“Event to port in ten…nine…eight…” Gabriel said, checking the map and reaching out with his space-time sense as he followed the ticking of the pocket watch.
“Hard to starboard,” Vicaquirao said as he pulled at the tiller.
“Hard to starboard!” Teresa yelled, seeming to enjoy their dangerous slalom through the embattled ships as much as Gabriel. No wonder he loved her.
Ohin shouted out orders, and the galley banked to starboard just in time to miss colliding with another ship that abruptly shifted course. Moments later, they pulled hard to starboard again before straightening out and then coming to a dead stop while a cannon ball whizzed off the forecastle where Cyril and Cassius still stood. They used hand signals to relay information on obstacles ahead to Vicaquirao on the sterncastle. Gabriel did not recognize all of the signals, but some were universal. Such as the wild gestures to indicate a capsized ship invisible to anyone at the aft of the galley.
With each near miss, Gabriel began to feel both a confidence and a grave concern growing and struggling in his chest like the two sides of the sea battle around him. The closer they came to their ultimate destination the better the crew became at issuing and executing the orders that would prevent their galley from entering the war and potentially altering the timeline of history. However, with every avoided incident, they came closer and closer to the heart of the battle, and the events they were trying to avoid fell nearer and nearer together. Orders to halt chased commands to turn to starboard, with orders to row full ahead coming right afterward, followed again by instructions to pull hard to port.
The sweat of tension and anticipation soaked Gabriel’s face and back, but he had no time to wipe his brow as droplets of perspiration stained the map and he called out timings. His mind ached from extending his space-time sense farther and longer than ever before. Even with Nefferati helping do the same, and Vicaquirao manning the tiller as he too scanned for events he might not have noticed when he created his map, they were always seconds from an encounter that might destroy them or alert the Apollyons to their presence.
Through the joint efforts of their commands, the galley swung to starboard as a hail of arrows flew overhead. Screams rose up from the deck below, voices overwhelmed by the proximity the war cries, cracking hulls, and cannon fire of the battle on all sides. The galley wavered as the starboard oars fell still in the water.
Gabriel looked over the sterncastle railing to see that at least half of the Grace Mages at the oars had been struck by stray arrows. He recognized one face, clenched tight in agony. Rajan grasped at the arrow shaft sticking from his chest as he screamed.
Gabriel simultaneously forced his mind back to the map and outward in time and space.
“Event dead ahead in five…four…three…” Gabriel shouted.
“Hard to port, hard to port!” Vicaquirao roared above the clamor of war as he yanked against the tiller.
Teresa relayed his words to Ohin who managed to get the port oars dropped and held at the last second.
“This is too close,” Nefferati shouted. “The events are too close together.”
“We can recover,” Vicaquirao insisted, his face a mask of passionate self-control. “We are too near our goal to waver now.”
“I’ll tend to the wounded.” Nefferati growled her words, a wave of anger emanating from her. Gabriel could not distinguish whether Vicaquirao, or the battle, or even herself, might be the cause.
“Make sure there is no magic,” Vicaquirao called out to Nefferati as she descended the steps to the main deck. “And get those starboard oars back in the water.”
“Event to port in nine…eight…seven…” Gabriel’s hand clutched the pocket watch so hard he thought he might break it.
“Hard to starboard,” Vicaquirao said, Teresa’s repeated words blending into one statement as she shouted to Ohin and the crew.
Gabriel saw Ohin, Akikane at his side, pulling at one of the starboard oars while shouting instructions. Nefferati knelt beside a wounded mage, an arrow in the woman’s shoulder. Rajan lay on the deck, unmoving, Marcus at his side, pressing on the wound around an arrow shaft.
A thunderous crack crashed upon Gabriel’s ears, and splinters of wood showered down around him. He looked up to see the top of the center mast falling into the sea, timber shards and rope and rigging cascading over the port side crew manning the oars. The stray cannon ball left little of the mast still standing.
