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“Lords of Space, where’s the box?” Dianora recoiled when the segment with Garren’s statue played. His hand was no longer outstretched and holding the damn wooden box. Instead he rested it on the ornate hilt of a sword slung at his side.
“Did you say something?” Derek paused at her side.
“Wasn’t he holding a box?” she said, gesturing at the holo.
Frowning, her colleague glanced at the display. “No, definitely a sword, which fits for a warrior king, as he’s believed to have been.”
She swallowed hard. “I’d better get back to work.”
“I stopped by to see you an hour or two ago,” Derek said, walking with her across the open space. “You weren’t there.”
“I—I had a bad migraine and I had to go lie down. I’ll work late tonight to make up the time.”
He grinned. “As if you don’t work late every night. You work too hard, kid. Take a break tonight and join us in the mess hall for games night.”
“No thanks, I really had better make up the lost hours. I don’t want to get in trouble with Isabel or Dr. Soren.” They’d reached her workstation and she stopped, nervously juggling the food and drink. Derek reached across her to trigger the latch and his closeness made her uneasy. He’d been giving off hints of interest in her as more than a colleague and Dianora didn’t want any entanglements on this first, all important job.
With a wave, he went on his way, saying over his shoulder, “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
“Later,” she called as she stepped into the office. Setting the snack on the desk, she checked the pile of items waiting for her attention and was relieved not to find anything else changed from the morning. Hastily she sat and checked her messages, answering a quick query from Isabel and tacking on a note about the ‘migraine’ and the plan to work late. Dianora ate the energy bar in a few quick bites and washed it down with the drink before picking an artifact from the pile and bringing it to her desk. When she reached for her tool kit, to start cleaning the small pottery shard, she remembered it wasn’t there in her pocket.
“I left it behind,” she said in a whisper. “In the dungeon.”
This could all get very unsettling, trying to decide if she was actually time traveling under the influence of the ring, or merely having extremely vivid hallucinations because of the same ring. Eyeing the scratch on her hand, she sighed. There could be any number of explanations for the tiny injury and for the missing tools besides a trip into the distant past. With a muttered curse she set aside the pottery and logged into the expedition’s database, searching for any mention of the Craadil. In the end she found only one obscure reference made in passing on a partially obliterated fresco, calling them ‘demons from over the seas’.
“But point being they did exist and I never heard of them before Garrin said the name.” Stretching to ease her back muscles, Dianora immediately second guessed herself. “But maybe someone mentioned it in my hearing or I scanned it in my research before I got here.”
Since she couldn’t proceed without the proper tools, she made a trip to the camp resource depot and had to wait while two researchers checked out blasters, which were authorized during excursions to the river site, as there were large predators and deadly snakes in the surrounding forest. The whole process was quite informal and quick luckily for her, since she needed to get back to work as expeditiously as possible.
The clerk didn’t even ask her how she’d lost her original tools, merely shaking his head and muttering about careless new hires.
She didn’t feel like quarreling with him, so she was soon on her way again.
Knowing she needed to accomplish a lot today to make up for her earlier distraction, Dianora worked steadily on her waiting artifacts. It was difficult to make herself stick to the task at hand though. Cleaning dirty, cracked pottery with fragments of art and isolated script seemed pointless next to the alluring temptation of going back in time and seeing it all for herself. She could find out the answers to everything this expedition wanted to know and more. She could ask Garrin?—
Dianora’s breath caught at the idea of sitting and talking to the man at length, of being with him and getting to know him. It was an enticing prospect and she had to stop herself from reaching into her pocket to touch the ring. “This whole thing is pulling me out of orbit,” she said out loud, rising to place the cleaned bowl on the proper shelf and select another item. “I can’t possibly believe I’ve been time traveling because of some gaudy ring.” But there were legends and rumors floating around out in the Sectors about the impossible things Ancient Observer relics could do, or had done, in careless human hands. She’d always discounted the ideas as unfounded and unsupported but her skepticism was before she started having her episodes in the last day.
She did work late into the evening, taking a dinner break and trying to enter into the conversation and good spirits of her colleagues in the mess tent but she felt as if there was a force screen between herself and them tonight. She possessed knowledge they didn’t—she’d actually talked to Garrin and helped him and his men escape their imprisonment. All the other archaeologists had done was dig in the dirt and scratch at the surface of the ruins.
Dianora told herself this was a dead end train of thought but she couldn’t shake the pall of disassociation. When she finally knocked off work, powered down the lights and headed for her tent, she dreaded the idea of another day tomorrow, doing the scutwork of a dig. Two days ago she’d been grateful for the job and the opportunity to learn and work her way up the hierarchy in the Archaeology Service, willing to do whatever was required. Now she was impatient to re-enter the actual world of the vanished Belmane and seek out answers.
To be with Garrin again.
In her quarters, she tried to go to bed but her mind was buzzing with all the things she wanted to know and should have asked when she had the chance, although since Garrin had been under time pressure needing to escape the Craadil occupying his castle, it probably hadn’t been a good opportunity. Dianora couldn’t sleep, no matter what she tried.
Rising, she crossed to the chair where her cargo pants were slung and pulled the ring out of her pocket. Holding it to the dim light, where the giant stone glowed and sparked, she said, “All right, I’m going to find out the truth tonight, one way or the other.” Setting the ring on the bed, she got dressed and then spent ten minutes setting up her handheld in the right place to capture a long running holo of what would happen next.
Satisfied the camera was filming, she took the ring and slid it on her finger without hesitation. “Take me to Garrin,” she said, rubbing her thumb across the stone as she remembered doing in the dungeon corridor when she’d brought herself home the last time.
The flash of intense cold enveloped her from the top of her head to her toes and she closed her eyes. Either the holo would see her vanish and confirm the wild hypothesis she was a time traveler, or the holo would show her falling onto the bed in a dream state, which would be more likely but very disappointing.
“I’m grateful you’ve returned to me,” Garren said from where he sat at a small table, a goblet at his elbow and maps spread in front of him. He didn’t seem particularly surprised to see Dianora, although his smile was welcoming and did things to her inner core.
The man was charismatic all right. She could see why his name carried forward to her own time even after his civilization had died out.
“Have a seat,” he said, rising and moving a second chair to the table. He held out his hand and she moved forward to take it, feeling as if she was a character in a historical trideo drama. “We’ll drink wine and talk. I’m anxious to hear your counsel.”
Seating herself in the chair, Dianora paused in dismay. “I—I’m not qualified to offer any advice, sir. I came seeking answers.”
