Gabriel could risk no more distractions. His time for searching the room exhausted, he gave a futile last look up to the rafters of the room, but could see no place where a notebook might be hidden. He retreated from the chamber, closed the door, and walked as quickly as he could down the short corridor and back to the chapel nave.
Seeing the door to the chapel swinging open, Gabriel quickly sat down between two old men dozing against the wall of the church. Hiding his face in his arm, he pretended to sleep, as well. His body screamed to run, lungs panting in anticipation of flight. He tried to slow his breathing.
Through barely open eyelids, he watched the rogue Apollyon stomp through the church door, slamming it behind him. Gabriel could feel the Soul Magic the Apollyon radiated, turning away the attention of everyone in the room. He held his breath until the Apollyon crossed the chapel hall and entered his hidden chamber.
Wasting no time, and knowing that the residual effects of Apollyon’s Soul Magic would help conceal him, Gabriel dashed across the church floor, hopping over coughing old men and wheezing women to slide quickly through the main doors and out into the cold air. Pausing only a moment to make sure no one nearby might see him, he raced back along the castle wall to where Teresa waited in hiding behind several barrels of walnuts. She wrapped him in a lung-crushing embrace as he sat beside her.
“When I saw him go in, I thought…” Teresa sat back, her face a mixture of fear and anger. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m fine.” Gabriel tried to slow his breathing, realizing how loud the pounding of his heart sounded in his ears. “I hid. Like a frightened mouse.”
“Like a smart mouse,” Teresa said, finally beginning to relax. “Any luck?”
“Nothing.” Gabriel leaned against one of the barrels. “Maybe he does have the real notebook on him when he leaves the room. If it’s hidden, it’ll take time to find it.”
“We can check every time he’s out.” Teresa leaned back beside Gabriel, pulling the blanket up around them.
“We can wait outside his room at night. He has to be tired enough to sleep soon. If we can catch him dozing, we could sneak in and get the notebook before he wakes.”
“It’s too risky.”
“We don’t have a better plan.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t a good plan. But we need to make sure he sleeps, not wait for it to happen.”
“How do we do that?”
Teresa’s eyes widened with excitement. “I may not pay attention to Ohin’s history lectures, but I do remember a few things Marcus taught us about herbs. Yesterday, I saw one of the women in the chapel making a tea from valerian root for some of the sick villagers. With enough of it, I can make a sleeping potion. It won’t knock him out instantly, but it should make him drowsy enough to doze off. Especially since he hasn’t slept in days. Once he’s asleep, we sneak in and steal the notebook.”
Gabriel marveled at Teresa’s ingenuity. “How do we get him to drink it?”
“We put it in his wine.”
“And how do we do that?”
Teresa’s excitement faded. “I have no idea.”
Getting the valerian-laced wine into the rogue Apollyon’s hands turned out to be far less complicated than Gabriel or Teresa had presumed. Unable to mingle freely with the remaining villagers in the castle, they found themselves forced to accomplishing everything under the cover of darkness. This included stealing food for themselves in addition to securing enough valerian root to render the rogue Apollyon unconscious. After chopping and crushing the root and blending it with water, Teresa created a concentrated liquid to instill into a sack of wine. These things were relatively easy, though time consuming, to accomplish.
Figuring out how to get the wine into the rogue Apollyon’s hands proved simple. The next time the rogue Apollyon went out, Gabriel snuck into his room and replaced the contents of the wine sack hanging on the wall. There could be no guarantee the rogue Apollyon would drink from the wine skin, but it was the only hope they had.
That afternoon, shortly after Gabriel made the switch with the wine, the soldiers expelled the last of the villagers from the castle. Gabriel and Teresa hid, hastily cramming themselves into a large, mostly empty barrel of chestnuts. With the lid of the barrel placed loosely above their heads, they felt relatively safe from the forced eviction.
