The Magi Menagerie

by Kale Lawrence

  Diego exhaled in frustration when every floor following the first yielded the same results. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  “If I were an all-powerful tablet, where would I be?” Diego asked aloud, circling the top floor one last time before descending the poorly lit staircase. “The sneaky artifact is just as elusive in history as it is in modern life.”

  Just then, a clamour from somewhere below ricocheted throughout the stairwell. Diego dashed down the stairs, taking two and three at a time as he navigated toward the source of the noise.

  “Make haste! We haven’t much time!”

  Despite the volume of the frantic order, Diego found it impossible to pinpoint the source. Every shout of warning, every clatter of falling shelves seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. It did not matter that he had been to this very scene several times before. The library corridors still had an uncanny ability to contort themselves into unfamiliar territory.

  Diego had almost given up hope when moments later, his astral projection nearly barrelled through three men in scholar’s robes. The men manoeuvred a wooden crate from what looked to be one of the library’s learning rooms. Diego stood on the balls of his feet to get a better view of its contents, but all he could see were heaps of fabric.

  “What is our destination?” asked one of the scholars.

  “We need to get these to Queen Cleopatra,” commanded another. “She can protect them better than we can here.”

  Diego frowned. Them?

  “Did you get the lot?” asked a fourth man, scuttling down the hall.

  “Pandora’s Box, the Shield of Achilles, and the Ring of Gyges,” recounted one of the men. “The Book of Thoth, the ancient Ankh, David’s Harp, and remnants of the Ark of the Covenant.”

  Diego’s mouth hung open in disbelief.

  “Imbeciles! You forgot the Tablet of Destinies!” exclaimed the fourth man. “Keep going; I shall retrieve it and meet up with you.”

  Leaving the three scholars and their crate behind, Diego trailed after the fourth individual down another winding corridor. At its end, an arched doorway gave way to a grand hall. Supported by rows of columns and floor-to-ceiling shelving, the expanse served as another of the Library’s many study rooms. Yet in this one, golden beams from the sun streamed through an open skylight, illuminating a two-meter pedestal in the centre of the space and upon it—

  The Tablet of Destinies.

  “Santa María,” Diego whispered, initiating the sign of the cross over his chest.

  Standing at a height of approximately three decimetres, the Tablet of Destinies exuded an air of authority. Unlike the reddish-brown artifacts Diego had seen in many excavations through Time, this rectangular tablet appeared silver with faint light radiating from within. Engraved across the stone were the familiar cuneiform markings, along with an imprint from a cylindrical Babylonian seal. Even the surrounding atmosphere pulsed and vibrated, as if the object commanded sovereignty over the electromagnetic spectrum.

  Diego watched as the scholar removed his outer layer of robes and wrapped the artifact within the textiles. Tucking it under his arm, the man dashed from the room, with Diego at his heels.

  The pursuit led them away from the Library of Alexandria through a maze of paved streets and across manicured lawns. With each footfall, Diego’s head screamed for respite. At one point, he almost lost the scholar entirely as he braced himself against a building, fighting the debilitating agony tearing through his brain. Groaning, he forced himself to continue. He had to. This had to work.

  Finally, the scholar slowed as he reached the entrance of the palace. The Alexandrian man took one frightened look over his shoulder in the direction of the burning marina before darting up the marble staircase. Gripping his timepiece within his sweaty palms, Diego followed until both he and the Tablet’s carrier had arrived at the inner sanctum of the royal building.

  Surrounded by her advisors, Queen Cleopatra hugged her arms against her middle as urgent whispers swirled around the room. Her dark eyes communicated a strange longing as she turned her head in the direction of a window overlooking the destruction.

  Diego swallowed and diverted his eyes from the authoritative woman. Not only was the Greek-born a lovely sight, but she ruled with power and grace. And even though Cleopatra would never see him in his current state, Diego lowered his head respectfully in her presence.

  “My Queen,” panted the scholar. He carved his way through her court and sunk into a reverent bow. “The Library of Alexandria is in danger. We were able to extract our most important treasures, but I fear the worst...”

