The Star Riders and the Mystery of the Fairy Circles

Peter Kerry

The Star Riders and the Mystery of the Fairy Circles

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Titel

Prolog

The children

The Field Day

Albert Bowlegs

Brother Albertus

The Meeting

The Students

The training begins

The Message

The Departure

A near end

Volpes Tingi

Bad news, good news

Hunting Practice

The Great Mountain

The Valley of the Pumpkins

The scree desert

The Canyon

The Island Mountains

The route to the mountains

Surprise Encounter

The place of many waters

Farewell to the Bushmen

The Valley of the Fairy Circles

The Great Battle

Surprise at the Museum

Under the firmament

Impressum neobooks

Prolog

I stand barefoot on desert sand, high dune mountains on either side. The sun burns mercilessly and brightly from the cloudless sky. In the distance ahead, a black cloud approaches with a rumble of thunder. A shudder runs through me. The black cloud wall has almost reached me. It goes over me, under me, behind me, to my sides. I put my hands over my ears, but the merciless noise forces me to my knees. Everything is unexpectedly quiet. I let go of my ears again. Everything is black around me. Suddenly, out of the darkness, a burning devil's grimace shoots at me with a deep roar. I scream in panic.

"Peter...Peter...what's the matter with you?" he hears a soft female voice asking. She pulls his covers aside. He lies huddled in terror, sees his mother's eyes, rushes up to cling to her.

"Oh mommy..." and he tells her what he just experienced.

"Oh Peter, you don't need to be afraid. That was just a bad nightmare. None of that has happened and never will. Go on sleeping. Your father and I are next door.” She gently runs her hand through his hair. He lies back on the bed. She kisses him goodnight and leaves his room.

The children

It was a hot summer day just before the school holidays in 1978. As they often did, the children played on the wide hill near their houses as soon as they finished their homework.

Peter, with his brown hair and deep blue eyes, was of normal height for his age, not strong, not slight. Always ready for a prank, he was usually nice to everyone. Only once had his mother spanked him when he and John wanted to make a small fire in a hollow on a slope and didn't notice that a small tree was growing above it. Well, after the fire there wasn't much left of the tree. They managed to get the fire under control and put it out before anything worse could happen.

John, red-haired with freckles and emerald green eyes, was half a head shorter than Peter. "Johann!" His mother called him when she was angry with him, and gave him loudly a piece of her mind. The two, who had known each other since kindergarten, soon stopped making fires. That was two years ago now.

Tom, actually Thomas, but like John he didn't want to be called by his full name either, had just moved to Offenbach am Main with his parents a year ago. Until then, his family had lived in Botswana for six years, where his father had worked as an engineer for a construction company. With his blond hair and light blue eyes, Tom wasn't much taller than Peter, but he was fit and somehow always tanned. The others believed that it had taken root in his skin from his time in Africa. The three boys should celebrate their tenth birthday this summer.

When Tom started in the same class as Peter and John, they hit it off and he became the third in their friendship. On the one hand, they shared their fable for the music of the Beatles, one more reason why John didn't want to be called Johann, but like one of his great role models. On the other hand, they never tired of playing knights. The other children on the hill usually had enough of it after an hour at most, but the three of them would have missed dinner if their mothers hadn't kept shouting loudly at them to remind them.

Today was different.

Peter had taken over the defense of the castle. Actually, that was just a tiny knoll on the hill where they had posted a homemade flag that featured a gold star on a deep blue background. John and Tom led the attack on the castle to capture the star flag. Peter took over the defense.

"Come out, Sir Peter," called Tom, "you don't stand a chance against our superior troops anyway."

"Never will I surrender to you cowardly wretches," answered Peter.

"So it should be your last day on earth," John called and everyone brandished their self-made wooden swords and ran towards each other, yelling. As always, there was a great tumult as they sprang about, uttering wild curses and clashing wooden swords. Apart from a few bruises, nothing worse had ever happened.

John stopped and called out, "Peter, Tom, look at the clouds gathering."

"It's going to be very dark," said Tom.

"Scary," Peter added, "seems quite a storm is coming."

As soon as he said it, it poured cats and dogs, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled violently. There was no longer any sun to be seen and the strong wind had completely drenched them with rain in seconds.

"We'd better get a roof over our heads as soon as possible," exclaimed Peter.

"Come over to me quickly, I live closest," Tom replied.

They were already running as fast as they could in this storm to Tom's childhood home just below the big hill.

Tom's mother was already waiting at the door. "Oh, how do you look," she blurted out, "just take off your wet clothes, I'll get you towels."

The three of them dropped all their clothes while they were still in the hall, which now was swimming with water. Tom's mother came with the towels and said, still excited, "Come, come, come into the living room and dry off. I'll make you a hot chocolate and call your parents so they know you've arrived here safely."

It was so dark outside that the lights had to be turned on in the house. What none of them knew, the three boys had been observed for hours. Two dark figures dressed in

black waxed coats reaching to the ground and big-brimmed black waxed hats, had sat and waited all day in the thicket at the top of the hill. Again and again they had whispered to each other in somber voices and watched the children playing. But they became particularly attentive when Peter, Tom and John came up the hill with their flag.