Gabriel’s space-time sense rang in his head louder than the cracking mast or the clanging battle that engulfed them. The map listed six more events, each too close for a successful reaction. They could not recover fast enough from their near-misses. Each mistake set them off schedule and nearer to colliding with an event, whether another ship or a cannon ball or a hail of fire-tipped arrows.
Gabriel could feel something else, as well — the space-time bubble surrounding the Apollyons’ ship. He could sense it like a beacon shining through thick fog, intermittently revealing its position as they approached it. The bubble was in the future but not distant. And not far across the water, either.
“The next event.” Vicaquirao’s eyes, wild and fervent, locked on Gabriel. “When is the next event?”
Gabriel knew when the event would happen and that it would occur too soon for them to avoid completely. And the incident after it would transpire even sooner. Gabriel felt his insides burn like he had swallowed boiling acid as he realized they could not follow Vicaquirao’s map. Not anymore. Their very presence was presenting opportunities of target for the ships on either side. If they were not careful they would become part of the battle. If they followed the map it would lead them to their deaths.
Gabriel looked up from the map, walking away from it as he lurched toward the forward railing of the sterncastle to stand beside Teresa.
“Gabriel.” Vicaquirao’s voice rang through the acrid air.
“What’s wrong?” Teresa shouted from beside him.
Gabriel didn’t respond. He slipped the pocket watch into his pants and grasped the railing with both hands, pushing his space-time sense in every direction and into every moment, decelerating the events around him like a slow-motion film. He needed a new map. A new path through the clashing ships to reach the Apollyons’ space-time bubble. One they could survive.
Gabriel held his breath, and in the absence of air recognized a familiar sensation in a discordant form. He had honed his space-time sense with Ohin while training, but had always noticed that his best results in applying that special perception came when practicing the sword with Akikane. The sword and the senses and the mind needed to unify in each moment of battle to truly be effective. Gabriel sailed now into battle and he needed to make the galley he stood upon his sword. He might not be able to think his way through the events of the battle the way Vicaquirao had done, but he could fight his way across the battle and around the probable events just as he had fought Akikane and Nefferati in the field outside Fort Aurelius. He only hoped the result proved more favorable.
“Hard to port,” Gabriel yelled.
“But the…” Vicaquirao began to respond.
“Hard to port,” Gabriel shouted again, glancing over his shoulder, knowing his eyes where fierce like a mad man’s as he stared at Vicaquirao. “The map is useless now. Hard to port.”
Vicaquirao’s jaw tightened in what could have been either concern or admiration as he shoved the tiller to the right.
Gabriel turned back to the bow as two cannon balls seared the air where the sterncastle deck had been moments before.
“I have complete faith in you,” Teresa said, her voice panicked as she placed her hand on Gabriel’s and squeezed it tight.
“Steady on for three seconds, then pull to starboard thirty degrees!” Gabriel shouted to the crew. He barely felt Teresa’s fingers holding his own, but the sentiment of her words filled him with confidence as he probed the surrounding battle with his space-time sense. “Pull to starboard now!”
The galley eased past th
e prow of a sinking ship thrusting out of the sea as its aft section filled with water.
“Starboard again twenty degrees.” Gabriel’s voice strained to rise over the roaring wall of war sounds filling the air, but Vicaquirao and the crew heard and obeyed.
“Steady on for five seconds and then hard to port!” Gabriel shouted.
A storm of flaming arrows stuck the side of the galley, but none reached the crew on the decks.
“Steady on for four seconds and then hard again to port!” Gabriel’s voice felt raw as much from yelling as from the emotions he struggled to keep in check. He needed his head clear to see the path through the battle. The space-time bubble around the Apollyons’ ship would appear at any moment.
“The bubble is close,” Vicaquirao said.
“I know,” Gabriel said. “Hard to port.”
The galley pulled to the portside as a cannon blast from a ship three feet away covered Gabriel and the crew in smoking debris.
“The teams need to be ready,” Vicaquirao said.
“I said, I know. Tiller to port! Port oars down! Starboard full! Starboard full! Tiller steady ahead. Full Stop! Ohin! The time seal and bubble need to happen now. Be ready to board in five…four…three…two…there’s the ship!”