  The queen regained her focus. “You got them all, you said?”

  He nodded. “My colleagues should be here with the rest, but until then—” he handed her the bundle of robes, “—please protect the Tablet of Destinies.”

  “I shall,” Cleopatra answered, her voice radiating strength as she accepted the relic. “If Ptolemy thinks he is going to gain the upper hand this time, he is sorely mistaken.”

  “With all due respect, my Queen,” began one of her advisors, “the fires were not started by your brother but by Julius Caesar.”

  “Sometimes, in order to get one’s attention, desolation must speak instead of complacency,” she answered, her faraway gaze returning as she placed a hand protectively against her belly.

  Of course, Diego reminded himself as Queen Cleopatra held the artifact close to her chest. Not only was she dealing with the betrayal of her brother, but her Roman lover had unleashed hell upon her city. That and—

  Diego doubted many in the room realised she was carrying a child, a child he knew would one day grow up to be Caesarion, future co-ruler of Egypt and supposed son of Julius Caesar himself. And perhaps—

  Diego raised his pocket watch and readied his quartz crystal.

  Future holder of the Tablet.

  Diego took one last look at the conflicted features of the Queen of Egypt and urged the hour hand forward through history. Days and nights flickered like a faulty lightbulb. Blurs of human outlines buzzed across his palatial surroundings as months faded into years. The hum of activity around him slowed as he retracted the crystal from the clock face.

  30 B.C.

  When the relentless ache in his head dissipated enough to see his surroundings, Diego could feel the negative energy tearing apart the very atoms in the air.

  Tonight, a queen would be slain.

  Seventeen-year-old Caesarion looked at his mother with pleading eyes. The depths of despair in his face echoed that of Cleopatra. Diego thought the young prince resembled Ezra, with his sad eyes and unkempt black hair.

  “You must promise me you will not look back,” instructed a worn and weary Cleopatra. “Go with Rhodan. He will accompany you to Port Djibouti on the Ethiopian coast. That’s where you will find a ship to take you to India—”

  “Mother, I cannot just leave you here,” answered Caesarion, fear brimming in his tear ducts. “Please—”

  “Listen to me,” Cleopatra interrupted in a choked whisper. Smudged makeup beneath her eyes completed her semblance of unmitigated exhaustion. “There is nothing for you here. Not anymore.”

  Caesarion sniffed.

  “Let me take care of what will become of Alexandria,” the queen said, bringing her son into her arms. “Your safety is most important to me, leventi mou. I love you more than life itself.”

  The mother and son clung to each other for several precious minutes. Wishing not to intrude on the private moment, Diego turned away and spotted a dark-skinned man hurrying into the throne room. He toted a travel pack on his back and carried yet another bulky bag in his arms.

  Cleopatra withdrew from her son and dabbed the tears around her eyes. “Rhodan, have you everything you need for the journey?”

  “Yes, my Queen,” Caesarion’s tutor responded. “The camels are ready and waiting just outside. We should depart at once.”

  The woman nodded and retrieved a rectangular item wrapped in fine linen
s. “There is one more thing I need you to take, and I want both of you to guard it with your lives.” Carefully, she unwrapped the exterior, exposing the glow of the Tablet of Destinies. “Once you’ve reached India, aim your travels northwest and seek out the Persian Magi. They will know what to do.”

  Caesarion stared at the Tablet curiously. “What is this?”

  “A treasure that belongs to them,” stated Queen Cleopatra.

  “It shall be done,” promised Rhodan. He took the Tablet and tucked it away in his pack. “Come, Prince Caesarion. We must hurry.”

  “Fly with the winds of Aeolus at your back,” whispered the queen.

  After one last tearful embrace, the young prince and his tutor fled, leaving Cleopatra in the silence of her last moments.

  “Okay, next destination: Port Djibouti, Ethiopia,” Diego spoke aloud. Using his crystal, he made an arcing motion in the air before him, creating an opaque circle with the ghostly representations of the Souvenirs Edison had provided. He scrolled through them, analysing each one for time and location. There were coins from Egypt, funeral amulets from the Giza plateau, a scroll from Jerusalem, sword fragments from the Crusades and—

  ¡Ah, si! Diego’s heart leapt in excitement.

