The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series)

by G. L. Breedon

  Might the best way to keep her safe actually be staying away from her? Is that why the rogue Apollyon had not come to this tropical paradise originally? To keep the mystery woman safe? And why come here now? Was there no other place he could hide, or could he simply no longer manage to stay away from her? How long could Gabriel stay away from Teresa if he thought he needed to? Who was this strange woman and what did she mean to this Apollyon? Had Gabriel been right? Was this the original Apollyon? Did it matter?

  Gabriel sighed, trying to let the weight of too many questions fall from his shoulders and his mind. He leaned back against the trunk of a coconut tree and looked up at the sky. It would still be a few hours before sunrise. He should wake Teresa soon. He should…

  “You should pay attention to the game.”

  Gabriel looked down from a cloudless blue sky. He sat in a small boat in the middle of a nameless ocean stretching from one horizon one the other. Across from him and the familiar game board sat Vicaquirao. The old Mayan general looked pleased.

  “You are losing. Again.”

  “I’m not sure I like this game. How about a game of checkers?”

  The wooden game board shimmered and reformed into black and red squares with simple, round pieces already scattered in mid-play. Vicaquirao frowned.

  “What can you learn from checkers?” Vicaquirao moved a black piece one space forward.

  “How to be a gracious loser.” Gabriel lifted a red game piece, hopping it over three consecutive black pieces. He collected the captured pieces with a laugh.

  “Sometimes one must lose to win.” Vicaquirao waved a hand and the game board shimmered in the sunlight, transforming into the lined game board of Go, white stones dominating the field of play. He placed a single black stone on the board, enclosing a ring around half the white stones, causing them to vanish from the board.

  “What if it’s not possible to win or lose?” Gabriel watched as Vicaquirao picked up a black stone and the game board transformed again, chess pieces populating black and white squares in the middle of a game. Gabriel moved a white bishop to capture a black rook. “What if neither side can gain advantage?”

  “Stalemate.” Vicaquirao’s eyes narrowed as the board transformed into something Gabriel had never played but yet recognized as Senet, a box divided into thirty squares in three rows of ten. Vicaquirao moved a cone-shaped piece and looked at Gabriel. “Sometimes a stalemate is preferable. Stalemate is common in nature, but rare in games.”

  “I don’t know how to play this game.” Gabriel looked at the board and willed it to be something else. The board transformed back to its original shape. Gabriel moved a green stone and rolled the dice, turning the third ring two spaces.

  “Knowing the rules is not as important as understanding the possibilities implied by the rules.” Vicaquirao moved a blue stone, leaping over one of Gabriel’s green stones, then an adjacent yellow stone, and finally taking the place of another green stone.

  “You never said that was possible.” Gabriel glared at the game board, the boat rocking in the waves.

  “But did the rules imply it might be possible?” Vicaquirao rolled the dice, the rocking of the boat sending them skittering across the board.

  “I don’t like this game.” Gabriel crossed his arms, the motion of the waves upending the game board, multicolored stones scattering along the curved hull.

  “You can’t stop playing this game.” Vicaquirao laughed as the small vessel pitched from side to side. “This game isn’t in the board or the pieces or the dice. This game is in the rules. And the rules say you must play.”

  “Some night watchman you are.”

  Gabriel blinked his eyes against the sun and the sight of Teresa’s face hovering close to his. She stopped shaking his shoulder and sat back.

  “I’ve been trying to wake you for almost a minute. Are you okay?” Teresa’s deep apprehension clouded her face.

  “Sorry. I fell asleep.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I had a bad dream.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.” Gabriel’s discomfort at having fallen asleep on watch felt amplified by Teresa’s concern.

  “Then we should steal the notebook and get out of here.” Teresa gestured over her shoulder toward the beach. “They’ve left the hut and he doesn’t seem to have the notebook with him.”

  Gabriel looked at the beach and saw the rogue Apollyon seated in the sand beside a woman with long, jet-black hair that curled down to her waist. They shared what looked like a large papaya, the woman cutting slices with a small dagger.

