Vanel took one of the torches that lit this passageway. He followed his instincts that told him to go into the southeast tunnel. There was a latch on the tunnel where he touched the wall. It opened to a…………

Author's Note- I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to get this stoyr or any story I have on line updated. I haven't been able to get onto the internet for quite a while. I am also working two jobs and just finished school for the last term. I will be starting anther term on the 18 of January. I promise that one thing I will be working on both of the stories I have going as well as get one more going in the Nancy Drew section. I will hopefully have another chapter up before christmas on this one. If I don't then I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Tramie- Thanks for editing and keeping up with this story so wonderfully. You're a wonderful editor.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. I just enjoy writing them.

Chapter 12

Vanel felt like he had stepped through time when the door swung open. There was a dirt road that lead to a silent stone town that looked as if it had been deserted, but had an air all around it. He turned in the direction he had come, only to find that there was no door, just the cave walls. His eyes shifted all around at how green the grass looked and how tall the trees stood. He had only seen trees like that outside of the caves, and yet somehow he knew that he was nowhere near the outside of the cave. The diameter of the tree boasted of age and use of climbers for many years.

Vanel climbed to the top of the tree so that he could study the layout of the town. The stone buildings had flat roofs with one line held up from the end to end with bronze covered poles or sticks. Some of the lines had clothes on them, which told him that people did live there. He also noticed the sweltering heat that made his brow sweat, even though he had only exerted himself climbing a tree.

Vanel felt the hard bark against his cheek. He groaned from the discomfort and sleep. The sight of the city surprised him. It was now alive with a bustle of women, children, and men going about their business. He would definitely have to say it made a difference on the mood of the little town. Even some of the roofs had children running around the sheets of clothing that were being beaten with sticks by some of the women that were watching the children. Some of the women that were out there were younger than he was.

He soon arrived in the town to see the vivid and bright colors of everything. The cloth seemed to hold them better, but he bet that they had been washed and worn several times. There was an ……………… he stopped and looked again to see if he had seen correctly the first time. Yep, he had been correct. He had seen an ostrich sitting in front of a yard. The next house down had some goats and sheep running around in the front. The only thing that kept them in the yard was the tethered rope around the necks. Otherwise, they had free roam.

As he looked on, he saw that there were a few people that wore naught but white. They seemed to be a little different in skin tone as well. They carried around heavy buckets of water to wherever they were supposed to go. The women would stand around talking until they had irritated their husbands enough that they were starting to nag the wives that it was time to go home. They were hungry, and dinner should be put on the table. At least that was what he was assuming, anyways. He had seen men do it in his world, but then he understood the language a lot better. It would take him a few minutes or months to get this one down.

Vanel didn't miss the air of excitement. You would have to be a ditz not to feel it. They were celebrating something or getting ready to. They were placing decorations on the buildings, as if they needed anymore. On some of the buildings, there was a complete panoramic painting of something, while on others, the repetition was opted for on the panels of the walls. That was true for the building that he was currently looking at. The painting, like all of the others, only held three colors; brown, black and red, but it was slightly different. When he looked to the north of him, there were magnificent snow caped mountains that were blue in the haze that had settled all around them. If he looked to the east of him, there was a port where the water was unbelievably as crystal blue as the mountain to the other side of the town. You could tell which boats belonged there and which ones didn't. The ones that belonged were the cleanest he had ever seen. The ones that didn't were definitely going to get clean. He assumed that there was a fresh mountain stream that people would be jealous over where he was from.

"Hey, watch where you are going!" A gruff voice commanded him.

"Sorry." He stopped. "Wait a minute. Did I just understand what you said?"

"You answered, didn't you?" The man retorted back and walked away grumbling about the young men of the day acting like there wasn't a thing in the world for him to worry about. They ought to get themselves some wives to think about.

