“Neither did I until I walked up beside you.” Teresa squeezed his hand tightly as the bride and groom joined Akikane at the edge of the square. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.” Gabriel looked into Teresa’s eyes and then kissed her. As he closed his eyes for the kiss, Teresa embraced the imprints of her talisman bracelet and his scalp grew warm. She ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair.
“Better not.” Teresa stared into his eyes and Gabriel felt as though he had taken some oath without quite reciting the words.
“Quiet, quiet.” Akikane’s voice boomed from the head of the crowd. “We gather here this day to unite two people in love and life.”
Gabriel turned his attention from Teresa to the wedding, watching it unfold as the tension in his back and stomach gradually faded away. All the discomfort carried from his argument with Teresa seemed to evaporate. He sighed and smiled at himself, knowing it to be an expression of contentment rather than exasperation.
The bride and groom, Helga and Jin, seemed blissful and nervous at the same time. They held hands and stared into each other’s beatific faces as Akikane guided them through the ceremony. Leah and Liam stood to either side of them, smiling so widely it seemed they might burst from happiness as they craned their necks back to look up at the adults.
Helga and Jin, both Earth Mages, had fallen in love while taking shifts together caring for the youngest orphans from the destruction of the castle. As their hearts had opened to embrace each other, so too had they expanded to encompass Leah and Liam. The ceremony Akikane led would not merely bind them together as wife and husband, but also make official their decision to adopt the two children into their lives.
Gabriel’s throat tightened and his eyes misted as he watched Leah and Liam. He still felt a pang of guilt now and then when he saw them, knowing he had promised, yet failed, to save their parents from the Dark Mages who had attacked the castle. They had never blamed him, though. For weeks afterward, the two children had refused to be separated from Gabriel and Teresa. Even Sema and Marcus had been unable to console them. It took Helga and Jin to make the two orphans feel safe again. And loved.
Gabriel reached up and wiped a tear from his eye.
“That’s why I forgave you.” Teresa’s voice drew his eyes to hers, where he found similar tears. “You can’t help being you.”
“Sorry.”
“Just try to be a little less you when it comes to me.”
“I may need better instructions than that.”
“I’ll put them in writing for you.”
“That would be best. As long as they’re not encoded in ancient Indus, I might have a shot at figuring them out.”
Teresa laughed and then turned back to enjoy the conclusion of the ceremony.
Minutes later, Helga and Jin kissed and embraced, reaching down to pull Leah and Liam up into their arms and into their first hugs as an official family. Gabriel kissed Teresa again as they joined the receiving line, giving their best wishes to Helga and Jin before hugging and tickling and teasing Leah and Liam while the children giggled.
“We’re so happy for you.” Teresa adjusted Leah’s flyaway red mane.
“Yes.” Gabriel smoothed the wrinkles of Liam’s small tunic.
“We’re happy, too.” Leah beamed with excitement.
“We have a new mommy and daddy.” Liam glanced at Helga and Jin before turning back to Teresa and Gabriel. “And you can be our new aunt and uncle.”
“That’s exactly what we’ll be.” Gabriel hugged Liam again.
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Leah seemed suddenly concerned. “You’re always on missions.”
“And missions are dangerous,” Liam added with a slight pout.
“We’ll take care of each other.” Gabriel smiled to reassure the children’s fears. They’d lost enough people in their lives during the last year.
“We’ll stick together and guard each other’s backs.” Teresa grinned warmly and threw her arm around Gabriel.
“Promise?” Liam asked.
“Promise,” Gabriel and Teresa said together.
“Good,” Leah said, her face brightening again.
As Teresa and Gabriel wandered away to enjoy the post-wedding meal set up on rows of long tables at the north side of the square, she turned to him.
“I’m going to hold you to that promise.”
“Oh, I know.” Gabriel stifled a sigh and replaced it with a grin as he tightened his grip on Teresa’s hand.
