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“Man, that’s a beauty!”

Jerry was walking past the new fire station on Avalon Canyon Road. It was a handsome building in a backdrop of hills and palm trees — white adobe, red tile roof, and four engine ports fronted by huge green garage doors. One of these, the one closest to the main building, was open, and the inhabitant of that space was the object of Jerry’s admiration.

“She is at that!” came a voice from the back of the garage.

Jerry startled. He hadn’t seen anyone there by the gleaming red truck that was currently bringing back memories from his youth, real and imagined. He had always wanted to be a fireman when he was a kid. He still fantasized about it now. In a way, he did know how to put out fires — but just the technical ones, not the real ones. He watched as the owner of the voice appeared from around the back of the truck. He was an older man, maybe in his early sixties from the looks of his wrinkled, pleasant face and his grey hair and old-fashioned handlebar mustache. But the guy was in better shape than most men Jerry’s age. His shirt was off and he was sweating. He held a chamois cloth in his hands and it was obvious that he had been in the process of polishing the fire engine to its current pristine sheen. The man’s chest was tan and well muscled behind a screen of silver fuzz, his biceps brown and large as tree trunks.

“Want a closer look?” he asked with a bright smile, waving Jerry into the garage.

He didn’t need to ask twice. Jerry joined the fireman to stand next to the truck. It was pleasantly cool inside the garage, out of the direct glare of the sun. “What I wouldn’t have given when I was a kid to have a ride like that!” he said. Closer in, he could see a few nicks and scratches in the paint. But overall it was a young boy’s dream come true in candy apple red and chrome.

“What year is it?” he asked, turning to look at the fireman.

“Forty-one. And she runs like she did when she was brand new.” His voice was a mellow, deep baritone with a slightly rough edge to it. Scotch tempered with velvet. He had a slight accent, but Jerry couldn’t quite place it.

“Still used for fires?”

“Not so much, anymore.” The old man had a wistful expression on his face. They keep her around for parades, and for the kids. And for me.” He smiled, reaching out with the chammy to wipe a smudge off the chrome horn mounted on the passenger side fender. Jerry’s eyes were drawn to the passenger door. “City of Avalon Fire Dept. No. 9″ was painted there in black letters. He stood dumbstruck for a minute. “Avalon Number Nine?” he said incredulously.

“What’s that?” asked the old man.

“Oh, nothing.” Jerry said. He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud. He shook his head, thinking furiously. It couldn’t be that easy. It was just coincidence. But, just in case, he had to ask.
“So, say someone wanted to buy that fire engine. How much would something like that cost?
The old man raised his eyebrows, and didn’t need to say “You’ve got some nerve, kid” to get the point across.

“It’s not for sale.”

Jerry laughed and put his hands up, palms out, to show the man he wasn’t really serious. “I’m just curious,” he said. “It’s not like I’d have that kind of money or anything. I was just wondering, if someone wanted to buy an engine like that, what would it cost.”

“I got no idea.” The man gave him a strange look. “Why? You some rich kid wantin’ to buy back a boyhood dream?”

“No, nothing like that.” Jerry shrugged. “Look, it was a stupid question. I’m sorry to bother you. Thanks for letting me have a look, though.” He turned to leave but the old fireman put his hand on his shoulder before he could step away.

“So why’d you ask then, son?”

Jerry turned back to him with a sigh. “It’s a long story. Long, strange, and boring. Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” the old man laughed.

“And a sense of humor?” asked Jerry.

“Got one of those, too. What’s your name, kid?”

“Jerry. Yours?”

“Owen. Owen Braun.” The man grabbed a white City of Avalon Fire Department t-shirt that had been draped over one of two folding chairs on the side of the garage next to the truck. He shrugged into it quickly then extended his weathered hand to shake Jerry’s. “Pleased to meet you, Jerry.” His grip was firm, and his hand felt like seasoned leather, dry and warm. Breaking away, he waved toward the two chairs. “I was about to take a breather anyway. Amuse an old man with your very long and very boring story.” He grabbed two plastic bottles of water from an ice chest behind the chairs, and handed one to Jerry as they both sat down.

