

“Who are you?” exclaimed Andrew protectively.

“I? Why, I am Klaus Epps – the future messiah. And you are about to die.” he said, laughing with a sort of manical gusto that left no doubt in my mind that we had finally found The Big Bad Guy.

“Not so fast, Epps!” shouted Trevor, straightening himself to his full height, “Your mad dreams of apocalypse will never come true! Give up these vain fantasies and return to the community so we can, you know, forgive you and stuff.”

“Vain?” Boomed the man impressively, brandishing the codex, “Mad? Impossible? How impossible are my dreams with this in my arms? How little you know about the true power of this codex, Trevor! With the Pool of Lost Souls under my control, my prophecies will become reality!”

“And we’ll become immortal,” said one monk, licking his hand and running it lewdly over his shaved head, “and the only thing better than being a renegade evil Shaolin monk is being an immortal renegade evil Shaolin monk!”

“I knew I was awakened from my hermitage for a reason,” spat Norbu with a stereotyped fury that I knew was babel-fish induced, “you are bastard betrayer monks! I must defend the honor of my kung-fu style!”

“Fume as much as you like Norbu,” expostulated Epps grandly as if he was, in a moment of bad-guy hubris, about to reveal his entire secret evil plan to us, confident in our imminent demise, “but in a mere eighteen hours the pool of lost souls will once more surge to the surface of this planet, and I shall achieve immortality!”

“Wrong dude,” said Rex, trying to be as deadly serious as anyone with a strong Californian accent could be, “like, we’re the Pool of Lost Souls.”

“You?” scoffed Epps, “who told you that? Jasper? Do you really take that over-blown haddock seriously? The thing wear a hat with a rubber band around it, for Christ’s sake! No – The Pool of Lost Souls is just that: the waters of eternal life which percolate to the surface of our planet only once every twelve decades. Slowly, the sunken city of the ancient ones works its way up to us amidst fire and smoke, as was foretold in – ”

“Wait a sec,” I asked, “fire and smoke? You mean like volcanos?”

“Well,” said Epps, scratching at his chin momentarily, “yeah. But more importantly, the ancient Temple of the Lost Souls where I am fully prepared to carry out the eldritch ceremony which – ”

“One hundred and twenty years?” I pressed, “does this volcano emerge in a desert?”

“We’ve been tossed from one emergence of the pool to another,” said Rex, putting the pieces together, “from that volcano in the Taklamakan to now, when the pool rise again. Surely Valenti meant to use the pool for his own purposes! What could be better than an immortal lobbyist arguing for immortal copyright terms? And now, with the pool rising again…”

“That would explain my presence,” said Lessig grimly.

“But only if we’re the pool of lost souls – the people whose destiny is the plaything of the codex,” I pointed out, “if the pool is really a pool…”

“Silence!” screamed Epps, furious that his expositional monologue had been interrupted, “That’s funny like funny ha-ha, but unimportant. Imagine what you will, but I know the location of the emergence, and I have the codex. You cannot long survive against the overwhelming forces I have weighed against you – even you Jedi cannot prevail against the monks of Shaolin when they attack in force. Fare well, Rex Masterson – may your death be slow and painful!”

With that Epps turned away sharply, the tails of his Abraham Lincoln suit swirling menacingly about him, and marched down the hall, a small group of monks his bodyguard. There was a moment of stillness as the remaining monks and Epps’ hired hands stared at us across the room. Then a man with a scimitar charged forward and in one instance all hell broke loose.

“After them!” shouted Rex, turning a double sommersault in the air and landing in the entrance of the passageway through which Epps had escaped. With a few strong strokes of his saber he had cleared a path through the crowd, joined by Ghyslain.

“Anne – come on!” shouted Rex, gesturing to me.

“But Andrew is – ” I began, looking desperately at the rising tide of humanity weighed against him as he and Cinnamon fought desperately on.

“We’ll take care of them!” shouted Trevor, taking Lessig by the hand, some how still remaining jovial, as he and Norbu began wading through the enemy and towards the small, embattled group of British shoulders.

“But – ” I protested.

“Now Anne! That’s an order!”