As the sun set and the noises of the villagers’ protests faded, Gabriel and Teresa crowded together in the moldy-smelling barrel, trying to arrange their limbs in some manner of comfortable alignment. They ended up with Teresa seated on Gabriel’s lap, her head bumping against the wooden lid. The pain of the chestnuts digging into his hindquarters distracted greatly from the pleasantness created by Teresa’s proximity.
“Whose stupid idea was this?” Teresa tried to arrange her arm so her elbow didn’t poke into Gabriel’s ear.
“Yours.” Gabriel groaned softly as Teresa’s knee jutted into his stomach while she twisted around.
“This must be what it feels like in a can of sardines.” Teresa rotated her head, her hair falling across Gabriel’s face. He found himself suddenly thinking far less about the pain the chestnuts caused him.
“More like a can of Spam.” Gabriel blew a puff of air to dislodge a strand of Teresa’s hair tickling his cheek.
“Let’s not talk about food. I’m too hungry.” A thin shaft of moonlight pierced the gap between the barrel and the lid, illuminating Teresa’s face.
“If you’re counting Spam as food, you must be hungry.”
Gabriel paused for a moment, mesmerized by the beauty of her face. How did she manage to look so pretty with greasy hair and her face covered in dirt?
“Would you like a raw chestnut?”
“If you can figure out a way to slice them open with that sword and not take my hand off.” Teresa’s eyes went to the Sword of Unmaking shoved against the side of the barrel.
“I think it would be safer to starve a little longer.” Gabriel tried to adjust himself again, sending Teresa tilting sideways.
“There must be something we can do to keep our minds off how uncomfortable this is.” Teresa’s eyes flickered to Gabriel’s, and then away, just as quickly.
He could certainly think of something that would take his mind off their circumstance. Had she been thinking the same thing? Could she possibly have been thinking the same thing? How could he know? Was there some sign? Some signal? How did these things work? Gabriel suspected they rarely worked inside a barrel of chestnuts.
He tried to think about all the romantic movies he had seen and how the boy first kissed the girl. He realized then that he had not really seen many romantic movies. Science fiction movies, kung-fu movies, sports movies, comedies, yes, but what fourteen-year-old boy willingly watched romantic movies? This now seemed like a monumental oversight. A massive strategic blunder. How was he going to know what girls might like, one girl in particular, if he didn’t at least research the subject?
As he made a mental note to create a list of romantic movies to study upon his return to Windsor Castle, he noticed the odd look on Teresa’s face and how closely she seemed to be studying him.
“Is there something wrong with you?” Teresa frowned. “You’ve been staring at me like, forever.”
Gabriel blinked. He had been staring at her for a considerable time. He could feel his cheeks burning. He’d been daydreaming about ways to kiss Teresa while staring at her. Idiot!
“Nope. I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“What were you thinking about?”
A phrase from Akikane’s training leapt to Gabriel’s mind. Less thinking, more doing. That’s what he needed — more doing. Gabriel leaned forward, tilting his head up, intending to show Teresa exactly what he had been thinking about. As he brought his lips level with hers, his eyes staring deeply into her own, a small avalanche of chestnuts collapsed beneath him. He wriggled and shifted his weight to try and compensate, but somehow overcompensated, knocking his forehead into Teresa�
�s nose.
“Ouch!”
Teresa wiggled sideways as Gabriel tried to correct for the shifting weight and the foot suddenly stabbing into his kidney. The motion sent the barrel tilting precariously to the side. Teresa quickly leaned in the opposite direction of the sway, Gabriel instinctively leaning with her, becoming aware as he did so that his mass only enhanced the counter tilt of the barrel, sending it tipping over and rolling across the hard ground for ten feet before thudding into the side of the horse stable. As the barrel bounced back from the wall of the stable and came to a rest, Gabriel and Teresa lay half outside it, their arms entangled, heads facing away from each other.
“I’m not sure what you were thinking about,” Teresa said, disentangling her arms from Gabriel’s, “but maybe you shouldn’t think about it again. At least not while we’re in a barrel.”
