The Wizard of Time (Book 1)

by G. L. Breedon

  “Maybe,” Sema said. “Most likely, even. I don’t claim to understand it all, Teresa might be able to explain it, but even if the branch manages to survive being severed and does not immediately collapse, that could potentially be worse than if it simply winked out of existence. We have no way of knowing what horrors could arise in such a reality.”

  “What can I do?” Gabriel said.

  “For now, nothing,” Sema said. “Help me find a place for Ling to pass the night.”

  They left Marcus with Ling beneath the trees and walked along the beach away from the town. The sun was nearing the horizon. It would set in another hour or so. They walked in silence for a long while.

  “I’m sorry I took your necklace,” Gabriel said finally. He had been thinking about the look on Sema’s face when her pendent had flown into his hand.

  “You did what you thought was right,” Sema said quietly. She was silent for a while before she spoke again. “You saved Ling, but at a terrible price. What you did was unforgivable to the Council, but I can’t say that a part of me isn’t glad you did it. A large part. But if you should ever be faced with such a choice again, no matter who it is, especially if it is me, you must not repeat your actions.”

  “I won’t,” Gabriel said. He wondered if that was a promise he could keep. They walked in silence again for several minutes.

  “When I was a girl,” Sema said, breaking the silence, “not much younger than you, I stole some fruit from a vendor in the local market in Istanbul. My family was poor, and we had been eating scraps and begging for weeks. I showed my mother the fruit and she questioned me about where it had come from. I lied and said I had found it. But I could never lie to my mother. She was very sad when I told her the truth.

  “When my father found what I had done, he marched me back to the fruit vendor and made me confess. The vendor was stern, but fair. He accepted the fruit I returned without comment, but I had eaten some dates and these I would have to pay for. So every day from then on, I went to work for the fruit vendor. Once I had repaid the cost of the dates, he kept me on. Eventually, I married his youngest son and we opened our own fruit stand. Ultimately, we had children and prospered to become one of the most successful merchant families in the city.”

  Gabriel said nothing. He wasn’t sure what he should say.

  “Do you see why I am telling you this?” Sema asked, looking down at him.

  “Well, because…” Gabriel began and then decided on the truth. “Not really.”

  “Because even if we have done things that we know are wrong,” Sema said, “if we set them right, if we make amends, then sometimes the end can turn out for the better.” She said no more and Gabriel added no words to hers. He hoped his actions worked out for the better, as well.

  After about a mile, Gabriel spotted a cave in the rocky hillside near the beach. It was far enough away from the shoreline and high enough in the rocks to avoid the tide, although it seemed a very precarious climb to get up to it. Gabriel jumped them to the entrance of the cave and they peered inside. It was small and filled with the bones of some long dead animal, but it would do.

  Gabriel stepped back, stilled his mind, and gathered his magical energy, focusing it through the pocket watch and willing gravity and the wind to do as he wished, causing a gust of air to burst into and out of the cave, cleaning it as best as possible. Sema nodded and took his hand.

  A moment later, they stood beside Marcus. Gabriel used his magic to float Ling along as they walked down the beach together toward the cave. The sun was nearly down, and there seemed little likelihood of people spotting them. When they reached the place where they could see the cave, Gabriel took Marcus by magic to the entrance and then went back down to Ling, guiding her gently up toward Marcus. Then he took Sema’s hand and jumped through space to join them.

  Gabriel gathered some wood and started a small fire using magic. The air had begun to cool as the sun went down. Sema suggested that the two of them take a quick trip to the small town down the beach and see if they could procure some supplies.

  Leaving Marcus to tend to Ling, Gabriel and Sema jumped instantly to a point a hundred yards down the beach from the edge of the town. As they walked into the town, Gabriel could see people heading home for the night. The town was not large. Maybe a few hundred people in all. By the looks of their dress and the manner of the tools they carried, Gabriel suspected that they were far in the past. Sema thought it must be nearly 300 BCE or more. They both used their amulets to change their appearance and blend in.

