Once properly attired, Adam set his father inside the boat floating just off the shore, and repositioned the rope to give the impression that it had gotten tangled in the roots, locking it in place.
Then he settled in, kicking off the artificial boots and letting his feet dip into the sea water, and waited for his father to wake up.
Adam spent the time thinking about the future he’d left, about the discoveries Angel and Fil might make upon an island they viewed with such awe and amazement, overwhelmed by its sheer beauty and purity. He wondered how they’d feel if they knew what he knew, that the island their parents dubbed Eden had once supported a people who’d just beaten a man and pushed his oarless, sail-less boat out to sea to let him die. Would the island hold less appeal for them then? For all its natural beauty, Eden held strange, dark secrets that most would never know.
He wondered how they’d react if he told them where the skeletons in the cave came from. Or who’d put them there. He glanced up at the time machine where Genevieve waited. How would she react to see all of it unfold?
He’d find out soon.
He heard a groan from the small boat. He’d been so deep in thought that he kicked his feet in the water and scrambled back away from the water, startled.
He slid his feet back inside the boots and heated the interior just enough to evaporate the water from his feet, then aerated the boots so the vapor would escape. Then he crept toward the boat slowly. “Hello there. Is there someone in the boat? Are you ill, friend?”
His father groaned. “I’ve suffered the most horrific nightmare. Or perhaps it wasn’t. I don’t know if I’m ill or not.”
Adam allowed himself a small smile. “I hope the sound of my voice is not the cause of your nightmares or discomfort, friend.”
“It is not. Although…” His father rustled around in the boat, groaning as he sat up. “Your voice reminds of someone, and of a time of unpleasant memories.” He rolled from the boat into the shallow waters, surfacing and wincing as the salty water grazed the remaining scrapes and cuts in his skin. He scrambled ashore, splashing water upon the dirt and grass near his son, wincing as the pain levels stabilized. Then he looked at the man in the cloak. His eyes widened. “It is you. The man in the cloak, the man who set me up for capture and enslavement twenty years ago.”
He said it with a touch of anger, but Adam could sense that there was little malice behind the words. “I fear I don’t understand, friend. Though your voice… it does sound familiar to me as well. Have we met before?”
His father nodded. “Many years ago, and not far from here. I was quite young then, seeking my fortune away from the land of my birth. I met a man in a hooded cloak and he convinced me that my direction of travel wouldn’t bear fruit, and so I changed course. Not long after, I found myself captured and sold into slavery.” He sat down next to the man in the cloak, pulled off his boots, and dipped them into the salty waters. “It is deeply ironic then that I should meet the same man, as I’ve just returned from the land of my birth and had yet another unpleasant experience.”
Adam nodded only once, an indication of understanding. “Unpleasant in what manner?”
His father hesitated, then shrugged, and told the tale, explaining the circumstances of his birth, his lack of station among his people because of half of his parentage, his desire to lead his people, his failed effort to return and claim that mantle. Adam nodded at opportune moments, asked the occasional clarifying question, and otherwise ensured that, as a stranger with no understanding of his father’s background and personality, he would have the information required to make observations and recommendations.
He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “You wish to lead your people, then, but lack the prowess to wrest control from your brothers?”
“That’s right.” His father’s sigh carried far more anger and passion than one might suspect from a verbalization normally associated with acceptance of one’s fate, of an opportunity to move on to a new endeavor.
“You believe that you would provide better leadership than your brothers?”
His father paused. “They led by cruelty and force. Their people fear them. They do not love them. They have seen their cruelty. Those my brothers lead fear that they… well, that they…”
Adam turned his head slightly, keeping his head bowed, his eyes hidden beneath the hood. “They fear that they might be treated like you?”
His father hesitated before nodding. “In many ways, my return likely emboldened them to carry out more blatant atrocities. My father called my life punishment from the gods, and said that my return is a sign that they’ve not behaved in a proper manner. I fear that he and my brothers will use my return and unceremonious departure to purge out any others they believe threaten them in any way, possibly stopping a coup before it starts.” He shook his head. “It’s not that I want to lead them, it’s that I want to protect them, especially since my return has likely made things worse.”
Adam felt the passion behind the words, the desire to make things right… but also a willingness to pay any price and use any means necessary to achieve those ends. It was his father’s personality at its most basic level. “I believe I can help you, then.”
His father turned his way, and in the lines of his face and the thinning hair he saw the struggles he’d faced, shaped into a thin smile. “I hope your assistance works better this time than last.”
Adam allowed himself a chuckle. “It will, though it won’t be without pain or sacrifice. It will, though, enable you to reach your goals.” He dug his hands inside his cloak and found the pouches holding the berries and roots. “Do you recognize these?”
His father looked at both pouches, his face showing surprise. “The berries are native to my land; we don’t eat them as they cause madness.” He leaned in more closely to examine the powder remaining from the zirple root before shaking his head. “I don’t recognize the other items.”
