~o0o~

It took a couple of days mulling the idea around in his head, and the more Kelim thought about it, the stronger he felt about giving it a shot. What did he have to lose? He already didn't have the girl of his dreams; it couldn't get much worse than that, really.

"Do you know where this Necromancer wizard guy is?" he asked Xandri Witsnot the Goblin on their way home from the bakery where he worked.

"He lives at the frozen swamp deep in the enchanted forest apparently. Are you really going to go?"

"Yeah, I mean, why not? See if it's just a hoax."

~o0o~

At dusk Kelim the Toadstool Pixie walked to the frozen swamp deep in the enchanted forest that surrounded the Faerie village and followed the dirt road that lead through the enchanted forest to the frozen swamp. The tall trees swayed in the wind, creaking ominously, making him feel jumpy.

"Don't be silly," he scolded himself. "It's probably all just a stupid rumour anyway."

~o0o~

Quaraun lay on his back in the cool dying autumn grass and stared up at the tall, towering great white pine trees. The morose, dizzying sensation of Vertigo sank in his stomach as his gaze chased the timbers up to their 130 feet of height. Nuthatch and Brownling birds ran down the thick bark, head downwards and peeking under the cracks, searching for ants. Quaraun wondered how they did not get dizzy or fall off from the blood spilling to their brain.

Quaraun grew nauseated just thinking about it. Quaraun closed his eyes. This did not make old necromancer feel any better, so he sat up and looked out across the quagmire instead.

Quaraun listened to the Saco River, gently lapping the nearby shore. He wasn't laying near the large swift-flowing river, but rather by a small swampy patch to the side of it.

The water of the river was a delicious copper from tannins, looking crisp and clean and drinkable.

The water here in the side swamp was black and sickly looking, not the clear, healthy, clean water anyone would want to drink. It stank too. In some places on the edge where it sat still, there was a brown rusty gelatinous foam coating the leaves and twigs. That icky looking mess seemed to be the sources of the smell.

Quaraun walked the edge many times this week. The Swamp Hag's house was around here somewhere. Up ahead, the woodland got deeper and darker, the trees closer together. The deeper the elderly mage went into the ancient forest, the cleaner the swamp looked. Here it was not so clean, and that meant only one thing: Humans lived nearby. The only Human out here was the Swamp Hag herself.

A sudden Earth shattering kaboom, and rumbling earthquake that vanished as swiftly as it had started, interrupted Quaraun's thoughts. Followed by someone screaming. Both happened so instantaneously that Quaraun was uncertain if he had imagined it. The old Elf sat up, his foot long ears, now erect, no longer hidden down his back under his hair.

"Someone's hurt," Quaraun said quietly to himself. "We should go see if we can help them. Where's my cane?"

After a few moments of struggling with his cane, Quaraun finally made it back to his feet. He sniffed the air, listened to the wind, to determine the direction the scream came from. Before long, his ears picked up the sound of someone moving.

"That way," the old Elf said to himself, pointing his cane in the grove's direction.

Back by the wider part of the Saco River, near the small sandy beach, Quaraun saw a man, with bright yellow eyes and golden frizzy, woolly hair, dressed in an extra-long, and extremely full skirted long green velvet kashimiri coat, over orange and yellow chiffon gota embroidery lelenga robes, decorated with pink jellyfish embroidery. He lay on the ground, his hands over his face, wailing in pain.

"Are you alright?" Quaraun asked as he paused over the man peering down at him.

"Arrgh!" The fellow yelped, then sat up quickly, only to scream in pain again, as he moved.

"I'm sorry," Quaraun said. "I did not mean to startle you."

The newcomer ignored Quaraun momentarily and scrutinized the area, peering around in every direction, seeking a place to escape to.

"I have never seen eyes like yours before," Quaraun said, as he stared at the man's gold flecked yellow eyes. "What are you?"

The fleece haired man glanced back up at Quaraun.

