“Much shouting, much shouting,” Akikane said. “And clear calls for new leadership to head the Council.”
“But they will need the two of you if we’re going to fight both the Apollyons and Kumaradevi to save the Barrier.” Gabriel’s fear gradually transformed to anger. The mission had failed, people had died, but they had obtained vital information. Information that could be their only hope for protecting the Great Barrier of Probability.
“That is the heart of the problem we face.” Nefferati looked around the room before turning back to Gabriel. “There have always been members of the Council who have believed that our efforts to protect the Great Barrier were not worth the lives of the Grace Mages lost in doing so. And there are some who feel that after our losses with the destruction of Windsor Castle, we are too weak to fight a war on two fronts.”
“What are you saying?” Teresa looked like she might leap out of her seat. “The Council can’t expect us to run away and hide.”
“I suspect there are those who would like that very much,” Nefferati said. “At the least, I believe Councilman Romanov will suggest that we focus more on defending the Grace Mage forts rather than protecting the Great Barrier. He has always said that the Barrier was like any other wall. Destined to fall at some point.”
“The Barrier isn’t just another wall.” Gabriel leaned over the edge of the table. “It’s essential. It’s like the membrane of a living cell. It’s there for a reason.”
“No one here disagrees with you.” Ohin appeared sad.
“Then what can we do about it?” Gabriel looked around the table. From the way the others looked back at him, he suspected he would not like the answer. He turned to Teresa, watching as she bit her lip. It took him a moment to realize her anxiety was for him.
“It is not what we can do about the Council, it is what you can do about it.” Nefferati’s gaze bored into Gabriel.
In an instant he understood what they were asking of him and what he would need to do. If the Council chose a new leader who turned away from the war and protecting the Great Barrier, it endangered not only the lives of all Grace Mages but the Primary Continuum itself. He could not allow that to happen. He would not allow that to happen.
“When is this special session the Council has called?” Gabriel planned to be at that meeting, and he would either convince them to continue the course Nefferati and Akikane had set or — he considered that unexpressed notion — he would do what he needed to do.
Chapter 17
After the meeting with Akikane, Nefferati, and the members of the Chimera team ended, Gabriel found himself standing alone for a moment. His sudden solitude in the room did not result from any conscious decision on the part of his companions, but he experienced the separation deeply, nonetheless. He always stood apart from everyone else, but he rarely perceived it as literally as he did then.
The others had not formally asked him to assume the role of leader of the Council, nor had they voiced the suggestion that he fight the Council leaders for power if they would not see reason. They had not needed to. The long months in a distant alternate past spent digging in the dirt for a way home had given him plenty of time to consider his role in the war and his place in protecting the Great Barrier. He had a duty that no one else could fulfill. While he might want to be asked to make a choice, he knew he really had none. None that he could live with afterwards.
If the Great Barrier of Probability fell to the Apollyons, giving them access to an unsuspecting future, and if Kumaradevi came to rule the whole of the past and not merely her horrible alternate kingdom, and if Gabriel did nothing to stop these things, he would be abandoning the promise of the prophecy of the Seventh True Mage. He understood, as much from contemplation as instinct and experience, that his role, his destiny, lay in being a protector. He embodied this nature. It explained why he swam back down to the bus at the bottom of that river. It clarified why he did the things he did. Why he was who he was.
More importantly, he wanted to be this way.
But how did you protect someone from a threat they did not acknowledge? How did you convince people to fight when hiding seemed so simple?
As the others left the room to prepare in their own ways for the special council session the next day, Akikane asked to speak with Gabriel alone for a moment. Gabriel told Teresa and his team that he would meet them at dinner and then stepped into the small courtyard behind the Council Hall. The silver watch, once again safe in his pocket, and the Sword of Unmaking slung over his shoulder, Gabriel admired the flowerbeds between two wooden benches as Akikane stared at a particularly lovely bloom whose genetic descendants might one day evolve into a Calla Lily.
