The Wizard of Time Trilogy (A Fantasy Time Travel Series)

by G. L. Breedon

  “Which reminds me, we’ll need to be careful about testing any fruit this far back in time.”

  “Hmmm, maybe we should see if there are any fish-like things in that river.”

  Gabriel looked up through the leaves of the trees above their heads, catching sight of the sun slowly setting from its zenith. He estimated they would have six or seven hours before sunset.

  “If you start on a fire pit and a fire, I’ll work on making the clearing bigger and collecting what we need to build a shelter.” Gabriel let his eyes fall from the sky to Teresa’s face. She looked almost happy. “What?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be trapped here with anyone but you either.” Teresa gave Gabriel a quick kiss and then turned to point at a spot in the grass near the tree line. “I think we should cut those trees down and put the fire pit there.”

  “Without a giant crocodile-thing staring at me hungrily, I might be able to manage some Earth and Heart-Tree Magic,” Gabriel said.

  Setting up the base camp took nearly all of the remaining daylight hours before sunset plunged the jungle into darkness. Fortunately, they had plenty of experience establishing camps in hostile terrains from their numerous missions into the prehistoric past. Using his own subtle energy, Gabriel combined small amounts of Earth and Heart-Tree Magic, along with the sharpened edge of a rock, to fell several of the slender trees around the natural clearing. He dragged the fallen tree trunks to the edge of the glade, creating a barrier of timber, stripping free the large leaves to use in making a shelter. He sharpened the tips of two of the straightest branches, fashioning simple spears to use as weapons, if necessary. They kept them near to hand while they worked.

  Teresa used the thick, sharpened edge of a large piece of dried tree bark to dig a hole in the ground deep enough for a fire pit. She then took large rocks from the riverbank and built up a small, circular stone wall around the pit, both to contain the flames and to retain the heat of the fire into the night. Lastly, she scavenged the nearby jungle floor for fallen branches and dried leaves. With the application of a tiny bit of sustained Fire Magic, generated from her own subtle energy, she soon had a sizable blaze roaring in the middle of the clearing.

  Knowing the fire would keep away all but the most curious or ravenous predators, they began to feel a little safer. With the clearing expanded to give them a supply of wood and more warning if they were being approach from the jungle, they began building a shelter. With jungle vines for rope, and thick, roughly-hewn branches for support beams, they soon fashioned the frame of a simple, but sizable, lean-to. An hour of stripping and weaving leaves into a roof left them with a place to hide from the inevitable rain. A bed of long grass completed the homemaking for their little hut.

  Near sunset, they set about finding something to fill their loudly complaining bellies, scavenging through the neighboring jungle in search of edible plant life. They discovered two different kinds of fruit they had never seen. Gabriel scanned them with the same Heart-Tree sense he used to heal bodies and pronounced them safe to eat. After a bite of each, under Teresa’s skeptical gaze, he declared them delicious.

  Making their way back to the river, they decided enough light still reflected over the water to attempt catching a fish. With Teresa standing watch over the depths of the river, her eyes scanning for any more croco-saurous creatures, Gabriel stood in the shallows, again reaching out with his Heart-Tree sense, trying to determine if anything lurked beneath the rapidly darkening waters. After several frustrating failures, one of which left him soaked to his waist, he eventually speared something the length of his arm that looked like a fish but fought like a water-borne rhinoceros. It even had a horn. He hauled it to shore and Teresa ended the battle with a well-placed rock to the fish’s head.

  By the time darkness cloaked the jungle and the brilliant stars of the later Paleozoic era filled the sky, Gabriel and Teresa sat comfortably beside their little hut, eating fish roasted on a jury-rigged spit while nibbling pieces of green-yellow fruit sliced with the magic-sharpened edge of a wooden knife.

  “Not bad for two city kids.” Gabriel plopped a piece of fatty fish into his mouth and wiped his hands on the grass next to him.

