Adam nearly choked.
His father glanced around. “I guess I’m the Adam now, the first man and leader of this village. I’d heard stories of the celebrations they’d hold in the past, dancing and music and great feasts around the table inside our largest cave. I’d hoped to experience that ceremony as the guest of honor, hoped that would happen even today, but that’s no longer possible.” He shook his head, and wiped away a tear. “I really need to control my temper.”
Adam nodded. “You do.” He paused. “Are you leaving the island now? Are you prepared to begin your journey back to your new permanent home?”
His father shook his head, thoughtful. “Not yet.”
Adam moved aside and watched as his father, a man who hours earlier had chased down and slaughtered every person on the island, took the time to transport every corpse back to the island’s main cave. He sat them on the benches at the table, setting his father and half-brothers and their wives and children at the main table, leaving empty the central seat of honor. He placed his other victims at the additional tables. He moved around, locating all the wooden goblets and metal dishes and the small knives they used for slicing into fish and small game consumed as meat.
His father glanced at him. “I guess you could say they’re celebrating my ascendancy to being the Adam.” He sighed. “In reality, they’re likely celebrating the fact that I’ll soon leave and never return.” He looked around the assemblage, at the bodies slumped over the tables, bloodied faces rested in the dishes before them. “At least they’re all together.”
They moved back to the beach, and his father went to the only body he’d not set in place around the tables in the main cave. He glanced up at the sky, watching as the natural light dimmed with the slow descent of the sun. “I wish I had more light.”
Adam released a bit of Energy in a sphere, illuminating the area. “With your gifts, you are never without light. But… take care in how you use those gifts.”
His father nodded. Then he lifted the body of his mother and began walking.
Adam walked with him.
They moved over the hills of the caves and down into a clearing where, several centuries hence, Adam would land on multiple occasions with the time machine. His father veered to the right, to a section of the island that was comparatively gloomy and lacking in color, and with the Energy light as his guide, plunged through thick brush. Adam followed, and found himself in a section of the island he’d never visited and never heard mentioned.
He saw dozens of morange bushes, all heavy with ripe berries by the hundreds, and he gasped in surprise. He knew the berry grew here; his father had mentioned it more than once in retelling tales of his earliest days, and he’d used those stories in the explanations he gave to little Elizabeth.
He’d often wondered why Will and Hope, who’d admitted finding this island, had never told him of the abundant grove of morange bushes there. Had they avoided this section of the island for so long?
His father set his mother’s body down gently upon the soft earth and knelt over her once more, remaining in silence for several minutes. He then used his Energy to clear away the earth, digging a hole in the ground, until he had sufficient room for his mother’s body. He picked her up and placed her gently in the grave and closed her eyes for the final time. “Rest in peace, mother. You deserved a better life. And a better son.”
He pushed the dirt back upon her, patting it down smooth, and stood before her grave in silence for quite some time.
In the shadows behind him, his son hoped that he’d buried the internal demons with her.
~~~44~~~
1019 A.D.
His father finally broke his long silence, turning to the stranger in the cloak. “Will you help me gather the berries so I may take them to those in my second home who need them?”
Adam nodded.
They first traveled back to the caves, where his father found heavy bags with straps to carry the bags using their shoulders. They hauled the animal skin bags back to the morange grove, with the Energy lights leading the way.
Together, they picked every berry off every bush, eventually filling a half dozen bags. Adam glanced at his father. “How do you mean to carry all of these?”
“I am giving all but one bag to you. Your judgment is better than mine.” His father paused, then offered a faint, mirthless laugh. “Well, except for teaching me how to unleash the power I now possess, that is.”
Adam thought to argue, but opted against it. He’d throw the bags in the time machine’s trunk and figure out what to do with them later.
With the bushes cleared, his father stood back. He found two branches, peeled off the bark, and used the bark as twine to fashion the branches into a small cross, which he placed on his mother’s grave.
He turned back to Adam. “Now I’m ready to leave.”
Adam followed him to the east and then north, back to the caves. His father found his boat offshore and reached out his Energy, pulled the craft in and grounded it on the shore above the tide line. He glanced at the stranger in the cloak. “I will sleep here tonight and head back to the shore in the morning. I assume you have your own means of returning to the shore?”
Adam nodded. “I will leave during the night.”
His father nodded before extending his hand. “Thank you. I’m not certain why or how you’ve always appeared when I most needed you, but… thank you.”
Adam nodded once. “Before I depart, I have a gift for you.” He silently summoned the invisible tube containing his grandmother’s blood, letting it fall into a pocket and removing the invisibility.
His father arched an eyebrow. “A gift?”
Adam nodded. “Among my people, it is considered prudent to carry with us the blood of our ancestors, to have with us their experience and guidance and love.” He nodded at the piles of rubble on the beach, visible through the faint illumination of the moonlight. “I believe your people did something similar with the statues protecting the shore.”