“Thank you.” Akikane’s lack of customary repetition brought Gabriel’s full attention to his mentor’s next words. “We ask a great deal from you. And because of what we ask, things will change between us. Between all of us.”
“I don’t understand.” An odd unease settled over Gabriel from Akikane’s words.
“You do, you do.” Akikane’s voice sounded gentle and soothing. “But you do not want to admit that you do. We cannot ask you to lead us all and expect you to follow us as you have. If you become our leader, you must be our leader. Myself, Nefferati, Ohin, we can advise you, but to truly lead, it must be you who chooses the path we all follow.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to admit that to myself.” Gabriel’s legs were suddenly rubbery, and he sat down on a bench.
“No, no.” Akikane smiled. “Neither will the rest of us. It is no easier to see the student as the master than to see the mentor as the follower. It will be difficult for each of us in our own ways. However, it is something we must make ourselves aware of and face directly.”
“I’ll work on it,” Gabriel said. “Assuming I need to. The Council may come around.”
“Yes, yes,” Akikane said. “Hold to the optimistic mind as long as possible. It staves off the hopeless thoughts.”
Gabriel laughed. He did feel hopeless, and feigning optimism helped, even if it seemed irrational.
“Now, now,” Akikane said. “There is something I must ask you.”
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“The jump, the jump,” Akikane said. “How did you really manage the time jump with Teresa away from the fire?”
“What do you mean?” Gabriel tried to ignore the probing look in Akikane’s eyes.
“The truth, the truth.” Akikane smiled slightly. “I know you’re training. You could not have managed that jump with only your own subtle energy. It would take more months than you were gone to learn to cultivate it so deeply. Years, maybe.”
Gabriel grimaced. Sometimes Akikane proved to be entirely too observant.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what actually happened.”
Gabriel described the true course of events that had led to him making the time jump with the fossil away from the fire. He told Akikane about Teresa’s sacrifice and his near death and the state of mind that allowed him to perceive the subtle cosmic energy beneath all reality and how he had used this energy to make the jump. He also explained how he had been unable to sense even a hint of this elemental energy again.
“So, so.” Akikane looked thoughtful. “I had suspected as much.”
“I’m sorry I lied,” Gabriel said. “I wanted to keep it to myself.”
“Certainly, certainly,” Akikane said. “You were right. Tell no one of this for now.”
“Have you ever heard of someone being able to use cosmic subtle energy?” Gabriel asked. The question had been nagging at him since escaping that fire-filled riverbed.
“Once, once,” Akikane said. “I touched it many years ago. By accident, much like yourself.”
“Were you able to do it again?” Gabriel found himself surprised that he had not suspected Akikane of touching the subtle cosmic energy.
“No, no.” Seriousness filled Akikane’s voice. “I have never tried. Such power is too great a temptation. It is goo
d to have limits to one’s power.”
“What do you mean?” Gabriel stared at Akikane in confusion. “If I could access that power, I could stop the war. I could save the Great Barrier. I could do anything.”
“Just so, just so,” Akikane said. “But might there not come a time when you would be forced to choose between allowing events to follow their natural course and forcing your will upon reality? Unlimited power requires unlimited wisdom and unimaginable restraint.”
Gabriel fell silent as he considered Akikane’s words. Without even being able to access the cosmic energy again, he felt the temptation of it. The more he reflected on it, the more that temptation frightened him. It would be easy to use for good. To protect people. But it would also be easy to misuse. Even accidentally. How many times had he used his magical powers in ways he thought would be beneficial only to find unintended consequences bloom like flowers after a spring rain?
Akikane was right. Unlimited power posed too many dangers for a limited mind. If Akikane did not trust himself with that power, how could Gabriel even consider it? What might he do with that power if he were angry? The thought sent a chill throughout his body.
“I understand.” Gabriel looked up to Akikane’s face. “I won’t use it again. Ever. I won’t even try.”