"Where am I?" The stranger inquired, ignoring Quaraun's question.

"You don't know?"

"No. I seem to have gotten myself lost."

"That's the Saco River," Quaraun pointed his cane towards the estuary. "I believe this beach has a name, one the humans gave it, but I do not know what it is."

"You are not Human," the stranger said as he stared at the beach, then glanced around again.

"Nor are you, judging from the texture of your hair and the colour of your eyes," Quaraun answered.

"This is Rotary Park."

"Is it?" Quaraun looked around. "It doesn't look like a park."

"No. It won't be until 1964."

"Are you from the future?"

The man ignored Quaraun's question and stared up at the sky as though he expected something to fall on him.

"I also seem to have misplaced my car."

"Should I help you look for it?"

"Do you know what a car is?"

"No. Should I?"

"No. No reason why you . . . Good God! I hope it didn't land in the river."

The woolly haired man crawled closer to the river, and peered into the water, trying to see to the bottom. Quaraun followed him and looked into the water as well, not knowing what he was looking for.

Gingerly, Quaraun waded out into the water. Large schools of several hundred black-nosed dace and creek chubs darted away from the shore, swimming into the deep waters. Quaraun stood waist deep in the water, then turned back to face the man on the shore.

"Can it swim?" Quaraun asked.

"A car? Of course not. It'll sink to the bottom, fast as a rock."

"Oh." Quaraun stared out at the deep middle region of the river. "I can't swim, either."

"Then why are you out in the water?"

"I like being in the water. I just can't swim in it. Elves drown."

"Shouldn't fish know how to swim?"

"I used to swim. Centuries ago. But now I'm stuck in this Elf and he drowns. I almost drowned. My father tried to drown me. He held my head under the fountain."

"I'm sorry."

"He hated BoomFuzzy."

"Don't most people?"

Quaraun waded back out of the water.

"Did you know BoomFuzzy?" Quaraun asked.

"King Gwallmaiic, Elf Eater of Pepper Valley. . ."

"We're in Pepper Valley."

"We're in Biddeford."

"No. This is Pepper Valley."

"Yes. It's Pepperell Mill Valley. The mill should be right down there. Damn. I can see the trestle. Have trains been invented already? You call Biddeford, Pepper Valley, because. . . Never mind that. I can see the railroad station from here. What year is it?"

"Year? 1849. Three years after The Great Gale of 1846."

"Oh." The stranger searched Quaraun's face. "You don't know me, do you?"

"No. Should I?"

"In 1849? Yes. Ongadada happened four hundred years ago."

"What's Ongadada?"

"You don't know?"

Quaraun shook his head.

"It's 1849 and Ongadada didn't happen? And you never met me before?"

"No."

"Something's changed. I don't know if that's good or bad. I think it's bad."

"Why is it bad?"

"If Ongadada doesn't happen. . . there's a doctor. He's born because of Ongadada. If Ongadada doesn't happen his parents. . . they don't meet, so he's not born. Which, I used to think was a good thing."

"But now you don't?"

"He was a good doctor. Saved a lot of people. Helped a lot of people. But than in 1983, a plague hit. The Crystal Plague is what most people called it. He . . . he decided who lived and who died. Seven million people survived. Every one else on the planet died."

"So he saved seven million people?"

"Yes."

"And that was bad?"

"No. How he did it was bad."

"The Crystal Plague spread across three planets. One planet had a region, where the plague hadn't hit. He went there to find out why. No one knows what he discovered. He wouldn't tell anyone. But he said, he knew how to save people. And selected people based on race, what they looked like. When people learned where he took the refugees, millions began to flock to BatBay. Mothers arrived carrying toddlers. He built a machine, to scan people's brains. Some people he declared, were immune to The Crystal Plague, and the scanner showed him that. He took babies from their mother's arms and threw them into the ravenous crowds, than dragged the mothers into the safe haven, while they screamed and tried to go back for their children. He told the mothers they were immune, their children were not. Others, he took the children into the refuge, and kick the mothers off the cliffs of BatBay Mountain."

