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

by G. L. Breedon

  Chapter 27

  By mutual decision, the many versions of Gabriel chose those who would warp space and time to deliver them all back to the fort. They appeared in the central square of the new fort a moment later. Teresa sat on the steps of the barracks. They had arrived exactly as planned, and she alone waited to greet them. She stood up and approached the nearest version of Gabriel.

  “Which one are you?” She looked him in the eyes, ignoring the 107 pairs of eyes turned toward her.

  “Number fifty-two,” the Gabriel she spoke to replied.

  “You’ve numbered yourselves.” Teresa smiled. “That’s cute.”

  “We were thinking…”

  “Of getting…”

  “Baseball jerseys made…”

  Two other versions of Gabriel had joined in the response.

  “That, right there, that has to stop.” Teresa crossed her arms. “Only one of you speaks to me at a time.”

  “That will be me.” Gabriel Prime stepped from the small sea of identical faces.

  I thought…

  There was no…

  Difference…

  I guess…

  I was wrong…

  Is this how…

  They went mad?

  Meditate…

  Focus on…

  Your breathing…

  And perceiving…

  And seeking…

  And not her…

  Lovely eyes.

  Gabriel Prime ignored the voices in his head, unsure even which ones had come from his own mind.

  “Are you…you?” Teresa asked, her eyes flicking between the duplicate Gabriels.

  “I pretty sure,” Gabriel said. “It’s a little confusing with the thoughts of the others in my head all the time.”

  “Are you feeling crazy?” Teresa reached out to place the back of her hand against his forehead as though checking for a fever.

  “I just made a hundred and seven copies of myself,” Gabriel said. “That is insanely crazy.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Teresa laughed.

  Gabriel laughed as well.

  A hundred and seven versions of himself laughed along.

  “Okay, stop that. That’s freaking me out.” Teresa pulled Gabriel away from his duplicates.

  “What’s our status?” Gabriel asked, trying to seal his mind away from the few stray thoughts still entering it. Having the others stay in a meditative state of awareness seemed to help a great deal.

  A pity…

  That the Apollyons…

  Never learned…

  To meditate.

  “We’re doing fine,” Teresa said. “Ohin and Akikane returned nearly two hours ago. They have been briefing the teams. Nefferati and Elizabeth came back a while ago with the final relics we’ll need to access the anchor points. I’ve finished making my map of the anchor points for you to follow. I’ve marked all the ones where we’ll have teams in place to protect you in case the two Apollyons show up. I think we’re in good shape. How many hours do we have left before you need to sever all the alternate worlds you created to copy yourself?”

  “Almost thirty-five hours,” Gabriel said. He pulled his pocket watch out to double check. “Thirty four hours and fifty-five minutes.”

  “I’m worried about the Alpha anchor point.” Teresa led Gabriel around the corner of a building, looking back over her shoulder at the courtyard full of duplicates of her boyfriend with a slight shiver. “I know you said you had an idea of how to reach it, but you didn’t say what that idea was, and that worries me.”

  “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d worry even more if I told you what I have in mind,” Gabriel said. “Remember when we escaped the alternate reality?”

  “You can’t be serious.” Teresa stopped and grabbed Gabriel by the shoulders. “You don’t even know if that’s possible.”

  “It’s the only way it will work,” Gabriel said. Oddly, having so many versions of himself meditating and psychically linked to his mind left him feeling calm and confident. “I have to find a moment when the Barrier doesn’t yet exist so I can create it. That’s only possible from one place.”

  “To do that you’d have to use subtle cosmic energy, not imprints.” Teresa shook her head.

  “Yes, but that would explain why the Barrier appears to be created with Grace and Malignant imprints,” Gabriel said. “A Grace Mage would see it as Grace Magic and a Malignancy Mage would perceive it as Malignant Magic. Even I saw what I expected to see. But the Barrier can’t be created before time, before imprints exist, using imprints. That may be the one paradox that can’t work.”