“One day, one day,” Akikane said. “You are not me. There may come a time when you are ready for such power, or a time when it is necessary to use it. Like saving Teresa and yourself with that time jump. Remember, hold the mind of optimism as long as possible.”
“It doesn’t seem I could sense the energy again, even if I wanted to,” Gabriel said.
“Possibly, possibly,” Akikane said. “It is elusive. Ever-present but ever-absent. When I first left my life as a warrior and began my life as a novice at the temple, I had a teacher I came to revere above all others. He was a novice monk who had remained a novice monk for decades. He had a weak memory. Buddhism is rife with lists and philosophies and theologies, and they seemed to slip through his mind like wind through one’s fingers. He helped in the kitchens, year after year, making food and serving it to the men who arrived as novices and left as monks or abbots. But he never seemed jealous or unhappy with his place in the temple. In fact, he often seemed the most contented of my brethren. I asked him about this once, on a day I had struggled and failed to master my meditations. He looked at me and smiled. ‘Cook, eat, serve, meditate, study,’ he said. ‘They are all the same. Cook, novice, monk, abbot, tree, sky, earth, all the same.’ That was the first real lesson at the temple I fully realized.”
“I see.” Gabriel nodded in seriousness.
“Really, really?” Akikane looked curious.
“No. Not at all.” Gabriel sighed.
“One day, one day.” Akikane laughed.
Gabriel smiled at Akikane’s eternal hopefulness. They spoke for a while longer and then Gabriel left to visit Elizabeth. Considering what he expected to occur the following day, he thought it would be good to talk with her, even if the conversation remained entirely his to carry.
When he stepped into Elizabeth’s room in the infirmary, he found Nefferati seated by the bed, holding the other woman’s hand.
“…you would be proud…” Nefferati looked up as Gabriel stopped by the doorframe.
“Sorry,” Gabriel said. Someone always seemed to be there when he came to visit Elizabeth. “I can come back.”
“Nonsense. Have a seat.” Nefferati gestured toward the empty chair on the opposite side of the bed. “I have been filling her in on what she’s missed the last few days.”
Gabriel sat down and placed his hands in his lap.
“You spend a lot of time here at her side.” Nefferati leaned back. “That’s good of you.”
“It helps sometimes to talk to her.” Gabriel looked at Elizabeth’s sleeping face. “Helps me, I mean.”
“I understand,” Nefferati said. “I have spent many hours in this room. Apologizing.”
“Apologizing?” Gabriel turned his eyes from Elizabeth to Nefferati, curious at her meaning.
“Yes.” Nefferati sat in silence for a moment, seeming to consider her next words and whether to speak them at all. “Apologizing for not being there when she needed me.”
“The castle was under attack,” Gabriel said. “No one is to blame but the Apollyons and Kumaradevi.”
“No. She needed me before the attack ever took place. That was when I abandoned her. And you.” Nefferati turned to gaze out the window at the trees in the courtyard.
“You had good reasons to be on retreat.” Gabriel understood those reasons. Having recently returned from a forced retreat in the distant past of an alternate universe, he understood how pleasant it could be to separate one’s self from the war for a time.
“Good reasons or good excuses.” Nefferati turned to face Gabriel. “I am weary of the war. So weary that my bones ache from the centuries of fighting. I thought that if I stepped away from it, if I found a place where I did not need to think about the war, that I could be free of it. If only for a time. I had hoped to find some of the inner peace that Akikane holds so easily. Such peace is not so quickly found. Not for me, at least. I am still who and what I am. It may not have been a mistake to leave, but I certainly made a mistake in leaving for so long. Elizabeth needed me. The Council needed me. You needed me. I was very selfish. Simply because there are others to fight the war does not mean it is not my responsibility as well.”
Gabriel sat with these thoughts for a moment while considering what, if anything, to say in reply. He knew these sentiments all too well. He understood why she had left, why she had returned, and the recriminations she heaped upon herself.