  Pottery from Port Djibouti.

  Edison, I could kiss you, Diego exclaimed as he pressed his index finger against the projection.

  All at once, his surroundings faded again, spinning like mad in a whirlwind of colours and smells. Envisioning a map of the world, he redirected his awareness across the African continent. Like a spirit navigating amongst the living, Diego soared through time and space. He had always likened the feeling to what a bird might experience during flight.

  But this time, something was wrong.

  As he pushed forward through the Past, he realised the relative ease of Time Travel had evaporated, leaving his journey rather turbulent and haphazard. With every lurch forward—even though the Time landscape consisted of weeks, not years—dizziness festered within Diego’s brain, nearly breaking the connection with his Gifts altogether. He swallowed a wave of nausea as the sun and moon slowed their unrelenting race across the sky.

  Once he could focus again, Diego reviewed his knowledge of the events about to transpire. He knew that within mere weeks after leaving Alexandria, Caesarion would turn back, lured into a trap set by Roman conqueror Octavian. And, with a heaviness in the pit of his stomach, Diego knew the young prince would be executed by Octavian, joining his mother in death.

  But did Caesarion bring the Tablet back to Alexandria with him only to let it fall into Roman hands? Or did his tutor claim it, playing into Octavian’s schemes so that he could benefit from the relic’s power? As Diego’s surroundings morphed into the Ethiopian port city, the answer quickly became clear.

  Rhodan made his way amongst the bustle of activity along the piers in Port Djibouti. Evening approached, casting long shadows across the docks. The man halted and shifted the weight of the bag over his shoulder. Prince Caesarion was nowhere in sight, but the Tablet of Destinies was in full view.

  A smile played on Rhodan’s lips as he held the linen-wrapped package in his arms. Whatever plot brewed behind his eyes only thickened as he waited for a ship in the gulf to make port. While he could not be positive, Diego had an intuitive feeling Rhodan was hardly focused on carrying out Queen Cleopatra’s last wishes. Instead, the man looked as if he were on the brink of making a clean getaway, with the ancient Tablet in tow.

  Impatient, Diego sped up the events of history again, only to re-enter the scene amid a brutal scuffle. A group of black-clad men had beaten the Alexandrian man until he lay lifeless in a pool of his own blood. Snatching his belongings, the robbers fled into an alley across from the harbour.

  Diego sighed in frustration and followed them. While Aja would have called what had just happened ‘a prime example of karma,’ the Tablet’s constant change of hands wore thin on Diego’s nerves. In fact, as Diego hopped from location to location over the course of the next several centuries, the Tablet had been passed between owners like a rampant virus.

  After being stolen from Rhodan in 30 B.C., the artifact was lost along the banks of the Awash River. Flood waters during the rainy season took it even further downstream until, decades later, it reached the town of Addis Ababa.

  From there, the Tablet found its way into the hands of a shaman, who travelled across the Ethiopian highlands using it in healing rituals. But greed showed its face once more, and the Tablet of Destinies earned a new host: a former leper who had been supposedly cured by touching the relic. Instead of using it for its power, the man sold it to the highest bidder, taking the money to feed his family. That highest bidder happened to be a Magus advisor of the King of Aksum, who brought it to the ruler as a treasure for the royal palace.

  And there it stayed for six uneventful centuries, hidden away with other treasures of the Ethiopian ruler. But like other kingdoms before it, Aksum disintegrated into history. Sparks of conflict rose in the north and with growing unrest between the Muslims and Christians, eventually resulting in the crusades, the Tablet was carried north to Jerusalem.

  The boundaries of Time had been stretched to the point of collapse. Physically and mentally exhausted, Diego forced his forward venture. His entire body ached; he could barely stand upright. The hands of his pocket watch spun in a sickening spiral, prompting the scenery around him to explode into stripes of pigment. Yet, he pressed on, more determined than ever to verify the final resting place of the Tablet of Destinies.