Vanel chuckled at the old man. He hadn't heard anyone saying anything like that since he had been in Japan. He stopped at a vendor that had fresh legumes, lentils and chick peas on sale. What surprised him the most was that they were fresh. So they had a fair amount of bartering going around. He couldn't have figured out half of what they were saying. Pushing all of these things aside, he walked into a copper shop. He couldn't believe some of the things that were showing. While some of the things were exquisite and shone to the very brim, others were kind of gaudy and he didn't see how anyone would even want to consider buying them. He stopped when he saw the Egyptian goddess Isis. "What is she doing here?" He asked out loud, without thinking, in Japanese.

He heard someone bustle up behind him. "Can I help you?"

'This is just way too weird. I've been here for a few minutes, but I seem to understand everything that they say.' He turned to look at whoever had talked to him. He had on a white tunic looking thing that went to his knees, that held the covering of velvet just over it. It almost reminded him of Roman clothing, but not quite. They would have not permitted the man's hair to grow as it had.

"I was wondering if you could tell me what's going on today?"

"Been out on the road, huh? You're not dressed like everyone else around here. We're having the Isidis Naviguium."

"The what?" He knew that it sounded familiar, but he just couldn't place the name.

"It's a nautical festival and we pay our respects to Isis in the process for some sailing. We do it every year before we send off our ships." The man grinned, revealing the crooked sanded teeth that would come from putting sand in grain to grind it in order to make flat bread.

"Is there anywhere I can get cleaned up?" Vanel asked.

"There is an inn three houses down from here. The girl that runs the inn is quite a looker to. If I was only twenty years younger…" The man held a wistful look, that had all the wishes of youth.

"Thank you." Vanel went to where he was told to go.

He was greeted by a goat that was at the front of the yard untethered. He tried to pet on her, but the goat instead decided that his hand would taste good. He walked away then, only to feel teeth on the end of his butt. "Owwwwwww…" He turned and glared at the goat. "What are you, a guard goat?"

He pushed open a door to find another of the white clothed people he had seen in the streets. The woman behind the bar wore a long red dress. Her brown/auburn hair, while long and curly, was tied down as if it could get kind of unruly. She looked up, speaking in a soft foreign accent. Realizing he didn't understand, she switched to the Gaian he had been hearing in the caves. He did a double take. She was slightly tanned from the sun, had hazel eyes with just the touch of green and grey that could reveal the very windows of her soul. He didn't think that she would reveal much, though. She looked like she had been hurt a long time ago. He spoke in the language in which she had spoken to him in. She shook her head in acknowledgement.

She told him to go wash up and she would send up a change of clothes for him. He wondered where she was going to find clothes that fit him. Then he thought about the dress of the people here. He smiled and said thank you in the language that he had been hearing around there. She switched to that one with the ease of a woman with a lot of practice in that field.

However, when Vanel turned around he could see that the whole place, including the servants, was snickering. There was musical laughter behind him. It wasn't making fun of him, as the snickers were; it was just laughing. "Is something wrong?" He turned around and asked.

"I think that the goat tried to eat your pants." She laughed at the face he gave. It didn't make it any better that his face was now red. "Don't worry, she does that every once in a while. I think she is trying to tell us that we don't feed her enough."

Thirty minutes later he was met by another man that halted him from going any farther. "I hope you're not planning on going anywhere." The man walked into the room.

"Well I need to get something to eat. She promised me a complimentary meal."

"I know that. You won't get it until I talk to you."

"Well talk."

"Stay away from her. If you even think of coming near her you're in trouble."

Vanel stared at the man shocked. "You don't have anything to worry about if she is your wife."

"My wife? Wherever would you get that idea?"

"You automatically assume that I'm interested in her."

"No, she swears that the day will come that men will rue the day they decided they wanted to touch a woman."

"Man, that day has come and gone." Vanel laughed at the look on the other man's face.

"I'm not going to touch her. She's a friendly person that I don't think that I want to cross." As if his point needed to be made he made a grab for his sword when he heard fighting going on downstairs. "Sounds like someone had a little too much to drink."

