'Please,' he gestured for silence. 'I'm so delighted to see you all, the pleasure is all mine, really.'

Tory introduced everyone to him stating their current name and occupation. The one person on board that he didn't recognise interested Rhun greatly. This stocky, middle-aged, red-skinned warrior, who had eyes and hair that were as dark as his own, Rhun guessed to be his mother's childhood sweetheart.

'So, you're the one who had my father green with jealousy,' Rhun commented upon learning Teo's identity.

'Maelgwn, jealous of me.' Teo glanced at Tory. 'Is that a fact?'

'Don't make his ego any bigger than it already is,'

Tory advised her boy. 'I've got enough problems, thank you very much.' She left them to show the others around outside.

'She's living in denial, poor woman,' Teo informed Rhun, once she was out of earshot.

'Not for much longer though.' Rhun made a point of clueing Teo in. 'My father will be returning for her soon enough.'

'Come again!' Teo nearly had a fit. 'I thought Maelgwn was dead.'

'Well, then.' Rhun gave him a wink in parting.

'You'd best think again.'

The tour finished in Floyd's observatory room, overlooking the encampment. Here the crew of the Goddess were treated to Watarrka home-grown, shots of Jack Daniels, and rock'n'roll from the 70s and 80s.

Ray, Teo and Floyd were seated around the computers devising a means for the ICA to regain possession of Ray's work. The idea was to get the Agency off their backs by giving them what they wanted. For, as Floyd pointed out, it was far better that the ICA utilise a system that they, 'the Rebels', already knew inside and out, than someone else's system. Espionage would be that much more difficult. It was of the utmost importance that the Agency re-acquire the plans for Ray's prototype under circumstances that would not be deemed suspicious.

Noah, in between taking snapshots of the control room with his camera, suggested the airport as a solution. 'Just book Ray on a flight somewhere, preferably to and from destinations as far removed from us as possible. Then all you need do is send a suitcase.

The ICA will, without doubt, intercept the luggage. Upon finding it unaccompanied, they will simply assume Ray got wind of them and split,' the reporter concluded with a sideways wave of his thumb.

His fellow conspirators were speechless a second.

'We'll have to start calling you the answers man,'

Ray commented, amazed at how quickly Noah's mind processed information.

'It's just too simple,' Floyd resolved with a smile, slapping his hand down on the desktop. 'No wonder I didn't think of it.'

Brian's son, Daniel, meanwhile, had taken a decided interest in the telescope that was in the large adjoining room. Rhun opened the voice-activated porthole in the cavern roof, whereby Daniel was able to sit and observe the clear evening sky through the small, though powerful lens.

Taller than his father, Daniel had the same distinguishing features: his piercing blue eyes, his fair hair, even the dimple on his chin was the same. As the lad fired questions at Rhun, he smiled at Daniel's excitement; it was obvious he had the same thirst for knowledge as Cai had had when Rhun had known him in the Dark Ages.

Rhun left Daniel to his observing. Back in Floyd's control room he began entertaining Brian and Naomi with tales of their adventures together in sixth century Britain, and Rhun's rather zealous account had Rhiannon completely captivated.

Her son had greatly matured during their time apart, and Tory thought him so much more like his father these days. It was his eyes that really got to her though. They were so reminiscent of Maelgwn's it was spooky. Damn.

Now she'd done it. The memory of her love never failed to leave a deep, empty yearning in Tory's soul, that pained her like no physical ailment ever could.

Rhun excused himself from his audience; even from the other side of the room he picked up on his mother's sorrow. 'Don't be sad.' He came up behind Tory and wrapped his arms about her. 'You know there is no need.'

'He should be here.' Tory resisted the urge to burst into tears as she viewed the gathering of their close freinds and relatives.

'You know he will be as soon as is immortally possible.'

'Do I just?' Tory didn't mean to be negative. But why did Maelgwn send her messages through others?

Why couldn't he speak to her directly?

