by Beca Lewis
“But not all of us can go. As we said, some of us must remain here in case the Back-In-Time team does not succeed. Of course, we believe that you will, but we can’t leave the Kingdom undefended in case something goes wrong, or the BIT Team is not able to stop Abbadon immediately. The timing may not be perfect.
“Plus there are those that need to stay to maintain the time portal and provide a time anchor for the rest of the team. Which means partnerships may be broken up.”
“Why?” Ruta grunted. We all knew why he asked. He and Beru were a partnership, and in spite of his logical exterior his heart was huge, and mostly belonged to Beru.
“For the very reason you don’t like the idea, Ruta.”
“It will be like a beacon in time, won’t it?” Aki said.
Ruta nodded in understanding, and for a moment fear gripped my heart. Did that mean that Zeid would not be going with me? I understood about the beacon, but I wasn’t sure I could do it without him. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I could do it without all of them. For the first time, I realized how afraid I was.
“Who’s deciding?” I blurted out trying not to sound as desperate as I felt.
“You all are,” Leif said. He called his staff to one hand and reached out the other to Sarah, and the two of them left the room.
Those of us who were left stared at each other. Finally, Niko spoke, and we all sighed in relief. We were used to having Niko lead us.
“If we were planning a normal mission, Link would stay here. Do you all think this is true for this one?” A sound of approval went around the room. I thought I saw the Professor sigh and sink into his chair. Did this make him happy or sad?
“Since we need someone skilled at portals on both sides of the entrance, Garth and Anne would go, and Suzanne would stay. I assume this is something the three of you have already been working on?”
They nodded, and Niko continued. “Since Pita and Teddy provide the underground rooms, and Pita’s brothers will stay here, and Teddy has a team that can stay, I am assuming it would be good to send both of them.”
It was weird to see Teddy and Pita do a high five together. But I was glad they were both going. More than once we had to stay in their underground homes, and use their tunnels, and knew we would need them again. Without them, I wasn’t sure how we were going to talk to the Whistle Pigs or Ginete that hadn’t met us before. Or something. When I tried to think that through it didn’t quite make sense, but still, I was happy they were coming.
Niko continued, “I think we need to send Ruta. He will be able to work with the trees more than any of the rest of us.”
“Does that mean that Beru will stay here?” I squeaked.
Beru reached out and held my hand and Ruta’s. “It’s alright. If I stay, I can make sure you both return home.”
Beru turned to Niko and said, “Because of course, Kara is going.”
Niko nodded. “Thank you Beru for understanding. You will be invaluable here. Aki needs to go too.” Niko glanced over at Professor Link who lowered his head but nodded in agreement.
“Aki has skills and knowledge that none of the rest of us have.”
Zeid spoke up. “That leaves the Priscillas and me. There is no way I am not going. There are plenty of heart beacons remaining here to bring us home. My place is beside Kara.”
“Ours too,” squealed the Priscillas as they clutched my hair as if someone was going to pull them away right at that moment.
It was the most inappropriate time to burst into tears, but that is what I did. I think I cried for everyone because there was not anyone who didn’t look as if they didn’t want to start crying.
A few minutes later, after we all composed ourselves. Leif and Sarah came back into the room.
“It’s decided, then,” he said. “Well done. Now, it’s time to plan.”
Abbadon Thirteen
The first question that we had to answer was how far back in time we would go. It was possible that Abbadon only started changing a few years ago, but on the other hand, what if it was hundreds of years before and no one noticed. How would we figure out when it had started?
It was the most critical question that we had because if we didn’t go back far enough, then it might still be too late to stop him. If we went too far, then the trigger point would be in the future, and we wouldn’t be able to affect the outcome at all.
After much debate, we decided it was better not to go too far into the past. If we ended up in time after Abbadon had started his reign of destruction, at least we would have a better chance of stopping him than we did in the current time frame when he had gathered so much power. After much discussion, we decided on two hundred years into the past.
Our next decision involved where we would go. We had to be careful not to step out of a portal where Abbadon could see it. We were afraid that he might use it to travel in time too. Or perhaps to travel to Zerenity without being seen.
Zeid asked if that mattered since Abbadon seemed to be able to go anywhere he wanted to without being seen anyway. Suzanne said that was a good point, but we still needed to be careful. Besides we didn’t want Abbadon to know that we were there. That was the whole point of doing it this way, he wouldn’t see us coming.
Our first decision was to put our end of the time portal in the woods outside the Castle walls. “If we are so close to the Castle, why not put it inside the Castle?” I asked.
“What if on your return the Castle isn’t here, or no one knows who you are? Too many variables that we can’t manage,” Professor Link replied.
Everyone nodded in agreement. There were so many factors to take into consideration, including not knowing where Abbadon would be. What if he wasn’t at his Castle when we got there?
