by Shay Roberts
She whispers to me, “Tyler, your glasspad.”
I wave my pad over the station, and it comes to life. I feel like a wizard with a magic wand.
Rosemarie looks up the Pictish history book and finds a shelf number. The station darkens as she departs.
There are hundreds of tall shelves here, their contents accessible via ladders that slide along tracks.
In the pale glow of our lamps, we enter the labyrinth, searching for shelf number 124.
After several minutes, we’re deep inside the archive, and I’m wondering how we’ll find our way out again. This place is big enough for someone to get lost in.
Then I think to look for spoor. And sure enough, behind us I spot the faint outlines of our tracks in the thin layer of dust on the stone floor. We’ve been leaving a trail and should be able to follow our own tracks out.
Five minutes later, we find shelf 124. To my surprise and relief, a small light set into the long shelf glows to mark the location of the book. Otherwise, even with the shelf number, the book would have taken a day to find.
Rosemarie climbs up the ladder and pulls down the book. It’s actually a handwritten codex. We find a wooden reading table, covered with dust, and sit down to check it out.
In the pale light of our glowing spheres, we read the words on the pages. The codex is written in Latin. Not only do I know it’s written in Latin, I can also understand it. Since I don’t speak Latin, this can only be the work of the language bug they implanted. That thing is going to come in handy.
Rose is fascinated by the codex. It’s a history of the Picts from 300 to 700 CE. It mentions her clan, the Draig, living in the kingdom of Cait. It also lists the year, 402 CE, that the Draig were destroyed by the Romans. But it doesn’t say anything about dragons.
In the center of the book are detailed maps of each of the seven Pictish kingdoms. Rose uses her glasspad to take pictures of the maps.
By the time we finish, hours have passed. Rosemarie, excited, climbs up the ladder and returns the book to its proper spot. As she does, the light that marks its position winks out.
She climbs down the ladder and gives me a hug.
“We did it, Tyler! I know where home is. Now we must find costumes for our journey. I want to leave tonight.”
Her enthusiasm is infectious, her body magnetic. I find myself wanting to do more than just hug her.
Suddenly, we hear a noise, a shuffling sound.
Someone is coming. Someone is tracking us.
Is it the librarian? Is it Philip? Hell, is it those gargoyles?
Moving quietly, we slip deeper into the archive.
Looking over my shoulder, I see dim light reflecting off the ceiling of the archive. Whoever is tracking us is carrying a lamp. So probably not the gargoyles.
Rosemarie suddenly stops. We’ve reached the back of the archive, and we’re trapped in a dead end.
As a relic hunter, I always had an escape route planned. I can’t believe I screwed this up. I haven’t been thinking straight. Rosemarie, with her beauty and boldness, has rattled my brain.
The approaching light grows stronger now. In moments, our pursuer will be upon us.
Shot in the Dark
TYLER BUCK
Before I realize it, I’ve dropped the glass lamp into my pouch and pulled out my claw weapons. I slip them onto my hands, ready for a fight.
I don’t know who’s coming for us, but I hope it’s Philip. I’m tired of tiptoeing around him. I don’t care if he’s a godling. We might as well settle this now.
I walk down the aisle between the bookshelves, moving toward the approaching light.
Suddenly, Rosemarie grabs my arm from behind, and I feel a brief falling sensation.
The light ahead, carried by the approaching figure, is now gone. Rosemarie and I are alone in the archive.
I realize what has happened. Rosemarie jumped so we could escape the confrontation. That makes sense. Why didn’t I think of that? Why was I so eager to fight when it wasn’t really necessary? Is it because Rose is here?
I turn to her. “How far did we jump?”
“An hour into the future.”
I nod, putting my claws away and retrieving the lamp. “Good plan.”
She seems pleased with my response, squeezing my hand as we find our way out of the archive. Looking at the spoor in the dust, we decide that the person following us was the librarian. The feet are too small to be Philip’s.