"So he was evil."

"No. We thought he was. When it happened. There was a group, arrived from the future. Convinced if we went back to the past and Ongadada didn't happen, than both the doctor would never be born and The Crystal Plague would never happen. So they invented time travel and portal magic, and created the portals. Time Travel was created for one purpose, to kill the baby. Or rather, to kill his father's wife, before his older brothers could even be born. That was my job."

"To kill a baby? Or it's mother?"

"Both. Either."

"Did you?"

"No. I couldn't. I went there, just like I was ordered to do. I was convinced they were right. So I was also convinced it would be no difficult task."

"But you're not evil. You can't kill, can you? I can sense that in you. You've never taken a life."

"No. I've never taken a life. But it was worse."

"How?"

"I got personally involved. I was born into the time period of The Crystal Plague. I was born in 1959, so I was still a young man in 1983 when the bulk of the plague hit. When the scientists from the future, asked me to go to the past and stop Ongadada, I was living in the plague while it was happening and I'd seen the doctor throw children out upper windows of the hospital. We all thought he went mad. I believed I was doing the right thing, going back in time. Stopping Ongadada."

"And you don't believe it any more?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Things the scientists have done since then. When I went back in time. I was supposed to find this family, and kill the pregnant wife. I found the family, sort of. They miscalculated the time. Sent me to the wrong year. So I meet the doctor's father, before he had married. I figured, I could make friends with him. Maybe I wouldn't have to kill the girl or the baby. Maybe, I could just prevent him from ever meeting her."

"And how did that go?"

"We fell in love. Me and him. I couldn't go back to my own time, didn't want to. I wanted to stay with him. Than he met the girl. He loved her so much. Killing her would hurt him. He'd been thorough so much hell in his life, and with her he was happy. I couldn't. . ."

"You couldn't kill her."

"No. I couldn't hurt him. So I couldn't kill her. And that's the irony. Turns out, if I'd never interfere, me never would have met her and Ongadada never would have happened. Strange twist of fate. I can't explain it, but Ongadada happened BECAUSE I went back to the past. In the original time line, Ongadada, didn't happen. Creating time travel is what caused Ongadada, and yet, without Ongadada, time travel can't be invented. Ongadada is a fixed point in time, so long as time travel exists. Because time travel can't exist otherwise. But if no one goes back in time, Ongadada never happens. It's an impossible time loop folded back on itself. One can't exist without the other."

"But you said this time it didn't happen."

"Yes. I know. They punished me you know."

"Who?"

"The Diontite Scientists."

"The ones who created time travel?"

"Yes. Because of my inability to not fall in love, they went back in time, to 1959, took my pregnant mother and threw her into Hell. I was born in Hell."

"Hell, meaning what exactly?"

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"It's an alternate dimension of Earth, that exists alongside Earth. But the whole planet is melting. On fire. Forests and plains burn endlessly. The Moon has been destroyed. So the Earth is being pulled closer to the sun. Mountains are melting. The oceans evaporating. Almost dry. What used to be the Pacific Ocean, is a vast canyon, full of dead sea creatures. Strange, sea creatures, from deep, deep below, from depths deeper than Man has ever explored, rose to the surface. Strange deep sea JellyFish, climb out of the briny pools that are all that are left of the ocean, and attack any life-form they find. Suck out their brains. Steal their bodies."

"Thullids?"

"Thullids. They aren't from another planet. They originated from Earth."

"Are you certain?"

"Oh, yes. Positive."

"I remember the planet dying. But there was so much confusion. ZooLock grabbed me and put me on a ship. I thought we went to another planet. Not another time."

"It was another time."

"How do you know?"

"I was there."

"At the end of the world?"

"At the end of the world. And your beginning. ZooLock loved you."

"He did."

"He'd have done anything for you."

