“You must know.” The rogue Apollyon scratched at his ill-kempt beard. From his erratic motions and the desperate look in his eyes, Gabriel knew the man had not slept at all in the past few days. He wondered how the Dark Mage managed to continue to stay alert and how his state of mind might be affected by the extreme lack of rest.
“I’ve told you all I know.” Gabriel tried to keep his voice even and calm in hopes it would elicit a similar response from the rogue Apollyon. “The notebook is written in a dead language and in an alphabet that Councilwoman Elizabeth created herself. I don’t know how to read it.”
“She must have told you the key.” The rogue Apollyon leaned even closer. Gabriel wrinkled his nose at the man’s rancid breath.
“What key?” Gabriel glanced at the notebook, still open on the table. Maybe the rogue Apollyon’s mind had descended into madness more deeply than he had suspected if the man thought the notebook needed a key to open it.
“The key, the key, the key.” The rogue Apollyon snatched the notebook from the table and shook in front of Gabriel’s nose.
“The key to decipher the code.” Teresa leaned closer to Gabriel to draw the mad Apollyon’s attention. “Right? The key to decipher the code. That’s what you’re looking for, right?”
“Yes! The key. Exactly. Do you know? No. She’d never tell you. You’re no one. Nobody. Nothing. No…but she’d tell him. They all talk to him. He’s their favorite pet. You always tell the favorite pet. I was the favorite once. I know. What did he say? What did he always say? Look for the patterns. See the pieces before they are set. But how can I see the pieces without the key?”
“I’m trying to tell you, there is no key.” Gabriel spoke softly and slowly, ignoring the warning look in Teresa’s eyes and the subtle shake of her head. “There can be no key, because it’s an alphabet, not a code. It’s a written language. Only Elizabeth knows how to read it.”
“No, no, no!” The rogue Apollyon put his head behind the open page of the notebook and shook it with fury. “She must have told you how to read it. She must have. You need to know what is in these pages. I need to know what is in these pages. I must. Must. Before the others find me. Find it. Before they can read it. If they read it…if they read it they will know what they need to know and then they will do it.”
“You mean the Great Barrier.” Gabriel began to wonder if surrender into captivity had been such a wise plan. The rogue Apollyon’s mental instability frightened him more than the thought of losing the notebook. Particularly the thought of what the man might do if Gabriel felt forced to enact his option of last resort.
“Yes, yes, the Great Barrier.” The rogue Apollyon sat back, lowering the book and looking at Gabriel and Teresa as if suddenly realizing they were there and that he hadn’t been speaking merely to himself. “They’ll destroy it if they can. And they can. They are close to the number they need. They only require the knowledge. Power is knowledge. No. Power is empty without knowledge. That’s what he always said. Why didn’t I see it then?”
“See what?” Teresa leaned forward slightly, trying to hold the rogue Apollyon’s eyes.
“The balance.” The rogue Apollyon’s eyes wandered up toward the ceiling, seemingly chasing after unseen thoughts.
“The balance of what?” Gabriel asked.
The rogue Apollyon’s eyes drifted down to gaze at Gabriel. “Everything.”
“And they’ll destroy the balance of everything?” Gabriel didn’t have to ask who they were.
“Like children kicking over sandcastles.” The rogue Apollyon blinked and looked at Teresa. “What was it she said that day? Men who cannot create, destroy. Like boys knocking down sandcastles. What kind of man are you? What manner of man will you be? Will you create or will you destroy? Create. Yes. I’ll create. Create an empire. She laughed. Laughed. Why did she laugh? Did she know? Even then? Did she know even then?”
“Did who know?” Gabriel had no idea what woman the deranged Dark Mage spoke of, but he had a suspicion he hoped would prove correct.
“What?” The rogue Apollyon shook himself as though allowing some possessing spirit to escape. “Don’t try to confuse me. I need to know how to read the notebook. Everything hinges on this. If they tear down the wall, the balance is lost. And once the balance is gone, there is only chaos. Chaos is a dangerous goddess. Necessary, but dangerous. To unleash her without restraint is madness.”
