“A good chance or a slim chance?” Nefferati scowled at Vicaquirao’s words like she had ingested an unpleasant meal.
“If these seven Apollyons have their ship in a space-time bubble, then we will need to time the approach of our boat perfectly, so we can arrive at exactly the moment their bubble begins to suspend them in space-time.” Gabriel stared at his glass on the table, working through the variables that would be involved. “And we’ll need to do it the middle of a sea battle without using magic to conceal ourselves, or the Apollyons will sense it. So we’ll need to know in advance what will and will not happen around their ship for the whole course of our journey to reach it.”
“Precisely.” Vicaquirao’s white teeth shone brightly in the filtered light of the tent. He looked as pleased as if Gabriel had been his own apprentice Time Mage. “We will also need to identify the position of every ship, every arrow, and every volley of cannon fire.”
“There is a reason the Apollyons have chosen Lepanto as a hiding place,” Cyril said.
“Unfortunately, this is the only way to capture them,” Cassius added.
Gabriel believed Cassius and Cyril were right. The Apollyon duplicates on the boat had hidden themselves very well. It would take a master Time Mage to successfully mount a surprise attack on their ship in a space-time bubble. Gabriel had no doubt who had conceived the plan. Only Vicaquirao would even consider such a mission feasible. Gabriel reconsidered that thought.
“You’re plan is not a plan, it is a self-made trap.” Nefferati looked as though she might spit on the carpet.
“There are too many possibilities for mistakes.” Ohin placed the brooch back on the table. “It is foolish and impossible.”
Foolish and impossible. Those words described Vicaquirao’s plan exactly. But did that mean the plan would not work? Gabriel suspected at least one other Time Mage besides Vicaquirao could see past the foolishness, believe in the impossible, and attempt something so complicated and intricate.
“No.” Gabriel’s voice sounded odd in his own ears, as though his words surprised him as much as those around him. “Vicaquirao is right. We can do this. I’m positive.”
Vicaquirao’s smile seemed ready to ignite the tent with its intensity.
Beside him, Teresa cursed under her breath before uttering something only he could hear.
“Foolish and impossible. We should make a t-shirt for you.”
A sea of excitement percolated within Gabriel. They had formed an alliance with Dark Mages that might prove crucial in defending the Great Barrier of Probability. They had gained essential knowledge about what Vicaquirao and the two reformed Apollyons had been doing since the fall of Windsor Castle. Most of all, they finally had a plan to attack their enemies and bring the war directly to the Apollyons.
Chapter 7
Gabriel and his companions left the tent a short time later, having reviewed the preliminary aspects of the plan and allocated responsibilities. Vicaquirao, Cyril, and Cassius would be responsible for finding a ship they could use in the attack and for recording all the events of the battle surrounding the Apollyons’ vessel. Assembling and briefing five teams of Grace Mages fell to Nefferati and Akikane. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Ohin reviewed the events of the battle through relics collected after the end of the conflict. They used their space-time sense to probe the relics and double check Vicaquirao’s navigation through the fighting. If they encountered even one wrong arrow, or worse yet, one stray cannonball, they might not merely suffer casualties but accidentally alert the Apollyons of their presence…or unintentionally create a bifurcation of the Primary Continuum.
As Gabriel stepped toward the glaring light beyond the entrance of the tent, a hand clasped his shoulder. His magic-sense told him who stood behind him even before he turned around to find Vicaquirao, holding a small, thin bundle wrapped in dark red fabric.
“You need to take this with you.” Vicaquirao handed Gabriel the package. “I’m sure you’ll know what to do with it.”
Gabriel frowned as he accepted the item from Vicaquirao’s hands. The hard slate of the chalkboard pressed through the cloth beneath his fingers. “This paradox doesn’t make sense.”
“Paradoxes by definition don’t make sense,” Vicaquirao said.
“You’re giving me this slate so I can go back in time and put it where I found it yesterday, but how did you know yesterday that I would place it there for you in the future?” Gabriel had a better sense of the vagaries of time paradoxes than most, but this chain of events made even his head spin.
