by Ed Masessa
He could sense Coralis probing his mind, but he knew there would be nothing to see. The vision, if that’s what it was, had disappeared. Coralis stood back, as if waiting for Henry to elaborate, but as far as Henry was concerned, there was nothing to share.
“Humph.” Coralis obviously wasn’t completely satisfied, but there was nothing he could do if Henry wasn’t going to cooperate. He turned his attention back to the table. On command the dragon raised it and retrieved a scroll for Coralis. “Castello Sforzesco.” A holographic image of a fortresslike castle materialized above the table. Coralis murmured words from an extinct language and the image began to turn, offering them a video-quality projection of the castle’s perimeter.
“This magnificent structure, called ‘Sforza Castle’ in English, still stands in Milan, Italy. But what remains today is a tourist destination that houses several museums. What you see here is what the castle looked like in the year 1497.”
As the image turned, Henry leaned forward. He had always had a fascination with medieval times. Not so much the knights in armor, but the castles and dungeons. This was exactly how he envisioned one should look like.
One side was anchored in either corner by large round towers—anchored being the appropriate term, since the entire structure was surrounded by a wide moat. The castle was built from orange-red brick, and the moat’s murky green palette concealed any number of secrets, from sea life to the bones of fallen invaders. The rectangular shape of the main structure was connected to the main interior by a series of drawbridges.
He leaned in even closer to get a better view of the massive chain links used to raise the bridges and wondered at what it took to build such engineering marvels using only the ancient technology and tools they had at their disposal. One drawbridge was connected to a fortification like a mini-castle that was erected in the middle of the moat—which, in turn, was connected to the main body of the castle by a more permanent bridge.
The image turned, revealing a long wall. Halfway down was another small round tower, and at the end of the wall was another tower, the smallest of the three but still impressive. When the image flipped on its side, Henry saw that the overall design was nearly symmetrical and was amazed to discover that there was an inner moat. This was certainly a structure built to withstand an enemy attack, and, in fact, looked to be impenetrable.
Suddenly a cannon fired directly at Henry. He jumped backward and fell flat on his rump, eliciting a chorus of laughter from the other apprentices. He had been so engrossed that he hadn’t even realized he had climbed onto the edge of the table. The dragon stood at the edge, sternly waggling a clawed digit at him as a warning. “Mind your distance, Henry,” Coralis said through a vainly disguised smile of his own.
“Sorry.” He scrambled to his feet, apologizing to the dragon. “It’s just that it’s so … cool!”
“I doubt that Francesco Sforza would have used the word cool … but I happen to agree. What’s the saying? They don’t make them like they used to?” Coralis began a tutorial of the castle using words like barbican—the structure connected to, and used to defend, the outer drawbridges; battlements, from which men would shoot arrows; turrets, the towers used as lookouts; and inner ward, which was more or less a courtyard similar to the one at Castle Coralis.
Each term sparked a memory from books Henry had checked out from the library, and he found he was able to retain most of it fairly easily. Across the table from him, Bryndis yawned. He checked the others, similarly bored, eyes glazed over.
Brianna had edged up beside him. “Um … this is all fascinating stuff.” She nudged Henry. “But what does it have to do with our father?”
Coralis frowned at their lack of interest but sent a thought to Henry that they would continue later in private. He placed a piece of faceted amber on the Sugi and touched it with his wand. The image zoomed in quickly. It raced past many people performing their daily tasks, unaware they were being observed. Down it went, swooping through the inner ward and pausing at a group of men hard at work building a …
“Is that a catapult?” Henry asked much louder than he’d intended. A tall man in a dark robe who was supervising the construction turned slowly to face them, as if he knew they were watching.
“Meet Leonardo da Vinci,” Coralis announced. “This is how he looked in the year 1497.”
Henry was the first to recognize him. “That’s the man who was painting The Last Supper.”
“The Argus Wand will seldom give direct answers, but it does provide clues. It is up to the user to decipher them,” Coralis said giddily. “A student of history would be able to identify exactly where and when Leonardo painted that timeless piece of art. To be precise, the painting itself is on a wall in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which is a short distance from Sforza Castle. But the castle is the place where prisoners were held.”
“And you figured all this out just from seeing some guy in a goofy hat with a paintbrush?” Luis asked. “Seems like a pretty big leap to me.”
The rest of the apprentices leaned forward, mouths agape. Leonardo was taller than most of the men working for him. But it wasn’t just his height. There was an air of superiority about him that was unmistakable. A middle-aged man, he wore a simple cap, and his face was framed by a short beard. By far his most remarkable feature was his eyes. They sparkled with light, giving a glimpse of the wisdom and knowledge that was unparalleled in his time.
As if on cue, he dipped his head in a bow toward the apprentices, then looked directly at Coralis, indicating with a nod of his head a doorway to his right. Just before the scene shifted, Leonardo’s eyes centered on Henry and Brianna and his mouth twitched with a thin-lipped smile.
“It’s as if he sees us,” Brianna whispered.