“Yes, that sounds like madness.” Teresa nodded her head sympathetically. “Too much chaos and the system falls apart. The center cannot hold. Too much structure and the system stagnates and rots. But the balance between is the golden mean.”
The rogue Apollyon looked at Teresa as if for the first time, leaning closer to peer into her eyes. Gabriel had no idea what her babbling had been about, but it seemed to calm the distraught mage.
“You see.” The rogue Apollyon nodded his head in approval. “Yes, you see. Did he tell you that? Have you spoken to him?”
“I’ve spoken to him.” Gabriel held no doubts about who the rogue Apollyon referred to. He seemed obsessed with Vicaquirao. “He’s told me about the balance.”
“Then you know.” The rogue Apollyon raised the notebook again, shaking it with renewed enthusiasm. “You know how important it is to stop them. How important this notebook is. Why I must understand. To preserve the balance. Light and dark, past and future, to save us all.”
“I will stop them if you let me go.” Gabriel tried to make his voice as firm as possible. For once, it did not break and crack under strain.
“You!” The rogue Apollyon spat on the floor. “You are boy. A child. They will eat you alive. They will flay you and eat you. They will roast you and flay you and eat you. A child. A child he speaks to. A child they all speak to. Why? Why do they trust you? Why you more than me? Why a boy more than me? I am the one. I have seen. I have sacrificed. I must know. Not you. Not a boy. Am I not more than a boy? Yes. I am. And you will tell me. You will tell me how to read the book. I know you know, and you will tell me.”
Lost in a sea of madness, the Apollyon tossed the notebook on the bed and clasped his hands around Gabriel’s head. Gabriel knew what to expect even as he watched the three concatenate crystals begin to glow. He felt the Dark Mage’s Soul Magic assault his mind — a flaming spear thrust into his brain. Gabriel gasped and Teresa screamed. She tried to use her shoulder to slam into the rogue Apollyon and loosen his grip on Gabriel, but she only succeeded in being thrown from the bed by a black-clad elbow to her head.
Gabriel’s mind filled with thoughts. Thoughts swirling like trees uprooted in a windstorm. Not his own thoughts. The mad Apollyon’s mind, reaching into his own, searching for knowledge of how to read the notebook.
“Where, where, where. Do not hide. Do not hide it from me. I will find it if I must kill you. No, I mustn’t kill you. But you will tell me. You will tell me now. Tell. Me. Now!”
Gabriel focused his mind and tried to fight the wave of incoherent words and images attempting to overtake it. He could not tell the mad Apollyon how to read the notebook. He didn’t know. But the Apollyon would keep looking. Tearing at Gabriel’s mind, leaving behind his madness as he searched for what he could not find. Gabriel realized he would be left as insane as the man assaulting him if he did not find some way to stop the invasion of his thoughts.
He grasped the imprints within himself and focused his subtle energy on them, trying to form a shield of Soul Magic against the Apollyon’s mental intrusion. The Apollyon shook his head, confused. Gabriel took advantage of the confusion and pushed back, thrusting his own mind into the Apollyon’s consciousness, concentrating on the darkness that came with sleep.
“Sleep. Sleep and all will be well.”
“No. How? This is…no. No!”
“Yes. Finally!”
“I hear him.”
“Where?”
“No. Release me.”
“Who is that?”
“Who is that with him?”
“Not possible.”
“Where? Where are they?”
“No. Must stop. They will find us.”
“Yes.”
“Found them.”
“Yes.”
The connection with the mad Apollyon’s mind broke. The Dark Mage yanked his hands back from Gabriel’s head as though they had been burned in a flame. Gabriel pitched forward, nearly falling to the floor.
What had happened?
Those other voices. The other Apollyons.
His space-time sense told him someone would materialize in the room a fraction of a second before it happened. The rogue Apollyon sensed it as well, grabbing the notebook from the floor.
A single twin Apollyon blinked into existence near the door. A space-time seal cloaked the room with his arrival. Dressed in the same black clothes, a look of arrogant superiority filled his clean-shaven face. The rogue Apollyon stood before the small statue on the crate, one arm raised as though to defend himself.
“Great,” Teresa growled and sat up on the floor, leaning against Gabriel’s legs.