'Because you are too out of touch with the Otherworld, that's why. It's not like he hasn't tried.' Rhun reacted to his mother's thoughts and jumped to his father's defence. 'But if seeing is believing, it might be arranged.'

Tory looked over her shoulder to see if he was serious, and Rhun nodded to substantiate the offer.

'You'll need to do some serious work on your psyche first.'

'Whatever it takes,' Tory stated surely. 'You know I would go to hell and back to be with him.'

'And have done so,' Rhun acknowledged, lightheartedly.

'Tory.' Brian called to her as he crossed the room.

'I've been thinking about how badly the ICA seem to want to find us, and in retrospect, perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to let Pearce go.'

Seeing so many of the Dragon's circle gathered here this day, Tory had also been thinking about Pearce. 'So you think we should find him, and let him know about this place.'

'Well, if what you say is true, and Doc Alexander has killed before ... chances are he'll do it again,' Brian openly put forward.

'Who has he killed?' Rhiannon demanded, although in her gut she already knew. Her mother and uncle stared blankly back at her, which she found completely infuriating. 'Goddamn it! I am so sick of you all treating me like a child!' As Tory reached out for her, Rhiannon backed up. 'My father was murdered, and you didn't see fit to tell me?' She shook her head in disbelief.

'I -' Tory attempted to explain.

'You were going to tell me.' Rhiannon had heard this one before. 'Well, perhaps next time you're going to tell me something, you might consider doing so before I hear it from somebody else.' Too infuriated to pursue the argument, she waved them all off and left the room.

Rhun found the animosity that Rhiannon felt towards their mother completely overwhelming. Thus, he prevented Tory from going after her and went in her stead.

As suspected, Rhun found his sister leaning over the earthen wall of the walkway outside his abode.

'Couldn't get in, huh?'

She shook her head, her eyes still glued on the large fires that were being lit down below on the cavern floor.

'It's only programmed to respond to my voice.' He leant against the wall beside her.

'I figured,' was all she said.

He didn't want to force her to talk, although he knew she wanted to. After a long silence, Rhun nudged her shoulder with his own. 'You look like you could use a drink.'

'I don't like alcohol,' she informed him, as if it were beneath her.

'Ah, but this is special.' He made the invitation sound more enticing. 'My grandfather's mead.'

'Myrddin?' She queried.

'No, the other grandfather, Caswallon.' He backed up to the door. 'Gwynedd was famous for such brews.

Open.' Rhun did the honours, dispensing with the door.

'After you.' He motioned her inside.

Rhun pulled up a couple of chairs, placing a flask and two mugs on the table. 'Please,' he bade her, 'sit.'

'You're going to defend her, aren't you?' Rhiannon slouched into the seat, throwing one leg over the arm of the chair. 'You think I'm being childish and unreasonable.'

'I certainly do not,' he emphasized to the contrary, pouring the mead as he sat down. 'You think I don't know what you're going through?' He had to chuckle, passing a mug to her. 'Still, you have not travelled through time as I have. I believe there might be certain things that you have not taken into account when judging our mother.'

'You think?' Rhiannon polished off the contents of her mug in a gulp. 'And what might they be?'

'Well, for starters, the reason she doesn't mourn the death of your father as you do, is because she cannot ...

she knows he lives on in his immortal self.' As Rhiannon started shaking her head to disagree, Rhun became more insistent. 'Yes, he does -'

'No, I was at the funeral.' Rhiannon poured herself more of the spicy brew. 'I saw his ashes. My father is definitely dead. Murdered in fact!' She drank the liquor down.

'Look.' He was becoming kind of exasperated; he had to make her see. 'I was twenty-one years old and about to assume the throne of Gwynedd when I found out mother was pregnant with you. When I discovered Maelgwn had not fathered you, I wanted to kill her, thinking she had been unfaithful to him ... which I realise now, she never would be. But I didn't understand, as you do not understand, that your father and my father were one and the same soulmind.'

