Gabriel countered the Apollyon’s Stone Magic and attacked with his own, heaving every nearby piece of metal at the Dark Mage. The Apollyon repelled the attack as Gabriel assaulted with another, lightning flaring from his free hand and striking the man in the chest.
The Apollyon stumbled as Gabriel reached out with Soul Magic and Heart-Tree Magic to attack the Dark Mage’s mind and body. The Apollyon fought back Gabriel’s magic and lashed out with a wave of Stone Magic, attempting to disintegrate the molecules of Gabriel’s limbs. Holes dissolved in patches across his clothes as Gabriel deflected the Apollyon’s magic, feeling his anger toward the Dark Mage intensify like a flame given pure oxygen to burn.
The Apollyon scrambled backward, casting a wave of Wind Magic upward and exploding a series of falling shells in midair. Gabriel sensed the space-time seal he held around the Apollyon begin to falter as a bifurcation began to erupt. The Apollyon’s attempt to break the space-time seal mirrored the method Gabriel himself had used to defeat an Apollyon in the Hurtgen Forest nearly a year ago.
Gabriel split his concentration, focusing on holding the space-time seal in place while simultaneously directly magical energy through the Sword of Unmaking to sever the bifurcation, even as it formed.
As Gabriel cut the alternate branch of reality from the trunk of the Primary Continuum before it could fully be created, the Apollyon laughed and waved his hand, exploding more falling shells with Wind Magic, causing the ground to shake and soldiers to collide with Stone Magic. Flames leapt up among the trenches in the distance with Fire magic, each action creating yet another burgeoning bifurcation.
“And here is what I have learned from you!” The Apollyon cackled as he splashed through muddy puddles of stagnant water.
Gabriel chased the Apollyon, struggling to hold the space-time seal around the man and destroy the alternate worlds he wantonly created in an attempt to flee. If even one alternate world came into existence completely, it would break the space-time seal that kept the Apollyon on the battlefield. If all those alternate worlds the Apollyon was attempting to create came into existence at once, it could permanently damage the Primary Continuum.
Gabriel dodged around a charging soldier, who seemed lost and alone on the battleground. He did not even attempt the Soul Magic necessary to hide himself from the man. Stopping the Apollyon consumed all his attention. The Apollyon’s next flash of Wind and Fire Magic engulfed Gabriel, sending him crashing into a tangled roll of barbed wire in a cloud of flames. Gabriel severed the final potential alternate reality as the metal wire bit into his back. He screamed in pain, feeling the space-time seal slip from his grasp while the Apollyon erected a new one around him.
Pain sliced at him in a hundred places as he rolled through the mud, trying to untangle himself from the barbed wire while magically extinguishing the flames biting at his flesh. He felt the storm of anger within him roil and spin, transforming into a whirlwind of fear as he looked up to see the Apollyon walking toward him, eyes burning with rage.
“You have learned your last lesson, boy.” The Apollyon threw his arm to the side, the rusted sword of a dead German officer leaping into his hand.
Gabriel stood to his feet, the Sword of Unmaking shaking in his grip. He wiped the mud from his eyes and clasped the hilt of the blade with both hands as the Apollyon charged. Gabriel’s feet slipped in the mud as he sought better footing to defend himself. He slid sideways, nearly falling, but managed to bring his sword up to block the arc of the Apollyon’s attack at the last moment. Gabriel panicked, jumping back as the Apollyon continued to attack, swinging for his head, thrusting for his heart, attempting to hack at his arms.
Gabriel parried each attack, slowly regaining some of his confidence as he regained his footing. His hours with Akikane were saving his life. He blocked a blow to his neck and countered with two quick slashes at the Apollyon’s midsection.
Unable to jump through space due to the seal the Apollyon held around him, Gabriel knew he had to attack with other magics. He might be able to fend off the Apollyon for a time, but he was no match with a sword against the experience and physical strength of the man he faced.
“At least the old man has taught you how to fight,” the Apollyon said. “Fight old men, that is.”
