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

by G. L. Breedon

  “He’s smart.” Teresa looked up at a passing cloud.

  “He said the clue was obvious. Clever but obvious.” Gabriel joined Teresa in watching the cloud drift through the sky.

  “What are obvious things?”

  “Things that are right in front of your face.”

  “What’s right in front of our faces?”

  “The notebook.”

  “The notebook can’t be the Rosetta Stone.”

  They sat watching the cloud, holding hands. Teresa’s last words hung in Gabriel’s mind. The notebook couldn’t be the Rosetta Stone. What was obvious? Could a place be the key? Could Elizabeth have hidden something in time that would function as a Rosetta Stone? Where could she hide something like that without the possibility of creating a bifurcation? Where could she hide it that was both obvious and clever? As Gabriel watched the cloud sail through the sky, he had an obvious thought.

  “Oh.” Gabriel heard his voice breaking with excitement, but ignored it.

  “Oh, what?” Teresa noted his tone and turned to him.

  “What if the Rosetta Stone is the Rosetta Stone?” Gabriel made no attempt to contain the joy that broke across his face.

  “Yes!” Teresa smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Why didn’t we think of that? She could copy the text of the original Rosetta Stone in her alphabet to create the key to deciphering the notebook.”

  “How do we find a copy of the Rosetta Stone and the translation?” Gabriel asked, again cursing the loss of the Windsor Castle library.

  “I told you we needed to go to the future.” Teresa snatched the notebook from the grass and beamed at Gabriel.

  A quick trip to the year 2012 and some time spent in a closed New York Public Library accessing the Internet via computer, and Teresa had collected all the various translations of the Rosetta stone, as well as copies of the original text in Greek and Egyptian.

  Back on the hill above the new fortress, Gabriel marveled at how swiftly Teresa managed to compare the various texts with the first passage of the notebook. Within an hour, she had determined that the notebook used an English translation of the text. Gabriel felt relieved that Councilwoman Elizabeth hadn’t taken the time to learn ancient Greek.

  “Here. The first paragraph is an exact match.” Teresa pointed to the translation she had copied out.

  “In the reign of the young one — who has received the royalty from his father — lord of crowns, glorious, who has established Egypt, and is pious towards the gods, superior to his foes, who has restored the civilized life of men, lord of the Thirty Years' Feasts, even as Hephaistos the Great; a king, like the Sun, the great king of the upper and lower regions; offspring of the Gods Philopatores, one whom Hephaistos has approved, to whom the Sun has given the victory, the living image of Zeus, son of the Sun, Ptolemy living-for‑ever beloved of Ptah…

  “It goes on like that for another two paragraphs.” Teresa beamed with pride at the translation.

  “You’re a genius.” Gabriel kissed Teresa. “And you’re beautiful.”

  “I’ll stick with genius, it’ll last longer.” Teresa’s eyes softened with delight. “But you can tell me I’m beautiful all you like.”

  “Thanks to you…you beautiful genius…we can decode the notebook.”

  Gabriel realized, unsurprisingly, he liked having a genius girlfriend more than a beautiful girlfriend. Luckily, Teresa was both.

  “Not really.” Teresa sighed as she picked up the notebook. “I worked out the first two sentences of the notebook after the Rosetta text. I can’t make any sense of it. I can read it phonetically, but it’s still gibberish.”

  Gabriel followed her finger on the paper she had used to transcribe the notebook. “Jee-na-ko-to-va lo-tosh.” Gibberish. One step closer, but a longer journey ahead.

  “We have to learn how to speak ancient Indus.” Gabriel scratched his head in frustration. He had known the notebook had been written in Indus, but had hoped for the best anyway.

  “Road trip!” Teresa laughed.

  “It could take months.” Gabriel tried to contain his disappointment.

  “You don’t want to spend months with me learning a new language?” Teresa feigned offense. “Maybe you’d rather take Lilac. She seemed very happy to volunteer for the last trip.”

