'I find that hard to believe. Rhiannon has yet to explain how she got me back to this vessel within minutes, from London!' Ray stood, spurred on by other concerns. 'And how did you two alter your appearance just like that ... and don't tell me it was make up.'

Tory opened her mouth to comment, but Ray hadn't finished.

'And it seems that I see you as twenty years younger than everybody else does. Why is that? Who are you? '

Tory had hoped that perhaps they could leave for the Old Land at once, but she could not push mortal men in the same fashion she pushed herself. 'Look, you're obviously tired, maybe -'

'Don't give me that.' He was bordering on angry now. 'Are you human at least. Can I know that much?'

Tory stood, finding the tone of his question rather hurtful. 'No Ray, I'm really a little green man, and this is my spaceship.' Tory made for the door, before she said or did something she'd regret.

'I really didn't mean that.' He slammed the door closed, before she'd opened it far enough to escape. 'I'm sorry. Jesus, you'd think I'd be more grateful, after all you've done.'

'Forget it.' She waved it off. 'We'll talk about the details of the trip tomorrow.'

'Stay awhile.' He was having trouble getting her to look him in the eye.

'Ray, you'll never get better if you don't rest.' She tried to shift him away from the door.

'Perhaps comforting is more what I need.' He took hold of her hand, and caressed it between his. 'Perhaps, it's what you need too.'

'Ray, please.' She slowly withdrew from his touch.

'I'm really not up for a seduction right now.' He went to speak, but she hushed him with her fingers. 'Nor will I be in the foreseeable future.'

'Pardon my saying so,' he ventured, lowering her hand from his mouth, 'but it would be a crying shame if you were to just lock it up and throw away the key. But,'

he spoke up over her pending protest, 'it wouldn't matter if you did. I am very good at picking locks, especially those that are more complex.' Ray moved away from the door so she could open it. 'I don't mind waiting.'

Tory shook her head, knowing better. 'No mortal man is that patient. You shall fall in love with another, way before I ever come around.'

As she stepped out into the corridor, Ray folded his arms and leant on one side of the doorway. 'I don't think so.'

She cocked an eye. 'I'll bet you a hundred dollars that I'm right.'

Ray found her wager a rather amusing challenge.

'You're on.'

'Sucker.' Tory walked away a couple of paces, before she turned to suggest. 'And ah, if you want to know more about my history, might I suggest you speak with Noah ... he seems to know more about me than I do.'

She waved him goodnight.'

I'll certainly do that, Ray decided, fully intent on winning their bet.

The next morning over breakfast Tory was studying her daughter very closely.

It had dawned on Tory that Rhiannon was very similar to someone she had known in the Dark Ages. It was Rhiannon's colouring that had prevented Tory from noticing the resemblance before.

Even though Rhiannon had her head in a magazine, reading the latest on the Green movement, her mother's quiet but persistent attention bothered her.

' What is it? '

As they were alone in the rec-room Tory figured it was okay to voice her mind. 'You like him don't you?'

'Who?'

'Ray.'

Rhiannon raised her dark eyes to view her mother.

'Why would you think that?'

Tory noted the spite in her daughter's voice.

'Because I feel an attraction to him, and I don't think it's because I'm attracted to him, if you get my drift.'

'Well, maybe you are ... and I'm just picking it up off you.' She went back to her reading matter.

'Would you do something for me?' Tory pushed her luck with Rhiannon's precarious mood.

'What?' She turned the page of her magazine, nearly ripping it out in the process.

'Change your eyes to the colour of acorn blue, and your hair to, say ... the colour mine once was.'

'Still is, you mean?' Rhiannon corrected her mother's assessment. 'I see you as you truly are.'

Tory was shocked right off her train of thought.

She'd never actually discussed the immortality issue with Rhiannon. 'Do you know why I appear as I do?'

'Yes, thank you ... Noah told me.' Rhiannon continued to stare at the magazine, though both of them knew she was no longer reading it.

'Oh, I see. It wasn't Ray you were mad at last night.

It was me.' Tory had wondered why Rhiannon left in such a hurry.

'Oh, you're quick,' her daughter jeered.

'Well, give me a break here. I've had a few things on my mind.'

'Is that right.' Rhiannon finally looked at Tory. 'And what exactly did you have in mind visiting Ray at three o'clock in the morning? Jesus Christ, Dad's body is not even cold! But then again, I suppose you've learnt to recover from these things quickly.'

'Rhiannon!' Tory came within inches of striking her, which she had never done in anger. Luckily the tears in her daughter's eyes prevented what would have been a regretful act.

'Why didn't you tell me!' Rhiannon begged to know, her resentment waning.

'I meant to, I swear it.' Tory placed an arm about her child, who fell sobbing into the embrace. Tory remembered when Taliesin had informed her of her immortal state, and how overawing and difficult to fathom it had been. 'It's not so bad, truly. There's quite a few of us now.'

'But what if the world were to end tomorrow? We'll just be left on a smouldering boulder of vast nothingness!'

Tory stroked her daughter's long, thick hair, as straight and dark as her father's had been, all the while smiling at the notion. 'But that's why we're here. To prevent that.'

Rhiannon felt more at peace after her explosion. 'I never even suspected immortality was the reason we were a little more psychic than most.'

They both had a bit of a giggle at this.

'And who's this Maelgwn guy I hear about?'

Rhiannon teased her mother in a jovial fashion.

