The Sword of Unmaking (The Wizard of Time - Book 2)

by G. L. Breedon

  Chapter 14: Lost in Time

  Gabriel fell to his knees, letting the sword blade sink into the grass, his shoulders shuddering as he tried to control the anger and fear pulsing through his body. Tears filled his eyes as he reached out for the stone Kumaradevi had tossed to the ground. How could he have been so stupid? How could he not have seen this? If something happened to Teresa, it would all be his fault.

  As he examined it, he realized the stone in his hand wasn’t a stone. He held a piece of marble, one side smoothly carved, the other jagged and uneven. Could it be from a statue? What statue and from when? Whenever and wherever it came from, it would lead him back to Teresa. Assuming Kumardevi hadn’t lied to him. It might be possible, but he didn’t think so. He suspected she knew the anger of losing someone too well, and he also thought she knew what he would do to her if she had killed Teresa.

  He held the walnut-sized chunk of half-carved marble in his hand as he jumped through time away from the rogue Apollyon’s private world and into the black void between every moment. He appeared in darkness, damp air chilling his skin. He opened his hand, concentrating on the magic he desired, a small globe of bluish light forming in his palm and floating upward, illuminating his surroundings.

  Ribbed arches supported a curved stone ceiling some thirty feet above, and frescos of pastoral scenes covered the walls between several large statues of men and women. From their looks and the style of the carving, Gabriel guessed them to be Roman emperors and their wives. The major portion of the long room contained several pools of water. A Roman bathhouse then.

  From the coolness of the air, these were probably the pools the bathers used to slough off the heat of the steamier baths. The word frigidarium came to Gabriel’s mind from his studies. He looked up at the closest of the pale marble statues, the one the fragment in his hand originated from. The statue stood fifteen feet high, the eyes of its massive three-foot head gazing up at the painted stars spread across the ceiling.

  He guided the magical ball of light upward to shine on the face of the statue. Yes, he knew those eyes. That beard and those cheekbones. That face. He had seen that face not so many days ago.

  Aurelius. Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

  How could that be possible? Was it merely a coincidence Kumaradevi gave him a fragment of a statue of Aurelius to find Teresa? Had she known about their retrieval of Aurelius? Did she still have spies in the castle and on the Council? Could this be her idea of a joke? Did Kumaradevi have a sense of humor? Did it matter as long as he found Teresa?

  At least he knew when and where he would find her. He had spent a week researching the history of Marcus Aurelius. His statue stood in the bathhouse of Sagalassos, a Roman town in the Toros mountain range of what would eventually become southeastern Turkey. The town had been settled as far back as 8000 BCE, and over time had become an important center of trade, conquered by Alexander the Great in 333 BCE.

  Power changed hands several times before it became part of the Roman Empire in 39 AD. The town suffered a major earthquake in 518 CE, and eventually fell to Persian raiders and more earthquakes around 640 CE, which, Gabriel suspected, had also destroyed the statue of Marcus Aurelius.

  Gabriel found all of this important, not because of his love for history, but because it meant Teresa, whenever in time she might be, would be trapped in a town large enough for her to hide and find food and water until he could track her down.

  Locating her posed certain problems. The entire team had been trained to stay in one place when lost in time. Normally, Teresa would have tried to remain as close to the statue as possible, but with the statue in a bathhouse, that would be almost impossible. Most likely, she would try to find a hiding place near the statue and bathhouses to wait for rescue. However, he knew Teresa’s methodical mind. She would visit the statue at least once a day to make sure he could find her.

  Gabriel stepped to the corner of the room, behind the leg of another Emperor, Hadrian, possibly. He touched the wall and used the bathhouse itself as a relic to scan through time for some sign of Teresa. Images filled his mind. The bathhouse during the day with sunlight streaming through the arches. Nighttime with oil lamps burning in torchieres along the walls. Crowds of men and women bathing and relaxing.

  One image began to repeat. A girl near the statue of Marcus Aurelius. Gabriel jumped through time to a day when the girl sat at the foot of the statue, using his Soul Magic to render himself invisible to the people splashing in the pools.

