Gabriel allowed the whiteness to collapse around him for a fraction of a second, seeing the forest he had sensed, large pine trees looming overhead. His space-time sense stretched to its limit, he caught the fading tendrils of the rogue Apollyon’s jump and thrust himself into the chase.
Gabriel had spent months with Ohin practicing how to avoid allowing another Time Mage to track him while making jumps. This training also resulted, not surprisingly, in Gabriel being very good at tracking Time Mages jumping away from him. He pursued the rogue Apollyon through repeated jumps in various times and places in history. His prey took no chances, using a different relic for each jump — taking them to rural China in what looked like the country’s medieval period, then to a barren island in the middle of a rock-strewn sea, and to an empty apartment in what might have been New York City in the 1920s. The rogue Apollyon made eight jumps in all.
Gabriel held the whiteness at the end of the final jump long enough to make sure the rogue Apollyon would not depart again, then nudged himself back into blackness. He warped space-time ever so slightly and arrived a full thirty seconds in the past, a hundred feet from where the rogue Apollyon would appear.
Gabriel had only seconds to take in his surroundings and confront the enigmatic companion still clutching at his shoulder. He stood near the wall of what appeared to be a courtyard within a medieval castle.
He grabbed the hand at his shoulder and twisted from the wrist, as Ling had taught him in their many martial arts lessons. As he turned around to face the owner of the hand, he found his own wrist bent back in a counter move.
“Ouch, you idiot.” He let go of the hand and spun on his heel at the sound of Teresa’s voice.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel looked around the crowded castle courtyard beyond Teresa’s shoulder.
“I’m keeping you from doing something stupid again.” Teresa straightened up to her full height, which left her an inch taller than Gabriel, even after a year of male adolescent growth.
“I’m not doing something stupid, I’m tracking one of the Apollyons.” Gabriel stepped between the oaken beams of an open-faced lean-to built along the stone walls of the castle so they would attract less attention. He didn’t think anyone had seen them arrive, but if they continued to argue, someone would surely notice them.
“You ran off by yourself again. How is that not stupid?” Teresa stepped beside Gabriel under the edge of the lean-to and looked around. She shimmered briefly, and her clothing shifted to become similar to the dress of the medieval villagers they could see jamming the inner courtyard of the castle.
Gabriel followed Teresa’s example, remembering to adjust the coloring of his skin to appear paler like the people around him. As a final touch, he made the Sword of Unmaking slung over his back appear to be a small bundle of sticks.
“I had no choice but to go alone.” Gabriel actually felt relieved seeing Teresa, and this emotion found expression through his tone of voice. He also felt a sense of peace as he realized the anger dominating his mind since touching the Malignant imprints of the bracelet had finally begun to fade.
“I saw one of the Apollyons waiting for the others to leave. I think he had Councilwoman Elizabeth’s notebook. So I followed him.”
“What notebook, and where is this Apollyon?” Teresa looked furtively around the castle’s bailey yard.
“The notebook contains everything known about the Great Barrier of Probability.” Gabriel pointed discreetly to the other side of the castle grounds. “And the rogue Apollyon is going to arrive over there in about two seconds.”
Teresa followed the direction of Gabriel’s finger and they both watched as the rogue Apollyon blinked into existence in the shadowed recesses between two thatch-roofed stables. He did not bother to change his appearance as he stepped out into the throng of people working and milling about the courtyard. Gabriel could feel the Soul Magic the rogue Apollyon used to turn people’s attention away from his presence.
“We have to follow him, but we can’t use magic.” Gabriel started to walk in the direction of the rogue Apollyon. “He might be able to sense it.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Teresa stepped quickly to catch up with Gabriel.
“We have to get the notebook back before the rogue Apollyon can decipher it.” Gabriel tried to relax his mind while he walked. Without the aid of Soul Magic, he and Teresa would need to do everything possible to avoid attracting attention. Ohin and Akikane had taught him how to gently force the subtle energy of his being, the same energy he used to create magic, lower and lower into his body. Doing this lessened people’s subconscious interest in him. Teresa called it putting her chi in her feet. Gabriel had no doubt she performed the same practice as she walked beside him.
