When he had finished, Gabriel floated up through the air, hovering above the street to survey the extraction and await his part in the rescue. He observed as previous versions of himself warped space and time, popping into existence along the rooftops of the street. If he had not known when and where to look, they would have remained invisible. Eventually, Gabriel caught sight of Teresa walking across the stones of the forum, followed by the original version of himself.
Gabriel looked up the street and saw the log-filled wagon shuddering along the stones of the lane, the two men perched atop the tree trunks, one driving the oxen, the other talking as he held the axe against his shoulder while…
Sema, leaning against a nearby wall, consciously unseen by all who passed, reached out with Soul Magic to the mind of the man holding the axe, making a gentle subconscious suggestion that the man accepted and acted upon without a pause in his monologue to his companion, lowering the axe from his shoulder and wedging its blade into a log beside him, while…
At the far end of the street, the soldier urged the horses pulling the chariot onward with a crack of the reigns, while…
Aurelius turned his head, following the chariot as it passed him, his face pulled tight as he pressed his precarious Wind Magic knowledge to its limit, using it to push back against the chariot, slowing its passage by almost exactly a second, while…
Back along the street, Sema looked after the passing wagon, using Soul Magic again, touching the mind of the driver, convincing him to hold his hand, to pause in his constant flicking of the driving stick against the backs of the oxen, allowing them to act upon her magically induced direction to lessen their pace, reducing the wagon’s speed by nearly a full second, while…
Exiting from her home, a woman emptied a clay bowl of water onto the street, never noticing Rajan walking idly past as he focused Stone Magic upon the flowing water, altering its viscosity, making it thicker while gradually slackening its descent to the ground, adding practically a second to the time it took to fall across the stones, while…
The chariot thundered passed Teresa, her eyes falling on a large gray dog ahead of her, meeting the animal’s eyes, while…
Across the street, Marcus used Heart-Tree Magic to coax the dog into a vicious growl, causing Teresa to alter her path by stepping into the street a second sooner, while…
A sandy-haired boy kicked his wooden ball along the side of the street, running past Ling, who wrapped the rolling toy in a cloud of Wind Magic, slowing it down slightly as the boy’s foot made sideways contact and sent it skipping into the street, where he quickly followed it a second later than he would have, while…
The soldier standing in the speeding chariot strained at the reins, steering the horses around the oblivious young boy and into the street, while…
The side of the rear wheel of the wagon slammed into the chariot, while…
Teresa, walking across the street, looked up to the sound of the collision, her feet hesitating, uncertain which way to turn, while…
The frightened oxen charged, the wheel collapsing under the strain, the wagon rolling, logs tumbling into the street, while…
The gray dog, urged again by Marcus’s magic, barked and yelped, diverting Teresa’s attention for a second, while…
A slender log struck the ground, bouncing end over end, propelled and guided by Gabriel’s Wind Magic, hurtling through the air, while…
Teresa turned away from the barking dog and back to the street, exactly as the well-timed and expertly guided log struck her in the chest, knocking her to the ground, her body bouncing with the impact, the log rolling away as her head hammered into the stones of the street, her heart stopping, her eyes closing as she died, while…
Ohin stepped from the shadows of a building carrying a slender form wrapped in a sheet, enveloping the area around Teresa with a space-time bubble as Marcus strode over and knelt beside her.
Gabriel floated down from the sky and stood beside them.
Time within the bubble slowed and Gabriel reached out with his magic-sense to observe as Marcus placed his hand on Teresa’s chest, resuming the beating of her heart with a small pulse of Heart-Tree Magic.
Ohin lowered the Replacement body to the ground and removed the sheet while Gabriel used Wind Magic to lift a still-unconscious Teresa into the air.
Ohin adjusted the Replacement body and stood up. The slender form lying in the street looked exactly like Teresa, but had never possessed the possibility of life.
Gabriel glanced across the street and saw his older self. He felt an odd twisting of his space-time sense, a bizarre blending of memories filling his mind, memories of seeing Teresa dying from an axe blow, memories of grieving, memories of seeing himself save Teresa with Ohin and Marcus.
He looked away before his mind could become overwhelmed by the paradox of his actions. His space-time sense gave no indication that a bifurcation threatened to form. So far, they had succeeded. He removed a rusted nail he had taken from the back door of the abandoned house in Maine and jumped through space and time, taking Marcus and Teresa with him.
The three appeared beneath the shadowed branches of a chestnut tree in the backyard behind the abandoned house. Gabriel lowered Teresa to the grass with his Wind Magic and sat beside her. Marcus, still kneeling at her side, flooded her body with Heart-Tree Magic. Gabriel watched as the bruised flesh of her face and arms healed, turning from plum to nut brown. Behind them, Ohin and the rest of the team appeared. It had been Ohin’s responsibility to collect the other team members and bring them back to the house.
“She’s coming around.” Marcus pulled his hands away as Teresa’s eyes fluttered.