“Well, ” Jerry began. He was a little surprised at how willing he was to tell his story to this complete stranger. “It all started four months ago, back in March. I was working for a high tech startup out of Sunnyvale, and we’d just come off our third bad quarter. I got laid off along with half the engineering group.” He shook his head in disgust. “Got a decent package, though. Anyway, I took some time off, went to visit family over in England, that sort of thing, before I started looking for a new gig. When I got back I sent a few resumes around, contacted a few old colleagues. I was poking around on Craigslist to see what might be posted there when I came across this strange ad.”

“Any other time I would have ignored it, but since I had the time on my hands…” he trailed off. Owen said nothing, just looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. “It was an ad for a scavenger hunt.” he finally finished. “Winner takes all. For more information, go to www dot branowain dot com. I checked it out. It was a weird website. Just listed the items you’d need to find if you wanted to participate. Nothing else. No contact information, no prize information, no instructions for what to do if you found everything.

“I figured it was just some weird hoax. I looked up the domain info but it was a private registration. I would have just let the whole thing go except that one of the scavenger hunt items caught my eye. ” He stopped, wondering if he should bother continuing. What interest could this story possibly hold for the old man sitting next to him?

“And that was?” Owen urged him to continue.

“The Key to the Cambrian Castle.” Jerry looked at Owen, expecting to see confusion in the man’s face. But his face was expressionless, except for his bright blue eyes, which sparkled as though he were enjoying a private joke.

“And what exactly is the Key to the Cambrian Castle?” Owen asked when Jerry didn’t continue. His voice betrayed no sense of the amusement in his eyes.

“Well, that’s the question.” Jerry answered. “What is the Key to the Cambrian Castle? Some weird pre-jurassic fossil? A legend about old Welsh ruins? Try Googling it — you’ll get two thousand pages of nuthin’.” Jerry shook his head. “Nothing that would make any sense anyway. And that’s where the story gets a bit strange.”

“Go on,” Owen encouraged.

“Well… you see… I think that I have this key already.”

“Really, now” Owen mused, a strange look on his face. “Can I see it? Do you have it with you?”

Jerry didn’t answer right away. Instead, he rolled up his left sleeve, exposing his forearm. His skin was so pale compared to Owen’s — too much time spent indoors in front of a keyboard and monitor. He turned his arm so that his wrist was facing the ceiling of the garage. In the center of the underside of his forearm was a brown colored birthmark, about three inches long. It was shaped exactly like an old skeleton key. The old man gently grabbed Jerry’s arm, but did not pull it any closer. He simply looked at the birthmark for about thirty seconds, brows furrowed, blue eyes unblinking. “And what makes you think that this is the Key to the Cambrian Castle?” he finally asked in a skeptical voice.

Jerry didn’t answer right away. He debated just getting up and leaving at this point. Why should he tell this old man about his dreams? About the dream. The single dream that had haunted him since he was ten years old. The man would think he was crazy. But there was something in the intent way that Owen looked at him that made him want to finish his story. He decided to go on.
“For the past eighteen years, I’ve had this recurring dream. It comes at least once a month, sometimes more often. I talked to a shrink about it once, but she just fed me some garbage about feelings of inadequacy. Anyway, it’s always the same.” He looked at Owen. “Are you sure you want to hear about this?”

Owen nodded his head — Jerry thought he heard him say “Aye, I do” very quietly although he never saw the man’s lips move. “You asked for it — it’s pretty weird. So I’m swimming in the ocean, and it’s nighttime. I can’t see anything around me but I know for sure it’s the ocean. Huge waves are tossing me around, and I can taste the saltwater in my mouth. You know, I’ve asked other people if they taste things in their dreams, and no one else ever does. But I can taste the salt, and it burns in my nose and the back of my throat. I can feel it even now.” He touched his neck by reflex. “I’m not drowning, but I’m bone tired, and I’m trying to reach land. I know it’s out there, but I can’t find it in the dark. Then suddenly I feel something swimming beside me, and I panic. At first I think it’s a shark, but then I can feel something like hair swirling around and I think it must be some kind of huge jellyfish. I try to swim away but I can’t see anything.” He stopped for a moment, his face contorting as he relived the all-too-familiar sensations evoked by the dream. “That’s when the hands grab me. They pull at my feet, my arms, dragging me under the surface. I try to kick whatever, or whoever it is away. But the hands won’t let go and they keep pulling me down, down, deeper and deeper until I know I can’t hold my breath much longer.”