Sometime after sunset, the two of them sat with the rest of the team at a table littered with the remnants of a Spartan, but varied and delicious, meal. Nearby, a trio of musician mages played a lively Cuban contradanza on violin, oboe, and sitar as couples danced around them in a clearing between the tables. To the surprise of Gabriel and the rest of the Chimera team, Paramata had joined them for the duration of the meal, only recently having excused herself to speak with a fellow member of her own team. Ohin seemed to smile more times during the course of the meal than he had in the past month. With Paramata’s departure from the table, the seriousness of Ohin’s natural disposition reasserted itself and the conversation returned to familiar ground.
“But how far back can they go if there are only a hundred and eight of them?” Marcus took a sip from his glass. He frowned reflexively, as he had every time that evening when taking a drink from the glass filled with cider rather than his customary wine.
“In her notebook, Elizabeth said that she thought they might go back as far as the birth of the planet.” Gabriel played with his fork, poking at a piece of cake that had somehow escaped his voracious consumption during the meal.
“Then there must be more than a hundred and a handful.” Ling leaned back in her chair, stretching her long legs under the table.
“I think they may be spaced geometrically.” Teresa placed her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands as she ruminated out loud. “There may be a pattern to their placement. Possibly getting farther apart as they go back in time. If we can find enough of them, I might be able to work out an equation that will tell us when and where to look for the whole string of them.”
“How many would we need to find for you to come up with this equation?” Ohin stroked his chin as he peered through the candlelight illuminating the table.
“I don’t know,” Teresa said. “Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. The more data points I have the more accurately I can define the constraints of the equation.”
“Even if we know where all the anchor points are, it still doesn’t explain how we can save the Barrier.” Rajan stared at the book on the table beside him as though its cover might somehow provide the answers. Only Rajan would bring a book to a wedding party. “If it took Grace and Malignant magic to create, it might require both magics save it.”
“Rajan has a point.” Sema folded her hands in her lap. “If the Apollyons find the anchor points and start attacking them, we have no means to repair them.”
“We have Gabriel.” Marcus looked across the table to Gabriel.
“One mage who can use tainted imprints may not be enough,” Ling said.
“Assuming we can figure out how to repair an anchor point in the first place.” Gabriel realized now what he suspected to be the real intent behind Akikane and Nefferati’s plan to ally with Kumaradevi. They would need a small army of Malignancy Mages to help repair the anchor points from an attack by the Apollyons. Another notion occurred to him, as well.
“There’s always Vicaquirao.”
“I’d sooner trust a rabid dog to guard me in my sleep,” Marcus said with a snort of derision.
“He’s been helpful in the past,” Gabriel countered. “And he does seem to want the Great Barrier of Probability to remain intact.”
“Simply because our goals may coincide on a few points of mutual security does not mean we can trust him on the whole.” Ohin sighed. “Vicaquirao’s motives are his own and as difficult to predict as the weather.”
<
br /> “Gabriel may be right,” Teresa said. “We don’t have to trust Vicaquirao to use him.”
“More likely it would be he who was using us,” Rajan said.
Unfortunately, Gabriel had to agree with this assessment. Vicaquirao might have helped them in the past, but that did not mean they could entrust the future of the Primary Continuum to him. But wasn’t that, in part, what Akikane and Nefferati were suggesting to do in an alliance with Kumaradevi? Between the two, Gabriel knew which one he would place more faith in. But that faith would be a slender bulwark against an army of doubled Apollyons.
“We’re assuming it requires only one form of magic to destroy an anchor point.” Neither Ohin’s voice nor tone reflected the optimism of his statement.
“The Apollyons could always capture Grace Time Mages and use Soul Magic to control their minds.” Sema’s face tightened with her words.
“So the real question is, how do we stop the Apollyons before they have a chance to find the anchor points?” Teresa said.
“And how quickly can we do so?” Rajan said. “They must have enough copies already. They can only be waiting because they don’t know how to destroy the Barrier yet.”
“And hopefully they will not have gained any clues from their last attack near the Great Wall of China,” Ling said.
