The Talismans of Time (Academy of the Lost Labyrinth Book 1)

by Stephen H. Provost

  Academy of the Lost Labyrinth

  The Talismans

  of Time

  Stephen H. Provost

  All material © 2020 Stephen H. Provost

  Cover design by Melody Simmons

  Interior images are in the public domain

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Dragon Crown Books 2020

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-949971-07-1

  For those who still believe.

  Contents

  1 Welcome

  2 Field Trip

  3 Corn and Ivy

  4 Fowl Play

  5 Waylaid

  6 Wild Card

  7 Reindeer Ride

  8 Caravan

  9 Evernight

  10 Follow the Needle

  11 Tree-Man

  12 Stew and Cider

  13 Dragon Home

  14 Bull-Headed

  15 Up in the Air

  16 Piping Up

  17 Tick Tock

  18 Fire in the Sky

  19 Out of Time

  20 Labrys

  21 Timeswitch

  22 Homecoming

  23 Closing the Circle

  Chapter One

  Welcome

  Twenty years.

  That’s how long Alamina had been headmistress at the Academy. It still looked much the way it always had on the outside. Ivy climbed up the three stories of its gray stone walls, which presided over expansive gardens filled with wisteria, foxglove, hydrangea and rambling rose. Three students stood chatting in a white gazebo, at the edge of a pond filled with lily pads and an assortment of colorful carp.

  The inside, of course, was far different than it had once been. It had been built as a manor house in the sixteenth century, and had served as such for generations. It was only at the end of the nineteenth century that it had been converted into a school campus, many of its bedrooms transformed into classrooms where youths ages ten to eighteen studied a diverse array of subjects.

  There were the typical courses in arithmetic, from basic math to calculus; in literature and biology, in history and physics. But the Academy of the Lost Labyrinth also offered subjects that were less, shall we say, conventional. The schedule of courses posted on the bulletin board in the Alamina’s office included titles such as:

  The Benefits and Hazards of Time Travel

  Changing Shapes and Changing Back

  The Circle of History

  The Ethics of Dream Striding

  Memory Magic

  Mythology: Fact and Fiction

  One of the course titles was crossed out with thick red ink and marked as CANCELED in capital letters: Navigating the Labyrinth.

  The class was canceled because the labyrinth wasn’t where it was supposed to be, in the gardens behind the school. It only appeared when a particular kind of student, a Pathfinder, was in need of it. At one time, as many as six Pathfinders had been enrolled at the Academy, but at present, there were none. That wasn’t to say, though, that there weren’t any Pathfinders on the grounds. There was at least one that Alamina knew of.

  Herself.

  But the labyrinth had been gone for as long as she’d been here, and she was beginning to wonder whether it would ever appear again. Whole classes of students had come and gone without ever venturing inside the Lost Labyrinth. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing: The labyrinth could be a very dangerous place.

  Still, it seemed strange that it had been gone so long. The last time Alamina had seen it was when she arrived at the school to take her position.

  Her arrival had hardly been inconspicuous: She had flown in from Iowa—on the wings of one dragon, accompanied by another.

  At the time, she’d had no intention of becoming headmistress. She hadn’t even known for sure what she would find here among the rolling hills of Yorkshire.

  Who she found had surprised her even more.

  ...

  At first, she hadn’t even recognized the old man who was waiting for her on the front lawn; it was something in his eyes that had given him away...

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said, smiling broadly to reveal that he still had all his teeth, even at nearly a hundred years of age. He wore a white suit, and his head was completely bald, with only a wispy ring of white hair growing above his ears and around the back. He carried a cane, which was crowned by the wood-carved head of a crow—one of his students had personally gifted it to him on graduation.

  “You have,” she said. “Changed, I mean.”

  “Time does that to a man,” he chuckled, “unless, that is, you jump the circle.”

  An odd-looking cat who appeared quite old sat sleeping on his shoulder, purring softly. The odd-looking thing about her was the fact that she had nine tails, each of which waved lazily as she opened her eyes about a quarter of the way.

  “Oh, hello,” she said. “How did you get here?”

  “The dragons brought me,” said Alamina, then leaned close to the man’s ear and whispered. “I didn’t think she’d still be alive.”

  “I can hear you,” the cat said. “My hearing hasn’t gone yet. And yes, I’m still alive. I’m on my eighth life.”

  Alamina smiled. “Is Ruffus...?”

  “Oh, he’s been gone for some time,” the cat said. “Bloodhounds aren’t as long lived as we cats.”

  “Admit it Isis, you miss him,” the man said.

  The cat meowed softly, and he scratched her under her chin.