  “Right.” Gabriel climbed quietly to his feet, slinging the Sword of Unmaking over his shoulder. “Stay here and keep watch. I’ll go get the notebook. If it looks like they might catch me, create a diversion.”

  “This wasn’t the plan.” Teresa grabbed Gabriel’s arm, fingers digging angrily into his flesh.

  “It’s the safest way.” Gabriel winced at Teresa’s grip, but made no move to dislodge it. “I can jump away if I need to and one of us needs to keep watch. You wouldn’t want me to fall asleep again, would you?”

  “Lame.” Teresa yanked her hand back with an annoyed sigh. “That is totally lame and you know it.”

  Gabriel knew, but he also saw it would eliminate some of the risk for Teresa.

  “I’ll be back in no time.” Gabriel felt an overwhelming impulse to lean over and kiss her before dashing off to do something dangerous. It felt like the absolute right thing to do. Then he saw the glare in her eyes and decided romance out of context could lead to disaster, if not bodily injury. He offered her a carefree smile and walked into the jungle.

  He snuck slowly through the tropical undergrowth and came up behind the small bamboo hut. He could see the rogue Apollyon and his...what was she to him? His girlfriend? His wife? The idea of Apollyon having a wife, of being able to love someone, upended Gabriel’s assumptions about the man. They sat on the beach facing each other. The sun had tanned her skin to a deep nutty brown, highlighted by the simple pale yellow dress she wore.

  Rather than his customary black, the rogue Apollyon wore cutoff grey pants and a short-sleeve blue shirt. A thick, bronze bracelet wrapped around his right wrist and glittered in the sun. He had shaved, and he looked far healthier than when Gabriel had seen him last. How long had the rogue Apollyon been here?

  He seemed genuinely happy with the woman. The look on his face when he held the woman’s hand confused Gabriel. Could this be the original Apollyon? How could he have become so twisted? What would he become now?

  Ignoring the distracting thoughts, Gabriel crept to the back of the hut.

  The hut’s construction consisted of a bamboo frame covered with woven palm fibers to create thin walls. A single small window covered by a thin sheet of netting sat in the middle of the back wall. Bamboo stilts raised the hut a few feet off the ground, to prevent flooding, Gabriel assumed. He pulled himself up to the window, balancing his feet along a bamboo support beam against the floor. He pushed gently at a corner of the netting over the window, hearing it rip away from the nails holding it to the frame. After creating a large enough hole, he pulled himself over the lip of the windowsill and slid slowly to the floor.

  Crouching on the bamboo plank floor, Gabriel waited for his eyes to adjust to the shadows within the hut. Banners of bright orange cloth decoratively draped the ceiling. Two straw hats hung on a hook near the door. A mattress filled one corner of the room, an oil lamp on a small wooden box beside it. The familiar small statue sat next to the lamp. The opposite corner of the room held a low wooden table with two cushions around it. An iridescent purple flower floated in a glass bowl of water in the middle of the table.

  The notebook sat beside the bowl.

  Gabriel crossed the room at a glacial pace, patiently placing his feet where the floor looked most firm, slowly shifting his weight to avoid causing the bamboo to creak. He didn’t want to make any noise that might attract the r
ogue Apollyon from the beach.

  Finally, he stood beside the small table and picked up the notebook, rubbing his hand over the red leather cover. He hoped its contents would be worth all the effort they had gone through to retrieve it. As he turned back toward the rear window, he heard voices.

  “I need to continue.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Gabriel risked a peek through the open front door. The woman took hold of the rogue Apollyon’s arm as he walked to the hut. He stopped and embraced her.

  “It’s too important to ignore.”

  “There will be plenty of time for the notebook. Isn’t that what you told me? We would have all the time we wanted now.”

  “Semele. You know what hangs in the balance.”

  “I know balance hangs in the balance. The balance of your mind most of all.”