'Warrior, King, leader, dragon slayer, legend ... he sounds like a bit of a babe.'

'Maelgwn is the perfect incarnation of your father.

And he never killed the dragon ...' Tory took a graceful pause to build the expectation, 'he tamed it.'

They both released a long, soft sigh of adoration.

'You speak as if he's still alive?'

Tory nodded surely. 'He's out there in the cosmos somewhere, keeping an eye on things down here.' Tory was reeling through a string of wonderful memories, and thought she'd best be out with the whole truth. 'You have a brother you know.'

'Yes.' Rhiannon smiled. 'Rhun. I remember the fairytales you used to tell me when I was young. Yet, I realise now, they weren't fairytales at all, but rather my ancestry. My brother was a British King, my mother - a Goddess, my grandfather - a Merlin, and my great-grandfather ... an Otherworldly being! I really was born in the sixth century then?' As her mother nodded to confirm this, Rhiannon grasped hold of her head. 'Hell's bells, that makes me fourteen hundred years old.'

'Time is an illusion. Look at me, I'm a seventy year old, pretending to be fifty, when I'm really perpetually thirty.'

They both burst into laughter again, whereby Tory's blissful gaze wandered to the door. 'Ray!' The women nearly jumped out of their skin. 'How long have you been here?'

'Too long.' He ambled in to join them. 'I was coming to tell you that the reporter you hired is nuts!

He was trying to tell me you're some immortal sixth century Goddess, who's been jumping around the timespace continuum for God knows how long!' He looked from Tory to Rhiannon, who were both staring back at him with the most pathetic look on their faces.

'Please, ladies, could we have a reality check here?' He clicked his fingers a few times.

Rhiannon picked up a sharp knife off the table and passed it to her mother. 'I guess Ray wants proof.'

'This is a nightmare, right?' Ray got a little edgy when Tory took the knife in hand. 'What are you going to do with that?'

When Ray had witnessed Tory do the deed, he slumped in a seat and went silent for a time. 'This friend of yours we're going to see,' he spoke finally, 'where is he, exactly.'

'When is more the question.' Tory smiled and frowned at once. 'His name is Shar Turan. He was the head of the technologists at the Dur-na-ga temple in Chailidocean. Which is, of course, the ruined city we have been surveying for the past month.' To her surprise Ray did not freak out about the announcement, but rather, he smiled.

'So that's how you found it!' Ray came crashing back to earth. 'How do you plan to get us there? I mean, how many thousands of years ago are we talking here?

Ten?'

'Twelve.' Tory thought it best to keep their mode of transport a secret till the last minute. 'You just leave the flight details to me ... and I'll have us there, safe and sound, by nightfall.'

'I'll believe it when I see it.'

Tory gave a chuckle, recalling her first glimpse of the city of the golden gates. 'No, you won't.'

7.

MADE IN HEAVEN.

The sun rose over the three-ringed islands and canals that comprised the city of Chailidocean.

The islands were connected by arched, sandstone bridges and at each end of these stood a set of large, golden gates. Breathtaking temples made from all manner of marble lined the gleaming white sandstone streets. Lush, colourful gardens featuring stately statues and glistening crystal fountains lay between nearly every dwelling. Building, road, path and garden alike followed the same flowing circular design.

The sight was like a dream, or something from another planet, or even the distant future, yet recalling the world they'd left behind. Ray couldn't imagine the Earth ever being this pure and fair again.

'You were right, I see it and I still don't believe it.'

Ray stood gazing out of the large, round window of the spacious circular room where Tory had brought them to rest.

Under Tory's navigation, Ray had travelled through the brilliant bluewhite light of the ethers.

This etheric field had obscured the world around him until, before he'd even realised it, he was somewhere else. This journey had taken them from the Goddess, in the north Atlantic, to a cave of treasures - Tory would not tell him where it was. Here he'd been bundled into a vehicle that appeared rather like a large, space-age jet-ski, which had brought them forth to this place.

'Are you feeling okay? You're the first mortal to ever ride in the chariot,' Tory told him, as the bells of the great citadel tolled to call all to the first solar rite of the day.

As Ray was engrossed in watching the people of Chailidocean flood into the streets below with their prayer mats, he was not that fazed by his achievement.

'I feel fine, just fine.' His eyes remained transfixed on the activity below.

'Turan will be pleased.'

Tory could hardly wait to see the Shar for he, too, was an incarnation of Maelgwn, just as Miles had been.

Unfortunately, Turan was so accomplished in the ways of the etheric world that he floated around in a spiritual form most of the time, making any intimate relations with him impossible. But it would be grand just to pass some time in his company; there was still much she could learn from him.

'Are you trying to tell me,' Tory's words had finally registered with Ray, 'that this Shar friend of yours, built that?' He pointed to the chariot.

'Yes indeed.' Tory grinned at how brilliant Turan was. 'This is his work station.' She motioned to the room around them that was a little more furnished since she'd last seen it.

'Are you kidding me?' Ray was gasping now, and experiencing surges of panic and self-doubt. 'I'll never be able to fathom technology like that! Compared to these people, I'm going to seem like an intellectual retard.'

'No, you won't.' She made light of his fears with a laugh. 'Turan is a very good teacher. He even taught me a thing or two about quantum mechanics.'

'Oh, Tory!' Ray was stressing out and shaking his head, when the door to the room suddenly vanished and two men entered.