With great misgivings I turned away and left Andrew and Cinnamon to their fate. We followed the dark passage upward, ever upward. Ghyslain poured on the speed and I felt Rex’s stride quicken as well, fueled with a Force whose flavor verged too much on obsession for my liking. I put my head down, let myself relax, and tried to let the force pull me along. But Rex and Ghyslain were in another place – a place where desire muddied purity and achievement tainted intent. I couldn’t – or didn’t want to – keep up.

“Rex…” I panted, running as fast as I could, “I can’t…”

He cursed, grabbed my hand, and made me run faster.

The next thing I knew the ceiling above me had dissolved into night sky. We were outside now, in the courtyard of a private estate. Our stride broke abruptly as Rex and Ghyslain dove into crouch, rolled, and sprang up with live sabers and barred teeth. The three of us faced four Shaolin monks who were fighting a rearguard action – Epps’ coach was already rattling away into the distance.

“Attack!” shouted Ghyslain, leaping into the midst.

“Get them, Anne!” shouted Rex, juking to the left, spinning, and coming down hard with a strong over-hand attack.

“But…” I began. Just then I felt my body involuntarily roll to the ground and away to my left a split second before a fist came smashing down where my head had been a second before.

Before me, a really evil looking Shaolin Monk waggled his tongue lewdly and aimed a kick right at my teeth. I did a hand spring up, leapt sideways to avoid him, and came down with my lightsaber live. I was going to feint and come at him from my off-handed side, but the next thing I knew I was dodging first to my left and then to my right as two quick punches came right at me.

“Rex… help… please…” I said, struggling to catch my breath, shooting my hand in front of myself to deflect a punch to my solar plexus.

“Get them Anne! Get them! Kill!” I heard his shout over the thrum of his lightsaber.

The monk came in low with a kick to my shins. I staggered backwards, wincing and feeling tears coming to my eyes. Jedi feel things before they happen – that’s why we have such great reflexes – and I felt myself crying before the kick even landed. But my body was in molasses – too sluggish in the present to avoid what I knew was going to come. A second after I registered the pain of my shin splitting, I had jumped backwards, and only then did he actually make contact.

The world turned into a lightning wide blur. I felt myself on the ground, twisting and turning to avoid blows. Three feet away, I could smell the image of my windpipe shattered beneath the monks imagination of his foot and my throat. I rolled away, got back on my feet, and limped backwards.

“Hmph,” said the man dismissively, “Why do I have to kill the apprentices?”

“I’ll show you what it means to fight,” I said, wiping the sweat from my brow and trying to sound brave.

“The only thing you’ll show me is how you die,” he said, shuffling in as if to come in with a high kick and then putting in a syncopated step and nailing me again in my injured shin.

Everyone has a point where desperation overwhelms them – when your inmost self lapses into infancy and, in an attempt to deny the unfair world around you, begins crying for its mother. Being an adult means pushing that point as far back as you can, and Being a Jedi means pushing it back even farther – making distant that point where emotion takes you over and turns you into its automaton. For fourteen of the sixteen years of my life I had been trained to seek a silent calm place in the welter of emotions that overwhelmed me when the world threatened to snuff me out with its extremity. Now I tried desperately to cling to that inner calm, to make the remaining shard of strength within me grow into something large enough to hang a plan on. But I just couldn’t do it. He was stronger than me, and both of us knew it. And no matter how long it took, he was going to corner me, cripple me, and then kill me. And no one on earth would do anything to save me – not Rex, not my father, not Andrew, not anyone. I had faced death before, but never at a time when I was able to so clearly realize what it meant to die.

I fell to the ground and tried to stand again, thinking to run away. But my leg was dead to me now, unmoving and unmoveable. I grabbed it in my hand and tried to make it pull me up, but all I felt were waves of pain. I slowly, awkwardly used my other leg to lift myself up. The monk just watched and gloated.

Then I heard a sound behind me. I turned to see a horse-drawn carriage come tumbling to a stop before me. A door flew open and a man in a dark suit appeared, grabbing me by the arm.

“Anne! Get in!” he yelled.

And I did.