  “I’m much better now. The voices can’t reach here.”

  “Then take the time to relax. Sometimes the solution to a puzzle comes when we look away from it.”

  “Yes, maybe you are right.” The rogue Apollyon kissed Semele.

  “Besides.” Semele guided the rogue Apollyon back to the beach. “How can you bring a woman to such a place of beauty and then leave her alone all day?”

  The rogue Apollyon laughed and their voices faded into the noise of the ocean waves. Gabriel sighed and slipped back out the window. He tucked the notebook into his back pocket and walked as quickly as he could through the jungle, staying low and keeping quiet. Halfway back to where he had left Teresa, he heard something coming toward him. He stopped, watching as a shadowed shape ran through the jungle. He wondered if it might be some wild animal like a boar or a tiger.

  The bright green leaves rustled and revealed Teresa. She slid to a stop, paused only briefly and then threw her arms around Gabriel.

  “I thought for sure they were going to walk in on you.” Teresa grinned and then did something more surprising than her sudden appearance — she kissed him.

  Gabriel’s brain froze.

  The kiss he had thought about so many times had taken him entirely by surprise. His lips pressed against Teresa’s and it felt — actually, it felt odd. Not at all what he had expected. It felt strange. Like a kiss he might have received from his grandmother as a child. As passionate as kissing a doorpost. Gabriel blinked as Teresa released the kiss, trying to sort through several layers of confusion.

  “Come on.”

  Before Gabriel could even think of what to say, much less form words in his mouth, Teresa ran back into the jungle.

  “What? Wait.”

  Gabriel followed Teresa through the jungle as best he could. She ran ahead, dodging around trees and between the leaves of massive tropical ferns. Gabriel turned his head as a large leaf caught him in the face. He lost sight of Teresa, but continued in the direction she had been running. A moment later he found her where he had originally left her.

  “That was close.” She turned from watching the beach. “Did you get it?”

  “Of course.” Gabriel wasn’t sure what to make of Teresa’s sudden kiss, much less his reaction to it. He decided it might be best not to try and understand everything girls did, especially when he seemed to only understand half the things he did himself.

  “Then let’s get out of here.” Teresa looked back to where the rogue Apollyon and the woman Semele walked along the beach. “Before they notice it’s missing.”

  “We need to walk as far away as we can.” Gabriel looked along the beach behind them. “The farther we get, the less chance the rogue Apollyon can sense our time jump. This way.”

  Gabriel led the way through the jungle to a stretch of beach around a curve of land, unseen from the rogue Apollyon and Semele’s hut. The couple had walked in the opposite direction along the beach, and he hoped it would be hours before they returned to the hut and found the notebook missing. Gabriel figured he needed to get at least three miles away before he could make a jump safely. He walked a little faster.

  “How much farther?” Teresa quickened her pace to keep up.

  “Not far.”

  Gabriel walked in silence trying to figure out the kiss and what it meant. Did it mean she would want him to kiss her again at some point? How would he know when to do that? Would the kiss be better the second time? Did she not like the kiss? Would there ever be a second time? Could he ask her about it? Was this the sort of thing people talked about? What could he say? He could tell her he liked it. Compliments were always a good way to start a conversation. But did he like it? He decided it might be worth trying to say something.

  “You know…”

  Gabriel had no time to finish the thought. The ground exploded before him, a hurricane of sand swirling around him. He felt the notebook being torn from his pocket as the wind knocked him to the ground and a space-time seal enclosed him. He seized the imprints of the sword and pocket watch as he wiped the sand from his eyes, searching for his attacker.

  The miniature sand storm settled and Gabriel stood up to face the rogue Apollyon floating from the sky and landing gently on the beach. He held the book in one hand, his other outstretched as though ready to cast some spell of Malignant magic.

  “It’s a good thing I decided to go back to the hut for a hat.” The rogue Apollyon appeared far more sane than the last time they had met.