  “Now watch closely,” Sema said. “You may need to do this yourself one day.”

  Sema walked over to where a fruit vendor packed his goods away for the night. He didn’t seem to notice them at all. Gabriel could sense the way Sema deflected the man’s attention from recognizing he saw them. She took a small canvas sack from near the pile of fruit and began filling it. Gabriel watched as the man helpfully opened a sack of pears he had just closed so that she could take some.

  Gabriel reached out with his consciousness and could feel how Sema had made the suggestion to the man’s mind. Then they were walking along the street again. Sema performed a similar magic twice more, a man sorting his fish by the last light of the setting sun put two of the largest aside. Gabriel picked up the fish without notice. Next came a bottle of wine from the owner of a shop who brought it to the door and left it on the stoop as they passed by. Gabriel could tell that the suggestion had not been specific. Sema had simply planted the idea that someone might need whatever could be provided and spared.

  Suddenly, a small boy of eight or so came running across the street carrying a large melon that was clearly too big for him. He had bright eyes and grinned widely as he struggled to get the melon to what seemed to be his house. Sema laughed as she watched the boy. Once the boy was in the house, they continued on their way. Within a few minutes, they had enough for dinner, breakfast, and maybe even lunch: dates, olives, bread, and grapes. They had even procured two small blankets of thickly woven wool.

  “This is how a Soul Mage goes shopping,” Sema said, looking down at Gabriel, his arms full of the bounty she had acquired.

  “But what if someone needed these things?” Gabriel said. “Couldn’t it create a bifurcation?”

  “If they were items in short supply or likely to be missed,” Sema said. “The key is to acquire things that are plentiful so there is some other object to replace them. If there had been only two fish, we would be a little hungrier tonight as I could not have taken them without risking it creating a bifurcation when the person who was supposed to eat the fish could not.”

  Gabriel nodded. Small changes. They turned a corner and Sema placed her hand on his shoulder. He took this as a cue to jump back to the cave and reached out with his space-time sense to find it. A second later, they stood beside the fire Gabriel had made. Marcus looked up with a tired smile.

  “I was hoping you’d think of some wine,” he said as he licked his lips.

  “Even I am tempted to drink after this day,” Sema said, setting the bottles down near the fire. “It seemed cruel to deny you something so small.”

  They set about making some dinner, debating whether waking Ling to partake of the food would help her condition. After carefully checking her vital signs, Marcus decided that she needed rest more than nourishment. Gabriel helped clean the fish and cut some fruit with a dagger that Marcus slipped effortlessly from his sleeve. Marcus roasted the fish, skewered by sticks, over the fire, and they ate while watching the stars come out in the sky.

  “Epicurus would have been proud,” Marcus said of the meal as he licked his fingers.

  “I think we saw him in the town,” Sema said.

  “When?” Gabriel asked.

  “That small boy who ran in front of us with that oversized melon,” Sema said. “I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.”

  “Councilwoman Elizabeth said that Epicurus lived on this island when he was young,” Gabriel said.
/>   “He’ll leave in about ten years to begin his studies,” Sema said.

  “So you’ve met him before?” Gabriel asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Marcus said. “It was in an alternate branch of time. We spent a day together, later in his life.”

  “You don’t get a chance to meet many famous people with the work we do,” Sema said. “There’s too much risk of creating bifurcations. So you tend to remember the ones you do meet close-up.”

