Gabriel slowly returned to the team, making sure to keep his use of magic for flying well away from the tent of Apollyons. He didn’t want to attract any attention to himself now that he’d found their hiding place.
He shared his discovery with the team, and they put the next step of their plan into action.
Three nights later, after days of spying on the three Apollyons, Gabriel and Teresa sat in the high grass near a tree line a hundred feet from the tent, listening to yet another conversation between the Dark Mages. The team normally took turns listening to the Apollyons and following them discretely when they left the tent. The conversations between the men often sounded like a madman arguing with himself. Or three madmen arguing, Gabriel frequently thought.
Magic that might have hid the tent from the Russian soldiers would have also alerted any observation team from the castle. As a result, the Apollyons avoided sound shields and Soul Magic cloaks. Instead, they spoke quietly and stayed out of sight as much as possible.
Teresa swatted a mosquito away and leaned forward as she manipulated the small amounts of Fire Magic needed to amplify the low voices of the men in the tent. Gabriel had been impressed when Teresa had shown him how to work the magic that would intensify sound from a distance. He had never thought of sound as a form of energy before. They had taken turns with other team members over the past few days, making the magic that would reveal the Apollyons’ secret conversations.
It had been dull work. The Apollyons rarely spoke of anything important. They tended to rehash the same list of grievances again and again. Gabriel sat at the top of their list of enemies, followed closely by Vicaquirao and the Council. Kumaradevi got a mention occasionally, as did individual Grace Mages like Akikane and Elizabeth. Mostly the men bickered with themselves, like a man talking to himself indecisively.
To Gabriel’s annoyance, they rarely spoke of the Great Barrier, or more accurately, they spoke of it often, but only to repeat the things they already knew. Unfortunately, they seemed to know little more than Gabriel did. They often cursed him for the loss of the notebook. In the last day, they had often spoken of a group of Apollyon twins who were supposedly examining the Great Barrier closely. They also spoke of the need to move their camp. Apparently, they tried to change locations every week or so.
This final conversation topic led to Gabriel and Teresa taking up watch at night together. As they were the only mages capable of magically manipulating sound, they had seen very little of each other the last few days, alternating long shifts with the rest of the team. Now they sat side by side, appearances altered slightly by their magical amulets to conform to the plan.
After hours of eavesdropping, Gabriel occasionally found his mind wandering to topics more exciting than which Apollyon duplicate should be responsible for making dinner. Topics like how lovely Teresa looked in the dim light from the camp security lights. As he sat reflecting on this apparent truth of nature, Teresa smacked his leg.
“Stop mooning over me and pay attention.” Teresa’s harsh whisper accompanied a bashful turn of her eyes.
“I wasn’t mooning.” Gabriel wondered how she could read his thoughts so easily.
“Listen.” Teresa gestured toward the tent and Gabriel turned his attention to the identical voices of the Apollyons.
“Can that be right?”
“He thinks so.”
“They think so, you mean.”
“We think so, you mean.”
“But what does it mean?”
“And how…”
“Could it be possible?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes…”
“Of course…”
“It matters.”
“If it took both magics…”
“To create the wall…”
“It may require…”
“Both magics to destroy it.”
“We’ll need a different plan.”
“They agree.”
“They will return.”
“How will we proceed?”
“We’ll need to convene.”
“Yes.”
“Convene.”
“As soon…”
“As possible.”
Teresa stood up. “I think that’s our cue.”
“Do it.” Gabriel stood next to her. “Before they have a chance to leave.”
“Get ready.” Teresa turned back to the tent, and Gabriel felt the power of her Fire Magic increase. The volume of the arguing Apollyons grew louder and louder.
“Where?”
“That’s not important.”
“How is more…”
“Do you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Nearby…”
Gabriel sensed the warping of space-time nearby and began to warp it himself. As the three Apollyons started to materialize around Teresa and Gabriel, he jumped through time. A moment later, he and Teresa stood at the edge of jungle near a towering ziggurat, thousands of people chanting in the wide, stone-lined plaza at its base. A moment later, they stood atop a lighthouse, looking out at the sun setting behind a placid harbor. Another moment took them to the rooftop of a bustling Chinese town, Imperial soldiers marching down the street. Several moments, and as many time jumps later, they stood in the middle of a large room with a vaulting stone ceiling above. Moonlight scattered through ornately cut stone screens to reveal twin, baroquely carved sarcophagi in the center of the room.
Gabriel had never been in the room before. A coin from the 19th Century British Empire had brought them there. While he had seen photos of the exterior of the Taj Mahal he had never witnessed any of the chambers within. The room stunned him with its architectural symmetry and beauty. The balance and line in both structure and decoration took his breath away. Begun in 1632 and constructed over the course of twenty years by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to commemorate the death of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the burial monument became one of the most famous architectural achievements in history.
“Are we clear?” Teresa looked around the mausoleum, wide-eyed at its splendor.
“I think so.” As the words left Gabriel’s mouth, he felt a space-time seal fold tightly around him. His head snapped around as the air shimmered and two Apollyons revealed themselves. Apparently, they also knew the trick of invisibility.