Teresa blinked and looked around, seeing Marcus, Ohin, and the team. Her eyes finally settled upon Gabriel. He felt his hands shake and his heart pound.
Teresa lived.
“Took you long enough.” Teresa frowned and leaned up on one arm.
He laughed as tears ran down his cheeks. Without thinking, he threw his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. If the sudden kiss startled her, the surprise did not last long. She sat up, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him closer.
Gabriel’s mind could not hold the tumult of thoughts colliding with it any more than his heart could contain the welter of emotions struggling to escape all at once. Time seemed suspended as Gabriel and Teresa kissed, a year of unspoken desires unleashed in a single, simple human act.
“Well, at least someone follows my advice on romance.” Marcus laughed, his deep baritone rumbling in Gabriel’s ears, soon joined by laughter from the rest of the team.
Their public display of affection finally registering to each of them at the same time, Gabriel and Teresa broke apart, eyes still locked together.
“Now that is the way to rescue a girl!” Teresa sighed, finally looking around at the others, bashful but excited.
“Sorry it took so long.” Gabriel held Teresa’s hand.
“I thought I was dead.” Teresa’s bewildered smile flickered away and then returned. “But I’m not.”
“You were,” Ling said.
“So we had to kill you,” Rajan said.
“A second time,” Aurelius added. “Or a third time. I find it confusing.”
“And by altering the time line slightly to do it,” Ohin said.
“Let me guess whose idea that was.” Teresa turned and frowned at Gabriel.
“I had to.” Gabriel squeezed her hand. “I couldn’t let you die if I had a chance to change it.”
“You’re an idiot.” Teresa shook her head.
“Maybe,” Gabriel said. “But, you’d never kiss anyone who wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to save you from being dead.”
“He’s got you there, lass.” Marcus laughed again.
“You’re right.” Teresa laughed, as well. “How did I end up in that Roman town? The last thing I remember is heading to meet you for the notebook switch.”
“Kumaradevi.” Gabriel felt anger re
turn at the mention of her name.
“Naturally.” Teresa made a sour face. “Anyway, after I knew I had become part of the Primary Continuum, I thought for sure I would die there for good. I even considered trying to take my own life so there might be a chance I could be extracted, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I don’t know how you managed it, I don’t know how you could alter time without creating a bifurcation, but you found a way to save me. Thank you. Thank you all.”
Teresa squeezed Gabriel’s hand hard as she wiped her eyes and looked at the tearful faces of her friends and teammates. Gabriel rubbed his eyes, as well. Teresa lived. She hadn’t died, trapped in the past. He and the team had freed her from what had once appeared to be an irrevocable death in the ancient Roman Empire.
Gabriel frowned.
Free.
Some tenuous thought sought his attention from the hinter regions of his mind, clawing its way through subconscious darkness and braying quietly for attention.
Something about being free. What was freedom? What was the nature of freedom?
No.
Something else.
Who was free? Were we free? How did we become free?
No. Not quite right.
Teresa had been freed. What about her freedom was important? How they had freed her? Why they had freed her?
No. Still not right.
What sets someone free? What makes the difference between freedom and servitude or freedom and captivity?
Work?
Why work?
Work will set you free.
Yes.
That was it.
Gabriel realized his eyes had not moved from the grass at his feet for quite some time. He looked up into the concerned faces of Teresa and the team.
“What is it?” Teresa’s voice quavered with a hint of fear. “What’s the matter?”
“I realized something.” Gabriel took a deep breath and exhaled to calm himself.
“I know where the Apollyons who found us at the medieval castle are hiding. We have to find out what they know about the Great Barrier…and how close they are to destroying it.”
Chapter 18: Preparations
An ant crawled across Gabriel’s arm, tickling the skin as it clambered over fine black hairs. He raised his arm and sent the ant flying into the grass with a short puff of breath. The team sat amid the tall grass behind the abandoned house, sheltered by dense trees from any potential passersby. They ate a simple lunch of tuna sandwiches, canned baked beans, and potato chips. Ling had used Wind Magic to mat the grass down in a swirling pattern Teresa laughingly referred to as a crop circle. She had pouted and complained that no one ever understood her jokes.
“We can’t trust the Council.” Rajan raised his tuna sandwich to his mouth and paused before taking a bite. “We don’t know who we can trust at the castle anymore.”
“All the more reason to act alone until we know more.” Marcus, to the surprise of everyone, drank a slender bottle of Coca-Cola rather than his preferred beer.
“I agree.” Ling shooed a curious bee away from her plate of baked beans. “We risk a spy in the castle informing the Apollyons that we may know one of their hiding places.”
“You’re certain it’s Auschwitz?” Sema took a slice of apple from a dish sitting in the grass.
“It makes sense.” Teresa snatched a potato chip from Gabriel’s plate. “The Apollyon who appeared while we were captured definitely mentioned the phrase ‘Work will set you free’ to the rogue Apollyon.”