  Gabriel felt his heart swell as the girl turned her head toward him. Teresa! He nearly allowed his Soul Magic veil to drop and run to her, but he noticed something. Her face looked tan, but thin. Very thin. How long had she been here? He had hoped to find her within days of her arrival. An awful thought occurred to him, but he forced it from his mind. He needed to be certain before he allowed himself to contemplate something so painful.

  Gabriel used the bathhouse to travel backward through time. One day. Then two. Then three. Teresa always sat at the foot of the statue. The same time every day. He adjusted his travel slightly, seeing her enter on one day and leave on another. She seemed to stay for two hours at a time. Long enough to bathe and sit by the statue, but not long enough to attract attention. As he skipped back in time, day by day, she looked less tan and less thin. Finally, a day arrived where she did not appear.

  He had half expected to see Kumaradevi delivering her to the statue but knew the old Dark Mage would never have been so sloppy as to appear where Gabriel might find her easily. He had counted over three weeks of days into the past. Fearing what he would find, he skipped ahead a month. Teresa still sat at the foot of the statue. Another month. His hopes began to fade. Another month. When he saw her then, he knew the extraction would be painful.

  A mage lost in time would, as long as they did nothing to create a bifurcation, gradually become part of the Primary Continuum. This natural and somewhat unpredictable process could take as little as a month, but it rarely took more than two. Teresa had been lost in the Primary Continuum for at least three months. If he simply snatched her from the timeline now, her sudden absence from it would create a bifurcation.

  The only way to save her without accidentally manufacturing a new alternate branch of the timeline would be to extract her the same way she had been removed originally — at the moment of her death. But when would her new death come? How old would she be? How many years would she be trapped in this Roman town before she died thinking Gabriel had abandoned her? How old would she be before he could save her?

  The sadness gripping Gabriel’s heart made it hard to breathe, much less see through the tears in his eyes. She might be an old woman before she saw him again. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm the swirl of emotions battering him. He jumped through time an hour until Teresa left the bathhouse. He followed her outside, keeping a safe distance, his Soul Magic making him as invisible to her as everyone else.

  Outside, she crossed a wide plaza doubling as a market place. The Greek name for a public plaza had been agora, and the name had often been retained into Roman times, although it could also have been called a forum. A building with fountains in homage to the water nymphs sat across the plaza from the bathhouse. Unsurprisingly, the Romans called the temple a nymphaeum.

  Teresa dodged a horse-drawn cart. Gabriel watched as she paid for some fruit with a coin. She knew. Of course she knew. Teresa understood time travel better than most Time Mages. She would have been counting the days, knowing each one brought her closer to being integrated into the Primary Continuum. She would never use money and make purchases so freely unless she felt certain she had already crossed that threshold. Now she would only have one way of escaping the timeline while still young, and Gabriel feared that option as much as her gradual aging.

  Only by taking her own life could she hope to be rescued while still a young woman. But that would bring other risks. Primarily, the risk of never being found and ending up dead — for the final time.
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  Gabriel continued to follow Teresa down a street to an alley between two stone houses. He watched with admiration as she used the uneven surface of one wall to scale the taller of the two buildings, climbing onto the roof. Gabriel jumped through space to the rooftop and stood beside her as she leaned on a stone ledge. Her eyes regarded the city with sadness.

  “Any day now. Please.”

  Gabriel stepped back, afraid he might lose control of himself and embrace her. He needed to find out how long she stayed here in this town. How long she lived. He could use her own body to guide him to that time, but he felt too afraid to touch her. A glint of gold beneath her tunic sleeve caught his eye. Her talisman bracelet. That would do fine.

  Cautiously, he reached out and placed his finger on the edge of the bracelet. He looked at Teresa. She appeared oblivious to his presence. He knew she would never willingly part from the bracelet. It could only be taken from her by force, which would require more force than any average Roman might suspect. He felt certain she would wear it throughout her life.