“That was…”
“Quite a chase…”
“Fortunately we had…”
“The best instructor.”
The twin Apollyons grinned wickedly in the dim moonlight as they stepped toward Gabriel and Teresa, walking around the sarcophagi of Emperor Jahan and his beloved wife. The Dark Mages, still dressed in Russian uniforms from World War II, stopped some ten feet from where Gabriel and Teresa stood. Gabriel held all the imprints of the pocket watch and the Sword of Unmaking. He tested the space-time seal and found it unbreakable. The two Apollyons could have access to untold imprints through their links with their twins.
“You’ve been eavesdropping.”
“Poorly.”
“We could have taught you…”
“Much better skills.”
“Tell us…”
“What did you hear?”
The looks in their eyes implied that ignoring the request would be unwise.
“Enough to know you’re clueless.” Gabriel’s voice, louder than he had intended, but thankfully steady and free of its recent hormonally induced changes, echoed from the domed ceiling.
“And you are all totally out of your minds.” Teresa’s words seemed to sting the Apollyons like wasps.
“We are…”
“Not mad…”
“Yes, sane people finish each other’s sentences all the time.” Teresa snorted in contempt.
“We are not mad…”
“Little girl…”
“We are becoming…”
“Something which has never…”
“Existed…”
“In any time.”
Gabriel could sen
se Teresa’s anger at being referred to as “little girl” and hastened to speak before she could respond to the taunt. “Release us.”
“How did you find us…”
“After leaving the castle?”
“And where is…”
“The other one?”
Gabriel glanced at Teresa, dressed as she had been while trapped in Chateau Gaillard. The Apollyons had made the first assumption. So far so good.
“I’ve also had good instructors.” Gabriel said. “You were easy to follow after we found your rogue and got the notebook back.”
“You’ve found him…”
“Give it to me…”
“To us…”
“Tell me…”
“Tell us where he is.”
“He has a private world,” Teresa said.
“He’s been hiding from you,” Gabriel said.
“Planning,” Teresa added.
“Plotting,” Gabriel said.
“Tell me…us…”
“Tell us now.”
The Apollyons stepped closer, their faces twitching in agitation.
“Stay back!” Gabriel reached behind, yanking at his rear pocket, thrusting the small volume forward, the red leather cover seeming black in the moonlight. “Release us, or we’ll destroy the notebook.”
Teresa’s hand leapt with flame as the Apollyons stopped in unison.
“Give it to us…”
“Or we will kill the girl…”
“Release us and we’ll tell you how to find the rogue twin.” Gabriel glared at the Apollyons, no longer caring how loud his voice sounded.
“Give it to us…”
“Now!”
One of the Apollyons reached out his hand and the notebook flew from Gabriel’s fingers. Gabriel focused his Wind Magic on the small book and it halted, hovering in midair between himself and the Apollyons.
“Release it, boy.”
Gabriel focused all of his magical energy into the act of holding onto the notebook. It wavered in the air, moving back toward him for a moment before being pulled toward the Apollyons an inch. The Apollyon challenging him growled.
“Enough!” The second Apollyon joined his twin in the magical tug of war, reaching his hand out and adding his own magical energy to the fight. Gabriel held on a moment longer, the notebook tumbling where it floated. Then the combined strengths of the Apollyons overcame him, and the notebook sped through the moonlight into their grasping hands.
As the notebook touched the two Apollyons fingers, a flash of blue light subsumed them. When the blue light faded the two men were gone, and with them, the space-time seal surrounding Gabriel and Teresa. Teresa let the flames in her hands wink out as they cautiously looked around the room.
“That went better than expected.” Teresa gave Gabriel a quick kiss.
“Since we expected them to try and kill us, I guess so.” Gabriel took Teresa’s hand and looked around. “Hello?”
“That did go well.” Ohin’s voice echoed around the room.
Gabriel and Teresa spun to see shadows shimmer as Ohin and the team appeared in the dark corners of the room. They had been hiding behind Ling’s Wing Magic invisibility in the event that the plan went sour and Gabriel and Teresa required rescuing.
The plan had been Gabriel’s idea, and pride swelled his chest at how successful it had been. He and Teresa had created a fake notebook, complete with pages of cypher-like gibberish, to fool the Apollyons into thinking they finally possessed the real notebook with all its secrets about the Great Barrier of Probability.
Gabriel and Ohin had enchanted the duplicate notebook with the same kind of spell the Apollyons had used on the dagger in the Aztec temple nearly a year ago. A very rare coin wedged in its pages would take the two Dark Mages to a barren stretch of arctic ice in the early 20th century. They would hopefully assume Gabriel had booby-trapped the notebook as a precaution. They were certainly paranoid enough to make that presumption.
The team had chosen the Taj Mahal because Ohin wanted a place unlikely to have many negative imprints that the Apollyons might be able to use.
The difficult part of the plan had been letting the Apollyons know they were being observed. The team had hoped to spend a week or more spying on the Dark Mages, but their lack of useful knowledge and their imminent plans to move their basecamp increased the pace of the team’s schedule. Gabriel felt grateful they had managed to learn one extremely significant piece of information from the mission.