“It’s not the kind of phrase that comes up in conversation very often.” Gabriel held a spoon of beans to his mouth. “Arbiet macht frei. Work sets you free. It’s the phrase on the gate to Auschwitz. It’d be a perfect place for them to hide and maintain a link to an enormous supply of Malignant imprints.”
“What is this Auschwitz?” Aurelius sat with his hands in his lap, his food as yet untouched on the plate resting in the grass before him. He had been too focused on following the conversation to think about eating.
“A camp for working strong people to death and for killing the weak and the old in large numbers.” Sema’s lips twitched as she spoke.
“You’ve had little time to come to terms with how much history has happened since your extraction point.” Ohin sat his plate down while he spoke.
“One thing never seems to change. War. There is always war. In the Twentieth Century, there were two great wars that engulfed nearly every nation on Earth. In the second of these World Wars, the ancestors of the Germans you died fighting invaded much of Europe and parts of northern Africa. A man named Adolf Hitler led them.
“He and his senior officers were obsessed with killing the Jews in Germany, Europe, and the world. They created a series of camps where they worked healthy Jews and gypsies and political prisoners to death as slaves. The rest they killed in chambers filled with poison gas and then cremated the bodies. They killed over a million people that way in Auschwitz alone.
“The castle maintains an observation base there, but the team guarding it was pulled away to help with the attack on the Apollyons at Dresden, a German city that was fire-bombed to near-oblivion in the same war.”
Ohin’s brief history lesson brought a haze of silence to the picnic.
“I can’t imagine the people I fought would be proud of their descendants.” Aurelius frowned. “A great deal may have happened since my time in the world, but you are right, certain things change very little.”
“Some things do get better,” Rajan said. “But not quickly, and not for everyone.”
“Things will be a lot worse for everybody if the Apollyons manage to break through the Great Barrier,” Ling said.
“Yes,” Ohin said. “Gabriel and Teresa are right. We need to follow this hint of a trail to where it leads. We’ll return to the castle once we’ve learned what we can and inform Akikane alone. I know we can trust him.”
“If we can’t trust Akikane, we might as well all slit our own throats now.” Marcus frowned with the thought and took a sip of his cola, scowling when he realized it wasn’t beer.
“It’s the second part of the plan that worries me.” Ohin focused his deep brown eyes on Gabriel and Teresa.
“We don’t really have any choice,” Gabriel said.
“There is always a choice,” Sema said.
“You can choose to be stupid and put yourselves in danger,” Ling said.
“We won’t be in danger,” Teresa said. “Well, not much.”
“Too much danger,” Marcus said.
“It seems the best way and an acceptable risk, given the stakes,” Aurelius said.
“Says the man with the least experience in the field,” Rajan said.
“I may not have a great deal of experience in these endeavors,” Aurelius said, “but I have some considerable experience in war. War is risk. And if this subterfuge works, it advances the war considerably.”
“I agree.” Ohin’s voice brought the attention of the others back to him. “It is a risk. We’ll mitigate it as much as we can, but if Gabriel and Teresa can pull it off, it may give us the time we need to defeat the Apollyons.”
The rest of the team looked unhappy, but refrained from voicing any further concerns.
“Can you have it ready by tomorrow?” Ohin asked Gabriel and Teresa.
“It’ll take a little longer than the last time, but I think we can do it by then,” Gabriel said.
“We can find most of what we need here in the house,” Teresa added.
“Good,” Ohin said. “We’ll need to prepare for this mission like any other. There’s a library in a town not far away. We can make a trip there tonight and see if they have any useful books.”
“We’re in the year two thousand-twelve,” Teresa said, looking at Ohin like a slightly dim uncle. “The library will have a computer we can use to search the Internet. We can find everything we need to know in a few minutes.”
“We can use what to access what?” Aurelius’s confusi
on clouded his face.
“It’s a device for storing and using information. It also allows you to connect to other devices that store information.”
Teresa sighed. Being one of the few people at the castle from so far along the timeline of the Continuum, she was one of only a handful who knew how to use a computer. Even Gabriel had only seen computers on TV and in movies since he had been taken from the timeline before the explosion of personal computers in the late 1980s.
“At this point in time, you can access nearly any information from history,” Teresa said. “I keep telling them to let me create a computer network at the castle, but they think there aren’t enough people to help, and it’s too big a job to create a database large enough to be useful. Memory storage is also a problem. I’d need a decent-sized server, which wouldn’t be easy to sneak from the timeline, but I could probably daisy-chain a bunch of old desktop computers together to create a server.
“People threw out computers like used Kleenexes at the time. You see, I think I could download and adapt a few online encyclopedias and create our own intranet, which would allow us to have data terminals around the castle. I could even install a wireless network and we could get laptops and…No one has any idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
Blank faces stared at Teresa. Gabriel managed a supportive and admiring smile, but he really had no clue what she’d been rambling on about, either. For reasons he could not fathom, he found that incredibly attractive. Once again, he realized he found her intellect far more striking than her beauty.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 49