Suddenly, in what he thought was a bizarre attempt on his part to save a hummingbird from a large, black spider, he finds himself (awkwardly) standing before a lovely, alien creature. She calls him by an unusual name, and soon invites him to follow her on an important mission into a strange, hidden land. Timothy is enchanted, but realizes that he cannot help himself, much less serve on a mission to help another. He is embarrassed by his condition, and regrets that this beautiful creature must share in the discovery of how reduced he has become in the last stages of his illness.

Angelina, the Talyarian before him, knows of his sickness. "Your illness will not affect you where we are going," she promises Timothy. This sounds like good news, but he is told that fates far worse than death could await them in this adventure. He may feel inadequate, but he is the "chosen one."

In a moment that hangs between valor and madness, Timothy Matthews agrees to take up the adventure. On the wings of Dawncrest, through the twin peaks of Moon Point, sailing the fair winds of Fareth, Timothy will discover that evil lurks within as well as without. At the end of his adventure, a mystery shrouded in Talyarian wonder leaves its mark, and even Timothy's parents are struck with awe.

     Every adventure has a beginning, but do they ever end? It was summer break from college, and I had come to our cabin for a rest. If Doc was right-I had heard his low whispers to the folks-this would be my last stay at the lake. The disease was spreading faster than we had hoped. 
     Strange, these sicknesses which sound so important. My doctor stumbled as he said the name of the sticker that caught me. I felt... ok, but I was losing weight and had frequent attacks of the "tremils"-a word I used for an embarrassing shakiness in my legs after I did, what Doc called, "too much".
     One afternoon I took to doing "too much." I sat on the steps weeding the planter. It stood in front of the cabin on the deck overlooking the lake. As I worked, the tremils were starting. The knees erupted first, and then the show began. After many months of the tremils, I knew what to expect. They had become a deadly reminder of a hidden enemy.  Like termites devouring the marrow of an old wooden house, my disease would surface now and then before the final collapse. The invader was winning-I knew it... I knew it.
     I knew that I was dying. When death's at your door, you lean even senseless activities up against it as you try to barricade the thoughts. A few months ago pulling weeds wouldn't have been my idea of polishing a summer's sun, but now anything was better than sitting around doing nothing. Doc said I had to stay off the lake when alone, and "no more swimming." So I used my time like a beggar throwing away his last dish of food. I did what I could to forget who waited for me outside my door.
    Yet inside the room of my meager existence there stood another ominous master who was pushing me, day be by day, closer to the exit door where death kept his vigil. I was a slave to time.
     I remember once reading in my room. It was a dull book. I could hear the wind-up clock ticking away. I got the tremils. It was the only time the tremils struck before I had done "too much." I discovered that not only the muscles, but that the mind could command the tremils. 
     I was reading by a stream of light forcing its way through the room from a south window. The sunlight beat its way against billions of lofted bits of dust before reaching the pages of my book. The only sound filling the room was from great-grandfather's old, spring-wound clock. Each tick cracked like china dishes hitting the floor. Time hurts. The clock becomes a time-bomb when you're sick-real sick.  It signals detonation. When and where-you wonder. It's coming, but you don't want to be reminded.
     'That's it!" I exclaimed for an unseen audience.  "These weeds will be here a lot longer than I will."  At that, I went for a soda. The tremils were still erupting, so I took a tight grip on the rail of the deck and made my way into the house. 
     Ruffy, our family terrier, met me on the way to the kitchen.
     Together we reached the fridge as I opened up the door. Cool air drifted down my waist grabbing at the perspiration on my legs.
     I took out a can and headed back through the hall. I walked into the living room. 
     Twice I had taken a bad fall in there, so I navigated clear of the hardwood table. It was solid oak and great-grandfather had made it for his bride after settling in Minnesota. Many times I had sat around it listening to tales of adventure. Great-grandfather would tell about his trip to "the New Land" in the foul belly of a merchant ship. Story after story rolled out between great-grandfather's clench upon his pipe as smoke billowed up, overcasting the twinkle in his eye. 
     "Someday I'm going to take an adventure," I would tell him. "I'm going to be like you. I will go someplace dangerous and exciting."
     But dreams are like the smoke from great-grandfather's pipe. I shook my head and looked at Ruffy. 
     "Well, Ruffy," I said, "how would you like to go on an adventure with me? It won't be a long trip, only back to the deck. Would you like that?" Ruffy's tail shook like a bee's wing as he jumped up, sending me flying into the arms of the sofa.