Downstairs was a mess to behold. Two of the tables were on the floor with little or no thought to where they landed. The patrons were against the wall, staying out of the way. The ones that weren't were at the tables too drunk to know really what was going on, but laughing all the same. The workman had been cornered at the bar and a man was pushing himself up on her. She lifted her knee, quickly hitting him in the most sensitive area of a man.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The man that was already bending down from the shock of the contact tried to stand up straight, only to find a fist in his face by the woman's partner.

Vanel watched as she pushed away the man that he had been talking to upstairs. "I'm fine." She murmured in another language.

Vanel made a mental note to talk to her. He would have to catch her when everyone was sleeping. He didn't want them to understand what was going on. He helped them to clean up the place while the other patrons had kicked the man out and went back to eating. The servant went back to work serving the people.

Dressed in an embarrassing royal purple colored like toga, he went outside, knowing that there would be other people in that color or close to it. He didn't know how they stood it. In his world, they would say that it was a gay color. Here, evidently, men and women wore the color. The festival had apparently started because the streets were alive with celebration and dancing. He had been swept up in the motion as he stepped out. He assumed that the goat had been put away, because there were so many people around. He assumed wrong, since he felt that goat come up behind him again and bite his butt once more. "Stupid goat." He muttered under his breath. He made his way back to the inn, hoping that the goat hadn't eaten through the cloth.

She was singing a song in Gaian that wasn't familiar to him. He stayed at the door, listening to the words. The message in the song was clear. He now understood what he was supposed to do .The song was supposed to be a clue. He kept repeating the words over in his head. "The past and the present shall coincide to make the future what it should. There shall be trials and errors to the quests of each of these. In the wall of the cave shall be wonders unseen and dangers never imagined. The blue haze shall settle over the whole domain."

The blue haze? The only blue haze he had seen was around the mountains. He checked the back of his toga to find that it was fine. He went back to where the boats were being prayed over. The Egyptian symbols told the stories of Isis. They ranged from her being the loyal wife, to her being the healing mother. There were quite a few that he knew. He didn't know how many of them that these other people knew.

He heard a scream in the night. Vanel turned to look to see……….

-Hitomi-

"Queen Hitomi, it's time." One of the Advisors bowed. Analous, who had been walking with her, jumped down from his perch in the tree. "You know you aren't required to be here."

"Lord Van gave me strict instructions that if she is not in her room, then I am to accompany her."

Hitomi grinned. She didn't like this advisor much anyways, and the thought of him steaming inside was worth keeping her mouth shut. "Follow me." You could see him wanting to add something to that, but he wouldn't for fear of seeming disrespectful in front of the queen.

Analous followed the required three feet and no less. She had only been here for about a week, but from the time that he had spent with her he had grown to like her. She was funny, kind, smart, cool-tempered most of the time and just.

She talked to each of the servants that they had passed. He had never seen a queen do that, but then again he had never met anyone from the Mystic Moon before either. Maybe they were all like that. He knew that not everyone was like that here.

"You cannot go past this door." The advisor let Hitomi through, but blocked the door so that he couldn't get in.

"My job….."

"Analous, it's alright." Hitomi interrupted him. "I'll be okay." Her jade eyes met his. "Go enjoy yourself. Her small smile was the last thing he saw before the door was slammed on his face.

The commander of the soldiers that Van had sent out to check on the prince had returned, and seemed to be in a rather big hurry to get to the King's office. Analous took the shortcut that no one knew about, save him and a couple of other people.

"Lord Van," Analous bowed respectfully, "Lady Hitomi is with your advisors."

"I know. They seem to think that they need to test her once again. Almost like they think that she isn't fit to be queen."

"Well, I don't think that will be any problem. I think that she will be good for us." Analous sat down.

"Yes, and the advisors will get off my back about finding a wife." Van agreed, just before a soldier barged into the office.

"Your highness, we lost him….."

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