Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] Read Online Free Page A

Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel]
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instantly and she had a feeling of being flung forward, like a slingshot, as her body tore into a million pieces under the stress.
    Or maybe it was her mind. The past was dark . . . black even . . . then nothing.

Chapter Two
    Diana heard herself choking before she was fully conscious. She waded her way up through eddies of fog, the kind that only came to San Francisco in January. But when she opened her eyes, no fog enveloped her. She was lying in the middle of . . . where? She sat up slowly and her head ached. . . . A ragged circle of standing stones marched around her. The machine loomed above her, quiescent. Stars blinked in the black velvet sky she associated with deserts or mountains, away from city lights. More stars than she had ever seen were dusted across the creamy swaths of organza that were the Milky Way. The only light was a sort of orange glow off to her left.
    My God. Where am I?
She surely wasn’t in the basement of the Rotunda anymore. She gasped for air and scrambled to her knees, looking around frantically.
    Smoke filled her lungs. Coughing, she turned toward the glow. She and the machine were in the open at the crest of a hill crowned with the huge circle of stones.
    What have I done?
How could she have been so rash as to just take a time machine back to God knew where?
Get hold of yourself,
she thought sternly.
Just get back. Start the machine up. . . .
But what if this was actually Camelot? Shouldn’t she just take a look?
    She glanced around but didn’t see anybody threatening, so she took a couple of tentative steps toward the edge of the circle of stones in the direction of the glow. The slopes of the hill were covered by woods. In the valley below, across a broad river, buildings surrounded by wooden palisades were burning. Tiny figures clashed in the meadow in front of the gates. Horses reared. Swords gleamed red in the light from the flames. People staggering under packs of their belongings streamed through a cluster of huts toward the river, dodging swords and hooves.
    She clapped her hand over her mouth in excitement. This wasn’t a reenactment. This was actually a city from a really long time ago. She was a time traveler! Maybe it wasn’t magic, but it was close. Even as she watched, wind swept showers of sparks like a swarm of hellish insects to the near side of the river. The fire flickered and took hold in the grass. It swept toward the woods on her hill.
Uh-oh.
    But this palisade and its few poor wooden turrets couldn’t be the legendary Camelot. She knew not to expect the crenellated towers of the Medieval drawings. But this? Maybe the Camelot that provided the proverbial shining moment was yet to be completed and this was some primitive precursor, long before Arthur and Guinevere were born.
    Her visit might be short, no matter where she’d landed. The fire was gaining momentum as it hit the brush of the forest. Flames chewed their way up the hill, leaping from treetop to treetop. She had to get out of here.
    She knelt and began to power up the switches again, but before she could complete the sequence a man and a boy ran up through the standing stones.
    Diana jerked back, her eyes widening.
    They were dressed in jerkins and leather leggings. The man, maybe a little past middle age and clean shaven, was big and rugged, with dark hair. He could be calledhandsome, with those cheekbones. She could see little more in the dark. The boy was gangly, all elbows and knees, at the age when his joints still seemed put together with rubber bands. One couldn’t miss the resemblance between the two.
    Both had eyes only for the machine. As they came closer, the father held up a hand. Glowing sparkles danced in the air and formed themselves into a ball that cast brilliant light over both people and machine. Diana gasped. The man’s eyes were piercing blue or maybe green, proof that there had already been some Nordic stock intermixed in the local population. Still, light eyes would be
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