Back to Reality
By Dark Comet
Chapter 5
As he drained the crystal glass in one final sip, Julian Lapis finally felt himself begin to relax. He sunk back into the welcoming embrace of his rococo chaise longue, pausing only to refill his glass from the nearby decanter. He didn't normally sample more than one glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in one sitting, but he felt that he had deserved it tonight.
Here's to the best fifty dollars I've spent in a long time he toasted silently, taking another sip from the glass.
He was genuinely impressed with Griff's work. When he had taken his own journey into the Cretian Labyrinth that made up the Town Centre's archives, he hadn't known where to start. Researching old documents and ancient tomes was a standard part of his job at the University, but nothing short of a GPS navigation system could have guided him through those murky catacombs. For someone like Griff to find what he was looking for after less than a day was nothing short of remarkable. Plus he could tell he had taken a few tips from a certain Raymond Chandler when it came to the demeanour - he certainly had the hardboiled look down to a fine art, something Julian always approved of.
Replacing the glass next to the decanter, he turned his attention back to the collection of papers that lay neatly stacked on the study carpet. He took the top sheet and studied it carefully, although he already knew what it was. It was the deed to a homely little house nestled in Reality Gardens. The property had been in the Lapis name for the last two and a half centuries, but had been up for sale since the family's departure from the town in the late 1800's. Returning to take up the newly vacated post of Professor of Classical Civilisations at Reality-on-the-Norm University, he had done some research into his family history and discovered that in all that time, no one else had shown any interest in owning the property. Somewhat unsurprising, considering what they had been asking for it.
Never one to pass up a golden opportunity, Julian had secured one month's lease with Cloudy Days Real Estate, and promised to furnish them with proof of his family's ownership within that time. Such proof now lying in his hands, Julian couldn't help but feel pleased. He had quickly taken to the old place, and although he had yet to move the large majority of his own effects in, he was pleased to find his forebears had excellent tastes. He had even found some old bottles of wine in the cellar, one of which he was enjoying right now.
He placed the deed to one side of the pile. All the rest were the standard legal fare. Birth certificates, death certificates, bills, travel expenses, nothing really worthy of great attention.
Except, of course...
Julian gently separated the pile, and picked up the handwritten note. He had marked this separate from the other papers, along with the newspaper cutting. He could not understand why, but he constantly found his attention wandering back to the strange writing, and tried once more to make sense of it. He was sure that the symbols on the page meant something - they had a flowing style to them which suggested some kind of sentence structure, and he had spotted many recurring symbols, which implied some sort of alphabet.
But if it was indeed a language, then it was one he had never seen before. He had followed Griff's hunch and compared the symbols to Arabic, but had found no matches. Several other textbooks littering the study were testament to other failed attempts to find similarities, and Julian had a feeling that he would soon exhaust the limited number of reference books he had in the house.
The language aside, there was the bigger question as to where the note had come from. As he ran his fingers down the left side of the paper, Julian felt a rough unevenness in the edge, and he could see that there were several tiny areas of the paper fraying, as if it had been torn out of a book. Yet why was it so important than someone was willing to deface a book, he mused.
Perhaps the answer was in the article. Julian picked it up from the floor and re-read the ancient press cutting. According to the article, Jonathan Lapis, Julian's great-grandfather, had vanished during the early months of 1893, leaving behind a wife and child. Prior to this, he had been making several trips to an undisclosed 'site of archaeological interest', and the writer had speculated that he had vanished during an expedition of this same location.
Site of archaeological interest... Julian quickly leafed through the pile, and bought up several travel expense records. The most recent were all for passage to the same place - Eddy County, New Mexico. The name carried no significance, but there was a definite possibility that this was the site alluded to in the article.
This was all very interesting, but it still told him very little. Why was the page kept hidden in a safe deposit box containing the personal effects of his great-great-something grandfather in some dank city archive? If the page was indeed recovered during an archaeological expedition, why wasn't it kept by the University and translated? What had the page to do with his great-grandfather's disappearance, assuming it was connected in some way.
What did it all mean?