After finding our way to the exit, we return our glass lamps to the shelf where we got them and slip back out into the dark library.
The room is completely empty. As we creep across it, I keep expecting alarms to go off.
As we near the door, Rosemarie points at the librarian’s desk. My adrenaline flows as I see the two gargoyle statues are missing. I look up, somehow expecting them to be swooping down on us. But they’re nowhere in sight.
The front door is locked, and Rosemarie’s pad won’t open it. I wave my pad over the door and it clicks open.
As we slip out of the library, I whisper to Rose, “Let’s hurry. I don’t expect this advantage to last. They could be tracking the pad.”
She nods as we step out onto a campus walkway. The campus is lit by faux Victorian gas lamps. Shiny green bugs circle the lights. I check my pad to get the time and find it’s close to 11 p.m., midnight here in the Jurassic era.
We pass a few students here and there, but the campus is mostly empty. Rosemarie leads us to the House of Props and Costumes. It’s a big two-story brick building marked by a sign that looks like something from an old-fashioned circus.
Rose tells me she’s taking a historical dress class and knows the layout of the building. She circles around to the back door, where my reliable glasspad gets us inside.
She turns on a light, revealing long aisles filled with costumes on hangers. There’s a sharp chemical smell in the air. I wonder if they have to worry about moths eating the fabric.
I hear a high-pitched giggle and catch a glimpse of ’Tis and ’Tisn’t crossing an aisle. They both wear long veils, draped over them like bibs, and flowered hats on their heads. Clearly, they’ve been playing dress-up.
I whisper to Rosemarie, “How did they get in here?”
She shrugs. “I have no idea. But it’s a good sign. It probably means no one else is here.”
Rose leads me deeper into the building. We pass dozens of racks of clothing divided by time period, and subdivided by culture.
They don’t have a section for the Picts, but they do have a rack for Celtic Britons during the Roman period.
Rosemarie frowns as she sorts through the clothes. It looks like this is going to take a while.
Once she finds the right clothes, she’ll be ready to jump to her homeland. I have no idea how we’re going to do that. There are two problems. The first one is how to get there. We’re nowhere near Scotland. The layout of the continents is different here in the Jurassic age.
The other problem is how to get back. There’s only one anchor here at the school, and it’s locked.
It suddenly occurs to me that with Southam’s permissions on my pad, I might be able to unlock the school anchor.
While Rosemarie rummages through clothing, I sit in a chair outside a fitting room and search my glasspad for anything about the school anchor.
Almost immediately, I stumble across an amazing database. SA has placed anchors all over the earth, in a variety of time periods. This database shows them all!
I find an anchor, established in 385 CE, set roughly in the middle of the Pictish kingdom of Cait. I’m not sure exactly where in Cait the Draig reside, but the kingdom is small, so Rosemarie’s people couldn’t be much more than twenty or thirty miles from the anchor.
If I understand how anchors work, we should be able to jump to any year after 385. But 385 is actually a good starting point. If Rosemarie was twelve when her people were destroyed in 402 CE, then in 385, she wouldn’t have been born yet. That’s good, be
cause there’s less chance of Rose doubling.
However, it’s possible the Romans aren’t there yet in 385. We’ll have to take a look around and, if we don’t see them, start making small jumps, a year at a time, until we find them. The challenge will be to make sure Rose doesn’t meet herself, causing a temporal rupture like the one that got me in trouble with Ms. Luvalle. If that happens again, I don’t think SA will give me a second chance.
Finding this anchor in Cait is a stroke of luck. However, I’m still not sure how to use it. There aren’t any instructions about that. Also, I don’t see anything in the pad about unlocking the school’s anchor for the return trip.
Rosemarie returns with some clothes for us to try on. When she emerges from the fitting room, she looks like an angry barbarian queen.
She waves her hands over her body. “These clothes are ridiculous. The school should behead their researcher. I have no memories of anyone who dressed like this.”