The newly arrived Apollyon twin looked at Teresa, then Gabriel, then the rogue Apollyon, curiosity filling his gaze.
“Brother?”
The rogue Apollyon said nothing, his eyes darting around the room.
“You’ve been missing.” The Apollyon twin remained standing by the door, appearing as though he had simply stopped by for tea.
“I’ve been busy.” The rogue Apollyon licked his lips and swallowed.
“I can see that.” The new Apollyon gestured toward Gabriel and Teresa with an open hand.
“Prisoners.” The rogue Apollyon’s hand shook as he wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Yes,” the new Apollyon said. “And you have the notebook.”
“I’ve been…I’ve been working on it.”
“All alone?”
“Yes. Alone.”
“But why?” The new Apollyon’s voice became gentle with mock concern. “Why work on it alone? Why not bring it to the rest of us? Why not share it?”
“I wanted to decode it. For us. For all of us.”
“Really?” The new Apollyon took a step toward his twin. The rogue Apollyon recoiled slightly. “Why keep us from your thoughts, then?”
“A surprise. It was to be a surprise.” The rogue Apollyon raised his chin as if to reaffirm his statement.
“Well, we were certainly surprised when we discovered you were not with us. And we were very surprised when we found you were hiding from us. And we were extremely surprised to find you with him.” The new Apollyon nodded toward Gabriel.
“All part of the surprise.” The rogue Apollyon’s lips twitched.
“Then you can read it?”
“No.” The rogue Apollyon frowned with the admission.
“Then the boy can read it.”
“No.” The rogue Apollyon’s frown deepened.
“Then you have failed.” A look of false disappointment filled the new Apollyon’s face.
“No, no, no, I am working on it.” The rogue Apollyon nearly stammered his words. “I simply need more time. More time.”
“You must be weary from your efforts.” The new Apollyon took another step closer to his twin. “You know what they say. Work sets you free. It’s time to set you free.”
“I don’t want to be free.” The rogue Apollyon shook his head.
“Why don’t you let us in? Let us hear your voice in our minds again. We can help you. Bring you back into the fold.”
“He’s not coming back to you.” Gabriel forced the words past the fear clenching his throat tight.
Trussed up and held captive by two Apollyons didn’t suggest many pleasant possible outcomes. He needed to do something to change the situation. “He’s never coming back to you and he’ll never give you the notebook. He’ll destroy it first.” He hoped it would prove true.
“What is he talking about?” The second Apollyon tensed as he spoke to his twin.
“What? How should I know? The boy lies.” The rogue Apollyon could hardly stand still, his free hand fidgeting and stoking his beard.
“He’s abandoned you. All of you.” Gabriel raised his voice, hoping to draw the second Apollyon’s attention. Teresa looked up at him, her eyes full of questions and concern, but he ignored her and stared at the two Apollyons. “He realized he made a mistake.”
“Mistake?” The second Apollyon’s voice deepened. “What mistake?”
“Nothing. The boy lies. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” The rogue Apollyon backed up, his heels bumping against the crate.
“Haven’t you guessed? Isn’t it obvious?” Gabriel knew the hunch he pursued might be wrong, but hoped it wouldn’t matter, that it would give the rogue Apollyon an unguarded moment to act.
“Guess what? What does the boy mean?”
“I don’t know. How could I know? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You both know.” Gabriel’s voice became more firm. “You both sense it, don’t you?”
“Sense what? What have you done?” The second Apollyon stepped toward his twin, his eyes full of menace.
“I have done nothing, nothing, nothing!” The rogue Apollyon held up his free hand in a placating gesture.
“He made you. Made all of you.” Gabriel hoped his suspicions of the rogue Apollyon’s true nature proved correct. Or at least proved divisive. “He is the original and he knows that making you, making all of you, was a mistake. A mistake he needs to correct.”
“You lie!” The second Apollyon turned to Gabriel, a finger stabbing forth in accusation. Gabriel noticed the rogue Apollyon’s hand swing down behind him. “He is not the Prime.”