  Alamina introduced him to Illian, the woman who’d ridden in on the other dragon. She remained tight-lipped, though, and simply nodded as she looked him up and down. It wasn’t clear whether she failed to recognize him, or whether she thought she did and dismissed the idea because it seemed too implausible that he could be the person he seemed.

  Alamina looked at him, amazed. She’d never thought she’d actually see him again. It had seemed like only yesterday he had been a young boy, shorter than she. To her, it had been only yesterday. To him, it had been eighty years.

  “I’ve only jumped the circle, as you put it, once. And only just now,” she said. “I’m still trying to figure this all out.”

  The man threw back his head and laughed. “You should have taken one of my classes. You’d be an expert by now!” He waved his cane toward the impressive mansion that had once been called Ridley Manor, but which was now a very special school for more than three-hundred very special students. Alamina noticed that a large dormitory building had been added, along with a separate library, a gymnasium, and an arched hall that ran between the dorm and the main house. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” he asked.

  “I’m impressed,” she said, trying not to sound too awed by it all. She’d known he was important, but she had no idea he had been destined to establish an academy. Now she knew why he’d needed to switch places with her—at least a fragment of the reason why.

  But his expression turned suddenly serious, and he asked: “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m not really sure.”

  “I may be old, Alamina,” the man said, “but I can still read my calendar, and according to that calendar, you’re about twenty years too early.”

  “I know,” she answered. “But why do you keep calling me Alamina?”

  “It’s the name I first knew you by: your magical name. It’s strange, though. My memory of that encounter betwee
n us seems to be fading—to the point I can barely recall it. It’s almost as though it never happened. I just can’t figure out why. My memory is the one thing I’ve always been able to count on. It’s my gift, you know.”

  “I do,” she said. “What do they call you these days?”

  “To my face, they call me ‘Headmaster.’ Behind my back, they call me all sorts of unspeakable things. They complain I never forget anything they’ve done wrong—which is true. But I can’t help that. I do have an impeccable memory.” He winked. “A few of them like me, though. They call me ‘the Great.’”

  When he said that, she saw something strange: The man seemed to grow momentarily translucent, flickering and fading before returning to normal again.

  Alamina rubbed her eyes. “It’s not just your memory that’s fading.”

  The man nodded. “So I’ve been told. I’m afraid it’s because you arrived early, but on the other hand, it’s a good thing you’re here, because I’ll need someone to take over the Academy for me when I’m gone, and I can think of no one better.”

  “Gone? I won’t let that happen!”

  “I’m afraid you’re too late to stop it,” the headmaster said. “Besides, even if you could stop me from fading away—and I don’t think you can—I’m an old man nearing the end of my days. You’re still young enough to deal with these all these undisciplined ragamuffins.” He laughed. “A word I picked up from Miss Owl.”

  Alamina smiled. She missed Miss Owl already.

  “But I have no idea what it takes to run a school,” she protested.

  “An academy,” he corrected.

  “Or an academy.”

  “Neither did I,” the headmaster said. “I only knew I did not want to run it the way other people run schools.”

  He took her inside the house and gave her a tour. Each of the classrooms had a quote inscribed over the doorframe:

  “Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen.” — Johann Wolfgang van Goeth

  “Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

  “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” — Albert Einstein

  “The chameleon changes color to match the earth; the earth doesn’t change color to match the chameleon.” — Senegalese proverb

  “Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.” —Corrie ten Boom

  “That one’s my favorite,” the headmaster said.

  Alamina wasn’t surprised.

  Some of the classrooms were empty, but most were filled with children and teens, listening with varying degrees of attention to lectures, working on assignments or conducting experiments. Her host poked his head inside one classroom to say a quick hello to the teacher, a woman of advanced years whose hair was nonetheless still bright red. She stood at the front of the class, talking about how to turn oneself into a toad without accidentally becoming a tadpole. This was important, she said, because tadpoles need to stay in the water, “and unless you’re in a bathtub when you change, you might find yourself hung out to dry.”

  Some in the class laughed at this, although others didn’t seem to get the joke. The instructor turned her head and nodded slightly when the headmaster entered the room. Was that a twinkle in her eye? Was there something between the two of them?

  Alamina shook her head and hid a smile behind her hand. It was none of her business. It just seemed odd to see him the way he was now, and to think of him as having a romantic interest. He was just so... different.

  The teacher turned her attention back to the class and admonished them to never, under any circumstances, take the form of an inanimate object.

  “Why?” asked one of the students.

  She responded with a question of her own: “What does ‘inanimate’ mean?”

  “You can’t move.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “If you’re inanimate, that means you can’t move anything. That includes your central nervous system. All those neurons that are firing all the time in your brain? They don’t fire if you’re inanimate.”

  “Then how do we change back?” another student asked.

  “You don’t. That’s the problem.”