Gabriel jumped, Wind Magic sending him soaring over the Apollyon, the Sword of Unmaking flashing toward the man’s head as Stone Magic caused the mud-soaked earth to reach up and grasp his ankles. The Apollyon ducked the blade, swinging his own sword, a flowing web of lightning reaching out to embrace Gabriel in the air. As he fell to the ground, teeth rattling, he had a moment to be thankful that their fight in the barren section of the battlefield would be unlikely to draw enough attention to create a bifurcation. It felt a paltry solace as he rolled to his feet, limping to favor a bruised knee.
“No amount of magic will save you this time.” The Apollyon surged forward, his sword flashing around Gabriel in a series of brutal attacks.
Each time their sword blades met, Gabriel could feel himself being driven back, closer and closer to the water-filled pit of an exploded shell. His mind raced to think of some escape, but with his concentration split between fending off the Apollyon’s sword and the curses of dark Soul and Heart-Tree Magic the man cast upon him, he couldn’t spare a moment to contemplate a path out of the battlefield.
As his foot slid back under the weight of yet another bone-rattling blow from the Apollyon’s sword, Gabriel realized he would die there in the mud of that battlefield, lost among all the thousands of forgotten soldiers whose bodies littered the ground between the opposing armies.
He focused on the imprints he held, weaving Grace and Malignancy energy into Wind Magic to form a shield around his body. The charging Apollyon’s sword rebounded from the invisible shield, striking him in the face. The Dark Mage cursed in rage, a stream of blood running down his cheek from the cut on his forehead. He raised the sword, pointing it at Gabriel’s heart, the tip of the blade pressing against Gabriel’s shield of Wind Magic.
“We will give you one more lesson before we kill you, boy.” The Apollyon grimaced, and Gabriel felt something odd, something he had never encountered before. His hold on the imprints of the battlefield began to waver, as though he grasped an object suddenly transforming from solid stone to wispy vapor. As the imprints of the battlefield slipped away, he sensed the Apollyon taking hold of them. Gabriel could feel his magical shield collapsing under the Apollyon’s newly empowered magic.
The Dark Mage’s sword blade pierced the invisible boundary of Wind Magic with ease.
“I can tell you how to find him.” Gabriel said, stepping backward, the Sword of Unmaking raised before him. He felt a small pride knowing the blade held steady and did not waver from the pounding of fear in his heart.
“We don’t need to know where he is.” The Apollyon’s sword touched Gabriel’s.
“You’ll want to know what he’s doing.” Gabriel edged sideways, hoping to find firmer ground to make a last stand. “He is the Prime.”
“He is not.” The cavalry sword slashed.
“He is.” Steel met steel, and the ancient katana sword thrust forward.
“It will not matter.”
“He will fight you.”
“He will die.”
The Apollyon yelled and unleashed a blazing series of attacks, his sword glowing white-hot, denting the metal of the Sword of Unmaking each time it struck. Gabriel fell backward, the flaming blade singeing his arm, burning through cloth and flesh. He cried out in pain, the Sword of Unmaking falling from his hand. He leapt backward to avoid the swing of the fiery sword, slipping in the mud and falling to the ground. Gabriel looked at the Sword of Unmaking, its blade buried in the muck. The Apollyon stepped toward him, sword point aimed at his chest.
Gabriel felt the tip of the sword draw blood where it stabbed above his thundering heart. Panting from fear as much as the fight, he stared into the Apollyon’s deep, near-black eyes.
He had been
foolish, and his foolishness had finally caught up with him. He would die, and with him, the best hope for saving the Great Barrier and ending the War of Time and Magic.
He sat up, leaning into the blade of the sword with a grimace as another emotion overwhelmed his fear and gave him a strange kind of strength. Shame. He might die a fool’s death, but he would not die a coward.
“It’s a pity you could not join us.” The Apollyon wiped the sweat from his eyes with his free hand. “You will never know the future…and we will rule it.”
Gabriel realized something as he lay in the mud, shells still exploding in the distance, machine gun fire filling the air, screams of dying men echoing across the barren land.
“He will stop you.”
“He is not the original among us, and he cannot stop us.” The Apollyon sneered and made to drive the slender blade into Gabriel’s heart.