“Right. I’m not sure what I was thinking.” Gabriel sat up, feeling like he would spontaneously combust from embarrassment. He looked around, thankful to find that their tumbling barrel trick hadn’t attracted anyone’s attention. He consoled himself by noting that Teresa had said not to think about it while they were in a barrel. He had no intention of getting in a barrel again anytime soon.
“We might as well sneak into the church and wait for him to fall asleep.” Teresa brushed herself off as she stood up.
“Good idea.” Anything to keep them both from thinking about the disastrous near-kiss could be considered a good idea. Gabriel grabbed the Sword of Unmaking from the barrel and stood beside Teresa.
They crouched low as they ran from store house to stables to the steps of the church entrance. Squeezing quietly through the church door, they found the inner nave empty. The old and sickly villagers had been expelled from the castle with all the others. It saddened Gabriel to know they would starve in the cold air outside the castle walls, and that some would surely die before King Philip would consent to let them pass. He wished he could do something for them, but knew it was impossible. One of the many aspects of his new life he could never accept — seeing injustice but being unable to act against it.
They walked silently across the nave. The sounds of the priest’s snores reached Gabriel’s ears before he reached the pulpit. When he stepped into the small corridor behind the altar, he realized the snoring came not from the open door of the priest’s quarters, but from the magically hidden room the rogue Apollyon occupied.
Gabriel glanced inside the priest’s chamber and found it empty. The clergyman had obviously been evicted along with the villagers. Or, more likely, had chosen to follow and help them as best he could.
Gabriel turned to the concealed door of the rogue Apollyon’s room and focused his mind, clearing away the Soul Magic obscuring the room. He knew Teresa was unlikely to accomplish a similar feat, so he motioned her to follow him as he slowly pulled the door to the room open and stepped through.
He stopped and held still. The rogue Apollyon lay on the narrow bed, feet dangling over the edge, his snores reverberating around the room. The flickering light from the candle on the table showed the surprise on Teresa’s face as she stepped through the nonexistent wall and stood beside Gabriel. The glow of the candle also revealed the notebook, sitting open on the small desk.
Gabriel glanced at the slumbering rogue Apollyon and inched closer to the desk, trying to keep his breathing shallow and quiet. Each breath seemed like a roar of wind in his ears. Cautiously extending his arm, he reached for the notebook.
He felt a space-time seal fall into place as his finger touched the open pages.
Gabriel grasped for the imprints of the Sword of Unmaking and his pocket watch as he spun to confront the rogue Apollyon. Unable to sense the space-time seal, Teresa didn’t realize what had transpired around her until the sound of the snores ceased and the rogue Apollyon sat up on the bed with a wild laugh. His curly black hair, matted and oily, gave him the appearance of a vagrant while his wild, roving eyes seemed more like those of a madman.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the valerian root?” The rogue Apollyon stood up, three concatenate crystals glowing on a chain around his neck. “Valerian root. It was one of the first things he taught me.”
“Gabriel?” Teresa risked a glance in his direction.
He could feel the magical energy she held, waiting to be unleashed.
“I won’t kill you.” The Apollyon’s mania faded slightly. “I need you alive.”
“Gabriel?” The pitch of Teresa’s voice lowered an octave, expressing more concern in that single word than a countless number of sentences might have accomplished.
Gabriel wasn’t ignoring Teresa. He wasn’t panicked into inaction. Not yet, at least. His mind spun in a dozen possible directions, simultaneously seeking out a possible course of action that could lead to a desirable outcome. They could attack, but could they win? Three concatenate crystals would be more than a match for the Sword of Unmaking and his pocket watch. Especially if each of the crystals were connected to six others.
Even Teresa’s considerable magical power and skill would be of little consequence. With his bracelet of concatenate crystals no longer connected to the imprinted relics of the castle, Gabriel simply did not have the magical strength to defeat the rogue Apollyon. Even if they could escape, would they be able to steal the notebook? If not, they would never have a second chance to track it down. And if they did manage to escape with the notebook, the magical battle required to do so would surely create a bifurcation of the Primary Continuum, and possibly more than one new branch of time.