  Just as he coasted into the Middle Ages, a violent jolt in his brain brought him to his knees. Time swam around him. His eyes flicked back and forth, refusing to steady themselves. Diego braced himself against the pain, the twisting of his stomach, the excruciating burning in his head. Every nerve twitched in agony.

  “Come on,” he urged, clutching his pocket watch until he was sure it’d crumble into dust. “Come on!”

  History had dissolved into shadows. A heaviness pressed him to the ground, while familiar laughter rang throughout his mind.

  “Dear boy, you know the deal.”

  “No! No, no, no—”

  Cold fingers stroked his cheek. Diego cringed, fighting for escape.

  Not now! Please, not now...

  Lips grazed his ear. “Have you made up your mind?”

  “Go away!”

  The voice laughed again, a bitter cruelty echoing like thunder. “No matter where you go, no matter what you do, you will always be mine. Do you hear me?”

  “No,” Diego sobbed. An oppressive dampness closed in around him. “Please—”

  “Always, dear boy. Always.”

  Swallowed by a sea of darkness, Diego collapsed under the weight of the Past.

  London, 1906 A.D.

  DIEGO INHALED DEEPLY. At first, his ears rang with conversations from the past, ebbing and flowing with the river of Time. His chest burned. His throat ached. Finally, after a minute of fighting the pain, his consciousness transitioned to the familiar surroundings of the British Museum.

  He placed a hand over his forehead. A brutal ache clobbered his brain and every time he attempted to open his eyes, flashes of light corrupted the boundaries of his vision. Drowning in nausea, he rolled onto his side and vomited. The spasms in his abdomen tore at his already smarting ribs, causing him to whimper and curl in on himself.

  “Oh, I knew it,” Annabelle’s disappointed voice reverberated through his mind. “I knew this was a terrible idea from the start!”

  “Diego,” whispered Jonas in concern. Diego felt him sink to his knees at his side and run a warm hand over his arm. “Talk to me. Are you all right?”

  “Look at the poor dear! Of course, he’s not all right,” Annabelle said critically, patting Diego’s chin with a handkerchief. “Just a moment, sweetheart. Let me get you some tonic.”

  “I—I am fine,” Diego insisted, struggling to sit up.

  Jonas gently pushed his shoulders back to his bed
ding. “No. You need to rest. No sudden movements.”

  “Well?” Oliver asked. “What did you learn?”

  Aja elbowed him. “Oh, for the love of the Famed Three! Give him a chance to breathe.”

  “I couldn’t—I couldn’t do it,” Diego cried. “I couldn’t—”

  “Shh, it is okay,” said Jonas, tenderly brushing the curls away from his forehead. “Rest. Mum is getting you some medicine right now.”

  “I failed,” Diego continued. “I found it, but I failed—Just like Kierra. I couldn’t do it.”

  “It’s okay,” Jonas repeated. He felt his hands slip into his, grasping them with comforting fortitude. “You are okay.”

  Closing his eyes, he allowed Annabelle to pour liquid into his mouth and before he knew it, he had given in to blissful, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The Shahmaran’s Revelation

  Now two had failed.

  First Miss McLarney, then Diego. Both in the same day.

  With every loop around the British Museum’s exhibit halls, Ezra found his steps falling progressively heavier. Both opportunities to track the relic had ended in miserable failure. They had been so close. But an impasse had backed them into a corner, and of all in his company, Ezra could not bear looking Jonas in the eyes.

  Quick to forgive but even quicker to apprehension, the Magi Master had instructed the crew to gather their belongings. At dawn, they would board the first train out of London. Once safe in Belfast, they would shelter in Elysium until given the all-clear from the Magi Administration.

  “After all,” Jonas had reiterated, “the Administration has a task force on the Legerdemain situation as we speak. Our confidence should lie with them in finishing the job.”

  But Ezra could detect the subtle uncertainty in his voice.

  Since he lacked any belongings to pack, Ezra allowed the rest to assemble their things while he did one last rotation around the museum. One last moment to allow the worries of the world to fall away amongst the exhibits. Erased by comforts of knowledge.