     "Careful, Ruffy!" I barked and twisted my brow into a poor deceit of a frown. "You can come, but you must learn that adventurers are really very cautious people. It's not like in the stories at all.  Adventurers plan the risks they take. No sudden jumps! Understand?" 
     Ruffy had crept under the table. Once dad really got after him for jumping up on me. Poor Ruffy! He didn't understand the change in our house. Dad felt terrible after he hit Ruffy. I guess the whole family had become edgy.
     I picked up a pair of faded jeans that were lying on the couch and slipped them over my swimming trunks. "Ok, let's go Ruffy," I said. "But stay close to the house, you know that I can't chase after you." 
     Ruffy lunged through the door just as I opened it. He startled a squirrel out from a hedge that grew alongside the house. The squirrel tore out onto the dock and was trapped. When Ruffy saw the squirrel's predicament, he ran barking to the center of the dock and stopped dead still. The squirrel had turned and was heading right for Ruffy with a chatter and a fury. Ruffy did a quick reverse yelping all the way back to the deck where he buried himself under my legs. 
     "I guess you had an adventure," I said. "One out of two isn't bad."
     Ruffy had had enough adventure and wanted back into the cabin. I grunted my way to the door, bored again seeing nothing outside that I could do.
     "It's time we take a nap anyway, Ruffy," I said. I opened the door and Ruffy slid by me into the house. Just then, as I lifted my right foot through the doorway, I heard a whisper in the wind.
     A voice, light as smoke, seemed to be calling. I stepped back onto the deck and closed the door.
     Looking around, I saw nothing unusual.
     Mr. Denton was out in the water about sixty feet off shore. There was no sign that he was trying to get my attention. His yellow canoe (which we called a "banana boat") was anchored to a waveless lake. Its length was cut from stern to bow by a solid white interior. 
     Mr. Denton wore a red shirt-he always wore a red shirt-and looked like a large cherry resting on the whipped topping of a banana split. He sat in the canoe as contented as ever, watching several bobbers as they rippled lightly because of unseen nibbling below.
     I was about to yell down to Mr. Denton, just in case there was some trouble, when again a voice pierced my intentions. This time I could make out the words, "Help me! Please help me, kind sir!"
     My feet froze to the deck. A rush of fear slid down along my spine. I could hear my heart pounding as blood rushed to my cheeks. "Could it be," I wondered, "that it would all end in madness?" This was a new twist to my illness, and one that I hadn't been prepared to face.
     My limbs stiffened... my ears strained the air for the slightest sound. Within moments, a frantic plea sounded again, "Oh please! Help! I can see his eyes now! All is lost!"
     It was a voice gripped by death, and yet lovely as a rose's first spring. Was this the voice of madness, so piercing but sweet? Does the other side of reality seem as clear? Or worse, is the terror of insanity that its world is more intense and real! I felt faint. I saw myself crossing the mystic threshold. The dream darkened. I was losing
 consciousness.
     "Help!"-the startling cry of a deadman's last plea for life broke the spell. I looked. There in the bush, stuck fast to a spider's great web, was a form lost in the thick growth. I thought that it must be a hummingbird, because it was so small. A large, black spider was descending upon the quaking form. 
Without thought or reason I picked up my garden spade and threw it madly into the hedge.
     It was a bad shot. Luckily, it gave the spider a start and sent him scurrying into the shadows. The shock had broken the web and dropped the small creature to the ground. There, indented into the long grass, it lay lifeless. I visualized in its still form the sad conclusion awaiting us all. I could not let it lie there. I would bury it.
     In all the excitement, I forgot that the tremils were still robbing my undercarriage of any support. My first step towards the creature brought me soundly to the ground. 
     I was within twenty feet of the indentation in the grass where the dead animal laid. Instead of trying to get up and stumble my way to the bird, I remained low as I crawled the rest of the way. It wasn't even a good crawl as I hunched up upon my hands and moved like a crab with bad knees across the deck. I reached the grass and enjoyed its soft texture. I was now within ten feet of my target. I was so low to the ground that I couldn't see the bird in the long grass that grew by the hedge. I did not want to see it... lying dead.
     What happened next branded my memory. I shall never forget that first second when I reached the hedge and looked down at what lay in the grass. It was moment of both dread and ecstasy.  I felt as one who knows that there are no leprechauns... no pot of gold at the rainbow's end, and yet there it was, a leprechaun's treasure within my reach. The joy of riches! The dread of a strange new world. Was this also madness?
     In the long, green grass lay the figure of a woman, very small and fragile. Her skin was sandy brown, but smooth, like fine cream whipped and firm. She wore a tunic, nearly transparent, over a flowing body of subtle curves and finely carved features. A single heavy braid, the color of walnuts fully ripe, was caught in the hedge by a spider's strand. Her eyes were closed, and I thought, if this is death, how can such great peace, and such great loss, be one?
