As though materializing from his thoughts, Gabriel found Sema and Marcus seated beside the perpetually sleeping Elizabeth when he walked into her small room. They each held a hand on Elizabeth’s forehead, fingers touching, their other hands clasped together. With their eyes closed and concentrations focused on Elizabeth, neither seemed aware of Gabriel’s presence. He reached out with his magic-sense to follow their probing of Elizabeth’s mind and body. He still had not found the time to learn the more subtle aspects of healing with magic. He simply spent too much time trying to learn how to defend himself to allow for more study of how to repair the damage he might potentially do.
Sema and Marcus blended their magic as they examined Elizabeth. This melding of magics still fascinated Gabriel. As a True Mage, he rarely needed to conjoin his magical power with other mages. Yet another thing he had not managed to find the time for.
“Gabriel?”
Gabriel looked up to see Sema hastily disengaging her fingers from Marcus’s hand. The use of his magic-sense to follow their work must have finally alerted her to his presence. He actually found himself surprised she hadn’t detected him earlier. She usually sensed his mental signature from a distance. Her concentration on Elizabeth must have been considerable.
“Gabriel?” Marcus opened his eyes at the sound of Sema’s voice and blinked in surprise at Gabriel, frowning a bit as he released Sema’s hand.
“I was walking past and thought I would stop in.” Gabriel stepped closer to the bed, observing the flustered look on Sema’s face and the pinkish tint to Marcus’s cheeks. It wasn’t until he reached the foot of the bed that it occurred to him why they might seem so disconcerted by his sudden arrival. While they did their best to hide it, from themselves as much as everyone else, it was the worst kept secret in the fort that Sema and Marcus were in love. Teresa had, of course, pointed it out to Gabriel, who had been doing his best to remain oblivious to the glances and whispers and soft laugher the two exchanged between bantering conversations. While it was not strictly necessary for two mages joining their magic to hold hands, it had not struck Gabriel as odd to find Sema and Marcus doing so until he saw the embarrassed looks on their faces when he stepped up to Elizabeth’s bedside.
“So…” An uncomfortable heat rose to Gabriel’s cheeks as he pointedly looked away from Sema and Marcus and stared intently at Elizabeth’s slumbering face. “…Any change?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Sema stood up, smoothing the wrinkles of her pale violet tunic.
“But she’s no worse, either.” Marcus stood as well, stepping sideways to put a respectable distance between himself and Sema.
“I just wanted to check on her. I’ll leave you two…” Gabriel paused as he tried to figure out how to finish that statement. “…To continue.”
“Oh, we’re done.” Sema patted the nonexistent wrinkles of her tunic once more.
“We were just…” Marcus thrust his hands in his pockets as he seemed to consider how to complete his sentence. “No Teresa this morning?”
Gabriel frowned and sighed, glancing down as he shuffled his feet. “No. She said she needed to help Ling.”
“She’ll come around,” Marcus said, his voice reassuring.
“I’m sure she’ll see that you thought you were doing the right thing,” Sema added in a comforting tone.
“Even if you did nearly get us all killed.” Marcus laughed and Gabriel’s eyes snapped up from the floor. “It’s a joke, lad. You did what you thought was right at the time.”
“Sometimes what is right is not always evident.” Sema shot a glance at Marcus. “Or easy to act upon.”
“And sometimes you find what’s right by listening to your heart.” Marcus pulled his hands from his pockets and tightly clasped them together. “One thing you can say for Gabriel is that he has no trouble listening to his heart.”
“One needs to listen to one’s head as well as one’s heart.” Sema turned slightly toward Marcus.
“Life isn’t always about strategies and tactics.” Marcus shifted to face Sema. “Sometimes we need to worry about happiness.”
“And every potential happiness must be weighed against the possible sorrows.” Sema brushed a stray hair from her face.
“Sorrows are sometimes better lived and shared than avoided,” Marcus said.
“I’m not suggesting that…” Sema began to say.
