She winked out of existence a moment before the stone beneath her feet transformed to dust. As she disappeared, the connection to her Malignant imprints abruptly ceased. As they did, the storm of light surrounding Akikane vanished, and he plunged to the earth. Gabriel reached out with an invisible hand of Wind Magic and pulled his unconscious mentor to his side.
Around him, Kumaradevi’s Dark Mages fled in groups, following their leader, none of them daring to attack. Perhaps they did not realize he had used Kumaradevi’s imprints to destroy the castle, or that he had become vastly weaker with her departure. Possibly they simply feared anyone who could make Kumaradevi flee so swiftly. Gabriel knew he had been lucky, but he saw no disadvantage in having Dark Mages fear him.
“Gabriel, what have you done?” Teresa’s voice rang with anguish and fear.
“I’ve destroyed the castle to save it.” Gabriel floated them out over the castle courtyard, away from the rapidly disintegrating castle walls. “She might have fled after I stole her imprints, but she would have returned with more mages and more magic. With no castle left, she won’t be back.”
“She might come back for you.” Teresa wrapped her arms around Gabriel as they floated higher.
“We won’t be here much longer.” He reached out with his free hand to hold the unconscious form of Akikane. Probing him with his Heart-Tree Magic, he ascertained the extent of the damage. Reassured Akikane would survive, Gabriel pulled him close.
“Is he okay?” Teresa reached out to touch the still features of Akikane’s face.
“He will be.” Gabriel turned his gaze below.
He watched groups of both Grace and Malignancy mages disappearing from the castle grounds. The Dark Mages fled with their fallen comrades. The Grace Mages and the non-magical staff knew to evacuate the castle in the event that its destruction had been triggered. The magical spells Gabriel had activated and accelerated were designed to render the castle into fine dust to prevent it from ever affecting the Primary Continuum.
With its destruction, the Time Magic spells keeping the castle from entering the Primary Continuum would also dissipate. The process would normally take hours. However, empowered by the magical energy of the dark imprints Gabriel had stolen from Kumaradevi, Windsor Castle would vanish into ash within a few minutes. As he watched, towers and trees and grass crumbled to fine black dust, drifting in the wind and flowing across the ancient plains.
Gabriel looked down the blade of the Sword of Unmaking at the decomposing castle below. He had used the sword to destroy many things. Alternate worlds full of beings brought into existence through bifurcations of the Primary Continuum. Dark Mages who had confronted him in battle. And now, Windsor Castle, his home for nearly a year, the base of operations against the Dark Mages in the War of Time and Magic.
So much destruction.
An icy pain grabbed his chest as he realized this sword, this simple, centuries-old blade of folded steal, did not deserve its name. That name should be reserved for the one responsible for the destruction. He might be called the Seventh True Mage, the Destroyer of Worlds, but Gabriel understood then his real nature — He was the True Sword of Unmaking.
“What will we do now?” Teresa’s tears slipped from her cheeks, catching in the wind as they fell like salty raindrops into the sea of ebony cinders spreading across the earth below.
“I don’t know.” Gabriel felt tears in his own eyes and fought them back.
Beside him, Akikane roused slowly to awareness, his eyes fluttering slightly before opening to stare down at the ashy ruins of the castle. Gabriel watched him, looking for any signs of anger or disappointment. He saw only the slight curve of Akikane’s lips.
“Very good, very good.” Akikane turned wearily to Gabriel. “Surrender the castle to win the battle. Very wise.”
“I couldn’t think of anything else.” Gabriel could not force himself to look at his mentor for more than a second and turned back to watch the last moments of the castle’s obliteration.
“Yes, yes,” Akikane said. “When there is only one path forward, we must take it, regardless of where it leads.”
Gabriel waited until the castle grounds completely dissolved into fine powder, looking for any signs of mages or castle staff stranded behind. Unsurprisingly, he found none. The castle residents trained several times a year in evacuation procedures.
“It’s so sad.” Teresa wiped her eyes. “But I’m proud of you. That wasn’t easy. Aurelius would be proud of you.”