  “Particularly if they are handsome Greek men with pretty eyes,” Marcus said, casting Sema a teasing glance. Gabriel thought he could see Sema blushing, but it might have been the warm light of the fire. “This night, the fire, the cave, it reminds of a night I spent years ago hiding from the Queen’s Guard. They were looking for a man who had been robbing noblemen along the main road from London to Cambridge, and he bore an unfortunate resemblance to me. I had a great deal more hair then. It was not an easy time. The poets were far more romantic about it.” Marcus cleared his throat and recited:

  “The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,

  The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

  The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,

  And the highwayman came riding,

  Riding, riding,

  The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

  “Of course, Alfred Noyce was born a good one hundred twenty years later, so what did he know? No young Bess for me. Just tending to a companion who had the bad luck of catching a crossbow bolt in his leg. He was always catching some manner of armament. Had more scars than freckles, which says something for a redheaded Irishman. Donovan. Great drinker and a better singer. He had a voice like warm whiskey. Clumsy as a drunken ox in a tea shop, though. I thought for certain his moans would bring the Queen’s hounds down upon us, but by sunrise he was back to cursing and bragging about a new scar, and drinking the last of the brandy. That was a fine night.”

  “It sounds terrifying,” Gabriel said, staring at the wide grin on Marcus’s face.

  “Oh, it was,” Marcus said. “But it ended well. That’s what makes a fine night. If the sunrise finds you still alive when you thought you’d be dead.”

  “This night is fine,” Sema said, catching Marcus’s gaze and holding it.

  “Yes, and the company isn’t bad, either,” Marcus added with a laugh. “This cave isn’t much, but it at least we’ll be comfortable tonight.”

  “Particularly Ling,” Sema said.

  Comfortable? Gabriel cocked his head as he looked up at the stars. Why did that sound familiar? What was that nagging feeling at the back of his mind? Like there was a word on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t remember. Like he had left the house and forgotten something. Something he would remember only as he was too far away to go back. Go back. Back to where? Back home? Ah, yes. That was it. Comfortable.

  “I know where Ohin is,” Gabriel said in a voice so loud it startled Sema and Marcus, who had both started to doze. “I know where he is and I can take us there.”

  Chapter 14: Lost and Found

  The following morning, Gabriel was the last to wake. He stepped out of the cave, blinking with the sudden shift from sleep as much as from the light of the sun, now well above the horizon. Ling sat at the edge of the rocks eating a slice of cantaloupe. Gabriel could see Sema and Marcus walking at the water’s edge along the beach. Ling looked up at him, but said nothing. She took another bite of the melon, sucking the juice from the rind. Gabriel sat down beside her.

  From the look of the remains encircling her, Ling had eaten at least two melons, all the remaining olives, the leftover fish from the night before, and half a loaf of bread. She threw down the well-chewed rind of melon and wiped the juice from her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Teresa had said once that Ling’s name meant ‘delicate’ in Chinese. She cleared her throat, spat, and looked at him. Gabriel wondered if the name had been intentionally ironic on the part of her parents.

  “You put Sema and Marcus in one hell of a tight spot,” Ling growled. “When you risked your damn fool life to save them, they felt indebted to you.”

  “But…” Gabriel began.

  “But they were responsible for you,” Ling said. “You are still only an apprentice, and it is not your place to question the decisions of those who are in charge of the mission, particularly when they have far more experience than you may ever have. Do you think I like every decision Ohin makes? Well, I don’t. But I follow orders. Why? Because he knows what he’s doing and he’s in charge. Get this through that rock you call a brain right now, this is a war, and people die in wars, and if you don’t follow orders, more people will die.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well, you certainly don’t act like it,” Ling said, her voice filled with anger. “What the hell were you thinking, anyway?”

  “I thought…”

  “I was dead. I was already dead.”

  “But…”

  “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you what we have to do now?”

  “I know. I just…”

  “Do you think Ohin would have gone back for you? Do you think he would have gone back for any of us?”

  “I don’t know. I…”

  “Well, he wouldn’t have,” Ling shouted and turned toward the water and the sunrise. She was silent finally and so was Gabriel. He didn’t know what reaction he had expected from Ling, but this wasn’t how he had imagined things would go at all.

  “He wouldn’t have,” Ling said again. “None of them would have. But you did.” She stared at Gabriel. “Why would you do that? You barely even know me. Barely even know any of us. Why risk yourself for Sema and Marcus? Why risk so much to save me?”