“Lemme guess. This is where you wake up?” The old man was smiling.

“No, not yet. It gets weirder. When I finally can’t hold my breath any more, I exhale and breathe in, expecting the water to fill my lungs. But it doesn’t. It’s the weirdest feeling — I go through the actions of breathing, but nothing happens. No air, no water, but I’m still alive. And then the hands let go of me and I turn to see what it was that was dragging me down.”

Owen raised an eyebrow. “A jellyfish?”

“A woman.”

“Ahh, always a woman.”

“You sound like my shrink.” Jerry gave a small laugh and continued his story. “The water is pitch black, but the woman is blacker still. She seems to glow black, if that makes any sense. ” He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t make any sense. But anyway, I can see her clearly in my dream. I can see every detail of her body, her face, her long hair swirling around in the water. She’s beautiful, and terrifying, and she opens her mouth and I hear her speak in my mind. Her voice is like music; it vibrates like a cello in my head. “The Cambrian Castle is just ahead” she says, and suddenly I realize that this is what I’ve been looking for in the water. “I can’t see it,” I tell her. “Can you help me?” She doesn’t answer. She raises her hands, together, as though she’s holding a bird that she intends to release. Her hands start to glow green, and when she lowers them I see that she holds a key. She floats toward me, and grabs my left hand. Her touch is cold, colder than the water, colder than ice, so cold it feels like fire. She presses the key to my arm, my left arm, right on top of my birthmark. And then she’s gone. I float back up to the surface surrounded by thousands of tiny black bubbles. When they break in the air I can hear the words “Use the Key” over and over again, like a song disappearing into the night.”

“And then?”

“Then I wake up.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I told you it was weird.”

“Trust Morgaine to be so dramatic.” murmured Owen.

“What?” Jerry asked, startled.

“Nothing. Please, go on. So what does this dream have to do with you wanting to by my old girl here?” Owen waved towards the shiny red antique parked across from them.

“Well, nothing so much about the dream. It’s just that the Key to the Cambrian Castle was listed as an item for this scavenger hunt — along with a few other more mundane things, like a stone from the British Isles, and a five-ounce chunk of iron.” Jerry paused for a few seconds, turning his head to look at the cherry red truck beside them, the number 9 painted black and large as a dinner plate on its side. “But there was one other strange item on the list that confused me. Something much more cryptic.” He paused for effect, then continued. “Avalon Number Nine.”

The old man laughed. “So you immediately thought of a fire truck in the service of the City of Avalon?”

“Well… no, not really,” said Jerry, laughing sheepishly. “I didn’t know what it meant. It could mean so many things. Jeez, for Avalon you get twenty-eight million hits on Google alone! The books, the cities, the comics, the band, the actor, a model of Toyota, apples, King Arthur, imaginary islands, druids. And then the number nine — over one hundred and sixteen million hits on Google. Although I did think I was onto something when I found a link for a folk band called “Avalon Nine”. But they didn’t seem to know anything about a scavenger hunt.” Jerry shook his head. “I was about to give up.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“A couple weeks ago I happened to ask a buddy of mine if he’d ever heard of the term “Avalon Number Nine”. He hadn’t, but he did say he was sailing to Catalina Island to visit a friend in Avalon sometime soon, and did I want to go with him to see if I could find anything that looked promising. Today was the day. I poked around for few hours downtown, but didn’t see anything that made any sense to me. So I decided to just enjoy the day — I had a few hours to kill — and I started walking up past the golf course. And, well… here I am. Walked smack dab into the Avalon Fire Department’s Number Nine Engine. Funny coincidence, huh?”

“It is at that.” Owen said thoughtfully.

“Well, I won’t take up any more of your time,” said Jerry as he rose from his chair. “Thanks for the water. My friend should be ready to sail back soon, and I’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of me.”
“The engine is not for sale.” said Owen suddenly, rising quickly from his chair.

Jerry wondered what the man meant by that. Hadn’t he made it clear that he wasn’t asking to buy it? “Don’t worry” he said in a reassuring voice. “I wasn’t serious when I asked how much it would cost. It was just the weird coincidence that brought the question to mind. I don’t really think that this…” Jerry waved towards the Number Nine “…is what whoever designed that useless scavenger hunt had in mind.”