  “We’re going to need to come up with something to carry water in, but yeah, I’m pretty proud of us.” Teresa pulled another piece of fish meat free from the inner side of the blackened carcass and blew on it gently before passing it through her teeth.

  “I’m sure we’ll find something with a big enough bladder to use for carrying water after we eat the rest of it.” Gabriel took bite of fruit.

  “I was thinking more like hollow coconuts than giant lizard bladders.” Teresa’s face twisted in mild disgust.

  “Are there coconuts in the Paleozoic era?” Gabriel scrunched his face while considering the question. “We can find a ridiculously large seedpod and make it water-tight with dried tree sap.”

  “Or you could waterproof it with a little Earth Magic,” Teresa said.

  “Oh. Right.” Gabriel felt silly. Although magic had become second nature to him, he still sometimes forgot how easy it made certain tasks.

  “So, any idea how to find a fossil when fossils are only just being made?” Teresa asked.

  “The river is probably our best bet.” Gabriel had pondered this question while working to expand the clearing. Every era created fossils as a natural consequence of geological forces interacting with biological remains. As a result, the farther forward one stood along the timeline, the more fossils might be found. Conversely, the farther back in time one went, the fewer fossils were available for discovery. “If we can find a shallow spot of sandy shoreline, we might come across something from an earlier age.”

  “You don’t sound very optimistic.” Teresa turned from the fire toward Gabriel.

  “Well, what we really need is a dry river bed. Something that was a flowing river a million years ago but dried out, leaving dead fish caught in the baking mud.” Gabriel’s elation at establishing the camp and preparing a satisfying meal ebbed away. “We could try hiking to someplace more likely to have fossils, or at least a little easier to dig for them. A desert maybe. Or an arid rocky land that might have had more life on it millions of years ago.”

  “How long do you think it will take?” Teresa’s voice sounded hesitant, as though she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Weeks. Maybe months. I can’t imagine it’ll take more than a year. Or two at the most.” Gabriel stared at the fire, afraid to look in Teresa’s direction. She had been so adamant in arguing that he should find a fossil and leave her behind, and he so determined to convince her how wrong that would be, he hadn’t had time to consider how long it might take to accomplish the goal of finding a suitable relic.

  “Are you serious?” The pitch of Teresa’s voice forced Gabriel’s attention from the fire to her face.

  “Well, if we’re lucky it could be weeks.”

  “But it could be years.”

  “Yes.” Gabriel smiled, trying to infuse as much optimism as possible into his next words. “But while we’re working on finding a fossil, we can also start imbuing an artifact to become a talisman.”

  Teresa cocked her head at the idea. “I hadn’t considered that. No one does that. It takes too long.”

  “With two of us it will take less time,” Gabriel countered.

  “How long?” Teresa asked.

  “Well, I started imbuing a candleholder when I was held in Kumaradevi’s palace, and it was slow work, but I’d say that with both of us, we might be able to imbue an artifact with enough imprints to use as a talisman within six months. A year at most.”

  “A year.” Teresa’s shoulders slumped.

  “At most.” Gabriel thought about it again. “Maybe eighteen months.”

  “You are pouring inky darkness all over my sunshine.”

  “Sorry.” Gabriel felt bad about deflating the euphoric mood of establishing their basecamp and foraging their first meal while stranded. “I’ll pra
ctice cultivating my subtle energy too. Between the two, and assuming we find a fossil, we might be able to accomplish a jump in four months. Maybe three.”

  “You’re lying to make me feel better now, aren’t you?” Teresa raised an eyebrow at Gabriel.

  “Yeah.” Gabriel laughed sheepishly at being caught out. “We’re stuck here for a while.”

  “Well then, I suppose that means we should talk about the dinosaur in the room.” Teresa’s expression shifted to one Gabriel always found difficult to read.

  “Dinosaur?” Gabriel looked to the jungle briefly, even though he knew Teresa’s metaphor referred to something else. He wasn’t certain what, but the heat rising in is face pointed toward one particular topic.