“There is only one way to really know what will happen in your own future.” Vicaquirao’s face held a blank expression as he stared at Gabriel.
“You crossed your own timeline?” Gabriel’s mouth fell open in surprise.
“Some risks are necessary.” Vicaquirao smiled. “And some conversations more interesting than others.”
“I don’t ever want to talk to my future self,” Gabriel said.
“Ah, but your future self may feel differently about that.” Vicaquirao laughed.
“I have a question.” Gabriel realized this might be the only time to ask what he wanted to know.
“About?” Vicaquirao’s eyes narrowed.
“Were you the one who discovered that the Great Barrier took one hundred and eight mages to create?” Gabriel asked.
“I discovered nothing,” Vicaquirao said. “I found myself in need of advice and consulted with a shaman woman. Instead of helping me with my query, she mentioned the Great Barrier and the number one hundred and eight several times. Given her history of accuracy, I believed her. And, in a moment of unguardedness, I mentioned it to Elizabeth.”
“I see.” Gabriel nearly sighed. One mystery solved by revealing a new mystery.
“How is she?” Concern filled Vicaquirao’s voice.
“The same,” Gabriel said. “No worse, but no better.”
“Her spirit is strong. She will recover.” Vicaquirao appeared to be reassuring himself more than Gabriel. “If you need to reach me, use the slate. And thank you.”
Gabriel didn’t need to ask why. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“I will do my best.” Vicaquirao nodded and Gabriel joined his companions outside in the sun. As they walked away from the tent, Gabriel stepped closer to Nefferati. “Why didn’t you ask for something in return for helping them with this attack?”
Nefferati shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked at Gabriel.
“Sometimes, when the caravan master offers to trade you for your camels, you wait and see what he will have in his packs the following season rather than accept the trinkets he has on hand.”
Gabriel nodded to himself. It made sense. Having Vicaquirao and the two rehabilitated Apollyons in their debt could prove useful at the right time. Assuming they would fulfill their obligation and that Cyril and Cassius had truly reformed.
“This entire endeavor fills me with unease.” Ohin pulled his keffiyeh up to his face against the dust and wind.
“It is a danger, but also a great opportunity,” Nefferati said. “A precedent that may lead to other things.”
“What things?” Ohin asked.
“Things we will discuss at another time.” Nefferati glanced toward Teresa.
Ohin shielded his eyes against the bright glare but said no more.
“Well if it works, we’ll finally have an answer to at least one of our questions.” Teresa ignored Nefferati’s comment, openly elated to be able to speak her mind again.
“What question?” Gabriel asked.
“Whether Grace and Malignancy Mages can work together.” Teresa grabbed Gabriel’s hand as Ohin teleported them through space to where their comrades stood observing Vicaquirao’s tent.
“How did it go?” Ling asked when they materialized before Akikane and the rest of the team.
“Better than expected,” Nefferati said.
“Good, good,” Akikane said. “Our expectations were unpleasant.”
“The task we will be attempting is unpleasant enough,” Ohin said.
“What task?” Sema asked
Nefferati and Ohin turned to each other briefly, but neither spoke. Gabriel held his words as well. It would not be an easy plan to explain, and their future partners weren’t potential selling points.
“We’re going to help Vicaquirao and a couple of rogue Apollyons attack a ship full of their duplicates in the middle of a sea battle so they can be captured and sent to a special town for wayward Dark Mages.” Teresa appeared chipper and enthusiastic. “Gabriel thinks it’s a brilliant plan, so I’m sure we have nothing to worry about.”
Gabriel squeezed Teresa’s hand so hard she yelped. His face burned as the others looked at him.
“Well, that’s good,” Marcus said, clapping Gabriel on the back. “Gabriel’s plans never go wrong.”
“They never go as planned either,” Rajan said with a laugh.
“We should get back to the fort,” Ohin said before anyone else could speak. “We have a great deal to accomplish in the next day.”
