The Wizard of Time (Book 1) (7 page)
“I just meant that I understand,” Gabriel said.
“Well of course you do.” Elizabeth placed her hand on his arm and looked him in the eyes. “It does lessen. The weight of it. The weight of letting go, at least. As the years pass, it becomes easier to accept. The pain becomes simply an old ache. Familiar. Almost comforting.”
“Does the rest of it get any easier?” Gabriel asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” Elizabeth said, looking up at the stars. “The war goes on and on. Friends are lost. New friends appear. Battles are won. Battles lost. But there is always The War. It’s always been like that, though. Even before magic. It’s always a struggle between those who want to claim power and use it for their own selfish ends and those who stand up to them. The same story again and again all throughout history.”
“May I ask you a question?” Gabriel said.
“Certainly,” Elizabeth replied, looking back down from the stars to Gabriel’s eyes. “I hear you have some very good questions.”
“Can the war ever end?” Gabriel asked. It was another of the questions he wasn’t sure he wanted answered, but felt compelled to ask.
“Oh, if I thought the war couldn’t be won, I’d be off in a cave like Nefferati,” Elizabeth said with a laugh.
“Nefferati?” Gabriel said.
“She’s one of the other two True Grace Mages. She’s a very remarkable woman, which is saying something coming from me. I’m rather remarkable myself. She is the oldest mage, True or otherwise. She was born on the banks of the Euphrates around 3500 BCE and claims to be nearly seven hundred years old, but I suspect she’s lying about her age. She’s eight hundred, if she’s a day. I was her apprentice many,
many
years ago. Plucked me out of the timeline herself. Taught me nearly everything I know. About magic. About leadership. About life. She is my best and closest friend.” Elizabeth was silent for a moment. Gabriel could tell by the look on her face and the tone of her voice that she had not meant to reveal that last bit of information. She clearly missed the elder woman a great deal. Gabriel suspected she missed Nefferati more than she admitted even to herself. She sighed and looked at Gabriel. “I’ve become maudlin.”
“What about the third True Grace Mage?” Gabriel asked, thinking to distract Elizabeth from her sudden dark mood.
“Akikane,” Elizabeth said. “Young by my standards. Only three hundred years old or so. You’ll like him. Everyone likes him. I suspect there are Malignancy Mages who like him. He lived in Feudal Japan in the fourteenth century and was born into a family of warriors and spent the first years of his life as a samurai. Then he had an epiphany. I’m sure he will tell you about it. He tells everyone about it. He destroyed his sword and became a Buddhist monk. At least for a time. Then he forged a new sword. One that he only ever used in the defense of others, and never to kill.”
“And what about the Malignancy Mages?” Gabriel asked.
“We believe there are several hundred, which would leave us fairly evenly matched. But they are not as well organized as we are. As you probably know, there are three Malignant True Mages. The oldest of them is Kumaradevi. She was a princess who lived in India around 300 BCE. She is nearly as powerful as she is old and she is almost five hundred years old. She gave me this.” Elizabeth pulled back the edge of her tunic and revealed a deep red scar along the edge of her collar bone. “She was very unhappy with me. I killed her protégé. Young man. Very pretty. But I digress.
“The second True Malignancy Mage is named Vicaquirao,” Elizabeth said. “He was a general in the Incan Empire in the mid-1400s. A wicked piece of work, that one. He’s nearly four hundred years old. And clever. Too clever by half. Although no one has heard from him in nearly twenty of our years, which is suspicious. Some suspect that he has been killed by Apollyon, but I don’t believe it.”
“Apollyon?” Gabriel asked.
“It’s not his true name, of course,” Elizabeth said, “but he thinks it makes him sound important. His real name is Cyril. The third True Malignancy Mage. He is also the youngest, merely one hundred fifty, but the most dangerous, in my opinion. He actually has a philosophy, a rationale for the destruction he wreaks. It sounds like a hodgepodge of Nietzsche and Nazism, but it draws him a large number of followers. Moreover, he knows how to lead, damn him.
“He was Vicaquirao’s apprentice once. Vicaquirao found him in ancient Greece, during the time of Alexander the Great. Around 310 BCE. He was a soldier in Alexander’s army. We don’t know exactly when, but Vicaquirao educated him over a number of years to be his protégé.”