  “You only managed to use cosmic subtle energy once,” Teresa said. “Do you think you can do it again?”

  “There are over a hundred of me practicing how to do it right now.” Gabriel, and all of his duplicates, comprehended how ridiculous that sounded. Maybe he should have discussed this with Teresa before he copied himself.

  “And if they…I mean you, don’t figure it out?” Teresa asked.

  “We’ve got nearly thirty-five hours. I’m sure we can figure it out.” Gabriel realized the assuredness that came with having a hundred plus minds in meditation linked together might also lead to arrogant overconfidence.

  “And…until then?” Teresa left the question hanging in the air like a cloud of dust between them.

  “There are some things I need to do,” Gabriel said. “I want to practice projecting myself through time again with Nefferati. That will be part of how I hope to remain stable in the Void between continuums while I find and create the Alpha point. I also want to discuss sensing cosmic energy with Akikane. He said he’s perceived it once before. And I should review the relics that lead to the anchor points with Elizabeth. I should also go over the anchor point map with you. And a few other things. Maybe address the teams with Ohin.”

  “That will eat up more than a few hours of the time we have.” Concern coated Teresa’s voice.

  “Not necessarily.” Gabriel sensed several versions of himself walk away from where he had corralled his duplicates in the courtyard.

  “That’s really freaky and weird.” Teresa glanced back to see two versions of Gabriel setting out on missions he had just described. Two more followed shortly thereafter. Teresa turned back around, clearly not wanting to see more. “You’re enough trouble when there is only one of you.”

  “There will be one of me again soon.”

  “Let me show you the map.” Teresa caught sight of yet two more versions of Gabriel crossing the lane between the barracks. “Wait. I want to try something.” She grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him into a passionate kiss.

  Gabriel closed his eyes into the kiss, but he could also see through the eyes of Gabriel 33 and Gabriel 89, watching himself kissing Teresa as she peeked around his head to watch the copies of himself stopped in the middle of the street just before they too closed their eyes. He could feel all the versions of himself that had been walking through the fort come to a sudden stop as their eyelids slid shut.

  “Okay, that’s cool.” Teresa broke away from the kiss with a self-satisfied grin. “Really bizarre and kind of creepy, but very cool.”

  “You’re gloating.”

  “A little bit.”

  “Because I can’t kiss you and walk at the same time?”

  “A girl likes to know she commands her boyfriend’s full attention. Come on. I’ll show you that map of the anchor points.”

  The different Gabriels made their way through the fort to different destinations and different conversations, some intended and some unexpected, but all happening for him simultaneously with the same mind, a mind of many parts, most of which still meditated on the problem of how to perceive the subtle energy of the cosmos, as they lowered themselves, in one unified motion, to sit cross-legged in the courtyard like the monks of an ancient monastery.

  Gabriel Prime followed Teresa to the common room of the barracks where a large map consumed one whole
table — while Gabriel 33 approached Akikane crossing a lane between buildings — as Gabriel 89 came upon Ohin standing beside the main gate of the fort, speaking quietly with Paramata — even as Gabriel 44 happened to find Rajan seated on a bench near a tree eating a sandwich — while Gabriel 12 stopped to help Sema taking a break from sorting through imbued artifacts and concatenate crystals with a group of mages — as Gabriels 77 and 23 found Elizabeth and Nefferati reviewing the collection of relics spread across the tables of the dining hall.

  “If the Council saw this, they’d have our heads,” Elizabeth said as Gabriel 77 and Gabriel 43 entered the room.

  “Then it’s a good thing they can’t see…” one of the Gabriel’s said, standing before a table of relics, each one baring a numbered tag.

  “What’s in the courtyard.” the other Gabriel concluded.

  “It’s nice to see you both...”

  “Working together again.”

  “It’s nice to be working together again.” Nefferati frowned as she looked between the two identical Gabriels.

  “It might be easier…”

  “If we spoke separately.”