So many questions, so few answers. Julian could feel the fatigue begin to eat away at him. No more work. He would find the answers he sought tomorrow. The linguistics faculty would probably be able to tell him what the note said. Julian knew exactly who to drop this little puzzle in front of.
His smile turned swiftly into a yawn. Returning the papers to the pile and replacing the glass on the tray next to the decanter, Julian leaned back and allowed the welcoming embrace of sleep to embrace him.
*
'You've got to find a better way to hide me, Davy. One of these days I'm going to lose my grip on that window ledge.'
Elandra leaned against the smooth cave wall, arms folded and a bored expression upon her angular face. The time had long since passed when her boyfriend's underground lair hidden beneath the house had impressed her, but she was still grateful that he had eschewed the dripping, moss soaked dankness that traditionally defined most caves in favour of something far more dry and habitable, even bordering on cosy. The fact the cave was insulated by the nearby central heating was also a nice touch.
Davy sat with his legs crossed on the other side of the cave, one hand stirring some unspeakable concoction bubbling atop a miniature brazier, the other tracing lines across a dusting tome opened across his knees.
'I know, I know. But what else can I do? There's no room in the wardrobe, it's too risky to teleport you, and the last time you hid under the bed we ended up...'
Their eyes met, and the pair smiled at the memory.
'So, is this going to take long?' asked Elandra, glancing downwards at her watch. 'I've got my biochem tutorial at nine tomorrow, and I promised Kristi I'd meet her at half eight to go over it.'
'Shouldn't be. This is only a test, after all. If this works tonight, then we'll finally be able to reverse the damage we did to the school last year.'
'Are you sure we can, though? It's not like we just melted the history block or blew up the art department. We're talking time and space here. What if there's nothing we can do? What if you make it worse and end up increasing the spell's radius? The whole town could be affected!'
'That's not going to happen. The school's "condition" happened because a simple incantation went wrong. I've got the counter-spell right here, and if it works tonight, then we simply cast it on the school grounds, and everything will go back to normal.'
Davy looked up, and saw that Elandra's look of concern had not wavered.
'Elandra, please. I caused that mess, I want to fix it. It's as simple as that. Just let me try.'
She rolled her eyes. Watching Davy trying to be sincere was like watching a cat sitting next to a disemboweled sofa attempting to look innocent. But she didn't have it in her to object further. Truth be told, she was happy he was trying to make amends. The events of the last few years had imbued him with a sense of responsibility, which she was glad he now possessed.
'Right. That should do it,' he announced, putting the book to one side and picking up the now smoking concoction with charcoal stained hands. 'All we need now is the Blue Jade.' Davy paused, looking slightly anxious. 'Did you-?'
Elandra opened her satchel and carefully drew out the largest diamond Davy had ever seen. The low candlelight suddenly took on a brilliant blue, and all around them it looked like the stone walls were shimmering.
'Bloody hell' breathed Davy, mesmerized by the magnificent jewel. 'How did you-'
'With great difficulty. I left the twin, like you said, but if we need it later I seriously doubt I'll be allowed back into the Geology department. I'm not risking getting caught again.'
'You needn't worry. Once we put the school back to normal, we'll send it back anonymously. If anything, it'll encourage the university to take better care of its valuables.'
Elandra smirked at Davy's skewed sense of morality. He'd be more than happy to do something that ran the risk of stopping time, blowing up the planet or generally toying with the very nature of life, the universe and everything, yet he'd get cold feet about something trivial as a simple act of theft. It just showed that you could spend half your life doing unholy things with rams blood and fly wings and still have a conscience at the end of it.
It was one of the reasons why Elandra had stuck by Davy all these years. Because she knew that, despite what everyone said about him, her boyfriend was a good person.
'Okay. I think we're all set. I've prepared the ritual exactly like when we did it at the school. The effects should be contained by the Pentagram, so there's no need to worry about it escaping and affecting the house. All we need to do is say the counter spell, throw the gem into the smoke, and the temporal spatial rift should dissolve.'
'You make it sound so simple.'
Davy shrugged. 'That's because it is. There's absolutely nothing that can go wrong. Nothing.'