“What kind of code is it written in?” Teresa asked.
“Elizabeth wrote it in a dead language using a special alphabet she created herself.” Gabriel twisted sideways to avoid colliding with a soldier.
“Where does she find time for…never mind.” Teresa ducked under a ladder carried by a man whose tool bag silently named him as a carpenter.
“We need to follow him and steal the notebook back, then escape without him tracking us.” Gabriel slowed down, realizing they didn’t need to follow the rogue Apollyon very far. The black-shrouded man walked through the front entrance of a small stone church built against the wall of the castle. What would an Apollyon be doing in a church?
“Now what?” Teresa asked as they stopped beside an open-sided foundry, a blacksmith’s hammer strikes ringing out as he slowly forged a double-edged sword.
“We have to get inside and see what he does.” Gabriel looked around the courtyard. It seemed awfully full of people from what he could remember about medieval castles. He could see soldiers high on the walls above, and several groups of them among the crowd of villagers in the courtyard. Some of the village men worked building stone and wooden structures along the walls while several women cooked in pots suspended by tripods above open fires. Children, looking even dirtier than their adult counterparts, raced through the spaces between clumps of peasants, or they sat huddled with their companions while gnawing on hard, dark bread.
“We should go back to the castle and get reinforcements.” Teresa ignored their surroundings and stared at Gabriel. “We need help.”
“I’d love to, but we can’t.” The more Gabriel looked at the courtyard and the walls of the castle, the more certain he became of that statement. “If we use magic to leave, the rogue Apollyon will sense it and flee.”
“If we leave the castle, we can get far enough away. He’ll never sense a thing.” Teresa’s voice sounded simultaneously hopeful and worried.
“We can’t get out of the castle.” Gabriel sighed and gestured to the mass of villagers packed into the castle’s bailey. “The castle is under siege.”
Teresa looked around and blinked as the truth of Gabriel’s statement sank in.
“So let me sum up.” Teresa sighed and raised her fingers, counting them off silently as she spoke. “We can’t go back to our castle. We can’t use magic. We need to steal a notebook back from one of the Apollyons so he can’t use it to destroy the Great Barrier of Probability. We’re trapped in a medieval castle under siege. And we have no idea what castle it is, whether or not everyone dies, or when that might happen.”
“Actually, I think I do know what castle this is.” Gabriel barely managed not to sigh.
“Okay, impress me.” Teresa raised one eyebrow in curiosity.
“Based on the curves of those scalloped walls, I’d say we’re in the middle bailey of Chateau Gaillard.” Gabriel gestured to the castle walls, which curved into each other like a series of semicircular towers built right next to one another.
“Those walls are very distinctive. They were designed to make it harder to attack with projectiles. And see those arrow slits? The curves allow arrows to be fired from multiple angles. That’s the inner bailey, and beyond those walls you can see a towe
r that has to be the keep. Behind the far walls is the Seine River. We’re in the middle bailey, and back behind us, across a moat, is the outer bailey, facing the valley where the sieging soldiers are massed.”
“I am so glad somebody pays attention during Ohin’s history lectures.” Teresa laughed lightly. “What do you know about the siege?”
“Based on the weather and the number of people still in the castle, I’d say we’re near the beginning of it.” Gabriel squinted as he tried to remember more details about Chateau Gaillard and the siege. He wished he had his copy of The Time Traveler’s Pocket Guide to History with him. “The siege lasted six months, I think. This is probably sometime in December of 1203. King Philip of France won’t capture the castle for a few months yet.”
“Then we have plenty of time if we need it.” Teresa breathed a little easier.
“Not really.” Gabriel tilted his head in the direction of the villagers. “The lord of the castle, Roger de Lacy, I think, is going to realize any day now that all these people eat a lot of food. He’s going to start kicking them out pretty soon.”