  “We need to talk about The Promise.” Teresa’s eyes locked onto Gabriel’s.

  “Ah…The Promise.” Gabriel had somehow managed to push the thoughts about The Promise and the implications of how hard it would be to keep it while trapped alone with Teresa in a tropical jungle to the back of his mind as he had worked to establish the camp. As Teresa stared at him the way she did just then, soft firelight painting the curves of her face, he found his thoughts consumed with The Promise, and moreover, how much he wanted to break it.

  “I don’t know if Sema and Marcus envisioned this kind of circumstance when they presented us with The Promise,” Teresa said.

  “Actually, this is probably exactly what they had in mind.” Gabriel laughed. “They watch us like owls hunting mice most of the time.”

  “So the question is, do we honor that promise here, when we are away from everyone else?” Teresa leaned forward, waiting for Gabriel’s response.

  “Wait.” Gabriel considered the problem and all the possible answers, wondering which one Teresa was looking for, and more importantly, what her answer might be. “Do you want me to tell you what I want to do or what I think we should do?”

  “Those are two different things?” Teresa looked surprised.

  “Well, it’s all about the time frame,” Gabriel said, clarifying his thoughts as he spoke them aloud. “The Promise makes a certain amount of sense, even if it is extremely old fashioned and wildly hypocritical. I mean, they want me to stage a coup and lead the Grace Mages like an adult, but they don’t actually want me to be adult when it comes to you. But breaking The Promise does complicate things. Everybody says it complicates things. However, considering how many people break similar promises, it seems like a nice complication to have. Especially alone in the jungle, potentially for months, if not years. But there’s another complication. The longer we’re here the more sense it makes to break The Promise, because, well, we might be here a long time. But, there is a counter argument that the longer we’re here the more important it is to keep The Promise, because breaking The Promise can lead to serious consequences that get up and walk away from you. Of course, if we are stuck here for years and years, those kinds of consequences are pretty desirable. At least that’s what everybody who has mobile consequences says. And here’s the real question, the one that makes the time frame so important — how long were the terms of The Promise to begin with? That was never very clear to me. This was probably intentional, now that I think about it. Is this supposed to be a promise that expires when we turn a certain age, or is this supposed to be a promise that we keep until we make some sort of special announcement that calls for invitations and cakes and dancing? I think there’s a case to be made that the contractual basis of The Promise is invalid because the terms of duration aren’t specified. Of course, it’s not like we can take this to a judge. Especially not here. So we kind of have to make our own decision. Although we don’t have to decide about it tonight if you don’t want to. Obviously.”

  Teresa sat in silence for a moment, her face a mixture of confusion and appreciation.

  “You seem to have given this a great deal of thought,” Teresa finally said.

  “I think about it a lot. Besides the Apollyons and Kumaradevi and Vicaquirao and the war and the Great Barrier, what else to I have to think about?” Gabriel realized that maybe he hadn’t appropriately prioritized his thinking.

  “I guess it’s nice that you make the time.” Teresa’s face glowed with mirth the firelight.

  “It’s my favorite pastime.” Gabriel knew this to be an understatement.

  “So, what should we do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “If I knew exactly what I thought we should do, would I be asking you?”

  “Good point.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Who wants you to stage a coup and lead the Grace Mages in the war?”

  “Nefferati and Akikane. And Ohin. I wanted to tell you, but they made me promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Maybe you’re too good at keeping promises.”

  “I know how to break a promise.”

  “Really?”

  “Let me show you.”

  Gabriel leaned over and kissed Teresa, sliding his hand around her waist as his lips touched hers. They kissed and caressed by the light of the flickering fire beneath the blazing stars for what seemed like a small eternity — until the bushes behind their makeshift shelter rustled with the unmistakable sound of something large passing.

  “What was…”

  “That!”

  Gabriel and Teresa leapt to their feet, grabbing their spears and shielding their eyes from the firelight. Gabriel focused his mind and channeled his subtle energy, preparing to attack whatever might emerge from the underbrush with a small blast of lightning.