  By some weird quirk of fortune, Justine had been one of the first survivors of the castle to arrive at the new fort. Although she never gave any hint of rivalry for Gabriel’s affections, Teresa loved to tease Gabriel with the girl’s supposed infatuation, often referring to her as “Lilac” when they were alone. Gabriel had been relieved Justine expressed no interest in him, although she did tend to follow Teresa around, seeming to worship her like some exotic older sister.

  “Don’t be silly.” Gabriel frowned at Teresa’s implication. “I love missions with you, but I’m awful at learning languages.”

  “I’m not. Would you like to know how many I speak?” When Gabriel didn’t answer, Teresa continued. “Spanish, French, Italian, German, a little Japanese, and just enough Chinese to drive Ling crazy.”

  “You’re right.” Gabriel said, his mood brightening considerably. “Road trip.”

  They kissed again, because they were happy, because they were young, because they were in love, and mostly, because they could.

  “It had better be worth all this work,” Teresa finally said.

  “Elizabeth wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if what she put in this notebook wasn’t likely to be the difference between saving the Great Barrier and…” Gabriel wasn’t sure what would happen if the Barrier fell, but he felt sure it would be like the end of the world.

  “Then we should get started.” Teresa stood up as a smile spread across her lips. “Last one down cleans up after dinner!” Teresa laughed and dashed down the hill.

  “But it’s your turn to clean up after dinner!” Gabriel struggled to his feet, grinning as he chased Teresa down the hill and back to the imposing walls of the new fortress. Even after all they had lost, he felt happy. Even with all they faced, he felt elated. He had a purpose. He had responsibilities. He had a clear duty. He had friends. And he had Teresa.

  As they ran down the hill, trying to keep from tumbling to the bottom, he realized the fort still had no name. He’d have to mention that to Ohin and the others. He knew the perfect name for a fortress fighting off a horde intent on destruction.

  Aurelius.

  Epilogue

  The men walked through the trees, a dense mantle of fog obscuring them from one another. Their footsteps through the damp underbrush echoed in their ears as their words reverberated in their minds.

  “There is no time.”

  “We must act now.”

  “Before it is too late.”

  “Before they know…”

  “What we know.”

  “Patience is the path…”

  “Of success.” “Of failure.” “Of wisdom.” “Of cowardice.”

  “Action is the path…

  “Of success.” “Of victory.” “Of triumph.”

  The fog grew thicker, a white-gray blanket smothering the trees and the men and the world.

  “Then we act…”

  “We act now…”

  “We kill him…”

  “Before it is too late.”

  The fog swallowed the men, their voices absorbed into the mist of madness obscuring their minds.

  About the Author

  After a childhood spent whizzing through the galaxy in super sleek starships and defeating treacherously evil monsters in long forgotten kingdoms, G.L. Breedon grew up to write science fiction and fantasy novels. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn, NY.

  He is also the author of:

  The Wizard of Time – Book 1

  The Dark Shadow of Spring (The Young Sorcerer’s Guild – Book 1)

  Summer’s Cauldron (The Young Sorcerer’s Guild – Book 2)

  The Celestial Blade

  For more informat
ion or to sign up for G.L. Breedon’s mailing list, please visit:

  Kosmosaicbooks.com

  Word of mouth and recommendations are essential in helping an author’s work find new readers. If you enjoyed The Wizard of Time, please consider writing a short review at Amazon. Even a few words would be very helpful.

  Amazon US

  Amazon UK

  The First Chapter of The Dark Shadow of Spring

  (The Young Sorcerer’s Guild – Book 1)

  Chapter One: Race Through Runewood

  Pedals reversed, gears locked, and thin rubber tires squealed across the ancient cobblestones of the narrow street. A sneaker-clad foot slid from a pedal and scraped along the cobblestones to steady the Schwinn Red Phantom bicycle as it made the sharp turn onto Tulip Street. Then the foot slammed back in place on the pedal, the rolled blue jean pant leg slapping against the chain guard as thin legs pumped hard and the bicycle picked up speed again. The bike swerved, braked, and swerved again to miss a big-boned woman with a bag of groceries stepping into the street.

  “Alex Ravenstar, you reckless hellion!” the woman shouted. “Your mother’s going to hear about this!”