“So…” Teresa gave Gabriel a look that worried him a little. “What are our chances if the two of us attack this lone-wolf Apollyon when he’s not expecting it?”
“You mean assuming we don’t use so much magic and attract so much attention that we create a bifurcation?” Gabriel had grown used to people telling him he could be impulsive and reckless. Not for the first time, he wondered how they never seemed to notice that Teresa was at least as impulsive and reckless as he. Reckless or not, her loyalty and bravery were beyond measure — as was his gratitude now at having her by his side.
“I’ve got the Sword of Unmaking and the pocket watch, but we have no idea what imbued artifacts he may have access to. He could have one concatenate crystal or several. It seems like he’s hiding from his brothers, but if he connects with their power, we’d be lucky if we could survive a battle, much less win it.”
“That’s what I thought.” Teresa’s face brightened. “Which means we’re going to have to be devious.”
“Then it’s a lucky thing for me that you tagged along.” Gabriel found his mood had lightened considerably with the hint of assuredness on Teresa’s lovely face.
“We need to sneak into that little chapel and see what this Apollyon is up to and get that notebook.” She looked toward the church the rogue Apollyon had disappeared into. “So, what are we waiting for?”
Chapter 8: Castle Spies
Gabriel and Teresa stepped though the slender doorway of the small chapel and paused for a moment, as much to let their eyes adjust to the darkened interior as to allow their nostrils to adapt to the odor.
The chapel had few windows. The outer wall of the castle dominated one whole side of the building, leaving only the opposite side to provide illumination from the sun. A handful of oil lamps, hung at strategic points around the space, added a dim, flickering yellow glow to the pale blue light of the overcast day that seeped through the heavily leaded glass windows.
No pews or benches lined the church floor. Medieval church parishioners normally stood for their weekly sermons. The majority of the forty or so refugees from the nearby village filling the chapel lay prone on the floor or leaned against the walls. The chapel housed all those too old, young, or sick to bear the strain of the frigid weather beyond its confines.
Gabriel noticed a thin man with tonsured hair and brownish-black robes kneeling in prayer beside an elderly woman coughing with some illness. Disease arising from humans crammed in close quarters with improper ventilation and poor sanitation proved a challenge for many castles under siege. If Gabriel remembered correctly, at least this castle had two interior wells. He wasn’t sure about waste disposal, but he seemed to remember something about the siege ending when King Philip’s men breached the castle walls by sneaking through a latrine chute.
“Not many places he could hide.” Teresa stepped into the chapel and slid up against the wall. She was right. The open rafters of the chapel held no attics or balconies. Behind the altar,
Gabriel could see a door illuminated by the light of a window at the back of the chapel.
“Maybe he’s in the priest’s quarters behind the altar.” Gabriel joined Teresa against the wall. “Or a cellar.”
“I don’t see any way down to a cellar, even if there is one.” Teresa wrinkled her nose. The pungent smell of the oil lamps did little to cover the aroma of human sweat and excrement permeating the church. “I’d forgotten how much I love visiting the Middle Ages.”
“After a couple of days without a bath, you’ll hardly notice.” Gabriel motioned toward the back of the chapel. “Let’s see what we find.”
He gingerly stepped between two women crouching with their babies on the floor nearby and focused his mind, keeping his subtle energies in control, pushing them down, making himself less noticeable. It took nearly a minute to navigate the length of the chapel in this fashion. Occasionally people glanced up from their tasks, women darning the holes of overworn clothes, children playing with small clay marbles, old men laughing at some shared memory, but inevitably their gazes slid away from the young mages like water flowing around rocks in a stream.
No villagers occupied the small vestibule behind the altar. Gabriel assumed that respect for the priest as much as their faith kept them from sprawling in the space. The side of the short corridor facing the courtyard outside held a darkly stained wooden door. A stone wall filled the other side of the vestibule. Something about this seemed a bit odd to Gabriel, but he found himself strangely unconcerned about it.