“Not your original twin.” Gabriel managed a weak smile, knowing the fear and anger his next word would illicit. “Vicaquirao. He will stop you.”
The Apollyon’s mouth twitched, and he shook his head. “He cannot…he would not…he will never…”
The air hummed, and the Apollyon staggered to the side, spinning around, a plume of blood spurting from his chest. Gabriel looked sideways to the Sword of Unmaking as the Dark Mage fought to regain his feet. Gabriel embraced the hilt of the sword with an invisible hand of Wind Magic and threw it through the air, guiding it like a javelin into the distracted Apollyon’s chest.
The Apollyon fell to his knees, the shaft of the sword jutting from his ribcage. Gabriel sensed the space-time seal around him fade away. He quickly created one around the Apollyon, grabbing the imprints of the battlefield as he felt the Dark Mage reluctantly release them.
Gabriel used his Wind Magic to pull his sword free from the Apollyon’s chest and deliver it through the air into his open hand as he scrambled to his feet. He stood above the Apollyon as the man wheezed, trying to breathe. A stray battlefield bullet had punctured one of his lungs, the sword wound piercing the other. Gabriel held the Sword of Unmaking to the Apollyon’s throat. The anger had returned with the imprints of the battlefield. Gabriel struggled to keep his head clear of the dark impulses filling his mind.
“Luck.” The Apollyon spat blood and fell back into the mud. “Luck will win you a battle here and there, but it will never a war. You’ll lose the great battle, boy.”
“I’m a boy today, but one day I will be a man.” Gabriel swallowed, trying to calm his shaking hands. “And I will end this war.”
“You don’t even have the courage to end me.” The Apollyon laughed, coughing up more blood.
Gabriel realized the truth of the Dark Mage’s words. Did he want to be the kind of man who killed wounded men? Could he let the Apollyon die of his wounds? He watched as the Apollyon’s eyes fluttered. The Dark Mage could have healed himself if he’d been able to focus on the necessary magic.
“At least I’ll die knowing you lost the other battle.” The Apollyon sighed, his head rolling to the side.
“What battle?” Gabriel knelt down beside the Dark Mage, the sword blade still against the man’s throat.
“The first words Alexander ever spoke to me. Always… guard… your flank.”
The Apollyon’s face relaxed, and his body became still.
Gabriel puzzled at the man’s final words a moment, and then gasped, lunging to his feet as their import broke upon his mind.
His flank. The troops beside him. Always there to step forward into the fight and protect him. The Chimera team.
He had left the team vulnerable and open to attack.
Chapter 22: Reparations
Gabriel looked down at the Apollyon at his feet and reached out with his Heart-Tree Magic to sense the state of the man’s life. The Dark Mage’s heart slowed perceptibly with each beat. He would die within seconds. Gabriel considered what to do. He could let the man die, but what would that mean for himself? He could heal the man, but what would that mean for the war? Could he take him captive? Could he hold him prisoner? To what end?
Gabriel released the Malignant imprints of the battlefield, feeling his thoughts clear of dark intentions as another option arose in his mind. He considered it. It held many risks, but there were always risks.
He wiped the blade on his pant leg, re-sheathed the Sword of Unmaking, and knelt beside the Apollyon, placing his hands on the man’s wounds. Using Soul Magic to maintain the Apollyon’s unconsciousness, he guided the magical energy of Heart-Tree Magic to repair the damage to the Apollyon’s heart and lungs. When he had finished and knew the man would live, he placed his hands on the Apollyon’s head.
He took his time, remembering his lessons with Sema and Marcus, probing with a deft blend of Soul and Heart-Tree Magic until he found what he searched for, a part of the brain capable of creating a specific effect on consciousness. He only managed to find it because of the activity it produced. Even while the Apollyon slumbered, the region of his brain seemed aglow to Gabriel’s magical senses. He focused his Soul and Heart-Tree Magic on the Apollyon’s brain and mind, carefully making a small alteration.