“Gabriel, what do we do?” Teresa turned to him, her face contorted in anger and fear.
The words of Akikane’s last lesson rang clearly in Gabriel’s mind like the sound of bells cutting through the noisy din of a city street. Words which revealed an unexpected path out of disaster. Words he hoped he could remember well enough to turn to his advantage.
Gabriel lowered his arms.
“We surrender.”
Teresa’s jaw dropped in surprise. He looked her in the eyes.
“Trust me.”
He planted the words in her mind via Soul Magic, and then released the imprints he held.
The rogue Apollyon laughed, high-pitched and near-maniacal, as he rubbed his hands together.
“Excellent.”
Chapter 11: Captive Audience
Gabriel and Teresa sat on the edge of the moth-eaten mattress, their hands tied behind their backs with strips of bedding cloth, their legs bound together in a similar fashion. Gabriel’s sword and pocket watch and Teresa’s bracelet lay in a corner of the room. The rogue Apollyon sat on the shaky-legged stool facing the two young mages, his face sweaty, voice strained.
“You must know.” The rogue Apollyon scratched at his ill-kempt beard. From his erratic motions and the desperate look in his eyes, Gabriel knew the man had not slept at all in the past few days. He wondered how the Dark Mage managed to continue to stay alert and how his state of mind might be affected by the extreme lack of rest.
“I’ve told you all I know.” Gabriel tried to keep his voice even and calm in hopes it would elicit a similar response from the rogue Apollyon. “The notebook is written in a dead language and in an alphabet that Councilwoman Elizabeth created herself. I don’t know how to read it.”
“She must have told you the key.” The rogue Apollyon leaned even closer. Gabriel wrinkled his nose at the man’s rancid breath.
“What key?” Gabriel glanced at the notebook, still open on the table. Maybe the rogue Apollyon’s mind had descended into madness more deeply than he had suspected if the man thought the notebook needed a key to open it.
“The key, the key, the key.” The rogue Apollyon snatched the notebook from the table and shook in front of Gabriel’s nose.
“The key to decipher the code.” Teresa leaned closer to Gabriel to draw the mad Apollyon’s attention. “Right? The key to decipher the code. That’s what you’re looking for, right?”
“Yes! The
key. Exactly. Do you know? No. She’d never tell you. You’re no one. Nobody. Nothing. No…but she’d tell him. They all talk to him. He’s their favorite pet. You always tell the favorite pet. I was the favorite once. I know. What did he say? What did he always say? Look for the patterns. See the pieces before they are set. But how can I see the pieces without the key?”
“I’m trying to tell you, there is no key.” Gabriel spoke softly and slowly, ignoring the warning look in Teresa’s eyes and the subtle shake of her head. “There can be no key, because it’s an alphabet, not a code. It’s a written language. Only Elizabeth knows how to read it.”
“No, no, no!” The rogue Apollyon put his head behind the open page of the notebook and shook it with fury. “She must have told you how to read it. She must have. You need to know what is in these pages. I need to know what is in these pages. I must. Must. Before the others find me. Find it. Before they can read it. If they read it…if they read it they will know what they need to know and then they will do it.”
“You mean the Great Barrier.” Gabriel began to wonder if surrender into captivity had been such a wise plan. The rogue Apollyon’s mental instability frightened him more than the thought of losing the notebook. Particularly the thought of what the man might do if Gabriel felt forced to enact his option of last resort.
“Yes, yes, the Great Barrier.” The rogue Apollyon sat back, lowering the book and looking at Gabriel and Teresa as if suddenly realizing they were there and that he hadn’t been speaking merely to himself. “They’ll destroy it if they can. And they can. They are close to the number they need. They only require the knowledge. Power is knowledge. No. Power is empty without knowledge. That’s what he always said. Why didn’t I see it then?”
“See what?” Teresa leaned forward slightly, trying to hold the rogue Apollyon’s eyes.
“The balance.” The rogue Apollyon’s eyes wandered up toward the ceiling, seemingly chasing after unseen thoughts.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 42