The rogue Apollyon’s arm swung out, the stone statue grasped in his hand, making bone-crunching contact with the back of the second Apollyon’s head. As the second Apollyon stumbled to his knees, Gabriel felt the space-time seal disappear. The rogue Apollyon caught his eye.
“Thank you.” The rogue Apollyon vanished into time even before the words finished crossing his lips.
The second Apollyon looked where the rogue Apollyon had been and then jumped through time, blinking out of existence from the room. Gabriel threw himself from the bed, lurching through the air toward the corner of the room even as he sensed the warping of space-time around him. The second Apollyon had not been alone. Gabriel had suspected as much. There were others.
And they were coming.
Gabriel landed on his shoulder, his head touching the sheath of the Sword of Unmaking. He reached out for its imprints, bending time and space around himself, encompassing Teresa, even as he sensed the arrival of six Apollyons into the room. The lightless void of time-travel embraced him and he sighed in relief. Dazzling white revealed a small Japanese village beneath a grassy hill before Gabriel thrust himself and Teresa back into the blackness again. He jumped several times, using the sword and the pocket watch and Teresa’s golden bracelet as relics. He finally brought them to a stop on a tree-filled hill above a staggered pyramid. He had never asked where Teresa’s bracelet came from. Was it Mayan? He had no time to query her.
“Tell me that was all part of your brilliant plan.” Teresa sat, arms still bound, shaking her hair from her face as she glared at Gabriel.
“That was all part of my brilliant imitation of a plan.” Gabriel focused on combining Stone and Fire magic, turning the bonds holding his and Teresa’s limbs to ash. He stood up, slinging the Sword of Unmaking over his shoulder as he slipped the watch into his pocket. He picked up Teresa’s bracelet and handed it to her as he helped her to her feet.
“Surrender to escape. I never would have thought of that.” Teresa’s voice oozed with sarcasm as she accepted the bracelet and slid it on her wrist. “But we lost the notebook.”
“Not necessarily.” Gabriel could barely restrain his enthusiasm. “I think I know where our rogue Apollyon may have taken it.”
“Okay. I apologize. Maybe it was a brilli
ant plan.” Teresa looked at him expectantly.
Gabriel reached into his pocket and withdrew a small sliver of reddish stone.
“This is going to make perfect sense when you explain it to me, right?” Teresa touched the chip of stone in Gabriel’s open palm with the tip of her finger.
“This is from the statue in the rogue Apollyon’s room.” Gabriel held the shard of stone between his forefinger and thumb. “When I was searching for the notebook, I accidentally knocked the statue onto the floor and this chip broke off.”
“You think the chip will lead us to where the rogue Apollyon is?” Teresa raised an eyebrow in skepticism.
“Why would he have a statue of a woman in his room?” Gabriel had thought about it for days. “And he kept mentioning a woman. I think this statue is of that woman. In fact, I think he carved it.”
“That would explain the poor craftsmanship.”
“And he hid it from the other Apollyon, remember? He stood in front of it. He didn’t want the other twin to see it.”
“Because it could take him someplace the others have never been.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re right. That is a good plan. Or at least the best we’re going to get. But you have to promise me something.” Teresa’s face looked serious as she spoke. “If we can’t get the notebook back, we have to destroy it.”
Gabriel thought about it for a moment. He felt certain there were secrets in the notebook known only to Elizabeth. With her in a magically induced coma there was no guarantee he would even learn what they might be. However, Teresa was right. It would be better to lose the notebook and the knowledge it contained rather than allow it to fall into the hands of any of the Apollyons.
“Deal.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Teresa placed her arm on Gabriel’s shoulder and he reached out with his time-sense to the piece of stone in his hand, searching through its timeline for a moment that seemed a plausible hiding place for the rogue Apollyon. Two things stood out as strange about the statue. It wasn’t very old. A year at most. And it bent away through space-time in an odd away. It wasn’t from the Primary Continuum. It came from an alternate branch of reality, possibly one the rogue Apollyon had created especially for the purpose of hiding in. Why not go there to begin with? Unless something in this new world meant a great deal to the rogue Apollyon. Enough to avoid risking discovery unless absolutely necessary.
The Sword of Unmaking (The Wizard of Time - Book 2) Page 12