  The Gabriels both smiled as one of them led Nefferati to the kitchen while…

  “Have you reached an existential epistemological crisis yet?” Rajan took a bite of ham and cheese pressed between two slices of bread, mustard oozing out the sides.

  “You’re starting to sound like Teresa,” Gabriel 44 said. “Making up words to confuse me.”

  “I feel more like I’m making up words to confuse myself,” Rajan said. “I’m beginning to think, though, that a little confusion is healthy.”

  “Then I’m probably the healthiest person you know.” Gabriel 44 chuckled. In the courtyard, a hundred paces away, a 101 Gabriels chuckled softly, as well.

  “You probably are.” Rajan looked down at his sandwich with sudden dissatisfaction. “I suspect I’ve spent so many years with my head in books looking for answers that I’ve forgotten the pleasure of questions that remain unresolved. I may need less reading and more doing.”

  “Then Ling is right,” Gabriel 44 said.

  “Ling?” Rajan said. “Right about what?”

  “About dancing with Imelda.” Gabriel 44 grinned.

  “Yes. She might be right after all.” Rajan laughed as Gabriel 44 closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as…

  “The key to projecting someone through time without a relic is concentration.” Nefferati took a sip of tea from the cup in her hand. She and Gabriel 23 stood in the kitchen at the back of the dining hall. “Without a relic, any distraction of thought could cause a deadly displacement.”

  “Odd that the Apollyons hadn’t tried it before.” Gabriel had wondered about that, and now he wondered about it with several minds at once.

  “It’s very dangerous,” Nefferati said. “I was sending Akikane someplace I knew well and had been often. I imagine that for the Apollyons, seeing all the places the duplicates existed simultaneously made projection through time even more difficult.”

  “I see that now.” Gabriel existed in too many places at once to be able to focus on any one of them easily. “Putting most of them in a coma actually helped those who remained to focus on the one we had captured.”

  “Yes,” Nefferati said. “A result I should have anticipated.”

  “We can’t anticipate every possible problem,” Gabriel 23 said.

  “Even when there are so many of you?” Nefferati asked.

  “The more of me there are, the more problems there may be to anticipate,” Gabriel 23 laughed at Nefferati’s frown and closed he eyes and smiled blissfully as…

  “So the psychic link works?” Sema asked as she stepped aside with Gabriel 12.

  “A little too well,” Gabriel 12 said.

  “It’s a great risk,” Sema said. “Thank you for taking it.”

  “We all take risks,” Gabriel 12 said. “You and everyone on the team have risked their lives by being near me for so long.”

  “That doesn’t feel like a risk.” Sema gently folded her arms. “Odd, I used to take risks all the time when I was younger. My childhood was filled with attempts to prove I could be as strong and nimble as my brothers. Marrying my husband risked my heart, and helping him build our small merchant stall into a thriving house of exchange risked our livelihood. In my second life, I seem to have forgotten how to risk my future.”

  “The future is always the future,” Gabriel 12 said. “You can’t really risk it because you don’t really know what it will be.”

  “I suppose the heart is much the same, when you think about it.” Sema tapped her fingers against her arm as she seemed to ponder her own words, and Gabriel 12 closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as…

  Paramata parted from Ohin with a wide grin as Gabriel 89 approached.

  “She seems very happy,” Gabriel 89 said. “Did you accept her offer of a date?”

  Ohin frowned. Looked down at the ground. Sighed. “Yes. When this is all over. Dinner. Someplace nice.”

  “Paris is very romantic,” Gabriel 89 said. “At least the version of it I was in.”

  “I know a place,” Ohin said, his tone mysterious. He looked askance at Gabriel 89. “You think I should have said yes earlier.”

  Gabriel 89 said nothing.

  “Possibly, you’re right.”

  Gabriel 89 remained silent.

  “Loss is not easy. I’ve lost two wives. Two women I loved as much as I could love anything. I lived and they did not. But what is the point of being alive if you’re afraid to love?”

  “You’re asking me?” Gabriel 89 looked around as though someone else might be present.