Adam held up the berries. “The madness, as you describe it, is nothing of the sort. Those who eat the berries suffer as the body purges itself of all that blocks a type of magical power from manifesting. What seems to be madness—hearing voices that others don’t hear, reacting to emotions not expressed verbally or physically, perhaps even finding oneself in a place one doesn’t remember traveling to by normal means—are all minor expressions of that magical power. The berry, I’ve been told, is called morange by those who know its secret. The roots are from a plant called zirple, and the roots, when consumed in powder form, soothe the effects of the more abrasive morange. The morange at small quantities will give you a taste of power that then fades away. If you consume too much, you are more likely to die of the effects before you experience the power it unleashes. But taken in just the right amount, it will unlock those inherent powers and keep them unlocked.” He nodded at the roots. “The zirple is not harmful in any quantity, but can have the same effects as the morange, if taken daily for thirty or forty years.”
His father gave him a bemused look. “Who wants to wait that long? Your life would be over before you experience the reward.” The smirk of bemusement spoke volumes to his level of skepticism at the words of this stranger.
“Precisely.” Adam brought his hands together. “But if you combine them? A day or two of effects not unlike an aggressive but treatable illness. When your body finishes healing… the power is there. And it remains. And you’re healthier for it.”
“Fascinating though that may be…” His father put his hands on the ground and pushed himself to his feet, groaning as sore muscles complained of the effort. “Tales of magic are little but myths, and myths won’t help me solve my problem. I will not become the leader of my people by listening to children’s tales.” He turned and began walking. “Thank you for your earlier concern, but I’m afraid I must be on my way.”
Adam let a small bit of Energy loose, floating the zirple and morange pouches into the air until they hovered before his father’s eyes. He could feel the sense
of confusion, his father’s doubt at what he saw. It took only a moment—his father waved his hands around the hovering bags to ensure there were no tricks. Then he turned and stared at the stranger.
Adam rose to his feet. “You still doubt somewhat. It’s wise to be skeptical.” He pointed at the sword, somewhat surprised that his uncles had thought to send his weapon along. Perhaps they considered it part of the process of purging the island, ridding themselves of anything associated with their half-brother. “Draw your weapon. Do everything you can to try to kill me.”
“I have no interest in—”
“Do it.”
His father shrugged and charged, planted his feet, and thrust his sword at Adam.
Adam teleported behind his father, stuck out his boot, and tripped the man. His father lay on the ground for a moment, stunned, before feeling a rising anger. He grabbed his sword and scrambled back to his feet. He moved toward the stranger in the cloak again, but with more caution this time, stabilizing his feet before swinging his sword in a shorter arc.
Adam pushed out Energy sufficient to surround and control the blade and forced it to stop an instant before it might slice through his skin. The process jarred his father, an effect not unlike swinging his sword against a rock. The reverberations hurt, the man thought, but at least he still had—
Adam yanked the sword away with his Energy, hoisting it a dozen feet into the air. He watched the sword rise before turning his hidden face back upon his father and wrapping him tightly in Energy, squeezing the warmth like a straitjacket, watching his father’s face of wonder turn to one of horror, a realization that, perhaps, this stranger would kill him for no reason other than personal amusement.
Adam released his father and lowered the sword gently to the ground. “Would the myths I just demonstrated be of any use to you in your struggles, friend?”
His father seized his sword, and Adam wondered if he might try to cut through him once more… but the man stowed the sword in the sheath. “I beg you… let me eat the berries and the powder. I shall have my revenge on those who’ve done me wrong and will lead my people.”
Adam held up his hand. “It is not an instant process, friend. The power is unleashed initially over the course of a few days. But it must be strengthened and tamed before one can do what I’ve just shown you. It will take you five years’ worth of work.”
His father’s hand remained out as he scoffed at the estimate. “I will not sleep, and I will take no longer than a year to accomplish what you claim takes five.”
Adam hesitated, but handed over the materials. “I will stay with you for a time, friend, until the worst of the effects pass.”
He did. He left his healing nanos inside, pushing in his own Energy to stave off the worst of the pain. His father was an older man for this Purge than Will had been. While he’d been exposed to fewer Energy-draining influences than his twenty-first century counterpart, the effects of the Purge were still violent, still horrific to watch.
He bathed his weakened father, using Energy to boil out the salty impurities of the sea before cleansing his skin of his own waste and interior grime, hydrating him with the same sanitized IV system he’d used treating Elizabeth a few days or a decade earlier.
When his father slept, he brought Genevieve down, ordering her to remain silent, reminding her that the sleeping man mustn’t know that a dead woman lived. She watched Adam work, and when her former love was at his deepest level of sleep, she rested a gentle hand upon his head and pressed her lips to his forehead before looking back at Adam, eyes moist. He understood. She’d been angry at his actions and wanted him to suffer… and he had. In her mind, his debt had been paid in full.
