Read Mrythdom: Game of Time for Free Online

That’s all it was. Just plain ignorance. He’d never gone to an academy after his primary education, and such was the extent of his ignorance that he didn’t even know there existed a place with such incredibly tall trees.
    Once he landed, he’d find someone who could tell him exactly where he was, and then he’d resync his computers to his actual location and everything would line up perfectly with what his ship already knew about the world.
    As Aurelius triggered the landing struts and hovered in close to the ground for a landing, the old man beside him stirred and groaned, drawing his attention for just a moment. For the first time Aurelius noticed the man’s clothes: coarsely woven fabric, strange styling . . . and then there was that staff. Gabrian certainly didn’t look like anyone Aurelius had met before.
    Something wasn’t adding up.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Aurelius was just reaching around to unbuckle his seat restraints when he saw the old man stir again. Gabrian was still knocked out by the stun blast, but the effects seem to be wearing off unusually quickly. At this rate, the old wrinkle bag will wake up before I can get back. Maybe I should stun him again. . . .
    No sooner had he thought it than the old man woke up with a start. His head snapped around, pinioning Aurelius with a frosty blue glare. Aurelius's hand dropped to the butt of his pistol even as the old man’s lips began to move.
    “Asharta teru aryms alu mer!”
    And in that instant Aurelius's pistol flew out of its holster, traversing an arms length of thin air before slapping into the old man’s waiting palm.
    Aurelius blinked stupidly. “What?”
    “Your skill with self deception is impressive, elder. I can see it's going to take something truly dramatic for you to see the truth.”
    “How did you do that?”
    “Rational thought is a better blindfold than naïveté. I expected more from you.” Gabrian unstrapped himself from the copilot's chair and stood up. He gestured with the pistol to the cockpit door. “Let's go.” Aurelius hesitated and Gabrian shrugged. “Very well, if you won't go willingly, I'll just shoot you and leave you here until I come back.”
    Aurelius gritted his teeth, but then turned and began walking back through his ship. He heard the old man's footsteps echoing softly behind him. “Where are we going?”
    “To Dagheim. I sense that Malgore is near.”
    “Dagheim?” Aurelius passed his hand over the inner airlock door controls, and the doors opened with a swish of frigid air. He'd left his helmet in the cockpit; he had a feeling he was about to regret that.
    “The village you saw on the way here.”
    Aurelius nodded. “Right. The village. ” The outer airlock doors slid open and the cold hit him like a punch in the face. Snow swirled into the airlock, dusting his boots.
    “Move,” Gabrian ordered, poking him in the ribs with his own gun.
    “I'm moving!” Aurelius shot back. The chill cut almost instantly through Aurelius’s flight suit. He crossed his arms over his chest and hunched his shoulders to keep from shivering. They walked on in silence, their breath forming frosty white clouds as they went. They were crunching across a hardened layer of ice which had formed from repeated melting and freezing of the snow. Every now and then one of their feet would punch through the ice layer and they would sink in up to their knees in the soft powder underneath. The clearing was unbroken and undiminished by trees, as though it didn’t lie in the middle of a giant forest. An icy wind was kicking up hazy clouds of snow that obscured the horizon. Aurelius shot a quick look over his shoulder. He could no longer see the trees he’d flown over. Maybe he’d imagined them. After all, in the crash he had hit his head hard enough to black out.
    After about 10 minutes of walking, Aurelius’s nose and ears were frozen to the point that he couldn’t feel them. His eyebrows and lashes were crusted with snow,