“Yes, that’s all very good advice.” Gabriel raised his voice as he interrupted. His face had become so hot listening to Sema and Marcus that rivulets of sweat tricked down through his hair. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’ll be sure to take that all into consideration the next time I consider abandoning everyone to the Apollyons.”
“Yes, well…” Marcus licked his lips and paused.
“We’re glad we could be…” Sema blinked as she steadied her breathing. “…Of assistance.”
“We should let you get on with your visit.” Marcus began to back away toward the door.
“Yes,” Sema said, following Marcus out of the room. “We’ll see you later.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to say something in reply, but Sema and Marcus departed before he could form any words that didn’t seem like they would exacerbate the cloud of embarrassment permeating the room.
Alone with Elizabeth, he sighed, slung the sheathed Sword of Unmaking from his shoulder, and sat down in the chair next to her bed. He leaned the sword against the bedpost. It never left his side. An attack might happen at any time.
Out of habit more than hope, he opened his mind to his magic-sense and embraced the imprints of the silver pocket watch. He began to scan Elizabeth’s mind and brain with Heart-Tree and Soul Magic. He did not expect to find anything that far more skilled mages such as Sema, Marcus, and Nefferati had not. Elizabeth would be just as she had been the last time he had visited.
It had been nearly three weeks since he last sat by her bedside and stared at her unmoving features. In the days since, he and the Chimera team had traveled through time to hunt down the clues from Elizabeth’s notebook and unravel the mysteries she had hinted at in her cryptic, coded passages. Enigmas like the anchor points.
Gabriel released the imprints and leaned back in the chair, sighing once more as he let his magic-sense fade. He found the feelings in his heart slowly tumbling forth as words spoken aloud.
“I wish you could help us. Help me. I could use your advice. The council of the Council Woman. I feel things…coalescing. I can sense something close. It feels like it did back when I had dreams about the future. Back before all this started. It feels like something inevitable is about to happen. Like the tremors before a volcano erupts, or the change in air pressure before a storm.
“But I don’t know what it is. Is it the Apollyons? The Great Barrier of Probability? This is what I’ve been training for, but I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t know if I want to be ready. I’m afraid. Afraid I’ll make a mistake. A mistake that kills Teresa. A mistake that kills someone else I care about. A mistake that lets the Apollyons win. Or a mistake that destroys the Primary Continuum.
“Everyone has advice, but I don’t know if they are right or wrong. It’s not like anyone can give me advice on something that’s never happened before. Or on how to be someone who has never existed. I feel like one of those explorers who set out to sail the ocean without knowing where they were headed or what they might find. Maybe what I need is a compass. I suppose that’s what Akikane and Ohin and Nefferati and everyone else are trying to give me with all their advice and training. An internal compass. Maybe I need to find true north.
“Maybe Teresa can be my true north.”
Gabriel sat, watching the gentle rise and fall of Elizabeth’s chest as she dreamed whatever deep and inescapable dream that occupied her slumber. He let his mind wander back through the thoughts he had uttered aloud, circling through the probabilities and potentialities of his future, trying to bring the unfocused, nameless sentiments into some kind of clarity
.
After half an hour, he had obtained no more insight than when he sat down. With a deep sigh, he resigned himself to the fact that he would need to wait for whatever the future held to be revealed before he decided how to react to it.
He stood up and leaned over the bed, resting his lips briefly on Elizabeth’s forehead.
“Thank you for listening.”
Gabriel grabbed the Sword of Unmaking and left the infirmary. He walked to the Council Hall, a medium-sized log building at the western end of the fort. The Council Hall acted as a meeting place for Council-related governing business, as well as the place where Akikane conducted work and trained his students. Akikane and Nefferati had taken joint leadership positions on the Council. As a precaution against a catastrophic attack, like the one that had destroyed the Council’s Windsor Castle, Nefferati, Akikane, and all of the surviving council members each took responsibility for governing one of the twelve forts. As the largest of the outposts, Fort Aurelius acted as the de facto seat of power for the Council, and most of the meetings were held in the Council Hall.