“But I would be willing to make a trade.” Owen went on. Jerry looked at the old man. It was like he was responding to a completely different conversation than the one they were actually having. The man’s face was very grave. Jerry wondered if the guy could be joking around with him. Or maybe he was just short a full deck.

“Honestly, what would I do with an antique fire engine?” Jerry laughed, trying to lighten things up. ” And what do I have that you could possibly want to trade it for? Hell, I couldn’t even get it off the island!”

“Winner takes all,” said Owen. Jerry stared at him, confused. Maybe the man was completely off his rocker. Why the Avalon fire department would keep a crazy old man on staff was beyond him, but maybe he had some kind of tenure or something. Or maybe they just kept him around to take care of the engines. Whatever it was, Jerry was ready to leave. Now.

“Thanks, Owen,” he said, a tinge of condescension edging into his voice. “But I don’t want to trade anything for your old girl. You can keep her.”

“I think perhaps you don’t understand what I mean here.” Owen’s voice was calm, his face serious. Each word was articulated clearly, and his accent became much more pronounced. Jerry realized that he must be Scottish, or maybe Irish. The man’s expression was as controlled as his voice. He certainly didn’t look like a nut job, but he wasn’t making any sense at all.

“Okay,” Jerry said. “Care to fill me in, then?”

“I am the person who advertised the scavenger hunt that you have, quite successfully, completed.”

“Oh come on. You can’t be serious.” Jerry was sincerely regretting accepting the man’s invitation to take a closer look at the fire truck beside them.

“I am entirely serious. Don’t you want to know what the prize is?” The man’s clear blue eyes were locked on him, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

Jerry decided to humor him. “Sure, Owen. What’s the prize?” He looked around, wondering if some of the other firemen might be around. He hoped so. If someone came by the interruption would give him the perfect excuse to bolt out of there without seeming too rude to the old man.
“Wealth beyond your wildest dreams. Money, women, cars, a beautiful home with a view of the ocean. Health. A long life. A very long life.”

Jerry laughed, shaking his head. “And you are going to give all this to me?”

“I am prepared to trade you for it.”

“Trade? Trade what?” Jerry was starting to feel more than a little annoyed. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“My given name is Owain Bran. I am the Guardian of the Island of Avalon.”

Jerry decided that was more than enough at this point. The man was definitely crazy. And suffering from delusions of grandeur, as his shrink would likely say. “Well, Owain Bran, Guardian of the Island of Avalon, I need to go now.” He hadn’t gone ten paces before Owen, or Owain as he had just announced himself, was standing in front of him, blocking his passage through the front of the garage. He looked like a linebacker prepared for the tackle. Jerry wondered if he could take him. The man was not tall, but he was solid — built like a sherman tank.

“Jared Evans” said Owen in a loud voice. Jerry stopped cold. He had never told the man his proper name. Or his last name. “Jared Evans,” the man repeated once more, in a slow, formal voice. “You are this generation’s keeper of the Key. And I am a tired old man. I offer you everything that I have. Knowledge gathered and kept safe since the beginning of recorded history. Wealth beyond your wildest imaginings. And above all, immortality.”

Jerry sighed. The man was clearly delusional. He needed to figure out a way past him without having to physically push him aside. He wondered if he could distract him somehow, just for a moment, enough to give him the few seconds he’d need to get out of the garage. “So, what do I have that you’d want to trade all that for?” he asked, his eyes darting round looking for something he could use as a distraction.

“First I need the key.”

“It’s a freakin’ birth mark!” Jerry said, the frustration obvious in his tone. “How the hell do you expect me to give you “The Key” when it’s a stupid brown stain on my arm?”

“Do you have the other items? The stone? The iron? Forget the other things.”

Jerry didn’t answer right away. It just so happened that he did have those two particular things with him. For some reason, he had no idea why, he’d decided to throw those two items in his pocket before they sailed to Catalina Island this morning. Maybe if he gave those to Owen, it would provide the distraction that he was looking for. He nodded once, then rummaged around in his pocket. The stone was small, and smooth — a souvenir from the rocky beach on the coast of Cornwall near his grandparents’ home. The chunk of iron was just a five ounce piece chipped from an old railroad spike, the rough edges filed off many weeks ago when he’d still been taking this scavenger hunt thing seriously. He turned his hand, shifting the rock and the nail into his palm which he then held out to Owen.