  The wind whipped through Alex’s short black hair as he tried to stifle the grin that spread out across his long, angular face. How many times had he heard those words in his thirteen years?

  “Sorry, Mrs. Gumblson!” Alex called out over his shoulder, catching a glance of the rotund woman’s red-faced glare as she stomped off across the street.

  “You’re in trouble now.”

  Alex glanced over to see his sister, Nina, pedaling up beside him, her long, pitch-black hair flapping in the wind behind her. She was grinning as widely as Alex.

  “She won’t tell Mom,” Alex said as he leaned back on his seat and coasted beside his sister. “She never does.”

  “It’s not Mom you have to worry about,” Nina said, her dark brown eyes alight with mischievous delight. “It’s me!” Nina yanked the handlebars of her bike and veered sharply toward her brother. Alex swerved to avoid colliding with Nina and reversed the pedals of his bike, braking to a screeching halt at the side of the street.

  Nina hooted with glee over her shoulder. Then she pedaled faster than ever. Alex started after his devious sibling and wondered, not for the first time, whether he was a bad influence on her or she was a bad influence on him. Either way, he wasn’t about to let his eleven-year-old little sister beat him in a bike race.

  Alex jumped up and threw his full weight down on the right pedal as he pushed off with his left foot. Seconds later, bike chain clanking as gears spun, he sped to catch up with his sister, slowly narrowing the gap with each revolution of the wheels.

  Alex and Nina raced along the curving streets of the town of Runewood, turning off Tulip Street onto Main Street and whizzing past Sparrow and Hawk Streets, down to the town center where small shops and houses were intermingled and snuggled up against each other. They pedaled past the Thakar family’s dress shop and Mrs. Stephonopolous’s meat market. They whisked by the tobacconist Mr. Amamander standing next to Mr. Pak outside his bookstore before careening across the street outside the Truffaut Café and DeSoto’s Green Grocery.

  Leaning hard into the curve of the street, they circled the massive monument at the heart of the town, rushing past the stone faces of a man, a woman, a dwarf, a giant, and a tree elf. By the time they sped past the town movie theater, its marquee listing the weekly double feature of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Forbidden Planet, Alex had once again pressed the advantage of his size and age to pull up even with his sister.

  Nina looked at him and stuck her tongue out as they neared the Poonjari bakeshop. A petite Indian girl with dark brown skin, ink-black hair, and otherworldly emerald green eyes stood outside the bakeshop. She held a bright green bicycle and wore a hunter green flannel shirt above an old pair of jeans with the pant legs rolled up. Alex and Nina laughed at the girl as they rushed past.

  “Hades' hairpiece!” Alex heard the girl curse behind him. The girl was Daphne Poonjari, a founding member of the Young Sorcerers Guild and Alex’s oldest friend. She loved to curse. And she hated to lose a race.

  Alex pulled ahead of Nina and braked hard as he pulled onto Raven Street. He could hear his sister puffing behind him to keep up. He stood up to pedal harder, afraid to look back for fear he would lose control of the bike. The cobblestones of Runewood’s streets were picturesque, but it had been centuries since they were level, which made racing along them much like running an obstacle course. Alex banked to his left, leaning deep into the turn onto North Street. The street ran straight up to the Azure River, the old docks, and the Ravenstone Bridge. The cobblestones of North Street were a bit more even and Alex was just about to risk a look back over his shoulder when he heard the roar of a truck engine and felt a rush of wind.

  “Slow poke!” Daphne shouted, her ponytail whipping in the wind as she whizzed past him, one hand steering her bicycle and the other grasping the tailgate of Mr. Wilson’s old Plymouth truck as it sped down the street.

  Alex shook his head in disbelief. Daphne was the most courageous member of the Young Sorcerers Guild, but she was also the most reckless. Thanks to the bewitching beauty of her mother, a dryad wood nymph, Daphne was both the shortest and most striking girl of her age in town. It was a combination she hated. Her size and prettiness gave many boys the impression that she needed someone to look out for her. To compensate, Daphne liked to prove that she could not only take care of herself, but also that she could accomplish more than any boy could. She was hardly ever wrong.