"I know. Poor ZooLock. I've not seen him in years. I don't know what happened to him."

"He lost you in the desert."

"Yes. I remember. My little black pony. I've not seen ZooLock since the unicorn arrived. And than I meet BoomFuzzy. I loved BoomFuzzy. I miss him. He died."

"I know. He loved you too. And The Diontite Scientists, they will do anything, to keep you and him separated."

"Why?"

"You are the last of your kind."

"I'm the Last Moon Elf."

"No. You're the last female Immortal JellyFish and you are carrying a clutch of eggs. Seven million eggs, that need seven million hosts."

"Seven million. Is that not the number of people the doctor saved?"

"It is. And that's why he saved them. Why he chose the ones he chose. He picked to be hosts for your babies."

"My babies will never be born. I am not only the last female, I am simply the last of the Thullid Jellies. There is no male to fertilize my eggs. So they will never hatch."

"They will."

"How would you know?"

"It was in the year 2525, that the Thullids rose out of the dying sea to escape the dying planet. They come from the centre of the Earth. From the deepest, darkest reaches of the canyons beneath the ocean. They surface, to dry land, in the years before the planet dies. And they discover the time machines and go back in time, to try to save themselves. Only in the past, the ocean was, different. More salty. Less salty. I don't know. Maybe the surface water is different from the deep water, and they can't swim through it to get to the deep water. Whatever the reason, they become trapped on land and can't return to the depths of the ocean."

"And hat has to do with my unfertilized clutch of eggs, what, exactly?"

"You become the last female Jelly in 2525. But it is right now, what year?"

"1849."

"Meaning the apocalypse has not yet happened. And there are still male Jellies, right now under the sea, seeking their Medusa."

"But I'm up here on dry land. Living in the body of a male Elf."

"Well, perhaps than, one of the males will get smart enough to figure out how to rise to the surface and live in something compatible with your male Elf?"

"That is not something I hold out hope for."

"Well, the doctor was successful in saving seven million people, remember? So successful, that people me to the past to kill his mother before he could be born."

"But you didn't kill her."

"No. I fell in love with instead. And now I'll do anything to protect my beloved."

"Love will destroy you. I know. Look at what happened to me and BoomFuzzy."

"Do not give up hope on BoomFuzzy. He'll move Heaven and Hell for you."

"His soul was cast into Hell."

"And he crowned himself Hell's ruler and broke open the gates of Hell to find a way back to you."

Quaraun did not respond and both men remained silent for a long time, watching the water, flowing down the river.

"Are your pupils supposed to look like that?" Quaraun asked, still focused on the stranger's yellow eyes.

"Like what?"

"Your pupils aren't round."

"I know."

"You have eyes like a llama."

"Sheep."

"Sheep?"

"I have the eyes of a sheep."

"Not like a llama?"

"No! Certainly not."

"Does it make a difference?"

"It certainly does."

"Why? Aren't sheep and llama both similar?"

"No! We are nothing alike!"

"We?"

"I'm not a llama."

"I didn't suggest you were. Though you do smell like one."

"I . . . what?"

"You smell like a bale of hay," Quaraun said.

"You just say the first thing that pops into your head, don't you?"

"I do. Yes. Should I not do that?"

"It's rude."

"Saying you smell like hay is rude?"

"Yes."

"But you do smell like hay."

"I . . ." the stranger started to retort something angrily, but stopped and calmed his tone. "I'm a shepherd. I live on a sheep farm."

"One can live on a sheep farm without smelling like the musty, musky sheep. You smell like you sleep in the barn with the sheep."

"As a matter of fact, I do."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"You sleep in the barn with the sheep?"

"Yes."

Quaraun fell silent for a moment, then asked: "Are you alright? You screamed like you were in pain."

"Yes. I. . . uhm," he hesitated and stared up at the sky. Then looked back at Quaraun. "I fell."

"In a field of clover? There's nothing to trip over."

"Yes. Well, there's grass."

