Walking with more caution, Larson made a rapid circuit of the room. The desk supported the skeleton's arm and skull across a blank page of an open journal. Scraps of leathery skin still clung to the yellowed bones; the walls had protected it from insects and the elements. Too accustomed to death to concern himself with the remains, Larson removed a bound journal from the top of the stack and flipped to the title page. It read, "The Acceleration of Anti-muons to Super-relativistic Velocities and Its Applications to Time Travel by Galin R…" The last name was smeared beyond further recognition. "… and Gary Mannix." Though not discarding the potential significance of his discovery, Larson closed the journal and moved on to the shelves.
The books on the mantles fell into categories, many of their titles obscured by mold. The upper levels held psychology texts and guides to hypnotism, witchcraft, and other paranormal phenomena. Beneath it, a row of physics and history tomes stood in stately contrast. The historical references held a definite bias toward the Middle Eastern cultures. The last shelf consisted of a mixed batch of hardbound science fiction novels, a bible, and assorted medical and literary references. Many of the volumes held the same Library of Congress classification tags Larson had thought he recognized on the books of the current Dragonrank Master. A glance down the stairwell re-vealed a well-equipped kitchen and a bathroom. The remaining room appeared to be a bedroom.
The tour took only a few minutes, but the trapped, ancient air felt suffocating and centuries of grime burned Larson's lungs. Until he had a chance to identify the strange gadgets in the laboratory and kitchen, he knew that allowing his companions to explore might prove too dangerous.
Gaelinar stood in the doorway, blocking Bramin's entry. Only Taziar had followed Larson inside. Snatching up the half dozen journals on the lab bench, including the one wedged beneath the skeleton, Larson caught Taziar's arm and herded the climber to the exit. "I'm not sure what we have here, but I'd rather examine them where I can breathe and see." His brief inspection had also revealed overhead lighting. But even if Mannix had created a working system for electricity, Larson doubted the bulbs could have survived.
Larson led his companions back outside, leaving the door propped to air out the building. Scraping aside snow to uncover the sand beneath, they sat in their manufactured clearing. To Larson's relief, Bramin came, too; apparently the dark elf wanted to keep track of his quarry or else he assumed the journals in Larson's arms held more interesting information than the house itself. And he's probably right. If these are, as I believe, Gary Man-nix's private notes, they may hold a wealth of magical and technological data. He shook his head, picking the first volume up in a hand which had begun to tremble. The mind boggles.
Taziar and Gaelinar seized later volumes as Larson flipped through page after page of formulas and calculations. The paper was watermarked, stout and sturdy enough to have survived the centuries. Tiny letters and numbers swarmed across each leaf in tight bunches, the mathematics punctuated by paragraphs of information, most of which made little sense to Larson: "The long-held theory that acceleration to light speed creates infinite mass is incorrect. No actual data has been previously available for particles traveling at or beyond light speed, only the extrapolation of Einstein's equations. We have shown that energy translates to mass up to a point. Beyond this threshold, energy will increase a particle to super-relativistic speed. Once the barrier of light speed is breached, a particle of insignificant mass liberates infinite energy. We have already determined time travel must be easier for energy than matter. Once the antipar-ticle mu was accelerated to super-relativistic speed, we might be able to store the massive energy this process would create in some alternate part of the Earth's orbit. If we can find the date of Nova, perhaps directly on our own sun." The text lapsed back into numerical incomprehensibility.
Larson looked up. Gaelinar and Taziar had lain aside their volumes in disgust, unable to interpret the English writings. Bramin stood behind Larson. Intent on his findings, Larson had not noticed the dark sorcerer reading over his shoulder. Apparently, however, Gaelinar had. The Kensei studied Bramin through narrowed eyes, his hand on his sword hilt.
Bramin broke the hush. "Some sort of magical runes."
Larson scooted around to face Bramin, annoyed by the abstraction which had kept him from perceiving an enemy at his back. "English, actually."
Taziar and Gaelinar exchanged glances. Larson's explanation held no meaning for them.
"I can read it," Larson clarified. "It's written in a language I understand." He added belatedly, "Elven, sort of." He hated to deceive his companions, but it seemed far less time consuming. He wanted as much of the daylight hours as possible to decipher the writings.
"Please, read, then," Gaelinar insisted.
"Aloud," Taziar specified.
Larson hesitated. His single semester of college physics had scarcely gotten him past the law of gravity and Newtonian mechanics. "It's mostly numbers. They wouldn't have any meaning for you. If you give me a little time, I may find something useful." He opened to the first page again, taking note of details. The entry was dated 12/07/1988. Larson gawked until the numbers blurred beyond his ability to read them. 1988? Almost twenty years after I went to Vietnam. He tried to picture his sister, Pam, more than forty years old, telling her children about their uncle killed in the war. But the image defied him. Absently, he fluttered the pages as he considered. I destroyed the future, didn't I? Or changed it, at least. Then again, since Mannix apparently came back before I did… His thoughts became incomprehensibly jumbled; time lost all relative meaning.
As pages flicked past him, Larson noticed a change in the quality of the penmanship. Toward the end of the journal, a darker handwriting replaced the chicken scratch of numbers. The discrepancy caught Larson's attention. He found the first entry of the newer author, a long treatise of words in letter form. "I think I have something here." Tucking his legs beneath his buttocks, he began to read.
"Galin R.," Larson glanced up to find Gaelinar watching him, a perplexed look on his wizened features. "Galin R.," Larson started again, and this time the incongruity clicked. "Galin R., Gaelinar." The names sounded too alike to attribute to coincidence. Despite the unfinished quest, an enemy close at hand, and multiple unsolved mysteries, Larson broke into laughter. Unable to read on, he lowered the book and roared.
Gaelinar and Taziar looked alarmed, which only made Larson laugh harder. He gasped between bouts, "Now… we know… where Silme… got your name." The Dragonrank mages must have passed it on for centuries. Several more minutes passed before Larson gained enough control to continue.
"Galin R.," Larson snickered, but managed to go on. "Well, I did it, at last. I channeled the stored energy and set off for…" Larson paused. The diary read "Egypt, 700 B.C.," but he saw no way to translate the place and era. He settled for a vague description of the location and indicated centuries back in time.