The Journal of Dr. Colwyn Rhys-Myers

Entry: 03 May 1919, Part II

As we entered Llandanwg, I had Louis drive past the village square and down the first side road. A few houses along, looking as well-tended as I had left it, was my home and clinic. My neighbour, Ewen, from across the road saw us approach, and waved to me. His wave was welcoming enough, but had a touch of the conspiratorial about it. As well, there was no booming, "'Allo!" as there would normally have been, especially as I had not been home in some time. I should have taken notice of the significance of this, that this greeting had a hidden meaning, even a warning; but, I did not.

I got out of the motorcar, and Martin came with me. I asked Louis if he could park the motor on the verge just past the house, and he drove off as we walked up the path.

"Charming, almost picturesque," Martin said.

"My refuge," I replied.

I went to open the front door, and stepped inside. Before I could get even my first look at the clinic that until so recently had been my whole world, a blow knocked me senseless.

When I awoke, I was tied to a chair in my sitting room. Martin was tied to a chair next to me. Louis was trussed up in a ball on the floor, and was much the worse for wear. Standing over him was a very unpleasant looking gentleman, and another gentleman who could easily have been his twin was guarding the door. Sitting at my writing desk was a pale, drawn, determined young man in an ill-fitting suit: Georg Bach.

"Welcome home," he said.

As I struggled to clear my head, he continued, "I'm not one for long speeches, or needless talk. You know why we're here. We have the girl, Claire. Where is the amethyst?"

I needed a moment to clear my thoughts. I knew what I had to do, but now that it was clear they had beaten us to Llandanwg, I was going to have to go about it rather differently, and I was not possessed of great skills of improvisation. Bach took my silence as resistance, and one of his unpleasant associates kicked me in the stomach.

"No games! Answers now!" Bach said. It was Louis who gave me the first moments I needed. He too had been coming around when I was, and asked me, "Which one of these goons do you want me to kill first, Doc?"

For that, he received what was presumably the latest in a series of blows. The blow barely registered a wince on his face. "By the way, Doc, sorry about your garden," he said.

That non-sequiteur truly confused me. "Um, that's fine. What happened?"

"I saw you two get clobbered at the door. One of the picnic hams this guy has working for him came out to see if the coast was clear. I had the car; it was still running...some of your flowers probably won't survive. 'Course, neither will the guy I ran over."

Despite the situation, I couldn't help but smile. That got us both kicked again.

It was then I realized I had fortuitously left my haversack in the motorcar, and just as fortuitously, they had not found it. As I was far enough away from the zhu, my watch-chain on my vest was not glowing, and thus would not draw their attention. If I could get to the motor and separate the zhu from the stick, we might have a chance.

Then, Martin, perhaps sensing I was almost ready with a plan, came to the rescue. "We do nothing without seeing Claire. Where is she?"

"Nearby. She is safe, for now," Bach replied.

"Let her go."

"Not possible."

"She's nothing to you," Martin replied. "You have me, you'll have the amethyst..."

"You and the amethyst together are nothing! But with her, the Trinity is complete! Oh, yes, I know." I cringed, wondering what Bach had actually discovered. "Riegel was an idiot. He thought only you could release the power; but, when I would be running his foolish errands, passing through the door, I began to see things. Huge cities of glass and steel, fantastic flying ships travelling through the stars, planets - whole planets - just waiting to be conquered! Riegel thought his mumbo-jumbo was just a ruse, a charade. He was wrong. The door wasn't just a tool. It wasn't just a way to rob and plunder our world. It was a portal to power beyond the stars. And then I saw her face. The little girl. Your Claire. She was the key I was missing. I knew if I could find her, I would be the one to rule. The power - all power - would be mine!

"You did me quite a favour, Doctor, killing Riegel when you did: burning down his headquarters as well was a bonus. I should thank you. But enough," here he walked over to me and grabbed me by my coat, "Where is the amethyst?"

I was ready. "With us. In the motorcar. But, I have to get it."

"Gerhardt will go with you."

"Not possible," I replied, trying my best to throw his words back at him with a sneer. For a pale, drawn little man, his uppercut was quite effective. He split my lip. However, his blow wasn't hard enough to knock my plan from my head. "I have it in a special container wired to the motorcar's electrical cables. You wouldn't want to lose another henchman to a vehicular mishap, would you?" Scientifically, this was a ridiculous idea, and the weakest part of my plan. Fortunately, Bach wasn't a scientific genius.

He acquiesced irritatedly. "Very well; but, Gerhardt will go out with you and watch your every move. Gerhardt, untie him."

"Untie my friends as well," I said.