I admire her exposed stomach and legs. “It may not be accurate, but it’s hot. Happy Halloween to me.”
She looks confused but decides to ignore the comment. “If confronted about our clothing, I will say we are dressed for a fertility ritual. I will speak for us while we are there.”
I nod. “No problem. Hey, whatcha got for me to wear?”
“Nothing better, I fear.”
After trying on a few outfits, I end up with one that makes me look like a shirtless barbarian gladiator. It’s a good thing I don’t get cold.
She shakes her head in disgust. “Now we will go upstairs and find props to go with our costumes.”
After I stow our class uniforms in my pouch, we climb to the second floor. There we find hundreds of shelves filled with pots, weapons, blankets, saddles, makeup, Bibles, oil lamps, baskets. Thousands of everyday items from all major cultures and time periods.
The shelves are stacked in layers, most accessible only via ladders. It’s a bewildering array of junk.
After digging around for a while in the Celtic section, Rosemarie’s mood grows worse.
“What an outrage. The shelves for the Victorian age are three times this size. And why is there no space for the Picts? It’s cultural bigotry.”
For herself, Rose selects a wooden staff, along with a shortbow and quiver of arrows. She gives me a buckler and an iron handaxe. In a serious fight, I’ll use my claws, but I’m happy to carry this for show.
We also pick up some period camping gear, including bedrolls and an iron cooking pot. Rose finds a pair of crude backpacks, little more than sacks with a strap that buckles over the chest. I could carry everything in my pouch, of course, but we have to keep up appearances.
Rose manages to find a temporary tattoo and applies it to my arm. It’s a huge dragon with a long, curved tail.
She frowns when she finishes it. “Too much ink.”
It’s 2 a.m. by the time Rose reluctantly declares us passable for travel in Pictland. On the way out, she grabs a couple of long cloaks to cover our costumes from the eyes of any students we might encounter.
We leave the House of Props and Costumes, turning off the light behind us. I’m a little surprised we spent so much time in there without getting caught. Why is campus security so lax? Maybe crime is unheard of here.
Before we jump, I want to head out to the mango grove and check out the locked anchor. Now that I know how to see it, maybe I can figure out how to work the lock.
Thankfully, we don’t run into anyone as we hurry around the lake and into the grove.
I smell mangos as we pass through the shafts of moonlight piercing the trees. Clusters of insects hang in the warm night air, and I hear the distant cry of some poor animal dying. It’s a good thing the Academy grounds are blocked off by the plexiglass partition.
The anchor database shows the exact position of the school’s construct. As we reach the spot, there’s nothing visible, of course. I close my eyes as I did in the construct lab and look for the anchor. I find it immediately.
It’s a tall stone slab, carved with Latin letters spelling out Collegium Chronos, 150 million BCE.
There’s also a carving of what looks like a Roman scholar, wearing a robe and carrying a scroll. Below him are inscribed Latin words that translate to Here we’ll stay excellently. That must be an idiom, because I can’t quite make sense of it.
I circle the stone marker, examining it closely. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Some instructions would be nice. But there’s nothing here to guide me.
The construct has a distinct feel to it, a unique flavor that’s hard to describe. I try to memorize that flavor, hoping I can find it on the return trip. If I can’t, maybe the glasspad will somehow locate and unlock the anchor.
I open my eyes, and the construct disappears.
Rosemarie stands on top of me, looking restless and eager.
“Are you ready? Can we leave now?”
I suddenly feel the weight of her expectations. I don’t completely understand how these anchors work, but she seems to have complete faith in me.
I open the glasspad and take another look at the anchor in Cait. There are several anchors throughout Britain. How do I target this particular one?
“Rosemarie, I’ll give it a try. But no promises.”
She nods, taking my hand. “How much time will pass here while we are away? I have another lunch with Professor Villalobos tomorrow. Perhaps I should cancel it before we leave.”
I think back to my time-traveling lessons with Fenfang.