“Hopefully,” Ohin said. He didn’t sound hopeful.
A silence fell over the table, each person contemplating the possibilities and hazards that confronted them. Gabriel wished he could say something about Akikane and Nefferati’s plan. There seemed to be no good options available. Embracing, even at arm’s length, a viper like Kumaradevi could lead as easily to a poisoned bite as to the successful defeat of the Apollyons. And the embrace of Vicaquirao as an ally seemed even more unpredictable. Kumaradevi wanted power, and the more she had, the more she wanted. Vicaquirao had said that he wanted to be left alone, but his interference with Gabriel’s life on repeated occasions seemed to reveal other desires. However, he had also saved Gabriel’s life more than once. It would be hard to imagine Kumaradevi doing the same.
Gabriel slouched in his chair, his hand absentmindedly resting on Teresa’s knee as his mind wandered from one woebegone thought to the next. Nearly a year after the destruction of their Windsor Castle, they still had no real plan for defeating the Apollyons. Akikane and Nefferati’s suggestion of an alliance with Kumaradevi provided the muscle that might be needed to stop the Apollyons, but not the strategy. The Council didn’t know where the Dark Mages were, and had been unable to track any of them down. The attack by the Apollyons near the Great Wall of China had been their first encounter with them since the attack at the house in Maine at the edge of the Great Barrier.
Remembering that house brought Aurelius to mind, and Gabriel wondered if the former Roman Emperor would have had any words of guidance for him and the Council in how to prosecute this particular battle in the War of Time and Magic. The only real strategy Gabriel could envision would be luring the Apollyons into a trap. However, the bait for such a trap would need to be sufficiently tempting to entice even a handful of the Apollyons out into the open. And he knew what that bait would need to be — The Seventh True Mage. However, given his promise to Teresa only moments ago, he didn’t see how he could put himself forward as bait for an ambush when Teresa would want to be at his side.
As though sensing the direction of the thoughts ricocheting through his mind, Teresa placed her hand upon his, where it rested on her knee. Her touch brought him back from his mental meanderings and to the silence still suffusing the table. Gabriel noticed Ling staring at Rajan as he gazed again at the cover of the book sitting next to his glass. Gabriel could just make out the words on the spine of the book in the flickering candlelight: Stendhal — De L'Amour.
“You should spend less time with that book and more time dancing with Imelda.” Ling gestured with her head to where a lovely young woman in a flowery, yellow dress in with a Victorian cut sat at an adjacent table. Imelda watched dejectedly as couples danced around her.
“That’s…” Rajan looked flustered as he searched for words. “…Off topic.”
“You’ll catch more women with footwork than philosophy.” Ling grinned, enjoying Rajan’s sudden embarrassment.
“She has a point, lad.” Marcus laughed and took a gulp from his glass, looking like he might spit it out as his tongue realized the drink held no alcoholic content. He coughed, and Sema smiled bashfully at his side.
“They both have a point.” Teresa turned her eyes skyward, as though speaking to no one in particular. “A bright boy would ask the pretty girl to dance.”
“What?” Gabriel looked at Teresa, then around the table, and then to the nearby couples dancing to the soft music. He always felt like a hobbled ox in a chorus line when trying to dance, but it would be an opportunity to hold Teresa close, even if he would need to pay more attention to keeping his feet from crushing her toes than to the smell of her hair. He gave Teresa his most confident smile. “Hey, would you maybe like to dance?”
“See, a bright boy.” Teresa stood and took Gabriel’s hand. “I would love to.”
“Now see how easy that was?” Ling punched Rajan in the arm.
“I…” Rajan glowered at Ling, then sighed and stood. “Fine.” He shook his head and wandered toward the table where Imelda sat.
As Gabriel and Teresa walked toward the music, he heard Sema’s voice behind him.
“It is a lovely night for a dance.”
“Ah, well then, would you do me the honor?” Marcus requested.
