“Whatever it is you were babbling about, I’m sure it’s very brilliant…and completely irrelevant to the task at hand.” Rajan chuckled.
“As usual.” Ling snorted in laughter.
“I’ll ‘as usual’ you.” Teresa glared at Rajan and Ling.
“Have another potato chip.” Gabriel offered Teresa his plate. She flicked a potato chip at Gabriel. He tried to catch it in his mouth, but it bounced off his nose.
“It sounds as though you’ve volunteered to lead the research expedition,” Ohin said to Teresa.
“Happily.” Teresa grabbed one of Gabriel’s potato chips and winked at him.
“Good.” Ohin brushed a few stray crumbs from his shirt. “If I have my calendar correct, this should be a Sunday and the local library will be closed. That should give us plenty of time to prepare for tomorrow.”
A closed sign hung in the window of the library in the small town nearby when Ohin led them to it. Inside, thin wedges of light seeped through curtained windows, hiding their presence from the few people who passed on the street, and leaving the interior of the room heavily shadowed.
Teresa amazed the team, Aurelius in particular, with how much information about Auschwitz she could find in such a short period of time. They hovered around her, faces illuminated by the colorful screen of the computer as she pulled up maps, photos, and page after page of information, seemingly from nowhere.
Gabriel had seen Teresa research a subject from a computer once before, but it still felt to him as though he were momentarily a character in a science fiction film. So much information, so easily accessible. Everyone in the future must be so literate and informed, he thought. How could they not be, with so much history and culture of the world so easily accessible? When he voiced this opinion aloud, Teresa snorted, but said nothing more.
Construction of Auschwitz began in 1940 in southern Poland under German occupation. Three separate, large camps composed the majority of the Auschwitz complex with dozens of smaller satellite camps nearby. Two of the camps sat very close to each other, separated by a railway that carried the ill-fated victims of Hitler’s “final solution” to the complex — and their eventual deaths.
After studying war time aerial reconnaissance photos of the area, the team determined that the most likely place for the Apollyons to create a base for harvesting Malignant imprints would be between the two close-set camps, called Auschwitz I and Birkenau-Auschwitz II. Thousands of local residents had been evicted from the area to make way for the complex of camps. Some of the houses between the two main camps had been taken over by the SS-Totenkopfverbände, the German Nazi soldiers responsible for administering the horrors of the camps. Their name meant “Death’s Head Units” and referred to the skull and cross bones symbol used in their uniforms.
A weariness fell upon Gabriel as they looked through the maps and photos and read the details of Auschwitz. Sometimes he could not escape the thought that history simply equaled suffering. The knowledge that some of his own Jewish relatives had not escaped that suffering added extra emotional weight to the pain that beleaguered his heart. While his grandfather’s father had immigrated to the United States at the turn of the century to escape the historic oppression of Jews in Spain, his grandmother’s family had come from Austria. She had often told him stories of the aunts and uncles lost in the Holocaust.
He could understand how a lone mad man might be so cruel, but how did a mad man convince perfectly normal people to become so barbaric? A person like Hitler could insulate himself from his orders to kill, but what of the people who carried them out? Were they evil to begin with, or did they become evil in the process of carrying out genocide? How could so many people’s hearts become so dark? Did the imprints of their actions destroy their souls? And if he touched those dark imprints, as he so often did, would they destroy his own soul?
He tried to push the thoughts away, but flashes of the battle at Windsor Castle came to his mind. To the best of his knowledge, he had not killed any Apollyons while defending the castle. He had not witnessed any deaths. But it seemed impossible that all of them had escaped his attacks. At the time, he had felt only anger at them. Only the desire to protect the castle and destroy the army of the Apollyon duplicates. How much of his mind had been influenced by the Malignant imprints he had been using to create his magic? What would have happened if those dark imprints had not been balanced with Grace imprints? Would he have wantonly killed every Apollyon he encountered?
He accepted he might need to kill in order to protect himself or those he cared about in the war, but following Akikane’s tutelage, he hoped to avoid it. Akikane constantly cautioned him that violence used with a mind of anger would destroy the defender as much as his attacker. Gabriel agreed with him. He knew what anger could do, but he didn’t know if he would ever be able to use violence to defend himself with only a mind of love and compassion.
Maybe such things were only possible for rare people like Akikane. He wondered if Elizabeth worried about such notions. It seemed Nefferati did, or else she would have returned from her retreat to help fight the war.
Gabriel forced these thoughts from his head and helped the team finish their research. They all agreed the best time to look for the Apollyons’ base would be after the end of the war, when the most Malignant imprints would be present and there would be less likelihood of discovery.
However, they would also want to stay near the camps in time. The imprints would be stronger the closer they were along the timeline to when the events creating them took place. Ohin assumed they would be no farther than a year from the end of the war. Probably within six months. That gave them a wide window of time, but a narrow stretch of space to search.
Chapter 19: Under the Stars
After a dinner of canned soups and a dessert of fresh berries that Sema and Ling had picked in the bushes behind the abandoned house, Gabriel joined Aurelius for a walk in the nearby woods.