His father nodded, a rueful look upon his face. Those statues hadn’t protected the people against a threat that came from within, even if that threat didn’t develop until it left. “The blood of my people lies soaked into this land, and I dare say, given a chance, it will offer protection… to my enemies.”
Adam shook his head. “No. The blood of everyone here would not wish you ill. There was one here in particular who would protect you at all costs.”
His father paled. “My mother.”
Adam nodded and handed over the tube. “Keep it with you always; it will offer you protection. The material is a special one native to my land and will preserve the blood for all time, keeping it fresh and moist. Were you to open this item even years from now, it would be as if the blood came from a fresh wound.”
He’d not realized what he’d said until he saw the pain and horror in his father’s eyes, saw the memory of her execution etched into the deepening wrinkles on his face. “My apologies; I spoke with too much haste.”
His father took a deep breath. “I lost both my parents today, and wish they were still here. Her, at least. Just to give me the chance to properly say goodbye.” He eyed the stranger. “Tell me, friend… do your parents still live?”
“My mother still lives. My father…” He swallowed once. “My father sacrificed himself to save another.”
“He sounds like a noble man, then.”
“He is.” Adam tried to keep his eyes off the man before him as he spoke, and then amended his words. “He was.” He paused. “My people consider it prudent to prepare these containers for children not yet born at a time when one is in good health. I had with me several containers of this type that I was carrying to distant friends, for the material is uncommon. I can certainly find more, and as I became aware of your circumstances I believed this an opportune time for you to prepare your blood for your children’s protection.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the two remaining tubes. “I prepared these for
you. With your blood, from earlier.”
“But…” His father frowned as he accepted the tubes, running his fingers down the sides of the strange material. “Why would I need them? I have no children.”
“I have a suspicion you may find that one day that will change. Fortune favors the prepared.”
His father nodded. “I fear I’m too old at this point, but I appreciate the kind gesture. I do find the preservation of blood to be… strange.” He grimaced. “I mean no offense by that.”
“No offense is taken. We all have our strange rituals and traditions, acts that seem so strange to others yet purely natural to us.”
His father turned the tubes over in his hands. “The markings… what do they mean?”
“This”—Adam tapped the first tube—“is yours, for it contains the blood of the mother who loved you. The others are yours to bequeath to your future children, should you have them. If you do not, then there is no harm. If you have more than two children… well, perhaps I’ll sense the issue and stop by with additional containers.”
“And the markings on them? What do they mean?”
“I felt that I should mark them in that fashion, that the symbols and the true meaning behind them would reveal themselves in time.” He shrugged. “When you need to know what those symbols mean… you’ll know. But be certain that you never lose possession of those tubes. Keep them with you always, for you never know when you’ll need the protection provided.”
His father pressed the tubes into a pocket before holding out his hand. “Again, I thank you for everything. For the gifts I cannot control and the gifts I cannot yet understand… thank you.”
Adam nodded, and let the Energy light dissipate and fade away. “Enjoy your rest and your journey home, friend. I will take this time to depart.”
He’d walked only a few steps to the south—suggestive of one who’d arrived by boat on a different part of the island—before his father called out to him. “You never told me your name.”
“That’s because you aren’t the only one who wasn’t given a name at birth.”
He dipped down below the far ridge of the cave hills, beyond the limited remaining visibility his father retained, before teleporting off Eden and back to the time machine.
~~~45~~~
1021 A.D.
His sudden appearance in the time machine startled Genevieve, keeping her silent for several moments. She watched intently as he retrieved the journal, entered the time and date and location coordinates, and recharged the batteries to full capacity. He closed the cabin top and activated the time circuits, finally looking at her as the sensation of time displacement slithered through him. “What?”
“You do realize that I heard everything you said down there.”
“Of course.” He’d opened a telepathic channel, allowing her to hear what both men said, but not what he thought.
“Your mother is alive. In your time.”
Adam shrugged. “She is.”
“Is she… do I know her?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Does it matter?”
She didn’t answer. He wondered if it did for her. How would Genevieve react to the knowledge of his mother’s identity? Did she realize Eva and Adam were no more closely related than she and Arthur? Would she begrudge his father’s second lover their time together, recognizing that they were unable to be any more open about their relationship than she and the original Adam?
He decided he’d refrain from revealing his mother’s identity to her, at least for now.
Genevieve watched as the top cleared before looking around, squinting at the surroundings in the dark. “We’re back home.” She glanced at him. “Is this… your time? Or mine?”
“It’s closer to your time than mine. We’ve jumped forward two years. My father… Adam now… he’s still making his way back here, and will arrive in a few more weeks. He doesn’t know that you’re dead… and he won’t be happy when he finds out what happened to you.”
He thought he saw something like a flicker of triumph cross her face, but the look vanished as quickly as it appeared. “What is our mission?”