"When you're back with the amethyst; not until then," Bach replied.

Gerhardt untied me, and, flexing my joints and massaging my jaw, we walked out to the Austin. I noticed that Louis had in fact done quite a respectable job ruining my garden. Still, I thought with that strange clarity that comes with the non-sequiteur that presents itself during moments of extreme danger - a state with which the veteran soldier becomes all-too familiar - that I would have plenty of time to replant, it being only the beginning of May.

I stopped some five paces short of the motor, and looked it over as if expecting some creature to jump out. Gerhardt watched me suspiciously. He prodded me with his sidearm. "Was tun Sie?"

"Checking. You speak English?"

"Some, yes," Gerhardt replied.

"You ever read Tesla's work?"

"No, why? Writer?"

"Scientist. Visionary. He understands power. The power. You've seen what the stone does?" I asked.

"I was at the rituals."

"This stone. Tesla knows of it, too. I wired it to protect itself as he would have. Just as it was in Herr Riegel's cellar."

Gerhardt began to look decidedly uneasy. Though his sidearm stayed trained upon me, he backed away from the motor a few steps. It was just enough to hide what I had to do.

"The amethyst is in the back seat. Just a moment," I said as I crawled in. My haversack, with the zhu still inside, and the stick still threaded through the straps, was on the floorboards, covered by a travelling blanket. In this, I was most fortunate, as the fact the stick was glowing quite noticeably could not be seen. I managed to work the stick out from the straps while wrapping it in the blanket, and put them both under my topcoat. As well, I stuffed my watch-chain deep in my vest-pocket, so it could not be seen glowing either. Then, I picked up my sack with my other hand, climbed out of the motor, and handed the sack to the still quite-uneasy Gerhardt.

We walked back to my home in silence. Gerhardt handed my sack to Herr Bach, who tore it open, spilling its contents across my floor. The zhu landed with a resounding crash - it was quite heavy, and quite dense - and lay there glowing softly. Herr Bach's eyes widened, and he picked up the zhu almost reverently. "Look how it calls to me," he said as if in a trance. Just as quickly, he returned to at least an appearance of sanity, and a resolution of purpose.

"It's time," he said. "Bring the three of them."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see. Somewhere quite familiar, I assure you. Kurt: Sie und Herr Doktor wird kommen mit mir. Gerhardt: folgen Sie mit den anderen in ihren Auto." (Kurt, you and the Doctor will come with me. Gerhardt, you follow with the others in their motorcar.) Kurt untied Martin and Louis, gave Louis a final kick for some offense the nature of which I could only imagine, and we walked outside.

Bach's motor was parked in the grass behind my clinic. As I walked around the corner of the building, Ewen from next-door caught my eye. His brother was standing in their doorway, and they both were carrying gardening tools that could just as easily be wielded as extremely effective blunt instruments. One nod was all it took. They knew, and were ready to come to our aid. However badly I wanted to free myself, free all three of us, just then, I felt this was not yet the time. I needed to know where Claire was, and obeying orders was still my best, if not least painful, bet. I nodded them off, and they seemed to understand. Besides, even if they didn't follow us, as I fully expected them so to do, I knew my village, and I knew my people. If where we were going was anywhere close, my captors and I would not be alone, and would certainly not be unobserved from the shadows.

We got in the motorcar. "Kurt: ich fahre dann," Bach said. "Sie sehen ihn." (Kurt, I'll drive. You watch him.)

We drove back through the centre of Llandanwg and took a side road heading toward the wood. Immediately, I knew where we were headed. This adventure, however it would end, if indeed it was to end, would end where it began: at an empty cottage and workshop on a dirt path leading out of the village, a cottage once the home of a simple woodworker and his family. I could only imagine what bringing Claire back to her home, and the scene of such horror, would do to her fragile state-of-mind.

Pulling off the road, we got out of the motor and walked along the path. I noticed the Austin skid to an ungraceful stop just behind us. Martin fell out of one side looking woozy, and Louis and Gerhardt rolled out of the driver's side in a ball of fury, fists and feet flying. For all his determination, Louis got the short end of the stick again. By the time Martin had made his way around the front of the motor and into the bushes to help, Louis had been pistol-whipped into submission. Martin helped him up, and they followed us.

There ahead of us, as forlorn as I had left it so short a time ago, was the Jones cottage. The circle of desolation around it was beginning to fill in with wild grass and small shoots. For this, I was grateful. The effects of the zhu, it appeared, would not be permanent. More noticeable now, though, in the circle surrounding the cottage were three vehicles, and at least a dozen men. Several of them carried sidearms. Any fight Martin and Louis had in them quickly dissipated at the sight of their weapons.