“It seems as if we need more information about the past, and since there are people that lived then, why don’t we ask them? In fact,” I paused to think about what I was going to say next, “weren’t you all here hundreds of years ago? I know I don’t remember that time, but you must. What’s going on here? Why are you acting like you don’t know what the past was like?”
The more I talked, the more upset I got. “Are you all pulling my leg somehow? If we are only going back a few hundred years, that’s nothing to some of you. Besides, we have libraries and people even older, like my father. Why are you all pretending that you don’t know?”
By that time I was standing, and everyone was looking at me without any expression on their faces which made me angrier. I would have stomped my feet the way I did when I got angry, but Beru pinched my leg, and I stopped.
“Are you done?” Niko asked. When I reluctantly sat down because Beru pulled my tunic, Niko continued.
“Think it through just a little bit more, Kara Beth. Of course, some of us remember hundreds of years ago, and yes we have libraries and historians. But, and this is a huge but, what if what we remember turns out not to be what happens because you have been there changing things? If we tell you what happens it might not happen.
“The smallest thing you do might mean that towns don’t get built, or one of us has died, or … so many things could be different. If we tell you how it is because we remember it that way, we could be enabling a change that destroys everything even more than what Abbadon is planning.”
I sat there taking in what Niko said. He was right of course, which is why I wasn’t leading the team, he was. No one said anything as I thought through everything he had said, especially his last words. The implication of what he meant hit me as if I had been thrown into a pool of ice water.
“Wait. So we could make it worse by going back?”
“Yes.”
“What if that is what Abbadon wants? What if he is counting on us to time travel? What if this is his plan all along. What if he is waiting for us and because of that everything is destroye
d in a flash? Have you thought of that?”
I was standing again. I really had to stop being so melodramatic, but the implication of what we were going to do had just begun to make itself felt in me.
Leif and Sarah had been sitting quietly while we talked things through. As I stood trembling, Leif rose and addressed us all.
“Yes, what if? Thank you, Kara, for bringing it all out in the open so clearly.”
I sat, and Leif continued. “Yes, all these things could be true. It’s a chance we are taking. After hearing all the reasons why this might not work, does anyone want us to stop moving forward with the time travel idea?”
“I don’t want to stop,” Teddy said. His deep, calm voice filled the space and made me feel better. “But is there anything we can do to make it safer and mitigate the chances of us making it worse?”
Aki had been silent for most of the meeting. When I had begun to act up, she had watched me with those pale blue eyes that became darker as I spoke. When Teddy asked his question, she stood, or more accurately, she floated up.
She looked across the table at Niko and said, “Perhaps we should tell them now, brother?”
I think the whole room asked the question at the same time, “Brother?”
Abbadon Fourteen
Niko held up his hand to stop the chatter. While I was shocked at the revelation, I was also not surprised. Something had always made me think that both of them were much more than met the eye.
“Before you ask, no, we have never told anyone our story before.”
Niko glanced over at Sarah, and added, “Although I think at least one of you had figured it out and decided to wait for us to tell.”
Sarah smiled at both of them, and Niko continued. “Yes, we are brother and sister. Yes, Kara Beth, I have heard you ask yourself if we were both more than what we appeared to be.
“Yes, we can change our forms, not as shapeshifters but as chameleons. Which means we don’t become something else the way Suzanne becomes a dragon. We shift to fit into our environment. It’s the same as your chameleons in the Earth Realm.
“We’ve kept this a secret to protect ourselves, and to protect the people that we have come to know and love.”
Niko sighed and looked at his sister. “I think that Aki tells stories better than I do, so I’d like to turn this over to her.”
Aki had remained standing while Niko spoke. “Yes, I’ll tell you the story. However, if you don’t mind, I would prefer to do it in a more relaxed atmosphere. Perhaps in the garden in the atrium? In an hour? That will give Niko and me time to gather our thoughts.”
As we rose to go, she added, “I feel that some of you are worried. Have we been spies all along? Are we preparing to leave you now? I promise you that neither of those two things is true. We are with you as fully as ever, and we will continue to fight beside you to stop Abbadon. We also have personal reasons, which we will share with you.”
I turned to look at Aki who had taught me so much, and my heart broke for her. I walked over and put my arms around her. Aki hesitated, and then tentatively patted me on the back, whispered “Thank you,” in my ear, and then she was gone, and I was left holding nothing.
“Someday I am going to have to learn how to do that myself,” I mumbled to myself. Ruta snorted. It was the proper response.
That was never going to happen.
*******
“So, what do you want to do while we wait for the story?” Beru asked me. As always, she had me pegged. I didn’t just want to sit around, and I didn’t want to spend time wondering about what would happen, or not happen. There was enough of that going on. I wanted to do something different. Something that would get my mind off of what we were going to learn, and where we were going to go.