Now the two of them, unimpressed by the rain and storm, were still in their hiding place and watched the three boys through the living room window as they sat there on the sofa with their hot chocolate wrapped in towels and being cared for by Tom's mother.

Peter's and John's parents had allowed them to stay with Tom. Both of them lived only a few houses away, but the storm had become so bad that not even the cats dared to go outside.

The thunderstorm lasted all night. After that, everything would change for the children.

The Field Day

The next morning the sun had conquered the clouds again and burned the earth. It was getting late for everyone on this noisy night. Now it was too late for Peter and John to go home and get new clothes to wear. Their clothes were virtually freshly washed by the storm.

Time was of the essence, there were only 10 minutes left until the bus was due to leave the school to take the children to the museum, which was hosting a traveling exhibition of some sort of history. Peter and Tom got bored, that was more John's area of expertise, who had always been interested in history, but also in legends and myths.

Armed with sandwiches and bags of orange juice, which Tom's mother had hastily handed them, Tom's father drove the three of them to school. Her class teacher was standing agitated at the bus door. Tom's father had to apologize a thousand times for being late. Meanwhile Peter, John and Tom slipped past her onto the bus and took their seats amidst the excited children from their own class and their classmates who were talking, screaming, fighting. It was just something special to make a day trip, even if it went to a boring museum. Still better than having to sit in the even more boring school.

As soon as they arrived at the museum, the children pushed out of the bus in a great tumult. The two class teachers had a hard time putting things in order. Then it went through showroom after showroom, each with clothing, household items and hand tools from all centuries.

Peter and Tom were already bored in the second museum room, while John was really enthusiastic about these historical things. "What could they tell, could they talk?" he thought to himself.

"Oh is that boring" Peter said with a good yawn.

"But really! Not a single weapon,” Tom added, bored.

"But just look at all the great stuff, here the washtub and there the royal toilet chair from the middle ages“ John replied all excited.

"Great," said Tom, "then I know where I can go to the toilet right away."

All three of them giggled, their teacher standing near them and looking down at them with a punishing look, she must have heard Tom's words.

"Well, this is getting to be too much for me," said Peter, "let's disappear secretly and look around for weapons ourselves, there must be some around here somewhere, after all it's a museum."

Tom jumped in right away, they had to nudge John three times in the side before he agreed.

In the throng of children, it was easy for the three to slip away unnoticed. They crept through room after room, always careful not to be picked up by a museum attendant or even get caught in the clutches of their teacher. But the oh so boring exhibition actually seemed to run through the entire huge museum complex.

They grew farther and farther away from the other children. When they had combed everything, only the basement remained. Here, too, the weapons the three had so longed for could not be found.

Arriving in the last room of the basement, a chain blocked their way at the other end with a sign saying “No entry – only for museum staff”.

"That's it then," sighed Tom, "nothing with guns."

"What a bummer," said Peter disappointed, "but as long as our teacher didn't notice anything, it was worth it a little bit."

Meanwhile, John had also studied all the exhibits in this room extensively and had arrived in front of the forbidden passage that led to the museum archives.

"Hey, come here quickly," he called to Peter and Tom, "there's another room here to the left of the blocked passage that you can get in."

Peter and Tom were with John in a flash. You could only see the entrance to this room if you got directly in front of the prohibition sign. Now they were standing in front of this very last exhibition room in the museum. Only the flickering of a few candles along the walls of this room was visible. The three of them could only guess what was inside. It was a spooky atmosphere and they got goosebumps just thinking about walking into that room.

"Look" whispered Peter, "over the entrance it says 'Albert Bowlegs Collection'. Who is Albert Bowlegs?

John and Tom only gave a few shrugs in reply.

Cautiously, the three walked into the room, pressed tightly together. Peter and Tom pushed John forward to their middle. "You're the history expert," Tom whispered.

There they stood in the middle of the room, their eyes wide with tense excitement. In front of them, on a small pedestal, lay open an old thick book with characters beautifully decorated. Between the text were wonderful colored drawings of cavalry battles. Along the wall behind the dais was a table on which three magnificent short swords gleamed, blades pointing downward, in the dim candlelight. They excitedly approached the long-sought weapons, which were made in a style similar to Roman short swords. But they had to be younger.

"It must be Damascus steel, the way the blades shine," John said in a tone of knowledge, "and the hilts are gold. But those huge stones at the ends of the handles are definitely made of glass. There are hardly any gemstones of this size and they certainly would not have been mounted on sword hilts.”

"How right you are, my boy," came a deep, commanding but gentle voice from a dark corner of the room.

Albert Bowlegs

With a loud yell, Peter, Tom and John spun around.

"Who's there?" Peter asked in an anxious voice.

A figure in a jet-black monk's habit that seemed to swallow up all light stepped a few steps out of the darkness towards them and slipped the hood off its head. The three looked into the eyes of an old white-haired man with a long full beard and the lines of many years on his face.