“Here’s how I understand it. Let’s say you and I split up. You stay here, and I jump into the future and spend a day there. While I’m gone, a day will pass for you here in the present. But if I jump into the past, I can spend fifty years there, and no time will pass for you here, because the past has already happened.”
She nods, checking the time on her glasspad.
“I think I understand. My homeland in Cait is in the future. So if I want to return in time for my meeting, we can’t spend more than eight hours there. That may not be enough time.”
Weird that she places so much importance on her meeting with Villalobos. Is she attracted to him?
“Rose, I’m not sure we can return through this locked anchor. But if we can, then there’s no rush. We can come and go as we like, and you can take as many trips as you need to capture footage of the Romans.”
“That is interesting. By day, we attend classes. But by night, we travel the timeline.”
I nod. “Are you ready to leave?”
She tightens her grip on my hand. “More ready than you can imagine. I have been absent from my homeland for more than a decade.”
Ignoring the nervous flutter in my gut, I close my eyes and concentrate on the target anchor in Cait. This is gonna be a shot in the dark, but with any luck, we’ll soon emerge in Britain, the land of Stonehenge, King Arthur, and Henry the Eighth.
Homecoming
ROSEMARIE ALLEN
As we emerge from the long jump, I know immediately that I am home. The anima, so strong and familiar, embraces me like a long-lost friend.
“You did it, Tyler. Thank you!”
I laugh with joy. Ignoring the soreness in my body, I hug Tyler, dance around him, and gaze up at the stars I was born under.
Only then do I realize he is exhausted from the jump.
He sinks onto a moss-covered rock. “I’m wiped. Need to lie down for a while.”
Summoning my deer eyes to see in the darkness, I lay out a bedroll for him. Though it’s summer in the Highlands, it’s a damp, chilly night, and there will be little wood about for a fire.
He crawls into the bedroll, falling asleep in seconds. I lie against his warm body, drawing my cloak over us to trap the heat. He said he doesn’t get cold, but I certainly do.
I am also tired, but sleep is impossible with Tyler lying so close. I am both happy and agitated. The thrill of this reunion with my native earth, and the touch of Tyler’s skin, work together to set my hea
rt racing.
I close my eyes, breathing in the musky and slightly sweet scent of heather. My thoughts drift into the past, showing me things I have long forgotten.
I remember my mother. She looked like me, only with blue eyes. My father had red hair. I have his pale green eyes. I think my mother had a sister who looked like her. But I can’t remember her name.
My name was Ferch. But that was not a real name. Ferch means daughter. To protect me from the magicians of a rival clan, my parents did not give me a proper name. The Draig had many enemies, even within our own kingdom.
In our society, the men ruled. My father, Dornodech, was chief of the Draig. But our rulers were chosen from the female bloodlines. That made my mother, Broicc, an important person. One of her sons would become the next chief, even if that son was from a different father. But I have no memory of having brothers.
I feel physical pain when I think of my father, and suddenly realize why. He is the dragon mage who marked me with his ink made of wyrm scales. He is probably the reason I am still alive.
But it was my mother who taught me about life. Through her, I learned about the anima, and the secrets of the natural world.
I was the closest thing we had to a clan princess. Without a brother, I was their hope for the future. My people guarded me zealously.
I refuse to remember anything more. Ahead lie darker memories. I am happy now. I want to stay this way for as long as I can.
Dawn reveals a rare cloudless day in the Highlands. I dig my class uniform out of Tyler’s pouch and retrieve the apples and biscuits I stuffed into the pockets.
As we eat breakfast, Tyler marvels at the landscape. We sit atop a hill. Beneath us, rock formations covered in velvety green moss stand like frozen waves. Beyond that, a small lake lies in the lowest part of the valley, surrounded by pink and purple heather. Summer is my favorite time here. I have never known a more beautiful land.
I nudge Tyler and point to a green mountain on the other side of the valley.
“There is a special place atop that mountain. My special place. I called it the Dragon’s Nest. I want to show it to you.”