“Since I won’t be seeing you for a while once we leave, Beru, why don’t you suggest something we can do together.”
Beru stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked at me as if she was trying to decide what to say.
“Anything, Beru. Just tell me, I’ll do it.”
In our heads, we both heard Professor Link say, “It’s on the way,” and a few seconds later we heard the harmony of the Sound Bubble’s hundreds of notes coming our way.
I didn’t ask Beru where we were going, but I wasn’t surprised when we landed in Kinver just a few minutes later. In fact, I was delighted. I love Kinver, Beru’s village. Lorraine and Liza came running out of the house to greet us, and I could see James coming up the road.
“This is wonderful,” James said as he ran the last few yards to us. “We weren’t expecting you, so it makes it even more delightful.”
I giggled and hugged James and his wife, Lorraine, and gave Liza a quick hug.
“We’re only here for a minute,” Beru said. “I wanted to leave something with you. It’s a letter to my parents.”
“In case they come back while you are gone?” Liza asked.
I looked at Beru. She wasn’t going anywhere. Then I realized that Beru was making sure that in case something went wrong with the BIT team’s trip, there would be a record somewhere that she had loved them. It was such a good idea I wondered why we all hadn’t thought of that, but then perhaps everyone had, and it was just me that hadn’t.
Lorraine took Beru off to write the letter, while I spent some time chatting with James and Liza. As casually as I could, I asked Liza how old she was. Liza replied that in Erda terms, she was a child still. That meant she wouldn’t have been born yet where we were going.
“Would you leave a note in the past for me?”
“How do you know that’s what we are doing?”
Then it dawned on me. Since Liza could see 4D, could she also see timelines? See what we call the past and the future?
Liza answered my unspoken thoughts. “You know that time is fluid, don’t you? Every choice means a different outcome. Many time-lines. So no, I don’t know what is going to happen, or what did happen. I only know that you are leaving tomorrow for the past. What happens after that depends on what you find, and what you do—all of you.
“But we know your heart. Plus you have many skills and a team that travels with you that will not let the mission fail. We’ll see you again. For us maybe tomorrow, maybe a few weeks, or even a year from now. But I know we’ll see you again.”
James looked at his daughter with pride. “If she says so, Hannah. It will be so.”
I loved it when James and his family called me Hannah. And this time it reminded me that traveling between dimensions was something people did all the time. Time travel would not be that much different. Or at least I was counting on Liza’s belief to make it so.
Abbadon Fifteen
Aki and Niko were waiting for us in one of my favorite spaces in the atrium. The rose garden. There were roses of all kinds growing in what looked like wild abandon, but I knew it was careful planning. The scent of roses never left the air. We walked through the trellis that was invisible underneath the massive rose vine that covered it. It was large enough that even the tallest of us didn’t have to duck beneath the blooms hanging down off the vines, but we all got a whiff of the pink blossoms as we passed under them.
There were benches set up in a small courtyard inside the garden. Niko and Aki were standing in front of their bench and nodded at each of us as we entered. They looked different. It was nothing that I could put my finger on, but something had shifted. Perhaps it was simply their relief that they didn’t need to keep their secret anymore.
Once we settled down, Niko sat, and Aki remained standing.
“We were trying to decide if we should begin by telling you where we were a few hundred years ago, before we came to the Castle to serve the King and his family, or if we should begin by telling you what we can do. We decided to get the worst of it over first. Where we were.
”
Aki looked at Niko and received an encouraging nod. Now that I saw them together I could see the resemblance. On the other hand, did they actually look like what they were showing us, or were they in their chameleon disguise?
I remembered the first time I saw Aki I had the feeling that Aki could twist herself around and turn into a wisp of smoke, or slither across the floor without making a sound. She had flicked her long pale white hair into the air, and for a moment she had hung there just like a wisp of smoke, her blue eyes glowing, and then she had disappeared. It had been the first time I had ever seen someone do that and I thought I had imagined it.
Niko was darker, more substantial. Like a Greek statue. It was as if they were the opposites of the same idea.
My thoughts were interrupted when Aki said, “Until we came here, Niko and I were slaves in Abbadon’s Castle.”
I could hear the audible intake of breath as we took in what she had just said. Only Sarah and Leif stayed silent, but I could see a single tear moving down Sarah’s cheek.
Once everyone had settled down again, Aki continued.
“Yes, it was as horrible as you can imagine. But for a long time, we didn’t realize how awful it was. We had been slaves from the time we were children, and all we saw were other slaves of other “races” so it was all that we knew. There were no free beings in Abbadon’s Castle.
“He was the master, and the rest of us did his bidding. And it was a cruel bidding. If any of us disobeyed or made a mistake, we were horribly punished. It almost always involved some form of whipping, which was the better choice, because otherwise, it was death in some painful way.