Ancient Fire (Danger Boy Series #1)
Page 18
Chapter Seventeen
Thea: Letters Home
Time Undetermined
Ever since Tiberius came after us, setting everything in motion in Alexandria, so much of what has happened feels like a dream. And not always a good one. But there seems to be no indication that I will wake up anytime soon.
Each new event outstrips the last: How do I adequately describe my journey with Eli, the boy wizard, who pulled me through the fabric of time itself, through the Fifth Dimension—a land of dream…and color…and longing? Longing for a time and place truly my own…but I doubt I will know such a place ever again.
Perhaps I should write of the brief time I spent in Eli’s world, where I found out that there is no time or place in which wizards are safe from attack.
Or perhaps I should start with where I am now: a world wholly strange to me, filled entirely by lizard folk. They remind me of some of our animal gods in Alexandria—but they are not gods, of course.
They are big and mostly polite and seem to be studying me cautiously; watching my every move, jotting things down, conferring with one another. They also provide what food they can for me, which they regard as a strange diet of exotic grains and fruits.
They are still overcoming their absolute shock at seeing me emerge from K’lion’s time-ship. I think some of them might have taken offense that one such as I—a creature unlike them—could even master the controls of such a vessel.
It was not hard. K’lion taught me the basics when he showed me the ship in Alexandria. And the course for “home” had already been set.
I should say the course for K’lion’s home. Not mine. Mine is lost now.
And perhaps that is where I should focus this journal entry: on the handful of scrolls that were saved from the library.
With my mother gone, that leaves just me. The scrolls and me. We are all that remains of the great library.
But I have Mother’s thirst for knowledge. And now, if my new hosts allow it, I have use of the lizard beings’ time-ship. I will become an explorer on my own, reclaim the knowledge that was lost, and add new discoveries.
I will do all this in memory of Hypatia, who taught me life is a great mystery with much to know and explain.
Perhaps they will let me go look for my two lost friends, and bring Eli the wizard here, or at least K’lion. This is, after all, where he belongs.
And after a long adventure, it is good to go home.