     Time was shattered and strewn about her. I could not move. I was caught in a crystal moment... encased in the most fragile second. I commanded the tremils into obedience. I clutched the smoke from great-grandfather's pipe, fearing both the progress and the loss of this adventure.
     It was Ruffy who broke the moment. His nervous barking brought comfort to me, like coming home at night from a strange land and hearing a familiar voice calling out a welcome.  Ruffy had watched the action through the window.  He had taken his usual perch on the couch (no doubt to guard against dangerous squirrels). Now he was tearing open the screen door in a rage to get outside.
     Suddenly he tore through a break in the screen and ran straight for the hedge. By a power of a greater Providence, I thought swiftly to sweep the creature into my hand and out of Ruffy's reach. He seemed, however, more interested in exploring the hedge than what I had in my hands. 
     "Quiet, Ruffy!"  I commanded. "Look what you've done to the door.  You're going to have to explain this to mom and dad, not me."
     Explain, I thought, how on earth would anyone ever explain? The maniac speaks of secret things.  He can discern the movements of the wind. He describes a tiger sitting in the room. He calls across the chasm. The doctor nods his head. His friends smile, but his words go unheard. They know it's all smoke from great-grandfather's pipe.
     I held my hand high above Ruffy as I sought a way to get to my feet. I was amazed to discover, as I held her, that the tremils were gone. I was weak, but I could walk. My concern was to keep my hand away from Ruffy's reach. He was still barking as I led him over to the chain. And he was unhappy as I used my free hand to maneuver him onto his leash.
     He whined as I walked into the house. I went straight for the kitchen and sat down. Both of my hands were now resting on the table as they surrounded... surrounded what? The full weight of my experience came with the realization that I now held something in my hand. It was no longer a figure in the bush. I had touched it. I held it.
     I let my fingers open slowly. I looked down as another surprise caught my eye. I had not seen her tiny back as she lay in the long grass. I had not noticed two small attachments following the lower circumference of her shoulder blades. They were wings! Heaven above, they were wings! The absurdity hit me. I began to laugh. I thought of my parents walking through the door, and there I would be sitting, with a little woman resting in my hands, complete with wings.
     The tremils began to erupt. The laughter, the whole experience, had left me exhausted. I looked again at the figure in my hands. As I began to ponder what was to be done with her-and I confess such terrible thoughts as selling her body to a circus side-show, though I knew this I could never do-I saw her left wing twitch. I gasped, "It's still alive!"
     This sudden realization overpowered me. It's one thing to go to a museum and see a dinosaur; it's quite another to find one grazing in your backyard. It was all too absurd. What was I to do?  For what seemed like ages I turned the day's event over and over, looking for some sign of reality. 
     I stared at her as if waiting for a spell to break, but she lay like a broken doll. Hours went by and still her wing refused to move, even slightly, for a second time. In the end, I was too tired to think further. I looked around for something to put her in, and found my mother's special teacup. 
     She had purchased it in a small shop near Buckingham Palace. When my mother slipped it into her bag in England, I'm sure that she had grand plans for that royal cup. Yet it ended up mostly forgotten on a window ledge at our lake cabin. "Sort of like me," I said to the air.
     I placed a napkin inside the cup and laid the small form down. "There," I said, "a bed fit for a princess." I was blown away and it felt good to slip into my bed for an afternoon nap.
     I awoke to the sun breaking in through the red, plaid curtain at the east window. I had not only slept through the afternoon, but through the night. I looked around and everything seemed normal. No thought dawned about yesterday... It was like a vivid dream forgotten in the morning.
     Remembering nothing of the previous day's adventure, I was surprised to discover that I had gone to bed in my jeans. No problem, really, because these days I didn't do enough to get them dirty. However, suddenly I spotted the grass stains on the knees of my jeans. A flood of memories rushed into the moment causing me to grab my head and fall back upon my pillow. "Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "it can't be true."
     I got out of bed using my favorite technique.  Lying on the edge of the bed, I placed my right forearm under my right knee and pushed down with my leg. At the same time I swung my weight to the side and the force carried my body up as my feet landed on the floor. Before getting up from the bed, I checked for the tremils. I was fine-only weak. I could not remember what it felt like to be strong.
     I did not want to go out into the kitchen. I was standing on the track before a racing freight train, holding my eyes tightly shut, hoping that it would fade away before the reality hit. It didn't.