Bach issued orders as if he were rapidly becoming accustomed to being obeyed. "Gerhardt: Nehmen Sie sich hier. Kurt: Kommen Sie herein mit uns." (Gerhardt. take charge out here. Kurt, come inside with us.) I heard Louis mutter under his breath, "I thought we defeated these guys." If my plan succeeded, he'd still get his chance.

We walked through the front door. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom - the room had been curtained shut - I heard a voice: "Colwyn, I'm sorry." Looking apologetically at me from across the room was Jones Tearing-Down. "We didn't even make it out of London. They grabbed us at the station before we even boarded the train. They kept asking me questions I couldn't answer. They forced me to bring them here. They kept threatening Claire. What's going on?!?"

"It's alright," I replied. "Is Claire safe?"

"Yes, she's upstairs in her old room. I've done what I can to make sure they don't hurt her."

"Then you've done everything you've needed to."

"And it is now my turn to do what I need to do," Bach said. "Druben (over there)," he continued, and with that, Kurt and two more associates shoved the four of us onto the floor in the corner of the room. "Kurt: ihr holen (fetch her)!" Kurt went upstairs, and a moment later, appearing not to walk down the stairs so much as glide, Claire came down.

We looked to each other in the same instant; but, the look she gave me was not one of recognition. Her eyes told no story, spoke no unspoken words: if there was any part of the Claire I knew behind those eyes, it was an immensely great distance away, and no matter what Bach might know, I believed I was the only one who knew how far away her far-away gaze reached. I hoped it was far enough to do what had to be done.

"She's been like this since we got here," Jones said to me as we sat. "I think your doctor-friend in London called it 'catatonia'. She was getting better before they captured us. But, this isn't the look she had before. It frightens me."

"Shut up, both of you," Bach said. "Claire, come and sit here." The centre of the room had been cleared, and a single chair had been placed in the middle. Claire sat without acknowledging anyone, or anything around her. If the chair had not been there, I believe she could have sat in mid-air. Bach sat my haversack on the floor, and took out the zhu. It glowed brightly, and Bach's face glowed with it.

He held it out to her. "Claire, this is for you. Before I give it to you, what is its purpose?"

"Unity. Power. Being. It wants to be one."

"And I am to be the one."

Claire said nothing.

"And I am the one, correct?"

"To be one with what it knows."

"And it knows me. I have seen what it sees. I know what it knows. I am the one! Correct?!?" Bach's tone was becoming as frantic as it had been that day in the Dorotheum.

Claire smiled, and said, "The one is here."

"And I am the one!"

Bach's last exhortation was punctuated by a gunshot outside. The shot was followed by a second, then another, and another, and soon the gunfire was joined by the sort of shouts and screams I had hoped never to hear again: the cries of men at war.

Kurt ran to the door and looked out. "Die Dorfbewohner! Tun Sie angreifen!" (The villagers! They're attacking!)

"Gerhardt will handle them; and in a moment, it won't matter anyway," Bach said to us. He thrust the zhu into Claire's lap. "Give me the power!" The zhu began to glow more brightly than ever; but, that was all that happened. "Bringen Sie Martin hier!" Bach ordered, and one of the men dragged Martin to the centre of the room. Still, what Bach wanted, he was not getting. "Well?!?" he cried.

Claire smiled again. "It wants to go home. It longs for a safe return." At that moment, I knew my hunch was correct.

"Talk sense! Make it work!" Bach screamed, grabbing Claire by the throat. Louis, though having proved himself quite hot-headed in the brief time I had come to know him, was apparently also quite sensitive. Any harm done to a lady, especially a young one, was more than he could countenance. With a war-whoop that would have done a soldier in any service proud, he leaped up and threw himself at Bach, both breaking Bach's grip on Claire, and sending him flying. Martin kicked the legs out from under the man watching him, and at the same time, the door to the cottage burst open as the war outside found its way indoors.

My chance had come. As the guard watching me became embroiled in the turmoil, I hastily unwrapped the stick, reached for the watch-chain in my pocket, and ran to Claire. Just as I reached her, we were bowled over by the fight around us. We wound up tumbling under a dining table in the corner of the room. Claire looked at me. "Hold the zhu and the stick with me." I did so. The glow increased, and still nothing happened. It was then I realized I had dropped the watch-chain.

I looked out across the miniature battlefield of the cottage, and saw it laying on the opposite side of the room. Jones, who had just decked one of Bach's men, caught my determined gaze, and followed it to the glowing chain. "You need this?" he asked, picked it up, and threw it to me. The chain arced through the air, cleared every fighting body in its path, and landed on the end of the stick.