“That’s all six,” Elizabeth concluded with a stifled yawn. “There can be only three True Grace Mages and three True Malignancy Mages. Nefferati made that prophecy herself. Although part of it has yet to be fulfilled.”
Gabriel yawned, quickly slapping his fist over his mouth.
“Tired?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t blame you. I could do with a bit of rest myself. What I could really use is a vacation.” She reached into a pocket and withdrew a small coin as she stood up. She handed it to Gabriel. “Here. In case you need a vacation sometime. Sleep well.”
“Thank you.” Gabriel stared down at the coin and saw it was from ancient Greece. He wondered what Time Mages did on holiday. And why Councilwoman Elizabeth had given it to him. How could the coin lead to a vacation? Was he supposed to pay for it with the coin? When he looked up to ask her, Gabriel saw she was gone. Typical, he thought to himself. More questions.
The next morning, as instructed, Gabriel stood on the balcony at the top of the Clock Tower promptly at seven o’clock, looking out over the grounds and the fields beyond the castle, watching the sun slowly ascend in the sky. Actually, Gabriel was early. Half an hour early. Only the sheer emotional exhaustion of the long and incredible day before had made it possible for him to fall asleep. Nevertheless, he had awoken with the first hint of sunlight, his mind filled with thoughts about time travel and magic. He had grabbed a quick bite of eggs and bacon in the Waterloo Chamber as soon as the cooks started serving breakfast, then he headed straight for the tower.
He didn’t know if Ohin would be early, but he struck Gabriel as the sort of man one didn’t keep waiting. As he watched the clock, Gabriel remembered Teresa telling him that there were over four hundred fifty clocks spread throughout the castle. There was even a man whose job it was to maintain and repair all the clocks. Teresa had said it was a job with little time off. She had thought that was funny. Gabriel laughed more at her pouting about him not laughing than at the joke itself. Looking down from the castle clock as it struck seven, Gabriel saw Ohin arrive.
“Good morning, Gabriel,” Ohin said as he stepped onto the balcony of the tower with a book in his hand.
“Morning,” Gabriel said, trying to still the tumbling of his stomach. Maybe eggs hadn’t been such a good idea.
“Are you ready for your first lesson?” Ohin asked.
“Not really,” Gabriel said, speaking quite literally from his gut, “but if I think about it too long I might freak out.”
“Well, we would not want that,” Ohin said. “Our first lesson will be a simple one. We will use a relic to travel to several times where that relic existed. Nothing complicated.” As though traveling through time wasn’t complicated, Gabriel thought. “First, you will need to change the way you are dressed.”
Even as he spoke, Ohin’s clothes shimmered in the sun and suddenly he was wearing a tweed suit with vest and tie. Gabriel thought it looked Victorian, from the late 19th century. “Now, focus your mind on what I am wearing and try something similar for yourself.” Gabriel stared at the clothes Ohin was wearing and focused on the concealment amulet hanging around his neck. He felt the connection with it in his mind and the air around his body shimmered. Suddenly he was wearing an exact duplicate of the suit Ohin wore.
“What about money?” Gabriel asked.
“We don’t normally use currency,” Ohin said, “since we try to interact with people as little as possible. However, the castle can make excellent forgeries of nearly any currency we might need for a mission. Now for the relic.” He held up the book so that the cover was visible. Gabriel’s face broke into a wide grin as he laughed. He hadn’t thought Ohin had a sense of humor.
“H.G. Wells’s
The Time Machine
?” Gabriel asked.
“Always good to start the day with a little irony,” Ohin said, patting the book lightly. “To travel to a particular time and place, a Time Mage must have an object from that time and place. Something that has either been made by human hands, or was once alive, like a bone or a fossil. We call the objects we use to travel through time relics.”
“The St. George’s Chapel,” Gabriel said as something clicked in his mind. “That’s why there are so many antiques from throughout history in the chapel.”
“Exactly,” Ohin said. “But you can only travel in time and space to where that object has been. This relic is a first edition of Mr. Wells’s novel, published in London in 1895. So, we can use the book you hold to travel to England, but only to places and times where the book resided. That is why we collect so many relics in the chapel.” It made a strange kind of sense, Gabriel thought. It also made sense of the Greek coin that Councilwoman Elizabeth gave him the night before.