“That’s because he can.” It was moments like these that Coralis found most rewarding … and amusing. There was so much his apprentices had yet to learn and understand. He only wished he had more time to teach them.
“Wait … what?” Luis asked skeptically. “It’s 1497 and he can see us? I mean, no offense, but that’s impossible.”
“As much as scholars know about the genius of Leonardo, there is so much more they will never know about his mystical connections to the unseen world.” Coralis tapped the amber once more and the vision zoomed through the doorway. At first it was so dark Henry thought the camera (or whatever was giving them the image) had stopped moving. But slowly, a dim light emerged. A torch mounted to a wall, the flame so dim that it appeared to be in a constant struggle with the darkness it was trying to penetrate.
The vision advanced forward at a more measured pace, allowing for the lack of proper lighting. Along one wall, a row of bars separated jail cells from a narrow gravel walkway. Each cell was the size of a small bedroom and contained a solitary, rickety wooden bed frame. As the view progressed down the row, lumps became more pronounced on the beds. The walkway as well as the number of cells appeared to be endless.
The vision finally stopped at a cell that housed the only moving occupant. The figure, a man, sat on the edge of a filthy straw mattress, hunched over with his head in his hands—his posture indicating he had succumbed to the hopelessness his life had become. His head moved, cautiously, as if he could sense he was being watched.
This time Henry recognized him from the mind-image that had caused him so much pain. “Dad,” he whispered, and reached for him. Immediately, the vision vanished.
“Wait!” Brianna shouted. “That was Dad? Henry, what did you do?”
“Nothing! I swear!” He turned pleadingly to Coralis for help.
“You did nothing wrong,” he said. “The vision had run its course. It was designed to show us only what we needed to know.”
“We need to know how to rescue him!” Brianna cried.
“Be still.” Coralis reached out to her with mild Voice to calm her. “We will go to him.”
“A time slip?” Henry asked for the fourth time.
Coralis had d
ismissed the other apprentices, instructing Molly to intensify their training. Only Brianna and Henry remained behind.
“I thought you told me time travel was impossible, Henry.” Brianna sat heavily and rubbed her eyes. “And besides, I’m hungry.” Her stomach growled in agreement. “Gretchen told me that using Voice would trigger my appetite. I should have believed her.” Her stomach rumbled what sounded like Yessssss.
“You need to forget what you know—or what you think you know.” Coralis paced the room, trying to think of an easy way to explain. “We are operating in a realm outside the rules of physics. There are forces in the universe that cannot be explained … partly because the human brain is wired to accept only the things it can comprehend.”
“What’s the other part?” asked Henry.
“Lack of imagination.” Coralis smirked. “You are correct. Time travel is impossible—bound by the laws of the known universe. Which is why our world operates outside of it.”
Brianna’s stomach growled louder. “For goodness’ sake, girl.” Coralis pulled a bright red apple from his pocket and handed it to her.
She chomped into it like it was the first meal she’d had in a week. “Tanks.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Henry scolded.
Coralis got right back to the point. “Some of your most brilliant scientists have theorized, and correctly, I might add, that all points in time exist simultaneously. Imagine stepping into a fourth dimension and being able to see every moment of your life like still frames of a motion picture, then reentering in real time at any one of those points.”
Henry smiled. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I do not kid, young man.” Coralis glowered. “And if you do not open your imagination, you will never be able to go with me to see your father.”
Brianna stopped in midchomp and swallowed hard. “Sounds good to me. When do we start slipping?”
Coralis walked them to a large globe of the Earth. “There is a mineral that is very rare on Earth. It is called tranquillityite. A very small sample was recently discovered in Australia, but until then, the only other place it was found was on the moon.”
“No more moon stuff,” Brianna groaned.
“Tranquillityite was named after the Sea of Tranquility, where it was found on the moon’s surface. But long before that, it was known among Wand Masters as Umquam Crustallos—the time crystal.” Coralis placed both hands on the globe and gave it a sharp, firm twist. A section of the top half came off. Etched into the flat surface of its interior was the figure of a man with four arms and four legs.
“I’ve seen that image somewhere … ,” Henry started, then slapped his forehead. “In the Guidebook!”
“Correct.” Coralis nodded. “It is a famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci called The Vitruvian Man. Most people believe it is an illustration of the relation of the human body to the architecture of a Roman named Vitruvius—when in fact, it is a treasure map!” he exclaimed.
Brianna squinted. “Um … you kinda lost me at Leonardo.”
Henry stared thoughtfully at the etching. “I think I get it. Each arm and leg is pointing to a location on the globe.” He ran a finger along the surface, hovering over Romania. “Is this where we are?”
“Good lad!” Coralis congratulated him with a rousing clap of his hands.
“You’re such a dork.” Brianna elbowed him in the ribs.