  “Look out!” Alex heard Nina yell from much closer behind him than he expected. Alex saw what Nina was shouting about just as Daphne turned and saw the same thing. An empty flatbed wagon hitched to a horse sat on the side of the street right in front of Daphne. Thanks to the speed of Mr. Wilson’s truck, she was going far too fast to stop, but if she didn’t do something quick, she’d run right into the back of the wagon.

  Alex saw Daphne let go of the truck and heard her shout a rune-word spell that sounded similar to one he knew just before she was about to collide with the wagon. A cloud of dust and old straw erupted as a great gust of air struck the wagon and slammed the back of it to the ground a fraction of a second before the front wheel of Daphne’s bicycle made contact. Alex stopped pedaling and coasted in amazement as he watched Daphne ride her bike up the wagon like a huge ramp and then shoot off the other end into the air, flying over the startled horse and landing some twenty feet on the other side. Daphne braked to a hard stop and swung the bike sideways as the truck, driven by the oblivious Mr. Wilson, rumbled away behind her.

  “What gorping idiot parks a wagon in the street like that?” Daphne panted as Alex and Nina coasted to a stop in front of her. Gorping was one of Daphne’s many favorite curse — gorp being the local name for the slime left behind by the large magical snails that congregated at the edge of the Silent Swamp.

  “And I thought I was insanely irresponsible and dangerous,” Alex said, still reeling from the near miss and noticing that Daphne was not nearly as calm about the close call as she was trying to appear.

  “You are,” Nina said with a laugh. “But Daphne is worse.”

  “So do I win the race or what?” Daphne asked, ignoring Alex and Nina’s taunts.

  “Since you’re likely to kill yourself if we say no, and we need you for the mission, I’ll concede defeat,” Alex said as he looked over at Nina.

  “Alright, fine,” Nina said, with a small pout. “But only because we need her for the mission, even though you still haven’t told us how we’re going to find the dragon, much less wake it up, or what we’re supposed to do once we’ve got it awake, and you can bet when I’m a full member of the Guild, I’ll be voting for a little more planning for our adventures before we start them.” Technically, Nina was not yet an official member of the Young Sorcerers Guild — a fact which irked to her to no end — but she accompanied them on all of their adventu
res anyway. Alex had found that he couldn’t stop her if he tried.

  “Too much planning spoils the fun,” Alex said with a wink.

  “Besides,” Daphne said in a deceptively sweet voice, “Alex’s plans always go haywire.” Alex gave Daphne a sour look as she as she turned her bike and began to pedal along North Street. He and Nina quickly caught up and the three rode down the middle of the largely traffic-free lane.

  “Where are we meeting the others?” Nina asked.

  “Down by the bridge,” Alex said as he leaned back and let go of the handlebars, balancing with his arms wide as he pedaled. The cobblestones of North Street were more level than most streets in town and proved only a minor challenge to Alex’s stability. Nina glanced over, and because she did everything her brother did and then some, she was soon riding the same way. It only took a moment for the competitive Daphne to notice and mimic them. Alex chuckled and looked around at the town as he pedaled out of it.

  The town of Runewood was not large, consisting of only a few hundred families. Named for the forest to the northwest of town and the stone runes sheltered within its trees, it was more than a simple village — it was a sanctuary. At least for people like Alex and his friends and family. People who could sense and use magic. And for people who were not technically people in the human sense of the word, but were magical nonetheless.

  It was, by and large, a safe place. Hidden from the rest of the world by powerful enchantments, it was the best place imaginable to grow up if you were a mage or magical creature. Where else, Alex thought to himself, could you climb up a mountain all afternoon and find a dragon to wake?

  As they approached the Azure River, Alex could see two boys sitting on the eastern wall of Ravenstone Bridge, its wide, midnight-black stones supporting a small metal box between the boys. The boys were a study in contrasts, the first an impossibly large African boy with a gentle face, dark chocolate complexion, light brown eyes, and enormous hands, while the other was strikingly small and wide with a glorious mane of wild red hair that matched his reddish-brown eyes. The boys were Clark Millberry and Ben Karnath, Alex’s friends and fellow members of the Young Sorcerers Guild.