Wherever I Am

Chapter 3 - Part 1

I staggered forward on the uneven ground, Ellie bumping into me as she stopped.

"Where are we?" she whispered. "This looks kind of like where we were, but no lake down there, and no...wait, there is a building...or was."

I turned to see a stone tower with other attached buildings. They looked nothing like Uncle John's place. The stone was all limestone, and the tower was at least three stories in height. It looked intact, but there were a few blackened rafters left from where there had been roofs on the other single-story buildings.

"A tower?"

Ellie looked it over. "Yeah, but more than that. It's tied into the other buildings or wings or something. So, where the hell are we?"

"My thoughts exactly," I replied automatically. She was right about the terrain. Not a lot of mountain cedar or prickly pear, but some other plants were recognizable, and we seemed to be sitting on the same sort of hill that Uncle John's place. If things lined up like before, that would be the setting sun. We'd find out soon enough, I supposed.

I took Ellie's hand. "I guess we're on our way to Baemardis. We should probably camp here if the sun is setting."

She stared at me like she didn't understand what I said, then sagged and nodded before whipping her phone out of her back pocket. "No service, so I guess this is real, whatever that means," then fiddled with the screen. I found I'd pulled mine out when she did and simply stared at the no-bars icon. No wifi signal either. No Bluetooth.

"I'm putting mine on airplane mode for now," Ellie declared. "No sense draining the battery unnecessarily."

"Might as well turn it off, then. From the looks of things, there isn't service around here."

Ellie slipped her phone back into her pocket. "Let's explore these...ruins and make sure we're alone. If they're ruins, they're newly ruined, I think. Not like Chaco or Mesa Verde. And this isn't modern construction. Those building blocks are shaped, and all but look at the mortar. Tiny rocks wedged into the mortar. This is weird."

I shook my head in agreement—not a clue. We walked around and through the ruins—a central tower three stories in height with three stone one-story buildings extending off as wings. Everything had been burned, though much of the wood and rafters making up the ceiling of the tower's second floor were still intact, if charred, and no light came from up there. This should protect us from any rain. I could see where a staircase used to go to the second floor, but it was gone, like the wide central doorway into the tower. The three more normal entrances into the wings also lacked doors. Were they used for firewood or something else?

"Is this why Mom and Dad wanted us to learn to fence, fight and shoot a bow?" Ellie fingered the hilt of her blade. "I mean, they're both pretty good with all of that, too."

I nodded again but studied the ground outside more than listened to her when we went back outside. I could recognize the raccoon, deer, coyote, and bobcat prints around the area. Again, this seemed like home, except that Lake Travis should be glinting off to the south, and it wasn't. I'd bet the Colorado River was there, just out of sight behind the hills. "Did we go back in time?"

"Time travel?" Ellie looked at him. "But that doesn't seem right. There weren't buildings like this in pre-historic Texas...were there?"

"Not like this, that's for sure. Maybe South America or Asia, but not here. Pyramids, maybe, but that's more Aztec or Maya, and they were much farther south. This isn't making sense."

"Respect everyone, but trust nobody. That's what she said, so I guess there are people around." She drew her rapier. "I hope I don't have to use this."

I drew my own, a twin to hers, except for some detail in the basket hilt. Some might argue the term. They're sharply single-edged with a double edge for about six inches from the sharp tip. Straight and heavier bladed than my fencing epee, with enough heft to slice and slash as easily as stab. Some might argue this to be a saber, but it's straight...no curve...and longer, with an ornate guard and pommel that looked quite functional to bust skulls.