In an instant, there was stillness, and silence, and a brilliant flash of light. In the next instant, Claire and I stood alone on the bank of a swiftly-flowing river, with the silhouette of a city I never thought I would see again on the horizon. I thought I heard a voice say, "Thank you," though I knew it was more in my head than in my ears, for I had felt words in such a fashion once before.

Claire turned to me. "It's home," she said, "and now, we should be, too. We can't stay long...this time." And with those words, we were back in her cottage, flat on our backs, as was everyone else. We, however, were awake; the rest of our friends, and our enemies, were quite peacefully unconscious.

I rolled over and looked at Claire. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"Are you?..." I didn't quite know how to put my next question.

"All here? Yes," and this time, her smile was one I recognized as truly her own.

Fortunately, I was able to wake Martin, Louis, and our rescuers from my village before Bach and his men came around. They awoke to find themselves securely bound, and under most resolute guard. The fight had quite literally gone out of them. As for Georg Bach, his connection to the wide expanse of the universe for which he hoped had been well-and-truly severed; severed with it as well was his connection to the here-and-now of our world. He had gone quite mad. For whatever reason, by whatever force, he had retreated into himself, to a place where it was quite likely no one would ever find him.

Hours later, as the setting sun gave way to the cool of a spring evening, I sat alone on the bank of the stream just outside the village. At the village inn, a spirited debate was raging as to just what to do about our unwanted guests. I should have been giving advice and counsel; but just then, I wanted nothing more than the solitude and solace of a place I knew, and in which I truly belonged.

I started when I heard footsteps behind me. My fears were groundless. It was only Jones and Claire.

"Didn't mean to make you jump, Colwyn. I guess it'll be a bit 'till all our nerves settle," Jones said. "We just came to say, 'Thanks.'"

"There's no need; but, thank you."

"We just wanted to let you know, well, I'm going to look after Claire. I might not be her 'da; but, I can be a good guardian. Figured I'll take up my brother's trade. I wasn't a bad carpenter myself once. I can support both of us just fine."

"Anything you need, you know I'll be happy to help," I replied.

Claire had been standing off to one side. She walked up shyly to me - her return to being a little girl was progressing quickly, something I was most glad to see - and handed me a small bouquet of flowers.

"For you: to remember. I will. They're growing behind the cottage now."

With that, they turned and walked back home. I looked at the flowers. They were like no flowers I remember seeing anywhere in the area. When I put them to my nose, the unmistakable scent of lilacs greeted me. I smiled to myself, and thought somewhat deviously how I could gain an instant reputation in the field of botany with the discovery of a never-before catalogued variant on the common lilac, in entirely the wrong locale.

I put such thoughts out of my head when a second set of footsteps made their way toward me. "Contemplating the mysteries of the cosmos, I presume?" Martin asked.

"Not anymore. My universe is right here."

"After what you have seen, part of you will always be out there somewhere. And should you try to forget that, one look at your closest friend and comrade in-extraterrestrial-arms will remind you."

"You're right, of course," I replied. "But, right now, the comfort of home is all I need."

"May I direct you back to the stars for a moment?" Martin asked.

"Alright."

"You know, there might still be pieces of that thing, that zhu, out there."

"I know," I replied. "At least we'll have some idea what to do if ever we come across it. I got the feeling, though, we returned what needed to be returned."

"Which leads me to another question..."

"Yes?"

Did you go there again?" Martin asked.

"I think so."

Martin hesitated. "About me..."

"I don't know, truly I don't, and for that I am truly sorry," I replied. I looked squarely at him. "I do see some grey starting around your temples, though. Very distinguished."

"The last few weeks' experiences alone could have done that."

"Give it a few decades. We'll know by then."

"Your broadened horizons have not improved your sense of humour any," Martin replied, but without malice. Sudddenly, he turned quite serious. "You do owe me something."

"Yes?"

"You never did finish telling me about that world so very far away. And what is your fascination with that stick?!?"

I looked at the stick in my hand. I had been carrying it as a permanent accessory since returning. It now resembled a walking-stick quite fashionably. At the moment the zhu returned, something - a blast of heat, perhaps - had fused the watch-chain around the one end in a curling loop so as to ornament it almost as a handle.

As I watched the last rays of the sun play on the twisting chain, I heard a splash in the stream. I looked over and met eyes with a furry creature of the woods going for a swim. The river otter held my gaze for a moment, and then swam away. I smiled to myself, as I suspected I would be doing a great deal from now on.

I turned to Martin. "My friend," I said, "let me tell you a story."

(Here ends the first Volume of the Journal.)