'Well, where is this legend you speak of?' She thumped her mug down on the table and folded her arms defiantly. 'If my father were alive and well, he would be here helping us.'

'You found this place didn't you?' Rhun raised both brows to challenge her.

'Well ... yes. But that still doesn't answer my question?' She sat forward. 'Where is he?'

Rhun smiled; she spoke to the point, just like their mother. 'Physically, he's thousands of light years away.

But ethereally speaking, he's right here, listening to us now, most likely.'

'And how is that possible?' Rhiannon was trying to refrain from a smile that would appear condescending.

Rhun looked her in the eye, feeling her cynicism and almost envying her ignorance. 'Over the next few years I intend to teach you just how that is possible. But, in the meantime, I need you to try and have a little more patience with mother.'

Rhiannon rolled her eyes off to one side.

'I'm completely serious. There are enough forces working against her without you adding to her problems.'

'Her problems,' Rhiannon protested. 'What about my problems?'

'You don't even know what a problem is ... yet. I've been to the future. I know what awaits us there.' Rhun finished his drink and placed his mug aside.

'But I thought you and Taliesin had changed all that?'

'The events of this planet, perhaps? But some ...

occurrences,' Rhun chose his words carefully, 'are time asymmetrical, and therefore unavoidable.'

He was starting to scare her now. Rhiannon's nightmare of spending the rest of her days on a fiery ball of vast nothingness was seeming closer to the truth than previously imagined. 'If that's the case, what do you expect mother is going to do about it? In fact, why bother with any of this?'

'You really don't have the slightest clue who our mother really is, do you?' Rhun couldn't imagine how anyone in this day and age could be so uninformed.

'Haven't you read any of the ancient texts, or the prophets ... or Revelation, at least!'

'That's all a crock of religious propaganda.' She crossed her feet on the table, getting comfortable.

'Well, if you haven't read any of it, how do you know?' He sat forward to advise her to keep an open mind before taking up the flask and pouring more mead for them both. 'I'm afraid if you were familiar with the original Sumerian or Akkadian texts, you might be a little better informed as to who you are, where you came from, and why it is you are here. The prophecies of the ages are telling the story of our lives. For example,' he selected a couple of books from the shelf beside him, and finding his page, read: 'St John the Divine, Revelation ...

And upon her forehead was written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth ...

And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate ...

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled ...

And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the Earth. '

Rhiannon's jaw was dropping. 'Surely you don't think -'

'Wait, I'm not finished. Nostradamus.' He opened another book at a marked page.

She who was dismissed will return to reign, Her enemies found in conspirators, More than ever will her time be triumphant, vast numbers to the death most certainly.

'Mother may be a lot of things, but she is not a murderer.' Rhiannon objected to his inference.

'Where does it say she would kill anyone? It says to the death. All immortals have to die before they can achieve life everlasting.' Rhun straightened out Rhiannon's misconception. 'She is the one who will rally the chosen together, and keep the beast in check.'

'And you think the beast is Doc Alexander,'

Rhiannon assumed.

'There are several beasts mentioned in the ancient texts, and interestingly enough the numbers six, six, six translate in Hebrew kabbalist tradition to mean, One who has a divine message. Yet, more often than not, in prophecy the term usually relates to the selfish desires of a material world. Who rules that world is destined to be the beast's advocate.

'The third Antichrist, you mean.' Rhiannon was taking her brother more seriously now.

Rhun nodded. 'Nostrodamus foresaw him too.' He passed the book in his hands to his sister so that she might read the prophecy for herself.

The Antichrist quickly annihilates three, Twenty-seven years of blood will last his war.

The heretics dead, captive or exiled.

Bloody corpses, water red, covering the Earth.

Rhiannon gazed into space; she didn't want to believe him, nor would she, without doing some serious investigation of her own. 'Well personally, bro, I think you're just paranoid. But, as a special favour to you, I promise to go easy on mum.'

'Much appreciated.' He smiled; she would see the truth before long, once she knew the all of it.