Teresa’s words and the thought of Aurelius, his kind actions and wise eyes, toppled Gabriel’s defenses, the fortress walls of his inner resolve crumbing like the castle walls moments before. Tears streamed down his face as he held Teresa and Akikane tight. He took a deep breath to stifle a sob, and warped space-time, relieved for the blackness of time travel to carry him away from the evidence of what he had done.
Chapter 26: From the Ashes
Shadows cloaked his eyes as the smell of dust and moldy books filled his nose. Gabriel, Teresa and Akikane stood in the back of a large antique store. In the gloom, Gabriel could see tables of items carelessly discarded by their original owners and turned valuable with the passage of time. Old dishes, aged books, jars of buttons and glass beads, small statues of ceramic and stone and wood, a box of dingy pocket watches, and hundreds of other forgotten things with small price tags attached.
This antique shop had been the one his Grandfather’s friend had bought the silver pocket watch from in 1940. Gabriel and the team used it as a secret rendezvous spot. While Gabriel would always be able to return to that particular night via his pocket watch, Ohin had taken a rusted nail from the floorboards that would never be missed.
The shadows fled before the light of an old oil lamp, revealing Ohin’s face. Behind him, the faces of the other team members emerged from the darkness. Ohin saw Akikane and frowned as the older man leaned against Gabriel.
“What’s happened?” Ohin placed the oil lamp on a nearby table and maneuvered Akikane into an adjacent rocking chair.
“The castle is lost.” Gabriel’s voice creaked a bit, more from emotion than the youthfulness of his changing body. “I destroyed it.”
The members of the team stared in shock.
“He had no choice.” Teresa stepped slightly closer to him. “Kumaradevi had captured Akikane and she would have killed everyone in the castle.”
“No, no.” Akikane managed a weak smile. “There were many choices. Gabriel selected the one that would save us all.”
The team remained silent until Ohin cleared his throat.
“What now?” Ohin looked at Akikane.
“Begin again, begin again.” Akikane sank back into the chair.
“I know where we need to begin.” Gabriel’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he now saw Elizabeth lying on a blanket in a corner. Beside her, Leah and Liam leaned against the wall and each other, dozing quietly. He felt his breath catch as he remembered seeing their parents lying dead in the grass. Sema noticed the angle of his gaze.
“Their parents?” Sema asked.
“Dead.” A chill fell over Gabriel’s spine. So many had died that day. So many good people.
“Poor things.” Marcus sighed, running his hand absentmindedly across his bald head.
“Where are we going?” Ling stood straight, planting her feet and looking as though preparing for battle.
“Yes, what’s next?” Rajan seemed infected with Ling’s energy.
Gabriel realized they probably all wanted a chance to fight back against the Dark Mages who had destroyed their home and killed their friends. He had no plans for revenge. He had few plans at all. Except one.
“I know where we need to go, but it will take a while to get there.”
Gabriel explained why and where he thought they should head while the others prepared to leave. Ling carried Elizabeth with Wind Magic while Marcus hefted Liam into his arms, and Sema carried Leah, both children still deeply asleep.
&nbs
p; It took nearly a day to reach their destination. Gabriel spent most of this time seeking out a series of relics that would lead him to the place in time he needed to go. A coin led to a scarf, which led to a hand-carved stone bowl, which led to chipped flint arrowhead, leading to a clay jar, and finally to an old fossil, which took them to a place Gabriel knew only from an image in his mind.
Gabriel led the others through a forest of pine trees swaying in a stiff breeze. A small house of rock and wood sat in a clearing a stone’s throw from the ocean. As Gabriel and the others approached the house, a sturdy wooden door swung open and a woman stepped out.
“I told you this place was for you alone.” Nefferati placed her hands upon her hips, her eyes fierce, her voice carrying easily across the clearing.
“Things have changed.” Gabriel strode through the tall grass, gesturing as Elizabeth emerged from the forest, floating unconscious beside Ling.