     Measuring each step, I walked to the kitchen.  The hallway ended just ahead, and around the corner was the table. I could feel my breath growing shallow. I carried lead for the last few feet. As I turned the corner, I saw the cup. I felt strangely happy and frightened that it was still there... that yesterday was not simply a wonderful
 dream.
     I walked over to the cup. I honestly didn't know what I expected to find. Perhaps it would hold a dead hummingbird. When I looked, I saw that it was empty. I felt self-conscious. Again I was a character on an absurd stage. "Thank God!" I said to my audience. But secretly, where the spectators could not see, I was sad that this adventure had come to an end.
     "Are you looking for me?" came a crystalline voice. I jumped nearly out of my socks, sending Mom's Buckingham china to the floor. There, on the ledge of the window, just above the sink, sat the lady. She was more beautiful than I had remembered. Her long braid had been undone, and a richly framed face greeted me with a smile. I stood there not knowing what to say. She was the guest, but I felt strangely out of place.
     "You look angry," she said, "is there something wrong?" As she spoke, her smile became overcast.
     I felt ashamed. I had done something to hurt her.  The face I saw was created for joy, and when her smile vanished, it was as if the sun had been ripped from the sky. I fumbled for something profound to say, but all that came out was, "I'm sorry if I have offended you."
     "No," she replied, "it is I who have offended you. I have troubled you. There are no words to express my thankfulness for your kindness. You saved my life."
     "Oh, that," I said, "it was nothing... I mean, I could have hit that spider square, but my dog blew my concentration with all his barking." I wanted to say more, but I couldn't.
     "Indeed! It was more than you can imagine," she replied. "I speak not only for myself, but for the cause I have undertaken. These are grave times. The Keepers do not often travel in these parts. I am here, because I have been sent.
     As she said the word "Keeper", I felt a breeze flow in through the open window. It lifted her hair and carried the scent of an apple orchard in full bloom. "This is nuts," I said under my breath, "There isn't an apple orchard... there isn't an apple
 tree this side of the lake. And what does she mean, 'she was sent'?"
     "Sent by who?" I demanded. I was drawn into the lady's words and forgot my self-consciousness in her presence. "And who are the Keepers?"
     "This is more than I have time to tell, and more than you have the right to know," replied the little woman. "Very soon, however, I think you will be growing in understanding. All in good time."
     I once again felt the absurdity of what was taking place. "I'm going mad," I said (mostly to myself).
     The lady finally understood my dilemma. If she were real, then the only reality I had ever known was not real. If my reality were real, then she couldn't be. I stared at her with eyes vacant like a deer caught at night in the headlights of a car, my mouth gaped open. She looked at me as she sat on the ledge of the window with her elbow planted on her lap and her chin resting in her palm. She was clearly amused. Mirth sparkled in her eyes as she began to laugh out loud.
     It was addicting. Spontaneous and bright sounds filled the air. Her joyous chords were light and free. Still, another note, deep as the earth, reminded me of waters rolling in subterranean caverns. Her happiness also ran deep. Light and deep, I thought, light and deep. Soon I wa laughing with her, though I hadn't the faintest idea why. My bellows of laughter sounded like a baritone against her tiny voice, and this seemed to amuse her all the more.
     "Let me assure you, I am real," she said at last. Her words punctuated my laughter, but I remained light-hearted and continued to gawk at her with a silly grin. I had never felt so happy. "You are not going mad," she continued, "I may be the only one of my kind that you have seen, but I am quite real. I have breath and soul, and you have much to learn about the greatness of things. My name is Angelina, what is yours?"
     "I am Timothy Matthews," I said.
     "I shall call you Shamgar," she said. "You are chosen. It is you for whom I have come."
     I find it difficult to describe how confused things were becoming. I was experiencing an avalanche of questions. Who are the Keepers? If they are not often in this world, then where, in heaven's name, are they from? What did she mean by calling me Shamgar? And what in the world did she mean when she said that she had come for me... that I was chosen!
     "You must have me confused with someone else... you've made some mistake," I blurted out.  "I told you that I am Timothy Matthews, and I don't know anyone by the name of Samgree, or whatever you said. I'm glad that I could be of help to you... with that spider, I mean, but I am certainly not prepared for anything more."
     "Shamgar," she said. I felt the breeze again.  "These are difficult times. There are greater interests at stake than our personal concerns, Skylore"-again the sense of wind and the scent of apple blossoms- "told me that I should make this trip. I would be brought to great peril, he foretold, but I would be saved. The one who would snatch me from the point of death, is he who must return with me to Talyara. You are the one, Shamgar.  Skylore knows these things. He always does."