As though materializing out of a distorted mirage of the air, the Apollyons’ vessel, a long Spanish galley without oars or sails, appeared right beside the Grace Mages’ ship.
Gabriel felt Ohin and a group of five other Time Mages join and blend their magic to impose their own space-time bubble, combined with a space-time seal, around the barrier keeping the Apollyons’ ship from entering the Primary Continuum. Even as the space-time bubble and seal expanded to encompass the other galley, Cyril and Cassius threw grappling lines over the railing of the Apollyons’ ship, pulling the two vessels closer together.
Gabriel could see Marcus removing the arrow from an unconscious Rajan and placing his hands across the bleeding wound. He felt the healing Heart-Tree Magic even from fifty feet away. Elsewhere, Heart-Tree Mages healed the other wounded as best they could.
“That was the second most impressive thing you ever done.” Teresa beamed at him as Nefferati and Akikane led the Grace Mage teams below in boarding the Apollyons’ vessel.
Gabriel let out a long breath. He had managed to accomplish the impossible, but he knew his success opened the door for even more danger as the Apollyons awoke to the assault leveled at their ship.
“Thanks. What was the first?” Gabriel wanted to kiss her, but a battle offered little respite for romance.
“You haven’t done the most impressive thing yet.” Teresa smiled mysteriously.
“You guided us through without a map,” Vicaquirao’s voice sounded both proud and possibly envious. “I don’t know that I could have done that even if I had thought to abandon the charts.”
“It was the only way I could of think to get us here.” Gabriel could not untangle the oddly enjoyable feeling of both pleasing and outsmarting Vicaquirao. It created a peculiar dissonance to realize he had done something to impress the Dark Mage, even if he did not fully trust the man.
“Now that we are here, there is more work to do.” Vicaquirao’s eyes shifted from Gabriel to the Apollyons’ ship.
Men in black began to pour out of the lower decks. Gabriel did not need to count the men to know that there were more than the seven Vicaquirao and the Grace Mages had expected. Far more than seven.
“And more work than we were told to expect.” Teresa glared at Vicaquirao as her hands filled with arcs of blue-white lightning.
Gabriel grasped the imprints of the pocket watch and the Sword of Unmaking. He embraced the imprints of the concatenate crystals in his pouch as well, but the link to their sources felt weak, like tendrils of smoke caught in a stiff wind. The interference of the dual space-time bubbles distorted their connections to their imprints.
“Let’s hope the second part of the plan works better than the first.” Gabriel glanced toward Vicaquirao.
“Plans are meant to be revised.” Vicaquirao seemed on the verge of smiling again. “As you just reminded us so well.”
“Time for some more revising, then.” Gabriel threw his arm around Teresa’s waist and drew the Sword of Unmaking from the sheath across his back. He wrapped himself and Teresa in a wave of Wind Magic and carried them into the air and over the railing of the Apollyons’ ship, into the midst of yet another battle.
Chapter 9
A furnace-like inferno of wind and fire whirled around the forecastle deck of the Apollyons’ Spanish galley. Gabriel ignored the flames lapping at his body as Teresa and Ling countered the dark magic of the lone Apollyon the Chimera team had cornered. Gabriel concentrated on blending Heart-Tree and Soul Magic and attempting to sever the Apollyon’s psychic link with his brethren. He focused his thoughts on the magic at his command and on pressing beyond the Apollyon’s mental defenses as he assaulted the man’s mind.
The Apollyon cried out as Ling, Rajan, Sema, and Marcus continued their various magical assaults in an effort to distract him. The Apollyons had obviously practiced how to protect themselves from the severing magic Gabriel had discovered at the Battle of the Somme. Other Apollyons sent magical energy through the link to defend it even as Gabriel tried to dissolve the connection. It felt like trying to cut down a tree whose trunk grew thicker with each swing of the axe.
Gabriel hovered at the precipice of the Apollyon’s mental wall. Another second and the Apollyon would be a whole individual again. Still dangerous, undoubtedly still an enemy, but able to freely choose his own actions.