  Gabriel glanced to the side and saw Teresa getting to her knees as she brushed sand from her face.

  “I told you I would not kill you, and I won’t.” The rogue Apollyon’s eyes squinted in the sun. “However, I still need your assistance.”

  “Do it,” Teresa whispered from beside him.

  “I can’t help you.” Gabriel stared at the book in the rogue Apollyon’s hand.

  “We can help each other. We do not need to be enemies. Not in this.” The rogue Apollyon lowered his hand in a gesture of peace. “How did you find this place?”

  “The statue.” Gabriel glanced again at Teresa’s pleading eyes.

  “A very astute observation.” The rogue Apollyon nodded his head in appreciation. “I think you’ll find my company a little more tolerable now that we are beyond the reach of my brethren.”

  “Creating them was a mistake.”

  “I know. I’m trying to correct that, but I need your help.”

  “I can’t. I can’t trust you.”

  “You can’t trust anyone.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is. You’ll learn that eventually.”

  “You trust Semele.”

  The rogue Apollyon frowned. “You know her name. You are so much more resourceful than they assume. Good for you. Yes. You are correct. I do trust her.”

  “You created this alternate reality to save her, didn’t you?” Gabriel didn’t doubt this to be true, but he needed to stall for time in order to come up with a better plan than Teresa’s.

  “I failed to save her the first time.” The rogue Apollyon looked away, as though remembering something painful. “It haunted me. Changed me. He convinced me it would be unwise to create a new branch of time to save her. He said we needed to learn to let things go. He was wrong. This is much better than letting go.” He gestured to the beach and the sky and the jungle.

  Gabriel understood. He had created an alternate reality to save Ling. Wouldn’t he be tempted to do the same again to save Teresa? Would he be able to let go? Could he surrender to fate? Could he release his desires? Could he surrender again now?

  “I’m sorry.” Gabriel could not tell what his words were intended to express regret for. The Apollyon’s loss? The unfairness of their lives, living out roles decided for them by fortune? Or for his actions? He didn’t like Teresa’s plan, but could see no other option.

  Gabriel focused his will and magical power on the notebook. The leather-bound tome burst into flame and crumbed to ash in the rogue Apollyon’s hand. The Dark Mage yelled with shock and rage, holding his charred limb with his free hand. Gabriel sensed the space-time seal flicker with the
distraction of the rogue Apollyon’s pain. Blackness surrounded him and Teresa as time bent around them, and they traveled back to the Primary Continuum.

  Several random jumps through time eventually brought them to the edge of a forest nestled between two mountain ranges, their peaks still dusted white in the midsummer sun. From between the trees, Gabriel could see a small Japanese Buddhist temple in a nearby village. A middle-aged man wearing a simple black kimono sat in the grass across from the temple. A sword lay across his knees.

  The very sword Gabriel had used to travel to this place. The gentle smile on the man’s face looked the same as the one Gabriel knew from his own time.

  Akikane.

  He wished he could go and ask the younger version of his mentor for advice, but he knew it would only cause more problems.

  “Are we safe?” Teresa took hold of Gabriel’s arm and he helped her to her feet.

  “For now.” Gabriel looked into Teresa’s eyes. “Until we need to know what was in that notebook to stop the Apollyons.”

  “At least none of them have it.” Teresa straightened her hair.

  “I can’t believe we went through all that to come home with nothing.” Gabriel growled and punched a nearby tree. The pain in his hand did nothing to quell the anger roiling in his chest. How could he have been so stupid? There had to have been another way. Maybe if he hadn’t listened to Teresa…

  “We can get it back.”

  “How?” Gabriel rubbed his knuckles and stared at Teresa.

  “We can go back and get it.”

  Chapter 13: The Switch

  “How?” Gabriel realized he sounded like an idiot repeating himself, and it only annoyed him further.

  Teresa flashed him a devilish look. “We sneak back to the rogue Apollyon’s romantic hideaway and switch the book you stole with a copy before he has a chance to steal it back.”