Finished, he stood up, thinking about his next steps. He would need to return to the abandoned house in Maine. It would be difficult to know what point to return to. He had departed while Ohin had been attempting to move the team back through time and away from the Great Barrier to safety. He would also need more imprints than the Sword of Unmaking and his pocket watch could provide.
He thought about the name of the sword as he drew it again from its sheath. He had used it to unmake history and save Teresa from certain death. He had used it to unmake numerous potential worlds before they could even form. He had nearly unmade the life of the man at his feet. In some ways, Gabriel was very much like the blade in his hand — powerful, yet dangerous when poorly controlled.
He reached out with his Time Magic as he focused on the Malignant imprints of the battlefield. Grace imprints were also present, but far fewer in number. He held those as well, using a special form of Time Magic to bind the imprints to the Sword of Unmaking, the way he would have bound them to a concatenate crystal. The magic would allow him to access the imprints of the Battle of the Somme through the Sword of Unmaking from any place in the timeline of history. The connection would not last very long, a few minutes at best. Nor would it be as strong a link as one made with a concatenate crystal, but it would give him a considerable power to wield for a short time.
He retained his hold on the imprints, forcing his mind to remain calm in the presence of such overpowering Malignancy. He had been stupid to think he could handle such massive negative imprints without a significant number of Grace imprints to counter and balance them. The imprints had clouded his judgment and left him vulnerable. He would need to remain vigilant against their insidious effects to ensure it did not happen again.
He looked down at the sleeping Apollyon and nudged the man’s mind with Soul Magic. The Dark Mage’s eyes blinked open. He stared up into the gray clouds for a moment before looking at Gabriel.
“You healed me.” The Apollyon glanced around in confusion. “What…what have you done?”
“Like you said, I healed you.” Gabriel took a step back.
“The voices…the voices are gone…the voices…”
“Consider it a gift.” Gabriel pointed the sword at the Apollyon’s heart. “Find your brother. He needs your help. He has saved her and she has saved him. Maybe she can save you, as well.”
“Saved her?” The Apollyon’s eyes lit up in sudden understanding as Gabriel gestured with the sword and a wave of Soul Magic plunged the Dark Mage back into unconsciousness.
Gabriel looked at the man a moment longer and then pulled the bent nail from the house in Maine out of his pocket. He focused on the nail and disappeared into time, leaving the Apollyon sleeping beneath a sky of smoke and ash and exploding artillery shells. The Dark Mage would regain consciousness minutes after Gabriel departed. Long en
ough to ensure he could not track Gabriel through time.
Gabriel appeared at the abandoned house a moment later, hovering at the edge of entering the time stream while probing the house’s history. Seeing what he hoped for, Gabriel allowed the departing whiteness of his collapsing time jump to deposit him in the middle of the backyard.
Flames burst around him as he appeared. At a glance, he saw Ohin and Sema lying still in the tall grass, the side of the house ashen-black beside a collapsed Teresa. Nearby, Marcus and Rajan stood above a fallen, bloodied Ling as two black-clad Apollyons assaulted them with a barrage of magic. With Gabriel’s arrival, the two Apollyons turned in unison toward him.
Gabriel attacked in a specific, precise, and simultaneous manner. His Soul and Heart-Tree Magic reached into the men’s brains and minds in an unexpected and profound way. They fought back against him, but were soon overwhelmed by the power of the imprints he held and the exactness of his magical assault on their minds. After a moment, they staggered back together.
“How…” one the Apollyons said, looking to his companion in panic and confusion.
“The voices.” The other twin sputtered. “The imprints.”
As he had done with their twin in the mud of the Battle of the Somme, Gabriel had severed their link to the other Apollyons, a link carrying not only a psychic connection creating a din of maddening voices, but also the connection to the imprints the other Apollyons held.
“You have a choice now.” Gabriel lowered the sword blade, knowing the men posed little threat. He could sense imprints of personal talismans, but nothing more, and nothing of any particular power. “You can find your creator, or you can join his creations. Choose wisely.”
The Apollyons did not wait for any further words and winked away as they jumped through time to escape Gabriel. He ran to Teresa as Marcus dashed to Sema and Ohin, while Rajan knelt beside Ling.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 53