“Now, tell me what you can sense, if anything, from the book. Here, have a seat.” Ohin indicated a small stone bench behind them. As they sat down, Gabriel took the novel from Ohin’s hand and held it gently in his own. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking for, or what he was supposed to feel. Mostly he felt silly.
“I don’t feel anything,” Gabriel said.
“Relax your mind,” Ohin said. “Close your eyes and watch your breath.” Gabriel did as instructed. “Don’t try to think about anything. Don’t try not to think. Just watch your breath. If a thought fills your mind, just let it go as you exhale. Still your mind.”
Gabriel watched his breathing. This was familiar to him, at least. His mother had started meditating nearly four years ago after reading one of her New Age books and going to a seminar at the local library. She had insisted on teaching Gabriel how to meditate, as well. Mostly, Gabriel suspected, because his father had shown so little interest. Gabriel had taken to it quickly and often joined his mother in an evening meditation after dinner. In the autumn and winter, at least. Spring meant baseball and summer meant longer nights for playing baseball. Gabriel didn’t have trouble choosing between meditation and baseball. That was no choice at all.
Sitting on the Clock Tower bench with Ohin, Gabriel was suddenly grateful to his mother for her insistence that he join her on all those nights of meditating. At first, he could not keep the thoughts from racing through his mind, but as he noticed his attention drifting, he let the thoughts go as he exhaled and refocused his mind on his breath.
After a few minutes, he began to feel more relaxed. More at peace. After about ten minutes of meditating on his breath, he sensed something different. Not a thought. Not a feeling. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was like trying to remember an event based on the momentary sniff of a once-recognizable fragrance. A feeling he knew, but had never felt before. Strange and familiar at the same time. Then it came to him and he knew what it was and why he recognized it. It was the feeling he had in his dreams of the future. The feeling that would linger with him for moments after waking from the dream. It made him feel fearful and powerful and lightheaded all at once. He slowly breathed the feelings of anxiety out.
Leather chair. Book cases lining the walls. A small table. A glass of wine. A fireplace, the flames leaping up into the chimney. On the chair. A book.
Gabriel opened his eyes. “I saw a room.”
“Really,” Ohin said, a quizzical look on his brow. “What room?”
“I don’t know. There was a bookcase and a fireplace. And a leather chair. And this book was on the chair.
The Time Machine
was on the chair.” Gabriel held the old novel up in his hands.
“Curious,” Ohin said. “I was expecting you’d report more of a tingling feeling, not a full placement vision.”
“That was one of the places the novel has been, wasn’t it?” Gabriel asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” Ohin said. “That room was where the book resided for the first ten years of its existence. It is very unusual that you were able to see it so clearly. And so far back. And so soon. It took me a week to gain my first time-sight of a relic. And even then I could only press back a few years of its existence.”
“I felt something odd at first,” Gabriel said. “Like what I feel when I have dreams that come true. Will I still have dreams like that?”
“Probably not,” Ohin said. “Once out of the timeline of The Primary Continuum, your time-sense, which is that feeling you described, is usually useless for prediction. Unless you are back in a specific time for a long enough span of years. There are exceptions. Nefferati for one. But she is very old, and the power did not come back to her for a long time. However, you will be able to sense the flow of time around people and things in the places you travel.
“Well, now that you have found a destination, why don’t we try a quick visit? But first, one last alteration to our appearance.” Ohin shimmered again, suddenly appearing as a Caucasian man instead of an African, his skin a pinkish white rather than dark chocolate. Gabriel gaped. Ohin still looked like himself, only not at all.
“We don’t want to appear out of place if we are seen,” Ohin said.
“You just look so odd,” Gabriel said before he realized what he meant and what he had said didn’t resemble each other at all. Any more than this Ohin resembled the real one.
“You’ll get used to seeing yourself look different,” Ohin said. “However, I can adjust the attunement of the amulet so that anyone with another amulet will see me more normally, while everyone else will see me as you do now.” Ohin shimmered again, suddenly himself, still dressed in a Victorian suit. After a few moments of instruction, Gabriel made a similar modification to the color of his skin that anyone seeing him might experience.