"You tripped on the grass?"

"I didn't say I tripped. I said I fell."

"Is there a difference?"

"Around me there is."

"Do you need help up?"

"No. I think I should sit here and rest for a while."

"Are you okay?"

"It looks like I've sprained my ankle. I shouldn't walk for a while."

"If you can't walk, then you are not okay."

"I will be fine."

"We should put some camphor on it. I have some."

Before the stranger could object, Quaraun knelt beside him and set about to tending to his ankle, but did not get far.

"Oh my! You have no feet!" Quaraun exclaimed, when he noticed the golden cloven hooves.

"No. I do not have feet. I'm a cloven footed spawn of Hell."

"You're a goat!"

"Sheep."

"Sheep?"

"I'm a sheep. Cotswold."

"Are you a Demon?"

"Not exactly."

"So you're a Satyr?"

"Ursiug."

"What?"

"Ursiug. I have long soft, fluffy, luxuriantly, lush Cotswold sheep's fleece growing from my legs, not short, dry, rough, scratchy, bristly goat's hair."

"Your golden fleece is beautiful, it matches your lovely golden hair. If you're a sheep, then you're a ram?"

"I suppose."

"Have you got horns on your head?"

"Somewhere, under my hair. I keep them filed down. Otherwise I wouldn't blend in with Human crowds. And Humans do behave rather badly to discovering someone with horns, tail, and cloven hoofs."

"You've a lot a hair."

"Not as much as you."

"No. No one has hair like mine. Yours is almost dreadlocs."

"Yes. Wool is as difficult to brush your tentacles are. My locks knot up after only a few hours of not being brushed."

"I like dreadlocs," Quaraun stated for no reason whatsoever.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Oh yes. I know you quite well."

"And your strange golden eyes are like a pleco, not a llama."

"A pleco? I'm a sheep, not a catfish or a llama."

"Pity. I like sea creatures."

"Because you are one?"

"Am I?"

"You're a female Medusa JellyFish masquerading to be a male Elf."

"How does the little Satyr know that?"

"Ursiug."

"That word again."

"I'm an Ursiug, not a Satyr. Satyrs are goats. Ursiugs are sheep. I'm not a Satyr, I'm an Ursiug. I'm not a goat. I'm a sheep."

"Ah! Well, in any case, you've lovely golden hooves. And I . . . uhm . . . I . . . don't . . . know where your ankles are."

"I've twisted my ankles before. Quite often actually. Bad side effect of portals that open on a hill in the future that happens to be a valley in the past."

"You fell out of portal?"

"Yes."

"I can heal your leg. It's only. . ."

"No!" He quickly grabbed Quaraun's arm and shoved the Elf back away from him. "I know you can. But don't."

"Why?"

"I know what it does to you."

"It is easy to heal you."

"I don't want you to. I've seen you heal things before. It weakens you. Badly."

"When have you seen me heal anyone?"

"In the future. A different future. The world was dying. Forests were dead. Grass dead. You went frantic healing everything. Restoring life to every tree and blade of grass you saw. I didn't realize what you were doing at first. I didn't know how you did it. Until you collapsed. You exchange your own health and draw the sickness and death of the things you heal. And you're not strong enough for it. To heal me, you'd take my injury, and you're frail enough as it is."

"I am an Elf. It is my nature to heal things."

"I know."

"I hate to see anything suffer."

"I'll be fine. Get on with whatever you were doing. Don't let me get in your way."

"I was looking for the Swamp Hag."

"Ghirardelli?"

"Yes. I've never found her not in any life time, and yet, 3 years ago, I meet her. Very strange. That had never happened before. She stole a sword from a shepherd and he wanted it back and chased her through the woods and she hid in my tent. Thing was, the man chasing her never arrived. I suspected no one was ever chasing her at all."

"I know where she lives."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"No one ever does."