“I, too, was groomed from a young age to rule.” Aurelius pulled a branch aside as they passed between two trees.
“I’m not being groomed to rule.” Gabriel watched his feet, the setting sun casting thick shadows through the tree limbs.
“Not to rule an empire, no, but certainly to lead,” Aurelius said. “The Council will no doubt ask you to join its ranks at some point. You are young, but you carry the weight of this strange war squarely on your shoulders.”
“I wish I didn’t.” Gabriel allowed a sigh of frustration to escape his lips along with his words.
“Do not say that.” Aurelius looked down at Gabriel with a surprising intensity. “Nothing befalls us which by nature we are not created to bear. You are honored by the Parcae, the sisters of Fate, and by your fellow mages, that you should bear this burden. And from what I have seen, you carry it well.”
“But I don’t want to carry it.” Gabriel had given up the fanciful idea that he could ever have a normal life again. But speaking to Aurelius rekindled that yearning in his heart.
“I did not want to rule an Empire.” Aurelius laughed. “Except, of course, I did. Yes, I would have preferred to live my life buried in my scrolls and discussing philosophy, but ruling the Empire was more important. I was responsible not only for my own desires, but for the wellbeing of millions, and the continuation of a way of life, of a culture, of a nation. Although I found it painful at times, it was a reward I could not have anticipated. My only wish is that I could have been the tutor to my son, Commodus, that Junius Rusticus had been to me.”
Aurelius looked up into the evening sky beyond the tree branches for a moment before returning his gaze to Gabriel.
“Do not fear the yoke of responsibility. Lean your shoulders into it. In time, you’ll find the weight more comfortable. Even when responsibility requires sacrifice.”
“Why can’t being responsible be enough of a sacrifice?” Gabriel found himself thinking of nearly losing Teresa in Sagalassos.
“Sacrifice is the test of a true leader.�
� Aurelius sidestepped a wide tree. “No one thing is separate from any other. All people of an empire are bound together. You sacrifice the things you love, the things you care about, to maintain the whole of the empire, much like the way one must often sacrifice a wounded limb on the battlefield to save the rest of the body.
“This is a very difficult lesson to learn, especially when you are sacrificing someone you know rather than some faceless solider at a distance. Seeing the value of those you have never met and will never meet and balancing their lives against the lives of those you love will wrench your heart in pieces, but you must sometimes makes these choices…and then calmly sew the pieces of your heart together again.”
As they stepped from the woods, Gabriel caught sight of Teresa sitting on the back porch alone. Seeing her as his mind absorbed the meaning of Aurelius’s words unsettled him. Would he be able to sacrifice those he cared about if it meant an end to the war? Could he sacrifice Teresa if it meant peace between the Malignancy and Grace Mages? He hoped he would never be faced with that question, but he knew Aurelius spoke the truth — there would come a time when he would need to make hard choices and sacrifice those he cared for.
Again, and not for the last time, he knew, he wished he had stayed at the bottom of that river.
No. No, he didn’t. Then he would have never met Teresa.
He felt warmth embrace his heart as she waved to them.
“You risked time itself to save her,” Aurelius said as they crossed the yard. “I am grateful you asked me to join you. She is worth risking time and the world.”
“Oh, I know,” Gabriel said.
“Ready to get to work?” Teresa stood up. “I have everything set up on the dining room table.”
“The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be finished.” Gabriel climbed the stairs of the porch.
“Half an hour walking in the woods with the most famous philosopher king in history and that’s the best aphorism you come up with?” Teresa teased as she took Gabriel’s hand.
“He doesn’t really speak in aphorisms,” Gabriel said.
“Am I really that famous?” Aurelius asked, his eyes suddenly shy.
“People still read your book Meditations after almost two thousand years.” Gabriel had seen Rajan reading the slender tome constantly before the extraction mission to save Aurelius.
“I find that both gratifying and humbling.” Aurelius opened the door for Gabriel and Teresa.
“Well, enjoy it while you can, because nothing you do from now on will be recorded by history, no matter how wonderful and amazing,” Teresa said.
“I remember every wonderful and amazing thing you do,” Gabriel said, reveling in how wonderful it felt to say extraordinarily cheesy things to the girl he loved.
“As long as you remember to forget every annoying and bumbling thing I do,” Teresa said with mock seriousness.
“You never do anything annoying or bumbling,” Gabriel said. He stared into Teresa’s eyes and tried to hold a straight face. He lasted two whole seconds before he burst out laughing. Teresa gave him a fake pout and then giggled as well, Aurelius joining their laughter as they entered the house.
Gabriel and Teresa spent the rest of the evening preparing what they would need for the next day. They worked by the light of two oil lamps on the dining room table. Sitting side by side, focused intently on their task, they rarely noticed when other members of the team passed through the room. It took most of the night, and when they were finished, they retired again to the back porch, sitting under the stars and holding hands.
“I like this,” Teresa said after several minutes of silence spent staring at the stars.
“So do I,” Gabriel replied. He wasn’t exactly certain what Teresa referred to, but he suspected he would agree if he knew.
“I like knowing I can tell you how I feel about you without worrying that you won’t feel the same way or that the rest of the team will judge me. I like that a lot.” Teresa turned and kissed him.
