He arrived at Portree on the Isle of Skye and found a rather welcoming lady that was only too happy to have a visitor willing to pay for a stay at the tiny house that was the town’s hotel.  He was able to borrow her landline to call a Dr Dubhe McCloude, native to Isle of Skye and the current main lead on the archaeological dig for the Fyskar deed. He doubted he would actually end up spending the night, but it was worth the ten pounds.  With some hope, he was determined to be back in the warehouse by the end of the day. He paced the village, taking in the view of the cool bay and the snowy caps of hills that jutted out along the skylines. It smelled of clean air and fish.

A large man with a dark brown, almost black beard waved him down.  “Yer Mr Corbin, aye?” the man ambled up to him. Corbin looked up at the man and kept looking up.  He practically towered over him. He nodded, trying to gain his bearings.

“So you wanna know what the deal is with the Niloofar horde?” The man led Corbin into a crowded bar.

“That would be advantageous, Mr McCloude.” Corbin slid into a worn booth.  

The man signalled to the lady behind the bar.  Another woman who looked to be the daughter of the first dropped a pair of pitchers at their table.  “Anything else, McCloude?” The platinum blonde smiled a more than neighbourly smile at the giant highlander.  

“Nah, tell ye when Ah do.” He smiled back at her, winking. 

“Better be sooner than later, Ian,” she walked away, putting an extra sway in her hips.

Corbin turned a raised eyebrow to the man. The man grinned widely. “Fiance,” he whispered conspiratorially, looking around to see if anyone had heard him.

“How’s it been here since the Fyskar horde was discovered?” Corbin sipped at the hoppy beer.  He wasn’t quite into IPAs, but there was a time and a place for everything. Ian McCloude leaned back into the red booth and considered the ceiling.  He let out a heavy sigh and looked around at the building. “It’s been harder to get the shipments in than we’d regularly get because of the oil embargo last year.  Can’t get the fundings for the archaeology, but that’s pretty normal. I have way too many interns chomping at the bit to open up the hill outside of the collapsed houses to see what we’ve got over there.

“Were you able to find out anything on the deed?” Corbin pressed.

“Yeah, think so. We were able to get out that Eoin of the Fyskar clan was born in the spring of 1660, we think, to a Bernard and Fenella. They weren’t married as far as church records show. Documents show that Bernard died during a massive storm that rose up in the 1670s. He was never christened.  We do not have anything on if Eoin ever married, but you say that there is evidence that he had children the lady over in Isfahan mentioned?” The man tugged at his beard in thought.

“Can you show me where the deed locates the Fyskar lands?”  Corbin downed the draft to get the flavour over with. 

 “I’ll have us a taxi once we finish this.” McCloude raised his pint.

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“SAM, I need you to tell me something.  I need as close as you can get me to an exact date of major storms during the 1660s and 1670s originating near the north end of the Isle of Skye,” Corbin demanded.

“This will take a minute, sir,” the computer replied.  Corbin was walking around the shambles of a ruined footer of a large house.  It had been buried under the weight of dirt, snow, and time. He wandered down from the hill to the water’s edge and looked out over the private bay.  He pinned the location on his GPS. He began the long walk back to the waiting taxi. McCloude was asleep in the backseat. Five pitchers had done the trick.

“Get us back to Portree,” Corbin demanded, shuffling Ian McCloude over so he could sit down.  The engine rolled over, and the wheels crunched along the rocky road.

He left McCloude with his fiance back at the pub and traipsed back out to the end of the dock to the backside of an abandoned upside-down barge where his portal had gone unnoticed.  He returned to his office and a rather peeved Sophia, who had returned back to the room with sandwiches.

“Find what you’re looking for, Ziphle?” She bit into her sandwich. 

“Got a GPS pin for the Fyskar house. Supposedly it belonged to the Fyskar clan head.  With some luck, if we get back out that way with the pin, I should be able to nab the kid.  Was thinking of going in around the 1676 mark; that should have him at about 16 before he’s well on his way to Persia.  I’ll get him during a storm, and the folks will just think he got taken by a wave.” He nabbed the other sandwich off her plate. 

She glared up at him and stuck out her tongue.  “I was going to eat that.” She turned her computer back on from hibernate.  “Anyways, we’ll have to postpone that jump for the evening. I need for you to check the news.  I saw something worrying while I was getting lunch made and want to see if you want to start getting stuff sent out to Fort Dade.” She finished off her sandwich.  

He chewed on his lunch slowly, trying to jump his rails of thoughts.  “What’s on the news?” he asked, curious.

“Bombing of Chicago and Detroit this morning,” she muttered, trying to still wrap her head around it.

“They’ll be closing off the airspace,” Corbin filled in.  Sophia nodded, glancing up at him.

“All right, looks like I’ve got more calls to make,” he sighed.  He’d have to call in the shippers and get the warehouse opened up.  The studs were in place for the sleeping and eating quarters, but it wasn’t quite liveable yet.  He’d have to really hope that St. Petersburg was out of harm’s way enough. It wasn’t like he was using one of the old launch pads out at Kennedy.

A month later, Sophia had been installed in St. Petersburg.  He was onto one last project that evening before dismantling the machine and having it shipped out to the Fort Dade Subgalaxia facility.  He put in his GPS pin on the Isle of Skye and a date he hoped would get him there in time to nab himself a translator. The portal opened with its familiar thump.  He hoped, as he pushed through the blue membrane, that he’d be able to get the machine working again without a hitch after shipping it out.

A storm ripped and pulled at the blue arc.  This was precarious. The hell had he thought coming back to kidnap the water-lily of Persia?  Well…not necessary of Persia if he got a hold of the man. He’d probably never have kids. This could get messy, but Corbin had to have him.  He was going to be going into too many times that he could not possibly secure a person who could speak both ancient and modern of every language known and forgotten by man.  This person, this Eoin of the Fyskar, would be his best bet at communication, if he could really do what Mera had said he could do.

Water soaked him to the bone.  He looked out into the swirling grey.  A moan reverberated in the cloud, just low enough that it could have been the storm or the waves.  Corbin shielded his eyes, wishing that he could have come on a sunny day rather than this monstrous storm.  Then he spotted a man lying along the shore edge. A boat, not much more than a dingy, had crashed up against the rocks. Parts of it were strewn across the beach and floated in the brutal waives.

Corbin trudged to the man, battling the wind and the slashing rain.  He was not as young as he thought the man was supposed to be. He had come looking for a young man, not much more than a teenager.  This man, though, had to be in his late twenties, maybe thirties, closer to Corbin’s age. But the kilt gave it away. It had to be Eoin.  It was that same white, blue, and lavender shade he had seen in the museum. Corbin pulled the unconscious man from the water’s edge. It took longer to get the brute to the portal than he expected.  The man was at most an inch shorter than him, but he was probably twice as wide in muscle. “In you go, Eoin.” Corbin pushed the man in.

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