  “I’m telling you,” Ohin said, “so you can remind me if I forget again.” Ohin looked off in the direction Paramata had gone and laughed as Gabriel 89 closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as…

  “It’s all coordinated with Teresa’s map.” Elizabeth gestured to the numbered relics spread across five tables. “She’s done an amazing thing.”

  “Yes, I see the map.” Gabriel 77 did see the map through the eyes of Gabriel Prime standing beside Teresa on the other side of the fort even as he talked with Elizabeth in the dining hall. “And she is amazing.”

  “She is not the only one to amaze,” Elizabeth said. “You should be very proud of yourself. Or yourselves, as the case may be at the moment.”

  “I’m only doing what needs to be done,” Gabriel 77 said.

  “That is not always as easy as it sounds,” Elizabeth said. “Especially when you are asked to lead others into danger and potential death.”

  “I try not to think about that too much.” Gabriel 77 realized he now had far too many minds with which to contemplate such thoughts.

  “Good,” Elizabeth said. “You can paralyze yourself with doubt, and that can be more dangerous at times than callous disregard for others. The first battle I took charge of ended very badly because I did not heed this lesson. Our teams found themselves pinned down by twice their number and I delayed the inevitable retreat because I knew the only way to cover our exit would be to ask one of the teams to sacrifice themselves for the others. Instead, I tried to cover the retreat myself. I thought I was being noble. I was being foolish. We lost nearly everyone that day, and I only escaped because I could do things those who died could not. I’m sure you know that feeling.”

  “All too well.” Gabriel 77 stared down at a small brass ring with a loop of string running through it, a number 20 written in clean script on the attached tag.

  “I lost friends that day because I didn’t know how to ask other friends to die for them,” Elizabeth said. “What I didn’t realize was that by being there, they had already agreed to this bargain. It turned out that I was the only one not to abide by that unspoken contract.”

  “I understand. I’ve made this same pack with all of my selves.” Gabriel 77 closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as…

  “There you are, there you are.” Akikane walke
d from the small lane to the shade of a nearby tree. “Where are the rest of you?”

  “Busy doing different things,” Gabriel 33 said. “I wanted to talk to you about cosmic energy.”

  “Of course, of course,” Akikane said. “Have you glimpsed it again?”

  “I’m trying right now.” Gabriel 33 gestured toward the courtyard beyond the buildings. “I remember how I saw it the first time, but I can’t seem to find it again.”

  “Yes, yes,” Akikane said. “Looking can be the problem. Remember: cook, novice, monk, abbot, tree, sky, earth, all the same.”

  “Hmmm.” Gabriel 33’s frown of concentration slowly melted.

  “You cannot search for the thing you already possess.” Akikane said. “A fish does not hunt for water any more than a bird seeks air for its wings.”

  “Ah.” Gabriel 33 closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as…

  “See how this tail grows longer and wider?” Teresa traced the line on the map as it turned from the center, spiraling outward in ever-wider arcs until the final line ran in a gentle curve off the large sheet of parchment. “I’ve done the calculations and it flows back infinitely. Well, not infinitely, but that tail is really long.”

  “Back to the beginning of time,” Gabriel Prime said.

  “Exactly,” Teresa said.

  “Each red circle is a place I need to create an anchor point?” Gabriel touched his finger to Teresa’s where it rested on the paper next to a red circle with numbers beside it.

  “Yes,” Teresa said. “The first set of numbers is the year, and the second set is the longitude and latitude coordinates. The equations for progression of the anchor points follow the Golden Mean closely, but I needed to calculate the locations by altering part of that equation to account for the spherical shape of the of the planet, and then adjust again because the Earth isn’t a true sphere, and then compensate for the rotation of the planet and the processional tilt on its axis as it orbits the sun, and the effects of the sun’s gravity, not to mention the moon’s gravity, and then I had to figure out a way to convert the result of all that into coordinates we could actually use.”

  “And you did all that in two days?” Gabriel’s heart swelled with love and pride and emotions that had no words to describe them.