Between missions, Gabriel and Akikane resumed their daily lessons — training in meditation, mastering the sword, and the use of multiple magics. Gabriel stepped into the Council Hall and found it empty. Akikane usually cleared the room for training, but tables and chairs were still scattered, as though a meeting had been interrupted.
Gabriel suspected where Akikane would be. Whenever his mentor had in mind a more dangerous magic for the lesson plan, he and Gabriel retreated to a field far outside the fortress walls to guarantee they would not accidentally destroy anything or injure anyone.
Gabriel grasped the imprints of the sword across his back and twisted the fabric of space-time slightly, transporting himself to the middle of the familiar meadow, several hundred yards from the fort.
He found Akikane sitting in the tall grass of the field, meditating. As Akikane opened his eyes and stood up, Gabriel released the imprints of the sword and walked toward his mentor.
“Good, good.” Akikane smiled as he strode through the knee-high vegetation. “You are on time.”
“I’m not always late.” Gabriel joined Akikane in a clearing where the grass had been matted down in a large circle.
“No, no,” Akikane said. “Only when you are arguing with Teresa.”
“Does the whole fort know we’re fighting?” Gabriel unslung the Sword of Unmaking from his back and placed it in the grass beside two wooden boken practice swords.
“Perhaps, perhaps,” Akikane said, standing in the center of the circle. “All things travel quickly in a small space, especially gossip.”
Gabriel sighed and removed the pouch of concatenate crystals from his waist, placing it beside the Sword of Unmaking. He frowned at his sigh, realizing how often he seemed to be sighing lately. He needed to find a less annoying expression of his frustration. Sighing in front of Akikane only made him feel ridiculous again.
“What’s the lesson today?” Gabriel smiled, trying to force himself into a better mood as he joined Akikane in the center of the clearing. As he did so, he discerned something. It was not that he saw or heard anything to attract his attention, but he perceived his body leaning forward ever so slightly, as though edging away from something unseen.
“Good question, good question.” Akikane’s smile seemed both radiant and mischievous. “Today I have a surprise for you.”
Gabriel had learned to appreciate Akikane’s surprises, especially when his mentor’s smile seemed like it might take flight from his face and burst into the sky in an attempt to replace the sun. His magic-sense tingled slightly. Following some instinct too swift for conscious thought, he dropped to the ground and rolled away, reaching out his hand as he grasped the imprints of the pocket watch still in his pants. As he leapt to his feet, one of the wooden boken swords flew to his fingers in a cradle of Wind Magic. He brought the edge of the sword up before his head as he spun around, the crack of wood against wood ringing through the still air of the clearing, the impact vibrating down through his arm.
Gabriel jumped back, grasping the sword handle with both hands and turning slightly to discern the location of his invisible attacker. His magic-sense prickled again as the air shimmered to reveal Nefferati standing before him, a wooden sword in one hand and a steely glint in her eyes.
“You’re right.” Nefferati glanced briefly at Akikane. “He is getting good.”
“Hello?” Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say as a greeting to Nefferati after her unexpected attack. He hadn’t seen the ancient True Mage since before he had left to find the anchor points. Now she had appeared from behind an invisible shield of Wind Magic to swing a wooden sword at his head.
“Akikane and I have been speaking.” Nefferati turned her full attention to Gabriel. “We may find ourselves in total agreement for the first time in decades.”
“That’s good. I suppose.” Gabriel did not take his eyes from Nefferati’s sword.
“Before we discuss it with you, I wanted to see how your training has been progressing.” Nefferati smiled and lowered her sword. “It seems to be going well, indeed.”
“Thank you.” Gabriel returned Nefferati’s smile and let his sword fall to his side. Only as the wooded blade reached the nadir of its downward arc did he realize his mistake.