"I'm called Albert Bowlegs, my friends," he said and the corners of his mouth and his eyes formed into a happy smile as he looked at the three boys. Peter, John and Tom were immediately drawn to this old man's aura.

"What are you doing here?" asked Tom.

"That, my dear boy," answered the old man, "I should actually have to ask you. After all, you are the first to stray into this room to look at my collection.”

"She's not exactly big either," Peter remarked.

"And fake swords with glass stones, too," added John.

"The size is not what counts," Albert Bowlegs remarked, "what matters is the content, the meaning of the pieces. I've been on the road for three decades now, from museum to museum throughout Germany. No curator wanted to exhibit my collection. I could only persuade them with money and even then I was only assigned the last room in the farthest corner. But life has taught me to be patient.”

"What content, what meaning?" asked John.

“Now my friends, let me tell you a little story. This book here on the pedestal is The Book of Prophecies, recorded around the year 500 AD by a much wiser man than myself. He traveled all over the world and collected ancient prophecies from the local people, which had been passed down orally from generation to generation. This book is his life's work, the collected knowledge about future events in the world. On these two pages you will see the prophecy of the Star Riders, found in all cultures in one form or another. In this book he summarized the parallels that could be found in the various traditions.”

With increasing tension, the boys hung on his every word.

"So," he continued, "the Star Riders were three mighty warriors who lay on their white steeds in constant battle against evil. Their only weapons were three short swords, like these three you see here. They were so successful in their fight that evil seemed almost banished from the earth. One day, however, resentment and envy came over the people and they again began to wage wars, to rob, to murder. But the Star Riders did not come to their aid. Where they went remained a mystery. A seer prophesied that there would come a time when evil would take the final step in world domination. Then it will be that the Star Riders will return and save the world.”

Peter, John and Tom gaped in amazement.

“What exactly would happen,” he continued, “remained hidden. It was said that three new Star Riders would be found who would travel back in time from a distant future by ramming the vanished Star Riders' swords, point first, into their belly buttons."

"Then they're dead after all," Tom exclaimed in horror.

With a mild smile, the old man replied, "Well my friend, it's just a prophecy. And it often has magic and the supernatural woven into it.”

"Then it's all just a fairy tale," John said.

"So it seems, my friend," replied the old man, "yet this is the essence of tales from all over the world, which may yet be the truth."

"Why are they called Star Riders?" asked Peter.

"This is another mystery, it is said that always after a successful mission of the Star Riders, shooting stars can be seen in the night sky over their camp. That's why people called them Star Riders," answered Albert Bowlegs.

The three looked at him thoughtfully in silence.

"But now to your false glass stones on the sword handles, my friend," he continued, "they reflect the color of the eyes of their bearers. This is a sapphire, as deep blue as your eyes Peter. This is a tanzanite as light blue as your eyes Tom. And finally this one is an emerald, as bright green as your eyes John.”

Stunned and confused that Albert Bowlegs knew their names and had also woven them into this wild story, they stared at the old man.

Unnoticed, two dark figures had approached the four and now entered the room. They were the two secret observers from the hill, still wearing their black coats and hats. The four spun around and Albert Bowlegs stood protectively in front of the boys.

"What do you wish, gentlemen?" he asked, apparently knowing the answer.

"You know exactly what we want, old man," growled one of the two, "kill these three here before they can wreak havoc on the world."

“They would only bring disaster upon you and your kind. Go away and tell your lord and master to stay away from these children, otherwise he will have to deal with me,” said the old man with a firm voice.

A deep, unnatural laugh escaped the two figures.

"You didn't want it any other way, old man," came the growling voice again and the two each pulled out a large sword from under their coats.

"You know what to do, my friends," the old man called to the three boys, "take your swords!"

With these words he pulled a long, gnarled, narrow wooden stick out of his robe and Albert Bowlegs‘ fight against the two sinister men began. It was an unequal fight, a club against two great swords. But the stick withstood the massive blows of the sword bearers.

"What are we supposed to do?" John cried anxiously.

"Grab your swords first," exclaimed Peter.

And matching the color of their eyes, the three took up the short swords.

"Now what?" Tom asked excitedly, "Shall we fight these two guys?"

Albert Bowlegs was slowly losing his strength, a blow to his arm had already gotten him, blood spurted out of his wound in a thick whirlpool.

"The tip of the sword to the navel, my dear children, be brave, everything will be fine." With these words, Albert was hit hard on the right side of his head, then the sword of the other murderer disappeared into Albert's stomach. The disgusting laughter of the two echoed through the room as the criminal drew his blood-soaked sword from Albert's stomach and Albert collapsed.

Peter, John and Tom screamed like they had never screamed before.

"And now to you," growled the one from the other side of the room.

"I'd rather try what the old man said than get chopped up by these guys," Peter cried in panic.

The three looked at each other. With tears in their eyes, they nodded to each other briefly, placed the sword points on their belly buttons and thrust.

Then there was darkness.