Adam moved her back to the time machine. They ate in companionable silence and drank fresh water. She asked why Elizabeth hadn’t died from the berries; he admitted he’d been there and ensured her father’s mistake hadn’t killed his only (at the time) child. Genevieve nodded, unsurprised. She’d seen far too much at this point to doubt anything he told her, no matter how fantastic it might otherwise seem.
Adam was back on the ground when his father woke, asking about the sense of warmth, helping his father learn to move the sensation around his body, helping him learn to trust the emotional reads, to recognize the voices in his head that were the projected thoughts of others rather than his own. He taught him how to slowly build up the potency of that warmth, that Energy, and how over the course of days and months and decades he might increase the potency enough to do what the man in the cloak had done.
“I must leave you now.” Adam turned away, walked a few steps, then stopped and turned back. “I beg of you, though. Do not let your eagerness for revenge and your desire for justice push you back to your people too quickly. You will fare better today than yesterday, but you will still fall to their greater numbers. Do not go back until you are ready, and when you are certain you are ready, wait again. Trust the voice of doubt; when it believes, only then are you ready.”
His father nodded.
Adam turned and walked away.
The voice came after him. “Thank you.” A pause, and then, with a small trace of humor. “Will I see you yet again, at some crossroads of my life?”
He didn’t look back. “Only time will tell, friend.”
Then he teleported from his father’s sight.
~~~41~~~
1019 A.D.
The top cleared after the latest time hop. Genevieve peered outside, frowning. “I think something’s wrong. Nothing changed.”
It seemed so; they still saw the thick, puffy clouds high above the rolling sea to the west. The lands below showed a layout no different than what they’d seen as Adam activated the time circuits a few moments earlier, not long after vanishing from his father’s sight, leaving the man to hone his Energy skills.
He scanned the landscape more closely, concerned she might be right… and wouldn’t that be bad news? To be stuck here forever… But as he looked, he saw what he needed to see. “No, there are subtle changes. There’s another small spur off the main road heading east. The forest looks thinned out; perhaps a fire has taken out some of the larger trees.” He looked back at her. “The changes to the landscape may be subtle. But they’re there. What we should find in this time, two years since our last encounter with my father, is that he’s made very non-subtle changes in his Energy ability.”
He marveled at Genevieve’s adaptability. In what felt like mere days earlier as she’d lived it, she’d been an oppressed mother of an oppressed child, she’d been locked into a loveless marriage, and her true love had abandoned her and their child to that life. Now, she flew around in a room that was unseen from the outside, skipping ahead years in mere seconds, and watched as her true love suffered his own cruel twists of fate. And she did so with a stranger, the grown son of her true love from a future time.
He’d redone the time machine’s operational security when he’d returned from his visit with his father. Her thoughts had gotten more and more desperate; she longed to steal away in the machine, to head back to the North Village, and to rescue her daughter, ignoring the disastrous consequences. She’d figured out that there was some type of code written in the book he referenced, that somehow he changed the numbers near the front part of the room, and that he could make this space room move across time and across the land by making those changes. She suspected that if she could read the numbers in that book, if she could read enough of the words, she could figure out the correct numbers to get her back where she needed to go.
She was wildly intelligent and highly motivated. Given enough time, she’d figure out how to read those numbers and operate the controls. He was certain, though, that by the time she figured all of that out, they’d already be in his present, and she’d be able to interact with her grown daughter without risking the existence of so many.
He hoped.
They looked toward the shoreline. The same small boat remained, tethered near the same small grove of tree
s by the shoreline. It didn’t mean the boat hadn’t moved in two years, but it was the type of detail that would give the illusion that they’d not changed times at all.
When he felt the Energy surge, though, he knew they’d changed times. He knew his father had been working very hard.
Genevieve might not notice the difference as his father walked toward the boat, but he certainly did. He didn’t think his father could teleport—not quite yet—but his power was more than sufficient to crush any resistance on the island, paired as it was with pronounced feelings of anger.
He felt sorry for the residents of the island. They were about to suffer through the worst day of their lives.
Genevieve tapped his arm and pointed. “There he is.” She paused. “He looks… confident.”
Adam nodded. “He has reason to be confident.”
She glanced at him, curiosity on her face. “His magic… is it stronger now?”
He offered her a helpless glance. “He is now so powerful that he could destroy your entire village and everyone in it without lifting a weapon.”
Her face contorted slightly, and he wondered if she’d realize that, in only a few years, the man she’d loved and forgiven would do exactly what he’d just described.
Genevieve watched the man she called Adam, studied the tight look on his face, the predatory movements as he approached the boat. He felt her mood shift, the recognition that something sinister was afoot, that the strange man in the machine knew of some great evil to be perpetrated by the man below. Once more, the stranger would permit that tragedy to run its course “for history.”
Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 19