"With good reason. She's well hidden. The hut is built out of sod and covered with moss. It's almost impossible to see. Follow the river, East toward the ocean. There's a swamp, followed by a ravine, climb down into the ravine, follow that, you'll come to another swamp. She's there."

"You're the one who was chasing her, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I have reasons."

"Who are you?"

"Gremlin."

"Gremlin? Is that a name?"

"More of a title. A nickname. The car is a Gremlin. It should have landed by now. I hope I didn't lose it. Gremlins are damned difficult to get nowadays. My name is Gremoorsh Loire. You knew a friend of my fathers."

"And your father is?"

"I believe your friend referred to him as The Ghoul."

"The Ghoul? Your father was The Ghoul?"

"Yes. That's why you used to call me GhoulSpawn."

"Did I?"

"You did. When I was younger. A lot younger."

"Gibedon's second in command. I never met The Ghoul. Loyal servant of King Gwallmaiic, from what I knew."

"BoomFuzzy."

"You know King Gwallmaiic as BoomFuzzy?"

"No. I met him after he died. After you resurrected him."

"I've not done that."

"I know. Something went wrong. The Diontites, they changed history. Trapped you. Trapped him. Put up barriers to keep you apart. I'm undoing their changes. Reverting the world back to it's original history, before arrogant aliens decided to interfere. You WERE supposed to kill Ghirardelli and Finderu, and you did, originally. The first lifetime you lived. And you DID bring BoomFuzzy back. But it caused. . . it caused. . . the Crystal Plague."

"The Crystal Plague?"

"Yes."

"What's that?"

"It's. . . there were side effects to true resurrection of the dead, and they went back in time to change things. But their changes caused the end of the planet. I'm fixing it. I'm putting things back to way they were supposed to be."

"You're rewriting history."

"THEY rewrote history. I'm erasing their changes and making things right."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

"Do you?"

"Yes and you forgot that."

"I've never seen you before."

"You've seen me many times."

"When? Where?"

"I've taken lots of forms around you. This one you are highly attracted to. You like this form. You finds it wicked attractive, so I keep it, more often than most. If you wanted a female, I would be a female. Had you wanted an Elf, I would been an Elf. I hate Dwarves, but had you wanted a Dwarf, I would been a Dwarf. I can be any gender of any race of any species you desire me to be. I've been testing out a lot of different ones on you for a lot of years now."

"You're a shape-shifter?"

"Something like that."

"BoomFuzzy was a shape-shifter."

"I know."

"I don't remember you, though."

"They made sure you forgot it. I must go, and you must kill Ghirardelli. She lives over there."

Quaraun stood looking in the direction Gremlin had pointed, than turned back to look down at the sheep-man who was still in too much pain to get up.

"I don't feel I should leave you here," Quaraun said. "It will rain soon. Look at the clouds. You've no place to get out of the weather and you can't walk to get anywhere."

"I'll be fine. I always am."

"You can't walk. From the look of you, you're in more pain then you're trying to let be known."

"Have you a suggestion?"

"I've a tent."

"And I've pink sugar cubes."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the statement is as useless as saying I have a shoe or I have a hate."

"Oh. Well, what I meant was... You can stay with me until your leg heals. I wouldn't mind the company. I can set up my tent in the glade over there, out of the flood zone."

"It takes about twelve weeks for a torn tendon to heal."

"Does it?"

"Yes. I've torn tendons in my ankles before."

"Is that what's wrong?"

"I think so. Longer if one of the bones is broken. Which it might be."

"Other than finding Ghirardelli, I don't have any place to be. And she's not going anywhere."

"You'd let me, a stranger, stay in your tent with you for twelve or more weeks?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. But I feel like I can trust you. I feel I've known you forever. And you're wearing the same yellow Thullid silk, embroidered in pink jellyfish, that ZooLock was wearing, last time I saw him, in the desert of the Di'Jinn, before my unicorn arrived. You remind me of ZooLock and BoomFuzzy the Unicorn. I miss them both."

~o0o~