  Gabriel scanned the bracelet, looking for clues to tell him what Teresa’s future might hold. His mind flickered with images of Teresa in the market, by the statue, on the roof, in the street, and then…

  Gabriel gasped and staggered back. Teresa glanced around and though she heard him, but turned back to the town below. An icy chill fell over Gabriel’s limbs. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Even his mind felt frozen. He had seen Teresa’s death.

  It couldn’t be. It would not be. He would not accept it.

  He gently touched her bracelet again and jumped forward in time. He appeared, still shrouded in an unnoticeable cloak of Soul Magic, two weeks later in the middle of a street near the market by the bathhouse. He stood by the corner of a building watching Teresa as she walked along one side of the street.

  A block away, an ox-drawn wagon filled with freshly felled logs rumbled down the street. Two men rode atop the logs, one using a long, thin stick to drive the four oxen harnessed to the wagon while the other man sat chatting with him, a large axe balanced on his shoulder as…

  From the other end of the block, on the opposite side of the street behind Teresa, two black stallions raced ahead of a chariot, a lone soldier urging them forward with a crack of the reins as…

  Up ahead of Teresa, a woman tossed a basin of water onto the stones of the street as….

  Nearby a small, sandy-haired boy ran barefoot down the lane, kicking a red wooden ball as…

  The chariot sped by Teresa. She followed its path with her eyes. Looking back, she focused on a large, gray dog gnawing on a bone in the shade of the building not far away as…

  The boy’s foot landed on the side of the ball, sending it rolling across the lane. The boy never looked up from the ball and dashed after it, into the street, into the path of the galloping horses and their chariot as…

  The soldier in the chariot yanked back the reins, pulling the horses to the side, into the street, away from the boy as…

  The chariot’s frame collided with the side of the lumber wagon, crushing its rear wheel as…

  Teresa’s head snapped toward the sound of the crashing vehicles, sending her feet veering toward the dog. The gray dog noticed Teresa and growled, baring its teeth. Teresa stepped into the street to avoid the hound as…

  The oxen, spooked by the collision with the chariot, charged as the wagon tilted toward the middle of the street, buckling under the weight of the logs and the loss of the rear wheel as…

  Teresa looked from the dog to see the charging oxen and spun around, leaping toward the side of the street as…

  The wagon slammed into the ground, logs bouncing and rolling into the middle of the street, the driver falling to the ground with them as splinters of wood from the falling logs struck the thigh of the woman who had tossed the water into the street as…

  The second man on the wagon ran nimbly across the logs churning beneath him, leaping to the side of the street, the axe tumbling from his grip while he fell as…

  Teresa hit the ground on her knees, hands outstretched, to stop her momentum as…

  The wooden axe handle struck the ground, sending it spinning in a violently rapid arc as…

  Teresa looked up as…

  The axe blade struck her in the neck as…

  Gabriel closed his eyes.

  The sounds of the street — the screams, the shouting, the braying of horses, and the wild snorting of oxen — faded from Gabriel’s ears. He heard only the pounding of his own heart and the swift, deep gulps of his breathing.

  Teresa.

  Gone.

  Forever.

  The primary lesson he had learned while preparing for his first extraction with the team filled his mind. Extractions were not always possible. There were circumstances when it proved impossible to save the potential mage at the moment of his or her death. In order to prevent a bifurcation, the candidate needed to be extracted after their actual death. A Heart-Tree Mage would then repair the damaged flesh of the body and bring the person back to life.

  However, there were times when this simply could not be accomplished. If too much time passed between death and resuscitation, or the cause of death damaged the body beyond repair, the person would remain dead. Usually this did not present a problem. Most people died of accidents or natural causes. But while the damage from a sword to the heart could be repaired, a bullet to the brain would always be permanently lethal. Any death a Heart-Tree Mage could not repair would be a permanent death.

  Decapitation always remained fatal.

  Gabriel opened his eyelids to find Teresa’s eyes staring back at him from the ground. Her dead eyes. Her body lay several feet away.