  She followed the headmaster out of the classroom and closed the door behind her. There was noise coming from the room next door: the sound of students talking and laughing.

  The headmaster stopped just outside the door and raised a finger before opening it.

  “New teacher,” he whispered conspiratorially to Alamina. “He hasn’t figured out how to command his students’ attention yet.”

  As he opened the door, a paper airplane flew from a young boy’s hand toward a beleaguered man in a three-piece suit who was writing something on a whiteboard. The boy’s creation looped once in the air, then did a nosedive to the floor a few feet from its intended target.

  “You’re no Daedalus, young man,” the headmaster said.

  The students, who had been restless and inattentive a moment earlier, grew immediately silent and sat up straight in their chairs, eyes to the front of the class.

  A girl near the front raised her hand.

  “Angela,” the teacher said, calling on her.

  “Mr. Firpo, who’s Daedalus?”

  “You’d know, if you’d been paying attention,” the headmaster said, his tone instructive but firm.

  “Um... er... yes. Quite right,” said the teacher. “Daedalus was one of the greatest craftsmen and inventors in ancient Greece. He was the first person to solve the mystery of flight.” He looked down at the paper airplane. “And, of course, he built the famous labyrinth.”

  The headmaster led Alamina out of the room. “The mythology class is always a challenge,” he said. “Half the students think they don’t need to learn it, and the rest think they know more than they do. They’re sure that the history is really fantasy, and vice versa. Firpo will set them straight, though. He’ll be fine once he gets his feet wet,” he said. Then he added: “You’ll make sure of that.”

  “But I haven’t accepted...”

  He waved his hand to fend off any further objection.

  Alamina didn’t want to seem rude, so she tried a different tack. “What, exactly, does the position entail?”

  They had come to the last classroom, the one at the end of the third-floor corridor, and found it empty. Above the door were printed the words of Thomas Paine, the American revolutionary. Instead of answering her question, he glanced up at them, and her eyes followed his.

  “The inquiry ceases at once, for the time hath found us.”

  She looked up at them, and frowned, then back at the headmaster.

  But he was gone.

  ...

  Chapter Two

  Field Trip

  So, it had come to this. Alamina had accepted the position of headmistress, because she had no idea what else to do—or where else to go.

  “Time runs in a circle,” she’d once been told, and it truly seemed that her life had come full circle.

  Except that something had gone wrong, and she needed to right it.

  Because she had time-jumped to a point on the circle that was twenty years too early, she’d had to wait those twenty years to set things right. She could have tried to jump again, and find the proper landing spot, but her initial failure had affected her. What if her second try only complicated things even further? What if it created more problems than it solved? It was ironic that her own gift, which qualified her to teach a class called “Practical Time Shifting,” should have been the one talent she feared to invoke.

  It wasn’t as if she had accomplished nothing in those twenty years. She had learned how to run the Academy and had earned the trust of the teachers—most of them, anyway. The students liked her, too. The word was that they had warmed to her more easily than the old headmaster, who had spent so much of his time with his nose in old books that the pu
pils barely saw him. Alamina had taken a far more active role in running the school, even teaching two or three sections herself every semester, and had taken a personal interest in many of her pupils.

  Not long after she arrived, they had started calling her Alamina, which she actually preferred to her given name. It was familiar to her from another time and place, and it seemed odd, but somehow fitting, that she should hear it again just now. It was a Romani name, but of Arabic origin: It meant “smart person.”

  She liked that, and it hadn’t been long before everyone was calling her by the new name.

  So, she had waited for the proper moment to arrive. Now, it was nearly here.

  There was a knock at the door, and she looked up from her desk, where her pen sat poised over a sheet of paper as she lingered deep in thought.

  “Come,” she said.

  The door opened, and a man in a long brown coat and a Fedora entered, nearly creating a breeze with his confident stride.

  “Headmistress,” he said, leaning over in front of her and placing two close-fisted hands on her desk, knuckles down. “We have a problem.”

  “Oh?” Alamina was unperturbed by his brashness.

  “Three of the older students,” he began. “They refuse to take instruction. Two of them have been held back twice already, and the third is so impertinent that none of the teachers can control him.”

  She leaned back. “Let me guess, Mr. Thorvald,” she said, a thin-lipped half-smile on her face. “Joey, Vano and Django.”

  Mr. Thorvald nodded once, decisively. “They gypsy boys.”

  “Roma,” she corrected him. “Or Romani. We do not call them ‘gypsies’ in this school. Is that clear?”

  Mr. Thorvald’s confidence seemed to waver for a brief moment. Then he plowed ahead. “They are disrupting all their classes, poisoning the learning environment,” he said. “What do you intend to do about it?”

  A germ of an idea began to form in her head.

  “Perhaps the learning environment is poisoning them,” she suggested.