“More than a great deal,” Nefferati added.
Before another discussion about the proposed mission to the Battle of Lepanto might erupt, Ohin whisked them all through time and space and back to Fort Aurelius. Upon their return, Nefferati and Akikane handed out assignments for everyone. The two senior True Mages would assemble the assault force, choosing one team each from five different forts. As co-heads of the Council they had the authority to mount small military actions on short notice. Neither Akikane nor Nefferati had any desire to spend hours debating the advantages and dangers of the mission with the full Council and risk the plan being rejected. If the mission succeeded, they would have greater leverage in convincing the Council of the feasibility of a future alliance with Kumaradevi to defeat the Apollyons.
Ohin and the Chimera team were responsible for quietly assembling the supplies for the mission and collecting the concatenate crystals they would need from the vault beneath the Council Hall. Once they had what they required, the team would rendezvous with Akikane, Nefferati, and the other five teams at a remote location in Neolithic North America to review the plan.
Before doing anything else, Gabriel returned to his room. On his bed sat the same chalkboard that he held in his hands. His space-time sense buzzed like a nest of hornets. The same object in paradoxical proximity to its magically twinned and entwined copy disturbed the natural flow of space-time within the Primary Continuum. Keeping the two versions of the chalkboard in the same place could have unpredictable effects. Gabriel didn’t need any more unpredictable things in his life.
He used the same tiny fossil that led through time to the fort in order to travel back in time one night and place the small chalkboard on his table. As he stood in his room, knowing that elsewhere in the fort his previous self danced with Teresa, he unwrapped the chalkboard, Vicaquirao’s message already printed on the slate in white chalk. Gabriel shook his head. He still couldn’t puzzle out how Vicaquirao had managed to put this particular paradox in motion, but however he had, it worked.
Gabriel jumped through time again into the future, to a minute after he had left. The chalkboard still rested on his bed. His space-time sense throbbed slightly as he picked it up. He packed the chalkboard in a backpack with a change of clothes, his copy of A Time Traveler’s Pocket Guide to History, an empty canteen, a compass, binoculars, a Swiss Army knife, and a few other things he always took on missions.
He met up with Teresa and the rest of the team in the supply barn at the western end of the fort a few minutes later. Rajan and Marcus held two tents in their hands while Ling had a bundle of blankets and sleeping mats slung across her back. Sema carried a small canvas bag over her shoulder in addition to her backpack of personal equipment. Gabriel sensed the magic emanating from the bag and guessed that it contained dozens of concatenate crystals. Probably 49. Enough for each team member to carry seven.
“How are your physicians?” Teresa handed him a large canvas pack with water sacks as she shouldered a bag filled with dried fruit, nuts, jerky, and other dry rations.
“My what?” Gabriel adjusted the bag of water sacks on his shoulders, holding his backpack in his hands.
“Your pair-o-docs.” Teresa grinned as Gabriel groaned.
“That’s awful, even for you.” Gabriel took her hand and turned to the others. “I put the chalkboard where I found it, but it still hurts my head when I try to figure it out.”
“Non-sequential temporal binding artifact.” Teresa frowned knowingly.
“You’re making that up, aren’t you?” Gabriel asked.
“I could show you the math to describe the phenomenon,” Teresa offered.
“And you know I wouldn’t understand any of it,” Gabriel said.
“It must be difficult having such a small brain.” Teresa smirked as her teasing tone dropped half an octave.
“Who figured out how to save you after you were dead?” Gabriel looked up to the rafters as though trying to remember the name that might answer his question.
“You’re right.” A look of admonishment fell over Teresa’s face as she kissed him. “You have a glorious brain.”
“Thank you.” Gabriel’s smugness dissolved with his next thought. “Let’s hope it’s glorious enough to figure out how to navigate a ship through a battle without getting sunk or creating a bifurcation.”
“Glorious, but mad,” Teresa said.