“Have you told me how you feel about me?” Gabriel tried to think of anything Teresa might have said.
“Nope.”
“Were you planning to?”
“Maybe.”
Gabriel thought about that. “I could tell you how I feel about you.”
Teresa laughed and kissed him again. “After risking the Primary Continuum and creating a massive paradox around yourself, I think I have a pretty good idea.”
“It might be nice to hear it.”
Teresa turned back to the stars. “Then I would have to worry.”
“Worry about what?”
“What do you think?”
Gabriel gave this some thought. “That you might change your mind?”
Teresa laughed, her eyes twinkling in the starlight. “You are so…” She sighed and wiped the heels of her hands across her eyes.
Gabriel considered Teresa’s hidden tears and decided he should be as honest as possible. “I think I’m confused.”
Teresa turned back to Gabriel, squeezing his hand. “I don’t want to worry about losing you. You’re the Seventh True Mage. Your life is constantly in danger. People are always trying to kill you. If I tell you how I feel and you tell me how you feel, then it’s real. Get it? This, what we have now, is like a bifurcation in the first thirty-seven hours. A potentiality that hasn’t collapsed into a reality. But people can live in a potentiality until it collapses or it’s severed. That’s where we are, in an unstable probability, where we don’t have to worry all the time.”
Gabriel cocked his head and frowned. “You might as well be talking about computers and quantum physics, because that makes no sense at all.”
“Gabriel…”
“No, seriously. How can you be so smart and not see? I need to worry about you, not the other way around. I’m the Seventh True Mage. I’m not that easy to kill. You may be the best Fire Mage ever, but you don’t stand a chance against a couple of the Apollyons, much less Kumaradevi, and she’s already threatened to kill you. Hell, she did get you killed. Once they know we’re together, they’ll try to kill you just to hurt me.”
His conversation with Aurelius came back to him then.
“Or worse. They’ll capture you and torture you to make me help them. Or versions of you from alternate realities, like the Apollyons did with Chimali’s wife. And then I’ll have to choose between you and everyone else. I have much more to worry about.”
Teresa looked down at her hand clasped around his.
“Then we should stop. Before anything bad can happen.”
Gabriel squeezed her hand so hard her head snapped up, eyes glaring.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve already been dead. If I can save you once, I can save you again.”
“And if you can’t? Or if I can’t save you?”
“I have no doubt you’re smart enough to figure out a way to save me from anything.”
Teresa suddenly laughed. “Anything but yourself.”
Gabriel laughed, as well, because it was probably true.
“I love you.”
They stared into each other’s eyes. Who had spoken first? Had they spoken at the same time?
They kissed again, and such questions ceased to matter.
Later that night, he sat alone in his room, staring at the flickering shadows cast by a small candle on a weathered nightstand beside the bed. He let his mind wander, flitting from thought to thought with no particular purpose. While exhausted from the day’s events, his brain could not relax enough to sleep. He assumed it had something to do with kissing Teresa. And the next day’s mission. And the knowledge that Windsor Castle lay partially in ruins. He sighed and leaned over to blow out the candle. Thinking about things never helped him sleep. He’d probably dream about them, anyway, so what was the point?
As he inhaled to blow out the flame, he noticed the drawer of the nightstand setting slightly ajar. Curious, and looking for any excuse to postpone slumber, he pulled the drawer open, examining
its contents by candlelight. The drawer held few treasures — a couple of old coat buttons, three coins from the 1960s, a length of string, and an old photo. Out of habit, he used his space-time sense to probe the objects from the drawer. He did this now whenever encountering possible relics for time travel. One never knew when a forgotten or lost object might lead to an interesting time period or turn out to be a powerfully imprinted artifact.
Disappointingly, the buttons, coins, and string all seemed to have remained near the house for most of their existence. In contrast, the small, frayed, black-and-white photo of a woman in a white dress kissing a young soldier had traveled far. A handwritten inscription on the back read All my love, forever. Harriet. 1916.
By the look of the soldier’s uniform, Gabriel guessed the photo had accompanied the man to the French front lines of World War I. The images flooding his mind as he probed the photo’s timeline confirmed his suspicions. Wood-lined trenches. Barbed wire. Mud and smoke. Fallen soldiers. He had spent enough time studying the major battles of history to guess the location. The Battle of the Somme in the late summer of 1916. The rest of the photo’s timeline focused on Paris, then London, and finally the abandoned house in Maine. It had probably been passed from one family member to another, ultimately ending up in the bedside drawer. Oddly, for an object carried during a war, it held few Grace or Malignant imprints.
Gabriel sat the photo next to the watch on the nightstand. It never hurt to have an extra relic in his pocket. Blowing the candle out, he let his head sink into the pillow. It smelled a bit musty, like the rest the house, but he found something about the odor comforting. An earthiness that reminded him of simpler aspects of life, far removed from wars of time and magic.
He fell asleep far quicker than he anticipated, and any dreams he had mercifully faded away when he awoke the next morning. One of the first to rise, he found Sema in the kitchen and helped her prepare a simple oatmeal breakfast for the team.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 50