  They stood, spears clenched, magic poised, listening to the sounds of the jungle for several minutes. Finally, as though by silent agreement, they decided the danger had passed. Gabriel took Teresa’s fingers in his own as he leaned the spear against his side, holding it with his free hand.

  “We should take turns standing watch through the night.” Gabriel glanced at Teresa and then back to the shadowed leaves shifting in the breeze.

  “I suppose the jungle has decided what to do about The Promise.” Teresa laughed softly.

  “At least for tonight.” Gabriel joined her in laughing.

  “It’s nice you know you think about special announcements and cakes and dances.” Teresa stared deep into his eyes.

  “How could I not?” Gabriel kissed her as the moon rose above the trees, painting their gentle embrace in soft, dappled light.

  Chapter 12

  They spent the night alternating shifts on watch every two hours, sitting with their backs to the fire, keeping an eye on the water and the jungle and each other. While most of the large reptiles of the age seemed to sleep at night, a few nocturnal denizens of the bush wandered close enough to camp that staying awake on watch did not present a problem. Splashes from the river, which Gabriel attributed to ancient crocodile-like reptiles hunting, also made it easy to remain alert. The creatures apparently ate day and night.

  Gabriel took the last watch, letting Teresa doze late into the morning to compensate for the lack of sleep during the night. He felt tempted to forage some fruit for breakfast, but the thought of coming back to camp and finding a crocodile creature in the hut instead of Teresa tempered his growing appetite.

  When Teresa woke, they freshened up in the cool waters of the river, taking turns keeping an eye out for anything that might want to eat them while washing their faces. They found more fruit of a slightly different variety than the night before, ate a quick meal, and began their quest to find a fossil that might take them away from their Paleozoic prison and into a future where they hoped to find a way back to the Primary Continuum.

  Discovering a suitable fossil for time travel proved both easier and more difficult than Gabriel had anticipated. They found a sandy stretch of land along the water’s edge, a little more than a mile upriver from their campsite. They discussed moving their camp closer to the dig site but decided against it. If the site didn’t pan out, they would need to search for another location anyw
ay.

  After three days of digging with makeshift wooden shovels and sifting through the fine sandy soil with their fingers, Teresa discovered a tiny trilobite fossil. Gabriel’s elation and excitement matched hers, until he scanned the relic with his space-time sense.

  “No good.” Gabriel tossed the fossil back into the hole they had been digging.

  “What do you mean?” Teresa scowled at the fossil in the dirt and then up at Gabriel.

  “It stays underground for the entire length of its timeline right up to the Great Barrier.” Gabriel kicked earth over the hole. “Let’s try here.” He began burying the hole by digging another.

  “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong.” Teresa looked around the river and jungle as Gabriel pawed at the soil. “We should be trying to find a fossil before it’s a fossil.”

  Gabriel looked up from his digging. “You want to catch insects and critters and see which ones become fossils?”

  “Is that crazy?” Teresa’s tone of voice indicated she suddenly thought it might be.

  “Only a tiny fraction of the remains from animals or insects become fossils,” Gabriel said. “We could be here decades trying to do that.”

  “Oh.” Teresa knelt down to help Gabriel dig. “You should at least check the bones of the fish we eat for dinner.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Gabriel thought about it. “It’s also possible we might get lucky and find a fossil that will not only take us to the future but that also exists in the Primary Continuum. That would make our journey much easier. Any relic we find in the future that also exists in the Primary Continuum will be a shadow relic. Since it never really existed in the Primary Continuum, it won’t directly link to it.”

  “Dysphasic quantum morphic resonance,” Teresa said. “Spooky action at an impossible distance.”

  “Alternate realities will mimic the pattern of the Primary Continuum even if they diverge in significant ways,” Gabriel said. “Like a shadow cast across multiple timelines.”

  “That’s what I said.”