Gabriel and Teresa found a spot not too far from the musicians but which offered some small amount of privacy. As they held each other close and swayed to the gentle rhythm of the music, Teresa placed her head on his shoulder and Gabriel forgot all about where his feet needed to be. It occurred to him that dancing and swordplay had a great deal in common — if you didn’t think about it too much, your body would know what to do.
Across the crowd, he caught glimpses of Rajan and Imelda dancing near Sema and Marcus. He saw Ohin and Paramata talking near the dessert table. Ling, he noticed, had disappeared from the party. He started to wonder where she had gone, but instead closed his eyes, held Teresa tightly, and forgot all about the cares of his life. No Apollyons. No Kumaradevi. No Vicaquirao. No Great Barrier of Probability. No Council of Magic. No War. No Seventh True Mage. Only him and Teresa, entwined and twirling slowly beneath the stars.
Much later that night, after more dancing, and a bit of surreptitious kissing behind the concealing leaves of a small tree, Gabriel walked Teresa back to her room and said goodnight. They held each other for a long moment.
“Don’t forget your promise again,” Teresa whispered in his ear.
“I won’t.” Gabriel kissed her and smiled as she closed the door to her room.
He walked to his own quarters, two barracks away. As he entered his room, he used a tiny spark of Fire Magic to light a lamp on a table near the window. On the table sat a small, wood-framed chalkboard, propped up against a stack of books.
Gabriel stopped and embraced the imprints of the pocket watch, looking around the room. A frigid wind seemed to dance along his neck at the sight of the chalkboard and the words scrawled across its black surface. Gabriel had never seen the chalkboard before, but he knew who had placed it there. He stepped closer, reading the message again.
“We must meet about an urgent matter. V.”
Chapter 6
An oven-dry wind blew a small cloud of sand around Gabriel’s face. He brushed the dust from his eyes and pulled the edge of his keffiyeh tighter to his nose and mouth. Heat radiated up from the dune he lay upon to scorch his stomach through the thick cotton fabric of the desert thobe he wore even as the harsh sunlight from above baked his backside. He adjusted the focus on his binoculars and scanned the sand-swept horizon again.
He saw the white canvas of a house-sized tent flapping gently in the wind. The tent stood a mile away. Behind it sat
the nearly completed limestone structure of Great Pyramid of Giza, scaffolding surrounding the base of the construction site as workers climbed over it like ants swarming the body of a fallen beast.
Teresa sprawled beside Gabriel in the sand, a pair of binoculars held to her eyes. The rest of the team flanked them, with Nefferati and Akikane taking the outermost positions. They hid behind a sand dune in the desert of ancient Egypt in the year 2535 BCE because of the message Gabriel had received on the chalkboard two days prior.
Gabriel had overcome his initial apprehension and natural suspicion at the presence of the chalkboard in his room to investigate it before bringing it to the attention of Ohin and the rest of the team. He spent several minutes probing the chalkboard with his magic and space-time sense to discern whether any spells booby-trapped the antique childhood learning aid. He discovered magical properties present in the chalkboard, but not the ones he anticipated. The magic imbuing the chalkboard did not turn it into a weapon, but rather a means of communication. Gabriel’s magic-sense reveled a weaving of Time Magic on the chalkboard, similar to the one used to enchant the teacups and other items that allowed the Council to communicate through space and time. Much like the original teacup Elizabeth had found in her study back in Windsor Castle that allowed people to listen to conversations through a twinned version of the cup elsewhere, the chalkboard did something similar.
Curiosity and a deep appreciation for the subtly of the magic used drove Gabriel to pick up the chalkboard and wipe it clean with a sock from his floor. He rummaged through his desk until he found an old piece of yellow chalk and then wrote a message on the black slate of the board.
“How do I know who you are?”
A moment later, as Gabriel watched, his words slowly faded from the board, rubbed away by an invisible hand. A new missive took form, lines making letters that became words to create a single sentence.
“You are finally learning.”
Seconds later more words appeared.
“I cooked your favorite meal the first time we met.”
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 64