“We have a duty to protect them, whether we want to or not, because we can.” An inner strength and certainty filled Gabriel as his words passed his lips.
“Them?” Nefferati raised her eyebrows.
“Everyone.” Gabriel said. “We can’t stand aside when people need protection.”
“No.” Nefferati sighed. “That is why I apologize. For forgetting this.”
“You didn’t forget.” Gabriel’s voice sounded as firm as his conviction. “You can’t protect everyone all the time. Sometimes you need to protect yourself. I think she understands that.”
Gabriel looked down again at Elizabeth’s closed eyes.
“I hope so,” Nefferati said. “I…”
Her thought remained unfinished, her face hardening as she stood up. Gabriel leapt to his feet, as well. He, too, had sensed the distinctive warping of space-time that indicated the arrival of several Time Mages.
Alarm bells sounded a moment later.
An explosion shook the walls of the infirmary.
“Get Elizabeth to safety,” Gabriel said.
Nefferati looked for a moment as though she would argue. She had more familiarity with giving orders in battle than taking them. However, whether due to Akikane’s influence or her own judgment, she nodded in agreement. “And what are you going to do?”
“Protect the others while we all escape.” Gabriel claimed hold of the imprints in his pocket watch and the Sword of Unmaking. They had built the forts not to be defended but because they were easy to abandon.
To help everyone else flee, he would need to fight, and to fight, he would need more imprints.
“We’ll meet at the rendezvous point.” Gabriel watched as Nefferati disappeared with Elizabeth before warping space around himself, leaving the infirmary room for the final time.
Chapter 18
Gabriel appeared in the armory as more explosions outside rocked Fort Aurelius. By design, the armory appeared to be nothing more than a storage shed containing sacks of grain and other dried foodstuffs.
He lifted a false floorboard to reveal a small cache of concatenate crystals in a wooden box. He flung aside the dusty lid. There were not as many concatenate crystals present as he had hoped. He grabbed a leather pouch and slid the remaining five crystals inside, embracing their imprints a
s he did so.
Gabriel knew he needed to provide enough of a distraction to allow the other residents of the fort to follow their pre-planned escape routes. He needed to do something else, as well. He needed to find Teresa.
Hoping to combine both goals in a single action, he teleported through space to hover two hundred feet above the fort. The sight below appeared all too familiar. Black-clad Apollyons attacked in groups of twos and threes as Grace Mages defended each other and tried to retreat. Kumaradevi’s soldiers, in teams of six, were assaulting everyone not under attack by the Apollyons. It reminded him of the worst of the two battles that had caused him to destroy the Council’s Windsor Castle.
Fireballs, arced upwards in the dozens, like some magical anti-artillery fire, exploding around him. He had no more time to look for Teresa or consider a plan. He need to attack until everyone else could find a Time Mage to help them escape.
He projected himself through space to land between two teams of Kumaradevi’s soldiers and a pair of Apollyons, each fighting different groups of Grace Mages. The Apollyons and the Dark Time Mages sensed his arrival but did not have time to do more than turn before he focused all of the imprints he held on a creating a vortex of Wind and Earth and Fire Magic.
The ground beneath himself and the Dark Mages around him plunged downward in a churning well of and rock and fire. A sinkhole of extraordinary gravity and flames sucked the Apollyons and Kumaradevi’s soldiers down into the bowels of the earth.
Gabriel remained floating above the sinkhole only a moment, long enough to yell to his Grace Mage comrades.
“Everyone to the evacuation points!”
He did not wait to see if they followed his instructions. He caught sight of another battle and jumped through space to appear in the middle of it. With the Sword of Unmaking in hand, he threw himself between two Apollyons attacking Ohin and the Chimera team. Ohin slashed at the Apollyons with his sword, leaping through space around them as Sema and Marcus assaulted their minds and bodies with magic, while Ling and Rajan simultaneously tried to crush them and turn them to ash.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 76