“We overheard something important.” Gabriel said as Ohin and the others stepped from the shadows.
“The Great Barrier was produced using both Grace and Malignancy magic.” Teresa nearly bounced on her toes with excitement as she delivered their carefully collected intelligence.
Gabriel frowned, but refrained from sighing. That small piece of information about the creation of the Great Barrier of Probability held more promise than anything they had learned so far. He couldn’t blame her for being excited to share it, even if they had no idea what it might ultimately mean.
“That seems improbable.” Ohin stroked his chin.
“Maybe we should change the name to the Great Barrier of Improbability,” Rajan said.
“Maybe there was a time when the two sides managed to cooperate,” Sema said.
“Or maybe there will be a time,” Marcus said.
“You mean this wall could be created in our future, yet exist in the past?” Aurelius spoke while examining the craftsmanship of the carvings lining the two sarcophagi.
“It makes my head hurt,” Ling said. “And my head can hurt somewhere else.”
“Ling is right. We should go.” Ohin waited for everyone to circle around him before taking them through time to the abandoned house in Maine. When the whiteness faded, they stood in the middle of the wide living area at the back of the first floor.
“Let’s get to work.” Ohin clapped his hands together. “We need to do a full sweep of the house and the grounds. It should be safe this close to the barrier, but we…”
Ohin frowned. Gabriel’s heart seemed to stop in his chest. The black void of time travel began to surround him and the team in conjunction with a space-time seal. Gabriel instinctively drew the Sword of Unmaking, grasping its imprints as he spun around, focusing his magical energy on ending the time travel jump before it could begin. He felt Ohin’s magic join his own as he spotted a man outside the window. One of the Apollyons had followed them.
Gabriel felt time moving around them, not the way it normally did in a space-time jump, but as though they were rushing through one day after another, darkness and daylight flickering outside the window. The Apollyon’s magic forced them forward through time, toward the future and the Great Barrier of Probability. Gabriel’s heart thundered in his chest now. If this Apollyon managed to push them over the edge of the Great Barrier, they would be trapped in the future, forever separated from the past and everyone they knew.
Chapter 21: Mistakes
“The Barrier,” Gabriel shouted. “He’s trying to push us into the future!”
“Hold fast.” Ohin clasped one hand around the ancient seashells at his neck and squinted his eyes in concentration.
Gabriel focused all the magical energy at his command upon the task of halting the bubble of time travel pushing the team toward the Great Barrier of Probability at 4:45 p.m. October 28, 2012. He could feel Ohin struggling to do the same, their magic working in concert to slow their progression through time.
As days passed in mere seconds, Gabriel saw Teresa thrust her arm toward the Apollyon outside, intending to attack him. Her hand opened, aimed at the Apollyon, but nothing happened, a looked of stunned confusion crossing her face. Gabriel saw that Ohin had reached out and clasped his hand around Teresa’s wrist. He had grasped the imprints of Teresa’s talisman bracelet in an attempt to increase the magical energy at his disposal. Ohin’s other hand touched Ling’s arm, drawing the imprints of her necklace talisman through the limb of her bo
dy. The other team members turned and assaulted the Apollyon with magic he deftly deflected.
The days and nights passing outside the windows came to a sudden halt. Gabriel could see the look of consternation filling the face of the Apollyon outside the house as he cursed aloud. Fear pulled the features of Gabriel’s face tight. The team hovered at the edge of the Great Barrier, suspended in time, a fraction of a second from being pushed irrevocably into the future, beyond the wall, permanently divided from the past.
“Closer together,” Ohin shouted, pushing Teresa and Ling toward the others.
Marcus and Sema leapt to the center of the room as Gabriel pushed Rajan with one hand and turned to pull Aurelius with the other. Gabriel’s fingers grazed Aurelius’s outstretched hand as the old Roman Emperor began to shimmer, his image wavering like stone seen through turbulent water. Gabriel lashed his Time Magic around Aurelius, trying to pull him back toward himself and the others, back to the known side of the Great Barrier.
Aurelius stared into Gabriel’s eyes, a mournful curve along his lips.
“Save yourself.”
His voice sounded distant, as though echoing through a still forest. Aurelius’s words reverberated in Gabriel’s ears as he watched the unique man he had grown to know and care for fade from his sight, passing beyond the Great Barrier of Probability and into the future, never to be seen by those in the past again.
Gabriel’s body shook with a depth of anger that frightened him. Aurelius had departed from his life. Gone forever. There was no possibility of rescue. No one could cross back after passing through the Great Barrier of Probability separating time.
Gabriel spun and screamed his rage, his hand reaching toward the Apollyon outside the window. Wind Magic shattered the glass window, sending a storm of dagger-like shards exploding toward the Dark Mage’s face. The Apollyon yelled in fury as he turned from the flying glass, his hold on the time bubble surrounding the team weakening. The Apollyon looked back for a moment, his eyes mirroring the wrath Gabriel felt boiling within.
The Sword of Unmaking (The Wizard of Time - Book 2) Page 21