“What’s happened?” Hundreds of years of age seemed to vanish as Nefferati ran from the house, crossing the small glade in a matter of seconds. She placed her hands on Elizabeth’s forehead. Gabriel could sense Nefferati probing her comatose friend with Heart-Tree and Soul Magic. After a moment, she pulled her hands away and looked to the others, her eyes moving between Gabriel and Akikane.
“Bring her inside. Tell me everything.”
A few hours later, after informing Nefferati of all that had transpired, they sat in the grass beside the hut, eating a small meal of roasted rabbit and roots. They consumed their meal largely in silence, a deep melancholy hanging over the group as they each contemplated what the events of the last few days and weeks implied for the future. Although their tears had ceased for the moment, the children barely ate. Sema had spared Gabriel the responsibility of informing Leah and Liam about their parent’s death before the team’s arrival at Nefferati’s retreat.
“We’ll need a new base.” Gabriel broke the stillness, voicing a thought that had been nagging at his mind for the last few hours.
“More than one, more than one.” Akikane looked across the grass to Gabriel, smiling appreciatively.
“Yes.” Ohin stroked his chin. “Forts instead of a castle. Easier to attack, but harder to find.”
“And easier to abandon.” Rajan gnawed on a rabbit leg.
“Where do we build these forts?” Ling asked, leaning forward.
“And where do we find the mages to run them?” Teresa reached over and grabbed a char-blackened root from Gabriel’s clay plate.
“Finding the mages from the castle will take time.” Sema offered a piece of rabbit to a recalcitrant Liam.
“We could use some time.” Marcus handed a water skin to Leah. “Time to plan.”
“Much time, much time,” Akikane said. “However, if everyone followed Elizabeth’s evacuation plan, we will know where to look for them. Ohin and I can gather them as we prepare each fortress.”
“We can build them in the past again,” Teresa said. “Farther back than before. Five hundred million years maybe. In the Cambrian period.”
“With fewer fossils available from that time, it might be harder to find the forts,” Rajan added.
“Yes,” Ohin said. “But how will we communicate between the forts?”
“I know how we can communicate.” Gabriel felt a strange sensation spread through him as he realized the ironic symmetry of the situation. “We can use the same magic the Apollyons used to spy on the castle with Elizabeth’s teacup.”
“Yes, yes,” Akikane laughed. “Not exactly justice, but very poetic.”
“You’ll need help.” Nefferati spoke for the first time, her voice gathering everyone’s attention. “It may take months, if not years, to figure out how to lift the curse on Elizabeth’s mind. That will leave you shorthanded.”
“No, no,” Akikane said with a hint of mockery on in his tone. “We wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Oh, no, you’d never do that.” Nefferati threw a rabbit leg at Akikane, who laughed boyishly.
Gabriel joined the others in laughing at the elder True Mages’ mock antagonism. Even Leah and Liam managed to giggle. With a plan for the future, however difficult and time consuming, the mood of the group lightened perceptibly.
Gabriel reached out and took Teresa’s hand. She stretched out her free hand to wipe rabbit grease from his chin. They held each other’s eyes a moment and then returned to the conversation, helping fill in the details of how to continue the War of Time and Magic.
They spent two more days at Nefferati’s hut working out assignments for each person and talking through their strategy, which included tactics like using Soul Magic to scan the minds of every mage they rescued, particularly the Council members, who would each be responsible for managing a different fortress in time.
Ohin and Akikane began looking for castle evacuees, concentrating on the Council members. Surprisingly, none of the eight members they located revealed any evidence of being traitors, although they all protested greatly at Sema’s Soul Magic probes of their minds. Of course, two members of the Council remained missing, so conclusions about their loyalty remained elusive but suggestive. Gabriel, Nefferati, and the others in the team began locating suitable construction sites and building the first of the fortresses.
It took Gabriel longer than he had expected to find the spot he thought perfect for a first fortress. The geography of the land had changed considerably through the millions of years preceding the time he had spent there. Eventually, he found the familiar river and the place that 500 million years later would be known as Vindobona.