Coralis ignored her, his excitement building. “And not only the arms and legs, but the head as well.” He ran a finger from the center of the head along an imaginary line to the surface of the globe. “Leonardo had extraordinary talent that spawned many disciplines, and while he was not a member of our Guild, he worked with us to help our cause. This illustration is as remarkable for its face value as it is for its hidden meaning. Each of these points marks the location of a significant tranquillityite deposit.”
“But what makes that so special?” Henry asked. He had read his share of books about minerals and studied them at the castle, but this was the first he had heard of tranquillityite.
“Fortunately, only the Guild is aware of its finest property,” Coralis explained. “Geologists do not have enough material to experiment with. They suspect it can be used to estimate the age of very old rocks. Which is true. But in the case of a sizable deposit, that property expands exponentially, and essentially forms gates that allow passage into the fourth dimension. This is what we call the time slip. Leonardo was the first to discover it … completely by accident, I might add. At one point he even got lost in time for several years, but eventually he worked his way back to his original time period.”
“I, uh … ” Henry fidgeted with his hands, trying to comprehend the impossibility that Coralis laid out for them. He remembered some time travel rules from watching movies and now wondered if any of them were true. “Can we go to the future?” he finally asked.
“Yes and no,” Coralis said. “We can go to a future, but it might not be the one that actually comes to pass because of all the decisions people will have to make between now and then. The slightest deviation can trigger a snowball effect that can radically change the future.”
Henry was catching on. “Is the same true for the past? If we do something one hundred years ago, will it change the present?”
“For the most part, no,” Coralis answered. “The past is the past, and interaction with people there will be long forgotten over time. You could hand someone a cell phone, but what good would it do? You could tell someone a significant fact about the future, but once you have left, it too will be forgotten. We use the term ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ You simply cannot leave a lasting imprint on the past.
“That said, there is a limit—if we managed to detonate a nuclear bomb, for example. But this is why the secret of the time slip is so tightly guarded by the Guild.”
As Henry digested this information, a thought occurred to him. “Malachai must know about time slips, too, if he sent Dad back in time. What’s to stop him from messing up the past in a big way?”
“In order to understand our enemy, we must identify his motivation.” Coralis picked up his Argus Wand from the table and twirled it between his fingers. “Malachai desires power and control. He would have no control over the past and therefore has little reason to meddle with it. However, he can influence events in the present that will give him control in the future. And this is the reason we must see your father—to find out what Malachai intends to do with the Temple of Time and stop him from succeeding.”
Brianna placed her arm around Henry’s shoulder. “Enough blah, blah, blah,” she said brightly. “Let’s do this!” Her stomach let loose a thunderous growl. “After we grab some chow.”
“Enough already!” Coralis yelled in frustration at the castle wall, which immediately created an opening for them to leave the castle’s confines. It had given them fits, almost as if it knew what they were up to and wanted to prevent it.
Forest wasn’t much more cooperative than the castle until a similar outburst set them on a clear path in a direction they had never taken before. Henry and Brianna followed Coralis in silence. Henry thought about what Coralis had told them, and he assumed his sister was doing the same. Using the time slip was not as easy as either of them had originally imagined. It was an “unnatural science,” as Coralis had phrased it, that had inherent risks—the biggest of which was getting caught in a time loop.
The way Coralis explained it, he would assume the lead, tuning his voice to a specific pitch that would set the tranquillityite crystals vibrating. That would typically be enough to allow the Wand Master to pass through. But with three of them, Brianna was going to have to match his pitch while using her Nailinator Wand. Even that was going to be tricky, as too much power could scramble the crystals at the molecular level and ruin the gate.
There were nine gates, three of which were under oceans and not reachable with current technology. One of them was near Castle Coralis, and another close to Mi
lan. “Slipping” was tricky. The location from which they exited the time slip would remain open for approximately ninety minutes. Within the ninety-minute pulse window (a term Coralis used to describe the opening), the travelers could still enter the time slip and return to their original place and time. Once it got beyond ninety minutes, “things could get a bit dicey,” as Coralis put it.
Henry was very nervous about the short time window, but Coralis assured them they could get what they needed with time to spare. Yet Henry thought he detected a small twitch in the Wand Master’s left eye as he said it. And there was something bothering him … something he couldn’t put a finger on. Coralis had admitted he was taking an enormous risk by using two apprentices with very little training. If things got “dicey,” they might lose their opportunity to stop Malachai. So why chance it? Henry’s gut was telling him he was missing something.
They arrived at a rocky outcropping that was partially concealed in a copse of pine trees. A shadow moved and a Hutsul woman emerged. Coralis greeted her. “Good morning, Lesya.”
“Good morning, old man,” she replied with a wink in the children’s direction. Her accent was thick but understandable—like Dracula might sound as a woman. She was as tall as Coralis, and slender. Henry thought under different circumstances she could easily be a volleyball player. But two things stuck out—she had only one arm, and that arm held an imposing rifle.
Coralis grumbled. “You know why we are here?”
“There can only be one reason. And yet … ” Her eyes drifted toward Henry and Brianna and back to Coralis, though she didn’t move her head in the slightest. “I question your wisdom.”