The air around Gabriel exploded in a ball of sinuous lightning, wrapping around him and the rest of his team even as an invisible hammer of gravity smashed down upon them.
Gabriel released his attack on the Apollyon, shifting his magical energy to help Ling and Teresa mount a defense against the Dark Wind and Fire magic suddenly assailing them. The wooden deck beneath Gabriel’s feet turned to ash, and he plummeted into the darkness of the hold.
As Gabriel crashed into the galley’s curved inner hull, one of the ship’s deck cannons fell nearby, cracking the wooden planks. He saw that two other Apollyons had joined the one he and his team had been fighting. The Dark Mages assisted the first Apollyon in a simultaneous assault of multiple deadly magical attacks — hurling Soul Magic curses on Gabriel’s mind as Heart-Tree magic assailed his flesh and flames combined with an invisible force attempting to causing the atoms of his bodies to fly apart.
Gabriel struggled to his feet as he fought off the attacks, pulling Teresa up as he pointed the tip of the Sword of Unmaking at the nearest Apollyon, preparing to use Wind Magic to send the blade flying through the air. Before he could do so, Ling’s Wind Magic enveloped him and his companions, yanking them through the air and into the darkness of the galley hold. As they flew between the thick wooden beams supporting the decks above, an explosion rocked the ship from the bow, dust and flame filling the spot where the Apollyons had been. A team of Grace Mages had attacked the Apollyons on the upper deck.
“Some light would be good!” Ling shouted as she violently altered their course through the air to avoid striking a support beam.
“Got it.” Teresa held out her hand as three small balls of milky-white light appeared beside her.
Ling guided the mass of dangling limbs to a clear spot beneath the shallow hold, near a ladder leading to the aft deck of the galley. Gabriel ducked in the cramped space, looking around, expecting an attack from every direction.
“There are too many of them.” Marcus pulled Sema to her feet.
“And it is taking too long to sever their connections to each other.” Sema pushed her fallen hair from her eyes.
“We need to get back above deck and help the fight.” Rajan stared up through the hatch to the battle raging above them.
“We need a plan.” Ling looked along the length of the hold as though expecting the Apollyons they had fled to follow them.
> “No, we need a bigger army.” Teresa wiped sweat and soot from her eyes.
“We don’t need a bigger army. We need to make theirs smaller.” Gabriel stared at the decks above the hold, reaching out with his magic-sense, trying to discriminate between which magics were being cast in what direction. More importantly, he strained to determine which magical attacks had their origins in malignant imprints.
“There.” Gabriel pointed upward with the Sword of Unmaking to a spot in the deck boards. “There are two of them up there. Rajan, you take out the deck beneath their feet. I’ll pull them down. Ling, you hammer their heads with Wind Magic. Marcus and Sema, you need to combine your magic and knock them out before they can fight back. I’ll help.”
“What about me?” Teresa looked upset that Gabriel hadn’t assigned her a role in his strategy.
“We’re going to need some smoke to cover their disappearance,” Gabriel said. “When Rajan turns the deck to dust, you light the hole on fire and make the smoke as thick as possible.”
“Right.” Teresa’s eyes seemed alight with enthusiasm in the shadows cast by her magical illumination.
“Get ready.” Gabriel scanned the deck above with his magic-sense, waiting for a pause in the two Apollyons’ attacks. “Now!”
A five-foot circle of wooden planks above turned to dust as two black-clad Apollyons crashed to the floor of the hold, driven downward at unnatural speed by Gabriel’s Wind Magic, even as Ling use her own Wind Magic to send the heads of the two men slamming into each other. The wooden decking above burst into flame as smoke filled the air. Gabriel lent his Heart-Tree and Soul magic to that of Sema and Marcus, forcing the stunned Apollyons into unconsciousness.
“Now that’s a plan,” Teresa said as the Apollyons slumped forward onto their faces.
“You sever one of them and Marcus and I will sever the other,” Sema said. The psychic severing required both Heart-Tree and Soul Magic to accomplish. Sema and Marcus had practiced for such a procedure, but never actually performed it.
The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series) Page 68