A month later, Gabriel and Teresa sat on a hillside overlooking the new fortress. The basecamp resembled a real fort — orderly rows of log cabins and tents behind walls constructed of fallen timber and mud tempered by Stone Magic. A Time Mage stood watch on each of the four towers at the corners of the fort. Shifts rotated the Time Mages every eight hours. Gabriel took a watch several times a week. They would not be caught by surprise again.
The fifty mages building and inhabiting the fort moved with a sense of purpose Gabriel had rarely seen at the castle. The attacks of the Apollyons and Kumaradevi, and the loss of their friends and loved ones, not to mention the castle itself, had instilled in the survivors a determination to prosecute the War of Time and Magic with an intensity bordering on the fanatical. They did not see their losses as a reason to surrender but instead as a validation of the need to continue the fight.
One of the greatest losses of the castle had been the storehouse of relics used for time travel and imprinted objects used to create magic. As each fort reached completion, special teams were assembled to scour history for suitable replacements to the lost relics and artifacts. The library proved to be another loss, one Gabriel felt more acutely than most. Without the library, it would be difficult to accomplish the research needed for missions in time, much less the research he hoped would unlock the secrets of Elizabeth’s notebook.
With Elizabeth unlikely to wake from her coma anytime soon, and Nefferati and Akikane unaware of much of what she might have written in the notebook, its decipherment became imperative. Apollyon would attack the Great Barrier of Probability soon, and they needed to know as much as possible to defend it. Attempting to break the coded alphabet and learn more about the ancient forgotten Indus language Elizabeth had written it in consumed nearly every spare minute Gabriel processed. Teresa consumed the rest. Usually his spare moments were occupied by spending time with her as she helped him attempt to untangle Elizabeth’s alphabet.
“It’s useless.” Gabriel tossed the notebook in the sparse grass of the hillside. The more he stared at the notebook, the more he began to understand how it had driven the rogue Apollyon to such great depths of insanity.
“I’m telling you, we should try the super computer again.” Teresa picked the notebook up and flipped through the pages at random. “Another trip to the future would be fun. We need some fun.”
“What we need is to figure out where Elizabeth
hid the clue to reading her alphabet.” Gabriel had been filled with hope that a super computer in 2012 might give them a breakthrough, but after finally finding one unoccupied for a few hours, the results had been useless.
“You’re sure she didn’t give you any hint about the key to the code?” Teresa asked. She posed the same question nearly every day.
“No.” Gabriel tried to keep the annoyance from his voice. They’d been over this dozens of times.
“What did she say again?” Teresa asked.
“She said she would show me the key, but she never had time before the attack.”
“And no hint what the key would be?”
“I’ve told you a thousand times. No. Nothing.”
“Don’t get grumpy with me.”
“Sorry.” Gabriel reached his hand out in apology.
“I’m only trying to help.” Teresa tossed the notebook back in the grass.
“All she said was that she’d show me the Rosetta Stone to unlock the text.” Gabriel sighed as Teresa took his hand.
Napoleon’s troops had discovered the actual Rosetta Stone in Egypt, in the town of Rosetta, in 1799 CE. A large stone stele, it carried a royal decree written in Greek and two forms of Egyptian, allowing archeologists to finally read the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Gabriel and Teresa had concluded Elizabeth’s implication suggested that she had transcribed some particular text into the notebook to use as a reference to decode her personal alphabet.
“The Rosetta Stone could be anything,” Teresa said. “It could be a poem or a passage from a book or a newspaper. Anything.”
Two weeks ago, they had been bubbling with excitement when it dawned on them the text they sought could be the Prophecy of the Seventh True Mage. Teresa had spent hours comparing the text of the prophecy with the passages in the notebook with no success.
“How could Vicaquirao figure it out and we can’t?” Gabriel found the fact that Vicaquirao had managed to read the notebook with seeming ease frustrated him beyond words.
The Sword of Unmaking (The Wizard of Time - Book 2) Page 27