The man took the two items, closing his huge hand in a fist around them. Jerry got ready to bolt but the old man’s next action kept him rooted in place, mesmerized. Owen brought his closed fist to his lips, and whispered a few words that Jerry couldn’t hear. He blinked a couple times, trying to clear his eyes. He had thought he’d seen the man’s hand glowing green for a second. He must have been imagining it. He shook his head again and got ready to run.

Suddenly, without warning, and much faster than Jerry would have thought possible, Owen grabbed his left hand, twisting it to expose the birthmark on the underside of his arm. Owen brought his other hand, the hand holding the stone and the iron, down to the mark and pressed the two items into Jerry’s skin. Jerry shouted in pain and tried to pull away — it felt like Owen was trying to brand him with red hot metal. But the old man’s grasp was unbreakable, and as swiftly as the pain came on, it faded away. His forearm tingled as though it had fallen asleep.

“What the…” Jerry started to scream at the man, but he stopped short. Owen had let go of his arm and turned his hand — the hand that had been holding the stone and the iron — palm up. Instead of a rock and a nail, his palm displayed a single, shimmering black key. A key with the exact same shape as the birth mark on Jerry’s arm.

The currently nonexistant birthmark on Jerry’s arm.

He gasped. There was no mark, no scar, no burn. Just smooth, uniformly white skin. Jerry gaped at his arm in wonder, running his hand over the spot where the brown mark had been, had always been, up to a few seconds ago. The skin still tingled. He looked up in confusion.

“I’m sorry,” said Owen simply. “I believe this is yours.” He held the key out to Jerry, who took it with shaking hands, unable to say a word for the moment.

“The Key to the Cambrian Castle.” Owen said in a low voice filled with awe.

Jerry’s eyes moved from the key back to Owen’s face. The old man’s eyes were intent on his own. Jerry was struck at the depth in the man’s eyes. They weren’t clouded with age, but were as clear as a Caribbean sea and seemed to look straight through him.

“W-w-wha..”" he stammered, then composed himself. “What IS the Cambrian Castle?”

Owen smiled a huge smile, and waved his massive arms around to indicate the hills behind them, the distant water in front. “This is the Cambrian Castle,” he said. “The lost Island of Avalon.”

Jerry’s arms dropped to his side, and he turned in a slow, full circle, his eyes taking in the incredible views surrounding him. He stopped when he faced Owen once more. “So, you’re telling me that this is the Island of Avalon, not the City of Avalon? Like the fictional island that disappeared off the coast of England, Avalon? Like the place where…” and here he paused for a moment. “… where King Arthur is supposed to be buried? That Island of Avalon?”

“That’s the one,” said Owen. “Only, as you can see, it’s not off the coast of Britain anymore.”
“Oh yeah, sure. Just a minor point.” Jerry’s mind was swimming. Had that old man really just turned his birthmark into an actual key using a pebble and an old nail? He squeezed the key that was still in his hand. It felt real enough. He looked at the underside of his left forearm again, expecting to see his birthmark back in its usual place. It still wasn’t there. He realized that Owen had started speaking to him again.

“Well, it wasn’t quite such a minor thing to move the whole island here.” he was musing. “I’ve never seen such powerful magic. T’was Morgaine that did it. I guess she knew if she moved it to the coast of the New World, by the time it would be rediscovered then people would have forgotten about Arthur.” He stopped and looked at Jerry. “I guess you have some questions, do you not?”
Jerry nodded mutely.

“Tell you what. I’ll take you to my house, show you around. You can spend the night if you like, think about it. And make your decision in the morning.”

“Decision? What decision?”

“About whether or not you’d like to trade.” Owen’s face turned serious again.

“Trade what?” Jerry asked in a weak voice.

“My life for yours.”

(NOTE: Sorry to leave this one hanging, but I’m out of time. I’ll finish it one of these days, or else I’ll try to find a way to work part 2 in at some point if the picture prompts allow…)