Nefferati’s blade whipped out toward Gabriel’s head. He stumbled backward, raising his sword and trying to regain his feet to fend off her next attack. It came swiftly after the first, a thrust toward his stomach. Gabriel parried the strike and each that followed. Nefferati held her sword in one hand, her body turned slightly sideways like a fencer. Gabriel found himself surprised at how much force her arm put behind each blow and how quickly she delivered them.
Nefferati jumped through space once, attacked, jumped again, her blade whirling around Gabriel, striking at him from every angle. He had upended a wasp’s nest, Nefferati’s sword a massive stinger seeking to pierce his flesh. He repelled her attacks, holding his ground and using his Time Magic not to bend space-time and leap away, but instead turn instantly in one spot as he deflected the impacts of her blade.
Nefferati’s Wind Magic pressed suddenly against his chest, blasting him across the clearing toward a clump of nearby trees. Gabriel warped space-time around himself just before striking a tree trunk, appearing a moment later behind Nefferati, the momentum of her magical push still affecting his body as he spun around and swung his sword toward her side. He realized as he followed the trajectory of the blade that this would be his first offensive move since Nefferati had engaged him. So far, he had only defended against her attacks. Now she would need to defend against his. She turned at the last second, leaning away from his blade and knocking him back with another gravity-filled burst of Wind Magic.
Gabriel hit the ground, letting himself roll into the high grass and out of sight before jumping through space to hang upside down in the air above Nefferati and attack her from overhead. She jumped through space as Gabriel’s blade swung through the air where her head had been.
As Nefferati appeared ten feet away, Gabriel reached out with Earth Magic, making the ground beneath her explode. As she again jumped through space, Gabriel began his own similar short journey, straining his space-time sense to intuit the end point of her transit. As his space-time sense flared, he split his Time Magic to warp space in two distinct directions at once. He appeared at the same time in the same place as Nefferati, his sword extended, the tip of the wooden blade hovering just beneath her chin.
“Hmmm.” Nefferati frowned. “I didn’t sense that movement.”
“I sent my shoes over there as a distraction.” Gabriel nodded to where his shoes sat in the dry grass.
Nefferati looked down a Gabriel’s bare feet and laughed. “You’re getting to be as devious as our smiling friend. However, I think he has another lesson for you.”
The grass beneath Gabriel’s feet burst into flame. He yelped and hopped back just in time to dodge a
wooden sword blade heading toward his arm. Gabriel had no time to reflect upon the minor pain flaring across the soles of his feet. The multiple sword strikes from both Akikane and Nefferati demanded the entirety of his attention.
He tried leaping through space to escape the onslaught of their blades, but as he did so, a space-time seal locked in place around him. Ducking a swing from Nefferati and parrying a thrust from Akikane, Gabriel used Wind Magic to launch himself into the air. As he rose to the level of the treetops, the combined Wind Magic of his two instructors sought to pull him back to the ground.
As his blistered feet touched the matted grass of the clearing, Akikane and Nefferati appeared on either side of him, pressing their joint attack. Gabriel formed a mental sword of Fire and Wind Magic, wielding it with his left hand to keep Nefferati at bay while he fended off Akikane’s blindingly fast strikes with the wooden sword in his right hand. It took only seconds for a wooden blade to find his ribs. A moment later, another blow caught his right arm, the boken falling to the ground. A blow struck his leg before another punched into his stomach. He let the magical sword of fire evaporate and created a shield of Wind Magic around himself to repel any more attacks.
Akikane and Nefferati both leveled their swords at Gabriel. He clutched at his stomach, wheezing as he fought to catch his breath.
“Good, good.” Akikane’s brilliant grin almost made Gabriel forget the pain of his burnt feet, aching arm, and tender stomach. He didn’t spend any time worrying about his injuries. A practice session with magical combat inevitably led to burns and bruises, and often much worse, all of which could be healed with the application of Heart-Tree Magic. Besides, the damage he had suffered in Kumaradevi’s training arena made everything thereafter seem like a mild inconvenience.
“What lesson have you learned today?” Akikane lowered his sword and Nefferati followed suit.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 62