“Is everyone ready?” Ohin asked before Gabriel could reply to Teresa’s comment.
The members of the Chimera team each voiced their assent as Ohin pulled a flint arrowhead from his pocket. A moment of deepest black followed by a burst of purest white, and the team stood in a flat clearing at the edge of a stream in the middle of a dense forest of fir trees. Gabriel turned to examine his surroundings, breathing in the scent of pine and wild flowers as the sound of swiftly flowing water filled his ears. The wide glade would make a perfect basecamp.
“It seems we are the first to arrive.” Ohin sat down his packs. “Akikane and Nefferati and the other teams will be here shortly. Let’s get started setting up camp. We’ll have a briefing to review the mission, and then we’re going to need to capture some of the sleep we lost last night before we begin tomorrow.”
Gabriel watched the sun hanging low in the sky between the trees arching over the stream. They would have at least a few hours before sunset. Time enough to set camp, evaluate the operation, and have a meal.
The team set about preparing the basecamp. They had been on enough missions that each person had a role and knew what needed to be done. By the time Akikane arrived with the first team, they had their tents assembled, their supplies unpacked, and a perimeter established with magical barriers to alert them of the approach of any people. Gabriel and Teresa built a small fire in the center of the clearing and began cooking a meal for the others.
Within an hour, the camp hummed with activity as the 30 members of the five teams Akikane and Nefferati had assembled swarmed through the grass, helping complete the tasks necessary to establish the camp. As the sun fell behind the trees, glowing orange light cascading along the rolling water of the stream, the combined teams of the mission gathered for a briefing and a quick meal.
“So, so,” Akikane said, his voice echoing amongst the tree trunks as he stood beside Nefferati at the center of the camp. “Most of you have come not knowing what we will ask of you. Now you will learn.”
“We chose you because we trust you to trust us.” Nefferati’s voice floated on the still air and wrapped each person in its gentle tones. “When we explain this mission, your trust will be tested. Hopefully it will not fail.”
To the credit of the various mages Akikane and Nefferati had assembled, none of them balked at the nature of the mission once it had been explained to them. They had questions and concerns, but no one flinched at the notion of allying with Vicaquirao to attack the Apollyons or the danger inherent in the plan. They
were most concerned with the idea that the captured Apollyons would be held in a special prison guarded by Vicaquirao. However, their confidence in Nefferati and Akikane did not waver. They were personally loyal to the True Mages and completely dedicated to the war.
After the fires burnt down and guards were set around the parameter, most of the mages settled into their tents or spread out sleeping bags beneath the stars. Gabriel said good night to Teresa with a long kiss outside the tent she shared with Ling and Sema. He had intended to climb into the neighboring tent where he bunked with the male members of the Chimera team when he spotted Ohin, still seated before one of the few campfires kept burning to provide illumination throughout the night. The look on Ohin’s face as he stared into the flames drew Gabriel across the low grass. He knew that look of concerned consternation all too well, and it meant one thing.
“Nefferati and Akikane told you their plan.” Gabriel settled down beside Ohin, keeping his voice low in case someone passed nearby.
“You’re beginning to read my moods as well as Sema.” Ohin said. “You are correct. They have confided in me.” He turned his eyes to Gabriel. “I think it poses a grave risk. To you, most of all.”
“I’ve faced Kumaradevi before,” Gabriel said. “We’re not expecting we can trust her completely.”
“She is only one part of the risk.” Ohin said. “The greater risk is the Council.”
“You think they will vote against the idea.” Gabriel didn’t phrase this as a question. He too doubted the plan would find the Council’s support.
“I am certain they will reject it.” Ohin paused as he looked Gabriel over. “You have grown quite a bit since we plucked you from your death. But I fear this is too much to ask. To accept the mantle of leadership at your age is one thing, but to assume leadership by wresting power from the Council is quite another.”
“I’m not so keen on that part of the plan myself.” Gabriel avoided Ohin’s stare and turned his eyes to the dazzling sea of stars above the forest canopy.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 66