“My mission. Not ours.”
“Fine. What is your mission?”
How to explain without revealing the answer to the question she’d just asked? He paused a moment before recognizing his opening. “There are several people from your village who have survived to my time. My father lived quite a long time. Arthur Lowell lives. Your daughter still lives, though she will come closer to death than—”
“What?” She lunged at him, seizing him by the shoulders, her eyes wild. “I thought you said she’s still alive in your time?”
“She is.” He kept his voice calm. “She lives because someone like me arrived in your village about one year ago, with power like mine and technology like mine. While he doesn’t have access to this machine to allow him to move through history, he does have the power to help those in need. And he ensured that, while those in your village thought Elizabeth dead, that she escaped them and went on to live a life outside those walls. A very long, prosperous, and happy life, I might add.”
She relaxed her grip on his shoulders as he spoke, finally releasing him.
“There was one other person, besides my fellow traveler through time, who survives to my time. We must ensure that she lives through an upcoming threat to that survival, an event that should have left her dead. The man I mentioned earlier, the one who ensured Elizabeth’s survival, will also protect this long-term survivor.”
She gave him a curious look. “Who are all of us trying to save?”
“Who?”
“Eva.”
Genevieve wrinkled her nose. “Oh. Her.”
“Not a friend of yours, I take it.”
“She spoke in favor of Elizabeth’s treatment and pushed Adam away from the village. She was always emotionally distant from everyone, as if she was somehow better than the rest of us.” She sniffed. “No, I would not call her a friend.”
He felt a defensive need to protect Eva, but knew he couldn’t push it too much. “I think Eva would agree with that assessment, and she recognized her mistakes about Elizabeth soon after your… departure. She has, since that time, taken on a protective role for Elizabeth, recruiting several of her fellow traders to help. They’ve been hiring her but refusing to be abusive about it; they won’t take her to the Schola, often hiring her to rest in their cabins. Many times, they’ll just teach her about their work, tell stories… basically, they treat her as a friend. They are vastly outnumbered. But Eva… she’s taken care of your daughter as best she can.”
Genevieve’s face softened. Slightly. “Well. I guess that’s a positive thing.” A pause. “She survived the attack, you said? With the assistance of this other man you mentioned?”
“Correct.”
“If he’s saved the lives of both Elizabeth and Eva… why are we here?”
He hesitated. “In speaking with Eva about the events of the day of her near death, in talking with others from that time… it’s apparent to me that he didn’t save Eva’s life, even though he thought he did. That without some unseen intervention, Eva would have died of the injuries suffered with just his aid. If Eva died, Elizabeth’s traveling companion in the earliest days of her life outside the village would be erased from history.”
“So you’ve come back to… save her?”
“To help save her. Yes.”
“Is this the last stop before we go back to your time? Back to see my Elizabeth?”
“There’s one more short stop after this one, but it’s one I think you’ll enjoy. But this next stop is the last stop with a great deal of action.”
She folded her arms. “Then let’s get started.”
~~~46~~~
1021 A.D.
He knew Genevieve would be on her best behavior. He’d made clear that Elizabeth’s future survival was tied to Eva’s. She might interfere in his other stops, but not this one.
That mea
nt he’d let her come along with him.
He’d found the wireless radios under his bed back at the Alliance Camp. He used that space to store the Energy Eaters, glass water bottles, and eventually the miniature cloning machine as he gathered everything for the trip back in time with the Stark children. When he started pulling everything out to pack the day before their trip, the radios came out as well. He’d laughed at the time, having misplaced the devices after spending time tinkering with the power supply in the earliest weeks of their encampment. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where he’d use them on his trip, but having seen them, he tossed them in his supply bag so he’d have them if he needed them.
Now, he needed them.
It took time to teach Genevieve how to use the microphones. She instinctively wanted to speak more loudly the farther apart they went; it was only when he had her wear one headset and speak into the other that she began to understand that she needed to speak quietly to avoid deafening him. After thirty minutes, she’d mastered the communication process, and they returned to the time machine, which they’d parked in an empty field fifty miles from the North Village. He’d been listening to the local dialect of medieval English long enough now that he understood it well enough, and in verbal conversations in the time machine, he found that she could understand the English dialect of his early youth well enough. They could speak to each other out loud in that crude fashion, and their minds, aware of context and by now quite familiar with the other’s thinking patterns, would fill in the missing words and smooth over odd word combinations. It sounded strange out loud, but it proved a remarkably effective approach.
Once they’d flown the time machine back above the village, Adam wrapped them in separate nano exoskeletons. He could see that there would be advantages to separating in the hours to come, and with their separation and inability to use telepathy without detection, he’d had little choice but to use the radios. He made sure that the exoskeletons retained all light and sound waves, ensuring that nobody heard them whispering into their microphones.
Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 21