“I’ll check it out,” Gabriel said.
“I’ll keep watch,” Teresa said. “Be careful. He’s probably in there.”
Gabriel slowly crept down the hall. He glanced over his shoulder. Teresa stood where she could easily watch both him and the villagers in the nave.
He slipped beside the thick oak door and listened. He heard nothing from within. He pulled gently on the handle of the door, hoping the wrought-iron hinges nailed into the stone archway would prove well-oiled. The door swung toward him slowly. The hinges remained silent. He tugged at the handle until a slender crack opened between the door and the frame.
Darkness filled the small, stone chamber. Gabriel risked pulling the door open enough to peer through, placing his eye to the opened slit. He closed his other eye and waited for his vision to adapt.
The room held nothing but a wash basin resting on a small table, a three-legged stool, a thin wooden bed, and a clay chamber pot.
Gabriel frowned and leaned back, pushing the door closed to what appeared to be the priest’s private quarters. He turned to Teresa and shook his head at her questioning look. She frowned.
Gabriel mimicked her frown, but not because the room had been empty. Something else bothered him. The wall across from him seemed solid, but it lay a good seven feet from the side wall of the chapel, the outer wall of the castle. Odd, but nothing he needed to be concerned about.
Gabriel started to walk back to Teresa, but stopped. He frowned even deeper. He turned back to the wall and placed his hand on it, reaching out with his magic-sense. As he did so, the wall changed, revealing a door resting directly across from the one he had examined.
The rogue Apollyon had used Soul Magic to cloak the presence of the room. With so many villagers around, no one would know the room existed except for the priest, whose memory the rogue Apollyon could easily adjust.
The door to the hidden room sat slightly ajar. Gabriel took a long, slow breath, concentrating on his subtle energy and pushing it down into his toes. He took two quick, silent steps to the door and placed his eye to the inch-wide gap.
The room looked almost identical to the one across the hall. The rogue Apollyon sat on a rickety stool, hunched over a table. Councilwoman Elizabeth’s notebook sat opened before him. He rubbed his forehead in frustration as he slowly flipped through the last pages of the thin, leather-bound book. The Dark Mage si
ghed heavily.
Gabriel eased away from the door, quickly retreating to Teresa’s side. He guided her around the corner and out of sight of the rogue Apollyon’s chamber.
“Is there a reason you were staring at that wall so closely?” A mild concern filled Teresa’s face as she gently placed her hand on his chest. “You can’t lose your mind on me while we’re trapped in a castle under siege in the Middle Ages with an Apollyon wondering around.”
“I’m not losing my mind.” Gabriel found the warmth of Teresa’s hand on his chest comforting — and extremely distracting at the same time.
“There’s a door to another room. The rogue Apollyon used Soul Magic to cloak it.”
Teresa looked around the corner of the wall to where the door should be and shook her head.
“I can’t see a thing.” She sounded annoyed to be so easily fooled by the rogue Apollyon’s magic.
“What was he doing?”
“Nothing,” Gabriel said. “He was looking at the notebook. Probably trying to figure out how to read it.”
“If he had any sense, he would have gone to the future and tried to use a supercomputer to break the code,” Teresa said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Outside the chapel, Gabriel and Teresa sat in the dirt beside a thatched-roof storage barn across the courtyard and considered their options. They had few.
“Would you like to sum up again?” Gabriel’s tone sounded both teasing and tired. Exhaustion still clung to him from the battle to save their castle. It felt like he hadn’t slept in days. He couldn’t tell if his mind ached more than his body, but both needed rest. He longed for a hot shower, a hearty meal, and the comfort of his warm bed.
He consoled himself with the fact that he would finally have some time alone with Teresa.
“Let’s see,” Teresa said in a chipper tone of voice as she assumed a plastic smile. “We need to find food, but we can’t disrupt the Primary Continuum, and since we’re in a castle under siege, we’ll be lucky to steal a few potatoes.”
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 39