Free Spirit Blade: Book III of the Dragon Mage Trilogy by Carey Scheppner

time.
    Outside, the bright sunlight was a stark contrast to the damp, dark fogginess of the time travel bridge and forced the companions to blink and squint to get used to it. The door disappeared behind them, so they examined their surroundings. They were at the edge of a mountain looking east at the rising sun. The wind was brisk and cold. The terrain below them was green and lush with pristine forested lands. The southern edge looked slightly more barren as the forest gave way to scrub brush. South, beyond that, was the beginning of a desert.
    Harran was the first to speak. “Unless I miss my guess, we’re on the eastern face of the Five Fingers Mountains.”
    “It’s not where, but when that I’m more concerned about,” said Kazin. “I can only hope my spell was accurate enough to send us back to the right time in our history.”
    “Why do you want to be in the past?” asked the female spell caster.
    The others all turned to the stranger in unison.
    “I’m sorry,” said Kazin after a moment. “I guess we should introduce ourselves.”
    The stranger looked around at the companions. “I think I already know who you are - at least I know about you, but not your names.”
    “How so?” asked Sherman.
    The spell caster turned to glance at the big warrior with penetrating blue eyes. “My father wrote about you. You’re the ‘Guardian’. Am I right?”
    Sherman rolled his eyes. “Not that again.”
    The spell caster turned to Kazin. “And you’re the dragon mage.” She turned to the dwarf. “And the dwarf is ‘the frozen axe’. I saw how your axe shattered the zombies. And the minotaur,” she looked up at the towering beast, “is the ‘head of horns.” At last she regarded the skink warrior speculatively. “But you don’t fit somehow.”
    “You said your father wrote about us,” interrupted Kazin. “Did he by any chance write the ‘Book of Prophesy’?”
    The stranger nodded. “Yes. How did you know?”
    “We met briefly,” said Kazin with a distant look in his eye. “Once.”
    “Suppose you tell us your name,” prodded Harran. “My name is Harran Mapmaker.” He decided he liked the young spell caster.
    The stranger held out her hand and smiled. “I’m Amelia.”
    As they shook hands, Harran introduced the others by name. Although nervous about the skink warrior, she shook his hand quickly and then wiped it off on her robe. As Kazin shook her hand, he studied Amelia’s eyes and recognized something familiar about her but couldn’t place it. He asked her what she was doing on the dangerous swing bridge.
    “I asked you first,” she said sweetly, her smile catching him off guard.
    He decided to take her into his confidence even though Zylor glared at him for doing so. He gave a brief description of his quest and why they were on it, saying only that they hoped to undo what was causing the disappearances in the future.
    Amelia’s smile faded as he talked. “I see why you need to do something about it,” she said when Kazin had finished. “I would try to do the same thing. As for myself, I was just going back to study some gaps in the histories that my father missed. Call it a bit of research, if you like. I know better than to interfere. I just observe from a distance. I’ve been time traveling for a number of years now.”
    “How do you know you haven’t changed the course of history on one or more of your expeditions?” blurted Sherman. He looked at Kazin for support. “This could be the reason things are going wrong in your time!”
    Kazin raised an eyebrow and regarded the spell caster. “That’s a legitimate question, Amelia.”
    Amelia looked indignant. “I wouldn’t chance a serious catastrophe like that! I have a magical safeguard to prevent such an occurrence! If anything, it’s you who are the cause of the problem you now face!”
    Kazin held up a hand to calm the spell caster. “Relax. I’m not trying to point a finger. If you say you’re safe guarded