  Gabriel didn’t have to think about it. “Because it seemed like the right thing to do. Because I like you.” And then he spoke aloud what had been his real motivation. The one he had been afraid to admit to himself. “Because you’re all the family I have now.”

  Ling moved with the same swiftness and fluidity as she did when fighting, and Gabriel found himself with her arms locked around him in a powerful motherly hug. His head felt like a clay pot trapped in a vice as she pressed him to her chest and held on. He could feel her sobbing. Feel the tears on his neck. And it brought tears to his own eyes. After a long minute, she let go of him and clasped both hands on either side of his head, staring at him fiercely.

  “Damn you!” Ling said, her eyes blazing, struggling to speak as though the air in her chest could not rise to become words. She let go of Gabriel and seemed to collapse in on herself. When she spoke, it was in a near-whisper. “My first child, my son Win, he died of fever. We were a fishing family. He caught a chill one day. Too long in the rain. My husband Gu blamed himself. The boy was only ten. Old enough to fish, but not in the rain for that long. I blamed my husband.

  “Win died after a week of chills and sweats. He couldn’t eat anything. And then he died. And I blamed myself then. Because I couldn’t save him. I would have done anything to save him. Anything. No matter what the cost.” She fell silent again. When she looked up into his eyes she spoke loud and clear. “Thank you. Thank you for my life. Thank you for saving me, Dìdi Érzi.” Ling grinned and Gabriel grinned back. “Do it again, though, and I’ll bust your head.” She rustled his hair.

  “But if I did it again…”

  “Don’t argue with me. I’m no pushover like Sema and Marcus.” Gabriel’s head reeled trying to contemplate that statement as Ling offered him the last slice of melon. “Sorry. I ate everything. I’m starving. I could eat a horse. And I love horses. Beautiful creatures. But I’d eat one whole. Raw.”

  “I’d settle for eggs and bacon,” Gabriel said.

  “And a goat cheese and mushroom omelet,” Ling said. “Marcus said you know how to find Ohin.”

  “I think I know where he is.”

  “Then let’s find him and get back to the castle,” Ling said. “If we time it
right, we can arrive for brunch.”

  Sema and Marcus came back a few minutes later.

  “Everything been said that needed to be said?” Sema asked.

  “Yes,” Gabriel said.

  “I made my views clear,” Ling said.

  “She has a way of saying thank you you’ll not likely to forget soon,” Marcus said, rubbing his elbow. “Damn near broke my arm.”

  “You startled me,” Ling said. “I thought I was dead. Again.”

  “And this was the face you thought you’d see in heaven,” Marcus said. “I’m flattered.”

  “Who says I thought I was in heaven?” Ling said, tossing a fish bone at Marcus.

  “You’d think you’d have more gratitude,” Marcus said with feigned indignation.

  “I’m just annoyed that I was finally in Venice again and didn’t get to see the Gallerie Dell'Accademia,” Ling said. “We were blocks from one of my favorite museums and all I saw were the bricks of the Campanile. The best part of traveling through time is seeing art I’ve never seen before.”

  “If Ling is well enough, we should go," Sema said.

  “She’s healthy as a bear,” Marcus said. “And she’ll be hungry like a bear for a few days, but that’s not so different from usual.” Another fish bone flew past his head.

  “You’re sure you know how to find Ohin?” Sema asked.

  “Positive,” Gabriel said. “Ohin told me that we always feel more comfortable in our own time. But the temple at Tenochtitlan was built much later than his time, so I’m sure that whatever time he ended up in, he would travel to my time to wait for us.”

  “And you’re sure Ohin will think of all this?” Marcus asked.

  “Pretty sure,” Gabriel said.

  “No one has a better idea,” Ling said.

  “But what year do you think he will he go to in your time?” Sema asked.

  “Ohin isn’t the sort to sit on his rump waiting for years for us to show up,” Marcus said.

  “Well,” Gabriel said, “I was taken from the timeline in 1980, but the temple was only just being excavated then. So I’m guessing he’ll use the Coyolxauhqui Stone at the base of the temple.”