  He turned and vomited against the wall of the building behind him. He felt his concentration begin to collapse. He didn’t know how long he could keep the Soul Magic hiding his presence in place. He needed to flee. He wanted to jump through time. To get as far away in space and time as possible from where he stood. Where Teresa had died.

  Unable to think of where to flee to in time, he ran. Sprinting up the street, he dodged men and women and carts and dogs and children, tears filling his eyes, making it difficult to see where he headed.

  He ran until the road ended and his breathing burned his lungs. He stood at the top of the Sagalassos Theatre, an outdoor amphitheater built into the sloping hillside, stone seats buried into the ground in a near-full circle. The seats angled down and ended in an open, horseshoe-shaped space. Behind this stood the stage, constructed of stone, tall columns supporting the roof. Only a handful people sat scattered throughout the seats, some eating, some talking, some napping in the warmth of the sun.

  Gabriel stepped into an aisle and sank down on a hard seat. He altered his appearance with the amulet to blend in with the citizens and slowly allowed the Soul Magic protecting him to fade. If anyone noticed him, they would think he arrived while they had been looking away. As the magic evaporated around him, his weeping turned to sobs and his head fell forward into his hands.

  His tears fell in memory of Teresa. For all she had been. For all she meant to him. For all she might have become. For what they might have become together.

  His tears fell in shame. For his role in her death. For leaving her alone to be kidnapped and stranded.

  His tears fell in anger. For Kumaradevi and her treachery. For her carelessness with human life. For leaving Teresa to die alone in a strange place and time.

  His tears fell in despair. For the fruitless hope he could change time and save Teresa. For the impossible desire to once again ignore Ohin’s guidance and create a bifurcation to save her.

  His tears fell with the pain of knowing he could not bring himself to create and destroy an entire world again to save one person, even a person he loved as much as Teresa.

  When his tears had burned away the sadness of memory and the self-loathing of shame, he found his desperation fading into a desire for revenge, fueled by the anger sti
ll consuming his heart. Kumardevi would regret her hand in Teresa’s death. Gabriel would make certain of that. She would not escape retribution.

  For too long he had thought of the war as a game, with different sides and factions, and with himself as the most coveted piece on the board. He couldn’t afford to think like that anymore. The war held no real resemblance to a game. People did not die in games. The loss of a game only provided a lesson for the next turn of play. Even Vicaquirao’s game only…

  Vicaquirao’s game.

  Gabriel sat up.

  Vicaquirao’s game.

  A hazy memory from a half-forgotten dream rippled through his mind just beneath conscious perception.

  Gabriel wiped his eyes and looked up to the sky. He had seen a sky like it in a dream. A dream with Vicaquirao. A dream where they played a strange game.

  The game!

  Was it only game? Did it matter? Could the game be the key? Could his past dreams have shown him a way forward in the present?

  Gabriel held his breath, thinking of Vicaquirao’s game, imagining the board and the pieces, remembering the way of thinking that would predict how the board might change. That’s what he had thought the game to be about. Prediction. But in the dreams, Vicaquirao had emphasized placement. How to place the pieces so even a random outcome would eventually work in your favor. What had he said?

  The keys to the game are learning to anticipate and plan for the subtle changes in the board, and how to arrange for minor alterations and use them to your advantage.

  Could it be possible?

  Gabriel stood up and walked along the curved row of stone benches.

  He thought back to what he had seen on the street. How Teresa had died.

  When he came to the end of the row, he reassumed his cloak of Soul Magic and jumped back to the street near the bathhouse. He took himself backward in time to a nearby rooftop and waited for Teresa and himself to arrive on the street below. He made sure his previous self could not see him. If his hunch proved possible, he’d be crossing his own personal timeline a number of times, with each occasion increasing the possibility of creating a paradox. It pained him beyond what he thought possible, but he made himself watch, extending his space-time sense and slowing the events down in his perception. As the axe struck, he moved again to another rooftop and back a little further in time and waited to see the accident from a different angle.